In the morning, Julie seems no more knowledgeable about the geography of the evening before than when she was drunk. After a long sleep, she makes an appearance in the kitchen, but only for Advil. Julie’s headache is so ferocious, Sydney begins to think she has one herself.
Excuses are made. “Julie isn’t feeling well. She came down and then went back up.” This Sydney says to Mr. Edwards, minding a lie to a man who probably would not lie to her. Indeed, she wants to confide in Julie’s father, ask his advice, but this is not the plan Jeff and Ben and she decided upon at six a.m. over oatmeal, a plan that is not Sydney’s to dismantle.
It was an odd threesome, each of them exhausted, each of them wondering if perhaps they had made more of the incident than was warranted; or if the reverse was true: they hadn’t taken it seriously enough by not alerting either of the parents. Sydney felt like a junior officer who had been on deck all night. The oatmeal tasted like paste, but then again, she thought, it often tasted like paste. There seemed to be among the three of them an unspoken agreement that if Julie had survived the night, she was in the clear. Someone later in the day would have to take Julie aside and have the curfew discussion, the cell-phone talk, and the speech about surrendering names and places. The perils of drink might be discussed, a prohibition issued. Perhaps someone should mention what can happen to girls who drink too much in the presence of boys, how boys can take advantage of girls in ways that can be emotionally and physically dangerous. Perhaps that someone will be Sydney.
After Mr. Edwards leaves the house in search of the Sunday papers, Victoria, pink and healthy, appears in the kitchen. Sydney wonders what brilliant tonic the woman takes to produce a glow that seems to have erased the night before, even to call into question one’s perception of it.
Victoria is wearing a yellow sundress, and for a moment Sydney imagines she has rallied in order to attend church. Instead, Victoria rummages through the fridge and the cabinets and puts together an appetizing breakfast of fruit-filled French toast made with brioche left over from the morning before. She sets the table as for an event, with the ivory china and etched glass. She pours syrup into an antique pitcher and uses a linen napkin. Sydney has the sense that Victoria is trying to re-create the feel of a bed-and-breakfast meal.
Sydney takes her coffee to the round kitchen table. “That looks good,” she says.
“Want some?”
“No, I just ate.”
Victoria’s eyebrows have been plucked nearly straight across. She wears topaz earrings that match her eyes. Her hair is wet from the shower, drying into soft waves as she eats. She is a naturally wealthy woman, someone upon whom nature has bestowed a great many gifts: the clear skin, the luxurious hair, the perfect teeth (though one imagines she has had some help with those), the slender body, the utterly charming smile.
“I’d wait for Jeff,” Victoria says, making a small apology, “but he’s beat. He says he was up half the night talking to Ben. I’m so glad, because even though they both live in Boston—well, technically Cambridge and Boston—they hardly ever see each other. This place is gorgeous,” she adds with what appears to be true reverence for the Atlantic, demonstrating its best today through the open doors. “I’ve been coming here for years, but I always think it.”
“You’ve been lucky with the weather this weekend,” Sydney says. But Sydney is not thinking about the weather. Instead, she is mulling over the astonishing fact that Jeff did not tell his girlfriend about the search for Julie, the vigil during the night. Sydney wonders why he felt the omission necessary.
“You’ll be here for how long?” Victoria asks. “I’m not sure anybody’s said.”
“Till the end of the month. Possibly I’ll stay after Labor Day. I’m supposed to be preparing Julie for her SATs in October, so I suppose I might have to visit her at home when she goes back to school.”
Sydney is making this up as she goes along. In fact, no one has yet discussed how long Sydney is to stay, whether or not she is to travel to Needham.
“The family never stays after Labor Day,” Victoria says knowingly. “Never.”
Sydney lets the advisory sink in.
“Jeff works so hard, he needs his rest,” Victoria says in an apparent non sequitur. Or perhaps it is not. Possibly Victoria thinks about Jeff all the time, even when she seems not to be. “I’ll let him sleep until eleven, and then I’ll wake him. I think we’re going to Portsmouth for lunch.” Victoria glances sideways at Sydney, not sure if she ought to have mentioned an excursion to someone who might not have been invited. “Anna’s jogging,” Victoria says in what is or is not another non sequitur.
Sydney thinks about the prospect of Anna Edwards jogging.
“Your job must be very satisfying,” Sydney says, cupping her hands around her mug. She is, in Victoria’s presence, acutely aware that she has not showered or brushed her teeth, a fact that, curiously, did not bother her at breakfast with Ben and Jeff. She watches as Victoria cuts her French toast with her fork, scraping it against the ivory plate. A spill of warm berries emerges from the brioche, and Sydney wishes she had accepted Victoria’s offer.
“Well,” Victoria says, “it’s like anything else. There are frustrations and successes. I’m better at it than I used to be.”
“What do you do exactly?”
“I coordinate fund-raisers.”
Yes, Sydney can see this—Victoria organizing black-tie events at the .406 Club at Fenway, all in aid of children with leukemia. She is, Sydney decides, despite her suspect beauty, entirely worthy of Jeff. Victoria lets him sleep, she is not extravagant, she does good works, she can cook.
“I never know who will be here,” Victoria says, spearing a strawberry. Sydney wonders if she should take this as a small affront.
“What’s in Portsmouth on a Sunday?” Sydney asks.
Victoria blinks but makes a near-perfect recovery. “A wonderful clam bar,” she says. “I think you’ll love it.”
Sydney wants only to sleep. She doesn’t want to interact with Jeff or Ben or Mrs. Edwards or even Julie. She senses a certain degree of seepage—of overinvolvement on her part, of the family getting under her skin—that makes her uncomfortable. She wishes herself away, alone.
She sleeps until four o’clock. She lies in bed for a few moments longer, listening to the farewells in the front hallway. Ben and Jeff and Victoria are leaving for Boston. There are instructions about what to bring when they come in two weeks, mention of upcoming social events (presumably adjustments in wardrobes may be necessary), promises to hurry back. Sydney hears the screen door slap shut after them.
Immediately, the house deflates, Mr. and Mrs. Edwards retreating without a word to different rooms. Wendy and Art will find a cool reception when they return from wherever they have gone—Appledore? Portsmouth?—and perhaps not even a meal waiting for them. Exhaustion coupled with a sense of having discharged all social obligations may make for a prickly evening with the hosts. Do these hosts, Sydney wonders, have any idea yet about what may or may not have happened to their only daughter the evening before?
Sydney descends the stairs warily, not wishing to encounter anyone more evolved than Tullus. Too much has happened in too short a time: Julie’s drunken episode; searching for the girl with Jeff; having to negotiate her way around both Ben and Victoria. Hungry, Sydney needs a piece of cheese, a handful of nuts, but making a meal seems unnecessarily formal, an insistence upon ritual when clearly ritual should be dispensed with.
The light through the kitchen window is sharp and orange and beckons her outside. She thinks about how to get from the kitchen, at the back of the house, to the beach, at the front, without running into anyone from the Edwards family. She chooses the bold move, walking barefoot straight through the house, ready with a greeting on the fly if needed. But Sydney is in luck. No one is in the hallway or the living room or even on the porch on this fine evening. She imagines Anna Edwards flat on her back in bed, a cold washcloth on her forehead. She pictures Mark
Edwards on his knees in his rose garden, pulling out the weeds that have dared to attempt a coup while he was otherwise engaged. She imagines Julie, curled into a fetal position on her bed, alternately dozing and then waking, bewildered when she does, trying to make sense of the images, few of them welcome, that float across her vision.
Having executed a decorous escape, Sydney walks briskly away from the house. The light on the ocean has turned the water aqua, and Sydney feels an urge she often has to capture it. She knows from past experience that a photograph will not do. It may later trigger a recollection, but the reality of the moment—the feel of the breeze on the skin under her ears, the blue dust on the horizon—will last only seconds and then disappear.
Sydney walks fast, trying to put considerable distance between herself and the house at the end of the beach. The exercise is good, and her calf muscles tingle. She breaks into a jog. She is not a runner by nature, preferring the brisk stroll with its opportunity to observe to the run, which focuses attention on the body, but the urge to run is unexpectedly overwhelming.
She reaches the end of the beach, a distance of two miles, and slows down. She collapses into a cross-legged sitting position on the sand. The sun is setting noticeably earlier than it did in July, and already there is a suggestion of dusk. Below these observations, Sydney is aware of half-thoughts of Jeff. Despite her unusual marital history, she has never been unfaithful to any man, nor has she ever been in a relationship in which a man was unfaithful to his wife or his girlfriend. She cannot claim any great virtue in this; it is, she believes, simply a matter of circumstances. But to have inklings of desire for a man who is all but engaged to a woman Sydney has met is surely reason enough to have run from the house at the other end of the beach as if it were a burning building.
The concavities of bones. The tanned calf. Sydney remembers, at the dinner table, Jeff’s sense of being elsewhere, a place she wanted to visit. She thinks about the panic that connected them as they ran through the streets of the village in search of Julie, who may have been in trouble—a sister he loves, a girl Sydney finds winning. And she remembers that actual connection, a brief but distinct touch of fingers, a gesture so seemingly casual as to be nearly nonexistent. Nonexistent, but incendiary. Sydney stands, knowing she must return to the house she has so recently fled—she has no flashlight; she needs water—wondering if Jeff is at this moment thinking of her. She decides that he is not. Sitting in the backseat of the Land Rover, with Victoria just a bit forward and to his right in the passenger seat, Jeff will be studying her profile as she talks to Ben.
This traffic is terrible, Victoria will be saying. I have to get up at five.
When Sydney returns to the house, she walks directly to the garden. Mr. Edwards is bent over, deadheading the roses. So intent is he on his task, he doesn’t notice her presence until she speaks.
“Hey,” she says.
Startled, he snaps up too quickly, putting a hand to his back. He has on an old flannel shirt, a pair of khakis stained at the knees. “Hi there,” he says.
The roses are magnificent. They are rust-colored and lavender and mauve and ivory. No common scarlet or boisterous yellow. Though she has often seen both Julie and Mr. Edwards working in the garden, she has never been this close to it. At its center is a stone bench.
“These are beautiful,” Sydney says, bending to inhale the perfume of a faintly salmon bloom.
“Thank you. They get away from me sometimes.”
“I’ve seen Julie working out here, too.”
“She seems to enjoy it.”
Sydney can see that Mr. Edwards knows she has come to talk, that she is not merely passing by on her way into the house. He waits patiently, clippers in hand.
“Actually,” she says, fingering another bloom, “I’m a little worried about Julie.”
“How so?” he asks, his face immediately serious.
“Could we talk a minute?”
“Sure,” Mr. Edwards says, gesturing to the stone bench.
Sydney sits at one end. Mr. Edwards takes the other. His hands are dirty, his fingernails caked with mud.
“I’d like to speak freely without getting anyone in trouble.”
Mr. Edwards nods slowly, watching her face.
“You may not know this, but Julie went out last night. She slipped away from the table before any of us could ask her where she was going. Around ten-forty-five, Jeff and I went to look for her. We couldn’t find her, but she came home on her own close to midnight.” Sydney pauses. “She was drunk. Very drunk.” She pauses again. “Dangerously drunk, I would have to say.”
Mr. Edwards closes his eyes.
“She wouldn’t—or couldn’t—say where she had been,” Sydney adds. “She was sick to her stomach, and I think got rid of most of the alcohol. But she was in bad shape. Jeff and Ben and I took turns staying up with her.”
Mr. Edwards lets out a long sigh.
“I’m not telling you this so that Julie will get into trouble. I don’t want that at all. But I think someone needs to talk to her about letting us. . .you. . .know where she is going.”
“Yes.”
“I know that she’s. . .”
“Yes, you had every right to be very worried. All summer she’s more or less kept to herself. I felt your coming here was a gift, really. I’ve liked it very much that she had someone to be with. It’s clear she adores you.”
“Well, I, too. . .”
“But she’s had very little experience with the way the world works. I honestly didn’t think we were going to have to worry about this yet, but I’ve been an idiot. She’s eighteen. You only have to look at her.”
Sydney opens her palms. “I worry because she seems like someone who might be taken advantage of,” she says slowly.
“I’ll talk to her,” he says.
Sydney notes that he does not say, I’ll have Anna talk to her.
“She may not remember anything,” Sydney says. “Or much of anything.”
“She’s a good girl,” says Mr. Edwards, a man suddenly struggling to control his emotions.
“Oh, she is,” Sydney says quickly.
There is a long silence, during which neither of them looks at the other. Sydney puts her hands in her lap and studies the roses. Mr. Edwards appears to be examining the scrub brush that borders the property. To stand up and leave this man seems wrong. Sitting with him, however, is excruciating.
“The roses are really beautiful,” Sydney says after a time, her voice sounding thin.
“Do you think so?”
“I do, yes.”
“The thing about roses,” Mr. Edwards begins but then seems to forget what he was going to say. “The thing about roses. . .”
“Actually,” Sydney says, “I was thinking of taking Julie into Portsmouth with me tomorrow to get some art supplies.”
Mr. Edwards glances at Sydney, a question in his eyes.
She clears her throat. “I have an idea for her. She’s very gifted at. . .for lack of a better word. . .composition. I thought I might get her some drawing pencils, maybe some paints. I won’t let it interfere with the tutoring. I’ll just—”
But Mr. Edwards waves his hand, as if to suggest that she not worry about the tutoring.
“I think she may have some talent in this direction,” Sydney adds. “From what I hear, I guess she comes by it naturally.”
Mr. Edwards nods once and smiles, but his eyes, Sydney can see, are elsewhere. He is thinking still about what he will have to say to his daughter. She does not envy him this task.
“We have no idea where she was?” he asks.
“No. She went to a party. That’s all I could get out of her.”
Mr. Edwards inhales a long breath. He looks noticeably older than he did the night before, and it is not simply the work clothes, the hunched spine, the dirty hands.
“I’m sure she’ll be fine,” Sydney adds, unable to refrain from delivering this platitude. She wants suddenly for this man not to have
to worry about his daughter.
Sydney stands. While they have been talking, dusk has turned into evening. A mosquito bites her ankle. She hears tree frogs, the constant surf. In the house, a light goes on. “Well,” she says, “I’d better be getting in.”
Mr. Edwards stands as well, making a conscious effort to straighten his spine. “Thank you, Sydney,” he says. “I appreciate your coming to me.”
His formality is disturbing.
Sydney turns away. When she enters the house and glances back, she sees that Mr. Edwards has not moved away from the bench.
Mrs. Edwards, in her bathrobe, is stretched along one of the white sofas. She smiles perfunctorily when she sees Sydney. Sydney can hear Wendy and Art in the kitchen, rummaging through the cupboards and the refrigerator, looking for something to eat. She can’t hear their words, but the tone is clearly one of bickering. She imagines they are miffed at not having come back to a meal. Mrs. Edwards seems blissfully unconcerned about her guests, however, as she turns the pages of the novel she is reading.
“Where’s Julie?” Sydney asks.
“She was down earlier for some toast,” she answers without looking up from her page. “She’s got a bug.”
“She’s okay?” Sydney asks, noticing that the soles of Mrs. Edwards’s feet are decidedly not clean.
“Oh, she’ll be fine.”
Sydney nods. She is hungry as well, but she makes the decision to go up to her room and wait for the squall to pass. As she puts her bare foot on the bottom step, the phone rings. Mrs. Edwards, recumbent, springs into action, even though no one else is making the slightest attempt to get to the phone before she does.
Her smile is instantaneous. Her eyes peer inward, seeing only the person at the other end of the line. She laughs, asks a question, seems reluctant to say good-bye. She is, Sydney discovers, remarkably gifted at extending a conversation. Sydney pretends to be examining a callus on her foot. See you soon, she hears the matriarch croon. Mrs. Edwards waits a second longer in case the person at the other end has something more to say. Finally, she hangs up the phone and tightens the sash about her robe. She looks in Sydney’s direction.