I opened it slowly, ripping the beautiful envelope apart and tearing its plaid lining.
“This envelope is wearing underwear,” I blurted out.
“It’s lined. I haven’t seen lined stationery since my mother worked for the Aldens,” Flo said, holding my only orange item of clothing. She turned and hung it between my red shirt and my yellow sundress.
Inside, I found a personalized notecard of creamy white, embossed at the top with a navy blue T that was shaped like a copper pipe. It read:
MY DEAR “FLIPPER,”
I CAN’T THANK YOU ENOUGH FOR SAVING MY SAILOR MOON, THE WORLD’S ONLY SCHIPPERKE THAT CAN’T SWIM. AND THE ONE AND ONLY SCHIPPERKE THAT’S THE LOVE OF MY LIFE. I HOPE YOU CAN JOIN US THIS SATURDAY FOR OUR FIRST OF SUMMER CLAMBAKE. WE RING IN THE SUMMER AT 4 P.M., BUT WE’LL BE HAVING FUN ALL DAY. SO COME EARLY AND JOIN US FOR LAWN GAMES AND SAILING AND WHATNOT AND, OF COURSE, A GREAT BIG FEED.
FONDLY, GINNIE “GRANNIE” TOOHEY
It was like finding Willy Wonka’s golden ticket. I was about to shut it when I realized that Flo wasn’t finished reading it over my shoulder.
“Are you done?” I asked.
“I wasn’t reading it. None of my business,” she lied and then stayed silent for a whole minute as if to prove it.
“You got a nickname,” Flo said.
“Yeah? Flipper? I don’t really get it.”
“There was a TV show about a dolphin named Flipper when you were a tiny tyke. Flipper was like Lassie but in the water. You don’t remember?” And then she started singing the theme song “Everyone loves the king of the sea … ”
“Oh yes, I remember,” I said to shut her up, even though I didn’t remember.
“Now, Ginnie, the Grannie, she’s the queen bee of the whole tribe. Calls all the shots for the whole family from her throne up there in the Big House.”
I waited. There had to be more. Next to Bigfoot, trash-talking the Tooheys was Flo’s favorite subject.
“None of them make a move that isn’t directed by her. Nothing happens up there that hasn’t been carefully orchestrated by that old broad up on high. Everything from what they eat to who they screw.”
“Flo!” I had never heard her talk like this! Maybe now that I was out of high school, I was an adult in her eyes. Maybe she was trying to scare me off the Tooheys.
“Be careful up there. It’s a snake pit. Don’t look at me like that. I’m not judging. Just telling it like it is,” she said, folding her arms across her chest.
“You think I wouldn’t like to have a throne up there on Hazard Point? Make no mistake about that. But as it is, it’s my lot to clean ‘em. And since the Tooheys haven’t made a throne yet that cleans itself, you’ll have to excuse me. I’ll be having a ‘come-to-John’ moment of my very own; only mine will be with a toilet brush, and you can finish putting away everything to the right of yellow.”
Flo left to clean the upstairs bathroom, and I started to think about my outfit for the clambake, using the dress shop flyer for inspiration. I did have a pink dress that was a little like the one on the cover, but it wasn’t something I could sail in. And it was plain, not patterned with tropical fruit and happy monkeys.
What fun it was to plan an outfit! I never had time for this sort of thing during the school year. Maybe I could go to work with Dad tomorrow and get something new in town. If there was more time, maybe I could have gone to Boston, and Mom could have taken me someplace. I fished through the pile of clothes on my bed and found the pink dress. I didn’t know why it was still on the bed; I should have filed this with the reds. I held it up against myself and looked in the mirror.
Flo always said I looked nice in pink, but I couldn’t see it. I pulled my hair out of its ponytail, and it fell to just past my shoulders. It was a pretty blonde, but I never fussed with it, just pulled it back every day. Maybe I should get a headband to match the pink dress. What if I dug out that makeup I got for prom?
“Wear an old pair of cutoffs and a t-shirt. One from your school or somewhere you’ve been. Something that means something to you,” Flo appeared suddenly in my doorway, with her bucket of cleaning supplies and words of wisdom.
“Gimme a break, Flo.”
“Listen, sunshine. I may be an old townie, and okay, I know I am not what you would call, a girly girl. I don’t claim to know anything about fashion. But I do know a thing or two about the Tooheys. They hate a poser, even though some would say they are posers themselves. They’re new money, relatively speaking. But they like to look like old money. So everything is worn up, passed down, and used until it dies a natural death. Frugal, like old Yankees, which I can appreciate.
“Anybody can buy a Lilly Who-sitzer dress, but only you were class valedictorian for Keech Town High this year. The one and only.” Flo placed her bucket on the floor and walked over to my bureau. She whipped out the Keech Town High T-shirt that she had folded and put away.
“Here, wear this and those dungaree cutoffs,” she said.
Flo never gave me advice. Something told me she was right. Even if she did use words like “dungarees.” And they weren’t cutoffs. They were from a good department store in Boston, and they were already cut and raggedy like that when I got them.
And that’s just what I was wearing when Dad dropped me off at the clambake. I was a little nervous walking down the long gravel driveway. Every crunchy footstep seemed to announce my arrival. Meredith had just gotten there, too. She had parked her little white BMW amid the fleet of dark blue, American-made Toohey cars. And now she was trapped against her car by two energetic and confident German Shepherds.
I couldn’t believe it, but she was wearing the same dress that was on the cover of the store flyer. I thought that image would make a great addition to the flyer—Meredith pinned to her car by those two dogs. She gave me the once-over and smiled.
“You made quite the effort today. Don’t you know where you’re going, you stupid townie hick? This is their Start of Summer party. You’re at the Toohey compound, for chrissakes. You look like you’re going to the … Salvation Army party,” she said over the barking.
“Really, the Salvation Army party?” I said. I stopped walking, turned, and addressed her head-on. “What is that? It doesn’t even make any sense. Furthermore, it’s the First of Summer clambake, not the Start of Summer party. And another thing, Meredith, I can be a townie or a hick, but I can’t be both. So next time, choose your insult more carefully.” I turned and walked on before she could see how pleased I was with myself. Then, I stopped and looked at her over my shoulder.
“Oh, and Meredith,” I whispered very low, “I’ve got a nickname.”
I couldn’t believe all of that came out of my mouth! I never had a comeback! I usually thought of them once I’d had a good cry in my room. The rare times I did, I never had the nerve to say anything back! And there I was, in the Toohey driveway, telling off this rich bitch. I couldn’t stop smiling. In all fairness, she was far less intimidating when pinned against a car by those dogs.
But then I caught a glimpse of my ragamuffin reflection in the side mirror of a Toohey sedan and cursed Flo and her stupid advice. Why did I listen to her! There was no turning back now. Dad was down the road already, and it would take me hours to walk home, change, and walk back—we lived four miles away. Miles are long when you have to walk them!
The dogs left her and bounded toward me. One sniffed me up and down while the other held a clipboard and checked off items. Not really, but it felt that way. Meredith moved sideways against her car, ever so slightly toward the house.
“Safe, Jack, safe, Jackie! Hey, Flip!” Pepper called out, and the dogs sat down, noses still pointed at me but tails now wagging in greeting. Pepper threw open the screen door and came over to me. She was wearing a threadbare oxford cloth shirt. One sleeve was rolled up, and the other hung below her hand, monogrammed with someone else’s initials. She wore it over a navy blue Ogunquit T-shirt and a pair of cutoffs made from khakis. It never even occurred to me that you could make cutoffs from khakis, but I guess you can make cutoffs from anything.
The dogs left me and returned to Meredith, who was still inching along her car door toward the house, picking up a layer of road dirt as her backside wiped the Beamer clean.
“Nice doggies, nice doggies. Safe, Jack, safe, Jackie,” she whispered, but they ignored her commands.
“Hi Meredith, hi Flip,” Pike greeted us both and sent the dogs back into the house with a quick double whistle.
Meredith planted an obscene kiss on Pike.
“Gross,” Pepper said and grabbed me by the hand, leading me out of the driveway, through the house. I looked around as fast as I could—I knew Dad and Flo would want details—but we went straight through and out the door on the other side and across the lawn into the sea of family milling about.
“So you’re Flipper,” a lanky old salt said to me. “I thought you were one of us at first with that head of blonde hair.” He looked like someone had cast a come-to-life spell on one of the “Ol’ Salt” saltshakers for sale at Ye Olde Gift Shoppe. He had white hair and a trim white beard, but he wasn’t wearing a yellow oilskin raincoat like the saltshaker but a Toohey softball team T-shirt and madras plaid shorts.
“I used to pick blueberries with your dad,” he said. It was Old Pike! I almost shouted it out loud! It was like meeting Anne of Green Gables or Humpty Dumpty in person. He was Pike and Pepper’s dad and the current CEO of Toohey Industries, Inc.
“Grannie can’t stop singing your praises,” he said.
How odd, seeing that I hadn’t even met her.
“She loves that stupid, fat dog,” he said.
“Weird, huh?” Pepper added. “She used to breed German Shepherds. Unbelievable dogs. You know the one that dialed 911, the one that made the national news? Saved his owner’s life? That was one of hers. She had a knack for breeding. Jack and Jackie are her masterpieces. I swear they can read. Probably smarter than Cheddar. Ha!”
“Is that our Flipper?” I heard a cry from the top of the hill. It was Grannie—at last! I didn’t know why, but I expected her to be dressed in an Edwardian summer dress, with a great big portrait hat and a line of servants trailing behind her. But when I looked up in the direction of her voice, I saw her coming down the hill in a faded Campobello T-shirt and elastic waist denim shorts that came all the way down to her tanned and wrinkled knees. She nearly tripped over Sailor Moon several times as the dog ran around her legs. The Shepherds flanked her, like the Secret Service. One wore sunglasses, and the other had a walkie-talkie. Not really, but it felt that way. She hugged me with strong arms that told of years of sailing and her alleged daily swims in the cold water off her sandy beach. Jackie and Jack circled around us, occasionally whacking the back of my legs with their fluffy tails.
“So glad you could make it,” she said, reaching down and lifting Sailor Moon into her arms. “Oh, girls, I think Pike’s going to need a hand with that pit,” she said.
“We’re on it!” Pepper yelled. Again, she grabbed my hand and ran toward the edge of the yard, yanking me along with her. I felt like I was going to fall down but then found my footing as the green lawn sped beneath my feet. It ended at the steep path that zigzagged down to their sandy beach. It was at the far end of Hazard Point, just around the corner so not a speck of the village could be seen. From here, all you could see was the water and islands and pines. Along either side of the path, early wildflowers bloomed and swayed in the breeze, but it was mostly overrun with the fresh green leaves of beach roses and beach plums, just now bursting into bloom as if on Grannie’s command for the First of Summer festivities.
We found Pike poking a fire in the pit for the clambake. The pit was neatly lined with smooth rocks. It was a work of art. Above the rocks, a wood fire blazed, heating them up. Not far away, Meredith stood there with her arms neatly folded, her hip jutted out just so, but the scowl on her face was clearly unrehearsed.
“Grannie sent us to help with the pit,” Pepper announced. Meredith rolled her eyes.
“Great. We need seaweed. Just pile it up right over here on that tarp, if you don’t mind,” Pike said. The fire was dying down, and rocks in the pit were good and hot. I followed Pepper’s lead and gathered it from the water by the armload, getting soaked. I was so glad I had listened to Flo and worn what I wore. I probably wouldn’t tell her that for a few weeks, though.
“What’s for dinner?” Meredith asked ridiculously.
“Clams. It’s a clambake, Meredith!” Pepper dropped another armload of seaweed down onto the pile.
“Just clams?”
“No, not just clams,” Pike answered.
“Whatever else Cheddar and Uncle Chet bring,” Pepper said. “They should be back soon. One year, it was just octopus. Tentacles, tentacles, tentacles. I thought I’d die of boredom chopping up all those bloody tentacles.” I noticed Pike shake his head. I tried really hard to not laugh.
“She’s just joking, Mer,” Pike said. “Excuse me a moment, I forgot the burlap. You coming?” he asked her.
“I’ll just stay here for now,” Meredith said, looking down at her manicured feet. Her pink toenails popped out the front of sandals festooned with lime green daisies. They matched her lime green Bermuda bag, which she had carried with her all the way down to the beach. Why, I didn’t know. There was nothing to buy. And no one here needed to steal anything from her.
“I don’t want to ruin my new sandals going up and down that hill.”
“Suit yourself.” Pike turned and walked up the path alone. Meredith pulled a small mirror from her bag and adjusted her hair and checked her lipstick. It had never occurred to me to ever bring a little mirror with me anywhere. I didn’t think I even had one.
“I was joking, Mer. They’ll bring back all kinds of things to eat. There will be quahogs, littlenecks, cherrystones … ” Pepper practically sang. Meredith looked up at her.
“But aren’t those all different kinds of clams?” she said. “Where are they going to get all those clams?”
That had to be the dumbest question I had ever heard. Pepper raised her arm and swept it in the direction of the water. “The sea, Meredith, the majestic Atlantic, here at our doorstep, will nourish us with its natural bounty, as it has nourished generations before us. Where do you think they are—Mulligan’s Supermarket?” Pepper said.
“Oh. So there won’t be any hamburgers or anything like that.”
“They’re not going to find a cow swimming out there, Mer,” Pepper said, catching my eye quickly and mouthing dumbass!
“I know. I mean, they’re going to have to find a lot. There’s like a hundred people here,” Meredith said.
“There’s forty-three,” Pepper said, adding “Einstein” in a whisper only I could hear. “But don’t you worry, Cheddar can root out clams like you wouldn’t believe. He’s like a pig hunting down truffles. He puts his ear down to the sand, and it’s like he can hear the clams talking to each other.”
“What she means is that Cheddar is reliable,” Pike said, coming back down the path with the burlap rolled under his arm. “He always finds a way to get the job done. Sometimes, when I think about running the company in the future, I feel comforted knowing Cheddar will be there, as my second-in-command.”
I dropped a load of seaweed, and some of it splashed water on Pepper.
“Sorry,” I said.
“No, you’re not,” she said, bending over and digging her hands into the mud and slamming it at my stomach.
I could hardly believe it, but I found myself scooping up a big wet handful and throwing it at her head. She screamed and returned the volley with two hands of seawater and mud, which she scooped up between her legs the way a little kid bowls, hitting me right under the chin.
“You two keep that mud out of my seaweed pile!” Pike shouted.
“Your seaweed pile?” We both said it at once, switching our aim from each other to him, taking steps in his direction, flinging mud at his head. He ducked, and the mud hit Meredith in the chest.
Meredith shrieked. “This had better come out!”
“It’s just mud, Mer, of course it will come out,” Pike called out after her as she ran up the hill. On top of the mud, it was the sight of all that car dirt smeared across her retreating butt that sent me into hysterics, falling down onto the sand and taking Pepper with me.
“You guys are terrible,” he said to us, as if we did this to every girl he brought home to every clambake every summer.
“If you like her so much, why didn’t you tell her there’d be salads and baked beans and all that other stuff?”
“Why didn’t you?” He asked.
“I don’t like her,” Pepper said.
“My mind is on the pit. I can’t concentrate on anything else. This is my first year as Bakemaster, and I am not going to screw it up,” he said as the last of the wood broke down into ash.
“You should tell her not to dress up like that. She’s always so afraid she’ll get dirty.”
“That’s just her way, Pepper,” Pike sighed.
“Then why don’t you just run up the hill and hold her precious little hand?” Pepper teased.
The putt-putt putt-putt-sputter of a boat motor interrupted this sibling bickering. Uncle Chet and Cheddar pulled up toward the dock in a beat-up Boston Whaler named the Ballcock, which was painted on its side. I looked the word up later. A ballcock is the thing that floats in the tank of a toilet, not something dirty—well, not that kind of dirty anyway. The boat was laden with bushels of clams, fish, and lobster, laid out in wooden trays with screened bottoms that were stacked high in the little boat. Cheddar jumped out, secured the Ballcock, and helped his dad with the trays.
“Wow. Where’d you find all this?” I asked.
“Mulligan’s. He always gets the best. Already clean and ready for the pit. You can’t beat that. Just order in advance if you have a big crowd,” Uncle Chet said. I looked over at Pepper to catch a tiny smile on her face.
We helped add the seaweed to the pit, and Cheddar and Pike laid the trays on.
“Wish we had corn,” Cheddar said.
“You don’t get corn in June. At least nothing worth eating,” his dad said.
“I still wish we had it,” Cheddar mumbled. Pike soaked the burlap in seawater and covered the last layer of seaweed, secured with a border of rocks that had not been perfect enough for the inside of the pit.
“Thanks, girls,” Pike said, standing between us and putting his arms around both of us. “I couldn’t have done it without you. But I better go find Meredith. Ched, watch the pit.” Cheddar nodded.
“Let’s get out of here,” Pepper said, hopping onto the dock and into a small craft she called a Sunfish.
It looked like a glorified bathtub toy, and we didn’t have any life jackets on. But that didn’t stop her from taking us all the way out past the island we hiked on, practically out of the harbor and into the Gulf of Maine.
“I’ve never been to sailing camp,” I said out loud.
“Huh?”
“My dad found all sorts of camps to send me to in August. Enrichment camps. Theater, art, nature, music, French, swimming, kayaking, all sorts of stuff … but I never did sailing. Isn’t that funny?”
“What camps are you doing this August?” she asked.
“None. He told me to take the summer off. He insisted.”
“Yay. Cool,” she said. “I am here all summer. Most of the time anyway. Sometimes Pike, me, and Cheddar go home on Monday or Tuesday, but we’re always back by Thursday. On some weekends, the Connecticut cousins come up. We get enough for a softball game then. And Pixie is always here, of course. She lives here year-round like Gran.”
“Cool,” was all I could think to say.
“Oh, look at the time,” she said, holding her hand stacked against the horizon. “The sun is two hands over the steeple of St. Columba’s,” she said, pointing to the Catholic church.
It was the one Flo still called “the new church,” even though it was built—thanks to the Tooheys—back in the sixties. It was just a summer chapel, and it was mostly Tooheys who went there. Or so I heard. I had never seen the inside of St. Columba’s. We went to the First Congregational Church of Keech. FCCK for short. It only sounds bad if you aren’t from Keech and aren’t used to seeing abbreviations with awkward letter Ks. We stopped going there when I came home from Sunday school wearing a shirt that said FCCK Sunday School. As I said, my mother was not from Keech.
“We better go. You get us back.”
“What? I can’t.”
“We don’t say can’t. We say can. As in, you know, The Can. You can do this, Flipper,” she said.
I’m Flipper. I can do this, I thought to myself.
“I can do this,” I said out loud, and Pepper nodded.
“Okay, this here is your tiller extension; hold onto that. That’s how you steer the boat,” she said. She pulled a line, and the sail puffed out. Then she handed the line to me.
“That’s it, that’s it. Gentle. Now to port. No, port! Port! PORT!” she screamed. “LEFT! That’s it! Great job!” she said it like she meant it. Once I got over my fear of screwing up and looking like a fool, sailing felt easy for me, almost natural, for the most part. Except that we were headed out to sea instead of back to Hazard Point.
“We better boogie,” she said, leaning across me and yanking the sail full. She deftly turned the little boat around, and it scooted across the water in the right direction. We pulled it up onto the beach, and then I followed Pepper back up the path to the main lawn.
“Ugh, I reek,” she said, smelling her own armpit. “Did you bring a change?” I shook my head. “I’ll get you something. There’s a ton of sweats around. Keep you warm for the bonfire later tonight.”
Pepper led me up to the Big House. We went in the back door to the kitchen and up a narrow spiral staircase to the second floor, where she opened a door into a quiet hallway.
“All us cousins share big dorm-style rooms in the attic, but I will put you in one of the good guest rooms, and you can shower in peace. We have to share two bathrooms up there. It’s a total drag,” she said as I followed her. “This one’s usually free; it’s over the kitchen so it gets picked last.”
She opened the door without knocking and moved a handmade door hanger from the inside knob to the outside; dibs was nicely handwritten in black marker on a little card that hung on red ribbon. I noticed a few doors down the hallway had these as well.
“There’s soap, shampoo, towels in there,” she said, pointing to the bathroom. “Anything you might need, just holler. I’ll bring the clothes in and leave them on the bed. You should have plenty of privacy. No one should be up here now, and now you have dibs on this room, so it’s yours to use,” she said, shut the door, and left.
To my surprise, Meredith came out of that bathroom. Obviously, she didn’t know about dibs. Her dress was clean, but very wet where the mud had been.
“Hi,” I said. She said nothing and left. I went into the bathroom. The sink and counter were splattered with mud—she must have cleaned her dress. There were two granola bar wrappers in the trash and crumbs all over the floor. So that’s what she ate. And I guessed this was where she ate it. The bathroom was brightly lit and, other than the messes she made, spotless.
I knew she wasn’t supposed to be in that room. I didn’t want to get blamed for the mess, and I didn’t want to dirty up the plush guest towels cleaning her mud, so I used a whole roll of toilet paper to clean it up. Although I knew the Toohey toilet could handle it, I flushed frequently because I didn’t want to find out if it couldn’t.
Despite the age of the house, everything in the bathroom was brand new and gleaming. There was a soaking tub and a separate walk-in shower. It was like something you’d see in one of my mother’s house magazines.
I opened the door to the shower and fiddled with the dial until I found a good temperature. The water pressure was fantastic and the showerhead huge, like standing in a rain shower. toohey tempest was embossed on the showerhead. I got in the shower and picked up the soap. It smelled wonderful—sort of lightly floral, sort of lightly woodsy. There was just the ghost of the indented letters where the name was, but I couldn’t make out what it said.
It felt good to get all the mud and salt out of my hair. I showered for longer than was polite when you’re a guest, but I couldn’t help myself. That soap, that beautiful soap! I washed myself twice over with it until I absorbed that scent into my skin. Then I got out and wrapped up in the giant fluffy towel.
The window in the bathroom was high up on the wall; no one from the yard could possibly see in, but it let in a refreshing breeze. I stood on a stool and looked out the bathroom to the yard below. I could see Grannie and the aunts making up a table in the backyard from two sawhorses and a piece of plywood. With all the hands involved, it happened quickly; each aunt knew what to grab and where to place it. They had all done it dozens of times before. Soon, it was covered with an old flowered bedsheet and dotted with giant bowls—macaroni salad, potato salad, garden salad, that awful salad with the green beans and the fried onion, baked beans, biscuits, and chowder, all served in vats to feed the sprawling tribe.
Back in the guest room I found, as promised, some sweats, a T-shirt, and a hoodie, all three emblazoned with the name of Pike’s prep school.
Was it fate or irony? I didn’t know. I was supposed to go to that school. I got in—I even got a small scholarship. Then, at the last minute, Mom bailed. She decided she and the boyfriend or husband or whatever he was then were going to buy a condo, so there went her half of the tuition. That’s why Dad always dropped a mint on summer camps. It was his way of making up for it.
The sweats were way too long, of course, but I cuffed them, and they were fine. I went downstairs and found Pepper and Pixie out on the lawn.
More cousins had arrived, and the place swarmed with Tooheys. Toohey toddlers buzzed around with fuzzy blond tufted heads, gripping their balsa wood airplanes for fear of a sea wind taking them. But the wind had been mild that day.
Pepper led me toward the flagpole where the clan was gathering. Set atop a big hunk of bedrock that jutted out like the prow of a ship, the flagpole shot up into the blue sky. A flag gently waved as if it didn’t dare spoil the moment. A big brass bell was mounted on the pole about four feet from the ground.
Someone handed me a shot glass of smelly rum, and all the chatter fell silent.
Uncle Chet climbed onto the bedrock hunk, his khaki shorts dropping low in the back, disgracing the moment with a flash of his freckled ass cheeks. He wobbled for a moment, then stood tall and raised his shot glass and said:
Here’s to all things that run
Be it a toilet or rum.
So pour me a jigger,
Thanks to that old ditchdigger—
We get more flush,
“By gum!” they all shouted in response and threw back their shots. I drank the rum like everyone else. Uncle Chet jumped down, and then Pixie climbed the rock and rang the flagpole bell twice.
“To summer!” They all shouted.
“Yuck! I hate rum!” Pepper whispered, tossing hers discreetly into the beach roses. It was awful. I guessed I hated rum, too; I wish I had known I could have ditched mine.
“Well, it’s officially summer now,” she said. I looked around at the crowd of her relations.
Imagine having a family that big. What did Flo call them—a tribe. It must be a wonderful feeling being surrounded by your people like that. I had no idea. My dad was an only child, like me. I had no cousins on his side. I barely knew my mother’s family. What was it like to go shopping and have a sister go get you another size or color while you’re in the dressing room, or a cousin jump out of the car and hold a parking space for you in the city. Or to have brothers whose mere presence meant you were safe from teasing or bullying but in turn teased you on their own. It must feel so empowering in an ancient sort of way.
There were so many Tooheys I couldn’t hope to keep all them straight, although I was introduced to everyone. I knew that Pepper and Pike were brother and sister. Cheddar and Pixie were their first cousins, but Cheddar and Pixie were not brother and sister.
Then there were the cousins I met at lunch—the Connecticut cousins and Massachusetts cousins—the ones that only came up a few weekends all summer. And there were other first cousins, but they were either a little older or a little younger and weren’t part of our group. Then there were second cousins, and first cousins once removed (children of the older first cousins). I think that Meredith and I were the only non-Tooheys there, if you didn’t count the people who had become Tooheys by marriage.
I thought about making a chart, but then I saw Meredith actually unfold one from the pocket of her dress: a little family tree I caught her consulting.
“Cheddar’s setting up the picnic blanket out by the lighthouse for us,” Pixie said. I looked toward the far side of the lawn, and there was Cheddar, unloading a cart by the chain-link fence that separated their property from that of the lighthouse, which stood aloof and alone on its mowed acres of grass. There, a blanket was already laid out, its corners weighted with rocks. He placed a couple of cinder blocks down and a board over it and then covered that with a tablecloth. He pulled more beach stones from his pockets and weighted the tablecloth.
Then, with great fanfare, the clams arrived. They were transported to the main table in the bed of a Radio Flyer wagon, pulled by Pike and surrounded by the littlest cousins, making a racket with kazoos and drums and marching in paper hats that they had made at the kids’ crafts table.
Uncles and dads lifted the trays and poured the steaming shellfish out onto the waiting platters on the end of the table.
Pepper handed me a plate, and we fell in with the rest of the clan lining up for seafood. We filled our plates and then went over to the picnic spot Cheddar thoughtfully assembled. It wasn’t until midway through dinner that I realized what a nice time I was having. As the shadows grew longer, the chill off the water became more pronounced, and we moved in closer together. Pretty soon, we were all huddled together, leaning across each other and eating off each other’s plates.
I had actually forgotten they were the Tooheys. I started to think of them as friends. But as soon as that thought formed, it hit me. They weren’t really my friends. This was just a thank you for saving that dog. And at the next party, it would be just Pepper and Meredith and Pixie and Pike and Cheddar, and they wouldn’t even notice I wasn’t there.
I tried to push the thought out of my mind and just enjoy myself. At least I was having a better time than Meredith, whose stomach growled audibly as she picked at a plate of green beans. She sat awkwardly, trying her best to sit on the blanket in that short dress without giving everyone a view of her underpants—did they have lime green daisies on them too or were they something trashy? Those granola bars had probably used up all her daily caloric allowance. And she was too embarrassed to excuse herself, despite the benefit of the Silent Tinkle in a house so vast its feature was unnecessary. I was very glad to be lounging in Pike’s old gym clothes. I was comfortable and warm and had no problem laying back on the blanket and soaking in what was left of the sun.
“Can I get you some potato salad … mac and cheese … a roll?” Cheddar offered Meredith.
“No,” Meredith replied after each suggestion.
“And you don’t like the seafood—none of it?” Cheddar tried hard to understand this.
“So that’s what you’re going to eat then—just those beans?” Pepper said.
“Yes. I suppose that’s what you could call me—Bean.” Meredith looked around to see if there was a reaction.
Pepper rolled her eyes, and when she did, she caught sight of someone that sent her shrieking. “Uncle Finn!” she shouted. She leapt up and ran toward a man standing near the flagpole. I never heard of a Finn before. He had gray hair, but he seemed younger than my dad. Aside from Meredith, he was the only other person there nicely dressed. He had on the kind of expensive casual clothes that city people wear when they come up here for the weekend.
Pepper brought him back to our blanket, and he got even nicer-looking the closer he came. I think most old guys wearing safari jackets look like they’re going to a costume party. But on Finn, it looked perfectly fine. And he actually had something in every single one of those pockets: hand-rolled cigarettes (which he used when he excused himself to smoke, walking out to the driveway so as not to poison us); his camera (or as it turned out, one of his cameras); a cute little tin full of delicious little mints from Holland (that he offered to all of us); business cards (he gave me one—he had a non-toilet job: photographer—I’d have to show Flo later), and a monogrammed note pad that hid a tiny silver pen within its pages.
Finn was Pepper and Pike’s uncle on their mother’s side. Flo told me later on he had been married to Pepper’s father’s late sister.
Or to use Flo’s exact words: “Once upon a time, they met, he asked her, she said yes, they said ‘I do,’ and then she got cancer. The end.” She also said that he was a trust-fund baby, like I should hold that against him. But it wasn’t easy to resent him because he was just so nice.
Then Pepper said something I never expected to hear.
“Uncle Finn, this is my friend, Flipper.” I held my hand out to meet him but held on tight to the moment—my friend!
“It’s so nice to meet you. Claire, isn’t it? I heard you’re quite the hero around here, the celebrated dog rescuer,” he said. Meredith groaned. Was it a stomach cramp, or was she jealous? I like to think it was both.
Cheddar left and returned with a plate for Finn.
“Thanks, Ched,” he said. “Oh, wow, look at that. You remembered all of my favorites.”
I could see why they adored him.
“Is Scout coming? Have you seen him?” Pepper asked.
Scout! Now, Scout I had heard of. Scout was a legend in Keech Harbor. He was Pepper’s oldest brother. He was so handsome, he stopped traffic. It’s true. Someone I knew had seen it happen—right on Water Street at the height of summer. Scout was every promise of Toohey genetic potential culminating in one masterpiece. He was a bit older than us, already through college and working somewhere in Washington, D.C.
“I had dinner with him last night in DC, and I am sorry to report that Scout’s stuck there for work. He sends his regrets. He says he hopes to be here for the Fourth … Listen, are you kids going to the Admiral’s Ball next weekend?”
His answer was met with groans and sighs, except for Meredith who looked like a herring gull the moment you decide not to finish your sandwich.
“Then I am going to have to ask you all a big favor. You see, I promised those old biddies over at the yacht club that I’d take pictures that night. They have their hearts set on getting a photo on the ‘What’s the Buzz’ page of the New England Bee.”
The New England Bee—that was a shiny magazine that came out every two months, full of ads for the fancy dress shops and the yuppie kitchen renovations that cost more than the average house in Keech (our part of Keech, that is), as well as wordy wedding announcements that said things “Jane Snottington, resplendent in a gown of ivory silk and Carrickmacross lace, wed Biff Pilgrim-Mayflower in the chapel of Stuckuppington’s Academy where first they met.” Flo likes to take a red pen and correct the grammar.
“Now, I do have connections over at the Bee,” he continued. “But I can’t ask them to print a photo of those old buzzards with gin blossoms wearing their plaid party pants. But if you were going to go, I could send in pictures of good-looking young people, all gussied up. The biddies at the Bee would be happy. The biddies at the yacht club would be happy. And the picture would look so winning, they’d probably slap you right on the cover. And me, I’ll make it up to you. I promise,” he said.
“What do you think? I’ll go if you’ll go,” Pepper said. It took me a moment, but then I realized she was talking to me. I was so stunned, I stayed silent.
“Well, if Flipper goes, I’ll go,” Pixie added. “And you know I hate parties.”
“Me, too,” Cheddar said. “I’ll go, I mean. I don’t hate parties.”
“Meredith, you like a reason to dress up, don’t you?” Pike asked, and she nodded vigorously.
She probably already had her outfit picked out. It was probably hanging in her closet already with matching shoes and purse and a typewritten list of nautical phrases that she could introduce into casual conversation, like ahoy, cabin boy, fetch me a grounder of grog before the dogwatch.
“So it’s up to Flipper, then? What do you say? Will you help me out?” Uncle Finn asked.
“Sure!” I said. God. What would I wear? At least I had a week to figure it out.