Postcards From Last Summer (25 page)

“W
hose idea was this, anyway?” Tara asked as she dug through her father's bag of clubs.

Backtracking, she recalled that Elle had initiated the outing when she learned her mother was still paying for a membership at the Sandy Hills Country Club. And since it was already ten A.M. on a Sunday morning, Tara was fairly sure she'd been stood up by Josh once again. This weekend marked the third time he'd planned to meet her out here but had cancelled at the last minute, and it was all so disappointing. Last time, she'd taken the train back to the city with the plan to blast him for being so rude, but all that fizzled when faced with the logic of their situation, their jobs. Josh was a key staff member and his job was a high priority in his life, and when they were both in the city, their lives together were easy, fun . . . fulfilling on an everyday level. Although she felt slighted about the weekend thing—after all, it was summer and they had such a great chunk of the planet to enjoy out here—she didn't want to flip out on him.

So golf, she decided, would be the perfect distraction.

“Oh, the Sandy Hills . . .” Darcy had rolled her eyes, recalling that her father was a member. There'd been an awkward moment or two when the girls had been making tee-off arrangements and one of the staff had pulled Darcy aside for a private chat. Darcy returned, slightly sulky and annoyed.

“What was all that about?” Tara had asked, and Darcy told the girls that the woman felt the need to inform her that her father was “no longer a member of this club.”

Immediately all four girls shot a scowl at the offending woman.

“Well, that really rots,” Elle said, steaming. “Maybe we should just go.”

“Don't let it ruin our day,” Darcy said under her breath. “I'd especially hate to let that woman think that I give a flying fuck about her membership roster.”

“Good for you,” Tara told Darcy. “You've got the power.”

Once they teed off, Tara felt herself notching into competitive gear. Her father belonged to the Shinnecock Hills Golf Club down the road, where she had taken lessons all through high school—lessons that seemed to be paying off, based on her performance today. Of course, that didn't put her on a level with Elle, who had an amazing follow-through.

Lindsay was the beginner of the group. “I really suck at this,” she said, rocking from one foot to the other as she lined up a shot. She swung, lost her grip, and sent her club flying.

Tara ducked. “Good thing you've got surfing down, honey.”

“I can't believe we're actually playing golf together,” Lindsay said, hustling back to retrieve her five iron. “And I can't believe you're wearing those shoes.”

Elle did a little jig, showing off her high-top Keds that had been tie-dyed purple and red. “Shoes do not make the golfer,” Elle said. “So far I'm shooting below par, and you have yet to keep a ball on the green.”

“What do you expect when my only experience is from playing miniature golf?” Lindsay replied. “I can handle a windmill and I can whack it in between the vampire's teeth, but what idiot builds a pond in the middle of a golf course?”

Darcy and Tara leaned on each other, laughing. Darcy was crisp and cool in a black, A-line culotte skirt, relaxed despite the downward turn her father's trial had taken.

“It's called a water trap,” Elle said. “Now stop complaining and take your swing.”

Lindsay swept her club back to wind up and accidentally knocked the ball, sending it flying behind her.

“Ouch!” Darcy jumped away as the ball bounced off her backside. “Right in the ass, Lindsay!”

“I am so sorry!” Lindsay rushed to her friend and grabbed her arm as the other women huddled close, all staring at Darcy. “Are you okay?”

“Fine!” She rubbed the sore spot, gesturing the girls away. “Quit staring at my butt and take your shot!”

“Maybe I'm better off sitting this one out.” Lindsay pulled the club against her chest. “Or I'll be your caddy. I can carry your clubs . . . and wash your balls,” she added with a sexy grin.

Tara held up her hand for Lindsay to stop. “Something tells me this is your first time . . . your virgin golf outing.”

“You guys were my first!” Lindsay giggled. “I always knew there was a special bond between us.”

Elle was up next. She wiggled her skinny hips, then swung back and through, sending the ball loping ahead gracefully to bounce a few feet from the ninth hole.

“Where the hell'd you learn to do that?” asked Lindsay.

“Japan. Everyone there was obsessed with golf. We used to go to driving ranges on the rooftops of buildings, all covered with nets. It was like yoga there—gotta do it every day. I guess it just stuck with me.”

“I'll say,” Darcy said, taking a shot. Hers cut slightly to the left but bounced onto the edge of the green.

Tara stepped up, smoothing down her peach shorts and peach-trimmed golf shirt. Although it was just a friendly game, Tara thrived on competition and at that moment she wanted nothing more than to take the lead from Elle. Focusing on the ninth hole, she tried to imagine her ball arching through the air, straight to a hole in one. Forget the mechanics, forget the shot . . . just plan a path for the ball.

She swung back, made contact and sent the ball soaring . . . right into the sand trap.

“No!” Tara lifted her club toward the sky and went running like a madwoman, making her friends crack up.

“Ach! I feel so much better now,” Lindsay said, hoisting her golf bag onto the cart.

As they rode back to the clubhouse after nine holes, Lindsay couldn't get over the world of the country club, a phenomenon all her friends were privy to. “All these years, and I thought the best part was that cheesy pool at Shinnecock Hills. When did you guys learn to golf?”

“It's sort of a lifetime of learning,” Darcy said.

“And how come your mother is a member here?” Lindsay asked Elle. “She hasn't been in the Hamptons for years.”

“I guess my grandmother got the membership, and Mom just kept it going,” Elle said. “It's probably all about Grandma's money. Gram was loaded, and she left very specific orders about what to do with her money. Like her house; my parents kept it for years after she died. I think Gram really wanted us to have a place here in the Hamptons, but it's just not geographically desirable for my parents.”

“I remember your grandmother,” Tara said, flashing back to when they were kids, eight or nine, and Elle's grandmother used to take them berry picking. “She would bribe us to sing ‘Frère Jacques,' always correcting our French accents. If we sang it right, she bought us cones at the Southampton Ice Cream Parlor.”

Elle turned to Tara with a smile. “That was Gram.”

Thinking back, Tara quickly flashed to Elle's crisis summer, the year she plunged off the jetty into the roiling waters of the Atlantic Ocean. What a difficult time it must have been for her, to have felt so alienated, then plucked from everything she knew to go off to a foreign land, making friends of strangers.

After all that, it couldn't be easy for Elle to come back here, and yet, sometimes it felt as if she'd never left. “What did we ever do all those years without you?” Tara said suddenly, shaking her head at Elle.

“We were, like, so fucking bored,” Darcy said in her Valley Girl voice. “No multiple body piercings, no unexplained fires. No one even dreamed of tie-dyed sneakers until Elle came around.”

“Shut up, Darcy,” Elle said, her cheeks growing pink, but Darcy just reached forward from the back of the golf cart and grabbed Elle's shoulders.

“We missed you, honey!” Darcy shouted, her voice ringing out across the golf course, and they laughed as Elle steered back toward the buildings.

Later, in the country club dining room, Tara found her mind drifting away from her friends' conversation as she tuned into the men who'd sat behind her, their conversation so loud it was hard to miss.

“It's a pity just a few of them are ruining it for everyone,” the man said. “Last year, when we were looking to host a tournament, one of the national guys told us point blank it wasn't going to happen if we didn't change our club charter and accept blacks.”

“There it goes,” his friend said. “And that's just the beginning. Let them in and the others will come running.”

Tara shot a look over her shoulder at the two men—one bald and rubbery looking, the other a crisp handkerchief that had turned gray with time. They actually had the nerve to smile at her, even as the rubbery man said, “Call me racist, but I like to see a good place like this protected from people like that.”

Tara turned back to the table, her fingernails digging into the linen tablecloth.

“Okay, Ms. Washington,” Lindsay said, “you look like you just saw a ghost.”

Tara darted her eyes to the left. “Tune in on the conversation behind me.”

Trying not to stare, her three friends fell silent and listened.

“None of this would be a problem if Tiger Woods hadn't come along,” said Rubber Man. “It's too bad, because I wouldn't mind opening the doors for someone like him, but they don't write the rules that way. Let him in and you've got to let in all the others.”

“Excuse me, sirs?” Elle said politely. “But do you mean that this club doesn't accept African Americans as members?”

“Members?” Gray Hanky snorted. “We don't even let them in as guests.”

Tara turned back to her plate, stung. If those men realized her race, wouldn't they be appalled? And that woman was worried about Darcy playing here, with her father's lapsed country club dues. The place would be in an uproar when they realized that she was black.

“Really?” Elle blinked at the two men. “And to think they let in dickwads like you.”

The men sucked back, off guard.

Across the table, Darcy let out a laugh. “Nice one, Elle.”

“I'm so disappointed,” Elle said. “Gram must be turning over in her grave. She marched with Martin Luther King Jr. She sponsored sit-ins to protest the Vietnam War.” She looked up at the heavens. “Sorry, Gram. I'll get your membership dues back, even if I have to squeeze it out of Frick and Frack, here.”

Lindsay was cracking a smile, too. “I've sort of lost my appetite for Sandy Hills.” She scooted her chair out. “All this racism is stinking up the place.”

“I definitely have to go.” Tara stood up and slammed her napkin to the table with a scowl for the men. She was tempted to lash out at them, but didn't think it wise to waste her energy on such a lost cause. “I don't want to be late . . . for my date with
Tiger.”

Seeing their jaws drop in astonishment, Tara smiled.
That will give those two old codgers something to think about.

I
t would be hard to let this place go.

Darcy sat back in a lounge chair by the pool, one of the many lounge chairs she had scrubbed and buffed with her own hands
,
and let her eyes wander up the cedar shingles of the house, now stained dark brown, up to the peak that Elle and Milo had repaired, its slate shingles now gleaming in the August sun.

Ironic that she had found this summer mansion as lonely and cold as a mausoleum in the past, and now that she was about to lose the place it finally felt like home. It didn't hurt to have Milo and Elle installed in two of the guest bedrooms, keeping the place noisy with the clanging of hammers and the jolt of nail guns, the roar of rock music, and alive with the smell of pancakes and bacon, ramen noodles, or meat on the built-in barbecue grill. Milo had become a kind, steady confidant and Elle had stomped back into Darcy's life, endearing herself in her distinctive way—Darcy's summer savior. Kevin found her overbearing and although he wouldn't admit it, Darcy suspected he was uncomfortable about Milo's sexual preferences. He'd complained about having them here, about the lack of privacy, but Darcy had kept telling him she needed the repairs done—a valid excuse, but also a way to keep Kevin more at bay now that the novelty of doing it in every room in the house had faded.

Strains of a Smashing Pumpkins song echoed from the open window of the attic, where Elle and Milo were applying another coat to the trim. Darcy still couldn't believe how they'd come through for her.

“Spectacular work,” Darcy's mother had pronounced just this morning when she'd made the trip out to the Hamptons to inspect the repairs—the white-glove test, as Elle called it. “Are you licensed? I could hook you up with some interested parties, if you're looking for more work.”

“We did it for fun,” Elle said, running one hand along the freshly painted trim of the attic room. “But we'll use you as a reference, if that's okay. Milo's thinking about getting into theater craft shop, so it might help him.”

Darcy had hired a licensed plumber to fix the pool house, but the carpentry work and painting had also been completed by Elle and Milo, with Darcy pitching in to help with cleanup and taping, errands and lunch runs. Although she didn't find the work “fun” as they did, she'd enjoyed being a part of the team and was proud of the end result.

“The pool house looks better than it ever did,” she told her mother when they were inspecting the small, cozy building. “Elle had the idea to use this fabric over the walls, and we ditched the curtains for these privacy shades.”

“Very nice,” her mother agreed.

“Don't you think they deserve a bonus?” Darcy asked. “They did this work for a rock-bottom price, and super fast.”

“Darcy . . .” Her mother shot her a stern look. “I'll throw in a little tip, and you'll get your money for car repairs, but a bonus is out of the question.” She examined a ceramic bowl, a swirl of geometric designs in summery greens, yellows, and pinks that Darcy had found hidden in the kitchen pantry. “I've always hated this bowl. I'll be happy to let this place go. Furnished.” Her lips puckered as she scanned the four walls, then turned toward the door. “Good riddance.”

“I don't feel the same way,” Darcy said, daring to speak her mind and try to get through the glass wall her mother always hid behind. “I've spent my whole summer scrubbing this place up, sweeping and dusting, killing bugs and pinching dead leaves off the rose bushes. This house has become my home, Mom. I know we're in deep financial doo-doo, but isn't there a way we could hold on to this place?”

Melanie Love turned back to her daughter, her face puckering like a prune. “I can't believe you'd even ask such a question. According to George, we're lucky to be keeping the Great Egg house.”

“Maybe the court would allow a trade,” Darcy suggested. “We could sell the Great Egg house and live here . . .”

“In this bog? A hundred miles from civilization? Get real, Darcy.” And she'd walked out of the pool house, leaving Darcy with the clear message that her desires and needs really didn't matter now in Melanie's plans for financial recovery.

That moment underlined the loneliness that Darcy used to feel when she was alone in this house or closed into her princess-style bedroom in the Great Egg house. That moment helped her realize that she could never, ever go back to being her parents' daughter, the show horse under their thumb . . .

“The second coat on the attic trim is finished,” Elle said, lugging a large paint can across the pool patio. “We'll store the extra paint in the tool shed. You never know when something will need a touch-up.”

“The new owners will appreciate it,” Darcy said glumly. “But thanks. Really. You guys have been great.”

Milo appeared in the rose arbor behind Elle, doffing a white painter's cap. “Was that the final verdict? Your mother's determined to sell?”

“I'm afraid so.” The summer roses about Milo's head had just opened, unfurling their pink petals, and the realization that this would be the last season she'd see them bloom made Darcy's eyes sting with tears.

“Well, that sucks monkey butt.” Elle dropped the paint can on the stones and sat on it. “What's the deal with our parents and disposable homes? As soon as you get vested in a place, they turn around and sell it or rent it and cart you off to some other strange corner of the world.”

“Sorry, but I don't relate.” Milo perched on the edge of a lounge chair, crossing his worn white painters pants. “I wish my parents would sell that suburban hellhole in Brooklyn.”

“I get it,” Darcy said. “We've been displaced, but I think that it's symbolic of the fact that there was nothing to keep our families together in the first place.”

“Crap, I think you're right.” Elle stood up, stripped her denim overalls down to her emerald green one-piece and walked to the edge of the pool. “We're pushed off, shuffled away because they don't know what to do with us.”

Milo winced. “Am I the only one who finds this depressing?”

“Someday, dear Milo,” Elle told him, “you'll grow wise and sage—able to handle conflicts heavier than your Jackson Five tunes.” She dove into the pool, splashing water over the side.

 

An hour later, Lindsay ran up to them poolside, waving her hands frantically. “You're never going to believe this.” She motioned Darcy, who was thinning out pansies in a planter, to sit down. “Big announcement: I got the job.”

“Island Publishing?” Elle asked.

Lindsay nodded, jumped up and down, then did a happy dance around Darcy's lounge chair. “I'm so excited! They wanted me to start Monday but I told them I have to give two weeks' notice at Coney's, and they understood.”

“Didn't I tell you to wear that purple tank top to the interview?” Milo asked, adjusting his glasses. “Was I right, or was I right?”

Lindsay's head bobbed. “It worked. They liked me. I'm starting as an associate editor.”

“I'm happy for you, honey, but not surprised,” Elle said. “I told you Uncle Jorge would come through.” She jumped up and hugged Lindsay, pressing a wet spot into Lindsay's purple silk tank top.

“Elle!” Darcy scowled. “You schmutzed her.”

Lindsay looked down at the stain and shrugged. “Doesn't matter. I got the job!”

“In that case . . .” Elle threw her arms around Lindsay, nudged her to the pool's edge, and leaned in until they plopped into the pool together.

Sputtering and smoothing her hair back, Lindsay surfaced. “God damn it, Elle! These shoes are Dolce & Gabanna!” She treaded water long enough to pull them off and toss them onto the shining tiles.

“But you got the job! You'll buy more!” Elle said, splashing Lindsay.

“No splashing!” Milo said, poised at the edge of the pool in his boxers.

Elle frowned and sliced a torrent of water in his direction.

“Hey!”

Darcy fell back in her chair, laughing. “Still a beach pest, Elle.”

“Easy, Princess,” Elle called, floating onto her back, “or you'll find your lounge chair floating downstream.”

“Just try it.” Darcy jumped out of the chair and ran into the pool shouting, “Look out below!” The water seemed to fizz around her skin, refreshing and clean. She swam to the side and leaned her arms back on the ledge, kicking gently, joking with her friends. Too bad Tara wasn't here, but she was stuck in the city during the workweek, committed to the senator's causes.

When Kevin appeared sometime later, Darcy and her friends were still in the water, in the thick of a game of water volleyball.

“Spike it!” Elle coached Darcy, who gave the ball a pounding that sent it bouncing off Milo's head.

“Not fair!” Lindsay shouted. “We said no spiking!”

“Darcy . . .” Kevin called from the side of the pool.

She knew he'd been standing there a while, but the game moved fast and she couldn't look away for a second. “Hey, Kev!”

“Come here.” He motioned her over, a huge, almost hypnotic grin on his face. Had he just come from an AA meeting where he had an epiphany? “We need to talk.”

“We're right in the middle of a game,” she told him.

“Oh, go on!” Lindsay smacked the water. “You were winning, anyway.”

Darcy climbed out with a wariness she didn't usually feel around Kevin. What had he been up to? He was dressed up and obviously busting a gut over some kind of news or secret, dying to tell her. Didn't he realize she didn't like surprises? Didn't he know her well enough to see that she was not the sort of person you sprang news on?

She pulled a towel over her shoulders and squeezed water from the ends of her hair. “Okay, Kev, let's talk.”

“Can we take a walk in the rose garden?” he asked, and panic plummeted through her. This was big news, really big.

And she had a sneaking suspicion that she wouldn't want to hear it.