Summer People (7 page)

The men in the dinghies began to row, while the boys waved to the crowd. The Ellen in the movie walked a few feet closer to the water's edge, waving, as strands of sandy blond hair fluttered across her blue eyes. Nathan could see how beautiful and elegant she'd been. He wondered, if he had been born earlier, in her time, whether she would have had anything to do with him, and how much of himself to see in Carl. The already balding man now stood only a few feet from Ellen, arms folded, smiling as he looked out at the boats, perhaps unsure of what to say to her. In front of them, the dinghies began to blur into one another along the horizon as the screen faded to black.

 

T
here was no shower in the house, so after dinner Nathan took a bath, then dug out from his suitcase clothes he thought might be appropriate for the evening's party. He pulled on a pair of khaki pants, a dress shirt, and a navy blue sport coat he'd noticed in the room's closet. After shaking the musty sport coat out the window, Nathan slid his arms through the silk-lined sleeves and was surprised to see how well it fit. There was prob
ably more room in the chest than Nathan needed, but it was certainly wearable. He moved several yards back from the mirror into a partially shadowed area of the room where he thought he looked the most handsome. When the phone rang, he hustled into Ellen's bedroom to answer.

“Hello, is this Nathan?” a man asked.

“Yeah?”

“This is Glen Broderick.”

Nathan imagined the pensive, blond boy, idly stroking the water, then he remembered a more recent photo of Glen he'd seen on top of Ellen's piano in Cleveland. In the photo he was a hearty, middle-aged man with a dark, mountain-man beard, standing with his arm around his mother's shoulder in a field of waist-high wildflowers.

“I wish we could have talked sooner,” Glen said, speaking in a hushed, gently masculine manner, as if reading Nathan a bedtime story. “But things got kind of hectic here toward the end of June. We thought Ralph was going to take my mother, and then when he couldn't make it, we hoped one of my cousin's sons was going to go with her. And when that fell through, and your father mentioned you, by that time it was just a few days before Allison—my wife—and I were getting ready to take this trip to Alaska.”

Nathan said, “Oh, well, I'm glad things worked out the way they did.”

“You and Mother have been having a good time?”

“I think so.”

“What have you been doing since you arrived?”

“Well, we've been down to the Alnombak club to watch tennis, and we've taken some drives, sat out on the porch. We're supposed to go to a cocktail party this evening.”

“Oh, that's great. Whose party?”

“Bill McAlister's,” Nathan said.

There was a low grunt of acknowledgment. “Mother asked you to take her to this party?”

“Well, I showed her the invitation and she expressed an interest in going.” Nathan waited, but there was a deafening silence on the other end of the line. “Is that a bad idea?”

“It's not a…” Glen took a deep breath. “Yes, I think it probably is a bad idea.”

“Oh.”

“Do you think you could find something else for you and my mother to do this evening?”

“Well…I don't know,” Nathan said, with an awful, nervous laugh. “I mean, I think she kind of thinks she's going to this party.”

“Well, just see what you can do, Nathan. My mother has had a pretty rough go of it these last couple of years, and I'd like to see this summer…I'd like this summer to be relaxing for her.”

“Okay,” Nathan said slowly, glancing down at the sport coat he'd begun to think made him look gallant. Not attending the party would mean he would have to take it off, tell Ellen she'd changed dresses for nothing, and probably settle down with her for several more hours in front of the television. “So this guy Bill is not a good person?” Nathan asked. “Somebody told me he was the one who rescued Ellen when she had her accident with the car last year.”

“He was, but he was also…He and my mother got to know each other pretty well after my father died, but my impression is that Bill is just kind of a roguish character. I think he and his wife are estranged, but they're still married, for one thing, and I just think it would probably be a lot more peaceful and enjoyable for Mother—and for you too, I would guess—if we could limit the number of upsetting things she has to contend with this summer.”

Nathan sighed, “Okay.” He wanted to ask Glen more about the car accident and the relationship between his mother and Bill, but it was clear Glen did not want to give him more details, and Nathan did not want to pry. He had a vague understanding of the conversational etiquette of the affluent—based mostly on Victorian costume dramas he'd seen on television—and he knew that in genteel society, you were supposed to let the unspoken remain unspoken.

“Great,” Glen said, evidently relieved not to have to talk about the subject any longer. They spoke briefly about phone numbers to call in the
event of an emergency, then Glen said, “I don't know if my mother is nearby, but do you think you could get her on the phone?”

 

A
fter Ellen picked up the phone downstairs, Nathan lay back on his bed and imagined Eldwin, Leah, and other stylishly dressed men and women drinking and laughing on the veranda of a palatial home while he languished in his room. He loathed the idea of telling Ellen they weren't going and he wondered what he would say.
Ellen, your son and I have decided that it's not in your best interest to attend Bill McAlister's party.
Those words would never come out of his mouth. He supposed he could lie and tell her he was suddenly feeling too sick to go. But the thought of missing an opportunity to talk with Leah compelled him to fling one of his pillows across the room. Even given Ellen's uncertain mental condition, what right did Glen have to try to influence who his mother could and couldn't see? Nathan returned to the shadowed corner of the bedroom, where he checked himself in the mirror, running his palm down the front of his jacket, before exiting into the hallway. At the top of the stairs, he peered down through the banister to where Ellen was still talking with Glen on the phone.

“Oh, I know that, Glen,” she was saying. She was seated on her recliner, staring up at the ceiling. “No, I won't,” she said. “Oh it
is
good to know that you are thinking of me.”

She brought her thumb and forefinger to the bridge of her nose as she tilted her head down and closed her eyes. She listened and nodded and then listened some more. “Oh, that would be wonderful,” she said suddenly, her eyes opening as her face brightened. “Oh, Glen, I will so be looking forward to it.”

When she finally said good-bye and hung up, Nathan didn't go downstairs immediately for fear she'd think he'd been listening in on her conversation. He walked stealthily back into his bedroom and dropped into the wicker chair beside the window. Watching the seagulls glide serenely above the water, Nathan considered the fragments of conversation he'd heard and whether Ellen had perhaps agreed to follow her son's suggestion. Nathan chewed his thumbnail and muttered profanities. Yes, he was being paid to
take care of Ellen, but was it too much to ask that Ellen and her son give some consideration to Nathan's needs while he was there? He was not a monk, for Christ's sake. He was a virile young man. And if his ex-girlfriend no longer wanted to hear his voice or read his letters, well, then, he was going to need to get out of this large, drafty house every once in a while and talk to somebody his own age. He trudged down the stairs to find Ellen watching TV.

Taking a seat across from her in the recliner, he asked, “How's your son?”

“Oh, he's fine. He's doing very well.”

“That's great.” On television a mile-wide tornado whirled and thrashed across an open prairie toward an old man in a pickup who was speeding down an endless stretch of open road.

Ellen said, “You look handsome.”

Nathan turned to find her staring at him. “Oh. Thanks.” He glanced down at himself. “I found this sport coat in the closet upstairs.”

“In the closet?”

“Yeah, it was the only thing in there, so I'm guessing maybe it was Ralph's? It was kind of dusty but it fits pretty well.”

“I suppose it must have been one of Harold's.”

“Whoa, I'm sorry. I'll take it off.”

“Oh no, no. I like it on you,” Ellen said, leaning over to pick up her cane from beside the chair. She took a minute to rest her head against the back of the recliner, eyes closed, as if to gather her energy. Then she leaned forward and asked, “Would you turn off the TV so we can go?”

 

O
n the way to the party, Ellen mentioned that her son would be visiting later that summer.

“Oh? When?”

“Pretty soon, I think.”

“Did he give any dates?”

“Oh, I'm sure he did.” Ellen's brow furrowed thoughtfully until her attention was drawn to the passing scenery. As they turned off Birch Hill
Boulevard, they passed the club, where only two men were playing tennis, then drove on beneath the vaulted boughs of Admirals Way. After turning around in the cul-de-sac, Nathan parked behind a row of cars and escorted Ellen up the long driveway. In the lengthening shadows of old oak trees, warm evening air carried voices and laughter from the expansive coastal home. Made of white brick, with a shale-colored slate roof, the east and west wings extended out like stunted arms welcoming visitors onto the grounds. At the front door, a female caterer in a red bow tie guided them down a softly lit hallway to the large, sunken living room where the partygoers had gathered. A massive gilt-framed mirror above the fireplace reflected the antique furniture and dozens of senior citizens who had separated into clusters in the fading summer light. Nathan inhaled the musty sweetness of old women's perfume.

Later he would wonder why he had been so unprepared for the reception they encountered that evening. Why had he assumed that only Glen would know his mother and Mr. McAlister had “gotten to know each other pretty well” while Mr. McAlister was still married? These partygoers were older, conservative men and women who valued dignity and discretion, and, Nathan was learning, also gossiped like fiends. Heads turned, voices quieted, and standing on the edge of that long, gangplanklike hallway, Nathan felt for an instant that he and Ellen had arrived at their doom. He nervously escorted her down the steps, and helped her to avoid tripping over the living room's large, Persian rug, but it was several moments before the murmuring returned to full-fledged chatter.

As a few of the partygoers turned with broad smiles and gushing “Hellooooo's,” Franny and Carl Buchanan were among a circle of couples who attempted to engage Ellen in conversation. Franny raved about how lovely it had been to watch last year's Fourth of July fireworks from Ellen's porch, and, adopting a more somber tone, expressed how wonderful it was that Ellen had been able to return to “the Cove.” Carl's pale cheeks looked flushed with embarrassment or liquor or both, and his lips had the wet gleam of freshly melted wax. He shook hands with Ellen and Nathan, but said almost nothing, gazing over their heads as he absently surveyed the
room. When Franny suggested that perhaps Nathan would like to escort Ellen someplace to sit down, Nathan was grateful to move away from them.

At the bar—bottles of wines and liquor arrayed on a white tablecloth—Nathan ordered a sherry and a rum and Coke. He guided Ellen to the upholstered couch at the far corner of the room, where he sipped his drink and tried to make it appear that he and Ellen were actively engaged in conversation. He commented on the baby grand behind them, asking her if she had ever played an instrument (the flute, briefly, as a child), then talked at some length about his own teenage efforts to play the guitar. When this monologue evolved into another—about how well sound traveled across the harbor, and then about the differences in weather between Cleveland and Brightonfield Cove—Nathan sighed heavily and took the final gulp of his rum and Coke. Finding Ellen's drink mostly unsipped, he stood to refill his glass.

The bartender refreshed his drink, and Nathan lifted a stuffed portobello mushroom from a silver tray. Many of the faces surrounding him were familiar from the Alnombak club or St. Michael's. But he saw no sign of Leah. Eldwin was talking with a group of people near the back patio, but Nathan did not try and talk with him. Instead he ate a few more stuffed mushrooms while occasionally glancing at Ellen. An older man with a gray mustache eased himself down on the couch beside her, and Ellen clasped his hand with both of hers. Nathan was about to march back to the couch when Eldwin approached him.

“So, are you bored yet?” he asked. He had tired, hound-dog eyes, and shook Nathan's hand while sidling up to the bar.

“Give me another minute,” Nathan said, although he was no longer as bored as he had been. He was wondering about the man with the gray mustache.

“Leah's out in the side yard with the kids, if you want to say hello.”

Nathan nodded. “All right.”

After asking the bartender to refill his glass of merlot, Eldwin asked, “So what do you do in Cleveland when you're not going to church?”

Ellen and the man were no longer holding hands, so Nathan rubbed his chin and decided he could stay a moment longer. “In the afternoon I've got a job as an assistant at the downtown public library, and at night I usually work on this graphic novel I've been trying to draw.”

“Is that like a…like a comic book?”

“Well, yeah, but it's not like Superman or Green Lantern or any of those superhero comics. It's more like an illustrated story for adults.”

Eldwin sipped his wine and nodded.

“Not a lot of adults know about them,” Nathan explained. “A lot of graphic novelists have to publish their own work and then find a company to distribute them.”