The Summer House (6 page)

Then she stole a quick glance at Michael and wondered where his orders would send him and if she should write to him and if he’d write back. Just then a stranger appeared at the foot of the porch, and Liz forgot about Michael Barton altogether.

It was like something out of a movie, the kind you go to alone on a Saturday afternoon when you’re feeling lonely and in need of a good pull on your emotions, maybe an opportunity to leave a few tears in the balcony.

“Excuse me,” the stranger said. “I’ve lost my dog.”

Liz did not know if everyone else felt the same slow-motion movements of the next few moments, moments that would be burned in her memory—the way the late-day sun seemed to melt into her face, the way it spread its heat all through her body.

Quickly, she put a hand to her throat and willed herself to breathe.

“She’s a black Lab,” the stranger was saying, though somehow it didn’t seem right that he had a voice, because he looked more like a statue, a carved marble statue that wore cutoff jeans where a fig leaf should be. His chest, however, was bare and broad and shimmery in the sunlight maybe from lotion or maybe from … 
sweat
.

Liz glanced at the others in case she had groaned out loud.

But their eyes were fixed on the stranger.

“No dogs around here,” Father said. “We’d know if there were. My son is allergic.”

The son he referred to was not Daniel, but Roger. Liz was surprised that right now she was able to remember that.

The stranger blinked. He was looking at her now; his long-lashed, deep-set eyes were as dark as the hair on his head and the hair on his chest, which trailed into a V and disappeared beneath his belt. “Well, if you see her,” he said, “her name is Snuffy. She’s real friendly.”

Father gave a curt nod, but did not ask what to do if they saw her, how they could get hold of him, where he lived.

“Well, thanks,” the stranger said. “Sorry to have bothered you.”

Father stood, watching him leave.

“I know who that is,” Evelyn said. “His family just bought the house on the other side of the cove.”

Father raised his thick gray brows. Obviously, he had not yet heard the news.

“The Bentley place,” Evelyn continued. “Well, it’s now owned by the Millers. From Westchester. He’s the son. And his name is Josh.” She lowered her voice and added, “They’re Jews. The whole lot of them.”

“He’d kill you,” BeBe said.

They sat in Liz’s small room after dinner—the room that was tucked under the eaves. They sat on her small iron bed that smelled slightly of mothballs and dampness and everything summer.

“I’m sixteen, Beebs. It’s not as if I’m twelve.” Liz wrapped her old chenille robe—her “island robe”—around her more tightly, knowing that BeBe was
right. Father would kill her if he had any idea she had … what? Fallen madly in love with this boy named Josh Miller? And why had she? She’d seen him for what—one minute? Two? They hadn’t even spoken, and yet …

Was it his smile? His eyes? His … scent? She’d once read in a magazine that people emit scents just as animals do. That for every person there is a positive—and positively delicious—scent. Maybe if she explained that to Father, that it was all about nature, that it wasn’t her fault …

“Besides,” BeBe continued, “you don’t know anything about him.”

“I know he’s gorgeous.”

“Maybe he has a girlfriend.”

“I don’t care.”

“He’s Jewish.”

“I don’t care about that, either.”

“Well, maybe he does.”

Liz looked at her sister. “Why would he care that he’s Jewish?”

“He might care that you’re not.”

Liz rose from the bed and paced to the window. She looked out onto the sandy earth below, lit only by the firelight that spilled from the living room downstairs, and by the half-moon that had risen high in the sky. “I’ve got to find a way to see him again, Beebs.”

“You’re smitten, Lizzie. It was bound to happen and now it has. Do yourself a favor and forget it. Trust me, it will pass.”

Liz did not answer, but stared out the window.

“And aside from the obvious, don’t forget that Father has picked out Michael for you.”

“Michael is nice,” Liz replied dreamily. “But he’s not quite as … I don’t know …”

“Hormonal,” BeBe said, then moaned. “Oh, Lizzie, don’t do this. Don’t even give Josh Miller one more of
your thoughts or Father will know, and Father will have him removed from the face of the earth.”

Liz leaned against the window screen, breathed in a deep breath of cool Vineyard night air, and wondered if, in order to do that, Father would use the pistol that Evelyn had brought Daniel, the pistol with plenty of ammunition, because you never knew what might happen next.

Chapter 5

Late the next morning BeBe came outside, lit a cigarette, bent the match, and stuffed it into the grass. Father, of course, did not allow her to smoke in the house. She wondered if he considered smoking worse than being in love with a Jew. She inhaled deeply and thought about Liz. Her sister had finally grown into her legs and was becoming the kind of elegant beauty that would be perceived as classic, timeless, and all those other Romanesque words; refined beauty that attracted men for the long haul, way longer than one night; beauty that was very much unlike BeBe’s own unique, ungroomed style.

So Liz had grown into her little-girl legs and now her heart had caught up. BeBe exhaled her relief on a slow stream of smoke, grateful that now the shock might not hurt if Lizzie ever learned that her sister, her idol, had slept with the boy that Father had chosen as Lizzie’s ideal mate.

BeBe closed her eyes. She tasted the coarse taste of her morning cigarette, felt the dewy ground soak into her butt, and realized that “slept” was not exactly the right
way to say it. “Had sex” was more like it. Or simply “fucked.”

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” Michael had slurred after too many beers with tequila chasers.

They had slipped from the graduation-eve party and found a secluded dark spot on West Point’s Flirtation Walk, under an oak tree, behind a stone wall.

In her heart, she knew Michael was right, but by that time she had pulled down her panties and was positioning herself over him. At that point she did not care whose penis it was, as long as it fit, as long as it would make her feel wanted and make her feel good, and smooth out—if only for a few moments—the rough edge that encircled her heart.

It did.

What had not made her feel good was that immediately after, Michael had asked if her sister had a boyfriend yet and if she’d be on the Vineyard with the family this summer.

He asked BeBe these things while her skirt was still raised and while she still had his wetness deep inside her.

But before she could answer, Michael passed out, drunk as the skunks that Daniel loved twirling.

BeBe had quickly dressed and told herself that none of it mattered; that she, after all, had been the one to pursue Michael at the party. She was not trying to steal him from Lizzie; she was trying to show Father that she was good enough to get a “good” boy, too, whether he believed it or not.

At least, that was how it seemed after several gin and tonics.

Of course, her plan had backfired, but after sobering up, BeBe told herself it was better that way.

Still, she thought now, taking another drag on her unfiltered cigarette, it would have been nice if Michael had been sober enough to act as if he’d liked her a little,
as if she really was special enough to be liked by someone normal, an all-American boy.

She flicked a shred of tobacco from her lip and reminded herself that all-American boys did not go with girls like her: they were reserved for the Lizzies of the world—the Lizzies with the cheerleader looks and tightly closed thighs. Which might not remain closed much longer, if Liz had a chance at Josh Miller.

BeBe knew the signs, and she knew it was up to her to stop her kid sister before Liz’s life took the same downhill course as her own. All she had to do was figure out how to divert Lizzie’s thoughts back to Michael, even if it meant BeBe had to switch sides and agree with Father.

“You’ve got to help me,” BeBe said to Roger. He looked up from the lilac bush cuttings he was transplanting behind the garage. Surprise showed on his face, for Daniel was the brother people always went to for help. Daniel, not Roger.

He set down his trowel and wiped his hands on his jeans. “Sure, Beebs. What’s up?”

It occurred to BeBe, not for the first time, what a shame it was that Roger, one year younger than Daniel, seemed doomed to stand forever in his brother’s huge shadow. Even physically he seemed inferior: where Daniel was sturdy, Roger was slight; where Daniel was handsome, Roger was … well, not unattractive, but plain. In the eyes of the family, he was number two next to Daniel, just as BeBe would always take a backseat to Liz. It was simply the way things were.

BeBe stuffed her hands into the pockets of her cutoffs. “It seems as if our Lizzie has a beau.”

Behind the rims of his glasses, Roger’s eyebrows went up. “Liz has a boyfriend? What’s wrong with that?”

“The problem is not what, it’s who.” And then she told him about Josh Miller.

Roger agreed that Father would explode if he learned Liz was in love with a stranger, let alone a Jew.

“We need to do whatever we can to get her together with Michael,” BeBe concluded.

“We could go to the movies tonight,” Roger suggested. “All of us, if you want. Then work it so she has to sit next to him.”

BeBe tweaked his cheek. “You’re brilliant, brother. But not a word to anyone. It will be our secret.”

He picked up his trowel and resumed his work. “Yeah, well, you’ll have to find her first. I saw her head down to the cove after breakfast.”

Michael Barton was not as good-looking as he had been yesterday. Liz maneuvered the rowboat around the small cove and let her thoughts drift from Michael to Josh Miller—the handsome, the untouchable, the forbidden. She set down the oars, closed her eyes, and let the warm remnants of sunset float over her, over every part of her.

She wondered what it would feel like to have his hands on her. She wondered what his fingers were like, if they were both strong and tender at the same time. She wondered what it would feel like to have his body above her, to have his dark eyes gaze into hers while he was touching her there and there and there, filling her with feelings and sensations and awakenings and …

Her eyes flew open. She glanced around to see if anyone was watching, if anyone could read what was on her mind by the flush that surely must be on her cheeks.

She touched a hand to her face.

Josh Miller
, she thought.
Oh, God
.

She picked up the oars and began rowing again.

She had barely eaten dinner last night or breakfast this morning. Who could think of eating when all that mattered was when they would meet again, and where, and how …

She had decided how it would happen. She would be alone, at sunset, drifting on the water, as she was now. He would appear, slowly, calling for his dog. But then he would see her.

“Hey,” he’d say softly. “Great night.”

She would smile. “Yeah,” she’d answer.

“I lost my dog,” he’d say. “Again.”

“I’ll help you find her,” Liz would reply. Then she would row to the shore. He would hold the side of the boat to steady it, then he would take her hand to help her out.

Their touch would be electrifying.

She’d reach up and pull the barrette from her ponytail. She’d shake her hair free. She’d look off to the horizon, but his eyes would not leave her. She’d nod toward the sky and say, “Beautiful sunset.”

He would step closer, this hunk named Josh Miller. He would step closer and slide his arm around her waist. “Not as beautiful as the woman who’s watching it,” he would say into her hair. Then he would lean into her, his lips moving from her cheek to her ear, to her throat … then she would stretch her back in the slightest arch … then …

They would be married as soon as she graduated from high school. It would not matter that he was Jewish: the ceremony would be in the old South Church in Boston, and they would be so in love that no one—not even Father—could say they were not meant for each other.

And they would have children. Beautiful, olive-skinned children … and he would touch her forever, grazing his hand over and over her body, coming to know every inch of her being as if it were his own … and she would know his … the softness of a special place right
there on his stomach, the firmness of his flesh that lay just below …

“Lizzie!” came a shout.

Liz jumped. One of her oars splashed into the water. Her heart pounded. Leaning over the boat, she reached for the oar. It was floating too far away. With the other oar, she tried to row toward it, but the boat went in a circle, no closer than before.

“Lizzie!” The shout came again, closer this time, and quite recognizable. It was BeBe.

“I’m here!” she called back, then stooped and reached again for the oar. This time, she fell in.

The water was early summer icy, its chill slicing straight to her bones. Breaking the surface, Liz saw BeBe standing on the shore, hands on her hips.