The Summer Everything Changed (21 page)

“I thought you said that most of the people there were pretentious.”

“Did I? Well, maybe a few were.” Isobel had told absolutely no one about Jeff's behavior at the party and had created a bit of a tall tale about the event in general. What else could she have done? No one would have understood the truth. “I think I was just nervous. I didn't know anybody there but Jeff.”

“Since when does that bother you?” Gwen demanded. “You're the friendliest person I know.”

“That doesn't mean I'm not uncomfortable in certain situations.”

“And what about his calling you Izzy? I thought you hated that nickname! I thought you hated all nicknames.”

“I do, usually,” Isobel admitted. “But it's okay when Jeff says it. It's affectionate.”

“It sounds ridiculous.”

“That's just your opinion,” Isobel snapped. “What's up with you, anyway? Are you jealous that I have a boyfriend and you don't?”

Gwen looked stricken, as if she had been slapped with a palm and not just words. Isobel felt awful.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “That was a stupid thing to say. Really. It's just . . . “At that moment the frustration Isobel had been laboring under threatened to crush her. She hated being stuck in the middle, defending one to the other. She hated it. “It's just that you never have anything nice to say about Jeff. It makes things very difficult for me. It's very unfair of you.”

And Jeff never had anything nice to say about Gwen, either. He thought she was fat. He thought her family situation was abnormal. He thought Gwen had too big an influence on her, whatever that meant.

But Isobel wouldn't let Gwen know how Jeff felt. She wasn't mad at Jeff. She was mad at Gwen. Let Gwen fix things. Gwen was the one who had complained about having to see the movie with Jeff “tagging along.”

Yeah, so she was favoring Jeff over her friend. So what? Jeff was her boyfriend. That was special.

It was some time, during which neither girl looked at the other, before Gwen spoke.

“I'm sorry, too,” she said, standing. “I didn't mean to be unfair. Look, I'm going to grab a ride home with Quentin.”

Isobel felt a little sick to her stomach. She and Gwen had never fought before. Ever. She had never fought with anyone—except for her father.

She wanted Gwen to stay. She wanted Gwen to go.

“I thought you were going to stick around for dinner,” she said, still not meeting her friend's eye.

“Nah, I should get home. I just remembered my parents want us to go out to dinner with some friends of theirs visiting from New York. Tell your mom I said hi.”

Gwen strode down the porch steps and over to where Quentin was tossing some lumber into the bed of his old but well-cared-for pickup truck. Gwen spoke to him and Isobel saw him nod. A moment later, they climbed into the truck and drove off.

Isobel watched them go. She had a queer feeling as they disappeared around the curve in the road. She felt abandoned. She felt left behind. She felt—ridiculous.

And then her phone alerted her to a text. It was Jeff.

G STILL THERE?
it read.

NO,
she replied.

B THERE SOON,
was his answer.
LUV U.

Isobel smiled. Good. She loved him, too.

Louise sighed and picked up the crumpled, dirty napkin from the floor of the porch. People were slobs, she thought irritably. Even her clientele, who, generally speaking, were well-off and well-educated, thought nothing of leaving crumpled, dirty napkins on the porch or of placing wineglasses directly on a wooden side table when a stack of coasters sat nearby. Maybe they all had housekeepers at home following them around with a sponge. Still, there was such a thing as common courtesy and respect for other people's property. Or didn't parents and schools teach those things anymore?

Her interior rant was brought to a halt by the unexpected arrival of Isobel's gentleman caller.
I wonder
, Louise thought, watching Jeff emerge from his car,
if I'll ever have a gentleman caller again. If I do, he had better be neat and clean around the house.

“Hey, Mrs. Bessire,” Jeff said when he had reached the top step.

“Hey, Jeff,” Louise replied. She noted that he was impeccably put together, as always. She wondered if that was due to his mother's training, or if he was one of those men who was born with a good style gene. “Here to see Isobel? I'm afraid you missed her. She went down to the beach with a book.”

“No, actually,” he said, “I'm here to see you, Mrs. Bessire. I know you're crazy busy with this big wedding coming up, and I thought you could use a little treat.”

Jeff held out a large brown box tied with a ribbon. Louise had seen it in his hand but had assumed it was for her daughter. She accepted it gratefully. Chocolate from Harbor Candy Shop was a big deal. Nobody in her right mind would dispute that.

“Wow, thank you, Jeff,” she said. “That was really was nice of you.”

Jeff shrugged. “My mother taught me the importance of chocolate on an everyday basis, not only in a crisis.”

“Smart woman. Chocolate was just what I needed. Thanks again. And, please call me Louise.”

Jeff smiled and bowed his head ever so slightly.

“Thank you, Louise. Well, I'd better get going.”

“How is working for your father going?” Louise asked politely. She assumed, of course, that he was heading back to the office, wherever that was. No doubt Jack Otten maintained a home office, as well as one in Portland or Boston or New York.

Jeff gave her a brilliant smile. “Just fantastic,” he said. “Thanks for asking.”

 

“Where did this come from?” Isobel was holding up the box from Harbor Candy Shop.

“Your paramour came by with them,” Louise said airily, turning from the kitchen sink with a little smirk. “A little present for me.”

Isobel beamed. “He did? Wow. That was really nice of him.” She opened the box and selected a candy. “Oh. My. God,” she said, mouth full of chocolate and caramel and nut. “These Turtles are amazing.”

“Tell me something I don't know. Try a dark chocolate nonpareil. To. Die. For.”

Isobel did, and immediately sank into a chair at the table. When she emerged from her stupor, she said, “So, you like Jeff, right, Mom?”

“Yeah,” Louise said, drying her hands on a towel. “I do. Why? Are you having doubts about your feelings for him? Because if you are, you shouldn't be afraid to talk about it. To me or to Gwen and then, if it's necessary, to Jeff.”

“No, not at all,” Isobel said hurriedly. “Everything's fine with Jeff, really. It's just that, well, I get the feeling Gwen doesn't really like him. I think she's jealous he wants to spend so much time with me. Frankly, I'm kind of upset with her about it. I mean, we swore we would never let a guy come between us.”

Louise glanced at the bracelet on Isobel's left wrist. To Gwen, it might be a symbol of a friend's moving on . . . She tossed the towel onto the plastic drain board and joined her daughter at the table.

“Maybe it's not jealousy Gwen is feeling,” she said. “Maybe it's really that she's sad things are changing between you girls, and maybe it's just a little hard for her to accept. After all, you two have been inseparable for a long time.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Isobel admitted. “It makes sense, I guess. But it's still frustrating. Sometimes I feel like I'm being torn apart.”

“Does Jeff like Gwen?” Louise asked.

Isobel nodded vigorously. “Oh yeah. He thinks she's great.”

Louise took that statement with a grain of salt. Best friends and boyfriends were often a volatile mix. As long as Gwen and Jeff each made an attempt to get along for Isobel's sake, things would be well enough, if not perfect.

“Give Gwen time and try to be understanding. Be sure you spend time alone with her as well as with Jeff, okay? If the situation were reversed and Gwen suddenly had a boyfriend, you might feel the same way as she does now.”

“Okay. You're right.”

Louise reached for the box of candy that sat between them. “Okay, just one more piece. Damn, this stuff is good.”

“Mom!” Isobel cried. “Save some for me!”

“It's my gift.”

“Given to you by my boyfriend!”

“So? It's every woman for herself when it comes to chocolate.”

Isobel faked a frown and grabbed the last Turtle before scurrying out of the kitchen.

Louise smiled after her daughter. She really hoped that Isobel's friendship with Gwen would survive this transition. Gwen was a truly special person. And she had faith in her daughter's ability to adapt to new situations. Hadn't she always done so easily?

Isobel groaned. She simply had not been able to find anything really interesting to say on the blog today. She knew she was reaching with this post—in fact, the post was awfully lame; she suspected that most of her readers had never even heard of the
OED
—but part of her just didn't care. Her brain was just empty. And as for her energy, it was at low ebb.

For example, two weeks before, she had seen an ad in one of the local papers about a new resale shop opening on Route 1 and instead of calling Gwen immediately and making a plan to get to the store as soon as possible, she had thought,
Well, someday I'll get there.

Well, maybe her general lack of enthusiasm for all the things that she usually enjoyed was because of the heat and humidity, both of which Isobel hated. They could make you sick and listless. That was a scientific fact. So were hormones, and for all Isobel knew her body was still going through some adolescent changes. Hey, her mother was always saying how she was still suffering through PMS, and you didn't want to get Catherine started on the subject.

Isobel sighed. This sense of existential boredom was boring. When was her life going to kick back in again? She had always bounced back from sadness or adversity with what even she recognized was astonishing speed. So what was wrong now? Maybe, she thought, with a twinge of guilt, she just missed Gwen.

Gwen really was smart, maybe because of how she had spent the first years of her life. She had had to learn to read situations clearly and on her own. She had had to learn how to form independent opinions based on the evidence presented to her, however scant or dubious. Maybe being annoyed with Gwen for having her own opinions about Jeff was stupid. Maybe Gwen really did see something about the relationship that Isobel was missing . . .

It was disturbing, but she forced herself to think about what had happened at the movies the other day—besides Jeff's whispering. He had held her hand in his lap and a few times she had had to push his hand (and hers in it) away because it had seemed to her that he was getting a little too close to . . .

At the time she had thought that the movement of his hand was unconscious—maybe he was restless, sitting still for almost two hours—but it had made her uncomfortable nonetheless.

She had refused to think about it after the movie, but the more time that passed the more the memory kept intruding. What if Gwen had seen? What if a stranger had seen and reported them to the management and they had been thrown out? What if the police had been called, or even mall security? It was too dreadful to think about. Her life would be over. How could she ever recover from something so base and humiliating?

But Isobel was not at all sure she wasn't making a mountain out of a molehill (another tired, old cliché she probably overused). Her overreaction was probably another example of her relative immaturity. One thing she was very sure of, and that was Jeff's feelings about her reluctance to have sex. He was getting impatient with her. The other day he had snapped at her when she had pushed him away. They had been kissing and Jeff's hand had wandered down from her waist . . . After that, he had immediately driven her home, ignoring her half-articulate apologies.

But he had said in that text that he loved her . . . Maybe it wasn't as romantic as saying the words to someone's face, but these days it was just as valid. Right? And love meant being patient with a person . . .

Isobel twitched. There he was, on her phone, texting that he was on his way to see her.

Isobel met him on the porch. Her mother was out grocery shopping. As far as Isobel knew, all of the guests were out, too. James and Jim never wasted a sunny day hanging around the inn when they could be working on their tans.

Jeff looked distracted again, or distant, or disturbed. Isobel couldn't trust herself to properly identify his expression.

“I read that post you wrote about Portland,” he said without a greeting.

“Which one?” Isobel asked. “I've posted a lot about Portland.”

“The one where you go on about that foreign-sounding store.”

“Oh right. I got a lot of nice responses to that post.”

“Well, I don't want you to go to the city without me. It's dangerous. Besides, the place is a toilet.”

“It is not!” Isobel cried, half-laughing at the absurdity of what Jeff was saying.

“It's crawling with homeless people and drug addicts and booze fiends. Those people are the scum of the earth. I don't want you having anything to do with people like that.”

“What?” Isobel blurted.

“You heard what I said.”

“But when I go to Portland I'm going into shops and the museums and restaurants,” she argued. A tiny, tiny part of her wondered why she was even bothering to argue against such a—such a ridiculous demand. “Besides, homeless people aren't dangerous. They're mostly just—sad.”

“Isobel,” Jeff said, his voice louder now and his tone emphatic, “I know what I'm talking about. I'm just thinking of you and your safety. I don't want anything bad to happen to you. You should be grateful for my concern and not fight me on this. Remember, Isobel. I love you. And you love me, too, right?”

There were the words, live and in person. “Of course I love you,” she said. “And of course I'm grateful. Really.”

The sound of high heels alerted Isobel to Mrs. White, who was coming out of the inn just then. Her hair had obviously been newly colored. It was almost white-blond and looked as smooth as silk.

“Why, hello,” she said brightly. Isobel had the distinct feeling that her greeting was meant for Jeff alone.

Jeff smiled. He got to his feet and walked down the porch steps with Mrs. White. When they reached her car, he opened the door for her. He must have said something funny because Mrs. White laughed and put one manicured hand briefly on his arm before sliding behind the wheel.

Isobel felt a teeny bit weird about what she had just witnessed. She wouldn't dream of touching Mr. White's arm, even if he was young and good-looking. Especially if he was young and good-looking. He didn't belong to her. He belonged to his wife. Well, as much as a human being could “belong” to another human being.

But—as Jeff had reminded her—she was young and relatively inexperienced in the ways of the world . . . At least, in the ways of romance. She really couldn't argue that.

Jeff bounded back up the steps of the porch. “I've got to get going,” he said. “I'm meeting my father and one of our lawyers at the York Harbor Inn.”

He leaned down and kissed her forehead. When he stood up, he looked at her sharply.

“What's wrong?” she asked.

“You should think about dyeing your hair platinum.”

Isobel laughed a bit too loudly. Jeff went down to his car and drove off in the same direction Mrs. White had taken. Which, Isobel told herself, meant absolutely nothing.

She sat there on the porch steps for a while, thinking. Jeff's comment about platinum hair was a bit weird (maybe he was color-blind; anyone with a decent sense of color could see that she would look completely washed out as a platinum blonde!), but what really bothered her was that his concern for her safety seemed so out of proportion. Even her own father—back when they had lived together—hadn't been as overprotective, and she had been so much younger then, so much more vulnerable. At least, her father had never said or done things to make her feel like he was—not protecting, but—well, guarding her. Not keeping bad things out but keeping her in.

A loud hiss from the rhododendron bushes, followed by a shriek and a beating of wings, alerted Isobel to the presence of Ivan the Terrible. Talk about creatures needing protection! No local bird or small four-legged creature was safe from Ivan's harassment.

Isobel wondered. Maybe Jeff's father was overly protective of his mother. Maybe that was where he had learned his tendency toward, well, smothering. Or, his tendency to be too much of a gentleman? Could someone be too much of a good thing? He had held the car door for Mrs. White, and earlier, he had carried her packages up the steps and inside. He had brought Isobel flowers and had given candy to her mother. Surely those little courtesies couldn't be signs of something wrong?

Still, Isobel absolutely would not—could not—tell her mother or Gwen or Catherine or James or Jim or anyone else she knew about Jeff's—what? His warning? They would say that he was overprotective and old-fashioned.

And, of course, she could never share what he had said about the populace of Portland. Without hesitation every single one of them would condemn Jeff for his narrow-minded attitude. And honestly, could she blame them? Sure, there were a lot of unfortunate people in Portland, but that was because the city was so good at providing the help those people needed like shelters, food pantries, SROs, and probably lots of other services Isobel didn't even know about.

Maybe Jeff had led a seriously sheltered life; maybe all he needed was to learn more about urban culture. After all, he had grown up in cozy little Ogunquit and was going to school in rural Vermont. He had probably never had any lengthy experience with city life. She supposed it could be scary for the uninitiated.

Isobel sighed. She wanted Jeff to be patient with her, so she would need to be patient with him. Patience should be a two-way street, right?

Oh, life was suddenly all so complicated!

She absolutely did not want to break up with Jeff (he was so good-looking and could be so charming and nice and generous and he loved her—that counted for a lot!), but she was feeling a bit exhausted by their relationship, like she was always making a mistake with him, like she was walking through a minefield (it was as good a cliché as any), afraid that the next step would bring an explosion.

And she had just told him that she loved him . . . Had she lied? No. She did love him. And yet, he was still so unknown, so foreign to her. He still hadn't told her what he liked to do in his spare time. She had no idea if he followed a sports team, what he read, if he liked to go sailing or build things or play chess or whether he played a musical instrument. He was like a closed book. But books were easy to open and to browse. Not so much people.

And the way she and Jeff looked at the world was so different too. For some reason Jeff wouldn't (or couldn't) explain, he was prejudiced against gay people; Isobel was absolutely not prejudiced against anyone and staunchly pro-marriage for everyone. Maybe it was wrong to be with a person who didn't share your core values and beliefs. And if it wasn't exactly wrong, it was fatiguing. And sometimes, though it was hard to admit, it was embarrassing.

But then, just when Isobel thought that maybe, possibly, she should walk away from the relationship, Jeff would do or say something so nice that all thoughts of ending the relationship just flew away. Yes, she thought, more sure now, maybe all Jeff needed was an education, and if so, who better to give it to him than his girlfriend?

And maybe—Isobel thought this seemed very plausible—maybe Jeff's parents had been so focused on Michael, the perfect son, they had neglected their younger child. Without meaning to, of course. That would explain why Jeff never liked it when Michael's name was mentioned. And it also might explain why he was working for his father this summer. Finally, with Michael away, Jeff could spend some quality time with his father, could prove to him that he was as valuable as his older brother.

This was a new perspective. Jeff as fundamentally powerless in his position as the younger son of a powerful man . . .

Unbidden, memories of what she had learned over the years about how to spot an abusive person came back to her. Abuse didn't have to be about punching and hitting, though it often manifested itself that way. It was really about a misuse of power, and that could take a lot of different shapes, including neglect. And a girl could abuse a boy or a woman could abuse a man as easily as the other way around. It was human nature to be tempted by power. Unfortunately, some people, usually the ones who secretly felt powerless or victimized, justly or unjustly, were overwhelmed by the need to wield it.

Isobel felt a chill in spite of the warm July sun. Whoa. Wait. Did that make Jeff, a neglected child, a potential bully? The thought shocked and appalled her.

No, it did not. Absolutely, no way, it did not. Because if Jeff was a bully, that meant that she was a victim and that just wasn't possible. Isobel Amelia Bessire, an abused girlfriend, a bullied girlfriend? No. Way. Not with her strong personality. Not with the training she had gotten from her mother and from her father. Not with her adamantine insistence on independence and individuality.