The East End

by Jason Allen

  “What? Why not?”

  She stared out her side window and didn’t answer right away. When she did, she sounded much more tired than she had since they’d begun driving. “I was supposed to stay with Tiff and her family for the whole summer before I go back to school. I don’t really have a place to live otherwise.” She tapped a cigarette from the pack and took Corey’s lighter but didn’t strike it. “But that’s another story. An even longer one.”

  “You can tell me,” he said. “I mean, if you feel like it.” He pressed in the clutch and let the truck roll in neutral as they came to a Stop sign where the farm road had looped back south and ended at Montauk Highway.

  “Thanks,” she said. “Maybe later. I’m pretty fried right now.” She tucked her legs on the seat and sat cross-legged. With his foot on the brake, Corey angled his head toward the driver’s-side window and gazed up at the stars. A strange new feeling overtook him when his view returned to the windshield and he looked both ways, a sense that he and Angelique had survived some sort of apocalyptic event, that they were now the last two people on earth. Then he realized the root of that thought, as he recalled hearing the young man mention something like that on the balcony just before Corey had begun climbing up the roof.

  He turned and faced her while she stared through the windshield at the empty highway. Almost no traffic at all this late, this early, during this purgatory time between days. 4:30 a.m. The sun would be rising sometime in the next hour or so. He had to decide which way to turn but wasn’t sure why one direction would be better than the other. They could go anywhere. The school year was over aside from his graduation ceremony, and he didn’t really need to be there for that. He didn’t have to be anywhere all summer other than at the Sheffield estate to work with his mother, and he could probably wriggle out of that as well, except then he’d need to scrape together some money somehow. If he decided to enroll in one of the state colleges that had offered scholarships, he still wouldn’t need to be anywhere near the Hamptons until he moved up to the campus in August. And if he called Gina from some other state, or even from across the Canadian border, what could she really say? He wasn’t a kid anymore. Thanks to her and Ray and their drinking and fighting, and also for having to look out for Dylan and most of his fuck-up friends these past few years, he’d already been way too grown-up for way too long. The panicky feeling returned. He still couldn’t imagine leaving them, but with all that had happened tonight, he also couldn’t imagine staying.

  He flicked the right blinker on, then switched to the left, then flicked that off and stared at the Stop sign. Life on the Island, especially once you were out on one of the forks, meant you always had only two paths to choose from. East or west. Getting far away seemed the only smart move, but still, he couldn’t decide which way to go.

  “Hey,” she said, with a hand on his arm, “can we drive to the ocean?”

  Thankful to have a destination, he nodded and shifted gears while making a right turn. They drove west and passed through two or three towns along Montauk Highway without talking and without seeing another car on the road, then crossed the Southampton town line and approached a red stoplight and a cluster of shops off to the right. The light switched to green before Corey even had to downshift. Still no other cars, only the blazing fluorescence from the gas station mini-mart, with a hunched older man at the counter and an eighteen-wheeler parked diagonally in the lot while a worker refilled the underground tanks.

  “You know what’s really crazy?” Corey said. “I’m supposed to meet my mom at the Sheffield house in about four hours. I’m supposed to work there all weekend.”

  Angelique’s head turned sharply. “Are you gonna go?”

  The fantasy of driving to Canada or somewhere way out west had never taken hold, since he knew all along that he barely had enough gas money to make it halfway up the island, and didn’t have a passport, either. He sighed as he answered, “Yeah, I kind of have to show up. But Leo never saw me. I really don’t think he did, anyway.”

  “Good thing for you he didn’t.”

  “I wonder what would happen if I dropped you off there in the morning, a little while before I start work.”

  She shook her head. “No, I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

  “You didn’t do anything wrong, though. And where else can you go for now?”

  “Anywhere.” She shuddered. “Anywhere but there.”

  “Wait, but think about it. He definitely won’t want anything about tonight to come out, so you have all the power. Maybe you say something when you first see him, like you figure there’d been some kind of accident with the guy in the pool, and as long as he doesn’t do anything crazy again like he did when he went after you last night, you won’t tell. I bet he kisses your ass all summer.”

  The idea sounded crazy even as it came from his mouth, but when he glanced over at her with her knees up to her chin she seemed to be considering what he’d said.

  During the fifteen or twenty minutes that followed, he continued driving west through Southampton and into Hampton Bays, and then headed south, steering through quiet residential neighborhoods of his hometown en route to the ocean. They crossed the Ponquogue Bridge surrounded by bay water and with the first hints of morning blue tinting the horizon, the moon hanging low, stars still dotting most of the black above them but now with a thin strip of indigo hovering at the horizon.

  At the base of the bridge, he turned right and drove down to L Road, a bumpy sand-covered patch that dead-ended at the dunes. They stepped out of the truck and walked past the guardrail accompanied by the sound of white water rolling in and crashing rhythmically on the shore. Angelique’s hair whipped and whirled in the wind. She paused once the breaking waves came into view, and held her arms to her chest.

  “You cold?” he asked, already wriggling an arm from his sweatshirt. She shrugged and grinned, and within a second he’d slipped the heavy shirt over his head and handed it to her. “Here,” he said, and when she half-heartedly waved him off, he repeated, “Really, here.”

  “Are you actually for-real this nice, or are you just on your best behavior because I had such a shitty night?”

  “Just being myself, I hope.”

  “I guess we’ll see about that,” she said, and slipped the sweatshirt on.

  “Want to sit for a while?”

  She answered by taking him by the hand and dropping down onto the sand next to him. As crazy as the night had been, in one way anyway, things couldn’t have turned out better. Until then he usually hadn’t had the opportunity to talk with her for more than a few minutes at a time, not with Tiffany around, not while on the clock at the estate, where Sheila Sheffield kept him in perpetual motion rearranging lawn furniture or staking down tiki torches or carrying something from one floor of the house to another. But here they were, sitting together at the ocean, and Angelique was wearing his shirt.

  “So, I guess I’ll start,” she said, and only then did he realize she’d been staring, waiting for him to speak. “You asked why I don’t drink, right?”

  Shivering, he answered, “Only if you want to say.”

  “It’s fine. I want to tell you. It’s not because I’m an alcoholic or anything. My sister is six years older, and she—Oh shit, you’re cold, aren’t you? I feel bad you gave me this. You can sit closer if that’ll help.”

  Corey’s face filled with heat and for a moment he didn’t feel cold at all.

  “Okay,” he said, nervous about how close closer meant. Then he scooched over a few inches but left almost a foot of space between them.

  “I mean you can actually have your arm against my arm, so I’ll block the wind for you.”

  “I just didn’t want to... It’s just that I—” He moved over more until their arms pressed together at the shoulder, and mumbled, “Sorry, I feel like an idiot.”

  “It’s all right.” She pla
ced a hand on his forearm, quickly rubbing it to warm his skin.

  He gulped, and immediately cursed himself for being so awkward that he actually gulped.

  “So, you were saying something about your sister?”

  “Oh yeah,” she said. “It could take a while to get into details, but the short version is that Carrie—that’s her name—she went to about five rehabs by the time she was twenty-one, for drinking and for a lot of drugs. She took off with a guy to live in some kind of commune somewhere upstate about six months ago, and I haven’t heard from her except for one letter right after she left. I’m not sure if she’s still clean, but the guy she hooked up with was a fucking whacko, so who knows what the place they’re living in is like, or if they’re even still there. I only met him once and he was weird, like religious-zealot weird. I’m pretty worried but I don’t know what I can do to convince her to come back. Anyway, because of her, my mom made me promise when I was still a kid that I wouldn’t go down the same path Carrie did, so one of the things I told her before she passed away was that I’d never have even a sip of alcohol, and it’s still true.”

  “Sorry, when did she—when did your mom pass away?”

  “A few months ago.”

  Corey watched her cradle a handful of sand and let it sift through her fingers, the grains flying off sideways in the wind.

  “I was eight,” he said. “My dad, though.”

  Angelique turned and faced him. “How? Or, I mean, what happened to him?”

  “Motorcycle accident. He moved out of our house way before, when I was little, and my brother and I didn’t see him after that. I guess I never really knew him, but it was still hard when he died. My mom got remarried a few years ago, but that’s already pretty much over now.”

  “My dad’s married, too.”

  “You like your stepmom?”

  “I haven’t met her.”

  A gust of wind snapped Corey’s shirt like a flag in a nor’easter and stirred her hair like soft tentacles, sending much of it swirling over his face as he leaned sideways to speak directly into her ear. “I hope it’s okay to ask this, too, but what did you mean when you said you don’t have anywhere you can go?”

  She pressed her palms to the sand and faced the ocean, leaning forward as a succession of waves broke and swept foamy layers of water up the shoreline slope, the pause lasting long enough that Corey wished he’d let her steer the conversation. But then she surprised him by edging closer and answering with her mouth only a few inches from his.

  “Before my mom passed away we had a one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn. Then the rent didn’t get paid for a few months while she was in the hospital, so we got an eviction notice right after the funeral and I had to put all our stuff in storage during spring break. Since it’s summer break from classes now, Tiff said I should stay with her in Southampton till next semester starts. But now that her father pulled that crazy shit, looks like I’m stuck for the next few months with no place to go.”

  Corey shivered so intensely he had trouble seeing straight. “What about staying with your dad?”

  “He’s been in prison since I was twelve.” She picked up a small shell from the sand and turned it in her fingers. “That’s the thing,” she said. “Tiff’s the closest thing I have to family, and since there’s no way I’m staying with her now...I guess I don’t really live anywhere.”

  “What did your dad do to go to prison?”

  “Basically, he’s just a shitty person. Always has been from what I’ve heard.”

  “Sorry, I’m kind of confused. I thought your family had a lot of money.”

  She leaned back on her elbows as she laughed for a second, and then held the blowing hair from her face. “Nope, we never had much. I haven’t talked to my dad since before he went away. My mom worked for Sheila Sheffield at her nonprofit, and when Tiff and I were little we met at their work and became super-close. I guess Tiff hadn’t made friends with other kids at that point, so Sheila wanted her to get to see me more and decided to pay for me to go to the same private schools. She must have spent a few hundred thousand dollars—maybe even more—to send me there from the time I was five until I graduated last year, which is a big reason why my mom worked for her so long. I know she can be kind of bitchy sometimes, but Sheila’s got her good side, too.”

  “Wow, I had no idea,” Corey said. He placed his hand over hers and gently calmed her fidgeting as he balled her fingers over the shell. “I always thought you were rich like the Sheffields.”

  “Sorry to disappoint.” Angelique shook her head and grinned. “But what you don’t know about me could fill a dump truck.”

  “Alright, I’m starting to get that now.” Still absorbing the new knowledge that she was just as working-class as him, he grinned back at her, nudging her with his shoulder. “So you’re homeless in the Hamptons, and I spent all the money I have on that piece-of-shit truck we drove here in.”

  “Ain’t we a pair,” she said with a full smile. A sign, he hoped, that he should lean closer. And he did, to within a couple inches of her face, barely able to see with her hair blowing over his eyes.

  He wanted to kiss her more than he’d wanted anything in his entire life, but wasn’t sure if it would catch her off guard or freak her out, so he lingered there with his eyes perfectly aligned with hers for what felt like a long time. Then he finally heard her say, “Guess it’s up to me, then, huh?” and her hair engulfed him, flowing all the way across the back of his head as her lips pressed against his.

  He collapsed backward onto the sand, no longer aware of the cold or the slapping wind, no longer aware of the waves. He forgot all about knocking out and nearly killing Mr. Sheffield, and the dead body at the estate, and about how his mother expected him to show up for work there in a few hours. He forgot about her drinking her way into the hospital, and how much he hated Ray. He couldn’t have cared less about any of the guys around town he’d thrown down with in recent months, or any of the other townies he didn’t want to become. This...this erased it all.

  He could have died right then and there and felt he’d lived a full life, because for the first time ever he didn’t feel the need to escape this place. He wanted to be there—with her, and her alone. Nothing else mattered anymore, nothing other than her, nothing outside this lightly crushed feeling of her weight on top of him and their arms wrapped around one another—and the fact that, when he’d leaned in, she’d been the one to lean the rest of the way.

  FRIDAY

  THIRTEEN

  Through her windshield Gina watched a small group of people congregated in the early-morning half-light beside the church wall, exchanging hugs, smoking and talking, a few of them laughing. Since she’d already committed to giving this a shot, she breathed out the anxiety and shut the engine off, thinking that if she didn’t get the cult vibe and actually felt these meetings might help her stay sober, then all the better. But either way, she’d do her best to start the day with a dose of self-care before the Sheffields and the early guests arrived from the city.

  The sun had just come up, ribbons of color still dissolving into a backlit mist of acrylic beyond the sandbox and swing set on the other side of the lot, where she imagined well-mannered children played while their parents held Bible studies inside one of the rooms with stained glass windows. The online meeting schedule had listed two choices for such an early hour, and this one was supposed to start in ten minutes. Today would be her test run. If these people by the wall and the others inside all turned out to be a bunch of Jesus freaks, so be it, she’d head to work after at least trying something new.

  She closed her car door and rummaged through her purse for a piece of gum, hobbling slightly thanks to the cuts on her foot from the broken glass yesterday afternoon. On her way to the entrance she glanced up and noticed a gray-haired woman by the church’s side door, smiling at her. She’d hoped she could blend in and not ha
ve to make small talk with anyone, imagined she would sit in the back of the meeting and absorb whatever tips for staying sober those who spoke had to offer before leaving five minutes early, but now she’d already been roped into shaking hands with a stranger simply by making eye contact.

  “Welcome,” the woman said. “I’m Maryanne.” One by one, three men of various ages and a woman much younger than Gina also shook her hand and introduced themselves, and when they finished Maryanne looked on warmly and asked, “Is this your first time here?”

  “Is it that obvious?” Gina blushed, unsure why the mellow laughter from the small group comforted her.

  “Oh no, honey,” Maryanne said, “I’m here just about every morning, so I tend to notice new faces. Have you been to any other meetings?”

  “This is my first meeting ever.” Gina’s own voice sounded foreign, meeker, as though a shy teenager had spoken for her.

  “Welcome,” the oldest of the men said. “You’re in the right place.” He had long gray hair pulled into a ponytail, janky teeth and faded, indecipherable tattoos on the backs of his hands. His clothes were pure biker—the worn leather jacket and chaps over his jeans, the heavyweight boots, the whole bit.

  A pang in her chest, and out of nowhere Gina thought of Anthony, her first husband and the boys’ biological father. They’d been no more than kids when they started dating, still kids when her plans for college a few years after high school derailed and Corey came along. Anthony had loved his old Valkyrie more than anything, and two years into their marriage, while Dylan was still a baby and Corey a toddler, he’d left a note on the kitchen table, an apology for taking off for the big summer rally out in Sturgis. The sentiment had tapered off with a promise to call from South Dakota and an estimate that he’d be back in a week or two, but he never called, and never came home. He’d left Gina to care for their two young sons on her own, and she’d known nothing of his whereabouts until that death notification from the police six years later. Having to tell the boys their father had passed away after that phone call... Irrational as she knew it was, she resented him for dying—for dying after living as he’d wanted to live, for disappearing from their lives, and then speeding down the California coast on Highway 1 and taking one of those cliff-fronted curves a few feet too wide.