Summer of '69(37)

“How’s Jessie?” Kirby asked. Poor Jessie was pretty much raising herself, Kirby suspected, while Kate fretted about Blair and Tiger. Jessie was a sensitive kid, and smart; she liked to read and daydream. Kirby had tried to imbue her younger sister with some of her own passion and ferocity, but it hadn’t taken root. Yet.

“Jessie?” Kate sounded like she didn’t know who Kirby was talking about, and that said it all.

Kirby decides that when she gets her first paycheck—ninety dollars!—she’ll buy Jessie a tie-dyed T-shirt that says MARTHA’S VINEYARD across the front, and she’ll mail it to the house on Fair Street and suggest Jessie wear it to the Field and Oar. That will get Exalta’s goat. Kirby should write a handbook called How to Horrify Nonny and Get Away with It. She laughs at the dark street, then goes back in, settles down in the armchair in the back office, and turns on the small radio for company. The song playing is Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale.” Kirby loves the song, but it had been playing in Scottie Turbo’s car on the way up to Lake Winnipesaukee. Kirby and Scottie had thrown their heads back and sung at the tops of their lungs. That her face, at first just ghostly, turned a whiter shade of pale.

She turns the radio off.



She wakes up with a start when Mr. Ames, the night watchman, dings the bell on the front desk. Kirby hops to her feet, straightens her skirt, and hurries out to greet him. Mr. Ames is in his mid-sixties; he’s a former policeman from South Boston who retired to the Vineyard with his wife, Susanna. They live in a cottage on East Chop, which is technically a part of Oak Bluffs, though not the Methodist Campground part. During Kirby’s first night on the job, Mr. Ames showed Kirby a snapshot of Susanna, and Kirby was shocked to find that Susanna was black. Kirby had tried not to let any surprise show on her face or in her voice. “She’s beautiful. How did you two meet?”

“In Boston,” he said. “We both rode the Red Line of the T and I would see her every now and again in her nurse’s uniform. One day the train was crowded and I offered her my seat.”

“That’s so romantic!” Kirby said. “Do you have any children?”

“Susanna has a daughter from her first marriage,” Mr. Ames said. “But Denise is grown and has kids of her own now.”

Kirby had wanted to ask if it was difficult being part of an interracial couple or if it was no big deal. Her interest in this topic was pressing. Ever since Darren had picked Kirby up hitchhiking, her mind kept returning to him. She wanted to see him again.

Mr. Ames hands Kirby coffee in a Styrofoam cup. “Thought you might need this,” he says. “I remembered that you take it sweet and light.”

“Thank you,” Kirby says. It’s three o’clock now; she can’t imagine staying awake another four hours. “Everything okay upstairs?” Mr. Ames does three walk-throughs, one at eleven thirty, one at two thirty, and one at five thirty.

“The gentleman in room eight snores like a black bear,” Mr. Ames says. “Though I’m hardly one to talk.” He points a finger at Kirby. “There’s no shame in dozing off. If there’s an emergency, I’ll wake you.”

“Thank you, Mr. Ames,” Kirby says. She takes the coffee to the back office and thinks about how much she enjoys living without shame.

Shame.

There’s a far bigger problem with Kirby dating Darren Frazier than just his being black. It’s his mother. Dr. Frazier knows who Kirby is…maybe. Or maybe all young blond students look the same to her. Kirby should forget about Darren; the last thing she needs is a complicated relationship. Although what appeals to Kirby about Darren is that he seems so easy. He was nice enough to pick her up and drive her all the way to Edgartown; he’s smart enough to go to Harvard; he takes pride in his summer job; he’s confident and self-assured. And he has a gorgeous smile. How divine would it be to bask in that smile all summer long? How lovely to ride shotgun in Darren’s Corvair and go pick up lobsters from Larsen’s and eat them in the blue fairy-tale house?

Kirby sighs. Divine, lovely, but just a dream. He was nice to her because she’s friends with Rajani. Possibly, he’s interested in Rajani. This thought bothers Kirby more than it probably should.

She tries again with the radio and gets Peter, Paul, and Mary. The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind. She closes her eyes.



Kirby wakes with the sun at quarter after five and snaps into action. She goes through the bills one more time and hurries to the restroom to freshen up. She sets up the coffee percolator and arranges powdered doughnuts from a box on a plate for the guests. At precisely six o’clock, a guest named Bobby Hogue from room 3 appears in a pair of shorts and tennis shoes. Bobby Hogue is missing his left hand. It was blown off by a grenade during a search-and-destroy mission in Quang Nam during his second tour with the Marines. Once a Marine, always a Marine, Bobby Hogue says, so he still gets up early every day and goes for a five-mile run.

“Good morning, Mr. Hogue,” Kirby says.

“Good morning, Kirby,” Bobby Hogue says.

The newspapers land with a thud on the front porch, and Kirby rushes out from behind the desk to get them, but Bobby Hogue picks the bundle up with his right hand and sets them on the pedestal table in the middle of the lobby. Kirby feels a rush of admiration, then sneaks a glimpse at the rounded stump where his hand used to be.