Postcards From Last Summer

by Roz Bailey

  “I could stand you, Kevin,” Darcy said, her voice hoarse with emotion. “I love you. But I don’t like you very much when you’re wasted. After a few drinks and a couple lines of coke, there isn’t a lot of Kevin left. Just this blithering asshole that nobody likes.”

  He sighed. “What if that blithering ass is the real me?”

  “It’s not.” Darcy moved up to the bed and reached for his hand, which seemed rough and bonier than she remembered. “And I want the real Kevin back. The guy I knew before cocaine zipped him up too tight.”

  “You want me to cut the drugs?” His eyes were hemmed in dark lines.

  “Cut the drinking and the drugs,” Darcy said firmly.

  “We can provide some assistance, Kevin,” Dr. Mehta said, looking like a teenaged Yoda. “Certainly a detox program would serve you well, and we offer therapy and support groups. We have a chapter of AA that meets here, but we can also refer you to many groups that meet right in your own community.”

  “I can’t do that.” Kevin’s forehead creased. “My old man would kill me. Son of Coney’s in Alcoholics Anonymous? It’s not gonna fly, Doc.”

  “If it’s about cost and privacy, we can work something out,” Darcy said. “My therapist can give you a referral for Betty Ford or someplace in Manhattan or . . . or even in Vermont, near Bennington. I’ll take you up myself . . .” Darcy was fast-forwarding to the advantages of having Kevin close to college, away from his influential friends and dysfunctional family. They could spend weekends together, driving through the fiery reds and oranges of the autumn foliage, warming by the fire in quaint bed-and-breakfast inns.

  “I’ll do everything I can to help you, Kevin, if you’re willing to do it.”

  “And ultimately, it is your decision, Kevin,” Dr. Mehta cut in. “We can support you, but you are responsible for your life.”

  Kevin sucked in a wincing breath, as if it were painful just to breathe. “Yeah, okay. I’ll clean up my act. But nothing too radical until after the season ends. My old man will give me hell if I just up and disappear now.”

  “Okay,” Darcy said, squeezing his hand and wondering if this could possibly work out. Wisps of hope swirled around the old dream, the Kevin and Darcy Bliss Package. Could it really happen after all?

  30

  Darcy

  “You’re a good helper.” Timothy McGowan climbed to the third rung and pointed down at the stack of plywood. “You know, last time we had a hurricane, everyone on the staff pitched in to close up the place. Buttoned it up so well, we had minimal damage. Minimal. But this year, with the end of season so close . . .” He sputtered a raspberry and flicked his hand as if batting away a mosquito. “I let them go. Let them go back to their winter jobs, get out of the path of the storm. Things can be replaced, I say. But people, people are one of a kind. The human condition must be protected and guarded at all costs! At least, that’s what I say.”

  Among other things, Darcy thought, feeling a bit numbed by his constant barrage of chatter. Staring up at him, balanced on the ladder, she wondered why his wife didn’t get after him to cut that shaggy gray hair, especially the strands that curled around his ears and collar like wild ivy. She’d never noticed inside Coney’s, which was dimly lit, but out here the sunshine cast Kevin’s father in a whole new light.

  “Hand up another board, there, Darcy,” he said. She hoisted up a plywood board, glad for the leather gloves to keep splinters out of her hands. Damn, these boards were heavy, even after Kevin trimmed them down to size with a power saw.

  “Thank you, darlin’. I appreciate it.” He fit the board neatly over the window, pulled the hammer from the loop on his pants, and began driving nails. “My son . . . he gets sick of hearing his old man rant and rave, on and on. I know it, but I can’t help myself.”

  “You’re not ranting,” Darcy chided him, although he’d been babbling on so long about social security, union wages, preservatives in bread, and the cheese surplus that she’d tuned out everything but the big exclamations long ago. She hoped there wouldn’t be a quiz.

  After three hours spent assisting as father and son unloaded plywood, cut it down to size, and tacked it over the windows of Coney’s on the Beach in preparation for the incoming hurricane, she was starting to see how the old man drove Kevin crazy, always criticizing and snapping at him. Kevin was sawing the boards too narrow/too wide, moving too fast/too slow. No doubt about it, Timothy McGowan was a cranky old man, but Darcy was still counting on winning him over with her charm and maybe even smoothing things over between the man and his son. Darcy had always had a way with adults—parents, teachers, store clerks, even the Great Egg supermoms who headed the school organizations and Girl Scout troops had loved her. Whether it was her saccharine manners or her thousand-watt smile (courtesy of two orthodontic specialists), Darcy had a gift for sucking up, and she intended to utilize it on Kevin’s father.

  “Darcy’s got some ideas for renovating the restaurant, Pop. Good ideas.”

  “Renovations? Oh, really now?” Timothy McGowan’s pale blue eyes blinked suspiciously at Darcy.

  She wasn’t sure she liked the way this was going. “Kevin . . .” She scowled at him, then cocked her head in deference to his father. “You have a lovely place, Mr. McGowan. I’ve always adored Coney’s.”

  “But you’d change a thing or two given the chance?” Mr. McGowan slid a piece of plywood off the cart. “So like a woman. And how would you change my establishment, Darcy?”

  Now that Kevin had put her on the spot, she figured she might as well share her ideas. “Those bay windows on the south end? The ones with the plants in them. I’d take them out and replace with a solid wall. You could put in a big gas fireplace, which would be a big draw in the winter months. Besides, the southern exposure is too hot for unshielded windows at the beach. And if you close up the wall it will be better insulated; a savings on air-conditioning, fuel bills.”

  “Is that right?” His face was rigid. “Not for nothing, Darcy, but who asked you?”

  The sting of embarrassment was so sharp, she couldn’t muster an answer.

  “You did, Dad.” Kevin dragged a sheet of plywood across the porch. “You asked her.”

  And the place needs it, old man! she wanted to shout. Darcy had come up with dozens of ways to renovate the building, change the menu, and upgrade the business. Renovating Coney’s was all part of the master fantasy in which she and Kevin married and became a premier couple of the Hamptons, the restaurant gurus, hosts to movie moguls and actors, TV personalities and dignitaries and any celebrity who seemed to be the new flavor of the month. Sure, Coney’s was popular now, but with her input and vision the restaurant could become a Hamptons event, the hottest place to see and be seen out East, on a par with four-star restaurants in Manhattan.

  As Timothy moved his ladder to another window, Darcy flexed her fingers inside the leather gloves, feeling very small. Suddenly she understood how Kevin felt, though she imagined this was a minuscule sampling of the degradation his father passed down on a daily basis.

  “Goddamned changes,” the older man grumbled. “Everybody’s an expert.” He banged a nail, as if to emphasize his anger.

  Kevin joined Darcy, swiping the beads of sweat from his forehead with the hem of his T-shirt. “Not for nothing, Dad, but I think Darcy’s got some great ideas. This place could use some new vision.”

  “Vision. Now that’s a buzzword if I ever heard one.” Timothy came down the ladder and swung around toward Darcy and Kevin, pointing the hammer at them. “My father had this business since before the two of you were born. How’s that for vision?”

  “Fairly insightful, I’d say. I mean, to open a good-sized restaurant and bar on the beach, not knowing how the community would develop?” Darcy felt as if she were reading a script for a college workshop, the assignment: act whimsical and polite. Honesty hadn’t worked with Mr. McGowan; time to grease the pan. “That was brave.”

  “You’re darn tootin’.” Timothy low
ered the hammer, but his pale eyes were full of rage. “Do you know what was on this stretch of beach before we got here? Do you know? It was nothing. Dunes. Lumps of sand. My father built a business out of lumps of sand . . .”

  “Look, Dad, if you want to get all these windows covered, including the big ugly bays on the south side, we don’t have time for the long version of Coney’s history.” Kevin wheeled the cart of plywood down the porch, turned the corner, and vanished from sight.

  Darcy headed after him awkwardly.

  “Your grandfather was a man with vision,” Timothy shouted, swinging his hammer against a boarded-up window.

  A clatter of glass sounded. Something had broken under the plywood.

  “Damn it to hell!” He started prying the board loose with the prongs of the hammer.

  But Darcy didn’t want to stick around to watch the billowing wrath of Timothy McGowan. Checking her gloves, she edged toward the corner of the building. “I guess I’ll just go help Kevin . . .” Rounding the corner of the porch, she saw Kevin working furiously, picking up boards and flicking them against the side of the building as if they were playing cards. With his shirt off, she noticed again how thin he’d become, his ribs stretching his chest, his washed-out jeans barely hinged on his hip bones. Although thin was in, Kevin was starting to look sick. For the millionth time, she wondered when he was going to start therapy, refusing to accept that he’d just go on drinking all winter. Hadn’t he promised her to start rehab as soon as the season ended? Every day, each morning she woke up wondering if this would be the day he’d ask for her help, tell her he was ready to go.

  Darcy folded her arms across her chest. “Better watch it, or you’ll break a window, too.”

  “Why do you suck up to him?”

  “I never suck up,” she said indignantly.

  “You’re the queen. The Jedi Master of Suck Up.”

  She cracked a smile. “That good, am I?” Darcy waited for Kevin to calm down, to turn around and tell her he was sorry for losing his cool, that he didn’t mean to blame her.

  But he kept hammering away.

  She wasn’t used to being upstaged like this; when a temper tantrum was thrown, she was usually the one throwing the tirade. The role reversal was not pleasant for her.

  Shucking off her gloves, Darcy crossed the porch to the main entrance where Kevin had left a cooler full of beer and water. She cracked open a bottle of water, sat down on the wooden steps, and recalculated. As if it wasn’t enough that she needed to talk Kevin into getting sober, now she’d have to figure in a lifetime of dealing with his obstinate father, a royal pain in the ass. She wondered if all this was worth the dream . . .

  To be the future Mrs. Kevin McGowan.

  To be a restaurateur, a Hamptons personality.

  To be with Kevin. She still felt a little wounded at times, still lapsed into a blue mood occasionally when she recalled that horrendous spectacle in Kevin’s van. At least he’d had the good grace to trade it in for a truck, against his father’s wishes, of course, but the bad memory mobile was history.

  Yeah, Kevin was worth it, even if he was a workout. Peeling some sweaty gunk out from between her fingers, she figured she could hack it. Every family had its dysfunctions, and she wasn’t about to let a grouchy, middle-aged man ruin her future. Let the old fart rage on and on, like the hurricane winds.

  He could huff and puff, but he wasn’t going to blow Darcy’s house down.

  31

  Lindsay

  “Have you seen the forecast?” my mother asked, leaning into the laundry room where I was folding colors. “The hurricane is picking up strength, a category four now. Maybe you should go back to school today. Get ahead of it.”

  “And spend extra time in the dorms?” There was nothing more dweebish than arriving on campus too early, especially since I had signed on to live in the dormitories as a resident assistant instead of taking a share in a student rental house. Though I’d love to be hanging with friends, I’d chosen to reduce my student loan by working for free housing. Always penny-pinching, the way of the McCorkles. Still, I couldn’t stand to be back in the sterile dorms early. “I’ll be okay driving on Tuesday, Mom.”

  “Not if some of the roads wash out. You know, the Shinnecock Inlet was created by the hurricane of 1938. You can’t underestimate the power of a storm.”

  “I’ll be okay, Ma.” I shook out an oversized red T-shirt and held it under my chin to fold it. “I want to be home right now, to make something out of the last few days of summer. My birthday, Ma.” Of course, I couldn’t tell her that I needed some closure with Bear before I left. Ma and I didn’t discuss the fact that I’d been crushing on him for years, that he hadn’t returned to work at Old Towne Pizza after the Hatteras competition. That we hadn’t really talked, either at the dinner table or out in the surf line.

  That my heart was breaking.

  Some days I wallowed in dark thoughts, viewing the tragic turn of events as one of the daytime soaps Darcy was glued to. I blamed my brother for sweeping Bear off to the competition that forced me into the wicked Austin’s arms. I imagined the sponsors to be unsavory, wretched men who promised Bear a glowing treasure chest only deliver a piece of driftwood on a crowded Honolulu beach. The evil sponsors.

  How could they take Bear away from us?

  Ma pulled a navy sheet out of the laundry basket and handed two corners to me. “Why don’t you drive back to Brooklyn, then?” she suggested. “That’ll put you halfway back to school.”

  “You trying to get rid of me?” I pressed the edge of the sheet to my mother’s hands, getting in her face.

  “I’ve been trying for years, and still I’ve got two clinging like there’s no tomorrow.” With a wry grin, my mother snapped the sheet into a compact square and placed it onto the dryer.

  “Oh, come on, Ma. You love having us around. If Kathleen and all the others would move back in with all the grandchildren, you’d be in your glory.”

  “Wouldn’t I?” Mary Grace smiled. “The human race is the only animal that doesn’t know when or how to kick its young out of the nest.”

  I folded a white sweatshirt and loaded it into my duffel bag. “Well, if Steve were mine, I would have drop-kicked him years ago.” I mimed punting a football.

  Ma just shook her head. “Such a wise guy. You’ll see when you have your own, my dear. You’ll see.”

  32

  Tara and Darcy

  A fat ribbon of wind and rain blew up onto the covered porch of the Love Mansion, sprinkling Tara’s skin and feathering her dark hair back. She crossed her arms and hugged herself, wondering if they’d made the right choice to stay here. No one else seemed fazed that she and Charlie were holing up in the path of a hurricane, but Tara was sure it was the most reckless, adventurous decision she’d ever made.

  Surprisingly, their scheme had been masterminded by Wayne, who’d spent a lifetime wandering the path of least resistance. “Why do you think I care if you two are together, and why do you keep trying for Mama’s approval and Daddy’s blessing? Get a motel. Tell them you’re going back to Princeton early, to beat the hurricane. Lord, girl, you were supposed to be the brains in this family. Don’t they teach you strategic operations at Princeton?”

  “You know, with devious minds like yours, maybe the U.S. stands a chance in maintaining itself as a superpower,” Tara told him, eyeing him curiously.

  “Is that supposed to be funny?” he sniped.

  Instead of letting him engage her, Tara had hugged her older brother. “Now that you’re leaving, I’m going to miss you.”

  “I’m just going back to Manhattan,” he said flatly. He planned to wait out the hurricane in the city and meet Charlie at JFK Airport for their flight back to Korea.

  “Yeah, but I probably won’t see you before you go. Take care. Keep those computers virus free.”

  Wayne had just rolled his eyes and told Charlie to be packed by noon. The two guys would say their good-byes and head off together
, then Wayne would drop Charlie anywhere he wanted.

  Since a hotel would be expensive, hard to find on this evacuated island, and easy for her parents to trace in credit card bills, they had decided to barricade themselves in the Love Mansion, which fronted the beach but had an expansive lawn and massive bulkheads, able to withstand the storm.

  Darcy was fine with it, even reassured somehow. “It might do this old place some good to have a couple who’s actually in love staying here,” she’d muttered.

  They’d said their good-byes a few hours ago, Darcy’s car packed to the windows for her trip back to Bennington, a five-hour drive even when the Hamptons weren’t being evacuated, probably more today. Kevin had been quiet, propped in the passenger seat; Tara hadn’t been able to tell if he was sulky or nervous or both.

  As the taillights of Darcy’s lipstick red convertible had shrunk to small dots, Tara had stood on this wide wooden porch, considering the storm that had ended the summer so abruptly. Elle had already left for Connecticut and classes at Yale, Darcy and Kevin were on their way to Vermont to begin Darcy’s senior year and Kevin’s drug and alcohol rehab program. As soon as the storm subsided Lindsay would head back to Seton Hall for the last time.

  One more year . . . they each had one more year before real life was supposed to begin, and yet Tara found herself in the throes of adulthood, as if she’d cracked out of the egg a year too soon and found Charlie waiting there, Charlie now imprinted upon her psyche.

  Enjoying the fury of the wind, she clutched the smooth white porch rail and tried to imagine what the future held for them while Charlie prepared a dinner of avocado salad and roasted chicken in the Love’s enormous state-of-the-art kitchen.

  Wonderful Charlie, the only guy to make her feel that combination of passion and joy to be with him. He wanted her to join him when she finished school. He wanted to get married and start a family and make each other happy all the time.