“I better get these two home.” Heddy stepped outside, working to sound nonplussed. A gun. She wondered if it was loaded. Reaching for Anna, careful not to let the towel drop, she let her bare arm graze the man’s wrist, which sent a jolt of excitement—and maybe a little fear—through her. Was he a police officer? An adventurer who hunted sharks swimming too close to shore? “Sorry.”
“What are you sorry about?” He lifted Anna off his lap, right up into Heddy’s arms. She was sorry for knowing his secret, for finding the gun, but she couldn’t say that.
He looked at her funny, like he might be done with this conversation, but she wasn’t sure, so she prattled on. “My psychology professor says women should stop being so apologetic or we won’t ever get what we want.… Well, I’m sure your wife does the same thing. Anyway, sorry to ramble.” She cleared her throat, then laughed.
“Stop saying sorry!” He grinned, crossing his legs at the ankles, his hair shiny with sun. “And no, no ball and chain yet.”
With the telephone ringing in the kitchen, he went inside to answer it. Heddy stared out at the dunes, straining to hear his conversation. “Just put it in the bag,” he said, losing the chipper tone he’d used on her. The kids began singing loudly, and she couldn’t hear anything else until he said, “Don’t worry. We’ll get him.”
Heddy smiled at the gentleman when he came out, taking Anna’s hand and following Teddy, who was already running ahead down the path back to the beach. “Nice to meet you,” she said.
“Same.” His breezy tone returned. “Come over and surprise me again sometime.” There was something in his eyes, a softness. He hardly seemed like a murderer.
Maybe he had the gun because he was on the president’s Secret Service detail, taking a day off from the mayhem in Hyannis. Maybe the cottage belonged to a Kennedy and he was renting it.
“I’ll see you at the beach, Ace,” Ash hollered to the child’s back.
“Really?” She blinked innocently. “Ace.” He seemed to enjoy her attempt at being cute and started to follow them, walking next to her through the dunes.
“I’m teaching Teddy how to surf. I told his daddy the younger he starts, the better.”
“Like skiing, I suppose,” she said.
“Only who would trade this for snow?”
She glanced at the cobalt-blue horizon, then back at Ash, who was shielding his eyes from the sun and looking at her, waiting for her to say more. But what came to mind was a line from a Salinger story, something about how every man has at least one place that at some point turns into a girl. She’d written a paper on what that one line meant, and still, she hadn’t understood until she happened upon this surfer on Martha’s Vineyard. Perhaps, for every woman, there is at least one place that at some point turns into a boy.
Heddy walked off, feeling Ash’s eyes on her, knowing he could see her rear end. She rewrapped Anna’s beach towel around her body. Just before the trail descended into the marsh, her racing heart forced her hand and she let the towel go, curious if she’d catch his eyes on her. But when she turned, he was dragging the hose over to his surfboards.
He was handsome, charming, a bachelor without any serious intentions. Someone she could never trust, the kind of boy who convinced a girl to skip a Wellesley mixer and make out in his car instead. And that was not the kind of boy she wanted.
She wanted someone like Ted Williams.
So why had she gone out of her way to make it clear she was interested?
* * *
The surfer was still on her mind that evening when she was putting the children to bed. Even after dark, when she was alone in her bedroom, sitting at her desk and penning her first letter, she thought of him. But these were not details she’d share with her mother.
June 24, 1962
Dearest Mama,
When I was a little girl, you and I would daydream about buying a cottage with a view of the sea. Well, the Williams’s home is one hundred times grander than any of our fantasies, and the view from my bedroom window is equally sublime. Sailboats glide along the silvery waves in the morning, the sky a painting of pinks and purples in the evening. Jean-Rose, even the children, take everything about their lives for granted, whereas I appreciate every detail. We all have our very own bathroom. There was an actual handheld hair dryer left in my closet. Even the freezer has three choices of ice cream flavors.
I met a nice girl named Ruth—she’s the housekeeper—and I feel comfortable with her in a way I don’t with the others. You were right. The Williamses are not like you and me, but I’m still trying to understand how. Is it because she poured the last quarter of the milk down the kitchen sink, just because there was a fresh bottle in the keep? Is it because the husband spritzes himself with cologne or because he flips through a book at two in the afternoon, a square of sun surrounding his wingback chair?
But they are lovely together, and I would love to find myself in my own version of this life.
Missing you,
Hibernia
THREE
Jean-Rose was filing her nails in a rocking chair on the porch when Heddy and the kids returned home from a nature walk around noon the following morning, their buckets full of feathers and rocks, tiny crab skeletons and oyster shells. As soon as she saw them, she dropped her file and sang out: “I have good news.” She shimmied her shoulders like a jazz dancer and beamed. A Bloody Mary sat empty on the small table beside her, a chewed-up celery stick at the bottom. “I hope you don’t mind, but I love playing cupid. He’ll pick you up at seven.”
Heddy crinkled her nose. “You set me up? On a date?”
Her boss’s dainty jaw gaped with self-satisfaction.
“Sure did,” Jean-Rose said. “On your night off next week. Did I tell you you’re free to do as you wish on Friday nights and while the children are at camp?”
“We’re thirsty,” Teddy whined, tossing his thermos at his mother’s espadrilles. The smell of honeysuckle wafted by. It grew in a tangle up a white-painted arbor over the bricked path to the porch.
“Come, I’ll explain,” she said, and they followed her to the kitchen, Heddy carrying the thermos. “He’s a waiter at the Clamshell, a friend of a friend, and he’s thrilled to meet you.”
A waiter! Heddy tried to hide the disappointment on her face when she turned on the faucet to fill the water bottle.
“But he doesn’t even know what I look like,” Heddy said.
“Who, Mama?” Anna tugged.
Teddy snatched the thermos like a basketball, and Jean-Rose rolled her eyes.
“You think I didn’t show him a picture?” She scooped Anna into her arms, balancing her on a hip; Teddy kicked at the table leg, slurping. “I passed along the lovely photo you sent us with your application.”
Oh God. Her high school senior picture.
Ruth, who was standing at the counter with her back to them, spooned chicken salad onto Wonder bread. She wiped her hands on a tea towel. “That’s the second night of the carnival. I was hoping to take Heddy.”
“Sugarpuss.” Jean-Rose tapped her fingers against her crossed elbows. “Can we finagle a double?”