Summer of '79: A Summer of '69 Story(16)

“When my mother and I left Woodstock that summer, I told her I wanted to go back to Nantucket to live with my grandfather. And she said we had burned that bridge forever.”

Jessie takes a breath. Conversations like this happen all the time at funerals and weddings and baptisms, she knows. Secrets are revealed; there are reckonings.

“How is your mother?” Jessie asks, desperate to change the subject.

“Oh, fine,” Pick says. “Busy with her organic farming, which is actually starting to make her some money. She fully believes organic produce is the future.”

Jessie hasn’t the foggiest idea what “organic” produce is, but she doesn’t admit that.

“Now tell me about everyone else,” Pick says. “Blair, Kirby, Tiger.” He laughs. “Our siblings.”

The phrase is so surreal that Jessie is stymied for a moment. But then she laughs along and starts to talk. Blair and Angus divorced…Angus in Houston, Blair and the twins in a suburb of Boston…Kirby writes for Cosmo, if you pick up any issue at the grocery store checkout, you’ll see her byline, she lives in Soho, housesitting for this famous artist, Willie Eight, yeah, I’d never heard of him either, the only artists I know are dead except for Andy Warhol, who Kirby has met, she has a Polaroid of them together, she hangs out at Studio 54 and Limelight, dancing the night away…Tiger is married to Magee, they don’t have kids yet, Tiger owns five bowling alleys and he drives that Trans Am you probably saw…He’s a good person, my brother, I just want him to be happy. Jessie finds her eyes are burning with tears as she says this. I want them all to be happy, and if I had a magic wand, that would be my first and only wish—for Blair, Kirby, and Tiger to be happy.

“What about you?” Pick says. “Don’t you want to be happy?”

Jessie isn’t sure how to explain it. She knows, somehow, that she is stronger than her three siblings. This is a bold statement because the three of them are big personalities; her sisters are beautiful and smart, and her brother is a war hero. But Jessie worries about the three of them in a way that she doesn’t worry about herself.

“I am happy,” she says. “Though I could use another beer. And you should mingle. I don’t want to monopolize you.”

“I have to tell you something,” Pick says. He gets to his feet and offers Jessie a hand to pull her up. “I’m moving to New York.”

“You are?” Jessie says.

“I was offered a job with the Economic and Social Council at the UN,” Pick says. “Which probably sounds fancier than it is. The pay is peanuts. I’m going to have to live in Brooklyn.”

Brooklyn? Jessie tries not to cringe.

“That’s great!” she says. “We’ll be neighbors.”

Pick is still holding on to Jessie’s hand. “Hopefully more than just neighbors,” he says. “You know, when I was in Kenya, I had this recurring fantasy.” He pauses. “Want to hear it?”

Fantasy? Jessie panics, thinking of the one awkward evening when Theo insisted on reading Penthouse Forum letters aloud to her. “Sure?” she says.

“My buddy, Tremaine, who I shared a tent with out in the Mara had this tape recorder and three cassette tapes, one of which was The Stranger by Billy Joel. He played it all the time and do you know that song, ‘Scenes from an Italian Restaurant’?”

“‘Bottle of red’?” Jessie sings.

“‘Bottle of white’!” Pick cries out. “Yes! So I always thought of you when I heard that song and I dreamed about meeting you in New York City at a restaurant like that. Red-checkered tablecloths, a single candle dripping down the Chianti bottle, the whole deal.” He shrugs. “I thought it would be romantic.”

Me, Jessie thinks. He dreamed about meeting me.

“So when I get to New York, can we do that?” Pick asks. “Can we meet at a place like that?”

“Of course,” Jessie says. She doesn’t eat out at restaurants; she has no money. But the instant she gets back to the city, she’s going to find the best Italian place in all of New York. Oh, man, you’d better believe it.





10. We Are Family




The kids are all at the bonfire, which leaves Kate and David at home alone. They watch the sunset and David opens a bottle of Pol Roger champagne. When Kate raises an eyebrow at the significance—Is David celebrating Exalta’s death? They did always have an uneasy relationship—he says, “Something to cheer you up.”

He’s right, as always: the bubbles cheer her up. It’s an unusually warm evening, so they drink with their feet dangling in the pool, the bottle in an ice bucket between them.

Kate’s thoughts wander. Where is Exalta now? Anywhere? It seems impossible that she’s gone and yet that’s what happens to all of us, eventually. It’s a reminder to live while we can and take care with the legacy we’re leaving behind. Kate feels proud of this house, this property, the decision she made ten years ago to move out here to the wilds of Madaket, to build a summer retreat where she can shelter her entire family. It had seemed radical at the time, Kate remembers.

“Do you want to go out to dinner?” David asks. “The Mad Hatter? DeMarco’s?”

“It’s too late,” Kate says. “Everyone stops serving at nine.”