“Pizza’s here!” Patty appeared on the back deck carrying three large cardboard boxes of farm-to-table flatbreads and set them out before the group.
All the Brights and their partners were there, drying out in bathing suits and beach towels in the early-evening sun.
It had been a proper start to summer for all of them. After the morning golf excursion (for the Bright men) and the drive to Logan Airport (for Mary-Beth, Ian and Chelsea), they reconvened at the waterfront for hours of play. Mary-Beth had finally read her book in a lounge chair—fitfully, her anxiety over her children never abating. JJ, Spencer and Ian had taken the Sunfish out. Charlie and Chelsea had canoed to a semiprivate sandbar at the eastern edge of the lake to “find some privacy.” And Philip, wearing a floppy fisherman’s hat and a copious slathering of zinc on his nose, went solo kayaking.
Farah had captured it all from behind her camera. It was a nice place to spend her afternoon, though the quietness of the footage continued to stress her out. Just wait, Wayne had said. But she didn’t want to wait. She imagined footage of these lovely people engaged in wholesome outdoor activities piling up like analog film ribbon in her mind, hundreds of hours of pristine country vistas, looping stock footage and screen saver material. It was beautiful junk, but still junk.
“Farah, put that phone away and have a slice,” Patty instructed as she unloaded a tray full of ice teas.
“Thank you.” Farah did as she was told. She was starving.
Patty smoothed the slim-fitting linen sheath she was wearing with one hand and addressed the group. “So this fund-raiser shouldn’t last more than a few hours. Sorry we have to leave you on your second night here, but as you know, this is one of the causes I work on all year. We’ll be just a few miles down the road at Tanglewood.”
Charlie took a chair at the table. “Don’t worry about us, Mom.”
“Mary-Beth,” she said, pointing a finger, “keep an eye on these guys.”
Mary-Beth forced an annoyed smile at her mother-in-law.
Minutes later, Patty and John Senior were off to their event.
Farah took her pizza and sat on a bench along the edge of the deck. She wanted to be there with them, but not too there.
At the table, tanned limbs reached for slices, napkins and cold beverages in ice-filled cups. People were talking over one another and laughing easily. They were kids home alone now, kids with faint crow’s-feet. It was the regressive power of summer and fond memories. Farah didn’t understand much about the Brights, but this energy she understood, and it made her pine for her own siblings and her childhood home in New Jersey.
“Okay, Phil,” Spencer said, as he wiped his hands on a napkin. “Mom and Dad are gone and it’s time to get the real story. Are you seriously going to be a priest?”
Everyone quieted. Farah’s handheld camera sat inert at the table, but the one mounted above them was still on. They seemed to have forgotten about that one.
Philip smiled and placed his pizza gently down on the plate in his lap. “Sure, okay. Thanks for asking.”
Philip took a breath, and it was clear to Farah that he moved way too slow for this family. Their bated breath was noticeably impatient.
“Well, as you know, I spent much of the past year traveling with this international assistance group. It was actually a mission project, which I can tell you about, too, if you want to know. Anyhow, I got involved with a Catholic Workers group in Ecuador and had some pretty life-changing experiences in Colombia helping to build housing for poor families. We flew to West Africa after that for a hunger relief project, which is where I gave all my stuff away. Let’s see, I did a month-long vow of silence in Angola.”
JJ furrowed his brow and Mary-Beth put a quieting hand on his thigh.
“I did a lot of reading and a lot of soul-searching through all this and...well...” Philip looked dreamily at the water as everyone waited. “I figured a lot of things out. It was transcendent.”
“And that means you have to become a priest?” Charlie asked.
Philip shook his head. “No. There are a number of paths I could go down from here. But this is the path I want to go down. I’m not coming to this lightly. I’ve done my research.”
Farah quietly set her plate down and picked up the handheld camera beside her.
“Have you even read the Bible, Phil?” Spencer asked.
“Of course I have. Several times.”
“And you agree with everything in it?”
“I’m not sure that’s the right question. I do find inspiration in it.”
Charlie jumped in. “But how can you square your political views with the church’s? What about homosexuality, divorce and the rest? How are you going to defend all that?”
“I can’t defend it. Those are the things about the church that I will resist and try to be a voice for change. But they’re not the only things that define the church. I’m interested in serving the poor and comforting the afflicted.”
Charlie snorted.
Mary-Beth, Ian and Chelsea all kept quiet. This interrogation was for blood only.
Then it was JJ’s turn: “Well, what about sex, Phil? Sex for you.”
“I’ve had sex,” he said, a little defensively. “I enjoyed it.”
“And you think you can just stop having it?”
“I think I might be able to. JJ, I’m not saying this is for everyone, but I think it’s what I need.”
JJ shook his head. “Abstinence will be harder than you think. It makes people do bad, perverted things.”
“I’ve actually been abstinent for over a year now,” Philip said.
Spencer smirked. “Voluntarily?”
Philip didn’t bite.
“Don’t you ever just want someone to...” Charlie elected not to finish the sentence before the camera, but everyone got the gist.
“Sure, but that feeling passes.”
“Not for me it doesn’t.”
“Charlie, I don’t think I ever wanted that as much as you do,” Philip said. “It’s probably an easier thing for me to live without.”
“Well, what about jerking off?” Spencer asked.
“It happens. I’m not a saint.”
Spencer nodded, closing his case. Ian gave him a stern look.
Chelsea picked cheese off her pizza, her eyes down.
Farah was relieved to have the camera to hide behind at that moment.
Charlie leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his head. “Vow of abstinence, my ass. You’re just the same Phil you always were.”
Philip smiled this time. “Yes, I am! That’s the fucking point!”
And with that, they all laughed. JJ landed a brotherly slap on Philip’s back, and the tension was broken again. Farah could see now what she hadn’t seen before: the connective tissue of high standards and parental expectations, a shared anxiety about deviating too far from the mean. Also, love among brothers.
“I’m going for a swim,” Chelsea announced, placing her oil-stained paper plate before her. She looked at Charlie. “You coming?”
Charlie nodded and stood up.
After that, the pizza party broke up. JJ and Spencer went inside. Mary-Beth and Ian began stacking greasy plates and consolidating the leftover slices. Philip took the extra pizza boxes to the garage.
“Why do they always do this to him?” Mary-Beth whispered when Philip was out of earshot. She seemed to have forgotten about Farah at the other end of the deck.
Ian shook his head. “Because it’s easier, I think. They all turn back into insecure little boys around John Senior, and it’s easier to take it all out on weird little brother Phil than to ever confront their father.”
“Well, Phil isn’t weird or little anymore.”
Ian caught sight of Farah and gave Mary-Beth an expression of warning. “It’s like they can’t help themselves. And Philip makes it too easy.”
Mary-Beth nodded and said nothing more.
Farah panned out toward the water, where Charlie and Chelsea were laughing and splashing each other. Her legs were wrapped around his waist, his hand down the backside of her bikini bottom. They kissed and whispered. Farah noticed both Mary-Beth and Ian watching them from the deck. It was hard not to. And it seemed impossible that the couple wasn’t aware of everyone’s eyes on them. It might have been, at least in part, for the audience.
For as long as she could remember, Farah had wanted to film people. She taped her siblings’ school plays, holiday gatherings and dorm room shenanigans. She saved up for better cameras and pored over techy catalogs. Even now, when you can make a pretty good movie with a cheap little digital device, she preferred the technical variation and specificity that the high-end cameras allowed for. It was never about the postproduction or the screening for her; it was about the filming. The power and control of being the one doing the watching was so alluring to her. She couldn’t imagine why everyone didn’t want to do it. But everyone didn’t. Most people, Farah had come to realize, wanted to be watched.
Exhibitionism was a gross impulse to Farah, a contemporary sickness. But if it was a sickness, she was grateful to live through the epidemic. And if people were begging to be watched, she was ready to watch them. She liked the Brights already—it was hard not to—but their vanity gave her moral permission to record them.
She kept filming as Charlie kissed Chelsea’s neck and she nibbled his shoulder.
The orange sun was moving down toward the tree line at the western edge of the lake, casting a warm glow across the top of the still water. A lone kayaker from a different, less fabulous family cut across the liquid glass. Mary-Beth opened a bottle of wine and everyone made their way back to the deck. A thousand tiny sounds competed with each other in this, the quietest place Farah had ever been.
And then, on the other side of the house, a car barreled down the gravel driveway and skidded to a stop. They heard two car doors open, but never close.
JJ looked up. “Is that Dad’s car?”
Patty and John Bright ran toward them from the driveway. John Senior got there first.
“Listen up,” he yelled.
Everyone froze.
“There’s been an attack in Spain.”
Mary-Beth dropped the wine bottle with a thud on the oak planks.
“We don’t have any details yet, but—”
“The boys,” she whispered.
John Senior nodded. “They might be involved.”
Garnet liquid raced across the planks of the deck, into the cracks and onto the virgin grass below.