Summer of '69(81)

Darren squeezes Kirby’s hand. “I’m sorry you had to go through all that. This doesn’t change my feelings for you one bit. People have histories, Kirby. I don’t care what my mother thinks.”

“But you do care,” Kirby says. “You’re here with me, sure—at an unpopulated beach. But you should have seen your face when you walked into your kitchen today.”

“You took me by surprise—”

“You didn’t want me there. And your father told us to shoo before your mother got home.”

“I don’t think my mother would judge you,” Darren says. “She’s not like that. She sees girls in that predicament all the time.”

“I think your mother is a lovely person,” Kirby says. “And she helped me when I desperately needed it. But she doesn’t want you to date me. You’re her only child, a son who goes to Harvard. She wants you to be with someone virtuous and principled and unsullied. It doesn’t matter that I didn’t end up having an abortion. It matters that I was careless and exercised poor judgment and let myself get into trouble.” They arrive back at their towels. Kirby’s heart is dense and cold, like a hunk of ice in her chest. She gathers up her things. “I want you to take me home.”

“Kirby.”

“Darren.”

They stare at each other and it feels like a standoff. “Fight for me, then,” she says. “Invite me to the beach picnic at Lambert’s Cove on Friday or for steamers on Sunday. Tell your parents and your aunts, uncles, and cousins that we’re dating and too bad if they don’t like it.”

“I’m afraid they’ll make you uncomfortable,” Darren says.

“You’re afraid they’ll make you uncomfortable,” Kirby says.

“I think if we just take it slow—”

“Meaning keep it a secret.”

“You’re being unfair.”

“It’s doomed!” Kirby says. Being with Scottie Turbo had taught her how to recognize a doomed relationship. “There are things we can change and things we can’t. I can change how your family sees me, I promise you that, but only if you give me the chance to spend some time with them.”

“Kirby…”

He knows she’s right, she can see it on his face, but she can also see he’s too afraid to do anything about it.

“Take me home, Darren,” she says. “Please.”

Darren dutifully collapses the chairs, folds the towels, packs up the cooler, and heads back to the car, Kirby trailing him. As she climbs in the passenger side of the Corvair, in her mind, she travels back four weeks, to the first time she laid eyes on Darren, when he stopped to pick her up hitchhiking. She had no idea that saying yes to that ride would lead to this crushing disappointment, but she has to admit that if she had the moment to do over, she would still say yes.





Whatever Lola Wants



The evenings that Kate has spent at the Straight Wharf Theater over the years have been some of the happiest of her life, and although she’s miserable to her core this summer, she still brightens when Exalta reminds her they have three tickets, front row, for that evening’s performance of Damn Yankees. Kate has never seen the show but she loves Adler and Ross and she loves seeing shows on Nantucket in an intimate theater with familiar faces in the cast.

They were planning to take Jessie but she’s been grounded because news of the stealing incident at the club reached Exalta’s ears and Jessie confirmed it was true. When Exalta relayed this to Kate, Kate said, “I’ll have a talk with her,” and Exalta said, “I’ve handled the matter, darling. Believe me, she has learned her lesson.”

Kate knows she should address the issue with Jessie nonetheless, but she doesn’t have the energy. Jessie is grounded for the rest of the week—no beach, no town, and no theater tonight. Fine.

Blair says she’s far too big to sit comfortably for two hours, so Exalta offers the third ticket to Bill Crimmins, which makes sense, since he is the only other grown-up in the house, but it makes Kate uncomfortable.

“Really, Mother?” Kate says. “We’re taking Bill?”

“He loves the theater,” Exalta says. “And please wipe that look off your face, darling. He’s hardly our servant.”

“Not our servant, obviously,” Kate says, though he is their employee and also, this summer, their tenant. But Kate holds her tongue because she knows that her real issue with Bill Crimmins isn’t his social status; he has worked for them for so long he can be considered family. Kate’s issue is that Bill Crimmins owes her an answer about her son and he seems unaware of the agony that Kate is enduring while she waits. Normal interaction with the man is impossible.

For this trip to the theater, then, she will have to call upon her own inner actress. Kate, Exalta, and Bill leave the house with plenty of time to spare for a seven-thirty curtain. Bill looks more than respectable in pressed slacks and a navy blazer. He is solicitous and polite, careful to act as escort to both Exalta and Kate. He knows absolutely everyone on the island and is greeted what feels like a hundred times as they walk to the theater and then a hundred times more once they enter the theater.

“You’re quite the social butterfly,” Exalta says. She sounds put-out, nearly jealous, and Kate itches to remind Exalta that they don’t know anyone because in the decades that they’ve lived here, they have socialized only at one place and that’s the Field and Oar Club. The club often feels like the center of the island but as Kate looks around, she sees there is an entire community of people—summer and year-round—whom she doesn’t know. She can’t be bothered about her limited circle this summer; that’s a luxury for a woman whose son is not at war. For now, it will be all Kate can do to pay attention to the performance. It doesn’t have a military theme, which is good; she couldn’t have handled South Pacific, for example, or even Bye Bye Birdie. This musical is about baseball.