She had a group of ten bikers heading out to Quidnet Pond. Six boys, four girls, all of them strong riders except for a child named Dalton, who hailed from New York City (Park Avenue between Sixty-Ninth and Seventieth) and who attended Collegiate. Dalton had gruesomely chapped lips and one of the reasons he was lagging behind and holding up the group was that he had to stop every three to four minutes to apply his SPF 30ChapStick. That, and his bike helmet—which Agnes noted was the most expensive bike helmet money could buy—didn’t fit properly and kept slipping forward into his eyes. He had nearly had a collision with the girls in front of him thanks to said helmet.
Agnes hated to admit it, but she wasn’t very fond of Dalton. She had snapped at him earlier, telling him he had to keep up or he would be demoted to the nine-year-olds’ group. It wasn’t a very nice thing for her to say. She wasn’t really angry at Dalton—he was merely annoying—she was angry at CJ. CJ had canceled coming up for the weekend; the room at the White Elephant hadn’t come through, and that apparently was a deal breaker.
“I don’t see why you can’t stay at the house,” Agnes had said. “Box is in London and my mother is never home.”
“I won’t be comfortable,” CJ said. “I won’t be relaxed. And if I’m going to spend time with you, I’d like to be both of those things.”
Uncomfortable and ill at ease because of Dabney, Agnes thought. If Dabney had been in London, CJ would have come.
He said, “I’d like you to come to New York this weekend.”
“No,” she said. “I can’t.”
“Why not?” he said.
She had tried to come up with a reason. She could go to New York, but she didn’t want to. CJ would be on the phone all weekend anyway, negotiating the never-ending Bantam Killjoy deal. BK had been drafted by the Jaguars, but he was unhappy; he wanted to be out West. CJ was trying to get him to Kansas City or San Diego. Or at least that was what Agnes thought was happening; she had sort of lost track.
“I’m on Nantucket, CJ,” she said. “I’d like to go to the beach. Enjoy summer.”
“We can enjoy summer in the city,” he said. “We can walk in Central Park and put our feet in the fountain. We can go to a Yanks game. We can get reservations at any restaurant in the city. You want me to book at Le Bernadin? Minetta Tavern?”
“Um…” she said. “Maybe next weekend?”
“It doesn’t even sound like you want to see me,” CJ said.
“I do,” Agnes said. She had then sung out a chorus of apologies that she didn’t quite mean.
At the turnoff for Quidnet Road, Agnes gathered her campers. There were some fun personalities here—Archie, Samantha, Bronwyn, and Jamey (boy) and Jamie (girl). But everyone was hot and thirsty, the water bottles were down to the last inches, and the kids were eager for a swim and lunch.
Agnes gave the final directions—slight left onto Quidnet Road, half a mile to the pond, lock up, head to the beach, stay together, no one in the water until Agnes blew the whistle—and they all waited for Dalton to catch up. He was forty yards back, ChapStick break.
Just then, Agnes’s attention was snared by the sight of the Impala barreling up the Polpis Road. Her mother, sunglasses on, was at the wheel, singing. Agnes caught the strains of the Rolling Stones’ “Hang Fire.”
Agnes waved. She shouted, “Mom! Mom!” But the Impala cruised past; Dabney was too intent on where she was going to notice her only child.
Where was she going? Agnes couldn’t very well follow her.
The campers were intrigued. “Was that your mom?” Samantha asked. “Like, your Mom mom?”
Agnes realized that to her campers, she probably seemed too old to have a mother.
“Was that her car?” Archie asked. “A 1967 Chevy Impala?”
There was a motorhead in every group. Agnes nodded. “That was my mom,” she said. “My Mom mom. And yes, that’s her car.”
“Your mom must be cool,” Archie said.
That night at dinner, Agnes waited until Dabney had finished her first glass of wine and poured her second before she asked. Again, it looked like her mother had gotten sun. The freckles on her cheeks were plentiful and pronounced.
“I saw you on the Polpis Road today,” Agnes said. “By the Quidnet turnoff? I was with my campers. Where were you going?”
Dabney took a bite of her grilled salmon with homemade dill sauce, then made a face of ecstasy. Agnes had to agree: her mother cooked like a goddess. Agnes had gained three pounds since she’d been home.
Dabney said, “The summer between my senior year in high school and my freshman year in college, I got a flat tire on Main Street.” She dabbed her lips and took a sip of wine. “In the Nova. I popped it against the granite curb right outside of Murray’s Toggery. And no sooner had I gotten out of the car to look at the damage than a police car pulled up.” Dabney smiled. “And it was Grampy!”
“Oh,” Agnes said.
“What are the chances my own father would wander by at the exact moment my tire popped? I was very happy to see him, even though he made me change it myself. You remember what your grandfather was like.”
“Mom,” Agnes said. “Where were you going today?”
“I just thought of that story because of how funny it is to run into, you know, your parents, or your kids, when you’re out doing other things, living your life.”
“Mom.”
Dabney lifted a spear of asparagus with her fingers and nibbled it. “I had lunch at Sankaty Beach Club,” she said.
“Really?” Agnes said. This didn’t sound right. Dabney didn’t like to go to the Sankaty Beach Club, because her mother, Patty Benson, had been a member there, and thus Dabney had decided the place was cursed. “I thought you refused to eat there.”
“Well,” Dabney said, “I did today.”