Page 37 of Songs of Summer

Inside the market, she ordered comfort food in the form of bacon, egg, and cheese on a roll with ketchup from the deli counter, as she had been doing since she was barely tall enough to see over it. No matter how many of these she ate in Ohio, they never tasted as good as the ones from Bayview. Bea was unsure why this should be, but it was a fact confirmed by numerous BEC enthusiasts. It was the same with their turkey sandwiches. She threw Shep’s requests in the basket of her bike and headed to the ferry dock to savor each bite of her breakfast in peace. She had been doing this too—leaving room for a BEC detour—since she was old enough to be sent to the ferry on her own to fetch visitors, which had probably been by the time she’d reached the ripe old age of eight. Sitting at the dock’s far end, she swung her legs like a pendulum over the bay.

The simplicity and familiarity of life on Fire Island, along with the closeness she felt to her mother’s spirit when she was there, usually rendered Bea recharged and rejuvenated. On this visit, however, everything seemed overshadowed by the presence of Veronica. At this rate she would need a vacation from her vacation.

The worst thing about being around her sister wasn’t the reminder of what happened with the lifeguard all those years ago and the domino effect it had had on the trajectory of her life. And it wasn’t the series of altercations that followed, widening the crack in her relationship with her sister until it was the size of the Grand Canyon. The worst thing was the uncontrollable jealousy that resurfaced whenever Bea saw V.

For many years, the love Bea had for the fair-skinned redheaded little girl who followed her around like a puppy her whole childhood went a long way to overriding any envy she experienced as Veronica blossomed into the stunner that she was. At first, she took the attention given to Veronica almost as a mother would, with pride. Strangers would stop them and comment on her sister’s beauty:Look at that gorgeous red hair—those colt-like legs! Did you ever think of modeling?they would ask, with no regard for her older and shorter sister with her humdrum brown curls. It was when the boys her age started noticing Veronica, the same boys who never noticed Bea, that the green-eyed monster first showed its ugly head. As adults, when logically Bea knew she should be able to put the lifeguard incident behind her, the mere fact that V had two beautiful children while she never even got to meet her daughter defied any and all logic. She hoped her envy would dissipate in time, but it always seemed to be lying in wait, just below the surface.

It embarrassed Beatrix immensely to feel jealous of her own sister, and it embarrassed her more to admit it was the first emotion she felt when she saw her. Not talking to her for all these years was about controlling that ugly emotion more than it was about the lifeguard episode and the years of collective lacerations that followed.

Now, as an adult, Bea realized she really couldn’t totally blame the inciting incident on Veronica. For starters, Bea should have insisted that the lifeguard use a condom. She had caved after mentioning it once and fallen for his line about pulling out, which, aside from the obvious risk, was a horrible way to have sex, she thought now.

The ferry boat came into view in the distance and Bea’s heart skipped a beat. The boat was still at the point where she didn’t know if it would veer right, stopping in Ocean View first, or left toward Bay Harbor, and her marriage was still at the point when every second away from Paul felt arduous. It turned left!

She pushed all the bad thoughts from her head and pictured Paul waving to her from the upper deck and seeing the island for the very first time. She’d never picked up a guy of her own from the boat. She’d picked up guys, of course—friends, cousins, friends of cousins, but neverherguy. It was funny to think that way at her age; it seemed more like something a teenage girl would feel. But Bea adored her husband and lit up at the sight of him with his fit build, shoulder-length hair, youthful smile, and metal-rimmed glasses. He didn’t look like any math teacher she had ever known.

Everything would be better once Paul arrived. She was eager to show him around and knew that no matter what happened during the day, they would end up lying next to each other at night.

The boat angled toward Bay Harbor, and Bea stood at the end of the dock, waving her hands over her head in excitement. When it got close, she scanned the upper deck for Paul and saw that a matching smile lit up his face. On his arrival,she held on a little too tight, nuzzling her head into his neck and holding back tears.

“You missed me so much? It’s been like a day,” he laughed.

“A day that felt like a week,” she admitted. She wondered how much of what had transpired wouldn’t have happened if he had been with her.

She threw his backpack in her basket and walked her bike next to him—slowly. She was in no rush to get back to the house.

“This is exactly how I imagined it,” Paul remarked. “How’s your dad?”

“He’s fine. The whole thing was either a false alarm or total BS. Most likely total BS.”

“You really think he faked a heart attack to guilt you and your sister into behaving?”

“Absolutely. He would probably have an actual heart attack if it would get us to connect again. Last night he played old movies, and I went to sleep thinking about how much I had adored Veronica when she was little. How I would pretend she was my baby when she was an infant and how, as soon as she learned to walk, she would toddle around behind me everywhere I went.”

“That’s good. It’s good to think of her that way. And maybe she’s changed, you know. People do.”

“She hasn’t changed. As I was leaving to pick you up, she asked me to bring her back an iced coffee.”

Paul looked baffled. “Is there more to this story—something a bit more egregious?”

“You don’t ask someone to pick up an iced coffee here, especially when they are picking up their husband from theboat for the very first time. An iced tea in a bottle, fine. To get an iced coffee, you must go through the whole effort to make it yourself, and then ride home with one hand on your handlebars and the other precariously balancing it. It’s a huge imposition. She was testing me. I know it. Trying to see if she had gotten me back to that place where I would drop anything for her.”

“Or maybe just jonesing for an iced coffee.”

“You don’t get it. It’s fine.”

“I don’t. I’m sorry. And I don’t get why you let her get to you so much. You have a whole different energy just being on the same coast as her.”

“I know. I hate it.”

“So cut it out. Think of the good times with her. Tell her you have moved on, that you forgive her. Whatever it takes, and not just for Shep, for you.”

She was perceptive enough to see his point of view, that none of it was serving her anymore.

“OK. You’re right. I’m going to do it, right away.” She took a deep cleansing breath. “I’m done letting her get to me.”

She gave him the fifty-cent tour until they reached her block.

“Here we are!” She spun around at the cross section of her street and presented the four corners to Paul like a stewardess pointing to all available exits.

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