Family of Liars(58)

Later, Penny and I walk down to Goose. We offer to help the boys pack. Tipper asked us to. It is our responsibility to make them feel better.

George and Major don’t care about their packing. They plan to leave it all till the last minute and do it willy-nilly. Instead, they ask if we want to put on a movie. The four of us huddle on the couch under old cotton blankets and watch Mary Poppins yet again.

Halfway through the movie, Bess joins us.

“I’m sorry I was a witch to you at supper,” says Penny, surprisingly.

Bess nods. “It’s just a lot.”

“It is a lot,” says Penny. “We have to take care of our Bess.” She beckons, and Bess squeezes in between me and Penny.

“It’s a sister sandwich,” says Bess.

“Yah, yah,” I say. “You okay?”

“I’m okay.”

“You want a beer?” asks George, who has gone over to the fridge. “Pretzel mix?”

“Just a Tab is cool,” says Bess. “And the pretzel mix. Yeah.”

George mixes small pretzels with a bag of chocolate chips, Frosted Mini-Wheats, and a bag of tiny marshmallows. “I really learned to cook on this trip,” he deadpans as he sits back down and gives Bess her Tab.

We all stick our hands in the pretzel mix and eat it in salty-sweet handfuls. Major turns the movie back on.

It is good not to have to speak or pretend, but just to watch and forget.

When it’s over, the boys toast Pfefferman. “A funny man, obsessed with his weenie, a lackadaisical tennis player,” says George, raising what is probably his third beer. “A friend since the sixth grade, the ‘mayor’ of the Germantown Friends School, interested in everybody, a terrible outdoorsman but an okay sailor. Pfeff was not scared of sharks, even though he should have been. He made me laugh a million times, and for that, I’m forever grateful. Pfeff, my man, I hope you’re happy up there. May the beer be cold and the women blond for ya.”

Major stands up. “Pfeff, you were a butthead, but you knew it, and you made us love you for it. Not a lot of people could do that. You wore some incredible socks. To be honest, I wasn’t sure about this summer, when George decided we’d all come here. I didn’t know much about you besides what I just said. But we had some good talks, Lor Pfefferman. I think we would have gone our separate ways at Amherst, but here on Beechwood we had dance parties and midnight swims. And we had those good Early Mornings, waking and baking, appreciating that water and the sunrises. I’m glad you got one more Morning in, and that if you had to go, it was because of something as badass as a shark attack. Rest in peace, Pfeff.”

They look at me like maybe I want to say something.

I stand. I have not dared to drink, for fear of loosening my tongue, or taken a codeine, for fear of dozing off after my sleepless night. I raise my can of Coke. “To Pfeff. He was a flirt, sometimes a cad, but also a dreamer. A charmer and a great finder of lemons. Always forgiven his trespasses because of his awesomeness. We wish him well in the big sleep.”

The words feel sour coming out of my mouth, though some of them are true. There is so much about him that I cannot say.

He was capable of rape.

He was cruel. False-hearted. Untrustworthy.

“Penny,” says George. “You want to say something?”

Penny looks choked. She shakes her head.

Bess, always one to do whatever is “right” in the moment, stands up in her stead. I am worried about what she will say. She looks drawn and exhausted. Her hair is flat and dirty, and she’s huddled in her warmest sweater and an old pair of jeans. I reach out and squeeze her hand.

Don’t confess.

Don’t break.

Be strong.

“I’m glad I got to know you, Pfeff,” Bess says. “Thanks for the laughs at supper, and for the time you brought us cold sodas on the beach, and for catching sand crabs with Tomkin. Thanks for being so nice to our mother. Rest in peace.”

She sits down.

George makes popcorn in the microwave, and since none of us knows what to do next, we start another movie. Fletch.

Not long into it, Penny and Bess fall asleep. Penny’s head drops onto my shoulder.

A while later, George pauses the movie to go use the bathroom and I turn to Major. “You didn’t like Pfeff so much, did you?” I ask.

Major hesitates for a minute, his face flushing. Then he shakes his head. “Since you’re asking, no. I mean, I’m sorry and shocked that the guy is dead, but no.”

“Why not?”

“All the back-and-forth with you and Penny, for one. That’s just low. Though I guess you forgave him.”

I nod. “He made a pretty stellar apology,” I lie. “When he got around to it.”

“But he had this attitude,” says Major. “Like everything belonged to him; it was all his for the taking. Some gay jokes. Jokes about my parents’ spiritual practice. Like, who makes fun of people’s religion? Since when is that okay? I mean, the guy was all the good things I said, too. But underneath, like down deep, I don’t think he thought about anybody else. Nobody else was really a person to him.” He shrugs. “They were just toys.”

George returns, but we don’t watch the end of the movie. I rouse Bess and Penny and the three of us hug them and say It’s all such a shock,