Elin Hilderbrand - Summer People

“Marcus?” LaTisha said, her voice interested, if not apologetic. “Is this Marcus?”

“Yes.”

“How are you?” LaTisha asked. “How’s Nantucket? Is it incredible? Dad says you never describe it.”

Marcus looked out at the darkened street. The shops were lit up and people strolled by eating ice cream cones. A Lincoln Navigator rumbled down the cobblestones and stopped in front of Twenty-one Federal. Two women climbed out wearing brightly colored sundresses, followed by a man wearing a navy blazer over what Marcus guessed was a Paul Stuart shirt. The man escorted both women up the steps of the restaurant while the driver of the Navigator-whom Marcus could only identify as a madras-clad elbow-called out, “Order my drink while I park this beast! Mount Gay and tonic!” How to describe such a place to his father or LaTisha? All Marcus could think was that this was the life Constance had visualized for herself-a life of glamour and privilege and ease.

“It’s fine,” he said.

“Fine?” LaTisha repeated. “That doesn’t help me any. What’s the beach like? And the house. Is it really, really huge? Is it a mansion?”

“It’s not a mansion,” Marcus said. “It’s just a house.”

“On the beach, right?”

“On a bluff overlooking the beach.”

“A bluff ? That sounds cool. And the family-is the family okay, or are they, you know, snotty?”

“Snotty” was the wrong word, though Marcus understood why it was the word that came to LaTisha’s mind. Because that was what Marcus had feared, too, before he got here-that the New-tons would be snotty, snobby, that they would look down on him. That was the reason for buying the props-the shirt, the deck shoes, the leather bag. He had thought, before he spent any time with these people, that it would be about money. But it was ten times as complicated as that. The Newtons were just so very sad-as sad as Marcus was-and they kept getting sadder. Marcus cleared his throat and shook his head. He didn’t want to start feeling sorry for them now.

“The family is fine,” Marcus said. A blatant lie. “Listen, is Dad there?”

“It’s Tuesday,” LaTisha said. “He’s at support group until nine-thirty.”

“Oh,” Marcus said. He’d forgotten about the support group. The details of his life in Queens had all but vanished from his mind. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” LaTisha said. “Watching TV with Ernestine.”

Ernestine was a girl with learning disabilities from down the hall who had remained LaTisha’s steadfast friend through everything. Marcus suspected Ernestine lacked a full understanding of what had happened with their mother, but he was glad LaTisha had her for company, even if all they ever did together was watch TV.

“The house here doesn’t have a TV,” Marcus said.

“What?” LaTisha said. “You’re kidding, right? They don’t have TV? God, Marcus, what do you do all day? And at night?”

“I swim during the day, and you know, sit on the beach. I read. Listen to music. Hang out…” He almost said, Hang out with Winnie , but he caught himself. “I relax.”

Suddenly, LaTisha’s voice grew suspicious. “You’re calling Dad because you want to come home, right? Geez, Marcus, I don’t blame you. You must be bored to death. Well, I’ll be happy if you come home. I miss you. This place sucks when you’re not here. Pop is practically never home and I have this ridiculous curfew. Eight o’clock. It’s not even dark at eight o’clock. And if he’s not here he has Mrs. Demetrios check on me. I’m almost thirteen, for God’s sake!” She paused to catch her breath and Marcus pictured her young face and her skimpy braids. When Constance first went to jail, LaTisha cried all the time because Mama wasn’t there to do her hair. “I thought I might make a little money this summer, but nobody calls me to baby-sit anymore. They probably think… well, who knows what they think.”

“They probably think you’re going to kill their children,” Marcus said.

“Yeah,” LaTisha said, as though this were something she had realized and accepted long ago. “Anyway, things would be better if you came home.”

“I’m not coming home,” Marcus said. As bad as shit was, at least he wasn’t frying on the griddle of hot city blocks, or worse, trapped inside, supervising his sister, watching reruns of Three’s Company and begging the air conditioner to do a better job. He felt sad about this- home should be a place you wanted to run to no matter what. It should be a refuge. “I just wanted to check in is all.”

“Well, as much as I told you I was glad to get rid of your ass this summer, I’m really not. It feels like everyone is dropping out of this family.”

“I’m not dropping out,” Marcus said.

“I know,” LaTisha said. “It just feels that way.”

“You should… read more,” Marcus said. “Go to the library.”

“Library?” LaTisha said. “Now you sound like Mama.” Before Marcus could assert his obvious difference from their mother, LaTisha added, “I’ll tell Pop you called. You’ll call back-when?”

“Soon,” Marcus promised. “I’ll talk to you later, sis. Okay? Tell Ernestine I said hello.”

He hung up the phone then looked out at the charming Nan-tucket street. He was a person who belonged nowhere.

A few days later, there was a knock on Marcus’s bedroom door. Marcus had his legal pad out and was jotting down notes, if not actual sentences. It hardly mattered to Marcus-he was so relieved to have words on the page, even if those words had no more meaning than entries in a dictionary: “Princeton University,” “smack,” “petty theft,” “child prostitution,” “anger,” “social services,” “intent to kill???” Now that the ball was rolling, or if not rolling than at least moving, of course there would be an interruption. Marcus tucked the legal pad under his white pillows and grumbled, “Come in.”

It was Beth, a fact that both relieved and disappointed him. She looked awful-thin and desiccated like a plant that needed watering. She gave him a smile, though, and held out an envelope. Marcus’s first thought was, Another telegram. Leave me alone, man.

“From Constance,” she said.

Even worse! A fourth letter from Mama.

“Okay,” he said. “Thanks.” He took the envelope from Beth and dropped it on the bed in front of him as though he planned to read it once Beth left. Beth, however, remained in the doorway smiling at him. Then her friendly smile turned into a worried smile and she said, “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

This was the last thing he wanted, though he was surprised it had taken her so long to confront him. Garrett and Winnie had joined forces and so it only made sense that Beth and Marcus would do the same. Except neither of them wanted to. Marcus was used to being cast out on his own-that, after all, was what he’d expected from the summer: the twins wrapped up in their own exclusive cocoon, Beth lost hopelessly in the outer space of her grief. As for Beth, well, she believed she understood her kids well enough to know that whatever was bugging them would pass. But now their bizarre aloofness had lasted more than a week and showed no signs of abating. She needed help.

Beth closed the door to Marcus’s bedroom and sat on his bed. The letter from Constance lay between them, a boundary.

“I was just wondering,” she said, “if maybe you knew what was going on. In this house, I mean. With the kids. Winnie and Garrett. Their behavior. This isn’t like them.”