Summertime Guests Read online

  Angie was smart, funny, a fabulous dinner companion, armed with outrageous stories about goings-on on campus. She was also very pretty. Pale skin. Unusually large brown eyes and a thick, dark curtain of hair that she’d loop over one shoulder while she talked. Claire was completely charmed by her. It wasn’t until a few months later that she realized Walt was equally charmed.

  “You like her,” Claire confronted him one night while they stood at the kitchen counter washing dishes after a cookout with the Hillers and their children.

  “Hmm? Like who?” he asked.

  “Angie.” His eyebrows had flickered up.

  “Baloney. Why would I like Angie?”

  “Admit it,” Claire had pressed. “You’re attracted to her.”

  “Nonsense. She’s married. The Hillers are our friends.”

  “Just because she’s married doesn’t mean you can’t be attracted to her.”

  “Well, I’m not, okay?”

  “But you think she’s attractive, right?”

  Walt sighed. “I suppose so. In a kind of old-fashioned, Natalie Wood way. But saying someone is attractive and being attracted to them are two entirely different things.” He’d finished drying the last plate, placed it in the cupboard, and then, as if it were the natural next step in the sequence, he’d boosted her onto the countertop and shimmied her skirt up over her hips. Claire remembers being startled by that, Walt’s unexpected boldness, returning to their marriage that night. They’d made love right there in the kitchen, his thighs slapping against hers, Claire’s hands gripping his hair while the children slept upstairs. It had sparked a year-long stretch of intimacy, a spark that had dwindled shortly after the Hillers left town.

  Yes, it had taken another woman, Angie Hiller, to insert the intimacy back into their lives. Was it her own jealousy that suddenly made Claire interested in Walt again and Walt in her? Was it the unspoken competition of trying to be as doting a couple as the Hillers seemed to be, always sneaking kisses behind corners, Trevor resting his hand lightly on Angie’s wrist while she talked? Whatever it was, when the Hillers moved back to Manhattan and the dinner parties came to a halt, Claire and Walt’s rekindled romance fizzled out as quickly as it had begun.

  And then things returned to the way they’d been before or, as Claire thought of it, life returned to normal. They went back to passing each other in the halls more like roommates than husband and wife, Walt threw himself back into work, and the lion’s share of responsibility for the kids fell to Claire once again. On the rare night when Walt did make it home in time for dinner, it was as if he barely noticed her. Once she’d counted the seconds while he rambled on about a situation at work and stared down at his plate. Fifty-four seconds passed before he’d glanced up and actually looked at her. Fifty-four! As if didn’t matter who his audience was. After dinner she’d gotten up to load the dishwasher, actually taking the dirty spoons back out of the silverware holder so she could toss them in again and hear their satisfying racket, mirroring her own emotions. All clatter and bang.

  To Walt’s credit, when Amber was in high school he was the one who suggested they try counseling, and Claire agreed—by that point she’d have been willing to try aromatherapy, if it would work. Their therapist, Dr. Fallon,was a rotund, diminutive man. White beard and glasses, Santa Claus minus the holiday cheer. Each Saturday afternoon for a month, they filed into his office and sat next to each other, their legs almost touching on the doctor’s shabby brown couch.

  “I’m doing everything I possibly can to make sure our home runs on the few cylinders I have left,” she admitted in their first meeting, fighting back tears. “The kids need so much attention, even now, maybe more so than when they were little. Amber’s dealing with her eating issues, and Ben worries about everything. After I come home from work, I’m making supper, helping them with whatever the crisis of the day is. There’s never any time for me to decompress.” She felt a little selfish putting it that way, as if it were all about her.

  But then a fire lit in her again. Because Walt wasn’t there complaining about his lack of me time, was he? Walt was there because he thought their marriage had taken a decided turn toward the frigid, because Claire seemed angry all the time. Her response to Walt’s complaints, albeit not helpful at the time, had been an eye roll. “Now, Claire,” Dr. Fallon had said in a mollifying tone, “we want this to be a positive space without judgment.”

  And Claire had wanted to throw up.

  Each visit left her feeling more dejected and hopeless than when she’d first stepped foot in the musty office with its corduroy sofa and weepy ferns. She imagined those wide fronds working overtime to absorb all the heartache that spilled forth. (Maybe, she thought during one particularly difficult session, the ferns were busily transforming patients’ distress into something productive, like chlorophyll.) With each new session, the gulf between her and Walt grew only wider, their car rides home achingly silent while she seethed in the passenger seat. She’d thought the era of women being second-class citizens in their marriages was over, but she’d been mistaken. There was no such thing as an equitable division of labor when it came to kids and housework, unless, of course, they were well-off enough to hire a nanny and a housekeeper. Which they weren’t.

  At their very last session—before Claire quit—Dr. Fallon suggested she work past her anger if she and Walt were going to have any hope of reaching an understanding, and Claire had laughed, slightly hysterical. “Work past my anger? Work toward an understanding? Is that what this is all about?” She earmarked the word with air quotes. “Because I’m pretty sure I understand what’s going on here. My husband is rarely home. My children miss their father.”

  Dr. Fallon set aside his yellow legal pad and folded his chubby hands on his knees. Claire still remembers the feeling that swept over her: a strange brew of relief and victory. And sadness. Because even Santa Claus couldn’t cure whatever was troubling her marriage. She’d tried to track down Martin then, but it was the early ’90s and the internet wasn’t a thing yet. She’d heard rumors that he and Audrey had headed out to Seattle for work, that he had a few kids. But nothing definite. Their high school refused to share any details.

  Martin, she thinks again, as she strides underneath the pavilion on the Greenway near the blue arc of the harbor. Mostly, she wants to lay eyes on him, hear his voice up close. Did a person stay the same after so any years? Are the seven freckles, scattered like a constellation across his abdomen, still visible, or have they faded with time? Does he still have his thick mop of sandy blond hair that she used to love to run her fingers through? Does he still try to sneak a cigarette every now and then?

  And now here he is. In Boston. Will he have thought about her at all over the years? Claire realizes she’s almost afraid to know the answer. Because what if it’s no? What if Martin brushed her out of his mind as soon as she broke up with him on the steps of Faneuil Hall? What if she was no more than his first love, and once he found Audrey, Claire became a distant memory (except, of course, for that one time when they’d bumped into each other a few years later at Legal Sea Foods)?

  Once you fell in love with someone did you ever stop loving them? Does Marty ever wonder what his life might have been like if Claire had said yes to his unspoken proposal? If they’d had kids together?

  Of course, there’d be no Ben and Amber, which is impossible to imagine. But what if she’d had Ben and Amber with Martin? If they’d been their kids? Maybe Amber wouldn’t have developed an eating disorder. Maybe Ben wouldn’t have grown up to be such a shy and timid boy, always worried about disappointing his father. Maybe, Claire thinks somewhat ironically, she and Martin would have had enough money to hire a nanny, and she wouldn’t have neglected her job for the first six years of the kids’ lives.

  What if? What if? It’s an endless loop that she’ll never know the answers to. But at least tonight she can stop wondering what Marty has been up
to all this time. And maybe, if she works up the courage, if she has enough wine, she can bring up that other matter, too.

  SIXTEEN

  Jason wakes to a baggie of cold water resting on his hotel pillow. And a throbbing right hand. Throbbing as in, it feels like his thumb might have fallen off in the middle of the night. He slides his hand out from under his pillow. Nope, the thumb is still attached, but his hand is another story. It’s practically unrecognizable. The knuckles, lined with scratches, are swollen to twice their size, there’s a smear of caked blood on the web of skin between his pointer and middle finger, and in several spots, his skin has turned a shade of dark, midnight blue. Serves me right, he thinks.

  When he remembers that today, Thursday, is his actual birthday, he lets out a moan. This is not how things were supposed to go on their vacation. Gwen, he knows, has been planning a harbor cruise for later this afternoon to celebrate the big thirty-three, but given the events of yesterday, she’ll probably threaten to mutiny. Or maybe she’s already canceled their reservation as punishment. Maybe she’ll suggest they head back home this morning, forget about the two more nights they’re booked for at the hotel. Jason wouldn’t blame her.

  When he rolls over, she’s curled up on the other side of the bed about as far away as she can get, her back turned to him, her honey-colored hair fanned out across her pillow. It’s the body language of someone who’s still mightily pissed off. Last night when they’d returned to the hotel, she’d fetched an ice pack from the bartender and handed it over, saying “Enjoy it. Because it’s the last time I’m going to be nice to you for the next five hours.”

  And Jason had thought Understood. A few cocktails followed, Gwen even agreeing to stick around for the first one. “You told me you were going to get help,” she’d said, slamming down the shot glass on the countertop, as if they might go at it right there. The bartender had sent Jason a look as if to say You’ve met your match tonight, buddy.

  “I know, and I’m sorry. I’ve been busy. But I will, I promise.”

  She shook her head, signaled to the bartender for another and swiveled on the stool to face him. “I haven’t asked because I didn’t want you to think I was checking up on you. But, honey, I can’t keep watching you lose your temper with total strangers like that all the time. It’s insane. Not to mention terrifying.”

  “I know.”

  He understood she was shaken up—he was, too—but it seemed a little unfair to characterize his random outbursts as events that happened all the time. Especially when he could count the number of times he’d lost his cool in public on one hand. There was the guy at the MFA, obviously. Another loser at a bar in Portsmouth a few months back, who kept spouting off about how great the Confederate flag was; and one or two other episodes, where sketchy guys had been lurking around Gwen. They’d only gotten a little warning punch to the gut, nothing serious. Yesterday’s tussle was the most damage he’d sown in a long time.

  The guy at the museum probably had a broken nose, maybe a few missing teeth. Jason wonders if they made it to a hospital. Gwen was worried that they’d track them down somehow, maybe trace their identity through the cameras at the MFA. But Jason thinks that’s unlikely. Even if he was truly hurt, chances are Blue Eyes won’t be eager to seek him out for a rematch. Besides, the guy was being a dick. He kind of deserved it.

  “Seriously. That was crazy back there,” she’d said, as if for emphasis, and downed her second Jameson.

  “I know.”

  “You really did a number on that guy, and he didn’t even touch you.”

  “Yeah, but when I saw the way he looked at you, and then later, when his buddy came over and he said something crude...” Jason shrugged. “I lost it.”

  “You have got to learn to control that temper.”

  “Yes, Mom,” he’d chided, which was obviously the wrong thing to say. The alcohol was emboldening him in ways it shouldn’t have. The best strategy, he knew full well, was to apologize profusely, as if he’d just burned down the MET, and keep on apologizing until his voice was gone. What was someone like Gwen doing with him, anyway? What was it that kept her coming back when he proved himself time and again to be such a colossal jerk?

  She dropped her big, beautiful eyes and said in a quiet voice, “We’ve talked about this. It’s not just random strangers I worry about.” And it was this comment that had leveled him, punched him in the heart, because, of course, he knew what she was referring to. But he’d already apologized for those times! A random night when the world felt as if it was closing in on him and Gwen had snapped at him and he’d thrown a glass across the kitchen that shattered into a million pieces, narrowly missing her bare foot. Or, the morning when he’d gotten the call from his dissertation adviser saying he thought Jason might want to refocus his entire thesis. That had been a doozy. The fact that he’d only tossed his computer in the trash (and later retrieved it) seemed like no big deal in the scheme of things.

  But he thinks of the other two lamentable incidents. The unmentionables. One last fall and one last week. He’s pretty much pushed them out of his mind because thinking about them makes him feel physically ill, like he might vomit. But every so often, when Gwen sends him a deer-caught-in-the-headlights look, the memory resurfaces. The first time was at a football game last fall. They’d gone to cheer on the college team, the Raiders, and a few other teaching assistants had joined them. Jason was older than most by a good five or six years, but he tried to play it cool, taking a puff on a joint that someone passed him during halftime. Gradually, though, he’d grown annoyed with Gary, the other English TA, whom Gwen kept talking to. When another grad student yelled, “Hey, Gwen, you and Gary make a cute couple!” Jason’s head had swiveled like the girl’s in The Exorcist. The kid, quickly realizing his mistake, turned to Jason and said, “No offense, man. Obviously, you guys are together.” And Jason had tightly grabbed Gwen by the wrist and led her back to the stands, where they’d watched the remainder of the game by themselves. Jason silently fuming, Gwen utterly humiliated. The purple bruises that encircled her wrist like a delicate bracelet the next morning had inspired him to buy her a necklace with a tiny diamond pendant.

  His not-so-subtle plea for absolution.

  “I know,” he said again at the bar and reached out his hand, running it across her tightly knit fingers, those tiny silver rings of hers. “I know, and I’m sorry. I’m gonna get it under control. There’s some stuff going on at work...”

  “Stuff? What stuff?” Her eyes darted at him. “You keep insisting there’s nothing bothering you, but now there’s stuff going on at work? Which is it, Jason? Everything’s fine or not fine. It can’t be both.”

  “Nothing really important.” He hesitated. “Well, kind of important, I guess, depending on your perspective.”

  “I’m waiting.” He could feel her patience waning. The one person who believed in him—quite possibly the only person in the world who loved him at this point in his life—was having a crisis of confidence. What was wrong with him?

  He twirled the Jim Beam in his glass. A little archipelago of ice chips had formed at the bottom. “I’m thinking I might quit.”

  He watched her eyes widen. “Quit?”

  “Yeah, as in leave the university. I don’t enjoy teaching anymore. The students are mostly entitled little punks, and my dissertation is going nowhere. I’m never gonna get my PhD.”

  “But you’ve been working so hard on it!”

  His shoulders lifted. “Not really. I pretty much go to the library and take naps.”

  “Surely you’re joking?”

  Jason shook his head. “I wish I were. I’m blocked. Totally blocked.”

  “Babe.” Something in her voice softened. “I’m sure it’s a passing phase. You know, end-of-the-year blahs. Give yourself the summer before you do anything rash.”

  “Maybe.” He’d downed the rest of his drink
in one swallow. He didn’t dare mention the thing with Charlie, not until he talked to George. “Anyway, I’m really sorry about what happened back there. It’s just that when I saw that guy hitting on you and then I thought he said something rude to his friend, a fire lit up in me, you know?”

  But Gwen shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t understand, Jason. Which is why I think you need to get help. And I don’t mean maybe next year or six months from now but when we get back home. Look into it. Find someone who can help you sort through the stuff with your dad.”

  That she’d summed it up so succinctly surprised him, as if his whole persona could be boiled down to his complicated relationship with his father. Maybe it could.

  “Okay, yeah,” he said. “I’m going to get on it. As soon as we get home. Now, can we please talk about something else?”

  She’d tilted her head, considering it for a moment. “You know what? I’m not really feeling it right now. I think I’m going to grab my book and go sit by the pool.”

  He checked his watch. It was seven thirty. “Are you sure the pool’s even open?”

  Gwen shrugged. “It’s kind of immaterial. If it isn’t, I’ll find a spot on the porch.”

  Which he’d taken to mean that she wanted to get as far away as possible from him. Hell, if he could have escaped himself at that moment, he would have done the same.

  He remembers now. He’d had a few more at the bar, alone, then gone up to their room and fallen into bed. By the time he dozed off, Gwen still hadn’t returned.