The Perfect Summer (Hubbard's Point) (3 page)

“When he gets in, will you have him call me?” Frank asked.

“I will. Thanks for calling,” Bay said.

But she'd already half-forgotten her promise. Annie turned to her, white-faced. Her mouth was open, her eyes confused, dark and almost bruised.

“What is it, Annie?”

“I can't tell if Daddy took his things. His suitcase is still here. But I don't see his boat shoes. He wouldn't need those, to go to his office. And he took something
else . . .”

“Took what?”

But Annie just shook her head, tears running down her cheeks. “He said he'd never leave it behind no matter what happened. It's not here, Mommy. He took it. Daddy's gone!”

2

A
NNIE RAN AROUND THE HOUSE, LOOKING IN
closets and cupboards. Bay took a quick look outside, saw Peggy and Billy playing catch. She went into the den, where Sean had set up a home office. She glanced at the computer, and wondered what to do.

Should she call the police?

But what was there to call them about? Sean had taken his boat shoes on a workday, missed a meeting, failed to pick up Peg. The police would tell her he might be at the marina, might have gone fishing. Her heart was beating hard, as if she were just starting a race, picking up speed. Reaching out to pick up the phone, she realized her hand was shaking.

Was Sean with Lindsey, or someone else, right now?

When Sean had sworn that everything would change, she had thought he meant Lindsey, other women; but now, looking back as she tried to make sense of today, were there other secrets? She hadn't felt this pit in her stomach—the physical sense of the world tilting on its axis, making her feel like grabbing on to the nearest solid object—for months.

Annie came around the corner, tears on her cheeks.

“We have to call the police, Mom.”

“Annie, I don't think—”

“No, we do. Something bad must have happened. He wouldn't have just left like this, unless someone was forcing him. It could be kidnappers.”

“I don't think that's it, Annie.”

“It has to be, Mom. What else could it be? He would never just leave on his own!”

“Annie, a lot of things might have come up . . .”

Annie let out a hiccup, half sob, and said, “You think he's with Lindsey, don't you?”

“I don't know,” Bay said, reaching out for her daughter. Lying just made people confused and crazy and undermined any remaining solid ground. It was always better, Bay had learned, to tell the truth as much as she could. But with three children who loved and needed to look up to their father, she found it to be a very difficult balancing act.

But Annie stepped back, her eyes wide and wild. “I'll ride my bike down to the boat and see if he's there!”

“Annie, no—we'll drive down together.”

But her daughter was already gone. Bay heard her bare feet flying across the floor, the screen door slam, and the whir of her bike tires.

Bay pushed back Sean's leather desk chair and sat down. Almost without thinking, she picked up the phone and dialed Tara's number. She stared out the picture window, across the wide green-gold marsh at Tara's white cottage. She saw Tara stand from where she was crouching in the herb garden, drop her trowel, and walk up the weathered steps.

“Hello?” Tara said after six rings.

“It's me.”

“Hey, you forgot your sunscreen at the beach. I have it.”

“Oh, good,” Bay said. Just two syllables—“oh” “good”—and Tara knew.

“What's wrong?”

“Sunscreen's not the only thing I've misplaced today.”

“Sean's gone somewhere? And that's a bad thing?”

“Oh, Tara,” Bay said, unable to laugh. “He didn't pick Pegeen up, and Frank called me because he missed a bank meeting . . . Annie's beside herself. She's on her way down to his boat right now. I think she's hoping he's on a fishing trip he forgot to tell us about.”

“Damn,” Tara said. “That boy.”

Bay didn't reply, rocking in the desk chair.

“I'm sorry, Bay,” Tara said. “You know I've tried to hold my peace this last year. But I saw what you went through, and he is an asshole of such stupendously huge proportions, I can't even believe it. What a lack of grace.”

“Can I tell you how much I HATE him right now? Stranding Pegeen at practice. Making Annie worry like this?”

“I'm on my way . . . I'll pick you up, and then we can go down and meet Annie at the boat.”

Tara hung up, but Bay just sat there, holding the phone. The Irish Sisterhood; Tara had coined the name years ago, to celebrate their friendship—closer than best friends, almost like the sisters neither of them had. Many people at Hubbard's Point thought Bay and Tara
were
sisters, and they never bothered setting anyone straight. They were united by their hearts, humor, and Irish roots; they both loved Yeats and U2, and they both swore they'd always, no matter how settled they might look from the outside, live passionate lives.

Tara was almost defined by her singleness. She had really fallen in love only twice—with an artist and an artistic “type,” both of whom she had wanted to be much more brilliant than they actually were. Both men had proposed, but at the last minute she had veered away.

Bay knew it had something to do with having an alcoholic father—unable in the end to stand up to the strength of the women in the family. Tara had learned to trust herself more than any relationship. Bay felt tender and protective toward her best friend, understanding that her toughness was more an act than anything.

Tara had dropped out of UConn after two years, despite her sparkling intelligence, her stellar grades.

“I think I'm born to be self-employed,” she had told Bay on the phone, calling her at Connecticut College even before she told her own parents. “I don't even like showing up for classes in my major—imagine what fun I'd have in corporate America.”

“What will you do?”

“I'm going to go skiing in Vermont for the winter—someone in my dorm has an aunt who runs a B-and-B near Mad River Glen, and she says I can have a job as a chambermaid.”

“Tara, making beds?” Bay asked, her mind boggled by the idea of her bright, vibrant friend scrubbing floors, pushing a vacuum.

“I think it will be good,” Tara said. “I'll be able to whip through all the rooms before lunch, ski all afternoon.”

“Tara, I don't want you to make a mistake. You're so smart, you have so much going for you—”

“I like the idea of having time to think,” Tara said. “Cleaning is mindless—I'll be able to just open my mind and figure out what I really want to do with my life.”

Tara had taken that winter job, and that summer she had returned to Hubbard's Point. Her parents had told her that if she was going leave college for good, she'd have to support herself, so she had tacked up signs at the beach and Foley's: “Sand on the floors? In the beds? Come home to a clean house! Call Tara.”

Her mother had cringed, but the phone had started ringing and never stopped. Tara had never had less than a full roster of clients. She had never stopped working, and she'd never gone back to college. She still liked making her own hours, having the freedom to think.

Pushing back the desk chair, Bay glanced across the room at her wedding picture. Tara was right beside Bay, smiling with joy. And Bay and Sean looked so happy—smiling, holding hands, eyes sparkling with love for each other. What had her dreams been that day? Bay could hardly remember, but over the years she had gradually come to the terrible conclusion that they were far, far different from her husband's.

Now she had to tell the other kids she was going out with Tara, would be back soon. Stepping away from the desk, something caught her eye. The fax machine's red light was blinking, the message “out of paper” subtle in the small screen.

Bay hesitated. Tara was coming, they had to catch up with Annie . . .

Something made her stop in the room's wide doorway. She turned and walked back to the machine. The red light blinked only when the machine had received a fax but had no paper on which to print it. Bay reached into the drawer, took out a handful of printer paper, and inserted it into the slot.

Instantly, the machine began to print.

Bay read the page as it came out. It bore the letterhead of a boatbuilding firm in New London. Handwritten, it bore yesterday's date at the top and a series of measurements at the bottom. The handwriting was familiar, but Bay didn't know anyone who built boats. She read:

Dear Sean,

Thanks for stopping by again. Check these specifications—are they what you have in mind? I've added two more inches of beam, for stability. Come by the boatyard anytime, or give me a call at the office.

Dan Connolly

Bay was so shocked, she let out a small sound. This was an estimate of some sort: The bottom line was two thousand dollars, but she hardly noticed. Dan Connolly. She hadn't spoken of him in years, hadn't seen his handwriting since she was in high school. But she thought of him every time she walked down the boardwalk, every time she saw a crescent moon.

Other than Tara, the only person Bay had ever really been able to talk to had been Danny Connolly, the summer she was fifteen. He was a recent college graduate, working as a carpenter that season at the Point, and he was brilliant about the things he loved: engineering, wood, marine architecture. Bay had hovered around him for hours, helping him build the new boardwalk, in love with his gentle intelligence. And Danny never shooed her away, took time to answer her endless questions, to let her share in all the things he did.

“If you were just three years older,” Tara had said, “this would really be interesting.”

“Eighteen?” Bay asked.

“Yep,” Tara said. “Maybe he'll wait for you. I'll bet he thinks about it.”

“Right, Tara.”

“If he didn't,” Tara smiled, “he wouldn't let you hang around all day. He could work twice as fast without you there. He likes you, Bay. Face it!”

Somehow that idea had been too excitingly scary to really take seriously.

Sean was so different. He would race by, waving from his Boston Whaler as he gunned the engine and sent up rooster tails of white water. He'd ride his dirt bike on the beach, breaking all the rules, and Danny would shake his head.

“He's out of control,” he said. “You know what he's doing, don't you?”

“Just playing with his toys,” Bay said.

“No, he's patrolling, to make sure I don't get too close to you.”

“You're twenty-two!” Bay said, hearing Tara's words, blushing with wild delight to imagine such a thing could really occur to him.

“I know, and you know that we're just friends, but boyfriends don't think that way.”

“He's not my boyfriend!”

“He will be, if he has anything to say about it. But you take your time, Galway Bay.”

And Danny had turned out to be right. Long after his summer job was over, and he left the beach for good, Bay and Sean stayed on. She turned sixteen; Sean had kissed her on the boardwalk Danny had built the year before. She missed the quiet carpenter, with his Irish poetry and steady vision, his way of observing everything and then talking it over with her. Sean was too busy living life—moving fast, grabbing for every second of pleasure—to waste much time discussing it. Holding Sean, her lips had found his neck, and for ten seconds she thought of Danny, wishing it could be him instead, wishing Tara's prediction had come true and he could have waited for her to grow up. She remembered him pointing at the thin, sickle moon, telling her that he'd make it into a swing just for her.

And she had told him that he could make anything.

New London—a salty old maritime center, a Navy town, just ten miles east, but somehow the other side of the world from Black Hall. Was it possible that Danny had been there this whole time?

Just then Bay heard Tara's car in the driveway. She placed the fax on the desk and hurried to tell the kids she'd be right back.

ANNIE KNEW ALL THE BEST ROUTES TO HER DAD
'
S BOAT.
Right now, she took the most direct route, straight through the center of town.

She passed the white church, the yellow art gallery, the mansion that had come across Long Island Sound on a barge one hundred years ago, crossing the main road and just missing having her rear tire clipped by a speeding pickup truck, finally turning down the dirt road that led into the marina. Annie knew how close the truck had come, but she didn't care. She couldn't let herself feel anything—not yet.

Her bike skidded to a stop by the boat works. She leaned it against the big red barn, then ran down dock one. This was the nicest marina in the area, and most of the boats were, actually, yachts. Big, beautiful sailboats. Although Annie herself wished for a graceful sailboat, or maybe a rowing boat, her dad was strictly a powerboat man.

“A powerboat gets me where I want to go,” he'd say to her. “No waiting for the wind or the tides or anything else. I just fire her up, and we're off and running.”

“I know, Daddy,” Annie would say, watching white sails on the horizon, peaceful and romantic and somehow so much lovelier and more comforting than the loud throb of diesel engines. Tara called them “stinkpots.” “But sailboats are so pretty.”

“Who needs a pretty boat when I have you?” he would ask, hugging her. “You're all the pretty I need.”

Annie ached, to remember him saying that. Her feet pounded down the dock, past all the big Hinckleys and Herreshoffs and Aldens. Now, at the end, she turned left, onto the T part of the dock, and almost instantly she began to smile.

Relief came flooding in. There, gently rocking against the dock, was her father's boat. The large sports fisher,
Aldebaran
, gleamed in the sunlight. The chrome was polished, the hull's graceful sheer curved and caught the light.