Page 30 of Summer of '69
“Darren invited me,” Kirby says. “He didn’t seem to think it was a big deal and he knows what color I am. ‘The times, they are a-changin’.’”
“Not that much,” Patty says with a wistful smile. “You’ll see.”
Kirby marches off to Inkwell on her own, her head held high. She entertains some ungenerous thoughts about Patty—Patty must have loose morals if she let a boy she doesn’t evenknowget to second base, and clearly, she has zero willpower. She says she wants to lose twenty-five pounds, but the second she wakes up, she reaches for a Payday bar. She must keep a stash of them in her nightstand. And what kind of boy says he likes long hair that he canpull?Some kind ofmaniac?Kirby doesn’t want to think badly of Patty; right up until that conversation, shelikedPatty. It’s possible Patty doesn’t know any Negroes or people of color personally. Kirby decides she’ll introduce Patty to both Rajani and Darren. Her goal this summer is to turn Patty into a progressive.
Kirby walks onto Inkwell Beach as though it’s the most natural thing in the world, and in some ways, it is. Summer for Kirby has always meant sun and sand. Her mother brought her to Steps Beach on Nantucket when she was a baby, and they returned to Steps each summer until their father died. After that, Kate replaced their babysitter Lorraine (who ran off) with a babysitter named Ivy (nicknamed “Poison Ivy” by Blair), who started taking them to Cisco Beach, where the big waves were. Blair had been afraid to swim, but not Kirby or Tiger, and to this day, Kirby feels the most alive when she’s jumping waves and then drying off in the sun. When she was little, she was famous for not even bothering with a towel. She would just lie right down in the sand, and when she stood up, she was breaded like a fish stick.
Inkwell Beach is on the sound, so the water is calmer than Kirby likes, though it’s hard to argue with the view; the water looks like a blue satin sheet. It’s not so different from Steps Beach on Nantucket. There’s a group of women who have arranged their chairs in a semicircle to facilitate conversation; some of the women wear hats, and others raise their faces to the sun. At the shore, little kids dig for China, and girls with plastic buckets collect shells. Teenagers are up to their waists in the water, splashing one another; beyond them, an older gentleman swims a slow but steady freestyle. There are two guys around Kirby’s age lying on towels; one is asleep on his stomach, one is readingSlaughterhouse Five,his face inscrutable behind his sunglasses.
Everyone is black. Everyone.
Well, right—what did Kirby expect? She expected everyone to be black but what she didn’t anticipate was how this would make her feel. She doesn’t feel threatened, certainly, or intimidated. She feelsconspicuous,as though everyone notices her, and what people are thinking isn’t that she’s thin or fat or pretty or ugly—no, those things don’t matter. What matters is that she’s white.
She walks past the semicircle of women and their conversation drops off for a second, then starts up again in hushed tones. Kirby thinks she hears her name, but obviously that isn’t possible. She moves closer to the water, past the little kids digging. They look up at her but appear unfazed, which heartens her somewhat. Children are color-blind.
The young man reading Vonnegut glances up and shakes his head at her, as if he’s warning her to go away. He’s as bad as Patty! Surely he understands that Kirby has as much of a right to be here as anyone else.
Patty’s words echo:We don’t belong.
Kirby hears a whistle and turns to see Darren, who’s perched on the white latticed lifeguard stand. He’s waving at…her?She checks the water behind her—there’s no one—and then walks through the sand in her bare feet, her huarache sandals dangling from two fingers as though she doesn’t have a care in the world.
“Hey,” she says. She feels like Darren just threw her the life preserver that’s hanging from the side of the stand.
“You came!” he says. “I can’t believe it.”
“Of course,” Kirby says, shrugging. “Today is my first day off and it’s an easy walk from the house.”
“Great,” Darren says, and she tries to read his face and his tone to see if he really does think it’s great. “Welcome to Inkwell Beach. This is where I grew up.”
“It’s pretty,” Kirby says truthfully.
Darren’s gaze floats over Kirby’s shoulder, and his smile tightens. Kirby turns to see one of the women from the semicircle standing up with her hands on her hips. It’s a woman wearing a floppy hat.
“My mother,” Darren says, and Kirby’s spirits hit the sand. “She wants me to get back to work, I guess.”
“I met your mother,” Kirby says. She waves but Dr. Frazier just glares. “At your house.”
“She told me,” Darren says.
“Did she say anything about me?” Kirby asks.
Darren shakes his head. “Just that you showed up with Rajani.” He sits back down and stares at the ocean. “She doesn’t like it when I get distracted from my job.”
Isthatwhat she doesn’t like? Kirby wonders. Or does she not likewhite girlsdistracting Darren from his job? Or does she not like Kirby Foley, aka Clarissa Bouvier—the name Kirby made up back in Boston—distracting Darren from his job?
Does Darren’s mother know that Kirby is Clarissa Bouvier?
“Thanks for coming to say hi,” Darren says. He’s leaning forward now in an active posture of lifeguarding, and Kirby can see he’s eager for her to leave. “I’ll swing by your house sometime this week and take you to the carousel. Would you like that?”
She should say no. She isn’t interested in riding the carousel, and even if she were, she shouldn’t encourage Darren. A relationship between them won’t work. But, as usual, Kirby doesn’t listen to her own good advice. “I’d love it!” she says. “I’ll see you later this week, then.” She wanders off the sand at the next set of stairs, then stands on the hot sidewalk in a daze.
Was that a failure or not?
Not, Kirby decides. Darren asked her to come see him at Inkwell, and she did. The next move is his.
It’s still early. Kirby decides she will hitchhike to the south shore and pass out on her towel. She’s exhausted.
No sooner does she stick her thumb out than an olive-green Willys Jeep pulls over with a couple sitting up front but plenty of room on the back bench seat for Kirby.
