chapter 1
“Come back, Lo.”
He uses the pet name that made me fall in love with him those many years ago. The one that carves into my chest. He doles it out sparingly now, having realized the power of it.
I shake my head in response, my chin knocking against the glass screen. I hope he can hear it through the phone so I don’t have to speak it.
“Come home.”
I shake my head more, he’s not getting the message.
“They miss you,” he sighs, “I miss you.”
I shake my head, hot tears running down my neck.
His voice gets small, “So much.” It’s so juvenile that I almost believe him. He breaks his own insistence that emotion is for small children and women. I hang up the phone. One more word and perhaps he would have captured me, but I don’t let it get that far. I shake. I curl up.
Hours pass, the sky blackens. I unfurl and stretch like a newborn or a cat or a woman who has just run from her life. The grass is wet and cool. Bugs swarm my warm skin and suck my sweet blood. The moon is white and reflects against the slowly ebbing water that beats against the sailboat. Tomorrow I will undo its sail and go out to the middle of the bay and swim until I’m numb. Then it will all be over. Then I will be clean.
June, ten years earlier…
Our slice of Martha’s Vineyard is flooded. Water seeps from the shingle siding, beading until it becomes waterfalls. My mother is in tears, my father is on the phone, shouting. Cars roar closer and men clamber out with hard hats and buckets and booming footsteps. It is no match. The house weeps apart, our beloved cottage. Kinglea, come back to me.
My father comes over and squeezes my shoulder, “Everywhere’s booked up. Fucking tourists. So we’ll have to find somewhere else to stay.”
My mother chimes in, “Maybe the Bransons? Or the Taylors?”
“The Taylors have family in town.” My father chuckles, “And the Bransons don’t have the space.”
“Scott, now is not the time.”
“What do you mean?”
“At least they have a house.”
“Oh, Anne.”
I study my parents. My mother’s wide eyes, forever lost expression. My father’s stern, warning tone. They respect each other but the love left long ago.
“How about the Buckleys?” I find myself saying. I don’t know where it comes from, but it tumbles out of my mouth and hits the spot.
“Yes, perfect,” my father nods, ruffling my hair, “Smart girl.”
“I’ve been meaning to get her peach cobbler recipe,” my mother agrees.
The Buckleys are a perfect, beautiful, brilliant family. Claire and William, still as in love as the day they met. Andrew, a budding intellectual. Rose, a Duke sophomore. Otis, a beagle solely for hunting trips. Leymont, a house that dwarfs the mega-mansions without being gauche. A boat that waits at the end of their dock, eager to please. Waitstaff quiet as mice.
My father and Will often play golf together. In the real world, they’re rivals: their corporations battling in court over lucrative energy patents. But during the summers, they’re close once more. They sit on golf carts and leer at the cart girls. At night, they drink dark liquor and complain about the world, how it is changing too much yet not enough.
“Everyone else is stupid,” as my father often says. “Here’s to that,” Will agrees.
Claire is not as charmed by my mother. She hugs her hello and goodbye, always, and throws out tentative invitations to luncheons that never arrive. My mother tries, ceaselessly, and I feel it is my duty to tell her that the neediness only pushes them away. Yet I don’t. She makes a fool out of herself and it is hilarious. Claire sees my pursed lips, and knows I understand the social convention to a depth my predecessor does not.
“It’s the lowcountry in her,” my father says, “Strange breeding down there.”
The Buckleys are kind to us. Will claps my father on the back. Claire kisses my mother’s cheeks. I trail in behind the adults. We gather around the kitchen island. I curl my toes inside my shoes, somehow trying to contain the sopping wet contents of them. Will tells my father that he knows a guy who’s “good at that plumbing stuff.” Claire says the trick to the cobbler’s crumble is homemade butter. They all complain about their lives and their money and their success. It is painfully vain, and my silence only enables it.
The back door slams closed. Claire furrows her brows, then loosens them when two heads peek around the corner. She beckons them in, then explains the situation, gesturing to my parents and I. Rose smiles pitifully, having not yet learned polite restraint, “Hi Mr. and Mrs. King.” My parents coo at her, hug her tight, congratulate her on co-authoring a medical journal. I get lost in their fawning, a form of affection I know well yet have grown out of. I only miss it in moments like these, when I’m watching from the outside.
“Hey Sloane,” Andrew says. His toothy smile matches his tennis whites.
“Hi Andrew.” My voice is rough and dry, unsure after being silent for so long.
“Drew.”
“What?”
“You can just call me Drew,” he grins.
“Oh, right,” I hesitate at the informality, “Drew.”
We watch each other for a while. Drew is taller than I remember, and far more handsome. I hadn’t seen him since we were rising college seniors, years ago. I’d been embarrassingly studious and never so much as glanced at him.
“What have you been up to?” He probes.
“Well, what's it been… five years?” I try to think of something more interesting than the truth, but come up dry and just go with it, “I graduated from Brown with an art history degree. Then I moved to New York and started working at a gallery. I’ve been the curator for a while now.” He nods approvingly. I return his question.
“Let’s see…” He feigns humility just as I had attempted to do, “I finished poli sci at Harvard, then went to Yale law. Moved to New York, too. Went to a firm and made partner this year.”
I raise my brows, “Pretty good.”
“Not so bad yourself.”
We ask each other about New York and fall into easy conversation. I find that, like me, he is a temperate, solitary creature despite being wildly hungry. And though he doesn’t say it, he is a perfectionist, addicted to success, fueled by praise. We become wrapped up in the small talk, so much so that we don’t notice our families growing quiet and staring. Minutes pass, until Claire clears her throat. We turn to her. Drew is all slack, unnerved. However I feel caught, and my cheeks get hot and pink.
“How about you show Sloane to the tansy room?”
Drew nods and starts walking down halls and around corners before reaching a staircase, which he leads me up wordlessly. He opens a door to a bright, soft bedroom: a white comforter with pale yellow pillows, tansy wallpaper wrapping the room, a wooden desk in the corner, a bay window facing the sea.
“Dinners at 7,” Drew informs me, “and I’m right down the hall if you need anything. The ivy room.”
I nod and thank him. He closes the door behind him and I let out a shudder. The room is beautiful but hollow, warm but quiet. I take my wet shoes off and sit at the window, cracking it open. The smell of salt water fills the room. I watch boats weave in between white caps. It is not home but it is good enough. A knock comes to the door. Claire and Rose have clothes for me. Everything is either maternal or juvenile. Claire’s flowing dresses and starched tops. Rose’s spare tennis skirts and halter tops. I pull a sundress from the bunch. “Oh no,” Claire says, “It’s all for you.”
Dinner comes around and I am anxious to impress my hosts. The Buckleys are a formidable bunch, and my usual pride is suddenly weakened. I walk downstairs earlier than the given time, a courtesy instilled in me. On the twelfth step of what seems to be one hundred, Claire’s voice cracks out, “This could be the beginning.” I stop. Will starts, “Set yourself up for success, son. The people love love.” A bell rings for dinnertime. Everyone else in the house descends upon the table. I sit next to Drew.
His charm is undeniable, irresistible. Drew talks easily. He asks questions, even though he knows the answers, because he remembers that my parents like hearing the sound of their own voices. He probes about their jobs and the Beacon Hill house and calls my father a Brahmin, even though our family is generations short of the title.
“The oil money only carried us so far, son,” my father chortles, “until we had to make the switch to turbines.”
The adults laugh, as do Drew and Rose. I suppose I should be chuckling alongside them, nodding my head in agreement that the money has to come from somewhere, and thank god there’s lots of it. The men absorb into conversation about fishing or golf or something equally dull. My mother drags Claire into recounting Leymont’s renovations.
It is just Rose and I. She doesn’t speak, instead grimacing as she twists her right wrist in her left palm. I watch the rotations spin, almost quietly clicking in and out of place. She stops when she catches me staring.
“Tennis?” I question, though the answer is obvious. “I used to play in college, actually, then I absolutely smashed my knee.”
Rose swallows hard and fearfully, fingertips running across her wrist.
“I had this crazy jump serve. Like two feet in the air every time, and so fast. I wasn’t great at rallying, but it didn’t matter because I could win straight sets on that serve.” I sigh, “And one day I was qualifying for some tournament, and boom, landed on the knee and it just collapsed under me.”
Rose talks finally, brown eyes wide, “What did you do?”
“I went to the hospital, got it fixed. They said I could never serve like that again.”
“Did you try?”
“Once,” I turn to look at Rose, “But I knew I couldn’t clean up like I used to, and I figured, what’s the point in playing if I can’t win.”
Rose cracks a smile. I take a sip of my wine.
“Never knew you had so much fire, King,” Drew whispers. I laugh, meeting his eyes. His charm has landed upon my doorstep and perhaps it has worked.
* * *
My assistant calls on Sunday. I have to dig through my work bag just to find my work phone. The cracks are lined with sand. The gallery is a mess without me, she says, the artists are tearing her apart. She wants me to go back to New York, but I refuse, “I have to stay, Sarah. I just do.”
My insatiable curiosity about the Buckley family has only multiplied in their presence, under their very roof. On the surface, they are fairly normal: cereal for breakfast, chess games after dinner, trips to the beach, though it is their backyard. They’re good people, too. Claire, Rose, my mother, and I go shopping on the island. Will offers to take my father, Drew, and I golfing on Wednesday.
But something about them is so meticulous, so ruthlessly determined. Claire and Will are always whispering about something, gesturing an invisible timeline, nodding when they’ve seemingly figured it out. I try not to pay any mind but soon it is too blatant to ignore.
(chapter two out oct 16)
Brittany Menjivar
Anonymous
Olivia Morrison
Luke Van Buskirk