Elin Hilderbrand - Barefoot - A Novel

“Beer?” Ted said.

“I’l get it,” Buzz Lyndon said. He handed Josh a Stel a.

“Thanks,” Josh said. He took a long, cold swal ow.

“Not your usual duds,” Ted noted.

“No,” Josh said. He was wearing the bare bones of his gray suit—the gray pants, the white dress shirt (unbuttoned at the neck, cuffs rol ed up), and his dress shoes with black socks. He had walked with Melanie and Porter to the beach in this unlikely outfit, and whereas he felt overdressed, the suit made him feel older, like an actual grown-up. “I had a funeral.”

“Who?” Ted said.

“Friend of mine from high school,” Josh said. “A girl. My ex-girlfriend, actual y. Didi, her name was. She worked at the hospital.”

Ted stared at him. “Blond girl?”

“Yeah.”

“I met her,” Ted said. “Briefly. When we were there for Vicki last week. That’s terrible. God, I’m sorry.”

John Walsh raised his beer bottle. “Sorry for your loss, mate.”

“Oh,” Josh said. “Thanks. She had . . . a lot of problems.”

“That’s too bad,” Buzz Lyndon said. “Young girl like that.”

“Was she sick?” Ted asked. “She didn’t look sick.”

“No, not sick. She overdosed. It was a combination of pil s and alcohol.” Already he had said more about Didi than he wanted to. He had hoped to leave behind the sadness of the funeral and the discomfort he felt around his high school friends, but that was proving to be impossible. Al summer, he’d tried to keep his job at Number Eleven Shel Street separate from his life at home, but he saw now it was pointless. The island was so smal that everyone intersected. Thinking back, Josh realized he wouldn’t even be working here if he hadn’t shown up at the hospital that day to lend Didi the two hundred dol ars. So in a way it was like Didi led him here. “It was an accident,” Josh added. “Her death was accidental.”

“When I think back on the stuff I tried as a kid . . . ,” John Walsh said. “It’s a bloody miracle I didn’t accidental y off myself.”

Ted swil ed his beer, nodding in agreement. Buzz Lyndon cleared his throat and settled in a deck chair. Everyone was quiet. The silence was similar to the silence Tom Flynn liked to immerse himself in; it was this silence that Josh had always found intimidating. But now, he savored it. Four men could drink beer on a deck and not say a word and not find it awkward. Women would talk, say whatever came next to their minds. Men could keep what was on their minds to themselves. And what was on Josh’s mind was . . . Melanie.

The anticipation of seeing her that afternoon had nearly strangled him; he felt like a half-crazed animal pul ing on its chain. As soon as Josh set eyes on her (a little rounder in the mid-section, a little tanner, a little more luminous), as soon as they were pushing Porter in the baby jogger down Shel Street, he fil ed with quiet elation. She asked about the suit, and he told her about Didi. Talking to Melanie was as therapeutic as crying. A sudden, unexpected death, the death of someone young, the death of someone Josh hadn’t always treated nicely, a death that caused him to fil with guilt and regret—Melanie got it; she understood. Josh and Melanie became so engrossed in talking about Didi that they managed, for a while, to forget about themselves. But then, when talk of Didi was exhausted, Josh felt he had to address the issue of their relationship.

“I hadn’t planned on coming back here,” he said.

“I didn’t expect to see you,” Melanie said. “I thought you were gone.”

“Wel ,” Josh said.

“Wel what?”

“I wanted to see you.”

Melanie smiled at the ground. They had made it al the way to the beach and were on their way back to Number Eleven. In the strol er, Porter was fast asleep. They could have turned right, back onto Shel Street, but Josh suggested they continue straight.

“Past the ’Sconset Chapel?” Melanie said.

“Yes.”

They walked for a while without speaking. Then Josh said, “You’re going back to Peter?”

Melanie pressed her lips together and nodded. “He’s my husband. That counts for something. The vows count for something.”

“Even though he broke them?” Josh said.

“Even though he broke them,” Melanie said. “I realize that must be hard for you to hear.”

“It’s hard for me to think of you getting hurt again,” Josh said.

“He won’t . . . wel , he said he wouldn’t . . .”

“If he does,” Josh said, “I’l kil him.”

Melanie leaned her head against Josh’s shoulder. The church was in front of them; there were white ribbons fluttering on the handrails of the three stone steps that led to the front door. The vestiges of someone’s wedding. “Finding you was the best thing that could have happened to me,” she said.

It was another line that rendered Josh speechless. As he stood now on the back deck drinking his beer, he thought: Yes . It had been the best thing for both of them, as unlikely as that might seem to outside eyes.

Josh was startled when the back door opened and Vicki poked her head out to say, “Josh? D——inner? You’l . . .” She nodded at the picnic table.

“Sure,” he said. “I’d love to.”

At dinner, Josh sat between Melanie and Vicki. Melanie kept a hand on Josh’s leg while Vicki loaded his plate with food. Talk was light: Josh heard al about the fishing trip, the bluefish, the bonito. Then Buzz Lyndon told some fishing stories from his youth, then John Walsh told fishing stories from Australia, which quickly turned into stories about sharks and saltwater crocodiles and deadly box jel yfish. Josh had consumed no smal amount of wine—Ted, at the head of the table, kept leaning forward and fil ing Josh’s glass—and the wine, along with the candlelight and the pure lawlessness of Melanie’s hand on his leg, gave the evening a surreal glow. Over the course of the summer he had made a place for himself at this table—but how? He thought back to the first afternoon he set eyes on them: Three women step off of a plane.

Brenda sat in the crook of Walsh’s arm with a contented smile on her face. Scowling Sister. Except now she seemed happy and at peace. Vicki

—Heavy-breathing Sister—seemed melancholy and very quiet, though now Josh understood why. The summer had left Vicki physical y transformed (her blond hair was gone, and she was leaner by at least twenty pounds), but she stil retained what Josh thought of as her “mom-ness,” that quality that brought everybody together and made sure every detail of the day was tended to. She was the glue that held everyone here together. If they lost her, they would break apart, splinter off. Fal to pieces. That was the cause of her melancholy, perhaps: She understood how important she was to other people and she couldn’t stand to let them down.

Final y, next to him, touching him, was Straw Hat. Melanie. He liked to think he had saved Melanie, but it was probably the other way around.

Melanie had taught Josh things he never even knew he wanted to learn. She would go back to Peter—that fact was as real and hard and smooth as a marble that rol ed around in Josh’s mind—and Josh would be heartbroken. He was on his way to heartbreak now, sitting here on this last night, but that heartbreak—along with everything else that had happened today—made him feel older and more seasoned. He had his story; nobody could take that away. Chas Gorda would be proud.

After dinner, there was pie, ice cream, the last of the wine, and smal er glasses of port passed around for the men. Buzz Lyndon produced cigars.

Ted accepted one, though Josh declined and so did Walsh. Brenda said, “Daddy, cigars stink.”

“Keeps the bugs away,” Buzz Lyndon said.