Page 45 of Endless Summer: Stories
“Put it on my tab, Matthew,” Sallie said. “And bring him something stronger. Shot of Wild Turkey.”
It had been the most transformative night of George’s life. At first, George figured Sallie was plying him with alcohol so that he would talk about his family. She asked him what he “really” thought of Joey Whalen. (Sallie thought he was a snake. “He made a habit of pinching my behind when Blair wasn’t looking. It came as no surprise he was keeping a piece of French toast up in Montreal.”) The shot of whiskey had loosened George; if Sallie wanted confidences, he was happy to oblige. There was a way, George told her, in which Joey’s presence in their lives had always felt temporary. He traveled a lot for work in his position with Nestlé—he had done such a good job with Stouffer’s that they’d put him in charge of the national accounts for Hot Pockets, hoping he would work the same magic—so Joey’s presence at home always felt like a special occasion. Joey took George to car shows, where he routinely chatted up the foxy women showcasing the Shelby Cobras, and Patriots games, where he “rated” the cheerleaders. George understood all this as part of Joey’s persona—that he was more than a salesman; he was a connoisseur of the finer things.
George had no lasting beef with his uncle (he could never quite bring himself to use the termstepfather). Besides, Blair had changed in the years since she’d been married to Joey—hadn’t Sallie noticed? She’d become “career-driven.” She was determined to get her doctorate, to publish papers, to get tenure!
“Yes,” Sallie said, exhaling a stream of smoke sideways from her strawberry-red lips. “I’ve been a good influence on her.”
Right—Sallie was a Working Girl. She was a vice president at Fidelity and had her own secretary, a man. She’d conceived her son, Michael, by using a sperm donor, and she was raising him alone; he was now freshman-class president and captain of the JV basketball team at Buckingham Browne and Nichols. Sallie had courtside Celtics tickets—she handled investments for Larry Bird—and she drove an Aston Martin that had aphonein it.
Next, Sallie asked George about Genevieve. “What is goingonwith her, exactly? Please don’t mince words.”
Don’t mince words?George thought.Okay, she’s a screwup. Their mother liked to say that theChallengerexplosion had messed with Genevieve’s head, but really, George knew, the problem lay deeper than that. Their parents’ divorce, their brief move to Houston—where the fourth-grade girls had teased Genevieve mercilessly about her “accent” and then crucified her further when she tried to speak like them—and their mother’s marriage to their uncle had all taken a bite out of Genevieve’s self-esteem, and now it resembled a moth-eaten rag. She was far smarter than George—he was the first to admit that—but she was fragile, whereas George was sturdy. If he’d been bitter about not being admitted to a single Ivy, while Genevieve was accepted at three, this feeling quickly dissipated when he realized that, although he might not have as much elite intelligence, he had the people skills he needed to be successful.
But was he charming enough to seduce his mother’s best friend?
Apparently so. The evening at the Twenty-First Amendment ended with Sallie inviting George back to her apartment on Stuart Street for a nightcap (Michael was sleeping at a friend’s house out in Sherborn). As soon as they walked in the door, Sallie removed George’s jacket, slipped off his suspenders… and the rest of the night was plucked straight from his fifteen-year-old self’s fantasies. When he woke up the next morning, Sallie was wearing only his bow tie.
Their union was scandalous. They acknowledged this fact the next morning over tiny cups of espresso Sallie made in an Italian machine that sounded like a Lamborghini. Their hookup would have been outrageous even if Salliehadn’tbeen Blair’s best friend. George was only nineteen! He was only six years older than Sallie’s son!
“Butmendo this,” Sallie said. “All the time. A forty-three-year-old dude and a nineteen-year-old chick—does anyone bat an eye?”
“You’re right,” George said. He’d assumed this was a crazy one-night stand, but what Sallie seemed to be indicating was that it could be something more. George wanted it to besomuch more! He was gobsmacked not only by Sallie’s beauty but by her sophistication, her wit, her intellect, her success, her self-confidence. Girls like Cousin Dana were… well,girls. Sallie was a paragon of womanhood. She could easily grace the cover ofRedbook.
Before George left Sallie’s apartment, she kissed him and said, “Let’s see what happens, shall we? But for now, not a word to anyone.”
Not a word to anyone. Let’s see what happens.George’s elation quickly fermented. He understood he couldn’t contact Sallie first; he would have to wait for her to reach out. One day passed, two days, three days. Had the night even happened? Raymond was pissed that George stood up Cousin Dana and demanded his license back, forcing George to lie and say he’d lost it (because what if Sallie did call and George needed to meet her at a bar?). Day four passed—the image of George’s mouth on Sallie’s milky-white breast was fading, and doubt crept in. Had his lovemaking been subpar? (He’d had sex with only two other girls: his high-school sweetheart, Bethany, and some chick from Pine Manor named Caroline when they were both very drunk.) Sallie had dated all kinds of men, and the ones George remembered were giants—tall, broad, muscle-bound (and, he assumed, well-endowed). How could George compare?
Day five. A call came into George’s work phone just as George was about to leave for the day and take his frustrations out by playing rugby against some of the Harvard guys who worked for Tip O’Neill. It was Sallie, calling from her car. Michael had successfully finished his year at BB&N and she’d just put him on a bus to Camp Winona in Bridgton, Maine, for the summer.
“I’m a free woman,” Sallie said. “Want to get a pizza?”
In the six weeks that followed, there was pizza, sex, drinks at the Copley Plaza, a Red Sox game, sex, a matinée ofDead Poets Societysneaked in during lunchtime on a workday, sex, canoeing on Walden Pond, a tour of Louisa May Alcott’s house, sex, a trip to the top of the Pru, sex, a wine-soaked dinner at Biba, sex, the Degas exhibit at the MFA, a ride on the Swan Boats in the Public Garden, sex—and a (by then) nostalgic visit to the Twenty-First Amendment, where George told Sallie he would be celebrating his twentieth birthday on Nantucket with his family.
“But not your mother,” Sallie said. “She’s in Paris.”
“Right. It’ll be my sister, Aunt Jessie, Uncle Tiger and Aunt Magee and their kids, and my grandmother.”
“Your grandmother has always liked me,” Sallie said. She eased an olive off the toothpick with her lips in a mesmerizing way. “I should come with you.”
George thought she was kidding. Their affair was completely secret, and now Sallie was talking about telling hisfamily?Preposterous. But she brought it up again that night in bed, saying that it was the perfect opportunity to bring the relationship out into the light.
“It’ll be better without Blair around,” Sallie said. “Better for her to hear about it after the rest of your family has accepted it.”
George laughed. The rest of his family wasn’t going to accept it. His aunt and uncle might be okay with it, but his sister, no. His grandmother, no.
“I’m not sure it’s a good idea,” George said.
“Of course it’s a good idea,” Sallie said in a way that let George know the decision had been made. “You’re plenty old enough.”
Isthere another way into All’s Fair? George wonders now.
“I’ll try the back door,” he says with more confidence than he feels. He can’t believe the key isn’t under the mat; in his mind, that key was as constant and unmovable as the Civil War monument at the top of Main Street. “You stay here.” He heads down the block and around the corner, past the guest cottage, Little Fair, and through the gate into the backyard. This would be so much easier with a flashlight. He presses the button on his digital watch and the face glows a ghostly green that provides just enough light to lead him first to the front door of Little Fair (locked) and then across the lawn and brick patio to the back door of All’s Fair (also locked).
George wants to scream. This is so humiliating! He can’t get into his own house!
Well, it’s not exactly “his” house, nor is it the house where he’s expected. He’s expected at a house six miles west on Red Barn Road. All’s Fair is the family’s “in-town residence,” and ever since the caretaker, Mr. Crimmins, died a few years earlier, it has been used for overflow family, which normally meant Blair, Joey Whalen, and the twins. (George’s grandmother Kate didn’t quite approve of Blair’s marriage to Joey, and sticking her in the fusty old Fair Street house was one way of showing it.)
George knows that his grandmother has made up a room for him at the big beach house, but he made a decision on the ferry to stay at All’s Fair instead. He told his grandmother only that he’s bringing “a new girlfriend.” She has no idea it’s Sallie Forrester.
