Off Season (16 page)

“Probably wanted to stay around and admire the aftermath of her handiwork,” my father said grimly. By that time Peaches Davenport was persona non grata in more houses than ours. Dad told me, perhaps by way of comfort, for I was utterly devastated, nearly flattened, by the fallout from her betrayal, that none of the Carter’s Cove kids would play with her, and her grandmother was busily arranging outings with the colony children. And, I thought bleakly, drawing their mothers aside to whisper in their ears the “whole dreadful business,” as Canon Davenport had put it during the acrid parental confrontation that had followed.

Jon and I had had time to tell my parents and his mother, tearfully on my part, that we were doing nothing wrong. That we were simply sitting on the top rocks watching the moon and talking when Peaches had materialized beside us.

“Honey,” my father said, “she said Jon was lying on top of you. If that’s not true, then we’ll dismiss her as the little liar I suspect she is. But you have to tell us the truth now.”

I did not speak. Across our living room, beside the fire, Jon sat cross-legged on the rug at his mother’s feet, staring into the flames, unmoving. Her hand was playing softly through his hair, just as mine had been earlier.

Jon raised his head and looked around the big, fire-lit room as if memorizing it, and then at my parents.

“I was kissing her,” he said. “And I wasn’t lying on top of her. I was propped up beside her. I kissed her one time, and if Peaches hadn’t snuck up there I probably would have done it again. But that’s all it was. I . . . I like Lilly an awful lot. I wanted to be with her as much as I could this summer. But I guess that’s out of the question now, isn’t it?”

“Peaches is just jealous.” I sobbed. “She’s always wanted Jon to be her boyfriend. She’s chased him all summer. Whatever she said we were doing, it was just exactly what we told you. I know she’s messed the whole thing up. I know that. I know you’re not going to let me see Jon anymore. I know his dad will take him home.”

“You let me handle his dad, Lilly,” Claire Lowell said, her voice calm. “If we leave now, maybe I can get to him before the canon does. I do think you two better not see each other for a while, until we can straighten all this out. The Davenports ought to take that little witch home right now, but I can just imagine the fit she’d throw. Neither of them will lift a finger to discipline her. It’s not the end of the world, or even the summer.”

Jon got up from the rug and followed her out of the room. He gave me one last despairing look, and then he was gone into the darkness of the hallway.

I sat crying softly on the sofa for a long time. My mother and father sat beside me. Both had their arms around me. I will always love them for that.

“We trust you, Lilly,” my mother said. “You’ve never given us reason not to. But you’re only eleven years old. That’s a bit young to be kissing anybody, especially somebody you just met. You’ve got years and years; there will be so many boys.”

“No.” I wept. “There won’t. There’s only going to be Jon. I—I’m going to marry him. He wants me to. He’s not going to change his mind and neither am I.”

In the silence that spun out, only the fire snickering sleepily behind the screen made any noise. I could almost feel the look my parents exchanged over my head.

Then my father said, “Well, you could do a lot worse. Jon’s a fine boy. Just promise me you’ll wait until you can pay your own rent. I don’t want to be giving the bride away next summer.”

I hiccupped. “His father will take him home as soon as he can pack. I heard Mrs. Lowell when she told Mother what he thinks of me.”

“Honey . . .” my mother began.

“I’ll bet there will be a next summer,” my father said, tightening his arms around me. “I’d hate to try to take Claire Lowell anywhere she didn’t want to go. Go on up to bed now. I’m going over to the Lowells’ in the morning and try to talk some sense into Arthur. Maybe he’ll fall on his sword. I need to bring Wilma home, too. I miss him, Peaches be damned.

“I doubt we’ll see much of Peaches,” my father went on, grinning. “Damned shame, isn’t it?”

“George, we need to try to remember the terrible loss she’s had,” my mother said.

“Her parents. Yeah. Maybe they committed suicide rather than spend another day with Peaches.”

“George!” But she didn’t sound terribly shocked.

I crawled into bed thinking that I would probably cry all night. But I didn’t. I slid into a great orb of moonlight in which floated crystal islands, and a low voice whispered in my ear. I could not understand what it was saying, but it was a comforting voice. I woke once, got up and retrieved the osprey feather from the little jewelry box where I had put it, and went back to sleep.

He kissed me
, I thought.
He kissed me. There’s not anything anybody can do about that.

The next morning one of the first of the July fogs had rolled in, thick and solid as cotton.

“Going to be a long one,” Clara said, pouring coffee. “The first one always is. I remember one—oh, back before you were born, Lilly—that lasted twenty-two days. None of the lobstermen could get out. Lost most of the summer haul that year.”

I finished breakfast and went up to the third floor to my lair. It was cold and fog-clammy, and I wrapped myself in the old quilt I kept there and picked up
The Golden Bough
. I knew it would sustain me, and after it there were others, and still others. Endless books. I wondered what Jon would do with his long hours of house arrest. He certainly couldn’t play tennis. Each day I woke thinking,
This will be the day I hear they are leaving.
But they did not. I knew Arthur Lowell was absolutely furious; my father’s face told me that when he returned with Wilma the morning after the solstice party. But he would not talk about it, beyond saying, “The man’s an enormous fool.”

On the eleventh day the fog lifted a bit, enough to let the sun sidle out for a few hours, and I went out into it, so glad to see steaming earth and water and sky that I simply sat on the seawall, eyes closed, face turned up to the sun, letting it recast the bones under my skin. Beside me Wilma jingled and snuffled, and then curled up on the still-wet grass and went to sleep. I drowsed, too.

“Wake up, sleepyhead,” said a voice that had lingered in my ear these long days, and I started, and looked up, and there was Jon, grinning at me.

Wilma gave a joyful woof and jumped up on Jon’s shoulders, so that I had to push him out of the way to get my arms around Jon. I buried my head in his shoulder. He hugged me hard.

“How?” I quavered, trying not to cry. “How?”

“Dad went home,” he said simply. “Mother and I are staying on till September.”

“Is he still mad?”

“Oh, yeah, but he’ll get over it. He’ll stay down at the quarry office and take it out on the guys there. It’ll be okay.”

“Didn’t he want you to come with him?”

“Yeah. But Mom and I both said no. I don’t think I’ve ever said that to him before.”

“So what did he say then?”

“Nothing. He went to bed. Next morning I heard the car leave real early.”

“Well,” I said. “So what should we do today?”

“Go take a look at the ospreys?”

“It’s awfully foggy,” I said doubtfully.

“Not now it isn’t.”

“None of the boats went out. I don’t think we’re done with it yet.”

“Whatever. Want to play Chinese checkers? I found an old set over at the cottage.”

Just then Claire Lowell appeared, her arms full of early yellow daylilies.

“Hey, sweetie,” she said to me, “is your mom here? I wanted to congratulate her.”

“What for?” I said.

“Big surprise,” Claire Lowell said. “I’ll let her tell you.”

My mother came out of the cottage and down the terrace steps then, smiling.

“What on earth?” she said. And then, in a different voice, “Hello, Peaches.”

We all stared. Peaches had come silently up behind Jon’s mother and none of us had seen her. I could not believe she was standing in my yard, smiling sunnily, not after what she had done, but there she was, in a pink sweater and apple green clam diggers, looking angelic enough to ascend that moment into heaven.

“Hey,” Peaches said. Her voice was lyrical, light and sweet.

“Hey, Jon.”

He stared at her a moment longer, and then said, “Hey, Peaches.”

She did not look at me, or speak.

“I’ve got my surprise for you all set up,” she said to him. “Grandpa finished it last night. I want you to come see it right now. You’ll just love it.”

No one said anything. Peaches merely looked up at Jon, her dimples flashing.

“I’m going to play Chinese checkers with Lilly,” Jon said. “Probably all day. Maybe tomorrow too. Maybe the rest of the summer.”

Peaches did not reply, but a frown knit her silky brows and her rosy mouth turned corner-down. I flinched. I knew that look.

But she did not speak.

Finally Jon’s mother said, “Well, if nobody else is going to tell you, I will, because it’s wonderful. Lilly, your mother is having a one-woman show of her paintings over at the yacht club next Saturday. Mr. Brooks Burns arranged it as a surprise for her. Aren’t you proud? Nobody’s ever had an art showing over there, I’m told.”

More likely as a little thank-you,
I thought meanly, remembering the old hands on my mother’s breasts. But I said nothing.

“Gosh, that’s fabulous, Mrs. Constable,” Jon said. “I can’t wait to see it.”

“Well, you can’t,” Peaches said.

We all looked at her.

“What?” Jon said.

Peaches’ face was red and tight with triumph.

“You can’t because you’re Jewish. They don’t let Jews in the yacht club.”

“Peaches, where on earth did you get that?” Claire Lowell said. “It’s not true! What on earth has gotten into you?”

“Yes, it is too true,” Peaches said. My mother reached for her, but she dodged away and stood staring up at Jon, fists on her hips.

“I know it’s true because I heard my grandmother on the telephone talking to Mrs. Constable, way long ago. She said you didn’t know it, and she doubted your mother did either, because your dad made such a big thing out of the Episcopals and Yale and all that, but that your grandfather had changed his name when he was real young. It used to be Lowenstein. Jon Arthur Lowenstein. Granddaddy knew all about it. He said he’d always known, but he liked your dad and wasn’t going to upset the apple cart. But you can’t go to the yacht club and that’s that.”

“That’s a lie . . .” There was no breath behind Jon’s words.

My father moved in and put his arm around Jon’s shoulders. Claire Lowell simply stood stock-still, white as paper, and stared at Peaches Davenport.

“That will do, Peaches,” my father said. His voice was flat and cold.

“Well, it’s better to know, isn’t it?” she fluted. “What if he’d tried to go to the yacht club and they’d told him he couldn’t come in because he was a Jew?”

“You’re a goddamned liar!” Jon roared suddenly. It was not a boy’s voice. Peaches stepped back, but she went on.

“Why do you think Mrs. Constable got Mr. Constable to give you sailing lessons instead of the guy at the club? Why do you think she said the Forrests’ tennis court was better? She didn’t want your feelings to be hurt, and I don’t either. Listen, it’s okay with me. I don’t care who’s a Jew and who isn’t—”

“Peaches,” my father said in the same iron-cold voice, “go home. Go home right now.”

“I don’t want—”

“GO HOME!”

She turned and ran. We watched her go out of sight. The fog was curling in again; we lost her to the mist before she reached the road home.

Jon turned around very slowly and looked at his mother. “Mother?” he whispered.

“I didn’t know,” she said, so softly we could hardly hear her. “I didn’t know.”

“Jon, you must not think it makes a particle of difference to anyone who knows you,” my father said. He started to lay his arm over Jon’s shoulder again, but Jon shrugged it off.

I looked at my mother. Her hands were over her mouth and her ocean eyes were stormy gray. So it was true, then. But what difference did it make? Jon was Jon, would always be Jon. What did it matter if he was a Jew or a Catholic, or an extraterrestrial or anything at all?

“
Why didn’t he tell me?
” It was a cry of such primal agony and fury that I could not, for a moment, believe it came from Jon. His face was bleached white around his mouth, and veins stood out on his temples.

“
Why didn’t he tell me?
”

“Honey, because he didn’t want you to be hurt in any way,” his mother began. There were tears running down her cheeks. “Or me either. I’m sure that’s why he never told us. There are some really stupid people who care about things like that, and they can do awful things because of it—keep you out of things you might want to join, talk about you to people whose influence might have helped you, things that shouldn’t matter a bit in the world, but do, to some terrible people. I know he must have wanted to protect you—”

“No!”

We all stared at Jon. His mother put her hand on his arm and he jerked it away.

“It wasn’t me he wanted to protect.” He was whispering now, a raw, guttural whisper. “It was Sib. He couldn’t stand for anybody to know Sib was a Jew. Not even a dead Jew. It wouldn’t have mattered to Sib, it wouldn’t have mattered to you or me, but it mattered to him! It mattered more to him than the truth!”

He turned suddenly, gave an incoherent cry, and vaulted over the seawall and ran down the dock to where the Beetle Cat sulked and wallowed in the thick slow sea. In an eyeblink he was down to it and had cast off the lines that held it, and was paddling out into the open water.

“No!” I felt in my throat that I was screaming, but could not hear my words. “No!”

My father ran down the dock after him.

“Jon, come back,” he called. “We’ll work this out—Jon! You can’t sail in this fog, nobody could!”

Claire Lowell gave a wordless cry of terrible grief and fear; I heard it in my ears for weeks after. My mother cried after my father, “Call him back, George! Call him back!”

I looked out over the sea. The thick bank of fog that had shrouded us for days was rolling back in. You could not see any of the islands; we could barely make out the Beetle Cat, Jon’s figure crouched in it. And then we could not see it at all.