Huntley Fitzpatrick - What I Thought Was True

They’re in a circle, towels swooped around their shoulders, bobbed gray hair, permed white hair, long braids meant to be coiled up into buns, styles that went away generations ago.

“If I were thirty years younger . . .” Avis King says, nodding approvingly as Cass flicks seaweed into the tall grass.

Big Mrs. McCloud shoots her a look.

“Fine. Forty,” she concedes. “Is this your boy, Gwen? He’s adorable.”

Adorable seems like a fluffy-kitten word, defanged, declawed—not Cass and all these feelings at all. He glances over at me, catches me looking, grins knowingly, then keeps raking.

“Ad-or-able.” Mrs. Cole sighs. “Good lordy lord lord.”

“Beach bonfire tonight, I’m hearing,” Avis King says. “Isn’t it nice that those still go on? Remember ours? Oh, that Ben Cruz. With his lovely shoulders. Always so tanned. Those cut-offs.”

Okay, disturbing. I think she just referenced my grandfather as the hot yard guy.

“He’d get the lobsters. Who was it who brought the bread from that Portuguese bakery in town? Sweet bread and regular? Ten loaves each. We’d toast them on sticks, dip them in butter.”

“Glaucia,” Beth McHenry says. “She got her license first of all of us. Remember? She used to whip around town in that old gray truck, bring potatoes and linguica and malassadas from Pedrinho’s out to the island.”

Mrs. Cole nods. “I was always partial to the meringues.”

“Remember when the captain brought the volleyball net down from the court and we decorated it with those tiny white Christmas lights?”

“Labor Day . . .” Mrs. E. says. “The final summer party. We all decided to dress in white because in those days you weren’t supposed to wear it after Labor Day. It was our last hurrah. Our big rebellion.”

“The boys wore their white jackets. If they had them,” Big Mrs. McCloud reflects. “Arthur had too many, he loaned them out to Ben and Matthias and whoever needed one. He’d lend his tan bucks too. But then a lot of them went barefoot. That seemed so rebellious.”

“We played volleyball in our long skirts,” Avis King says. “I beat the pants off Malcolm. He proposed later that night.”

“Was it easier then?” Mrs. Ellington asks. “I do believe so. Our revolts were so much smaller. Our questions so much easier to answer. There were rules to it all. May I call on you after your European tour? That was how I knew the captain cared for me. I don’t believe that translates into texting.”

They debate back and forth about it. Whether it should be one of those island rituals that sticks, the Labor Day party. Or whether its time has come and gone.

“We could do it again,” Mrs. Cole says. “We’re the entertainment committee on the board now. No rules to say we can’t. Well, none like the rules we used to have, anyway.”

From a distance, from the movies, I know these rules too—white bucks and blazers, don’t wear white after Labor Day, wear this with that, go with that good girl, not this one. Strictly controlled social calendars, when all of that seemed as though it mattered . . .

We still have those, though. Not so much what we wear, but how we act and what we do.

Other customs, rituals, rules. New important things unspoken.

Will Henry say anything to his mother? More importantly . . . will I?

Beach bonfire tonight.

As Cass drives us down the hill, I can see sparks crackling upward, flicking and fading into the darkening summer sky. Dom D’Ofrio is always overenthusiastic with the lighter fluid. The tower of flames shoots nearly ten feet high.

“That looks like something you’d use to sacrifice to the Druids, not toast marshmallows,” Cass says as we near the beach, the sun sliding purple-orange against the deep green sea.

To my surprise, when Cass picked me up, Spence was slumped in the backseat of the old BMW, scowling.

“He had a bad day. Thought this might cheer him up. You mind?” Cass whispered.

“Yo Castle,” Spence says now, a listless version of his usual cocky self. “Sundance stormed you yet?”

“Don’t be a dick,” Cass returns evenly.

“S’what I do best,” Spence returns, then sticks his head out the window, taking in the scene.

This bonfire is a lot more crowded than the first of the summer. The summer people’s kids have discovered it and are milling around, mostly in clumps, but sometimes venturing over to other clots of people, sitting down, feeling out the possibilities. Pam and Shaunee have parked themselves next to Audrey Partridge, Old Mrs. P.’s great-granddaughter. Manny’s flicking his lighter for Sophie Tucker, a pretty blond cousin from the house the Robinsons rented. Somebody’s dragged out a grill, and now Dom is enthusiastically pouring lighter fluid onto those charcoal briquettes too.

Cass backs the car into a spot with relatively low sand. We all get out.

Viv is standing near the water, arms hugging her chest, ponytail flipping in the wind, looking out at the distant islands. The sky’s clear enough tonight that it seems as though you could reach out and touch them. Viv doesn’t turn and see me. Manny comes up beside her, bumps her shoulder with his elbow, and hands her one of those generic “get smashed fast” red plastic cups. He walks back up the beach, catches sight of us, cocks his head a bit at the arm Cass has draped over my shoulder. “Nice shirt,” he mutters as he passes me.

It’s one of Cass’s oxfords, loose and knotted at my waist, a flash of stomach over my rolled-up jeans. Not a look I would have tried before.

If I remember right, Manny was the one who welcomed Cass to the island because of his yard boy status. Now the causeway can’t go both ways?

I head over to the cooler, pick up a beer I don’t care about. No sign of Nic or Hoop.

“Who’s the short fat dude, Sundance?”

“Manny. Good guy. Relax, Spence.” Cass grabs my hand, an aside to me. “Don’t let him get to you. He’s in douchebag mood today.”

“You two are sweet together,” Spence offers unexpectedly, sounding oddly sincere. “Nauseating as that is.”

I mouth, “Is he drunk?”

Cass shakes his head. “It’s not that.”

“Feelin’ sorry for myself, Castle. Just do it, Sundance. Cut me loose. Go back to Hodges.”

“I’m not that guy,” Cass says so firmly—convincing Spence? Or himself? “Forget it for tonight. Let’s just relax.”

For a while, relaxing works pretty well. Pam has the music cranking, good mix of old and new. It’s a warm night and the sky is filled with a gold that rims the corners of the clouds, and shafts of pinkish light that slant down to the water. The charcoal heats up, the sweet burnt smell singeing our noses.

Cass and I are adding ketchup and mustard to our hot dogs when I see Nic, standing on the pathway that runs from the parking lot to the beach, staring at us, hands balled in his pockets. Hoop stands behind him, a small, badly dressed, angry shadow.

Nic’s white-faced and stormy-looking, all his features frozen, angry, as though he’s watching a nightmare come true.

“Yo, trouble at high noon,” Spence tells Cass, scrolling mustard over his own hot dog so vigorously that the Gulden’s squirts all over the sand.

“Don’t make it worse,” Cass says, shoving a napkin at Spence.

But immediately, it’s worse.

It starts with Nic doing that slow clap-clap thing, guaranteed to annoy anyone. “Nice job, guys. Snagging both captain and cocaptain. What do they call that? A coup? Nice coup.”

Cass doesn’t say anything, focused on his hot dog. Spence is quiet too.

Nic walks over, chin raised. “Nice coup,” he says again.