Southampton Spectacular (37 page)

“It said that Peter knew, but that he forgave me,” Cynthia said. “He didn’t want to die without freeing me of that burden. Without letting me understand that in the end, he still loved me as much as he ever had.” She took a little breath, and she collected herself. “It also said that he was sorry, and that he hoped I could forgive him, too.”

That
he
was sorry? What would
he
have to be sorry about? You’re the one who committed adultery.

“He knew how much I wanted children,” Cynthia said. “He had never failed at anything in his life, and I think the sterility thing caught him off-guard. There was nothing he could do about it. So he stalled. He kept it from me. I don’t think he planned it, but it just happened.”

What? Planned what?

“You need some background,” Cynthia said. “Peter and Jerry used to be such great friends. Like Barnes and James – ”

They were NOTHING like Barnes and James!

“ – sort of an odd couple. One steady and controlled. One not so steady; a little crazy. Peter was the smart one. More sensitive. He was an athlete, but he was also a great dancer. He had style. Jerry, on the other hand, was brute force. All heart. He was funny before he turned into such a drunk. He was loud and impetuous and… oh, I don’t know, just more of an
animal
than your father.”

Devon cringed.
I don’t want to hear this.

“You probably don’t want to hear this. But the point is that they were great friends. They complimented each other. And that’s what I mean by comparing them to Barnes and James. They were so close that sometimes they seemed like two different parts of the same person. They went everywhere together. To bars, to the Meadow Club and to the Beach Club. They were doubles partners at the Racquet Club. For squash tournaments. So before we were married – and even
after
we were first married – whenever I went somewhere with your father, Jerry was there. They were like a comedy team.”

She paused, and Devon could feel her thinking. Wondering how much to say. But then her mother seemed to make up her mind.

“There are no excuses,” Cynthia said. “But what I can tell you is that I grew fond of Jerry
because
I loved Peter.
Because
they were so close. Finding him attractive was like finding that part – a different part – of your father attractive. And one night we were all together at a restaurant, and drinking a lot, and Peter suddenly had a crisis to deal with at one of his airlines. Which used to happen. And Jerry and I were left together.”

Cynthia sighed. She was silent for a minute.

On the other side of the door, Devon closed her eyes.

That’s the worst story I’ve ever heard.

“When I got pregnant, Peter knew. Of course he knew, because he knew he could never give me children. But I wasn’t sure, because
I
didn’t know he was sterile; and of course we had been trying to have a baby, so I assumed there was a fifty-fifty chance that the pregnancy was thanks to Peter. Plus, he never gave the slightest hint. I think he felt responsible somehow. For making Jerry such a constant part of our lives. He felt as though he had pushed me into it. Enabled me. Then everything changed all at once, because Jerry had found this girl he was crazy about, Tracy, which must have been right after he and I… well. And they got pregnant immediately, and all at once they were married and James was on the way. So it seemed natural that Peter and Jerry were spending less time together. Then Tracy and I came home from the hospital on the same day, her with James and me with you. Can you imagine?”

I can’t imagine.

“And I was never sure, you know,” Cynthia said. “Never. Until I read that lawyer-letter from your father, I thought you might be – ”

Here Cynthia stopped suddenly. Devon waited, holding her breath, wondering if there would be more.

But apparently that was enough for the night. Devon was glad.

It was enough for both of them.

“I love you very much, honey,” Cynthia said, and she knocked once on the door. “I miss you. So does your father.”

Then she was gone.

Devon crept out late in the afternoon on the fourth day. She wasn’t feeling any better, but she had cried enough. Agonized enough. She had gone over in her head  all the unbelievable things her parents had told her too many times now. And all the thinking in the world wasn’t going to change anything.

Anyway, she was getting stiff. And antsy. She wanted to go outside.

She put on a bathing suit – a one-piece, for swimming – and a wide-brimmed hat, and packed a canvas bag with a book and a towel and snacks, and hustled out to the car. She felt strangely apprehensive about being discovered. As though she were a prisoner leaving without permission. She drove to Cryder Lane instead of the Beach Club and hiked down to the water line with her hat pulled low. Not quite in the style of Duane at the carnival, but good enough to give her a sense of security. She glanced to her left, toward the Beach Club. It was only a quarter mile away, and she could see that there was almost no one left on the sand in front of the club. She wanted to go swimming, but the water was rough today. She’d have to see if the lifeguards were still on duty.

She began walking cautiously, trying to look very un-Devon-like. She was out of her room, yes. But she wasn’t looking for conversation.

When she was just within the boundaries of the club’s property, she put down her bag and spread out her towel. She would take a minute to soak up what little sun was left before jumping in the water. It was almost five in the afternoon, but there was still enough heat to warm her up.

She lay down and closed her eyes, and she immediately realized that she would not be able to wait for long. She had been doing almost nothing but lying in her bed for the last three days, wrapped in layers of sheets and down comforters. She had too much energy for just lying in the sand, so in a minute she would go ask the lifeguard if –

“Hey, there.”

Devon opened her eyes a crack. Her hat was shielding her eyes, but the sun was low in the sky, and so she was having difficulty seeing. It
looked
as if a group of three teenaged boys had materialized in front of her. But that was impossible, because she had been lying here for no more than thirty seconds.

She shook her head at them, trying to give the universal signal for “Please, no, go away, for the love of God.”

True to form, the message the boys received was, “
Hey, guys. Good to see you. What’s going on?
”

“Want to come walking with us?” one of them said.

“No, thank you,” Devon answered. Very clearly.

“Oh, come on,” another one called out. “We’re cool, and you’re obviously cool, and – ”

“Hey. Get lost.” This was a new voice. A gruff, much older-sounding, much grumpier voice.

Devon grinned and closed her eyes.

The boys tried to hold their ground. “Who are you, her father?”

“That’s right,” the lifeguard said, and now his voice was closer. Almost right on top of her. “I’m her father. And her brother. And her over-protective uncle, you little
shit
.”

A pause, in which the group of boys did not respond.

“This young lady is looking for some rest,” Kenny went on, in a tone just shy of full-on growling. “So stop bothering her, or I’ll bother
you
.”

Devon heard the soft sound of footsteps in the sand. Retreating quickly.

She waited a minute to give Kenny a chance to go back to his perch. When she heard the lifeguard chair creaking, she opened her eyes and stood. And removed her hat. She gazed out at the ocean, which she now realized was in a truly fierce mood. Red flag, surely. Maybe black.

She called out without turning around. “Kenny.”

“Ms. Hall.”

Now she turned to face him, and she took her time. Out of respect. And gratitude. “I’m thinking of taking a swim,” she said. “How do we feel about this?”

Kenny’s brown, weather-beaten face opened slowly into a smile, and his eyes creased at the corners. “We feel just fine, Ms. Hall. Strong set moving to your right as you face the water, see it?”

Devon turned and watched the ocean for a moment. Then she nodded.

“Start far left, please,” Kenny said.

“It’s getting late. You’re not about to pack up?”

“I’m going nowhere, Ms. Hall. You take your time. That hand of yours is going to be okay in the water?”

Devon looked down at her injured left hand, which still had the splint connecting her middle and index fingers. She barely noticed it anymore, and she knew it wouldn’t be a problem in the ocean.

The ocean itself was the thing.

She put up the hand in a reassuring wave, nodded once more at him, and then gave herself a last chance to back out. The waves were coming with a good, predictable regularity this afternoon, but the swells themselves were far bigger than normal. And Kenny was right about the current. There would be churning, difficult areas, Devon knew.

But if she stood here much longer, someone else might come over. And it might be someone from the club. Someone Kenny could not shoo away without political fallout. Then she would have to have an actual conversation about where she had been for the last few days. About how her friends were doing, and were they okay? And everything else? And meanwhile, underneath it all, she would be searching this person’s eyes – no matter who it was – and wondering whether they knew.

She didn’t want to have a conversation like that. So Devon took another moment to time her approach, and then she sprinted for the water.

Kenny watched her go, his eyes as sharp as ever. He noted, in a detached, critical way, that Devon Hall had the strong, lithe legs of an Amazon, and that she ran like the damned wind, and that in the low light of the five o’clock sun, she was stunning.

Detached, was our friend Kenny. Detached and critical.

Devon hit the water hard, and then she was swimming as fast as she could, pulling herself past the breakers, out far enough to where she could ride the swells like a toy boat in a tub. Then she was through, and she ran one hand over her face and down the back of her head and hair. She looked back at the beach and saw Kenny up on his chair, already so far away. Her heart was beating fast for the first time in four days; she liked the feeling. She could see that she was moving in the current now, and she began to swim hard to the east, fighting to stay in one spot. Now a big set came through, and she was lifted high into the air so that the beach and Kenny were suddenly far below her. She gasped with the rush of it, but she was not frightened; it was something she had done many times before, and as the swell passed she was lowered back down gently. She began swimming easily now, keeping pace with the current, holding her position relative to the lifeguard chair and Kenny.

It was a soothing exercise, and yet it was exhausting. Devon was still watching the beach, and now she felt that it was time to start moving toward the shore. She saw Kenny stand up on his chair suddenly and wave to her. She waved back –

And then she understood that he was not waving. He was pointing.

She turned around and saw the swell coming, a set of four much larger waves, which meant that she had to swim. She had to swim
fast.
Because the place where a wave breaks is directly related to the size of that wave; the larger the swell, the sooner the break. And while Devon had placed herself perfectly to avoid the breaking point of all the waves that had come so far, she was badly out of position for the set now approaching.

She swam as hard as she could, but she saw that she would not make it in time.

The first wave broke less than ten feet in front of her, and she was already diving down, as sleek and quick as a seal, and still she was nearly caught; she felt the pressure spike as the wall of rolling water passed over and around her, but she kept her bearing and kicked for the surface.

She was an experienced ocean swimmer, so she knew what to expect: the second wave in the set was right on top of her. She took a quick breath and dove again, this time with only a second to spare, and the trailing edge of the wave tried to suck her up into the backside of the curl, which would have been a disaster. She surged forward and down, under the suction, and made it through.

Now back up for another breath.

This time she was not fast enough.

Devon took a breath and opened her eyes to see how close the next wave was, and it was already there. She tried to dive, tried to duck under the power and the rolling force of the third and largest wave in the set, but she was already caught in the swirl. It sucked her back for a moment, and she felt herself hurled up into the crest of the wave itself. Then she was pitched over and down.