“It sounds to me like they got you working for free,” Flo said as I packed my bag. Dad supervised my packing, too. He was starting to cool on the Tooheys, and it was pissing me off.
“You do know what chum is, don’t you,” he said. “It’s not a nickname for one of the cousins.”
“Yes, Dad, I know what chum is. We saw that PBS special on sharks, remember?”
“As long as you know what you are getting yourself into.”
“Dad … Flo … Finn chartered a research vessel. He wants to practice for a shark dive he’s doing this winter in some place in the South Pacific. He’s bringing us along as volunteers. We have to do a lot of the grunt work. But I think it will be fun. We’ll get to work alongside some of the top shark researchers in the world! Can you imagine? This is a great experience. I can put it on my resume.”
“Yes, but that’s not what investment bankers mean when they say swim with the sharks,” Dad teased.
“Ha ha.”
“Your friend Timmy would probably kill for an opportunity like that. And all you did was go to a party.”
“You’re the one who wanted me to have a ‘fun summer,’” I said, adding air quotes.
“I was thinking that you’d go to a couple of clambakes, hang out at the beach, and maybe have a summer romance.”
“Gross, Dad.” Of course I wanted a romance. But Pike was taken. And I didn’t want to talk to my dad about it, no matter who was involved.
“I didn’t think you’d be shipping out with the merchant marine.” He was back to joking about it, so he had finally come around.
“It’s only four days, Dad.”
“I hope you won’t end up … needing a bigger boat!” I tuned him out before he started reciting lines from Jaws.
Despite its fresh coat of paint, the research boat clearly had a long previous life in commercial fisheries. The 53-foot trawler had been used to smuggle drugs, was confiscated by the coast guard, and had been reincarnated as the Just Say Know. I know this because I read the brochure.
Meredith took one look at the grubby, utilitarian vessel, turned around, and went back toward her car, pulling her pink three-piece matching luggage set behind her. I had everything I needed for the trip in an old duffle bag. I knew to do this, again, because I read the brochure. I also sent clothes for Nantucket ahead with the package that Grannie would be putting on the ferry. Uncle Finn’s cleaning lady would pick it up, and our fresh clothes would be waiting there for us. I knew to do this because Pepper told me to. Didn’t Pike tell Meredith?
“What’s the matter, Mer?” Pepper called out after her. But Meredith kept walking, as fast as she could in high-heeled sandals and a short sundress.
“Crap. Now I have to go after her.”
“I thought you’d be glad if she didn’t go,” I whispered.
“It’s too easy. It will take more than a fast flush to get rid of her. She’ll just jump on the ferry and meet up with us on Nantucket with a steamer trunk full of outfits. And who needs that?”
Pepper was wearing old gym shorts and a ratty T-shirt from Pike’s college. She jumped up and off the Just Say Know and jogged down the dock to the parking lot, catching up with Meredith. Soon, they were walking back toward the dock. Pepper even helped carry one of Meredith’s pink suitcases.
“We don’t have room for all this—all you get is one duffle,” the captain said, glaring at her behind the aviator sunglasses that were perched on his sunburnt nose. He stood on the boat’s deck with his hands on his hips. He had long curly brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, and he wore a T-shirt from the Montreux Jazz Festival. He did seem like kind of an ass, even though I enjoyed watching him give Meredith a hard time.
“I don’t have a duffle,” she whined.
The captain rooted around in a cardboard box on deck and pulled out a yellow duffle bag. It had the name and logo of a men’s cologne on it. He threw it to her. Or maybe he threw it at her.
“Free gift with purchase!” Pepper shouted. “You love ‘gift with purchase,’ Mer.”
Right there on the dock in front of everybody and the gulls, Meredith had to unpack her bags and edit her stuff into the duffle.
I bent to help her, but she brushed my hand away with what felt like a slap.
Meredith brought three pairs of shoes, four short dresses, two frilly summer dresses, a bathing suit, a cover-up, a sun hat and five sets of bras and matching panties. Five bras! Five? Did she take all her bras? I hadn’t even owned that many in the course of my whole entire life. Plus she had a tiny suitcase just for cosmetics.
Meredith moved the neatly folded stack of candy-colored dresses into the duffle bag.
“Are you really going to wear a dress to scoop chum, Meredith?” Pike whispered and then sighed.
“What’s chum?” she said, looking up, nearly in tears. Pepper kneeled down and spoke to her quietly in the nicest tone I had ever heard her use to anyone, let alone Meredith.
“Do you see that white bucket over there? We are going to chop up some dead, sorta rotten fish and put it in that bucket there. Then, we are going to mix it up with some nice warm seawater until it’s good and stinky and maybe a little bloody. Then, we are going to dip a big scoop into it and chuck it—”
Oddly enough, it was the word “chuck” that seemed to do it. Meredith, already on her knees, leaned over the side and puked into the water between the dock and the boat, splattering the remains of the diet shake and iced coffee she had for breakfast on the side of the Just Say Know.
“Dude, you said these kids would be no problem,” Captain Ponytail said to Finn. Then, as if to challenge us, he looked at us and said, “Okay, you other girls, clean that up.” I think he expected us to cry or puke, too. Ass. We found the cleaning supplies on our own, then washed and rinsed the vomit off the side as if it were our life’s ambition.
Meredith packed the suitcases back up and walked down the dock alone. Two slams later—the car’s trunk and driver’s side door—the Beamer peeled out in the parking lot, seeming to vanish in a puff of sand and dust it kicked up.
“I told her it wasn’t a cruise” was all Pike said about it. Then he moped around the rest of the morning. He perked up a little when we saw a seal. But it wasn’t until the shark cage went into the water with his uncle and we all had jobs to do that he finally snapped out of it.
Pepper and I continued to scoop chum over the side, and the boys prepped another batch. Then we saw a fin. A small shark, Captain Ponytail said. It was hard to see anything below the water. Was Uncle Finn safe? What was he seeing down there?
Finally, the cage was lifted up and with it, Finn. He pulled his face mask and hood off.
“That was fabulous,” he said.
“Did you see a great white?” Pike asked.
“No, not that lucky on my first try. But I got some good shots of a tiger shark and a dogfish. It’s all dress rehearsal for my trip to Tonga. I just wanted to make sure I felt comfortable in the shark cage and practice with all my underwater equipment. And everything went perfectly. And I couldn’t have done it without you kids.”
But of course, he didn’t need any of us at all. He could have gotten some undergrad to scoop chum for free. And like Dad said, Tim probably would have paid for the opportunity to be on a real research vessel. But Finn created this opportunity for us. He brought us along, so we could share in the adventure.
It was close to six in the evening when we got to Nantucket. One of Finn’s friends met us at the dock with a vintage red pickup. It wasn’t until we were back among the well-dressed tourists that I realized how bad we smelled. We rode over to Finn’s in the back of the truck. I had never been to Nantucket. I had only seen pictures of quaint buildings and deserted streets, so I was surprised at how many tourists thronged the streets and how slow we had to drive to avoid hitting any. I dozed off for a second and found my head leaning on Pike’s shoulder when we pulled up to Finn’s place on the east end of the island.
I couldn’t wait to see what his house looked like. Poor Meredith was going to miss that. I imagined the servants would line up to greet us like they did in old movies.
Hardly.
Finn’s house was gray-shingled, much like a house in the Toohey compound but smaller, and he had only three buildings, the main house, a guest cottage (which was currently rented to New Yorkers for a big wad a week), and a small boathouse perched on legs in Nantucket Harbor, accessed through a path between towering rambles of swaying beach roses. That was also rented out for an even bigger wad because it was right on the water.
Unlike the Toohey’s house, Finn’s house had been completely remodeled on the inside. It was open, airy, and modern. The front of the house was traditional, but the back had been rebuilt. It was practically a wall of glass with views of the salt pond and, from upstairs, of the ocean beyond. The windows were spotless, and I wondered who cleaned them.
The walls inside were a pure clean white. And there was not a fingerprint or smudge anywhere. I don’t know why I noticed that. Every wall featured paintings, local themes, lighthouses, ships, seascapes. There was one that showed the scene out the window but in winter. It was gorgeous, precise, and photographic.
“You do? I did it,” Finn said. “All I can see are the mistakes in it.”
“Really? I didn’t know you were an artist, too,” I gushed.
“No. Not me. I am just a barely passable photographer. I only did the one painting. I know it’s vain to hang it here beside all the real art but it means a lot to me. I painted it one winter when I was here alone. It was a difficult time. One of my renters left the paints, brushes, and the big canvas in the garage. So I thought, why not?”
I wondered if that was when his wife died. When our neighbor’s wife died, he went out and got remarried three months later. And here was Uncle Finn, sitting alone in Nantucket all winter just painting.
“And just like that, you painted a masterpiece,” I said.
“A masterpiece,” he laughed. “You’re sweet, kid. It was a tough year. So I just focused on the painting. Do you like mornings?” he asked me, changing the subject.
“Yes?”
“Great. I’ve put you and Pep in one of the east bedrooms. You’ll get a great sunrise and a wonderful breeze. Go on up, have a shower, please,” he joked a little, “rest, and come down and join us when you’re ready. A few friends are going to stop by a little later. We’ll eat around eight. Nothing fancy. Just stuff to nibble on.”
“It’s the third door on the top of the stairs to the left,” he said.
I climbed the stairs, taking in the view through the wall of glass. I found our guest room. We had a king-sized canopy bed and a white wicker seating area. Pepper had already showered. She was wrapped in a white terry robe and tracking water all over the wood floor.
“I left the water on for you,” she said, pointing to the bathroom. Steam billowed out of the door.
I stepped over Pepper’s smelly clothes on the floor, added my own, and got in. I was never so happy to take a shower—finally getting the smell of fish out of my hair and skin. And that soap! It was geranium-scented and made in Sweden. I almost stole a bar. He’d never notice, but I liked Finn too much. I wrapped up in the other plush bathrobe and then flopped onto the bed.
The sun was setting when I woke up with my face in a puddle of drool. Laughter and chatter echoed up from downstairs. At first, I thought it was the TV. But then I remembered I hadn’t even seen one. It must have been the “few friends” coming over in the evening. I put on those distressed jeans that Flo hates and a pink T-shirt. I tamed my hair into a ponytail and descended the stairs into a sea of pastel silks and linens. I was grossly underdressed.
Was this something Pepper was supposed to tell me about, I wondered. I wanted to just go back upstairs and hide, but it was too late.
“Another one awakens,” a man said to me as I got to the bottom of the stairs. He wore a tan linen suit and no shoes. The woman he was with looked me up and down. She wore a sleeveless white silk dress. Her arms were skinny and toned, and she wore a massive gold cuff on each wrist. She sipped a glass of red wine. I watched her for a moment, waiting for her to dribble that wine on her white silk dress, but she didn’t. I was uncomfortable around these fancy adults, and I was also scared of this lady who had the power to drink red wine while wearing white silk.
“A few friends” turned out to be around fifty. “Nothing fancy” turned out to be passed hors d’oeuvres and a full buffet. A uniformed caterer floated by with a tray of tiny architectural bits of puff pastry stuffed with a variety of fillings that I was too tired to identify.
Then, I heard a cackle—Pepper’s unmistakable laugh—coming from the kitchen. I excused myself, curtsied for some unknown reason, and went down the hall. Pepper, Pike, and Cheddar sat around the island in the kitchen with the catering staff working around them. Like me, they were in jeans.
“It’s about time, Sleeping Beauty. I thought we’d have to send Pike to kiss you awake,” Pepper said. God, she could be mean when she wanted to. I prayed no one saw how red I got.
We stayed in the kitchen. The Tooheys thought nothing of grabbing food from the caterers’ carefully arranged trays. The caterers didn’t say a word but silently replenished them before they were delivered to the better-dressed guests.
Cheddar seemed content, but Pepper was twitchy, bored maybe. I know I was bored and cramped by the presence of the sophisticated guests, their quiet manners, and their delicate clothes.
“Let’s pack it up and go hang out by the fire pit at the boathouse,” Pike said, practicing his leadership skills.
“That’s a great idea!” the caterer said, the first words I had heard her say to us since I came downstairs.
“I thought it was rented out,” Cheddar said.
“So what? They won’t care. They’re probably not even there. I don’t see any lights on,” Pike said.
“Let me put something together for you!” the caterer said. She sounded overjoyed to get rid of us. She packed a little bit of everything into an aluminum pan, with a package of utensils and napkins.
“I will get some soda,” Pepper announced loudly and mechanically.
Cheddar carried the pan outside and down the deck stairs to the backyard. Pepper quickly took the lead, guiding the way with the flashlight, and cradling the tote bag with the soda close to her chest like it was her precious baby.
“Ooh, shooting star!” Pike said as we got halfway across the yard, away from the lights of the house. We stopped to look, and then we lost Pepper and Cheddar somewhere in the darkness. They must have already gone down the path through the beach roses.
“Whoa, it’s dark here,” he said. And suddenly, his voice was the only sound that seemed to matter—even as the party noise tinkled behind us, the crickets chimed, the beach roses swished in the wind, and the water lapped somewhere unseen.
“At Hazard Point, we always have the lighthouse or the buoy lights. It’s never dark like this,” he said.
“Look at the Milky Way!” I said as our eyes adjusted to the darkness, the sky growing more amazing.
“Are we still in the yard? I can’t tell.” I stumbled along as we tried to find the path without Pepper’s flashlight.
“We’re where the beach roses start, but I can’t find the path.”
Then, with a woosh, something large ran in front of us—a deer, huge and swift, its pounding hoofbeats seemed to echo my own heartbeats and then take them over, replacing my rhythm with its own. Even though I’ve seen deer a million times before, this time, it was thrilling and scary to be so close to one at night, under the heavy banner of stars, in the potent perfume of the blooming beach roses that the deer had disturbed and sent wafting around us—and we grabbed each other in surprise.
“Oh, sorry. That buck surprised me,” Pike said but didn’t let me go.
I pretended to be a little more afraid than I was. It was lovely there, in Pike’s arms in the darkness. Lovely sounds like a corny word, but that’s what it was. The hoofbeats of that wild creature still echoing in my head, the rumble and scent of ocean and beach roses, the boom and swish of the waves in the distance, and Pike, tall and responsible, warm and strong, smelling so slightly of that geranium soap.
Then, swish-swish-swish-swish through the path came a flash of light, and suddenly, there was Cheddar. Pike’s arms fell away. I took a step back and froze in the beam of light.
“Be careful of ticks,” Cheddar announced, shining the flashlight in my face. “And the rocks. I’ll light the way. Pepper shouldn’t have run off so fast. It’s hard enough to find the path in broad daylight,” he said, turning and pointing the flashlight at the path.
Pepper had unpacked the food. The precious architectural appetizers looked out of place around the fire pit, like someone wearing street shoes at the beach. Or like Meredith on the dock. I hoped it didn’t remind Pike of her. The pit was a fancy one, a neat circle of curved stones surrounded by a quartet of Adirondack chairs with matching cocktail tables.
“No scallops wrapped in bacon?” Cheddar asked.
“Nope! But there’s green apple slices with blue cheese perched on a wonton,” Pepper said.
“Good thing we ate on the boat,” Pike said, as he popped two wontons into his mouth.
“Ta da!” Pepper said, after digging into her tote bag; she presented the “soda,” which turned out to be beer bottles, one for each of us. I didn’t know how she managed that. There were two bartenders.
I don’t remember what we talked about around the fire. Was it the trip? The shark? The chum? Finn’s house? The party? It was probably the general nonsense they often engaged in, like repeating the same joke over and over until everyone has said it at least once. I was too busy reliving the memory of being in Pike’s arms. I felt sorry for Meredith and, in the same instant, was so glad she was gone.
Sometime around midnight, the people renting the boathouse came back from dinner. They could barely get their boat docked and nearly fell in the water disembarking, which they thought was hilarious, because they were totally bombed.
“We got the fire pit all ready for you,” Pepper said.
“Great!” one of the men said, while his wife howled with laughter. The other couple stumbled down to the pit. The woman tried to sit on one of the Adirondack chairs around the pit but managed to miss it and landed on the sand, laughing and exposing her underpants to her friends, who laughed even harder.
“Joanie, it would be nice if one night ended without a view of your crotch,” the other woman said, as she tripped over her friend and landed on the ground next to her.
Her husband didn’t bother to help her up; instead, he wrapped a thick arm around me, pulling me against his fat gut.
“Look at this beauty. If I was only ten years younger—” he said.
I didn’t have a chance to respond before Cheddar did.
“More like forty, you gross perv,” Cheddar said loudly, wedging himself between us so the man had no choice but to drop his arm.
“Huh?” he said, seeming confused. I shuddered, and for a moment, it felt like his warm hairy arm was still there. I looked at Ched with relief.
I was glad when we left them at the fire pit, but I wondered if it was safe to leave drunks around so many hazards—fire, the dock, deep water. But we went back up to the house anyway.
The return trip was easier with the lights of the house guiding us.
I kept hoping that Pike would pull me aside and hold me again. But we all marched single file through the beach roses, through the yard and flower gardens that I could see now that my eyes had adjusted to the dark, and back up to the house.
With all those windows lit up from within, the back of the house looked like panels in a comic book: a party winding down in one panel, a handful of party guests clustered around Finn as he played the piano; in another panel, a guest reapplied lipstick; tired waitstaff cleaning up the kitchen. Upstairs was in darkness. No illicit romances here.
We entered through the kitchen. It was clean and deserted. A few nonperishable snacks and desserts were left out. The bartenders were gone, and what was left from the bar was lined up on the kitchen island—a few bottles of wine and an assortment of foreign beers.
“That lady looks just like Jeanette Frisé,” I blurted out loud, starstruck, as I looked down the hallway into the great room.
“Who?” Pepper asked.
“That lady there. She looks like a folk singer from Quebec that my dad’s nuts about.”
The lady approached us.
“Her dad is nuts about you,” Pepper said.
“He must be a very handsome man to have such a belle fille,” she said with a hint of an accent. It was Jeanette Frisé. It was friggin’ Jeanette Frisé.
“Jeanette,” she said, holding out her hand.
“Enchanté,” she replied. She refilled her wine glass and left. Later, I held her hair back when she vomited in the bathroom.