“And?”
“I was on the dock with Penny. And I felt a sharp pain in my head. I might have screamed. There was blood in my eyes. Then everything went dark and very quiet. Like a long sleep. It was comfortable after that, actually. Like a rest.”
That’s what Rosemary says, too. That it’s comfortable. The actual dying didn’t hurt.
“Then I woke up again last night,” Pfeff continues. “And I found myself on the beach. With like, my feet in the sand. I was hungry and everything. Just like being alive. It was so strange. I thought, I’m here for some reason, I guess. And I walked up to Pevensie because that seemed like where I wanted to go. And I knew I was right when I saw my mom sitting on the porch. She was staring out at the night. So I talked to her. I wanted her to know I loved her and stuff. I was worried she didn’t know, because we’d kind of been in a fight all summer. So I told her. After that, we just hung out. We kept talking, and I filled her in about the summer, about George and Major and living in Goose. The stuff we did. And also about you and me.”
“What did you tell her?”
“How it ended badly when I scammed around with Penny.”
I stare at him. Shaking.
“She asked a lot of questions,” Pfeff continues, “and…she made me think how it might have felt to you. For all that to happen. And I really am sorry. That I hurt your feelings.”
I should banish him. I need to, so Penny and Bess and I can stick to our lies. So Penny and Bess can be safe. But I have wanted Pfeff to be sorry since I first saw him with Penny. I need to hear him out.
“I see that you must have been very upset,” says Pfeff. “And that I probably led you on. And that Penny wasn’t the best person to— I was wrong.” He holds his hand out in my direction. “Can we say sorry to each other and set it to rest?”
Wait. “You want me to say sorry?”
“I’m saying sorry,” he says. “So yeah. You owe me an apology, too. Don’t you?”
“No.”
“I think you do. You got so mad, and you turned Yardley against me and all that. Even George and Major. George and I had a whole argument about it. And Penny. Penny is confusing, you know? One minute she’s all Come hither and Let’s be alone and I know how to make a guy feel good, and the next minute she’s changing her mind. She doesn’t account for a guy being drunk and revved up or whatever, and she’s saying no, but not like she means it, and now you’ve both decided I’m this terrible person. That’s the problem, right? That Penny told you I’m terrible.”
I stare at him.
“Did it ever occur to you that Penny says shit behind your back?” he goes on. “Did it ever occur to you that I wouldn’t have been with her if she didn’t like, explicitly go after me in the first place? That she put me in that situation?”
“Leave us!” I shout, the words exploding out of me. “I don’t want you here!”
“Aren’t you sorry?” he cries. “Aren’t you sorry at all?”
Saying no
but not like she means it, he said.
She doesn’t account for a guy being drunk and revved up
or whatever.
She put me in that situation.
“No, Pfeff,” I tell him. “I’m not sorry. For anything. At all.”
In this moment, I don’t care if his mom loves him. I don’t care if there were good things about him. He was hurting Penny, and my loyalty is with my sister, no matter what else she has done.
“Carrie,” he persists. “I’m like, back from the dead to talk to you. You don’t want to apologize?”
“I’m through with you, Lawrence Pfefferman,” I say.
“But—”
“No. You don’t get to say sorry. Not to me, not to Penny. We won’t forgive you.”
“You wanted to talk to me,” he says. “We were standing right here. Remember? You were begging me.”
“And you didn’t care.”
“Come on.” He takes a step toward me.
I put up a hand to stop him. “Nothing you do matters anymore. You are not welcome here. Stay away from my family.”
He stands there, looking at me.
“I mean it,” I say.
Pfeff shrugs. “You’re going to feel terrible about this later,” he says. “You’re going to wish you’d said sorry. You’re going to wish we’d made up.”
“No I won’t. Just leave us and never come back.”
Pfeff walks forward into the ocean. The water hits his middle and he begins to swim. He swims out past the sharp rocks, beyond the cove to the open water.
I watch until I cannot see him anymore.
* * *
—
WHEN THE POLICE boat arrives, it contains the same two officers we met with earlier. They have really come to speak with the Pfeffermans, but we all gather in the Clairmont living room, almost like a tea party. Tipper serves hot drinks and stacks of white toast with butter.
The weathered, pythony officer takes the lead. He explains that divers and rescue teams on boats have searched the area since Pfeff was reported missing. Sometimes bodies are found quickly, if they drown in shallow water, he says. Or if they are in a discrete area, like a pond. But in deep water, or in very cold water, it is common for a body not to surface. Depending on various factors, the body could float, or not.
In a situation like this one, a shark attack is certainly a possibility. “White sharks are widely known in Cape Cod waters. They have a migration pattern.”
“Will you continue to search?” asks Harris.
The officer shakes his head. “I’m sad to say the search is closed,” he says. “If you want my evaluation, I’d say the shark.”
Mrs. Pfefferman breaks down crying. Mr. Pfefferman puts an arm around her.
Penny, Bess, and I busy ourselves clearing teacups and tossing uneaten toast into the trash.
69.
LATER THAT DAY, after Harris has taken the Pfeffermans back to the mainland with Lor’s possessions, Tipper knocks on my door.
She sits on my unmade bed. Self-consciously, I begin picking up dirty clothes and putting them in the hamper. I straighten the objects on top of my dresser.
“I know you must be devastated,” says Tipper after a silence. “You are holding up so well. I wanted to tell you how beautifully I think you are doing.”
“Thank you.” I am not sure what she means.
“He was a great boy. Dashing and smart and funny—everything a girl could want, really. Your dad liked him. And Amherst, that’s a very good school,” she says. “I could tell you were happy together.”
Some part of me wants desperately to confide in her. I could tell her how I found Pfeff with Penny. I could share how cold he was, and cruel, could let her see how wrecked I’ve been. She would comfort me. I could snuggle into her arms and be her baby again, the one who needs the most care. I could become the priority, like I was when my jaw was infected.
But would the whole story spill out? If I tell her the one thing, will I tell her what happened after that? Will floodgates open? I cannot burden my mother with the story of a murder and a cover-up. Her world would shatter completely. She might never forgive us.
Even if I could stop telling the story at the breakup, even if I could tell her only that Pfeff didn’t love me, and explain how he treated me, telling her would be foolish. The story of his death depends on everyone believing that Pfeff made an excellent apology and we agreed to go boating together with my sisters. Once people question that, our story will begin to seem suspicious.
And anyway, Tipper is not asking if I’m all right. She is telling me how well I’ve done pretending everything’s all right. She thinks I have lost my first love to the sea, and she knows nothing more, but she wants me to keep on saving face.
“I’m sad, but it wasn’t really serious between us,” I say. “Just a summer fling before he went to college.” It is the same lie I told the police. “I would never call him a boyfriend, really.”
“Oh,” she says. “I see.”
“You know I really like Andrew at North Forest.” Another lie. There is no Andrew.
“Oh yes, I hadn’t realized Andrew was still in the picture,” she says with a slight frown.