A Bonfire in the Life of the Mac-Attack

Summer can be a crazy time for a lot of people. There's no school, there's not a whole lot to do, and it's hard to keep from being bored.


I decided to start my summer off by taking a spur-of-the-moment road trip to my grandmother's Malibu beach house. It's been great so far; the weather is pretty awesome...except for the whole "June Gloom" thing, but I was gonna be here for a while, at least long enough to watch the June gloom pass by.


However, I wasn't spending much time out of the house. I spent most of my days sitting around watching TV, thinking about all the problems back in Arizona that I had left behind. You know, I thought that being away from it all would keep my mind off of it, but sitting around wasn't really doing much good.


After two weeks of sitting on my ass, I figured that the best way to distract myself from my problems was to take a good, old-fashioned run across the beach. I've always loved beach-running; it's great for endurance.


"Grandma, I'm going for a run!"
"Oh, you've decided to be productive I see."
"Yeah, I think a run will be good for me. "
"Yeah, I'll bet. You've been getting so chubby just sitting around!"

I can always leave it to Grandma to make me feel good about myself.

"Yeah, so I guess I'll see you later."
"Okay. Have a nice run."

It was a little windy on this particular day, and just a tad bit cloudy. I started out by doing a few short sprints near the house, just to warm up. I was stretching when everything seemed to brighten up.

"You must be new around here."

She was blonde, tan, and had the greatest pair of legs I'd ever seen; they were so long. She had incredible blue eyes and a good smile. But the question is: who on earth was she?

"I'm Laura Silverman; I live a few houses down."

Well, that certainly answers the question.

"I'm Mac Maccabbi. I'm here visiting my grandma."
"Wow, that must be fun. How long have you been here for?"
"About two weeks, but I haven't been out of the house much...well, I left the house once to go to the dentist with her; it was the highlight of my trip watching them realign her dentures."

That got her to laugh a little bit.

"So do you live here all year long?"
"Yup, I've lived here my whole life."
"That's strange; I've been coming here my whole life and we've never met."
"Well, we've met now."
"We have."

It was quiet for a moment. And then:

"Michael, I'm going to the market. Can I get you anything?"

I can always leave it up to Grandma to break the silence.

"No, Grandma. Get the usual stuff."

Laura was laughing a little bit. I was too.

"So now that we've met, I was thinking maybe we could meet again some time."
"Yeah, that would be great. Actually, there's a bonfire tonight on the beach. Maybe you'd wanna check it out."
"Will you be there?"

That was probably a really stupid thing to ask, being that she just invited me to go with her.

"Yeah, I'll be there."

There comes a time in every young man's life where he must ask himself: repeats of Two and a Half Men with my grandmother, or a chance to spend the evening talking to a beautiful girl on the beach. I think I'll have to choose the latter.

Since I had nothing better to do while I waited for the bonfire to start, I decided I should probably call home.

"Hello, Mom?"
"Michael! How's your trip?"

She seemed much more cheerful than she did the last time I spoke to her. Both my parents were kinda pissed that I took this trip without their permission.

"Everything's going great."
"Have you been getting out of the house?"
"Yeah, I actually met someone today."
"A girl?"

Oh great, now I've opened up a can of worms.

"Yes, Mom, a girl."
"Don't get her pregnant!"
"I won't."

I love talking to my mom. She always has such great wisdom to bestow upon me!

Before I knew it, sunset was happening.

"Hey, Grandma, I'm going to this bonfire tonight down at the beach. Don't wait up."
"Is it with that girl you were talking to earlier?"
"Yes, actually.
"I figured you'd be going out with her tonight, so I bought you these."

My grandmother proceeded to hand me a small purple box that said: LifeStyles: Ultra Lubricated.

Wow, my grandmother bought me condoms. What a wonderful gesture. I really didn't know what to say.

"I really don't know what to say."
"Use it wisely, you only get one shot."
"Uh, thanks. I'll keep that in mind."

It would be an understatement to tell you how weirded out I was.

I headed down to the beach and saw a bunch of people over by the fire. It looked like a lot of fun, especially when I saw Laura stand up and wave to me.

There was music playing, a fire burning, and a beautiful girl approaching me.

"Mac, you came."
"Of course. I wouldn't have missed it."
"I'm glad. Hold on one sec. HEY EVERYONE!"

Everyone that was there looked at Laura.

"This is Mac! He's new around here!"

Suddenly people were cheering. I guess they liked new people.

There sure were a lot of people there. You see, back in Arizona, we don't have beach bonfires...we don't even have a beach. Well, we do, but there's no water.

We all sat around for a while, watching the sun set.

"Do you guys do this sort of thing a lot?"
"Not a whole lot, but we do on occasion. It's nice, isn't it?"
"Yeah. Although, you should see an Arizona sunset. It's kinda cool watching the sun go down behind the mountains; it's like the mountains are eating the sun for dinner."

I know it was a cheesy line, but I was watching a sunset at the beach. How much cheesier can you get?

"So you're from Arizona?"
"Born and raised."
"How do you like it?"
"I used to love it, now I'm not so sure I want to be there much longer."
"Why's that? I hear the weather is great."
"It can be."

I was really enjoying the sunset, but it was sorta hard to have a conversation when there were a bunch of other teenagers running around with the music blaring.

"Do you want to walk around a little bit? I'm getting sorta bored just sitting here."
"I'd love to."

How could I resist?

We began walking, and it began getting darker and darker. We were pretty quiet for the most part, until she finally spoke:

"So why would you want to leave Arizona?"

I was hesitant at first, but she had very trustworthy eyes. I felt it was safe to tell her the truth.

"Just had a really bizarre break-up. Wasn't exactly an ideal situation."
"What happened?"

Once again, I felt like I could tell her the truth.

"We went to prom, we made love, she left me the next day to get back together with her ex-boyfriend."

Laura was silent for a minute, and then she asked something that I really didn't expect:

"Were you in love?"
"I thought we were, but the more I think about it, everything about our relationship was so spontaneous. Maybe our love was spontaneous too."
"I know what you mean. I just got out of a relationship myself."
"Oh?"
"Yeah. He and I were together since 8th grade. I think everyone kinda expected us to be together forever, and it got to the point where we were just putting on a show for everyone."

I couldn't believe how open her and I were being with each other. I'm never this open with anyone!

"So what happened?"
"We broke up on good terms. Now we're just best friends."

We continued to walk. The stars were out at this point; they were quite a sight.

We walked in silence for a little bit, until I finally spoke again:

"There was more to my break-up that I didn't tell you."
"Oh, you don't have to tell me, Mac."
"I know...but I want to."

I paused.

"On Prom Night, my best friend Melinda told me that she has been in love with me for a long time. After Dara broke up with me, I realized I had been in love with Melinda the whole time. However, by the time I finally decided to tell Melinda how I feel, it was too late. I came here to try and forget about all of it."

Laura was speechless for a moment as we kept walking. Suddenly, she gripped my hand.

"Sounds like you have had a lot on your mind."
"Just a little bit."

Suddenly, we were at my grandmother's house.

"I guess this is it."
"I guess so."
"Listen, Laura, I like you a lot. I just don't know if I should be starting something right now."
"Hey, don't worry about it. I had a nice time tonight."

We awkwardly hugged, and she started walking away.

The next morning, I decided to go for a run, and I happened to see her as I stretched.

"We can't keep meeting like this," I said, trying to sound cute.

She laughed a little bit. I really liked her laugh; it was quite addicting.

"Laura, about last night, I--"

She stopped me mid-sentence with a kiss.

"Do you always talk so much?"

I laughed a little bit.

"No, only when I really like someone."
"So I guess this means I'll be seeing a lot of you this summer?"
"You can count on it."

We were silent for a sec, until:

"Michael, I made french toast! Your friend can join us, if you'd like!"

We started laughing.

"Laura, how would you like to try the best french toast on the planet?"
"I would be honored."

On that note, we walked up to the house, hand in hand.

You know, it's funny how things happen sometimes when you don't expect them to. I came to Los Angeles that summer to forget about girls, but after being there for a couple weeks, I had met a new one. She was smart, sweet, and beautiful. The names of Dara Karpen and Melinda Moskowitz didn't even seem to ring a bell anymore.

Now I definitely couldn't wait to see what the summer had in store for me.

Sincerely,
Mac-Attack