brothers and sisters

“Hello?” The doorknob turned.

   “Kay, it’s me,” said her brother’s voice.

   “Bill? Hang on.” Kate got up off the bed and unlocked the door.

   “You have the door locked!”

   “Bill. Jerry’s here!”

    “Oh right. Creep. Well, at least you’re not sixteen anymore.” He sat down on the bed. There wasn’t anywhere else to sit.

    “I still haven’t forgiven him for hitting on me! I was a kid!”

    “Probably thought you should be grateful. He is good looking.”

    “Have you seen him since you got here?”

     He shook his head.

    “Well he’s not looking so great any more.”

     “He’s gotta be—what—fortyish? Catherine is.”

     “I actually felt sorry for her.  She seems broken up, for real.”

     “I’m telling you. She’s not so bad.

     “ Kay, I don’t want to stay inside. It’s nice out. Let’s go rent a boat or something.”  

     It was so early in the season that the boat rentals at Champlain’s had a full selection. There were paddle boats and jet skis and kayaks and inflatables. Bill ordered a mudslide and a cigarette boat.

     “High roller,” said Kate.

     “Look,” said Bill. “Our father just died. We feel like shit. Let’s cheer ourselves up.”

     “Do you know how to drive this thing?”

     He certainly seemed to. He made a slow circuit of Great Salt Pond, past the Block Island Club, where his father had tried to make him take sailing when he was a teenager, past Andy’s Way, where the windsurfers used to go, past Bean’s Point, where the kid was busted for growing weed and the land taken away by the feds, past The Cut and the Coast Guard Station. He was headed back towards Champlain’s, when Bill decided he wanted to wind it out.

    “This thing is built for speed. It’s not rough. Let’s go out and crank it, just for a little bit.”

     He made a steep curve and blasted out through The Cut.

    At one time, Great Salt Pond had been fresh water. But The Powers That Were decided that, to increase tourism, the island needed another, more protected harbor. And so, in the1890s the Army Corps of Engineers made The Cut, a channel through the spit of land that separated the ocean from the fresh water lake.

    “Here we go,” said Bill. He cranked the throttle up high as he came into the open ocean.

    “What’d you do to your hand?” Kate had to shout over the noise of the engine and slap of the water.

    “Stupid cat. It gets mad when it sees me packing.”

    Kate looked at his hand. The scabs were peeling off. “Those scratches look old. You just got here yesterday.”

     He kept straight on, giving the Northeast Light a wide berth. Bad rip tides there. “I didn’t want Mom to know I was on the East Coast. You know how she is. So I didn’t tell you.”

     “Where were you?”

     “New York.”

     “And you didn’t tell me?”

     “Well I had this audition. For a show in Greenpoint, no less. And it would mean I could be spending a lot of time in New York. I just didn’t want to jinx it by talking about it.”

    “So you’ve been East how long?”

    “Ten days. I was supposed to go back, but my agent said she thought they wanted to test me against a couple actresses, so to stick around.”

    “And you didn’t get in touch with me that whole time?”

    “I was going to go home, but then this happened.”

    “This.”

    Another cigarette boat, with two men in ball caps, roared past them, towards The Cut. Kate wondered why men wore those things—it made them all look the same. Maybe it was a macho thing, along with fast cars and boats. She glanced at her brother, in sunglasses and a ball cap, and sighed.