Until september, p.8
Until September, page 8
“I’m not as innocent as I look, Kyle Ryan Quinn.”
He took the flask and swallowed twice, and when he gave it back, his lips were shiny. Then he took his camera out and said, “Tell me when you’re ready to go. I figure you’ll be bored in twenty minutes, but won’t say anything for an hour.”
Kyle dismissed him with a wave of his hand, then took his shirt off and went to stand by the water. He lingered there for a while, the sand squishy between his toes. The reef looked like a crown bobbing on the ocean. He’d never noticed before.
Contemplating it, he drifted out to where the ocean topped his knees. He was so high on Jack that he forgot to be nervous, forgot his fear that he would always be alone, that he would scare both Jack and his friends away. He felt solid. For the first time in what felt like forever.
When he looked back, he found Jack standing at the water’s edge, taking photographs of him. Kyle didn’t know what to do, so he just stood there. Jack continued shooting for a bit, then stopped, lowering his camera, swallowing hard, and they beheld each other.
Kyle wanted to run to him, kiss him, openmouthed, a coral crown beckoning, prismatic layers of light glinting off the water like a kaleidoscope, shattering their dream into myriad renderings, but he just stood, regarding him, Jack’s eyes bright even at that distance.
Jack slung his camera around his neck and waded in to join Kyle. As the water crept up his calves, he wavered but didn’t stop. When he was close enough, Kyle reached out a hand, and Jack took it, rushing the last couple of steps so that they stood close.
“Hey,” Kyle said.
“Hey.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah.” He held Kyle’s hand for a second, then released it and looked to the reef. “Too bad we can’t get out there.”
“We can. The water’s that shallow.”
A look of doubt crossed Jack’s face.
“Do you want to?” Kyle asked.
Jack thought for a second, then nodded, as if to himself. “I want to try.”
They inched forward, but as the sea began to lap at Jack’s thighs, he hesitated.
“You okay?” Kyle asked.
“I’m not sure.”
“Jack.” He was earnest, leaning in close, so close he could see the pores in his skin. So close his eyes were two worlds. So close he could have kissed him. “Do you want me to carry you?”
Jack laughed, his hair lighter and smoother than corn silk. “Absolutely not.”
“You can’t weigh more than—what? 110?”
“124, thank you very much.”
“I can lift Trent and he weighs 170.”
“I can’t think of anything that would make me more uncomfortable.”
“Then I’ll walk ahead of you. So you can see how deep it gets. It won’t go above my waist. Cool?”
Jack smiled uncertainly. “Yes.”
“Do you trust me?”
This time Jack didn’t falter. “Yes.”
Kyle began walking backward toward the reef, his gold ring flashing like a beacon in the sun. The water crept up to his pelvis then stopped rising altogether. “See?”
When he got to the reef, he held his hand out to Jack, who paused, deciding, then began to slowly cross the distance between them. When he got there, Kyle helped him get steady footing on the coral, then joined him in looking out at the sea. The sun was hot on their heads and blinding on the water.
“Nothing to it,” Kyle said.
They looked at the horizon for a few moments, then Jack said, without turning from the view, “You’re the first person who’s made me feel like I’m not different.”
And Kyle said, “Maybe that’s because you’re not so different.”
“How long will you be here?” Kyle asked, suddenly realizing he hadn’t a clue. They lay next to each other on the sand, having eaten the lunch Kyle had packed.
“Until September.”
“We’re always here until September. It’s the end of vacation, the end of summer. I used to cry when we had to leave. Our last day, we’d have already packed our things, and I’d go sit by the water and just contemplate it.”
“You were tragic even as a child, huh?”
They grinned at each other. Kyle had to fight the compulsion to clasp Jack’s hand, survey it, note every line, every crease. I love you, he thought. I love you.
Jack looked at him seriously. “Are you okay?”
Kyle blanched. He thought he’d hidden it so well. But could he hide anything from Jack?
“Of course. I’m so happy.” It sounded cracked even to him. He sat up and looked to the water. Facing Jack, he was afraid all would be revealed in his countenance.
“I poke fun at how ‘tragic’ you are, but…sometimes you really seem sad.”
Kyle took a deep breath and released it. “We all have our moments, I guess.”
Jack seemed unconvinced but how to rebut? “Just… I don’t know what’s come before, I’m new, but—I’m here.”
Kyle focused on the horizon, not sure he could control his emotions. He could only squeak out, “Okay.”
Jack didn’t know what to do either, so, sitting up and looking out at the water himself, he awkwardly sang a snatch of Moon River to segue into something else. Anything else.
Kyle’s heart gasped. “What made you sing that?”
“Just sorta popped out.”
Kyle remembered his parents dancing in the beach house one twilight a few years back, no music, just his father singing the sweetest, saddest melody he’d ever heard. It made him aware how alone he was, with just the three of them.
He’d blocked it out immediately.
He was silent so long, he finally became aware Jack was staring at him, his eyes squinched in the sun.
“It’s just sad,” Kyle offered.
“Well, maybe you’ll be my Huckleberry friend.”
“I’m hopeful.”
Jack realized he’d hopped from one sad subject to another so he hopped again, this time with feeling. “You know what I want to do? Make a sand castle! I haven’t been to the shore forever.”
“You’ve been here how long and you haven’t built one yet?” Kyle hadn’t built one himself for years. Not since Kevin.
“It’s not fun by yourself,” Jack said.
So they built one, Kyle sculpting, Jack fetching water. It turned out to be big and lumpy and crumbling, but Jack was happy. “It doesn’t matter how it looks,” he said. “It’s ours.” And it had snapped Kyle out of his mood.
“It reminds me of a song my mom used to sing to us,” Kyle told him.
“Sing it for me! I bet your voice is sweet.” He feared he sounded a touch manic trying to keep the energy up.
Kyle laughed. He could deny Jack nothing. So he took a deep breath and sang with a tremulous delivery:
“Do you love me, Prince Kyle, Prince Kyle?
How much do you love me, my darling Prince Kyle?
A penny’s worth, a nickel’s worth,
Even, perhaps, your princedom’s worth?
Oh, do you love me, Prince Kyle?”
“Awwwww. She made this up for you and Trent?”
“No. Just me.”
“You said she sang it for ‘us.’”
Oh. “I’m used to speaking in the plural. Always being with the group and all.” To change the topic, he said, “You know what we used to do?” He leaned back in the sand and began sliding his arms and legs back and forth.
Jack leaned over him excitedly. “Sand angels!” He fell back and did the same as Kyle. When they were done, Kyle’s was bigger, but Jack’s had more grace.
“I haven’t done that forever either,” Jack said, propping himself up on an elbow.
“I’m glad I was able to spark your nostalgia.”
Jack studied him, squinting in the glare of the day, like he was deciding. Then he said, “I’ve got something to show you.”
The room was under the stairs in Jack’s house. Kyle stood, bathed in a sharp red glow, watching him mix fluids in a tray, using tongs to submerge paper.
As he moved, Jack’s hand flirted with Kyle’s, his jaw tight with concentration. It was a shock to Kyle’s system. Ardor sped from his groin to his heart and onward until his fingertips and toes tingled. He wanted to inhale his heady musk, draw in his moistness to maintain the electricity. He closed his eyes and breathed in gently, apprehending nothing but the scent of chemicals.
Then Jack turned, taking him off guard. He reacted but Jack didn’t notice. He just clipped another print to a string that hung beside them.
Attempting to cover, Kyle asked, “How did you learn all this?”
“I take so many photos it seemed like a logical step. It’s a lot easier when you have an interest.”
Hanging from the string, there was a sequence of images from earlier that day when Kyle had been standing in the water looking back at Jack on the shore. His face so vividly expressed his feelings he was horrified. Was he really not able to hide better than that? Could Jack not see the lovesick glint in his eye?
And worse, Kyle could see his sadness. He had never been able to hide his emotions, but he hadn’t realized just how clearly they were telegraphed. It made him nervous.
Jack began hanging up a series of Kyle and the group as they situated for their group shot. Claudia’s Nazi salute. Trent tripping Kyle. Carly kicking them on the sand. “I had no idea you were taking all these,” Kyle said, marveling.
“The candids are often more fun than the poses,” Jack said.
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“What about photos of you?”
“I’m the man behind the lens.” He smiled, amused, and hung up another print.
“Let me take some of you.” The camera sat on the table. Kyle grabbed it.
At the first click, Jack looked up and his amusement turned to horror.
Click.
But then he smiled again. “Kyle.”
Click.
“Kyle.” Jack put a smooth hand over his mouth, shy.
“What? You think it’s fair you have photos of me and I have none of you?”
Click.
Jack dropped his hand, his face lowered, eyes sparkling up at the camera and at Kyle.
Click.
And then Kyle understood that no one had ever made Jack feel special.
He stopped and let the camera hang loosely in his hand.
“What?” Jack said. “Did I break it?”
“Of course not.” Kyle’s voice was gentle. “You’re golden.”
That was the first night Kyle’s father was on the island. Graham was a tall man with brown eyes, a soft smile to match his voice and dark hair that was beginning to recede. He was one of those people who seemed to get younger as he got older. He embraced Kyle warmly when he came home, fresh from his visit with Jack.
“How are you?” Kyle asked, heading into the kitchen.
His father followed and leaned against the counter, a glass of white in hand. “Busy. This time of year always is. How about you?”
Kyle nodded. Then he said, “Good,” like he’d had to decide. He smiled, not at Graham, but at Jack’s memory, and then he was reminded how alone he was, and that the closer he got to truth, the further he seemed to be, and then the smile seemed to filter until only the impurities remained and he focused on something beyond the kitchen wall.
“You sure?”
Slowly he came back to the present. “Um… Of course.” Thinking of nothing, his eyes gazing out the window over the sink, looking on to the front lawn, he realized something was askew. But before he could place what, his father continued.
“How are the girls?”
“Good. Great. Claudia won the track tournament.” He squatted before the refrigerator, reaching into the vegetable drawer.
“She sure is a fighter, that Claudia,” Graham said.
“Yeah,” he said. “A fighter.” He still knelt before the refrigerator.
“Kyle?”
Kyle looked up as if just remembering his presence. “Yeah?”
Graham searched him, looking for evidence. Then he turned away. “Nothing.”
After they’d eaten an early dinner, Graham poured each of them, Kyle, Ann and himself, a glass of wine, and they retired to the balcony. The late afternoon was heavy and sticky. The willow’s switches were restless.
Kyle went to the rail and looked out at the roaring sea. He couldn’t stop thinking of Jack’s reaction to having his photo taken. Kyle wanted to be the one to make him finally see how special he was. But he wasn’t sure how, or if he’d ever get the chance. And then he was wondering if Jack missed him like he missed Jack. Without him, every moment was steep with suspense, breathless with longing.
“I have a surprise,” Graham said behind him, pulling him out of his reverie.
Ann situated herself on a chaise longue. “I love surprises.”
“I take it it’s a good surprise?” Kyle turned back to them.
“It’s wonderful. I’ve been thinking about it for a while, but I didn’t want to tell you until I was sure it was viable.”
Ann looked to Kyle then back to Graham. “So?” she said, impatient.
Graham grinned. “I’m going to buy a villa in Italy.”
“Oh, my God!” Ann exclaimed. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell us about this!”
“Dad,” Kyle said, too surprised to think of much more. “Wow.”
“We had such an incredible time when we were there, I thought we’d like a home of our own.” He paused. “The only thing is…we’d have to sell this place.”
“We have had this place for a long time,” Ann said.
Kyle’s ears burned red. “I don’t want to leave,” he said simply, abruptly.
“Well, we’d stay the rest of the summer,” his father said. “I just thought that since you’ll be off to college in the fall you’d enjoy spending summers in Europe. You’re at the age where you can appreciate things as an adult.”
Europe. The things Kyle had seen there—the Eiffel Tower, the Sistine Chapel, Stonehenge—didn’t rival Jack’s beauty let alone rouse Kyle’s spirit, inspire him the way Jack’s presence, the knowledge of his existence did. And the island might be the only connection he would ever have to Jack. “I don’t want to leave,” he said again, feeling childishly on the verge of tears. “This house has been in the family since the turn of the century. I want to summer here when I’m old.”
Ann looked at him with understanding eyes. “You always were sentimental.”
That was when Kyle realized that being sentimental meant he felt more than other people, and he was left wondering whether that made him stronger, or weaker.
He walked along the shore to Trent’s at dusk. Gulls rode the breeze over the water. The final rays of the day had turned it gold, buttery sunlight flashing off the sea and dancing lambently across Kyle’s features like diamonds. He got to Trent’s and climbed the steps to the deck. Through the sliding glass door he could see Carly and Claudia in the living room. Claudia was lifting up her hair and Carly was applying cold cream to a blistering sunburn on Claudia’s back. Claudia winced as the coolness of the cream touched her skin. The temperate sounds of What Now My Love wafted from the stereo out onto the deck. He heard a chuckle and that was when he became aware that Trent was sitting sideways in a recliner, legs thrown over one of the arms, his back to the deck and Kyle.
There fell a lengthy, comfortable lull that Claudia interrupted by saying “Goose bumps,” sending all of them into fits of laughter. Kyle gathered it was an inside joke and, for the first time, he was on the outside. He had the sudden, consuming sensation that it might be better if he just went away, went home. Though it had been only a day since he’d been with them, he feared he might not belong anymore.
That was when Dana came into the room, her black hair pulled into a ponytail. She saw Kyle and stopped, causing the other three to turn to the deck.
Kyle slid the screen door open and stepped inside. “Hey.”
“So,” Carly said. “The prodigal son returns.”
“Where’s your familiar?” Claudia asked.
He’d expected as much and, somehow, it assured him that things were all right.
“Where’ve you been, baby?” Trent asked.
“Just hanging out. You know.”
“With Jack?” Claudia queried.
She was such a bitch. “What’s your point?”
“I’m just asking,” she said. “You don’t have to be cross.”
Maybe he was being peckish. “Yes,” he said. “And with my parents.”
“We saw Trey today.” Carly continued rubbing cream on Claudia’s back.
Kyle had no idea how to respond. “What did he say?”
“He said you’d better be out of town by sundown,” she said, and they all laughed.
And that was when Kyle knew that things were still all right. Because right then, at that moment, they were still able to go through the motions.
The next morning Kyle knocked on Jack’s door at 8:52. He hadn’t been able to wait a minute longer. He’d woken up feeling not sad, but solid. Excited instead of anxious. He had the whole summer to show Jack how special he was. And he wanted to dive in.
Jack, eyes still puffy from sleep, appeared two minutes later wearing the powder-blue bottom to a pair of cotton pajamas. “Hey.” A smile stole across his face before being devoured by a yawn.
“Were you sleeping?”
“Well…it’s not even nine.”
“Sorry. I thought I’d take a chance and see if you were free today.”
Jack held the door open. “Of course I’m free today. I’m free every day.”
Kyle stepped inside, saying, “I hope I didn’t wake anyone else up.”
“My dad’s probably out on his boat. I don’t know where my mom is.” He turned as Kyle shut the door, then said, “Let me get dressed,” and headed for the stairs.
Kyle was caught by the sudden, joyous surprise of Jack’s back and it was a moment before he got his bearings. “If you’re still tired, you can go back to sleep. I can come back or wait for you down here or something.” Cracked.
“Like I’m going to make you wait.”
Kyle watched him go up the stairs, then went to sit on the sofa. He sat there for a few minutes before he became aware of the undistinguished watercolors on the walls. Then he remembered the easel he’d seen on the balcony the day before. He wondered who the poor artist was. Then he recalled the bureau—and the photos atop it—that ran along the base of the stairs. He went to it, feeling illicit.
