The Beach Club (19 page)

“I’m nervous just being around you,” Jem said. “I want everything to go right. That day at the beach…”

“The day at the beach was lovely,” Maribel said. She took the mushroom caps stuffed with Boursin cheese out of the oven and moved them onto a platter with a spatula.

“It was better than lovely,” Jem said. “It changed my whole view of the island. Before that day, I hated it here. But after that day, things got a lot better. It was weird, the way that happened, like you have magic powers.”

Maribel took the shrimp cocktail out of the fridge. “I wish,” she said. She almost added,
If I did, I’d start by using them on Mack
. She handed the shrimp to Jem. “You can take these to the coffee table. We’ll sit on the sofa.”

They arranged the food on the coffee table and Jem poured the wine. Maribel lifted her glass.

“Cheers,” she said. “Here’s to being nervous.”

They sipped their wine. “Really nervous,” Jem said.

“Eat something,” Maribel said. “You’ll feel better.”

Jem picked up a peachy pink shrimp and dragged it through the cocktail sauce. Maribel watched the muscles in his jaw working as he chewed.

“Delicious,” he said. He sampled a few mushrooms.

“How old are you?” Maribel asked.

“Twenty-three,” he said. “I’m basically still a work in progress.”

“There’s no better place to be a work in progress than Nantucket.”

“I guess,” Jem said, “but I feel like I’m just biding my time here. I feel like this is a resting point for me before my real life begins.”

“Your real life?”

“California,” Jem said. “I can’t be your beach agent forever, you know.” He drained his glass of wine and fell back into the cushions of the sofa. “I’m leaving for the West Coast in the fall. You should come with me.” He picked up Maribel’s hand and kissed her palm.

Maribel closed her eyes, thinking,
How refreshing, a man who’s not afraid to admit he’s nervous, not afraid of being a work in progress, not afraid to commit
.

“Thanks for the offer,” she said.

“I’m serious,” he said. “I want you to come with me.”

Maribel gently reclaimed her hand. “I hardly even know you, Jem.”

“We can fix that,” he said. “I’ll tell you everything. My father owns a bar, my mother stays at home, and my sister is a whacko with an eating disorder. I graduated from college with a three-point-one GPA, and I was Theta Chi. I played lacrosse in high school. I love going to the movies. And you know who you remind me of? Meg Ryan. I thought that the first time I saw you.”

“Thanks,” Maribel said. “I guess.”

“When I was six years old, my parents belonged to a swim club. One day my sister and I were sitting on the edge of the pool while my parents did laps and when they were both at the other end of the pool, I pushed my sister in. She was only three or four at the time, and she sank to the bottom like a lead weight.”

“Oh, God,” Maribel said.

“A lifeguard noticed Gwennie and he saved her. Nobody ever knew I pushed her, they thought she fell. And Gwennie was too young to understand. Except when she went to therapy for her bulimia, she told the shrink I pushed her.”

“But they don’t think that caused her bulimia?” Maribel asked.

“It made me feel pretty bad anyway,” he said. “But relieved, too, you know, because for a lot of years I was the only one who knew I almost drowned my sister. The worst thing I’ve ever done, by far. So now you know that about me. What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”

Maribel frowned. She thought about getting drunk in high school, a white mouse she bought at a pet store and took to a slumber party to put in Ursula Cavanaugh’s sleeping bag, cohabiting with Mack. This, her sinner with Jem.

“I guess the worst thing I’ve done isn’t something I’ve done, it’s something I’ve felt.” She thought of Tina, who would be sacked out in front of
The X Files
by now. “There are times when I’m ashamed of my mother.”

“Oh,” Jem said. “Uh-oh.”

“My mother was never married. She was a hippie, I guess, and she had sex with some guy she didn’t know and never saw again and I was born.”

“Wow,” Jem said. His eyebrows shot up. “And she never remarried or anything?”

“She dated some, when I was younger, but there was no one serious and then she lost interest and gave up.” Maribel sipped her wine. “She works in a calendar factory. A
Christian
calendar factory.”

“Does she like it?” Jem asked.

“Yeah,” Maribel said, “she does. She’s in charge there. But it’s not exactly the life she dreamed up for herself and it’s not any kind of life I would want. She lives her life through me, she has all these hopes for me.”

“That’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Jem said.

“I just wish she wanted something for herself,” Maribel said. “But she doesn’t. And that makes me angry, and even embarrassed. I feel like such a bad daughter, but I can’t help it. Every once in a while, I think,
This woman cannot be my mother
.”

“I feel that way about my sister sometimes,” Jem said. “My parents say my sister is giving us all lessons in love and acceptance.”

“I need some of those lessons,” Maribel said.

“We all do,” Jem said. He kissed her hand again.

Dinner was grilled salmon, cold herbed potato salad, some greens dressed with balsamic vinegar. They finished the bottle of wine and Maribel pulled out chocolate mousse, and one of Mack’s beers for Jem. He was telling her stories about the Beach Club. For years, Maribel had been hearing stories about the Beach Club and never once had she enjoyed them. Mack took his job at the hotel so seriously that Maribel hadn’t realized what a funny place it could be.

“There’s one guest, Mr. Feeney,” Jem said, “and he’s staying at the hotel for a week. Every day Mr. Feeney calls the front desk to complain about his toilet.”

Maribel giggled. “His toilet?”

Jem took a swallow of beer. “His toilet.” He burped. “Excuse me. So anyway, Mr. Feeney calls up every day. The tank’s not filling quickly enough, it’s making noises that keep him and the missus up at night, every day something different. So each morning I check it out, jiggle the handle, not knowing what I’m doing, but Mr. Feeney doesn’t realize that. He’s crowding into the bathroom with me, just so damn pleased that someone is taking his toilet problems seriously. And I want to say to him, ‘Mr. Feeney, you might enjoy your vacation more if you stopped worrying about your toilet and started sitting with your wife on the beach, dabble your feet into the ocean, enjoy the salt air.’ But around the fourth day or so, I realize something very profound. You know what that is?”

“What?” Maribel said.

“Some people don’t like being happy. They’re much more comfortable when they have a problem. And such is the case with Mr. Feeney. The guy is on vacation with his wife, in a world-class hotel, but that’s not good enough. He
likes
worrying about his toilet. It gives him pleasure. It’s like a hobby for him.”

“Mr. Feeney and his toilet hobby,” Maribel said.

“Exactly. And I’m Mr. Feeney’s toilet agent, as you might have guessed. So then, the last day of this guy’s stay, he calls me. And I say, ‘What’s wrong with your toilet today, Mr. Feeney?’ And he says, ‘Well, Jem, it won’t flush.’ So I check it out and it’s true—it won’t flush. We jiggle the handle, we toy around with the floater, nothing. The toilet won’t flush, it won’t gurgle, nothing. I ask him, has he done anything special, anything out of the ordinary? He says no, and I can tell he’s enjoying every second of this because now his toilet really is broken.”

“So what do you do?” Maribel asked.

“Mack shows up and we try the plunger and it’s clear something is clogging the john, something big, but the plunger isn’t helping. So we lift the John right off the floor. Take it outside where we can maneuver it better and look inside and what do you think we find?”

“I don’t know,” Maribel said.

Jem motioned for Maribel to lean in close to him. She put her elbows on her knees and held her face in her hands and Jem did the same. Their noses were practically touching and Maribel could smell his tangy breath.

“What did you find?” she whispered.

“Cantaloupe rinds,” he said. He scooted forward an inch and kissed Maribel once, very lightly. “We found cantaloupe rinds.” He kissed Maribel again, he parted her lips and tasted her. He tasted her like a boy who had been living all summer without a kitchen, he tasted her like someone who wasn’t just hungry but starving. Maribel thought,
This feels good, I feel good, I feel delicious. This boy is young, unfinished, he is so handsome and sweet
. She thought,
What would I do if Mack walked in right now, how would I explain this, Good Samaritan?
She thought,
Wasn’t this what I was hoping for when I called him? But it’s innocent, just kissing, a crush
. She thought,
How cantaloupe rinds? Why cantaloupe rinds?
She thought,
Is this the worst thing I’ve ever done or just the beginning of the worst thing?

Finally, Jem separated from her and his eyes scanned the clock on the wall behind her. “I should go,” he said. “I don’t want to, but I should.”

Maribel walked him to the door. She turned on the outside light and moths beat themselves against the screen.

“What does this mean?” Jem asked. “The whole time I was kissing you I was wondering what this could mean.”

“I don’t know,” Maribel said, and at that moment she felt like Mack. Mack and his infuriating “I don’t knows.” But it was true; she didn’t know what the kissing meant.

“Is this an affair?” he asked. He laughed sarcastically. “God, I’m having an affair with my boss’s girlfriend. This is just great.”

“Jem,” Maribel said, “it isn’t an affair. We just kissed. That’s all we’re talking about.”

“We kissed,” Jem said. “And I’d like to kiss you again sometime. In fact, I’d like to do more than kiss you. How about that?”

“Jem,” Maribel said, “let’s wait and see, okay? Let’s play things by ear.”

“I hope to God you’re not a tease,” Jem said. “I hope to God you didn’t invite me for dinner and tell me all that stuff about your mother and kiss me for so long only to get Mack’s goat. I hope you’re not catching me up in the middle of something, Maribel. Because that would hurt my feelings. I do have feelings about you, you know.”

Maribel nodded.

“Thanks for dinner,” he said huskily. He opened the screen door and stepped out; his blue eyes and blue shirt disappeared into the dark night.

Maribel’s lips felt stretched and blurred. “You’re welcome,” she said.

Maribel covered her tracks in every way she could think of, but when Mack walked in the door of the apartment, he looked confused and uncomfortable.
He knows
, Maribel thought. She was curled up on the sofa, but when Mack came in, she sat up.

“What’s wrong?” she said.

Mack sat next to Maribel and bent his head, ran his hands through his hair.

“Mari,” he said.

“What is it?” She put her arms around his shoulders and kissed his cheek. “What’s wrong?”

“I have to tell you something and I don’t want you to get upset. Just hear me out.”

“What is it?” she said.

“I mean it. I want you to let me say what I have to say.”

“Okay,” Maribel said. “I’ll listen. You tell me.”

Mack cleared his throat. “After Lacey’s tonight I stopped by one of the rooms to see Andrea Krane. You remember Andrea? And her son James?”

“I remember Andrea,” Maribel said. Andrea was a pretty older woman, and James, in the few times Maribel saw him, had tugged at her heart. A young boy with autism, whose whole life was a foggy day.

Mack said, “Well, I went to see Andrea and things happened.”

“What kind of things?” Maribel asked. She thought of James flapping his arms and shrieking, she thought about his incessant rocking.

“I kissed her,” Mack said. “I was in her room sitting on her bed and I kissed her.”

Maribel was befuddled; this was some strange, cruel reversal. Was Mack telling her
he
kissed someone else? The back of her throat soured. He kissed Andrea, James’s mother? Thoughts of Jem were suddenly crowded out of the room; Maribel’s secret guilt and pleasure about Jem were spirited away, gone, replaced by horror, shock. Tears sprang to Maribel’s eyes.
I’m a hypocrite
, she thought.
Mack did nothing worse than what I did tonight
. Nothing worse except to speak the truth out loud and that did make it seem a hundred times worse.

Mack stood up and came back with a box of Kleenex. He wiped at Maribel’s face. “I’m sorry, Mari. I’ve known her a long time, longer than I’ve even known you. There’s always been something between us. But this year, I don’t know why, that something just got bigger. I think I love her.”

“Love her?” Maribel repeated. She gathered her breath to speak, to match his brutal blow, but when she tried to find the words to tell him about Jem, she gagged. Maribel didn’t love Jem. This wasn’t a fair trade at all.
Oh, God
, she thought,
what is he doing to me?
Love
Andrea
? A guest? Six years later and it wasn’t the farm or his job or Cecily at all, it was
Andrea Krane
? Maribel thought of Tina, and how this news would break her heart. It was over, a relationship over, just the way Mack had lost his parents. Boom. Over.

“You have to leave,” Maribel said. “You have to move out, down to the hotel. I don’t want you here.”

“No,” Mack said. “No, wait please, Mari. Maribel, hold on. I know you’re upset. But please don’t throw me out. I have to try and explain.”

“You love Andrea,” Maribel said. “What else is there to explain?”

“It’s this summer, something is happening. The world wants me to grow up. You want me to grow up. And I don’t want to grow up. I feel so childish. I love Andrea, but I love you, too, Maribel. You know I do. Andrea is vulnerable, and her life is difficult, much more difficult than you or I could ever imagine. I feel for that, Maribel. I feel for that and for the fact that she doesn’t give up. I love her for that.”