We Oregonians know how waves sculpt the sand, but here in Stevensport, we sometimes sculpt it ourselves.

If you beachcomb with your eyes open, you’ll find agates. I sell them to Tom Hartman, an ex-hippie who makes jewelry for the tourists. I see the necklace at Sea Scapes for $20; the girl who found the rock got fifty cents. Go figure. Maybe I should be an ex-hippie, but I think I’d rather go to college to be an English teacher. They at least get paid for reading about other places.

You can also beachcomb for stories. Where did that piece of a pallet’s journey begin? A trawler off Alaska? A tuna cannery in Indonesia? I know something about fishing and canning. The story might be about a girl holding her own in a man’s world. My English teacher Ms. Rennick would like that. To write it, though, I’d need to get the setting and I’d rather go to Alaska where they speak English. Maybe the trawler capsized and the girl was rescued by the Coast Guard. We have a station here. There’s always a story.

I more-or-less know the locations for sand print stories, usually behind the driftwood where high tide swept the sand the evening before. Before the next tide covers the prints, you see where someone lay and another’s been above.

Oregon beaches are probably the starting place for lots of babies. A souvenir, so to speak. You can guess a story, but you still don’t know much.

If I find a condom, I pick it up with a stick, wrap it in a piece of kelp, toss it in my bucket and dump it in a trashcan. If you don’t, a gull may swallow it and die.

Twice I’ve found panties. I leave them on the sand since they’re just cotton.

Maybe the ocean makes tourists do things they wouldn’t do in Portland. The motels have hotel-quality beds, so it’s not like they have to do it on the beach, but maybe they like being near the waves. Passing beachcombers, sneaker waves, maybe danger makes it better.

If I, myself, had sex, we’d stay in a motel where it’s warmer and there’s a TV and I wouldn’t get all sandy. I’d let him be on top, since I wouldn’t know how to do everything. My friend Janice who works at Sea Spray Inn says some guests might as well have booked a room in Salem. I read sand prints; Janice reads sheet prints. Same plot, different setting.

I say I wouldn’t know how, but I’ve read lots.

I don’t think even the librarians know that Anais Nin’s in our library. I’ve never checked it out, just read it behind an encyclopedia. Ms. Rennick told me where to find it. We think she’s a lesbian, pretty cool but I’m not interested. She says that when we write our own story, we own our own life.

I’ve got a book called Lovers Weekend, really explicit. I keep it under my old Brownie uniform. Then there’s The Joy of Sex in Mom’s bottom drawer. The copyright’s before I was born.

I could get lots more information, but it’s better to exercise my imagination.

If I had a boyfriend, at least I’d know what was going on.

I’m second-chair clarinet, not bad for a Junior-to-be. (That’s not the same as being a second clarinet. I’m the second-best first clarinet.) For football games, we wear plastic raincoats over our band uniforms. As I have somewhat small breasts, my uniform’s one that a boy wore last year, but I don’t care. The clarinet’s a good instrument because it’s easy to carry around. Plus you can switch to sax.

If our team goes to State, the championship’s always in Eugene. As that’s where I’m going to go to college, it’s good to get familiar with the campus. Band members don’t get much time to explore, though, since they think we’ll buy drugs. Fat chance; there are probably more drugs in Stevensport because Eugene’s into jogging. I don’t do drugs, but not because some old person decided.

After the championship game, we’ll bus back. If we’re champs, we’ll yell out the window. If we lose, Sonja (a second clarinet) can do it with Toby in the back seats while the rest of us sleep. My job is to save them the rear seat. If we don’t go to State, they’ll still do it anyway, but not on the bus.

I could maybe write a story about doing it on the bus, but it wouldn’t be my story.

I’m doing OK this morning — a half-dozen pretty-good agates plus an unbroken sand dollar. I’m dragging my big find, a plank that’s maybe teak. When I get the right pieces of driftwood, I’m going to build a butcher block. Dad has a table saw. We don’t actually butcher anything, but it will look great.

“Need some help?”

I thought I was alone; you often are on the Oregon coast. I turn and a boy’s catching up with me, a boy maybe about my age with hair flipping in the wind. Kids from around here wear hats.

He nods toward my find.

“Teak from Thailand,” I inform him. “I make butcher blocks.” The wood hardly needs two people to carry it, but it’s not often that somebody offers. Especially a boy. “Thanks.”

“I’m Jared.”

I find out that Jared’s from Boise and his family’s been here for a week, leaving tomorrow. He has a brother a year older and they’re going on a charter this afternoon.

“Skip lunch,” I suggest. What they’ll pay for the boat, they could take home more salmon from Safeway, but this way they’ll have something to talk about in Boise.

It’s not always easy to chat with boys, but it’s not hard to talk with someone from Idaho who thinks the coast is cool. It’s not as cool as he thinks, of course, but I don’t correct him. Probably in Boise they have lots of concerts. All we have around here are things like the Central Coast Chorus, which Mom’s in.

“So what classes do you like?” Jared asks.

“English and band, mostly.”

“Really? I play sax. Tenor.”

“Clarinet. You guys ever done An American in Paris?”

“No. We did Rhapsody in Blue, though.”

“Rad.”

We smile at our almost-commonality.

“Got good uniforms?” he wonders.

“Not really. Too bad you live in Idaho. Otherwise we might see each other at games or something.”

“That’d be neat.”

I imagine him waving at me across the stadium.

We haul the plank up to the road where I’ll get it with Dad’s pickup.

Jared looks at my bucket. “Want me to help find more shells?”

“They’re agates. Sure.”

His eyes aren’t as good as mine, but it doesn’t matter, as I’m not paying much attention to what’s under our feet. I wish I lived in Boise.

When we cross where a creek seeps across the sand, Jared has me hop on his back. I’ve crossed this place a million times before without getting wet, but I like the idea that maybe he can feel me against him.

“Ever find glass balls like the ones in the shops?” Jared asks a while later.

“They’re fake,” I inform him. “They used to find real ones, but now the Japanese use Styrofoam.”

Maybe I shouldn’t have told him, though, as I want him to like it here.

I walk along a log and Jared steadies me with his hand. I don’t tell him I’ve never held hands with a boy before.

Then there’s another log and we’re still holding hands after I hop off.

I tell him about my job in the kite shop. Our big days are when somebody flies early and everybody thinks it looks like fun. It’s only part-time. Maybe I should start a store that buys back their kites afterward.

Jared tells me about working in a car wash. They have to wear caps that say, “Car Glow.”

“Want some ice cream or something?” he asks.

I’m not sure how to answer. “It’s pretty early in the morning,” the safe choice.

“Maybe not a great idea.”

I decide to not be me. “No, I don’t mean that. It’s just pretty cold for ice cream.”

“Cocoa maybe?”

“I know where.”

We walk up to Surfside where they probably wonder who’s Jared and why I’m drinking cocoa when I can make it at home. They don’t know the story.

Sea Breeze Kites isn’t getting much business this afternoon. Too windy. I think of Jared out on the charter and hope they’re catching. Fish are out there, but they can be hard to find. When you lose your bait, you don’t even know what it was.

As anybody kite-shopping is going to park in front and I’ll see them coming, I masturbate behind the counter, a Flight of Fancy Butterflies watching. Girls like the design; boys, the combat theme. “Flies as smooth as silk,” the kite package says. I fly as smooth as silk, myself.

I feel the pounding of the surf.

I’m good at it. Ninety-five percent mental. I could probably do it in math, Mr. Shogen being spacy. Couldn’t fool Ms. Rennick, though, but she’d cover for me if needed.

I’ve yet to find any agates this morning, but I do find a sand print behind the driftwood — somebody’s knees between somebody else’s heels. I imagine them making sure they’re alone, taking off their pants. The girl’s print goes all the way up to the back of her head.

Their rubber’s lying where the tide’s going to get it. Bozo tourists!

Maybe they were tourists who met at the lighthouse. He’s inspecting the lens when she comes up the stairs, out of breath. They start chatting and discover they’re both U of O grads, him, biology and her, psychology. She notices his ring before he slips it off. Yes, she’d love a bite to eat, hoping that he’ll suggest wine, once they get to the restaurant. Oh, I really shouldn’t, she’ll say as he refills her glass. Why yes, it would be fun to go down to the beach. You can show me some of those tide pools. She knows he’ll steer them behind the driftwood. When he asks if she wants to sit and watch the waves, she smiles her psychologist smile. She always carries rubbers in her fanny pack when she comes to the coast.