Coming of Age: Three Novellas (Dark Suspense, Gothic Thriller, Supernatural Horror)

by Douglas Clegg

  The Birthday Party

  1

  In the mirror, Owen combed his hair, parting it a bit higher, not to the middle of his forehead, but certainly an inch higher than his usual. He also brushed it back so it rose a bit higher. The summer blond-streaks looked better this way. He rubbed some gel into it, and made sure the part was clean.

  He smiled as naturally as he could. No, that wasn't right. He let his lips pull back slightly. He squinted his eyes the way that Jimmy did. It looked rich to do it. Like the sun was always on his face, even on a cloudy day.

  Then, he rubbed some of his mother ’s lotion on his face. It brought a shine to his cheeks and nose. He wasn't sure if he liked it, but it seemed to be what the rich boys had: that shine.

  Hanging on the bathroom door: the crisp J.Crew shirt, pale blue, the tan chinos.

  He dressed, and then returned to his bedroom to get the gift he'd wrapped that morning.

  “You're not going to that party,” his mother said, glancing at his father. Both sat in the small living room in the dark, the television providing the only source of light. Their faces flickered.

  His father laughed. “Oh, he'll have fun. The kids are really going to mix it up.”

  “Yeah. It'll be fun.”

  “You're not one of them,” his mother said. “You can pretend. You always pretend.”

  Then, she turned to his father, patting his shoulder. “Well?”

  “Leave it alone, Boston,” his father said. “It's the kid's party. You used to go to parties.”

  “What's that you've got there?” his mother asked. She got up from the couch, setting her beer down on the coffee table. His father reached over, turning on the standing lamp. Light came up. His mother looked gray despite the fact that she colored her hair. Even her skin seemed gray. His father looked like a wisp of smoke. It was all Owen could do to keep them from vanishing within the room.

  Owen looked down at the box in his hands.

  “It's her birthday.”

  “You bought her something?” his mother asked, a grin spreading like blood on her face.

  He could imagine her dead, her skull cracked open like an egg.

  “You bought the Montgomery girl something? Working for tips at the Salty Dog and you bought the richest girl in the world something?” She shook her head gently. “Owen, you're always trying to impress someone with what you don't have.” She said this sweetly.

  He almost felt bad for what he'd done. He almost felt bad for what he'd stolen from his mother to put in the box.

  He almost felt bad for what he was giving Jenna.

  Almost.

  2

  The party was in full swing by ten at night--every Nancy, every Skip, every Jess and Sloan--all were there, poolside.

  The great curtains were drawn back, and the glass doors had been removed for the party. White tents had been erected along the yard; lanterns of every conceivable hue strung along the walkway to the Montgomery place and balloons flew with some regularity from the backyard. The smell of cigarettes and perfume and gin and beer and money were there, too.

  Watching it, you'd have seen nearly fifty teenagers dancing, laughing, shouting, a tall blond girl with flowing hair and limbs soaked from having been thrown into the swimming pool, the fat drunk frat boy vomiting over by the birdbath, half-a-dozen homely young women shining under the spotlight of boy's gazes—for lust and money and breeding and privilege all attract beyond mere looks.

  The Sound sparkled with moonlight, and summer was at its peak, the sun had only just gone down an hour before, and the smell of salt sea air mingled with the foam of mermaids'souls, lost from true love.

  All these things Owen thought.

  3

  “Did you see Jimmy at the nationals? God, I hear he's going to be at Wimbledon someday. Soon.”

  “If he's at Harvard—”

  “When he's at Harvard, I'm going to call him Jimmy McTeague of the Ivy League. Isn't that cute?”

  “I think what's cute is his father. Have you ever met him?”

  “Well, I've been in the store.”

  “Sports superstores never interested me. It seems crass to sell that kind of thing.”

  “I read in Forbes that his dad is worth several billion.”

  “Dead or alive?”

  “Dead; then Jimmy's worth that.”

  “Jimmy McTeague is shallow. He is. He's not smart either,” one deb said, her party dress ruined because someone spilled a Bloody Mary down the front. “He's pretty but he's dumb. And my uncle went to Yale with his father, and let me tell you, that man was nearly kicked out for cheating and once that kind of thing happens, you never know.”

  Owen stood back, beyond the lights that had been set up along the tents and watched them all.

  The small gift in its box, in his trembling hands.

  “Smooth. Just be smooth,” he whispered to himself. He wanted to make sure Jenna saw the gift. Saw what it meant.

  4

  Jimmy McTeague held onto a bourbon and water as if for dear life, and laughed with his jock friends, and eyed the other girls, and he thanked Mrs. Montgomery for the excellent whiskey.

  “People who have whiskey like this should own the world,” and even when he said it, he didn't know what it meant; and when he saw Owen standing just at the edge of the party, he raised his glass and shouted, “Yo, Mooncalf, get your ass over here!”

  5

  Jenna Montgomery, in her own words:

  Here are things I've read somewhere or heard about and I really believe: The happiest of people don't necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything that comes their way. Happiness only happens for those who cry and those who hurt, for only then can they appreciate the importance of people who touch their lives.

  Okay, before you think I'm just some rich bitch who gets sentimental and gooey over greeting cards and romance novels, the reason I think about those things is because when you are beautiful and you have money, it's those simple things you have to remember.

  And I was pretty happy for the most part, right up until summer.

  This probably began because Daddy didn't want me to open Montgomery Hill on Memorial Day like we always did. Mom was already up there, a week or two early and I'd only just come home from finals.

  I have always gone to Outerbridge Island since I was about four, and I never miss a summer there. It's what I look forward to after a tough year in school, and since I would turn eighteen over the summer and I had just finished school—but I'd be entering Sarah Lawrence in September—I really wanted to enjoy what time I had left to just be a kid.

  Daddy was in one of his moods, though, and I suspect that woman he knows was part of it. Mom told me all about that woman when she gave me the speech about sex and life and marriage when I was fourteen.

  “Men have problems with their bodies,” she said, looking only a little embarrassed. “They all cheat. It's just something we put up with if we can. It's nothing about love. Don't even think that. It's just their biology. They have their good sides and their bad sides. And there are plenty of bad women, too,” she added. “Like that woman.”

  That woman lived in Brooklyn, in a brownstone that my father had bought for her in the 1970s. I took the subway out to it once, and stood on the steps in front, looking through the windows. That woman had a nice chandelier and some paintings on the walls but it was a fairly plain house in Park Slope. I sort of think I saw a little of her, too, walking up the street. She wasn't even pretty, which was sort of what amazed me. She wasn't like my mother. She was tall, with big feet, and red hair that needed some kind of style. Her face was nothing like my mothers, nothing like the women I knew, she looked Irish, I guess, she looked sort of round and plain.

  I don't really know if it was that woman I saw, but I suspect it was.

  So, just after high school graduation, I was all ready to go to the island, but Daddy was just moody and told me that I needed to stay because of Jimmy, who
was supposed to have been in town.

  All right, Jimmy McTeague.

  He's a tennis player who goes to Wimbledon every year, he's practically a National champion, and his father owns McTeague Sports, the chain, although I never understand why they don't have stores in Manhattan.

  I met Jimmy when he was at Exeter, at some dance, and I was just thinking he was cute. Marnie called him the Leech for some reason which I didn't quite understand, but I knew there was something interesting about him. He lived a different life than me, and I never really saw myself with that kind of Midwestern jock-type. He was always sweating, too, which I guess goes with the whole athletic thing, but not something that's pleasant to be around an hour after a match.

  Still, by the time I was seventeen, I really liked Jimmy. And no, I had no thoughts of marriage or anything like that. We hadn't actually even been intimate or anything, just held hands a lot and went to dances and out to dinner.

  When I debuted, Jimmy shared the drudgery of that awful debutante season by being my escort; when I was really pissed off over not getting into Columbia, Jimmy actually flew in from the West Coast—where he had some important tennis match—and took me out to dinner. Then, the night after I would normally go to the island, Jimmy told me we could sail there in this little boat he kept in Greenwich at the club. And that first night on the boat, I became a woman. We drank too many glasses of Chardonnay, and one thing led to another.

  Jimmy was never very aggressive in bed. He was kind of shy that way. So I pretty much had to seduce him, but once we both closed our eyes and let our bodies take over, we knew how to make love.

  And it really was love. It really was. I felt it.

  We spent that first night on the boat. We got into the harbor at about twelve or one in the morning and just slept together in the little bed. He snored sweetly. Not a hacking or sawing snore, but like a puppy dreaming. He did say something funny to me in the morning, something that struck me as odd, something about how maybe now we could think about the future more now that we'd mated. I laughed at him and he looked a little angry when I laughed.

  All right, I knew that maybe there would be trouble with Owen when I saw him on the jetty when we got off the boat the next morning. He looked like he'd been waiting there all night.

  Like he'd been watching us.

  The little turd.

  He really was.

  I care a lot for him, of course. We've known each other since we were both kids. He's the son of the gardener. His mother sometimes helps out with parties and laundry and other things.

  He's cute, which helps, too, because although I have nothing against boys that aren't very good looking, there's something about a good looking one that just makes you want him around all the time.

  So I'm barely dressed, some tacky beach towel around me basically, and there's Owen at the shore seeing both of us coming up from the boat and the first thing he says to me is, “What happened?”

  I felt all nervous and even giggly like I needed a cigarette. I told him I didn't want to see my mother for a day or two.

  And then Jimmy just took over, like he always does. He has this way with guys—he always gets them on his side. Jimmy gave him a nickname and acted like Owen was Jimmy's kid brother and they just seemed to get along fine. It was like they'd known each other all their lives, in about five minutes. Owen seemed to like all the ribbing and you know that sort of adolescent boy-talk they do. You know that. That way boys have of getting together and sort of sparring, and talking, and noticing each other's hair, or how one of them is sad, and they either peck it to death or get all brotherly. I saw it with Jimmy and his best friends at Exeter, too. The way they played like puppies. That's just what it was like—like watching two golden retrievers wrestle over a bone.

  I didn't see Owen much during June. I guess he got the job down in town. Sometimes I saw him when we went to the Salty Dog, but he never waited on our table. Jimmy was virtually attached at the hip with me, which can get annoying no matter how much you care for a guy. I used to try and lose him in the mornings, after he'd go off to play his beloved tennis with one of the local pros or with my mother. My mother is excellent at sports, which are pretty much not my thing. I like golf a little, and sometimes I like to swim, but the whole girl-jock thing is beyond me.

  So Jimmy would slip out of bed, and I'd just get dressed and go down to visit Marci and Elaine, and Elaine's brother, Cooper, down island.

  Sometimes we'd take whole afternoons just having brunch, or wandering the Cove by Big Salt Pond. Jimmy would get all pissed off at me. He was a little jealous. Well, a little more than jealous.

  He thought that since he was the first guy I'd slept with that he somehow should've had more ownership of me. Or maybe I should've been more attached to him. I mean, I was attached. And he was, technically, the first guy I'd slept with, although I let Ricky Hofstedter press his fingers up there sophomore year, and then there was that time that I got drunk at Hollis Ownby's party and wound up making out with Harvey Somebody (he was a Somebody. I just can't remember his last name) until I woke up with a hangover and a major pain down there and I hoped it hadn't gone too far beyond basic, you know, petting.

  But Jimmy had all these needs, and some days, particularly in June and early July, I just wanted to chill and hang out with some friends without worrying about whether I was paying attention to Jimmy and all his issues.

  I didn't think of Owen much except sometimes I remember how fun he was when I was younger and exploring the beaches, or how I'd take him out in one of my dad's small boats, and he'd tell me all about his plans. How he was going to slowly start investing in stocks. I'd ask him how? And he'd look at me funny, and laugh. Then, he'd tell me how his mother's father had been well-off and then when Owen turned 21, he'd come into a trust fund.

  I knew he was lying, but I sort of liked his lies. They made the days go by. Sometimes the summer seemed short when I was around him, and by the time I got back to school in the fall, I felt renewed. I owed a lot of that to Owen.

  But this summer, I've been distant from everybody. Part of it is Jimmy. And yes, it's sexual, I guess. But since I'm paying you by the hour, I'd guess that you're okay with me telling you, right?

  Well, Jimmy seems to not be all that aggressive in bed anymore. I know that must sound weird since I'm not terribly experienced in that arena, either, but I've watched movies, I've read books, and I talk with my girlfriends about this stuff. This isn't like twenty years ago when no one ever talked about sex. My friends all say their boyfriends seem to put the moves on them constantly.

  With Jimmy, I have to literally reach down and grab him. And then, he just sort of you know touches me here and there and then he—well you know—and then it's over and sort of unpleasant even though it's not ghastly or anything. It's just not what I expected.

  And then there was that fiasco with my birthday party. Christ, it was embarrassing. Mind if I light up? I'm hungry for nicotine at the moment. Ravening.

  Ah, that's better. I know everyone has to give up smoking at some point in their lives, but how nice to not have to give it up just yet.

  So, the 17thwas my big party, and I didn't even want Owen there—he didn't fit in with Jimmy's friends, and many of my friends found him a little cold.

  Plus, there was the whole problem of his mother, who's a force to be reckoned with. She's always looking at me like I'm the Whore of Babylon. She was helping us set up the party, and she kept giving me that look.

  You know that look.

  That mother look.

  But Owen showed, and frankly, I was happy to see him. It was sort of a relief since I'd barely seen him all summer. Well, I saw him when he went swimming. In our pool of course. In our pool.

  I called him Leech (funny that he and Jimmy both have been called that, huh?) when he wasn't around because he really is such a leech. I mean it in a funny nice way, not some awful way. I once slipped off a rock into one of the little ponds on the property, and my legs we
re covered with leeches. They don't hurt. You'd be surprised at that, wouldn't you? You'd think that something that sucks your blood would hurt, but they don't. It's just the fact that they're there that makes them bothersome.

  So it was my little joke: calling Owen Leech. I care a lot for Owen, actually. We grew up together practically. My island boy. My father laughs whenever I call Owen Leech behind his back, but my mother, well, she doesn't understand that kind of humor. That ironic kind of humor. I mean it as an affectionate term.

  Sort of like the way Jimmy calls him Mooncalf. It's a name. I guess it distances me from him or something. But it does get annoying when someone is always borrowing things or using your things or assuming things just because his father works in the garden. I like them. They're like family. I feel a lot for Owen, but really, he should've gotten over that Leech thing years ago.

  I can hear my mother's voice in my head: that's cruel, Jenna. I know. I know. I get accused of cruelty all the time. Not physical cruelty. My mother means it's cruel to fault poor people with using our things.

  My mother has this thing for him. Well, for all young men. She won't acknowledge it, and she thinks Daddy's the bad one, but I know she likes the boys who hang around me. And no, I'm not jealous of her. Why should I be? She's old. Her time has come and gone. My time is only just beginning.

  Anyway, eighteen-year-old boys do not want forty-year-old women. It's embarrassing, really. Even at the party, Mom is sauntering around in that green getup she has that looks too glitzy for the island. We all go casual here, so she looked too much like Ginger on Gilligan's Island—too done up. Too too, as Missy Capshaw says. She's too too.

  Missy came down from the Vineyard, and Shottsy had his cousin Alec with him, and pretty much the whole gang was there, except for the Faulkners who all went to Maine for the summer. I guess a bunch of my friends came, and then six or seven of Jimmy's, and then Owen with his shirt that was so new it still had the wrinkles from the cardboard box, and Shottsy made a big point of letting everyone know that part of the plastic collar liner was still under the collar. Owen brought me this nice little gift, I mean that in an ironical way, and that's really the issue here.