Southampton Spectacular

by M. C. Soutter

  Nobody.

  Her hands closed around his neck.

  She cut off his airway, but Barnes only smiled. With the veins in his face already beginning to distend and turn blue, he pointed out the front window. As though patiently redirecting her attention to the matter at hand.

  You’ve got bigger problems, sister.

  They had come to the first big bend in the road. And the speedometer now had them at better than 95 mph.

  “The turn!” Pauline screamed at him.

  Barnes smiled and nodded stiffly. As if Pauline were an especially thick-headed pupil, one who was finally coming to grips with the thrust of a simple lesson. She let go of his neck, and he inhaled quickly.

  They had less than a second now.

  At the very last moment, something occurred to Barnes. He turned to Pauline and spoke to her with a little gasp. His words were quiet, out of breath, and lost in her screaming, but Barnes didn’t mind. He down-shifted all the way into third, jammed the accelerator back down to the floor, and wrenched the wheel hard to the left.

  And the Condor flew.

  The Terrible Secret

  Everyone except Tracy Dunn was now out in the waiting room together. Florin, Nina, Devon, and Cynthia Hall were with Frankie and Ned, and Peter Hall had managed to get Jerry Dunn into a far corner on his own. The two of them were sitting next to each other, leaning over with their heads bent low. Talking quietly and nodding. Like old friends.

  Devon looked over at them once, but then she resolved to keep her attention on the kids. And on Florin, who actually seemed to be doing quite well.

  “James is going to be okay,” she kept repeating to Devon. And Devon believed her. Nina seemed hopeful, too.

  There was a sudden commotion in the restricted area of the E.R., over by the ambulance drop-off, but no one in the waiting room paid any attention at first. They could hear doctors and EMT’s shouting through the glass, and the sound of metal dollies and running feet. But they all had their own problems to worry about, so they dismissed these noises as nothing more than another anonymous tragedy. Something registered, but not considered. As though it were happening on television.

  A few moments later a doctor came walking quickly out through the double doors to the waiting room, looking around as though he had lost something. “Is there someone here who knows this patient?” the doctor called out to the room. “I’ve got a car accident, Dune Road. I need to try to get in touch with the family. Patient’s got no I.D., and he’s tubed so he can’t talk. But he pointed out here like he knows somebody.”

  The whole group of them stood. They were confused.

  “Doctor, we’ve been here for hours,” Cynthia Hall said. She was still holding little Frankie in one arm. Ned was now holding onto her leg the way a toddler would. “And Mrs. Dunn is already in there with him, isn’t she? What other family do you need?”

  The doctor shook his head impatiently. “Not that one. This just arrived. Car was a red Volkswagen, old model.”

  Devon, Florin, and Nina all froze. They could not breathe.

  Now Jerry Dunn stood. He blinked several times as though coming out of a deep sleep. “What?”

  “Sir, you know that car?”

  “Who was driving my car?”

  The doctor zeroed in on him. “Would you come back with me? I need to know this patient’s name.”

  Jerry Dunn stumbled toward him, still looking very confused. Nina found her breath again, and she wanted to shout at him, to run and push him and tell him to go, move, go and find out exactly what was going on.

  Mr. Dunn disappeared through the swinging doors, and a new silence descended on the waiting room. Even Ned and Frankie were still.

  Jerry Dunn was back three minutes later, but it felt to Nina and Devon and Florin like hours. He stood just inside the double doors, a blank expression on his face. Devon thought he looked like someone who had just undergone shock treatment. “She’s dead,” he said suddenly. Still he didn’t move. His face remained blank. “Dead,” he said again.

  “What?” Nina shouted. She ran over to him, wanting more information. “What about the driver? What about Barnes?”

  Mr. Dunn looked at her, and his face finally registered an emotion. Annoyance. As if Nina were demanding to know what time the next bus to New York was leaving. “Fucked up,” he said, with a little shake of his head. “Very fucked up. But definitely alive.” He took a few steps into the waiting room and looked at all of them in turn. As though deciding whom to yell at. Finally he settled on Peter Hall. “Unlike the woman I was in love with,” he said, his voice suddenly rising to full volume. “Not like her. Because she’s dead.” He was shouting now, throwing his hands up in the air with each exclamation. “In love with her,” he shouted. “But dead.”

  Peter walked over to him quickly, both hands out, as though moving to comfort a loved one. But Jerry Dunn backed away. “She’s dead,” he shouted again.

  Peter nodded. “I know,” he said gently. “And I’m sorry.” He lowered his voice and added, “But you’ve still got James to think about. And your wife, who might be coming out here at any time.”

  Jerry Dunn sniffed. “She doesn’t care,” he said.

  “But your children might,” Peter whispered. He inclined his head slightly, indicating Ned.

  Jerry looked at Peter Hall for a moment, and then he looked over at the rest of the group. Cynthia Hall was standing there, and she had two of Jerry Dunn’s own children with her. Frankie was attached to her like a tree frog, and Ned had positioned himself behind the protective curve of Cynthia’s hip. He was looking out at his father fearfully, as though at an unpredictable ogre.

  Then Jerry looked at Devon and her friends. He imagined he saw rebuke in their eyes. Rebuke and judgment. Then back at Peter Hall, who was holding his hands out to him. Whispering to him that he should keep his voice down. That he should think of his wife, and of his children.

  Then, all at once, Jerry Dunn lost control of himself.

  He hadn’t had a drink in two days, and his mind was not working right. Added to that were the patronizing looks from Cynthia and Peter Hall, and the sickening spectacle of his own children defecting to the Hall camp like refugees from a broken country. And the silent rebuke from those teenaged girls. Not to mention that his eldest son had attempted suicide, and that his own wife was suddenly acting as if she didn’t want to drink anymore. As if she were suddenly going to be some great mother all of a sudden.

  And Pauline was dead.

  Where was his comfort now? What did he have to look forward to?

  Jerry Dunn felt backed into a corner. He searched for a way to defend himself, a way to regain balance. He couldn’t bear so much scrutiny all of a sudden, so much attention being paid to the ways in which he fell short when compared to the almighty, the wonderful, the sparkling Hall family.

  He had a good idea of what to do: he would take away a little bit of that sparkle.

  “My children?” Jerry Dunn said suddenly, turning back to Peter Hall. A little sneer crept onto his face. “I should watch out for my children?”

  A flash of fear came into Peter Hall’s eyes, and Jerry Dunn liked it.

  “Jerry – ”

  “But which children are you referring to?” he cried out.

  “You don’t want to do this,” Peter said.

  “Are you talking about him, about Frankie?” Jerry pointed theatrically, and Frankie responded with a giggle.

  Pointing at me. Yes. Love this game.

  “Are you talking about Ned?”

  Ned took another step behind Cynthia Hall, as though his father were about to come over and snatch him away.

  “Or James, in his hospital bed? Or is it the other one?” Jerry Dunn put on cruel grimace of simulated confusion. “Are you talking about her?”

  He pointed at Devon.

  Quarantine

  They might have been able to call him crazy. With the right reactions, perfectly timed and calibrated, Peter a
nd Cynthia Hall might have convinced everyone – Devon included – that Jerry Dunn was suffering from some kind of episode, that the stress of two traumatic events in one day had caused a psychotic break, and that he was now inventing absurd stories as a coping mechanism. As a way of deflecting, a way of venting his frustration with the world.

  But when he pointed at her, the first thing Devon did was to look at her mother. And because Cynthia Hall knew that Peter knew – she had read the non compos mentis letter, after all – she was momentarily bowed by the idea that she would now have to discuss, would be forced actually to discuss these things with her husband. So she let her head fall to her chest. And she closed her eyes.

  Which was all Devon needed to see.

  It made no sense. It was impossible. Unthinkable. And yet there her mother stood, mute, head down, eyes closed. Accepting.

  Confirming.

  Cynthia Hall realized one second too late – an eternity too late – that her daughter would be watching her reaction, and she picked her head up quickly. But the damage was done.

  Devon ran.

  She heard people calling her, her friends and her mother and her father – the man who she had always thought was her father – but none of them sounded sure or good or comforting in any real way; she could hear in their voices that they were only calling her out of fear, fear at having to look at one another when she was out of the room, fear of having to discuss such a thing with each other.

  So she just ran.

  Through the waiting room doors and out onto the street and then she was still running, almost into the path of a car that honked angrily at her. Now she was on the grassy shoulder, still running, running, and she was at least four or five miles from home but it didn’t matter, she needed hours and hours to run, and she wasn’t sure she would be running home anyway. Maybe she would run to Nina’s house. Or to Sag Harbor. Or to New York city. She ran and ran, and waited to cry or yell or anything, but nothing happened. Her face was numb, her legs were numb, she could have been running barefoot over glass and it wouldn’t have mattered.

  Eventually she did make it home, but only because it was the one way she knew better than all the others. She ran inside and up to her room and locked the door.

  She did not emerge for three days.

  The Worst Story

  Her parents brought her food and drink, but they did not try to make her talk to them. Which Devon thought was a good decision. Her friends came, too, and gave her updates from the other side of the door. James was doing better. Barnes would live. The police had been right there behind him, after all. Nina reported that he was going to be charged with all kinds of horrible-sounding vehicular misdemeanor things, but apparently none of them amounted to much more than fines and extended community service. And a suspended license until he was about fifty, of course. But most of the heat was coming at Mr. Dunn, whose name Nina uttered with reluctance. From an official, legal point of view, he had been criminally negligent, in that he had been the registered owner and operator of a vehicle with a non-functioning passenger-side seatbelt and an engine with a dangerously unbalanced power-to-weight ratio. Which somehow was the big thing.

  “They’re saying the Condor was an accident waiting to happen,” Nina said. “Anyway, Barnes’s parents managed to get him in a bed in the same room with James. They’re like a couple of freak shows in there. All wrapped up head to toe like mummies.”

  “They’re totally the same,” Florin piped up happily. “Listening to them curse at each other, you’d never know they were both in body casts.”

  “They’re going to be all right,” Nina added.

  In the quiet of her room, Devon almost smiled.

  “We’ll talk to you tomorrow,” Nina said, with a little goodbye knock on the door.

  “Love you,” Florin called out.

  Devon’s parents talked to her mostly in the mornings and at night. Devon never answered, but they spoke to her anyway. They tried to stay out of the house during the day, in case Devon wanted to venture out of her room without fear of encountering anyone, like a cautious rabbit exploring a new meadow. But Devon did not unlock the door unless she was pulling in or pushing out food on a tray, and she did that only when she was sure no one was around. So she would sit and listen in the mornings as Peter Hall told her about what had happened. About that day seventeen years ago, during the fertility process. When the doctor had come to him in private and told him he was sterile.

  He had kept this information from Cynthia.

  Why the fuck? Devon thought.

  “I’m not sure why,” Peter said. He was sitting with his back against the door, staring up at the ceiling. “I wanted to give her a baby. I was starting an airline, and I knew it was going to succeed. I was going to be able to give her everything else – everything! – but not this. I wanted another opinion. I wanted to go to South America, have some witch-doctor do something to me. I don’t know. Anything but admit to your mom that I couldn’t get her pregnant. So I waited. I was going to tell her eventually. If it didn’t work out. But I hid the truth from her.”

  Devon wanted to scream.

  What does any of that have to do with Jerry Dunn? You can be a proud, piggish man about your ability to make babies, but that doesn’t explain anything. You left out the small part about Jerry Dunn having sex with my mom seventeen years ago.

  But Peter didn’t say anything more on the subject. He left the rest to his wife.

  Cynthia Hall came to speak to Devon in the evenings. She told her first what had been in the letter from Peter. The one she had read from him in the hospital, when the lawyer had come.

  “It said that Peter knew, but that he forgave me,” Cynthia said. “He didn’t want to die without freeing me of that burden. Without letting me understand that in the end, he still loved me as much as he ever had.” She took a little breath, and she collected herself. “It also said that he was sorry, and that he hoped I could forgive him, too.”

  That he was sorry? What would he have to be sorry about? You’re the one who committed adultery.

  “He knew how much I wanted children,” Cynthia said. “He had never failed at anything in his life, and I think the sterility thing caught him off-guard. There was nothing he could do about it. So he stalled. He kept it from me. I don’t think he planned it, but it just happened.”

  What? Planned what?

  “You need some background,” Cynthia said. “Peter and Jerry used to be such great friends. Like Barnes and James – ”

  They were NOTHING like Barnes and James!

  “ – sort of an odd couple. One steady and controlled. One not so steady; a little crazy. Peter was the smart one. More sensitive. He was an athlete, but he was also a great dancer. He had style. Jerry, on the other hand, was brute force. All heart. He was funny before he turned into such a drunk. He was loud and impetuous and… oh, I don’t know, just more of an animal than your father.”

  Devon cringed. I don’t want to hear this.

  “You probably don’t want to hear this. But the point is that they were great friends. They complimented each other. And that’s what I mean by comparing them to Barnes and James. They were so close that sometimes they seemed like two different parts of the same person. They went everywhere together. To bars, to the Meadow Club and to the Beach Club. They were doubles partners at the Racquet Club. For squash tournaments. So before we were married – and even after we were first married – whenever I went somewhere with your father, Jerry was there. They were like a comedy team.”

  She paused, and Devon could feel her thinking. Wondering how much to say. But then her mother seemed to make up her mind.

  “There are no excuses,” Cynthia said. “But what I can tell you is that I grew fond of Jerry because I loved Peter. Because they were so close. Finding him attractive was like finding that part – a different part – of your father attractive. And one night we were all together at a restaurant, and drinking a lot, and Peter suddenly had a crisis to
deal with at one of his airlines. Which used to happen. And Jerry and I were left together.”

  Cynthia sighed. She was silent for a minute.

  On the other side of the door, Devon closed her eyes.

  That’s the worst story I’ve ever heard.

  “When I got pregnant, Peter knew. Of course he knew, because he knew he could never give me children. But I wasn’t sure, because I didn’t know he was sterile; and of course we had been trying to have a baby, so I assumed there was a fifty-fifty chance that the pregnancy was thanks to Peter. Plus, he never gave the slightest hint. I think he felt responsible somehow. For making Jerry such a constant part of our lives. He felt as though he had pushed me into it. Enabled me. Then everything changed all at once, because Jerry had found this girl he was crazy about, Tracy, which must have been right after he and I… well. And they got pregnant immediately, and all at once they were married and James was on the way. So it seemed natural that Peter and Jerry were spending less time together. Then Tracy and I came home from the hospital on the same day, her with James and me with you. Can you imagine?”

  I can’t imagine.

  “And I was never sure, you know,” Cynthia said. “Never. Until I read that lawyer-letter from your father, I thought you might be – ”

  Here Cynthia stopped suddenly. Devon waited, holding her breath, wondering if there would be more.

  But apparently that was enough for the night. Devon was glad.

  It was enough for both of them.

  “I love you very much, honey,” Cynthia said, and she knocked once on the door. “I miss you. So does your father.”