Track 11 What’s Going On
Track 11
What’s Going On
Matt
Unlike Veronica, Matt had no problem walking right into Shep’s house. Shep was more of a grandfather to him than his own blood relations, and he knew Shep felt like Matt was family too.
“Matty boy!” he exclaimed, bringing him in for a hug.
While Matt would often stop into Shep’s house or his other neighbor, Ben’s, immediately on arriving on the island, he hadn’t this time. Truth was, after Dylan, Shep and Ben were Matt’s closest friends here. Age was irrelevant on Fire Island, where Matt’s bonds with Shep, a retired nonagenarian, and Ben, who was pushing fifty, didn’t seem odd.
Both Shep, Bay Harbor’s literal Greatest of All Time, and Ben, a sportswriter and author now with two kids of his own, had had a big effect on Matt’s path in life. He might not even have become a journalist if it weren’t for Ben’s mentorship.
Veronica swept down the stairs. Matt had little memory of meeting her in the past, but her reputation seemed on the money.
“I took the bedroom on the left,” she said.
Shep grimaced.
“That’s where Bea usually stays.”
“First come first served, no?”
“She’s here somewhere,” he stammered, gesturing at Bea’s bags, which were still sitting by the door.
“Want me to take her bags up?” Matt offered.
“Thank you, son.”
He mouthed—the bedroom on the right—followed by a wink. Shep had his hands full. Matt felt badly for him, even though he knew in every ounce of his being that this was Shep’s own doing. Matt had gotten into more trouble beside this old man over the years than with his buddies from high school and his fraternity brothers combined.
“This is Renee’s son, Matt. I taught him everything he knows.”
He should have added “about baseball”—but Matt let it slide. Everyone let everything slide with Shep, though whatever he had done to orchestrate this present catastrophe might prove to be the exception to that rule.
“I want to say hello to your mom, to thank her for inviting me to the wedding. I was so touched. Is she in the house?”
“Not exactly,” Matt answered, amusing only himself.
Veronica busied herself on her phone and Matt took the opportunity to quietly confront Shep.
“What did you do?”
“Between you, me, and the lamppost, I sent her my invite.” Seeing Matt’s reaction, he added, “What? It didn’t say nontransferable!”
It amazed Matt that, at ninety-three, this man showed no signs of mellowing. Shep continued:
“I did what had to be done. And I’d do it again.”
“Beatrix won’t come down from my roof.”
He peeked out the window.
“That’s not like her,” he said, before ordering Veronica to apologize to her sister.
“What did I do now?” Veronica asked, apparently in all innocence.
“It’s not what you did now , it’s what you did then .”
“You know what, no ! I’ve apologized, Daddy. Aside from the fact that she has plenty to apologize to me for, I’ve spent my whole life apologizing to her. I have written letters, left messages. I text every year on her birthday. Crickets. I was a kid. But even so, it’s not all my fault. The pregnancy was not my fault. The fact that she never had other children, not my fault. That she never got past me sleeping with some stupid lifeguard who everyone and their mother slept with—again, not my fault.”
“Whose mothers slept with him?” Shep asked with a boyish grin.
“Daddy, stop.”
She looked at Matt, angling for his sympathy.
“She blames everything on me. If she tripped over something in Ohio and stubbed her toe, I swear she would yell out, Veronica! ”
Matt just smiled. It was a lot.
Everyone thought when Shep and Caroline constructed the big house across the street from the one they raised their daughters in, the sisters would make up and fill it with their own families. But they made every effort never to visit in the same month, let alone on the same weekend. For sure, people thought losing their mom, Caroline, a dozen years earlier would unite the two sisters, but they took care of all the arrangements, and their father, by text, with little physical interaction. It was well known that this division in their family was the biggest disappointment in both Caroline and Shep’s lives, and the one thing Shep wanted to fix while he was still able.
“Please. Just once more, for me. She won’t come down off the roof,” Shep pleaded.
“That’s mature. Where’s her husband? Can’t he get her down?”
“He went to visit some relatives on Long Island. He’s not back till the weekend.”
“That’s too long,” Matt joked, trying to lighten things up. No one laughed.
“Please, baby,” Shep pleaded with his fiery daughter.
“Fine. I’ll do it for you,” Veronica conceded.
She stormed out of the house, with Shep and Matt following behind her.