Elin Hilderbrand - Summer People

“Where would we go?” Bo said. “Our apartment is rent-controlled. We’ll stick it out, and eventually people will forget. They’ll move on to the next thing. I’ve seen enough news pass before my eyes to know this to be true.”

Bo had remained loyal to Connie through it all, but Marcus felt differently. He was going to write this book, take the money, and leave his old life behind.

“Okay,” Marcus said to his father, just to say something. “I’ll give it some thought.”

“See that you do,” Bo said. “Are you having fun up there?”

“Yep.”

“Helping out?”

“Yes, Pop.”

“All right, then. We miss you, son.”

“I miss you, too, Pop,” Marcus said, feeling like he’d eaten nothing but guilt for breakfast.

“We’ll talk to you. Please write to your mother.”

“ ’Bye,” Marcus said. He hated to admit it, but he was relieved to hang up the phone.

That night, Marcus woke up when Garrett came home from his date with Piper. Marcus checked his clock: one-fifteen. He waited until Garrett used the bathroom, brushed his teeth, and returned to his room, then he went to the door and peered down the hallway. Dark. The door to Winnie’s room was a few yards away. It was hung crooked and didn’t close properly and something about that door, slightly ajar, was irresistible. But Marcus knew what would happen if he went into her room. Just the way Mama knew what would happen when she opened the door to see Angela. Marcus tried to steady his breathing; he should go back to sleep. But his throat ached with the need to talk to someone and Winnie was the best friend he had now.

The house made some eerie creaking noises beneath his feet. He stood at Winnie’s door and held onto the frame on either side, steadying himself. He was afraid that if he knocked, the door might swing open and she would be frightened and yell. So he knocked on the frame. The wood was dense and the sound of knocking was hard to hear, even to Marcus’s own ears. Three tough knocks, indistinguishable from the house’s other settling noises. Marcus was terrified that Garrett or Beth would come out into the hallway. He figured Garrett had stayed up late many nights trying to catch Marcus in this very act: going after his sister. And then Marcus remembered the horrible scene from Native Son where Bigger Thomas goes in to the rich white girl’s room-she asks him to-and he’s so afraid of getting caught that he kills her. Marcus shook his head. When they’d read the book in Ms. Marchese’s English class, Marcus never imagined he’d be involved with a white girl. But here he was, scaring himself. He would go back to bed.

Right then the door opened and Marcus saw a very narrow slice of Winnie. One eye, a sliver of gray sweatshirt, one toenail painted pink.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” Marcus whispered. Already, he felt like a fool. He hadn’t considered what he would say if Winnie actually answered the door, and now that she had, he sounded like a Jehovah’s Witness. “Do you mind if we talk?”

She opened the door a little wider. He could see most of her mouth. “You want to come in?”

He noticed she was wearing only the sweatshirt and some underwear. He looked beyond her to her rumpled bed. He was making a huge mistake. He should wait and talk to her in the morning, on the beach. But he couldn’t make himself move away. He was sucked into Winnie’s gravitational pull.

Winnie took his hand. She had prayed to God every night since they got here that this would happen, and now she was so elated she practically pushed Marcus into her bed. She’d made out with Charlie Hess in the humid, chlorine-smelling corridors outside the pool, but that was the extent of her sex life. She was ready for more.

Kissing her, really kissing her, lying down on the bed, Marcus almost cried. Winnie fit in his arms perfectly, like a child would have. She was so small, so slender. He wanted to go slowly. He wanted to kiss her until sleep carried them both off. But Winnie was going crazy. Her hands were all over him, and she was warm. He was overwhelmed by having her so close, and he willed his body to relax. He had a sense that sex would change things, possibly even ruin them, and yet he was so turned on, he was rigid, pulsing, and utterly confused. He should have stayed in his own bed, in his own room! He pulled away from her and tried to get his bearings-they were falling off the bed. Talk-ing-what was the right posture for talking? He sat against the headboard and gathered the covers into his lap to hide himself from her.

Winnie sat up next to him. She knew she’d gotten him worked up and it made her proud. “So,” she said, teasing him. “What do you want to talk about?”

He tasted different words: “my mother,” “Mama,” “Constance.” But he couldn’t bring himself to speak. There were so many things he wanted to tell her. About the sweatshirt for starters- how his own teammates had left him without a stitch of clothing and how Arch had come all the way to Queens with the sweatshirt, and how that afternoon proved to Marcus that Arch was one person in the world that he could trust. Everyone else had abandoned him-his friends, his teachers, his cowardly father. His mother. Marcus also wanted to explain to Winnie how dealing with all that made him stronger. How he knew he could have won every race of the swim season, but he held himself to second each time, so that Marcus’s swim coach seemed to forget that Marcus was the murderer’s son and presented him with the most consistent swimmer trophy at the end-of-the-season banquet. He wanted to tell Winnie about how he was going to write a book and with the money, put himself through college. Marcus was afraid that just saying the words, “book deal,” would sound like bragging and quite possibly the magic attached to those words would vanish.

Marcus felt badly because he came here with noble inten-tions-of talking-but now he found his body in stiff revolt. His body wanted to be kissing Winnie and rubbing her right up against him.

“I like you,” he said, finally. Because this seemed like a truth that had to be acknowledged.

“I like you, too,” she said, snaking a hand under the covers.

He banged his head lightly against the wooden headboard of her bed and moved her hand away. He remembered when Arch invited him to Nantucket. It was only a few days before his trip to Albany, it was early March-cold, wet, and miserable. Arch called Marcus at home, ostensibly to see how Marcus had fared in the All-Queens Invitational (second place) but really just to check in, take Marcus’s temperature, as it were.

Only ten days before the trial. How are you hanging in?

My life sucks, Marcus said. I can’t wait for this thing to be over.

Arch was quiet for a minute, then he cleared his throat and said, What are your plans for this summer?

This summer?

You like to swim, right? Do you like the beach?

Yeah, Marcus said. I guess so, yeah.

How about you join my family and me on Nantucket this summer? We stay in a funky old summer cottage that my wife inherited. It’s right on the ocean.

I don’t know, Marcus said. At the time, it seemed like Arch was offering too much and Marcus had the sinking feeling that Arch knew something Marcus didn’t. Like they were going to lose the trial and Constance was going to die.

I want you to consider it, Arch said. Seriously. It would be good for you to get away. It would be good for my family, too.

Marcus had doubted that, even at the time. The Newtons needed him around like they needed bugs in their beds.