Page 54 of Bad Summer People
27Jen Weinstein
Jen Weinstein couldn’t wait to get back to Scarsdale. She’d had it with Salcombe. With the people, with the drama, with the way Sam had been acting. He needed to calm down. He needed to just let it go. But he’d been in her face, every day and night, acting like a madman—“Wehaveto find out why she was out there,” he kept saying. “This won’t end until we know.” Jen was ready to punch him. The police had ruled the death an accident. No one was asking questions. No one even suspected anything other than the story of a lonely lady who died in a storm. Why was he pressing the issue? He was going to make it worse.
For a week after Susan died, there’d been an uproar; a memorial service held in her honor, a rowdy town meeting with the mayor, Don O’Connell, to discuss the issue of boardwalk safety. Nearly the entire village attended, everyone packed into the village hall on a rainy Thursday afternoon, piling their wet umbrellas in a soggy corner. There were more than 150 people there, everyone shouting over each other, and Mayor O’Connell, a seventy-year-old with a swoop of silver hair, attempting to keep order. “A child coulddie!” Beth Ledbetter kept yelling maniacally.
“We need to lower the boardwalks! We’ve raised them too high!”
“My son found adead woman!” screamed Max Leavitt, who’d come back to the island for the day specifically to attend the meeting. Jen and Sam had gone, for appearances’ sake, and Jen left even more convinced that they were going to get off scot-free.
Now she just wanted to go to the suburbs, get back to her practice,get the kids in school, and forget about this entire summer. What a disaster these past months had been. The only highlight had been tennis—playing it, getting to know Lauren as a partner, making it to the finals of the women’s doubles tournament. Otherwise, the whole thing had been a total bust. When they got home, Sam would go to the office—thank God—and Jen could once again do her own thing.
They were on good terms now, at least. That was one silver lining. Sam had been forced to forgive Jen for Jason and to work with her to move on. He would have eventually, she was sure of it, but this expedited the process. She’d been speaking to him about remorse, honesty, and care, using all her therapy buzzwords to ease him into the idea that he’d just have to get over it. There was no other choice.
She’d have to be very careful going forward. He could never catch her again. No more family friends, dads he knew, former coworkers of his. Jason had been her last mistake.
She heard Sam coming in the side door, walking through the kitchen and up the creaky stairs. She was in the bedroom, reading her Kindle—Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know,an Adam Grant book about how to stay curious that was putting her to sleep. She was in her purple pajama set, with the quilt pulled up over her.
They’d had a long day. Jen had organized the house for their departure—they were leaving the island tomorrow, back to Westchester. She did laundry, stuck clothes in suitcases, threw away food that would go bad (the cleaners would close the house for good next week, but she didn’t want anything to rot in the meantime). The kids had then performed in the Labor Day Extravaganza—they’d sung “Do-Re-Mi” as a trio, changing the words to be about Fire Island.
“Do, a deer, a million deers. Ray, a drop of Salcombe sun…” And on. It was adorable, and the Weinstein Family Singers got a standing ovation.
Usually, the day before Labor Day made her sad, but this year it felt invigorating. No one had come to take them away in the middle of the night. No one thought they were guilty of anything. The Jason thing was out and over. Jen was free.
Sam entered the bedroom. He looked strange. His hair was disheveled,and his eyes were glazed. She put down her Kindle. He’d told her he was going out for a walk. What had he been up to? She watched as he undressed and put on his sweats and a white T-shirt. She didn’t say anything, waiting for him to speak.
“I need you to do something,” he finally said. His voice sounded strained, like he was on the verge of a cold. He sat perched on their cream linen duvet from the White Company.
“Spit it out,” said Jen.
“I need you to ask Robert to get a drink with you tonight. Right now.”
“Excuse me? What are you even talking about?”
“I need to break into his house and look for something. I’m not quite sure what, but I’ll know it when I see it.”
“Uh, I need more info than that,” said Jen. “Stop withholding, please. We’ve spoken about this. You need to be open with me.” Her psychology tricks always worked.
Sam sighed. “I saw Rachel.”
“What?!” Jen leaped out of bed and stood in front of him, hands on her hips.
“I went to ask if she’d heard any gossip about Susan, anything that might point to us.”
“We agreed you wouldn’t see her!”
“Well, we agreed on a lot of things during our marriage, some of which you’ve ignored, as well.”
Jen frowned. “What did she say?”
“She said she was with Robert that night. And that he’d been looking for Susan. Susan was riding to get away fromhim.”
Jen was only mildly surprised. She’d recognized Robert as a kindred spirit—a shape-shifter like she was, able to fit in as need be. But what did he want with Susan?
“Does Rachel know we were there? Did she see what happened?”
“She saw us, but she didn’t see how Susan fell. And I didn’t tell her anything.”
Jen, who’d been so calm a few minutes ago, felt anxiety spike in her chest. If Rachel had seen them, if Robert had, too… well, there was achance this whole thing wasn’t over at all. Rachel was the world’s biggest talker. And Robert was an unpredictable twist.
