Summer Darlings

by Brooke Lea Foster

  “Or else,” the man interjected, turning down the volume on his transistor radio. “Miss…” Here he stopped, flashing her a sunshiny grin, whispering, “What’s your name?”

  “Her name is Heddy,” Anna whispered.

  “Right, or else… Miss Heddy won’t be your babysitter anymore. And boy, would you miss her.”

  “I wouldn’t miss her,” Teddy mumbled.

  Anna climbed onto the man’s lap, all monkey-like, wrapping one arm around his neck. “I would. We found a crab in the sand and made him a home.”

  “Don’t give me that malarkey, Teddy. This beautiful woman right here is your funmaker in chief.”

  Now that the man had called her beautiful, Heddy turned to look at him. He was shirtless, a wetsuit folded at the waist, droplets of water dappled across his muscled chest. His sun-kissed hair was still wet, maybe from surfing, and he’d pushed it back off his forehead, giving her full view of his emerald eyes. This is what men in California must look like, she thought, although she had no idea where he was from at all.

  “I’m Ash.” He didn’t stand up from the director’s chair in which he sat or hold out his hand. “I’d be a proper gentleman, but Anna here is a bit of a snuggler.” The sight of him made her uneasy. She was standing on his deck, in her bathing suit, which felt much too intimate. She remembered the fabric along her bathing suit’s cup seam was threadbare—that’s why it had been on clearance—and it exposed a sliver of the plastic boning. She shifted Anna’s beach towel to her chest. She’d also forgotten about the unfortunate way the bottom sagged off her rear, until now.

  “Smashed to meet you.” That he was good-looking guaranteed she’d say the dumbest thing possible. “I mean, nice to meet you. Thank you for keeping the children.”

  At least she hadn’t let her Brooklyn accent slip. She’d worked to perfect her Wellesley voice, the cadence she used when talking to classmates of means, speaking in such complete sentences you could nearly hear the punctuation. Her mother teased her when she’d visited and heard Heddy describe something as “lahv-lee,” instead of “love-lee.” At times, when Heddy was angry or anxious, her accent would slip, and her classmates would do a double take, as if they were seeing her anew and for the first time.

  Ash shot her a disarming smile. “They show up here all the time, you know. I’m not sure they’re looked after very closely.” He had three small brown circles on his arm, pocks the size of quarters, and he caught her looking there.

  “Me and some buddies, three a.m., cigarette stubs, hurt like hell the next morning.” He smiled.

  “We all do dumb things when we’re young.”

  “Who are you calling dumb?”

  At first, she thought she’d offended him; his tone had a hard edge, but then he laughed, making her laugh.

  “You here all summer?” he said.

  Heddy tried to look busy, gathering Anna’s bucket. “Yes, until I go back to school. Do you surf?” Wasn’t it obvious, considering he had surfboards leaning against the front of his cottage?

  “It’s like flying. You ever try?”

  “City girl.” It came out like an apology.

  “No kidding.” Ash grinned. She met his crystalline eyes for a half second, then darted her gaze away. “You been to the island before?”

  Heddy was certain Jean-Rose wouldn’t approve of her having the kids on this man’s patio, but perhaps she shouldn’t rush them back to the beach. If she didn’t marry in the next year or two, the girls at school said she’d be stale bread. And then what? Heddy imagined her mother pulling her wire grocery cart down Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, struggling with the groceries up the stairs.

  She shook her head. “My first time. I typically stay close to home on summer break. My mother says I’m the only person in New York who likes the city in the heat.”

  He laughed heartily. “Is it the stench of the overfull trash cans or the lovely smell of the subway that appeals?”

  The corners of her eyes crinkled. “It is terrible, isn’t it? No, it’s Prospect Park. I could sit and write there for hours. Do you come to the island every summer?” Heddy eyed his ring finger but found no band. If only she were one of those girls who knew how to prance before a boy, rubbing suntan lotion up her thighs while asking him to light her cigarette. Women in the movies got men interested in them by taking charge. Instead, Heddy tended to wish men would want to know her, sense her quickening pulse, note her cheerfulness or the way she twisted her earring as she imagined kissing them. But men never looked that hard, she supposed.

  “I came once or twice when I was a kid, but I’m a Jersey boy. My parents had a place near Atlantic City. Dad wooed clients over cards; Mom would take us to the beach.”

  “I’m a Coney Island girl myself. Is that where you learned to surf?” A Coney Island girl? She cringed.

  “That came later.” He had a glint in his eye. “So you write?”

  Heddy flushed all over again. Why did he look at her like that, like he couldn’t stop? The boys at mixers approached her regularly, but after talking with her, they started looking behind her, like they had somewhere else to be. This man, though, he kept chatting. Her neck began to itch, but she couldn’t figure out how to scratch it without letting the towel drop and revealing her fraying bathing costume.

  “May I use your powder room?” she asked. Inside, she’d figure out what to say next.

  “Through the living room, first door on the left,” he said. She assumed it was the only door on the left; the cottage looked about as big as an Airstream trailer. Mismatched blue couches in the sunny living room and a cluttered kitchen table gave way to avocado-green appliances in the small kitchen; despite its rustic facade, it had the fancy electric stove she’d seen in magazines.

  She posed in the bathroom mirror, trying to assess how bad the bathing suit was. Possibly terrible, she decided, trying to re-center her breasts in the top so they looked fuller. Opening his medicine cabinet, she noted the brand of his shaving cream (a red tube of Old Spice) and his neat row of colognes in serious dark bottles. She was about to pee when she saw there was only a shred of toilet paper stuck to the roll. She could practically hear a sitcom laugh track, the ubiquitous joke about the things only bachelors do. Clearly, if he had a wife, she wasn’t here now. No woman would let the paper run out without replacing it.

  There weren’t any rolls under the sink, just an electric razor, so she popped open the bathroom door and leaned into the small closet she’d seen on her way in. Two tissue rolls sat on the white-painted shelf in front of a stack of folded navy towels. She reached for one, and behind it, next to the Windex, there was a gleam of silver metal, something shiny poking out of a navy hand towel. Outside, through the screened door, she heard Ash and the children clapping, singing a nursery rhyme. She edged the towel back, just enough, curious if it was the grip of a microphone or the lens of an expensive video camera, or God forbid, one of those handheld machines—Beryl said they vibrated—you used all on your own.

  Heddy stood on tiptoe to peer onto the shelf, but the silver handle wasn’t what she’d expected. It was a barrel, the nose of a pistol.

  Staggering backward into the bathroom, toilet paper in hand, she pressed her thighs to the cool porcelain of the toilet seat. You’re fine. Jean-Rose knows him. He’s the neighbor. Then she considered if she should replace the toilet paper on the ring at all. If she did, he’d know she went in his bath closet and might have seen the gun. If she didn’t, he might remember there wasn’t toilet paper and wonder if she was a slovenly girl who didn’t wipe. That was worse than being nosy.

  She squirted soap into her palm, rubbing her hands vigorously under the faucet. Why would anyone on Martha’s Vineyard have a gun? This morning, the police blotter in the paper reported a teenager had been stopped for bicycling while holding a bottle of Coca-Cola; the officer thought he wasn’t paying attention. Jean-Rose snorted with laughter reading it aloud.

  “I better get these two home.” Heddy steppe
d outside, working to sound nonplussed. A gun. She wondered if it was loaded. Reaching for Anna, careful not to let the towel drop, she let her bare arm graze the man’s wrist, which sent a jolt of excitement—and maybe a little fear—through her. Was he a police officer? An adventurer who hunted sharks swimming too close to shore? “Sorry.”

  “What are you sorry about?” He lifted Anna off his lap, right up into Heddy’s arms. She was sorry for knowing his secret, for finding the gun, but she couldn’t say that.

  He looked at her funny, like he might be done with this conversation, but she wasn’t sure, so she prattled on. “My psychology professor says women should stop being so apologetic or we won’t ever get what we want.… Well, I’m sure your wife does the same thing. Anyway, sorry to ramble.” She cleared her throat, then laughed.

  “Stop saying sorry!” He grinned, crossing his legs at the ankles, his hair shiny with sun. “And no, no ball and chain yet.”

  With the telephone ringing in the kitchen, he went inside to answer it. Heddy stared out at the dunes, straining to hear his conversation. “Just put it in the bag,” he said, losing the chipper tone he’d used on her. The kids began singing loudly, and she couldn’t hear anything else until he said, “Don’t worry. We’ll get him.”

  Heddy smiled at the gentleman when he came out, taking Anna’s hand and following Teddy, who was already running ahead down the path back to the beach. “Nice to meet you,” she said.

  “Same.” His breezy tone returned. “Come over and surprise me again sometime.” There was something in his eyes, a softness. He hardly seemed like a murderer.

  Maybe he had the gun because he was on the president’s Secret Service detail, taking a day off from the mayhem in Hyannis. Maybe the cottage belonged to a Kennedy and he was renting it.

  “I’ll see you at the beach, Ace,” Ash hollered to the child’s back.

  “Really?” She blinked innocently. “Ace.” He seemed to enjoy her attempt at being cute and started to follow them, walking next to her through the dunes.

  “I’m teaching Teddy how to surf. I told his daddy the younger he starts, the better.”

  “Like skiing, I suppose,” she said.

  “Only who would trade this for snow?”

  She glanced at the cobalt-blue horizon, then back at Ash, who was shielding his eyes from the sun and looking at her, waiting for her to say more. But what came to mind was a line from a Salinger story, something about how every man has at least one place that at some point turns into a girl. She’d written a paper on what that one line meant, and still, she hadn’t understood until she happened upon this surfer on Martha’s Vineyard. Perhaps, for every woman, there is at least one place that at some point turns into a boy.

  Heddy walked off, feeling Ash’s eyes on her, knowing he could see her rear end. She rewrapped Anna’s beach towel around her body. Just before the trail descended into the marsh, her racing heart forced her hand and she let the towel go, curious if she’d catch his eyes on her. But when she turned, he was dragging the hose over to his surfboards.

  He was handsome, charming, a bachelor without any serious intentions. Someone she could never trust, the kind of boy who convinced a girl to skip a Wellesley mixer and make out in his car instead. And that was not the kind of boy she wanted.

  She wanted someone like Ted Williams.

  So why had she gone out of her way to make it clear she was interested?

  * * *

  The surfer was still on her mind that evening when she was putting the children to bed. Even after dark, when she was alone in her bedroom, sitting at her desk and penning her first letter, she thought of him. But these were not details she’d share with her mother.

  June 24, 1962

  Dearest Mama,

  When I was a little girl, you and I would daydream about buying a cottage with a view of the sea. Well, the Williams’s home is one hundred times grander than any of our fantasies, and the view from my bedroom window is equally sublime. Sailboats glide along the silvery waves in the morning, the sky a painting of pinks and purples in the evening. Jean-Rose, even the children, take everything about their lives for granted, whereas I appreciate every detail. We all have our very own bathroom. There was an actual handheld hair dryer left in my closet. Even the freezer has three choices of ice cream flavors.

  I met a nice girl named Ruth—she’s the housekeeper—and I feel comfortable with her in a way I don’t with the others. You were right. The Williamses are not like you and me, but I’m still trying to understand how. Is it because she poured the last quarter of the milk down the kitchen sink, just because there was a fresh bottle in the keep? Is it because the husband spritzes himself with cologne or because he flips through a book at two in the afternoon, a square of sun surrounding his wingback chair?

  But they are lovely together, and I would love to find myself in my own version of this life.

  Missing you,

  Hibernia

  THREE

  Jean-Rose was filing her nails in a rocking chair on the porch when Heddy and the kids returned home from a nature walk around noon the following morning, their buckets full of feathers and rocks, tiny crab skeletons and oyster shells. As soon as she saw them, she dropped her file and sang out: “I have good news.” She shimmied her shoulders like a jazz dancer and beamed. A Bloody Mary sat empty on the small table beside her, a chewed-up celery stick at the bottom. “I hope you don’t mind, but I love playing cupid. He’ll pick you up at seven.”

  Heddy crinkled her nose. “You set me up? On a date?”

  Her boss’s dainty jaw gaped with self-satisfaction.

  “Sure did,” Jean-Rose said. “On your night off next week. Did I tell you you’re free to do as you wish on Friday nights and while the children are at camp?”

  “We’re thirsty,” Teddy whined, tossing his thermos at his mother’s espadrilles. The smell of honeysuckle wafted by. It grew in a tangle up a white-painted arbor over the bricked path to the porch.

  “Come, I’ll explain,” she said, and they followed her to the kitchen, Heddy carrying the thermos. “He’s a waiter at the Clamshell, a friend of a friend, and he’s thrilled to meet you.”

  A waiter! Heddy tried to hide the disappointment on her face when she turned on the faucet to fill the water bottle.

  “But he doesn’t even know what I look like,” Heddy said.

  “Who, Mama?” Anna tugged.

  Teddy snatched the thermos like a basketball, and Jean-Rose rolled her eyes.

  “You think I didn’t show him a picture?” She scooped Anna into her arms, balancing her on a hip; Teddy kicked at the table leg, slurping. “I passed along the lovely photo you sent us with your application.”

  Oh God. Her high school senior picture.

  Ruth, who was standing at the counter with her back to them, spooned chicken salad onto Wonder bread. She wiped her hands on a tea towel. “That’s the second night of the carnival. I was hoping to take Heddy.”

  “Sugarpuss.” Jean-Rose tapped her fingers against her crossed elbows. “Can we finagle a double?”

  “Who’s the boy?” Ruth asked.

  Jean-Rose whispered in Ruth’s ear, then handed Heddy a wet washcloth to clean the children’s hands.

  Ruth grinned. “Oh, that’s easy. Jerome works at the Clamshell, too. They can come together.”

  Jean-Rose balled her hands into fists and cheered, her shoulder-length hair bobbing over her shoulder. “Ruth knows everyone. Did I tell you that already?”

  Ted ducked into the kitchen, literally, since he was nearly a foot taller than his petite wife, pulling Jean-Rose to him and kissing her sweetly on the top of her head. He threw his voice so he sounded like a girlish teenager. “I can’t wait to hear how it goes.”

  Heddy and Ruth laughed, probably harder than they would have if he weren’t their boss.

  “Jeannie, can’t you let our babysitters focus on minding the kids?”

  Jean-Rose flipped her hair, smiling. “I’m good a
t matchmaking! Look at Shipley and Lindy.”

  “You simply picked two people with ridiculous names and got lucky.” The lines around his eyes wrinkled, and Heddy laughed along with them.

  “He’s classically good-looking,” Jean-Rose said.

  “Ahem, I’m sitting right here.” Ted pointed to his seat.

  Jean-Rose rubbed the top of Ted’s hand. “Well, everyone knows Ted Williams is the most handsome man on the Vineyard. But you’re taken.”

  Heddy sipped her water, hoping to mask how disappointed she was that Jean-Rose wanted to set her up with a waiter. That wasn’t much better than the boys back home happy with their hourly jobs at the shipyards; didn’t anyone think she was worth the guy in the necktie with the degree in accounting?

  “My skin is like an oil slick.” Jean-Rose opened the glass cabinet and reached for a juice glass, then poured from a can of 100 percent Hawaiian pineapple juice. “Can you believe my cold cream melted right in the bottle? How are you smoking that thing in this heat?”

  Ted pulled the cigar out of his mouth and examined it. “I paid a mint to have it shipped.”

  Jean-Rose made a show of waving the smoke away from her face, and even though Heddy didn’t like the smell, either, she felt Jean-Rose was being a little dramatic.

  “It smells of caramel.” Heddy inhaled, pretending to like the acrid scent. The children sniffed at the air, erupting into coughs.

  “At least someone appreciates a fine cigar.” Ted smiled at Heddy. “I’m going up to the Old Light to see how my money is being spent. They want another five grand. Do you want to come, dear?”

  “We better get prime seats at the benefit. Otherwise, what is the point?” Jean-Rose sat down at the kitchen table, crossing her legs, shiny with baby oil. Ted’s hands went to her shoulders, massaging them over her linen blouse, and Heddy supposed that was what she envied most about their relationship—the small affections they traded. At first, she’d categorized Ted’s morning peck on the cheek as lacking, but after watching the couple the last few days, she realized there were lots of quick kisses and hand squeezes, moments when their bodies brushed by each other, like they were two magnets that couldn’t help but be drawn together, then swiftly pushed apart.