The Summer of '89

When my cousin spent the summer with my family ten years ago, I had no idea how important that summer would become in my life. I'm 29 now, and with my childhood entirely behind me, I can honestly say that she changed my life, and may be the most fascinating person I'll ever meet. I loved that summer, but I kick myself to this day that I didn't have a fuller appreciation of just how special it — and she — was.

Her name is Angela, but everyone calls her Angie. Growing up, I rarely saw her; Angie's family lived on Long Island and between her mom's legal practice and her dad's surgical career, they were usually too busy to visit with my family. When they weren't totally enmeshed in the pursuit of ever-increasing wealth, Angie's family was taking vacations to Europe or the Caribbean. Theirs was a life of upscale privilege, and came in stark contrast to the childhood I experienced with my family, who lived a much more middle-class lifestyle down on the Jersey shore.

As the years went by, my whole family noticed a change in Angie's side of the family. They seemed to be increasingly taken with their growing social status, and appeared to start looking down at their less successful relatives. No one ever said anything out in the open, maybe because no one was really sure if it was really an arrogance on their part or a jealousy on ours. At least that was true among the adults, but the change in Angie's attitude was painfully obvious to my youthful eyes. She started to show the corruption of over-indulgence by her parents in her early teens, and her arrogant attitude was more palpable every time I saw her. By the time she'd reached high school, she showed all the symptoms of a spoiled brat, although she had the sense to at least attempt to hide it around my parents.

When Angie graduated high school, she decided she was too "grown up" to go on another one of her parents' fabled summer-long trips to Australia. After much squabbling, Angie's parents finally gave in to her demand not to go, but only on the condition that she spend the summer at our house, presumably so that my parents could keep something of an eye on her. At first, my mom wasn't too wild about the idea, what with hints floating about that Angie was a little "wild", but in the end she agreed, and the stage was set for this fateful summer.

I may not have liked Angie all that much, but frankly I was so wrapped in my own life that I didn't give much thought to her staying with us for the summer. I'd just finished my freshman year in college, and was planning on taking it easy with my friends or working to earn money for next year's tuition, so I didn't expect to be in the house much, let alone have to bother with her.

After tearless goodbyes at Newark Airport, Angie finally arrived at our doorstep, driven by a stretch limo, naturally. She didn't disappoint any of my expectations regarding her attitude either. She looked at me through her dark sunglasses, and said, "Hi, Brad. Looks like you're still wearing the same clothes as the last time I saw you, which was what... 2 years ago?" I'd swear I could see her roll her eyes, as she put one of her suitcases in front of me as though I were some kind of goddamn bellhop.

She'd only just graduated from high school, but she acted like she knew everything. Her assuming attitude really made my blood boil, and yet I actually picked up her bag and took it to her room. "Angie," I said, "this is just an old t-shirt." She mouthed the words "no shit" silently to me, but I ignored it. "I may be wearing the same old clothes, but you're still the same old snot!" She turned her attention away from me, making a dismissive motion with her hand as though I was some sort of annoying gnat.

"Yeah. OK. Whatever. I have to unpack now and I'm tired, alright, so uh..." she said, waving her hand at me.

"Sheesh!" I said, and walked out. I went to my room and pondered what I was going to do with this, this... bitch this summer. She acted as though she had some innate superiority that was part of her birthright. My plan to generally disregard her now definitely seemed like a good one.

Still, the "guy" part of me couldn't help but be impressed with her; she was a stunning sight to see. She had long chestnut hair and deep brown eyes, with a perfect amount of understated makeup. Her grooming and dress had the careful attention to detail that spoke of money and class. She stood about 5'7", and by the looks of things she must have weighed about 120 lbs, most of which she carried in her breasts and her ass. Her waist was tiny, and her legs were extremely long. As I lay on my bed, hands behind my head, staring at the ceiling, I pondered how a real live human being could actually look like that, and realized her arrogant attitude was fueled by more than money. Her striking appearance complemented her demeanor in such a way that she almost gave off the essence of royalty, or at least the closest thing you can come to that in New Jersey. She was gorgeous, and she was all too aware of it.

Unfortunately so were my friends soon after that, and that pretty much spoiled any opportunity to avoid her. Even though I tried to keep her out of my business as much as possible, they kept coming by when they knew she was home, or inviting her to go along with us to the mall. She inevitably began to get to know some of them pretty well, and it seemed that they increasingly became HER friends, not mine, which pissed me off. It doesn't take long for a bunch of horny guys to accept a beautiful girl into their clique, and so I now found myself spending much more time with Angie than I had wanted to.

Strangely, even though she seemed to regard me with some disdain, she accepted my friends openly, and I could see that she could be quite engaging and friendly — if she wanted to be. She seemed to have it in for me somehow, and our strained beginning only got worse as she began hogging the bathroom for hours at a time, and giving me a hard time about sharing the household chores. She often would not do them, and the laundry was a definite sore spot.

One early evening after dinner, an argument over that laundry finally got out of hand. As if the clock on our maturity had turned back 10 years, we started squabbling about the chore. It was pretty comical when I think about how petty the argument was, but at the time, we were both taking it very seriously. True, she had just done the dinner dishes for the last two nights in a row, but my friends and I were going to the boardwalk and I really wanted to go — especially since Jeanine Fitzgerald, who I thought was fucking HOT, was expected to be there...

Our argument turned into a real fight, with me venting all of my frustrations over her disruption of my life since coming to stay with us. Frankly I was just tired of her bitchy attitude, especially since I hadn't even acknowledged to myself why I wanted her positive attention so badly. The fight got so bad, my Mom and Dad came out into the kitchen — and when my Dad comes out, that means major trouble — even if you're 19! He slammed his hand down on the kitchen table, bringing us both to dead silence.

"I'm tired of hearing about the goddamn laundry!" he barked. "Angie, you did the dishes for the last couple of nights, right? Well, you'll keep doing them and Brad, YOU will do the laundry from now on. Now that's IT!" he said as he turned on his heels and walked out of the kitchen, my mom in tow.

Angie turned to me triumphantly and stuck out her tongue. "Too bad about your friends now, Bradley, my boy. Maybe I'll say hi to Jeanine for you! Happy sock washing!" and she too strode out of the room. The feeling of hatred I felt for her at that moment seemed to be exacerbated by the fact that I simply could not help thinking she looked especially hot in those cut-off jeans and white tank top...