The Perfect Summer (Hubbard's Point)

by Rice, Luanne

  Tara was almost defined by her singleness. She had really fallen in love only twice—with an artist and an artistic “type,” both of whom she had wanted to be much more brilliant than they actually were. Both men had proposed, but at the last minute she had veered away.

  Bay knew it had something to do with having an alcoholic father—unable in the end to stand up to the strength of the women in the family. Tara had learned to trust herself more than any relationship. Bay felt tender and protective toward her best friend, understanding that her toughness was more an act than anything.

  Tara had dropped out of UConn after two years, despite her sparkling intelligence, her stellar grades.

  “I think I'm born to be self-employed,” she had told Bay on the phone, calling her at Connecticut College even before she told her own parents. “I don't even like showing up for classes in my major—imagine what fun I'd have in corporate America.”

  “What will you do?”

  “I'm going to go skiing in Vermont for the winter—someone in my dorm has an aunt who runs a B-and-B near Mad River Glen, and she says I can have a job as a chambermaid.”

  “Tara, making beds?” Bay asked, her mind boggled by the idea of her bright, vibrant friend scrubbing floors, pushing a vacuum.

  “I think it will be good,” Tara said. “I'll be able to whip through all the rooms before lunch, ski all afternoon.”

  “Tara, I don't want you to make a mistake. You're so smart, you have so much going for you—”

  “I like the idea of having time to think,” Tara said. “Cleaning is mindless—I'll be able to just open my mind and figure out what I really want to do with my life.”

  Tara had taken that winter job, and that summer she had returned to Hubbard's Point. Her parents had told her that if she was going leave college for good, she'd have to support herself, so she had tacked up signs at the beach and Foley's: “Sand on the floors? In the beds? Come home to a clean house! Call Tara.”

  Her mother had cringed, but the phone had started ringing and never stopped. Tara had never had less than a full roster of clients. She had never stopped working, and she'd never gone back to college. She still liked making her own hours, having the freedom to think.

  Pushing back the desk chair, Bay glanced across the room at her wedding picture. Tara was right beside Bay, smiling with joy. And Bay and Sean looked so happy—smiling, holding hands, eyes sparkling with love for each other. What had her dreams been that day? Bay could hardly remember, but over the years she had gradually come to the terrible conclusion that they were far, far different from her husband's.

  Now she had to tell the other kids she was going out with Tara, would be back soon. Stepping away from the desk, something caught her eye. The fax machine's red light was blinking, the message “out of paper” subtle in the small screen.

  Bay hesitated. Tara was coming, they had to catch up with Annie . . .

  Something made her stop in the room's wide doorway. She turned and walked back to the machine. The red light blinked only when the machine had received a fax but had no paper on which to print it. Bay reached into the drawer, took out a handful of printer paper, and inserted it into the slot.

  Instantly, the machine began to print.

  Bay read the page as it came out. It bore the letterhead of a boatbuilding firm in New London. Handwritten, it bore yesterday's date at the top and a series of measurements at the bottom. The handwriting was familiar, but Bay didn't know anyone who built boats. She read:

  Dear Sean,

  Thanks for stopping by again. Check these specifications—are they what you have in mind? I've added two more inches of beam, for stability. Come by the boatyard anytime, or give me a call at the office.

  Dan Connolly

  Bay was so shocked, she let out a small sound. This was an estimate of some sort: The bottom line was two thousand dollars, but she hardly noticed. Dan Connolly. She hadn't spoken of him in years, hadn't seen his handwriting since she was in high school. But she thought of him every time she walked down the boardwalk, every time she saw a crescent moon.

  Other than Tara, the only person Bay had ever really been able to talk to had been Danny Connolly, the summer she was fifteen. He was a recent college graduate, working as a carpenter that season at the Point, and he was brilliant about the things he loved: engineering, wood, marine architecture. Bay had hovered around him for hours, helping him build the new boardwalk, in love with his gentle intelligence. And Danny never shooed her away, took time to answer her endless questions, to let her share in all the things he did.

  “If you were just three years older,” Tara had said, “this would really be interesting.”

  “Eighteen?” Bay asked.

  “Yep,” Tara said. “Maybe he'll wait for you. I'll bet he thinks about it.”

  “Right, Tara.”

  “If he didn't,” Tara smiled, “he wouldn't let you hang around all day. He could work twice as fast without you there. He likes you, Bay. Face it!”

  Somehow that idea had been too excitingly scary to really take seriously.

  Sean was so different. He would race by, waving from his Boston Whaler as he gunned the engine and sent up rooster tails of white water. He'd ride his dirt bike on the beach, breaking all the rules, and Danny would shake his head.

  “He's out of control,” he said. “You know what he's doing, don't you?”

  “Just playing with his toys,” Bay said.

  “No, he's patrolling, to make sure I don't get too close to you.”

  “You're twenty-two!” Bay said, hearing Tara's words, blushing with wild delight to imagine such a thing could really occur to him.

  “I know, and you know that we're just friends, but boyfriends don't think that way.”

  “He's not my boyfriend!”

  “He will be, if he has anything to say about it. But you take your time, Galway Bay.”

  And Danny had turned out to be right. Long after his summer job was over, and he left the beach for good, Bay and Sean stayed on. She turned sixteen; Sean had kissed her on the boardwalk Danny had built the year before. She missed the quiet carpenter, with his Irish poetry and steady vision, his way of observing everything and then talking it over with her. Sean was too busy living life—moving fast, grabbing for every second of pleasure—to waste much time discussing it. Holding Sean, her lips had found his neck, and for ten seconds she thought of Danny, wishing it could be him instead, wishing Tara's prediction had come true and he could have waited for her to grow up. She remembered him pointing at the thin, sickle moon, telling her that he'd make it into a swing just for her.

  And she had told him that he could make anything.

  New London—a salty old maritime center, a Navy town, just ten miles east, but somehow the other side of the world from Black Hall. Was it possible that Danny had been there this whole time?

  Just then Bay heard Tara's car in the driveway. She placed the fax on the desk and hurried to tell the kids she'd be right back.

  ANNIE KNEW ALL THE BEST ROUTES TO HER DAD'S BOAT. Right now, she took the most direct route, straight through the center of town.

  She passed the white church, the yellow art gallery, the mansion that had come across Long Island Sound on a barge one hundred years ago, crossing the main road and just missing having her rear tire clipped by a speeding pickup truck, finally turning down the dirt road that led into the marina. Annie knew how close the truck had come, but she didn't care. She couldn't let herself feel anything—not yet.

  Her bike skidded to a stop by the boat works. She leaned it against the big red barn, then ran down dock one. This was the nicest marina in the area, and most of the boats were, actually, yachts. Big, beautiful sailboats. Although Annie herself wished for a graceful sailboat, or maybe a rowing boat, her dad was strictly a powerboat man.

  “A powerboat gets me where I want to go,” he'd say to her. “No waiting for the wind or the tides or anything else. I just fire her up, and we're off and running.�
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  “I know, Daddy,” Annie would say, watching white sails on the horizon, peaceful and romantic and somehow so much lovelier and more comforting than the loud throb of diesel engines. Tara called them “stinkpots.” “But sailboats are so pretty.”

  “Who needs a pretty boat when I have you?” he would ask, hugging her. “You're all the pretty I need.”

  Annie ached, to remember him saying that. Her feet pounded down the dock, past all the big Hinckleys and Herreshoffs and Aldens. Now, at the end, she turned left, onto the T part of the dock, and almost instantly she began to smile.

  Relief came flooding in. There, gently rocking against the dock, was her father's boat. The large sports fisher, Aldebaran, gleamed in the sunlight. The chrome was polished, the hull's graceful sheer curved and caught the light.

  Grinning now, Annie padded barefoot down the dock. She half expected to hear Jimmy Buffett, her father's favorite, singing on the stereo. Maybe her dad had just needed a day off from work. He had come down here to the Aldebaran for a little rest and relaxation. Stepping over the lifeline onto the deck, she tiptoed over to the porthole.

  Sometimes, during the past year, he had kept Annie's special present here on the boat, and she almost expected to see it now: a small model boat she had made him for Christmas two years ago, carved from balsa wood, painted dark green: a rowing dory instead of a motor boat. He'd said he'd always keep it with him. But it wasn't there . . .

  As she moved around to the cockpit, she saw that the hatch appeared to be locked tight; she could see the closed silver padlock. That meant her father wasn't here now—but still, she wasn't really panicked. Annie knew the combination: 3–5–6–2. She could go below and check things out.

  But as she started to turn the lock's dial with her thumb, she realized that it felt wet and oily. Looking at her hand, she saw blood.

  And it wasn't just on her hand, on the lock: It was on the teak framing the companionway. Right there, on the corner, as if someone had really cracked his head going down into the cabin—a thick smear of red blood.

  Annie wanted to believe it was from a fish.

  Her dad had gone out, caught some bluefish. Or stripers. Or even a shark.

  He was always bringing fish on board, and where there were fish, there was blood. Gutting, cleaning, rinsing fish . . . such a messy job.

  But Annie's eyes filled with tears, and she somehow knew that this blood hadn't come from a fish. Her father was the neatest boater on earth. He kept a hose coiled on the dock, and he carefully washed his boat down after each trip.

  “Annie!”

  At the sound of her name, Annie wheeled around. Her mother was walking down the dock with Tara, but at the sight of Annie's face, her mother began to run. Annie was crying so hard now, she couldn't even see her mother anymore, but she heard the hollow thud of her footsteps on the long dock, and then she felt the boat rock and lurch as her mother leapt on board and wrapped Annie in her arms.

  “Something awful's happened to him,” Annie wept. “He's hurt, Mom, or something worse . . . he was here, but he isn't now, and he's hurt . . .”

  3

  THE POLICE ARRIVED LESS THAN TEN MINUTES AFTER Bay called, three cars pulling into the boatyard within seconds of each other. Bay tried to keep her arm around Annie, but her daughter yanked away, too agitated to stand still. She walked down the dock, waving so the officers would see.

  “Must be a slow crime day,” Tara said. “So many policemen for such a little bit of fish blood.”

  “I hope that's all it is.”

  “Really? I'd completely understand if you felt otherwise,” Tara began, trying to lighten the mood; but at Bay's expression, she stopped.

  “Look at Annie—she's beside herself. What if he's badly hurt somewhere?”

  When the police officers approached, Annie ran over to stand by her mother's side. Bay spoke carefully, trying to stay calm as she gave them the facts she knew: that Sean had missed a bank meeting, she and Annie had come to the boat looking for him, and they had found blood on the doorway.

  “Which boat is his?” asked Officer Perry, a tall young man with short dark hair and a kind smile for Annie.

  “This one,” Annie said, pointing and running over to the Aldebaran.

  “Nice fishing boat.” Officer Dayton nodded.

  Bay said nothing, watching the police officers step aboard. Her stomach churned; Tara took her hand and squeezed it. They watched the officers look closely at the blood, walk slowly around the deck, gazing up at the sky and over the side into the water. Annie stood on the dock, not taking her eyes off them.

  “Why are they looking in the water?” Annie asked suddenly, turning toward her mother.

  “I think they have to look everywhere for clues,” Bay replied, reaching for her.

  “Just clues?”

  “Yes, honey.”

  The furrow between Annie's brows deepened, and Bay's heart slammed her rib cage. She would never forgive Sean for this moment, as their daughter watched the police scanning the water for his body. And with that thought, Bay's own skin turned ice cold, terrified for her husband.

  One of the officers used his handheld radio to make a call, while Officer Perry asked Bay if she had the boat's combination, so they could make sure Sean, or someone else, wasn't lying hurt inside.

  “The hatch has to be locked from the outside,” she said. “He can't be in there.”

  “Still, just in case.”

  Bay hesitated.

  She wasn't sure why, exactly. The longer she waited, the more she realized that she was afraid of what they would find inside—Sean lying hurt, or worse, and all the things he was keeping from her.

  “Three-five-six-two,” Annie blurted out.

  “Okay?” Officer Perry asked, looking for Bay's permission to enter. She nodded.

  He opened the hatch door and disappeared below, into the boat. Officer Dayton followed. Bay watched. Tires crunched on gravel; she turned to look, seeing a dark sedan park by the police cars. Two men, both dressed in suits, got out, and the other two uniformed officers walked over.

  “Looks like the big brass,” Tara said.

  “They'll find Daddy, right?” Annie asked.

  “You bet your boots they will,” Tara said, hugging her. “My grandfather was a policeman, and I can always pick out the best investigators. Those two are excellent—I can tell.”

  Leaving her daughter in the hands of her best friend, Bay climbed on board her husband's boat. She had to see for herself; if he was down there, she wanted to be there, too. Grabbing the chrome handle at the top of the ladder, she eased herself down below, into the cabin.

  The officers didn't see her right away. They were huddled together over something up forward, talking in low voices. The cabin had been closed up, and it smelled musty and sweet. The boat rocked gently against the dock, making an irregular muffled bumping sound as the fenders absorbed the hull's impact.

  Bay's heart thudded inside her chest. She thought, tears springing to her eyes, of the family's most recent time aboard: a fishing trip out to the Race, going after stripers with live eels. Billy had caught the biggest fish, Pegeen had caught the most. They had sped right past the spot where, on the summer solstice so long ago, Sean had told her he wanted to fly to the sun.

  Now, her mouth dry, she turned toward the aft cabin.

  The bunk itself was mussed—the blue-and-white striped pillow was bunched up, the coverlet wrinkled as if someone had recently lain upon it. Oddly, seeing that, her heart began to slow down. Had Sean been down here making love with someone when he should have been picking up Peg? Her panic decreased, numbness taking its place, washing her skin and all her nerves with soft grief.

  About to leave the cabin, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed an open folder of papers on top of the chest of drawers. Some appeared to be account statements—of clients at the bank. A tally sheet, like the kind the kids used at miniature golf to keep score, was marked “X,Y,Z.” In the margin,
he had doodled a panel truck, or a delivery van, in heavy black ink; written on the side and surrounded with dark swirls were the words “the girl” and “help,” and the name “Ed.”

  What girl? Annie? Pegeen? Bay? Somehow Bay didn't think so. She stared at Sean's drawing. He had always had the nervous habit of doodling while he talked on the phone, trying to concentrate. Years ago Bay had teased that she was going to collect his drawings and put them in a book—he was a master of cross-hatching and caricature—or take them to a psychologist for interpretation.

  What could a truck and “the girl” mean? Some kind of male Mack-truck logic, eighteen-wheel velocity and desire for Lindsey? Or someone new? Her heart broke to think of it. Hands shaking, she scanned through the rest of the folder.

  A sheet of white-lined paper caught her eye. It couldn't be . . . She picked it up, and felt shocked—for the second time that day—by a ghost from the past. A letter, in her own handwriting, written so long ago . . .

  She must have exclaimed out loud, because suddenly the police officers knew she was there. They heard her, and hurried through the main salon to the aft cabin.

  “Ma'am, you can't be down here,” Officer Perry said, his voice much sterner than before.

  “But it's my—our—boat,” she said, trying to smile.

  “I'm sorry,” he said firmly. “Right now it's a possible crime scene. Please go back onto the dock and wait there.”

  Bay froze, shocked by his words. Stuffing the letter into the back pocket of her shorts, she followed him to the companion ladder and saw what she had somehow missed upon boarding earlier: a crooked trail of red splotches.

  Small red spots leading to or from the hatch opening toward the bow. And there, at the forward end of the settee where on that last voyage the kids had eaten dinner—the swordfish Sean had grilled for them on deck—was a blue blanket now stained purple and black.

  Only it wasn't purple or black at all, Bay realized as she climbed up to the deck, her heart in her throat: It was red blood, and a lot of it.

  As she stepped out of the cabin, into the fresh air, she caught sight of Annie and Tara, their grave faces confirming that everything was wrong and they knew it, too, that somehow, during the course of this brilliant, blessed, bright blue day, their lives had all been shaken like a snow globe, turned upside down.