Page 97 of Summer of '69
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
After a moment, Kirby’s shock subsides enough for her to properly evaluate the woman. Wife, she thinks. Not girlfriend. She can tell by how almost uninterested in each other they both seem. They rest their forearms on the railing side by side, not touching. The wife has pale hair, though she’s not quite as blond as Kirby and her hair is chopped blunt at the shoulders, much like Exalta’s. Kirby edges a little closer to get a better look at Wifey; to do this, she positions herself behind Scottie’s back. Wifey has sallow skin with ruddy spots on her cheeks. She wears no makeup and her eyes get lost in her face. She’s plain. She looks a little bit like Scottie himself. They have the same coloring, the same grim set to their mouths, as if they’re perpetually expecting bad news. What does she do for a living? Kirby wonders. She doesn’t seem working class, but neither does she telegraph the kindness and empathy of a nurse or a teacher. Probably she’s a secretary. Yes, Kirby thinks. She seems organized and efficient, and she is no doubt indispensable to her important boss—an executive at a manufacturing company or maybe a real estate mogul. She can probably type a hundred and ten words a minute and take shorthand; she brings him his coffee and orders his lunch and picks up his dry cleaning. Maybe Scottie is even a little jealous of her boss because she is so devoted.
Kirby is simply projecting here; she has no idea what Wifey does.
Is there anyone in the world more fascinating than the woman you lost out to? Kirby wonders. She can’t figure out what Scottie sees in this woman.
Then Wifey turns and Kirby gets it. She’s pregnant,roundlypregnant—maybe five or six months along. Kirby does some quick backward counting. Wifey was already pregnant when Kirby told Scottieshewas pregnant.
Ahhh.
Wifey notices Kirby staring at her and returns Kirby’s gaze with an unapologetically frank challenge in her eyes.
“Can I help you with something?” she asks.
Kirby freezes. Her mind spins like a wheel on a game show. What should she say? She could pretend to be enraptured by Wifey’s pregnancy. Blair told Kirby that a woman becomes public property once she’s pregnant, and every Tammy, Dina, and Harriet on the street feels compelled to comment on her belly and sometimes even touch her without asking.
Scottie spins around to find who Wifey is calling out. He sees Kirby and his face turns to stone. It’s not hate; she can see that plain enough. It’s fear.
Kirby steps forward, positively beaming. “Forgive me for staring,” she says. “It’s just that you look familiar to me. I’m Kirby Foley. What’s your name?”
“Ann,” she says. “Ann Turbo. Maiden name Herlihy. I went to Mt. Alvernia. Do I know you from there? You’re way younger than me.”
Younger by five years or so, Kirby guesses. She knew a girl who went to Mt. Alvernia—Deirdre Metcalfe—but Kirby can’t fake having gone there.
“I went to Brookline,” she says, shrugging. “Public-school kid.”
Scottie speaks up. “You’re probably mistaken, miss. You don’t know us.”
It’s either the “miss” or the “us” that irks her. He’s waving a verbal billy club, urging her to move along. Ofcoursethat’s what he wants. He’s petrified. His internal organs must be twisted up like Monday’s washing.
“Maybe I’m just drawn to you because you’re pregnant,” Kirby says. “I was pregnant not so long ago.”
“You were?” Ann looks behind Kirby for any sign of a child.
“I lost the baby,” Kirby says.
Ann flinches like Kirby slapped her. “No!” she cries.
“It was probably a good thing,” Kirby says. She flashes Ann her bare left hand. “I got in trouble. And the father”—she takes a step closer to Scottie. She’s so close, she could slap him…or kiss him—“was a married man. Of course, I didn’t know that at the time.”
Ann gasps, apparently too overcome for words. Scottie opens his mouth to speak but Kirby raises a traffic-cop hand. “The man had absolutely no integrity and a dishrag for character,” Kirby says. “But I’m sure he’ll pay a price for thissomewhere down the road.”
“I should hopeso!” Ann says. She’s now Kirby’s champion and Scottie pulls out a handkerchief to wipe sweat off his brow.
“Lucky for you, you seem to have a good man right here,” Kirby says, nodding at Scottie. “An honest, upright man.”
“He’s a policeman!” Ann announces proudly.
“Is he?” Kirby says. She allows herself a direct gaze into Scottie’s green eyes; she might as well be leaping off the bow into the sound.“What a field day for the heat,”she sings.“A thousand people in the street.”
She expects to meet a barrier, a boulder, a concrete wall—but instead she finds something softer. A field of grass.
I’m sorry,his eyes say.I had a wife and a baby on the way. But please know that I did fall in love with you. I’m in love with you still and always will be.
Or at least that’s what Kirbyimagineshis eyes are saying. It’s good enough.
She grins. “Have a nice day!” she says, and she saunters to the back of the boat.
