The Last September: A Novel

I put the glasses of wine on the dry deck, then pulled up my skirt and sat down next to him. Ladd had his hands on his thighs, his fingers tense. The dog sat between us, staring out across the pool as if that were the activity of the moment. Which I guess in a way it was. I picked up my wineglass and sat there, waiting for Ladd to tell me how hurt he felt. Or else to tell me the various stories Eli had alluded to, about the girls Ladd and Charlie had warred over in their youth, in a tone that would warn me away from even thinking about Charlie. I imagined leggy debutantes on the tennis court, girls in bikinis. Blonde and blue-eyed girls who lived worlds apart from my own childhood summers of university day camp. I hate to admit I felt a little rush, a bit of unaccustomed ego. I had never been the kind of girl men fought over.

Ladd didn’t say anything. I studied his face, which tended to flush pink around his cheeks and jawline, especially when he’d been drinking. Part of me wanted to reach out and touch him, reassure him. But I worried that might unlock whatever anger he was trying so hard to hold in. When he finally spoke, it was in that same tone, trying to sound calm but with an edge that threatened to break at any moment.

“Girls always loved Charlie,” he said. Which I didn’t want to hear, any more than I had years before, when Eli had tried to tell me.

Ladd went on, not looking at me. “Remember what Eli said? ‘Another girlfriend in common with Charlie.’ Like there had been a hundred. Really it was just one girl in particular. Her name was Robin. I met her my freshman year at Cornell and she came back here with me for the summer. Then she met Charlie. Need to hear more?”

If I said no, it might sound like Of course she left you for him. I brought my fingers to his cheek, very lightly. He kept his eyes on the artificial blue of the pool water, tensing as if he didn’t want me to touch him. I lowered my hand to pet the dog instead.

“But before that,” he said. “Summers when we were kids. Once we were thirteen or so. Any girl . . . the girls we met. On the beach. Yacht Club dances, that sort of thing. They mostly liked Charlie. They all liked Charlie. You asked why we stopped being friends. I guess that’s mostly why. Robin was the final nail in the coffin. I had to see him, sometimes, because of our families. Obviously I still do. But I never really want to. You know?”

“What happened,” I said, “with Charlie and Robin?”

“He broke her heart. She came running to me. I dropped out of school and went to Alaska instead of taking her back.”

“Oh,” I said. “That girl.”

“Yeah. That girl.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I love you.”

“Do you.”

“Yes. I really do.”

“You know what Robin said when she broke up with me? She said I was too intense. Charlie was playful, she said. He was fun.”

Charlie is unattainable, I thought. Ethereal, beautiful, charming. Nothing I could say about Charlie would be in any way comforting, except the one word Eli had used, way back when.

“He’s a womanizer,” I said.

Finally Ladd turned to look at me. “Yeah,” he said. “A fun and playful womanizer. You know what I think he would do? If he saw his fiancée walking down to the beach holding some other guy’s hand?”

I waited for a moment, raising the wineglass to my lips. Before I could take a sip, Ladd put his hand at the small of my back and pushed me into the pool. The shove was a little too abrupt, too hard, to own the word playful. My glass went flying, erupting in a pale arc of Pinot Grigio until it landed, still a quarter full, to bob beneath the diving board. I treaded water in my red Calvin Klein dress, which had originally cost $400, but which I had bought on sale for $149—the most I’d ever spent on a single garment. I hadn’t yet looked at the care label, but I had a good idea it said Dry Clean Only. The dog jumped in after me, paddling in noisy circles.