Bittersweet (13 page)

As if that meant something to me. “But how am I supposed to know—”

She lifted one finger in the air as if to scold me. “I’m letting you take your own time, remember?”

“Yes, but ‘untoward’? What’s that supposed to mean? And ‘solid evidence’? I don’t know what that—”

Just then Ev charged around the bend. Indo dropped her hands from my shoulders, and I understood that my work on the Winslow papers was supposed to be a secret.

“I’ve been looking for you everywhere!” Ev flung her arms around me as though I was the one who’d been ignoring her all week. “A few of us are going on a voyage tomorrow, and you have to come too.”

“Voyage?”

“On a sailboat.”

Another version of myself would have been terrified at the thought of sailing for the first time, but Ev was saying she needed me. Still, I’d made plans for an afternoon of swimming with her sister. “Lu can come, right?” I pushed my luck, thinking of the chance to play matchmaker. “And the boys?”

Ev rolled her eyes dismissively.

“Well, how many people are going?” I pushed. “Is there enough room? I don’t want her to feel left out.”

Ev grudgingly admitted, “We could use the extra hands.”

Indo had wandered off. She picked at Fritz’s burrs.

“Sorry, Indo,” Ev said disdainfully, “it’s for the under-twenty set.”

The momentary look of pain in Indo’s eyes was so familiar that I almost begged out of the trip right there.

B
ut instead I stood on the rocking Winloch dock bright and early the next morning, Ev on one side, Lu and the boys on the other, keeping a lookout for the white sail and spinnaker betokening our ride. There were whitecaps. The wind coming off the water brought a shiver. I’d roused at dawn, long before Ev and Lu (who’d crashed on the musty porch sofa, barely denting it), and proudly made a picnic of chicken salad sandwiches.

“What do you think the whole point of the trip is?” Ev had teased when she’d emerged twenty minutes later than we were due on the dock.

I frowned, not understanding.

“We’re going for lunch,” she’d said, giggling, pulling me into a hug. “So serious, Mabel Dagmar.” I could hear the mocking in her voice but made an effort to laugh along because we’d finally be spending the day together.

I had never been on a sailboat before and was sure I’d do something disastrous that would capsize the lot of us. On the dock, Lu leaned up beside me like a grateful cat. “Don’t worry, the boys won’t let us do anything anyway,” she said. Arlo and Jeffrey threw twigs into the lake, while Owen sat silently at Lu’s side. As far as I could
tell, not a word had passed between them, but then, I reminded myself, the girl was only fourteen, and I wouldn’t do any better.

“There they are!” exclaimed Ev, waving at a distant white spot on the horizon. I still had no idea who was taking us out. As the speck became a boat, I didn’t recognize either of the men on deck—one was tall and broad, the other round and bearded.

I kept my eyes on the craft as it approached, Lu explaining the actions of the men on board. “They’re coming in on a broad reach, so they’ll take a tack in, which means bringing the spinnaker down.” I thought I understood what she meant—the boat was coming in a straight line from a long way off, but there was no way they’d reach us at the angle they were coming, so they were going to turn abruptly toward us—tack—and take down the great white balloon-thing I’d been eyeing at the front of the boat. “See?” she said, as one of the figures jumped where she’d been pointing. “He’s climbing on the foredeck. Now down comes the spinnaker”—the figure gathered the big, white, mushrooming sail as the boat turned toward us—“see, he’s pulling it down with one arm, and with the other he’s hooking the halyard to the jib”—which I took to be the smaller sail that he attached to the line which had formerly held up the spinnaker—“and now they’re going to heel as they come about.” Before I could ask what
heel
meant, I understood. The jib up and secured in place, all at once the boat listed dramatically to the right as it came across the wind and in our direction. I shrieked. “It’s not going to capsize,” Lu reassured.

The boat came about fifty yards off the dock, then tacked quickly straight toward us. The sails roared as they whipped about. I stepped back as the boat neared, until, as though in a choreographed dance, the men on board let the ropes in their hands go (“They’re called sheets,” Lu shouted), the sails cursed as the boat zoomed straight for the dock, Ev and Arlo grabbed the rope at the front of the boat, and I was pulled on board.

I crouched and covered my head, shielding myself from the terrifying flapping, and the shouting all around me, until there was a collective pulling-up of lines. The fabric quieted above us. We were off at an alarming pace; by the time I lifted my head, we were already twenty feet from the dock. I couldn’t believe they all looked so calm.

“You’ll get the hang of it,” Lu said indulgently, but I could guarantee I wouldn’t be doing this again anytime soon.

I finally let Ev coax me over to the wheel, where the two men piloting the craft stood. When I ventured a glance at the water, it seemed as though we were going hundreds of miles an hour. Ev urged me toward the men, and it dawned on me, through my queasiness, that this was a setup.

They were already grown. One of them, Eric, was tall and blond and handsome, and clearly, from the way Ev was eyeing him, meant for her. The other was named Murray. He was squat and pink-faced, the collar of his polo turned up against his hairy neck. He had the kind of disappointing beard that had taken weeks to grow—scraggly and sparse. Satisfied she’d found me a date, Ev canoodled with Eric.

“You from around here, May?” Murray demanded as he thrust a glass of champagne into my hands.

I shook my head no and looked for Lu, but she and Owen already sat side by side up on the bow, gazing silently together into our future. I selfishly wished I hadn’t invited him.

“She’s a beaut,” Murray bragged. I thought he meant Lu, but he knocked on the side of the boat and went on. “Eric’s dad bought her back in ’seventy-three, but you wouldn’t know it—they’ve taken real good care of her, real good care.” He pointed to the varnished wooden detailing. “Just look at that brightwork.” His puffy, pink lips flapped as he prattled on, and I learned that he and Eric were both the sons of prominent Burlington families. “But nothing like the Winslows,” he declared with obvious admiration. It was clear he had a big man-crush on Eric, who looked like the overdrawn hero of
a Disney film. Poor Murray, I thought, as I sipped my champagne, watching Eric wave him over to steer so he could take Ev belowdecks.

“I think they’ve been meeting in secret,” I mumbled, remembering the unknown motor roaring off into the night. I watched the cabin door close behind Ev.

“Doesn’t surprise me.” Murray burped, offering me a wry wink. “Eric knows how to close the deal.”

The minutes crawled by as Murray bragged about Columbia Business School and I watched a piece of food wiggle in his thin mustache (after much deliberation, I determined it must be soft-boiled egg). Lu wandered by with a beer.

“You shouldn’t drink.” I sounded like a schoolmarm. I could see Owen over her shoulder, waiting for her.

She took a long draft, raised the bottle in salute, and winked. “I know.” After she left me, I could think only of Ev, down below my very feet, doing god knows what to Mr. Disney. I guessed this must be what seasick meant.

“Land ho!” Murray cried at the shore growing before us. The teenage boys took his instructions until Eric appeared back on deck looking quite pleased with himself. Ev emerged a few minutes later, hair tousled, rubbing her nose. “You look so cute today!” she squealed manically, clasping my hand.

I wanted to be away from her, for the first time in a long time, just as far away from her as I could get.

We disembarked. Lu’s arm linked in mine.

I was grateful for the touch of kindness. “So?” I whispered, trying to be fun. Before us, Owen and Murray and the teenagers were charging toward lunch. Ev and Eric were still on board.

“He held my hand,” Lu confided. I took her trembling fingers and squeezed them reassuringly, as if I had ever even kissed someone.

Poolside at the Mansfield Club were a handful of paunchy golfers drinking whiskey—Murray in twenty-five years. We were by far the youngest people there, and stuck out like sore thumbs, if only because three of us were girls. Eric strutted under the awning as if he owned the place, ordering us all Cokes at the outdoor bar and sneaking rum into his and Ev’s glasses with a hidden flask. We settled down beside the turquoise pool.

“You happy now, baby?” Eric asked Ev. To me he bragged, “She wouldn’t shut up about this place, and since my dad’s a member …”

“I’m getting the Caesar salad,” Ev declared. Her eyes looked crazy. I’d seen her on drugs before, but never in the middle of the day. She was like a car accident I’d driven past once on I-5: irresistibly distressing. I proposed to Lu we take a walk, but she seemed completely unfazed by Ev’s altered state—either she was so innocent she noticed nothing or she was so inured to drugs that this hardly registered.

“Why isn’t anyone here?” I asked.

“It’s packed on the weekends,” Eric boasted. “Friday afternoons are Adults Only.” He gestured toward Ev. “Good thing we had this hottie with us or they wouldn’t have let any of you kiddos in.”

Ev giggled, burying her face in his neck.

“They should have more ‘Adult’ activities then. Let’s get some strippers out here, am I right, boys?” Murray sneered, lifting his hand up for high fives with the teenagers, who guffawed in response. All but Owen. I liked that kid.

“I’ll have a burger,” I said, getting up. “With cheese fries.” Ev didn’t so much as bat an eye at my diet-busting order.

Inside, the club was low-lit and carpeted. I’d expected something Adirondack and upscale, but I might as well have been in Texas in the seventies. I followed a long hallway in the direction of the double doors, which the waiter had told me would lead to the lobby bathrooms,
wondering if the pair of Ev’s flip-flops I’d slipped on that morning were up to the dress code. A busboy brushed through the doors and headed straight toward me. He had a tray of dishes balanced on his shoulder, and I almost went by without looking at his face. In the instant we passed each other, I did.

“John?” I said, stopping short, surprised and happy to see him.

His face froze as he took me in: shock, then anger. “What are you doing here?” he demanded. I realized I’d never seen him anything but calm.

“We—we sailed over,” I said, as John scanned the hallway.

“You can’t tell anyone you saw me,” he said.

“Okay.”

“If the Winslows found out I work here … it would be a disaster.”

“I get it.” I padded down the hallway toward the lobby. I could feel him watching me walk away. At the double doors, I swiveled. “Ev’s here with Eric, you know.”

He clenched his jaw involuntarily. So it was true—he loved her.

I thought of how wistful she’d sounded the night she’d discovered my collage, talking about him. Love was a force stronger than anything that could keep them apart—if they couldn’t see that themselves, someone had to help them. “You should be fighting for her,” I heard myself say. “She deserves better than him.”

He looked down at the floor as though he were a little boy shamed. He nodded once before turning, with his tray of tinkling dishware, to stride down the hall.

W
e sailed back on a southerly breeze, after hours huddled by the wind-whipped pool. On the way home I watched Owen and Lu. Something had shifted between them; even though they were not touching, they were recognizably in each other’s orbit, two magnets that could not be unstuck. I felt proud of my matchmaking abilities as we anchored well off Winloch and Eric popped open yet another bottle of champagne.

“Show’s over, kiddos,” Ev declared, pointing at the water. I expected Lu to scoff, but instead she drew off her T-shirt and shorts, revealing her damp bikini, and dove in. Owen watched her with unabashed admiration, and jumped in behind her, fully clothed. Arlo and Jeffrey joined too, their flailing bluster disrupting the perfect vision of Lu’s long, lovely limbs propelling her toward home.

“It’s a long way to shore,” Murray said, raising a cocky eyebrow at me. I was well aware of this, calculating, as I had, that unless I strapped myself into a stolen life preserver, there was no way I was escaping this boat. Even if I had been able to flee, I couldn’t leave Ev.

“Party!” She whooped, fist whipping the air, until Eric planted a messy kiss on her lips. Then she put her arms around him and kissed back, a long, slow, wet embrace that made my stomach lurch.

Murray leaned in.

“No thank you,” I said as politely as I could. He raised his hands in the air and stepped back, then strode to the stern and rolled himself a joint. So it was either spend the evening with lecherous Murray or chaperone the writhing, double-backed monster of Ev and Eric. In the distance, I made out Lu and the boys pulling themselves onto the dock. The light was dying around us. A cloud moved in.

I edged in on Ev and hovered there until she finally looked up at me.

“Can I steal her?” I said to Eric in a fake voice. “Girl troubles.”

He let go of her with the same raised hands with which Murray had met my rebuke, a you-can-have-her-you-crazy-girl stance which angered me even as it satisfied my need to get her alone. Eric joined Murray at the stern, taking a long draw from the joint.

“What?” Ev said wearily.

“Don’t you think we should be getting home?”

She rolled her eyes. “Grow up, Mabel. Have some fun.”

I looked back at Murray. “I’m not having fun with that.”

“Well I am,” she slurred, swaying. She tried to wave to Eric, but her hand got lost in the air. She was more messed up than I’d thought.

“What’d you take?” I asked. She stuck out her tongue in reply.

“Let’s just ask them to take us home, okay,” I continued, “and we can have a good dinner and—”