Page 43 of Endless Summer: Stories
An anthropologist would have a field day at their family reunion.
Angus cut all ties with his brother, communicated with Blair only through their attorneys, and refused to ever travel back to Massachusetts. For a while, George and Genevieve flew to Houston on their vacations, but George stopped going his freshman year in high school, saying he’d rather stay home and hang out with his friends. Genevieve, who was proving to be a formidable intellect herself, continued to travel to Houston, where Angus would bring her to work with him at NASA headquarters. He was the space shuttle program’s manager on theChallengermission that was scheduled to launch in January 1986. Genevieve had gotten special permission to take a week off from school so she could meet Angus in Cape Canaveral and watch the launch in person—from the control tower, no less!
Jessie remembers the whole country’s excitement about theChallengerlaunch; Christa McAuliffe, a civilian teacher, would be aboard. Jessie was disappointed when they delayed the time of the launch, because she had court at eleven and wouldn’t be able to watch like she’d planned. When her case adjourned and Jessie stepped out into the courthouse hallway, she sensed something wrong. People everywhere were huddled together, crying. A bailiff she’d become friendly with named Moses took Jessie’s arm and said, “Have you heard?”
TheChallengerhad exploded. All seven crew members were dead.
Jessie hailed a cab and took it back to her Midtown office. She tried to call Blair at home, but the line was busy. Jessie had to remind herself that Genevieve and Angus were physically safe—but what about mentally? Could you watch that kind of epic tragedyin personand survive with your psyche intact?
Apparently, Angus had expressed repeated concerns about launching the shuttle in such cold weather; the temperatures in Cape Canaveral that day had been just above freezing, the delays due to ice. Angus was specifically worried about the rubber O-rings in the solid rocket booster not forming a seal in such low temperatures. But Angus had a reputation for being a nervous Nellie and his superiors at NASA were receiving political pressure tojust launch the damn thing, already.
Immediately following the disaster, Angus took a leave of absence from NASA; the following September, he taught classes at Rice University but made it only halfway through the semester before he had a nervous breakdown.
Genevieve, meanwhile, returned home to Boston with a certain macabre celebrity, and she embraced it. Her college essay took the form of a letter from theChallengerproject manager to NASA administrators explaining all the reasons why the launch should have been delayed. That essay got Genevieve into Harvard, Stanford, Duke, Princeton, and Brown.
It was at the start of Genevieve’s freshman year at Brown—and George’s at Babson—that Blair discovered Joey Whalen had a mistress up in Montreal. By the time the twins came home for Thanksgiving, Blair had kicked Joey out and filed for divorce.
George handled this news with the same equanimity he’d displayed his entire life. Some people were just like that, Jessie had learned; they sat in the middle of the seesaw and were unbothered when it tipped one way or the other.
Genevieve, however, slid right off the end and into a figurative mud puddle. She started dating the drummer in a band called Fungus that played the underground punk clubs in Providence and Pawtucket.
“She told me she’s done something to her hair that I’m not going to like,” Blair reported to Jessie over the phone.
“Something like another perm?” Jessie said. She, too, had broken down and gotten a perm and now she looked like Gilda Radner if Gilda had stuck her finger in a socket. “Or crazy like a mohawk?” The phraseunderground punk clubswas not encouraging.
“She didn’t elaborate.”
Blair had sounded pretty sanguine as she relayed this news. Jessie said, “Do you think you should go down there overnight, maybe take her to dinner?”
Blair laughed. “She won’t have dinner with me, Jessie. She saysI’mthe reason she’s so messed up.” Blair sighed. “Boys are so much easier.”
Jessie had wanted to reply that not only was this answer a cop-out, it also sounded disturbingly like something their own mother might say.
Jessie had considered taking the train to Providence to lay eyes on Genevieve herself but she was busy with work and she didn’t want to overstep her bounds, and she came up with any number of other excuses for not making time to see her niece, so this state Genevieve is now in may be partially Jessie’s fault.
“How’s your summer been?” Jessie asks. “Are you working?”
“Why, yes!” Genevieve says in a surprisingly bright tone. “I’m the floor manager in women’s fashion at Murray’s Toggery. I won employee of the week for selling the most Pappagallo.”
Jessica blinks. “So you’re not working?”
“Grammy set me up with two interviews, one at the needlepoint shop and one at the watercolor gallery,” Genevieve says. She arches an eyebrow, also pierced. “I’m not working.”
“What about your boyfriend?” Jessie says. “Are you still with the drummer?”
They’re at the top of Main Street, and the Scout judders over the cobblestones in a way that feels violent.
“Mouth?” Genevieve says. “I’m not sure.”
Jessie clenches her jaw until they reach the smoother terrain of Madaket Road. A drummer named Mouth in a band called Fungus. It dawns on her that this is probably the meaning behind the toadstool tattoo. “What does that mean, you’re not sure?”
“Well,” Genevieve says. “He has a wife.”
Jessie waits a beat to see if Genevieve is joking about this the way she was joking about selling Pappagallo, but then Jessie notices Genevieve’s eyes filling with tears, and the Scout swerves over the center line. When Jessie instinctively reaches for the wheel, Genevieve yanks it away like it’s a toy Jessie is trying to steal. “Why don’t you pull over?” Jessie says. “I can drive.” Madaket Road famously has twenty-seven curves and they’re only at number one.
“I can drive!” Genevieve says, though mascara-darkened tears are streaking her whitish foundation.
“Gennie, please,” Jessie says. She points to the parking lot at Sanford Farm up ahead. With a huff, Genevieve smacks her hand down on the turn signal and whips them in.
