Chapter 26
Zooey read the last page, closed the book in her lap, and sat in bed, staring into space. Hannah’s novel was wonderful. It was also horrible. What was she going to do?
The afternoon was winding down, golden light shooting through the windows and creating yellow squares on the opposite wall. Outside her bedroom window, a mourning dove was cooing. It was one of her favorite sounds, one that usually soothed her, reminding her of the quiet of her parents’ house and childhood naptimes after lunch. The mourning doves near her window and the ticking of the bedside clock and the distant creak of a tread-upon floorboard had always been present whenever she had drifted off during her enforced afternoon naps at home in Rye, New York.
But now the doves’ soft noises sounded worried, concerned. Zo shook her head. She was projecting her own anxiety onto the birds.
She picked up the book again and looked at it. The cover art was very nice: an impressionist painting of a little clapboard house, done all in grays and blues and dashes of white. And there was Hannah’s name in gold lettering.
Earlier that day, after chastising Hannah on the phone about Keeley, Zo had been suddenly consumed with guilt. After using the bathroom, she went to the pile of books on her bedside table and found Hannah’s book at the bottom of the pile. The bookmark was where she left it after reading thirty five pages. Why hadn’t she read the rest of it? Some odd feeling of disappointment and her old friend, doubt, had stopped her. She remembered with a pang of embarrassment that she had hidden it from herself for the rest of the summer under an issue of Vogue.
Well, she was going to finish it. Today.
Her vow made, she’d been annoyed that there were so many appointments to get through that day before she could stretch out her bed and read. First, there was her annual dermatologist appointment for a skin check. Dr. Thomas had sliced off a piece of a suspicious mole for biopsy, making Zo feel faint and slightly nauseated.
Then there was the luncheon for an esteemed horticulturist at the garden club. “Esteemed” really was the word that afternoon, the woman who introduced the speaker used it three times, and the horticulturist herself used it five. Zo counted. Chewing endlessly on a piece of the rubbery chicken that topped the Caesar salad that had been placed in front of her, Zo wiggled her watch off her wrist and placed it in the napkin on her lap so she could check the time surreptitiously.
She damned herself for coming at all and hardly listened to the speaker after the fifth repetition of that word, instead alternating between checking her watch and examining the attire and grooming of the women at her table. What was she doing here? These women weren’t her friends – in fact, she found the ones she’d spoken with desperately boring with their monotonous talk of renovations on their homes or what was the best preschool/stroller/whatever for their children. But she knew why she was here. Her mother, an old-guard WASP through and through, always enthused about her many years with the garden club and regularly asked for reassurance that Zooey, too, would become a member. “Those girls from the island are lovely, dear, but you mustn’t limit yourself,” she would say, patting Zo’s hand with hers, which had grown ropy with veins and powdery-soft before she died a little over six years ago. Her mother had meant more, but said the minimum and always gently.
Now Zo was here, bored out of her mind and desperate to be home, curled up on her bed with Hannah’s book in her lap. She chewed a little longer on the piece of chicken, forced herself to swallow it, and decided she would wait until the supercilious snob at the podium was done speaking to make her swift and quietly apologetic exit. She mimed reacting to a vibrating cell in her purse, knitting her brows while peering into her purse at what was actually a MAC compact, pretending to read a message on it. There was no cell. Zo had one, but it was in her car’s glove compartment, reserved for roadside emergencies. Once the applause began, she leapt from her seat, made a sad-face at the women who looked up at her, shook her head and mouthed the word “home” before walking quickly from the room.
Pulling into her garage fifteen minutes later, she was relieved to see that Neil wasn’t home, his car’s bay empty. During their first year of marriage, he spent his days either at his office or on the golf course, but recently, he’d taken to suddenly appearing at home during the day and wanting Zo’s attention. Sometimes he’d burst in on her when she was in their bedroom getting ready or just relaxing, obviously searching for signs of infidelity, the cast-off garments and half-finished cocktails of an afternoon tryst. He’d go to each bedroom window, looking for the imaginary man, then went around checking inside closets, and even under the bed. Other times, he was like a puppy, following her around the house and whining that they didn’t do enough together. If he came home when she was out, he’d be waiting for her when she returned with a flurry of questions about where she’d been and with whom and why.
There had been clues of his insecurity and jealousy from the beginning. Back then, when he demanded that she explain where she’d been or beg for assurance of her love for him, she’d found it charming, romantic. After all, her first husband, Phillip, had been so walled off and work-obsessed. He had never uttered proclamations of love, or required them in return. And Blake, well, it turned out that Blake loved men, not her. Later, after his confession, he admitted that what he’d really fallen in love with was Zo’s fashion sense as well as her lifestyle. Plus, they had the same taste in books and music and Broadway shows. She should have known the truth when she saw how he was looking at Hugh Jackman when they went to see “The Boy from Oz”.
Her first two husbands had given her far too much space and time by herself, even for an introvert. So she’d wished upon a star and gotten her wish granted in the worst possible way. It was like that story about making a deal with the devil: that every wish would be granted, but would never satisfy and would often bring ruin to the poor soul who had fallen for the devil’s game. It made her wonder if she’d somehow made a deal with Satan by accident. She’d wished for successful and powerful, and gotten workaholic Phillip. She’d wished for a handsome companion for conversation and gallivanting about town, and she’d gotten beautiful boy-loving Blake. Now Neil.
Zo walked through the house, appreciating the echo of her step, the quiet broken only by the distant barking of a neighbor’s dog. She loved the house, even though three unhappy marriages that had been played out there. She loved the high ceilings, the beautiful old moldings, the wide and deep fireplaces. She loved the glossy wooden floors and the black-and-white kitchen with its checkerboard floor. When things ended with Neil, and they would probably end soon, she had decided would stay on here alone and enjoy a solitary life: just her and her house. And maybe a cat or a little dog. But not more than one, she didn’t want to be one of those crazy old women with too many pets. Smiling at the thought of her future, she made herself a sandwich in the kitchen, climbed the stairs to her bedroom, and got in bed with Hannah’s book.
Five hours later, stiff from lying still for so long, she stared at the cover of the book her hands. Certainly, there was plenty that she could praise honestly. The pacing was excellent, the evoked imagery was stunning, and the court scenes riveting. How had Hannah known all about child custody laws? Of course. Hannah was a student at heart. She had probably not only read everything available, she’d probably sat in courtrooms as a spectator, observing similar lawsuits as they played out in the justice system. Zo was impressed; the court scenes, which could have been stagy and silly, were extremely realistic.
On the other hand, much of the dialogue outside of a courtroom was pretty bad, and the elderly neighbor character, Mrs. Worthington, that rescues the abandoned little girl and fights for custody of her, was simply awful. Saccharin and impossibly perfect, the woman was like a cartoon. What older woman was like that, all sweetness and light, living in a storybook cottage with blue shutters and an immaculate yard, with no financial problems or health issues? What woman who was alone and in advancing years would be willing to adopt a six year old child? There wasn’t even a son or a daughter who could take over when Mrs. Worthington eventually died. The issue wasn’t addressed in the court scenes, which was impossible to believe. And in almost every scene with Mrs. Worthington in it, with the exception of the court scenes, she was baking something while wearing a frilly apron. Mrs. Worthington sounded like an elderly June Cleaver.
Even worse was the mother character, Shelley Guildford. Of course, Shelley was meant to be terrible, she was the antagonist after all, but it wasn’t that. It was just amazing that Hannah, their baby, could conceive of such an emotionally abusive and distant mother when her own childhood had been so idyllic and full of love. But it was a novel, after all, and her darling Hannah had always had a vivid imagination.
But the abandonment! Hannah had never been left alone, yet she described it so well. Zo literally felt that echoing terror, that deep rending rejection, pierce her as she read. Where had all of that come from? It couldn’t just be from reading other great novels or books about child abuse.
Zo put the book down in her lap and turned to look at the silver-framed photo of Hannah on her bedside, a recent photo of her from this summer on Captain’s, laughing into the camera the night they celebrated her and Daniel’s engagement. Zo had photos of Hannah all over the house, but this frame always held the most recent snapshot.
She reached over and picked up the frame and looked at it. Those knowing sparkling eyes, her often surprising insights. Was it possible that Hannah was psychic?
Zo had known a real psychic, Kurt, an older gentleman from Germany she had met at a cocktail party when she was still married to Phillip. She had liked his quiet intensity and invited him to a small dinner party she held a month after meeting him. After the others left, Kurt lingered and helped Zo clear the table. Phillip made his usual noises about work to do and disappeared into his den. Over a second cup of coffee in the kitchen, he’d said he had a special gift and he wanted to use it to help her. She was skeptical and started to feel a little nervous – was he crazy? She was glad Phillip was within shouting distance.
Kurt spoke for a long time. He knew everything about her, relating things only she knew. Even the Barefooters’ biggest secret was discussed, his assurances like salve on her itching fears. He told her about her divorce from Phillip, about Blake and Neil, and about how she would end up alone, but happy. He also told her that the novel she was working on, back then when she’d been convinced that writing would be her career, would be published, but fail to earn out its advance. He also told her that she should become a wedding planner, that it was the only career that would bring her satisfaction.
She had been amazed at much of what he had told her, but doubted the three-husbands prediction and utterly rejected his advice about her career. Later, as each thing came to pass, she was dumbfounded. The only part that still remained unrealized was the whole bit about being a wedding planner, which she thought ridiculous, what with all the bridezillas and the general craziness of the wedding industry. She was still searching for her career, trying things on and rejecting them, the heap of discarded ideas growing at her feet.
Was it possible that Hannah had the same gift as Kurt? Had she picked up the vibrations from Keeley somehow, subconsciously finding out the truth about Keeley’s childhood? That would explain the mother in the book. Well, except when it came to Keeley’s mother, the child hadn’t been abandoned. Instead, she’d been beaten regularly, and one night, would nearly die at her mother’s murderous hands.
The summer they were fourteen, Keeley ousted Rose as the most beautiful girl on Captain’s. Her girlish frame had filled out over the winter, and she arrived on the island looking like a little woman with a small waist, high breasts, and rounded hips. Equally dramatic were the changes in her face, the baby-fat having melted away to reveal a to-die-for bone structure. Even Keeley’s already huge tip-tilted blue Bambi-like eyes had grown, reminding Zooey of a cartoon princess.
When they first gathered at the Barefoot House, the girls were awkward with each other. In particular, they didn’t know how to handle Keeley’s metamorphosis. Pam had been the first to develop, but along with her large chest, she’d grown beefy all over, and by regularly making fun of her own weight, she effectively blew away any anxiety surrounding her prematurely-mature appearance. Zooey had simply grown taller and skinnier every year, but otherwise, she looked the same, right down to her flat chest. Amy hadn’t changed at all; she was their little blond curly-headed doll.
But the new Keeley made them nervous. After their first hesitant greetings, they all sat on rolled up beach-towels in the intact portion of the living room of their little clubhouse, alternating between staring at Keeley and pointedly looking away at each other or at things in the room. Pam kept trying to act excited about things they’d left from the summer before, pointing at pieces of driftwood or an oar they’d found and exclaiming about the story behind it. Remember? Remember? She repeated. Everyone nodded and smiled, but didn’t take the bait. Finally, slumping, Pam gave up and picked at her toes as she sat cross-legged on her towel.
Zooey stared at Keeley. It wasn’t fair! Why couldn’t Zooey “pop” like this? Where were her perky breasts and sexy hips? Why hadn’t her face changed at all?
“Hey!” Amy said, breaking the silence. “A new family is renting the Schneider’s house next door for the summer! They showed up this morning, and guess what? They have a catamaran!”
Pam popped up from her slump, eyes bright. “Cool! Do you think they’ll let us borrow it?”
Amy shook her head. “I don’t know. Probably not. Maybe?”
Keeley, who had grown quiet in response to the others obvious discomfort with her, finally spoke up. “Do they have kids?”
Zooey noticed that even Keeley’s voice was had changed, become richer somehow. God, she couldn’t stand it!
Amy shrugged and said, “Yeah, a boy.”
“Oh, good!” Pam said, “How old is he? I need to make some babysitting money this summer. Do you think they’re the type to go off-island for the night?”
“No, no, no,” Amy said to Pam. “He’s our age. You can’t baby-sit him.”
Zooey finally tore her eyes away from Keeley. “What? Really? What does he look like?” A boy their age! There were only older boys and younger boys on the island.
Amy made a face of disgust. “Ew! Zo! Don’t fall all in love with my neighbor, okay? It was bad enough last summer with Russ Jaworski.”
“What? I just. It wasn’t…” Zooey felt her face flushing red. But she had been madly in love with Russ. Still was. She couldn’t wait to see him this year. From afar, of course. Not like she would be so stupid as to try to talk to him or anything.
Pam rolled her eyes and smiled at Zooey. “Hey, Russ is a total babe. Zo isn’t the only one who thinks he’s cute. Every girl on this island wants him. Even the old ladies!” She laughed, reminding them of the fact that Russ was a favorite of the McIntyre sisters, two elderly women who lived in and owned the most run-down house on the island. It started when they hired him to replace their rusted cistern and build them a new outhouse. He barely charged them anything, couldn’t bring himself to considering their well-known poverty. In return for the favor, the women began baking cookies and treats for him almost every day. Even though the “treats” were inedible, make-do from what they had left in their pantry, Russ was always polite and praised their baking skills. Every time he was passing their house, they ran out onto the boardwalk, usually holding a platter of baked sweets for him and begging him to join them for coffee, twittering around him like birds. It had become an island joke that was both funny and sad.
“It’s still gross,” Amy said. “I don’t get this whole fascination with boys. I’ve got three of them at my house, and let me tell you, they stink! Well, Will isn’t so bad. But the other two are total worms.”
Pam reached over and patted Amy’s leg. “Don’t worry, you’ll like boys. You’re just a late bloomer.”
Amy elaborately stuck a finger down her throat and made a gagging sound.
Zooey’s blush, that had started to die down, rose again. Late bloomer! If Amy was a late bloomer, what was she? A never-bloomer? Amy just had her first period, but Zooey had been having hers for two years and still looked the same. What was wrong with her?
Keeley sat up straight and smiled at the other girls, looking happy for the first time since they first reunited. “I know. We should go and spy on Amy’s new neighbors. We can do a covert mission!” She rubbed her hands together and raised her eyebrows at the other girls.
“Yay, covert!” Pam pumped her fist in the air, their battle cry from last year when they had run “covert missions” all over the island, spying on people and taking notes in their Top Secret spiral notebook.
At first they were dead-serious, looking for something criminal or mysterious, but soon it became an exercise in hilarity, catching people doing all kinds of embarrassing things. It was amazing how many of their fellow islanders talked to themselves, picked their noses and examined what they found, danced around their houses in their underwear, and practiced poses and smiles in front of a mirror when no one was looking. The girls were having so much fun they weren’t prepared when they discovered the affair going on between Mrs. Kelly and Mr. Walsh.
It was like a thunderclap on a sunny day when they peered into the Kelly’s window one Sunday afternoon and saw Mrs. Kelly and Mr. O’Brien, who had just arrived for what appeared to be a typical islander visit, come together in a passionate embrace, their mouths open wide when they kissed as if they wanted to eat each other. Mr. Kelly had just left to go back to their home in Northport, the dust that his car had dug up in the island’s dirt and gravel parking lot probably still hanging in the air. After deliberating for weeks, the girls never decided what to do or who to tell. Zooey hoped that the affair had ended, taking away the pointing finger of guilt that had ruined their game at the end of last summer.
“Yay, covert!” Amy echoed and stood up. “Great idea, I bet they have all kinds of weird habits.”
Then they were off, heading down the boardwalk in the same pairs as always, Amy and Keeley in the lead with Pam and Zooey taking up the rear. Distracted by their mission and the hope that they might see something truly embarrassing, their early awkwardness and Keeley’s new appearance was forgotten. There was always a certain strange stiffness when they first reunited every summer, usually lasting a few minutes at most, but this time it had gone on for almost an hour.
Zooey caught herself staring covetously at Keeley’s rounded hips as they twitched in front of her and forced her gaze away. She loved Keeley. Funny, smart, kind Keeley. Keeley couldn’t help what had happened to her, or that it wasn’t happening to Zooey. She would not let herself be jealous. She would rise above it.
As with all of their covert missions, the girls stayed on the boardwalk until they were four houses away, and then jumped off and climbed through the thick tall grasses and shrubbery that grew between and behind the houses on the island. Finally, they were behind Amy’s neighbor’s house, a tall narrow gray-shingled house with a large back deck and a sandy clearing behind it that was usually cluttered with the Schneider’s children’s toys but was now swept clean for the renters. The girls hid in the tall grasses at the edge of the yard and spied on the house, scratching at bug bites and shushing each other, but Pam kept giggling uncontrollably.
“Shhhh!” Keeley put her finger to her lips, furrowing her brow. “Pam!”
“I can’t help it!” Pam said, her face red. Then she let out a loud squawking guffaw.
Amy balled up her fist, shook it at Pam, and whispered, “I’ll give you the worst noogie if you don’t stop.”
Pam covered her red face and her large form shook quietly.
“Better,” Amy said and turned back to peer at the house. “Damn! Nothing’s going on.”
Zooey spied some movement just inside the door that led to the porch. “Wait! There’s someone. Shhh!”
The screen door opened with a squeal and out stepped a tall boy carrying a plate with something brown on it and a can of soda. He walked over to the wooden picnic table in the center of the deck and sat down, facing the girls and the wall of tall grasses where they were hidden. He picked up what turned out to be a sandwich and bit down on it.
Zooey couldn’t believe it. It was the handsomest boy she’d ever seen. Ever. And tall! Like her! Every time she thought a boy was cute, he was too short. Well, except for Russ, but Russ was nineteen and out of her league. This boy was their age.
He ate his sandwich quickly, inhaled it really, and then sat sipping his soda and staring out at the grasses surrounding the yard. Could he see them? Zooey hoped not. She turned her head slowly to look at the other girls. Pam had finally stopped giggling and was staring open-mouthed at the boy. Amy was grinning and looking excited, probably waiting for him to pick a booger out of his nose and eat it for dessert. Keeley was also watching the boy, but her face was flushed. If Zooey didn’t know Keeley, she would think she was embarrassed, but that wasn’t on the menu of emotions her friend entertained. Why was Keeley looking like that?
The boy put the soda can to his lips and tipped his head back to get the last drops, and as he did, the screen door to the house opened. A woman, slim and muscular with a tan that was highlighted by her blue shorts and a white polo shirt, stood in the doorway. Had to be his mother. Plain horsey-looking face, though. His looks must have come from his father. “Michael? I need your help unloading the boat.”
He turned to look at her. “Okay, Mom. Coming.” His voice sounded nice, husky. She nodded and disappeared again into the darkness of the house, the door snapping shut after her.
He stood up, collected his plate and soda can, and walked over to the screen door. There, he balanced the can on the plate to grab the door handle and swiftly turned at the last minute to face the area of the tall grasses where the girls were hidden. He smiled, laughed a little, and gave a quick wave at them. Then he disappeared into the house.
“Oh!” Pam exclaimed.
“Damn! He saw us,” Amy said.
Keeley’s eyes were shining when she turned to look at the other girls. She grinned and said, “He did.” She didn’t look the least bit disappointed.
Zooey looked at Keeley and felt the ache begin, pulsing brightly in her throat and working down into her heart.
They met officially that night. The older kids were having a party on Kevin Lynch’s family’s dock, the longest dock on the island. Kevin, at eighteen, was the ringleader of the teenage crowd and one of the surfers on the island who crossed the lead to go to Jones Beach at dawn every morning. He was cute in a freckled boy-next-door way with long raggedy blond hair that was always in his eyes, making him toss his head a lot. Kevin was also Rose’s boyfriend. Rose had managed somehow to keep the Barefooters from being invited to any of that gang’s gatherings last summer. Zooey wondered what Rose said to achieve this, especially as she caught some of the older kids casting odd wondering looks at her and the other girls when they crossed paths.
This time, though, a few of the older boys had been passing Amy’s neighbor’s house on the boardwalk and, seeing the catamaran pulled up on their beach, stopped to inspect it. Michael came out of the house then and they all fell into a conversation about the boat and what it was like to sail on a catamaran versus a single-hull sailboat. Before the boys left they invited Michael to come to the party that night at Kevin’s, and Michael shrugged and said okay.
The girls, who had been hanging out around Amy’s all day, their covert mission gone overt, were sitting on her front porch watching the whole scene, while trying to hang back and not look too interested. The result was that they stayed seated on the wicker chairs on the porch, but slowly moved closer and closer to the edge of their seats, their heads tilted as they listened to the boys’ conversation.
The older boys, continuing down the boardwalk, passed below the porch and saw the girls there. They waved and yelled, “Hey!”
The girls jumped up from their perches and went to lean on the railing. “Hi!”
The boys slowed their steps, their uncertainty making them shuffle. Their eyes grew wide when they saw Keeley.
Zooey couldn’t stand it. “What are you guys doing? Did you say something about a party?”
The three boys, who had shuffled to a complete stop, tore their eyes away from Keeley to look at Zooey. One of the boys said, “Uh…, yeah…… hey, you girls should come. It’s at Kevin’s, out on his dock.”
The short one with the red hair, Zooey always forgot his name, had refocused his attention on Keeley. He pointed at his chest and said, “I got the vodka. It was easy. Party’s going to be a blast. Are you gonna come?”
“Yeah, sure!” Pam said, bobbing her head with enthusiasm.
Zooey glanced at Pam. Dummy. Couldn’t she see that he was asking Keeley? If it wasn’t for Keeley, they wouldn’t be getting this invitation, the boys would have said something about it not really being a party, or made up some excuse, and then moved on down the dock with a wave.
“Yeah?” The short boy asked, still looking at Keeley.
Keeley nodded slightly and looked over at Pam. “Sure?”
Amy piped up. “I don’t know. We may have plans. I have to check with my mom.”
Pam’s head snapped around to look at Amy. “What?” She made a tsking sound. “No! Stop it.” She turned back to face the boys. “We’ll definitely come. Can’t wait. Thanks.”
All three of the boys were still staring at Keeley. “Cool,” the tall dark skinny one with the zits said. Zooey was pretty sure his name was John. The only name she was certain of was the name of the silent boy, Charlie Baxter, who was one of her crushes. Seeing Charlie staring at Keeley that way hurt the most.
The boys started slowly walking away. “See ya at Kevin’s tonight. The party starts at eight,” the short one said.
Zooey watched them go and then witnessed the argument between Pam and Amy about whether they should have accepted the invitation as if from far away, her thoughts consumed with how much things had changed already because of Keeley, and feeling a mixture of fear and an electric excitement about the evening to come.
Her fears, which she had hoped were due to an overactive imagination, turned out to be correct. That night they went to Kevin’s and everything was different. The boys swarmed around Keeley, monopolizing her to the point that the other three girls ended up shoved off to the side, standing in a cluster on the dock and sipping the harsh-tasting cocktails they had been handed upon arrival. The older girls stood in their own group at the end of the dock with Rose in their midst. Every once in a while, a raucous cackle of derisive laughter would rise up from them, the glances cast in the Barefooters’ direction making it clear who they were laughing at.
Zooey was getting ready to petition for their departure when Michael appeared, sauntering down the boardwalk in their direction, his hands in his pockets. God, he was handsome. And now, as he approached, she saw that he was a few inches taller than her, which was unheard of when it came to boys her age. He slowed his steps as he got closer, looking at the crowd of boys, none of whom noticed his arrival or greeted him. They were all still focused on Keeley, and apparently telling her jokes, as you could hear peals of her laughter coming from where she was encircled.
Just then, Rose broke away from her girl-gang and strode down the dock, passing the Barefooters without a glance and saying “excuse me” in a strident angry voice when the cluster of boys surrounding Keeley wouldn’t move to allow her through. With a twinge of conflicted satisfaction, Zooey noted that Rose’s boyfriend was among the boys under Keeley’s spell.
A few boys moved and Rose was able to push through and reach Michael’s side on the boardwalk, smiling as she welcomed him. While Rose looked good with Kevin – both of them being attractive kids - her regal bearing and aloof demeanor were at odds with Kevin’s casual slouch and his overall mellow air of amusement. Standing next to Michael though, Rose looked as if she’d been paired with her perfect match in both gorgeousness and posture. Well, Zooey considered, gorgeous unless you stood her next to the new Keeley, anyway.
Rose got Michael a drink, pouring out the last of the pitcher into his glass, and stood talking to him. Although Zooey knew Rose was beautiful, she had trouble seeing it most of the time due to the girl’s underhanded cruel nature, but watching her sparkle under Michael’s gaze, she could see it again and felt the familiar sinking. He would never notice her, tall scrawny flat-chested Zo. Not ever.
Suddenly the group of boys surrounding Keeley broke, and Keeley stepped out of the circle, craning her neck around and then spotting the Barefooters. She grinned and jogged over to them. “Isn’t this party great? The boys are so funny! Oh, my God, I nearly died laughing. This drink is pretty good, too.”
Amy, who had never wanted to come to the party and whose mood had grown darker and darker as the evening progressed, snapped. “What? This party is not great. And this drink sucks. It tastes like rubbing alcohol with juice. I want to go home.”
“No, you promised!” Pam whispered, lowering her head and glaring at Amy.
“Really?” Keeley’s smile faded.
Zooey knew she was being mean, but she didn’t want Michael to meet Keeley. Right now he was tied up with Rose. If they left immediately, they’d slip right by him without being noticed. The last thing she could stand tonight was seeing that look again on another boy’s face, especially on this new dream-come-true boy’s face.
She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Keeley, but this party really isn’t that great. The girls won’t talk to us at all; they’ve been standing over there giving us the evil eye all night. And they’ve already run out of vodka, I just saw someone take the last of what was in the pitcher. There’s not even any music. I can’t believe they didn’t bring a radio out here. We’d be having so much more fun right now eating Amy’s mom’s chocolate chip cookies and laughing our butts off with that book at our house,” Zooey said, referring to the bodice-ripper romance novel they’d found in a pile of discarded books at the island’s little dump last summer. They’d spent many of their evenings at their little clubhouse-shack before it grew dark reading sections of the book out loud, falling all over each other laughing at the story’s absurd characters and plot and getting bug-eyed at the steamy parts. Zooey wasn’t even sure that the other girls wanted to pick up where the left off, halfway through the book, but it was the only thing she could think of at that moment.
“Yeah, let’s do that,” Amy said with a brisk nod.
All of the color and excitement had drained from Keeley’s face, replaced by a sad wondering look. It made Zooey feel even more sorry. But she had to do what she had to do. “Pam? Come on, we’re just standing around on a dock. It’s not like there’s dancing or games or anything.”
Pam, always the get-along-girl, shrugged. “Okay. Let’s go.”
“Keeley?”
“Fine, whatever you guys want to do.”
They filed past the crowd of guys and Zooey overheard enough bits and pieces in passing to know that they were discussing how to get more vodka. Perfect, they were distracted and might not notice Keeley leaving. Her plan felt like a string was being pulled at both ends, growing too taut, ready to break. Just hang in there, another minute or so and they’d be gone. And then Zooey could relax. Maybe then the old uncomplicated love for her friends, the feeling she’d taken for granted until this summer, would come flooding back.
Rose glanced at them quickly as they approached, and then moved so that her back was to them. Zooey would have been happy about Rose’s efforts to block Michael from seeing them except now Rose was also blocking the way they would have made their exit, cutting to the left past the pair where they stood at the junction of dock and boardwalk. Now, to get past, the girls would have to circle around them. Zooey’s lips tightened and she breathed hard out of her nose. Damn that Rose!
Amy who was leading the way, slowed down when she saw Rose block them, and as she did, a shout came from behind them.
“Keeley! Hey! You girls! Where are you going?”
It was the short redhead, leaning out of the huddle of boys. Some of the other boys turned to look. “Hey!”
The taut string snapped. Zooey clenched her teeth together. The other girls came to an abrupt halt, glancing over their shoulders.
It was at that moment that Keeley and Michael saw each other. Zooey knew because she was still facing that direction and saw Michael’s face over Rose’s head. That look. Eyes growing wider, expression becoming keen with interest, like a dog on a scent.
“Hi,” Keeley said, her voice soft, returning his gaze.
It was one of those cloudy muggy days that settled in on the island from time to time in July and August and Zooey was hanging out of the open window of their little clubhouse wiping at the yellow globs of egg that persistently clung to the gray shingles with a sponge, trying to get at the yellow goo wedged in the seams and cracks.
“I think we need another splash of that water,” she called down to Pam, who was sitting in her family’s rowboat in the shallow water below. Pam put down her dog-eared copy of Seventeen magazine, leaned over the edge of the boat with a small blue bucket that had been sitting next to her, scooped up some seawater and then stood, legs shaking to keep her balance. With a grunt, she threw the water up at the area that Zo was cleaning. It missed the main part of the mess, but splashed the clumps of yellow yolk enough to wet them. Zo leaned over and wiped again, nodding as more of the egg started to lift off onto her sponge. She slid inside to squat down on the floor and rinse her sponge in the bucket of seawater she had at her feet.
Amy was sitting against the opposite wall near the old chest that was still filled with the old blankets they’d found all those years before, but now also contained beach towels and collection of books. It also held three photo albums they’d created over the years documenting their summers together and their friendship which grew closer and more comfortable every year. Until this year.
Amy’s head was tipped back and resting on the wall, her eyes closed, but she opened them and spoke when Zooey came back inside. “I don’t even know why you’re working so hard. She’s just going to do it again tonight. What we’ve got to do is find a way to get back at that bitch. And I still think the best thing to do is to steal her underwear and run it up on the firehouse flagpole. She’s so uptight, it would drive her nuts, her underwear flying around for everyone to see. And we have to make sure everyone knows it’s her underwear, so we should put up a flag with it saying “Rose’s panties are in a bunch.” Or something like that.”
Zooey shook her head, squeezing water out of the sponge. The water was starting to get yellow. She’d better get some fresh water soon or she’d just be painting the egg back on with her sponge. “That would just make it worse. She’s already got all the kids avoiding us. Even the little kids act scared when they see us coming. I bet she told them some horrible story about us. Like we’re witches and eat babies or something.”
“Well, we can’t just keep taking it lying down. You know what really burns me up? She’s not even mad at us. She’s mad at Keeley for stealing her thunder. She thinks Keeley stole Michael from her. And all this stupidity is about boys, that’s the worst part. Boys! Who cares? They’re so…dumb.”
Zooey sighed. The same old refrain she’d been hearing for weeks. Zooey waited for part two of Amy’s daily rant since Rose started targeting their little house with toilet paper, eggs, and shaving cream.
“And you know what else?”
Zooey looked at Amy and nodded in resignation.
“Keeley’s a traitor. I can’t believe you guys still want her back. She’s been blowing us off for a month. A month! Today it’s a month! Keeley and Michael, Michael and Keeley, la di da. She can have him. And just you wait! He’s gonna get sick of her, and then she’s going to come crying back to us, but I’m not going to forgive her that easily. She’s going to have to work for it. Especially after all this, this war, with Rose and her friends. Seriously.”
Zooey stood up and then sat on the window’s edge again. Before leaning out, she surprised herself by looking at Amy and saying, “You’ll forgive her. We all will. Things won’t be the same until we’re all together again. You know it, too.”
Amy looked back at her, her little face stony and resistant. Zooey leaned back out the window to work again on the eggs that were splattered all over their not-so-secret clubhouse.
That night the clouds cleared and a full moon shone into Zooey’s bedroom, making the room nearly as bright as day. She lay awake and wondering whether she should have gone with them. Right now, Pam and Amy were probably hoisting Rose’s bra and panties high on the island’s firehouse’s flagpole with the old ripped pillowcase painted with Amy’s preferred message. At least they’d be able to see what they were doing without having to use flashlights. They were also in more danger of being caught, their revenge exposed by moonlight.
At least she’d helped get Rose’s underwear. When Zooey and Pam had finished cleaning, having gotten the eggs they could reach from the windows off of the side of the house and leaving the rest to rot and stink in the summer sun, Amy had repeated her rant to Pam and, for the first time, Pam agreed.
“You’re right. I was hoping they’d stop, get bored or something, but they’re not stopping.”
“Not ‘they’, it’s Rose! I mean I’m sure her friends help, but it’s Rose.”
“Rose, fine. But we do have to do something.”
“Good,” Amy said. “The best plan is running up her bra and panties. She’s so uptight and full of herself, Queen Rose, it would drive her crazy.”
“Wait,” Zooey said, “Won’t that just make things worse?”
Pam turned to Zooey. “Sometimes you just have to fight. If she was showing any sign of winding down, fine, we’d let it go. But she’s hit the house four times this week. That’s an all-time high. And even the boys, ones I’ve been friends with since we were little, won’t even say hi anymore. They just duck down or turn around and go the opposite direction, even when it’s just me. No more, ‘hey Pamster’, no more arm wrestling. I wanted to be a girl to them this summer, but honestly, I’d settle for good-old-buddy-Pam right now.”
Amy got to her feet. “Okay, Covert Operation Rose. The next time her house is empty, we’ll be waiting. Let’s go.”
Although they were prepared to spy on her house for days from among the tangle of trees just behind it, the family was a small one, Rose being the only child, and all it took was for Rose to head down the boardwalk toward one of her friends’ houses with a towel thrown over her shoulder and her parents to go sailing, which happened that afternoon at 2:00 pm.
Zooey stood lookout on the side of the house, her agreed signal her usual whippoorwill call. Pam and Amy went inside through the unlocked back door. Luckily, no one locked their doors on the island during the summer, so that was never a concern. Only a few minutes later, Pam and Amy bounced out of the back door breathlessly laughing and holding up a matching set of bra and panties decorated, appropriately, with a pattern of scattered roses.
Zooey turned over again, trying to calm down. She’d never sleep. She kept imagining them getting caught. Why hadn’t she just snuck out with them and helped? No, Pam was right: the more of them there were, the more noticeable they’d be. Amy had wanted to go on her own, but Pam insisted that she needed a lookout. Also, Pam was strong enough to lift Amy up so she could tie the underwear securely to the flagpole, which was essential to their plan. They wanted to be sure that Rose couldn’t easily pull them down. Zooey wasn’t strong enough to do the lifting or light enough to be lifted. She’d just be in the way.
She flipped on her back and stared up at the moonlit ceiling. All of this trouble over Keeley. It was hard to grasp still. Keeley, their old friend, the one they depended on for her sparkling enthusiasm and sense of humor, was now someone else entirely. Someone so caught up in a boy, she forgot all about her best friends. Someone so lusted after by every boy in their age range that every other girl disappeared in her presence. Someone who had divided Rose and Kevin, the island’s teenage power couple.
Rose had never forgiven Kevin for joining the crowd of boys around Keeley the night of the party. Rose had also never forgiven Keeley for Michael. Pam and Amy said Rose had a thing for Michael, but Zooey was certain that Rose’s outrage was really due to the embarrassment of being dropped so hard and so publicly mid-flirt. And Rose had been flirting wildly with Michael at the party, grinning at him and laughing loudly, which wasn’t her cool style, all in retaliation for being ignored by Kevin.
The moment when Michael and Keeley locked eyes, they had simply forgotten everyone else. Rose had kept chattering on, smiling up at him while he gazed at Keeley. It all went on a few minutes too long: Rose putting on her best show, unaware that she’d been forgotten. When she realized, her grin froze. That night she’d been dropped not just once, but twice for Keeley. But what was most unforgiveable, what had cut her pride all the way to its core, was that her friends and some of the boys saw it happen.
None of the three girls understood why Rose was targeting them and their little clubhouse. Keeley was never there anymore; instead they saw her sailing past with Michael on his family’s catamaran and occasionally ran into the pair on the boardwalk as they strolled hand in hand. Keeley would always greet them enthusiastically, but would never commit to any plans to see them when they’d ask, which Pam always did. Keeley would just nod and say, “Definitely! Soon!”
One day on a trip to Jones Beach with Amy’s mother, the girls saw the couple lying on the beach cuddled up on a large towel, Michael reading a book, Keeley’s head on Michael’s chest. Michael was absently stroking Keeley’s hair and Keeley looked like a contented cat, her eyes closed, her lips turned up in a soft smile. Zooey had to drag her eyes away. Although Amy had to convince Pam not to approach them, saying that if Keeley was going to blow them off then it was time to return the favor, Zooey didn’t need convincing. It hurt to look at them together.
Zooey clenched her hands under the sheet. She would not think about him. She would not. But the images flashed in her mind, his dark sparkling eyes, his beautiful shy smile, that curl of hair that always fell on his forehead. God, she loved him. Why? Why was she doing this to herself? She had to stop; it was all just pointless and painful. “Stop,” she whispered.
Just then there was a loud crack. Zooey’s whole body jerked, and she turned to look at the window where the noise came from. A small rounded nick, glowing blue in the moonlight, could be seen in the glass. Someone had just thrown a rock at her window and cracked it. Was it Rose? Targeting her directly? Or maybe the girls! Maybe they had gotten in some kind of trouble and needed her help.
She slid out of bed and tiptoed over to the window, careful to look out the window from behind the lace curtain so that she wouldn’t be seen in case it was Rose and her friends.
In the narrow clearing on the side of the house below stood Keeley, looking like a ghost in the moonlight wearing a white sundress with thin lacy straps. Her bare shoulder looked like it had a black substance on it that had dribbled down her arm and then onto the hem of her dress.
Zooey pushed open the window and leaned her face against the screen. “Keeley! What’s going on?” She whispered.
Seeing her friend, Keeley’s face crumpled. She said, gulping out the words between sobs, “You’ve got to help me. My mom. My mom tried to kill me.”
The reunion Zooey had imagined for the four of them was celebratory, full of laughter and tears, the sun shining, the planets perfectly aligned. She’d only gotten the tears part right. Zooey ran all over the island looking for Pam and Amy while Keeley hid at their clubhouse, finding Rose’s underwear flying high on the flagpole at the firehouse but no sign of the girls, finally tracking them down sitting on the back steps of Pam’s house gloating about their successful mission. Feeling wired, like she had drunk too many Cokes, she watched the other girls as they embraced back at their clubhouse, tears glistening on their faces.
It hadn’t been the same without Keeley. When it was just the three of them, the balance was off. With the exception of occasional days when she was bruised and silent after one of her mother’s beatings, Keeley was always their ray of light, the one who brought the fun and zany ideas, the one who would do anything for a laugh. Pam was a sweetheart, but sometimes too sensitive, taking things personally that had nothing to do with her. Amy was the opposite, so strong she couldn’t understand Pam’s tender heart and was easily irritated by it. It had been Keeley who had made things work between the two, jollying them out of their fights, changing the subject to something funny or fantastic to distract them. Zooey overthought things, was their resident worrywart. But Keeley always dispelled Zooey’s dark clouds, brushing them away with reasonable explanations. During Keeley’s absence, the clouds had returned, thunderheads shooting out forked tongues of anger between Pam and Amy, raised voices that shook the air around them regularly.
She stared at the dark splatter-marks on the hem of Keeley’s dress, feeling the fear zing through her, electric. The black substance on Keeley’s shoulder and running down her arm was blood. Her mother had gone after her with a knife, catching Keeley in the shoulder when she was trying to escape out the front door. Keeley had told her the whole story and was now telling it again to Amy and Pam. The continued story of Sean, her older brother, his death and what had happened to her family. The story of earlier that night, a routine bedtime which had exploded without warning.
Keeley’s relationship with her mother had changed earlier that year, right after their annual spring clothing shopping trip. It could be pinned on the exact moment they were in the lingerie department and Keeley asked about buying a bra. Her mother’s eyebrows shot up and her eyes raked over her daughter before she stiffly agreed.
After that, her mother started avoiding her, waving her away whenever approached with a question or a request. Keeley was both bewildered and relieved, as the beatings ended as well. Her mother spent more and more time locked in her bedroom, and when she emerged, she seemed sleepy and muted. When her parents’ bedroom door was open, Keeley spied a small pharmacy of orange prescription bottles cluttering her mother’s bedside table.
When they arrived for another summer on Captain’s, her mother’s vacation routine of housework and doing her needlepoint on the back porch was abandoned and she continued to spend her days locked away in her bedroom. Her father, in his usual manner of avoidance, preferred to spend his rare weekends on the island in the company of the other men at the island’s little yacht club, belly up to the bar or sailing in the bay with one of his buddies. Keeley had never liked being at home, her mother’s moods blowing hot and cold and the frying pan used for her punishments always waiting on the stovetop in the kitchen. Now she found the ticking quiet and increasingly dirty house unbearable and avoided it, returning only to sleep at night.
When she’d arrived home that Tuesday evening, it was late and the house was dark except for a light burning in Sean’s old bedroom, which surprised Keeley. The room was a shrine to Sean, just like his old room at home, kept exactly as it had been when he was alive. It was off-limits to anyone other than Keeley’s mother, who cleaned both bedrooms regularly, even now while the rest of their house on Captain’s grew filthy and malodorous.
Keeley had to pass Sean’s old room to get to her own and she paused at his door, curious as to why the room was lit. Her mother was lying on Sean’s narrow twin bed, wearing the dirty blue flowered housedress she’d been wearing for over a week and staring at the ceiling. A lit hurricane lamp sat on the bedside table, casting wiggling shadows on the wall. A cricket had somehow gotten in the room and was singing loudly, its high-pitched omniscient sound reverberating and echoing everywhere and nowhere.
That was why. Nothing could be alive in Sean’s rooms. No one could go there, not even a cricket. And her mother had probably been trying to find the cricket without success, lying down to rest or maybe to listen carefully in order to discover the cricket’s location.
Keeley started to continue down the hallway when her mother turned to look at her. Her mother’s eyes were bright and hard.
“You,” she said in a low voice.
“I’m sorry – I’m going. Goodnight.”
“No.”
She paused. “Sorry?”
“It’s all your fault.”
“I’m, my, fault?”
“Sean would be alive, but you had ballet that night. And I picked you up. Left poor Sean to die. I had to choose and I chose wrong.”
The old familiar turn in her stomach, like a key in a lock. Go, quickly. Go now. She backed up, started for the stairs.
Her mother, surprisingly fast for someone who’d become dependent on Valium to get through every day, was up in a flash and pounding down the stairs after her. Keeley could feel the heat coming from behind her and leapt the last three steps, her bare feet landing hard on the wood and sending shocks of pain up her shins and into her knees. A scream of anger followed her.
She ran for the front door, and then her foot caught on the faded old Oriental rug in the living room and she fell. She waited for her mother to land on her. Instead there was a clattering sound in the kitchen. What was her mother doing in the kitchen? She pushed herself up quickly, her hands raw from scraping across the carpet when they broke her fall, and climbed to her feet. She didn’t need to look back, she could feel the reverberation of her mother’s approach.
She ran to the front door, threw it open and was reaching to push open the screen door when a sharp pain went through her shoulder.
“Uh!”
“You die!” Her mother’s voice was close behind her, high-pitched and wavering.
Keeley wanted to stop, grab at her injured shoulder, see what had hurt it, but she knew her mother meant what she said. She pushed at the screen door and ran.
“What am I going to do?” Keeley said, her head resting on Pam’s shoulder. Pam had her in a big bear hug, and Amy stood close by, rubbing and patting Keeley on her other shoulder.
Pam released her and stood back. “Don’t worry. We’re going to protect you.”
“How? I have to go home sometime. And she’ll be waiting.”
Amy said, “Who says? You can stay at my house.”
“Your mom will end up going to talk to my mom if I stay over every night.”
It was true. Amy’s mother was caring and protective. She would go on red alert if one of her daughter’s friends started staying over every night.
Pam said, taking Keeley’s hands in her own, “You can stay at my house. My mother doesn’t talk to anybody if she can help it. And Dad’s got a big project at work. He’s hardly been around all summer.”
“What about Jeff? Won’t he complain about having me around all the time?”
“Nah, Jeff’s been in a lot of trouble lately. I told you? About the shoplifting? In my letters? He’s in too much hot water to complain about anything. Plus, he’s hardly ever around either. He and that kid Rusty are off back-island most of the time, fooling around at the dump.”
Keeley looked at Pam and then her eyes were brimming again. “Why? Why, do you think?”
Pam made a clucking sound, swallowing tears of her own, and shook her head. “She’s crazy. And she’s hurt you so much all these years. It’s not right. Doesn’t your dad see it? Why doesn’t he do something?”
Keeley mewled and shook her head, looking down. The girls exchanged helpless glances.
Suddenly, Keeley shook her head more violently and twisted away, breaking Pam’s clasp. She went to the window that overlooked the water, the bright moon high in the corner of the glass, and stood there for a moment, her arms out straight and stiff at her sides.
“I can’t stand this,” she said in a low choked voice.
She spun around to face them. She stood taller and put her shoulders back. “I can’t stand it. I won’t. I never want to feel like this again. I’m going to be happy,” she said, a little sob escaping. She stopped and swallowed. Her eyes were shining, her expression suddenly fierce. “I’m not going to let her ruin me. I’m going to laugh and have fun and live. I’m going to have the best summer ever. We’re all going to. Let’s pretend tonight was just another fun night. Let’s have a midnight picnic like we used to. No, wait, let’s go skinny dipping! That was so much fun last year. Let’s do that, right now, okay?”
Amy smiled and shrugged. “Sure. That was fun.”
Pam pointed at Keeley’s arm. “But your arm. It’s hurt. You shouldn’t be swimming. We should see a doctor.”
“No, no doctor. It’s stopped bleeding. See? It’s just a little cut. Besides, stop talking like that. We’re having fun, okay? So are you in, or are you out?”
Pam bobbed her head around in a maybe-yes, glancing down at her chest. Zooey looked at her and remembered how Pam had been the only one last year with a womanly figure, how shy she’d been when they’d stripped to go in the water, waiting to the last minute to take off her clothes and then rushing clumsily into the water. It had been a crescent moon that night, the night barely silvered with light. Tonight, the moon was a spotlight, creating a gray moonscape.
Zooey could feel everyone turn to her. God, she didn’t want to strip naked in front of them. It would be so embarrassing, showing them her flat breasts with their pointed nipples, her delicate dusting of pubic hair, her skinny boyish hips.
“Zo?”
She looked at Keeley and saw the pleading in her eyes. Oh, damn. “Okay. I’m in.”
Her fears were for naught. All of them stripped as if in a public dressing room, focusing on removing their clothes, studiously not looking at the others. That was when Zooey knew that they all saw how much things had changed. Last year, Keeley and Amy kept making cracks about full moons and wiggling their fannies around. Last year, they had all stared at Pam and stifled laughter when she ran into the water.
They went into the water quickly and swam out toward where the moon was creating a rippled path of light on the small waves in the channel between the island and the causeway. In the center of the channel they paused, treading water.
“Isn’t this fun?” Keeley called.
The girls all nodded. “Yeah! Sure! Really fun.”
But it wasn’t the same. The electricity of doing something illicit and forbidden was missing, the bubble of hilarity deflated. It was just too much. All that had happened was too much.
Then Keeley’s brave smile dissolved and she was crying.
“Oh!” Pam swam over towards her.
“No! Stop trying to make me feel better,” Keeley sobbed and pushed at the water in Pam’s direction, warning her off. “It’s never going to be okay. I wish…” Then she was crying in earnest, her head sinking lower in the water so that she had to tip her head back to keep her mouth above water.
Then she sank below the surface.
“No!” Amy screamed and dove down. Pam and then Zooey followed.
They pulled her up to the surface, all their arms intertwined to support her. “Don’t!” Keeley wailed when they had her above water.
Zooey couldn’t stand it anymore. They needed something. Something more than platitudes and assurances. They would pray. She used her most commanding voice. “Powers that be. God and all that is above. Help us. Help Keeley. Wash away our tears. Wash away the blood. Make everything right again.”
They were all looking at her, looking to her for an answer. Zooey continued, “Full moon, blackest water, wash it away. Full moon, blackest water, wash everything away. Help us tonight. Hear our prayer.” She put out her right hand, palm up. The other girls took it and they were a cross in the water.
Amy spoke. “We pledge our eternal friendship and true hearts. Forever and ever”
“Amen,” they said in unison.
And then it was right again. Zooey could feel it. She saw her friends’ hopeful faces, heads bobbing on top of the water, and thanked God for answering their prayer.