Postcards From Last Summer (5 page)

“H
ere's a quandary,” my brother Steve announced to his buddies bobbing in the lineup. I paddled beyond him, suspecting I didn't want to be a part of this. “If you had a choice, which would you rather grow—a second dick, or fins?”

The Fogarty twins let out a roar of laughter, as if it were the first time they'd ever heard that old nugget. I ran my fingertips over the tacky wax on my board, thinking how there were advantages and disadvantages to being accepted as “one of the guys.” I liked being able to float in the lineup and pop up on my board without feeling that the boys were eyeballing me. The downside was that now that I was in, they had no qualms about acting like big beef jerkies in front of me.

“That's not a tough choice. Who could resist a second one?” Johnny said, swiping his wet hair back. “Imagine the possibilities. Double dipping!”

More laughter, but I noticed Bear wasn't going for it. “You guys are full of it,” he said. “You can't even handle the one you got.”

Staring down into the sea, I was glad Bear didn't go for it. The water was clean today. With crisp waves coming from an offshore breeze, the undertow was quiet, and I enjoyed peering through the blue-green water to the bits of seaweed and shell gently lolling on the sandbar. The water rose, a swell rolling in. Most of the surfers turned their boards quickly, moved onto their stomachs, and started paddling.

I paddled, pushed ahead of the wave, and popped up to a crouch. Water surged beneath my board as I got lifted and pushed ahead. Picking up speed. Angling in, my arms out for balance. This was it! The water rushed beneath me, a free thrill ride.

Then, suddenly, the board dropped down and came to a halt in the shallows, where I swerved and dropped into the water beside it. “Woo-hoo!” I shouted, slapping the water with my hand.

As I lingered in the shallows, I caught sight of two figures heading over the dunes. Dressed in a sleek turquoise and black wet suit, Tara walked alongside a short, solid guy who was carrying a surfboard under one arm. This had to be Officer Migglesteen, the soldier Tara couldn't stop talking about. They seemed like a couple, quietly exchanging conversation. I floated my board into the beach and flopped it onto the sand.

“You picked the right time,” I called to them. “The waves are just starting to get interesting.”

“Would that be good or bad?” the dark-eyed guy asked, lowering the board.

“Lindsay . . . Charlie.” Tara introduced. “He's never surfed before. I promised to give him a lesson.”

“Brave soul,” I said. “Tara will be a good teacher, but watch out for those ballbusters in the surf. They're ruthless.”

“I'll take that under advisement when I'm flailing in a riptide and they're surfing wheelies around me,” Charlie said as he placed the board on the sand.

“That's a little extreme,” Tara said.

“What? They won't let me drown?”

“No. They can't surf wheelies.”

“Very reassuring.” He spread his arms out wide. “Okay, Tara, have at me. You're the great Kahuna and I'm Gidget, just grabbing a board for the first time.”

I smiled. Charlie Migglesteen was a little nerdier than I'd expected, but he seemed to like Tara, and she obviously enjoyed moving beside him as she demonstrated how to stand on the board, how to pop up and balance.

“You think
I'm
a goofy foot?” he said with a deadpan expression. “You should see my cousin Leo.”

Tara and Charlie waded into waist-deep water to watch as I demonstrated how to maintain trim and stand at the same time. Then I loaned them an extra board so Tara could paddle out with Charlie.

“Not bad,” Bear said, watching with me on the beach as Charlie wiped out. “At least he got on his feet.” Leave it to Bear to see the good.

I nodded, thinking that Charlie was built right for surfing—solid and short, a compact body with a lower center of balance. “He could do well with some practice. Though I guess you don't see many waves in North Korea. He's stationed there with Tara's brother.”

Bear scratched his chin. “Aw, man, I envy him. He could surf Fiji!”

 

By noon the tide was high, slamming onto the beach in sick, un-surfable waves. Tara and Charlie followed me home, where Charlie, Steve, and Bear went through Steve's collection of boards in the yard, looking for something to loan Charlie for the next few weeks.

In the kitchen, Tara and I reached into the cupboards, searching for some spices and condiments to zing up a big batch of tuna fish for sandwiches to feed the crew.

Tara called out the inventory. “We've got onion flakes, Italian seasoning, dried mustard, paprika . . .” The top of her suit was unzipped and peeled down to her waist, revealing a chocolate bikini top. In contrast, I felt doughy, with sand caught in the seam of my swimsuit, a sheen of salt caked on my legs. “How do you feel about capers?”

“Bring on the crazy capers.” I was opening a large can of tuna when Ma came in the porch door with a bag of groceries.

“Tara, hello! Will you sit for a cup of tea?” my mother asked. Although born and raised in Brooklyn, Mary Grace had picked up the lilting cadences of her parents, Irish immigrants. My maternal grandfather, James Noonan, a carpenter, had come to New York with a sack of bedding and the clothes on his back—or so went the family lore. A quick-footed dancer and scotch drinker, James had worked long hours as apprentice to a cabinetmaker to perfect his craft—work that ultimately paid off when he fast-talked his way onto the crew of a Park Avenue apartment renovation, where he convinced the designer to upgrade the wood and proceeded to craft a masterpiece.

From then on, whenever a “Park Avenue swell” was renovating an apartment, James Noonan was hired to do the cabinetry. Now, as Ma opened a dark walnut cabinet to stow two boxes of tea, I was reminded of the history in this house. Her grandfather used to see weekend patients in the dining room. My parents were married here, a slew of children baptized here. And James Noonan had been hired by Dr. McCorkle to renovate this very kitchen. In an age where so many kitchens were prefabricated pressboard, I felt a deep, timeless connection to family every time I swung open the dark walnut cabinets that had been built by my grandfather.

“You're getting way too skinny there, Tara,” Ma said, taking a box of Hostess cupcakes out of the brown bag. “These will do you good.”

“You always did try to fatten me up.” Tara's amber eyes were lit with defiance. “All the moms and aunts give it their best shot, but it never works.”

“So tell me what you're up to.” Mary Grace filled the kettle at the sink—no microwaved water for her tea; that would be a travesty. “One more year you've got at college, then to work with the both of you.”

“We don't mind hard work, Ma.” I peered out the kitchen window at the guys around the shed as I rinsed my hands in the sink. “It's those guys you need to worry about.”

Cocking one eyebrow, my mother agreed. “That's for sure. Your brother hired to play with toys. Whoever heard of such a thing? And those Fogarty brothers, getting the family business dumped in their laps. It's a shame, but they've got too much time on their hands. It's a wonder they've not been incarcerated, but don't get me started. How are your parents?”

“They're fine. My brother's visiting on leave, and Mama's still floating on a cloud.”

“The prodigal son. Of course, we love the one who ran away.” Mary Grace squinted out the window. “Is that your man with my Stevie?”

Tara's pale brown skin flushed pink. “He's a friend. One of Wayne's friends.”

“Of course he is.” Mary Grace placed a wrapped chocolate cupcake on a plate and handed it to Tara.

“Ma . . . don't make her eat it.” I jabbed at the tuna with a vengeance. “You don't have to,” I told Tara.

“It's okay.” She tore open the clear wrapping and pulled off a curlicued edge of frosting. “I'd be a junk-food freak, except my mother banned it from the house.”

Twenty minutes later, the guys filed in, along with Skeeter and Johnny, and everyone was sitting around the McCorkle table eating sandwiches along with juicy peaches and tomatoes Mary Grace had brought from the farm stand down the road.

Spooning peaches into a bowl, I marveled at how my mother managed to get half a dozen people settled and fed while tossing off questions that elicited participation from the more reserved and pointed up things everyone had in common. Ma was awesome at the social thing. She suggested Charlie give Steve tips on traveling to China, where sporting goods were manufactured for Victory Sports, and Steve seemed open to it all, not jealous at all. Which surprised me, considering the attraction that had once burned between him and Tara. They'd crushed on each other, back when we were in junior high. Not that they'd gone anywhere with it or even been an official couple. But watching them now, it all seemed so civil and grown-up.

Ma coaxed Tara to describe the needs of kids in a Trenton neighborhood association where Tara had been volunteering time while at Princeton. She started Bear talking about his week in Maui, sharing a shack with another surfer in the land of wild hibiscus, blue crush waves, and residents who could barely afford the gas to drive to the other side of the island for a surf competition.

At times like this, I could fool myself into believing there was a very real connection between Bear and me.
Close your eyes and pretend you're a girlfriend.
Of course, I'd never even been inside his VW camper, never visited the inner sanctum, but then I'd never heard of a girl who had.

“You should write some of those things down,” I told Bear. “Such vivid images.” I had always found his surfing adventures fascinating.

“Yeah, maybe he could make it into a limerick or something.” Steve grinned maliciously, then bit into a hunk of sandwich.

Skeeter snorted, that pig snort he'd perfected at the age of ten. “There once was a loser from Brooklyn, who surfed Maui and . . . wait. What rhymes with Brooklyn?”

“Nothing, dirtbag,” Steve said.

Charlie held the relish tray while Tara took some pickles. “Finding a rhyme for Brooklyn, I believe, would be a challenge for an experienced lyricist.”

“Oh, you're just jealous that you don't have the gift, Stephen,” Ma chastised. “Now Lindsay here, there's a talent. Though we haven't seen your writing lately, have we? Weren't you working on some short stories for one of your classes?”

“It's just a hobby, Ma,” I said, quickly changing the subject back to surfing, something everyone would pick up on. “Did you hear, Ma? Charlie rode his first wave today.”

And my mother gasped and made a fuss over Charlie's feat as Steve mentioned a surfing competition down the coast, and the conversation took off once again.

Biting into a juicy slice of peach, I felt a twinge of longing for the way things used to be, back when Elle and Darcy nearly lived in this house. Funny, the things you remember. Elle used to jump on my brother's back and hold on until he rolled onto the ground. Darcy once played a whole game of Life with her swimsuit stuffed with a roll of wadded toilet paper, not caring when Steve and his friends walked through the room gaping. With my girlfriends around, I never had to worry about being outnumbered by Steve and his friends. Most of all, I didn't have time to worry about anything.

I missed them both.

S
tuck in Connecticut, Elle DuBois sat at the edge of the turquoise pool, kicking her legs to break the monotonous surface of the water. She loved swimming and had already done thirty laps, which was not the easiest feat in a pool shaped like a warped Frisbee.

“Do you guys ever swim?” she asked her cousins.

“Sure we do. I do all the time.” Liam looked up from the filter, which he'd been reaching into, showing off in that eight-year-old boy show-offy way by pulling out insects and leaves and gunk with his bare hands. He slammed the filter cover on, stood at the edge of the pool, and called, “See?” as he cannonballed into the water.

“Ach!” his sister Gabby scoffed from the lounge chair behind Elle. “You little freak! Jump from the other side.”

“I don't get it,” Elle said. “Everyone on this street has their own pool. And right now, it's almost eighty degrees, and no one but Liam is using it.” She squeezed water out of her hair, pondering the mysteries of suburban Connecticut. “What's that about?”

“People have other things to do,” Gabriella said with an air of importance that made Elle want to flick her on the shoulder. Then again, most things Gabby said made Elle want to inflict some form of torture. Like the first night Elle arrived and Gabby asked if she had to share her room with Elle. And if she could still go to her friend's house for a sleepover. And if she needed to include Elle at the birthday party she'd been planning for so long “with only my best friends.” A pool party, this Saturday. A stupid idea, as far as Elle was concerned, since neither Gabby nor her “very best friends” were going to go near the water.

This suburbia thing was worse than she'd expected.

Her cousins were complete strangers, little power brokers embedded in television shows and electronic games Elle had never even heard of. Aunt Deanna couldn't have cared less that Elle was there, as long as she had a chance to do her “thing,” which was daily workout sessions at a gym where the women idolized emaciated models and talked about the evils of carbs and alcohol. Uncle Thomas was the sort of guy you could talk to, a lot like his brother, who used to be Elle's confidant before he'd decided that having a teenaged daughter made him feel too old. Unfortunately, Uncle Thomas was gone from the house most of the day and evening, absorbed in the business of lawyering for Keller and Steinberg.

“It's just for the summer,” her mother had stressed, back in the safety of their close but cozy London flat. “In September, as soon as the dorms open, you'll have your own room in New Haven.”

“I don't understand why I can't stay here,” Elle had insisted, causing her parents to exchange that look again: the pale, stone-faced panic that their daughter was going to unearth a boulder they'd hoped was safely embedded. “Or I could go to Africa. Wouldn't Africa be a fabulous life experience?”

“Nigeria is no place for a young woman these days,” her mother said candidly. An immunologist, Genevieve DuBois was employed by the World Health Organization, and at this point in her career a move to their offices in Nigeria was the key to advancement. Elle got that, and though she would miss her mother, she could live with the distance if it would keep her near her chums in London. “Right now, your education is of utmost importance.”

“And your mother and I agree that it's time you returned Stateside. Time for some cultural exposure, too.”

“I have all the culture I need here in London,” Elle argued. “I don't see why I can't stay here with Dad.”

At that point she'd caught her mother scowling at her father, a quick facial barb before she turned away, pretending to study the flower box of petunias outside the kitchen window. Elle felt the moment like an earthquake along a major fault; the earth was rumbling and two geographic plates were rumbling, rubbing against each other, pushing for power even as they shifted away from each other.

“What?” Elle pressed. “What is it?”

“You can't stay here,” her mother hissed. “Dad is giving up the flat.”

“Genevieve! I thought we agreed—”

“I never agreed to anything,” Elle said. “Why didn't anyone ask me what I wanted? Why didn't you tell me, Dad?”

“There's nothing to tell,” he snapped. “Your mother's off to her new job in Africa and you're to return to the States to finish university.”

“But why aren't you keeping the flat?” Tears were welling in her eyes, damned tears over this unexpected ambush. She swiped at her face with one hand, then pointed to her small bedroom. “I can stay in my room. Right there . . .” Her voice was quavering.

“It's too late,” her mother said. “Dad's decided he needs a new start. Another stab at . . . oh, I don't know, what is it you're looking for, Jasper?”

Never before had Elle seen her father gripped by horror. “This is not the appropriate time or place,” he growled.

The strain was obvious on Genevieve DuBois's stricken face as she turned back to Elle. “Pardon me for being inappropriate, but I really don't know the proper way to tell our daughter that you're shacking up with your twentysomething girlfriend.”

That had been the moment when Elle's life rumbled out of control.

Suddenly, her father wouldn't talk to her, not in the honest, open way they'd always maintained. After Dad packed a suitcase and slipped out of the apartment with a guilty kiss to her forehead, Mom had apologized halfheartedly, her voice cracking with emotion as she said that Dad was “in crisis” and that it was best for Elle to head back to the States, where she could set herself on solid ground, make some friends, embrace her own culture.

“Shopping malls and baseball and McDonald's?” Elle thought as her mother locked herself into the bathroom for a shower. “I think I can live without those displays of conspicuous consumption.”

Her mother didn't answer. But a minute later, when Elle pressed her ear to the door, she could hear the shrill mew of sobs only slightly muffled by running water.

And that was the worst part—worse than banishment back to the States. The fact that her parents had lost control of their lives—that they had lost momentum and security after having traveled the world as best friends—that part frightened Elle most. Because if their lives were spinning out of control, how was Elle supposed to find solid ground?

Liam was singing a song, trying to goad his sister. “Chuck, Chuck, bo Buck. Banana-fana . . .” The name game, with an interesting choice of names. Elle had to admire his adventurous spirit.

She cupped a handful of water and let it trickle down her neck as she floundered for a way out of this cage. Yesterday she'd walked for an hour, cutting across people's lawns and gardens because there were no sidewalks or paths. All that walking, and she'd arrived nowhere, since there was nowhere to go. She'd asked Aunt Deanna about buses or mass transit, which made the poor woman seem perplexed and horrified. “Not in this neighborhood,” her aunt had said, “but Gabby will be happy to drive you anywhere you want to go.”

“But Mom!” Gabby had shrieked in a barrage of whiney complaints that had sent Elle scurrying from the family room with its slippery leather sofas facing a big-screen TV that seemed to be running 24/7. Unfortunately, having fled the family room, Elle had nowhere to run to. The room she shared with Gabby was so Gabby-inspired, with its canopied bed, tiny tulip wallpaper, and red microblinds, that it provided no refuge for Elle. With no spare, quiet room in the house, nowhere to walk, and her only mode of transport the grim prospect of a car ride with her sulking cousin to the mall, Elle felt trapped.

That was when she'd discovered the pool, the shimmering turquoise retreat that the family had seemingly abandoned . . . until today. Now that Elle had staked her claim on the great outdoors, Gabby and Liam had risen in protest, dusting off the lounge chairs and pretending to care about the pH balance and the filter system.

Liam was out of the pool now, creeping behind Elle.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

He giggled.

“Trying to drip on me?”

“And it's working,” he said.

Elle reached behind her and grabbed hold of something—his ankle. She gave a tug and he fell onto her, sopping wet. Laughing, she leaned forward and they fell into the pool together in a burst of bubbles.

“Gross!” Liam gasped when his head popped above the surface. “She touched me! My own cousin! Ew!”

“Get over it,” Elle said, bringing a leg to the surface to kick water in his direction. “You'll survive.”

“Let's play a game,” Liam said. “We can dive for pennies in twelve feet.”

“Burn!” Gabby shouted. “Dad said no more coins. They're clogging the filter.”

“That is not a burn, and how can a penny get in the filter? Eh-eh-eh-eh-eh! It doesn't float, you penis-head.”

“Dad said,” Gabby insisted.

“Penis-head.” Elle wiggled her toes in the water. “And I thought I'd heard them all.”

“Okay,” Liam went on, now peeking into the side of the pool's filter. “How about Marco Polo. Or races. No, wait. Let's do a diving competition. Elle, did you know I can do a double backflip?”

“Really? I can't do a single backflip.”

“You're not allowed to do flips off the side,” Gabby squawked. “God, don't you know anything?”

“More than you,” Liam taunted his sister as he climbed out of the pool. He positioned himself on the edge, facing away from the water.

“Don't you dare,” Gabby threatened. “Stop it now.”

Although Elle realized a backflip probably wasn't the safest maneuver, the goading in Gabby's voice made her wish Liam would do it—just launch himself into the air and bundle into a spinning ball and land in the water with a splash that shot chlorinated water all over her new swimsuit. God, she hated when bullies prodded and dared. More than once, she'd gotten herself in trouble taking up the challenge. Usually, she got away with it, but not that day on Bikini Beach, that stormy day when they'd all been warned to stay out of the water because of the riptides that had been reported . . .

“Don't you dare,” Darcy had warned. “Don't be an idiot, Elle.”

“I just want to go for a swim,” Elle had said, edging out along the rocks of the jetty. Jagged, black chunky rocks. She'd expected the wet part to be slippery, but it wasn't hard to gain footing. Stepping from one to another, her arms outstretched like a graceful gymnast on the balance beam.

That day on the rocks had been a turning point, one of those moments she would later point to and think, that was it, that was the moment it all started to go wrong. Mom, being a doctor, began to ask herself how she missed all the warning signs. Her father insisted on selling Gram's house and whisked Elle away from “negative influences.” That was the beginning of many visits to a coven of therapists who, at the time, seemed very nosy about Elle's personal business.

Those jagged rocks, hundreds of them dumped there by the Army Corps of Engineers to prevent another hurricane from wiping away the beach and tearing a bay into the coastline . . . there was something mesmerizing about the rocks that day: a dark whispering spell that seemed to summon her even before Darcy voiced the dare.

“You're full of shit.” Darcy stood there, hands on her hips, an indignant princess. “You're not going in the water. And I know why you're doing this, Elle . . .”

Really?
Elle thought with a secret smile.
If you know, then I wish you could explain it to me: the cutting, the brushfires in the dunes, the plover eggs stolen from nests and cracked on the sidewalk.
Elle was always getting in trouble, always the one behind small bits of mischief that horrified her parents. She'd been riding a wave of self-destruction, on a highway to hell, but none of the grown-ups had understood what pushed her.

“At the age of ten you should know better,” her mother said, sitting upright on the sofa during a family meeting. “Playing with fire? Think of the wildlife at stake in the dunes. And I can't imagine the tragedy if the fire had spread from the dunes to someone's house.”

But it was a game,
Elle wanted to tell her.
A game of skill, or so Darcy had said. Here's how you play: Whoever can toss a lit match the farthest without the flames going out wins.

But Elle hadn't mentioned the game. She was the only one caught, and she knew it would be the ultimate betrayal to give up her friends.

So Elle took the rap for the brushfires. And Elle got blamed for the smashed plover eggs, and for a stolen bicycle she knew nothing about. And when her parents grounded her, then found her in her bedroom slicing into her arm with a razor, she didn't have an answer beyond the simple fact that they had sequestered her in her room and she was bored out of her mind and helpless to stop the anger that swirled in the pit of her stomach and lashed over her, reminding her that she was a stupid, moronic idiot whom no one cared about.

All those merciless names Darcy had called her every time she refused to follow her to the ice cream shop or on those fancy picnic lunches packed by the Loves' maid. Triangles of turkey sandwiches with the crusts cut off. Mandarin oranges packed in delicate Tupperware cups. And for dessert, Twizzlers and pixie sticks and nonpareils that Nessie had frozen to keep the chocolate from melting during the picnic.

Elle hated those lunches, the evidence that so many people cared about Darcy Love. She had them all wrapped around the tendrils of her flaxen hair.

“Don't you dare jump, you moron!” Gabby snarled at her brother, jarring Elle back into the present.