by Unknown
Michael just shook his head.
“No, really?” Keeley said. “Why would anyone feel sorry for her?”
“Of course you don’t understand. You don’t know her. Not really. I do now, and all I can say is that she’s one of those people that looks like they have it all together on the outside, but the inside,” he said, tapping his forehead. “It’s a big mess. I pity the poor guy that marries her. Now, you, that’s a different story. Marrying you will be-“
Michael was reaching for Keeley, smiling, but she scooted away from him, across the widow’s walk, all humor gone from her face. “You promised, Michael.”
Pam’s head snapped around. “Married?”
“Woo hoo!” Amy crowed. “I knew it!”
Sam looked as confused and caught off guard as Zooey felt. Married? They were just kids. They were all going to college and then they’d have careers, and then later they’d get married and have kids of their own. They were all going to come out to Captain’s every summer with their husbands and children, who would be best friends, too. The four girls had agreed: that was the plan. The only one who might not go to college was Amy, who, unlike the others, hadn’t applied anywhere, insisting that college was a waste of money. Zooey guessed that Amy’s working-class family couldn’t afford college and their values didn’t support higher education in general.
Michael looked around at the others and then back at Keeley, who was sitting facing him now, her arms folded across her chest. “Well, we’re talking about it now,” he said.
“No,” Keeley said, shaking her head. “You’re talking about it. It stopped being a two-person conversation about a month ago. And now you’re bringing it up again, in front of my friends? What do you expect them to do, answer for me? Ha!” She reached for her beer can and emptied the last of it down her throat, head tilted back, her long golden hair nearly touching the floor.
“I think it’s wonderful!” Amy said, clapping her hands together. “I’m so happy for you two.”
Keeley squeaked a little and jumped to her feet. “See? See what you’ve done? God!” Then she turned and fled down the stairwell.
Pam and Amy climbed to their feet. “We should go,” Pam said, her expression solemn. “Make sure she’s okay.”
Michael slumped and looked down. “Yeah.”
Pam and Amy looked at Zooey, who shrugged back at them. She couldn’t leave. She was the hostess. They nodded and ran down the stairwell after Keeley.
Sam, looking around, clearly surprised by the rapid change of events, said. “Maybe I better go, too, man. Uh, the whole women-thing is too much for me.”
Michael looked up at Sam as he got to his feet. “Sure, see ya. Jones tomorrow?”
Sam nodded. “Sure, see you there.”
Then Sam was gone down the stairs too, and it was just Zooey and Michael. Zooey felt a thrill of excitement and nervousness chill her. Michael, alone with her. She had never stopped seeing him behind her eyes when she closed them, never stopped finding her gaze lingering on him when they were all together. It was more than his looks. It was him, who he was.
She swallowed, a hard pointed dry spot clicking in her throat. She reached for her beer can, took a sip. Then she had a brilliant idea. “Wait a sec. I’ll be right back.”
Michael, who was looking lost and sad, holding his beer between his knees where Keeley had just been sitting, just nodded and looked off at the horizon where the sun had been.
Zooey ran downstairs and found what she was looking for right away on her dresser. She grabbed it and a pack of matches, and ran back up the stairs, bursting up at the top with triumph. “You know what you need? A smoke! It’s the ticket when you’re stressed out.”
She, having practiced many times with Amanda, expertly put a cigarette between her lips and lit it with a match, dragging deeply. She loved smoking. It was so cool. She sat down next to him and handed him the pack.
Michael took half-filled pack of cigarettes and looked at it, holding it out in front of him as if seeing a pack of cigarettes for the first time. Then he leaned through the slats of the wooden fence that went around the widow’s walk, and chucked the pack into the wooded area behind Zooey’s house.
“Hey!” Zooey protested.
“Hey yourself. Give me that,” he said, snapping his fingers and holding his hand out.
If it had been anyone else, she wouldn’t have, but she handed over the cigarette. He crushed it out under his foot. “Now, that’s something to be sorry about.”
“God! Thanks a lot.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, nodding.
“That was meant to be sarcastic.”
“Well, you’ll thank me for real someday. Assuming you stop now, anyway. Gross habit.”
“Gross? It’s cool.”
“That’s sad. You’re too cool to believe that.”
“You sound like an after-school special.”
Michael smiled at her. “That’s me, after-school-special-man.”
She looked at her precious crushed cigarette and the blackened smear left by the burning end on the white-painted floor of the widow’s walk. Not cool? She leaned back against the fence, perplexed and embarrassed. “So, what was all that about marriage? You and Keeley?” She couldn’t keep out the incredulous note that pushed its way into her voice.
“Yeah. We’re going to get married. Why wait?”
“Because you’re both kids, that’s why. We all are. Don’t you want to go to college?”
“Yes. What does that have to do with anything?”
“I don’t know. Don’t you want to explore? Date other people?”
Michael shook his head. “That’s what I don’t want. Keeley’s had a tough time. The last thing she needs is a bunch of jerks messing with her head. And she’s the only one for me, so I’m not looking. We’re supposed to be together. She loves Captain’s. I love Captain’s. We’re good at the same stuff. We want the same things: a house here, kids, travel. We get each other - see the world the same way. She’s the only girl I know who doesn’t believe in God.”
Zooey stared at him. “You don’t believe in God?”
Michael tilted his head back and forth. “Not like most people do. I don’t believe God rewards you or punishes you like most people do. Mostly, I think God just sits back and laughs at us.”
“Then he’s got a sick sense of humor,” Zo said, thinking of her father, the uncertainties and cruelties of life. No, there had to be a plan, a reward, a punishment. She was being punished right now. “No, you’re wrong,” she said.
Michael looked impressed. “Wow, I never thought Miss I’m-Sorry could be so forceful.”
“I say I’m sorry all the time because I am.”
“Sorry for what? You haven’t done anything.”
“Yes, I have,” she said, looking away.
He paused for a minute and then asked, “What?”
She forced herself to stay calm. Staring hard at the bricks of the chimney to keep from crying, she said, “My father is dead because of me. I got drunk and I crashed our car and it literally scared him to death. He always said…,” she paused, choking a little and then taking a big breath. “He always said that I was the only worthwhile thing he’d ever done, that I was going to go on and do what he should have done with his life. He looked so pale and sick when he came to see me in the emergency room, and then a week later, he died. It’s my fault he died. If I wasn’t such a jerk, he’d be alive right now.”
Michael reached over and put his hand on hers that were twisted together in her lap. “No. It wasn’t your fault at all.”
“Yes, it was. God’s punishing me. I was so proud of getting into Wellesley. Too proud. I was showing off and full of myself when I got drunk that night. And my dad, he’s the one that paid for it.”
“No, you’re wrong. God’s not punishing you. You’re punishing yourself. For being a normal excited kid, you’re blaming yourself, making yourself into some kind of bad person. But you’re not. I
know you pretty well, Zooey,” he craned his neck so he could look in her eyes. “You’re a good person. You loved your dad. And now he’s gone. No one’s to blame. It’s just life. Life isn’t fair. But it can be good. It will be good again, I promise.”
The lump in her throat turned to glass shards, tears filling her eyes. Could it be true? Could it just be life being life? Was she really innocent? Looking in Michael’s warm caring eyes, she felt the first spring-like stirrings of hope.
Chapter 62
“You were in love with him, weren’t you?” Hannah said, leaning forward across the hospital cafeteria table, propped up on her elbows.
Zooey shook herself out of her reverie. “Yes, I was. Hook, line, and sinker – even more so after that night. Before, it had been more of an infatuation. Of course, I did everything I could to hide it. I knew he didn’t feel that way about me. I was like a sister as far as he was concerned. To me, he was the only person who’d seen me, really saw me, since my father died.”
“As far as my friends were concerned, I was just Zo, the bookworm geek who went along with whatever they wanted to do. My mom, like I said, she loved me but she couldn’t be there for me. She couldn’t even be there for herself. In some ways, she was younger than I was. She went back into the family fold with her sisters and she was safe there. But, me, I was out there by myself and here was this kind wonderful guy simply seeing me, hearing me, understanding. It was like food, like air. I needed it that badly.”
“Anyway, I needed you to understand that before I went on with the rest of the story. I wouldn’t make sense otherwise, what happened.”
Hannah said, “What? What did happen? I just don’t get the secrecy. Here my dad was Mr. Popularity and so was my mom, they have a kid a little too young and out of wedlock, but so what? It’s not that unusual of a story.”
Zo looked at her for a moment and then nodded. “Wait. I’ll explain.”
The next day, everything was good again between Keeley and Michael, the argument settled sometime after Michael left Zooey’s house that night. When she’d seen him to the door, he gave Zooey a big hug and kiss on the side of her head near her ear, which made her heart ache. Nodding at her living room, he said, “See? Your house is safe. No problemo. See you tomorrow.” He stepped out of the door, gave a backwards wave, and walked off down the boardwalk, sauntering as he always did in his no-worries way, as if the argument with Keeley was already resolved.
Keeley got her wish for a big party only a few days later. Clay’s parents had to be off-island for the week, both of them pulled away by work emergencies, leaving nineteen-year-old Clay in charge of his younger sister and their little house down-island. Shannon, his sister, was three years younger than Clay and a bit of a wild-child, taking every opportunity she could to shock her elders and thrill the other kids with her antics. Her greatest fascination was with her own naked body and she loved to flash her small breasts, streak 70’s-style, and moon people at every surprising opportunity. Between their temporary lack of parental units, Clay’s acquisition of a beautiful new girlfriend, Rose, and Shannon’s general craving for attention, they were a party-explosion waiting to happen.
The four girls got ready at Pam’s, their usual go-to house for questionable behavior and party-prep. Amy’s parents were welcoming, but strict and alert to trouble. Zooey’s house was too far up-island, and Keeley’s, well, that house was a nightmare that even Keeley avoided for the most part.
Keeley’s parents’ intermittent and abusive parenting had morphed into complete neglect as she grew into her teenage years. Both seemed to forget they had a daughter and were completely immersed in their own lives. Keeley’s father was a full-time advertising account executive and a part-time functioning alcoholic who spent any off-time in either the bar of his country club or, in the summer, drinking at the island’s little yacht club.
Keeley’s mother, who rarely spoke to Keeley after that terrible night with the knife, communicated entirely through notes left on their dining room table, primarily errands she wanted her daughter to run or chores to be completed around the house. Instead of focusing her attention on her daughter, Mrs. O’Brien was busy saving her soul. The autumn after their worst summer, Keeley’s fourteenth, her mother had met a handsome young minister at the Fairfield Garden Club’s bake sale where she’d been inspecting the banana-nut loaves. He was in charge of the congregation at the new Grace Church that had opened in a strip mall two towns over. Bowled over by his keen observation of her deep need of saving, she’d been promptly converted from an occasional Episcopalian to a full-fledged holy-roller fundamentalist Christian.
According to Keeley’s mother, both her husband and Keeley were lost souls, going straight to hell when they died, utterly unredeemable. Her only hope was for her own soul and, other than cleaning the house so vigorously the smell of disinfectant hit you as soon as you walked in the front door, the rest of her time was spent down at the Grace Evangelical Church in the Riverview Shopping Centre, a blue-carpeted store space with plastic folding chairs instead of pews and a podium instead of an altar.
Whenever Keeley and her mother passed each other at home, her mother made the sign of the cross and mumbled frantic prayers under her breath, as if in the presence of the Devil himself. This was rare, though, as Keeley avoided going home. In Fairfield she stayed at various classmates’ homes that were open to her regular overnight stays, and on Captain’s she stayed at Pam’s. Pam’s was the obvious choice, the only house where everything was easygoing and questions weren’t asked.
Pam’s mother, an elementary school teacher, had two loves: chocolate and fat paperback mysteries. Every summer she indulged both loves sitting on her chaise lounge on the screened-in back porch of their house on Captain’s. Whatever her two children did during the summers, provided it wasn’t dangerous or illegal, was fine as long as it didn’t disturb her as she worked her way through another box of Mallomars and the latest Mary Higgins Clark. With her father still at work most of the time, only visiting the island on the weekends, her year-younger brother off running around with his own friends, and her mother ensconced on the porch, Pam’s house was a haven of permissiveness, privacy, and safety.
They were in Pam’s bedroom getting dressed for the party when Keeley slipped a black silk camisole over her head, turned around and stuck her hip out in her white jeans and said, “So, what do you think?”
Pam, trying to button a jean skirt, but unable to see past her shelf of a chest, glanced up. “It’s nice. You forgot your bra, though.”
Keeley flipped her hair back and put her hand through it. “No, I’m wearing it like this. A bra would ruin the line of it.”
Zooey turned to look at Keeley, who seemed to glow after their day together at the beach, her skin burnished brown by the sun, hair gilded by sunlight. The black camisole clung to Keeley’s pert breasts and contrasted perfectly with her crisp white jeans. It made Zooey’s stomach knot. Why? Why couldn’t she look like that? She looked down at herself. She needed a looser top; something bigger might give an illusion of a chest. Maybe Pam had something.
She looked back up to see Amy squishing up her face at Keeley. “You look like a tramp like that. You’ve got to wear a bra.”
Keeley shook her head and made an annoyed sound. “Shannon will be wearing something like this and she never wears a bra. She looks hot. I want to look hot, too.”
Amy said, “You don’t need to try, you already do. Besides, you and Michael are getting married. What do you need attention for?”
Keeley, who had turned to look at herself in Pam’s full-length mirror that hung on her closet door, spun around, her face turning red. “Don’t you ever say that again. We’re not getting married. Promise you’ll never say it.”
Amy put her hands on her tiny hips, looking like an indignant toy. “Why not? Why wouldn’t you marry Michael? Are you nuts?”
“Hey!” Pam said, stepping between them. “We all agreed. First college, then careers, then marriag
e. It’s just not time yet, that’s all, Aim.”
“I hate when you call me Aim,” Amy said, “It’s Amy. And who says our plan’s written in stone? I’m probably not going to college.”
“I thought you were going to SUNY with us?” Pam said. “I thought you applied?”
Amy shook her head. “My parents don’t have money for that. Your parents scrimped and saved for it, not mine.”
Pam gestured at Keeley, “Keeley’s getting financial aid. Her parents aren’t taking care of her.”
“Ha!” Keeley barked out. Having turned back to the mirror, she was combing her hair back with her fingers and fluffing it. “You can say that again.”
“Well,” Amy said, shrugging. “I’m not going. My cousin already has a job lined up for me in September. I’m going to be a manager at the lighting store where he works. Well, eventually. First, I have to be the order clerk. But, still. Why wait to have a job when I can have one now?”
“Oh!” Pam protested, her hands out in supplication. “Amy! You’re ruining everything!”
“No, I’m not,” Amy said, unperturbed. “The one who’s ruining everything is Keeley. You don’t just throw away your one true love. You won’t get another one, you know, Keeley. This is it. Michael.”
Keeley turned around again, head held high, her hand on her hip, her eyebrows raised. In a cool voice, she said, “Oh, really? Well, watch me meet ten more one-true-loves once I go to college. And then, I’ll meet ten more at my first job. I’ll be rolling in true loves. Just wait and see. I’m not, I repeat, not settling for the first boy who kissed me. The world is full of opportunities, Amy. Throwing them away is the real crime. ” Then, she gestured at Zooey. “Come on, Zo, Pam. Enough staring at the mirror. Let’s go have some fun.” She started out the bedroom door, and then paused, looking back. “Are you coming or not, Amy?”
Amy, glanced at Pam and then Zooey and shrugging, followed.