jumped into the backseat and I slid into the front. Billy looked surprised, but not annoyed. That scored a point, right there.
“I asked my brother to come,” I said. “I hope you don’t mind. It’s just that —”
“You don’t trust me. Good. I’m completely untrustworthy.” His grin lit up his face. “Hi —Jamie, right? Another one who can climb trees.”
“Right.”
“Let’s go. My mother packed a basket.” He took off and instead of heading to the park, he kept on going. He wore a blue shirt, the cuffs rolled up. I watched his hands on the steering wheel. Even his hands were beautiful.
“I thought we were going for a picnic,” Jamie said.
“It’s such a great day, how about the beach?” Billy asked.
“Sure,” I said. “We never go.”
“I have a favorite spot. We used to go there when I was a kid, before…”
“Before what?”
He shrugged. “I still go on weekends when I can.”
Probably with a girl, I thought, and my heart felt squeezed with a new emotion — jealousy. But here I was in the front seat next to him. Today, I was the girl.
We swung the hamper between us as we walked to the beach. The air was chilly but the sun was warm. The water was a deep navy frothed with white. We spread out a blanket and sat watching the waves.
Jamie settled in with a sandwich. “So, are you going to be a lawyer like your old man?”
“He thinks so.”
“What do you think?” I asked.
“Well, I know I don’t want to be in his business. What about you?” he asked Jamie.
Jamie laughed. “College is not in the plan. It’s the Irish form of advancement — you don’t dare do better than those before you. Our dad never made anything of himself. Course, he expects the same of us. Maybe I’ll join the army. Or the air force. Fly away.” He tossed a piece of bread to the gulls. “Better than factory work.”
“You sure about that? What if we go to war again?”
“That’ll never happen. We’ll just do rescue missions now, like the Berlin Airlift.”
I’d seen Jamie looking at those pictures in Life magazine, Germans looking up at the sky at the planes, waiting for the food and medicine to drop. I could see him wanting to be that pilot, looking down at upturned faces, knowing he was saving them. It was Jamie who could transform a gloomy afternoon, or end a squabble with a joke. He was always saving us, why not do the same for strangers?
Jamie dug into the hamper for a napkin and came up with a camera. “Hey, this yours? Sweet.”
“You’re still taking pictures?” I asked.
“When I can.” His hands were sure and easy as he took the camera. “I’d like to do it for a living, but my father thinks it’s crazy.” He aimed the camera out at the ocean. “But wouldn’t it be swell, traveling around taking pictures for magazines? Robert Capa, Cartier-Bresson — that’s what I’d like to do. Capture moments in time. Truth. Not what people say, not even what they do… but how they stand, and the look in their eyes they can’t hide.”
I had no idea what he was talking about, but I saw that he had come alive. He rose on his knees and took a few fast shots of me, then a few of Jamie. He aimed at the sea and the sky.
I looked up at him, on his knees against the blue sky, the wind whipping his hair, and it was like he was electric, a sparking wire. He sent out a charge, and I felt it vibrate inside me. All I wanted to do was touch him.
It was twilight as Billy made the turn onto Hope Street. He pulled up at the corner. We’d stayed at the shore as long as we could, until cold and hunger drove us back to the car. We’d eaten all the sandwiches and run through the surf and screamed at the shock of the cold water. We’d walked and looked for shells and tossed a football. We hadn’t talked of anything much. But none of us had wanted the day to end.
On the way home, “It’s Magic” came on the radio and I sang along. I wasn’t embarrassed. Billy looked over at me from time to time while he drove, a big, delighted grin on his face. Now I understood it. I understood magic.
Billy cut the engine and we sat at the corner of Hope and Transit. The light was