25
“He’s really part of the family, isn’t he?” Jack says with an eye-roll. Wyatt and Travis are walking up the beach late that afternoon, surfboards under their arms.
“He and Travis were friends when they were kids. They’ve been out of touch for a long time, this is kind of new,” I say.
They walk through the dunes and leave their surfboards at the bottom of the porch steps. Wyatt should be wearing a shirt, I think. It’s not right for him to be standing there, tan and wet and a little sandy. There’s a tiny piece of seaweed on his shoulder, and my hand prickles with the desire to reach over and pick it off. The urge is so strong that I shove my hands in my armpits. This, I realize, is sort of a gross thing to do, and now I don’t know what to do with my hands. This is just the beach, I think. In the city, my body totally behaves itself.
“You should have a shirt on,” Jack is saying. I couldn’t agree more, but what? “All your sunscreen will have washed off in the water and your shoulders are already red.”
Wyatt looks at his shoulder and picks off the seaweed. “I’ve got to get better about that.” He grabs a towel off a lounge chair and drapes it over his shoulders. He tosses another one to Travis. I am relieved.
“So, you helped bring the music festival to town?” I am trying for something in the category “Things a Friend Might Say.”
“Yes,” Wyatt says. “I know some of the people who recruit the bands.”
“Are you going to go? I heard you play this morning, you sounded good.” I am so awkward saying this, as if paying Wyatt a compliment is going to make me go up in flames.
Travis gets up from his lounge chair. “I’m going to need a beer for this.” He walks into the house.
“Thanks.” Wyatt smiles.
“So will you go?” I ask.
“Yeah, I’ll stop by a few of the events. To see how it all turned out.”
“This is how it happens,” Jack says. “Connections. Good for you.”
Travis is back with beers for just Wyatt and him. I ask, “So why did they decide to move the festival here?” Easy words, neutral conversation. I can totally do this.
“They didn’t really want to try anything new, but I pitched it to them anyway. The quaint small town, easy access from the city. Newport is hard to get to and expensive.” Wyatt sits down in a chair opposite us and his towel falls from his shoulders. Jack and I both stare nervously at those shoulders and Jack tosses him a bottle of sunscreen. Wyatt grabs his T-shirt instead and pulls it over his head. It’s his old Chicago Cubs T-shirt, which has now been washed within an inch of its life. It is paper-thin with a small rip along the neck where his left collarbone is exposed. He might as well be sitting there completely naked. I blink the image away.
Wyatt goes on. “I think what sold them was the fact that Skip Warren got married here. At the Old Sloop Inn actually. The guy in charge is a huge tennis fan, so that sort of legitimized the place.”
Jack leans forward in his chaise. “Skip Warren got married here?” And to me, “Did you know this?”
“I guess. We were kids, I think,” I say.
“You were fifteen,” Wyatt says, and smiles at me the tiniest bit.
“I can’t believe I didn’t know that. I mean, Skip Warren. He’s the whole reason I started playing tennis.” I don’t really have it in me to debunk this statement, but the whole reason Jack started playing tennis is that his whole family has played tennis since they were able to walk.
Travis raises his beer to Jack. “Well here’s to the Old Sloop Inn.”