“There’s only like six people even staying here right now,” Mary retorted, with an unperturbed shrug.
“That is entirely beside the point!” said Diane. “You were supposed to be working the desk. You cannot go gallivanting off anytime you please!”
Mary met her mother’s eyes and saw that there was more there than anger. “Where were you anyway?” asked Diane, worry lining her words.
“I was at Lisa’s house,” she said. “She needed help with her math.”
Diane held Mary’s eyes for a moment, then, as if a string had been cut, her shoulders slumped forward and her head hung down. “Mr. Pool said he saw you walking home from the marina,” she said.
“I stopped there on my way home from Lisa’s,” said Mary. “To see if any of the summer people had come yet.”
Diane and Mary would sometimes hand out coupons for the Water’s Edge to the summer people. Tell your friends! Diane would say.
Diane shook her head. “Just stop, Mary.” Without looking up, Diane went on. “I can’t take it anymore. I punish you. I yell at you. Nothing works. You disregard everything I say. Why don’t you tell me what it is you’re trying to prove running wild the way you do and we can be done with it?”
And if it were only that simple, Mary certainly would have.
Mary was grounded, told that she couldn’t go out for three weeks. “You know I’m supposed to go out with Barry tonight,” Diane said. “How am I supposed to do that, Mare?” she asked. Barry was one of the few men Diane had dated since having Mary. “How am I supposed to sit there and smile when the whole time I’m wondering what the hell my daughter is doing?”
Mary looked at her mother blankly. “Why don’t you call Mrs. Pool?”
Diane shook her head with disappointment, but that’s exactly what she did. She called Mrs. Pool and told her that she had a date with Barry. She glanced at Mary and lowered her voice before continuing. “And I just don’t feel comfortable, Alice, leaving Mary here alone.”
It was only after Mary’s grandfather had died that Diane started looking for a husband. Someone to take care of her, to share the responsibility of Mary and the Water’s Edge. Barry was divorced but childless, and he owned a carpet-installation service out of Shore Haven. And that night, Diane put on her stiff maroon polyester shirtdress, and she walked out to the office, where Mary and Mrs. Pool were sitting on the itchy brown couch. Diane fidgeted, her expression showing just how nervous she was, just how eager for their praise. Mrs. Pool, who indulged everyone, but especially Diane and Mary, let her hands come together with a gentle clapping. “You look gorgeous, Diane.”
“Yeah, Mom,” said Mary, who, at the sight of her mother’s too-heavy blush, at the smell of her too-heavy perfume, felt a stab of something she didn’t quite recognize. Something that pained her. “You look really pretty.”
And that night, after Barry came to the door and escorted Diane to the car, Mary scooted up to the television set and, with her finger on the channel selector, said to Mrs. Pool, “What do you want to watch?”
Mrs. Pool smiled, the skin beneath her chin soft. “Whatever you want, dear.”
Within the hour, Mrs. Pool had fallen asleep, her head resting on the back of the couch, her mouth open while her hands remained folded in her lap. Mary tiptoed out of the office and back to her room. She ran a brush through her long hair, changed into new white cotton underwear, and slipped out the door to meet Stefan.
He was standing right where he said he’d be, under the lifeguard chair, the waves battering down on the sand, then retreating quickly. “I didn’t think you were coming,” he said.
“Were you about to leave?”
“No.”
Without another word, Stefan pulled her into him, setting the pace of their kiss, the pulse of it. “Do you want to go to the boat?” he asked, the question whispered into her mouth.
His fingers moved up her back, under her shirt. Behind her, the wind moved through the dune grass. In front of her was her ocean scattering the moon. “No,” she said, wanting to feel the yielding sand beneath her, wanting to hear the steady drum of the surf. “Let’s stay here.”
They lay down where they were, moving as if toward the inevitable. Unlike the boys who had tried to be with Mary, Stefan was slow. Kneeling in front of her, he pulled off her shorts, then his own.
He laid her down, then rested his elbows on either side of her. They were eye to eye when he pressed himself in. And Mary gasped in pain, her body offering resistance, then release.
When it was done, he took her place in the sand and pulled her on top of him and ran his fingertips up and down her skin, his back in the sand, her hair riddled with it.
“You didn’t tell me,” he said.
She lifted her cheek from his chest and looked at him. “Would it have mattered?” she asked, her curiosity genuine and unmasked.
Stefan pulled her head back toward his chest, as if he didn’t want her to see the answer on his face.
They lay there like that until Mary’s eyes started to slip shut, until the blood on her inner thighs was dry, was dust. They lay there like that until Mary said, “I should get back.” Then Stefan laid her on her back once again and slipped her shorts back onto her body, buttoning them gently, before his thumbs ran over her hip bones, before he helped her to her feet.
“I have to leave for Bermuda tomorrow,” he whispered, holding her hand as they approached the Water’s Edge. “I have to get supplies there. But I’ll come back.” He brought his other hand over to surround hers.
They took a few more steps, their movement synched. “When?” she asked.
“October,” he said. “On my way home.”
She turned to face him.
“Do you promise?” she asked.
Stefan nodded. “I do.”
And then, from inside the Water’s Edge, a light came on. Stefan dropped to his knee and kissed Mary’s hand before disappearing into the night with his promise of a return. Mary heard only the rustle of grass on the dunes until, from behind her, she heard her mother’s voice. “Mary Catherine Chase!” Mary turned to see Diane standing at the threshold, her face tear streaked, Barry’s hand on her shoulder. “What the hell are you doing out here?” And Mary saw Diane search the night, sensing but not seeing another presence.