Summer Nights (12 page)

A branch, she thought. It’s a tree, washed downstream by the hurricane last fall. Low enough in the water that shallow-bottomed boats like the
Duet
never touch it, but my foot, pointing down as I tread water, lodged in a branch.

She pictured the tree, inanimate, un-moving, its own self stuck deeper down in mud. Mud, where it would lay Kip to rest with its ignorant, uncaring power. She imagined its bare branches, the fish swimming among them, the debris of old soda cans and tires caught like her ankle.

She saw her own death, her own body at the bottom.

Okay, all I have to do is lower myself, tug at the branches, and get my ankle loose, she said to herself. Piece of cake. Stay calm.

How easy it is to be the commander and order others to remain calm. How hard to be the one whose life is at stake and must obey the commander who says “Stay calm.”

Kip dove under, trying to get at her own foot, but the water defeated her and washed her back, swirling her to the side. She might have thought the Westerly had no current, but all rivers flow, and she was very tired.

Surely just flexing the ankle, first left, then right, would have to free it from whatever notch it was caught in. Surely her own strength was enough to break the water-rotted twig that had her.

She flung herself in every direction, yanking and kicking and thrashing and wearing herself out. Above water, below water, hands reaching, fingers pulling.

Once more she heard Con’s voice, and she would have answered him this time if she could, but she could not find the strength.

She thought of tomorrow’s local paper. She would be a headline. Next fall she would be a warning from the school principal to that year’s students not to take silly risks. And that would be the sum total of Katharine Elliott’s life.

Anne could not stop pacing around the tiny boat. With every step the
Duet
diminished, turning from a romantic party ship to a row-boat crammed with strangers.

And strangers they were.

She had never felt so isolated.

How totally your own life contained you, as if you were just so much Pepsi, locked in your own can. You sat on a shelf, and nobody could tell you from any other aluminum can.

There was Emily with Matt. There was Molly with the new boy. There was Beth Rose with her new boy. Con had literally swum out of her life.

Until Anne was pregnant, all those eons ago, she had felt like the most Belonging person in school. She belonged to the In group, she belonged to the cheerleading squad. She belonged to the Art Club and she belonged to the concert choir. Most of all, she belonged to Con, and therefore to that enviable group of girls who always had a date and were always wanted.

Pregnancy made her very different and if you were different you could not belong. She frightened her friends by being what she was, and she terrified Con. Nobody could talk to her and nobody wanted to. She stood alone for a while and then it became unbearable; she accepted the offer of Beth’s aunt to live with her until Afterward.

She acquired a whole new vocabulary to pretend that nothing was happening. When It was over, she would come home. And they would put It behind her, her mother liked to say.

But for Anne, It was always there. She carried It with her for nine months and when she signed the papers and gave away the baby she had held only moments, the knowledge of It was just as heavy.

She, actually. Not it. A little girl.

All the rest of her senior year Anne did not belong. She tried. Put It behind you, everybody said, and everybody else managed to. Anne did not. She was not another teenage girl; she was a mother herself. She was not Con’s girlfriend, and he was not her date; he was the father of their child.

To belong—to belong!

She knew suddenly that the job had appealed to her because in crossing the world among strangers she did not have to pretend to belong, nor strive to belong. She would be isolated, in fact, and people would admire her for it. She and Miss Glynn would be a pair, bound by airline reservations and interview schedules. She would belong to a jet set in motion.

Even tonight, on this boat, at a party given for her, recipient of gifts, hugs, and kisses, Anne Stephens did not belong. They were all planning next year—dorms, roommates, courses, majors, vacations, letters. Even Emily or Molly, still in Westerly, still belonged. Westerly was always theirs, and they were always Westerly’s.

The dark of the night and the dark of the river, the dark of the trees that came down the hills and closed in tight ranks along the banks of the river surrounded her.

And when I come back? Anne thought. Will I belong then? Will they take me back? Will they even be here in order to take anybody back? Will they all belong someplace else, or to somebody else?

What did it mean to belong? Or not to belong? And how much did she care?

She thought of the neat pile of passport, airplane tickets, and traveler’s checks lying on her bureau, waiting for morning. In every journey, Anne thought, there is loss.

She wanted Con fiercely. Not to touch, and impossible to have. Just to be near, and remember when once she had belonged.

Anne walked back to the rail and said to Beth, “They’ve been gone a long time.”

“Yes,” Beth said, “we’re starting to worry.”

“Not to worry,” ordered Jere, hoisting his camera. “They’ll appear the moment I take the lens cap off, I promise you.”

Molly and Blaze joined them. Molly wanted to suggest that perhaps Kip and Con had decided to spend the night together on Swallow Island, but forced herself not to. Blaze chatted away, about how Molly was taking him to play golf on Sunday and would Jere and Beth Rose like to come along?

Beth gave Anne—not Molly—a long look.

I’m not worth looking at? Molly thought, the old rage percolating.

Jere said eagerly that that would be great, although he’d only been golfing once and would embarrass everybody. “You can’t embarrass me,” Blaze said. “I’ve never been golfing at all.”

Molly hated how Beth and Anne were carrying on a personal conversation with their eyebrows, darting little looks of scorn Molly’s way, announcing to each other that the idea of spending a Sunday with Molly was pitiful.

“Beth was telling me about how she’s going to teach sixth grade,” said Jere.

“We had that conversation, too,” said Blaze.

Molly almost said how pathetic it was—everybody else discussing college, poor old worthless Beth stuck in elementary school. She curled her tongue on the roof of her mouth to stop herself.

“Why twelve year olds?” remarked Anne. “I hated sixth.”

“You get the human body and blood and lungs,” said Beth. “You get control of the multiplication tables at last. You’re the big kids in the elementary school. You put on your first musical and study pyramids. I get all excited thinking about that whole year.”

They laughed and Beth blushed. “Okay, so it’s not much of a goal when other people want to be Hollywood directors or race car drivers,” she admitted.

“Who wants to be a race car driver?” Blaze wanted to know.

“Rumor has it that Matt O’Connor is off to be a member of the pit team for Saylor Oil’s racing cars.”

Both Blaze and Jere were on their feet. “No! You’re kidding! The lucky guy! I can’t believe it. Which one is Matt O’Connor? I have to talk to him. Point him out!”

“He’s the one we just talked to,” Molly said.

Blaze stared at her. “The one you gave the diamond ring back to?”

Molly nodded.

Blaze and Jere abandoned Anne, Molly, and Beth Rose. They exploded on Emily and Matt like comets in the sky, shouting, “Really and truly? Pit crew? Races? Indy 500? Saylor Oil?”

Molly stood alone.

Anne and Beth drew together.

Molly felt like somebody from an entirely different race, or planet.

“What ring?” Anne said.

“You wouldn’t believe it,” Molly told her.

“I’d believe anything disgusting that you could get up to,” Beth Rose snapped. “What on earth do you have to do with Emily’s diamond ring?”

Molly turned away. Why tell them? They’d never believe it. She’d have to have lawyers, witnesses, sworn depositions, and even then Beth and Anne would refuse to believe that Molly ever did anything except to be mean.

“Did you try to steal Emily’s ring?” Anne said.

Molly whirled on her. “Emily was so mad at Matt she threw it away, in your backyard, Anne Stephens, ten feet away from you, into your pretty little blue pool. You were too busy bragging about your Great Adventure. You never even saw Emily. She was crying all afternoon. She threw her ring away and I saw it fall and rescued it from the drain in the pool. And tonight when she and Matt were alone for a little while, I gave it back.”

Anne and Beth Rose drew even closer together, and leaned in identical scornful positions against the brass rail. “A likely story.”

Beth Rose took Anne by the shoulder and turned her like a mechanical doll to face the water instead of Molly. “Con and Kip will show up any second now,” she said. “Let’s call for them.”

“Con!” shouted Anne.

“Kippie!” shouted Beth.

Molly shouted nothing. Her hatred came back deeper and fuller than ever before. Try to be nice and what happened? They pretended you didn’t even exist.

Molly wanted to push them both overboard. Ruin their pretty hair, ruin their pretty little dresses, fill their mouths with polluted river water, and see them sink.

T
HEY SAT TOGETHER. MATT
did not ask Emily to put the ring on, and she did not ask to have it. Matt’s hand lay limply in his lap.

He had thought, somehow, that if they could get the ring back—if they had it safe again; unthrown—he and Emily would be all right. What a superstitious thought, Matt realized. No circle of gold clutching a stone could change an argument. He wasn’t quite so angry anymore; it had taken the financial part of his rage away.

But Emily was still hurt; he was still hurt; they still could not be at peace.

“I was just so mad at you!” cried Emily, stuffing her knuckles in her mouth to keep her voice down. “Everything fell apart inside me. You had better things to do. So big deal, we were going to have a wedding and a marriage.
You had a better offer.
” She took the ring from his curled hand and held it up to the light, like a fortune-teller with a glass ball. “So I threw it away from me, as hard and as far as I could.”

“I didn’t have a better offer,” said Matt desperately. “I had a chance to try something first, Emily! A chance to see how good I am, whether I can be in a big league. You matter more than cars. You—” but he broke off. He had tried too often to tell her what he felt, and she could not, or would not, listen.

To his surprise, Emily slipped the ring back on her finger. She turned the stone inward, as if she did not want to look at it, and curled her fingers, keeping the ring in her own fist.

There was a pounding of feet. Boys leaped from gangways without using the steps, and heavy shoes hit the deck like bass drums. “Matt! Hey, Matt! Where are you?”

Matt and Em were startled, and got to their feet as if to ward off an attack. “I’m over here,” called Matt, and instantly he was surrounded by Gary, Mike, Blaze, Jere, Donnie, Jason, Royce, and Mark.

“You really have a job like that?”

“Saylor Oil racing team?”

“Is that true?”

“When do you leave? Is it a permanent job? How did you get it? What are they paying you?”

The questions were thrown like hardballs, fast and excitedly. The boys made a wedge between Matt and Emily and she was pushed to the side. Matt thought, That’ll be symbolic for Em. She’ll say that’s what the whole thing is—being pushed aside.

He ached, physically, to leap forward, like a chieftain at a bonfire, and shout in triumph what he had done, and what greater things were to come.

Emily had gotten stepped on. Her summer sandals were no match for the heavy shoes of a teenage boy. Wincing, she stood on one foot.

She thought, What is the matter with me? Look at him, on top of the world! And I’m going to say No? I’m going to push him down? He is the envy of everybody he knows, and he can’t even answer them?

“Yes, it’s true,” said Emily. “Matt’s leaving in less than ten days.”

The boys whooped with excitement, clapping Matt on the back and demanding details. Matt’s eyes went to Emily’s.

“Looks like it’s going to be one long engagement,” she said to him softly.

“Yeah?” said Gary excitedly. “Why? How long is your job contract for, Matt?”

Emily had to laugh. Not one of the boys had thought of marriage when she used the word engagement. They assumed she meant Matt’s job. Nothing else mattered to them.

It matters to me, she thought.

She turned the ring outward and went to find Molly.

“Yup. Pit crew,” said Matt, squatting down, as if they were going to have an important huddle before the big game.

“We’ll follow you across the country,” Gary promised. “Name your race, we’ll be there.”

Emily left them. She found Molly stomping away from Anne and Beth Rose. Swallow Island to their right was a deeper black than the sky or river. “Molly,” said Emily, giving her a hug, “I can’t thank you enough.”

Molly remained rigid, as though the hug belonged to somebody else and she was not going to get involved.

“I owe you so much,” said Emily.

Molly pulled free.

Anne and Beth stared.

“Molly, don’t go!” cried Emily. “I—well, I’m sorry Molly. All those times I should have given you the benefit of the doubt and didn’t. Well—” Even to Emily this didn’t sound very complimentary. Who wanted to be forgiven a nasty past? Nobody wants to hear they aren’t so bad after all. People only want to be told they’ve been desirable all along.

Emily jumped sideways and blocked Molly’s exit. “I’ll be in Westerly, too, this year,” she said. “And Matt’ll be gone. He has a job with Saylor Oil’s racing crew. He’ll be all over the country. So let’s—let’s be friends.”

Her foot came free.

Kip floated, panting, holding herself horizontal and very still, lest somehow she touch part of that horrible sunken tree again. Rationally she knew exactly how deep the branches were. But her fear made it hard to kick or dip her arms. With baby splashes she tried to propel herself away.