The Summer House Page 7

  She let herself cry quietly, a weep more than a real full-blown cry, with babylike tears instead of real adult sobs. Barbara Beth Adams, after all, had nothing to cry about, did she? She was one of four children born with that great silver Adams spoon shoved into their mouths, and all the accoutrements, like a Mount Holyoke education and a summer house on the Vineyard.

  No, BeBe had nothing to cry about. She was not one of the frail, almond-eyed women she’d seen on the TV news, the ones who had babies in rice paddies and spent every waking and probably sleeping moment in fear of the lives of their parents and husbands and children and selves. She was not one of the women Daniel was being sent to defend.

  She had nothing to cry about, yet she could not seem to stop, as if fingers were tightly squeezing at the insides of her heart. She wondered why men like Daniel had to die for their country and women like her didn’t have a chance even with a man like Tuna and a house with no phone.

  What made her think she deserved even that? She was not smart like Daniel, not lovely like Liz, nor even content like Roger. She was simply the mediocre, trouble-making third child of Will Adams, with a special talent for finding trouble and for fucking almost any boy who asked, and some who did not.

  She’d even fucked a girl once, no, twice, back at college, if fuck was the proper word for two girls together, sucking each other’s dark, hard nipples and little pink places, pretending to do it in order to know how they tasted to boys, yet curiously savoring the warm rush of orgasms they each had created.

  The girl’s name was Nadine and she was a lot richer than BeBe, but her family was from the Midwest so they didn’t count. Her father had invented some kind of equipment that increased the milk production of dairy cattle. BeBe wasn’t sure, but she thought maybe the fact that Nadine had been raised on a farm had something to do with the girl’s overactive imagination, which seemed fixated on sex more often than even BeBe’s.

  They met in the riding stables one afternoon about two weeks into their freshman year: they rode together through the yellow-red-orange trees and across the leaves that crunched beneath hooves. They became fast friends; even faster after they had fucked, that first time behind the stables, the second in Nadine’s dormitory room. A few days later, Nadine’s room was empty.

  “Her father dropped dead,” another girl explained. “She’s gone home to Iowa.”

  BeBe felt sad for a few hours or maybe more, but she suspected it was probably all for the best, because she didn’t really want to turn into a lesbo and with Nadine’s sexy appetite and no boys around she supposed it was possible.

  Beyond that, BeBe Adams knew she was not much good to the world or anyone in it. Certainly not good enough for even a tuna fisherman to want for a wife, nor good enough to stop a brother from going to war.

  She was thinking these things between her tears, as she heard the approach of sneaker-soft-footsteps.

  Chapter 8

  “It’s cold out, Beebs.”

  It was Daniel’s voice. She did not look up. “What are you doing here?”

  “Stupid question.”

  He sat down on the pier next to the rock where she sat. She still did not look up. “I took the car,” she said.

  “I noticed.”

  “You walked?”

  “God, you’re a genius.”

  “It must be three miles.”

  “Two, I think. I took the bike ferry.”

  Ah, BeBe thought, the bike ferry—the wobbly, barely-get-you-there raft that shortcutted the basin across to Menemsha and was especially essential when one had a mission. “You’re an asshole,” she said.

  “So are you.”

  She stayed in her position, head down, cheeks now, she knew, streaked by her tears. She did not want Daniel to see that. She did not want him to think she’d been crying about him, or worse, about her.

  “If you’re planning to stay on this rock for a couple of days, we might need to borrow the car,” Daniel said.

  She listened to the water lap against the rock. “How’d you know where to find me?”

  He cleared his throat. “Tuna,” he said. “I figured you’d come and find Tuna.”

  They had never talked about BeBe’s “friends.” But BeBe had always known that Daniel knew, the way Daniel seemed to know everything. “He’s married,” she said.

  “Yeah. I found out.”

  “Oh, God.” BeBe looked up without thinking. “You went there too?”

  “Don’t tell me you were serious about him.” And though Daniel could have laughed, he did not.

  She thought for a moment, then shook her head. “Just humiliated, I guess. That even a tuna fisherman wouldn’t want me.”

  “Beebs …” Daniel slid from the pier onto the rock and slipped his arm around her. “You didn’t give a shit about him. And it has nothing to do with the fact he’s a fisherman.”

  Her jaw tightened; she turned her head. “I take whatever happiness I can grab, Daniel. I’m not like everyone else in the family. I have no special talents.”

  “Yes you do, Beebs. You are a great and wonderful independent woman. Even the clothes you wear show the free spirit of your soul. If you let it, that spirit will take you far.”

  She closed her eyes and cried again, this time for real, this time for grown-up real. She cried into his broad West Point shoulder and wondered what the hell she was going to do if anything happened to Daniel. “You son of a bitch,” she said, half weeping, half shouting. “You have no right to go to Vietnam.” She smacked his thigh with a closed fist. He did not wince.

  “It’s my duty.”

  She pulled herself from him. “Fuck your duty.”

  “I’m trained for it, Beebs.”

  “Big deal. I can’t believe Father couldn’t stop it.”

  “Vietnam is bigger than Washington.”

  “I don’t care about Washington. I care about you. It’s going to change you, Daniel. If you come back at all, you’ll be different.”

  “I’ll be older. That’s all.”

  “I watch the news. So do you.” She looked down at her feet, then at the water that lapped the rock. She kicked at it, splashing it up onto her legs, up onto Daniel’s. What she really wanted to do was dive onto the rocks and into the water and never come up.

  “Maybe I’ll be a hero,” he continued. “Don’t you want a brother who’s a hero?”

  She shook her head. “I want a live brother. Not a dead hero.”

  This time he did not respond, but his arm held her more tightly, as if maybe, just maybe, he was a little bit worried about that godforsaken hot jungle, too.

  Tears stung the corners of Evelyn’s eyes. She sat in the rocking chair of Grandfather’s dimly lit, stale bedroom and tapped her feet to the erratic beat of his labored breath. With each tap, her anguish rose another notch.

  Daniel Adams was off to war and she had to hear it from the postmaster who was also a neighbor and who had run into Michael Barton at the ferry; Michael, when questioned, had not denied that Daniel’s orders had arrived.

  Which, of course, Evelyn had prayed would happen because one did not get to be president by being a pansy, or at least that was what Grandfather always said. Still, Daniel should have told her himself that the orders had finally arrived. Then she wouldn’t have had to call the Adamses’ house at seven o’clock on a Sunday morning and wake up the whole family.

  However, she was not welcome to see him. “Family time,” he explained, “you understand.” Well, she didn’t, not really, but he said he’d write when he had a chance. And he would, she knew he would.

  In the future, after all, they would be together.

  From across the room came the mournful sounds: hish, swish; hish, swish.

  She looked at the old man who lay under the sheets, and ached with the fear that he would die before she and Daniel were married and that Daniel wouldn’t want to marry her once her grandfather and his connections were gone. She’d be all alone then.

  She closed h
er eyes and swallowed a small lump that had grown in her throat.

  She supposed that technically, she already was an orphan. Her father had died his own hishy, swishy death three years ago from internal injuries from a Vineyard car crash that had killed her mother on the spot. Within forty-eight hours they were both dead, and Evelyn was left with Grandfather—and he was left with her.

  Now he’d be gone soon, too. There would be the traditional funeral for a United States congressman, and Evelyn would be in the spotlight for one lousy day.

  She opened her eyes and pushed back her tears.

  Maybe Daniel would be allowed to come to the funeral from wherever he was. She’d have to remember to speak to Senator Jameison about that. She’d have to pull a few strings, but it should be easy, easier than being alone.

  She looked back to Grandfather and realized that if he died he would never know she had given away his prized pistol, pretending it was from him. Grandfather would never know, so he would never be angry at her. But then again, maybe he would understand. Maybe he would even approve.

  Summer Sundays on the Vineyard were usually filled with the aroma of Mother’s fresh muffins, the intermingling rustle of The Boston Globe and The New York Times, and the chatter of who was doing what today with whom and at what time.

  This morning, however, the air in the kitchen had the pallor of a funeral home and the waxy whispers of the dead, as if Daniel had already left for boot camp, as if he were already on his way. To make matters worse, Evelyn Carter had called at seven o’clock.

  “More coffee?” Mother murmured to Father, who responded only with a silent shake of his head, as if he were really concentrating on the op-ed page he held in his hand.

  BeBe noticed that Roger, too, was more silent than usual. Roger wasn’t any happier than the rest of them that Daniel was leaving. Roger was—had always been—curiously content with position number two and perhaps even fearful to have the spotlight turned on him.

  Lizzie was the only one who unashamedly showed her feelings, crying a little each time Daniel said something meant to make her laugh. At least she seemed to have forgotten about Josh Miller, thank God.

  As for Daniel, well, he’d sat and stood so many times now that BeBe wanted to tell him to knock it off, but it didn’t seem appropriate this morning, even for her.

  She wondered if all families whose sons and brothers were going off to war were as off-centered as hers, poised in teeter-totter motion, waiting for one another to react.

  “What time are you leaving?” she asked.

  “On the two-fifteen out of Oak Bluffs.” Daniel stood up. “Hey, Lizzie, grab the Polaroid. I want to go out on the lawn.”

  “Why?” Mother asked.

  “Just a little memorabilia.” He kissed Mother on the top of her head and smiled that smile that always helped him get away with everything, the lucky shit. He was, no doubt, wanting to find one last skunk, for the record.

  BeBe decided it was a good time to exit, maybe go down to the beach or into town, to be anywhere but here. She knew Daniel would understand. They had already said their good-byes last night.

  BeBe didn’t go to the beach. Instead, she decided it wasn’t every day her older brother deserted her, and it wasn’t as if Oak Bluffs was that far away. If the traffic was steady, she shouldn’t have to wait too long.

  Standing by the roadside, she stuck out her thumb, glad she’d worn her cutoff jeans this morning and the halter top that Father hated because he said it made her look like a whore.

  Liz stood by the window of her upstairs bedroom where the dormer met the eaves, where the tiny-flowered wallpaper went up the walls and across the slanted ceiling—a trick that Mother thought made the room seem larger. It did not seem larger now, but instead felt stuffy and confining.

  She held back the ball-fringed white Cape Cod curtain and watched Father steer the Buick from the driveway, onto the dirt road and toward the street, toward the ferry, toward Vietnam.

  She had tucked one of the Polaroids inside Daniel’s duffel bag for good luck: she’d told him that any man strong enough to tangle with Vineyard skunks should have no problem with the North Vietnamese.

  Then she had taken Father’s keys and slipped the other photo into the locked drawer of his desk, next to the pistol that Evelyn had given Daniel—where it couldn’t be damaged or lost.

  “Be good,” Liz had said into Daniel’s ear at the front door. What she’d really wanted to say was, “Be careful.”

  When the Buick was out of sight. Liz pulled her eyes from the driveway and turned, looking around her room. A queer, lonely scent hung in the air, as if the house knew that something, someone, was missing, that Daniel had gone and things would never be the same.

  The first to stop had been a decent guy in a pickup who was headed into Vineyard Haven. BeBe had him drop her off at the “Cross Island Parkway” as Daniel had always jokingly called the narrow road that cut across the Vineyard to Edgartown.

  Waiting for her next ride, BeBe realized she was already thinking of her brother in the past tense, as if he had already been shot at, blown up, or bombed, and was a statistic on the NBC Nightly News.

  Body count, she remembered hearing it called, just as another vehicle stopped—this time a station wagon driven by a small-eyed man who looked in want of something more than a passenger, and might be willing to pay if BeBe were so inclined, if she were that hard up.

  She was not. She waved him away and started walking again, wishing she had worn something other than sandals, especially the sandals that laced halfway up her legs and were, like most of her wardrobe, built for style not comfort.

  One car passed, then another and another. And then another pickup truck pulled to the side of the road.

  “Want a ride, lady?”

  BeBe turned and looked directly at Tuna. “I’m not sure,” she replied. “How far are you going?”

  He smiled. “Not as far as I used to. But hop in.”

  She climbed into the old truck where they had made love lots of times, back when Tuna still lived up island with his folks and they had nowhere else to go. Two years ago he had bought the cottage and, well, they’d no longer needed the truck. BeBe looked at the worn cloth seat and inhaled its officious sea-scent. “Nice wheels,” she commented.

  He put the truck into gear and spun from the gravel back onto the road. “Thanks for not giving anything away last night,” he said.

  “Yeah. Well, I kind of figured your wife had assumed you were a virgin when you married her.”

  “BeBe …”

  She shrugged. “No problem, Tuna. Hey, we were summer friends, now it’s different. It’s okay. Honest.”

  He settled back on the seat. “You here until Labor Day?” he asked. As if she would be anything but.

  Suddenly, however, BeBe wasn’t certain. “I don’t know yet,” she replied. “I might go to summer school.” With Daniel gone, and with Tuna up and married, what was the point of staying here?

  “Would you like to come for dinner sometime?” he asked.

  She looked out the cloudy window at the scrub oaks and the clear sky. She wondered how it was that men seemed to be able to do that—fuck you one day, then have you interact with their family the next, as if you were just pals, as if the fucking meant nothing, nothing at all. She thought of Michael Barton and was glad he had left.

  “I think I’ll pass on dinner,” she said. “But thanks for the invitation.” He nodded, and whether or not he understood, she didn’t much care.

  “I’m going into Edgartown,” he said. “You?”

  “Oak Bluffs. Would you mind dropping me at the turnoff?”

  “Hell, no, I’m not going to do that. A little detour won’t kill me.”

  BeBe nodded.

  “Where in the Bluffs?” he asked.

  “The ferry,” she replied. “I want to make it in time to see the two-fifteen leave.”

  They made it in plenty of time. Tuna dropped her off across from the pier, w
aved, and acted as if he’d really see her later as he said.

  BeBe shook off an impending depression by reminding herself why she was here. Daniel, she said to herself. My big brother Daniel. For one last look—just a look, no more good-byes.

  After crossing the street, she stepped inside the Steamship office and checked the clock: one forty-eight. For once, for this one thing, BeBe was not late. And no one would ever even know.

  She stared outside at the stream of cars that jockeyed for position on the long, wobbly pier, cautiously moving forward as if they were race cars waiting for the green flag. They jockeyed, then stopped, parked where they would stay until they were herded into the great steel cavity that would safely transport them across Vineyard Sound: as safely, she hoped, as one of those big cargo planes would take Daniel halfway around the world … and back again.

  Then she saw them: Daniel and Father, crossing the street. There was an ache between her breasts as she studied her brother. He was wearing a khaki uniform she’d not seen him wear before and had on a small khaki hat and polished black shoes. He was no longer a carefree Vineyard boy. He was a soldier. And this was about war.

  Father was walking close to Daniel, as if there were a big crowd—which there was not. As the men moved toward the boat, Father reached out and almost touched Daniel’s arm—a hesitant hand that stopped somewhere in midair then returned stoically to his side. Even here, even now, Father couldn’t express his feelings with Daniel, who was his pride and his joy.

  She had a twinge of … what was it? Compassion? For Father? For the fact that despite all his power, he had not been able to stop his son from going to Vietnam?

  In the distance now, close to the gangplank, Father and Daniel stopped. Father no longer hesitated, as if now it was okay: he put his arm on Daniel’s shoulder. And then, Daniel hugged him. Father held tight. Tighter, longer, it seemed, than necessary. The knot in BeBe’s chest grew.

  The men broke apart and Daniel disappeared onto the ferry. Father stood waiting until the vehicles drove into the boat. Minutes later, the steel mass blew its long, foreboding whistle, then chugged slowly from the pier. Father still waited until the ferry eased its way across the water, growing smaller and smaller with each moment that passed.