In the summer of 1975, Steven Spielberg’s ”Jaws” hunted in the shallow waters off the fictional New England town of Amity while a sexual predator, pastor and father roamed undetected in my small town using his daughter, my friend, as bait.

My friend, let’s call her Gwen, was soft-spoken and pretty. I was hyper and dorky. We became close in the summer between fifth and sixth grade over our love of all things scary, so when “Jaws” came out, we were obsessed and inseparable. We sat in the air-conditioned theater and stuffed ourselves with Milk Duds, popcorn and Tab, and every time the shark attacked, we roared with laughter.