Summer Darlings Read online

  “God no. Ted’s my husband, dear. We have expectations of each other, and there are, well, finances to deal with because we must tend the nest and give each other what we need. But I wouldn’t call him my best friend; I have no idea what goes on inside his head.”

  “But you must know him best.” Heddy imagined men to be as emotional as women, just more guarded, like if you knocked at the walls a bit, they’d come crumbling down.

  Jean-Rose twisted the cap on the nail polish. “I’ve given up on him when it comes to matters of the heart. I’m lucky if he asks me how my day was. A word to the wise: a man may be benign or he may be sinister, but don’t expect him to be interesting.” Anna ran off.

  “It can’t be true.” Heddy didn’t mean to say it aloud, and Jean-Rose didn’t like it when someone disagreed with her, the woman’s forehead wrinkling in a frown. Heddy hurried to change the subject. “So you met Ted at your father’s office?”

  Jean-Rose’s expression broke into a cunning smile. “Wherever did you get that?”

  “You mentioned it.”

  Anna joined Teddy in his search for earthworms; polish never lasted on a child’s fingers for long.

  “I don’t think so,” Jean-Rose clicked her tongue. “Talking about me with someone?”

  Heddy kept her head down, so Jean-Rose wouldn’t see her cheeks. “Maybe it was Gigi. She said you made a fabulous pair.”

  “Did she? I’d really prefer you stop spending time with her.”

  Heddy pressed back onto her knees, looking up. Jean-Rose couldn’t take Gigi away. “Gigi also said she wishes she was as fashionable as you.”

  “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, dear, but I’m pretty sure I don’t share fashion sense with a Hollywood tramp.”

  That stung, and Heddy, digging at a spot that didn’t need digging, found herself wanting to make a case for Gigi, how she had a photograph of Jean-Rose on her dresser. How that had to mean something. “Sorry, it’s just… well, she’s been so kind to me.”

  Heddy couldn’t admit the truth, that they had an agreement, especially now that Jean-Rose promised to move things along with Sullivan.

  Jean-Rose put her hand to her neck, pained. “I love Gigi, and she’s sweet inviting you over, dear, but…”

  The garden was clear of weeds now, and Heddy wondered why she was doing this; they had gardeners. “What is it?”

  Jean-Rose tapped her long acrylic nail against the Adirondack chair’s arm. “Well, I hate to… but, well, while Gigi seems glamorous, she’s incredibly selfish. She uses men, has no respect for other people’s husbands, and she hated that I chose Ted over her years ago. Like it was some sort of competition.” Heddy stayed quiet, considering what Jean-Rose had said about men earlier, that they were rarely interesting. So why marry one at all? Isn’t that what Gigi had asked?

  At that, a car pulled into the driveway. A fancy-looking station wagon, puttering. Susanne. Tall, statuesque, with short blond hair. She was all legs and golden-faced, due to an abundance of face bronzer. Jean-Rose sauntered to the car, embracing her. “We were just talking about you.” Jean-Rose whispered something in Susanne’s ear. The pair glanced at Heddy, trading more whispers. Heddy waved, feeling them studying her.

  “Hi.” Susanne waved.

  They settled on to the porch, Ruth greeting them with fresh glasses of lemonade.

  Susanne’s voice sounded like she was perpetually stuffed up. “It’s in the gossip columns. You didn’t see it?”

  Jean-Rose rocked in the rocker. “Why would the president pass off a whore like Marilyn Monroe to his brother? It’s disgusting.”

  “Because he’s gorgeous. He can do what he wants.”

  “He can do what he wants with me.” Jean-Rose cackled.

  They toasted.

  “And there’s something else,” Susanne’s voice lowered, but Heddy could still hear. “It’s about Edison Mule. He was seen kissing someone by the boathouse, and not his wife.” Susanne looked alight, like she knew the words about to tumble off her tongue were electric. “And from what’s going around, it seems it was a man.”

  Jean-Rose coughed out her lemonade. “Stoppit.”

  Susanne shook her head with pride, pleased she’d gotten such a rise. “No one at the luncheon knew who the other guy was. Only Edison came back into the club. But poor Julia. She must be beside herself.”

  Jean-Rose cleared her throat. “What luncheon?”

  Susanne looked apologetic. “It was nothing. Just a few girls eating tea sandwiches at Gigi’s house.”

  Jean-Rose rocked in the chair, ticking back and forth, with the steady beat of a metronome. “What girls?”

  “Me, Alice, Sabrina, and Katherine.”

  “That sounds like my closest friends.”

  “I thought you hated Katherine. Anyway, Gigi is ridiculous. I went out of curiosity.”

  * * *

  Later, after darkness spread through the island, Sullivan called—he’d clearly been nudged along, but that didn’t matter to Heddy. He asked if he could pick her up for breakfast at ten the following morning. She agreed, and as she searched for something else to say to him on the line, she knew she’d wear the shift dress with the daisies that Jean-Rose had given her.

  “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “I promise I won’t take you on any spinning rides.” He cleared his throat.

  A nervous laugh slipped out of her. “You better not drive fast, either, especially around the bends.”

  His voice turned playful. “Then I better go cancel the boat rental.”

  “And you can forget the carousel.” She smiled. This is going to be interesting.

  THIRTEEN

  Deep into an indigo night, Heddy startled awake. A loud crash, a rattle of a lamp, then moaning. She sat up in bed, rubbed her eyes. From the downstairs landing came Ted’s voice. It was sharp.

  “Where were you?”

  “What do you care?” It was Jean-Rose’s two-drinks voice: a little slurred, but pulled together enough she couldn’t be called drunk.

  “I was ready to call the police,” Ted said.

  “Who else are you going to call? Your man friend?”

  Heddy heard a struggle, a thud—a body falling against a wall on the landing outside their bedroom door. She swung her feet over the side of the bed, ready to jump down.

  “Don’t touch me, you pervert.” Another smash, a picture frame perhaps, and then the agonizing sound of Jean-Rose’s tears. Heddy tiptoed out of her room.

  “You smell like cologne,” Ted growled. He must have heard Heddy’s footsteps because he yelled up to her: “Go back to bed. I’ve got her under control.”

  It was an order, and Heddy returned to her room, laying her head down. Is he going to hurt her? But the noises quieted, and at some point, she drifted off to sleep.

  Jean-Rose wasn’t at breakfast. Heddy wondered how long she should wait before she went to check on her. Teddy stabbed his eggs with a fork. They still hadn’t uncovered Miss Pinkie.

  She drove the kids to camp, staring at Jean-Rose’s bedroom windows as they pulled out of the driveway, glimpsing a twitch in the curtain. Upon her return, she gave Ted, who was in the garage, a cursory wave and tiptoed past her boss’s door, listening for any sign that she was okay. After a few minutes, there was a slight creak of the bed, just enough that Heddy knew the woman was alive. Then the door opened. Startled, Heddy rushed into Anna’s bedroom. But it was Ruth who emerged.

  “What went on here last night?” Ruth whispered.

  “She was out late, and Ted got angry. They woke me up.”

  Ruth curdled her lip. “It stinks like vodka in there.”

  Heddy hesitated, uncertain if she should tell Ruth what happened. She stared at a painting of a sailboat gliding in calm seas. “There was a scuffle. It got physical.”

  Ruth shushed her, taking Heddy’s hand and pulling her downstairs to the kitchen, smelling of the morning’s eggs. “He’s not the kind of man who would
hurt a woman.”

  “Did Jean-Rose look okay?” She hoped Ted hadn’t left a mark. A black eye.

  “Mouth open, drool coming out, snoring. I’ve seen worse.” Ruth patted Heddy on the back. “She’s fine. Why are you so pretty?”

  “Sullivan’s on his way.” Heddy glanced out the window to see a small blue Aston Martin pull up the drive. “Actually, he’s early.”

  “Well, Sleeping Beauty will be just fine.”

  Outside, Heddy slipped past the open garage door, avoiding Ted. She couldn’t face him, not after last night; even if he hadn’t hit Jean-Rose, he’d been rough with her. She’d heard a body slam into the wall.

  The sky was overcast as she ducked into Sullivan’s car, grinning hello and nervously running her hand along the supple tan leather seats. His cheeks dimpled.

  “Where are we going?” she said, trying not to look at the bundled bunch of carnations on the seat. She thought of the wilted wrist corsage her prom date had gotten her for the dance, how all she’d wanted was a crisp white carnation.

  He backed out of the driveway, lifting a hand to Ted. “It’s a bit of a dive.”

  All that money, and he’s taking me to a dive? “As long as they have Bloody Marys, I’m good.” She’d need a virgin today, though, since she had to fetch the kids.

  He smiled sideways, tapping his fingers on the wheel. “Those are for you.”

  She reached for the flowers, inhaled. “They’re beautiful. Thank you.”

  They were quiet for a moment, and Heddy laid the flowers on her lap. She supposed Jean-Rose and Ted went out on a first, then a second date; her mother must have gone out with her father on a couple, too. The first few dates were always ripe with possibility. But at what point did cracks emerge in these men who seemed so good on paper?

  That morning, Heddy had scribbled in her journal: Jean-Rose is powerful among the women she knows because of her link to Ted, but if Ted is this cruel, and if this has happened before, and she endures this cruelty to hold on to her social standing, then she may be the weakest person I know. It’s incredibly sad, and I judge her for staying, but I also understand. Maybe she’s scared? The cynic in me believes she puts up with it because Ted makes her feel strong on the outside, even if he’s shattering her on the inside.

  Sullivan broke the quiet. “We’re going to a place called Navy Sea. It’s at an airfield hangar near Katama Beach,” he said.

  With airplanes? She turned on the radio, fiddling with the dial. “Never heard of it.”

  “Don’t worry—we’re not flying anywhere. But there are some cool cats down here—you got to hear the voice of this summer girl, Carly Simon. Man, this girl can sing, and she’s only seventeen. We’ll come back for folk night.”

  “Folk night?”

  “You know, folk music. Pete Seeger, Joan Baez…”

  “Protest songs?”

  “Some of it is, but Carly’s isn’t.”

  He parked the sports car along a dirt road, a hand-painted wooden sign with an arrow pointed toward the horizon, reading NAVY SEA. Sullivan ran his hand along his hair. “I always leave my shoes in the car.”

  Heddy, surprised, kicked off her flats; they didn’t match her clutch anyway. “I’m game.” She was intrigued, more than intrigued. “What is this place?”

  “It’s neat. Come on.”

  Sunglasses pushed atop their heads, they walked along a field with biplanes parked in rows. One of the small planes sputtered to life, spitting out fumes, a propeller spinning, and Sullivan waved to the pilot in the open-air two-seater.

  “A buddy opened this place last summer, on the property of a friend. It’s far-out in a way nothing else on the island is. Your boss wouldn’t be caught dead here.”

  “She’s not that bad,” Heddy said.

  “They’re all that bad.” He cleared his throat. “Sorry, that was rude.”

  “Are you talking about your parents?”

  The plane taxied to the runway, nothing but a stretch of dry, yellow grass. The pilot positioned goggles on his eyes.

  “Them and everyone else I’ve ever known,” he hollered.

  “My mom told me you should never forget your people—you take care of them. They take care of you. It’s who you are.”

  He swatted away a mosquito. “Well, it’s not who I want to be.” The plane bumped over the meadow, soaring into the sky in the direction of the ocean.

  She wanted to say tough luck; it must be so hard to be filthy rich and have a plum job waiting for him after college. She wanted to tell him he shouldn’t blow off his people when said people could pay your college tuition ten times over. When said family gave him options. Instead, she rubbed his arm.

  “I think every person you meet has something they can teach you, whether it’s good or bad.”

  He nodded. “Well, people don’t inspire me, but jazz does.”

  She remembered the musical notes on his dog’s collar. “I thought you were a scientist.”

  “I am. But I play sax a bit, too. My uncle taught me. My mother hates it when I play, so I play all the time.”

  Seemed childish to Heddy. “Where do you play?”

  “Here.”

  “On the beach?”

  “No, at Navy Sea,” he said.

  He turned to face a barn with two large sliding doors and chipping paint, open to the grassy meadow. The wood trim had been painted a jewel-like aquamarine, and on the patio stood a crowd of mirrored tables, mismatching turquoise chairs around them. It was early, but still, clusters of people had gathered for breakfast, all young, barefoot, since their shoes were tossed in a basket at the front door. A girl with long hair pulled in a loose ponytail waved, the guy next to her calling out to them, but Sullivan pulled Heddy to a quiet table.

  “I want us to be able to talk.” He put his hands on the tabletop, then on his lap, then back on the table. “So what do you think?”

  Heddy glanced around. “I’m impressed. Why did you call it a dive?”

  His dimpled cheeks flushing when he looked at her. “Some girls might see it that way.”

  She glanced at the menu. “Eggs with goat’s cheese? How did they get a kitchen in there?”

  “My friend went to cooking school, but he turned down a gig at the Plaza to open this place. He’s so real.”

  Again, Heddy had to hold her tongue. She wanted to say that his friend could turn down a gig at the Plaza because he had a father who could write him a check to open this restaurant. That he could afford to fail. But she couldn’t say that without sounding bitter, so she glanced at the swinging kitchen door. “He sounds well set up.”

  Sullivan’s leg started to bounce. “Mother would flip if I pulled a stunt like that.”

  “I can’t imagine not wanting to work at the paper.” She wouldn’t pretend not to know.

  But he shook his head, like she didn’t get it. A seagull glided overhead, and it made her feel something closer to tenderness for him: freedom was all he wanted, right? She was being harsh.

  “She’d take away your dreams like that?”

  He tilted his chin up, smiling again. “I want to work at NASA. Help get rockets in the air. It’s the future, Heddy. Someday we’ll all take weekend trips to the moon. It seems out of reach, but it’s not.” She put her hand on top of his, steadying his tapping fingers against the table. He flipped up his palm and squeezed hers; she hadn’t expected his boldness and darted her eyes away.

  “Sorry,” he said, letting go.

  “No, I liked it,” she said, offering him her hand.

  He blushed, taking it. She wondered then what it would be like to kiss him.

  A waiter came over, slapping Sullivan on the back. “Your set the other night, man. Like silk.”

  Sullivan’s lip curled up.

  “That song your own?”

  Sullivan’s eyes twinkled. “I merely play other people’s brilliance.”

  The waiter hummed, closed his eyes. “That moody number, where the notes went up and down.
Couldn’t get it out of my head.”

  Sullivan was a surprise, this boy with the tortoise-rimmed glasses. When the waiter left, Heddy leaned toward him.

  “ ‘Like silk’? Who are you?” She was laughing.

  “Did you think I only knew how to fly a kite?”

  “You’re surprising me, that’s all.”

  The owners had hung rectangular chalkboards on the walls, and Heddy’s eyes were drawn to the aluminum can filled with chalk at the center of their table—at the center of every table. Someone had written: “Free Dr. King!” Another had drawn a large dragon blowing fire at the White House.

  Heddy handed him a piece of chalk. “Draw with me?”

  He held the chalk to the board. “I have a dreadful hand.”

  “What does it matter? Draw a saxophone.”

  She found a bare patch of wall and leaned down. Her hand began sketching rows of books in a library, a girl sitting at the center on the floor, reading. She wrote titles on a few of the bindings: Jane Austen, Doris Lessing. She couldn’t see what Sullivan was drawing, he seemed to be hiding it, but he turned when he heard her stop.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “It’s me, reading. I’m a bookworm.” She watched his eyes take in the titles.

  “Doris Lessing? You one of those man-hating types?”

  She gave him a double take. “No, I—”

  The color must have drained from her face because he laughed.

  “I’m joking. I believe in that stuff, too. My mother made me read that report, the one about how badly women are treated at work. She forced Dad to put in paid maternity leave at the paper. We’re one of the first.”

  Heddy blinked. “Some boys don’t think like you.”

  He shrugged. “Mother is friends with a columnist at the paper—she’s working on something, a book about the misery of women, housewives. Keep an eye out for it. Mother says she’s the next Lessing.”

  She caught herself staring at him, her thoughts full of wonder. She wanted to share something then, something from home, so she circled her drawing with the chalk. “This is my favorite bookshop. It’s in New York. Rodman’s.”