“So my efforts were wasted,” said Paolo, shrugging. “Won’t be the first time.”
They walked back to the harbor and looked at boats. Paolo talked about traveling to escape his father’s shattered reputation and the family fallout. He had graduated from college in May and was thinking about going to medical school, but he wanted to see the world before committing. He was going now to spend a night in Boston before getting on a plane to Madrid. He and a friend would be backpacking for a year or more—Europe first, then Asia, ending up in the Philippines.
His ferry was boarding. Paolo kissed Jule quickly on the lips before he left. He was gentle and confident, not pushy. His lips were a little sticky from the butterscotch sauce.
Jule was surprised at the kiss. She didn’t want him to touch her. She didn’t want anyone to touch her, ever. But when Paolo’s full, soft lips brushed hers, she liked it.
She reached her hand to his neck, pulled him toward her, and kissed him again. He was a beautiful guy, she thought. Not all dominant and sweaty. Not all grabby and violent. Not condescending. Not all flattery and gold chains, either. His kiss was so gentle she had to lean in to feel it all the way.
She wished she had told him her real name.
“Can I call you?” he asked. “Again, I mean? Not for your father’s sake.”
No, no.
Paolo couldn’t call Imogen’s phone again. If he did, he’d realize it wasn’t Imogen he’d met. “You’d better not,” said Jule.
“Why not? I’ll be in Madrid, and then wherever, but we could—we could just talk, now and then. About hot fudge and butterscotch, maybe. Or your new life.”
“I’m attached,” Jule said, to make him be quiet.
Paolo’s face fell. “Oh, you are. Of course you are. Well, you have my number anyhow,” he said. “I left a message a while back. It’s a 646 number. So you can ping me if you detach—unattach, whatever it is. Okay?”
“I’m not going to call you,” said Jule. “But thank you for the ice cream.”
He looked hurt, briefly. But then he smiled. “Anytime, Imogen.”
He shouldered his backpack, and was gone.
Jule watched his ferry pull away from the dock. Then she took off her espadrilles and walked down onto the sand. She stood with her feet in the water. She felt Imogen Sokoloff would have done that, would have savored the slight feeling of sadness and the beauty of the harbor view while holding the skirt of her pretty white dress above her knees.
SECOND WEEK OF JUNE, 2016
NEW YORK CITY
A week before going to Martha’s Vineyard, Jule stood with Patti Sokoloff on a deck overlooking Central Park. The sun had set. The park stretched out, a dark rectangle ringed by the city lights.
“I feel like Spider-Man,” Jule blurted. “He looks out over the city at night.”
Patti nodded. Her hair fell in big, professional curls on her shoulders, and she wore a long cardigan over a cream-colored dress and pretty, flat sandals. Her feet looked old and had Band-Aids on the heels and toes. “Immie had a boyfriend who came over here for a party once,” she told Jule. “He said the same thing about the view. Well, Batman, he said. But it’s the same idea.”
“They’re not the same.”
“Okay, but they’re both orphans,” said Patti. “Batman lost his parents very early. And so did Spider-Man. He lives with his aunt.”
“You read comics?”
“Never. But I proofread Immie’s college essay about six times. She said Spider-Man and Batman are descended from all the orphans in these Victorian novels she likes. Immie’s really into Victorian novels, did you know that? It’s a thing she hangs her identity on. You know, some people define themselves as athletes, social justice warriors, theater kids. Immie defines herself as a Victorian novel reader.
“She isn’t the best student,” Patti went on, “but she’s into literature. For the college essay, she wrote that in these stories, being orphaned is a precondition for the making of a hero. She also said those comic book heroes aren’t simple heroes, but ‘complicated ones who make moral compromises in the same tradition as the orphans in Victorian narratives.’ I think those might be the exact words from her paper.”
“I used to read comics in high school,” said Jule. “But there was no time at Stanford.”
“Gil grew up with comic books, but I didn’t, and neither did Immie, really. The superheroes were just her introduction, to point out why the older books were important for today’s readers. She got most of the Batman stuff from that boyfriend I mentioned.”
They turned to go inside. The Sokoloff penthouse was dramatic and modern but cluttered with piles of books, magazines, and keepsakes. The floors were white wood, everywhere. A cook was at work in the kitchen, where the breakfast table was piled with junk mail, pill bottles, and tissue packets. The living room was centered on two huge leather couches. Next to one of them was a breathing machine.
Gil Sokoloff didn’t get up as Patti led Jule into the room. He was only in his fifties, but pain lines creased the sides of his mouth, and the flesh of his neck hung baggy. The shape of his face was Eastern European, and he had a thick mass of curly gray hair. He wore sweatpants and a gray T-shirt. His cheeks and nose were speckled with broken blood vessels. He leaned forward slowly, as if moving hurt him, and shook Jule’s hand, then introduced two tubby white dogs: Snowball and Snowman. He introduced Imogen’s three cats, too.
They went straight in to dinner in a formal dining room, Gil shuffling and Patti walking slowly next to him. The cook brought out bowls and platters, then left them alone. They ate tiny lamb chops and a mushroom risotto. Gil asked for his oxygen tank halfway through the meal.
During the cheese course, they talked about the dogs, which were new. “They’ve ruined our lives,” said Patti. “They poo constantly. Gil lets them do it on the deck. Can you believe that? I walk out there in the morning and there’s a stinky dog poo.”
“They whine to go out there before you’re up,” said Gil, unrepentant. He moved the oxygen mask to the side so he could talk. “What am I supposed to do?”
“Then we have to spray it with bleach cleaner. There are little bleach spots all over the wood,” said Patti. “It’s foul. Still, that’s what you do when you love an animal. You let them poo on your deck, I suppose.”
“Imogen was always bringing home stray cats,” said Gil. “It was another kitten every couple months, in high school.”
“Some of them didn’t make it,” said Patti. “She would find them on the street and they had kitty bronchitis or some other plague. They would die a tiny sad death, and Immie would burst her heart every time. Then she went to Vassar and we were left with these guys.” Patti stroked a cat that was wandering under the dinner table. “Nothing but trouble, and proud of it.”
Like any Greenbriar “old girl,” Patti had stories of her school days. “We had to wear stockings or knee socks with our uniforms, year-round,” she said. “And come summer, we were so uncomfortable. In high school—this was in the late seventies—some of us went without underwear, just to stay cool. Knee socks with no underwear!” She patted Jule’s shoulder. “You and Immie were lucky the uniforms changed. Did you do music at Greenbriar? You sounded so passionate about Gershwin the other day.”
“A little.”
“Do you remember the winter concert?”
“Sure.”
“I can just see you and Imogen, standing together. You were the tiniest girls in the ninth grade. You all sang carols, and the Caraway girl had the solo. Do you remember?”
“Of course.”