That Summer

by Jennifer Weiner

  Diana’s skin got tan; the sun put streaks of gold in her hair. The biking and the swimming worked her heart and her lungs and her muscles, the nights of sound sleep erased the worry from her eyes. Day by day, week by week, with every walk on the sand and each stroke through the water, with each workday completed, and each deposit to her savings account, she felt stronger. A little more herself; a little more at home.

  By October, all the trees were bare, except for the scrubby pines. The water got too cold for swimming, and the beach looked desolate. The town had emptied out, just as Reese had predicted. In Provincetown, Diana had her choice of parking spaces, and started becoming familiar with the faces of some of her fellow washashores and year-rounders: the clerk at the grocery store, the librarians at the public library, the guy with the shaved head who worked behind the counter at Joe.

  One morning, she was sleeping late, dressed in a sweatshirt and a pair of boxer shorts with Willa curled up beside her. Reese had celebrated his fiftieth birthday at the Abbey the night before, closing the restaurant to the public and throwing a party for all his friends, which seemed to include every resident of P-town. Diana had spotted the woman from the art gallery, with her pink hair and cat-eye glasses, the guy who ran the copy shop, the meter maid and the cops and the shellfish constable and even the guy who directed traffic, dressed as a pilgrim, on busy weekends. The Abbey had been crowded, with three bartenders hustling to keep everyone’s glasses full. Chef had made paella, studded with linguica and chunks of lobster meat and fresh clams, and, after dinner was served, Reese had insisted that his staffers join the party. It had been a long night, which had culminated with Reese, after much coaxing from Jonathan, standing on top of a table and singing “Let’s Get It On.” He’d started a capella, but at some point one of the patrons had produced an accordion, of all things, and then a few of the drag queens, powerless to resist the spotlight, had climbed on the table to join in. At one point, Reese had fought has way through the crowd to Diana, taking hold of her head and planting a resounding kiss on her cheek. “Dee! My baby washashore! Are you having fun?”

  She promised that she was.

  “And you’re happy!” Reese, who Diana suspected was thoroughly drunk, was giving her a probing look.

  “I’m fine!” She lifted her glass of champagne as proof. “I promise.”

  “Okay, then.” He patted her upper arm and sent her back into the throng. Instead of returning to the party, Diana had gone to the ladies’ room. She’d washed her hands and looked at herself in the mirror for a long time, wondering what other people saw. A tallish young woman with golden-brown hair, a girl who wore baggy clothes and a wary expression. A girl who’d forgotten how to smile.

  When she came out of the bathroom, Ryan was waiting. He grabbed her hand. “Come dancing,” he said, and dragged her toward the center of the room, where people were doing some kind of line dance to “Love Shack” by the B-52s. Diana had let herself be pulled toward the center of the action, throwing her hands in the air with three dozen other revelers whenever Fred Schneider sang “The whole shack shimmies!”

  She hadn’t made it home until after two in the morning, and had immediately fallen deeply asleep without bothering to set her alarm, because it was Saturday, one of her days off. She had just opened her eyes when the knocking began.“Caretaker!” a loud, male voice shouted.

  She jumped up, badly startled, calling, “Just a minute!” as Willa yelped and scrambled underneath the bed. Diana snatched up the previous evening’s white shirt, wincing at the combined odors of tequila, cigarette smoke, and clam juice, which must have gotten splashed on her sleeves during service. The dresser, with the rest of her clothes, was downstairs, on the opposite side of the cottage, and she could see a bulky male shape looming outside of the screen door.

  “Just hang on!” A few weeks ago, there’d been a sale at one of the fancy home goods stores on Commercial Street, the same place she’d bought Ryan’s birthday socks, and she’d treated herself to a blanket of soft knit wool, purple with fringed tassels. She snatched it up, wrapped it around her waist, and came down the stairs to stand on the opposite side of the door.

  “Can I help you?”

  “I’m Michael Carmody. I’m the caretaker,” said the man. He was a tall, heavyset, bearded fellow, thick through the chest and thighs, and he spoke with a broad Boston accent. She guessed that he was maybe five or ten years older than she was. He wore a barn jacket, jeans, and work boots and a Red Sox baseball cap. Beneath its brim, she could see a round face, full cheeks, pale, faintly freckled skin, and a thicket of reddish-brown beard.

  “I don’t need anything taken care of,” she said.

  The man looked puzzled at this assertion. “Dr. Levy and her husband hired me. I do for them every year. This place, and the other.”

  “You do what for them, exactly?” She was slightly reassured that he knew the owner’s name. Then again, anyone could have looked that up.

  “I caretake,” said the man, as if that single word should have been enough. When she waited, clearly expecting something more, he gave her another puzzled look, his brow furrowing. “I close up the houses at the end of the summer, and make sure everything’s shipshape for winter. I make repairs. I nail down boards and oil hinges. Check the weather stripping; put up the storm windows. I keep an eye on things through the winter. Making sure that the pipes don’t freeze, plowing out the driveways if it snows. I fix what needs fixing, order replacements for things that need replacing. Making sure nothing gets stolen, and no mice take up residence, so everything’s the way it should be when summer comes.”

  “Did Dr. Levy tell you that I’d be staying here for the winter?” Standing on the porch—no, she thought, looming on the porch—he was making her small cottage feel even smaller. She hadn’t had any guests, and hadn’t realized how the place would feel like a doll’s house with another adult nearby.

  The man pulled off his baseball cap, poked at his hair, which was a few shades lighter than his beard, and put the cap back on. “She mentioned that they had a tenant, but she didn’t seem sure about your plans.”

  Which made sense. Diana had only called Dr. Levy three days ago to ask if she could stay on. Dr. Levy had told her that was fine, that she was welcome to stay through the spring if she liked, but the news didn’t appear to have made its way to Michael Carmody, Caretaker.

  “Well, I’m going to be here,” Diana said. “I can take care of the place.”

  “So you’ll put up the storm windows?”

  Diana didn’t know what a storm window was, or where the ones for the cottage might be, but she wasn’t going to tell him that.

  “Tell you what,” said the guy. “Call Dr. Levy to make sure I’m supposed to be here. Once you tell me it’s okay, I’ll take down your screens and put up your storm windows.” He paused. “I usually put down mouse traps, over the winter, but it looks like you two have got that covered.”

  Diana looked down to see that Willa had made her way down from the loft, nosed the screen door open and was butting insistently at the guy’s knee with her forehead. He bent down and scratched behind her ears, then under her chin, murmuring, “Are you a good girl?” Looking up at Diana, he asked, “Okay to give her a treat?” When Diana nodded, he pulled something out of his pocket that caused Willa’s entire body to convulse with delight. He offered it to her on an open palm. Willa gobbled it up, put her paws on his leg, and gave him her most beseeching look, with her head cocked to the right.

  “I waitress at nights,” Diana said through the screen door. “In P-town.”

  “Oh, yeah? Whereabouts?”

  “So I’m gone Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from four in the afternoon on. If that works for you,” she said. “I’ll call Dr. Levy first, though.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” he said agreeably. If he’d noticed that she hadn’t told him her name, or where she’d worked, or even opened the door, he didn’t mention it. He scratched Willa’s ears. Willa head-
butted his calf, then thumped down on her haunches, looking up at him with her tongue lolling and her eyes bright. The guy reached into his pocket again, looked a question at Diana, and, at her nod, tossed Willa something small and round and reddish-brown. Willa hopped up on her hind legs and caught it on the fly, a maneuver Diana had never seen her perform, of which she’d never suspected Willa was capable.

  “Dehydrated hot dogs,” he said.

  “What?”

  “You buy a pack of the cheapest hot dogs you can find, cut ’em into slices, then nuke the slices in the microwave for ten minutes. My dad taught me to always carry them around. Even the meanest dog will leave you alone if you give him a few of these.” He tossed up another treat. This time, Willa did a running leap to snatch it out of the air, and he smiled. His eyes crinkled at the corners. “What’s her name?” he asked.

  “Willa.”

  “Is Willa going to give me any trouble if I show up and you’re not here?”

  “Does she look like she’ll give you any trouble?” asked Diana, indicating the dog, who was, at that moment, staring up at him ardently, with her tail wagging like a metronome. Some guard dog, Diana thought, as Willa rolled over and waved her legs in the air.

  The guy smiled and petted Willa’s belly, which almost disappeared under his enormous hand. “They say that there’s dog people and cat people, and I’m a dog person. Grew up with a golden retriever named Monty. Are the fireworks bothering her?”

  “Not much.” Every Saturday night, kids down on the beach would set off sparklers or Roman candles. The first time it had happened, the noise had sent Willa scrambling behind the couch, but, after a few Saturdays, she seemed to have realized that the noise did not portend any harm.

  “Are you a brave girl?” the guy asked Willa. “Monty, he’d hide under the porch, every time. Come out with mulch and burrs all over him, with this embarrassed look on his face.”

  Diana didn’t want to be amused. But she couldn’t stop herself from picturing it—a big, dopey-looking dog, who’d match this big, amiable guy, slinking out from underneath a porch, looking foolish.

  The guy straightened. “Well, I won’t take up any more of your time.” He pulled a business card out of his pocket, extending it toward the door. “Anything else goes wrong—roof starts leaking, toilet won’t flush—you call me.”

  The card, she saw, had the same logo as the truck. “Thanks.”

  “Okay, then. Nice to meet you. See you around.” He ambled to his truck and climbed behind the wheel. It was a substantial truck, but even so, it seemed to sag a little beneath his bulk, and the top of his baseball cap brushed its ceiling. He gave her a friendly wave and drove away.

  When Diana got home that night, she found that Michael Carmody had tucked another business card between her screen door and the doorjamb. He’d also left a waist-high pile of firewood stacked by the door, with a Baggie full of dehydrated hot dog on top of it.

  “I hope you told him that your affections can’t be bought,” she told Willa, who looked up at her, her tail rotating frantically. Diana sighed and gave Willa one of Michael Carmody’s treats.

  9

  Diana

  Oh, Michael! He’s lovely,” Dr. Levy told her when she called. “I should have told you he’d be stopping by.” Diana left him a message, reiterating the afternoons she’d be working. The very next night, she’d returned from work to find her storm windows in place. A week after that, Diana went to the bar to fill a drink order and was not entirely surprised to find Michael Carmody sitting there, with the barstool practically invisible underneath his body. He wore jeans, a plaid shirt, and his Sox cap.

  “Hey, I found you!” he said.

  “Yes, you did,” she said.

  “Did Willa like her treats?”

  “She did. Thanks.”

  “I love dogs,” he said, his voice meditative. “Except for those nasty, yappy little purse dogs.” Turning to Frankie, the bartender, he said, “Hey, do you remember Mrs. Lambert? She’d come in here sometimes, back in the day, looking for her husband, and she’d have one of them whatchamacallems, a teacup poodle, in that monogrammed tote bag she used to carry?” He turned to Diana and said, “I bet she would’ve monogrammed the dog, if she could have figured out how.”

  Diana made a noncommittal noise.

  “When your shift’s over, how about I buy you a drink?” he asked.

  “No thank you,” said Diana. If she’d been interested in dating anyone, Michael Carmody would have been a reasonable prospect, even if he resembled John Candy more than John F. Kennedy Junior. He was cheerful, with a nice smile, and he seemed kind. And he liked Willa, too.

  He spread his hands wide in supplication. She noticed, without intending to notice, that his nails were clipped very short, and they were scrupulously clean. “You don’t want to hear about my childhood?” When she smiled briefly, but didn’t answer, he said, “Well then, I will finish up this excellent gin and tonic, and be on my way.” He nodded at the bartender. “Thanks, Frankie.”

  “Any time, Mike.” Frankie was a sinewy, middle-aged woman, deeply tanned, with an anchor tattooed on one of her forearms, and her dark hair in a mullet. The waiters and the bussers wore white shirts and black pants, but Frankie, like Ryan, was exempt from the dress code. She wore her own uniform: black jeans, a black chambray shirt, and motorcycle boots with heavy silver buckles.

  Diana tried to ignore Michael Carmody, but she saw him greet two of the waitresses, kiss Ryan on the cheek, and give Reese a lengthy hug, complete with back-pounding, on his way out the door. When he was gone, Ryan drifted over to the bar and sat down with a sigh. “Isn’t he cute? Total bear.”

  Frankie nodded her approval. “You’re missing out, Dee.”

  “Which bear are we talking about? Michael Carmody? I love him,” said Ellie Ford, who was one of the waitresses, a petite, freckled strawberry blonde who’d spent her whole life on the Cape and knew everything about everyone in P-town. “He dated my sister’s best friend for two years in high school.”

  “You could do a lot worse than be wrapped up in that,” Frankie said to Diana. “Michael Carmody’s good people.”

  Diana shook her head. “I’m sure he is. It’s just, I’m not looking for anything right now.” When she’d taken the job, she’d made vague allusions to a broken heart, and how her move to the Cape was a chance to start over. She’d answered follow-up questions as briefly as she could without being rude and politely turned down Ryan’s attempts to set her up with single friends of both genders. She was sure her colleagues were engaging in some collective Baby Boom fantasy, where she was the bitchy, big-city ice queen who needed some salt-of-the-earth loving, maybe even a baby or three, to make her a woman again. Not happening, she told herself. She’d never wanted children, not even before that summer, and she wasn’t ready for any kind of romance. On her way back from the kitchen, her hands full of lemons and limes, she realized that she’d have no one to call if the roof leaked or the toilet stopped flushing. Dialing Michael Carmody’s number would automatically be seen as a capitulation. Oh, well, she thought.

  The following Monday morning, Diana put Willa into her bicycle basket and rode to the center of town, where a single convenience store, two real-estate offices, a seafood market, and the post office, each housed in a single-story wooden building, comprised Truro’s downtown. In the empty field next to the post office, across the street from the town green, bands and local musicians gave free concerts in the summertime. The summer people packed picnics and came to listen, letting their kids run and dance in front of the bandstand while they drank wine out of plastic cups and ate fried chicken from the Blue Willow or pizza from the Flying Fish in Wellfleet.

  On Monday mornings, the field hosted a farmers’ market. That day, half a dozen farms had come, displaying their wares on folding tables. There were jars of honey and beeswax candles, pumpkins and squash and turnips and wreaths made of cedar and pine. Diana was browsing the offerings when Michael Ca
rmody appeared beside her, holding an enormous, oddly shaped tomato in one of his hands.

  “Eight dollars for this?” he asked the young woman minding the cashbox.

  “It’s delicious,” she said. “Last ones of the season.”

  “But it looks like a tumor.” He held the tomato out for Diana’s inspection. The tomato was more oval than round, big enough to fill his palm, with odd bulges beneath its yellow-gold skin. “Would you pay eight dollars for this?” Before she could answer, he turned back to the girl. “You know what, I think I’d pay eight dollars so I wouldn’t have to eat it.”

  “Your loss,” she said. “That right there is an Early Girl. Sweetest tomato you’ll ever taste.”

  “Really?” He studied it skeptically.

  “You get some good sourdough bread, toast it up, slice your Early Girl. A little mayo, little salt, a few grinds of pepper. Best sandwich in the world.”

  Michael considered the tomato, then handed the girl a ten-dollar bill and said, “Keep the change.” Turning back to Diana, he said, “Want to split it? I’ll buy the bread if you supply the mayo.”

  She shook her head.

  “It’s just a sandwich!” he said. “In broad daylight!” When she walked to the fence, where she’d left her bike, he followed her, and when she turned around, he was right on her heel.

  She lowered her voice. “What part of ‘no’ don’t you understand?”

  “Well,” he said equably, “I would like to get to know you. But I will respect your wishes. If you want to be left alone, I’ll leave you alone. I don’t want to make a nuisance of myself.” He made a show of turning away from Diana, toward the center of the field, where an older man, gantry-thin with a dandelion fluff of white hair, was playing “Turkey in the Straw” on the banjo, with an adoring circle of children at his feet.