All We Can Do Is Wait(31)

“How come you don’t work here too?” Kyle asked. “We have a few sibling duos, you know.”

Jason wasn’t sure how to answer politely. How did you say “Because scooping ice cream all summer sounds like abject hell” in a way that isn’t offensive to someone who was spending all summer scooping ice cream? So instead he said something dumb, “Uhh . . . I don’t know. I guess I didn’t even, um, think about it?”

“Ah,” Kyle said, that sideways grin getting bigger. “So what are you doing then?”

Nothing. That was the truth, wasn’t it? Jason really wasn’t doing much of anything, besides lying around, watching TV, jerking off, complaining. But he couldn’t say any of that, of course. So he just said, “Oh, you know, lotsa random stuff. I might, uh, teach myself to sail again?” He just made that up on the spot, but it actually didn’t sound so bad.

Kyle laughed a little—but not meanly. “Sounds nice. I’d love to learn how to sail. Get in a boat and get the hell out of here . . .”

“I mean, I could—” Jason started to say, but then he saw his sister striding across the little parking lot toward them.

“Hey!” Alexa said. “Jason, don’t bother Kyle.”

Kyle shook his head. “I think I was bothering him. Anyway, I gotta run. I forgot to feed Laurie’s cat and have to do it before she gets back or she’ll kill me. Or I’ll kill the cat. But I’ll see you tomorrow. And Jason,” Kyle said, turning to him and giving him another mysterious smile, “happy sailing!”

Jason drove all the way home in a daze, Kyle’s lilting way of speaking—the music in his voice, its slight girlishness—echoing in Jason’s ears.

A week or so passed, and the feeling mostly abated. Jason almost forgot about it. But then Alexa texted him to say that she was bringing Kyle over to hang out.

Though he didn’t usually spend much time with his sister, Jason was determined that night to be near Kyle, to figure out who he was. Kyle wasn’t exactly the type of guy that Jason had been furtively attracted to before—he wasn’t some jock closet case, in other words. But something about him, like he was from another time, maybe the past or maybe the future, was entrancing to Jason.

So when Kyle came over, a simple “Oh, hey, Jason” when he walked into the kitchen, Jason stayed, listening to Kyle and Alexa talk about all these places they wanted to go, wishing he could participate but realizing he’d never really actually let himself think about the future, or where he wanted to travel, or what he wanted to do. The more he spent time with them, that night and many others that summer, the more Jason felt limited around Kyle—and around his sister, he realized.

She suddenly seemed so cool, so grown-up and worldly. When had that happened? Maybe she’d always been like that. Seeing Alexa like that on those evenings, often out on the porch in the perfect nighttime air, made the magic of Kyle—surely he was magic—somehow more potent. He’d cast some spell on Alexa, and on Jason, and now suddenly they liked each other, they got along, they had fun together.

On their fifth night of hanging out, Jason said he was going to go smoke a joint, and Kyle raised his eyebrows. “Would you mind if I joined you?”

Jason’s insides did acrobatics, but he tried to play it as cool as possible. “Sure, that’s cool. Alexa, you wanna come?” Please say no, please say no, please say no.

“No thanks, it’ll just make me go to sleep.”

Jason shrugged, knees knocking a little. “K.”

He and Kyle walked down to the beach, passing the joint between them.

“Your sister’s the best,” Kyle said.

Jason nodded. “Yeah, I guess so. I mean, yeah, she is.”

“She’s my favorite person at work.”

They sat on the sand by the big white lifeguard chair, one person walking a dog off in the distance.

“It’s fucking beautiful here,” Kyle said quietly, looking out over the beach.

It felt stupid to admit to himself, but Jason realized he maybe hadn’t ever noticed that before. But Kyle was right. It was beautiful. Both the crispness and the wistful haze of it, the warmth and the wind. Or maybe he was just stoned. Or maybe he was just in love with Kyle.

A week like that passed, the three kids hanging out most nights on the porch, Kyle and Jason going for little walks to get stoned, not saying much of anything, but always taking a moment to appreciate being on the beach. Usually it was dark, and they’d silently look up at the stars, gleaming and flickering millions of miles away.

Things changed eventually. One early evening in mid-June, Alexa called from work and asked Linda if it was O.K. if Kyle—who tended to come by after Linda had gone to sleep or was back in Boston for some function—came over for dinner. Linda, perhaps thinking Alexa had a boyfriend, said yes, curious to see what proud summer son of Wellfleet her daughter had been spending so much time with.

If Linda was disappointed when Kyle showed up, in his rolled cut-offs and billowy shirt (“It’s a blouse,” Jason had joked to him, a month or so later, the two of them whispering in Jason’s bedroom), she didn’t show it, welcoming him in with her trained society warmth.

Theo was back in Boston—“a big meeting with the Hong Kong people,” Linda said—so it was just the four of them. “Why don’t you sit at the head of the table, Kyle,” Linda suggested. “You can be the man of the house tonight.”