The Last Summer at Chelsea Beach (11 page)

Now everything was different. Liam was off getting into trouble and Charlie was with that red-haired girl. My mind was flooded with images. Where was he taking her tonight? So those moments I’d glimpsed between me and Charlie had just been my imagination. How foolish of me! I had no right to stop him from dating, but it still felt like a betrayal—and it hurt worse than I could have imagined.

“We’re here.” Robbie tugged at my arm and we climbed off, then walked the last few steps to the wide promenade of the boardwalk. The shops and arcades stood in a row beneath brightly colored awnings. The heady aroma of taffy and funnel cake and caramel corn, which I normally savored, seemed stifling now. Roller coasters and other amusements rose on the massive piers that jutted out like freighters into the sea. Across the boardwalk, a serviceman who had not yet shipped out yet stole a kiss from the girl on his arm.

We walked passed the Warner Theater, its marquee alight touting a Gary Cooper film. Once the boardwalk would have come alive with twinkling lights even before dusk, but now they were dimmed out, lights covered with a special blue film in a precaution to make the coast less visible in case of an attack. “The Miss America pageant is coming,” Robbie announced as they passed a poster of a striking woman in a swim costume.

“She sure is a dish,” Jack chimed in, but the words sounded forced and silly.

“Hey!” Normally I didn’t mind the boys’ rough banter. “That’s rude to say in front of me.”

“Sorry, Ad,” Jack said, chastened.

But his apology did no good. My frustration, with Charlie and Liam and all of it, suddenly boiled over. The lights and merriment only seemed to amplify my sadness. I could stand it no longer. “I’m a girl, too, you know. Maybe it’s time you remembered that!”

I turned away blindly. Ignoring the boys’ calls, I dodged through children licking ice-cream cones and the wicker rickshaws pushed by colored men. I ran south, my sandals flapping against the boards until the sound and lights faded behind me.

Finally, I slowed a bit, breathing heavily. The sun was setting in great layers of pink, like wide swaths of strawberry frosting on a cake I’d once admired through a bakery window. The boardwalk grew quiet except for the cry of a few gulls and the rhythmic thunder of the waves. When I reached Chelsea Avenue, I saw a cluster of kids sitting around a fire down on the beach and Liam’s dirt bike propped against the side of the boardwalk. Before I knew it, I was going after him.

I took off my sandals and then stepped onto the beach. The sand, still warm, grew damp and harder beneath my feet as I neared the water. About fifteen feet away from the group, I stopped. Seven or eight kids sat in the surf smoking and drinking out of glass soda bottles that I guessed contained something stronger. Liam was not among them, and for a moment I was grateful I had been wrong. Then a familiar whoop came across the water. Liam was almost fifty feet out paddling on a surfboard, scarcely visible at dusk. It wasn’t accurate anymore to say that Liam had no hobbies. He had the dirt bike and surfing, which he had picked up earlier this summer. He was drawn, it seemed, to anything dangerous. He rose up and the water seemed to dance beneath him. I momentarily forgot my fear of the water and stood transfixed.

As Liam played to his audience, he scanned the coastline. Seeing me, he lurched in surprise. The board few out from under him and his legs went flying through the air. “Liam!” I called, panic surging through me. Seconds passed and I watched the surface, willing him to appear.

A minute later he emerged in shallow water, his hair dark and slicked with water. As he saw me, a light came to his eyes and for a moment he almost smiled. Then his face seemed to close again and he turned from me, starting toward the group by the fire. “Liam, wait.” As he neared, I noticed an odd smell mingling with the salt water, and his eyes were glassy.

“Hey, Ad.” He reached into his bag and held out a flask to me. His look was daring, sure that I would say no. “I didn’t think so,” he sneered when I hesitated. I took the flask from him and as I raised it, the acidic smell took me back to the glass of vodka Nonna always had before supper. Wanting him to trust me but knowing better than to sip, I took a swig, cringing at the burn.

The others kids were packing up now and I feared Liam would follow, leaving me behind. I shivered. He pulled out a shirt and passed it to me, and I could smell the sweat and smoke and beer it had seen as I rolled up the too-long sleeves. He dropped to the sand and I followed, leaning back. There was a great white streak of cloud across the night sky, seeming to light it, as if someone had taken a piece of chalk and brushed it sideways. One of Robbie’s ceiling sketches come to life.

I stared up at the sea of stars. “So much darkness,” Liam said. I turned in amazement. Was that really what he saw? “What are you doing here?” he asked.

Running away
, I thought.
Just like you.
I drew my knees close under the sweatshirt and wrapped my arms around them. There were moments when Liam and I seemed to get each other, like last February when snow had blanketed Second Street in fresh white. The boys had built forts out of shoveled snow on either side of the street and it had been Liam and I on one side of the snowball fight, just the two of us against the world. “I was thinking about school this fall,” I said instead, trying to find a topic easier than admitting the real reason I had come.

“School is really more Jack’s turf. Anyway, what’s the point? We could have had this conversation at home.”

“Except you’re never there!” I accused. “Or when you are, you’re so busy trying to cover up the fact that you are drunk or whatever that you ignore everyone.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Wow. That may be the first time I’ve ever seen you lose your cool.”

My irritation rose. “Don’t mock me. I’m serious.”

“I’m serious, too. You’re always so composed. I may be screwed up, but at least I know I’m alive.”

“This isn’t about me, Liam.”

“The hell it isn’t. You want to talk, fine, but it’s got to cut both ways. You can’t just sit there like some kind of shrink and look inside me.”

“Fine.” I decided to try another approach. “Truth or dare?”

“What?”

“You heard me.” I hoped he wouldn’t pick dare because there was no challenge I could think of that he wouldn’t do.

“Dare.” He smirked.

“I dare you to tell me what’s eating you. I dare you to tell me why you’ve changed.”

“That’s a truth, not a dare,” Liam protested but then he answered. “Nothing. This is my life. What else is there to do besides drink and surf and sleep? My turn. Truth or dare?”

“Truth.”

“I knew it. You would never pick dare.”

“Well, it’s my choice,” I said defensively.

“Have you ever gone all the way?”

I reared backward, shocked. “Liam!”

“It’s a fair question.”

“No, of course not.” I hoped he couldn’t see my face turn crimson in the dim light.

“Why not?”

“That’s a second question. I wouldn’t right now. Not with anyone.”

“Not even with Charlie?”

“That’s your third question. Now, it’s my turn to ask.”

Ignoring me, he pressed on. “You love him, don’t you?”

My breath caught. Was it really so obvious? “That’s your fourth. Truth or dare?”

“Addie, this is stupid. You’ll keep choosing truth and I’ll keep choosing dare, because that’s who we are. There’s nothing left to say.”

“One more,” I pleaded.

“Okay, I choose dare.”

“I dare you to succeed, Liam Connally. You can rebel all you want, but you don’t have to go to hell in a handbasket while doing it. Hang in there, do your homework. Just get by and for goodness’ sake don’t get yourself killed.”

“Now you sound like my mother.” A quiet moment passed between us. “Truth or dare.”

I took a deep breath, desperate to reach him and pull him from the corner into which he had withdrawn. “Dare.”

“Really?” Surprised, he thought for a moment. “Come swimming with me.”

Behind him the ocean at dusk roiled, darker and more menacing than ever. “I can’t, Liam. You know that.”

“Please,” he pleaded in a voice that tugged at my heart. For a moment, I considered trying. It might be my only chance to reach him.

But fear clamped down anew. “I’m sorry, I can’t.”

He held out his hand, as though inviting me to accompany him on a journey, and I wanted—really wanted—take it. “C’mon, Addie. Live a little.” I shook my head. “I thought so.” His voice was guarded once more. “You’re telling me to change, but you won’t.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me, too. I thought you trusted me.”

“I do—”

He picked up his bag. “This is a joke. I’ve got to go.”

“Don’t walk away like this.” Now it was my turn to plead.

“What else is there to say? You’ve done your good deed for the day trying to reform me. But you can’t turn me into a cause, or return me to my family like some kind of trophy.”

“What about your family?”

He stiffened defensively. “What about them?”

“You’re hurting them.”

“They’ll be fine no matter what I do.”

“And Robbie?” I countered. “He looks up to you.”

“He’s got no shortage of big brothers. Jack and Charlie are the better role models by far.”

“Do you really believe that?” He did not answer but looked away, eyes distant. When had Liam slipped away from us? In the middle of a noisy Connally kitchen or in a quiet moment when no one was looking? He seemed gone down a path now too far to reach.

“This has got to stop, Liam, before someone gets hurt.” But he turned and walked up the beach. I watched helplessly as he slipped back into the destructive lifestyle that seemed to be claiming him for its own.

I reached Sunset Avenue forty minutes later, feet aching from the long walk back. The brackish smell of low tide rose from the bay waters, unseen in the darkness. I eyed the Connally house, my disappointment rising anew. Liam was still at the beach or God only knew where, Charlie on his date. Nothing was the same anymore. I started for our house, then stopped with surprise. My aunt and uncle were waiting for me on the front porch. It was nearly ten o’clock. Were they mad at me for going out without asking, or coming home late, or simply for spending more time with the Connallys?

But there was no anger in their eyes. “Addie, come, sit,” Aunt Bess said as they led me to the stairs up to our rooms. Aunt Bess sat down beside me on the daybed in the sunroom. “It’s about your parents.” She looked at Uncle Meyer uncertainly and then back to me. “They’ve gone missing.”

All the air seemed to leave my lungs as all of the worries I’d had about the Connallys vanished. “Papa was arrested before.” I willed myself to breathe against the tightness in my chest. “But he came back.” My parents had remained in my thoughts of course, though fuzzier and more remote with time. Now their faces appeared sharply before me and my guilt rose. How had I let go of worrying about them, even for a single second?

Uncle Meyer brushed at his eyes. “It’s not like that. I’m afraid they’re both gone.” In his hand he clutched a small bundle of worn envelopes. I reached out and took them, trembling as I recognized the letters I’d written to my parents, one each week since coming here. I’d described my life with great care, focusing on the best parts in hopes that it would make them stop what they were doing and come to America. It had hurt that other than once at the beginning they had not written back, even for my birthday and the holidays. My uncle’s explanations about the inconsistency of wartime post had been of little comfort. Now my letters had been returned, each one stamped undeliverable.

“How long have you known?”

My aunt and uncle exchanged uneasy looks. “We knew the letters were coming back, but we didn’t know why until just now,” Uncle Meyer answered. Why hadn’t they told me? He passed me a torn piece of paper containing a scrawl in Italian:
Montfortes no longer at this address. No forwarding address given
.

“They could be in hiding,” I said, clinging desperately to hope.

Uncle Meyer’s eyes flickered and there seemed to be something more he wanted to say. My parents would not have gone without sending me a way to reach them—unless they were taken unexpectedly, not given a choice.

“We don’t know if they were arrested,” Aunt Bess offered, as though this might make things better. She had never been there—how could she possibly know?

I turned and ran down the steps of the duplex and across the yard. I knocked, then opened the door without waiting. Mrs. Connally sat alone reading on the sofa. Seeing me, her face crinkled with concern. “Addie, what is it?”

“My parents.” I told her what I had just learned. She enveloped me softly, letting me sob into the softness of her skirt.

A few minutes later, I straightened. “If I hadn’t left, they might be safe.” Of course, it had not been my choice. Mamma had not even told me I was leaving Trieste until we reached the ship, knowing I would refuse. But I could have fought it and even run away and gone back.

“If you hadn’t left, you would have been taken as well,” Mrs. Connally said softly. “Your mother did what all good mothers do, fight for their children’s survival. I would have done the same.”