Page 53 of Endless Summer: Stories
Road Rash gasps. “No, you arenot!”
“Yes, I amso!” he says.
“You work for Congressman Welby, right?” she says. “You’re the one who stood me up?”
George hasn’t really taken a good look at Road Rash’s face, but when he does, he realizes she does look sort of familiar, but what does she mean, he stood her up?
“I’m Dana Dewberry,” she says. “Raymond’s cousin.”
Cousin Dana!he thinks. Ha-ha-ha-ha! What are the chances? She does look a little like Phoebe Cates. Maybe even prettier.
Marcia the nurse pokes her head in with yet another clipboard, which she hands to Cousin Dana. “Sign here and you’re free to go.” She shakes her head at George. “Your aunt needs to learn some manners.”
“It’s not his aunt,” Dana says. “It’s hislady friend.”
“And I’m Barbara Bush,” Marcia says.
Dana limps over to George and writes something in the palm of his good hand. It’s her phone number. “When you and Auntie break up,” she says, “you owe me a drink.”
6. IN THEAIRTONIGHT
Has Magee always been this annoying?Jessie wonders.
It’s four in the afternoon on Saturday, the barbecue starts at six, and Jessie has somehow been cast in the role of Magee’s assistant. When Kate first informed Jessie that Saturday would be a family barbecue, a less formal gathering than Sunday’s birthday clambake, Jessie thought it would be burgers and dogs, a tub of potato salad from the deli, and maybe, if they had the energy, some kind of tiki cocktail for the adults. (Jessie’s father, David, had adored a good mai tai and daiquiri.)
But Magee has taken charge of the family barbecue using a cookbook calledEntertaining,by Martha Stewart, that has gained a cult following in the wealthy suburbs of Connecticut and Massachusetts, and it has become a real production. There are lists detailing the menu, the timetable, and the “provisioning.” While Jessie reviews the details of her next corporate sexual-harassment case, Magee buzzes around her, chopping, slicing, shredding, whisking, and using up, one heaping spoonful at a time, an entire jar of mayonnaise.
“Are you busy?” Magee asks. “Because I could use some help.”
Jessie looks up. Is it not obvious that she’s busy? Where is everyone else? Well, Tiger has the boys at the beach because Magee wanted them “out of her hair” (Magee wears her hair in a dramatic wedge cut with gelled bangs). Kate is on the patio, napping in a chaise. Genevieve retreated to her bedroom in the guesthouse after dropping the bombshell that her boyfriend is coming. (But how could any of them protest after George showed up with Sallie? Jessie might have mentioned that, as of yesterday, the boyfriend was married, but she kept her mouth shut because the last thing they needed was more drama.) George and Sallie were at the hospital because George had cut his hand while breaking into All’s Fair.
Jessie’s eyes linger on the reclining figure of her mother. It’s amazing she can sleep.
“I’m out of mayonnaise,” Magee says. “And I forgot seltzer for the kids’ sparkling lemonade.”
“Can’t they just have regular lemonade?” Jessie asks. She had watched Magee juice the lemons, add “extra-fine” sugar (a variation Martha suggests) and cold water and muddled leaves of fresh mint.
“It’s a party, so the kids will want ‘soda.’” Magee uses air quotes. “But they’ll settle for fizzy lemonade. And we need mayonnaise anyway. It would be such a huge help if you could run to the Finast.”
Jessie can’t help huffing as she stands up.Some of us have actual work to do!she wants to say. It’s not her fault that Magee has jumped off the entertaining deep end.
To start, Magee has assembled a seafood tower of jumbo shrimp, poached scallops, and cracked lobster claws that will be served with some kind of herbed mayonnaise sauce. For their main course, it will be grilled swordfish (slathered with mayonnaise; it helps keep the fish moist), pork spare ribs for those who don’t like fish, and rainbow veggie kebabs for those who don’t eat fish or pork. There’s potato salad, creamy coleslaw, and macaroni salad. There are deviled eggs. There’s a hollowed-out watermelon filled with fresh fruit salad; Magee complained that the melon baller gave her a callus. There are cherry tomatoes stuffed with guacamole. And for dessert, there’s a chocolate caramel tart. (Magee apologized to the people who cared—which was no one—that she’d used a Pillsbury crust instead of making her own.)
It’s too much,Jessie thinks.She’s showing off.“Sure,” Jessie says with manufactured equanimity. “I’d be happy to go to the store.”
It does, in fact, feel good getting out of the house. Jessie has been in a sour mood since she arrived on Nantucket, although she should be not only relaxed but jubilant about her landmark case and seven-figure decision. But there hasn’t been time or space to tell anyone about it and nobody has asked, not even a perfunctory “How’s work?”
Jessie is also still weighted down by the news Pick shared because she hasn’t had a chance to talk to her mother. Jessie is tempted to just keep her mouth shut and let Kate find out on her own—but no, Jessie can’t do that.
She’s irked that Blair is in Paris when she should be here, dealing with her children.
She’s more than irked that Kirby is in Los Angeles acting like the rest of them don’t exist.
The chilled air of the supermarket is soothing, and Jessie wanders through the produce section, admiring the neat pyramids of plums and peaches. Her fellow shoppers are smiling and sunburned, the backs of their legs breaded with sand, as they pluck boxes of Popsicles from the freezer. Jessie clutches a jar of Hellmann’s in one hand and a bottle of club soda in the other. She walks, very slowly, to the checkout line, wishing there were more things on her list, wishing she could stay just a little while longer.
When Jessie pulls onto Red Barn Road, she sees a taxi up ahead bouncing over the potholes and ridges in the dirt road, kicking up dust. Jessie shakes her head; the Nantucket taxi drivers, most of them college students, think they’re Mario Andretti.
Jessie takes a deep breath as she watches the taxi whip into their driveway. She grabs the grocery bag and moves her sunglasses to the top of her head.
