Page 8 of The Beachgoers
“I know.” Neil turns and takes her face in his hands. He looks right into her eyes. “I get it. I’ll be losing a lifelong friend when Kyle finds out.” A long breath of his own, then. “Shit, we used to play in the marsh together as kids. Me and Jay, Shane and Kyle. We wereallbros.”
Lauren slightly nods before sitting back. “I’ll need time alone, you know. After I break up with him. To settle my emotions.” Her fingers stroke Neil’s hand. “I can’t just rush into things. Because of how it would look, and… well, for everybody’s sake.”
Neil glances over at her. “As long as it takes,” he says, lifting her hand and kissing the back of it. “I’ll be waiting, no matter when.”
* * *
Two days later, Lauren is alone. She’s been keeping to herself at her family’s home in Eastfield. Her bedroom, especially, is hushed this Thursday evening. At the far wall, across from the bed, is a vintage oak dresser. A mirror hangs above it. Distressed white paint covers the mirror’s scrolled wood frame. Some things about the room give away that it’s one of a long-ago childhood: her nicked student desk; her high school yearbook with a graduation tassel draped over the cover; the decorative feather pillow and rag doll propped on the window seat; the purple clock radio on the nightstand.
But from the looks of her standing in front of the mirror, Lauren’s obviously left those young years behind. She wears a sleeveless crop top over denim culottes and ballet flats. And her words? They come haltingly as she talks to her reflection.
“Kyle. I have something to tell you,” she quietly says, then shakes her head. “No, no.” A throat-clearing, then, “I don’t want you to get mad at me. Please just hear me out.” A long breath as she studies her reflection. As she leans closer and touches the skin beneath her sad eyes. “Kyle. I never meant for this to happen. To get involved with someone else.” Again she bends over the dresser top and studies her eyes. Brushing through a tray of makeup on the dresser, she picks up a pencil eyeliner. “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she whispers, blinking back tears. “It’s just that Neil and I, well… I’m in love with him.” She stands straight then, takes a breath and leans close to the mirror. With a steady hand, she applies a black line beneath both eyes and lightly smudges it. Standing back, she finger-combs her blonde hair, sweeping the long bangs to the side. “Kyle, I’m really sorry—”
“Lauren!” a woman calls from down the hallway. Her voice is older, and slightly muffled behind the loosely closed bedroom door. “Kyle’s here to take you to dinner. Said he’ll wait for you outside.”
“Okay, Mom. Be right there.” But Lauren first walks to her window and presses aside the white swag curtain. Kyle—a big guy, over six-feet tall—stands leaning against his pickup truck parked at the curb. Dressed for a casual dinner out, he’s wearing a navy polo shirt over madras shorts.
The sun is nearly set. Midsummer shadows grow long.
* * *
“Hey, doll,” Kyle says. His jacked arms are folded over his chest as he watches Lauren come out the front door and walk across the lawn. Her blonde hair hangs straight; a stone pendant glimmers on a chain around her neck.
Lauren’s smile is small as she lifts the straps of a straw purse onto her shoulder. “Kyle,” she says, slowing her step. When she does, he opens the passenger door of his pickup and waits for her to get in.
Well. He does something else, too. As she goes to climb in the truck, he takes her arm and stops her. “You look nice,” Kyle says, kissing her lightly. “Ready to get some chow?”
Lauren nods before tucking her head down as she steps into the truck. But the evening changes then. It’s apparent in thesecondsmall smile she gives Kyle right before he closes her door.
The small smile that drops some by the time he gets inside the truck on the driver’s side.
The smile that fades when he turns the key in the ignition.
The smile that’s long gone when he fiddles with the radio dial.
Now, instead of a smile, Lauren reaches over and grabs Kyle’s arm when he puts the truck in gear.
“Wait,” she says. “Don’t go yet.”
And Kyle knows. He knows this is the end. You can tell, just looking at him.
You can tell as he sits back and kills the engine.
You can tell by his concerned look as he’s listening to Lauren say something personal. Something like it’s better to hear this now, instead of having to drive her back home from a restaurant, when they’d be so upset.
You can tell by the way he never takes his eyes off of her.
By the way his face drops, when she’s telling him that she can’t marry him.
That there’s someone else.
That there’s Neil.
All the while, as her hushed words blur with her tears inside that truck cab, a neighbor hurries to finish mowing his lawn before sunset. Back and forth, back and forth he pushes his mower across the green grass. A woman jogs past the pickup, too. Her footsteps brush the sidewalk. And in the ranch house that Lauren just stepped out of—the home where she’d rehearsed these painful lines—lamplight comes on in the living room window. A TV screen flickers beyond it.
Yes, life goes on around them. Lauren’s TV-watching parents, and the mowing neighbor, and the jogging woman are completely oblivious to the devastation happening inside that one pickup truck parked at the curb. Unaware of the other life that just had the rug ripped out from under it.
Kyle suddenly rolls down his window and turns his face toward the evening outside. He takes a long breath, then turns on his seat to face Lauren. His posture is stiff; his face, angry now. He puts his hand over hers while she tries to slip off her engagement ring. OnlyKyle’svoice makes its way out into the calm summer air.
