They do not notice me at first. There are sizable waves today, which is unusual in the cove. George and Pfeff are throwing themselves onto boogie boards like little boys.
Major looks up from reading. He’s wearing a black T-shirt and dark blue swim shorts. His forehead and nose are white with sunblock. “Hi, Carrie.”
“Hi.”
“Do you want a sandwich?” he asks. “We have tuna with that crispy lettuce and also roast beef and Havarti on Portuguese sweet dough.”
“No thanks.”
“Tipper said you had a wicked headache.”
“It’s gone now.”
In the water, Pfeff sees me. He looks directly at me, picks up his boogie board, and heads back out to find another wave. He calls something to George I can’t hear.
“I thought I’d talk to Pfeff,” I say.
“Good luck with that,” says Major. “I mean, the guy will talk your ear off, but I’m guessing you want him to listen.”
I walk past Major and down to the water.
Pfeff sees a wave he wants to ride—and turns in my direction. He looks surprised to see me, as if he’d already forgotten I was standing on the beach.
He turns away again. Says something to George.
George waves at me. “You feeling better?” he yells. His square white teeth form a smile.
“Pfeff,” I call. “Can we talk?”
Pfeff doesn’t turn around.
“Pfeff!” I call again.
“What? Hi.” He turns and smiles. “You gonna swim?”
“What?”
“Come swimming.” He runs a hand through his wet hair and comes a little closer. I cannot believe he’s asking me to go swimming. Like I’m an acquaintance. Like nothing bad ever happened.
“I was hoping we could talk.”
George, now a bit farther out than Pfeff, ducks under a wave. When he comes up, he swims, putting some distance between himself and the conversation, seeming occupied with the water and his board.
Pfeff has come close enough to talk but stays knee-deep in the water. “I don’t want to discuss anything,” he says.
“Well, I do.”
“Look,” he says. “I’m impulsive. I make bad choices. That’s who I am. You knew that from the beginning.”
“Will you please come out so we can have a conversation?”
“I kiss a pretty girl in the moonlight with no warning,” he says. “I forget to set alarms. I forget to pack my socks and underwear. I don’t do my schoolwork.”
“I just want to know—”
Pfeff interrupts me. “There’s nothing else for you to know. I said I don’t want to talk. I’m sorry you got upset, Carrie, but I told you the truth up front. I’m going to college in four weeks. This is like, a surreal, enchanted summer that I stumbled into, and I never pretended it was anything else.”
“It’s not a surreal, enchanted summer,” I say. “It’s my life.” How infuriating that he’s standing there in the water and I can’t reach him without getting my pants wet. “I think you owe me an explanation.”
“I just gave you all the explanation you’re going to get,” he says, holding his board in front of his body like a shield. “I make bad choices and you always knew that.”
I want to scream in frustration. Or hit something. I want Major and George to take my side. I want Pfeff to break down in tears and explain why he’s a terrible person. I want him to be penitent and ashamed of himself. I want him to rush at me and scoop me into his arms and kiss me passionately and ask if I’ll forgive him. I want to slap him across his self-satisfied face.
Pfeff turns and flops onto his boogie board. He swims toward George.
I think he’ll turn back, regret how he’s acting, but he does not. He swims out, and out. As if I don’t exist.
I bite my lip to keep from crying. I turn and walk up the staircase that leads from the beach.
Back at Clairmont, I tell Luda I’m skipping the clambake and head to my room. There, I take double my usual dose of Halcion, hours before the sun goes down. I change into pajamas and sob until the drug knocks me out completely.
53.
I WAKE FROM Halcion sleep at one a.m. Bess is opening my door.
“Go away,” I tell her.
“Carrie.”
“Go. I’m sick.”
“No,” she says. “We need you.”
“What for?”
They used to always need me. “We need you” to help us condition our hair, to build a fort, to explain our schoolwork, to give advice about a boy, to give advice about clothes, to watch Rosemary.
But they haven’t needed me in weeks and weeks.
“Just come,” whispers Bess. “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”
She is holding her hands to her chest, twisting them together.
I sit up. My head is fogged. “Are we going outside? Do I need shoes? A flashlight?”
“Yeah,” she says. “You need all that.”
* * *
—
QUIET AS COTTON, we go downstairs. Outside via the mudroom door. Along the walkways to the family dock.
I can see the outlines of the sailboat and Guzzler, black against the moonlit sea.
Bess turns and puts her finger to her lips.
PART SIX
A Long Boat Ride
54.
PENNY STANDS IN the water, near where the dock meets the shore. She is knee-deep. I can see her shoes on the sand.
She is washing her hands and face, getting her loose white shirt and jean shorts wet, scrubbing her cheeks urgently.
“Penny,” I call softly. “You okay?”
“No, no, leave her,” says Bess.
“But you brought me down to—”
“That’s not why we need you.”
She takes my hand and leads me to the end of the dock. The first thing I see is that missing wooden board, moved from where my father left it. It lies crisscross in our way, the nails poking through the wood in a sharp row of three.
Coming off the nails are several human hairs.
We step over the board, and there, at the end of the dock, lies a body.
I stop.
“He’s dead,” says Bess. “We touched his neck. And his wrist, looking for a pulse. We checked and double-checked.”
I step a little closer and kneel down.
It is Pfeff. Someone has bashed his head with the board.
His shirt is off. It’s a plain gray T-shirt and lies crumpled nearby. His belt buckle is undone, and his jeans are unbuttoned, pulled partway down on his hips along with his boxers.
He’s wearing sneakers. His socks have small red lobsters on them.
I touch his wrist myself, not knowing what else to do. There is no pulse.
He is beautiful and pitiful in death, his features calm instead of animated.
“We have to call the mainland. Get an ambulance boat. And maybe the police,” I say.
“No,” says Bess.
“Who could have done this?” I ask. “How did you find him?”
“I didn’t,” says Bess. “I didn’t find him.”
55.
OH.
Oh.
She killed him.
She kneels down next to me. “He left Goose with Penny tonight. I saw them go. They said they were going for a walk. But they were, you know, touching each other during the movie—we have Fletch from the Edgartown library, remember? And partway through, they left. It was George and me and Major left at Goose. And they were nice enough, but they think I’m just a kid. And Major was like, ‘Don’t give Bess the whiskey, it’ll be too much for her.’ And that was true, but I didn’t like to admit it. George was upset about Yardley leaving, but I could tell he didn’t want to talk about it in front of me, and it was really, really late, and—I wanted to know if Penny was making out with Pfeff, to be honest. I didn’t think it was fair to you, even though you said it was none of my business, and even though we were in a fight, so I—”
“Bess,” I interrupt. “How did Pfeff die?”
Penny comes walking up the dock, dripping water. “He and I— Don’t be mad, Carrie.”
I am furious.
Penny knew how I felt, she knew how broken her betrayal made me feel, she knew because I told her, and still—none of that mattered in the face of her need to be wanted, to be the prettiest girl in the room, to make Erin jealous, to be the straight girl my parents wanted, to kiss a boy she thought was hot—all of that mattered more than I did.
Maybe some part of Penny can tell I am only half her sister. Maybe she loves Bess in a way she can never love me. Maybe that’s why she could do this to me a second time.