Page 16 of Summer of '69
“Yes, please,” Jessie says. She’s confused and a little uneasy about what Pick is doing in Little Fair, but her hunger wins out. She sees at least a pound of bacon, crispy and brown, draining on a paper bag. There are two tomatoes and a head of iceberg lettuce on a cutting board, the one that Tiger scorched with a pot long ago.
“Want mayo?” Pick asks.
“Yes, please,” Jessie says. She sits down at one of the seats at the table for three and wonders what her siblings would think if they could see this stranger in the kitchen at Little Fair. Technically, he’s not astranger,Jessie supposes. He’s Mr. Crimmins’s grandson and they have known Mr. Crimmins all their lives. But do Blair, Kirby, and Tiger know that Mr. Crimmins has a grandchild? Pick said he only just met Mr. Crimmins in May. What doesthatmean?
Jessie has questions, but she’s temporarily mesmerized by the sight of Pick creating the sandwiches. He toasts the precious bread until it’s golden brown, spreads it with mayonnaise, layers on the bacon and sliced tomato, then tops it with lettuce that he shreds expertly with the dull chef’s knife that has probably been at Little Fair longer than Jessie has been alive. He puts the sandwiches on plates and gets down two glasses from the cabinet. He knows where everything is in this kitchen. How is that possible? He brings a frosty pitcher of lemonade out of the icebox, delivers both sandwiches and drinks to the table, and then reaches into the narrow closet that serves as a pantry and produces a cylindrical tin of Jays potato chips. Jessie’s mouth drops open. Potato chips are expressly forbidden in both houses. The only time Kate allows Jessie to have potato chips is with her chicken salad sandwich at the club, and even then, if Exalta happens to be present, Jessie has to ask for carrot sticks instead.
An entire tin of potato chips here, at Little Fair!
Pick raises his glass of lemonade to Jessie. “Nice to meet you,” he says.
Jessie stares at him. He has arresting ice-blue eyes, the color of the rarest pieces of sea glass.
“Okay,” she says. They touch glasses and Jessie feels embarrassed. She has never touched glasses with a boy before. She has never eaten a meal alone with any boy except for Tiger.
When she finishes half her sandwich and a large handful of chips—it’s taking all her willpower not to devour the entire canister in a frenzy—she says, “Are youlivinghere?”
“I am,” he says. “And my grandfather is living in the room downstairs.”
Jessie is so shocked by this news that she is temporarily speechless.
Pick snaps his fingers in front of her face. “Earth to Jessie.”
Jessie can’t help herself. She smiles at him. “I’m here,” she says.
June 16, 1969
Dear Tiger,
Thank you for the birthday wishes. I got a record album and two necklaces, but the best present was the letter from you. There was no cake this year because we drove to Nantucket, but after fried shrimp at Susie’s Snack Bar, we walked to the Island Dairy Bar and I got a hot fudge sundae.
There are two things I have to report. One is that Mom and Dad bought a television set and Mom asked Mr. Crimmins to put it in the den at All’s Fair without telling Nonny! (Mr. Crimmins sends his best, by the way, but more about him in a minute.) Mom and Nonny had a fight where they raised their voices and Mom threatened to go back to Brookline. I left the house before the end of the fight, but guess what? The TV stayed. Mom later told me that the way she convinced Nonny to keep it was to tell her that, for the first time ever, Wimbledon is going to be shown on television in the United States, so Nonny will get to see her true love, Rod Laver, play.
Jessie stops to think about the time Kirby called Rod Laver “Red Hot Laver” right to Exalta’s face and how Exalta had thrown her head back and laughed. Tiger had been there to witness it as well, and later they agreed that Kirby could get away with anything. Exalta had always had quite an affinity for Rod “the Rocket” Laver (Kirby had off-color fun with the nickname as well), and it intensified after Gramps died. Her mother had been smart to bring him up in her battle to keep the TV.
The other thing I have to tell you is that Mr. Crimmins will be spending the summer living in Little Fair with his grandson, whose name is Pickford Crimmins but who goes by “Pick.” Pick is sixteen years old and he used to live in California with his mother, whose real name is Lorraine but who goes by “Lavender.” Lavender is Mr. Crimmins’s daughter but she left Nantucket when she found out she was pregnant. Pick says they lived in towns all over California, including, for the past five years, in a commune near a pear orchard. But one morning Lavender decided she wanted to “do some traveling,” so she just up and left without Pick! Someone else at the commune knew how to contact Mr. Crimmins, so he drove out to California in his old truck and brought Pick back to Nantucket. Now Pick has a kitchen job at the North Shore Restaurant. He works on the salad station but he hopes to get promoted to the hot line over the course of the summer. He worked in the kitchen at the commune, which is where he learned to cook. The commune was vegetarian so Pick hadn’t had any meat ever in his life until the ride back from California with Mr. Crimmins when they stopped at McDonald’s. Now Pick loves meat. His favorite is bacon and I told him that was your favorite too.
Jessie pauses and reads through the letter. She wonders if she has talked too much about Pick. Will Tiger be able to tell that she has a crush on Pick? She never understood the termcrushbefore, but now it makes sense because every cell in Jessie’s body feels like it’s being squeezed; her heart is like an orange pressed into the knuckle of the juicer until all of the emotion oozes out.
I start my tennis lessons tomorrow morning. I would say I’m dreading it but I know you are facing a lot worse things than three hours on hot clay smacking balls over a net. I miss you, Tiger. Please stay safe.
Love, Messie
Magic Carpet Ride
Kirby is the last girl to arrive at the house on Narragansett Avenue for the summer, Evan O’Rourke informs her. Evan is Alice O’Rourke’s bachelor nephew, a balding forty-year-old with a paunch who’s wearing white shirtsleeves, brown pants, and brown oxford loafers despite the June heat.
Kirby is still smarting from her interaction with Dr. Frazier. She has been replaying the conversation again and again, trying to interpret Dr. Frazier’s facial expression and tone of voice.Do your parents know about this?
Dr. Frazier had asked Kirby the exact same question the first time they met.
Evan tells Kirby that he lives in the basement apartment of the house and manages things for his aunt Alice, who is almost completely deaf and has cataracts.
Kirby decides it might not be a bad idea to give Evan a glimpse of her charming side. “Well, your aunt certainly is lucky to have you.”
Evan turns scarlet. He follows Kirby up two flights of stairs—which allows him to glimpse more than just Kirby’s charm—and she can see that this job probably affords Evan all the excitement he can handle. By the time they reach the attic room, he’s flushed.
“You’re in luck,” he says. “The girl who was living here didn’t like being on a floor by herself, so she moved down to the room that was supposed to be yours, which is the size of a telephone booth. So now you get this room, which has a double bed. And your own sink.”
