Postcards From Last Summer (16 page)

Elle worked hard to contain a grin, unsuccessfully.

“Wipe that smug look off your face.”

“This isn't me being smug.” Elle pointed a finger at her face. “This is me being highly amused by your vain attempts to resist my delicious personality. I've won over tougher cases than you, Darce. It may take some time, but you'll come around.”

Darcy squeezed her eyes shut. “Okay, right now your delicious personality is grating on my nerves. Can we just have lunch and talk about something else?”

“Sure.” Elle handed out menus. “I'll even buy.”

Heads tipped down as we studied the salad and sandwich selections with a collective feeling of relief.

Darcy put her menu down. “And just one more thing. Just to get this on the record so we're square, if I ever catch you with my boyfriend again, I'll have to kill you.”

I felt my brows rise, wondering how Elle would take it.

But she just nodded. “Sounds fair to me. Now who wants to split an order of calamari?”

“T
his is Dr. Samuel Mehta calling from East End Hospital. Is this Darcy Love?”

The voice seemed so out of context in the small Bridgehampton bar where Darcy had gone with her friends to shoot some pool that she wondered for a minute if it was some kind of lame joke.

“This is Darcy. Who's this again?”

The doctor repeated his name, adding that Kevin had been brought in unconscious, an apparent overdose of drugs and alcohol. “He's conscious now. We're not sure of long-term prognosis, but I'd say he's very lucky to be alive.”

Darcy shrank back against the rack of billiard sticks, not sure what to do. When her friends turned from the pool table and asked her what was wrong, she whispered, “Kevin's OD'd.”

Elle's head shot up and Lindsay froze midshot.

“Is he okay?” Tara asked.

Darcy waved them off. “I . . . I don't know what to say. I'm not really next of kin or anything.”

“Yours was the only name he'd give us. Let's put it this way, if you don't give him a ride home, we're going to have to put him in a cab from Riverhead to . . . wherever it is you live. Southampton? No one's going to be happy with that cab fare.”

“I'll come,” she said before she could talk herself out of it. And suddenly she was neatly replacing her pool stick and retrieving her ornamented duck purse from the midst of beer bottles and spinning slightly in search of the door.

“You're going to the hospital?” Tara spelled it out. “Is it serious?”

“He's conscious now, but he told them I was his next of kin.”

“You can't go alone.” Lindsay slid her stick onto the table. “We'll drive you.”

Darcy shrugged. It didn't matter how she got there, as long as she did.

“I'd come along,” Elle offered, “but I guess we'd all think that's a bad idea.”

It took Darcy a minute to unravel Elle's dark humor, but she found herself letting out a macabre laugh on the way to the parking lot. Sometimes Elle's twisted humor was a relief.

Dr. Mehta's words floated through her mind as Lindsay floored it down the expressway toward the Riverhead hospital. Emergency room. Overdose. Next of kin.

“Was he trying to kill himself?” she asked aloud, “or just pushing the party too far?”

“That's a good question.” Lindsay fiddled with the dash, lowering the air-conditioning. “Something you'll have to ask Kevin.”

At the hospital, the clerk at the desk paged Dr. Mehta, a short, dark-skinned man with braces and the wide, dark eyes of a five-year-old. “Darcy Love? Come with me.”

Lindsay peeled off to sit in the waiting room while Darcy followed Dr. Mehta back, past beds blocked off only by thin white curtains. “I've been hoping your friend will talk to us now that you're here. He's been rather stingy on the details.”

Kevin was propped up in the bed, his lips chapped, the collar of his hospital gown stained black from having his stomach pumped, Darcy assumed.

“Tell us, Kevin,” Dr. Mehta began, “what did you take?”

Kevin turned away. “Just some stuff. I think I drank too much.”

“Oh, cut the crap, Kevin.” Darcy stepped up to the bed. “Stop being a mary and tell the doctor what you took.”

Kevin rubbed his eyes with the butt of his hands. “I snorted some coke. I was drinking. One of my friends had some Vicodin. I was supposed to take one, I guess. But I didn't.”

“Vicodin is a powerful pain reliever,” Dr. Mehta said. “Too much of it can kill you, but I suppose you already knew that.”

Kevin shrugged one shoulder, turning to Darcy. The corner of his mouth drooped slightly, as if he was biting his lip to keep from crying. “Thanks for coming. Can you get me out of here now?”

“First, I want to know . . .” She swallowed against the thickness in her throat. It hurt to see him this way, so fragile, his eyes burning with empty light. “Kevin, did you try to kill yourself?”

His eyes flickered down, his face crumpling with pain. He was crying.

Dr. Mehta's head dropped down to his chart. “You know, over time you can kill yourself with alcohol alone. The Vicodin, it just speeds things along, if that's your goal.”

“How could you do that to yourself?” Darcy demanded.

“I just . . . just didn't want to feel the pain anymore.” Kevin lifted one arm, pushing his face into the crook of his elbow. “I missed you, Darce.”

“This isn't about me,” she said. “Not entirely. You've been on a pain-kill mission since junior high, Kev.”

“Yeah, babe. Haven't we all?”

“Not like you, with your friends partying all night on the beach, the endless rounds of drinks on the bar, and popping drugs like they're Skittles. You've lost control of your life, lost the ability to judge what's right and what's the biggest bonehead move you've ever made.”

He snorted. “That would be Elle?”

“No, that would be you nearly killing yourself.”

“I just thought . . .” He swiped at his wet cheeks, then pushed his tongue against his lower lip, making Darcy want to cry. The gesture was endearing, somehow; the old Kevin was there, the kid who used to tease and connive just to get her to make out with him. “I thought if you couldn't stand me anymore, I didn't want to be here.”

“I could stand you, Kevin,” Darcy said, her voice hoarse with emotion. “I love you. But I don't like you very much when you're wasted. After a few drinks and a couple lines of coke, there isn't a lot of Kevin left. Just this blithering asshole that nobody likes.”

He sighed. “What if that blithering ass is the real me?”

“It's not.” Darcy moved up to the bed and reached for his hand, which seemed rough and bonier than she remembered. “And I want the real Kevin back. The guy I knew before cocaine zipped him up too tight.”

“You want me to cut the drugs?” His eyes were hemmed in dark lines.

“Cut the drinking
and
the drugs,” Darcy said firmly.

“We can provide some assistance, Kevin,” Dr. Mehta said, looking like a teenaged Yoda. “Certainly a detox program would serve you well, and we offer therapy and support groups. We have a chapter of AA that meets here, but we can also refer you to many groups that meet right in your own community.”

“I can't do
that.”
Kevin's forehead creased. “My old man would kill me. Son of Coney's in Alcoholics Anonymous? It's not gonna fly, Doc.”

“If it's about cost and privacy, we can work something out,” Darcy said. “My therapist can give you a referral for Betty Ford or someplace in Manhattan or . . . or even in Vermont, near Bennington. I'll take you up myself . . .” Darcy was fast-forwarding to the advantages of having Kevin close to college, away from his influential friends and dysfunctional family. They could spend weekends together, driving through the fiery reds and oranges of the autumn foliage, warming by the fire in quaint bed-and-breakfast inns.

“I'll do everything I can to help you, Kevin, if you're willing to do it.”

“And ultimately, it is your decision, Kevin,” Dr. Mehta cut in. “We can support you, but you are responsible for your life.”

Kevin sucked in a wincing breath, as if it were painful just to breathe. “Yeah, okay. I'll clean up my act. But nothing too radical until after the season ends. My old man will give me hell if I just up and disappear now.”

“Okay,” Darcy said, squeezing his hand and wondering if this could possibly work out. Wisps of hope swirled around the old dream, the Kevin and Darcy Bliss Package. Could it really happen after all?

“Y
ou're a good helper.” Timothy McGowan climbed to the third rung and pointed down at the stack of plywood. “You know, last time we had a hurricane, everyone on the staff pitched in to close up the place. Buttoned it up so well, we had minimal damage. Minimal. But this year, with the end of season so close . . .” He sputtered a raspberry and flicked his hand as if batting away a mosquito. “I let them go. Let them go back to their winter jobs, get out of the path of the storm. Things can be replaced, I say. But people, people are one of a kind. The human condition must be protected and guarded at all costs! At least, that's what I say.”

Among other things,
Darcy thought, feeling a bit numbed by his constant barrage of chatter. Staring up at him, balanced on the ladder, she wondered why his wife didn't get after him to cut that shaggy gray hair, especially the strands that curled around his ears and collar like wild ivy. She'd never noticed inside Coney's, which was dimly lit, but out here the sunshine cast Kevin's father in a whole new light.

“Hand up another board, there, Darcy,” he said. She hoisted up a plywood board, glad for the leather gloves to keep splinters out of her hands. Damn, these boards were heavy, even after Kevin trimmed them down to size with a power saw.

“Thank you, darlin'. I appreciate it.” He fit the board neatly over the window, pulled the hammer from the loop on his pants, and began driving nails. “My son . . . he gets sick of hearing his old man rant and rave, on and on. I know it, but I can't help myself.”

“You're not ranting,” Darcy chided him, although he'd been babbling on so long about social security, union wages, preservatives in bread, and the cheese surplus that she'd tuned out everything but the big exclamations long ago. She hoped there wouldn't be a quiz.

After three hours spent assisting as father and son unloaded plywood, cut it down to size, and tacked it over the windows of Coney's on the Beach in preparation for the incoming hurricane, she was starting to see how the old man drove Kevin crazy, always criticizing and snapping at him. Kevin was sawing the boards too narrow/too wide, moving too fast/too slow. No doubt about it, Timothy McGowan was a cranky old man, but Darcy was still counting on winning him over with her charm and maybe even smoothing things over between the man and his son. Darcy had always had a way with adults—parents, teachers, store clerks, even the Great Egg supermoms who headed the school organizations and Girl Scout troops had loved her. Whether it was her saccharine manners or her thousand-watt smile (courtesy of two orthodontic specialists), Darcy had a gift for sucking up, and she intended to utilize it on Kevin's father.

“Darcy's got some ideas for renovating the restaurant, Pop. Good ideas.”

“Renovations? Oh, really now?” Timothy McGowan's pale blue eyes blinked suspiciously at Darcy.

She wasn't sure she liked the way this was going. “Kevin . . .” She scowled at him, then cocked her head in deference to his father. “You have a lovely place, Mr. McGowan. I've always adored Coney's.”

“But you'd change a thing or two given the chance?” Mr. McGowan slid a piece of plywood off the cart. “So like a woman. And how would you change my establishment, Darcy?”

Now that Kevin had put her on the spot, she figured she might as well share her ideas. “Those bay windows on the south end? The ones with the plants in them. I'd take them out and replace with a solid wall. You could put in a big gas fireplace, which would be a big draw in the winter months. Besides, the southern exposure is too hot for unshielded windows at the beach. And if you close up the wall it will be better insulated; a savings on air-conditioning, fuel bills.”

“Is that right?” His face was rigid. “Not for nothing, Darcy, but who asked you?”

The sting of embarrassment was so sharp, she couldn't muster an answer.

“You
did, Dad.” Kevin dragged a sheet of plywood across the porch. “You asked her.”

And the place needs it, old man!
she wanted to shout. Darcy had come up with dozens of ways to renovate the building, change the menu, and upgrade the business. Renovating Coney's was all part of the master fantasy in which she and Kevin married and became a premier couple of the Hamptons, the restaurant gurus, hosts to movie moguls and actors, TV personalities and dignitaries and any celebrity who seemed to be the new flavor of the month. Sure, Coney's was popular now, but with her input and vision the restaurant could become a Hamptons event, the hottest place to see and be seen out East, on a par with four-star restaurants in Manhattan.

As Timothy moved his ladder to another window, Darcy flexed her fingers inside the leather gloves, feeling very small. Suddenly she understood how Kevin felt, though she imagined this was a minuscule sampling of the degradation his father passed down on a daily basis.

“Goddamned changes,” the older man grumbled. “Everybody's an expert.” He banged a nail, as if to emphasize his anger.

Kevin joined Darcy, swiping the beads of sweat from his forehead with the hem of his T-shirt. “Not for nothing, Dad, but I think Darcy's got some great ideas. This place could use some new vision.”

“Vision. Now that's a buzzword if I ever heard one.” Timothy came down the ladder and swung around toward Darcy and Kevin, pointing the hammer at them. “My father had this business since before the two of you were born. How's that for vision?”

“Fairly insightful, I'd say. I mean, to open a good-sized restaurant and bar on the beach, not knowing how the community would develop?” Darcy felt as if she were reading a script for a college workshop, the assignment: act whimsical and polite. Honesty hadn't worked with Mr. McGowan; time to grease the pan. “That was brave.”

“You're darn tootin'.” Timothy lowered the hammer, but his pale eyes were full of rage. “Do you know what was on this stretch of beach before we got here? Do you know? It was nothing. Dunes. Lumps of sand. My father built a business out of lumps of sand . . .”

“Look, Dad, if you want to get all these windows covered, including the big ugly bays on the south side, we don't have time for the long version of Coney's history.” Kevin wheeled the cart of plywood down the porch, turned the corner, and vanished from sight.

Darcy headed after him awkwardly.

“Your grandfather was a man with vision,” Timothy shouted, swinging his hammer against a boarded-up window.

A clatter of glass sounded. Something had broken under the plywood.

“Damn it to hell!” He started prying the board loose with the prongs of the hammer.

But Darcy didn't want to stick around to watch the billowing wrath of Timothy McGowan. Checking her gloves, she edged toward the corner of the building. “I guess I'll just go help Kevin . . .” Rounding the corner of the porch, she saw Kevin working furiously, picking up boards and flicking them against the side of the building as if they were playing cards. With his shirt off, she noticed again how thin he'd become, his ribs stretching his chest, his washed-out jeans barely hinged on his hip bones. Although thin was in, Kevin was starting to look sick. For the millionth time, she wondered when he was going to start therapy, refusing to accept that he'd just go on drinking all winter. Hadn't he promised her to start rehab as soon as the season ended? Every day, each morning she woke up wondering if this would be the day he'd ask for her help, tell her he was ready to go.

Darcy folded her arms across her chest. “Better watch it, or you'll break a window, too.”

“Why do you suck up to him?”

“I never suck up,” she said indignantly.

“You're the queen. The Jedi Master of Suck Up.”

She cracked a smile. “That good, am I?” Darcy waited for Kevin to calm down, to turn around and tell her he was sorry for losing his cool, that he didn't mean to blame her.

But he kept hammering away.

She wasn't used to being upstaged like this; when a temper tantrum was thrown, she was usually the one throwing the tirade. The role reversal was not pleasant for her.

Shucking off her gloves, Darcy crossed the porch to the main entrance where Kevin had left a cooler full of beer and water. She cracked open a bottle of water, sat down on the wooden steps, and recalculated. As if it wasn't enough that she needed to talk Kevin into getting sober, now she'd have to figure in a lifetime of dealing with his obstinate father, a royal pain in the ass. She wondered if all this was worth the dream . . .

To be the future Mrs. Kevin McGowan.

To be a restaurateur, a Hamptons personality.

To be with Kevin. She still felt a little wounded at times, still lapsed into a blue mood occasionally when she recalled that horrendous spectacle in Kevin's van. At least he'd had the good grace to trade it in for a truck, against his father's wishes, of course, but the bad memory mobile was history.

Yeah, Kevin was worth it, even if he was a workout. Peeling some sweaty gunk out from between her fingers, she figured she could hack it. Every family had its dysfunctions, and she wasn't about to let a grouchy, middle-aged man ruin her future. Let the old fart rage on and on, like the hurricane winds.

He could huff and puff, but he wasn't going to blow Darcy's house down.