Summer of '69(117)

Now she would accept that fate for him in an instant.

The bowling alley smells of roasted peanuts, cigarette smoke, and the damp. It’s crowded today because it’s raining out but it feels cozy and convivial. Kirby marches right up to the desk and secures lane 10, which is along the far wall and not, thank goodness, in the middle of the action where people might watch them. They each put on a pair of the hideous shoes that are better suited to a gangster or clown. (Kate shudders to think of the other feet that have been in these shoes, and then she flashes back on Exalta giddily walking up Fair Street in her galoshes. Most curious.) They buy a large bag of warm unshelled peanuts and three birch beers. They are ready to bowl!

It’s a deceptively simple game—you just knock pins over with a heavy ball—but it takes Kate a while to figure out how to plug her fingers in the holes, take the correct number of steps, and release the ball with force and accuracy. After some gutter balls, she gets the hang of it and pins start to fall. In the first frame, Kate knocks down six, Kirby seven, and Jessie gets a spare. Kate likes the sounds of the alley, the anticipatory rumble of the ball rolling down the glossy boards and the crack of the ball against the pins. Music is playing in the background: Bill Haley and the Comets, Chuck Berry, and Chad and Jeremy. Kate drinks her birch beer and lets the shells of the peanuts fall to the floor. When it’s her turn, she takes the ball that looks like a green-and-white-swirled marble and holds it up in front of her face. She feels Tiger then, so keenly that she nearly believes that if she turns around, she will see him sitting between his sisters. She hears his laugh, pictures the freckle next to his eye. He’s here. He’s in the atmosphere. Kate swings her arm back and lets the ball go. It’s a strike.



That evening, Kate watches Walter Cronkite alone. Blair is upstairs with the babies, one of whom is crying; Angus has run out for a pizza; Jessie and Kirby are at the Dreamland theater seeing Butch Cassidy; and Exalta went to bridge at the Anglers’ Club with Bill Crimmins.

Exalta and Bill Crimmins, Kate thinks. She suddenly wonders if there’s more to that than meets the eye. Bill Crimmins lives on Pine Street in the exact direction that Exalta walks on her mysterious errands. This might also explain why Bill moved out when he could have stayed rent-free at Little Fair. He wanted his own place so he and Exalta could be alone, away from scrutiny.

Kate is so consumed with how incredible and yet credible her new theory is that she misses the first part of Cronkite’s report, but she tunes in when she hears him mention the Cambodian border and the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

“Earlier today, there were seventeen American casualties confirmed in an air strike in a position near the town of Svay Rieng,” Cronkite says.

Seventeen casualties. Along the Cambodian border. The Ho Chi Minh Trail. Casualties meaning…dead? Or injured? Some dead, some only injured?

Tiger!

Kate calls David. She can hardly breathe. The evening newspaper has already been delivered and there was no mention of this. David says he will stay up to watch the late news. He’ll call first thing in the morning.

Kate tries to explain to David about that afternoon at the bowling alley. She felt Tiger’s spirit; when she lifted the ball, it was as if Tiger’s hand were underneath her elbow, and she bowled a strike. It had seemed like a lark, but now she knows it was a sign. That was the moment he’d died. He was hit in an air strike, and his soul was instantly transported to Nantucket, to Mid-Island Bowl, where he helped his mother knock down all the pins.

Tiger!

Angus walks in the door with the pizza and Kate rises to turn off the TV. She follows Angus into the kitchen like a zombie.

“Would you like a slice, Kate?” he asks.

Kate shakes her head, pours herself a vodka.



When David calls in the morning, he has no further details. Seventeen American casualties along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, close to Svay Rieng.

“We don’t know he was among them,” David says. “Katie, we don’t know.”

But Kate does know. She felt him. It was different from other times she’d thought of him. It was immediate, visceral.

“Come today,” she says. It’s a Friday. David is booked on the six o’clock ferry along with every other attorney, doctor, and businessman in Boston. “Come right now. Skip work. Please, David.” If Tiger is dead, they’ll send someone to Brookline. “Leave a note on the front door. So they can find us.”

“Okay,” David whispers.



She can’t tell the girls because she doesn’t want them to overreact. Everyone else is enjoying August. Everyone else is happy. Jessie and Exalta return from their daily pilgrimage to the club. It was Jessie’s last day of lessons; she received a certificate and a written note from her instructor, Suze, that says, I have greatly enjoyed getting to know Jessica this summer. She has the makings of a fine tennis player and an even better person. Kate smiles and says, “What a lovely note!” but her tone rings hollow.

“We should celebrate her efforts,” Exalta says. “How about lunch in the garden at the Chanticleer?”

Kate says, “I couldn’t possibly, Mother.”

“Why not?” Exalta says.

“David is coming on the next ferry,” Kate says.

“Early?” Exalta says. She does not sound pleased.

“I’ll wait here for Dad,” Jessie says.