The Island (9 page)

“And you’re going to…”

Barrett nodded. “Ask your sister if she’ll go with me. What do you think she’ll say?”

Tate pressed her lips together to keep from screaming. “She’ll say yes.”

“You think?”

“I know,” Tate said. Although Tate and Chess had not spoken about how insanely attractive Barrett Lee was, they were sisters, and therefore the whole novel of how Tate loved Barrett Lee and how Barrett Lee loved Chess and how this would eventually be revealed to Tate’s horror and Chess’s embarrassed delight was understood but left unspoken.

“Great,” he said.

The fishing was ridiculously successful. Barrett caught three bluefish and one striped bass, and Tate caught two bluefish and two striped bass, one of which was a whopping forty-two inches long. Tate’s dream of having Barrett wrap his arms around her as he showed her how to cast didn’t materialize because Tate’s first cast on her own whizzed out thirty yards.

“You’re a natural!” Barrett said. “You look like you’ve been casting all your life.”

Barrett was in good spirits—not because he was fishing with Tate, but because he was being paid (handsomely: Tate’s father was very generous) to do what he loved. And they were slaying them out there. “This is the best fishing I’ve seen in years,” Barrett said, though he was only eighteen, so how many years could he have been talking about? And he was happy, Tate knew, thinking about his imminent lunch date with the beautiful and standoffish Chess. When Tate caught her final fish, the monster striper, and Barrett measured it at forty-two inches, he gave a low, impressed, almost sexy whistle.

“That’s a keeper,” he said. “But I’m afraid seeing it will upset your sister.” He threw the fish overboard.

When Barrett and Tate pulled back into the cove, Chess was lying on the beach in her bikini, reading. She looked up as Barrett beckoned to her. “Come on!” he said. “Your turn for a ride!” Tate’s only hope was that Chess would turn Barrett down, but no sooner had Tate disembarked than Chess was up on her feet. She and Tate passed each other in the shin-deep water without a single word—not even an admonition about the pilfered T-shirt—and then, just like that, they had switched places. Chess was on Barrett’s boat and Tate was on the shore.

The difference was, their father hadn’t paid Barrett to take Chess anywhere.

Tate trudged up the stairs. She decided she would hang herself by the nonlesbian neck from the branch of the only tree on their Tuckernuck property.

Instead, Tate stole one of her father’s cold Michelobs and two batteries from the transistor radio that her father kept around with hopes of catching part of a Yankees–Red Sox game (fruitless), and she spent the afternoon in the attic drinking, burping, crying, and softly singing “Thunder Road” to the bats sleeping in the rafters. This was predictable. What was not predictable was that Chess was more nervous about a date with Barrett Lee than Tate would have guessed. Chess drank an entire six-pack in two hours. Just as Barrett was making his move—placing his hand on Chess’s bare waist and keeping it there—the swell and bump of the ocean got to Chess, as did the suspicion that the mayonnaise on the ham sandwich out of the picnic basket had gone bad, and she puked off the back of the boat.

She later detailed her disgrace to Tate. “It was so gross,” she said. “The beer came out in one long stream, like a power washer. And then there were the chunks of the sandwich and the potato salad floating in the water, and Barrett made a comment about how my puke would draw the fish, and I barfed again.”

They were lying in bed and Tate was glad for the darker-than-dark because she didn’t want Chess to see her gleeful expression. Chess puking and Barrett’s subsequent rebuff thrilled her. Chess said that Barrett had offered her a wintergreen Life Saver but hadn’t touched her again, he hadn’t kissed her, and he hadn’t mentioned another date. This was the best outcome Tate could have hoped for. She was evil, she knew. She had no chance with Barrett Lee, but at least Chess had no chance either.

Barrett was an adult now. His hair was golden brown rather than the platinum of his youth; he had a day of stubbly growth on his face. He wore a visor with his sunglasses resting on the bill, and a blue T-shirt trumpeting a shark-fishing tournament. Tate checked his hand: no ring.

Birdie was the first one down onto the boat. Barrett reached out to shake her hand. “Hey, Mrs. Cousins, good to see you.”

“Give me a hug,” Birdie said. “I’ve known you since you were a baby.”

Barrett laughed and kissed Birdie on the side of the mouth.

India said, “Ooohh, give me one of those. I’ve known you just as long, and I smoked a cigarette with your father when I was only fourteen!”

Birdie swatted her sister. “That’s a horrible thing to say, India!”

“Is it?” India said. “Well, it’s true.”

Barrett laughed. He hugged and kissed India.

Then it was Tate’s turn. She was nervous. Hug? Kiss? Shake hands? She said, “Hey, I’m Tate.”

He said, “Like I could ever forget you. I haven’t seen a forty-two-inch striper since that day we went fishing together.”

“Really?” she said. He took her hand and helped her down into the boat and she thought,
Oh, what the hell,
and said, “Well, it’s good to see you.” She stepped in closer and kissed him somewhere between the side of the mouth and his cheek, no-man’s-land for a kiss, which was awkward. She chastised herself.
Idiot!
Already, she was pushy. He probably remembered that about her.

Tate moved to the back of the boat, where there was a horseshoe of white cushions. There were white cushions encircling the bow as well, and two captain’s chairs at the controls. One for Barrett, Tate supposed, and one for girlfriend. Tate watched as Barrett took notice of Chess’s blue crocheted cap covering what was clearly a bald egg. He touched Chess’s shoulder and said, “I’m sorry to hear about your troubles.”

“Thanks,” Chess said. She looked for a second like she might cry, and Tate could see Barrett teeter with worry.

Tate said, “Chess, come sit by me! This is going to be so great!”

Chess sat next to Tate, and Tate reached for her hand. Chess was hurting, and for a second Tate wondered if Chess should be given the first shot at Barrett Lee. But no, Tate decided. What Chess needed was a
break
from men. For her to dive headlong into another relationship would be the worst thing.

Barrett loaded their luggage onto the boat, and Tate watched the muscles in his forearms straining. She looked at his fine legs, the frayed hem of his khaki shorts, the sliver of oxford blue boxer peeking out from below the hem of one leg. He was too perfectly himself, the boy-now-man of Tate’s dreams. He was
here,
she could reach out and touch him.

Barrett took the wheel and eased the boat away from the dock. Tate inhaled the diesel fumes, which, mixed with the sun and the swampy harbor water, gave her a heady feeling of well-being. Barrett puttered out of the harbor—Tate didn’t take her eyes from his strong shoulders—and then he let the engines loose.

Tate squeezed her sister’s hand. They flew across the open water toward Tuckernuck Island. Tate leaned her head back so her face got direct sun. The boat hit waves, and a fine spray of saltwater came over the side. Tate loved summer in New England. It was so different from summer in Charlotte, where everyone moved from one air-conditioned venue to the next, where “swimming” meant laps in a heated, chlorinated pool.

Tate decided she was never going to spend another summer day working. Next year, she would take off not only all of July but all of August as well. She would live in the Tuckernuck house. God, she wanted to ask Barrett to anchor the boat right here so she could strip off her clothes and dive in. She wanted Barrett Lee to see her swimming naked like a native creature—a seal, a Tuckernuck mermaid. Okay, she was happy, she was high. Would it be inappropriate of her to shout? They were here! Barrett cut the motor by half. Their crescent of perfect, pale beach was in front of them. Their house waited on the bluff.

Tuckernuck Island was a stone held in the ocean’s palm. The name meant “loaf of bread,” and it did look a little like a loaf of bread—it was vaguely oval—though Tate had always thought it looked like a fried egg. The coastline was amorphous, shifting over the years, depending on storms, she supposed, and global warming. The island was only nine hundred acres, all of them privately owned by the residents; there were two large ponds—one in the northwest called North Pond, and one in the northeast called East Pond. Tuckernuck had thirty-two homes, as well as a firehouse, which held a fire truck with a 250-gallon tank. There was no electricity on Tuckernuck other than that provided by generators, and no running water other than from wells powered by generators. The Tate house sat on the somewhat flattened eastern shore, facing Eel Point on Nantucket. Just south of them was the spit of sand called Whale Shoal. The next closest house was a quarter mile to the southwest.

The drill for disembarking hadn’t gotten any easier or more glamorous. Barrett anchored the boat and then hopped into the knee-deep water to help them down. Poor Birdie! She was okay; she was only fifty-seven, still small and spry and, as her name implied, birdlike. She removed her white tennis shoes, hopped down into the water, and waded to shore. Aunt India was wearing a gauzy skirt with an asymmetrical hemline, which probably cost six thousand dollars; it made disembarking gracefully a challenge. She ended up sort of falling into Barrett’s arms like a new bride, and what could Tate do but admit she felt jealous?

There was a new set of stairs from the beach to the bluff. The staircase, always treacherous and rickety, was now sturdy, built from bright yellow pressure-treated lumber.

“Wow!” Birdie said. “Look, girls!”

They ascended to the bluff. There was the lone tree with its gnarled branches, the very same tree Tate had meant to hang herself from. Nice to know they had both survived. In the yard, the old picnic table was centered in an oval of dirt, and from the oval was a white shell path that led to the front door of the house. The house had been reshingled and it smelled like resin. The door was the same weather-beaten blue, and next to the door hung the driftwood sign that Birdie and Aunt India had made when they were girls. Using thumb-size slipper shells, they had formed the word
TATE.
The sign was the closest thing the house had to an antique; it was taken down when they left for the summer, stored in a kitchen drawer, and brought out again to harbinger their arrival.
TATE.

On the far side of the house, where the white shells widened to form a driveway, sat their jalopy, a 1969 International Harvester Scout with a white vinyl roof and a stick shift that was longer than Tate’s arm. The Scout had, once upon a time, been fire-engine red, but it had faded to a grayish pink. Tate looked upon the Scout as a long-neglected pet, a trusty though beat-up veteran of Tate family summers on Tuckernuck Island. The Scout had been brought to Tuckernuck on a car barge by Tate’s grandfather in 1971; Tate and Chess and all three of the Bishop boys had learned to drive in that car at the age of twelve. Tate remembered her own initiation, with her father in the passenger seat coaching her about the gearshift and the clutch. Despite its appearance, shifting the Scout was like cutting through butter, which was good because the Tuckernuck “roads” were challenging; they were dirt, gravel, or grass, potholed and ridged, a bitch to navigate. Tate had always had an affinity with machines; she had learned to drive with incredible ease and had savored every second of freedom behind the wheel. Freedom! At thirteen and fourteen, she had taken the Scout out by herself, she had explored every inch of Tuckernuck’s roads, she had given her mother a heart attack, staying out until after dark when the Scout had only one working headlight.

Tate ran her hand over the hood. Did it still run? She believed it would, like a magic car—Herbie the Love Bug, or Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. It would run for her.

Birdie had discreetly mentioned that the girls’ father had agreed to put “some money” into the house for necessary improvements as prescribed by Barrett Lee, and Tate had feared this meant the house would be different—shiny, new, unrecognizable. But the house looked the same. Tate was the first one inside; it
smelled
the same—like mildew and mothballs and pine sap and ocean air. She walked right into the galley kitchen—long and narrow, with a working sink and a gas camp stove and a half-size fridge lining one wall, and a Formica counter over the cabinets on the other side, with three feet of pale linoleum separating them. The “dining room table,” which sat three, four in a pinch, and therefore was never used except when it rained, was pushed up against the outside kitchen wall. Beyond the “dining room table” was the “living room,” which featured a braided rug, a sofa and two chairs upholstered in an abrasive bottle green fabric meant to survive a nuclear holocaust, and a “coffee table” fashioned from a slab of glass over a lobster trap. The “coffee table” was another house antique; it had been made by Birdie and India’s grandfather, Arthur Tate.

Birdie and India both sighed when they saw the table, and Tate sighed, too. Chess didn’t sigh. Chess, Tate realized, wasn’t in the house. She was outside, sitting at the picnic table with her head in her hands.

Tate pushed open the screen door. “Hey,” she said to Chess. “We’re sharing the attic, right?”

Chess nodded morosely. Well, okay, it wasn’t great, sharing a room with your sister for a month, but wasn’t there a certain slumber-party appeal for all of them in this venture? Wasn’t part of the idea that they would all have constant sisterly-motherly-auntish comfort? They would never be alone, and because they were all related, there was no need for Tate to shower, clip her toenails, worry about deodorant. Tate could fart or burp or pick her teeth with abandon. The others would love her anyway.

There wasn’t much of an option in the way of bedrooms. On the second floor of the house, there were two bedrooms—the Cousins bedroom and the Bishop bedroom. The Cousins bedroom was slightly bigger; it was “the master,” though incongruously it had two twin beds. This was where Tate’s parents had always slept. (Had they ever had sex in those narrow, spinsterish beds? They must have, though Tate didn’t want to imagine it.) The Bishop bedroom had a queen bed with a squishy mattress that was low to the ground. This was where Aunt India and Uncle Bill had slept when Uncle Bill was alive. Tate peeked inside on her way up to the third floor. She was delighted to see Roger, the name given to the quixotic sculpture of a man that Uncle Bill had fashioned out of driftwood, shells, seaweed, and beach glass. Roger was recognizable as a Bishop sculpture, though far smaller than Uncle Bill’s other works (which were made of copper and glass and which populated nearly every major metropolitan area in the first and second worlds). Roger could have been sold to a museum for tens of thousands of dollars, and that was what was remarkable about having him just sitting on the dresser in the long-abandoned family summer home.