Excerpt:

It was a black one-piece bathing suit, with the back cut square, low down at the waist. She had looked in the long mirror at the Lion Store dressing room when she tried it on, and thought, “I’m beginning to look less like a girl and more grown up.” After all, she was 13-1/2 already. But the swimsuit was still modest enough for her prudish mind and her father’s approval, though he hated to see his first little girl moving toward maturity.

Now she was in Montreal with her parents and several siblings, except the two toddlers, Savannah and Sam, and the baby, Rachel. And that was another story for another time. Today, her aunt and uncle had taken their children and her family to the home of Uncle Milton’s friends, and the friends had a swimming pool. A big one, right in their back yard. There were lots of guests, and Cass supposed these people had parties every weekend around this pool, at least until the weather changed.
Everyone was friendly enough, but she was only a girl to them, so she stayed close to her own brothers and sisters, and her cousin Bitsy. Who would name their girl Bitsy? It probably sounded cute when Bitsy was a baby, but really, now she was 12 years old, and you’d think they’d quit with the baby names and call her by her real name, which was Elizabeth.

Cass was sitting at the edge of the pool near the place where the depth marker said
8 ft., swinging her legs in the water. She felt the sun bearing down on her back, exposed to the waist, and hoped she wouldn’t be sunburned at the end of the day. One of her aunt's friends kept walking back and forth just behind her, and each time he passed her, he slowed down, looking at her for just a few seconds longer than was necessary. Sometimes she started to look up at him, but the sun was in her eyes and she couldn’t see his face. Except this last pass, when she not only saw his eyes as she looked up at him, but saw something else that gave her a chill.

He was fairly tall, and the legs of his bathing suit were baggy, so that when he did stop just next to her, what she saw was something dangling nearly out of one swim-suit leg. She snapped her head back up sharply to his face, and saw a bit of a smirk, sort of teasing, and then he turned and walked away. She took a breath. Maybe she had imagined it. Maybe what she saw was only the lining of his suit. Maybe there was an inside pocket that got torn. Maybe . . . she tried to clear her mind.

He was over near her uncle, fixing himself another drink, and then he made his way around the other side of the pool again. Like he was exercising And here he came again. Again he hesitated just near her, and finally she couldn’t stand the feeling of his eyes on her back, so she looked up at him once more. No, she hadn’t imagined it. Hanging out of his swim trunks was flesh . . . and it wasn’t really hanging out, but it sure was hanging down. This time when he finally started moving again, she stood up, went over to where her mother was sitting, and grabbed a towel, wrapping it close around herself.