When the initial training for the dining hall work at the resort had taken place, Kevin hadn't figured out he'd missed the invite until it was over, and only then it'd been because the sort-of girlfriend of one of his friends mentioned it when they'd all been hanging out that night. They'd been sitting there in Kramer's pot-filled basement, doing a whole lot of nothing, when that girl had just blurted out something about not looking forward to feeding a bunch of rich people and having to wear a smile while doing it. He'd had to clear his mind a little before catching on to what she'd said, but when he'd realized he'd missed out, it clicked that he hadn't actually been hired at all.

Though he'd been disappointed, he'd accepted it as a pretty reasonable outcome, consistent with most of his other life failures. Still, the slight had weighed on him enough that he'd mistakenly mentioned it to his father, who'd reacted with a disparaging tirade and the insistence that Kevin accept fate and just work at the family car business, like his brother.

That'd been all Kevin needed as motivation to try again.

The day after his father's comments, he'd walked the several miles to the resort, avoided the guard booth by crossing the golf course and staying as close to the woods as possible, and walked right into the dining hall. Fueled by a determination born of the desire to prove his father wrong, of the desperate fear of ending up stuck with Mike the rest of his life, Kevin had approached the woman behind the lobby desk like a storm ready to burst. In fact, she'd visibly backed away from him, causing him to realize he needed to tone it down.

"I'm sorry," he'd calmed himself enough to say, taking note of the way she'd eyed his grunge-casual clothing, his in-need-of-a-wash hair. "I was told I had a job serving, back at the high school. But I missed the training; nobody ever told me about it. I--I'm hoping I can still work here."

Narrowing her eyes, the woman had shaken her graying hair behind her shoulders and superiorly told him that all the positions had been filled, that the resort had already been open a week and didn't need anyone else. Then she'd told him to leave the property and threatened to call the police if he wouldn't.

Kevin had balked at that. It'd seemed a bit severe, but he couldn't get involved with the police. He'd already dusted his record with a few misdemeanors; his father would kill him if there were any more. So he'd turned to leave, but just as he'd done so, a man in a ridiculous outfit had entered the building in a conspicuous ray of sunshine that had serendipitously beamed through one of the windows at that same moment. Minty knee-length shorts, a pale pink shirt overlaid with a floral blazer, loafers and an impeccable white straw hat--the man's getup had halted Kevin in his steps. Unable to stop staring, the boy had nearly snickered but, fortunately, managed to stop himself before doing anything regrettable.

As for the new arrival, an older white gentleman somewhere in his seventies or sixties, he'd been good-natured enough.

"Afternoon, Mr Lawson." The desk woman had risen upon seeing him, her affect spinning a one-eighty.

The so-called Mr. Lawson had glanced at Kevin, surely realized he didn't belong. "What's the problem here, Marianne?"

"No problem, Mr Lawson. This young person was just leaving."

"Is that right? Are you in need of help, son?"

"Oh . . . I--I'm--" Why Kevin had found himself stuttering was still a mystery to him. He'd figured the sheer absurdity of the clothing had put him off.

"Are you looking for someone?"

Was he? The question had hung in his head, and yet he'd known it wasn't what he was there for. Straightening, he'd gathered some self-confidence. "They hired me to work in the dining hall," he'd said. "I filled out the application; they said I was hired. But then nobody told me about the training."

"Is that so?"

"I don't know if you can help, but I really need the job."

The man had moved only his eyes to meet those of the woman at the desk; some tacit message had seemed to pass between the two adults, but before Kevin had been able to think much on it, Mr. Lawson had answered him. "I don't think they need you here, son. But . . ." He'd thought, nodded, continued. "I wonder if they might need you at the snack shack."

"What's that?"

"At the golf course. It's just where golfers and kids and really anyone on the resort can go pick up a drink or some treats, you know. Nothing you can't handle besides a little boredom." He'd ever so slightly tightened his eyes, seemed to contemplate Kevin, and then taken a big breath and grinned about as cordially as could be expected from a total stranger. "Well, now. What do you say we talk to Marianne, here, and get it settled?" Then he'd offered his old hand, and Kevin had hesitated only a moment before shaking it.

Now, literally the day after he'd been so unceremoniously hired, he stood behind the register in the incommodious snack shack and wondered whether he'd made the right decision. That Marianne woman had shown him the basics: how to work the register for those who paid cash, how to keep track of "cottage" number and family name for those who had no cash, and where to get refills. She took care of ordering; all he had to do was sit there and hand out whatever to whoever came by. The hours were ten to five, Monday through Friday, with an hour-long lunch break, and there were a few perks--he got to wear what he wanted, as long as he looked clean, and he was pretty much going to be left alone. But there were also some downsides, mostly that the job itself was going to be, as the old man had mentioned, painfully boring.

Had Kevin been a reader, he reckoned he could've read a library's worth of novels if he worked the snack shack all summer. But it was a job; he couldn't really complain. He'd gotten what he'd come for, hadn't he? And at least it was easy. He wouldn't have to deal with diners, people sitting there expecting him to serve them, cater to their needs, but he also realized he wouldn't be able to interact much with the other servers unless he wanted to take a bathroom break, in which case, the nearest one was in the dining hall.

That girl--the one whose sister he couldn't get out of his head--she'd be in that dining hall. He'd hoped, originally, that he'd be around her, that he'd be able to strike up some conversations, maybe work his way into a surface friendship and eventually invite her and her sister somewhere, or maybe somehow hang out with them where they felt comfortable. Yeah, that'd be best; his friends were horrible influences, and they were a lot older. That girl was just out of seventh grade. He didn't even know her name, yet, and even though he'd struggled with some self-condemnation for feelings he had yet to understand, Kevin had finally just given up trying to make sense of the why and instead to focus on the how. It'd been easier that way, forgiving himself for what he felt and just letting himself feel it, because whatever it actually was, the way that girl affected him didn't seem entirely right, and he knew it, but what exactly was wrong about it was too difficult for him to determine.

"Do you have Cadbury anything? I hate American chocolate."

Kevin was pulled from his reverie when a young man probably a little older than he walked in. This guy was wearing a white polo and khaki shorts, a lanyard with a whistle around his neck. He obviously worked at the resort, but he also had a definite British accent. Not over-thinking it, Kevin responded, "What's Cadbury?"

The guy--whom many a girl would deem attractive with his chin-length waves of chestnut hair, his manly stubble, and his cocksure body language--eyed Kevin with derision. "I'll take that as a no," he scoffed.

A young woman climbed through the door. "Move you arse, Grant--I want a Coca Cola. I've been dying, here. Bollocks that they won't let us get our own damned food."

Turning away from Kevin, the man playfully bumped the behind of the towel-waisted girl, who'd bent down to pull a drink from the open refrigerator.

"Sod off, will you?" she barked at her peer, though she laughed as she scolded. Turning to Kevin, she caught his eye and added, "Counselor cottage. Write it down, will you? Two Cokes."

Then they stepped out the door, Grant muttering, "Shit town doesn't even know what Cadbury is."

Kevin sighed. It was going to be a long summer, for sure. He'd have to bring something to look at. He wasn't much of a magazine guy, didn't read much at all. But staring at the walls of the snack shack for hours a day was going to kill him, if not out of boredom than out of claustrophobia. The place was hardly big enough for more than three people to stand on the other side of his counter, because the rest of it was stuffed with stuff. One wall adjacent to the door was shelved top to bottom with bags of chips, peanuts, trail mix, popcorn, and whatever other manner of simple salty goods one might desire after sweating out on the golf course; the other wall near the door had a narrow refrigerator, the kind you'd find in gas stations and convenience shops, stocked with sodas, gatorades, beer, and Perrier. The counter behind which Kevin sat was full of various candies, and beyond the register itself, near his stool (literally the only piece of furniture that could be squeezed in) was a freezer full of popsicles and ice cream bars.

On the rustic wooden walls around and behind the counter were probably fifty framed photos of resorters from years past. Some were in color, but most were black and white, and they displayed smiling faces of people drinking on lawns and boats, children splashing in the water, women dressed in party frocks and heels, bikes and roller skates and tennis matches and the obvious golfers . . . looking them over took up a good fifteen minutes or so of Kevin's time, even though for the most part, they were the exact sort of uninspired imagery he'd assumed would be in the resort.

One particular image, however, caught and held his attention for several moments, and even when he turned away from it, he couldn't quite dispel the disquietude it stirred within him, the weird spark that it ignited that then twined itself around half-formed thoughts of white kittens and elvish girls and fish heads. It was a photograph of four children standing in the woods in what appeared to be old-timey Halloween costumes. They were all a bit odd, but one child in particular unsettled him: she was a small figure in a patchwork dress, rolled white socks, and Mary Janes, her pose one of child-like silliness with her legs spread and her arms pointing one up to the sky and one down to the ground. But what unsettled Kevin was her mask--more a head than a mask. He could see none of her face or hair; instead, all of it was completely covered by the massive, ugly papier-mâché head of a goggle-eyed, tongue-lolling donkey, as if the child were taunting the world, the universe . . . him from the inside of that frame.