Page 65 of Stony Point Summer
“Why?”
Lauren pulls in her extended arm. “Why?Uh, Jason. I’m getting married?” She pauses, touching a silver hoop earring dangling beneath that crimped hair. “To Kyle?”
Jason shakes his head with a disappointed smile. Does something else, too. He stretches across the front seat and reaches over Lauren’s lap so that she leans flat against the headrest. His hand unlatches her door and pushes it wide open. “Get out.”
“What?”
“Don’t you pull that shit on me.”
Lauren sits unmoving. “What shit?” she asks. Her door is still open beside her, and she leaves it that way while looking only at Jason.
“I’ve heard enough out of Neil—”
At the mention of Neil, Lauren finally turns away. She looks out to the hot pavement backed up with vehicles waiting for the drawbridge to lower. Engines idle. A random car horn blares. Someone wheels past on a bicycle.
“That’s right. I’ve heard from Neil,” Jason repeats. Leaning on the driver’s door in the stopped pickup, he turns to face her. “AndI’ve heard enough out of Kyle. Now it’s time I hear something out of you.”
He waits when Lauren turns back to him. But she’s silent. Her expression, flat.
“Start talking or get out, Lauren.Now.”
Her grey eyes, wide, seem to be fighting emotion. But she looks Jason dead-on. Doesn’t waver, either, though her expression does. She sits there for several seconds, lips pursed, eyes welling. Finally, she unhooks her seatbelt to reach outside and close that wide-open door. Close it, take a breath and look across the seat at Jason again. “It just happened, okay?”
Jason tips his head, as though trying to understand this. “But you’ve gotKyle’sring on your finger.”
Lauren quickly looks at her diamond engagement ring. She talks more while twisting the ring straight. “Neil came up to me one day this spring when I was painting on the beach. I was staying at my grandparents’ cottage, and it was early—before I had to get to work at the bookstore. So I was painting, and we started talking.”
“About what?”
“Oh, I don’t know … Stony Point. Craft shows I was lining up for my driftwood art. A drumming gig he had. Cottages you were working on. Nothing and everything.” There’s a noticeable pause before she continues. “Then he came the next day. And the next. He’d walk by and, I don’t know. It was just … easy. And, anddifferent. Different from Kyle.” Now she looks at Jason while tucking back her crimped blonde hair. “I mean, I love Kyle, Jason. Ido. But talking to your brother, we just clicked. And he’s so smart. Said he’s thinking of trying his hand at novel-writing,” she goes on. “Then we started walking, too. Sometimes to Little Beach to collect driftwood for my paintings.” She squints across the seat at Jason’s steady eyes. “Sometimes to Foley’s.”
“Foley’s? It’s closed. Been boarded up all summer.”
“That was the point.”
“So, what? You broke in?”
Lauren nods. “Neil jimmied the lock. And we’d be alone there, sitting in a booth. Playing a jukebox song.” She shrugs, and turns up her hands.
“How serious?”
“What?”
“Quit stalling, Lauren. You heard me. How serious? You breaking into places just totalkwith my brother—or are you two screwing around?”
“None of your stinkin’ business, Jason Barlow!”
“Except itis. Kyle’s one of my best friends, and Neil’s my brother. You put me right in the middle of your mess.”
Lauren closes her eyes and shakes her head. “It’s serious with Neil,” she admits, her voice so quiet it’s almost impossible to hear. “Really, really serious. And yes, we’ve been together. At Foley’s.Sometimes we sneak away to your folks’ place,” she whispers.
“Damn it.” Jason hits the steering wheel, hard. “Damn it to hell,” he says again. It’s obvious he’s floored by this confession. He starts to say something more, but stops and looks out his rolled-down window instead. Beyond, a harbor is filled with pleasure boats—cabin cruisers and schooners and skiffs. Jason draws a fisted hand along his jaw. “So what’s your plan now?” he asks, his voice low as he turns back to Lauren.
A beat of time passes. Outside, over the river, a seagull cries—again and again, its squawk plaintive. “My plan? I’m sampling wedding cake,” Lauren answers.
“Jesus Christ, do you hear yourself?”
A shrug from Lauren, then.
