TWO 
Heddy was downstairs and dressed in a simple mustard-yellow dress with knee-high matching socks by seven the next morning. She considered the pairing her most fashionable outfit, and the chilly morning temperature had cooperated, allowing her to pull the socks onto warm her legs. Uncertain where she should wait for the family to wake up, she chose a sunny window seat in the formal living room where she could see the stairwell.
She crossed and uncrossed her legs, bit at her nails, and adjusted her ponytail while taking in the room’s oriental carpets, the polished mahogany furniture and ornate floor lamps, the gleaming brass bookends holding together neat rows of colorful spines. Just sitting there made her feel regal. The house even smelled of money. And Chanel Nº5, which Jean-Rose used like deodorizer, leaving a bottle of it in every room and spraying it as she traveled through the house.
Heddy heard the children coming down the steps and stood. “Come, I’ll make you breakfast,” Heddy said cheerfully, her heart warming at their tousled hair and bright eyes.
“But you’re not supposed to give us breakfast.” The girl adjusted the top of her darling baby doll pajamas.
“Of course I do.” Breakfast was one of her specialties, and the thought of busying herself frying eggs gave her familiarity in this house of foreign smells and unsettling nighttime creaks.
Teddy curled up in a floral wingback chair, his pudgy toes dangling off one brocade arm. “Ruth gets us breakfast, dummy. You just follow us around.”
Heddy plastered a smile. She glanced at the grandfather clock: 7:12 a.m. She wouldn’t let them sock the energy from her that quickly.
The back door latched shut, and they heard footsteps, the coat closet opening and closing. Ruth stuck her head into the living room. “You’re up already?” she said, taking in Heddy’s outfit. “What’s with the socks?”
Heddy swallowed. “Everyone wears them on campus.” She tried not to sound defensive, or worse, snobbish.
Ruth shrugged. “I’ll put out the cereal. The coffee, too. I’m sure you’re going to need a cup.”
Heddy put her hand on the small of Anna’s back, leading the child into the kitchen. She felt strange living in a house with a servant, and she wouldn’t let herself be waited on. She didn’t want Ruth to confuse her with the family but didn’t want to get too comfortable living in a home with a housekeeper, either. If her mother instilled anything in her, it was how to be self-sufficient. Heddy took in the row of white mugs hanging from hooks along the faux-brick-veneer walls, the spices stacked on a rack, the singed potholder. Curious, living in someone else’s house—it was like parachuting into another person’s life, landing smack in the middle of a home with its own culture and mores. She’d have to study the family closely, finding a way to fit right in so her sudden appearance at their kitchen table was seamless.
“You don’t have to serve me,” she told Ruth, who was pouring her coffee, “and I insist on making my own bed and cleaning my bathroom.”
“I don’t mind the work, actually,” Ruth said. “My mom used to work here, and she told me if I keep sand off the floor and dishes out of the sink, I’d be okay, and it has been.” Ruth moved about the kitchen a moment. “Thank you, though. That’s lovely.”
Ted came down for breakfast soon after, inserting himself at the small kitchen table and lifting Anna onto his lap. He was unshaven, his short hair unkempt, and the sight of him gave Heddy a chuckle, she’d never seen a man before his shower and pomade. It was adorable really, even if he smelled of sleep. Ruth tipped the percolator, pouring him jet-black coffee.
“Maxwell House… ‘it tastes as good as it smells.’ ” Ted yawned.
“Perk, perk, perk,” said Teddy, feigning the deep authoritative voice of the announcer in the ubiquitous commercial. “Listen to it perk. Look at the coffee as it gets darker and stronger. But will this cup of coffee taste as good as it smells?”
“I don’t think I’ve seen a commercial as often as that one,” said Heddy.
Ted picked up his newspaper, which Ruth had set before him. “But I’ll give it to Maxwell House: the coffee does taste good.”
Heddy, sensing an opening with Ted, like maybe this was her chance to make an impression, said, “Oh wait, who knows this one? ‘Plop plop fizz fizz. Oh, what a relief it is.’ ” She’d actually sang it in the quiet of the kitchen.
“Alka-Seltzer,” Ruth called out, the kids beginning to sing the popular refrain, while Ted opened the business section of the paper. She’d wanted him to guess, felt disappointed he’d ignored her.
“Now we’re going to be singing it all day.” Heddy grinned at the children, who continued to sing the jingle on repeat.
Jean-Rose padded into the kitchen, her hair set perfectly in waves, her makeup expertly applied, and Ted leaned over to kiss her good morning lightly on the lips without looking up from his paper. Later, when recounting her first impressions, Heddy would write in her journal that Ted kissed Jean-Rose like it was on his to-do list, and she wondered if a morning kiss from one’s husband was different from an evening kiss, which may be less perfunctory.
Jean-Rose said that Heddy and the children would go to the beach that morning, so Heddy returned to her room to peel off her socks—she’d wanted to from the moment Ruth made the comment—and change into her bathing suit. It was an easy walk from the house to the family’s private beach, the winding path twisting through a grassy clearing lined with lush and flowering beach roses. Once there, few houses dotted the beach and she rarely saw anyone else. After swimming for an hour, Heddy’s calves stiff from the cold water, the children barely registering its cool temperatures, they emerged onto the sand.
Heddy toweled off Anna, who was by this point pruned and shivering, while Teddy draped his towel across his shoulders like a superhero cape. The air smelled salty and fresh, nothing like back home. “Who wants to go for a walk?” Heddy asked.
“Walks are stupid.” Teddy kicked at the sand with his foot.
“Think of it as an adventure.” Heddy held out a thermos of water, but he pretended not to see. Next week, the kids would start camp, and Heddy would need to plan only their afternoons—rather than their entire days. “We’re exploring, like the astronauts.”
“C’mon, Teddy,” pleaded Anna, her pointer finger in her mouth. She was four, much too old in Heddy’s mind to be sucking on her fingers.
Heddy and Anna ambled on, collecting slipper shells. When Teddy sprinted by, Anna dropped the bucket and took off, too.
“Teddy, wait—” Anna, her pigtails wet and curling, was gleeful.
“Don’t go far,” Heddy hollered to their bobbing heads. The sea stretched before her, a giant expanse of deep blue, with twiggy-legged piping plovers running the shoreline. The beach was a wonder. At Coney Island, people sat so close you could smell the hot dog breath of the guy next to you, and the crowded boardwalk was as busy as a city avenue. Growing up, the beach was where she learned that men had hair in their armpits and that women’s legs sometimes grew dimples.
Heddy placed a piece of driftwood into the pail and laid down to feel the sun wash over her, listening for the children’s reassuring chatter. Tired from rising so early and lulled by the peace, she closed her eyes for a minute. Maybe they could collect more driftwood and use it to make stick puppets. She envisioned various animals, lost in thought, when she noticed the children’s voices fading. Heddy bolted up, looking far down the curving beach, then scanning the water, but there was no sign of the children. She hadn’t fallen asleep—she would never. It had been seconds. Maybe thirty.
“Boo!” She jumped behind a large boulder, where she thought they might be hiding, but saw nothing but a rotted horseshoe crab.
Heddy’s heart lurched. She wondered if they’d doubled back and she hadn’t noticed, but she knew that was impossible. Her bare feet took off against the rocky sand, and she was thankful now she’d been practical in her swimsuit choice. When her Wellesley friends purchased bright-colored fast-drying bikinis at the Jordan Marsh department store in Boston, she pretended nothing suited her. Later, she’d slipped off to the drugstore near campus to buy a navy wool crepe halter suit on clearance. With its straight hem across her upper thigh and stiff fabric, it was more old-fashioned than she liked, but it had been only $1.25, and sensibility was needed as a nanny.
“Anna! Teddy!” she called. She imagined Anna crying and lost in the hot sun. A flash of Jean-Rose’s face, scowling. “Anna!” Heddy yelled.
Losing them hadn’t even entered her mind: it was a private beach, no one was around, and who took children? They weren’t the Lindberghs, for goodness’ sake. Maybe they’d run back to the house?
“Children! This isn’t funny.”
She froze. Voices: a little girl’s and a man’s. Heddy surged forward, spying a weathered cottage just above a thin line of dunes; the fishing cabin she could see from her attic bedroom. Anna and Teddy were eating strawberries at a picnic table, their fingers stained red. They were with a stranger, a man maybe a year or two older than Heddy.
“I was looking everywhere for you!”
Anna’s terry-cloth beach dress was soaked from her bathing suit. “This is mama’s friend Ash.”
Teddy ran onto a flipped surfboard, balancing with his arms out. When he locked eyes with Heddy, the boy shrugged.
“Take a deep breath,” the man said. Heddy had barely noticed she was panting. “Looks like they gave you a scare.”
She ignored him. “Children, you cannot run away from me. What if you couldn’t find your way home?” Embarrassingly, her voice didn’t sound as firm as she’d intended.
Teddy rolled his eyes. “We live here.”
“And Mama lets us come whenever we want.”
Firmer now. “Well, I’m in charge of you, and it’s my job to get you home safely or I’ll…”
“Or what?” Teddy sassed, meeting her gaze. The children she’d minded back home didn’t talk back; they would have been dragged to their room by the ear. She couldn’t possibly tell two little rich kids they couldn’t have ice cream ever again. And she didn’t want to start her first week on the wrong foot. She looked away, and the boy began to sing “Lollipop.”
“Or else,” the man interjected, turning down the volume on his transistor radio. “Miss…” Here he stopped, flashing her a sunshiny grin, whispering, “What’s your name?”
“Her name is Heddy,” Anna whispered.
“Right, or else… Miss Heddy won’t be your babysitter anymore. And boy, would you miss her.”
“I wouldn’t miss her,” Teddy mumbled.
Anna climbed onto the man’s lap, all monkey-like, wrapping one arm around his neck. “I would. We found a crab in the sand and made him a home.”
“Don’t give me that malarkey, Teddy. This beautiful woman right here is your funmaker in chief.”
Now that the man had called her beautiful, Heddy turned to look at him. He was shirtless, a wetsuit folded at the waist, droplets of water dappled across his muscled chest. His sun-kissed hair was still wet, maybe from surfing, and he’d pushed it back off his forehead, giving her full view of his emerald eyes. This is what men in California must look like, she thought, although she had no idea where he was from at all.
“I’m Ash.” He didn’t stand up from the director’s chair in which he sat or hold out his hand. “I’d be a proper gentleman, but Anna here is a bit of a snuggler.” The sight of him made her uneasy. She was standing on his deck, in her bathing suit, which felt much too intimate. She remembered the fabric along her bathing suit’s cup seam was threadbare—that’s why it had been on clearance—and it exposed a sliver of the plastic boning. She shifted Anna’s beach towel to her chest. She’d also forgotten about the unfortunate way the bottom sagged off her rear, until now.
“Smashed to meet you.” That he was good-looking guaranteed she’d say the dumbest thing possible. “I mean, nice to meet you. Thank you for keeping the children.”
At least she hadn’t let her Brooklyn accent slip. She’d worked to perfect her Wellesley voice, the cadence she used when talking to classmates of means, speaking in such complete sentences you could nearly hear the punctuation. Her mother teased her when she’d visited and heard Heddy describe something as “lahv-lee,” instead of “love-lee.” At times, when Heddy was angry or anxious, her accent would slip, and her classmates would do a double take, as if they were seeing her anew and for the first time.
Ash shot her a disarming smile. “They show up here all the time, you know. I’m not sure they’re looked after very closely.” He had three small brown circles on his arm, pocks the size of quarters, and he caught her looking there.
“Me and some buddies, three a.m., cigarette stubs, hurt like hell the next morning.” He smiled.
“We all do dumb things when we’re young.”
“Who are you calling dumb?”
At first, she thought she’d offended him; his tone had a hard edge, but then he laughed, making her laugh.
“You here all summer?” he said.
Heddy tried to look busy, gathering Anna’s bucket. “Yes, until I go back to school. Do you surf?” Wasn’t it obvious, considering he had surfboards leaning against the front of his cottage?
“It’s like flying. You ever try?”
“City girl.” It came out like an apology.
“No kidding.” Ash grinned. She met his crystalline eyes for a half second, then darted her gaze away. “You been to the island before?”
Heddy was certain Jean-Rose wouldn’t approve of her having the kids on this man’s patio, but perhaps she shouldn’t rush them back to the beach. If she didn’t marry in the next year or two, the girls at school said she’d be stale bread. And then what? Heddy imagined her mother pulling her wire grocery cart down Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, struggling with the groceries up the stairs.
She shook her head. “My first time. I typically stay close to home on summer break. My mother says I’m the only person in New York who likes the city in the heat.”
He laughed heartily. “Is it the stench of the overfull trash cans or the lovely smell of the subway that appeals?”
The corners of her eyes crinkled. “It is terrible, isn’t it? No, it’s Prospect Park. I could sit and write there for hours. Do you come to the island every summer?” Heddy eyed his ring finger but found no band. If only she were one of those girls who knew how to prance before a boy, rubbing suntan lotion up her thighs while asking him to light her cigarette. Women in the movies got men interested in them by taking charge. Instead, Heddy tended to wish men would want to know her, sense her quickening pulse, note her cheerfulness or the way she twisted her earring as she imagined kissing them. But men never looked that hard, she supposed.
“I came once or twice when I was a kid, but I’m a Jersey boy. My parents had a place near Atlantic City. Dad wooed clients over cards; Mom would take us to the beach.”
“I’m a Coney Island girl myself. Is that where you learned to surf?” A Coney Island girl? She cringed.
“That came later.” He had a glint in his eye. “So you write?”
Heddy flushed all over again. Why did he look at her like that, like he couldn’t stop? The boys at mixers approached her regularly, but after talking with her, they started looking behind her, like they had somewhere else to be. This man, though, he kept chatting. Her neck began to itch, but she couldn’t figure out how to scratch it without letting the towel drop and revealing her fraying bathing costume.
“May I use your powder room?” she asked. Inside, she’d figure out what to say next.
“Through the living room, first door on the left,” he said. She assumed it was the only door on the left; the cottage looked about as big as an Airstream trailer. Mismatched blue couches in the sunny living room and a cluttered kitchen table gave way to avocado-green appliances in the small kitchen; despite its rustic facade, it had the fancy electric stove she’d seen in magazines.
She posed in the bathroom mirror, trying to assess how bad the bathing suit was. Possibly terrible, she decided, trying to re-center her breasts in the top so they looked fuller. Opening his medicine cabinet, she noted the brand of his shaving cream (a red tube of Old Spice) and his neat row of colognes in serious dark bottles. She was about to pee when she saw there was only a shred of toilet paper stuck to the roll. She could practically hear a sitcom laugh track, the ubiquitous joke about the things only bachelors do. Clearly, if he had a wife, she wasn’t here now. No woman would let the paper run out without replacing it.
There weren’t any rolls under the sink, just an electric razor, so she popped open the bathroom door and leaned into the small closet she’d seen on her way in. Two tissue rolls sat on the white-painted shelf in front of a stack of folded navy towels. She reached for one, and behind it, next to the Windex, there was a gleam of silver metal, something shiny poking out of a navy hand towel. Outside, through the screened door, she heard Ash and the children clapping, singing a nursery rhyme. She edged the towel back, just enough, curious if it was the grip of a microphone or the lens of an expensive video camera, or God forbid, one of those handheld machines—Beryl said they vibrated—you used all on your own.
Heddy stood on tiptoe to peer onto the shelf, but the silver handle wasn’t what she’d expected. It was a barrel, the nose of a pistol.
Staggering backward into the bathroom, toilet paper in hand, she pressed her thighs to the cool porcelain of the toilet seat. You’re fine. Jean-Rose knows him. He’s the neighbor. Then she considered if she should replace the toilet paper on the ring at all. If she did, he’d know she went in his bath closet and might have seen the gun. If she didn’t, he might remember there wasn’t toilet paper and wonder if she was a slovenly girl who didn’t wipe. That was worse than being nosy.
She squirted soap into her palm, rubbing her hands vigorously under the faucet. Why would anyone on Martha’s Vineyard have a gun? This morning, the police blotter in the paper reported a teenager had been stopped for bicycling while holding a bottle of Coca-Cola; the officer thought he wasn’t paying attention. Jean-Rose snorted with laughter reading it aloud.
“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