Summer of '69(72)

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Exalta says. “You’re perfectly worthy of the necklace, Jessica. You simply need to grow up a bit.” The corners of Exalta’s mouth turn up ever so slightly. “I wouldn’t choose to be thirteen again for all the tea in China.”

Jessie can see why. So far, thirteen is turning out to be a terrible age.

“You’ll be punished for the stealing,” Exalta says. “Grounded for a week. Extra chores. You’ll keep on with your tennis lessons but you won’t be allowed to eat at the snack bar afterward. You can come home and eat. It’s against my nature to keep a child inside on a summer day but you leave me no choice. You’ll stay home in the afternoons and, of course, the evenings. Do you understand me?”

“Yes,” Jessie says. She swallows. “Does my mother know?”

“Your mother doesn’t need anything else to worry about,” Exalta says. “Now go. Get out of my sight.”



Back into the rain, back up the stairs of Little Fair, back to her room, where she closes and locks the door, sheds her damp tennis clothes, and puts her pajamas on again. She is disgraced for certain, but curiously, she feels better, not worse. She feels clean. She feels cured.

She picks up her copy of Anne Frank and takes out Tiger’s letter. Her hands are steady.

June 20, 1969

Dear Jessie,

I need you to promise you won’t show anyone else this letter.

Our company was ambushed last week near the village of Dak Lak. We lost over half our men.

Jessie, both Puppy and Frog were killed. Frog was hit by sniper fire—one clean shot to the head. Puppy ran out to grab Frog’s body and he stepped on a grenade. His right leg was blasted off. So I went to grab Frog and I brought him back to where Puppy was. I ripped Frog’s shirt off and used it as a tourniquet on Puppy’s leg, and I thought maybe I’d save him. He was still talking, first praying to the good Lord Jesus Christ, then calling to his mama, and I was praying too, saying, “God, please don’t take both my brothers in the same day, but if You must, take me too.”

Puppy died in my arms while we were waiting for the chopper.

So many men were lost that they’ve reassigned those of us who survived to other companies. I’m heading out on a top secret mission so I’ll be out of touch for a while. I’ll write as soon as I can.

I miss home, Messie. I’m not sure you even know the real reason I call you that; probably you thought all these years that I was teasing you, the way a big brother is supposed to. But really, I call you that because when you were a baby, Mom used to let me feed you your baby food. I would hold the spoon with your squash or pureed plums and half the time you would open your piehole like a baby bird and take what was on the spoon. The other half, you would reach a little hand out, grab the food from the spoon, and smear it all over your face. Then you would laugh so hard that I would laugh too.

That’s why I nicknamed you Messie.

Since Frog and Puppy died, I’ve been wondering what the point to all this is—not just the war, but life in general. I’ve had some real dark thoughts. I try to picture your baby face covered with plums and I hear that laugh like heaven’s bells and that keeps me tethered. My kid sister. Who knew?

Please don’t tell Mom or Nonny or anyone else about this letter or about me going on a secret mission. I already wrote to Magee to tell her. Since I’m sharing secrets in this letter I might as well tell you that I’ve asked Magee to marry me. I sent her Gramps’s Harvard class ring to stand in for a diamond. We will have a big wedding, if I make it out of here alive.

I hope I do, Messie. I hope I do.

Love, your brother, Tiger





Nineteenth Nervous Breakdown



No one has said so out loud, but on July 7, when Blair is less than four weeks from her due date, it becomes clear that she won’t be returning to Boston for the delivery. She will give birth to the twins here, on Nantucket. Buried deep beneath the many layers of emotion that Blair feels on any given day is a fluttery pride, and even joy, about this. Her children will be native Nantucketers. They will have the same claim to the island as the Coffins and the Starbucks and (this is what really thrills Blair) an even greater connection to it than the summer residents who have been coming to the island for decades—people like Exalta.

Blair announces over breakfast toast with her mother (for when Kate is around, Blair is offered only dry toast in an attempt to keep her from gaining any more weight) that they should probably go see Dr. Van de Berg, who delivers all of the island’s babies.

“I suppose you’re right,” Kate says with a heavy sigh. “I’ll set something up for today.”

The appointment is scheduled for twelve thirty, and despite the heat, Blair is grateful to get out of the house. She has watched day after glorious day slide by while she lies about in bed or watches soap operas in the den.

“Could we possibly go to lunch after?” Blair asks.

Kate shocks Blair by saying, “Where should we go?”

“The Galley,” Blair says. She wants a lobster roll with French fries and a tall glass of iced tea with lots of lemon and sugar. Even a few days ago, lunch at the Galley would have been too upsetting to contemplate because that was the spot Blair favored for lunch the summer before, back when she was married but not pregnant, back when she was thin, back when she was herself. But with her due date in sight, she realizes that pregnancy isn’t a life sentence. It will end. She will give birth to the babies and her present misery will become a distant memory.