I don’t really remember our mother. She died when I was five years old and Tommy was only three, so everything we know about her we got from my father. From what he said, though, she sounds exactly like Tommy. Dad said that Mom could make people love her without even trying. He liked to tell the story about the time they were at a restaurant and she couldn’t make up her mind about what kind of soda to order. Dad said she must have been overheard, because within half a minute three glasses appeared on the table—a Coke from the waiter, a Pepsi from the busboy, and a Dr. Pepper from the maître d’.
I guess I should warn you, though, that Dad was a liar. He had at least thirty different versions of that particular story—sometimes he’d say Mom was wearing a black evening gown with long sleeves, and the next time he’d go on about how her tits were spilling out of a skimpy red halter top. He always tailored his stories to fit his audience.
But something tells me most of what he said about Mom was true, because my brother can charm the short hairs off a troll, and he sure as hell didn’t learn that from anybody he grew up with. I think charm is genetic—a personality fluke equivalent to being able to shape your tongue like a U. Why I didn’t get any of Mom’s magic and Tommy got it all is just another of life’s little inequities I intend to confront God with at the earliest opportunity.
I’ve been standing in the water long enough for it to have covered my feet with sand and strands of foul-smelling seaweed. It’s tempting to just keep standing here until I’m buried up to my neck.
I’m not ready to deal with Tommy yet. Especially not with three complete strangers in tow. This will sound terrible, but my life has been considerably better since Dad died. When we cremated him, it felt like someone took a pillow off my face and I could finally breathe for the first time in my life. Now Tommy is my sole remaining relative, and the truth is I hate that someone is still alive in the world who has a familial claim on me. I don’t want Tommy to die or anything, I just want him to forget about me and leave me the hell alone.
It’s not about love. Of course I love the little shit. But he knows too much about me that no one else on the planet knows, and when he’s around I have no choice but to think about everything I hate about myself and my past. He’s a gangrenous leg attached to my psyche, and I need to hack him off before he infects my whole fucking soul.
Okay, okay, that’s pretty dramatic. But it’s exactly how I feel. And if you were me, you’d feel that way too.
A couple of teenage kids run by, both of them dressed in ratty old cutoffs instead of swimsuits. They’re probably fifteen or so, and slender and tanned, and one of them slows down and smiles and waves. “Hey, Mr. Bishop.”
Great. One of my idiot students. Just what I need today. He’s new in town and it takes a second to remember his name. “Hi, Simon. Having fun?”
“Yeah.” He picks at some peeling skin on his shoulder. “We’ve been here all afternoon and now we’re getting ready to go out on my dad’s new boat before it gets too dark.”
I glance at the falling sun. “You better hurry. There’s not much daylight left.”
He grins. He has straight, white teeth with just the hint of an underbite. “I know. Dad’s trying to prove to Mom what a great sailor he is or something. We’ll probably all drown just because he won’t admit he’s not very good at night sailing.”
The other boy is waiting for him and Simon gives another little wave. “I guess I should go. See you later.”
He runs to catch up, water flipping from his heels onto his back. I watch him go, admiring his speed and lightness.
His ass isn’t bad either.
I’m a high school English teacher. I never used to work during the summer, but for the last three years I’ve been forced to teach remedial grammar courses to kids like Simon who can’t tell a pronoun from a potato. And no, I’ve never done anything improper with one of my students, and I never will. But it doesn’t hurt to look.
Is anything more flagrantly sexy than a teenage boy? They’re so full of hormones and semen it’s a wonder they can walk. Most of them spend every spare minute playing with themselves, but there are a few who haven’t yet figured out how to deal with all the sensations in their bodies. You can see it in their eyes—a moist vulnerability, like their corneas are floating in cum and they haven’t got a clue what’s going on or what to do about it. Simon is like that, I think. He’s a true innocent, a kid who would be horrified to know what most of his peers are doing three times a day in bathrooms and bedrooms and behind the bushes. But one of these days his body will override his hang-ups and he’ll erupt like Vesuvius, spurting jiz on everyone and everything within a thirty-mile radius.
Mark my words. I know the type well.
A gull flies overhead, calling out. Why do they always sound so lonely? The breeze from the ocean picks up and I raise my arms like wings to let it blow over me and tickle the hair in my armpits. The gull dips and glides and I try to imitate how it moves.
Tommy and I grew up on the beach. Not literally, of course, but we spent almost every day of every summer here when we were little kids, and when we were in high school we were both lifeguards. I can’t imagine growing up someplace far away from the ocean and the dunes. What’s it like to go home to dinner without salt on your skin and sand between your toes?
I live in southern Connecticut in a little town called Walcott. The name of this beach is Hog’s Head Beach, and it’s about two hours north of New York City and an hour or so south of Providence. I’m thirty-one years old and except for the six years when I was in college and grad school I’ve never lived anyplace else and I never will. Sure, the town is backward (like every other small town in America) and the winters are cold and real estate is expensive, but who gives a crap? I own my cottage, and I’m within easy walking distance of a good pub, the public library, and a terrific bakery. A quarter mile from my front door in the other direction is a small cliff with a lighthouse on it (my closest neighbor, Caleb Farrell, lives in the house attached to it), and woods all around, and this beach.
I know almost everybody in town and they know me, and while that sometimes drives me crazy, for the most part it makes me feel safe. Tommy graduated high school and moved away the following summer, but I think he was a fool to not come back after he finished college like I did. He keeps trying to get me to move. He’s worried because I never get laid and he says I’m wasting my life and he hasn’t been to see me since Dad died because he says that Walcott is the rectum of the universe and he’d rather glue his nipples to a car bumper than spend another second in “that godforsaken hellhole.”
But when I asked him why he was finally coming back for a visit, he said he was homesick.
I knew it would happen, sooner or later. He can pretend all he wants, but he loves this place more than I do.
Walcott is a resort town that no one who isn’t rich can afford to live in, unless, like me, you happen to be lucky enough to have inherited a house that’s been in the family for over a hundred years. My great-grandfather was a fisherman in the early nineteen hundreds and he built the cottage himself, which apparently made my great-grandmother insane because it took him nearly eleven years to finish it. He’d work on a room for a few days, then he’d leave to go fishing for months at a time, refusing to rush the job or hire somebody else to do it. I feel sorry for my great-grandmother, but I’m glad the old bastard did it that way, because he built the thing with a mind-boggling attention to detail that only comes from sitting around for weeks on end with nothing to do but fish and think about what you want your house to look like.
He built it like a boat. I don’t mean that it’s shaped like one, but he designed it with the same practicality and space-saving