Late in the Season Read online

  “You don’t know your own mind, Stevie.” The words came back to her, her mother’s words, last night; then again, this morning, in the big breakfast room, four stories above Gramercy Park.

  “I do too!” Stevie had replied, fiercely. She said it again now, walking along the boardwalk, hitching the shoulder strap of her bag higher. “I do too!”

  “You’ll regret your decision,” her father had said, shaking his head morosely over his French toast. “Believe me, Stevie.”

  And so she replayed the whole argument. Last night’s with her parents, then later on, on the phone with Bill—God! that horrible conversation! He’d sounded as though she’d shoved a knitting needle into his heart—then again with her parents this morning.

  She turned off the main walkway and onto the one leading toward the ocean, to her family’s summer house. Old furniture, a battered refrigerator, torn and buckled plastic lounge chairs, old wood sheets from a torn-down partition, all lay in a heap at the corner, strewn there for the heavy garbage pickup. She wondered if they’d left any firewood in the house when they closed up. Just like them not to. Boy, her parents were thorough. They never missed a touch, did they? They’d manipulated and cajoled and controlled Liz and Jerry’s lives already, beyond hope, Stevie thought. Now they’d started on her.

  “You’re only eighteen,” her mother had sighed. “You don’t have to know your own mind. But listen to me, or at least to your father. We know better.”

  Sure. They knew better. They knew what they wanted, that was all. They’d wanted Jerry to be a doctor, and now he was interning at Lenox Hill Hospital. They’d wanted Liz married to Tony Halle, and she was. They’d wanted Stevie at Smith College this afternoon to begin her sophomore year—another year! then two more!—and then they wanted her to marry Bill Tierney.

  The bushes in the path off the walk to her family’s house had grown out. She had to brush past them to get by. Funny how fast they grew so late in the summer. Her father—her meticulous father—would have pruned them the last time he was here—Labor Day weekend.

  Ah! and here it was: the house! Her house now. All to herself.

  Her spirits rose seeing the darling, old, irregular gray clapboard house. She’d always loved it as a child, had missed not being here at all this summer, having to spend time weekends with Bill and his family at their house in the Thimble Islands in Connecticut. Or with Liz and her kids in Syosset. Now Stevie walked three-quarters around the house, looking into every curtained window as though she were a stranger, someone coming to buy it, or to inspect it, or rob it. Before going in, she climbed the ladder to the roofdeck—really a sort of widow’s walk—her father and brother and Bill had added on in front a few years ago. This was her favorite spot; she had come up here a great many times, trying to get away from the others, to sit undisturbed watching the ocean.

  She would come up here again, later, at sunset, with a cup of hot tea, and watch the geese migrating south, across a parti-colored island sky.

  From her perch, she heard a humming, and turned to see a white seaplane rise up over the treetops like a tiny bright dragonfly before it turned slightly, and smoothly glided toward the city.

  How peaceful it was. The ocean seemed almost calm: majestic, perfectly ordinary, yet always wonderful. All the foliage had grown so much this year, the nearest houses seemed like enchanted cottages hidden away in spellbound forests that required secret passwords to penetrate.

  The Galgianos’ house had never looked so still. The windswept decks looked bleak without their colorful chairs and bathing cushions and bikini-clad occupants. Farther away, two small partly attached houses belonging to the Winstons were closed. The entire stretch of beach in front of her perch was empty. She’d walk there later. She loved walking along empty beaches. How long had it been since she’d done it—been allowed to do it—alone? Two years? It seemed so long ago.

  Only the lovers’ house seemed open: unshuttered, uncurtained, furniture still placed out on the decks: the big, handsome lounges from Hammacher Schlemmer, the large mahogany table, the elegant smaller tables, the slant board and weights neatly spaced to one side. She called them the lovers, but they had names, of course: Jonathan Lash and Daniel Halpirn. Sometimes she called Daniel David by mistake, thinking of the Biblical lovers, and all three of them would register the error and be pleased, and laugh. She called them the lovers to her parents, to her friends, to Bill, and in front of his family. Openly, declaratively, defiantly, at times. In such a way that none of their euphemisms could get by. Not “those nice men,” or “that couple,” but the lovers; as if she were in on a secret conspiracy with Jonathan and Daniel to keep what they really were as clear, as obvious as possible.

  Leave it to the lovers to still be here after Labor Day. They knew what was good, what was truly valuable. Not the noisy, crowded Sunday August afternoons when everyone within a hundred-mile radius would arrive on the beach. But now, still hot and clear, even lovelier, in mid-September.

  Well, at least she’d have their company in this isolation. Not of course that she’d visit them or anything like that. She hadn’t much in summers past, and only with Bill and Jerry for the big party the lovers had thrown last year. No, she’d see them, though: on the walkways, on the beach perhaps, on their deck having dinner or reading, or lifting weights. That would be enough for her—just a wave. Hi! Hi Lovers! Hi Jonathan! Hi Daniel!

  She was here to be alone.

  “You’re going out there alone?” Bill had asked last night. “It’ll be desolate!”

  “That’s just what I want, Bill, to be alone,” she’d replied. “To be away from you and my parents. To get away from all the pressures.”

  “Do what you want,” he answered, his voice turning that into a challenge, a threat. “Do whatever you want. You’ll be bored after one day out there.”

  She hated Bill for that remark.

  Her mother had been a bit better about it. That morning, when Stevie had asked for the keys to the summer cottage, her father had stared at her, perplexed. Her mother had turned out of the breakfast room and come back with the keys, and had given them to Stevie without a word. She hadn’t said a word after, when Stevie went to her bedroom, packed, or when she waved good-bye and went downstairs to grab a taxi to Penn Station for the train out here.

  Naturally her mother thought she’d go crazy out here alone too. But at least she thought her way was better: giving Stevie the rope to hang herself.

  “What is it precisely that you want?” Bill had asked.

  “I don’t know. But I know what I don’t want,” Stevie had answered firmly.

  “Me? You don’t want me?” he’d asked.

  She’d sighed then: he was so dense. “Oh, I don’t know, Bill. I just don’t want to be railroaded. That’s all.”

  “Railroaded?”

  “Railroaded into college, into marriage, into friends that I’ve had all my life. I want to explore a little. I will not end up like my sister Liz.”

  He hadn’t understood, naturally. He’d thought she didn’t love him.

  Did she?

  “Let’s not get into that yet,” Stevie said out loud. “We have time to figure that out. Plenty of time.”

  How could anyone not like Bill Tierney? He was bright, ambitious, capable, funny, at times charming, attractive, presentable on most occasions. Above all, he was in love with her. Yet…Yet… He’d arrived so early in her life. Too early. She’d dreamed of long courtships with a variety of men in various locales before she would settle down. Affairs with hippies in Munich and Amsterdam; with ranchhands in Montana with faces cracked like old leather; with established, older men, powerful financiers or leaders in the arts, on Caribbean islands. Not this instant, total romance at seventeen with a boy—yes, a boy!—three years older whom everyone agreed was a perfect match for her.

  It was beginning to cloud up. Getting cool too. It still might not spoil the glorious sunset she longed to see; but she’d better do that beach walk now.
/>
  The key turned easily. Inside, the house wasn’t even musty, as it was at the beginning of the season: only a little damp and closed smelling.

  She opened windows, brought her bag into her bedroom, dropped it on the bed, and began checking for clothing left out here. A blue short-sleeve sweatshirt lay in one drawer. An old nylon blue racing bikini, wrapped in a towel in another. A bright orange slicker hung in her closet. Nothing else.

  They would all be gathering at the dorms tonight: Jennie, Alice, Beth, Maria. They’d be in and out of each other’s rooms, sitting on beds, gossiping about their summers as they unpacked and hung up their clothing, showing off new purchases to each other, already deciding on trade-offs. They’d all be wondering where she was—why she was so late this semester—their bright, naughty, sophisticated New York City pal, Stevie Locke.

  God! How horrible memories were, Stevie thought. How really horrible it will be when I’m eighty-five, with all those memories crowding around me. No wonder Grandma Locke walks around as though in a daze most of the time. All those memories to bump against, to shake off, to evade, to steer through.

  She had work to do out here, she recalled. Important, crucial work. Decisions to be made about Bill, about Smith College, about going to work, about leaving home. She would take a week to decide. No longer. But she would decide. Then act on those decisions.

  Fortified by her resolution, she went into the kitchen, brewed a pot of tea, went through the kitchen cabinets checking for food. She found crackers and jelly, discovered a paperback mystery on the living room game shelf, and settled in for the afternoon, reading and eating. Once she looked up to check the fireplace. Meticulous Daddy had left half a compressed log.

  She’d get more tomorrow. Go shopping for food too. For now, all she could think of was that the telephone was shut off, there was no one to bother her, the ocean was regularly shuffling, and the book in her hand was totally engrossing.

  Chapter Three

  “Love you,” Jonathan said into the humming distance of the telephone. “Bye.”

  He heard a crackling—a storm over the Atlantic, he supposed—then Dan’s voice, distantly:

  “Ta!”

  “Ta!” Jonathan repeated and hung up.

  Just like Daniel to already be saying “Ta!” as though he’d grown up in Holborn. He must be enjoying London. But of course he would. For some Americans, it would be all business—meetings, conferences, misunderstandings, and agreements finally reached; for others it would be all tourism. Not for Daniel. For Dan it would be glamour, respect, honor, work, admiration, command, money. Few enough American directors were invited over to do British television for Dan’s trip to be special. His series on the American presidency was already being hailed, and only a quarter of the programs’ scripts were even ready, never mind not a foot of film shot yet. It was to be an Anglo-American production, lasting a year, raising its director, producers, and starring actors to new eminence. It had been Daniel’s brilliant idea to do the first four programs with British casts. “You know, Jonathan, the founding fathers were more Anglo than the current queen. Why, it wasn’t until Andrew Jackson, really, that they even began to sound American.” Good for Dan. He deserved all this attention. He’d been wasted on television films for years, used for police mystery series, assigned remakes of feature films, exploited for his ease, taste, and great love of work. Now, finally, he was going to show them how good he really was.

  The Locke girl was out on the beach again. Alone again. Where were the others? Where was her boyfriend? What was his name? Bill something. He might be her fiancé by now. Hadn’t her mother said something about them being engaged? That would be just like Mrs. Locke. Call me Paula, and I’ll call you Jonathan. Such informality. And for what? For one afternoon together every summer, on the Lockes’ most enclosed terrace deck, “saying hello again,” as she put it. Those dreadful afternoons. This June, unable to face it, Daniel had taken half a Quaalude, and told Mrs. Locke through his half sleep that he was allergic to something or other and was under antihistamine sedation. Jonathan had been stuck with getting Daniel there, propping him up, translating his slurred speech, and helping carry him home again. The woman had suspected nothing. But then why would she? Her banality was all-encompassing. Yet she was a good woman, behind all that façade. Even Dan could see that, despite his name—Lady Bracknell—for her. How he’d fumed after that incident with the Locke boy, Jerry, three summers back. “She’s a monster, Jonathan!” he’d ranted. “She wears two sets of balls around her neck like a Tagalog witch doctor!” Three sets now, with the boyfriend added in.

  What would Paula Locke be like onstage? he wondered. Big, chesty, she’d probably sing in a low contralto, make a good character part. Like Giustina, the serving wench in Lady and the Falcon, a real foil for Fiammetta with her earthy humor and love of ribaldry. Yet Giustina had her soft side too. Had Jonathan shown that clearly enough? Had he characterized her musically fully enough? She had two big songs—the scolding one in the first act, and the duet with Gentile in act two. Perhaps that second solo ought to be a serenata, even a barcarolle. The gentle rocking of a boat in a wind-ruffled lagoon. A lullaby. What would Barry think of that? Jonathan would try to persuade him that it would more fully develop the character. Barry might say yes right off. Then again, he might get quiet and explanatory, which meant that when he’d written the words he’d been thinking of anything but a lullaby. Still…

  The Locke girl had stood up again. This time to go into the water. Pretty bathing suit, that floral print two-piece. A languid walk to the surf. One toe poked in. A step back. A look around. Then one entire foot in the water. Reaction: another fast step back onto the sand. Another look around. Then a dash, a mad run, all arms and legs, scampering into the waves. God, it’s cold for September, she must think as she dives in and under a breaker. Then up, gasping for air, another wave about to break, she holds her breath, drops straight down under it and up again, shaking her head. A smile with her realization that it really isn’t that cold. Then a leisurely swim, diving, cavorting, rolling over. Christ, she was so young!

  And the look on her boyfriend’s face that night last summer when Daniel had dragged Jonathan off the deck and inside the house, whispering through his light martini haze, “Fuck these people; let’s go neck!” In the kitchen Dan had kissed Jonathan, opened his Hawaiian shirt, and pulled his slacks half off his hips. Dan was on his knees tonguing Jonathan’s navel when the boyfriend stepped in too, with empty glass and wine bottle in his hands. Even in the dim light he saw enough to make him stop still. Jonathan saw him, of course, not Dan right off. And the boyfriend’s eyes were fixed so instantly, so totally on Dan’s tongue, he didn’t even see that Jonathan was watching him. He probably never dreamed they actually made love flesh to flesh, did he? Then Dan finally looked up and caught Jonathan’s eye signal. Dan got up nonchalantly, went over to Bill, took the empty bottle, saying, “Why don’t you take over for a minute, while I freshen up the vino.” Jonathan thought for a moment Bill actually would, he seemed so hypnotized by then. How Dan laughed about it in bed later on. Laughed about it the rest of the summer. What would he have done, Jonathan wondered, if the boyfriend had taken over? Probably nothing. Probably made his face-slapping gesture in disapproval, and stalked out to the rest of the party, where in the midst of serving someone—Mr. Locke, perhaps—Dan would casually mention that his daughter’s boyfriend had finally come to his senses and was going down on someone in the kitchen. No. He’d tell Jerry, that’s who he’d tell.

  Jerry Locke was a lost cause from the beginning. Jonathan could see that. The boy was irredeemably straight from the cradle on; certainly from the day he arrived here at Sea Mist, aged fourteen or so. Three years back, the summer Dan “discovered” Jerry, as he said it, the boy was sleeping with a half-dozen women here: Miranda, the cop’s wife; Mrs. McGrath; the two clerks at the boutique; Jill, who brought over the newspapers and sold them mornings at the harbor; how many more beach widows? They
wouldn’t let him deliver a grocery carton without at least a fast hand job. Poor kid was worn out all the time. But who could blame them? Or Dan? Jerry Locke at nineteen was at his peak. A young god. Hair blonder than a Clairol ad. So ripe, so firm, his flesh almost demanded to be stroked.

  Come to think of it, all of Dan’s infatuations seemed to be unobtainable, one way or another. Little Raphael, the “Frog,” Jonathan called him. He hung around a few weeks, then just hopped off down the beach to another house. Sandy Wilks, the surfer. He was blond and beautiful, although something of a simpleton. Jerry Locke, of course. Perhaps if they were obtainable, truly available, Dan would have gone off with one of them. Instead, he would always turn back to Jonathan, feel comforted by his disdain of what Dan claimed to be a broken heart. Dan seemed to take real pleasure in Jonathan’s refusal to acknowledge his silly affairs, his refusal to even discuss them until long afterward, and then only with total objectivity.

  Ah! She was coming out of the water now, pausing in the surf to let the hot afternoon sun dry her off. The mist of the evaporation glittered on her like the ocean. Venus Aphrodite, risen from the sea. Even her position was like the Botticelli: the long fair hair swung out, one hand up to her breast, her hips slung down, one foot pointed in front. Lovely. No wonder ancient men thought some women were goddesses.

  She looked up now and, spotting Jonathan on the front deck, shaded her eyes to make sure, peered, then seemed to recognize him. A shy wave, then a more positive one. Jonathan stood up and waved back. The wind off the surf furled his words of greeting to her: a simple “Hi!” from her twisted back to him like a ribbon of sound. She said something else, pointing. Dan? Was she asking after him? Jonathan shook his head no; Dan’s not here. She tilted her head. Didn’t understand. Waved again, a little more hesitantly. Smiled. Then strolled to her beach blanket and slowly lay down. Lovely.