The Beach Club (33 page)

“I do know you,” Jane said. “You’re a hard person to forget. And your boyfriend, so handsome!”

“Yes,” Cecily said. Longing for Gabriel rose in her throat, like a song she couldn’t sing. “Anyway, I wanted you to know I was sorry. Also, I spoke with my father and he’s not going to charge you for the room.”

“Oh, please, dear,” Jane said. “I want him to charge me.”

“What?”

The tapping started again, and Cecily wondered if this were all just a very bizarre dream, caused by the unrelenting heat, a mirage.

“I want him to charge me,” Jane said. “I have to get rid of my money.” She opened the top drawer of the dresser and pulled out the paper bag that was twisted closed. She turned the bag upside down on the bed.

Money fell out of the bag, money the way it appeared in the movies, in neat stacks the size of bricks. Cecily gasped: hundreds and fifties and twenties.

“Where did you get that money?” Cecily asked. She almost asked Jane,
Did you steal it?
Jane, the cleaning woman, was filthy rich.

“It was my husband’s money. He owned apartment buildings in Lawrence, and this is twenty years of rent right here. It was supposed to go to my son but he refused to take it. My son thought Jerry was prejudiced because he wouldn’t rent to blacks or Puerto Ricans.”

“
Was
he prejudiced?” Cecily asked.

“Yes,” Jane said, sadly. “Someone with dark skin, like your boyfriend, wouldn’t have been able to rent from Jerry.”

“That’s really shitty,” Cecily said. “I told off a woman this summer because she didn’t want black people on our beach.”

Jane wrung her wrinkly hands. “I can’t excuse what Jerry did. But I don’t want the money to go to waste.”

“Why did you come here?” Cecily asked. “Why did you pick our hotel?”

“I found this,” Jane said. She opened the second drawer where she had put her clothes. She pulled out a Nantucket Beach Club and Hotel brochure with the picture of the pavilion and the five blue Adirondack chairs, and handed it to Cecily. “I found it when I was doing the final clean at school.”

“You found it in my room?” Cecily said.

“Must have been,” Jane said. “I was pretty sure I’d recognize someone around here, but I didn’t know it’d be you.” Jane patted Cecily’s hand. “I’m glad it was.”

“Me too,” Cecily said.

“How much money do you need to see your young man?” Jane asked.

“Five hundred dollars,” Cecily said.

Jane counted out ten fifties and pressed them into Cecily’s palm. “There you go,” she said, “a little graduation present from old Jane.”

Again, the tapping. Cecily closed her eyes and listened. Maybe it wasn’t W.T. at all. Maybe it was Gabriel knocking, beckoning to her from far away.

“I can’t take this,” Cecily said. “I really want to but I can’t.”

Jane frowned. “You feel like my son, then? Won’t take the money because it’s tainted?”

“Sort of, yeah.” Cecily thought of Mrs. John Higgens, and let the bills flutter to the bed.

Jane walked back to the dresser and pulled out her wallet. “I have four hundred and eighty-six dollars here from my last paycheck from Middlesex,” she said. “Will you take this?”

Jane’s paycheck, that she earned by cleaning up after Cecily and her classmates? It seemed strange to take that money, too, but at least it wouldn’t be unethical. Cecily could fly to New York first thing in the morning, and she’d be on her way to Rio before her parents even realized she was gone. It was thrilling, and positively terrifying. Terrifying! She couldn’t do it. But then Cecily thought of Gabriel, the way he cupped her face when he kissed her, the way his smile spread slowly across his face like a sunrise.

“Thank you, Jane,” Cecily said.

“Where are you headed again?” Jane asked.

“Rio de Janeiro,” Cecily said.

And with those words, she was free.

Therese knew the second her baby boy died inside of her, and she knew as soon as her feet hit the ground in the morning that Cecily was gone. The house sounded hollow beneath her feet; it sounded like a house without children. She didn’t let herself panic until she checked Cecily’s bedroom, however, because in this heat, her instincts could be wrong. Therese tiptoed down the stairs so as not to wake their guest, Mrs. Hassiter. Knocking lightly on Cecily’s door, Therese said, “Honey, are you in there?”

No answer, but that didn’t mean anything. Cecily was probably still asleep; she didn’t have to be on the beach until ten.

Therese was halfway up the stairs when she caught her reflection in the mirror.
Fooling yourself
, her reflection said. She marched back down to Cecily’s room and opened the door.

Cecily’s bed was made, the room neat and clean. It was a teenager’s dream room: queen-size bed, TV, stereo, built-in bookshelves that held Cecily’s schoolbooks and her field hockey trophies. There was a spartan desk—built to Cecily’s specifications—an old hotel door sitting on two filing cabinets. A framed black-and-white photograph of the Beach Club circa 1928 hung over Cecily’s bed. On the nightstand was a hotel envelope, the kind guests left tips in for the chambermaids. On the front, in Cecily’s youthful hand, it said, “Mom and Dad.”

Therese sat on Cecily’s bed, picked up the envelope, and held it in her lap. Her hands trembled.

Therese knew all about running away. She’d practically done the same thing on her eighteenth birthday when she took the Long Island Railroad from Bilbo to Grand Central Station, her father’s World War II army bag slung over her shoulder. She was only sixty miles from home, but it might as well have been another continent—her orderly, cookie-cutter neighborhood left behind for Manhattan. She would never admit it to Bill, but she understood why Cecily wanted more. Cecily was her mother’s daughter. Forty years ago, Therese had gone searching for beauty, and found love. Cecily searched now for love—maybe she would be lucky enough to find beauty. Maybe: if she didn’t get killed or end up in jail or contract some appalling disease.

Therese opened the envelope.

Therese scanned Cecily’s bookshelves for her yearbook, and when she brought it down, the book fell right open to Gabriel’s picture. Gabriel da Silva: He was filed under S. Therese studied his picture with a dissonant, high-pitched whine in her ears, like something caught in a vacuum cleaner. Gabriel was astonishingly handsome. Toasty brown skin, black hair, a diamond stud in his left ear. Perfect straight white teeth in the kind of smile that singed the page. He’d signed the yearbook next to his picture—something in another language, Portuguese?—and then: “I love every inch of you. Gabriel da Silva.” Therese stared at the words. I love every inch of you. The words of a lover, forcing Therese to imagine the secret, soft inches of Cecily that Gabriel loved. But then, after that intimacy, he signed his full name. Therese held the book open and put the words and the picture together.
I love every inch of you. Gabriel da Silva
.

Therese didn’t tell Bill where she was going—he was in the kitchen eating his cereal. She left the house with a wave, and said, “I have to run a quick errand. Back soon.” Mrs. Hassiter hadn’t stirred and Therese was relived; she didn’t feel like explaining anything yet.

Outside, the air was thick as chowder. Therese cranked the air-conditioner in her car and opened all the windows on the way to the airport. She couldn’t remember the last time she had left the property on a summer morning; always, her first concerns were the rooms, the chambermaids, and guests with problems more pressing than her own. But now Therese appreciated the morning, even though it was hot, and the lawns were turning brown and the hydrangeas had dried up into crisp little heads. It was nice to be off property. A lone jogger dripping with sweat plodded down North Beach Road. It was Maribel. Therese wanted to stop and ask, “Have you seen Cecily?”—but she flipped down the eye shade and accelerated.

At the airport, Therese searched for Cecily in the ladies’ room, the gift shop, the restaurant. Not there. Then Therese surveyed the local carriers. When she asked at Colgan—Any young redheads on a plane to New York this morning?—the perky attendant bit as though Therese was holding out an apple. “You
must
be her mother, you two are, like, identical twins! I mean, gosh, you have the same hair. I guess people tell you that all the time.”

“So she made her plane then?” Therese said. “Good. What time did it leave?”

The girl checked the board behind her. “She was on the first plane. The six-oh-five. It was early, I remember that!”

“And that was to New York?”

The girl bobbed her head. “La Guardia. I think she had a transfer to JFK, though.”

“Thanks for your help,” Therese said.

“Where was she headed, anyway?” the girl asked. “In the end, her final destination?”

Her final destination?
Therese swallowed. “Brazil,” she said.

Therese ordered breakfast in the restaurant. As she ate her eggs, she considered taking a poll of other mothers.
Do I get on a plane and go after her, or do I let her go?
Therese thought back to all the guests she had advised with their personal problems, guests like Leo Hearn.
No, Leo
, she thought,
there is no instruction manual for parents. I made it all up
. She bit off the corner of her toast and saw Cecily at a year and a half, toddling by herself through the sand, falling over onto her hands. Cecily at thirteen, the night of her first kiss, climbing into bed with Therese to tell her all about it. They were so close, identical twins, motherdaughter. And yet in only a couple of hours, so much distance between them. Where was Cecily? In another country, sleeping with the dark prince.

Out the window, a small propeller plane got ready for take-off. The props spun, there was a lurch, and then the plane rolled forward, picked up speed, until just barely lifting its nose and soaring, soaring. There were a million metaphors for childhood, and here was one of them right outside the window. What could Therese do but hope that somewhere, Cecily was soaring?

“Are you
kidding
me?” Bill shouted. They were upstairs in the living room, and as far as Therese could tell, Mrs. Hassiter hadn’t stirred. Bill waved the letter in the air. His face was bright red and his hair glittered from silver to white; he was aging in front of her eyes.

“Your heart,” Therese said. “Bill, please. I can’t lose you, too.”

“Why do you look so calm?” he said. Suspicion flickered across his face. “You knew, didn’t you? She’s your daughter, Therese. She’s always been your daughter. She confided in you and you let her go.”

“Not true,” Therese said. But she did feel preternaturally calm, as though someone had drugged her.
I love every inch of you
. Therese never kept secrets from Bill, but she didn’t show him the yearbook. “I had no idea! I just went to the airport to see if I could catch her.”

Bill checked his watch. “We’re going back right now. There’s no way she’s made it out of New York yet. International flights leave at night. We have all day to turn JFK upside down.”

“You’re thinking of west-east flights,” Therese said. “Those leave in the evening. North-south flights leave in the morning.” She had no idea if this were true; she didn’t even know where the thought had come from.

“We’ll go anyway,” he said. “We’re irresponsible parents if we don’t. I’m sure she wants us to come after her.”

“Bill, come here and sit down.” Therese led him to the couch and he sat down despondently, his hands in his lap. Then, with a sudden burst of energy, he bounced up again.

“There isn’t time to sit down,” he said.

“We’re not going to New York,” Therese said.

“Cecily is
expecting
us,” Bill said. “She’s probably lingering at her gate, waiting for us to march down the concourse. This isn’t the kind of thing you hope to get away with at the age of eighteen.”

“There’s only one person she wants to see,” Therese said sadly. “And it’s not you, and it’s not me.”

“I can’t even
think
about that boy,” Bill said. “If I think about that boy, I’m going to lose my mind.”

“She’s living her life, Bill.”

“You’re in cahoots with her,” he said.

“No, it’s just…” How to explain this feeling? Therese was worried, but seeing the picture of Gabriel da Silva excited her, too. And she hadn’t expected to feel excited. Her daughter was alive and
living
. When Therese left home, wonderful things happened. She ended up here. “I thought Cecily leaving would kill me. But I feel okay. It’s like anticipating her leaving was ten times worse than her actual leaving. She’s
gone
, Bill. We’re through worrying about how to keep her here. We’re
liberated
, in a way.”

“You’re nuts,” he said. “Cecily hasn’t gone to overnight camp, my dear. She hasn’t left for college, or another relatively safe place where we can get a hold of her. She has flown to
Brazil
to sleep with a boy we’ve never even met.”

“I guess what I’m saying is that I know she’s coming back,” Therese said. “Unlike W.T., Cecily is coming back.”

Bill collapsed on the sofa. “Oh, God,” he said.

Therese heard soft footsteps on the stairs and Mrs. Hassiter popped into the living room. She looked at Therese expectantly.

“Breakfast is in the hotel lobby, Mrs. Hassiter,” Therese said. “It’s our compliments. Just go on over and help yourself.”

“I already had breakfast,” Mrs. Hassiter said. “I want to talk to you about something else.”