Summer People (10 page)

The question took Garrett by surprise and he seized up with panic. He hadn’t encountered very many kids his age who wanted to talk about what happened to his father. Everyone knew, of course. Practically the entire student body of Danforth attended the memorial service. But no one wanted to talk to Garrett about the loss, not even his good friends. The other kids were afraid to talk about it and that made Garrett afraid. He felt that losing his father, that being
fatherless,
was something to be ashamed of.

“Right. My dad died.”

“In a plane crash?”

“Yep.”

Piper raised her face to the night sky, giving Garrett a view of her beautiful throat. “I can’t imagine how awful that would be. Even though I get angry at my dad, I want him alive. If anything ever happened to him or my mom, I’d go crazy.”

“Yeah,” Garrett said. “My sister’s pretty much gone crazy. That’s why she wasn’t at dinner. We have to keep her locked in her room.”

Piper stopped. “Oh, God,” she said. “You’re kidding.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I am.”

She swatted his arm and walked on. “How has it changed you? Losing a parent, I mean.”

It was an insightful question, and one he’d never been asked. How to explain? It was as if his seventeenth year were a bridge that had broken in half. His old life, his life before his father died, was on one side of the bridge, and now he found himself standing on the other side, with no choice but to move forward. What else could he say? He felt jaded now, hardened. The things that other kids worried about—grades, for example, or clothes, or the score of a soccer game—seemed inconsequential. In some sense, losing his father allowed Garrett to see what was important. This moment, right now, was important. Garrett stopped and slipped his hands inside of Piper’s jean jacket so that he was touching the bare skin under her rib cage. Her skin was warm; she was radiating heat. Garrett had no clue where he was finding the courage to touch Piper.

“I’m a difficult child, too,” he said. “That’s how my dad dying changed me.”

“So we’re two difficult children,” Piper said. She locked her hands behind Garrett’s back and pressed her hips against his. “However, I notice you haven’t pierced your nose.”

“Not yet,” he said. “But maybe I will.”

“You have such a pretty nose,” she said. “Don’t ruin it.”

“
You
have a pretty nose,” Garrett said. He leaned forward and kissed the tip of her nose, then lifted her chin and kissed her lips. She tasted smoky, but smoky like charcoal, not cigarettes. He kissed her again, parting her lips with his tongue. She kissed him back for a second or two, enough time for Garrett to marvel at his good fortune, but then she pushed him gently away.

“I’m difficult, as in, not easy,” she said.

“Oh,” Garrett said. He was dying,
dying,
to kiss her, but he liked it that she had boundaries. And he had all summer to knock them down, so he gave up without asking for more. He took her hand and led her down the beach.

At ten o’clock, Beth found herself sitting alone at the table with David. The candles were burnt down to nubs, and two quarts of Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food had been decimated—Marcus finished one quart single-handedly before he excused himself and headed upstairs. Garrett and Piper were still on their walk—they’d been gone for over an hour, a fact which embarrassed Beth—and Peyton had wandered into the living room, plucked a paperback off the shelf and fell asleep reading in the recliner. Her soft snoring was audible in the dining room where Beth and David nursed the last two glasses of wine.

“Was dinner a success?” Beth asked. Her words came out slurred. It had been a long time since she drank this much. Across the table, David had taken on a mystical aura. Was that really David Ronan in this house after so many years?

“Huge success,” David said. “If only because we managed to get rid of all the kids.”

“Winnie never even showed her face,” Beth said.

“I’d like to meet her sometime,” David said. “Is she beautiful like her mother?”

“She’s beautiful like Winnie,” Beth said. “But she’s very sad. I don’t know what to do to help her.”

“She needs time,” David said. He lowered his voice. “What’s the deal with Marcus? I asked him if he was a friend of the kids’ from school, and he said no.”

Beth dropped her head into her hands. “It’s a long story. I don’t want to get into it.”

David stood up. “Come on. Let’s go out onto the deck.”

“I don’t think we should.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” Beth said. Her voice was louder than she meant it to be, and she noticed a snag in Peyton’s breathing, but then the gentle snoring resumed. “Because,” Beth said again, “I’m drunk and I can’t help the things I’m thinking.”

“Such as?”

“Such as, what are you
doing
here?”

“Aside from drinking myself silly?”

“Why did I bump into you at the grocery store my first day here? Why did I ask you to dinner? Why did you have my name stuck to your dashboard?”

David extended his hand. “Let’s go out to the deck. Your grandfather built that deck for nights like this one.”

Beth rose but she didn’t take David’s hand. Instead she carried her wineglass forward carefully, solemnly, like a chalice. Out onto the deck they went.

The beach was dark below them. “Should we be worried about the kids?” Beth asked.

“Garrett seemed trustworthy.”

“Is Piper trustworthy?”

“With everyone but me.”

“She’s a lot angrier about you and Rosie splitting up than you realize.”

“She’s not angry about us splitting. She’s angry at me, alone, because I won’t give Rosie my blessing.”

Beth lay back in the chaise lounge and David pulled a chair up next to her. Beth closed her eyes. Six summers she’d spent with this man—from ages sixteen to twenty-one. That last summer was the most magical summer of her life, until it ended. Ended with Beth’s father throwing David out of this house, and Beth watching the whole scene from up in her room, like a princess locked in a tower. She was twenty-one, an adult, with only a year left at Sarah Lawrence; she could have defied her father. That was what David wrote later in the letters that arrived at her college post office box.
You could have defied your father. You could have honored our commitment.

Beth thought fleetingly of the purple cosmos.

“I never told my kids about us,” she said. She took a deep breath. “And I never told Arch.”

“You never told Arch?” David asked.

“No,” she said, the guilt souring the back of her throat. On top of everything else, the guilt. “I decided to keep that part of my past private. What about your girls?”

“I’m not sure how much they know. Rosie might have said something. She was always jealous of you, because you were first.”

“Arch wasn’t jealous of anyone,” Beth said. “He wouldn’t have been jealous of you, even if I had told him the truth. Arch was a man who was perfectly confident in who he was and content with all he’d been given. He never looked sideways, only forward.” Just speaking this way about Arch revived Beth. She sat up. “I’m glad you came tonight, David Ronan,” she said. “It was good to see you. And to meet your girls. They’re beautiful.”

“Why does it feel like I’m getting thrown out?” David said. He leaned closer to her and lowered his voice. “The reason why your name was on my dashboard was because I wanted it there.”

It was chilly out, but Beth flushed. Heat bloomed in her chest. He wanted her name there.

“Where I could see it.” He let his hand fall onto her thigh, as lightly as a leaf.

“This is not okay,” she said, lifting his hand. “I’m not yours to touch.”

“But you were.”

“Yes, I was. Twenty-five years ago. In the interim, though, I married Arch and had two children and lived a very happy and fulfilled life that came to an end three months ago.”

“I understand,” he said. “You’re not ready.”

“I may never be ready.”

“Well, if and when you are …”

“David …”

“You don’t have to say anything else. I’m sorry I’m being forward. Is it okay if we see each other again?”

“See each other, how?”

“Can I take you to breakfast in the morning?”

“No.”

“Lunch?”

“No.”

“How about the sunset, then, in Madaket?”

“I can watch the sun set from here.”

“Fine,” he said. “Be that way.”

“You can call me,” Beth said.

He seemed placated by that, but only for a second. “This house has no phone,” he said.

“That’s right.”

“Do you have a cell phone?” he asked.

“In New York,” Beth said. “I didn’t bring it. I didn’t anticipate having suitors.”

“So how will I call you?”

“I guess you won’t. But we’ll bump into each other. It’s a small island, David. Right now, though, you must go.”

“Well, I’m not leaving without my daughter.”

“No, I guess you’re not,” Beth said. She felt guilty because she was the mother of the boy. If it were Winnie out there, she’d feel panicked. But before she could wonder too long about where Garrett had taken Piper, she heard voices, and a minute later, the kids ascended the stairs holding hands. Beth smiled. When Beth and David were seventeen, they’d been dating for a year already. They’d had sex already. They’d said “I love you” already and meant it with all their hearts.

And now here were Garrett and Piper, their children: Beth and David a generation removed. It touched Beth in a way she couldn’t name.

“We’re going to see each other tomorrow night,” Garrett announced.

“Fine,” Beth said, as if he’d been asking permission.

“Can you drop me off here tomorrow night around seven, Dad?” Piper asked her father. “If you say no, I’ll ride my bike. I don’t care if it’s dark.”

“I’d prefer you not hand me any ultimatums,” David said. “But, yes, I’d be happy to bring you here tomorrow.” He winked at Beth. Victory for him. Then he woke Peyton and directed his girls out to the car.

Beth and Garrett stood at the screen door until the Ronans pulled away.

“Piper seems nice,” Beth said. “She’s very pretty.”

“You told me his wife was coming,” Garrett said.

Beth closed the front door and turned off the porch light. The house was quiet. That was perhaps the most noticeable difference between Nantucket and New York. The absence of noise. “I thought she was coming. I didn’t realize they had split up.” A little background noise—some cars honking, people yelling or singing or hailing cabs—might disguise the lie in her voice. Here, the lie was naked, exposed. Garrett would hear it.

“Piper told me her dad considered this to be a date.”

“David might have considered this a date,” Beth said. “But I didn’t.”

Garrett looked at her in a way that let her know he could see right through her. She hoped and prayed that Piper didn’t know about her and David. Every man, woman, and child was entitled to a secret and Beth had hers; she didn’t want to fear its disclosure if Garrett and Piper started dating. She grew angry at the unfairness of it—it was
her
past, her secret, her history, years before she met Arch and had these children. It was not mandatory for her to share it—not even with Arch. Her husband and kids did not automatically own everything that happened in her life.

Beth sighed. This summer was going to be even harder than she’d initially thought. And she could blame nobody but herself.
She’d
invited David for dinner. Disinvited him, then invited him again.

“What are you and Piper doing tomorrow?” she asked.

“Don’t know yet.”

“But you had a good time tonight?”

Garrett’s stare softened into a smile. He looked at the floor. “Yeah.”

Beth hugged her son, who was rigid and unyielding in her arms. This was what it felt like to hold an angry teenager.

“Okay,” she said. “Sweet dreams.”

Winnie woke up in the middle of the night, hungrier than she’d ever been in her life. A voice in her head screamed out for food. She waited until her eyes adjusted to the dark and then she padded downstairs to the kitchen. Her mother, of course, had cleaned everything up. (Winnie’s father used to say, “Mom can’t sleep at night if there’s an unwashed dish in the house.”) All of the leftovers were in the fridge, covered with plastic wrap. Sliced steak, two baked potatoes, some sour cream. Winnie fixed herself a plate, poured a glass of milk and sat down at the kitchen table. The trick was to keep from thinking about her father. Thinking about her father made eating impossible. Even thinking that one stupid thing: her father lingering in the kitchen after a dinner party while Beth cleaned up. Wearing his blue pajamas and his tortoiseshell glasses because he would have taken out his contacts, the top of his head grazing the copper pots that hung from the ceiling. Drinking ice water from the Yankees mug he’d gotten as a kid that he kept by his bed every night. Saying, “Mom can’t sleep at night if there’s an unwashed dish in the house.” That was Winnie’s father in one of his simple, human moments, a moment she never would have given a second thought, except now he was dead and every memory seemed unspeakably precious. It made Winnie upset enough that she stared at her plate of food. Yes, it looked delicious, yes, she was hungry, but no, she couldn’t eat.