Page 44 of Bad Summer People
He’d spent the next hour going up and down each walk, with no plan other than to find Jason, and then… he didn’t know. The town was deserted; everyone was taking refuge from the violent storm. Sam could barely see a few feet in front of him, and time was passing oddly. He felt nearly delirious. Were the trees lining the boardwalks closing in on him? He missed his kids. He missed Jen. He hated Jen.
He was near the playground by that point, across from the field, and he walked up to the porch of the camp art shack, the one in which his children made papier-mâché fish and wove friendship bracelets. The lights were off, and the sliding doors were locked, but the roof provided some cover. He took his phone out of his shorts’ pocket, surprised it hadn’t been completely waterlogged. He had twenty-seven text messages, mostly from Jen, asking where he was, telling him it wasn’t true.Not this time, Jen.He couldn’t be fooled forever. A few of the messages were from Rachel, desperate pleas for him to come to meet her in Kismet. Why was she in Kismet? Lauren had even texted him asking him to “fucking kill” Jason if he saw him. There was also a voice mail from a New York City number. He put the phone as close to his ear as possible and played it, struggling to hear the message over the wind and rain.
“Sam, hi. It’s Mary”—Mary Martin, his firm’s head of HR.
Sam’s stomach tightened. It was the call he’d been waiting all summer for.
“I’ve got some news for you.”
Sam paused the message and pressed the phone harder into his ear. Lightning flashed and thunder followed. He unpaused it.
“The committee has wrapped up its investigation. You’ll be happy to know, we found no wrongdoing on your part. This might come as a surprise, but after months of digging, we found a pattern of covered-up abuse coming from the top—Henry Boro, in fact, had been harassing young associates and then pressuring them to make false accusations against others. Lydia will remain at the firm, but won’t be in your department.We’re going to be very tight-lipped about this—say Henry’s retiring, dole out settlements where need be. We’re sorry for how long this has taken to clear up and the impact it’s had on you and your family, but we’re happy to welcome you back to Sullivan & Cromwell immediately. Please call me tomorrow to discuss, but I wanted to let you know as soon as I’d heard. Have a good night, Sam.”
Sam played it again to make sure he’d heard it right. He leaned against the side of the shack and slid down the wood, not remembering the knife, which nicked his thigh as he did. “Ow! Fuck!” he shouted to no one, taking the Shun out and holding it in both of his water-wrinkled hands. Henry Boro! Was everyone in his life—his best friend, his wife, his boss—a lying asshole? He was starting to think that no one was who they said they were. Lightning sizzled, and thunder banged down from the sky. In the millisecond of illumination, Sam saw a shadow move from underneath the playground slide. He burrowed down where he was, lowering his body to the porch, staying flat and still. He saw Jason emerge from under the slide, a six-foot-tall wet rat. Jason looked left and right, checking to see if Sam was lurking, and then headed up Neptune toward his house. Ten seconds after he passed, Sam slithered up, still clutching the knife, and set off behind him.
Lauren Parker and Jen Weinstein
Lauren Parker and Jen Weinstein had never been close. It was a relationship forged by proximity, like friends from a freshman-year dorm. They could have a nice chat at a dinner or a party or even tolerate each other on a weeklong vacation with their families—they’d gone skiing together with the kids in Snowmass, rented a big home in Maine before they all got married, and spent long weekends in upstate New York in luxurious converted barns during endless frigid winters. But it was all surface level. How are the kids doing, how are your in-laws, how much tennis are you playing / Pilates are you getting in? They just didn’t click. Sometimes women don’t, much to men’s confusion. But something this summer had shifted between Lauren and Jen, starting with their unlikely success on the tennis courts.
It was horrible out; the wind was howling, the rain was incessant, and the boardwalk was barely visible. Lauren and Jen were walking up Broadway, alone in the Salcombe darkness, searching for their husbands. The kids were all together at Jen and Sam’s house, watching a movie and eating microwave popcorn, unaware that their parents’ marriages were both on the verge of imploding.
An hour ago, it became clear that Sam and Jason were missing, neither answering the panicked texts their wives were shooting off into the night. So, Silvia had bundled Lauren’s kids in rain gear, and she and Lauren carried Amelie the entire way down to the bay, switching off, with Arlo holding the flashlight up front as they walked through the storm. Was Lauren’s marriage over? Would she now be a single mom? She wasn’t sure she could take the faux concern from her city friends; Mimi and company pointedly asking, “Howareyou?” while they gossiped behind her back. She’d get the apartment, surely. But what about Fire Island? At least she’d have all the leverage. Robert was still a secret, and she’d make sure to keep it that way.
When they arrived, Jen was ready to go, wearing an oversize yellow raincoat adorned by the Salcombe Yacht Club logo, her big hazel eyes peeking out from under the hood. Lauren nearly laughed when she saw her. Jen grabbed another flashlight from the vintage jelly cabinet in her kitchen. As she passed her center island, she paused in front of her knife set. The Shun Premier was missing. She opened her utensil drawer—maybe Luana had put it there by mistake? But it was gone.
“Lauren, I think Sam has a knife.”
Lauren stared at her. “What the hell does he think he’s going to do with that?” she said.
Jen shrugged. “I don’t know. We have to find these idiots.”
They didn’t say much as they left Jen’s house, heading east on Bay Promenade. The water was swirling with whitecaps, and there were no boats on the horizon. The only light was the constant spin of the lighthouse beam, flashing on cue every few seconds.
Jen truly felt terrible. She’d always thought of her affairs ashers,private matters meant to sate her own needs. She should have known betterthan to get involved with Jason. It had been a mistake. Though, as a therapist, she knew “mistake” was a misnomer—something subconscious must have been driving her toward self-destruction. What kind of damaged soul sleeps with her husband’s best friend? Now everything had unraveled, and her actions had triggered a cascade of hurt. Jason, Sam, Lauren, possibly all their children.
They turned up Marine Walk, passing the yacht club, which was open but, based on what they could see, empty save Micah Holt, Willa Thomas, and Larry Higgins. No one was out in this.
“Let’s check out the courts,” said Lauren.
They walked over, sweeping the green clay with their flashlights. Everything was still, no sound other than raindrops falling in the puddles lining the baselines. The lights in the yacht club suddenly went out, plunging the night into blackness.
“Must be a power outage,” said Jen, continuing to shine her light this way and that.
It was just this morning they’d won the semifinal against Emily and Rachel. It felt like a year ago. “I still can’t believe we got to the finals,” said Lauren.
“I know,” said Jen. “Quite an upset. I’m not sure if Rachel will ever recover. Or if we ever will.” She laughed darkly.
Lauren went over to Robert’s tennis hut and pulled on the door, but it was locked. She hadn’t heard from him since after the match, when she and Jen had gone racing after Rachel. They’d never found her.
“I saw you come out of there on July 4. Remember?” Jen said pointedly. She walked closer to Lauren. The wind was making it hard to hear.
“I do,” said Lauren. Neither had broached the fact that Jen had been sleeping with Jason, and neither wanted to.
“Let’s walk over to Broadway,” said Lauren at last. They started up Marine and passed Rachel’s house. The porch light was off, and her bike wasn’t outside.
“Where do you think she went?” said Jen. “We weren’t going to hurt her or anything,” she said.
Lauren giggled. “I mean, I’d like to,” she said. “She’s basically ruined all our lives.”
