The Summer House
“Oh, Beebs,” Liz said over the phone. “I wish things could be different. I wish you could be here.”
“Me too, kiddo.” It had, however, long since been decided that their politics would not be a showcase for the family’s black sheep. “How are the kids?” BeBe asked brightly.
“Bearing up well. Danny’s a little tired. But I guess that’s to be expected.”
“And Michael? Is he going to be nominated?”
“It looks that way.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“And he’ll be running against Josh.” She waited one, two, three seconds for Liz to comment.
“Congratulations,” Liz said. “I see you’re keeping up with the news.”
Leaning back in her chair, BeBe put her feet up on her desk. She looked down at her legs, which had never been as long as her sister’s, and at the pale skin that, despite living year-round in Florida, no longer tanned as it had on the Vineyard, but more often burned and made her sprout adolescent freckles that matched her orange hair. “Well,” she said slowly, “it will be an interesting election.”
Liz hesitated then said, “Yes. Well. That’s one way of putting it.”
BeBe’s heart ached just a little. “Keep your chin up, kiddo, and everything will work out. It always has. It always does.” She did not add, “But not always the way we want.”
“I love you, big sister,” Liz replied.
Bantam Books by Jean Stone
BIRTHDAY GIRLS
PLACES BY THE SEA
TIDES OF THE HEART
SINS OF INNOCENCE
FIRST LOVES
IVY SECRETS
THE SUMMER HOUSE
A Bantam Book / April 2000
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2000 by Jean Stone.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information address: Bantam Books.
eISBN: 978-0-307-78520-6
Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words “Bantam Books” and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036
.
v3.1
To the Omniglow Creative Services Team for moments of brilliance and Friday bake-offs, for Dunkin’ Donuts coffee and impossible deadlines (and for turning down the radio)
.
Also to Arie, who has shown me the world … and to Jim—a very special part of it
.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Prologue
1965
It was not the first time that Lizzie had seen her sister do something against Father’s wishes. It was, however, the first time she’d heard that Daniel was going to be president. She scooted quickly along the path on this bright, sunny morning and tried to catch up.
“How can Daniel be president?” Lizzie asked. “He’s only sixteen.” She was only nine herself (well, almost nine), but she knew enough to know that Daniel was too young, that he did not even come close to being the kind of old man it took to be president of the United States, an old man like John Fitzgerald Kennedy or Lyndon B. Johnson.
Slowing down to walk, BeBe replied, “I didn’t mean today, silly.”
Lizzie felt the tug in her belly that she always felt whenever BeBe or Roger or even Daniel himself called
her silly or childish or anything that reminded her that she was the baby of the family, that she was the kid.
She pulled at a cattail, one of the tall, fuzzy-tipped weeds that rimmed Martha’s Vineyard. This was the island where summers happened in big, gray-shingled houses, away from the city-street brownstones of Boston. It did not matter how elegant the Boston brownstones were, or how many generations of their family had endured the city summers: once the Steamship Authority had made the island comfortably accessible, the Adams family was ensconced there from June until Labor Day.
Lizzie ran the soft brush of the cattail along her August-freckled cheek. “Will Daniel be president after he graduates from West Point?” Congressman Carter and his gossipy granddaughter with the buck teeth had come for dinner last night. He had announced that in honor of Mother’s clam chowder—“the best on the Vineyard”—he was going to see to it that Daniel received a commission to the military academy at West Point. Lizzie wasn’t sure what that meant either, but Father had smiled and ladled more chowder into the congressman’s bowl.
“He won’t be president until long after West Point,” BeBe replied now. “But I heard Father say that in the meantime, he’d make sure the congressman was reelected.”
Lizzie did not know how Will Adams could “make sure” that anyone was elected to anything. Everyone knew that voting was up to the people, and you could vote for whomever you wanted. Besides, Father was a lawyer, not a politician.
She tossed down the cattail, wishing she was older, like BeBe, smarter, like BeBe, and, like BeBe, had bumps on the front of her jersey.
“There’s the president now,” BeBe exclaimed as they
reached the end of the path where it opened up to the cove. The silver-dollar-like inlet sneaked in from Vineyard Sound onto land that still belonged to the Indians but that the Adams kids treated as their own. It was their secret place, where they splashed in and out of the water and had picnics along the scrub oak and tall-pine-treed fringes, away from the watchful eyes of fathers and mothers and adults of any kind.
In the middle of the water sat the old, green wooden rowboat. In it was President Daniel himself, along with Roger, the second-born brother, and a couple of fishing poles that dangled over the sides.
“Hey, Mr. President,” BeBe shouted, waving her arms. “Any room in your boat?”
Daniel waved back and smiled his big, white-toothed smile that looked even whiter against his summer-dark tan. To Lizzie there was no boy alive more handsome.
“When I am president I shall make you both princesses,” he exclaimed, clasping his hand to his chest, then pointing at Lizzie. “Especially you, Lizzie-girl.” She giggled and shook sand from her pink and white rubber thongs. She knew there were no princesses in the United States of America, but here in their special cove, anything was possible.
Daniel picked up the oars. “Come on, brother Roger, let’s save our two princess sisters from the enemies of the kingdom.”
As he rowed the boat toward them, Lizzie squinted her eyes against the shafts of light that shot from the sun, sliced through the trees, and created a halo around Daniel’s whole body. She leaned into her sister. “Do you really think he’ll be president, Beebs?”
BeBe studied their brother a moment. She patted her French twist and nodded. “There’s no doubt about it, Lizzie. It’s exactly what our Lord-and-Father wants.”
Lizzie knew that BeBe did not mean the “Lord” as in
God, as in Heaven, but
their
father, Will Adams, who always got what he wanted. Always. Every time. No matter what.
Despite the warmth of the sun in the late morning air, Lizzie shivered a little but did not know why.
Part I
Year 2000
Chapter 1
It had taken twenty-four years to get to New Jersey, twenty-eight if you started counting from when Daniel was killed. Which would only have been right, for that was when it had all begun … all of the planning and scheming and orchestrating that had landed Liz Adams-Barton here today, standing at a podium, acknowledging enthusiastic applause.
“Thank you,” she said into the microphone at the Sheraton or Hyatt or Marriott, wherever she was. It was not her job to remember. Logistics was what her brother Roger was for: Liz merely had to show up and give a short, impassioned speech that would deliver the votes to her husband. Her husband, Michael Barton, who—not Daniel—was running for president of the United States.
This afternoon, her passion had been directed toward the Northeast Coalition for Handicapped Americans. For an hour now in the red-white-and-blue-decorated banquet room, the audience of eight hundred had been enrapt by her words and now cheered enthusiastically from their wheelchairs and walkers and crutches. They seemed especially delighted that Liz had brought Danny
along, Danny, her twenty-two-year-old son—one of
them
—who sat next to the podium in his own chair with wheels. She glanced down at him. He responded with a hearty wink.
Liz smiled back at the crowd. They were not exactly exploiting Danny. He wanted to be there to help put his father—and all of them—into the White House and into the history books.