TWENTY-NINE

The floorboards of Ash’s deck groaned when Heddy dragged her suitcase onto it, and from inside, she could hear two men’s voices through the open windows. She slid open the screen door, hiding the envelope and stepping beside a large navy duffel, partially unzipped, collared shirts stuffed inside.

“Well, this complicates things,” Sullivan said. He dimpled, but there was something else in his smile, too: satisfaction. He held her gaze while transferring bundles of twenties from two black camera bags into a large, open suitcase on the coffee table, as nonplussed as a cashier packing a bag of groceries. “We had bets on whether you’d come.”

She looked at Sullivan, then back at Ash. Ash came toward her, kissing her forehead.

“I should have known,” she said, her voice distant and hazy, lost in a daydream. “The car pulling out of your driveway that morning when I was swimming. It was Sullivan’s. And I saw Barkley yesterday, but I…”

That pointed look Sullivan was giving her. He was enjoying this, she thought, he wanted her to see him this way, with this hard edge. Was Sullivan thinking: I told you to stay away from him or This is what you get for not choosing me. But he… she didn’t understand.

She looked from Ash to Sullivan and back again. She wondered aloud: “But how?”

“I know, we have some explaining to do. But first, did you find the envelope?” Ash held her shoulders to steady her, and she stared at the three creases in his forehead, how deep they were. There was the possibility that the photos inside could ruin Ted Williams, but what did they mean to Sullivan, now that she knew he was involved, too? Had he disrobed to tempt Ted, to catch him—or did Sullivan, well, was he a homosexual?

Heddy dangled the envelope in front of Ash’s fresh shave, and he snatched it. There wasn’t any going back. She’d broken into Ted’s office. If they were caught, she would be implicated. She couldn’t run now, or Ash and Sullivan would follow. This had been her choice.

“He thought he had me, didn’t he?” Sullivan wore the smirk of a bragging child, and Ash took her hand, giving Heddy a twirl.

She planted her feet—she didn’t want to spin; her head was spinning enough. She was trying to understand what she was seeing.

“Sullivan is your associate?” Heddy said. She tracked Ash as he walked into the kitchen, slipping the manila envelope into the refrigerator. An odd spot, she noted. She also noted the pistol on the kitchen table, shiny and silver, lying on its side. The same pistol she’d seen in the bathroom closet. She blinked, then blinked again, until she realized she wasn’t blinking, her eye was twitching.

Ash sat her down on the sofa—she wanted to yell: Stop touching me. What is happening?—but she let herself be moved, uncertain what it meant that these two men were standing in the same room. That they were in on this together.

She tried to stop looking at the gun, but like a magnet, her eye kept finding it.

Her summer could have gone differently. If she’d taken the job as a camp counselor in the Catskills, she might have fallen in love with the mountains rather than a man. She would have spent her mornings swimming in the lake or hiking the surrounding forests. The people would have compared the height of the trees, bragged that they saw bear prints and praised the fresh air the way people on this island spoke of money and the sea. But if she hadn’t come here, if she hadn’t met these two men and been drawn into this crime, she wouldn’t be returning to school. She wouldn’t be in love.

“We wanted to tell you,” Ash said. He intuited that she was uneasy, and he crouched down on his knees to face her, his eyes pleading, like he needed forgiveness. “This will all be over soon, and it will be me and you, kitty kit.”

“He wanted to tell you.” Sullivan retorted, zipping the hard-shell suitcase closed. He took off his Yankees hat, smoothed his hair. “It was a coincidence that I met you at the park, that Jean-Rose set us up. That wasn’t planned.”

“But Peg?” Ash retrieved her purse from the console, handing it to her, and Heddy could feel its weight in her lap. She’d need to count it. “Sullivan, what are you doing here?”

The handle of the gun was silver, smaller than she thought pistols were. Heddy wondered if she could hold it. If she needed to get to it, she could hop over the back of the velour couch. It was the most direct way.

Sullivan fell back into the couch beside her, sighing, leaning forward on his elbows and dropping his head into his hands. “Peg thinks it’s on, but she’ll figure out it’s not.”

“Oh, Sullivan.” Heddy felt sorry for him. She supposed she always had. Perhaps that’s why she couldn’t love him, or perhaps it was something else, some distance she hadn’t been able to pinpoint. Maybe it made sense now that he was in those pictures. She took his hand, clammy and wet, and he squeezed hers in return. He was pretending to be brave.

“Do you swing toward, you know,” she whispered, tilting her head to Ash. “Men?”

“God no.” He laughed almost too hard, intuiting her anxiety that he’d faked his interest in her. “But we needed to get on the inside and get photos of them, so I joined in. Why not, right? I’ll try anything once, although I’m not sure I’d do it again.” He paused, then blurted: “You know, I really did like you.”

Ash, burning Coconut Coast brochures in the fireplace, shot them a look. “Remember who she’s leaving with,” he snapped. This made Sullivan inch away, his leg bouncing up and down, earthquakes on the inside rumbling on the outside.

“How do you even know each other?” Heddy asked.

The day she saw Sullivan’s car at Ash’s house. Had they been concocting their plans at Ash’s breakfast table? If she’d arrived only moments earlier, would she have seen them together? The awkwardness that must have ensued once she was juggling dates with the two of them, and then later, once she’d chosen Ash. She felt guilty in her duplicitousness now that she faced them; they’d known what she was up to all along.

“We met at a bar in Florida,” Sullivan said, with the amusement of someone starting a good story. “Ash was going on about some guy Ted Williams who screwed his family. I told him, ‘Boy, do I know Ted Williams.’ ”

“I gave you a black eye,” Ash said. She opened the clasp of her purse and peeked inside to see the cash. Ten bundles of twenties. Now she knew she’d done the right thing.

“Sullivan, you don’t need this.” She closed her purse, fastening it shut. “You could leave now. You could go back to your life. You have everything.”

But Sullivan ignored her. “Don’t you see? Mother can’t tell me what to do anymore.” He patted the front of the Samsonite suitcase, a tiny silver lock dangling from the zipper. “This is all I need, Heddy. I’m taking Ash’s ticket to Brazil. It’ll be me, a mojito, playing Latin jazz whenever I want.”

She wondered if the gun was loaded. She rubbed her temples. “You were always telling me to stay away from Ash. But it was you, too.”

Ash’s voice, direct, at Sullivan: “We’re square?”

“Fifty-fifty, minus her share,” Sullivan nodded. She imagined him in São Paulo playing his sax, how solitary that life seemed already. He turned back to Heddy: “You could come with me.”

Ash lunged at him: “You little shit.” A slam of a body on the floor, two men rolling like children, each one trying to free a fist to slam into the other. She ran to the kitchen table, positioning herself so her back was to the gun. She didn’t want one of them to grab it.

“You can’t blame me for trying,” Sullivan coughed out. “I like her, too, man.”

Heddy whistled sharply, like she’d do to the kids. “Stop it. You’re like damned children.”

They stood, holding their hands up, backing away from her, like they were stunned. “It’s bad enough what you did, but to fight like this is appalling,” she said.

There was a subtle tilt in Ash’s head, a gentle nod, like he was trying to tell her something. She looked at Sullivan to see if he was up to something, but they were both looking behind her, like someone was standing there.

Heddy’s heart struck with fear thinking of the children. Had one of them followed her to the cottage without her realizing it?

Something clicked at her side, and curious, Heddy turned around, her breath slipping when she saw him. Ted, gripping the gun, Ash’s gun, pointing it at all three of them. She backed up, instinctively raising her hands, banging into a kitchen chair.

“I told you not to go in my office,” Ted barked. Heddy stared into the eye of the pistol, willing whatever was inside to stay there. “Doing their dirty work, eh? Jeannie was right about you, you little slut.”

The words shot through her ears. Because even if she was frightened, even if she let herself get caught up in this mess, she’d spent a summer longing for Ted to treat her as a daughter. Now he was pointing a gun at her. Heddy lowered herself into the kitchen chair, thankful to feel the cushion under her, but she couldn’t stop looking at the gun, which Ted roved back and forth between the three of them. If she could have run, she would have, but Ted, in his striped golf shirt and pressed khakis, blocked the front door.

“And you two, this ridiculous scheme.” Ted’s finger was on the trigger, but the gun was pointed at Sullivan. “Give me the photos, and give me my goddamned money. The entire fifty thousand you squeezed out of me.”

“Heddy knows where the photos are, don’t you?” Sullivan coaxed.

Ted pointed the eye of the gun at him, and Sullivan nodded her along; she could see sweat glistening on his forehead, his cheeks flush with adrenaline. “Why you’re in on this, Sullivan Rhodes, I’ll never know,” Ted seethed.

“Go ahead, kitty kit,” Ash said, motioning to the kitchen. “Get the envelope you brought us. It’s right where you left it.” She tried to understand what he was saying, why he was saying it, what he wanted her to do. Was he telling her to give him the manila envelope or did he want her to distract Ted so that he and Sullivan could overtake him?

“You heard them. Get up, you penniless piece of shit,” Ted said, pushing her off the checkered pattern of the cushion and smacking the side of her head with the gun. She yelped, knowing now what Jean-Rose must feel when he hit her, a combination of adrenaline, hatred, and gratitude. Gratitude because if he’d just go far enough, it would all be over. He pressed the barrel of the gun into her back, nudging the metal harder against her spine, before pointing the gun back at Ash and Sullivan, who were still standing, hands up, behind the couch. She cast her eyes to the linoleum floor, knowing Ted’s temper, hearing her shallow breath, sensing this was on her. She pictured Jean-Rose, how she could distract Ted when he got angry, confuse him by talking circles around him.

“It’s just that…,” she started.

A vein in Ted’s neck bulged, and he whacked her cheek with the gun. “Get me the damn photos.”

Pain whiplashed through her face, and she put her hand there, feeling blood. She glanced at Ash while walking to the kitchen, and at the avocado green stove, she began to cry. As she reached for the handle of the kitchen drawer, her hand trembling as it wrapped the metal, she didn’t know what he’d do next, when he saw that there was nothing but forks, spoons, and butter knives inside.

“It’s not here.” She cleared her throat, ready to flinch.

“I’m not an idiot,” Ted said. He jabbed her in the back again, harder, and she felt a burning ring where the gun pulsed. She thought of the violence she heard at night, how Jean-Rose muffled her cries. What was he capable of? She reasoned that Ted wouldn’t kill them, not here. It was too big of a mess, there would be too many questions, and he still wouldn’t have what he wanted. She’d stick with her plan to stall, give the boys a moment to figure something out.

“Ash put it in here. I saw him. He said he wanted it by the knives so if anyone tried to steal it, there was protection. Now I’m not going to take out one of these knives and do anything funny, but I can tell you, as someone who worked in your home and tucked your kids in at night, that envelope is not where he left it.” She tried to read Ash’s expression, but he was watching her. Did he expect her to pull a knife out of the drawer and hold it to Ted’s throat? She wouldn’t; not ever. She mouthed: “Do something,” but Ash darted his eyes away.

Ted slammed the gun down on the counter, and she startled. He yanked the drawer harder, fishing his hand around in the back, cursing when he poked his finger on a metal corkscrew. He tossed it out, leaning down to look inside the drawer, and in his haste, he pulled it out all the way, causing the entire tray of silverware to fall with a deafening clatter at his feet.

“Fuck,” he hollered, reaching for the gun, but Heddy already had her hand on top of it, sliding the cool metal nose toward her, secured under her palm. She and Ted locked eyes, and she could tell she’d surprised him. He could have tackled her for it—she would have handed it to him if he’d demanded—but Ash was already on top of him, pulling his arms behind his back and holding him there.

Ted’s face contorted and he snarled: “Don’t send those photos to anyone.”

“I’m not putting them in the paper—I don’t give a shit that you’ve got a thing for the boys.” Sullivan, acting like a cocky teenager, folded his arms, his smile curt and dismissive. “But if you ever threaten me again, I’ll do it. I swear I will.”

Heddy tried to imagine how Jean-Rose would save face if the compromising photos of Ted were released, if someone had the gall to print them. Rather than avoid social situations or cry alligator tears, Jean-Rose would simply deny it was him altogether. She could see her already: Surrounded by a group of fashionable women, Jean-Rose’s eyes gleaming with confidence, telling the story about how the guy in the picture looked so much like Ted—it was uncanny, really—but she could guarantee that it wasn’t Ted. She’d wink, reassuring them that when it came to the bedroom, Ted was nothing short of a tiger. She’d explain that someone created the photos for blackmail, and that part would be true.

Ted struggled to get out of Ash’s grip, a sweaty lock of hair stuck to his forehead. “You don’t even have proof. Those photos could be anybody.”

At that, Sullivan walked to the fridge, pulled out the envelope and fished through a stack of pictures until he found a damning photograph of Ted engaging in an act that made Heddy blush.

Ash rolled his eyes. “Sully, there’s dock rope in the shed. Grab it. We’ll tie him up.”

Her boss, the very man whose shoes she’d shined, whose cigar smoke she’d inhaled, she was going to stand in this room and watch him be tied up. And then what? She licked her lips.

Heddy held the gun higher, aimed right at Ted’s cheek, which was pressed against the wall, Ash’s arms so tight that Ted couldn’t move.

With the rope in hand, Ash pinned him down on the couch, Ted’s collared shirt twisted around his waist, his frame collapsed on the soft cushions, his breath quick and heavy.

“You probably don’t remember me,” Ash said, shoving him in the back with his knee and tying his hands together. “But I know you remember my father—Edward Green—and you definitely remember how you stole his company out from under him, you son of a bitch.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure, you don’t,” Ash barked.

“But my children. If those photos get out, it will destroy them.”

“You don’t care about your children,” Heddy snapped. Still holding the gun, feeling power in the grip, she bent down on one knee so she was in front of Ted. How tall he seemed to her when she stepped off the boat, when he carried her suitcase to the car and told her to call him Ted. How his hair blew back from his temples on the car ride home, how Jean-Rose snuggled into him, batting her long, curled lashes at his profile. How he swung his golf clubs over his shoulder, a boyish grin on his face.

Heddy pressed the gun between Ted’s angled eyebrows, and she felt her teeth grinding, her finger pulsing on the trigger. Ted squeezed his eyes tight, and in his place, she saw the face of the man who was her father, the man whose Long Island house she’d stood outside a year before. She pressed the gun harder against Ted’s forehead, just as he’d done to her, and spoke in a hush.

“You can pull on pressed slacks and sip a martini and tell yourself you’re fancy because you swing with a golf club. But you’re a coward and you’re weak, and if we find out that you hit Jean-Rose ever again or lay a hand on those children, those photos are going straight to the papers.”

Ash grabbed the gun out of her hand, zipping his duffel bag closed over the manila envelope. “Let’s go, kitty kit,” he said.

They left Ted there, tossing the suitcases and duffels into Ash’s truck, not caring how he found his way home. Ash peeled out of the driveway, but with the cottage still in view, he slammed on the brakes. “We need to find a boat.”

“The ferries are too risky now,” Sullivan said. “If Ted gets out before we leave, he could have us stopped.”

“But the envelope,” she said. “I thought he couldn’t.”

Ash tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “We’d be found with suitcases full of money, and the cops could be paid off for the pictures. Ted’s a local hero. No cops.”

Heddy thought about the whaler she and Ash took out that night, but if it were that easy, Ash would have suggested it.

“Gigi,” she said. “Gigi has a boat.”

Sullivan shook his head. “No movie star is going to tangle with this.”

“I—I—I need to use the phone.” She dug through her wallet, finding the slip of paper with Gigi’s number. “Let me try her.”

She refused to go into the cottage alone, so they all returned, Ash and Sullivan sitting on either side of Ted, who was spitting out empty threats.

Heddy cradled the kitchen phone with her chin, listening to the ringing on the line, a series of tinny bells sounding into an echoing valley. Each time the line went through, a recorded voice—was it Gigi’s? the connection was too warbled to tell—prompted her to leave a message. Heddy had heard of these contraptions that took messages like secretaries—answering machines, they were called—but she’d never actually encountered one.

She dialed the number for the fourth time, willing Gigi to pick up. After a minute, she heard a mumbled hello. Heddy glanced at her watch: seven thirty in the morning. That meant that in Los Angeles, it was four thirty.

“Sorry, it’s early, but it’s me.” The line went dead. Gigi had hung up on her. She dialed Gigi’s number one more time. The line clicked after one ring.

Heddy stretched the cord and stepped outside so Ted couldn’t hear. “Don’t hang up. It’s me. Heddy.”

“Jesus, girlie, it’s the middle of the night here.” Gigi coughed.

Heddy couldn’t talk fast enough. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, but remember the happy ending? It’s going to happen. It can happen. But I need your boat. I need to take it right now. But you can’t report it missing.”

Heddy heard something fall, the sound of Gigi picking it up. “Hold on, hold on for a minute. Let me sit up.” She heard Gigi yawn. The snap of a lighter, the deep inhale of a cigarette. “You need my boat?”

She was beginning to think it was a long shot. “Yes, but don’t report it missing. We’ll leave it on the other side of the sound. I can explain more later. As soon as I get home.” She paused. “We got Ted. He’s a terrible person, Gigi. There’s things you don’t know.”

She heard Gigi chuckle, and Heddy imagined her friend, her long legs crossed, sitting at the center of a pile of satin sheets, her hair tousled, grinning at the phone. “You are bad, bad, bad, Hibernia Winsome.” Of course, Gigi would enjoy this, and it embarrassed Heddy a little but also pushed a proud grin onto her face.

“I’m serious. Your boat. Can I take it?”

“The keys are under the passenger seat,” Gigi said. “But you know that. Why did you call?”

“What if your housekeeper called the cops? And, well, I called because I’m going to write this. A screenplay. About all of this. I wanted to tell you that.”

“Heddy?” Ash poked his head out the screen door; he motioned for her to hurry.

Gigi hadn’t said anything, and the quiet hung between them.

“I have to go,” Heddy said.

“I’d be happy to read it. I love you, little girl.” Gigi said.

Heddy bit her lip. “I love you, too.” She hung up the phone and grinned at Ash. “Let’s go.”

They’d have to walk to the boat, so they carried suitcases along the sandy path to Gigi’s enormous lawn, Ash always looking behind them. Heddy kept her eye on Gigi’s long private dock on the horizon, pulling and tugging her suitcase, until the dock creaked underfoot, a lone seagull flying off, leaving a splatter of white excrement in its wake.

“That’s good luck,” Heddy said, although both men were too busy heaving the duffel bags and suitcases onto the polished mahogany speedboat to notice.

Heddy faced Gigi’s house, remembering how it had twinkled the night of Gigi’s party. The island looked so different to her than when she first arrived. Those first few days, she’d been in awe, filled with a sense of wonder at what the summer held for her. But then she’d sat on this very dock and learned that life isn’t always as it is in the movies. And that didn’t matter, as long as life was what you wanted it to be.

A tickle of salt filled her nostrils. She shielded her eyes from the blazing sun and maneuvered herself onto the boat, fishing the key out from under the seat. Ash put his hand out for it, but she inserted the key into the ignition and started the engine, positioning herself at the steering wheel, her butt on the edge of the white leather seat.

“I’ll drive,” she said, feeling for her purse, the money, at her feet. Cocking her head and pausing at the sight of Ash beside her, she realized that she wanted him with all her heart, but she didn’t need him. She didn’t need any man. Because she was in charge of her life now, and no one would tell her what to do ever again. No one would stop her from going to school or writing a script. No one would trap her in the outdated notion that you had to be who men told you to be. Maybe Jean-Rose was right all along when she said that Heddy was capable of so much more. Because she was. She’d surprised all of them, most of all herself.

Ash leaned down to kiss her shoulder, while Sullivan settled into the cushioned bench upfront, his arm draped around the empty seat. “I’ll find my way from the other side,” he said.

She could see the mainland already, the sandy beaches and green hills waiting for them across Vineyard Sound.

“I’ll call Ruth from a payphone at the dock,” she told Ash. “I put an envelope for her in your kitchen drawer.” When they’d gone back inside, she’d stuffed in a wad of cash. It was enough to get Ruth to Boston.

Heddy revved the engine. There was warmth in the salt air, and she pushed the boat into drive, her hair blowing back as she zipped the vessel across the water. She put her arm around Ash’s waist, and he pulled her close to him.

This was it. She’d known it when she’d arrived this summer, hadn’t she? This would be the summer to change everything.

Ash leaned in to say something, but she couldn’t hear him. She stared out at the rippling blue sea, a couple of drag fishing boats crisscrossing the horizon, a ferry sounding its departure. There it was in front of her: The whole wide world.

She was going on adrenaline, and if Sullivan hadn’t been with them, she might have pulled her yellow tank over her head and straddled Ash right then and there. Still, she warned herself, she’d never go overboard in her loyalty, in how she rearranged her life for him. She mumbled something back in his ear, and when he yelled “What?” over the roar of the boat’s engine, she yelled back, taking in the green of his eyes, and feeling a ping somewhere she couldn’t locate, noting how the tingling spread into her head. “I’ll only take so many risks for you. I won’t…”

And then he kissed her deeply, square on the lips. She thought it was to silence her, until he pulled away, grinning. “I’ll never ask,” he said.

She knew then that he was hers, and together, life would be wonderful and all her own.