Family of Liars(50)

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.

But a boy is dead at my feet and Bess has said “We need you,” so I swallow all my rage and listen to Penny’s story.

“We came down here to fool around,” she says. “Well, at first to sit on the dock and like, kick our heels against the wood and look at the water, but then we started kissing and all of a sudden, he was like, on me.” Penny kneels down next to Pfeff’s body. “And I guess he expects stuff from girls. Like he’s had a lot of experience or doesn’t think sex is a big deal. He took his shirt off and he was like, tugging my pants down, and his pants down, and I was like—oh my god, no. I barely know him and we aren’t going out, and I just thought we’d mess around a little. Here he was, like, forcing himself on me. I said no, and he just kept saying ‘Please. Please, Penny, please.’?” Penny is crying, and she wipes her nose with the back of her hand. “And I got confused by the ‘please,’ you know? But I still said no, this was all I was doing—but stupid, stupid, I let him kiss me again. Then he just seemed on automatic, somehow, just going ahead even though I’d said no. I was thinking how do I get out of this? And I said no a third time and he kept saying please and I wished I could be anywhere in the world but here, only I couldn’t figure out how to leave. Then Bess came and hit him on the head with that board.”