Page 54 of Endless Summer: Stories
A man gets out of the taxi, hands some money through the window, then turns to face the house as the taxi drives off. He looks hesitant to approach and Jessie can’t blame him. This, she supposes, is the boyfriend.
“Hello!” she calls out. She strides over, hand extended. “Are you…” She can’t remember what Genevieve said his name was. Mouse?
“Andrew Flanagan,” he says, taking her hand and offering a tentative smile. “Friend of Genevieve’s.”
“I’m Jessie Levin,” she says. “Genevieve’s aunt. Nice to meet you.” Jessie finds herself slightly disappointed that Andrew is so normal-looking. He’s short with pale, scrawny legs sticking out of ill-fitting khaki shorts. He’s wearing a white Izod shirt and a baseball hat over his shaved head. He looks to be about twenty-five or twenty-six. Only yesterday, Jessie would have said he was too old for Genevieve, but now, of course, the family metrics have changed.
“Welcome to Nantucket, Andrew Flanagan,” Jessie says. She’s tempted to add,Where’s your wife?But she wants to establish herself as the cool aunt, though this will become obvious once Andrew meets Magee.
Andrew takes off his Red Sox cap and Jessie stifles a gasp. Andrew has a zipper tattoo that starts at his forehead and crosses his skull like someone could pull back the tab and reveal his brains. Here, then, is the punk she’s been promised.
“Let’s go find Genevieve,” Jessie says, trying to keep a straight face. “And I must introduce you to my mother.”
An hour later, Jessie decides that Magee isn’t annoying—she’s amazing! She has transformed the simple wrought-iron table on the pool patio into something worthy of a magazine spread. The table has been covered with a periwinkle-blue Provençal-print tablecloth and topped with lavish bouquets of hydrangeas. At one end sits a large glass vessel filled with the most delicious rum punch Jessie has ever tasted. (The secret, Magee told her, is almond extract.)
The secret, Jessie thinks, is that it’s strong. It takes only one glass for Jessie to achieve the “attitude adjustment” she has needed since she arrived. The punch is so sublime that suddenly everything happening in the house seems amusing, nearly whimsical.
Take, for example, the moment that George and Sallie make their entrance.
The kitchen is crowded. Tiger and Magee’s boys—Frog (Richard, age nine), Puppy (John Wilder, age seven), Penn, age five, and Nichols, age three—are all fresh from the outdoor shower with their hair combed, wearing matching outfits of blue polo shirts and blue seersucker shorts. Tiger makes them line up by age as they wait for Magee to pour them cups of lemon “soda.” They’re so cute that Jessie regrets not bringing a camera.
“You should take a picture for your Christmas card,” Jessie says.
Magee hands Nichols a sippy cup. “We have a professional photographer for that back home.”
Of course you do,Jessie thinks. But the punch has put her in such a generous frame of mind that she just kisses Puppy on the cheek and says, “They can be the picture for my Christmas card.” What else would she use? she wonders. A picture of her sitting behind the mountains of files on her desk? She and Pick on the sofa with Chinese takeout and the TV on in the background?
Puppy squirms from her grasp, crying out, “George is here!” All the boys race to the door as George and Sallie step inside.
“Hey, guys!” George says in an ebullient, nothing-is-wrong-here voice as he waves around his bandaged hand. The boys grab George around the legs, and Frog asks if they can go outside to throw the football.
“That’s a great idea,” Tiger says. “Let’s get out of Mom and Aunt Jessie’s way and see if George can catch the football one-handed.”
Coward,Jessie thinks as Tiger slips past Sallie and out the door, the boys and George trailing him, leaving Jessie, Magee, and Sallie behind.
“Jessie, hi!” Sallie says in the same unembarrassed, unconcerned tone that George used. They must have decided in the car tojust act natural. “You’re as thin as a rail, I’m jealous. Have you been working like crazy?”
Jessie regards her eldest sister’s best friend for a moment. She has always liked Sallie,lovedSallie—and it’s not lost on her that Sallie is the first person to ask a single question about how she’s been doing. But under the circumstances, it’s hard not to think of Sallie as a predator. She’s looking aggressively elegant in a kelly-green shift dress with matching green mules and there are emerald studs in her ears (real, Jessie is certain). She looks pretty and, yes, youthful, as though dating George has reverse-aged her. But Georgeshouldbe with someone wearing a jean skirt and Jellies, someone who listens to Belinda Carlisle.What are you thinking?Jessie wants to ask Sallie.He’s a teenager. He can’t even buy a beer legally.And beyond that, he’s Blair’s child. It’s very likely Sallie held George as a baby, maybe even changed his diaper. Jessie has learned enough about sexual power dynamics to know that Sallie holds all the cards in their relationship—she probably pays for everything and makes all the decisions, including the decision to come to Nantucket this weekend. She will decide when the relationship ends, and George will be left heartbroken.
But then, suddenly, Kate’s words ring in her ears:Is it really the end of the world?
Jessie opens her arms. “Hi, Sallie,” she says. “Welcome.” She gives George’s new girlfriend a squeeze.
When they separate, Sallie’s eyes are shining with gratitude. She holds out a white paper bag. “I brought Iberian ham from Savenor’s sliced paper thin and a jar of sun-dried tomatoes. I thought we could put them out as hors d’oeuvres.”
“No,” Magee says. “Absolutely not. We have enough hors d’oeuvres.”
“Don’t be silly,” Sallie says. “There’s no such thing as enough hors d’oeuvres.”
“Actually,” Magee says, “there is.” She opens the fridge and removes the seafood tower, arranged on a three-tiered silver tray that she must have brought from Wellesley because serving pieces like this don’t live here at Red Barn Road. It’s impressive, Jessie has to admit, the decadent amount of plump, pale pink jumbo shrimp, poached scallops, and rosy lobster claws on crushed ice, all garnished with wedges of lemon and a sprinkle of fresh parsley—like something plucked straight out of La Coupole in Paris. Next, Magee pulls a tray of mini-quiches from the oven and moves them with tongs, one by golden fragrant one, onto a pristine white platter. Finally, she fills a cut-glass bowl with pecans that she has toasted with rosemary and bits of bacon. Jessie had watched her making these nuts earlier that morning—they smelleddivine—but hadn’t been brave enough to ask to try one.
Undeterred, Sallie moves to the cabinet and brings down one of their everyday dinner plates; she unwraps the ham and lays out slices in a messy circle. Magee watches her, and when Sallie reaches for the jar of tomatoes, Magee snatches it up first. “No,” she says. “You’ll ruin my aesthetic.”
“Ruin youraesthetic?” Sallie says. She laughs. “That’s the most pathetic thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Do you know whatIthink is pathetic?” Magee says. “You dating a child. It’s beyond pathetic. It’s criminal.”
“Magee,” Jessie says.
