The House on Fripp Island

by Rebecca Kauffman

  Before Rae knew it, the movie was on, the light was off. Lisa and Poppy were sharing the loveseat, and Alex and Kimmy were laid out on the carpet before them, with chins cupped in hands, bare feet in the air. John was at the far end of the sectional couch, looking like he was about to enjoy a good nap, and Scott was at the kitchen table, typing on his laptop. This left Rae and Ryan in the middle of the couch with two feet of space between them, but gravity seemed to pull them both toward the crack between cushions at the center. The fierce need inside Rae was so powerful that her throat felt like it was pure blood. She felt like life was impossible, and she was certain that nothing would ever be enough.

  The rain had passed by the time the movie ended, and almost unbelievably to Rae, she and Ryan had not drawn closer to each other on the couch; they maintained their distance for the entire movie.

  They all stepped out onto the patio together, and the early-evening sun seemed to amplify the humidity. The clouds had disintegrated into feathery crescents scattered unevenly across the sky, as though they had been tossed there recklessly by someone in a rush. Lisa fanned her face with a takeout menu from inside. Beads of sweat lined her upper lip and glittered in the sun.

  Poppy fanned her face with her shirttail. She directed everyone’s attention toward the beach, where the sand was saturated, stained dark with rainwater. She told them the story of the Gray Man, how he stalked the beach for heartbroken women, longing to protect them from impending doom.

  Kimmy said, “Ghosts can be good like that?”

  Rae said, “Ghosts aren’t real, dummy.”

  “I know.” Kimmy didn’t say more, but she thought on this for a while. She knew Ryan was really smart, but she wasn’t sure she agreed with what he’d said the other day about ghosts and God, how believing or not believing was all totally in your head. Kimmy thought that surely there had to be proof one way or the other; there was no way that not one person on this whole huge earth could either prove or disprove something, even if that something was as slippery as a ghost. Kimmy realized suddenly how desperately she wanted someone to just tell her how the world was, so she could be sure. She wanted answers. Proof. It seemed so unreasonable to exist without it.

  “There’s no Gray Man,” Poppy was saying. “Don’t worry.” She seemed concerned that Kimmy had fallen quiet, and she reached over to touch Kimmy’s head gently. “It’s only a silly story meant to scare people.”

  Suddenly, Kimmy was afraid she had been believing some really stupid things for quite a long time.

  They decided to order food in rather than cook dinner.

  They ate pizza on paper plates, then went for a walk on the beach before it got dark. Lisa brought along a camera and a mai tai, and Poppy brought a daiquiri. John brought a Frisbee. Scott brought a flask. They rolled up pant legs and waded into the water. Crabs skittered across the sand, and Alex and Kimmy swatted after them and told private jokes to each other. Rae accumulated a handful of pretty shells. Lisa and Poppy linked arms. Lisa rested her cheek on the crown of Poppy’s head, and they talked about how they ought to plan an annual family vacation together. They did not discuss the likelihood that Scott would be part of this. John and Ryan threw the Frisbee back and forth. The sky was gauzy, the color of orange sherbet, the sun a shivering coin.

  Back inside, they turned on the oven to reheat leftover pizza. They got so involved in playing Pictionary that they forgot about the oven and burned the pizza, which set off the smoke alarm. They rushed to open all the doors and windows so the draft would clear out the smoke. They made popcorn in place of pizza. Kimmy said she wanted to try to make caramel corn by dumping some of the caramel ice cream topping in the fridge onto her bowl of popcorn, and to her amazement, Lisa said, “Sure, give it a try.”

  After eating the popcorn, they switched from Pictionary to Mouse Trap and played this around the kitchen table until Scott complained of a headache. They sacked out on couches and put the TV back on. Ryan found a documentary on unique flora in the Himalayas, and Poppy sank into John’s armpit.

  Scott and Lisa retired to their bedroom five minutes into the documentary, yawning and apologetic at being the first party poopers.

  John announced that he would go to bed too. He tried to rouse Poppy, whose head was in his lap, but she resisted, murmuring in sleep that she was still “wide awake” and “watching Ryan’s show.”

  John chuckled, got up from the couch, and placed a throw pillow beneath her ear, to replace his thigh.

  Alex and Kimmy went to bed next, around midnight. Earlier in the day the two of them had discussed sneaking out again tonight, but they were so exhausted that as soon as their heads hit their pillows, both were ready for sleep.

  Rae managed to make it to the end of the documentary, silently willing Poppy to wake and go to bed, leaving herself and Ryan alone in the main room, but this did not happen: Poppy remained, snoozing peacefully, feet crossed on the couch, pillow at her cheek.

  The credits rolled and Ryan rose to turn off the TV. He gently shook his mother to wake her.

  It was almost one o’clock.

  “Bedtime,” Ryan whispered, and he offered Rae what she interpreted to be an apologetic look as he ushered Poppy down the hall, then he disappeared into his own room.

  Rae stayed in the main room and listened for the door to his bedroom to shut behind him. She listened for the flush of his toilet. Then she heard the faucet—brushing teeth. Well, she figured, that was it, he was calling it a night. This was disappointing, but they still had one more night on the island. And after all, he had just walked his own mother down the hall to her bedroom. It would be a little weird, Rae rationalized on Ryan’s behalf, for him to turn right around from his own mother, come back to the main room, and share an intimate moment with Rae. Even if he was developing feelings for her, Rae thought, he was probably still uncertain about making the first move. Well, she thought, that was OK. Her hormones were surging far too intensely for her to feel ready for sleep, but she would go to her room for now even if it meant lying awake or practicing her looks or reading her book for another two hours before she became tired. She could also scavenge the boozy remains of the various tiki cocktails now that she had the kitchen to herself.

  She was annoyed that she had endured that entire mind-numbing documentary in the hopes that it would result in some alone time for her and Ryan, but all was not lost. They still had one more day and one more night, Rae consoled herself. She would make a plan. She already had some ideas. If Ryan couldn’t work up the courage to express his feelings to her, then she would be prepared to make the first move, because one thing was for certain: Rae was not going to go home the same unkissed, untouched girl she had been upon arrival.

  17

  KEATS AND ROXIE WERE woken by a phone call around midnight. Keats answered the call on the phone that lived on their bed stand, grunted a few questions, hung up, and sat upright in bed. He yawned mightily, arms stretched overhead, sleepy muscles shifting and warming.

  Roxie had an elbow tented over her face to block the light of the moon, which felt severe at this hour. “What now?” she mumbled.

  “Emergency call,” Keats said, rising from bed and making his way to their closet for clothing.

  “At this time of night?” Roxie said.

  “Couple guests out on the bay,” Keats said over his shoulder. “Taking a late-night bath, faucet on the Jacuzzi broke off and started spittin’ like a fireman’s hose. They called the homeowner in a panic, he called me. Scared it’s gonna flood so bad the floor caves in if it waits till the morning.”

  “You can’t catch a break this week.”

  “Can’t complain,” Keats said. “We need the money.” He sat on the bed while he pulled on his socks.

  “How long you think it’ll take you?” Roxie said, shifting in bed.

  “Won’t have a clue till I get there.”

  18

  IN HIS BEDROOM, Ryan wasn’t tired yet—his mind was spinning with new information from th
e documentary. He got out the books he’d brought along and did some reading, took some notes. He tried to remember the name of the little blue flowers from the documentary; he wanted to look them up in the library when he got home. His back was sore, so he got out of bed to do a few stretches, and this was when his eyes fell on the dead crab.

  The solution in the glass hadn’t provided any sort of information on the cause of its death, and Ryan had forgotten about the crab on the dresser for a day or two, but now . . . well, surely he had been mistaken when it first caught his attention. He moved closer to the glass so that he could peer down into it. No way. It couldn’t be. He almost shrieked. His eyes hadn’t deceived him: that dead crab was not dead.

  Ryan stared at the crab in disbelief. It was gently treading its back legs, drumming up a small current, swimming around the glass in a lazy circle. Ryan gazed at it, then stirred the water with his finger to make sure. What the . . . Ryan couldn’t take his eyes off the thing. There was no question the crab had been dead three days earlier when he’d brought it in. Was it possible something in that solution had somehow revived the crab? Ryan stared and paced and pulled the crab out of the glass by balancing it on a piece of cardboard, allowed it to flit across the carpet, then he scooped it up and put it back in the glass. He stared and marveled and poked and thought that surely he must be losing his mind.

  When he next looked at the clock, Ryan was startled to realize it was almost three in the morning. He really needed to try and get some sleep, but with this resurrected crab business, he was nowhere near it. What could he do that would ready him for sleep? Stupidly, he had left his Playboys at home.

  He remembered that he still had the soggy joint, wrapped in a Kleenex and stuffed into the small pocket of his backpack. He had almost forgotten about the joint entirely, but tonight was definitely the night for it. It was late—everyone else would certainly be fast asleep. He’d sneak out through the rec room downstairs, take a seat beneath the patio, have a peaceful outdoor smoke, then come in and hope sleep would find him.

  Ryan put on a T-shirt and shorts, retrieved the joint from his backpack, and got the lighter from his suitcase. He also took his large beach towel and draped it across his shoulders. He crept along the hall, down the stairs, through the rec room. He left the sliding glass door unlocked behind him, made his way out, went underneath the patio and to the far end of it, where he could spread his towel and be out of sight of anyone who might amble to the kitchen for a snack.

  Ryan lit the joint and lay back on the towel. The stars were mostly obscured by white-gray cloud cover overhead, but the moon, low above the water, was a magnificent butter yellow. The world grew impossibly placid and good after a single hit. But then a noise from the house startled him.

  He licked his fingers and pinched the lit end of the joint to snuff it out and frantically waved at the dense cloud of smoke that encircled his head. He looked back toward the house. A figure was exiting through the sliding back door, and it took his eyes a moment to identify size and angles and posture in the dark, the shadow beneath the patio, but he soon realized it was Lisa. Her red hair was tied up in a messy, high bun. She wore a loose-fitting pink silk pajama top over capri-length pants of the same material.

  She closed the glass door behind her and started to make her way out toward the beach, directly in Ryan’s direction, but she suddenly stopped and froze.

  He’d been spotted.

  He didn’t move. For a moment, she didn’t either. She squinted to make out who he was in the darkness, then she held a palm over a silently laughing chest. You scared me! she mouthed. She offered a friendly wave as she grew closer, and she sniffed the air.

  Ryan’s stomach surged and hissed. Well, now Lisa knew that he smoked pot. Was it worth trying to persuade her not to tell Poppy?

  Lisa said, “May I?” pointing down at the large towel where Ryan sat upright now.

  He scooted to the side to accommodate her. She nodded to his left fist, which was clenched around the joint.

  Lisa wore a mischievous expression and she whispered, “What’re you doing, putting it out? Spark that thing back up.”

  Ryan stared at her. “Really?”

  “I haven’t smoked since I was nineteen, with your mom.” Lisa brushed sand from her toes and curled them on the towel.

  “You and my mom smoked pot?”

  “Now and then. So are you gonna give me a drag or what?”

  Ryan reached for the lighter and relit the joint. He took the first puff to start it, then passed it to Lisa.

  She took a confident drag and a cough sputtered from her. She covered her lips with her fist to muffle the noise. When she had stopped coughing, she giggled and lay back on the towel, her skin milky in the bald light of the moon.

  “That’ll do it for me,” she said, her smile so wide it looked like her face might crack in half. “I feel . . .” She paused. “I’m in a nest.”

  Ryan laughed. His airy buzz was returning, after the fear of getting caught had caused it to instantly vanish.

  Lisa murmured, “Hell of a sky.”

  Ryan gazed up. The clouds were parting, and now many stars were visible directly above them.

  Lisa patted the towel next to her, indicating that Ryan should lie back and enjoy the view too. He did. His hair was touching her hair.

  She said, “I was just gonna go for a little walk. I couldn’t sleep.”

  He said, “Me either.”

  “What’s got you wide awake at three o’clock in the morning?”

  Ryan took another puff on the joint and said, “You’d never believe me if I told you.”

  “Told me what?” Lisa said.

  Ryan half laughed and said, “Huh.” Then he said, “I swear you’re gonna think I’m crazy. But.” He slapped at a bug on his thigh. “You know that dead crab I brought in a couple days ago? Had it sitting in a glass of solution in my bedroom?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It came back to life.”

  Next to his head, he felt Lisa move to partially face him. “What?” she said.

  Ryan said, “Thing’s been dead and floating in there for days. But tonight I happen to glance over, and I am not kidding you, it’s swimming around, looking up at me, looking as healthy, as alive, as can be.”

  Lisa stared at him saucer-eyed for a moment, then shook with silent laughter. She moved to prop her head up on her elbow, facing him fully. She giggled some more, wiped away a tear, her eyes sweet and full.

  Ryan laughed. “Crazy, right? I’m serious, though. I’ll go get it if you want to see it.”

  Lisa said, “Oh, hon, oh, hon,” and she waved the air between them. Through snorting laughter, she explained, “Earlier, when we were on the beach, I overheard Kimmy and Alex hatching a plan while they were trying to catch a crab. I only overheard bits and pieces, didn’t bother to listen closely at the time. They were whispering about Take it inside, and I’ll sneak it into his room, and When do you think he’ll notice? And they were giggling up a storm. I think those little stinkers caught a crab and stuck it in there. I think they pulled one over on you.”

  Ryan’s mouth dropped open. “Those little shits,” he whispered. Then he felt a bubble of joy work its way up and out of him, and he collapsed onto the towel in laughter, incredulous at the success of the girls’ trick. He and Lisa lay there on the towel, laughing as softly as they could, sniffing and wiping at tears. The joint was still lit and a thin string of smoke rose from the tip. Ryan had wasted a few good hits. Didn’t care. Lisa reached for it and took a pull, released smoke from her nostrils. She drew the rubber band from her hair so that it fell in thick auburn waves to her shoulders. She scratched and gently massaged her part.

  Ryan said, “So what’s got you up at three o’clock in the morning?”

  Lisa rubbed her eyes. Her face was still flushed and lively from laughter. “I’ve got stuff on my mind.”

  “Mm.” Ryan was quiet for a bit. He knew he oughtn’t say anything, but the pot and
the night air and the euphoria of sharing such a good, long, hard, genuine laugh with Lisa had him feeling warm and brave and open. He said, “I shouldn’t say anything.”

  She gazed at him, her head cocked and resting on the heel of her hand. “Shouldn’t say what?”

  “I heard you and my mom talking on the beach yesterday.”

  “About what?” Lisa crushed her bottom lip with her top teeth, then released it.

  Ryan couldn’t help noticing that she wasn’t wearing a bra beneath her pink silk pajamas. Her breasts were heavy, pointing down at the towel beneath her. His mind felt like it was covered in a greasy film.

  He was quiet for a bit longer, then he said, “I heard you saying yesterday how you think Scott’s cheating.”

  “Oh.” Lisa grimaced. “On the beach? You were there?”

  “I was sleeping,” Ryan said, “but I woke up.”

  Lisa scratched her nose and stared out toward the water. “Well,” she said, and then fell silent for a moment. “There you have it.”

  Ryan said, “I think he’s an asshole.”

  Lisa gave him a sad smile. A spider that was attached to the underside of the deck was descending in measured little jerks, and her eyes followed it, like a cat with a toy.

  “I’m serious,” Ryan said. Words tumbled from him. “I’m serious. Cheating on you? I think he’s an asshole and he doesn’t deserve you. You are perfect.”

  Lisa blinked. Her face was lovely. She leaned toward him first. At least that was how he perceived it. It was hard to say because suddenly something turned lusty and desperate in the air, inside Ryan, and the sky swelled toward him. She came with it, and suddenly her lips were on his. Then her hand was on the back of his head, fingers hungry, spidering through his hair, her tongue in his mouth. His fingers scooped greedily at the back of her neck and knitted through her hair.