Summer of '69(10)

“Okay,” Kirby says. She’ll write her mother a postcard later, she decides, and mention all the esteemed people she’s met on Martha’s Vineyard. “Let’s go say hi.”

Rajani strides up the walk and jabs the doorbell. Kirby wonders about Darren from Harvard. It would be nice to have a summer romance, a romance where she, Kirby, calls the shots instead of being an emotional wreck. It would be nice to stop thinking about Officer Scottie Turbo, with his devastating green eyes and his geisha-girl tattoo and his powerful hands that could pin both her wrists over her head as he kissed the spot just below her left ear.

A black woman in a white tennis dress opens the door. Her arms have sculpted muscles and there’s a sheen of perspiration on her forehead. Her hair is in a ponytail and she’s wearing diamond earrings. She looks at both girls—women!—but her gaze settles on Rajani and she smiles.

“Rajani!” she says. “Now the summer can officially begin!”

Kirby is initially confused. She thinks, Maid? Housekeeper? In a tennis dress and diamond earrings? And then, one instant later, she’s mortified by her own obtuseness and—let’s just say it—bigotry. This woman must be Darren’s mother, the doctor.

Darren’s mother holds open the screen door. Rajani steps inside and Kirby follows. The house is bright, summery, and modern. A peek in the living room to the right reveals a navy-and-white-striped divan with bright yellow throw pillows and a white coffee table shaped like a kidney bean. Kirby loves it. There isn’t a piece of furniture in Nonny’s house that’s less than a hundred years old.

“Dr. Frazier,” Rajani says. “Meet my friend Kirby Foley.”

Dr. Frazier offers her hand. “Nice to meet you, Kirby.” She studies Kirby for a second longer than she might have—or is Kirby just being paranoid? Kirby looks respectable, she thinks, in a strawberry-print wrap skirt, a white scoop-neck tee, and a pair of Dr. Scholl’s. She abandoned her usual minidresses, peasant blouses, and cutoff jeans in favor of this outfit because she wanted to make a good impression with her landlady, Miss O’Rourke. She senses hesitation on Dr. Frazier’s face. Is it because Kirby is white? Should Kirby inform Dr. Frazier that she’s a civil rights activist and a feminist, that she marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. next to her beloved high-school civics teacher, Miss Carpenter, and that she personally defended Miss Carpenter against the racial slurs of the ignorant boys in her class? Should she show Dr. Frazier her National Organization for Women membership card? Should she mention that she’s read Simone de Beauvoir, Aimé Césaire, and Eldridge Cleaver?

All of that would sound like bragging, she fears, or, worse, like she’s trying to appropriate African-Americans’ struggle for rights and respect when anyone can see that she’s as white as Wonder Bread. Besides, it’s exaggerating a bit—she has read Aimé Césaire, but she barely understood a single word. She decides the best defense is genuine human warmth. She smiles at Dr. Frazier, and as she does, she realizes she has seen this woman before. But where? Dr. Frazier doesn’t work at Simmons, and yet somewhere…Kirby has met her somewhere.

“Are you here visiting for a few days?” Dr. Frazier asks. “Or for the summer?”

“The summer,” Kirby says, hoping this will be a point in her favor. “I’m renting a room from Alice O’Rourke. I’ll be working as a chambermaid at the Shiretown Inn in Edgartown.”

“Chambermaid?” Dr. Frazier asks. She gives Kirby the once-over with what appears to be an incredulous eye. “Where are you from, Kirby?”

Kirby clears her throat. “My parents live in Brookline?” She’s so nervous she sounds like she’s asking the question instead of answering it.

“Kirby normally spends her summers on Nantucket,” Rajani announces. “But she’s decided to give the Vineyard a whirl.”

“Brookline and Nantucket,” Dr. Frazier says. “And you’re cleaning rooms at the Shiretown Inn? And you’ve signed on to live in Alice O’Rourke’s house? Do your parents know about this?” She sounds either disapproving or amused; Kirby can’t tell which. It feels like Darren’s mother has the whole situation figured out: Rich white girl trying on a working-class hat for kicks. Kirby doesn’t need the chambermaid job; in fact, she’s taking it away from someone who does need it. Or maybe Dr. Frazier thinks Kirby has been cast out by her family for one transgression or another.

And then Kirby realizes where she knows Dr. Frazier from. Her face grows hot and stiff like she’s gotten a bad sunburn, and the back of her throat starts to close. She needs to get out of there pronto. But before Kirby can think of a way to excuse herself, Rajani speaks up. “We came to say hello to Darren. Is he around?”

“He went to Larsen’s with his father to pick up lobsters for dinner,” Dr. Frazier says. “With all the traffic up-island, I can’t say how long they’ll be.”

“No problem,” Rajani says. “We’ll come back another time.”

“Well,” Dr. Frazier says. She hesitates, and Kirby is pretty sure she’s debating whether or not to invite them to stay and wait for Darren. If so, she decides against it. “It was good to see you, Rajani. And nice to meet you, Kirby. Enjoy our island.” She holds the front screen door open almost as if she’s eager for Kirby to get out.