Summer Darlings Read online

  Love,

  Heddy

  SIXTEEN

  “Why does everyone look the same?” Ruth smirked, tilting her head toward the women at the next table. Navy Sea was thick with tanned slender wrists, the women long-haired and glossy, wearing either collared shirts in various colors tied above the navel, or black sleeveless sundresses with thick liner rimming their eyes.

  They’d waited all week for their Friday night off, and now that it was finally here, Heddy felt anxious about seeing Sullivan. Heddy yelled over the voices, “It makes me want to get a short, black dress.” In her sweater set, she was feeling square, but, thank God, her hair was chic.

  Onstage, the guitarist broke down his set. “Is he next?” Ruth asked.

  Heddy glanced at her watch. Timex. From the five-and-dime. “He said ten. It’s about that.”

  Closer to the stage, Heddy caught the eye of a redhead, her prim hair falling at her shoulders, parted to the side with a barrette. Someone patted the microphone, and for a second, Heddy thought it was Sullivan. Scanning the crowd for a sign of him, she caught eyes with the redheaded girl, who erupted into laughter with her girlfriends, all of them looking at Heddy.

  “Ruth, do you know them?” Heddy hollered. “The ones up front at the corner table?”

  “The girl with the headband?”

  “The one next to her, with the red hair.”

  Ruth shrugged. “The carrottop Sandra Dee? Nope.”

  “They keep looking at me, and I don’t think kindly.”

  A man’s voice blared into the microphone. Sullivan had walked onstage, sitting on a stool, his Yankees cap pulled low so the audience could barely see his eyes, stubble where he hadn’t shaved. He tapped his foot against the footrest, his chin tilted downward, his hands gripping the bottom of his saxophone, shiny in the overhead lights. He wouldn’t look at the crowd. Heddy felt a rush of excitement; she glanced back at the redheaded girl and smiled when their eyes met, but the girl glowered, her lip curling in disgust. Heddy’s smile dropped.

  “We’re thrilled he’s back tonight. The Vineyard’s own Sullivan Rhodes. Take it away, Sully.”

  As Sullivan raised the reed to his lips, he caught sight of Heddy. She shot her hand up to wave, beaming, and he let the corners of his mouth turn up around the instrument. He inhaled, and when the sound came out, it was bluesy and smooth, a butter knife spreading frosting across a cake, her hand running along a satin sheet.

  “He’s dark,” Ruth whispered.

  It was true. You could feel the sorrow in his song, the soulfulness, too. She imagined him as a child, sitting in his uncle’s cramped Brooklyn apartment, learning to play the sax. How it filled him with something that Heddy would never understand. How he’d get home to Manhattan and find his mother, hands on hips, forbidding him to play that nonsense. Who could ban music this penetrating?

  Then came the rat-a-tat-tat of a drumstick tapping on cymbals, and Sullivan’s sax picked up tempo, spinning around the drumming, gleefully, like she was back on the Tilt with him, the sound out of control. Heddy fluttered her eyes open, and Ruth tapped her hand on her highball glass. A few people cheered.

  “That’s it, Sully,” someone yelled.

  Sullivan knocked off his hat, his hair damp with sweat. He tapped his foot, his horn frantic and possessed, a quickened beat that made everyone want to move.

  “We have one Charlie Parker record, and I play it on repeat for my mom.” Ruth began dancing. Soon Heddy was on her feet, the other patrons, too. Heddy slithered her hips, a desire to get all her excitement from the inside out.

  “He’s good,” Ruth said when they collapsed back into their seats, lighting a cigarette, her cheeks flush. But they were up again dancing with the next song. When he finished the set, Sullivan left the sax onstage.

  Heddy lunged at the stage, wanting to give him a hug. “How did you learn to play that way?” The waiter brought Sullivan a glass of water. He reached for it and dumped it over his head, then took off his glasses, grinning.

  “The lights are so hot up there,” he said.

  Heddy pointed to Ruth, who reached out her hand. “You remember Ruth.” Sullivan shook his hand dry, then shook hers.

  “That was Charlie Parker, right?” Ruth asked.

  “Started that way. Then I went somewhere else.” He dried his glasses with his shirt, pushed them on.

  “You have to tour the country,” Heddy said. “Make an album.”

  He looked drunk on adrenaline. “You think?”

  “I should be listening to that on the radio. Didn’t you see me dancing?”

  Sullivan brushed back his wet hair, slicking it. “I wish everyone heard me like you do.”

  Heddy wondered if he was going to make the rounds, chatting and thanking his friends for coming. “If you have other people you need to talk to…”

  But he sat down at their table, his eyes intent on her. “What have you been up to?”

  “I looked for you at the Clamshell yesterday,” she said. “I was picking up oysters.”

  “I was at the ballfield,” he said. He looked around the club, waving to someone in the distance. “Can you believe how many people came?”

  A couple of guys smacked Sullivan on the back, and he introduced the one holding a guitar as a Shaw, one of the long-time families on the island. He was opening a coffee shop in Oak Bluffs next summer, the Mooncusser, after a thief who lures boats into the rocks to steal its booty. “We need a home for folk music on the island. There’s this singer, Bob Dylan, playing in Greenwich Village. I’m trying to book him. Hey, Ruth Jennings, is that you?”

  Ruth smiled politely, saying hello, but the guy continued to rattle on, and when the conversation turned, Ruth whispered to Heddy. “He and I went to high school together,” she said. “I had a mad crush—he used to call me Red Butler.”

  “What happened?” Heddy said.

  “He’s in a different league: the father is this out-there artist with a big inheritance, driving his Mercedes around the island barefoot even in winter.” Ruth crossed her arms and went back to chatting about the set, asking what Sullivan would play next. He bought them a second round of drinks.

  They’d settled into a quiet conversation, just Sullivan and Heddy, when he pushed back out of his woven chair, the back banging into someone else’s. “Peg, hi.”

  It was the girl with the shoulder-length red hair, her barrette sparkling with a row of tiny diamonds. “Your mother told me you were playing.” She glanced at Heddy. “Are you going to introduce me?”

  “This is He-He-Heddy,” he stuttered.

  Peg pointed at Heddy’s hair. “Did you cut it while studying in Paris?”

  Ruth guffawed, a little too loud.

  Heddy ran her fingers by her neck, swelling with pride. “A friend did it.”

  Peg covered her mouth, laughing, her tone turning condescending. “Well, obviously. It’s shorter on one side.” Heddy felt the tiniest muscles in her lips spasm.

  “You’re being rude.” Sullivan kicked the table leg, and Heddy caught her drink to keep it from spilling.

  “And you’re being ridiculous.” Peg leaned into Sullivan, fingering his collar and folding it into place. “Stop slumming with the babysitter, Sully. I’m not going to wait forever.” Sullivan pulled away, turning her eyes to coal, dark with anger.

  Ruth put her hands on her hips. “I suggest you apologize for calling her hair crooked.”

  “I think we know who cut it,” Peg said, looking to get a laugh from Sullivan, but he struck a match, lighting a cigarette and glaring at her.

  “I’m sorry,” Sullivan said to Heddy. “You need to go, Peg. I didn’t ask you here tonight.”

  Peg looked Ruth up and down, settling her gaze on her scuffed flats. “Everything will be set right soon enough.”

  Sullivan faced Heddy as Peg strode off. “It’s not what it seems. She’s… It’s Mother.” Heddy sat and folded her hands in her lap, or she might have smacked him.

  “
She said you were slumming. Is that what I am to you? A second-rate girl?”

  Sullivan’s eyes were all over the place; he puffed on his cigarette. “She’s a spoiled brat, that’s all. I invited you here, not her.”

  Peg stood in the opposite corner of Navy Sea, cast in amber light, a trio of girls with shiny hair and pressed blouses gossiping. Peg lit a cigarette and mouthed to Heddy: “Slumming.”

  When the announcer called Sullivan back onto the stage, Heddy stomped toward the exit. She couldn’t stay a moment longer. She’d been trying to fake her way into Sullivan’s world, and look where it got her: utterly humiliated.

  Ruth chased her through the airfield, grabbed her by the shoulders by a red airplane. “Stop. I can’t run anymore.”

  Heddy stumbled. She could hear applause from the club, the blaring of the horn as Sullivan took the stage.

  “What the hell was that about?” Ruth asked.

  “These people. I don’t get them. They act so classy but say such cruel things.” Heddy folded her arms around her knees, dropped her head in the space between.

  “I know it.” Ruth tried to catch her breath. “Anyway, you’re going back to school, and you’ll never see them again.”

  Heddy buried her head deeper into her knees. “Ruth?”

  “What is it?”

  The heat of her breath was suffocating, burning her nostrils, and still, Heddy kept her head down. “I’m not going back to school.”

  “Of course you are.”

  Heddy lifted her eyes. “No, I… I lost my scholarship. Sullivan is, in fact, slumming.”

  “Cripes.” Ruth dropped down beside her.

  The saxophone was moody and sad, a loneliness pervading every note as it drifted over the parked, unmoving airplanes, silhouetted in the darkness. Heddy thought of Peg, her prim hair and wicked laugh.

  “I thought this would be a perfect summer, you know,” Heddy wiped her eyes. “That feeling, like I was running for a train that I couldn’t catch, would go away. But…”

  “But the train pulled away from the station without you.” Ruth put an arm around Heddy’s back. “Hey, listen. There’s always another train.”

  “I know, but… I don’t think I’m getting a do-over.” Heddy wiped her nose.

  Ruth laughed, then laughed some more, cackling so hard she couldn’t breathe, waving her hand about her face. Heddy didn’t think it was too funny.

  “Sorry, but she’s right.”

  “Who?” Heddy said.

  “The redhead. I see it. There’s one spot by your ear that’s longer.”

  Heddy felt for it, and there it was, one lock that she’d never noticed. “She was really staring, like I’m some threat.” Heddy’s chest seized, and she hiccupped with laughter.

  Ruth slapped her thigh. “That crazy girl probably hired a detective to snuff you out. Did you see how she talked to him like a baby?”

  Heddy imitated Peg’s childish-sounding voice. “I wear Jean Naté perfume. Does that count for getting a haircut in Paris?”

  “If she knew we bought our body spray at the five-and-dime. Oh, the shame!” Ruth put the back of her wrist to her forehead, like she might faint.

  That put Heddy over the edge and made everything seem funny the rest of the way home.

  The moon was full when she and Ruth, who was sleeping over, pulled up to the house. The two women climbed onto the porch, closing the side door in silence, careful not to step on the squeaky floorboards near the kitchen sink. They were whispering in the dark about ice cream, how they’d take a tub of vanilla and two spoons upstairs. One of them tripped on the rubber mat, making the other muffle her laughter.

  The light flicked on, and they stared at the doorway, where Ted stood. His eyes looked black and opaque, unsettling. “Isn’t it a little late?”

  “It’s before curfew,” Heddy said. First, Peg. Now, Ted. It was maddening.

  Ruth stood straight, attempting to hide her anxiety. “Can we get you anything?”

  Ted ran his fingers through his hair, his lip turning down with irritation. “Don’t wait up,” he said, grabbing the car keys off the hook. He pushed past Ruth, gripping his small black camera bag.

  The screen door slammed shut, and Heddy released her back from the refrigerator, where the cold metal handle had been jamming into her vertebrae.

  “Do you hear something?” Ruth asked. She wandered into the living room, her ear cocked to the second floor.

  They climbed the steps, and there she was: Jean-Rose in a sleeveless satin nightgown, lying in the fetal position on the thick green rug.

  Ruth ran to her. “Let us help you to bed.”

  Heddy scanned her boss’s body for blood, contusions, anything that might show Ted had hurt her—like the small cut on her temple. “I’ll make you chamomile tea and get you some biscuits.”

  “Put it on her favorite cabbage-flower saucer,” Ruth instructed.

  Jean-Rose’s blank face contorted, her eye makeup mudsliding. “You think this can be fixed with a cup of tea? That I can undo this night—this life—with a plate of cookies? You stupid girls.” She crawled into her bedroom, her nightgown clinging to the rug with static, using her bare foot to kick the door shut.

  If the children were awake, they didn’t get out of bed. Heddy pulled at the loops in the carpet, staring at Jean-Rose’s white-painted door, the bronze doorplate with its jagged keyhole. On the other side, fists banged on the floor, and Heddy started to cry. Bang-bang-bang, like a wild animal in pain; she was certain Jean-Rose’s hand was bruised.

  “Did you see the cut on her head?” Ruth whispered.

  “Should we call the police?”

  Ruth shook her head, a deer in headlights. “And say what, that our boss had a fight with her husband?”

  “Well, no, but…” Bang-bang-bang.

  Finally, it stopped. Ruth pulled Heddy up.

  “I hate him,” Heddy said. “I don’t think I’ve hated anyone more.”

  SEVENTEEN

  Jean-Rose got up early on Saturday morning to play in a tennis tournament at the club—she’d come downstairs in a white tennis shirt with a matching headband positioned over her temple. She sipped her coffee at the back door in silence, watching the children poke at a spider. Heddy held up the pink-wrapped present she’d gotten Jean-Rose.

  “I got you a little something for being so good to me,” she said. It wasn’t expensive, but she hoped it would bring some cheer.

  Jean-Rose smiled miles of sadness as she opened it. “How nice, thank you, Heddy,” she said, tossing the perfume on the counter. “The clambake is in three weeks, Ruth. We should start preparing. The Clamshell will do the clams, but we’ll need to make a list for…”

  Ruth nodded. “Of course, Jean-Rose.”

  The small perfume vial had cracked, the scent pooling on the Formica, and Heddy ended up throwing it out. She felt Ruth’s hand on her back by the trash can and heard her whisper: “She’s still upset from last night.”

  Ted shuffled into the kitchen for coffee, his hair disheveled and his skin reeking of stale cigarettes, and Jean-Rose breezed out. “Morning,” he said, and when she didn’t answer, he shook his head.

  “What has her knickers in a twist?” He took his coffee from Ruth, adding an extra spoonful of sugar. “Must be her time.” He snorted, and Heddy and Ruth chuckled, as good domestic help did. Heddy hoped he’d go straight to his office. But when she turned back from the fridge, he was still at the table.

  “Were you taking night photographs?” she asked. Addressing him felt confrontational, even if what she said was benign.

  He stared at the spot between her eyebrows. “Photographs?”

  “The bag you brought with you last night. Your camera?”

  “Oh, I was returning it to a friend.”

  Nearby, Ruth chopped strawberries for a pie on the counter, exchanging a wary glance at Heddy. Ted opened the paper to Sports, and Heddy stared at his hands: smooth around the knuckles, his fingernails neatly tr
immed, a gold band positioned on his ring finger. No scratches. Not a bruise.

  “Can I help you with something, Heddy?” He glowered. “Jesus, I need a shower.”

  Heddy rushed outside, calling to the children, wanting to get as far from the house as possible. She’d take them to Katama Beach and she’d make up a story about Teddy begging for more lessons if Ash were there.

  Even as they walked from the parking lot, she spied Ash, carrying his surfboard, a woman in a skimpy bikini emerging from the waves beside him. As she got closer, she realized the scantily clad woman was Jean-Rose’s friend Susanne. Heddy wondered if she knew about Ted’s tendencies toward violence, but she must not or she’d surely be comforting Jean-Rose this morning.

  The beach was wide-open, less crowded thanks to the cloudy skies; still, she arranged her blanket near Ash’s.

  “Nice to see you, kitty kit,” he said, drying his face with a towel.

  Susanne cocked her head with interest, and Heddy felt herself being studied. “You here for a lesson, too—kitty kit?” She twisted her hair to wring it out.

  Heddy’s words came out warbled, like she had a mouth full of marbles. “The kids were begging to come to the ocean. Teddy wants another chance on the board.”

  Susanne folded her arms. “I thought Jean-Rose decided it was too dangerous.”

  Heddy’s lip twitched; she had said that, not that it was Susanne’s business. “Not in the water, on the sand.”

  “Hmph.” Susanne wrapped herself in a terry cover-up, looking Heddy up and down, settling her eyes on the black bathing suit she was wearing; the spaghetti straps lined with tiny delicate pearls. “I remember when Jean-Rose wore that bathing suit. Gosh, four or five years ago now. How time flies!”

  “She was kind to lend it to me.” Heddy glanced at Ash, who pretended not to hear. She’d rather he didn’t know that her bathing suit was borrowed. Heddy popped a piece of gum from the beach bag, fussing with the blanket to wriggle out of the humiliation.

  Susanne tossed her wet towel at Heddy, who caught it and found herself folding it. “She takes good care of her help, wouldn’t you say, Ash?”