Summer People (7 page)

“Mind if I have a swig?” she asked. “I’m dying of thirst.” “Help yourself.” David said. “Sorry I don’t have anything stronger.” He started to drive. “Shall we go to your house?”

“No,” Beth said. “No, no. Let’s … well, let’s drive around or park somewhere.” She was sorry as soon as she said “park somewhere,” because it brought back memories of when she and David had parked at the beach right up the road and made love in the sand. “Let’s drive around.”

He stepped on the gas and Beth appreciated the cool wind through her window. She finished the entire bottle of water, trying not to panic. Trying not to think of Garrett. Trying not to bombard David with questions, the most obvious being,
Why didn’t you just tell me at the store?

“So,” David said.

“So,” Beth said. “So Rosie left. Are you going to tell me what happened?”

“She moved to the Cape after Christmas. She said the island was suffocating her. It was too small, too limited, and suddenly after eighteen years of living here, not at all what she wanted. And she said I was emotionally cruel.”

“Emotionally cruel?”

“That’s what she said.”

“What about the girls?”

“Rosie didn’t want to take the girls. She said they were happy in school and that she could be an equally effective mother from the Cape. If not more so.” David spoke the words like a robot, like he’d committed them to memory then spoken them on a hundred separate occasions. “She rented a house in Wellfleet, which is to say,
I
rented a house, and she started a catering company, which is to say,
I
started the catering company, and I fly the girls over whenever their hearts desire. The three of them have a fine time, shopping and going to movies and spending my money in any other way they can find.”

“A catering company,” Beth said. “That makes sense. So the girls are all right with this, then?”

“They appear to be. Piper just turned seventeen, and she’s developed a very independent, very empowered personality. She’s thrilled that her mother has broken free of male domination.”

“Oh,” Beth said. “What about the younger one?”

“Peyton still loves me the best, thank God,” David said. “But she wouldn’t admit it in front of her mother or her sister. She’s not brave enough. She’s not brave at all.”

“How old is Peyton?”

“Thirteen.”

“I can’t believe you and Rosie split,” Beth said. “I just can’t believe it.” This was dangerous news. Beth stared at the stick ’em on the dashboard, wishing for clarity. David Ronan had split from his wife, and now he was driving around Nantucket with Beth’s name on his dashboard. “How are you doing?” she asked. “Are you … are you angry?”

“Shit, yeah, I’m angry,” David said. “And heartbroken and discouraged and deeply incredulous. I loved Rosie. She saved my life.”

This comment, Beth knew, was aimed at her. What David really meant was:
Rosie saved me from you.
Beth heard the old pain, the old intensity in David’s voice and she knew where the conversation was headed if she didn’t stop it—blame for Rosie that was really blame for Beth. The first woman who’d left him.

“We’ll have to cancel dinner,” Beth said, cringing at how hardhearted, not to mention
rude,
that sounded. But the whole point had been to invite the Ronan
family.
To prove to the kids and Beth herself, and Arch, wherever he was, that this was just a normal friendship.

“I already told the girls. They’re excited to come. But I guess you don’t want us now? I hope you don’t think I’m on the prowl.”

“No, I never—”

“My girls,” he said. “They think this is a date, even though I
assured
them it’s not. I mean, I told them about your husband. But I haven’t been out, anywhere, well, in six months, so they’re hopeful.” He smiled. “They want me to move on. I explained to them that I’m not ready to move on, and that even if I were,
you
weren’t ready to move on.” He glanced at her. “I’m embarrassed telling you all this. I came to find you because I knew it was unfair to spring it on you tonight. So we won’t come.”

The world’s most awkward situation. What should she
do
? If she disinvited David, what did
that
say? That she didn’t trust herself? That it wasn’t okay for two old friends to have dinner together? “Forgive me,” Beth said. “It’s just that this took me by surprise. You could have told me at the store.”

David tucked his chin guiltily. “You seemed upset at the store,” he said. “About Arch, I mean. I didn’t want to burden you with my problems.”

“It wouldn’t have been a burden,” Beth said. “It would have been useful information.”

“I guess subconsciously I wanted to come to dinner, and so that’s why I didn’t tell you,” David said. “Since Rosie left, the whole island has treated me like an untouchable.”

“You’re not an untouchable.”

David held out his hand. “Prove it.”

Beth stared at his hand, the knobby knuckles, the golden hairs, the clean, clipped nails. How many years had passed since she’d noticed David’s hands?

She squeezed David’s pinky. “I’m sorry Rosie left.”

“Thanks. It makes me feel better to hear that opinion expressed, even by a summer person.”

Beth smirked. She’d only spent ten minutes in David’s presence and already they’d resumed their old roles. Year-rounder versus summer person. How old would they have to be before they rose above. “I hereby cancel my cancellation,” she said. “Please come to dinner. I’d like to meet your girls and it’ll be good for Winnie and Garrett. Just come at seven and we’ll have a good time.”
A good time
. It sounded so refreshing that Beth almost believed it was possible. “But don’t bring me flowers or anything.”

“No purple cosmos?” he said.

That hit too close to home. Beth shut her eyes, remembering the flowers wilting in her hand because she held them so tightly. They left golden dust on her skin.

“I’m sorry, Beth,” he said.

“You don’t know what I’m like these days,” she said. “Boiled turnips can make me cry.” She wiped her eyes. “Just take me home. I need to shower. Take a nap. And I don’t want the kids worrying about where I am.”

They drove to her house in silence, and then Beth leapt from the van. She needed David to drive away before anyone saw him. “I’ll expect you at seven,” she said.

“You’re sure about this?” he said.

“I’m sure.”

He waved. “Looking forward to it.”

As Beth headed inside, she noticed the mail basket was full. Already, some of her mail had been forwarded from New York. There were two bills, a credit card solicitation addressed to Archer Newton, and a letter for Marcus. The return address was 247 Harris Road, Bedford Hills, New York. It was a letter from Constance Tyler.

Garrett watched his mother closely from the minute she walked in the door from her run. The first thing she did was to look in the hallway mirror—the one that she and Uncle Danny and Uncle Scott had decorated with scallop shells in their youth— and groan.

“I look like a dirt sandwich,” she said.

Although she hadn’t acknowledged him, Garrett assumed the comment was for his benefit, and that he was expected to refute it.

“What do you care what you look like?” he said.

She turned, apparently surprised to see him there, sitting at the kitchen table, eating a lunch that he’d made himself. It might seem a small detail, but Garrett was keeping track of the fact that three days into the summer, neither his mother nor Winnie had offered to make him lunch, although they both fell over themselves to prepare food for Marcus.

“Garrett,” she said. “It’s two-thirty.”

“So?”

“So, don’t you think it’s a little late to be eating such a big lunch? We’re having dinner at seven.”

As if he were likely to forget “the dinner,” which, judging by the way his mother cleaned this morning, was a bigger event than she originally promised.

“I’ll manage,” he said.

As his mother walked toward him, he saw that she was holding some envelopes. She waved one in the air. “Where’s Marcus?”

“I have no idea,” Garrett said, though he had every idea. Marcus was on the beach. Alone. Winnie had come running up about forty-five minutes earlier in a state. It seemed Marcus had given Winnie some flak about not eating.
As if my digestive tract is his concern,
Winnie said in this bitchy, conspiratorial way, nudging Garrett to agree with her. Although Garrett wanted nothing more than to gang up on Marcus, it wasn’t going to be for that reason. In this instance, Marcus was right: Winnie needed to eat. Garrett said as much to Winnie and she stomped up the stairs, her empty stomach clenched in fury against him.

“Well, can you find him for me, please?” Beth said. “There’s a letter for him.”

“I think he’s on the beach,” Garrett said. “He can read it when he comes up.”

“It’s a letter from Constance,” Beth said. “It can’t wait.”

There was faulty logic there somewhere, but clearly this letter had put ants in his mother’s pants and so Garrett walked out onto the deck and was about to yell down to the beach when he saw Marcus marching up the rickety stairs, loaded down like a pack mule with all the beach stuff—towels, beach bag, and Winnie’s chaise lounge. Once Marcus reached the deck, he dropped the stuff and rubbed his eyes.

“Whoa,” he said. “I fell asleep down there.”

Garrett studied him. He heard the clink of glasses in the beach bag and realized that Marcus and Winnie had been drinking. The Malibu, probably. How easy it would be to bust this kid, Garrett thought. He shook his head. “Mom has a letter for you. From Constance.”

Not even the faintest glimmer of interest crossed Marcus’s face. “Okay, man, thanks.” He headed for the outdoor shower and Garrett watched him step in and close the door. Then he heard the water. Garrett returned to the kitchen where his mother was drinking straight from the big bottle of purple Gatorade.

“Marcus is in the shower,” Garrett said.

Beth paused in her drinking. “Did you tell him about the letter?”

“Of course. I guess it can wait after all.”

“Hmmpf,” Beth said. Garrett noticed her staring at the envelope, and he moved closer to inspect it. A regular number ten business envelope addressed in blue ink. The return address said, “247 Harris Road, Bedford Hills, New York,” as if this were a domestic street address and not the address of the largest women’s correctional facility in the state. The penmanship was neat, pretty even, and European, like the handwriting of Garrett’s French teacher, Mr. Alevain. Of course, Constance Tyler was no dummy. She’d gone to Princeton, and that was how Garrett’s father got involved in all this in the first place.

Although the envelope was unremarkable in every way, it had power, and Garrett found himself wondering what the letter might say. On the one hand, there was so much to explain, but on the other, how could mere language convey the range of emotions Constance Tyler might be experiencing when she knew she would never be free again? She would never lie on a beach, ride a bike, dip her foot in the ocean. Garrett picked up the envelope and held it to the window trying to make out a word or two, and naturally, as soon as he gave in to this temptation, Marcus stepped into the kitchen, one beach towel wrapped around his waist, one wrapped around his head like a turban. Except for these two towels, Marcus was naked—dark and muscular and imposing, like some two-hundred-year-old tree.

He nodded. “That my letter?”

Beth spoke up. She, too, had an impulse to scrutinize the letter, though it was none of hers or Garrett’s business. “It’s from Constance.”

Marcus snatched the letter from Garrett’s fingers. “All right, then,” he said, and he disappeared upstairs.

At five o’clock, Garrett was slumped in the only comfortable chair in the house, reading. The chair was a bona fide La-Z-Boy recliner upholstered with worn fawn-colored velour; Garrett’s grandfather had brought it home one summer from the dump, and although all the women complained that it was an eyesore and smelled like mildew, they kept it around because it was so comfortable. Garrett was reading
Franny and Zooey,
the first book on his required summer reading list. He’d reached the part where Zooey was soaking in the bathtub reading a letter wishing that his mother would leave him alone. Garrett paused for a minute, identifying with Zooey’s frustration with Bessie Glass, except Garrett was frustrated by too little attention from his mother, or the wrong kind of attention. Something about his mother was really bugging him, although Garrett couldn’t put it into words. If Garrett were the one taking a two-hour bath, for example, Beth would knock on the door and explain that since Garrett was the man of the house now, it was his responsibility to offer the same hot bath to Marcus. Garrett honestly couldn’t believe that Marcus was here this summer. After all, if it weren’t for Marcus’s mother, Arch would still be alive. Garrett mentioned this glaring fact at one of their family therapy sessions, but Dr. Schau told him that was a small person’s point of view. Constance Tyler didn’t kill Arch, she said; he died by accident. It was nobody’s fault.