Chapter 4 Lindy
Lindy
His birthday party was happening without him.
Everyone else was there. As predicted, pretty much the whole Cove had turned out, filling the downstairs of the yellow cottage and spilling
out onto the lawn, into the sublime evening. It was a perfect seventy-eight degrees now, with a light breeze, the reflection
of the lowering sun skipping and rippling across the cove, all the way to where the highway lined the wooded mainland. The
tide was going out, leaving rocks and mounds of seaweed exposed, the smell of salt and lobster in the air. Ducks paddled.
A cormorant dove for a fish. A few small, brave boats bobbed on moorings, though the cove was notoriously vulnerable to storms.
The American flag that the Seversons always flew at their large cottage across the way—the only house on the water side of
Summerland Cove Point Road, at the slight bend that made room for it—snapped in the breeze.
The happy crowd’s laughter and conversation surely carried throughout The Cove, even across to the mainland.
Was David seriously not going to show up?
Lindy had tried his cell phone three times from the yellow cottage’s landline. No answer. She’d left one angry voicemail and
one worried one. The third time, she’d just hung up. She’d even tried their Cranston house phone twice, in case somehow he’d
never left home, but there was no answer there, either.
Had he planned to stop somewhere on the drive up? She had no idea. They’d talked for only a minute this morning, and that
qualified as their second-longest call of the ten days she’d been here. There was no cell signal at The Cove, not for miles
around, and Innisfree’s landline phone was beside the stairs in the middle of the living room, which meant anything said there
carried to every room in the house. And although it wasn’t as if, at her age, Lindy kept secrets from her parents, it had
always been understood at Innisfree that long phone calls were impolite.
Also, she never wanted to give her mother any whiff of even a chance that David had displeased her. Greta had it in her, if
the mood struck, to poke and prod him, to blow things totally out of proportion, and it was his birthday, for heaven’s sake.
That was why, when David had called last night to say he was too tired to drive up as planned and would come this morning
instead, all Lindy had said was, “Okay, honey,” even though she didn’t really think it was okay. She’d wanted to have a night with him before all the kids showed up. She’d planned to give him one of his birthday
presents, though his actual birthday wasn’t till Sunday.
It was also why, this morning, when he’d called at nine to say he was just about to leave, all she’d said was, “Great!” although
she’d thought he should’ve been on his way at least two hours earlier.
Lindy, deep down, had known he didn’t want this party.
But not to show up wouldn’t be like him! Even when they both knew she was charging ahead with something that maybe she ought
not to, he always ended up supporting her in it.
She tried to tell herself again: Maybe he really had just stopped off somewhere, lost track of time.
Or maybe the traffic really had been terrible.
Yes, the boys had arrived on time, traveling the same route, but Cody drove much faster than David, as a rule, weaving in and out of lanes to skate through traffic.
David stayed steadfast in the center, going just below the speed limit in his Subaru.
She tried to occupy her mind with other, smaller concerns. Noah hadn’t come with Hailey, which didn’t seem good, while Emma
had brought a new girlfriend, Reese. The tall, gorgeous young woman had shaken Lindy’s hand with an unnerving level of earnestness,
and when she said, “Reese Kobayashi, ma’am, I’ve heard so many good things about you,” it was with the air of a journalist
about to ask a series of soul-destroying questions, which made Lindy worry that Emma might not exactly be in safe hands. But
before she could think what to say, Kate had tugged on Lindy’s arm and dragged her off to the kitchen with an urgent question
about the fruit. Kate said her kids had been driving her crazy—hindering more than helping, when it came down to it—so she’d
sent them outside.
That the kitchen crew had abdicated gave Lindy an excuse to busy herself with the food. She put out fresh platters of sloppy
joes and a fresh bowl of pasta salad, as Kate cut up another watermelon. The giant crockpot of baked beans was still half
full. Marjorie Westfield arrived bearing one of her famous cookie cakes, a thick chocolate chip concoction topped with a drizzle
of caramel sauce, large chocolate chunks, and a scattering of toasted almonds. Lindy had to rearrange the food table to make
room for it, while Marjorie stood by in her summer uniform—only the colors varied, day by day—of crisp blouse and capris,
statement necklace, ballet flats, and Chanel No. 5, her hair in an artfully tousled silver bob. Today’s ensemble was white
with black accents—black jewelry, belt, and flats; white shirt and capris. “Oh, dear,” Marjorie said. “I didn’t mean to cause
a problem, but I know everyone expects the cookie cake.”
It was true that Marjorie had brought a cookie cake to every party at The Cove for at least the last twenty years, even when the party wasn’t officially a potluck.
According to Lindy’s mom, the contribution was more officious than gracious, but Greta’s view was tainted by a longstanding feud she had with Marjorie.
It was a feud older than Lindy, which Greta had never been willing to explain.
By 6:30, the crystal fruit salad bowl contained only dregs and pink juice, and Marjorie’s cookie cake was reduced to crumbs.
“I’ve never been at a birthday party where the guest of honor wasn’t!” Lloyd Ralston said, elbowing Lindy, grinning and laughing
to show a mouthful of pasta salad. Lindy had known Lloyd all her life—he and his wife, Anne, were friendly with her parents—and
had never liked him less than in this moment.
The fact was, “traffic” couldn’t really explain why David still wasn’t here, could it? Neither, it seemed to Lindy, could
losing track of time.
When she retreated to the kitchen again, Kate met her eyes and said, “I’m getting worried.”
David and Kate’s younger brother, Josh, had followed Lindy in. Josh and his wife, Marielle, lived in Chicago with their three
young boys. Marielle, a teacher, drove out with the boys every summer to spend most of it at The Cove, while Josh flew in
and out, managing to spend at least a couple of weeks every July. “I just tried his cell again,” Josh said now, brown eyes
soft with concern, tugging at the collar of his white polo shirt as if it was choking him. Six years younger than David, he
was a shorter, stockier version of his brother, and his dark hair hadn’t yet started to go gray. “No answer.”
“I’m getting worried, too,” Lindy admitted, though, when she looked out and through the crowd to the front door, her parents,
at least, were walking in.
At seven, she decided to cut the cake. Cody had just returned from checking the answering machine at Innisfree and reported,
“No messages.” The food was almost gone, and people were getting tired. There was a general air of confusion—“He’s still not here?”—bemused laughter. Everyone had known David a long time. “We always knew he was an odd duck,” Winnie Taylor told
Lindy, in what seemed the best summation of the crowd’s sentiments. “But this seems very odd.”
So Lindy lit the candles—just an oversized five and zero, because to put fifty candles on even a large cake had seemed to Lindy a little cruel.
She led everyone in singing “Happy Birthday,” managing to act as if the whole thing—David not being there (and, God, the terrible-looking cake)—was a giant joke, even as her stomach ached.
Cody blew out the candles, and everyone cheered.
Slicing and serving the cake onto tiny blue paper plates took her a good twenty minutes.
Afterward, he still wasn’t there. Outside, the sun was beginning to set, angling to cast a spotlight across the water, shifting
it to a darker shade of blue.
Her mother came up to her, looking worried. “Honey, we’re going to go home now.”
“David still isn’t here!”
“I know, but your father’s tired. I’m sure David will be here soon. Your father and I will celebrate with him at the family
dinner tomorrow.”
Lindy huffed out a frustrated sigh. “Fine.” It wasn’t her mother she was mad at, after all, not this time. She waved goodbye
to her father from across the room. He did look tired; her waving didn’t even catch his eye. Her mother looked tired, too,
come to think of it. Greta’s long white hair was straggling—highly unusual—from its customary elegant twist. But her pink
button-up shirt and white linen capris (undoubtedly from Talbots) were still crisp and wrinkle-free, while Lindy’s white jeans
were spattered with watermelon juice and her black T-shirt had a smear of white frosting across it. She’d never been able
to live up to her mother when it came to being flawless.
She watched as Greta wove her way toward the front door through the crowded room, smiling at everyone but shaking her head
slightly whenever anyone tried to stop her to talk. That seemed unusual, too—except in the case of Marjorie Westfield, of
course, whom Greta had avoided at all costs for Lindy’s whole life.
As for the rest of it, Lindy had to remind herself: Her mom was eighty-one now, and her dad was eighty-three.
Of course they might get tired a little easier than they had even last summer.
Lindy watched her mother take hold of her father’s arm and willfully lead him out, then felt a stab of regret that she hadn’t said so much as hello to him all evening, busy as she’d been with the food, with saying hello to everyone else.
With trying to keep her panic at bay.
She sneaked into the back bedroom, where there was a telephone, and tried David’s cell again.