Summer of '69(53)

Blair had been sitting at the small, round kitchen table in Little Fair when her mother told her she was getting married again, to her attorney, David Levin. Blair hadn’t been sure how to react. On the one hand, she liked David Levin because David thought Blair was smart; he was always quizzing her on state capitals (Frankfort, Kentucky; Juneau, Alaska) and on the order of various American presidents (Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce). On the other hand, she knew she owed some allegiance to her own father, who had died fairly recently. She considered pouting or even crying, but in the end, she had accepted the news cheerfully, and her mother had been visibly relieved. You’re the only child I worried about, Kate said. Kirby and Tiger are too young to understand.

Blair had hoped to have Little Fair all to herself since Kirby and Tiger were gone, but Kate informed her that Mr. Crimmins was living in Little Fair with his grandson.

“Grandson?” Blair said. “You mean…”

“Lorraine’s son,” her mother said. “His name is Pickford. Pick.”

“How old is he?” Blair asked.

“Sixteen,” Kate said.

Well, yes, Blair thought. Lorraine had run off about that long ago. Blair had vivid memories of Lorraine; she had been Blair’s babysitter once upon a time. Lorraine made delicious lemon sugar cookies. She used to let Blair crack the eggs. Blair still remembers how Lorraine taught her to knock the egg against the rim of the bowl, then place her thumbs on the sides of the fissure and gently pry it open to release the insides—the slimy white and the dense yellow globe of the yolk.

“So where’s Lorraine?” Blair asked, and her mother said, “Nobody knows. She and Pick were living in a commune in California and one day this spring, Pick woke up and Lorraine was gone.”

“She left him?” Blair had not yet embarked on her own journey of motherhood, but she understood how ghastly and unnatural this was. Then again, Lorraine had been a sad and damaged person, resistant to Mr. Crimmins’s good-hearted parenting. Lorraine’s most distinctive feature was her long dark hair. When she was baking, she kept it in a fat coiled bun, but she would let it down when she ventured out at night, and its length and beauty felt like a secret she was keeping. Lorraine also had a tattoo of a striped bass on the top of her foot. The tattoo fascinated Blair because when Lorraine walked, it looked like the fish was swimming. Blair had never known anyone but military men to have tattoos and she overheard her grandmother saying that the tattoo was a disgrace. It’s obvious the girl has no mother, Exalta said. Lorraine was always meeting men at Bosun’s Locker and staying out so late that she just slipped right into the Charcoal Galley for breakfast. Lorraine didn’t like the beach but Exalta used to let Lorraine use the family’s nineteen-foot Boston Whaler. Lorraine told Blair that she would take it out by herself, sail all the way up the harbor to Pocomo, and then lie across the bow of the boat in the nude. That detail was so shocking that to this day when Blair thinks of Lorraine Crimmins, she imagines her splayed over the bow of a boat, her mermaid’s hair trailing in the water below.



Blair is ravenous. She’s so big that she has given up on staying on any kind of diet; she’ll worry about losing the weight once the babies are born. In the kitchen, Blair pours a cup of coffee and adds cream and sugar, then toasts some Portuguese bread, smothers it with peanut butter, and tops it with sliced banana. Stop there, she thinks. That’s a nice breakfast. But she can’t stop. When she finishes that, she attacks half a roast chicken, pulling the meat from the bones and licking the grease from her fingers. The impeccable manners drilled into her by Exalta and Kate have vanished; now she eats like an animal. In the freezer, she finds a carton of Brigham’s butter brickle that is covered with ice crystals. It’s clearly left over from the summer before, which makes sense because the only person in the family who likes butter brickle ice cream is Tiger. Blair eats it all, then helps herself to a heaping spoonful of grape jam. She sees a wedge of French brie from Savenor’s and she polishes that off with half a box of stale melba toast, probably also left over from last summer.

She hears someone out in the yard. Thinking it’s Exalta and Jessie, Blair hurries to clear her mess from the table—it looks like a family of raccoons has gotten into the kitchen—but then out the window, she sees it’s a boy, a teenager with golden hair wearing yellow swim trunks and a shell necklace that glows white against his tan skin.

Blair hurries to open the back door. “Good morning!” she calls out. “Pick? How do you do! I’m Blair Whalen, Kate’s oldest daughter.”

Pick cocks his head. “Oh, hey there, howdy,” he says. “You’re Jessie’s sister?”

Jessie’s sister, Kate’s daughter, Angus’s wife, Exalta’s granddaughter, the mother of two squirmy beings presently contained inside of her. In that instant, what Blair wants more than anything is not to be defined by other people.

“Yes,” she says. “Pleasure to meet you.”

“And you,” Pick says. “I was just headed into town to use the pay phone. Wanna come?”

Blair hadn’t planned on leaving the house. She’s certain her mother and grandmother would frown on it, but for some reason, that suddenly makes it appealing. Blair has just eaten half the contents of the fridge; she could probably use a walk. And the idea of a pay phone has allure. Perhaps she’ll try calling Angus. There’s a phone in All’s Fair, but it’s a party line and the last thing Blair wants is someone listening in on her conversations.