Big Summer

by Jennifer Weiner

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  To Meghan Burnett

  Nobody heard him, the dead man,

  But still he lay moaning:

  I was much further out than you thought

  And not waving but drowning.

  Poor chap, he always loved larking

  And now he’s dead

  It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,

  They said.

  Oh, no no no, it was too cold always

  (Still the dead one lay moaning)

  I was much too far out all my life

  And not waving but drowning.

  —“Not Waving but Drowning” by Stevie Smith

  Prologue

  1994

  By the second week of September, the outer Cape was practically deserted. The tourists had packed up and gone home. The roads were empty; the glorious beaches were abandoned. It was a shame: by September, the ocean was finally warm enough for swimming, especially if it had been a hot August, and the paths that wound through the dunes and cranberry bogs and secret blueberry bushes, the ones that were pickup spots for men in summer’s high season, were deserted, and the bushes were full of ripe berries. She and Aidan could fill their pockets and pick beach plums out of their bushes between the cottage and the beach. They would each bring a metal pail, and they’d recite Plink! Plank! Plunk!, like the heroine of Blueberries for Sal, as each plum rattled to the bottom.

  You’ll go crazy out there, her father had told her when Christina asked if she could take the summer cottage that perched on the edge of the dune in Truro. It’s too empty. Too lonely. No one to see, nothing to do. But he hadn’t told her no. As the first weeks and months had passed, Christina had come to cherish the solitude and the silence, the slant of late-afternoon sun that warmed the floorboards where her ginger cat slept.

  With the summer people gone, she could have her pick of parking spots on Commercial Street when she and Aidan went to Provincetown. If he’d behaved himself at the grocery store, she’d buy him an ice-cream cone at Lewis Brothers or a malasada at the Portuguese Bakery. She’d learned every quirk of the cottage, the way the doors swelled up when it rained, the creak of the roof as the beams settled at night. When there were thunderstorms, she could go out to the deck and watch lightning crack over the water of Cape Cod Bay, letting the rain wash her face as she imagined that she was standing at the prow of a ship, she and her little boy, alone on the storm-tossed seas.

  Sometimes, that was how she’d felt. Her mother was dead; her sisters and brother, the closest in age a decade her senior, were strangers she saw on holidays; and her father had been puzzled when Christina had asked for the cottage, then furious when he learned the reason why. “Daddy, I’m pregnant,” she’d told him. His face had turned pale, then an unhealthy, mottled red; his mouth had worked silently as he glared. “And I’m keeping the baby. I’ll raise it on my own.”

  When he’d raged, demanding to know whose baby it was, Christina had simply said, “Mine.” He’d yelled at her, spittle flying from his lips, insisting that she tell him the name of the man she’d spread her legs for, demanding to know whose whore she’d been. He called her all the names she’d expected to be called and a few that had surprised her; he’d said “You have broken my heart,” but she’d kept quiet, silent and still as he shouted and threatened. Eventually, he’d relented, the way she knew he would.

  Fine. Go. Wish you all the joy of it, he’d muttered, and handed her the keys and a list of phone numbers, for the caretaker and the plumber, the trash hauler and the guy who kept the furnace running. She’d stayed in Boston long enough to give birth, and then, as soon as her stitches had healed, she’d taken herself and her baby to Truro, following Route 6 as it snaked and narrowed, over the bridge at Sandwich, up to Hyannis, past Dennis and Brewster, Harwich and Orleans, Eastham and Wellfleet, then into Truro, onto a rutted dirt path that ended at the bluff, where the cabin stood. She’d worried that Aidan would fuss or cry on the ride up, but he’d sat, awake, in his car seat, like a wise old owl, his eyes open as they bounced along the lane and parked on the patch of matted grass in front of the cottage. “We’re home,” she’d said, lifting him into her arms. He was just three weeks old, but she thought he understood.

  The cottage wasn’t grand. It was a summer place, with no central heat, ripped screens on the windows, no dishwasher in the kitchen, and just a handheld nozzle in the tub to serve as a shower; a place with threadbare sheets and mismatched napkins and kitchen cabinets filled with chipped hand-me-down mugs and garage-sale glasses, nothing like the grand, sprawling summer palaces that the rich folks who’d discovered Truro had started building, high on the dunes. Christina never cared. She loved every imperfect piece of it. The pared-down quality and the quiet were exactly what she needed after New York. In spite of her father’s warning, she’d made some friends, and they had helped her insulate the walls and showed her how to use steel wool to fill the holes that admitted families of mice every winter. She bought space heaters, layered braided cotton rugs over the creaky wood floors, bought heavy wool blankets for the beds. She found ways to acquire the things she needed, trading heirloom tomatoes for jars of honey and firewood; writing wedding vows in exchange for a cashmere blanket, revising a personal ad in exchange for a pale-blue bud vase. She’d made the summer cottage a home, and she’d crafted a life full of routines and rituals for herself and her son. Oatmeal for breakfast, with honey from the honey dripper; a cherry Popsicle from Jams after a day at the beach; three stories before bedtime, two from books and one made up.

  That night, after Aidan fell asleep, Christina wrapped herself in a soft fringed cashmere shawl, poured a glass of wine, and stepped through the door and onto the deck, barefoot, to listen to the wind. In the darkness, the breeze was strong off the sea, with an icy edge. It had been almost seventy degrees that afternoon, warm enough for swimming, but she could feel winter in the wind.

  She walked back inside, through the cluttered kitchen, past the rows of Mason jars that she’d spent the morning filling while Aidan was in preschool, putting up the tomatoes and green beans and pickles she’d grown herself; through the living room, its crooked bookshelves filled with fading, water-swollen paperbacks, and wicker baskets that held Aidan’s Legos and Lincoln Logs. Her writing desk, one of the handful of good antiques that came with the house, stood in the corner, with her laptop closed in its center, abandoned beneath a framed vintage poster of Paris.

  In the bedroom, she made sure Aidan was sleeping, then bent close to trace her thumb along the curve of his cheek. He’d just turned four, but already, he had started to lose the sweet babyish plumpness that made squeezing him feel like embracing a warm loaf of bread. Still, the skin on his cheek was as soft as it had been the day she’d first held him. My treasure, she thought, as her eyes prickled with tears. When Aidan was first born, and she was half-crazed with loneliness and hormones, when her stitches ached and her breasts dripped when he cried, everything made her weep, including her predicament. Especially her predicament. You chose this, Aidan’s father would remind her when he’d found time to come around. You had a choice. It was true. She’d gone into the situation completely aware, telling herself that the glass was half-full, not half-empty, and that a piece of someone else’s husband was better than no man at all. When she’d found out she w
as pregnant, it had felt like an unexpected gift, like a miracle. Who was she to say no to the possibility of this life, or the way it would remake her own?

  Once, when she was still with Aidan’s father, he’d told her he would leave his wife for her. She had let herself picture every part of the life they would have together, a grand, bold-faced life in New York City, but by Aidan’s fourth year she was long past that fantasy. She’d never believed him; not really. Deep down, in the place where she could be honest with herself, she always knew the score. He’d wanted escape, fun, a fling: nothing permanent. He would never leave his wife, and her money.

  But she had Aidan. Her prince, her pearl, her heart’s delight. Even if the two of them had been starving on the streets, she would have been happy. Aidan brought her daisies and Queen Anne’s lace clutched in his grubby fist, and pails with glittering lady slipper shells, still gritty with sand rattling at the bottom. Aidan smacked soft, honey-smeared kisses on her cheeks after breakfast and called her his beautiful mama.

  Someday, she’d go back to the city, and gather up the threads of the life she’d left behind. She’d hunt down her old editors and pitch them stories; she’d reconnect with her old friends, and send Aidan to school there. Maybe she’d fall in love again, maybe not. But if, in the end, she never lived the glittering, rich-lady life of her youthful imaginings, she’d have a life that made her happy.

  Christina bent down and started to sing. “Blackbird, singing in the dead of night; take these broken wings and learn to fly; all your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arise.” Her story was almost at its end, but, that night, she had no idea. That night, as she sat in her son’s darkened bedroom, with her shawl wrapped around her shoulders, listening to the wind whine at the corners of the cottage, she thought, I never knew that I could be so happy. She thought, This is the way it was always meant to be.

  Part One

  Chapter One

  2018

  “OhmyGod, I am so sorry. Am I late?” Leela Thakoon hurried into the coffee shop with a cross-body bag hanging high on one hip, a zippered garment bag draped over her right arm, and an apologetic look on her face. With her silvery-lavender hair in a high ponytail, her round face and petite figure, and her emphatic red lipstick, she looked exactly the way she did on her Instagram, only a little bit older and a little bit more tired, which was true of every mortal, I supposed, who had to move through the world without the benefit of filters.

  “You weren’t late. I was early,” I said, and shook her hand. For me, there was nothing worse than showing up for a meeting feeling flustered and hot and out of breath. In addition to the physical discomfort, there was the knowledge that I was confirming everyone’s worst suspicions about fat ladies—lazy, couch potatoes, can’t climb a flight of stairs without getting winded.

  Today I had wanted to look my best, so I’d worked out at six in the morning and cooled down for an hour, unhappy experience having taught me that, for every hour I exercised, I’d need thirty minutes to stop sweating. I’d arrived at the coffee shop Leela had chosen twenty minutes ahead of time, so that I could scope out the venue, choose an advantageous seat, and attempt to best project an aura of cool, collected competence—#freelancehustle, I thought. But if I landed this collaboration, it would mean that the money I earned as an influencer would be more than the money I made doing my regular twenty-hour-a-week babysitting gig, and possibly even more than my dog’s account was bringing in. I wouldn’t be supporting myself with my online work, but I’d be closer to that goal. In yoga that morning, when we’d set our intention, I’d thought, Please. Please let this happen. Please let this work out.

  “Want something to drink?” I asked. I already had my preferred summer beverage, cold brew with a splash of cream and extra ice, sitting in front of me.

  “No, I’m fine,” said Leela, pulling the metal water bottle of the environmentally aware out of her bag, uncapping it, and taking a swig. Oh, well, I thought. At least my coffee had come in a glass and not plastic. “I’m so glad to meet you.” Leela draped the garment bag over a chair, smoothed her already smooth hair, and took a seat, crossing her legs and smiling at me brightly. She was wearing a pair of loose-fitting khaki shorts, pulled up high and belted tight around her tiny waist, and a blousy white top with dolman sleeves that left her slender arms bare. Her golden skin, a deeper gold than I got even at my most tan, glowed from the sunshine she’d probably enjoyed on a getaway to Tahiti or Oahu. There was a jaunty red scarf around her neck, pinned with a large jeweled brooch. She looked like a tiny androgynous elf, or as if someone had waved a wand and said, Boy Scout, but make it tiny and cute and fashion. I was sure that some piece of her outfit had been purchased at a thrift shop I’d never find, and that another had been sourced from a website I’d never discover, or made by some designer I’d never heard of, in sizes that would never fit me, and that it had cost more than one month of my rent. The entire rent, not just the half I paid.

  Leela uncapped her bottle and looked me over, taking her time. I sipped my coffee and tried not to squirm, breathing through the insecurity I could feel whenever I was confronted by someone as stylish and cute as Leela Thakoon. I’d worn one of my favorite summer outfits, a hip-length pale yellow linen tunic over a plain white short-sleeved T-shirt, cropped olive-green leggings with buttons at the cuffs, and tan platform sandals, accessorized with a long plastic tortoiseshell necklace, big gold hoop earrings, and oversized sunglasses. My hair—regular brown—was piled on top of my head in a bun that I hoped looked effortless and had actually required twenty minutes and three different styling products to achieve. I’d kept my makeup simple, just tinted moisturizer to smooth out my olive complexion, mascara, and shimmery pink lip gloss, a look that said I care, but not too much. In my previous life, I’d dressed to hide, in a palette limited to black, with the occasional daring venture into navy blue. These days, I wore colors and clothes that weren’t bulky or boxy, that showed off my shape and made me feel good. Every morning, I photographed and posted my outfit of the day (OOTD), tagging the designers or the places I’d shopped for my Instagram page and my blog, which I’d named Big Time. I kept my hair and makeup on point for the pictures, especially if I was wearing clothes I’d been gifted or, better yet, paid to wear. That had entailed a certain outlay of cash, on cuts and color and blowouts, in addition to a lot of trips to Sephora and many hours watching YouTube makeup tutorials before I’d found a routine that I could execute on my own. It had been an investment; one that I hoped would pay off.

  So far, the signs were good. “Oh my God, look at you,” Leela said, clapping her hands together in delight. Her nails were unpainted, clipped into short ovals. A few of them were ragged and looked bitten at the tips. “You’re adorbs!”

  I smiled back—it would have been impossible not to—and wondered if she meant it. In my experience, which was limited but growing, fashion people tended to be dramatic and effusive, full of hyperbolic praise that was not always entirely sincere.

  “So what can I tell you about the line?” she asked, removing a Moleskine notebook, a fountain pen, and a small glass bottle of ink from her bag and setting them down beside her water bottle. I tried not to stare. I did have questions about the clothes, and the collaboration, but what I really wanted to know was more about Leela. I knew she was about my age, and that she’d done a little modeling, a little acting, and that she’d made a few idle-rich-kid friends and started styling their looks. The friends had introduced her to celebrities, and Leela had started to style them. In a few years’ time, she had amassed over a hundred thousand social-media friends and fans who followed her feed to see pictures of beautiful people wearing beautiful clothes in beautiful spots all over the world. By the time she’d announced her clothing line, Leela had a built-in audience of potential customers, people who’d seen her clients lounging on the prow of a yacht in the crocheted bikini Leela had sourced from a beach vendor she’d discovered in Brazil, or walking the red carpet in a one-of-a-
kind custom hand-beaded gown, or dressed down in breathable linen, handing out picture books to smiling children in poor villages all over the world.

  When Leela had launched the brand she was calling Leef, she’d made a point of saying that her collection would be “size-inclusive.” She didn’t just want to sell clothes to straight-size women, then toss big girls a bone in the form of a belated capsule collection or, worse, ignore us completely. Even better, in the videos I’d watched and the press release I’d read on her website, Leela had sounded sincere when she’d said, “It’s not fair for designers to relegate an entire group of women to shoes, handbags, and scarves because the powers that be decided they were too big or too small to wear the clothes.” Amen, sister, I’d thought. “My clothes are for every woman. For all of us.” Which sounded good, but was also, I knew, a bit of a cliché. These days, designers who’d rather die than gain ten pounds, designers who’d rather make clothes for purse dogs than fat people, could mouth the right platitudes and make the right gestures. I would have to see for myself if Leela was sincere.

  “Tell me what got you interested in fashion,” I asked.

  “Well, it took a minute,” Leela said, smiling her charming smile. “I’ve always been drawn to… I guess you’d call it self-expression. If I were a better writer, I’d write. If I were a better artist, I’d paint or sculpt. And, of course, my parents are still devastated that I’m not in med school.” I saw a fleeting expression of sorrow, or anger, or something besides arch amusement flit across her pretty features, but it was gone before I could name it, erased by another smile. “High school was kind of a shit show. You know, the mean girls. It took me a while to pull it together, but I made it out alive. And I figured out that I know how to put clothes together. I know how to take a ten-dollar T-shirt and wear it with a two-thousand-dollar skirt and have it look like an intentional whole.” I nodded along, like I, too, had a closet full of two-thousand-dollar skirts and other components of intentional wholes. “So I found my way to working as a stylist. And what I found,” she said, lifting her shoulders and straightening in her seat, “is that women still don’t have the options that we should.” She raised one finger, covered from knuckle to knuckle with gold rings that were as fine as pieces of thread. “If you’re not in the straight-size range, there’s nothing that fits.” Additional fingers went up. “If you’ve got limited mobility, you can’t always find clothes without hooks and buttons and zippers. If you’re young, or on a budget, if you want clothes that are ethically produced, and are made by people who are paid a living wage, I don’t want women to ever have to compromise,” she said, eyes wide, her expression earnest. “You shouldn’t have to decide between looking cute and buying your clothes from a sweatshop.”