Summer Darlings Read online

Heddy thought it an odd question. Didn’t everyone want to be married? It wasn’t the why that confounded Heddy—it was the how. She needed to make it happen, especially if she wasn’t going to be able to finish her degree next year. She needed security. But she didn’t know where to begin, she had so many questions she was embarrassed to ask, and Gigi had the answers.

  Heddy stared at the kids in the pool. “You’ve had so many men fall in love with you.”

  “I can attract a man, yes, but can I keep him? I’m not married, if you hadn’t noticed,” Gigi dismissed her. The actress closed her eyes, and Heddy grabbed the cocktail napkin under Gigi’s glass. As a keepsake.

  “You must know something.” Heddy pleaded. “You’re dating Cary Grant! He’s only the most gorgeous man in Hollywood.”

  Standing up, slipping on a sheer, white cover-up, Gigi slithered past. “Do you see Cary here right now?” She twisted her hair to one side and laid it softly across her right shoulder. “Okay, Heddy the babysitter. I’ll teach you about men.”

  The corners of Heddy’s mouth twitched—she bit her cheeks to keep from smiling. When she thought back on this summer someday, she’d be able to pinpoint it with precision: this was the moment when her summer really started.

  Gigi turned around to see if Heddy and the children were following behind her into the house. “Do you still want a dress?”

  Heddy nodded. “Of course. I mean, sure.”

  “Good. Come back next Tuesday. Tell Jean-Rose I’ve invited the children here for high tea or some other nonsense she won’t be able to resist. Then I’ll tell you what I need from you.”

  * * *

  That night, Heddy called home right after she put the children to bed. Jean-Rose and Ted were on the porch arguing about something, about what Heddy didn’t know. Her mother picked up on the first ring.

  “It’s been two weeks. I’ve been worried sick. You told me every Sunday.”

  Heddy twisted the thick coiled cord around her finger, tucked herself into a corner of the front hall, her nose pushed against the fabric wallpaper seam. “I’m sorry, Mama—I’ve been busy. The children—I sent you two letters.”

  “The post is useless. Remember: you’re never too busy for your mother.”

  She bit at her cheeks to keep from smiling, feeling a pang of homesickness. “You’re right.”

  Her mother turned on the faucet; dishes clanged. “So does she wipe her own arse?” While Heddy was born in America, her mother had immigrated from Ireland when she was a teenager and still had an accent.

  Heddy peered through the porch doors to make sure Jean-Rose and Ted weren’t listening. “They’re nice. She wants to help me.”

  “Get a job after school, I hope.”

  “Something like that.”

  “The damn lights are out—the electric bill—I’m trying to take on some extra hours, but…”

  “There’s something in the letter. To help.” They went quiet on the line, the static crackling louder. Finally, her mother spoke.

  “You didn’t have to do that.” Her mother always said that, but they both knew she needed the money.

  “Mama, I met Gigi McCabe, the movie star. I went to her enormous house, and it was over-the-top gorgeous, just as you’d expect.” Heddy felt herself blush. “And she invited me to a party. She said Hollywood people will be there.”

  “My daughter. Rubbing elbows with movie stars. Tell your father that, then maybe he’ll think you’re worth knowing.”

  Heddy banged her forehead against the wall. She and her mother had had a fight before she left, since Heddy had made clear she was going to contact her estranged father, much to her mother’s dismay.

  “He didn’t deserve you, Mama.”

  “Well, you deserve that party.”

  Heddy grinned. “I drove a convertible. And Mrs. Williams gave me a bag like Princess Grace’s.” A white lie, Ruth had pulled Jean-Rose’s old one from the trash, cleaned it, and dropped it on Heddy’s bed. If she held it backward, no one would even see the water stain. She suspected the bag cost a quarter of her college tuition. Maybe she could sell it.

  Over the sounds of silverware in a sink, rinsing, her mother said, “The lady’s got money, eh.”

  Heddy wanted to tell her everything, but she didn’t want to say too much and make her mother think she was becoming so grown-up that she didn’t need her anymore. “They don’t think much of it.”

  She was glad her mother didn’t sound angry about the argument they’d had. The simple act of dialing her father’s law office the week before she left for the Vineyard had sent her mother into a rage. Her mother had grabbed the phone, slammed it on the cradle, yelling into Heddy’s face.

  “You think I wanted to raise my daughter alone in this shit apartment with this shit life? He’s not interested.”

  “He didn’t want you,” Heddy had yelled back, “but maybe he wants me.”

  As a girl, Heddy knew asking about her father inspired grief in her mother, but she was itchy with curiosity and she’d ask anyway, scratching at the floor when her mother’s crying started. Sometimes she’d stare at her mother’s tears, imagining them as bubbles popping against her face. Her thoughts would wander to what this mysterious father looked like—maybe like Gregory Peck, with his studious glasses. Maybe he was why she was at Wellesley; she’d inherited his book smarts and her mother’s creativity and ingenuity. Her mother could paint a precise still life and fix a motor, if she had to, which is why when she worked nights at the laundry after leaving her daytime job at Tiffany’s, she didn’t just wash and fold, she sometimes fixed the machines.

  Heddy had tapped her foot against her grandmother’s chair. “You can’t make this decision for me—I can do what I want.”

  Her mother had put her hands on the kitchen table. “Think about how your words hurt people, Hibernia.”

  “He’s my father.” Heddy had pulled out the junk drawer, reaching for a pen and a piece of paper. “Fine. I’ll write him a letter.”

  “Hibernia Winsome, do as you wish. A bold, headstrong girl like you. But don’t come crying to me when he doesn’t want you.” Her mother’s voice cracked, causing Heddy to put down her pen.

  Heddy had laced her arms around her mother’s waist. “I just want to try, Mama.”

  Ted’s voice drifted in from the living room; living here had only intensified her desire to meet her father, every interaction with Ted reminded her just how much she’d missed out on.

  On the other end of the line, her mother sighed. “What are the kids like?” her mother asked.

  Heddy whispered: “The girl is sweet as sugar. The boy’s a brat.”

  “Well, you have your own family, and don’t you forget it.” A siren went by, and her mother waited until it was quiet to speak. “I got a call from your school, someone saying you needed to cancel your housing next year, since you’re not returning. They said it was your scholarship.”

  Heddy swallowed, staring at a chip in her pale pink nail polish. What would her mother think of her now? What a waste it had all been, all those nights of study when she could have worked a part-time job and contributed. “I was going to tell you,” Heddy said. “I’m sorry.”

  Her mother didn’t yell, her tone quiet and forlorn. “What happened, Hibernia? You never got a bad grade in your life.”

  “I’m going to fix it, Mama. Really, I will.” She was squeezing the cord of the phone so tight her fingertips hurt. She’d disappointed her mother, and she began to cry.

  “I went to Dora at the bank. They won’t give me a loan,” her mother said.

  “I’ll find my way back, I promise.” If she’d had a different response from her father, if he hadn’t had his secretary write that rude response.

  When Heddy put the receiver back on the cradle, she heard a creak in the floorboards, startling her, and whipped around to find Teddy sprinting through the doorway, pretending to be asleep as she passed by his room.

  Now, with her face covered in Pond’s
Cold Cream, Heddy balanced her journal against her bare legs. On one page, she taped a magazine ad showing a photograph of the Bonneville convertible, and on another, the wrinkled napkin from Gigi’s, a simple gold “G” at its center. Using a fine-tipped black marker from the kitchen, she wrote:

  July 3, 1962

  Gigi smells of coconuts and even her lounge chairs were out of Vogue, but we hung out like girlfriends. She seems to get me, or at least get a kick out of me, but I kept staring at her lips and wondering what it would be like to be so desired by every man in sight. How might my life be different if I’d been born buxom or long-legged and curvy—does playing fast and hard give you a hand up when it comes to dating? To finding a husband who won’t leave you? What did my mother get wrong when it came to seducing (or loving) my father—what did she lack and is that why he didn’t choose her? It got me thinking: How can I be everything to a man so that never happens to me?

  SEVEN

  Heddy took a moment to catch her breath, treading water several feet deep. She faced the shingled houses, distant and far apart onshore, giving her a clear view of Ash Porter’s fishing cottage in the early-morning light. It was the Fourth of July, and even with her date with the waiter the following day, she couldn’t get the surfer out of her head.

  The outside of his cottage was different than she remembered, ramshackle even, since the old, weathered shingles were a deep, dark gray, and the newer ones, the color of honey. His house was closer to the water than the other houses, which she hadn’t realized the day she lost the children; it seemed like they’d walked deep into the marsh, but the sandy path ran parallel to the beach. The high-tide mark hit near his deck.

  A small sports car made a three-point turn out of the dusty driveway, but billowing beach grass blocked Heddy’s view of the driver. Someone was leaving Ash’s house extra early, she thought. The screen door slammed, and Ash padded out of the cottage sipping from a mug. She lowered her head deeper into the water, the sea tickling her chin. The unmistakable banter of sports radio crackled.

  Ash hadn’t seen her yet. He was focused on what he was holding. Bills. Were they dollars, twenties? Her eyes strained to see. He slid them from one hand to the other, and by the way his lips were moving, she knew he was counting. Over and over, the same stacks of money, in between sips of coffee. Something told her to duck her head under the cool water and swim away. But she’d be lying if she said she hadn’t thought about him after the luncheon, wondered why he’d engaged with her, and even though he’d been in the car with someone else the other day, she had to see him anyway. She went back under the water and arrowed toward shore, pressure building in her chest as she swam, her lungs growing tight.

  She popped her head up like a seal, scanning the shore for his deck, where he sat in the same director’s chair he’d been in the first time they’d met. Ash must have caught sight of the ripples in the water because he waved at her, smiling. He strutted toward her, his denim shirt open, his feet bare, coffee mug in hand.

  Heddy held her hand up in hello. She would never be so forward that she’d risk developing a reputation, of course, but she couldn’t wait for the universe to lob a man at her, either. She bobbed her head out of the shallow water, floating on her belly, where small gentle waves were breaking. “Morning,” she said.

  Water pooled around Ash’s ankles. “The Williamses got themselves a water rat. It’s barely seven.”

  “I swim. At school.” Oh God. She needed to say something else. She let a wave push her closer to him and propped herself up on her elbows. “I slipped out before anyone was awake.”

  He sipped his coffee. “Are you going to Oak Bluffs for fireworks tonight?”

  “Jean-Rose said the noise scares the children, so we’ll be in the yard with sparklers. Do you think I’ll see the fireworks from the attic?”

  He shook his head. “You’re too far up island. It’s a shame, though—it’s quite a display. How is the job?”

  “Interesting.”

  “I bet.” He grinned. There was that smile, the one she couldn’t get out of her head. “She’s a feisty one.”

  Heddy ran her fingers along the sea bottom, pulling up an orangey rock and pretending to examine it. “I’m enjoying her.”

  Ash ran his hands through his tousled hair, shaking something off. “Well, the old bird puts up with a lot.”

  “She does.” Heddy wasn’t sure how to steer the conversation away from Jean-Rose now. “How old are you, anyway?”

  “Twenty-four.” Exactly three years difference.

  “I’d say you’re an old man then.”

  Ash laughed, revealing a row of perfect teeth, then raised his mug, covered in red sailboats, to his lips. “If by old man, you mean young and dashing.”

  She brushed her fingers along her clavicle, smiling. “I think you mean young and darling, like myself?” A silly feeling lolled inside her, and she pointed at her face, saying—“Eh? Right?”—and then she burst into giggles.

  “Well, that’s a given.” The corners of his mouth turned up into a grin, and he went to sit on the sand. Heddy felt a small victory then. She knew he was charmed by her, just by the way he kept smiling and sipping coffee, even if he wasn’t saying anything. She could tell already he’d mastered the pregnant pause—her psychology professor once said staying quiet was how you got people to reveal themselves, but Heddy couldn’t do it. She always filled blank spaces in conversations erratically, patching the silence.

  A flock of birds squawked overhead. “You know the people who own this place?” she asked.

  He turned to look at the house, then back at her. Had she imagined that quick glance at her bosom?

  “You always so nosy?”

  She dunked her chin back into the water, stretched her legs behind her. “Someone told me you were watching the place, so it made me wonder whose house it was.”

  Ash picked up a rock, thumbed its surface. “So you’ve been talking about me.” She was embarrassed he’d pointed that out, and yet she loved it. She wasn’t worried about the gun anymore. It probably wasn’t even his.

  She rose out of the water dripping, wrapping her arms around her chest to warm herself. “ ‘I have no special talent. I’m only passionately curious.’ ”

  She sat next to him, and he leaned toward her, elbowing her playfully. “That’s Albert Einstein.”

  Her mouth fell open. “How did you know?” She’d doodled the quote, written on her high school science teacher’s blackboard, during many of his most boring lectures.

  “It’s on an index card on my fridge.” He offered her the mug, and she sipped, thankful for the warmth it offered her fingertips. “You know, you stay up every night—I see your light. Then I see you swimming at dawn. I asked Jean-Rose: don’t you ever sleep?”

  “So you’ve been talking about me, too,” she said, matching his gotcha tone from earlier.

  “You got me too,” he said, grinning.

  For once, she stayed quiet, enjoying the possibilities of what it meant that he’d noticed her habits, spoken of her to someone else. They stared at a distant ferry.

  Ash checked his watch. “Well, you have some kids to attend to. And I’ve got some business.”

  Heddy smiled at him like she would a professor, distant and mannered. She was being dismissed, but he was right. She had to get home. They would be up by now.

  “We have to meet like this again,” he said, on his feet, padding to his cottage.

  “Ash, wait,” she said. She ran toward him. The sight of him made her feel electric, like there was an invisible wire connecting them, and the closer she got, the brighter it got, illuminating her inside and out.

  “Your coffee.” Breathless, she handed him the sailboat mug, imagining his fingers sparking as he took it.

  His shoulders relaxed, and he gave her a goofy military salute. “Another time, then.”

  She sprinted to the water, deflated and elated all at once. Heddy couldn’t get into the sea fast enough, d
iving as far away as she could, kicking her feet wildly and pulling at the water to propel her forward. She wasn’t sure what to make of him, but she knew this: there was something about Ash Porter. As she stepped out of the water by the Williamses’ house, she stared into the woods where his cottage was, spying only lush trees. She had to find a way to see him again.

  * * *

  When she walked into the kitchen, dry and changed into linen shorts, Ruth was tucking a small pink envelope and a pair of pantyhose into her apron pocket. Their boss left their pay on the table every Wednesday. Heddy checked for the four twenties, plus a ten—holding the crisp bills to her nose and inhaling their inky scent. By the end of the summer, she’d have close to $700.

  Ruth had pulled milk and cheese and eggs out, a pie pan already crusted beside her, and Heddy leaned over the counter: “Quiche?”

  “Jean-Rose wants to try it.” The magazine at Ruth’s feet was open to a recipe depicting a perfectly set asparagus egg pie. Ruth checked to make sure Jean-Rose and Ted weren’t nearby, then flicked a lock of hair over her shoulder, mimicking Jean-Rose. “The bridge ladies swear by it.”

  Heddy jabbed her middle. “You sound just like her.”

  Ruth positioned a mixing bowl on the counter, cracked open the eggs. “What’s with you and swimming?”

  Heddy stretched her arms up overhead, then shook the water out of her ears. “It helps me think.”

  Ruth retrieved the hand mixer from the pantry and plugged it in, centering it in the egg mixture, and Heddy stood beside her, leaning against the countertop. “What do you know about the bachelor next door?”

  Ruth dumped a tablespoon of flour into the batter. “The surfer?”

  Heddy smiled. “There’s something about him.” She pulled out a loaf of white bread, peanut butter and jelly to start the children’s camp lunches. In honor of the Fourth, their camp was holding a field day with an egg toss and potato sack races.

  Ruth poured the eggs into the pie shell. “I get the feeling he’s big-time. You know, Ivy League degree. Slick job, fancy city apartment.” She placed the quiche onto the oven’s wire rack.