Summer of '69(121)
Kate’s parents head out on the Madaket Road. If they wanted to see the water, why not drive to Cisco? It’s much closer.
“Where are we going?” Blair asks.
Kirby can’t believe a surprise has been thrown into their Thanksgiving. The whole point of Thanksgiving is tradition, sameness—although this past year has been one of enormous, unpredictable change, so why should Thanksgiving be any different?
Kirby wonders if her grandmother is in on this surprise. Exalta came up to the island on Monday, which was completely unheard of, and it made Kirby wonder if there was some truth to Jessie’s claim that she had personally witnessed Exalta and Mr. Crimmins kissing, as in really kissing, on the night of the moon walk.
Kirby isn’t sure that means Exalta and Mr. Crimmins are sleeping together—perish the thought!—but she will concede that Exalta has softened up. Kirby has spent a fair amount of time this fall currying favor with Exalta. She goes to lunch at the Union Club with her once a week because Exalta has agreed to pony up the three thousand dollars Kirby needs for a semester abroad in Geneva.
At their most recent lunch, Exalta ordered a bottle of champagne and they both got a little tipsy. Exalta had leaned across the table and said, “Tell me, Katharine, about your romantic life. Surely there must be a young man.”
Kirby felt heat rise to her cheeks, which was a novel sensation. She wasn’t sure if it was embarrassment or nerves or love. She had been seeing Darren. There was a date at Mr. Bartley’s Burgers, then after that, an afternoon trip to the aquarium, then they met at the Boston Public Library to study together and went to Chinatown for noodles afterward. Kirby tried to keep things casual because she was leaving for Switzerland right after the new year and she couldn’t risk a heavy romantic entanglement. But then Darren announced that he would be studying that same semester at the university in Genoa, Italy, which was only two hours away by train, and so suddenly Kirby was fantasizing about the kind of torrid affair they could conduct in cities where nobody knew them on a continent where no one would judge them.
Kirby said, “There’s no one special.”
“No one?” Exalta asked.
“Well,” Kirby said. Exalta’s gaze was unrelenting and Kirby could see she really did want to know about Kirby’s life. Kirby flashed forward fifty years to 2019, when Kirby herself might have grandchildren. Wouldn’t she want to know the truth about their lives? (What would being a twenty-one-year-old in 2019 look like? Kirby couldn’t begin to imagine.) “There is someone I’ve been seeing now and again.”
“I knew it,” Exalta said. “You have that glow. Tell me all about him.”
“Well, he goes to Harvard.”
“Excellent!” Exalta said. “A Harvard man like your grandfather!”
Nothing like Gramps, Kirby thought. “His mother is a doctor and his father is a judge,” Kirby said. “He has a house on Martha’s Vineyard. That’s where I met him.”
“This all sounds marvelous,” Exalta said. “Why have you been keeping this boy a secret? He sounds divine. Tell me, is he handsome?”
“Very,” Kirby said.
“Of course he’s handsome!” Exalta said. She poured more champagne into both of their glasses. Kirby watched the bubbles fizz, pop, and evaporate. Which was exactly what would happen to Exalta’s enthusiasm about Kirby’s mystery man. “Why don’t you invite him for Thanksgiving?”
“He has a family,” Kirby said. “His parents and aunts, uncles, cousins.” She took a sip of her champagne. They would need another bottle if Kirby told the whole truth about Darren.
But why not just come right out and say it? Kirby wondered. She thought of Senator Kennedy, who had gone on television on July 25 and made a speech of explanation and apology about the Chappaquiddick incident. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts had not spontaneously combusted, nor had its citizens called for Kennedy’s head, thrown him in jail, or stripped him of his Senate seat. If the country could accept Kennedy’s story of being confused, discombobulated, and in a state of shock following the accident—so much so that he didn’t even call the police—then Exalta could accept Kirby’s relationship with Darren Frazier.
Or at least, she hoped so.
“Darren’s black,” Kirby said. She laid her hands on either side of her silverware on top of the linen tablecloth and forced herself to deliver the words right to Exalta’s face. “He’s Negro.”
Exalta blinked and then said, “I’ve learned a lot in my seventy-five years, Katharine.” She’d lowered her voice into what Kirby thought of as her serious register. “Some knowledge has come to me quite recently. I’m sure it was difficult for you to tell me that, maybe because you expect me to react in a certain way. But I’ll have you know, your young man—what is his name?”
“Darren,” Kirby said. “Darren Frazier.”
“You can feel free to bring Darren Frazier to meet me at any time. I would be honored.”
Inexplicably, this caused Kirby to tear up. “Really?”
“Of course,” Exalta said. “People are people.”
People are people. Her grandmother couldn’t have said anything to make Kirby happier.
Now Kirby turns her attention back to her mother. “So…did Nonny drive up here by herself on Monday?” This seems unlikely. Exalta has a license and a car but she has never, to Kirby’s knowledge, driven all the way to the Cape.