Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
T he Garlands’ sometimes-employee Roger agreed to take over the nightshifts at The Rooster for the remainder of Rowan’s documentary. It meant Alex had to get accustomed to an entirely different way of life for the first time in years. It meant he had to wake up with the sun and go to bed at a decent hour. It meant he would experience traffic, busy grocery stores, and buzzing beaches filled with tourists. Maybe it means I’ll make peace with the world. Perhaps it means the world will take me back into its arms. Alex chuckled at himself and shook the thought out. It was unlikely.
It was a week since Alex had begun work with Rowan and more than two weeks since Rowan’s minor surgery. Rowan was stronger and healthier every day; his California glow was returning. With Alex at his side, Rowan had built a potential storyboard, talked about Nantucket locations for filming, and discussed strategies to guide Victor Sutton through an interview that would give Rowan exactly what he’d come to Nantucket for.
“I have to remember that the documentary has to remain through the lens of me,” Rowan said on the veranda of his rental. Zane scampered back and forth on the beach with their yelping dog. “Victor is just a tool for the viewer to understand the dynamic of the typical American family. He’s just a tool to understand me, Nadine, and Zane better. And I think the surgery is important to the story. Especially because Bethany Sutton was the one to perform it.” Rowan snapped his fingers. “It’s all coming together.”
Alex’s dream had been to make fictional films to make better sense of the world around him, not capitalize on other people’s pain and stories to understand his own, as Rowan was doing. But Rowan was offering him a leg-up. He’d already suggested returning to Los Angeles together, where he could introduce him to the right people and get him back on track. “You’re what? Thirty-eight?”
“Forty,” Alex reminded him.
“It’s not too late to do everything you always wanted to,” Rowan reminded him. “Forty is the new twenty-five.”
Alex wanted to scoff at that, but instead, he sipped his drink and watched Zane and his dog dig through the sand.
The next afternoon was set for their first interview with Victor Sutton. Alex pulsated with adrenaline and fear. It had been a long time since he’d seen Victor Sutton in the flesh. He knew he was around Nantucket. Victor had returned with Rebecca in May and lurked at the local bars and restaurants. He was often at the Sutton Book Club. But Alex had conveniently been locked away at The Rooster most nights and sleeping in his cabin during the day. Victor Sutton had practically been living on another planet. Until now.
That afternoon, Alex gathered his film equipment and drove his truck out to Madequecham Beach on the southernmost side of the island, where the waves thrashed violently, and surfers awaited healthy waters.
“I’m envisioning us walking along the water,” Rowan explained when they met up, “and talking about life. You can walk up behind us and keep track of us. We’ll microphone him when he gets here.”
Alex didn’t say anything to illustrate he’d heard. He knew his way around a video camera and a microphone. He’d been doing this longer than Rowan had, for crying out loud.
They waited for ten minutes for Victor to arrive. Rowan spoke on the phone to his producer for seven anxious minutes, some of which illustrated Rowan as a very angry and materialistic man. Alex wondered if he would have turned out like Rowan if he hadn’t escaped California. Maybe everyone out there was doomed to become like this. Maybe Valerie is like this now.
Alex tried to remember the last time he’d seen Victor Sutton. He remembered him at Joel’s funeral in his clean-cut navy-blue suit. Alex had always revered him for his stoicism and anger growing up. He’d always been the first to yell at Joel if he made a mistake in a baseball game. But at the funeral, Mr. Victor Sutton had let himself cry. That had destroyed Alex. It was the moment he realized that Joel was gone and not coming back. If Victor Sutton can break, what does that mean for the rest of us? he’d thought.
Would Victor recognize Alex immediately? Alex guessed not. He was forty years old. He looked nothing like his mother or father or his ten-year-old self. He was a stranger.
Victor pulled up and parked between Rowan and Alex. Alex’s heart pounded like drums in his ears. Victor stepped out, bringing a cloud of expensive cologne, and slid his hand into Rowan’s to shake it. He was in his late sixties but still sturdy in the shoulders. He was tan and wore no glasses. He wore no wedding ring on his left hand. Alex remembered that he and Bree got divorced.
“My man, good to see you again,” Rowan said. His voice was gravelly and sure of itself. It was the voice he used when he wanted to seem closer to someone than he was.
“This is my assistant, Alex,” Rowan said. “He’s going to follow us around for a while. Hope that’s okay?”
Victor nodded at Alex. Nothing in his eyes indicated he recognized him at all. “Good to meet you.”
You taught me how to hit a baseball. You fed me macaroni and cheese. You taught me that even strong men can cry.
Alex adjusted his camera, stabilizing it so that it didn’t shake too violently as he followed them. Rowan and Victor were having a brief chat about Nantucket tourism.
“It’ll be September in just a few weeks,” Victor was saying, “which means the tourists are mostly on their way out. You wouldn’t be able to guess that now, though.”
Alex turned on his camera. Sometimes random conversations like this generated good backstory for documentary characters. Sometimes you got something that surprised you.
“But this is your first summer back in quite some time, no?” Rowan asked.
Victor’s smile showed too many of his teeth. “You’re going to just dive right in, huh?”
Rowan rubbed his palms and flashed his eyes back to the camera. “Alex is already on it.”
Victor looked momentarily displeased, as though he regretted agreeing to this. He rubbed his face.
“It’s my first summer back. Yes,” Victor said finally.
Rowan cocked his head. “But you were raised here.”
“Born and raised.” Victor cleared his throat. “And I raised my family here, too.”
Rowan took a small step along the beach, meaning he wanted to guide Victor and Alex along the shore. Alex walked delicately, grateful for the stabilizing device that kept the frame clean. Even though he didn’t fully believe in Rowan’s project (and felt terribly awkward now that Victor Sutton was involved), he still wanted to do a good job.
“Tell me,” Rowan asked, “what does Nantucket look like to you now? Do you still feel like a local?”
Victor walked alongside Rowan and clasped his hands behind his back. Alex zoomed in on his hands, noting how powerfully they clenched one another. Fear. Guilt.
“Nantucket is heaven on earth,” Victor said quietly, “for those who haven’t experienced hell here.”
Rowan splayed his hand across his chest. “Well said.”
“Didn’t you just have a medical incident a week or so back?”
“A little more than two weeks ago,” Rowan announced proudly. “A genetic defect the doctors never caught. Your daughter managed to fix me up without opening me up.”
Victor beamed. “She was always my brilliant one. Our brainiac.”
“And what about your other daughters?” Rowan asked.
Alex couldn’t breathe. He felt as though someone wrapped their hand around his neck and squeezed. Valerie, who sometimes talked in her sleep. Valerie, who sometimes told him she loved him more than she understood how. Valerie, who often told him she hated everything except their love.
“My daughters are all home right now,” Victor announced as though that were proof that he’d done a good job and always had. “My ex-wife Esme and I have done our best to gather our dear ones close and attempt to make amends for everything that happened before.” He grimaced. “I don’t want to get into all of that now. If you don’t mind?”
Rowan smiled. “There’s time, Victor. There’s so much time.” And then he added, “You must have done something right along the way to have all three of your daughters home.”
“All under one roof,” Victor said. “It’s the same house we raised them in. Two of them, Bethany and Rebecca, have children of their own. Six grandchildren! Can you imagine? I didn’t even know them until recently. I wasn’t allowed to know them.” His face was heavy with shadows. “It’s not that I blame them for keeping me out.”
“Are you saying you would have done the same?” Rowan asked.
Victor contemplated this. “It’s a question of forgiveness. Who deserves it? And when?”
The camera shook in Alex’s hands, and Alex stalled and stabilized himself. He couldn’t let his emotions get in the way.
“You mentioned that that’s a central theme in your memoir,” Rowan said. “Would you mind digging into that a little more?”
Victor stalled at the base of a surging sand dune and gazed out across the water. A wave bucked up and crashed down into its white froth.
“Writing the memoir is the only way I can make any sense of this,” Victor said quietly. “It’s the only way I can carry all the events of my life and see them for what they really were.”
“Forgive me for asking, but are you also finding a way to forgive yourself through this writing process?” Rowan asked.
Victor’s eyes were illuminated. The sun was far too bright. Sweat billowed and dropped down Alex’s forehead and stung his eyes.
“That’s a wonderful way to put it,” Victor said.
What happened next was outside of Alex’s control. It was a result of years of loving Valerie and years of hating Victor for what he’d done and what he’d left behind.
But suddenly, Alex heard himself blurt, “What makes you think you’re deserving of your forgiveness? What makes you think you should be in the clear?” His tone was harsh and dark.
Rowan spun and glared at Alex with a mix of surprise and intrigue. Victor’s cheeks were drained of color.
Alex considered apologizing. But his breathing was rapid, and his thoughts were screaming, and he could do nothing but glare across the camera at Victor Sutton. Did you know Valerie used to cry at night about you? he imagined saying. She used to go to therapy to try to make sense of what you did. You lost your son, and you threw everyone else away.
But suddenly, the sound of a scream came from the surging waves. A real scream—not just one fabricated from the horrors of Alex’s mind. Alex, Victor, and Rowan spun in the sand to watch as a swimmer flailed and cried out. But then he was plunged into the waves, searching for a way to the surface.
When Alex had first gone to California, he’d worked every odd job imaginable to pay rent. Dishwasher. Server. Valet driver. Ticket taker at a cinema. And lifeguard. Alex had monitored his local pool for the better part of three summers and even saved four people’s lives. It turned out his instincts were still kicking. In a flash, he shoved the camera into Rowan’s arms and sprinted for the water's edge. It wasn’t till he got his shirt off that he remembered this was how Blue Days started—with a drowning.
Alex took a deep breath and dove into the waves in just his underwear. He could feel the waves charging up and over him as he slipped under. His muscles were still powerful, sure of themselves, even though all he’d done the past few years was calisthenics on the floor of his cabin. He didn’t let himself consider not finding the drowning victim. And it didn’t take long to see the flashing limbs in the green-blue of the water. Alex heaved his arm around the man’s waist and pulled him to the surface. Immediately, a wave crashed over them, and the man sputtered, coughed, and yelled. Hanging on to him was a bit like catching a fish with your hand. But Alex managed to heave him to shore. He didn’t realize he was screaming until his own throat was hoarse. But what was he saying? Finally, Alex tuned into his own voice to hear, “It’s going to be okay! Keep breathing! We’re so close!”
At the beginning of Blue Days , nobody was on shore when Rowan’s character got kicked out of the water and splayed out to nearly die beneath a California sun.
But now, as Alex hauled this man to shore and splayed him out, nearly one hundred tourists surrounded them. The man had lost consciousness and wasn’t breathing. His color was rapidly turning from pale to gray. Alex tilted the man’s head back to clear his airway, preparing himself for mouth-to-mouth. For the first time in years, Alex felt worthwhile. He felt sure. And then, just before he had to press his lips to the man’s, the man sputtered and heaved water across the sand. Breath came in jagged spurts.
Tourists roared with excitement. Flashes from cameras came from all directions.
Alex touched the stranger’s shoulder. “Are you all right, man?” And when the man couldn’t respond, he hollered out, “We need water! He needs fresh water!”
A teenage girl heaved forward and handed him a bottle of water. Alex ripped it open and helped the man drink it. He tried to make sense of who he was. Maybe the same age as Alex? The same age Joel would have been. He had black hair and a bad mustache as though he’d wanted to joke around with his wife. He did wear a wedding ring. Where was she? Alex remembered his own wedding ring, which he kept in the second drawer of the cabinet by the door. He tried never to look in that drawer. He didn’t want to remember that Valerie had vowed to never leave him.
Very soon after that, a woman in her thirties heaved through the crowd and dropped to her knees beside the drowning victim. “Martie,” she wept, pressing her ear to his heart as though she wanted to hear for herself that it was beating. “Martie, I was gone for fifteen minutes.”
Alex stood on shaky legs and weaved back through the crowd to find Rowan and Victor. Rowan was jittery, excitable. “I got it all on film,” he announced, waving the camera.
Victor looked at Alex with expectation. With fear. Alex hardly remembered what he’d said to Victor before he’d heard the cries of the drowning victim, but he knew it hadn’t been kind. It had been more or less exactly what he’d felt Victor deserved to hear.
And then Victor said, “You did good, kid.” He touched Alex’s shoulder.
Alex nearly jumped out of his skin. Kid? Does he not recognize me?
This was the man Alex had revered. The man who’d been his stand-in father when his own was up to his ears in responsibilities at The Rooster. The man who hadn’t just left his own family. He’d left Alex, in a way, too.
We never get over the first betrayal, Alex had read once somewhere. We spend the rest of our lives trying to protect ourselves from similar cases.
Suddenly, EMT workers burst across the beach, bringing a gurney with its base swinging. The drowning man’s wife hugged him so tightly that it looked like she wanted to squeeze the rest of the water out of him.
A few tourists bucked up beside Alex, Rowan, and Victor. A man in his fifties clapped Alex on the shoulder. “Man, you deserve a beer. Let me buy you one.”
Alex hadn’t had so much public attention in years. His eyes stung with sea salt, and he felt a sunburn creeping across his shoulders. “No need,” he said.
“They’ll want to interview you on the news,” a woman who seemed to be the man’s wife announced.
Alex had the sense that they wanted to be seen near him. They wanted to be on the news, too. That’s how everyone is—from Hollywood to Nantucket and beyond. Everyone wants a piece of you.
“Why don’t we hit the road?” Alex asked, turning back to Rowan and Victor. His dark tone made it clear he wanted nothing to do with this.
Rowan’s eyes stirred. But he nodded, gathered the rest of his equipment, unclipped his microphone, and led Alex and Victor away from the crowd and back toward their cars. Occasionally, Alex felt Victor’s gaze. But Alex refused to look back.
Back at their vehicles, Victor shook first Rowan’s hand and then Alex’s.
“We’d love to continue this later this week,” Rowan suggested. He shot Alex a look, then added, “We promise to reel back the questions. We just want to hear your side.”
Alex understood that he wanted to butter Victor up.
“I appreciate that,” Victor said. He opened his driver’s side and remained frozen, on the brink of falling onto the seat. He looked at Alex as though he expected something. An apology? An explanation?
Alex was no longer frightened that Victor recognized him. He just wanted to scream, to tell him that he needed to think of Valerie, Bethany, Esme, and Rebecca before he did anything else in the public eye again. If you want them back, you have to earn their love. You have to treat them with respect.
“See you soon,” Victor said.
A minute later, his car skidded around the bluffs and out of sight.
Rowan puffed out his cheeks and played over the footage he’d taken of Alex saving the drowning man’s life. Alex watched it with passive interest. It was hard to believe he was the man who bolted into the water. Alex Garland, the man who’d lived only after dark the past few years. The vampire of Nantucket Island.
“This is great,” Rowan muttered, mostly to himself.
Alex shifted his weight.
“It’ll be perfect in the documentary,” Rowan went on.
Alex raised his eyebrows. He wasn’t a character in the documentary. The documentary was about the American family through the lens of Rowan’s and Victor’s lived experiences. It wasn’t about the single man who never had children.
Which was why what Rowan asked next did not surprise Alex in the least.
“Man, you have to let me use this footage,” Rowan said. “You don’t mind if I say it’s me, do you?”
Alex’s heart thudded. He felt resigned.
“Remember that this is how Blue Days started?” Rowan asked. “You had me flailing out in the freezing Pacific for hours on end. I almost got hypothermia.”
Valerie waited up for me after that painful shoot. She’d made clam chowder and rubbed my feet. She said, “If anyone can do this, it’s you.”
“I remember,” Alex answered. He’d written the script himself. He could have recited it from top to bottom.
Rowan clapped his shoulder and put his sunglasses on. “Why don’t you send me the footage right now? Via Bluetooth? Just so I have it.”
Maybe Rowan thought Alex would keep the footage for himself. Maybe he thought he would delete it rather than give Rowan his “crowning achievement.” But Alex didn’t care at all who took credit for what. He was thrilled the man was still alive. He was thrilled his wife had her husband back. There was no telling what would happen next in this world. Everyone was one heartbeat away from tragedy. Rowan should have learned that two weeks ago when Bethany Sutton operated on him in the middle of the night. But maybe such lessons couldn’t penetrate the walls Rowan built up. Perhaps they couldn’t save Victor Sutton either.
Alex sent the footage via Bluetooth. Rowan smiled and said, “Same time tomorrow?”