Postcards From Last Summer (20 page)

I
mpatiently punching the gas pedal with her sandal, Darcy turned up the driveway to the Love Mansion with that desperate feeling of being late and left behind. She'd missed her last semester of college, lost her shot at a Bennington degree, missed her exit on the Long Island Expressway, and now, thanks to her mother's bitchiness about loaning Darcy her Land Rover, Darcy had probably even missed her friends' goddamned graduation party.

“Right now a party should be the least of your concerns,” Melanie Love had said as she finally handed over the Land Rover keys. “You should be thinking of how you're going to pay for the repairs on your convertible. Really, I don't know how you could do so much damage just driving down Northern Boulevard.”

Her mother always managed to swing conversation back to the car accident—Melanie's favorite topic lately. Darcy realized that this was the absolute worst time to plow into a parked car—her fault—but that stupid Cadillac had been double-parked, it had been raining, and she'd had a load of things on her mind when the Honda's tail had suddenly been on her, the hood of her Saab folding before her eyes, right up to the dashboard.

The lipstick red car she loved crumpled like an accordion.

“Be careful with the Land Rover,” her mother warned. “Extra careful. Christ, I don't know why I'm letting you use it considering the way you've been driving, but someone's got to meet with that realtor and get the house listed. George says we'll get to keep the Great Egg house, but he thinks the courts may try to liquidate the Southampton and Aspen houses, so we're better off beating them to the punch.” George was the lead attorney on Dad's legal team, and from the way her mother drooled over his name, Darcy wouldn't be surprised if Melanie Love had the hots for Mr. Law and Order.

“The realtor's name is Gladys Kevalian, and you're to call her as soon as you hit Montauk Highway. She'll meet you at the house.”

Not in this life,
Darcy thought as she cruised down Montauk Highway three hours later. The thought of selling the Southampton house floored her, and she figured if she threw a few harmless obstacles in the path of the sale, maybe she could hold on to the mansion for another summer or two. Darcy pushed the brakes as Mom's chunk-assed Land Rover rolled past two stonework pillars that had mossy green stuff growing in the cracks. Where the hell were the gardeners? The grounds were overgrown with dry brush and tall, bushy weeds trounced through the beds of red and yellow Dutch tulips. Amazing how they took advantage when her mother couldn't get out here. Well, Darcy would deal with that later. Right now she wanted to dash into the house for a quick shower, freshen her makeup, and get over to the McCorkles' for the tail end of the party. Kevin wouldn't be there, of course, as he was no longer able to engage in social situations where liquor was being served, but right now she just wanted to put everything else aside for a few hours and catch up with her summer friends.

But as the Land Rover popped over a pothole in the driveway, Darcy noticed a sleek silver Mercedes parked in front of the house. The woman beside it, who turned and glared at Darcy, cell phone to her ear, was obviously the realtor.

“Are you Darcy?” the woman said in an accent so thick, she resembled one of the Gabor sisters. “Yes, yes! Your daughter is here now! I call you back.”

Darcy blinked at the woman, who tossed her phone in the car and brought out a clipboard. “And you would be . . . ?”

“Gladys Kevalian, with Gold Estate Realty.” The woman thrust her business card out, stabbing Darcy with the edge. “How much do you want? What price was in your head?”

Darcy didn't have a clue, but she answered, “Four million.”

“Ach! This is the thing. People so in love with their houses, they expect an ungodly price for them.” Gladys rolled her eyes for dramatic effect.

“But, Gladys, this is the ungodly Hamptons.”
Unlike the dead market in Transylvania,
Darcy thought, fully expecting the woman's dark brown lips to part and reveal vampire fangs.

“If you want a high price, then you must do repairs,” Gladys said. “And I must say, it will cost you a pretty penny. That hurricane did more damage than your mother mentioned.”

Darcy turned to the house, which wasn't at its best. Three shutters were gone, giving the impression of missing teeth. A neighbor's quick assessment had warned them of burst pipes in the guest house, and Tara had told her that the roof had blown off over one of the peaks. Now the roof resembled her father's hairline; a haunting reminder of the many things that had gone wrong in her life. It was as if the house were conspiring with her parents against her, standing in the way of her happiness.

“Look, Gladys, I'd give you the grand tour, but I'm already late for another appointment.”

“Not necessary. I've been through the house; your mother mailed me a key. Not so bad inside, but there is damage caused by the roof. And you have pipe problem in the guest house. Very bad. You have lots of work to do.”

“Thanks for sharing that.” Darcy climbed onto the wraparound porch, stepping over roof shingles that had fallen. “So, if you've got everything you need, why don't you go off and make your list and call the repairmen or . . . whatever it is you do.”

“My inventory is only for the listing.” Gladys tapped her clipboard. “It is
you
who must make repairs.” The ire in her voice made it sound as if she were delivering a sentence.

“I just live here,” Darcy said. “Talk to my mother.”

“Yes, of course!” Gladys reached into the Mercedes again for her cell phone and dialed. “Hello, Mrs. Love? Gladys Kevalian . . .” In a cold, somewhat accusing voice, the realtor implied that Darcy's mother had misrepresented the sale, lied about the condition of the house.

Picking at the peeling paint on the porch rail, Darcy could almost hear her mother barking on the phone.

“She wants to talk to you,” Gladys said, handing over her slender flip phone.

“Tell me you are going to handle these repairs and get this woman off my case,” Melanie Love said.

Darcy turned away from the realtor. “Mom . . . decorating is your thing.”

“It's a matter of repairs, and I can hardly ignore the trial proceedings to spend time in the Hamptons. That wouldn't play well for your father, would it?”

“No. But what snake pit did you pluck this woman from?”

“Gladys comes highly recommended. She'll get us top dollar. All you have to do is supervise the repairs on the house. It's all cosmetic, honey, something you should understand.”

Darcy gritted her teeth. She wasn't the one who'd gotten an eye job last year. “This isn't my thing.”

“Find some handymen, and probably a licensed plumber. Ask your friends for references. Maybe Mary Grace McCorkle knows someone. The insurance adjustor assessed the damages and they'll pay us six thousand. If you handle it right, there may be enough left over to get your car fixed.”

Was her mother asking her to pinch pennies? Darcy felt her mouth pucker in disgust. “Why did you spring this on me now? And did you realize what a mess this place is? I haven't been inside yet, but the yard is littered with roof tiles and everything is just . . . yucky.” Darcy stepped over a torn screen, noticing the chipped paint on the banisters of the wraparound porch and the dirt and dead bugs jamming window tracks. “Can't you get Nessie out here for a few days?”

“Nessie has another full-time job, and we can't afford to pay a maid, even for a few days. It's up to you.”

She turned back, glaring at the nosy real estate agent. “This is so unfair.”

“Ha! Welcome to the real world, honey.”

Darcy considered saying no. She could step around the mess, live in this rattrap for the summer, just to spite everyone. But the possibility of getting her car back loomed before her, a mirage of a lipstick red sports car . . .

“All right, I'll do it.”

Gladys threw her hands into the air. “Good for you! Now, can I have my phone back? You're using up my anytime minutes, young girl.”

Darcy waved her off like a fly. “How soon can you get the insurance check?” she asked her mother.

“Two weeks, maybe three. Till then I think our credit is still good out there.”

“I should hope so!” Christ, Mom made it sound as if they were criminals or worse . . . poor!

“Just do the minimum to make the place sell, okay? I gotta go.” Mom clicked off, leaving Darcy alone with Transylvanian Gladys, who quickly snatched her phone away.

“Okay, so now that you got kick in the pants from Mommy, we go out back and I show you where mold might be growing near burst pipes.”

Darcy crossed her arms. “That sounds disgusting. Do we have to?”

“Come. I have very busy schedule.” Gladys snapped her fingers, as if training a poodle.

And much to her dismay, Darcy obeyed the command.

“G
et me out of here before I wrap my fingers around this realtor's skinny neck and shake her till she spits out her commission.”

I was glad to get the call from Darcy, but confused. “A realtor? Are you buying something?”

“Apparently we have to sell the Love Mansion before the courts take it away, and Mom has hired Cruella von Whippenstein to make the deal. I'll explain later, just get over here.”

Promising to head out as soon as I could politely escape the party, I turned to Elle and hung up the kitchen phone.

“Where the hell is she?” Elle asked, having realized it was Darcy on the phone.

I explained the situation, then sent Elle to find Milo. “I'll go get Tara to cut the cake. Hey! Are you sure you don't want to be included with us? You graduated, too.”

Elle shook her head emphatically. “No, and promise me you'll never, ever put my face on a cake. That's just scary.”

I smiled. “Scary is completing two years' worth of course work in just nine months.” Elle had torn into Yale with her usual nonconformist zeal, reading twenty classics and devouring her junior and senior workload in one big bite. “Okay, so if we cut the cake and do a toast, maybe we can duck out without too much attention.”

Shaking her head, Elle backed out of the phone nook, a small little booth off the kitchen paneled in cherrywood. “I don't know what you're worried about. With all the McCorkles around here, it's pretty darned hard to get attention.”

“Hey, I resemble that remark!” Paul, my dentist brother from Poughkeepsie, pushed his worn Yankees cap back on his head and pointed toward the dining room.

“Don't get your panties in a bunch,” Elle told him. “I'm actually jealous. I wish I had ninety brothers and sisters.”

“Don't forget the nieces and nephews, who are crying for cake.” Paul put his hands on my shoulders and guided me toward the dining room. “Would you get in there and cut the cake already? Another ten minutes and those munchkins will have their fingerprints all over it.”

“We'll have to bring in crime scene to dust for prints,” added Timothy, my oldest brother, who'd been an NYPD detective for years.

“I'll cut it already, before it melts like me.” I lifted my hair, twisted it up, and fanned the back of my neck. It was too hot to be inside, but maybe if I cut the cake and schmoozed a few more family friends I could cut out of here with my friends and locate Darcy. I ducked inside, finding Tara, her parents, and a handful of others paying homage to the blessed cake.

“Look at this lovely masterpiece!” Mary Grace McCorkle framed the sheet cake with her hands. “Hilda did it, the bakery on Main Street. Did you get a picture? It's almost a shame to cut into it. Lindsay, love, you and Tara squeeze in behind the cake so we can get a picture. Our two graduates.”

Tara cocked an eyebrow, then followed me behind the table, where we bent down, our faces inches from the sea of buttercream. I could feel the fat molecules wafting into my pores, heading straight for my butt.

“Just what I spent the past eight months starving myself for,” I muttered as cameras flashed. “My face emblazoned on a sheet of frosting.”

“Yeah, and now it'll find its place in the family photo album, along with all the other cakes,” Tara said. “The one with the purple roses that turned out black, and the Jurassic Park dinosaurs . . .”

“Remember the confetti cake that we made ourselves? And when we squirted chocolate syrup onto the vanilla icing and it looked like a murder scene?”

“The
Psycho
cake.” Tara pretended to hack away in a stabbing motion.

“You can laugh,” I said. “I've got all of them in Kodak moments, like the archive of McCorkle cake history. And the worst part is, I didn't even want a cake today. I asked for those little cheesecake tarts Ma makes, but does my opinion matter?”

It had been Hilda the baker's idea to imprint the faces of the graduates on the cake. I was only glad this bit of baking technology had not been available when my sisters were passing around birth photos.

“Who wants cake?” Mary Grace asked, shooing the girls away from the table. “Got to have a piece of cake if you want to wish the graduates good luck.”

“Is that right?” Tara's father, looking cool and crisp in his smooth black silk shirt, approached the table. “In that case, I'd better take two.”

“That's a wedding superstition, Ma,” said my older sister Kathleen. “Nobody ever heard of a graduate cake.”

Mary Grace sawed through the cake with a knife. “That's the beauty of superstitions; you make them up as you go along.” She deftly doled half a dozen squares of cake onto paper plates, then paused to smile down at the cake. “Here's a superstition for you. I say anyone who takes a taste of this cake tonight will appear in my daughter's first novel.” She turned to Tara's mother, Serena Washington. “Did you know our Lindsay is a writer?”

“Aspiring,” I corrected, “but that's just a hobby. I majored in psych, which is very different.”

“She wants to fix people's brains.” Mary Grace rolled her eyes. “If it were only possible, I'd have had mine overhauled years ago.”

“Actually, I'd need a medical degree to mess with your brain,” I said, searching for plastic forks.

“But writing is your talent. Call it a mother's pride, but I do enjoy reading Lindsay's work. What's Tara doing this summer?”

I ducked away from the table, eager to grab a slice of cake and get out of the dining room before Ma asked me to recite the poem that had won the Knights of Columbus award in second grade.

“Tara's working in the New York offices of Senator Wentworth,” Mrs. Washington responded, her posture so regal, shoulders back, neck elongated. Tara's parents didn't step out in the Hamptons too often, and I was pleased that they'd attended the graduation party.

Cake in hand, I clamped onto Tara's arm and pulled her out through the kitchen to the screened back porch, fending off friends and family along the way with: “Can't talk now!” “No, you can't have her.” “We'll have to get back to you on that.”

Out on the porch, I cleared a few empty beer bottles off the glider but remained on my feet, feeling too hopped up to sit. “Darcy called. She's freaking about the hurricane damage on the house, but I think it's really about being there without any staff to fix it up and the fact that her mother is putting it on the market. Elle is getting Milo and we're going to head over there.”

“I was getting worried.” Tara sat beside me, poking at a section of the photo frosting with a plastic fork. “I called her cell three times and got her voice mail.”

“I don't think she could show her face at this party. I mean, considering . . .”

“That she didn't graduate?”

“Yeah, that, and the charges against her father, and her mother freaking over finances. Did you hear the one about Bud Love hiding cash in coffee cans? Someone thinks he buried a stash somewhere on the grounds of the Hamptons estate, just before the feds came to arrest him. One of the housekeepers saw him digging.”

“Sounds like the stuff Hamptons legends are made of.” Tara scraped at some frosting with her fork. “Do you think that would work? I mean, would a coffee can protect money? And what would happen if Bud Love turned up at the Hamptons Diner in, like, ten years with a mildewed thousand dollar bill?”

With a laugh, I sampled the cake. “Ooh, sugar rush. The cake part is okay, but the frosting . . . gag.” It clumped on my tongue like a pat of butter, and I'd learned not to bother indulging unless there was a delicious payoff. I put the plate aside. “I'm done. Let's get Milo and Elle and head outta here.”

Tara stood up. “Do you think it's a good idea for all four of us to descend on Darcy? I mean, she's got all that baggage with Elle, and she's barely met Milo.”

“What, you think we might overwhelm her? Darcy Love?”

“You're right.” Tara gathered up a few discarded plates and headed toward the kitchen. “So we'll go and pretend that none of it really matters and we're just hanging out. And she'll pretend that she doesn't care that we're even there. And we'll just have one big I'm-too-cool-to-care fest.”

I held the screen door open for her. “Exactly.”