Local Girl Swept Away (11 page)

“Nor do I aspire to.”

Finn rolled a trashcan over to the table and deposited soggy napkins and picked-over crackers into it. While I waited, I kept busy dumping the dregs out of wine bottles and gathering up the stained tablecloth. Rudolph scooped up the remaining tray of pastries.

“Jackie, have you had one of these?” he asked. “They're excellent! Try one.” He held the platter under my nose.

“I'm really not—” I didn't want one, but somehow Rudy got a tart into my hand anyway. He was a hard man to say no to.

“She doesn't want it, Dad,” Finn said. “Tell him you don't want it, Jackie.”

“It's okay,” I said, taking a nibble. “Thanks . . . Rudolph.” Finn's dad liked everybody to call him by his first name, but I was never quite comfortable doing it. When I told Finn I felt odd calling a literary lion Rudolph, he said I should just think of him as Rudolph the Literary Reindeer.

Rudolph beamed at me. “Good, isn't it?”

Finn rolled his eyes. “Her mother probably
made
it.”

For a moment Rudolph was confused, but then a light went on. “Oh, I forgot your mother works at the Portuguese Bakery. Lucky you!”

“Aren't you guys taking Carolyn Winter out for dinner?” Finn said.

“That's the ritual,” Rudy said, glancing across the room. “Looks like she's glommed onto Coop.”

Finn stacked the empty wine bottles into a box. “There's a perfect match.”

“Oh, he'll deflect her gracefully,” Rudy said. “He's used to women falling all over him.”

The last bite of pastry turned to wet cardboard in my mouth.

Finn shook his head. “I don't get it. What's the big deal about that guy?”

I felt like he was really asking me, but I stayed silent.

Rudy raked his hand through his long gray hair. “Women like a winner, Son. He's a good-looking guy
and
he got a decent review in the
New York Times
. Not that I think that necessarily places him among the immortals.”

“You mean, like you and Charles Dickens?” Finn said.

Rudolph ignored the jab. I concentrated on wiping custard off my sticky fingers.

“You and Jackie should go out too,” Rudy said, jovially. “The night is young and you start back to school next week.”

I was careful not to look at Finn. Why was everyone in the Rosenberg family trying to push us together? After our beach mishap, I found it excruciating, and I was sure Finn did too. “I told my mom I'd be home early,” I lied.

“Well, let Finn drive you home at least.”

“I
intend
to drive her home, Dad. Could you butt out, please?” Finn banged closed the legs of the folding table and leaned it against the wall. “I don't need you to arrange my life for me.”

“Well, I'm not sure that's true,” Rudy said, chuckling.

“Let's go, Jackie,” Finn ordered, without looking at me.

“Wait!” I was trying to untie the complicated knot in Elsie's scarf.

From across the room she saw what I was doing and called over. “Keep it, Jackie. It looks better with your complexion than mine.”

By the time I jogged out to Finn's car, he was sitting behind the wheel, glaring at the odometer. “Why do my parents have to have their fingerprints on everything?
Go out with Jackie. Apply to the college I went to.
Like I can't think for myself. They even do it to you—
Wear
this scarf. Meet this famous person. Eat the stupid tart.
Why can't they back the hell off once in a while?”

“They make you crazy because they're your parents, Finn, but they're really generous people. Your mom's always giving me things. And look how much time and money they've put into the Center. They've helped so many artists and writers. You can't blame them for wanting to help their own son too.”

“I don't
want
their help.” Finn started the car, but kept grumbling. “Anyway, they're only running an art center. It's not like they're saving the rainforests or something.”

“Supporting the arts is not trivial, Finn. I know art isn't important to you, but for some people it's . . . well, it's a way to pull yourself up out of the muck of everyday life.”

Finn was quiet as we drove down Bradford Street. Finally he said, “I think I like the muck of everyday life.”

He made me smile. “Well, you can afford to like it. You didn't grow up with a matching set of depressed parents who think being broke is hereditary, like bad eyesight or weak ankles. To me, art is a luxury I always thought was out of my reach.”

He nodded. “I guess I get that. Sorry if I'm being an asshole.” He calmed down and slowed the car as we turned the corner.

“It's okay,” I said. “An asshole wouldn't apologize. I take it Rudy's still pushing Dartmouth?”

“Of course he is, but I'm sure as hell not going to his alma mater.”

“It's a good school, Finn.”

“I don't care. If I go to college, I'm going someplace they've never heard of Rudolph Rosenberg.”

“And where would that be?”

“I don't know. Russia? Antarctica? Mars? I don't even want to go to college. Does everybody have to go to college?”

I narrowed my eyes at him, though he couldn't see me. “No, you can be a waiter like my brother, Michael. Or a fisherman, like everybody else in my family.”

“What's wrong with that? I'd like to be a fisherman.”

My eyes bugged out of my head. “I heard you say that to Rudy, but I assumed you were kidding.”

“Well, I wasn't. You know I've always loved boats.”

“Finn, fishing isn't just riding around on boats—it's the hardest work there is! Look at my father—he's spent his life fishing and what does he have to show for it? Back spasms, no health insurance, and not enough money to retire. And he's one of the lucky ones. Most small fishermen have already gone out of business.”

“Your dad's got his own boat,” Finn said, “and he's out in the sun every day working alongside two of his kids.”

“Yeah. Ask Marky and Bobby what a great legacy that is.”

“So he's not rich. I don't need to be rich.”

“There's a big difference between ‘not rich' and ‘can't afford to fill the gas tank of your twenty-year-old truck.' Don't you think my dad would've liked to be able to send his kids to college, Finn? For a smart guy you can be really stupid.”

He stopped the car in front of my house and we sat in silence.

“Maybe I am stupid,” he said finally, “but I don't want to leave here. I don't want to live in a college dorm with a bunch of idiots whose idea of a good time is funneling booze into their stomachs until they throw up. I feel like I'm already too old for it.”

That I understood. “You're not stupid. I didn't mean that. But, Finn, not all college kids are drunken morons. You have to find the right school and do it
your
way. Do you really want to stay in Provincetown forever and hang around the Old Colony Tap drinking beer with my brothers? How is that better?”

“Maybe it's not better. But it's here.”

Of course. “Here. Where Lorna is?”

He didn't answer, but I knew I was right.

Finn called around five o'clock on Sunday. “You want a ride over to Lucas's later?”

“I'd rather walk,” I said. “It's a nice day.”

“I could walk with you.”

“Why don't I just meet you there?” Then I hung up before he could argue with me. I'd decided to spend as little time with Finn as possible from now on. It was too confusing. I kept getting mad at him, then feeling sorry for him, then wanting to help him, then before I knew it I was having heart palpitations all over again. It had to stop.

Walking toward the inn, I could see Finn sitting in his car out front. He climbed out when I came alongside, but we didn't say anything to each other as we approached the house. I guess we were both kind of nervous about having whatever the big secret was revealed to us. Billy threw the door open before we got to it and hugged me as if he hadn't seen me in years.

“Come on in. It's great to have the house full of kids again!” He led us into the parlor, which looked just as I remembered it: thick red drapery pooling on the dark wood floors, fat leather armchairs gathered around a marble fireplace, an enormous vase of sunflowers on the coffee table.

And there was Lucas pacing nervously in the middle of the room, his curly hair now long and sun-streaked, pulled back into a bushy ponytail. He was tanner than I'd ever seen him and more filled out too. Arms that used to hang from his shoulders like coat sleeves from a hanger were now taut with muscles. He held out a hand to Finn.

Despite his misgivings about coming, Finn smiled sincerely and said, “Good to see you, man,” and pulled Lucas into a brief hug.

“You too,” Lucas said, almost shyly. “Both of you.” I went forward for my hug and was surprised to feel the tension in Lucas's arms as they gripped my back.

“As promised!” Simon came in from the kitchen carrying a tray. “This is my Great-Aunt Betsy's cheesecake recipe, so please don't tell me any of you have given up dairy.”

“Unless you want to see a grown man cry.” Billy chugged out past him to get the espresso started. Lucas's dads seemed even more chirpy and vivacious than usual, as if they were a little bit uncomfortable around Lucas now. Maybe this beefed-up guy was not the kid they remembered either.

We were all kind of awkward and a little too giggly while Billy passed around the dessert and coffee, but finally Finn asked the questions we came to have answered. “Where did you go? Why didn't you come back 'til now?” And I realized I was holding my breath.

Lucas busied himself forking through his cheesecake as if there was a treasure hidden in it. “My aunt got me a job at a summer camp up in New Hampshire. I wasn't sure I'd like being a camp counselor, but actually it was great. I took the kids hiking and we camped out in the mountains a few times. I even taught archery, if you can believe it.”

“Huh.” It seemed like Finn wasn't sure he
did
believe it.

Billy banged Lucas on the back. “Who says two gay men can't raise an athletic son?”

“Nobody in this room, Dad.” Lucas rolled his eyes, but continued. “When camp ended, some of the counselors were going hiking in the White Mountains for a few weeks, and they asked me to go along. I know, it's weird, right? I never thought of myself doing stuff like that. Tromping through the woods, sleeping in a mummy bag, the guy with the Timberland boots and the enormous backpack. Turns out I liked it. Who knew?” His smile was crooked.

“We're glad you came home, Lucas,” I said. “We missed you.”

Lucas sipped from his tiny coffee cup, then swirled the remains in a circle. “At first I wasn't sure I would come back,” he said quietly.

Finn's face clouded over and his dessert plate clanged onto the coffee table. “What are you talking about? This is your home. I still don't understand why the hell you left here to begin with. It wasn't for some last-minute camp counselor job.”

Simon jumped up and started stacking plates. “Billy and I will go clean up the kitchen so you can talk privately. You don't need a couple geezers listening in on everything.”

Lucas used to have to beg Simon and Billy to give us a little privacy. Now their speedy exit from the room, grabbing up napkins and teaspoons, seemed planned.

“We need to talk, and they already know what I'm going to say,” Lucas explained.

A jolt of fear zigzagged up my spine. I knew Lucas's desertion had to have something to do with Lorna's death. Could he have something to tell us we didn't already know? Was this the missing piece that would answer my questions? My stomach churned the strong coffee and cheesecake into a toxic concoction.

“Does this have to do with why you left town so quickly?” I asked. “Without even talking to us?”

Lucas closed his eyes and took a deep breath, as if searching for something inside himself. “I'm sorry I wimped out on you, but I couldn't deal with it. I had to get away someplace I wasn't reminded of it all the time.”

But he wasn't getting off the hook that easily. I sat forward, readying my body for whatever was coming. “It was hard for all of us, Lucas, but Finn and I helped each other. Why didn't you want to be with us? How you could just leave like that without even telling us you were going?”

Finn scooted to the edge of his chair, waiting to hear the answer.

Lucas pinched the bridge of his nose. “I thought if I went away I wouldn't keep seeing that white jacket bobbing in the ocean every time I closed my eyes.”

White jacket
. How could two such innocuous words cause such excruciating pain? Those three syllables cut like a whip.

“It didn't work, though,” he went on. “You can't force yourself to forget something like that. But while I was in the mountains, my head cleared a little bit. I started feeling kind of . . . angry, I guess, that I didn't really know what the hell happened that night. I still couldn't make any sense of it. And I knew I had to come back and talk to you two.”

The ache in the room was like a living thing. It was as if the three of us being together again completed a circuit that brought the pain back in all its electric splendor. It crawled out of the dark corners of my brain where I'd stuffed it away in order to walk, eat, speak, act like a more or less normal person. I glanced at Finn and I could tell that his scars had burst open too. He gasped through parted lips as if a plastic bag were wrapped around his face and he couldn't get enough air.

“Why didn't you at least call us, Lucas?” My voice was sharper than I'd intended it to be. “Or e-mail. You were just
gone
. First Lorna and then you!”