The Beach Club (32 page)

Cecily fell back in her chair. “Move somebody.”

He opened the reservation book and Cecily peered at it. The whole month was highlighted in fluorescent green.

“We’re full,” he said.

That was how Mrs. Jane Hassiter ended up staying in Cecily’s house during the heat wave. First, though, Cecily and her father called every guest house and B and B in the phone book. No vacancy. There wasn’t room on the island for even one more person, a lonely widow. That’s how Cecily’s mother described Mrs. Hassiter, a lonely widow. Cecily’s father prayed for a cancellation, but none came. Her mother tried to calm him.

“Mrs. Hassiter can stay in our house,” she said. “We have the extra room, don’t forget.”

“The extra room” was on the first floor in the front of the house, with a window looking over the parking lot at the beach. It even had its own bathroom. But in Cecily’s eighteen years, no one had ever stayed in that room. It was meant to be the bedroom for Cecily’s dead brother, W.T., but he’d never slept in it. W.T. didn’t make it home from the hospital; he was born dead. Cecily’s parents preserved the room, though, for the ghost baby, their dead son.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Bill said.

Cecily rolled her eyes. Her parents were outrageously predictable.

“
You
double-booked the room, Bill,” Therese said. “Mrs. Hassiter is on her way. There isn’t any space on the island. We don’t have a choice. We made a mistake, we have to pay up.”

“It’ll be fine, Dad,” Cecily said. Both her parents looked at her as if she’d spoken Portuguese. Those were the nicest words she’d said since the Fourth of July.

Bill exhaled; his shoulders loosened. “I hope you’re right,” he said.

Cecily was standing at the front desk talking to Love when Jane Hassiter walked in. Hotel guests were a mixed bag, but they had one thing in common—they all looked rich. Their watches gave them away, their Italian shoes, their haircuts. Rarely did someone step into the lobby looking like Jane Hassiter.

It was terrible to say—horrendous, awful—but Mrs. Hassiter immediately reminded Cecily of the woman who cleaned her dormitory at Middlesex. Mrs. Hassiter walked into the lobby in the same way that woman skulked around the students’ rooms—as though she didn’t belong in a place so fancy and nice. And then, as Mrs. Hassiter got closer, Cecily zeroed in on her tight, steel gray pin curls, her watery blue eyes, and she filled with warm dread. Mrs. Hassiter
was
the woman who cleaned at Middlesex; she was the housekeeper, the custodian, right here in the lobby of the hotel. Jane—yes, her name was Jane. Cecily had said, “Good morning, Jane,” when she swept the halls with her wide broom, and “Thank you, Jane,” when she cleaned the bathroom and emptied the trash. The girls on Cecily’s hall bought Jane a Christmas present every year—a silk flower wreath, a subscription to
Reader’s Digest
.

Cecily shivered despite the heat. The last week of school, Jane unlocked the door to Cecily’s room with her giant ring of keys, and walked in on Cecily and Gabriel making love. Cecily was sitting in Gabriel’s lap, facing him, her legs wrapped around his back as he lifted her up and down on his beautiful penis. They were supposed to be at breakfast, but they had skipped so that they could make love yet again. Cecily heard the jangle of Jane’s keys, and before she could move, Jane stepped in, ogled them. Cecily pulled Gabriel’s face into her chest as though he were a child that needed protecting and she shrieked, “Get out! Get out of here, Jane!”

Jane, what could Jane have thought? She looked hurt, Cecily remembered. She said, softly, “I’m sorry. So sorry.” And closed the door.

Cecily climbed off Gabriel and cried. She cried because Gabriel was leaving for Brazil and one of their last times making love had been ruined. She cried because now there was danger of being expelled, right before graduation. And she cried because she had yelled at Jane, frightened her, hurt her. Nobody yelled at Jane. No one except Cecily.

Jane didn’t report them. Of course not, Gabriel said, who was she anyway? An old woman cleaning up after a bunch of teenagers. Cecily made herself forget about the incident; she concentrated instead on the vodka parties, graduation, making a scrapbook for Gabriel. Cecily cast her eyes down when she passed Jane in the hall.

It was the world’s worst coincidence that Jane, the cleaning woman, whom Cecily hoped never to see again, was the only guest in the history of the hotel ever to stay in Cecily’s house. Cecily had half a mind to hide in the back office. But this was the behavior of the old Cecily. The new Cecily, the one headed for South America, faced adversity when it walked in the door.

Jane wore a plaid blouse, a pair of men’s denim overalls cuffed at the ankles, and shiny AirMax running shoes. Jane walked with her head down, every once in a while allowing herself to glimpse a quilt or a painting, when she gave a tiny gasp. She looked so painfully out of place that Cecily wanted to apologize a hundred times.

Vance came in the door behind Jane carrying two brown paper bags, like the kind they used at Stop & Shop. He set them down at the front desk, practically at Cecily’s feet.
Those are her bags
, Cecily thought.
This is her luggage
. She wanted to weep. They occasionally saw people like Jane Hassiter over the years, but Cecily was too young then to care or understand: Men and women who saved up their whole lives to splurge like this, just once.

“I’m Jane Hassiter,” she said to Love. “I have a reservation.” It was Jane’s voice.
I’m sorry. So sorry
.

“Indeed, Mrs. Hassiter,” Love said. “You requested a side deck room, but I’m pleased to inform you we’ve upgraded your room, free of charge. You’re going to be staying in the proprietor’s suite.”

“The proprietor’s suite?” Jane said. She looked at her shoes. “That’s wonderful.”

“Vance will show you to your room,” Love said.

“I’ll do it,” Cecily piped up.

“Okay,” Love said. “Mrs. Hassiter, Cecily here, the owner’s daughter, will show you to your room.”

Jane raised her head and looked at Cecily. Cecily’s cheeks burned. Jane smiled shyly. “It’s nice to meet you, Cecily.”

She was pretending. Cecily felt both relief and disappointment. In the last five minutes, Cecily’s guilt swelled like a blister that needed to be popped with sharp words of accusation.
You little slut! You ungrateful, spoiled child!

When Cecily found her voice, it was very small. “Welcome to Nantucket.”

“Thank you,” Jane said. “This place, it’s yours? You lucky girl.”

Cecily would gladly have signed the deed over to Jane that instant.
I don’t want this place. I don’t want it at all
. “It belongs to my parents,” she said. She picked up the paper bags and allowed herself a peek at the contents. One bag held clothes and one held a second paper bag, twisted at the neck. Cecily made her way slowly through the lobby so Jane could enjoy it. The lobby was air-conditioned, but waves of heat rose from the asphalt out in the parking lot. It was a griddle. She let Jane through the lobby doors. “We’re going to the big house over there.”

“Forgive my asking,” Jane said, “but what did I do to deserve this? The proprietor’s suite, my God!”

“It’s just the way things worked out,” Cecily said. Her father was posted at the upstairs window, watching them swim through the waves of heat to the house. Earlier that day, he’d read Jane’s confirmation letter out loud. “‘We look forward to having you stay with us.’ Ha! Little did we know what we meant by that.”

Cecily didn’t enter the extra room very often. There was just a double bed, an empty dresser, a regular bathroom. When Cecily swung the door open, she saw her mother had fixed it up for Jane—a quilt on the bed, two of those idiotic miniature bicycles on the dresser, fresh flowers, and a box of chocolates from Sweet Inspirations, which were probably all melted together by now. A fluffy white robe hung in the empty closet.

Cecily closed the door in case her father should come wandering down. Now that they were alone, Cecily wanted to say something. She was about to burst.

“This is just lovely,” Jane said. “So lovely. I can’t believe my good fortune.”

“Jane,” Cecily said. “Mrs. Hassiter, Jane—”

Then there was a knock at the door and Therese stepped in.

“Hello, Mrs. Hassiter, welcome.”

Jane shook hands with Therese. “Thank you. This room is so fine.”

“I’m glad you like it,” Therese said.

“It’s my dead brother’s room,” Cecily said. Both her mother and Jane stared. Cecily wanted to kill herself. Why had she said that?

“Cecily,” Therese said.

“Your dead brother?” Jane said. “I’m sorry to hear it.”

Therese cleared her throat. “Go find your father,” she said. “Go right now while I talk to Mrs. Hassiter.”

Cecily stomped up the stairs to where her father was standing by the bay window watching Beach Club members pull up in their Range Rovers and unload beach bags, buckets and shovels, picnic lunches.

“I think we should let Mrs. Hassiter stay for free,” Cecily said. “She’s not even in the real hotel. Her room isn’t on the beach.”

“Has she complained?” Bill asked.

“No, she’s happy. But you can’t charge her. It wouldn’t be fair.” Cecily lowered her voice. “Besides, I don’t think she has much money.”

“We have fifty percent in a deposit,” he said. “I’d be happy to leave it at that.”

“No,” Cecily said. “You should return it all.”

“That’s what you’d do if you were running the hotel?” Bill asked.

The obvious trap. Cecily sniffed. “I’m just saying what I think you should do, as a decent person.”

“Decent person, huh?” her father said. He focused back out the window. “I can’t believe this heat. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

“Dad?” Cecily said.

“Okay, we won’t charge her,” he said. “We’ll just pretend like she’s an old friend.”

Cecily tried to get a minute alone with Jane—to apologize, and offer this up—her stay at the Beach Club free of charge. But Jane didn’t emerge from her room, and Cecily was too timid to knock. Cecily spent an hour on the beach talking with Major Crawley, the Hayeses, and Mrs. Papale, who was turning herself into a human crouton. Cecily eyed the front door of her house for Jane, but Jane didn’t materialize. Perhaps she hadn’t brought a bathing suit. Cecily cursed guilt, the worst of all emotions, worse than hate and heartbreak put together. Cecily not only felt guilty about yelling at Jane and having sex with Gabriel when she should have been in the dining hall, but now she felt guilty about telling Jane she was staying in a dead boy’s room. It wasn’t even true, technically.

At eleven o’clock that night, Cecily’s usual hour to call Gabriel, she resisted picking up the phone. She had been lying on her bed for two hours, listening for any activity that might be going on in Jane’s room. She heard the water (a shower), the water (teeth brushing) and two toilet flushes. Every fifteen minutes, Cecily checked down the hall to see if Jane’s light was still on. If the light was on at midnight, Cecily was going down there. It would be impossible to sleep with this guilt hanging around her neck like a medieval shackle. Cecily replayed the awful moment in her room at Middlesex again and again in her mind, wishing she could somehow change the ending, change it so that it was not Jane who caught her
screwing
during breakfast, change it so that at the very least Cecily hadn’t screamed
Get out of here!
and hadn’t used Jane’s name,
Get out of here, Jane!

And then, at last, Cecily heard Jane’s door open, she heard footsteps in the hallway. Cecily leaped from bed and opened her bedroom door. Jane stood in front of her in a high-collared nightgown.

“I think your brother is trying to contact me,” Jane said.

“Excuse me?” Cecily said.

“He’s trying to contact me. He’s making noise.”

Cecily followed Jane down the hall and into the extra room. Sure enough, there was a light tapping on the window.

“Turn off the light,” Cecily said. She went to the window and peered out into the darkness to see if the wind was knocking a branch against the pane. But there was no wind; the American flag sagged in the spotlight, impotent. No one was outside, and yet Cecily heard the tapping, so light, so faint, it was all she could do to keep from imagining a baby’s fist, the size of an egg, tapping the glass, demanding to be let in. “I need to get out of this place,” she said.

“This room is haunted,” Jane said.

Cecily sat on the edge of Jane’s bed. “It could be. No one has ever slept in here before.”

“Why me?”

“My father overbooked,” Cecily admitted. She forgot about the ghostly tapping and became excited that at last she had gotten a chance to apologize to Jane. “Listen, I know you recognize me. Cecily Elliott, room two-seventeen, Darwin House. You saw me and my boyfriend…and I yelled when I shouldn’t have. I feel terrible about it, but I love him so much. It’s the kind of love that hurts whenever I breathe, practically, because he’s living in South America, and I’ve been saving my money to go see him.”