Teddy immediately felt faint. But, If he asks, he thought, why not tell him? What difference could it possibly make now?
But no, Mickey’s mind was apparently elsewhere. “You both need to be more like Lincoln,” he said. “Whatever I decide, and whatever happens as a result of that decision, is on me, not you. He’s figured that out. You two haven’t.”
“Whatever happened to all for one and one for all?” The question, of course, was one Teddy might well have asked himself. At Gay Head, when it seemed that Jacy might be his and his alone, he’d forsworn all for one without blinking.
Mickey sighed. “There is no all. Just millions of ones.”
* * *
—
WORRIED THAT the crushing disappointment of Gay Head might trigger one of his spells, Teddy had decided on a brisk walk before dinner. The exercise wouldn’t prevent an episode, but it might delay its arrival and thereby allow him to get through the evening. If he woke up in the middle of the night in a flop sweat, he could curl up into the fetal position and ride it out. No one would have to know, and by morning the worst would be over. And it would explain what Mickey had seen as his “funny” behavior after returning from Gay Head. As he hiked among Chilmark’s rolling hills, however, his spirits, already at low ebb, plummeted even deeper. It came to him that the whole weekend had been a mistake, a misguided attempt to preserve something already lost. Clearly the friendship that had served them all so well had played itself out. When they graduated from Minerva, they’d somehow, without meaning to, graduated from one another. Maybe, he told himself, it was just as well. At least the evening wouldn’t become maudlin. Thank God for Mickey in this respect. He would never permit straightforward testimonials or unironic declarations of affection. For him, simply that they’d come together for one last weekend spoke volumes. Perhaps because Teddy was born of parents who made their living talking, he’d never really understood the peculiarly male conviction that silence conveyed one’s feelings better than anything else, but maybe tonight it would. Get through the evening, he commanded himself. That was what mattered. Tomorrow they would all board the ferry and go their separate ways and that would be that. They all, he felt certain, were feeling the same way.
But evidently not. Returning from his walk, Teddy was surprised to discover that his friends’ spirits had markedly improved. Lincoln had finally emerged from his room and confessed to what they’d suspected was true: Anita hadn’t wanted him to spend the weekend with them on the island. Now that it was nearly over, though, she’d relented, not only forgiving him but even telling him to enjoy himself on their last night together. After an hour alone in her room, Jacy also seemed to be in a better mood. She apologized to Mickey for being so pissy earlier, an apology he accepted by giving her a hug and promising to have his hand checked out as soon as he got home. Then, their fellowship restored, he ordered “Tedioski” to “Please, for the love of God, put some real fucking music on.” By which he meant Creedence. All weekend long they’d been listening to “Suzie Q” on a seemingly endless loop, Fogerty’s distorted guitar solo overstaying its welcome, but Teddy put it on again and they all got to work. While Lincoln fired up the grill, Mickey stocked the Igloo full of cold beer and dragged it out onto the deck with his good hand so they wouldn’t have to keep running back and forth to the fridge. Jacy set the picnic table and Teddy opened a bag of potato chips and some onion dip to tide them over until the real food came. At one point, when Mickey went inside to pee and Lincoln was busy flipping burgers, Jacy came over and gave Teddy’s shoulder a squeeze. “Try to have a good time, okay? Our last night?” she said, and something about her tone suggested that would be heavy lifting for her as well.
Then after they ate and ferried the dirty dishes inside, everyone seemed content to sit on the deck as darkness descended, the music on low, talking quietly about things that didn’t matter—those that did being off-limits, as they had been all weekend. Teddy, who’d eaten little, could feel the salutary effects of his long walk begin to dissipate. Whatever this part of their lives had been about, it was all but over. There would be no debriefing, no attempts to articulate what they’d meant to one another these last four years. He kept hoping that Jacy would let Lincoln and Mickey in on her change of heart regarding the wedding, because that would’ve been worth celebrating. But she said nothing, causing Teddy to wonder if she’d changed her mind back again. And if he himself, or rather her disappointment in him, was why.
At some point in the evening the wind shifted, and though the beach was a good half mile away, they could hear the surf pounding, and when the moon rose out of the waves, it was suddenly, for Teddy at least, all too much. Going inside, he closed the bathroom door and studied his face in the mirror to see if the desolation and hopelessness he was feeling might be written there. Was it obvious to his friends that after tonight he had little real interest in what lay ahead? Probably Lincoln and Mickey were questioning Jacy right now, wanting to know if something “funny” had happened out at Gay Head. She’d probably tell them that he was just down in the dumps, that of the four of them he was the only one at loose ends. Lincoln was heading west with Anita. Mickey would be reporting for boot camp. She herself was getting married. Yes, Teddy was thinking about divinity school after his internship at the Globe, but only because he couldn’t think of what else to do. Ever the generalist, his major, weeks after graduation, remained undecided.
There was also the possibility that, despite promising not to, she was telling them everything. She wouldn’t do it to hurt him, he knew, but rather because they were all friends who, if they knew, maybe could help. They couldn’t, of course. Nobody could.
By the time he returned to the deck—how long had he been gone?—the temperature had dropped and Lincoln had ducked inside for sweaters and sweatshirts. They paid Teddy no special attention, which he assumed meant Jacy had kept her promise. The music had stopped playing, but she and Mickey were slow dancing in the middle of the deck. “Chances are,” Mickey crooned, “ ’cause I wear a silly grin, the moment you come into view. Chances are you think that I’m in love with you.”
“Fine,” Lincoln chuckled good-naturedly. “Have fun at my expense.”
Jacy evidently took this as permission to join in. “Just because,” she warbled drunkenly, “my composure sort of slips the moment that your lips meet mine. Chances are you think my heart’s your valentine.”
As Teddy passed by, Jacy grabbed him by the elbow, determined, despite his protests that he didn’t know the words, that he would sing along with them, leaving Lincoln with little choice but to join in as well. How many verses did they sing? Teddy lost track, but at some point it occurred to him that Mickey no longer was making fun of Johnny Mathis. Indeed, he was singing the song as if he’d penned the schmaltzy lyrics himself and couldn’t be prouder of them. As they all grew more confident of the lyrics, they turned, arm in arm, and serenaded the night itself, the moonlight rippling on the distant ocean. They sang as if they were still all for one and one for all and would be so forever. To his astonishment, Teddy felt his own heavy burden begin to lift, at least a little. Maybe, he thought, if they just sang loud enough, everything would be okay after all. Mickey would somehow return from Vietnam unharmed. Lincoln’s service would not be required. Jacy would marry her fiancé or she wouldn’t, but she would remain always their fourth Musketeer. And Teddy himself? For no good reason, he suddenly felt hopeful. Because there was magic in the world. Just that afternoon a girl he’d been in love with throughout college had chosen him. Him. And what was that if not magic? Why abandon hope in the face of possibility?
There on the deck, pleasantly drunk, they seemed to have found something they each could agree on: that chances were their chances were…awfully good. Whether the sentiment was true or—like the world they were taking possession of—a bright, shining lie seemed, right then, beside the point.
* * *
—
THE NEXT MORNING the sun was barely up when Teddy, lying awake on the living room couch, heard Jacy stirring in her bedroom. When her door squeaked open and she emerged on tiptoe, fully dressed, her pack slung over her shoulder, he realized that she meant to slip away without saying goodbye. This was confirmed when she placed a note in the center of the dining room table where they couldn’t fail to see it.
Only when the front door closed behind her did he stand and go over to the window to watch her make her way up the gravel drive. How brave she looked under her backpack. How beautiful.
Poor girl. She’d cried her heart out yesterday when he talked about the afternoon in the gym when he’d gone up for that rebound and Nelson, his burly teammate, had undercut him. How his tailbone had been the first thing to hit the hardwood court, the impact paralyzing him so completely that at first he’d felt no pain, only shock. How he’d been taken to the emergency room in an ambulance, unable to feel his legs, though by the time they arrived there some sensation had returned and he could wiggle his toes. According to the ER doctors, this was a good sign, as was the nauseating pain, which led to vomiting and later, long after his stomach was empty, dry heaves. He’d been kept overnight for observation but sent home the next morning in a brace, told that he was young and strong and all he needed was rest for the hairline fracture to heal. In no time he’d be good as new. Though there was one thing to keep an eye out for, a doctor had warned, almost as an afterthought. While it was unlikely, spinal injuries could be tricky. Teddy, at sixteen, hadn’t really known what erectile dysfunction meant, but he’d instinctively grasped what he was “to keep an eye out for,” and that this oh-by-the-way afterthought was anything but.
Yesterday, with Jacy sobbing in his arms, he’d wanted more than anything to comfort her, to convince her that even though his chances weren’t awfully good, neither were his circumstances hopeless. Normal function, he told her, was sometimes restored even years after the injury. No need to mention that with each passing year that possibility became less likely, not more. Nor did he tell her that right from the start he’d somehow known that he wouldn’t be one of the lucky ones, that how he was at present—able to ejaculate but not to engage in intercourse, able to fall deeply in love but not to express it—was how he would remain.
“I’ve gotten used to it, actually,” he assured her. “It was a mistake to get my hopes up. I just thought that, with you, maybe…”
Which made her cry even harder. “Anyway, it could be worse, right?” he continued, knowing full well that he was about to say something truly horrible, something that would haunt him forever. “I could be headed for Vietnam.”
Forty-four years later, high above the beach where he’d spoken those words, sharing the whole sad story with Theresa, he still couldn’t fully fathom what had possessed him, or even what he’d meant to say. There were days when he could almost absolve himself for uttering the words. Surely he’d meant only that, on the night of the lottery, he’d been fortunate to draw a number that would spare him from that danger. And really, that was about all the good fortune boys of his generation had any right to expect. Yet it sometimes felt as if he’d made an unwitting bargain with God: Give me a high number tonight and I’ll never ask you for anything else. Because that would explain the trade-off he was now being asked to accept—his happiness for his life. Things could always be worse. He could be headed to Vietnam.
But by asserting that things could’ve been worse for himself, wasn’t he also saying that they definitely were worse for his friends? For Mickey and, yes, possibly for Lincoln? Had Jacy heard in the statement some bitter satisfaction? That if he couldn’t be a man, there was comfort to be taken from knowing that his friends—men who could not only love but also express love—might have to pay an even-bigger price? That if he couldn’t have Jacy, then at least they wouldn’t, either? Was that what she’d heard? Was that what he’d meant?
As he watched her make her way up the drive, he couldn’t help feeling that it wasn’t so much Jacy departing as life itself, and that he had it coming.
He was still staring out the window when Lincoln appeared in his bedroom doorway, wearing gym shorts and an old Minerva College T-shirt, scratching his chin thoughtfully. “She’s gone?” he said.
Teddy nodded. “There’s a note.”
Lincoln read it, first to himself, then out loud: No goodbyes. I couldn’t bear it. “Well,” he said. “That’s that, then.”
Why had they let her go like that? he wondered after saying goodbye to Theresa, another woman he’d managed to disappoint profoundly. Why hadn’t they rousted Mickey and gone after her. There was a breakfast place near the ferry terminal where they could’ve dispatched their hangovers with scrambled eggs and home fries and coffee, then put her on the ferry and waved goodbye as the boat departed. Wasn’t that what good friends would do?
Except that, as her fiancé would later allege, they weren’t good friends, or weren’t just good friends. Her note made clear that she was leaving them collectively, three young men on the cusp of adulthood. The reason they hadn’t gone after her was that they saw it differently. They’d begun seeing things differently back in 1969, in the Theta house’s hasher room, where on a small TV they’d learned just how alone they really were in the world. They’d entered that room all in the same loud, raucous boat only to drift away silent and solitary, envy and fear making it impossible for them to look one another in the eye. No, the love they bore Jacy was not communal but individual. She wasn’t leaving her Musketeers collectively, but rather individually—Athos, Porthos, Aramis.
Forever, as it turned out.
Lincoln
There was a Wi-Fi router at the house, but Lincoln wouldn’t be able to discover the password until Monday morning, when the management company opened. Out in Chilmark he’d have one bar of reception at best, so he decided to check his e-mail in the Tisbury Village parking lot before heading back. In addition to the usual crap—relentless appeals for funds from organizations he’d already unsubscribed from multiple times, inducements to travel (Secret prices, Lincoln, just for you!), the usual clickbait (You Won’t Believe What Happens Next)—a couple agents in his office were looking for advice on transactions. Nothing that Andrea, his office manager, couldn’t have dealt with, except that the agents in question, both men, had coveted her position and were now showing their displeasure by doing end runs around her. While he was tapping out curt responses, a text message from Anita came in: Arrived Dunbar. Guess who’s still full of beans? You owe me, buster. He texted back: I know. I know. The guys say hey. When he pressed SEND, the phone vibrated in his hand, an incoming call this time, another local number.
“Lincoln? It’s Marty calling.” Ah, his realtor. “Look, I was doing some research on your place and came across something interesting. Are you in Chilmark?”
“Vineyard Haven. Just about to drive out there, though.”
“Want to swing by before you do?”
“Why not?”
Before he turned his key in the ignition, Joe Coffin emerged from his apartment, went down the stairs and made his way across the parking lot to a battered old gray pickup, the vehicular equivalent of its apparent owner. “You don’t drive anymore, Joe,” Lincoln said out loud to himself as the other man unlocked the door and climbed in. “You told me so yourself.” Which suggested that he was either going someplace urgently or to a place he didn’t want Beverly, his usual chauffeur, to take him. Lincoln watched as the truck shuddered to life and backed out of its space. When Coffin hung a left onto the Edgartown–Vineyard Haven Road, Lincoln started up his rental car and put it in gear. Leaving the lot, he also turned left, telling himself that he was just heading into Edgartown as promised, not following anybody, though he took care to remain several car lengths back. Up ahead was a convenience market and Lincoln half expected the pickup to turn in. Having offered his unexpected guest coffee, may
be Coffin had run out of milk or something. Maybe he didn’t consider running a quick errand as driving. But no, the pickup sailed right on by. Katama, then? To see if his favorite hawk in that photo was perched on its accustomed telephone wire? Had he somehow gotten it into his head that he might not make it off the operating table, and wanted to see the bird one last time before his surname proved prophetic? Coffin hadn’t seemed all that concerned about his upcoming surgery, but neither did he come across as the sort of man to let on if he was.
As they approached the Barnes Road rotary, Lincoln slowed, grateful for the two cars between him and Coffin. The last thing he wanted was to get spotted in the guy’s rearview. What would his suspicious cop’s brain make of that? Lincoln figured the man would go halfway around the circle and stay on the Edgartown Road, or else take the next turn into Oak Bluffs. But again Coffin surprised him by taking the first exit off the rotary, the route you’d take to the airport.
Or to Chilmark. Lincoln suppressed a shiver. Was he headed up island to warn Troyer that someone was sniffing around about Jacy’s disappearance? Strange, now that he thought about it, that Coffin hadn’t come clean about their relationship—that they’d nearly grown up together—until Lincoln pressed him.
There was another reason he might be going to Chilmark, though, and it was even more unsettling. Did Coffin, like his imaginary rapist, have a shovel in the back of the truck? Was he headed not to Troyer’s place but to Lincoln’s, intent on excavating the yard? Don’t be ridiculous, he told himself. An old man with a shovel and no idea where on Lincoln’s two acres to dig? But the more important question was why Lincoln’s thoughts were racing toward such bizarre conclusions. After all, it was a big island with plenty of places Coffin could be heading. Still, entering the rotary himself, it was all Lincoln could do not to blow off his meeting with Marty, follow the old cop and know where he was going.
Chances Are . . . Page 16