Page 28 of Summer of '69
After almost twenty-one years of swimming against the tide—questioning authority, rebelling against the rules, and making poor decisions—Kirby Foley is surprised to find that quiet order and routine are the best parts of her front-desk job at the Shiretown Inn. The inn has twelve rooms, each with an en suite bath, and because of the location in downtown Edgartown, the clientele is upscale, as Mrs. Bennie promised. They have a few honeymooning couples, but most of the guests are Kirby’s parents’ age or older. During Kirby’s first week of work, she finds everyone she comes in contact with polite and delightful.
Her shift quickly develops a rhythm. Between the hours of eleven p.m. and one a.m., the guests return from their evenings out—dinner at the Dunes, bonfires on the beach, a nightcap on the deck at the Navigator. Kirby has been trained by Mrs. Bennie to look for signs of trouble, but all of the guests seem happy and relaxed, maybe a bit tipsy, although not problematically so. Kirby’s favorite are the Eltringhams from New Hope, Pennsylvania. (Kirby simplyadoresthe name New Hope and applies it to her own situation now. After two arrests and the unspeakable situation with Scottie Turbo, for her, living and working on the Vineyard offers just that—new hope.) Mr. Eltringham is a banker in Philadelphia, and Mrs. Eltringham owns a small antiques shop in the village of New Hope. It’s the second marriage for both Mr. and Mrs. Eltringham; Mr. Eltringham has grown-up children by his first wife, and Mrs. Eltringham, in her life before him, was a nurse in the burn unit at St. Vincent’s Hospital in New York City. Kirby is surprised at how much she learned about the Eltringhams with just a few thoughtful questions. On Kirby’s third night of work, the Eltringhams bring her a piece of peach cobbler from the Art Cliff Diner. This gesture is so unexpected and so kind that for a second, Kirby is suspicious. But the cobbler is delicious. Kirby needs to start trusting people again.
The overnight shift isn’t easy, by any means. Right around two a.m., Kirby starts to nod off. By then, she has reviewed the bills for guests checking out in the morning and has tidied the small lobby and made sure that all twelve rooms keys have been claimed. She nearly yearns for some drama—an unclaimed key, for example, or a noise complaint—because then there would be an impetus to stay awake.
Kirby sometimes steps out to the front porch to reinvigorate herself with the fresh night air, and she does that now; she takes in the silent, dark streets of Edgartown and tries not to think about everyone else on the island fast asleep.
Kirby wonders how things are going eleven miles away, on Nantucket. When Kirby called her mother from the house phone to tell her about the job, Kate responded, “Oh, good for you,” and then informed Kirby that Blair was having twins. Kirby had been irritated to have her good news trumped. OfcourseBlair was having twins! Anybody with one good eye could see that Blair was big enough to require her own zip code.
“How’s Jessie?” Kirby asked. Poor Jessie was pretty much raising herself, Kirby suspected, while Kate fretted about Blair and Tiger. Jessie was a sensitive kid, and smart; she liked to read and daydream. Kirby had tried to imbue her younger sister with some of her own passion and ferocity, but it hadn’t taken root. Yet.
“Jessie?” Kate sounded like she didn’t know who Kirby was talking about, and that said it all.
Kirby decides that when she gets her first paycheck—ninety dollars!—she’ll buy Jessie a tie-dyed T-shirt that saysMARTHA’S VINEYARDacross the front, and she’ll mail it to the house on Fair Street and suggest Jessie wear it to the Field and Oar. That will get Exalta’s goat. Kirby should write a handbook calledHow to Horrify Nonny and Get Away with It.She laughs at the dark street, then goes back in, settles down in the armchair in the back office, and turns on the small radio for company. The song playing is Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale.” Kirby loves the song, but it had been playing in Scottie Turbo’s car on the way up to Lake Winnipesaukee. Kirby and Scottie had thrown their heads back and sung at the tops of their lungs.That her face, at first just ghostly, turned a whiter shade of pale.
She turns the radio off.
She wakes up with a start when Mr. Ames, the night watchman, dings the bell on the front desk. Kirby hops to her feet, straightens her skirt, and hurries out to greet him. Mr. Ames is in his mid-sixties; he’s a former policeman from South Boston who retired to the Vineyard with his wife, Susanna. They live in a cottage on East Chop, which is technically a part of Oak Bluffs, though not the Methodist Campground part. During Kirby’s first night on the job, Mr. Ames showed Kirby a snapshot of Susanna, and Kirby was shocked to find that Susanna was black. Kirby had tried not to let any surprise show on her face or in her voice. “She’s beautiful. How did you two meet?”
“In Boston,” he said. “We both rode the Red Line of the T and I would see her every now and again in her nurse’s uniform. One day the train was crowded and I offered her my seat.”
“That’s so romantic!” Kirby said. “Do you have any children?”
“Susanna has a daughter from her first marriage,” Mr. Ames said. “But Denise is grown and has kids of her own now.”
Kirby had wanted to ask if it was difficult being part of an interracial couple or if it was no big deal. Her interest in this topic was pressing. Ever since Darren had picked Kirby up hitchhiking, her mind kept returning to him. She wanted to see him again.
Mr. Ames hands Kirby coffee in a Styrofoam cup. “Thought you might need this,” he says. “I remembered that you take it sweet and light.”
“Thank you,” Kirby says. It’s three o’clock now; she can’t imagine staying awake another four hours. “Everything okay upstairs?” Mr. Ames does three walk-throughs, one at eleven thirty, one at two thirty, and one at five thirty.
“The gentleman in room eight snores like a black bear,” Mr. Ames says. “Though I’m hardly one to talk.” He points a finger at Kirby. “There’s no shame in dozing off. If there’s an emergency, I’ll wake you.”
“Thank you, Mr. Ames,” Kirby says. She takes the coffee to the back office and thinks about how much she enjoys living without shame.
Shame.
There’s a far bigger problem with Kirby dating Darren Frazier than just his being black. It’s his mother. Dr. Frazier knows who Kirby is…maybe. Or maybe all young blond students look the same to her. Kirby should forget about Darren; the last thing she needs is a complicated relationship. Although what appeals to Kirby about Darren is that he seems so easy. He was nice enough to pick her up and drive her all the way to Edgartown; he’s smart enough to go to Harvard; he takes pride in his summer job; he’s confident and self-assured. And he has a gorgeous smile. How divine would it be to bask in that smile all summer long? How lovely to ride shotgun in Darren’s Corvair and go pick up lobsters from Larsen’s and eat them in the blue fairy-tale house?
Kirby sighs. Divine, lovely, but just a dream. He was nice to her because she’s friends with Rajani. Possibly, he’s interested in Rajani. This thought bothers Kirby more than it probably should.
She tries again with the radio and gets Peter, Paul, and Mary.The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind.She closes her eyes.
Kirby wakes with the sun at quarter after five and snaps into action. She goes through the bills one more time and hurries to the restroom to freshen up. She sets up the coffee percolator and arranges powdered doughnuts from a box on a plate for the guests. At precisely six o’clock, a guest named Bobby Hogue from room 3 appears in a pair of shorts and tennis shoes. Bobby Hogue is missing his left hand. It was blown off by a grenade during a search-and-destroy mission in Quang Nam during his second tour with the Marines. Once a Marine, always a Marine, Bobby Hogue says, so he still gets up early every day and goes for a five-mile run.
“Good morning, Mr. Hogue,” Kirby says.
“Good morning, Kirby,” Bobby Hogue says.
The newspapers land with a thud on the front porch, and Kirby rushes out from behind the desk to get them, but Bobby Hogue picks the bundle up with his right hand and sets them on the pedestal table in the middle of the lobby. Kirby feels a rush of admiration, then sneaks a glimpse at the rounded stump where his hand used to be.
“I’m not going to read the news today,” Bobby Hogue says. He gives her a kind smile; Kirby has told him that her brother is stationed in the Central Highlands. “And you shouldn’t either.”
“Deal,” Kirby says. She’s only too willing to play along, to pretend that the rest of the world is as serene as Edgartown, Massachusetts, at six o’clock on a summer morning.
Bobby Hogue waves to her with his stump, then runs down the porch stairs.
On her first day off, Kirby decides she’ll try Inkwell Beach. She has considered it every day since Darren extended the invitation but she’s exercised uncharacteristic restraint. She thinks about her first, heady days with Scottie Turbo, how eager she was to climb into his convertible and drive up to Lake Winnipesaukee. She had been a fool once, but she wouldn’t be again.
