Summerland: A Novel (42 page)

That night Lynne had a dream about Beck Paulsen. Very little happened in it; it was more a dream of ambience, set in 1976 in Moorestown, New Jersey, where Lynne grew up. Lynne’s father was a doctor; Lynne and her brothers and their parents lived in an enormous white center-entrance Colonial formally known as the George M. Haverstick House. The Comstocks were considered well off. The boys attended St. Joe’s Prep, but Lynne was sent to public school. She had had her bitter moments about this, but ultimately she would appreciate the diversity that public school offered. Beck Paulsen was from a different social stratum altogether. He was a bad kid, a druggie, he smoked marijuana, he wore shitkicker boots, he listened to Led Zeppelin, he worked at
Arthur Treacher’s to make pocket money. Quite famously, he had bought a brown Mazda RX4 before he even had his license.

Lynne dated Beck the summer between her junior and senior years of high school, when she was the same age that Demeter was now. Lynne and her girlfriend Abby used to hang out at Arthur Treacher’s because it was halfway between their two houses and they could both bike there. They also both loved fish and chips, even what passed for fish and chips at Arthur Treacher’s. One night Beck invited them to stick around while he closed up the shop. Abby said no way and rode home; Lynne said no way but stayed. She and Beck made out that night in the Mazda, and that night led to other nights, all summer long. What could Lynne say? To her, Beck was an exotic. He wasn’t preppy and assholish like her brothers and their friends. He was mellow and kind. He was nearly always stoned, and that summer Lynne was nearly always stoned too. Beck drank Miller beer out of cans, most frequently when he was driving around with Lynne, to Maple Shade or the Cherry Hill Mall. Beck’s mother worked in Admitting at the same hospital where Lynne’s father was a thoracic surgeon.

In Lynne’s dream she and Beck were back in the Mazda again, summer air rushing through the open windows. They were driving up to Lake Nockamixon to go fishing. When Beck caught something, they were going to eat it. There was a Styrofoam cooler in the backseat that held a six-pack of Miller Genuine Draft, a package of hot-dog rolls, and a stick of butter.

Also in the back were two fishing poles. Beck had brought his father’s for Lynne to use. They were going to steal a canoe—or as Beck said, “borrow” one—and paddle to the good part of the lake. Lynne knew that all of this was wrong. She should be in Avalon for the weekend with Abby and her parents; she should be at home helping her mother prepare for her annual garden club cocktail party. But she was with Beck Paulsen, who had feathery dark hair like David Cassidy’s and was wearing a black Styx
concert T-shirt with white sleeves and jeans and his shitkickers, even on this hot summer day. She was drinking and smoking dope and listening to Meat Loaf on WMMR. If her parents had seen her at that moment, they would have been appalled. But Lynne was happy doing what she was doing. She was happy.

Lynne snapped awake from her dream, and the good, hazy feeling evaporated, and she mourned its loss. She was back on Nantucket, lying in bed next to her husband of twenty-three years, Al Castle, and they would have to get up the next morning and deal with the debacle that had just landed in their lap. Please, couldn’t she go back to that dream? Then Lynne wondered if perhaps her seventeen-year-old self had materialized in her subconscious in order to offer her assistance.

Okay, seventeen-year-old Lynne Comstock—what should I do? she asked.

Seventeen-year-old Lynne smiled dopily. She was stoned. She had been stoned all summer, and her parents had never once suspected. It was a seventeen-year-old’s job to have secrets.

Demeter’s secrets had just been revealed to Al and Lynne in all their heinous splendor. Or had they?

Lynne looked at the clock next to her bed. It was ten past two. She thought back over all the things Demeter had said: “I saw the vodka in the bar and I just…
took
it.” “I was in shock.” “Other kids drink, Dad.” “I said I’d bought it so that I wouldn’t get anyone else in trouble.”

Lies, Lynne thought. All of it, lies.

Seventeen-year-old Lynne nodded. She agreed.

What did Lynne
know?
Demeter’s bedroom smelled, there were empty breath mint tins and sugarless gum wrappers in the bathroom trash, there had been a lime in the water next to her bed. She was reading F. Scott Fitzgerald. Maybe Lynne was reaching here,
but had a more famous alcoholic ever lived? Her car smelled like breath mints. Ibuprofen that Demeter bought herself was in the medicine cabinet. Lynne had checked everywhere—in the trunk of her car, under the bed, in her dresser drawers, under the bathroom sink. But she hadn’t checked the closet. The smell. Demeter had leaned against the closet door, and the door had slammed shut. She had said that babysitting for the Kingsleys were awful, then she asked if she would be able to go back to the Kingsleys’. There had been a lime in the water next to her bed. When Lynne put a lime in Demeter’s water, it looked like a cocktail. There had been a lime in one of Demeter’s water bottles. Good God.

Lynne slipped out of bed. Calm down, she thought. She was tempted just to take a Lunesta and drift back to sleep. Beck Paulsen: where was he now? Was he anyplace worse than where she currently found herself?

She had sworn she would never use the pin to open Demeter’s door again, and yet she had put the pin right there on her nightstand. She crept down the hall to Demeter’s room. She should wake up Al. If this was going to be done, it should be done by both of them together. But something about this felt personal: Lynne to Demeter, mother to daughter. Was Lynne thinking of Zoe and Penny? Of course she was.

It looked as though Demeter’s bedroom light was off. Lynne put her ear to the door. Silence. She half expected to walk in and find the window open again, and Demeter’s bed empty.

She popped the lock. The sound was loud to Lynne’s ears, and she held her breath. Waited, waited… and then eased the door open.

Demeter was asleep on her back, snoring. Lynne tiptoed over to the bed. She was assaulted by the obvious memories of Demeter as a baby in her crib, the soft spot on her head palpitating as she worked her pacifier. There had never been a sweeter, softer baby.
Then as a little girl in footy pajamas, in smocked nightgowns. A chunky early adolescent in long nightshirts, her toenails painted blue, a smear of chocolate around her mouth, swearing that yes, she had brushed her teeth, when she most certainly had not.

Childhood ended here.

Lynne lifted the water glass from Demeter’s nightstand and tasted it. The liquid burned her tongue and she spit it out, and the glass shook in her hand. She tasted it again, however, just to make sure. Ugh, awful! It was straight vodka or gin; she couldn’t tell which. Her eyes filled with tears. She held on to the glass and switched on the light, but Demeter didn’t wake up. That was fine, though. That was preferable.

Lynne opened the closet door.

There on the floor, where another girl would have lined up her shoes, were bottles and bottles of alcohol: Mount Gay rum, Patron tequila, Kahlua, Dewar’s, Finlandia vodka, and wine, sauvignon blanc and two bottles of Chateau Margaux, which even Lynne, as a teetotaler, knew was outrageously expensive. Lynne set down the glass on Demeter’s desk and stumbled back into the nether regions of the closet, where she found a black Hefty bag cinched at the top. Lynne dragged it out into the room. The clinking gave the contents away: dozens of empty bottles.

Fruit flies swarmed. The smell. Lynne gagged.

Demeter rolled over. “Mom?” she said.

Ted Field suggested a facility outside of Boston called Vendever.

“For how long?” Lynne asked.

“As long as it takes,” he said.

Lynne packed a bag for Demeter and dropped it off at the hospital. She reminded herself that her daughter was lucky. Many of the people who ended up at Vendever had only the clothes on their
backs. Many of the people who ended up at Vendever didn’t have two loving parents who would take any steps necessary to help them get better.

An alcoholic at seventeen? Lynne knew that this happened. But for it to happen to them, the Castles?

Demeter had fought her fate at first. She had jumped out of bed, grabbed the Hefty bag from Lynne’s hands, and started swinging it at her. Lynne had a bruise on her ribs to prove it. Al had woken up and restrained Demeter. Then he’d called Ted Field, who had met them at the hospital.

Now, just a few hours before her departure, Demeter seemed accepting. Four weeks. She would go through detox and counseling. She would meet other kids who were dealing with dependency issues, and professionals who were trained to help such kids. Demeter lay in the white hospital bed looking so hopeless and despondent that Lynne couldn’t help herself.

She said, “Is there anything I can do for you before you go?”

There was such a long silence that Lynne figured her daughter was ignoring her. Then Demeter took a breath. “Yes,” she said. “I’d like to talk to Hobby.”

H
e was hanging out with Claire on his mother’s back deck, and it was almost like regular summertime. His mother brought them cold ginger ales and a bowl of nacho chips with her homemade salsa that she’d made from the first of the Bartlett’s Farm field tomatoes. The ocean unfolded before them. Hobby was dying to jump in and let the cool waves cradle him, but he still had a cast on—just the one, on his left leg—and so there would be no ocean
for him for a while. His leg itched as if the Devil himself were inside the cast. Hobby swore that as soon as the thing was off, he was going to climb down those stairs and jump in the water; he didn’t care if it was Christmas Day.

He thought maybe Claire would want to go down and have a swim, but she was nursing her ginger ale, holding the cold glass to her temple, and she hadn’t even tasted the salsa. She was either sick or nervous. They were planning on telling Zoe about the baby that night at dinner. Claire had been lying low, but in the past few days her phone had started blowing up: Annabel Wright, Winnie Potts, Joe, her boss from the Juice Bar. They’d all left messages urging her to call them back. Claire was convinced that everyone knew. She and her mother had had a huge fight because Rasha had told Sara Boule, and Sara Boule had most likely gossiped about it to every person who had been to Dr. Toomer’s office to get a cleaning over the past three weeks. Claire had wanted to wait to announce the news until after the ultrasound, once they knew the baby was healthy and whole. She had wanted to tell Zoe then, and Coach Horton of the field hockey team, who had just returned from France. Now, thanks to Rasha and Sara Boule, Zoe was in danger of finding out thirdhand, and what a terrible, cruel thing
that
would be. Hobby agreed that they couldn’t let that happen.

Penny, Hobby thought. Had Penny heard about Claire’s pregnancy from someone else? If she had, wouldn’t she have demanded an explanation from Hobby? Or would she have just flipped out and gone off the deep end?

They had to tell his mother, and pronto. He’d asked Zoe if Claire could stay for dinner, and Zoe had said yes, of course, and then she’d set about making an occasion out of it. They were having grilled lobster tails and French potato salad and corn on the cob with lime-cilantro butter, and crema calda with blackberries. Hobby knew that Zoe was excited about cooking for someone other than him and the Allencasts for a change. And she was
relieved, perhaps, that Penny’s chair at the table wouldn’t sit empty tonight.

It was two o’clock now. Dinner was scheduled for seven. Hobby and Claire were left to marinate in their worry for five more hours. He had no idea what his mother’s reaction would be. She had always assured him that he could tell her
anything
. But he wasn’t sure; this was a pretty big “anything.” Zoe had gotten pregnant by accident eighteen years earlier, so by rights she should understand. But what if she didn’t? What if this news was the thing that finally broke her? Zoe had made no secret of the fact that despite Hobby’s injuries, she still expected great things from him. She expected him to get into an elite college and get a degree in architecture. He couldn’t forgo college so he could stay on Nantucket and work in construction and raise a child. He could not—
could not—
break his mother’s heart.

Would she be disappointed in him? Would she do the predictable thing and blame
Claire?
God, he hoped not. Claire was so nervous that she couldn’t eat at all, but Hobby reacted the opposite way. He guzzled down his ginger ale and shoveled in chip after chip loaded up with tangy salsa. His mother had added jalapeños to the salsa, which was something she used to do only when Penny was at a sleepover or away at camp. Penny didn’t eat spicy food; she worried it would damage her vocal cords. And so the fact that Zoe had added jalapeños to the salsa and presumably would be adding jalapeños to the salsa every time she made it from now on—
since Penny was dead
—further depressed Hobby and made him eat even faster. His manners, which were usually pretty decent, were appalling right now; he knew this, but he couldn’t help himself. Salsa dropped from his chip and stained his khaki shorts. He had crumbs down the front of his shirt. The speed with which he had polished off the ginger ale caused him to emit a loud and prolonged belch that smelled like onions. Claire shook her head at him. She was probably wondering why she had ever
allowed herself to couple with such an artless boor. She was probably fearing for the way he would raise their unborn child.

“Excuse me,” he said.

Claire’s eyes looked weary. She was sick, or sick of him, or sick of their situation. They might have been married for forty years already.

“Let’s tell her now,” Claire said. “I can’t just sit here and
wait.
”

Hobby brushed the crumbs off the front of his shirt and sat up a little straighter.
Yes!
Tell her now and get it over with. Waiting was torture. He burped again, more quietly this time. He regretted having eaten so fast.

“Okay,” he said. “I think you’re right. You’re definitely right. We’ll tell her now.”