Southampton Spectacular

by M. C. Soutter

  They burst into thunderous applause. They pounded their fists on the tables and shouted “Encore!” and called Ned’s name. They called to him, and welcomed him back, and embraced him as one of their own again, now, forever.

  At first Ned smiled. He took a few long, slow breaths and looked around slowly. But as the applause went on it became too much. He was a small boy in a too-heavy rain, and it overwhelmed him. He began to cry again. He had been through too much; he was not ready to celebrate. Or to exalt. He needed support, yes, but not like this. Not with all this noise. He needed time to himself. Quiet, calm time. This was supposed to be the beginning, not the final hurrah.

  Ned seemed to feel trapped by the applause, and he began to cry harder. His mother held onto his shoulder, but this only made things worse. His body began to shake, and now Ned was crying out, not just sobbing quietly to himself but crying, yelling out to the crowd to stop, stop, and so they did, but Ned was not done. He began to scream stop, please stop out into the silence, and his face was red with the strain of it, the veins bulging at his neck. There came a moment when it seemed as though he might actually pop something in his head.

  Then Pauline appeared.

  She took him by the hand while he was still screaming, and she led him away from his mother. A shadow crossed Tracy Dunn’s face, as though she were considering putting her foot down just this once. As though she had begun to realize, in the harsh clarity of an alcohol-free evening, that perhaps the babysitter should not be the one to handle this type of situation. That perhaps a wailing, shaking, eleven-year-old boy should be comforted by his mother, even if he resists at first. But the moment passed. Tracy Dunn had apparently used up all her available energy for the night, and she could only look after her son with a defeated expression. Pauline put an arm around Ned’s head and pulled him toward her, leading him away from the stage, down the little set of stairs, and out of the room.

  Devon could hear his cries growing slowly fainter. And then very quiet, though not so far away. And then still.

  There was a long silence in the room. A guilty, confused silence. They had wanted so badly to help. And yet their instincts had failed them. They had gone too far, done too much. Somehow.

  Devon had a sudden thought, and she searched the room quickly for James. She spotted him at the last second, moving toward one of the exit doors. She got up without saying anything to her parents and went after him.

  She came out onto the porch, the same porch where she had been sitting to watch the finals of the junior tournament. Where Austin had sat down next to her the first time.

  James had already jumped down off the porch and onto the grass, and he was walking along Court 1 in the almost-dark with the moon high overhead. He was shaking his head and talking to himself, and Devon waited for a moment. To watch him. To give him time.

  He was still walking. Now he was pacing around Court 1, moving in large circles. As Ned had that day. Before Frankie had gone flying.

  “Okay,” Devon whispered, to no one. She took one step toward the court, and then she turned briefly to see if there was anyone else on the porch.

  No.

  No parents, no other kids, no one. Which made sense, because now the ending ceremony would be taking place inside. The awards would be handed out to virtually every performer, in categories as specific as “best pink-and-green dress,” so as not to leave anyone out.

  Good.

  She took off her sandals and hopped off the porch, down to Court 1. The pressed grass was soft under her feet, and it was already wet with the cool of the night. She began walking slowly toward James, silent over the grass. She took her time. When she was close enough, she whispered out to him, calling his name.

  He turned with suspicion, but he relaxed when he saw it was her. “You can’t help,” he said quickly, still pacing around the court.

  Devon said nothing. She squatted down, balancing herself on her toes, and she looked up at him. Like a very young girl, waiting to listen. Waiting to hear a secret plan.

  James glanced at her, and he stopped his pacing. He watched her for a moment, a frown on his face. As if trying to make a decision. And then, abruptly, he walked briskly toward her. For a second she thought he was going to tackle her. Or grab her by the wrist and ankle and try to play airplane with her. But at the last second he stopped and squatted down next to her.

  Now they were two very small children. Out in the middle of a grass tennis court under the full summer moon, fifty feet away from a crowd of parents who were beginning to roust themselves, pull themselves together, and collect their affairs. Time to go home, sleep off this whole weird night.

  But no, Devon and James were alone in an attic somewhere. Crouching in the hot and dusty silence. Ready to exchange the deepest, most precious secrets.

  James leaned closer, and before he began to speak, Devon was reminded of Austin kissing her. She wished she were with him right now. Alone on the monument, overlooking Agawam.

  James whispered, and his voice was steady. He talked and talked, and he picked up speed with the relief of the talking, the telling at long last. Devon nodded slowly and listened. She did not react. Or startle. Or put a hand to her mouth, or shake her head. She balanced on her toes and listened to James tell her about Pauline and Ned. And Pauline and himself, in the years before. When Pauline had first arrived, and he had been only ten.

  She listened and told herself silently that it would be okay. That she would shout at the sky later on, when there was time.

  When James was done whispering, he slumped forward and put a hand out on the grass to steady himself. As if the effort of expelling so much poison from his system had worn him out. But after another second he pushed himself back up, so that now he was sitting on his haunches as before. He glanced once at Devon. She tried to read the expression on his face, but there was nothing to see. If anything, she thought she saw an emptiness there. A numbness.

  James stood back up suddenly, onto his feet, and he jogged back to the center of the court at the service line, halfway from the net to the baseline. He dropped back down to his knees there, and for a moment Devon thought he was about to start exercising. If it hadn’t been dark outside, she would have thought he was doing stretches.

  But he was not. He stayed down on his knees for a minute, and he looked down at the grass. He seemed to be considering the court. Measuring it.

  Then he began to dig.

  He had no tools, but his hands were strong enough. The grass, despite all its care with special mowers and special rollers, was still only grass, and it was soft and damp and easy to cut. James made his way through the top layer of green in ten seconds, and then he began tearing through the layer of sod underneath, and then the soil lower down. He reached regular, untreated dirt after another minute, and the hole he was making began to grow. Now he stood on his feet, and he spread his legs so that he could dig with both hands like a dog at the beach, letting the dirt fly out backward through his legs in an arc; a little pile of grass and soil began to form a few feet behind him.

  “Hey, what is he – ?”

  Devon was up in a flash, running silently over the grass in her bare feet and summer dress, moving like a deer across a meadow. She sprang up onto the porch in a single bound and came straight up to the groundskeeper who had appeared there, a sole envoy from the maintenance shed; he had been sent to determine whether the party was over. Whether it was time for the rest of the groundskeepers to descend upon the courts and begin the night’s work of mowing and pressing and keeping the Meadow Club looking right. Devon came to him and stood close, putting herself in the line of sight to James. She let the man feel her breath on his face, and he could smell the good soap she used, and see the light from the moon coming around and through the thin material of her summer dress. He was flustered.

  “What’s going on here?” he said.

  “You don’t care,” Devon said. She kept her voice soft and kind, and she shook her head gently. To show him that
she was simply telling him the truth. Helping him to understand. “You’ll come back in half an hour,” she said. “And you’ll fix whatever needs to be fixed. Because you’re an expert. An expert who can turn a patch of untended dirt into a perfect grass court.”

  The man did not respond. He liked what this girl was saying, and especially the way she was saying it. Also, she seemed other-worldly, with her soft voice and her good smell and the moonlight making her shine. She made him feel excited and uneasy at the same time, as if he were in the presence of someone who had the power to either delight or terrify him, depending on her mood.

  The current mood seemed preferable.

  Still he hesitated. His instinct to maintain the courts – to protect the courts – was too strong. He tried to look around the girl, to see better what was going on. “He isn’t actually digging, is he?”

  Devon moved with him, and she took a small step closer. Now she was close enough for him to see her eyes clearly, even in the semi-dark. And those eyes were flashing. “It doesn’t matter,” she said, her tone going up a notch. Again the groundskeeper felt exhilarated and scared at the same time. As though he were a hunter, and he had come upon a full-grown mother lion without remembering to pack his gun. “It doesn’t matter,” she said again, her voice softer now. “It won’t matter in the morning.”

  The groundskeeper gave in. He didn’t know what this mother lion would do if he tried to defy her, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to find out. So he indulged himself by looking at her for another few seconds, with her still standing so close, and sharing his air, and then he squared his shoulders, nodded once, and turned away. “Back in a half hour,” he said, as though he were heading off to fetch a special mower blade buried in the back of a shed somewhere.

  Devon exhaled. She walked slowly back to the edge of the porch, climbed carefully down, and then curled herself up on the grass. James was still digging, burrowing deeper and deeper into the court, and the mound of dirt behind him was still growing. After another minute he began to slow down. Devon could hear him breathing hard, losing steam.

  Suddenly he was done.

  He looked over at Devon, then looked around as though he wasn’t sure where he was. Or what he was doing. Without a word, he bolted off the court, up onto the far end of the porch, and then ran along the paved driveway toward the exit of the club. In another minute he was out of sight.

  Devon sighed. She wasn’t worried about James getting home; as with all of her friends, she knew he lived less than a mile from the Meadow Club. She picked herself up slowly and climbed back up onto the porch. She could hear the murmur of voices coming from inside the main banquet hall, which meant the talent show was finally over. Officially.

  People spilled out onto the porch. It was fully night now, but the moon was bright enough to illuminate a small dark spot out in the middle of Court 1. A few people coming out onto the porch noticed it, and they also noticed the little pile of dirt behind the hole. But they didn’t give it any thought. It was nighttime. No one was playing tennis now. The groundskeeping crew would take care of it; they had probably made that hole themselves. It would be gone tomorrow, one way or another.

  Fixed, invisible, covered up.

  The Beginning Of The End

  1

  That night, the night when James had told Devon everything, was the beginning of the end for Pauline. But Devon had no way of knowing this, and so the next day she only felt sadness.

  She felt alone.

  This information was hers now, this terrible, sickening knowledge of what James and Ned had been through – of what Ned was still going through – and yet the knowledge did her no good. She knew she was not allowed to share what she knew with anyone; James had been very, very clear about this. She could not discuss the matter with her friends, or with Austin, or with her parents. Not even with James himself, who had unloaded on her like a tired truck driver dropping off a shipment of spoiled milk.

  Here, take this. I don’t care where you put it, just don’t try to return it.

  Which is what she had wanted – she had wanted to help him share his burden, no matter how heavy – except that now she was staggering under the weight of it. As James had been. The load was too much to hold alone, and she could not think what to do. Any plan – anything that could even be called a plan – was unacceptable. How could you solve a problem without confronting it head-on, or admitting the problem existed in the first place?

  How do I get rid of Pauline without telling anyone? Without embarrassing James? Without even acknowledging that Pauline does…

  What she does.

  Devon didn’t think she could pull it off.

  The next day at the Beach Club she felt as though she were the only one not enjoying herself. It was another beautiful summer day, and the talent show had been a success. Every child had received his or her token award. Florin and Jasper had done well, and Austin and Barnes were proud of their participation. Austin, especially. They hadn’t yet talked about his behind-the-scenes Spain barrage, but she couldn’t just pretend that it hadn’t happened.

  Not that she wanted to. It had been a sweet gesture, after all.

  Also, everyone seemed to have moved past the end of the show – Ned’s breakdown – because he had sung so wonderfully; no one could deny the beauty of that performance, least of all Ned himself. And look, there he was, swimming around in the big pool as he so often did, diving down to the bottom and fetching pennies under the watchful gaze of James. Ned was fine, they all told themselves. Ned had simply had stage fright. And he had redeemed himself wonderfully. Yes, he had fallen apart a little bit afterward, but soon enough he had been taken away and comforted by his nice, pretty nanny. Now here he was, back at the club after so many days in hiding at his house. Redeemed and forgiven. Everything was good.

  Devon looked around, taking in the pool scene. She had to admit to herself that everything did seem good. Austin was doing his laps, Nina and Barnes were doing their flirting, sparing routine, and Florin was even managing to get cozy with James. Or as cozy as you could get with someone who was holding a ten-month-old baby in his arms. James seemed more relaxed than he had in weeks. He even laughed out loud at something Florin said to him.

  He had unburdened himself.

  So Devon sat and pretended to read her book, a book that had now been stuck on the same page for what seemed like a whole month. She watched the scene of happiness and normalcy before her, and she thought of her parents, who were up at the cafeteria having their lunch, back in their happy, normal life.

  She wondered what to do.

  The problem, of course, was that she had promised James she would do nothing.

  But then something happened.

  Ned had been swimming happily in the main pool for almost an hour. He was diving for pennies, throwing them over the edge of the pool himself and then retrieving them in bunches. The challenge was to collect as many as possible in one dive, and Ned had gotten to the point where he could forage down at the bottom of the 9-foot-deep pool for as long as thirty seconds at a time. On this last go-round, he had thrown a whole handful of change down there; he was underwater for what seemed like too long. James stopped flirting with Florin, and he watched his younger brother at the bottom of the pool, watched his hands searching blindly, frantically, trying to get one more coin. And then all at once Ned was out of air.

  He came swimming up, kicking and pulling at the water as quickly as he could. Except that rising up through water is a slow, maddening process when you are in real need of oxygen, and Ned was panicked. Instead of letting his natural buoyancy do the work, he flailed and wriggled like a wounded fish, and so he did not swim straight. He burst through the surface at the very edge of the pool and smacked his head on the underside of the concrete lip. He was in the process of taking a huge, gasping breath as this happened, and the force of the impact sent him back under. He gulped pool water instead of air, and as he began thrashing with pain and renewed panic he hit
his head again and again, until finally he had the sense to reach up and hold the edge of the pool instead of ramming into it like a fly bumping against the inside of a window. He held on, and coughed, and breathed, and then he began to cry from the trauma of it all.

  A few people looked to see what was happening, but they quickly turned away. Perhaps the Dunn boy was not okay after all. He seemed very fragile all of a sudden.

  Devon expected Ned to calm himself after a moment, but he did not. Like the night before, his distress seemed to increase, to build on itself in waves. As though any traumatic event could open a door to a dark, spider-filled room that Ned had trouble closing on his own. Now he was crying louder, and louder still, and in another moment Devon saw Pauline approaching, reaching out with a towel and a helping hand, to take Ned away and comfort him.

  Which was when Devon stood up.

  There was no conscious thought to the decision. She did not intend to have a conversation with Pauline, or even with Ned. But she saw that James was not moving, that he was frozen, as before. Perhaps he would always be frozen in the presence of this woman, Devon thought. She was suddenly reminded of a time three years earlier, when Pauline had yelled at James for dropping a cup of juice near the pool; he had stopped and turned to the nanny with fear in his eyes. Fear that made no sense to Devon, because it was only a cup of juice, and because James Dunn, even at 13 years old, was already a strong, well-built boy who did not startle easily. Yet there he had stood, hunching his shoulders and wincing as though preparing for a blow to the head.

  In any case, Devon was not willing to watch this happen again. She could not. And so as soon as Ned was out of the pool, Devon was there. She reached down and took his hand, and she smiled kindly at him. As though she had been looking forward, so looking forward to seeing him.

  Ned looked up at Devon uncertainly – she was not someone he knew very well – but it was hard to resist that smile. She was certainly a friend of James; Ned knew that much. She was pretty, and she never shouted. She seemed nice.