Page 81 of Summer of '69
Jessie spends her entire tennis lesson smacking the ball like never before. Her forehand is a fireball, her backhand solid and true, and her serve is blistering—or at least that’s how it seems to Jessie because she is justso angry. Garrison has been taking gross liberties with Helen Dunscombe and probably with all his other female tennis students, possibly some who are even younger than Helen and Jessie.
It’s this thought that makes Jessie pocket the ball and approach the net. Suze is on the other side, bent over, both hands on the handle of her racket, in the ready position.
“Oh, come on,” she says. “Don’t stop now. You’re on a roll. This is the strongest play I’ve seen all summer.”
“Suze,” Jessie says. “I have to tell you something.”
Jessie remembers her father’s advice to always think before she speaks. “Before I had you as an instructor, I had Garrison.” She stops to breathe. “During our first lesson, he was showing me a two-handed backhand and he rubbed his body against mine.”
“Rubbed it…suggestively?” Suze says. She puts her hands on her hips. “Are you kidding me?”
“I ran away,” Jessie says. “And I asked my grandmother for another instructor, a girl, and they gave me you.”
“Did youtellyour grandmother what Garrison did?” Suze says. “Did you tellanyone?”
“No,” Jessie says.
“Oh, Jessie,” Suze says. Her voice is suddenly tender. “You could have told me. You know you could have come to me at any time.”
“I’m coming to you now,” Jessie says. The sun is blasting the orange clay court. Jessie is so hot, it feels like she’s standing on the surface of the sun. She needs water and shade. But then she imagines the other girl or girls, some maybe only eleven years old or even as young as ten, maybe a girl who will be twelve or thirteen next summer if Garrison comes back, and so she keeps talking. “He touched Helen Dunscombe too. She was crying in the locker room about it. He touched her breast while he was showing her how to serve. Helen told her mother and her mother said that’s just the way men are.”
“What?” Suze shouts. She stands up to her full height and starts bouncing her palm off the face of her racket. “Well, I mean, she’s not wrong. Menarelike that. But we don’t have to put up with it. Jessie, do you hear me? We donothave to put up with it.”
“What are we going to do?” Jessie says. She suddenly regrets her decision to confide in Suze and she realizes she should never have mentioned Helen Dunscombe by name. “Are you going to tell Ollie Hayward?” Jessie envisions being marched into Ollie’s office or maybe even the office of Mr. Bosley, the general manager of the Field and Oar, or—horrors of all horrors—to the board of governors, old men like Mrs. Winter’s husband. Jessie will have to speak the embarrassing truth and her name will be sullied and Helen Dunscombe’s name will be sullied—and possibly Helen will turn around and deny it ever happened and then Jessie will be left exposed and alone. Any which way, it will be worse for Jessie than it will be for Garrison Howe. “Please. My grandmother, my family…they can’t know about this.”
Suze’s face is shaded by her visor; all Jessie can see clearly in the blinding sun is the white stripe of zinc on Suze’s nose. But Jessie can tell Suze is deep in thought.
“I’m not going to tell Ollie,” Suze says. “He won’t care and even if he does care, he won’t punish Garrison properly. ButIwill punish Garrison properly. I will see to it that Garrison resigns.”
Jessie lets her breath go. Suze understands. Suze is her role model. “How are you going to do that?” Jessie asks.
“I’m going to enlist the help of Jeffrey Pryor, who has pledged his undying devotion to yours truly.” Suze smirks. “He’ll do whatever I ask him to.”
Jessie is fascinated but not at all surprised. Suze is a person who inspires devotion. “Are you going to ask him to beat Garrison up?”
“Better,” Suze says. “Jeffrey works two jobs here. He’s the grill boy at the snack bar”—meaning, Jessie thinks guiltily, that he’s the one she stole the Twizzlers from—“andhe’s in charge of the men’s locker room!” Suze raises her hands above her head in victory.
Jessie is confused. “I don’t get it.”
“Well, let me enlighten you,” Suze says. “I’ll ask Jeffrey to put BenGay in Garrison’s jockstrap, itching powder in his socks, andlaxativesin his Cokes!” Suze grins. “Trust me, Garrison will be gone within a week.”
Jessie imagines Garrison hurrying off the court toward the bathroom mid-lesson, fearing he might have a very embarrassing accident in front of everyone. She wants to hug Suze. She can’t wait to tell Helen Dunscombe!
“All right, get back to the baseline,” Suze says. “You owe me one more volley.”
All Along the Watchtower
As soon as Kirby gets to work on Friday, Mrs. Bennie informs her that Senator Kennedy and his cousin Joe Gargan have checked into their rooms but are out for the evening.
It’s Kirby’s understanding that the senator is hosting a party out on Chappaquiddick for the Boiler Room Girls—the elite group of women who worked on Bobby Kennedy’s 1968 presidential campaign. Patty’s sister Sara was one of the Boiler Room Girls and she has come to the Vineyard to attend the party. That afternoon, when she swung by the Narragansett Avenue house to say hello, she extended an invitation to both PattyandKirby. Sara O’Callahan was nothing like bland Tommy; clearly the females in the family received the superior genes. Sara had dark hair and milky skin like Patty, though Sara’s hair was cut in a pixie just like Mia Farrow’s, which made her blue eyes seem impossibly big and round. She was slender and fashionable in a red A-line dress and hammered-gold earrings. Sara brought along her friend Mary Jo, another one of the Boiler Room Girls who had worked as Bobby Kennedy’s secretary. Mary Jo wore a navy-blue linen sheath and pearls. Kirby looked on both Sara and Mary Jo with awe. They were only five or six years older than her but they seemed worldly and sophisticated; Kirby wanted to be just like them.
She wouldbecomejust like them, she decided. Since ending her relationship with Darren the week before, Kirby had been flailing. Who was she? What did she want from life? She needed to shrug off her heartbreak and disillusionment and start to forge a real identity. She would return to the person she was on the morning of the first protest march, when she pulled on her tie-dyed peace sign T-shirt and zipped up her fringed suede boots. That woman was passionate and self-possessed, carefree and confident. Kirby had been feeling like her love affair with Scottie and then her relationship with Darren diminished her, but now she understood she had that backward. Those two relationships, even in their failure, had given Kirby something—strength, she supposed, and resolve.
When she returned to Simmons in September, she would finally declare a major: political science. She would focus on her studies and apply for an internship, maybe at Tip O’Neill’s office. Or maybe, just maybe, Kirby would encounter Senator Kennedy at the inn and he would take a shine to her and offer her his card. There were rumors that he would make a run for president against Nixon.
Kirby could not, however, attend the party on Chappaquiddick. She had to work at eleven.
“Just come for a little while,” Patty urged. “It’s a barbecue, starting at seven. You could leave right after dinner. I’m sure someone will give you a ride to the ferry, then you can just walk to the inn.” She grabbed Kirby’s hand and Kirby saw dark bruises the size of dimes on Patty’s wrist.
