Chapter 6
The boys returned home from golf around four in the afternoon, while we lay on the beach on our stomachs, reading.
This was not an accident. Laura wore a bikini the color of ripe strawberries and a pair of large sunglasses; I had, at the last minute, pulled on a pair of pale linen shorts over my bikini bottoms and a straw bucket hat over my hair.
It was important not to glance up when they sauntered onto the beach, beers in hand.
From under the brim of my hat I noticed the sand pool around their bare enormous boy feet, calloused and unkempt, kind of feral compared to the rest of them—prim collared golf shirts in baby colors, crisp chinos rolled above the ankles.
“Girls,” said Sedge, in greeting.
Laura kept her eyes on her book. “Boys.”
“How’s the sun treating you?”
“Hot. How was golf?”
“Ben kicked my ass. Hey. Lucy. You’re back.” Sedge sounded surprised by this development.
“I am.”
He said to Ben, “Lucy’s our neighbor. She lives in Paris with her mom.”
I flipped the page I wasn’t reading. “London, actually. She got remarried?”
“Yeah, Sedge. Keep up,” said Laura.
“London. That’s cool,” said Ben. “I’m Ben, by the way.”
I tilted up a few degrees. The bright sun shadowed their faces. I saw a burly silhouette that dwarfed Sedge, who wasn’t small. A halo of gingery hair. “Hi, Ben.”
“Wait, when did your mom get remarried?” asked Sedge.
“Four years ago.”
“She literally gave birth already, Sedge,” said Laura.
“No way. Another one? How many is that?”
“Like, five,” I said. “But she’s pregnant with twins. So, seven? Almost?”
“Seven. Damn. Laura tells me nothing, obviously.”
“Hold on a second,” said Ben. “You have seven siblings?”
I counted off on my fingers. “Two from the French husband, one from the Russian husband, one from the Swiss fling, three from the English husband. I mean, one down and two to go. But when they’re born. Yeah. Seven.”
“Damn,” said Ben, in awe. “Boys? Girls?”
“Two boys, three girls. We don’t know about the twins yet. Maman likes to be surprised.”
“You call her Maman?”
“Yeah, she does,” said Laura. “It’s a French thing?”
Sedge whistled. “Can I get you some potato chips to go with that salt, girl?”
—
After they left, Laura rolled on her back and covered her face with her hands. “Ugh. I totally messed that up.”
“No, you didn’t,” I said loyally.
“I came off like a total bitch.”
“Guys like that. They like a little challenge.”
Laura lifted her hands away so her delicate, sharp-boned profile pointed to the sky.
She’d just finished her freshman year at Middlebury and there was something different about her, some raw edge I couldn’t put my finger on.
Like someone had opened her up and taken out some vital organ, and now she was desperate to get it back.
“So I did sound like a bitch,” she said.
“No. Not a total bitch.”
She rolled her head toward me. We started laughing.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “There’s plenty of summer left.”
—
My dad ate dinner at the Club most nights. Not because he couldn’t cook—he fed himself just fine during the offseason, when the clubhouse was closed, and anyway he was never what you’d call a foodie.
He liked the ritual. He liked wearing his navy blazer with the brass buttons, or his seersucker suit if he was feeling whimsical.
He liked walking up the steps and through the doors, to be greeted by name and shown to his chair at his table in the dining room overlooking the green, to order the same cocktail (rye Manhattan, straight up, or maybe a dry gin martini if the weather was especially hot) and the same dinner (house salad, extra onion, and a medium rare sirloin steak with béarnaise) served by the same waitress (Holly, the wife of the ferry captain) at approximately the same time every evening.
He also ate lunch at the Club on Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday—cream of tomato soup and a tuna melt—outside on the terrace when the weather was fine, or in the dining room if it rained.
Each afternoon at a quarter to six, I hit the shower to rinse off the salt and throw on one of the linen dresses my mother bought for me at the beginning of each summer.
A stroke of mascara, a slick of lip gloss, a pair of sandals.
At a quarter past six, I plopped aboard the hot leather-scented Volvo, windows down because Dad considered air-conditioning a waste of God’s fresh sea breeze that whooshed off the Atlantic as we drove the half mile to the clubhouse, as we walked up the stone steps and pretended we belonged there with the other summer families, who could pay their monthly charges, who had homes in New York or Boston or the various approved suburbs to return to after Labor Day—the families who pretended along with us, who knew we couldn’t afford the club charges or the food or the Manhattans but wouldn’t dream of mentioning this fact out loud. To our faces.
Thank God for Laura.
She spotted me as soon as we crossed the threshold into the dining room. The Peabodys had just sat down and ordered their drinks. Laura rose and waved her arm.
“Dad,” I said, “I think the Peabodys are inviting us over to their table.”
Dad’s face brightened. “Oh! Oh. Well. I’ll just tell Irwin.”
Mr. Irwin had been the ma?tre d’ at the Club for a solid quarter century and handled the adjustment without a blink.
We settled at the Peabody table. Dad sat between Sedge’s dad (also named Sedgewick, but they called him Senior to avoid confusion) and Sedge’s grandmother, who was what Dad liked to call a real spark plug.
Sedge made room for me between him and Laura.
“Mr. Cooper,” he said, “I don’t think you’ve met my friend, Ben Ressler. He’s staying with us for the summer.”
“Mr. Ressler,” said my father, in his courtly voice. “You’re at Dartmouth together, I presume?”
“Yes, sir.” Ben sat between the two Mrs. Peabodys—Sedge’s mother and grandmother. Sedge’s mother was called Topsy; I never knew what her real name was.
“I’m a Harvard man, myself. But Hanover’s not a bad spot to spend four years. Not a bad spot at all. How are you finding Winthrop?”
“Been a good week so far, sir. Working on my golf game.”
“Good, good. Helluva course, isn’t it?”
“That it is, sir,” Ben said.
“He’s been crushing it,” said Sedge. “Most depressing week of my life. Gonna throw my clubs over the cliff.”
Sedge’s grandmother spoke up in her voice like a midcentury movie star. “Ben is a natural athlete, Bud. He’s on the football team.”
Dad lifted a pair of approving eyebrows. “That so? What position?”
“Free safety, sir.”
“Ben likes to hit people,” said Sedge.
The waiter returned. Dad’s Manhattan arrived next to the tip of his knife; my lemonade landed without a word.
We ordered dinner. A basket of white dinner rolls sat between me and Laura; I slipped a roll from under the cloth and passed the basket to Laura, who passed it on to her mother, who passed it on to Ben, who took two rolls and reached for the butter.
“So where do you call home, Ben?” asked my father.
“I’m from just outside of Pittsburgh, Mr. Cooper. Little town called Bentleyville.”
“Oh. That so.” My father took a drink of his Manhattan while he tried to think of something—anything—to say about Pittsburgh and the people who lived there. “Sedgewick,” he said, turning to Sedge’s dad, “remember that fellow from Pittsburgh, freshman year? Engineering.”
“John Schultz, you mean?” said Senior.
“That’s the one.”
“He went into medicine, Bud. Heads up the neuroscience department at Pitt, I understand. Darling, you pointed it out to me. Neuroscience, wasn’t it?”
Topsy nodded. “It was in the class notes just last winter.”
“Helluva smart kid, that Schultzie,” said Senior.
Dad turned triumphantly to Ben. “There you go. Fine medical center at Pitt, from what I hear. Is your father a doctor?”
“No, sir.” Ben slathered butter over the remaining half of his second dinner roll. “He’s in prison.”
—
After dinner, we found the boys on the sixth tee—jackets off, sleeves rolled to the elbow. The breeze had stilled, like it was holding its breath for something. Some distant spark. Sedge drank from a bottle of beer; Ben had water.
“I’m sorry about my dad,” I said to Ben Ressler.
“Sorry for what about your dad?”
“Outing you like that.”
Ben shrugged. “It’s no secret.”
Laura turned to Ben. “So what’s he in for, anyway? Your father.”
“Armed robbery. Eight years.” Ben swung an imaginary golf club. “But he comes up for parole next year.”
“Armed robbery? Like, with a gun? Did he shoot somebody?”
“Laura,” said Sedge. “Cool it.”
She turned to him. “What? Ben doesn’t care. Do you, Ben?”
“Ask away,” said Ben. “Can’t blame you for wondering.”
“At least I’m saying it out loud,” said Laura, “instead of just thinking it, like everybody else around here. Talking shit behind people’s backs.”
Sedge said, “Yeah, but you don’t put people on the spot, Laura, all right? In front of everybody.”
“Everybody?” She flung an arm. “It’s just us. You don’t care. I don’t care. Lucy, do you care that Ben’s dad is in prison? It’s not like Ben did anything.”
“Don’t get up in people’s business, that’s all I’m saying.”
“I’m not—”
“Bro,” said Ben. “It’s okay.”
Sedge and Ben looked at each other. I don’t know what kind of signals flashed back and forth. Sedge shrugged and tilted the neck of his beer bottle to his mouth.
“You knew about it, right?” Laura said to Sedge. “The prison thing?”
“Of course he knows,” said Ben. “We’re brothers. Right, bro?”
He stretched his fist to Sedge. They banged their knuckles together.
“So? Did he ever shoot somebody?” asked Laura.
“Not this time. When I was a kid, he did a bunch of years for attempted murder.”
“That must have sucked,” said Laura.
Ben lined up an imaginary putt. “My parents split when I was a baby. I didn’t really know him that well, to be honest.”
“So how did you end up at Dartmouth?”
“Football.” He tapped the imaginary ball into the imaginary hole.
Sedge wandered to the edge of the tee, where you could see the waves knocking sleepily against the rocks below. A thick yellow sickle moon hung above him, dropping light on his curling dark hair, his shoulders.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey.”
I linked my arms behind my back. “I noticed Laura wasn’t eating much at dinner.”
“Yeah, I saw that.”
“She didn’t really eat much during the day, either.”
He pushed out a sigh into the heavy air. “Lucy, what do you want me to say? It is what it is. I can’t tell her to eat.”
“Sorry. I just thought—I mean, you’re her brother. She looks up to you.”
“I don’t know where you get that idea. She gives me shit twenty-four-seven. As you’ve noticed.”
“Please. She worships you.”
Sedge turned his head to look at me. His eyes were a little glassy, a little beery.
“And I’m asking you, Lucy, what my sister would say if I walked up to her like, Laura, I think you might have some kind of, like, eating disorder?
Actually, I’ll make it easy for you. Fuck off, Sedge.
That’s what she’d say. So how about you talk to her?
You’re her friend. She’ll listen to you. ”
“She’d say the same to me.”
He threw his hands up. “There you go, then. We’re fucked.”
“All right, then.” I turned away.
“Lucy, wait. Sorry. I’m being a dick. You’re a good friend. Seriously. I’m glad she has you.”
I recrossed my arms behind my back and stared across the flashing black sea. Next to me, Sedge banged his heel into the grass and sipped his beer. The water slapped the rocks underneath us.
“You’re a good friend too,” I said.
“He’s a good guy,” Sedge said. “But it’s rough for him at home, you know? That’s why I asked him here for a few weeks. So he could hang out and relax. Focus on his conditioning without all the noise.”
I glanced over my shoulder. “How much more conditioning does he need?”
Sedge barked. “Honey, you have no idea. He’s out on the bluffs at dawn, carrying weights up the hill and stuff. So—”
A streak of laughter cut him off. We turned back to the tee, where Ben was giving Laura some pointers on her imaginary golf swing. She’d twisted her dark hair into the messy topknot that made the bones of her face and neck and shoulders look bare and fragile, made her hazel eyes huge.
“Bro, what the hell?” yelled Sedge. “Are you flirting with my sister?”
Ben held up his hands. “I’m not touching your sister!”
“Asshole,” said Sedge. “Because I’d have to kick the shit out of you.”