That Summer

by Jennifer Weiner

  He’s standing at the fire with his back to her, in khaki shorts and a hooded sweatshirt. When she taps his shoulder, he turns, smiling. He looks her over, from the slender straps of her dress all the way to her bare feet, and, impulsively, she twirls around for him, her skirt flaring like a blossom. “Hey, beautiful,” he says. “Wait right there.” A minute later, he’s back, pressing a cup into her hand.

  When she takes her first sip, the alcohol burns her throat and makes her eyes water. She gasps, spluttering, and almost spits it out. Her face glows hot as an ember when she hears a few of the guys laughing, and she thinks he’s going to laugh at her, too, but all he says is, “Let me get you some punch.” She watches him as he walks away, then studies the crowd, looking for familiar faces. Her friends have all gone home by now. Alicia’s back in New York City and Maeve is back in Dublin and Marie-Francoise is in Breton. Kelly was the second-to-last of them to go. At Gull Pond that morning, she’d kissed Diana on each cheek, given her a postcard with her address on it, and said, “Keep in touch!”

  There are girls at this party, older-looking girls. Diana sees one in cutoff shorts, holding a guitar, and another in an Emlen sweatshirt that must belong to one of the boys. Because, mostly, it’s Emlen guys here, in T-shirts or sweatshirts that advertise their school, in jeans or cargo shorts or the pinkish-salmon shorts she’s learned are called Nantucket Reds. When the wind changes directions, she can hear pieces of conversation: They went to Cape Cod and Early decision at Princeton, and, once, the word “townie,” followed by a burst of unpleasant-sounding laughter. Her head swivels—was that meant for her?—but before she can figure out who was talking, or who they were talking about, Poe is back with another cup.

  “Try this.”

  The drink is sweet, almost cloying, and it tastes like apricots and peaches, but it warms her pleasantly instead of burning on the way down. She sips, then gulps, because she’s thirsty after her run and a day in the sunshine, and, suddenly, the cup is empty and Poe is off to get her a refill, leaving her sitting on one of the driftwood logs that’s been pulled up around the campfire, with the world gone slightly spinny and soft at its edges.

  “Hey, take it easy.” She looks to see that there’s a girl in the cutoffs, sitting beside her. The girl has a deep tan and about six bracelets on her arm, woven friendship bracelets and bangles that chime when she gestures. “That stuff sneaks up on you if you’re not careful. Trust me, I know from personal experience.” The girl’s hair is long and brown, tangled by the wind, and she’s got a narrow, clever face. There’s a silver ring on her thumb.

  “Thanks,” says Diana, realizing that her bladder is suddenly, uncomfortably full. “Is there, um…”

  “A bathroom?” The cutoffs girl makes a face. “Ha. I wish. The guys just go piss in the dunes. That’d be my advice.”

  Diana waits until Poe comes back. She sits by him and drinks with him and asks him questions, listening as he tells her about the previous night’s adventures, which seem to have involved him and six of the guys he’s staying with getting kicked out of a bar (or maybe it’s a club?) called the Bomb Shelter. When she can’t wait any longer, she says, “Excuse me,” and stands up.

  Tipsy. She’s never appreciated the word before, but, now on her feet, she feels she might immediately fall over. The world is tilted, wobbling on its axis. She’d have fallen right over, if it weren’t for his hand on her elbow.

  “You okay?”

  She isn’t sure, but she nods, smiling brightly.

  “I’ll be right back.” By then she’s spotted a narrow path that threads through the saw grass. She follows it until she finds a sandy spot that seems secluded. She pulls up her dress and does her business. When she stands up, the world spins again. Maybe I’d better sit down, she thinks, and finds a patch of sand, smooth as a fresh sheet, tucked into the curve of a dune. The night air is soft against her face, the sand is cool underneath her, and the stars are brilliant overhead, so close it looks like she could touch them. She lies back and wishes for Poe to come and find her, like she’s Sleeping Beauty and he’s the prince who will wake her with a kiss. She lets her eyes slip shut. When she opens them again, there’s a boy on top of her.

  * * *

  “There were three of them,” she told Michael, as she stood on the deck, looking out at the ocean, seven years after that terrible night. Her voice was dull, her shoulders hunched, as she watched the waves roll in and out; not stopping, not seeing, not caring. “One was on top of me. One was watching. And one of them…” She swallowed hard. “He was holding me down. And laughing.” It was the laughter she heard in her nightmares, the boy’s shrill cackle as he held her wrists and the way he’d chanted “Sloppy seconds!” He’d had a face as round as a pie plate, a snub of a nose, big round eyes, prissy, pursed lips, and brown hair combed back smoothly from his high, waxy-white forehead. There was something doll-like about him, like he’d been carved out of wood, then painted, and was waiting for someone to turn him into a real boy.

  She could see him, looming above her: his smooth hair disheveled, his rosebud mouth drawn into a sneer, how, every minute or two he’d use his left hand to hold her wrists and his right hand to stroke himself roughly through his shorts. She could smell the sour cloud of beer that hung around his face. Worst of all, she could picture the face of the boy watching from the tall grass, his mouth hanging open and eyes wide and shocked. She’d waited for him to come save her, but he never did.

  Michael pulled her gently against him, and she let herself lean into the warm bulk of his body. “Oh, sweetheart,” he said, his voice a pained rasp, like it was his heart that was breaking. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry that happened to you.”

  She nodded, and breathed, and made herself tell him the rest. “It hurt. It hurt a lot. I was a virgin.” She remembered the pain when the boy tried to jam himself inside, how he’d spat on his hand, then smeared saliva between her legs, how she’d felt like she was being torn right in two. She remembered the dry, hissing noise her hair made against the sand as she tossed her head and bucked her hips, trying to free herself. She remembered the smell of the fire and the ocean; the sight of the sky, the moon obscured by a raft of clouds, cold and indifferent, a million miles away.

  “When the first boy finished, he got off me, and then, before the second boy could get on, I hit him.” She made a fist, to demonstrate, remembering how her hands had tingled after the boy released them, the meaty smack of her knuckles on his cheek, how the shock had traveled right up her arm and how the boy had yelped. Then she’d been moving, shoving her way past the watcher, stumbling through the saw grass as it sliced at her calves, the laughing boy so close behind her that she could feel his breath on her neck. She heard someone say, “That’s enough. Leave her alone,” but she didn’t look back, she kept going, running until her thighs burned and she had a stitch in her side, turning her head every few steps to look behind her for pursuers, holding her ruined dress around her; her panties gone, abandoned back on the sand. She remembered realizing, as she’d dragged her poor, bleeding, hurting body up the Levys’ beach stairs, that nothing had gone according to plan. She’d be going back to Boston in two days’ time, and she still hadn’t been kissed.

  Michael put his arms around her and held her, and Diana felt herself rocking like a ship riding at anchor as his body kept her in place. When she finally raised her eyes, she looked for disgust in his expression, but she could see nothing but sorrow. Her throat ached and her eyes felt gritty.

  “Wait here,” he said. He got up and went inside, and got her a glass of water, and watched over her as she sipped.

  “So,” she said, and cleared her throat. “That’s what happened. That’s why I can’t be here in the summertime. That’s why I dropped out of college. That’s why…” Her voice trailed off. She knew she could never put words to how that night had changed her, reshaping her sense of the world and of herself, turning her from an aspiring artist and writer to a custodian and a waitress. N
or did she want to hurt him by implying that there was something dishonorable or wrong about a working-class life. She couldn’t say any of it, any more than she could get back everything she’d lost that night, that summer.

  “It’s just that I feel so stupid!” she said, in a loud, ragged voice.

  “You weren’t stupid. Don’t say that! It’s not your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “But I did. I trusted him. Poe. I thought he…” Her voice caught and broke, and when she spoke again, all she could manage was a whisper. “I thought he liked me,” she said.

  She drained the water in breathless gulps. Then she sat, with Willa at her feet, and she waited for the world to crack open and swallow her whole, the way she’d always feared it would, if she said those words out loud: I was raped.

  “Did you tell anyone?” he asked. “Dr. Levy? Or the police?”

  She shook her head. “I couldn’t. I felt so…” She raised her hands and let them flutter back down to her sides. “Not until now. You’re the first.”

  “Listen to me.” Michael put his hand on her chin. He tilted her face up so she had to look at him. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Nothing that happened is your fault. It’s their fault. Those guys. Their fault.”

  Diana nodded, sniffling. “I know,” she said. “I know you’re right. I’m trying to believe it.”

  “Well, for now just know that I believe it. One hundred percent.” When he opened his arms, she shuffled close and leaned against his chest, crying so hard she was sure that his shirt had to be soaked. With her eyes closed, enfolded in a warm, Michael-scented darkness, she felt as close to safe as she had since that summer. Michael held her, and rocked her, and let her cry, and when she stopped he gave her more water, then went inside and fetched two more beers and sat beside her. They drank as the sun went down over the bay, drawing bands of gold and orange and indigo across the sky.

  “So here’s a question,” he finally said. “What do you want to happen next?”

  Startled, she turned to look at him. “What?”

  “It’s your life. You get to decide. How do you want it to be? Like, do you want to go back to college? Do you like being a waitress? Do you like living here?” He paused, then asked, his voice lower, “Do you like being with me?”

  “I…” She swallowed hard.

  “No pressure,” said Michael. “But I like you. Like, a lot.”

  “I’m not sure…” He waited, while she sorted out what to say. “I’m not sure that I can be with anyone, is the thing.”

  She felt his body shift as he sighed, and saw his shoulders slump. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “I understand.”

  “But…” She paused, and breathed, and then, in a rush, said, “If you can be patient with me, I think I want to try.”

  His smile was like the sun coming out after days of rain; like pulling on the softest sweater on a cold day.

  “Can we take it slow?” she whispered.

  “As slow as you need,” said Michael Carmody. He reached for her hand. “I’m a patient kind of guy.”

  17

  Diana

  For the weeks and months of that year, through the fall and the winter and into the spring, Michael Carmody courted her, slowly, with great diligence and care. While the weather stayed warm, they did summer-people things. Michael took her to the Wellfleet drive-in, where they sat in the back of his pickup truck and watched a double feature of Back to the Future and Jaws with a giant bucket of popcorn propped between them. They played miniature golf with Michael’s sister, Kate, and her husband, Devin, and spent afternoons visiting antiques markets and art galleries. On the first cool night he made her dinner, linguine with clam sauce, which, he claimed, was the only thing he could cook, and he took her fishing, cheering her on as she reeled in an eighteen-pound bass. In the cottage, he oiled hinges and replaced the showerhead in the bathroom and added a towel bar to the door. In the mornings on her days off, Michael would come over with coffee and scones from the Flying Fish. Together, they’d walk Willa, and Diana would get in the truck with him and help him make his rounds, keeping him company while he patched screen doors or nailed up drooping gutters or changed the chemicals in hot tubs (“can’t tell you how many pairs of underpants I’ve fished out of this one,” he told her, when they’d visited a mansion in Provincetown, high on a hill in the West End).

  He invited her to spend Thanksgiving with his family, but Diana wasn’t ready for that yet, so on Thanksgiving Day, he went to his parents’ place in Eastham, and she went home to eat turkey with her mom and dad and sisters in Boston. Then, on Saturday night at the cottage, she and Michael prepared a two-person feast of a turkey breast, stuffing, sweet potatoes, and cranberry sauce made from the berries they’d picked together in the bog.

  At Christmastime, she met his father, a larger, gruffer, gray-haired version of Michael, and was formally introduced to his mom the librarian, who was petite and round, with the curly reddish hair Michael had inherited. Mrs. Carmody—“call me Cathy”—cupped Diana’s face in both of her hands and said, “Finally—finally! He brings home a reader! You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting!” before giving Diana a resounding kiss on the cheek and plopping down on the couch, looking smug. “My work here is done,” she announced, and made a pantomime of dusting off her hands, as Kate and Devin gave Diana meaningful smiles, and Michael shoved his hands in his pockets, murmuring, “That’s enough, Ma,” looking endearingly abashed. Diana met Michael’s friends—Victor, who ran a charter fishing company; and Eric, who owned a nursery; and Carolee, who taught at the yoga studio where Diana took her classes. She would have introduced him to Reese and Frankie and Carly and Ryan, her colleagues at the Abbey, except Michael knew them all already.

  Some nights at work, toward the end of her shift, Michael would come and sit at the bar, waiting to bring her home. Sometimes she’d come home from work and find a gift on her doorstep—a palette of watercolors, a pair of earrings, a bouncy rubber Kong for Willa to chase on the beach, a perfectly shaped oyster shell for her to decorate.

  The months went by, and all he ever did was hold her hand and kiss her. She knew he wanted more than that—she could see his face getting flushed and hear his heart beating faster; could feel the hard length of him, pressing against her, when she sat on his lap as they kissed on the couch—but he never pushed, never demanded, never asked her for more.

  At the end of January, there was a blizzard. Snow covered the beaches, and black ice slicked the roads. Reese closed the Abbey for a few days. “Stay home. Stay safe,” he said. “We’re not going to get anyone in here anyhow.” Diana hunkered down in the cottage, where she painted seashells and read, curled up with Willa in the sleeping loft. She thought Michael would want to be with her, but he picked up work plowing people’s driveways and helping the town workers sand and salt the roads. He’d come home after dark, shedding layers of coats and sweaters by the door, and Diana would make him hot chocolate and build up the fire in the woodstove.

  For his birthday, Diana took him out to dinner at an Israeli restaurant in Orleans. For her birthday, the first day of March, Michael told her to close her eyes. He walked her to the driveway, and, on the back of his truck, she saw two kayaks, one bright yellow, the other neon green. “His and hers,” he said, and cleared his throat. “I thought we could go together.” Left unspoken was If you’re still around when it warms up.

  March went by, then April, and she and Michael were out on the deck again, edging around the topic of the upcoming summer. Diana was trying to explain that she couldn’t stay; that everything she saw or heard or smelled would remind her of what had happened.

  “Do you think…” Michael began. He pulled off his baseball cap, then put it back on. “I just wonder. If there was some kind of punishment for the boys who did it to you…?” His voice trailed off.

  “There can’t be,” she said. “I didn’t tell anyone after it happened. There’s no police report. No pictures. No stained dress
. No physical evidence. It would just be my word against whatever they say.” Diana could already guess what that would be: She wanted it. She was asking for it. She was drunk. “So even if I figure out that guy’s real name…” Her voice was querulous and high. “I don’t know. I don’t know what I want. I don’t even know what’s possible. I mean, do I find the guy and have someone rape him, so he knows he it feels?”

  She’d thought Michael would be shocked by that, but his voice was its familiar calm rumble. “I guess that would be one way to go about it,” he said. “And is it just one guy you’d want punished? Aren’t all of them kind of to blame?”

  Diana walked to the edge of her yard, across the patchy, sandy grass. She leaned out over the railing, looking down at the ruffled whitecaps, then up at the apricot sky, and waited until Michael had come to stand beside her. “I could blackmail the guys, if I find them. Tell them that I’d go public unless they paid me.”

  “Do you want money?”

  “Doesn’t everyone?” she snapped.

  He raised his hands. “Hey, hey, I’m not trying to fight with you. I’m just asking.”

  She sniffled, wiping savagely at her eyes. “I don’t know,” she began, and then stopped talking.

  “Don’t know what?”

  “I don’t know what’s fair. These guys… what they took… I mean, how do I ever get that back?” She made herself breathe, made herself loosen her grip on the railing. “I feel like they stole my life. Like they took the person I was supposed to be, the person I was on my way to being, and they killed her, and now I’ll never get her back.”

  “But you’re still here,” he said gently. “You’re not dead. Whatever they did do, they didn’t do that.”

  “You don’t understand.” That old, familiar despair was back, welling up inside of her, pushing out every good feeling, every happy memory that she’d made. “I’ve got two sisters. They both went to college. One of them’s a lawyer; the other one’s a nurse. They’re both married. Julia’s got kids.”