Summer by the Sea

by Susan Wiggs

  “You’re just saying that because you want me to do all the work.”

  She leaned back and trailed her hand in the cool water. “I’m saying that because it’s true.” He’d never been much of an athlete as a sickly boy, but clearly he’d made up for lost time. He maneuvered them expertly out onto open water, the sun glittering over the surface. Yet for all of nature’s beauty around them, Alex seemed distracted. His attention kept returning to one spot in particular.

  He was staring at her boobs, she was sure of it. So maybe her white shirt, blowing open to reveal her tomato-red bikini top, needed buttoning. But she didn’t button up or even buckle her life vest. Because if she was completely honest with herself, she liked the way he looked at her. That was the whole idea behind wearing a red bikini in the first place.

  She liked staring at him, too. With the passage of summer, his coloring deepened, and the contrast of his light hair against his skin was striking. His mouth was perfectly chiseled, like a Donatello masterpiece. She loved the way his lips felt and tasted when he kissed her, which he didn’t do nearly enough as far as Rosa was concerned.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked.

  The unexpected question drew a blush to her cheeks. She was trapped, and she was an incredibly bad liar. “Actually, I was thinking about you.” Maybe he wouldn’t make her elaborate.

  “What about me?”

  “I’m just glad you’re spending the summer here.”

  She wished they had more time to laze around in the boat, but the light had deepened to a fiery golden glow and evening was coming on. It was a bad idea to sail at night without proper equipment. Working together, they sailed into the channel at Galilee and tied up at the dock of the Rosemoor.

  They stopped in Winslow at the ice-cream parlor. Rosa was so busy perusing the huge buckets of mocha almond and caramel fudge that she scarcely heard the bell of the door jingle.

  In walked two of the summer girls who clearly recognized Alex. One of them had three small dogs attached to a single leash. It probably violated some health code, but the guy behind the counter didn’t object.

  “Hi, Alexander,” said the girl with the dogs, beaming at him and showing off a set of freshly lasered teeth. She looked perfect in a denim skirt and Weejuns, a cotton sweater slung around her shoulders. They were both so incredibly stylish. How did they do that, making it look so simple? Rosa wondered. She herself was at a hideous disadvantage here. In addition to cutoffs, bikini top and flip-flops, she wore the sweat and brine of a long day out on the water. Her hair looked like a troll doll’s.

  “Hey.” Alex stepped back to include everyone. “Rosa, this is Hollis Underwood and Portia...”

  “Van Deusen,” said the taller girl, sending Alex a moue of chagrin. “Don’t tell me you forgot, Alexander. Our fathers are best friends.”

  “Right,” said Alex, clearly not on the same page as Portia.

  “You work at that pizza place, right?” the girl named Hollis asked Rosa.

  She nodded, wondering what that had to do with anything. “Are those your dogs?” she asked, hoping to change the subject.

  “Temporarily. These are rescue dogs. I’m socializing them so they can be adopted.” She bent down and petted each one. “Aren’t I, Wizzy Kizzy,” she said in a baby voice that made Rosa want to cringe. Then she straightened up. “Would you like to adopt one?”

  “I would, but I’m going to college at the end of the summer.” Yet as she looked at the furry little herd, Rosa felt an unexpected softness. They had never had a dog in their family. Pop said they were expensive and too much trouble.

  “You are?” asked Portia. “Which college?”

  “Brown,” Rosa informed them, trying not to sound smug. But she didn’t even bother concealing her satisfaction at the expressions on their faces.

  Alex turned back to placing his order. Despite his dismissal, Portia leaned on the glass case, blocking his view of the ice cream. “So are you planning on going to that charity formal at the club?”

  Portia, thought Rosa. Portia Schmortia. She called it “the club.”

  “I’ll be there,” Alex said, taking out his wallet to pay for the ice cream.

  Rosa hid her surprise. He hadn’t said anything about a formal at his country club. Not to her, anyway.

  Portia glanced at Hollis, then back at Alex. “Do you have a date?”

  “Yeah. I do.”

  Rosa tried not to choke as he handed her an embarrassingly large cone of maple nut crunch. All right, she told herself. Don’t panic. It’s not like we’re a couple or anything. If he’s got a date, I’m fine with that.

  As she left the ice-cream shop, she felt about an inch tall. She was as insignificant as a house fly, an ant. An ant with boobs.

  But the feeling of insignificance vanished as Alex opened the car door for her. When she was with him, she felt like the most important person on earth.

  “Friends of yours?” she asked, licking her ice cream and acting nonchalant.

  “I know them from school.”

  She was burning up with curiosity about the charity event. Even worse, she was dying to hear about this date Alex supposedly had.

  She savored her ice cream and acted like it didn’t matter, but she was about to explode. Finally she couldn’t stand it anymore. “So do you really have a date to that thing?” she blurted out.

  “Depends,” he said, then took an infuriatingly long time to finish his ice cream, crunching the last of the waffle cone with a satisfied look on his face.

  “Depends on what?” she asked, a slow burn of frustration rising through her.

  “On whether or not you say yes.” He looked at her for a moment and then burst out laughing.

  “You rat,” she said, punching his shoulder, but she couldn’t contain her grin. She smiled all the way through town. A formal dance. Not a prom, either, but an actual event with a purpose. And she was going. He explained that his mother was chairman this year and the goal was ambitious. They wanted to raise a hundred thousand dollars for the Sandoval Art Museum.

  Glancing at the clock on the dashboard, she said, “I promised my father I’d be home early tonight.”

  “I’ll drive you,” he said.

  Rosa hesitated. She hated that hesitation, that moment of thinking I don’t want you to see where I live. That impulse to say lightly, That’s okay, I can walk. There wasn’t one thing wrong with her house. It was just different from what Alex was used to.

  “Thanks,” she said. “That’d be great.”

  “You’re going to have to give me directions,” Alex said as they left the main drag.

  “Right at the stoplight.” Nerves jumped inside her. In all the summers they’d spent together, Alex had never seen where she lived. As the road wound away from the shoreline, the neighborhoods grew weedier, the houses smaller. “Take a left here, on Prospect Street.”

  The street where she’d grown up was lined with clapboard houses with fading paint, overgrown yards with toys left out, driveways with too many nonworking cars.

  “Up there?” he asked. “Isn’t that your dad’s truck?”

  “That’s the one.”

  He pulled alongside the curb and opened the door for her. Across the way, a curtain stirred in the window. Mrs. Fortenski was at her post.

  “Thanks for the lift,” she said.

  “You’re welcome.”

  Okay, she thought. In for a penny, in for a pound. “Would you like to come in?”

  “Sure.”

  She adored him for not even hesitating.

  Her father, bless him, was a world class gardener. The front yard and walkways were as beautiful and neat as the neighbors’ were untidy. She wished she could say the same about the inside of the house, but the fact was, Pop was kind of a slob. Rosa ke
pt the kitchen and her own room clean, and she did her best with the rest of the place, but Pop had a habit of leaving a trail of litter behind him—old newspapers, empty glasses, effluvia from his pockets.

  Rosa knew a moment of wistfulness. If her mother were alive, she’d go bursting in, full of her news about the formal, and Mamma would be just as excited as she was. Pop was a guy. He wouldn’t get it.

  She took a deep breath, made sure her blouse was buttoned over the bikini and opened the front door. “Pop, I’m home,” she yelled.

  “There you are,” said Pop, coming from the den. “How did—oh.” He stopped when he saw Alex.

  “Hello, Mr. Capoletti.”

  “Is everything all right?” asked Pop. Clearly he misunderstood Alex’s presence.

  “Everything is fine, sir.”

  “Alex gave me a ride home. We went sailing today.”

  Pop took his measure in that fearsome way of his. There was something about Pop’s thick eyebrows, his sharp eyes, his compact, muscular build, that was designed to intimidate. But Alex didn’t flinch.

  “Come in and have a seat,” Pop ordered, and led the way to the den.

  “I’ll get us something to drink,” said Rosa.

  In the kitchen, she went into what Linda called her Martha Stewart mode, putting crescent-shaped pignoli cookies on a plate and little sprigs of rosemary in the lemonade glasses. Actually, Rosa secretly admired Martha Stewart, who had her own magazine. According to People magazine, some publisher had turned her into a media figure, whatever that was.

  When Rosa arrived at the doorway to the den and saw Alex sitting with her father, a strange and powerful feeling came over her. It was an extraordinary emotion, so strong that she scarcely remembered to breathe. For a few seconds, she didn’t bother trying to put a name or a value on the feelings rising inside her. She just watched Alex for a moment, knowing the world was changing in some silent, secret way.

  There he sat with her father, in a dingy living room littered with old newspapers, and he was completely, utterly at home. He was as comfortable and nonjudgmental as a parish priest or a really good doctor. This boy, whose family had homes and villas all over the world, who dined on fine china every night, whose family had more money than some third-world nations, looked utterly content in the company of Rosa’s father. Alex was, she reflected, the most sincere and unpretentious boy she’d ever brought home.

  Finally she understood the feeling that struck her with such force. In that moment, with all the power of her young, yearning heart, Rosa fell in love with Alex Montgomery.

  Rosemary Lemonade

  In the Old Country version of “Sleeping Beauty,” the princess was awakened from her enchanted slumber with a whiff of rosemary-scented water. The prince was probably miles away, lost.

  2 cups water

  2 cups sugar

  2 cups lemon juice

  Grated rind of one lemon

  Two sprigs of rosemary

  Ice cubes

  Cold water or club soda

  Combine the water and sugar in a pan and bring the mixture to a strong boil. After three minutes, remove the pan from the heat and stir in lemon juice, lemon rind and rosemary. Cover and steep for an hour. Strain the mixture into a jar. To fix a glass of lemonade, fill a drinking glass about a third full with the lemon syrup, add ice and water or club soda to the top of the glass, and stir. Makes about 4 cups.

  twenty-six

  “This boy,” Pop said the night of the dance at the country club, “he’s got to have you home by midnight.”

  “You bet, Pop. Otherwise I’ll turn into a pumpkin.” Rosa paced up and down in front of the hall mirror as she waited. She wasn’t nervous, but excited. She’d never even seen the inside of the Rosemoor Country Club, much less danced on its hundred-year-old parquet floor.

  She patted her hair, which she wore swept up and held in place with spangled pins. The dress was a dramatic strapless red sheath she and her friend Ariel had found in a church thrift shop. Ariel swore that, after alterations, the dress would look as though it had been tailor-made for Rosa. The bright cherry-red was delicious, the open-toed ruby and rhinestone sandals made her look taller and she felt wonderful.

  She turned to her father. “I guess I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”

  “You look very beautiful. That boy, he better treat you like a lady.”

  “Of course, Pop. It’s Alex, for heaven’s sake. We’ve known him for years.”

  “Makes no difference. Something happens to a boy when he is with a beautiful girl. His brains, they quit working. They run right out of his ears or something.”

  “Alex is a perfect gentleman,” she said. “Oh, Pop. He’s just as smart and kind and funny as he was as a kid. And, I don’t know, he seems to have no idea how incredible he is. I’ve seen girls fall all over themselves to get his attention, and he doesn’t even notice.”

  “You don’t need to be falling all over anything,” he said. “This boy, he—”

  “We’re just friends,” she said quickly. She didn’t know why she said it. Alex was so much more than a friend. But she didn’t want her father to know. Not yet, anyway. What she felt for Alex was as fragile and elusive as spindrift. She felt the need to protect it, to keep it to herself and nurture it in the privacy of her own heart, at least for a while.

  The sound of a car door slamming ended the discussion. Alex came up the walk, resplendent in a black suit with a crisp white shirt, gleaming shoes and a glorious smile that shone even brighter when he saw Rosa.

  “Wow,” he said. “You look great.”

  “So do you.”

  He shook hands with her father. “Hello, sir.”

  “Alexander.” Pop smiled, but there was something in his eyes, a concern Rosa didn’t quite fathom. “You wait a minute. I’ll get the camera.”

  He took a picture of them at the foot of the carpeted stairway, and then one in front of the roses in the yard, and finally a shot of them standing beside Alex’s car. Rosa was happy and excited about her evening. Yet between her father and Alex she sensed a curious disconnect as though they lived on different planets.

  Alex kept glancing over at her as he drove. “You are really something,” he said.

  “Yeah? Maybe you are, too.”

  “You used to be all skinny and messy.”

  “I was not messy,” she said with a laugh.

  “You had scraped knees and dirt on your face. Your hair was always wild.”

  She studied the French manicure Linda had given her. “I guess I clean up pretty good.”

  He drove in silence, the smile lingering on his lips. He pulled the car under the porte cochere of the venerable old country club.

  A valet opened the door for her, and she smiled up at him. He looked sweaty and uncomfortable in his black suit and white gloves, but his eyes lit when he saw her. “Good evening, miss.” Then he did a double-take. “Rosa?”

  She felt hideously awkward as she offered a lame smile. “Hey, Teddy,” she said. It felt weird to have a guy she knew from school waiting on her.

  Alex came around the car, offering her his arm, and they entered through the tall glass and brass doors. She felt like she was stepping onto a luxury liner, into a world so beautiful and rich that it seemed made out of spun gold and fairy-tale dreams. The sound of a swing band blared from the main ballroom. Rosa’s heart fluttered with excitement as she entered on Alex’s arm. Tonight, she promised herself. Tonight she would tell him that she loved him. He didn’t need to say it back. She’d make sure he understood that. She wanted him to know what was in her heart.

  She half expected to encounter the Great Gatsby and Daisy, but at the arched doorway of the ballroom the Montgomerys were waiting. They greeted guests, chatted, sipped martinis, shook hands and air-kissed. As chairman of the e
vent, Mrs. Montgomery probably had plenty to do. Rosa and Alex waited their turn. She had not seen much of Alex’s father over the years. He was a financier who always seemed to be busy with meetings. He almost never went to the house by the sea, and when he did, he tended to work in the study with his briefcase open on the desk and a phone held to his ear.

  She took the opportunity to study him now, and she could see that he was younger than her own father and quite handsome. Like Alex, he had light hair and eyes, broad shoulders and strong, squarish hands. Unlike Alex, he held himself with stiff dignity and his smile seemed forced, as though his shoes were too tight.

  She wondered what he was like, this man whose son was so important to her. Later, perhaps, she would ask Alex. He never said much about his parents, although he’d once told her there was no pleasing them. She was mystified by that; he seemed like the perfect son.

  They moved to the head of the line. Alex presented her to his parents, sounding formal and old-fashioned. His parents were equally formal, his father clearly unaware of who she was. His mother recognized her, of course.

  “Well,” she said. “Rosa Capoletti. What a surprise.”

  And not a pleasant one, Rosa suspected. Mrs. Montgomery held her smile in place as she turned to a linen-draped tray, picked up a martini and took a drink.

  Rosa felt a wicked urge to mention the scholarship, but she held her tongue. It was already decided, and speaking up was not going to change anything. Besides, it was a big night for them all.

  “Straighten your tie, son,” murmured Alex’s father.

  Alex glared at him and jerked the knot in place. “How’s that, sir? Good enough?”

  The tension crackled between them, and Rosa couldn’t stand it. She wished he had the easy trust and intimacy she’d always shared with Pop. Life was simple when you knew you could count on someone.

  She slipped her arm into Alex’s and said, “Why don’t you show me around?”

  As they entered the glittering ballroom, she was burning up with self-consciousness. She felt as though everyone in the whole room was staring at her. “You might have warned your parents that I was your date.”