I don’t reply to him. I just untie the boat.
“Did I make you wait?” Pfeff says. “I hope not. We got so far out on these bikes and then it took forever to get back, and then we couldn’t remember which bike shop we rented from, it was the stupidest thing. We rode around town and none of them looked right. You would think the bikes would have stickers on them, but they don’t. And we didn’t have our receipt. And anyway, then we were starving and I knew I should get down here, but the pizza place with the slices was right there and I thought I’d just shove two slices in my mouth, like, as I walked, and that would make me a much better companion on the boat ride back, but it turned out we had to wait for a new pizza to come out of the oven.”
“Bite me, Pfefferman.”
I am surprised to hear this come out of my mouth. I had planned to be bouncy and relaxed, and to pretend I had only just arrived at the boat myself.
“What?” Pfeff looks surprised.
“Don’t even start.”
“Okay. I know I made you wait. An unforgivably long time. But it was a really complicated situation, Carrie!”
“What?”
“Sybelle and I. On that Canyonlands trip, we were…Anyway, it ended badly, you know? I—I screwed everything up. And then she was here! After a whole year of probably hating me. And she was being so nice. I felt like I was finally forgiven for being such an idiot a year ago, and I thought maybe us hanging out together today sort of made up for everything. I didn’t know how to say ‘No, Sybelle, I have to meet Carrie at the dock.’ Because I was in the middle of a whole forgiveness thing with her.”
I steer the boat into open water, then turn on him. “You’re just a dick,” I tell him. “There’s no explanation you can give that will make you not a self-involved, inconsiderate dick.”
“You don’t understand,” says Pfeff. “It was—”
“I understand that you don’t care about anyone but yourself,” I snap. “That you’ll happily make a person wait five hours for you and keep a whole island’s worth of people waiting on supper so you can tell yourself some girl you dumped thinks you’re excellent now. In fact, I thought about it, and everything you did, all day, was to basically make people think Pfeff is excellent. Flirting with salespeople. Complimenting people. Buying gifts. But you don’t actually care about anyone. You only care about the idea of your own specialness, and not anyone else’s actual experience.”
“Carrie,” he says. “I’m sorry.”
“Just stay away from me,” I say. “Don’t even talk to me.”
29.
WHEN I GET back to Clairmont, Luda has finished the supper cleanup. Tipper, Harris, and Uncle Dean are on the porch, laughing and drinking nightcaps.
I eat a chicken sandwich in the kitchen and talk to Penny and Erin, who join me at the big wooden table. The evening has turned chilly, and Erin’s black turtleneck sweater looks out of place in our kitchen, as do her dark eyeliner and the lipstick on her full, pretty mouth. But she seems comfortable. She is shaving small pieces off a chocolate cake left over from supper, eating with her fingers. Penny’s wearing an old blue sweater that belongs to our father and drinking peppermint tea.
“You kissed Pfeff?” says Penny. “Last night? Why am I only just now hearing about this?”
“You were still sleeping when I left this morning,” I say. “How was I supposed to tell you?”
“You were supposed to find me last night and tell me this stuff immediately,” she says. “That’s your duty as a sister.”
“You were busy,” I say. I tell them the story of the day in Edgartown—the shopping, meeting Sybelle, waiting for five hours, then arguing.
“What a weenie,” says Erin, tilting her heart-shaped face thoughtfully.
“Vile,” says Penny. “Making you wait like that. Was she pretty?”
“Who?” asks Erin.
“Sybelle. The girl was called Sybelle, right?”
“Yeah,” I say. “She was very, very pretty. She had a sunburn, though.”
Erin has an analytical way about her. She furrows her brow and dissects whatever is the subject of discussion. “Do you think he was like, sleeping with her?”
“In Edgartown? In the daytime?” I hadn’t thought of that.
“I don’t think they were biking that whole time,” she says. “There’s no way.”
“Where would they even…?” I ask. The idea spreads cold inside my chest. I was jealous because Pfeff spent the afternoon with Sybelle and she used to be his girlfriend. It hadn’t occurred to me he’d slept with her while I waited for him at the dock. Honestly, it hadn’t really occurred to me that anyone slept with anyone in the middle of the day.
“At her house, duh,” says Penny. “She’s staying there. She’s got to have a bedroom.”
“So you think the whole bike story was a lie?” I ask. “He knew about the road with the water on both sides, though.”
“Beach road.” Penny reaches out and takes the knife from Erin’s hand. She slices herself a piece of cake. “Yardley says Pfeff gets around,” she adds. “She says he’s like, always got someone.”
“You’d get around with him,” says Erin to Penny.
“Shut up. You know I would not.”
“Major asked if I wanted to take the kayaks out,” says Erin. “Did I tell you?”
“No.”
“Well, he did. Do you think he’s into me?”
“No,” says Penny again.
“I’m asking Carrie,” says Erin. “Carrie, do you think Major could be into me? Because of the kayak idea, or whatever else, like if you noticed him looking at me?”
I have finished my sandwich, and take the plate over to rinse it in the sink. “Are you into him?” I ask Erin. “Because my opinion is that he would be lucky to get anywhere near you.”
“I don’t know,” says Erin. “I like red hair.”
“Major is gay,” says Penny.
“He is not.” Erin widens her eyes.
“He told me he was. His parents are like hippies or something, so they’re fine with it and he’s just open,” Penny explains. “So be into him all you want, but it’s not going anywhere.”
Erin looks skeptical. “Major confided in you?”
“It wasn’t like, a secret,” says Penny. “It’s just a thing he mentioned.”
“Apropos of what?”
“Apropos of nothing. He told a story about a guy he used to go out with. And then when I asked, he said his mom is super spiritual and meditates and everything—and ‘love is love,’ that’s her philosophy.”
I didn’t know that about Major. I have never met anyone else who is openly gay.
“Well, I’m glad you two are so cuddly,” says Erin. “Maybe you should go in the kayaks with him. Be best friends.”
“Oh my god, Erin,” says my sister. “Finish your cake and let’s go to sleep. I think I got too much sun. I’m wicked tired.”
Erin laughs. She stands up and turns to me. “Pfeff spent the afternoon boning that girl,” she says.
30.
WHEN I GET to my room, Rosemary is there, wearing her cheetah suit. She is petting Wharton, who is curled up on the rug, tuckered out after a day of running around with the other dogs.
The suit was given to Rosemary on her ninth birthday by one of her friends. Basically, pajamas with feet, the kind we used to wear as kids. But it has a tail and a hood with ears. When she was alive, Rosemary wore it all winter, to sleep in. Now she’s waiting on my bed, with the hood up. The shiny fabric is worn thin at the elbows. “Hi!” she says brightly. “Wanna watch Saturday Night Live?”
“What?”
“It started at eleven-thirty. I checked the TV guide.”
“We can’t do that,” I say. “People are down there.”
“They’re watching it without me?”
“Mm-hm. Bess is. And Tipper and Harris are still on the porch.”
“But I’ve never seen it.”
“Buttercup,” I say. “We can’t go join them. Can we?”
“No.” She heaves a sigh, then lightens her tone. “I’m not here to hang out with Bess, anyway. Just you, you, you.”
I start changing for bed.
“I would like to see it someday though,” she goes on. “I don’t think I should be dead and never know what everyone is always talking about.”
“?’Kay. We will try to make that happen.”
“Next week?”