Alexa shifted awkwardly. Was she lonely? She hadn’t thought of herself that way, but maybe it was true. Sitting there in Ms. Reeve’s tiny office—filled with books and stacks of papers, a miniature jungle of potted plants on the windowsill giving the room an earthy, slightly rotting smell—Alexa thought back on all the dances and parties she’d skipped or didn’t even know about in the first place. She thought about Simon, a shy and nerdy boy from Northrup’s brother school who’d gently pursued her on Facebook after they met at a track meet the previous fall. She’d basically ignored his advances, if you could even call a few messages like “Hey” and “Up to anything this wknd?” advances. Why had she done that? Simon was cute enough, nice enough. But it had just seemed so complicated, when staying inside herself, streamlined and unbothered, was easier, involved so much less risk.
“I don’t know” was all Alexa could say in response to Ms. Reeve that day, but the question stayed with her, made Alexa look at her life in a new and frankly depressing way. So when her parents announced this insane plan, this very un-Elsing idea of stillness and togetherness, something about it excited Alexa. It presented a radical change, something that Alexa thought she could maybe take advantage of, to become someone else. Or at least some different, more outgoing, less intense version of herself.
The Grey’s idea—that she could get a job at the miniature golf course/snack bar/ice cream shop/arcade in Eastham that became the focal point of her summer, and meet kids her age—came to her in a flash. She’d always liked going there as a kid, and remembered there being a bunch of cool-seeming teenagers who worked there, scooping ice cream and working the mini-golf and various other jobs that had seemed exotic and mature to child Alexa. So she called them up, talked to a manager named Nate, and she basically got the job on the spot.
“It’s not glamorous,” Nate said on the phone. “And it can be hard work. But we have fun. I think you’re my last hire of the season, so you called just in time.”
Serving ice cream wasn’t all that much fun, but everything around it was. After a few nervous days of training, she was welcomed as a full-time employee, ready to begin her summer, her entire summer, as one of the crew.
It was a job her parents didn’t understand. “We give you plenty of money,” her mother had said when Alexa told her about the job. They did give her enough, more than enough, but it wasn’t about money. Alexa just wanted an excuse to get out of her head, doing something few of the other girls at school ever did. Mostly she wanted to get to know some local kids, many of whom had maybe never heard of Grinnell or Middlebury or the Sorbonne, or wherever girls from her school were already, not even in their junior year yet, talking about applying to. (Really, they talked about these schools as if they’d already been accepted, which many of them essentially had been.)
On Alexa’s first day of training she met Laurie Gomes, whose parents, Portuguese immigrants, lived all the way in Fall River. Laurie was asked, or, really, had volunteered, to give Alexa a tour of the place, pointing out, Clueless or Mean Girls–style, who everyone was, starting with herself.
“I have a cousin who works at one of the resorts all summer,” Laurie explained. “So we rented a place together. Just us. It’s amazing.” Laurie was seventeen, Jason’s age, and wore lots of bracelets and sometimes smoked Parliament Lights in the little outside area behind the kitchen, near the tubs of fryer grease. (This seemed dangerous, and Boston Alexa would definitely have said something. But Cape Alexa just went with the flow.)
Laurie, who had a sharp accent to complement a pleasingly raspy voice, led Alexa back to a hot, barely air-conditioned break room located just past the bathrooms. She said, “Knock knock!” and then walked in, Alexa timidly following her into the stuffy room. Laurie pointed at a boy and a girl, the only people in there at the moment. They looked oddly similar, the same dirty-blond hair, the same slightly flushed cheeks and upturned noses.
“That’s Davey and Courtney Price—say hi, Davey!” Laurie said. Davey looked up and gave a little wave, while Courtney remained glued to her phone. “They’re twins, from Yarmouth. Davey’s sweet,” Laurie explained with a little conspiratorial smile. “He’s usually on mini-golf duty, because he’s good with the little kids.”
Which was true. Throughout the summer, Davey proved gentle with the younger customers. But, doofy and affable as he often was, he was also not afraid to act like a bouncer with the drunk teenagers who sometimes showed up.
“Davey’s gonna be in the navy,” Laurie told Alexa, sounding maybe a little sad about it. “He already joined up. ‘Davey in the navy, Davey in the navy,’” Laurie sing-songed in his direction, then turned to Alexa. “Like in that song?”
Davey said, “You know it!” and flexed his biceps. This was all part of an elaborate flirting ritual between the two of them that Alexa would soon grow to know well. (A year later, Alexa sometimes found herself thinking about Davey, about how he was long gone by now, out on a boat in the middle of some faraway ocean somewhere. It made her sad. And a little jealous.)
Courtney, quite unlike her brother, seemed cool and just a tad scary, sitting there flicking around on her phone, barely paying attention to the new employee being introduced to everyone.
“Hi, Courtney,” Laurie said, a little note of menace in her voice, a challenge, a needling.
Courtney looked up, gave a big fake smile. “Hiiiii, Laurie. I like your earrings,” she said, pointing to the big silver hoops dangling from Laurie’s ears. Alexa couldn’t tell if the compliment was fake or genuine. It was something she’d always wonder about Courtney and Laurie’s relationship, whether they were friends or frenemies or what.
“Thaaaaanks, Court,” Laurie said back in a sickly sweet voice. (Clearly this was a routine they did.) “They’re from Claire’s.” Both girls laughed. “Anyway,” Laurie said, “this is Alexa. She’s new.” She lowered her voice and leaned in toward Courtney, as if telling a secret about Alexa, even though Alexa was standing right there. “Her parents have a house in Wellfleet.”
Courtney raised her eyebrows and gave Alexa a look up and down. “Fancy. Well, welcome to hell.” She raised her phone to Alexa as if to toast, while Davey chimed in, “Yeah, welcome!”
As Alexa got to know Courtney, she saw that she had an edge about her that was probably the result of something bad in her past—there were rumors about a father in prison for murder—but which also gave her an aura of maturity that all the other Grey’s kids gravitated toward. She was the group’s de facto ringleader, her cute, slightly oafish brother her genial henchman. Courtney talked about moving to New York City to become a fashion designer, but the last Alexa had looked on Facebook, Courtney was waiting tables at one of the old seafood restaurants in Newport, Rhode Island. It was closer to New York than Eastham was, at least.
And then there was Kyle, sweet and fey, who would become Alexa’s closest friend that summer, and probably the best friend she’d had since she was a little kid.
The first time she met Kyle, Alexa wasn’t quite sure what to make of him. It was her second day of training—he’d been off the day she met most of the other employees. Alexa was at the counter, stabbing at the cash register with a finger, trying to make it do what she wanted it to do, practicing before the midday rush. Courtney was supposed to be training Alexa, but she’d wandered off to go flirt with some customer, an older guy, in college maybe, in salmon-colored shorts with sunglasses hanging around his neck on Croakies. Alexa was feeling desperate and frustrated, like she was already screwing up, when she heard a voice behind her.
“You have to press ‘pound six’ then ‘enter.’”
“Huh?” Alexa said, turning around and seeing Kyle. He had an immediate softness about him, and she felt instantly relaxed in his presence.
She did what he said, and with a ring, the cash register drawer opened.
“Awesome, thank you. I’m new here.”
Kyle la
ughed. “Yeah, I know. Laurie told me about you. You’re Alexa, right?”
Alexa nodded, put out her hand and shook his.
Kyle looked up at the clock by the door. “Hey, we should take our break before it gets crazy in here. Courtney can watch the register. Court!” he called out. Courtney turned from flirting with the guy wearing Chubbies, and her face brightened when she saw Kyle. (He had that effect, Alexa would come to learn.) “Hey, baby,” she cooed, striding over to give him a hug, suddenly seeming warm and kind.
“Have you met Alexa?” she said, again like Alexa wasn’t even there.
“Yeah, I just showed her how to steal money from the cash register.”
“Fabulous,” Courtney said. “Oh my God, did you see who I was talking to?” She pointed to the preppy bro, now looking a little annoyed to be kept waiting.
Kyle’s eyes widened. “Oh my God, is that . . .”
Courtney let out a loud laugh, throwing her head back and clapping once. “Yes! Can you believe it? He got kinda fat?”
Kyle looked over at the guy, thin tank top hanging over somewhat bloated muscles, skin deeply tanned already, from lacrosse or sailing or something. “I dunno, he still looks pretty good to me.”
Courtney rolled her eyes. “You’re so gross.” She turned to Alexa. “He’s so gross.”
“We’re gonna go on break,” Kyle said. “I’m training her for the rest of the day, Nate said.”
Courtney shrugged her shoulders. “Cool. Sounds good.”
Alexa turned and headed for the break room, but Kyle motioned to her to follow him. “The break room’s miserable; let’s sit outside.” He poured himself an iced tea from the huge dispenser next to the even bigger tub of iced coffee, and then they went out the back door by the kitchen, out to a ratty picnic table. Kyle sat down, draped himself over the table, took a long, contemplative sip of his iced tea. An eyebrow raised above his sunglasses. “So you’re from Boston?”
Alexa sat down across from him. “Um, yeah. Yeah.”
“What part?”
“Uh, the Back Bay?” Alexa said, a little sheepishly, knowing that “Back Bay” is near-universal Massachusetts code for “rich.”
Kyle didn’t seem fazed, though. Maybe he already knew—Laurie seemed like the kind of person who would tell everyone everything the minute she could—or maybe he didn’t care. “Nice” was all he said.
“Where are you from?”
He smiled ruefully, looked down at the table. “Technically, here. Or, I mean, not here here, but near here, I guess. My mom lives in Bourne. By the bridge. So I’m from there. Like, during the winter and stuff. But I’m out here all summer. I stay with Davey and Courtney sometimes. Or Laurie lets me sleep on her couch. It’s cool. It works out most of the time.”
Alexa suddenly found herself blurting out, “You’re welcome to stay with us, we have extra bedrooms,” before realizing how weird and bad that sounded. Not only a stranger inviting some boy to stay at her house five minutes after meeting him, but bragging about how many bedrooms her parents’ house had.
But again, Kyle didn’t seem bothered by it. He smiled and said, “Sounds good. Yeah, I mean, that would be amazing, thank you.” He smiled again, and Alexa felt an ease wash over her. Who was this magical person?
“Courtney’s kind of intense, huh?” she said, trusting that Kyle wouldn’t report this back to Courtney.
Kyle laughed, nodded his head. “Yeah. She’s cool, though. She’s just a big-town bitch in a small town. She’ll be fine once she gets to New York. That’s more her speed or whatever. I think we’re gonna move there together, actually. Or, well, I mean, I’m hoping to.”
Alexa felt immediately envious of Courtney and her exciting new life in New York with Kyle. “That’s awesome. When are you guys moving?”
Kyle shrugged. “I don’t know. Soon, I hope. When I turn eighteen. I mean, it’s not like my mom would call the police if I left now or whatever, but you know. It’s just easier to wait until then. Plus we gotta work here and save some money, right?” He did a little ta-da with his hands, as if to gesture toward the splendor of the place. It was funny to see Courtney and Kyle so down, jokingly or not, on a job that Alexa was so happy to have.
And that had been the start of it. Not that night, or the night after, but pretty soon Kyle began spending many nights at Alexa’s house. There were two guest bedrooms that no one was using, and when they eventually met him, Theo and Linda seemed to find Kyle charming, or at least a diverting novelty. Even Jason, who was always so weird and aloof with kids he didn’t know, quickly warmed to Kyle, Alexa and the two boys winding up spending many nights, after Theo and Linda had gone to bed, out on the porch, talking and laughing and sneaking Sam Summers.
As Alexa grew closer to Kyle, she told him things she hadn’t told anyone else. About her brother’s troubles, about her social stresses, about how she sometimes felt like an accessory in her parents’ lives, rather than their daughter. In turn, he told her about his nervous, grand hopes for the future, about the troubled home life he longed to put in the rearview.
Kyle began to seem less magic, but not less good. He was caring and smart. Sure, he was a little moody and occasionally flaky, but other than that he seemed reliable, like Alexa could depend on him like she couldn’t depend on her parents or her brother or, really, anyone at school. That was important, wasn’t it? To find someone solid.
Plus, they had fun together. A week or two after their first meeting, the two happened to be in the break room together when Laurie’s charging phone buzzed, and there, right on the break room table for all to see, was a particularly graphic sext from Davey—had he and Laurie already started hooking up by then? Alexa wasn’t sure.
Kyle’s eyes grew wide and he looked at Alexa, his mouth agape in delighted shock. Alexa had seen a penis before, of course, but not the penis of a guy she knew.
“Oh my God,” she murmured.
Kyle nodded. “I know. I had no idea he had it in him. Or, I mean, on him.”
Which was just about the funniest thing Alexa had ever heard. She and Kyle laughed about that on occasion for the rest of the summer.
They laughed a lot, and made fun of basically everything. But Alexa also felt safe being entirely earnest around Kyle. So much so that one quiet Tuesday night, Alexa found herself telling Kyle something she hadn’t told anyone else.
“I don’t think I want to go to college.”
Kyle stopped counting the money in the register and turned to her. “Really?”
Alexa shrugged, sighed. “Yeah. I mean, at least not right away. I want some time to, like, figure life out before I just go off and do the next thing that’s, like, expected of me. You know?”
“I guess,” Kyle said, giving her a smile. “But no one really expects much of me.”
Alexa laughed, hoping it didn’t sound mean. “Well, I expect big things from you.”
“Bigger than Davey’s d—”
“Kyle!” Alexa cut him off, looking around to make sure no one was listening to them.
Kyle leaned back on the counter. “So what will you do? Instead of college, I mean.”
“I dunno. Maybe something like the Peace Corps? If that’s not too cliché or whatever. Or Habitat for Humanity. It’s not like I just want to do nothing. I want to do good things—and travel and stuff.”
“So you should do it,” Kyle said, like it was settled.
Alexa sighed again. “It’s not that easy. My parents would freeeeak if I even vaguely mentioned the idea of not going right to college. It’s just, y’know, what we do. Or what all their friends’ kids have done.”
“Someone has to have, like, joined the army or moved to Hollywood or something.”
“Not that I can think of. All my parents’ friends’ kids are in Ivies or at these super-intense liberal arts colleges in the middle of the woods.”
“I know, I know,” Alexa replied, feeling an anxiety, but also a relief, for actually having this conversation with someone, finally. “It’s not like it would be illegal for me to put off college for a while. But it’d be hard. Because who knows what the hell my brother is going to do, and one of us has to be the good one. If I didn’t go to school, I don’t even know if my parents would, like, support me.”
“I’m sure they would eventually.”
Alexa frowned at Kyle’s misunderstanding. “I meant with money.”
“Ohhh,” Kyle said, nodding his head and turning back toward the register. “Well, then you’d be like the rest of us.”
“I guess so.”
Kyle started counting the bills in the drawer again, but then stopped. “Just come to New York,” he said. “There are poor people in New York you can help. You can help me. Build me a habitat! I’m humanity!”
Alexa smiled. “O.K. Sounds good.”
“And I need a little piece in my core, if you know what I mean . . .” Kyle continued, another of his awful and wonderful jokes—dirty without being gross, somehow.
“Oh Jesus,” Alexa groaned, and then they were both laughing.
This college thing was a relatively new and unformed thought, but it was a big, exciting, almost dangerous one. One Alexa relished in her mind the second she said it. She was, she knew, at least partly inspired by Kyle’s enviable rootlessness.
He was interesting, and people were interested in him. Because of his dewy good looks, yes, but also because there was something arrestingly knowing about him, like he’d lived many past lives. No, he wasn’t magic, but he seemed different from literally all the kids Alexa knew in her little world back home. “An old soul,” Alexa’s mother had called Kyle one night.
It was one of many nights when Kyle had dinner with the Elsings—he and Alexa having worked the early shift, blessed with an entire evening to enjoy themselves. During dinner, Kyle told a particularly funny, charming story, a comedy of errors about trying to score tickets to Hamilton on a New York visit the past spring. Alexa was laughing, as she always did, when she caught, out of the corner of her eye, her mother giving her a strange look—condescending, concerned, pitying. It snatched the laugh right out of Alexa’s throat, and she fell quiet for the rest of dinner.
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