Summer of '69(20)

They park the Wagoneer on a side street, Plumb Lane. Mr. Crimmins, the caretaker, appears out of nowhere to open Exalta’s door and help her out of the car.

“Oh, Bill,” Exalta says. “You didn’t have to meet us. I know you’re busy.”

“You look as lovely as ever, Exalta,” Mr. Crimmins says. He takes Exalta’s hand and gazes at her for a second. “I was sorry to hear about Tiger being sent over.”

“He’ll be just fine,” Exalta says, and she extracts her hand from his.

Mr. Crimmins turns to Jessie’s mother. “Katie, how are you?”

“Bill, you got my letter? About the…”

“It’s all set,” he says. “As it were. In the den, like you asked.” Mr. Crimmins winks at Jessie. “It looks like you’ve grown a whole foot there, Miss Jessica.” He pulls a green-apple-flavored Now and Later out of his shirt pocket and hands it to Jessie. This, too, is a tradition. Mr. Crimmins has met Jessie with a green-apple Now and Later for as long as she can remember, though today, for the first time, accepting it feels childish. At thirteen, she is too mature and responsible to be interested in candy, and yet refusing it is unthinkable.

“Thank you,” she says.

“And some mail came for you,” Mr. Crimmins says. As he reaches into his back pocket, Jessie’s heart leaps—a letter from Tiger! Her mother must be thinking the same thing because she steps forward in anticipation, but what Mr. Crimmins produces is a postcard. He hands it to Jessie.

The front shows a picture of Coolidge Corner in Brookline. Confused, Jessie flips the card over and reads Dear Jessie, Summer is boring. I miss you so, so, so much! Your friend forever, Doris.

“It’s from Doris,” Jessie says. Her mother sighs.

Exalta, Kate, and Jessie go through the wrought-iron gate on the side of the property and walk up the brick steps to the back door; the only people who use the front door are guests. The kitchen runs the entire length of the rear of the house. It has a brick fireplace oven, which makes entering the kitchen feel like stepping back into Colonial times. The first owner of the house was a man named Ebenezer Raymond, who was a blacksmith. Ebenezer’s two brothers were carpenters, and they’d built the house for him in 1795. Back then, many people died young, and newborn babies died all the time. Ebenezer got married, but his wife died; he married again, and then, at age thirty-eight, Ebenezer died. His second wife continued living in the house with their child and two of the children from Ebenezer’s first marriage. There are so many people who’ve died in All’s Fair that Jessie can’t believe the house isn’t haunted like some of the other houses on Nantucket. But then again, Jessie can’t imagine Exalta tolerating a ghost—or a ghost tolerating Exalta.

The house smells the same, which is to say it smells old and dusty, like a museum. Jessie’s grandfather used to smoke a pipe and a hint of his tobacco lingers.

Jessie has Anne Frank in one hand and her most important suitcase, the one with the record album, in the other, but she drops both at the bottom of the stairs so she can peek into the front rooms. To the right is the formal living room, which has a mural painted across three of the four walls. It’s a scene of Nantucket circa 1845, the year before the Great Fire destroyed downtown, which guests ooh and aah about when they first see it. At the far end of the living room, in an alcove that is almost but not quite a separate room, is Jessie’s grandfather’s desk and leather armchair.

The oldest antique in the house is a wooden spinning wheel said to have belonged to Ebenezer Raymond’s daughter. Years ago, before Jessie was born, Kirby spun the wheel too fast and broke the pedal. Exalta demanded an apology, which Kirby refused to give, and so Exalta punished her by shutting her up in the buttery—a dark little closet under the stairs where in olden times they stored the butter and milk—for ten whole minutes, a prospect that terrifies Jessie. When Kirby emerged from the buttery, she still wouldn’t apologize and Exalta had famously called her a “little rebel” and then given her a piece of strawberry candy.

To the left of the stairs is the den, which has a fireplace, a console that houses the Magnavox, and a collection of whirligigs and whimmy-diddles, which are one of Exalta’s passions. Jessie has always been fascinated by her grandmother’s collection and seeing them again each year is nearly like seeing friends. There’s the Indian chief with his long feathered headdress sitting upright in his canoe with paddles that move, a blue whale with fins that flip, a farmer bending over to be repeatedly kicked in the rear by his mule, a little Dutch boy and girl kissing next to a windmill with arms that spin, and Exalta’s favorite, the mustached man in red-striped pajamas riding an old-fashioned tricycle. Jessie takes stock of the whirligigs and picks some up to maneuver their moving parts, but gently, so as not to break them; the last thing she wants is to be stuffed into the buttery. When she turns to leave, she sees something so surprising that she cries out.

There’s a television, a big one, sitting on a stand in the corner.

Jessie approaches tentatively, as though the television is a spaceship that might blast off at any moment—that’s how unlikely its presence in this house is. The set is even bigger than the one in Doris’s house, and Doris has the biggest TV of anyone at school because Doris’s father likes to watch the commercials for McDonald’s. This television is plugged in, and a rabbit-ears antenna sits on top. Gingerly, Jessie turns the knob, and the screen illuminates to show a sea of gray fuzz.