The House on Fripp Island Read online

  Contents

  * * *

  Title Page

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  A Conversation with Rebecca Kauffman

  Reading Group Guide

  About the Author

  Connect with HMH

  Copyright © 2020 by Rebecca Kauffman

  Conversation with the author and Reading Group Guide copyright © 2020 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company

  All rights reserved

  For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to [email protected] or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

  hmhbooks.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Kauffman, Rebecca, author.

  Title: The house on Fripp Island / Rebecca Kauffman.

  Description: Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2020. | “A Mariner original.”

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019026087 (print) | LCCN 2019026088 (ebook) | ISBN 9780358041528 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9780358274285 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780358041535 (ebook) | ISBN 9780358310396 (ebook) | ISBN 9780358310310 (ebook)

  Classification: LCC PS3611.A82325 H68 2020 (print) | LCC PS3611.A82325 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019026087

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019026088

  “Street Haunting” by Virginia Woolf from The Death of the Moth and Other Essay. Copyright © 1942 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Copyright © renewed 1970 by Marjorie T. Parsons, Executrix. Reprinted by permission of the Society of Authors as the Literary Representative of the Estate of Virginia Woolf and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. All rights reserved.

  Cover painting © Jessica Brill

  Cover design by Kelly Winton

  Author photograph © Rachel Herr

  v1.0520

  In loving memory of my grandmothers, Mary & Evelyn

  The possibilities of pleasure seemed that morning so enormous and so various that to have only a moth’s part in life, and a day moth’s at that, appeared a hard fate, and his zest in enjoying his meagre opportunities to the full, pathetic. He flew vigorously to one corner of his compartment, and, after waiting there a second, flew across to the other. What remained for him but to fly to a third corner and then to a fourth? That was all he could do, in spite of the size of the downs, the width of the sky, the far-off smoke of houses, and the romantic voice, now and then, of a steamer out at sea. What he could do he did.

  —VIRGINIA WOOLF, “Street Haunting”

  Prologue

  Two decades have passed since the summer my family drove through many miles of remote marshland to reach Fripp Island. Land that smelled of wet dog and wet duffel bag, air as thick and hot as wool. Pro-life billboards with magnified ultrasounds and 1-800 numbers in blood-spatter red. Spanish moss that hung in oversized shrouds from every limb of every giant Southern live oak and bald cypress and swayed in the breeze like gangling drunken dancers. Silent and forsaken land. We went twenty miles without seeing another car on the highway.

  We crossed a bridge to enter Fripp Island, a luscious, jungled little thumbprint of land that contains every shade of green you could imagine, from almost-yellow to almost-black. We had to stop the car because an alligator was in the road before us. It was the first alligator I had ever seen and much uglier than I would have expected, its hide dull, dark, and textured, as warty as a toad. Fat thighs. It sauntered across the road like it owned the island. The birds there didn’t really sing, I noticed. They clicked and buzzed and occasionally they screamed.

  Several days later, I was dead.

  My body was recovered by a young surfer named Blade Caldwell and two of his friends. The coroner officially ruled it Death by Accidental Drowning. My family acknowledged that I was not a strong swimmer and there was a powerful riptide, so no one had reason to suspect that the coroner was wrong. Everyone cried and spoke loving sentiments about me.

  In the moment before I passed through the screen that separates the living from the dead, I can recall that something like giddy, euphoric laughter fluttered briefly within me, because the idea of being killed—being murdered, that is—struck me as so bizarre that it was downright comical. Then water entered my lungs as hard and fast as a ninety-mile-an-hour fastball to the chest, and I was enraged by the circumstances that had brought me to this place. But before I could linger on that, oopsie-daisy now, here I go. My mind loosened and skittered across a few beautiful memories that touched me and surprised me, and then it was over. No bright white light. Just a painless little snap as I penetrated the screen.

  Twenty years later, I’m still skimming through and around and around the same old places, sniffing about, watching from behind the screen that separates the living from the dead. The dead don’t care much for one another, I can assure you of that, we’re just a sort of sleazy and unappealing reflection of each other; no fun to be had between us, no comfort to be shared. And to the living, of course, we are formless and imperceptible. Our touch has no imprint and our presence cannot be detected, no matter how relentlessly or lovingly we might stalk a living person and attempt to foist our dead self upon them. We can actually slip into a living body, did you know that?, be swept up by its movements and carry along with it, feel the banging of that heart as though it were our own. But even still, even then, the living will carry on, oblivious to our habitation. So around and around I go, taking up temporary residence within the people I once knew and attempting to recall the facts and feelings of life.

  1

  HOURS BEFORE THE GUESTS were scheduled to arrive, the banquet staff vacuumed up olive pits and croutons smashed into the burgundy carpet of the executive ballroom. They flattened starchy white cloths over tables, assembled the chocolate fountain, and did a test run to make sure all eight tiers were properly attached. They distributed garland and potted poinsettias throughout the room, polished glassware, and folded napkins into stars. When the room was finally ready for service, they slipped outside and stood behind the dumpster, smoking cigarettes in the snow. The dumpster steamed with fresh garbage from the kitchen: coffee grounds and shrimp shells. They passed around a tube of wintergreen Life Savers and watched as the first guests pulled up to the valet station. The driver was wearing a stupid-looking oversized elf hat, and he tossed the contents of a red Solo cup into the snow before passing his keys to the valet.

  The Raslowe & Associates employee Christmas party was in full swing by seven o’clock that evening. Open bar. It had been a good year.

  Midway through the festivities, Scott Daly was named the winner of the big-ticket raffle, and he dragged his wife, Lisa, onstage with him to accept the award. She was several inches taller than him. He wore a navy blazer, expensive-looking jeans with artificial fading, and Italian loafers. His thick, wavy hair was skunk-like, mostly black with a dramatic white chunk shooting out right at the part; his face was jammed full of teeth. Lisa’s dyed red hair gleamed a bit oddly
under the fluorescent lighting.

  Scott had an arm around Lisa’s waist when he reached the stage to retrieve the envelope from the head of HR, who had announced all the raffle winners. Scott took the envelope, then raised and tipped his gin and tonic to the crowd. He was met with blank faces, bored, disapproving, disappointed faces, and some lifeless applause. “Whatever,” he murmured. Lisa’s pale face shimmered with sad exhilaration.

  As the two of them made their way back to their table, the CEO of the company took over the mic to offer a robust little spiel about how well the company had performed that year.

  At their table, Lisa didn’t hear a word of the speech. She was looking over the contents of the envelope her husband had just received. A small embossed card read: All Expenses Paid. Four days and nights at Fripp Island Resort. Redeemable through the next calendar year. A brochure accompanied the card and featured many photographs of the island, as well as a map. The island was situated just off the coast of South Carolina, midway between Charleston and Savannah. A golf course occupied a portion of the island, which was three miles from end to end. Several bars and restaurants and crab shacks were advertised in the brochure. Photographs showed bright blue birds with yellow heads, palmettos, a fawn drinking from a fountain on the golf course, an expansive white beach, a footprint in sand.

  Scott leaned toward Lisa. “Place looks neat, doesn’t it? Figured we’d invite the Ramones.”

  Lisa’s upper lip curled, an involuntary flicker of objection.

  Scott whispered, “I know you and Shirley aren’t close, but there’s nothing wrong with her. And JP’s always a great time, loves golf. And the kids actually get along.”

  That was true. The Ramone kids shared interests with and were close in age to Scott and Lisa’s fourteen-year-old Rae and eleven-year-old Kimmy. And Scott was right, there was nothing so very wrong with Shirley, it was just . . . nothing was quite right about her either.

  “Mm.” Lisa grunted querulously as she looked back at the brochure. She slowly emitted a soundless burp and adjusted her posture. She was no longer comfortable in her dress. Beside her, Scott resumed the joke he had been telling several minutes ago, just before his name was announced as the raffle winner. He waggled his head around to make sure he had the attention of everyone at the table before delivering the punch line. “Get it?” He snorted wetly, eyes circling the table for confirmation. “You get it?”

  Lisa patted the top of Scott’s hand, a gesture intended to reassure him of the joke’s success and discourage him from telling any more. As she paged through the brochure for Fripp Island a second time, she felt a fresh wave of agitation that Scott had already decided who would accompany them on this vacation without consulting her. Furthermore, it occurred to her, she hadn’t a clue how many raffle tickets Scott had purchased for that drawing. For all Lisa knew, he might’ve spent more on raffle tickets than they would’ve put toward an actual vacation. It would be like him to do such a thing, honestly, scoop up all the tickets, any opportunity to win. Oh well, this really wasn’t her concern. Scott had provided Lisa with a very comfortable life—she hadn’t held a job since she was nineteen years old, for crying out loud—and he rarely griped about the way she spent money. Lisa sipped her martini and drew an olive from the stainless-steel cocktail skewer with her lips. She’d be a good sport, she decided. It was only four days, after all.

  Fortunately for Lisa, though, the Ramones had already solidified their vacation plans for the entire year and didn’t have a day to spare. This was also the case with Scott’s sister Nan and her husband, whom they asked next. Lisa’s cousin Frank and his wife had a newborn, so they didn’t want to fly, and they lived too far away to drive. Scott’s friend Liam’s wife was going through some weird anxiety stuff, so they couldn’t commit. Lisa and Scott were on good terms with his parents but couldn’t quite see their way to spending that much time with them under one roof. Lisa’s mother was recovering from surgery to remove a tumor from her throat, so she was in no condition to travel. They considered going with just their kids, but Scott pointed out that “all expenses paid” included alcohol, and the house had five bedrooms, so it would be a terrible waste not to find others to accompany them.

  Lisa was the one who eventually suggested her best friend from childhood, Poppy, and her family. Poppy and her husband, John, lived outside Wheeling, West Virginia, where the two had grown up and where Lisa’s mother, Carol, still lived.

  Next-door neighbors and both only children, Lisa and Poppy had become fast friends at an early age. Both families’ homes had an open-door policy to the other, and it wasn’t uncommon for them to have sleepovers several nights of the week. They shared adventures, secrets, wardrobes, gossip, homework, inside jokes, broken hearts—years upon years of life. Shortly after graduating from high school, Lisa left the area and she and Poppy kept in touch, but not closely, seeing each other only once every year or two when Lisa’s family was in Wheeling to visit her mother. On these visits with the whole families, there were always other dynamics to manage, and the time together was hurried and high-strung. Between visits, Lisa and Poppy managed to speak on the phone every few months, but these calls were always interrupted prematurely by a kid in crisis or someone at the door. They never seemed to get to the stuff that mattered. There was shared history and love between them, and they could still laugh at the same stupid shit, but it was impossible to feel as close as they once had, now that they only conversed in fragments and could rarely complete a thought, much less bare a soul.

  In the past year, however, the two had reconnected powerfully following Lisa’s mother’s diagnosis. Poppy still considered Carol a dear family friend, given all the time spent and meals consumed in her home as a child. So when Poppy received word of Carol’s illness, she took on the role of surrogate daughter, since she was local and Lisa was not: transporting and accompanying Carol to appointments, taking notes on the results of her scans, arranging her medications in the weekly pill case, delivering quiches and cakes. During these months, Lisa and Poppy spoke often. Lisa was deeply appreciative and touched by Poppy’s help with her mother’s care. Poppy insisted it was no trouble—she welcomed the opportunity to help and wouldn’t accept a dime from Lisa for the gas, meals, or time.

  Scott was at the kitchen table, typing something on his laptop, when Lisa suggested inviting Poppy and her family to Fripp Island as a gesture of gratitude. He didn’t look up from his computer when he said, “The Fords?,” as though they knew more than one Poppy.

  Lisa said, “It’s the least I can offer after everything Poppy’s done for Mom. And anyhow, I’d love to be able to connect with their family, I’ve been saying so for years. The kids would get along fine, they always have in the past. Alexis is the same age as Kimmy, remember? And Ryan’s got to be seventeen, headed to college in the fall. Who knows if he’d even want to come. Rae will obviously be fine with or without a buddy. She’ll spend the whole week with her nose in a book either way.”

  Lisa could see in Scott’s face that he was already trying to work up some reason to shoot down the idea. She repeated, “I’ve always wanted our two families to connect.”

  “We’ve tried,” Scott pointed out. “You’ve invited them to things before.”

  Lisa lowered her voice, even though there was no one else in the kitchen. “That’s because they can’t afford the things we do. Poppy’s too proud to admit it, she’ll always come up with some other sort of excuse, but I know that’s why she didn’t take us up on the cruise or the Disneyland weekend or Toronto. But a trip like this, all expenses paid, plenty of time in advance to ask for the time off . . . I think they might actually be in a position to accept the invitation. Anyway, Poppy’s been my friend since I was five years old,” she said. “We barely get any time together anymore.”

  “You talk on the phone all the time since your mom got sick,” Scott said. “You talk to Poppy twice as much as you talk to me.”

  Lisa wondered if this was true. It was possib
le. Well, Lisa enjoyed talking to Poppy twice as much as she enjoyed talking to Scott, it was as simple as that.

  Scott said, “I know Poppy’s your oldest friend and she’s done a lot for your mom, but staying in the same house with her for four days? Poppy can be . . . a lot.”

  “Sure,” Lisa conceded. Poppy was a lot. She had strong opinions on absolutely everything, and she could be moody and unpredictable. She never asked before touching dogs, or babies.

  Scott fingered his goatee. “And his drinking can get a little out of hand. Right? Do you remember the year we went over the day after Christmas? You remember. John had a few too many, and with all the kids around.”

  Lisa exhaled through her nose. Amazing how quickly a good idea or a good mood could be deflated these days. It could happen in the space between an inhale and an exhale. She ran a hand over the marble-topped island before her to check for dust; there was none. She gazed at a pattern of black veins in the marble that resembled gorges on a map, and felt that familiar murky and listless melancholy surging inside, threatening to overtake her.

  Scott said, “Anyhow,” and Lisa waited for more, but that was it, he was back to his computer.

  Eventually, Lisa said, “If you don’t want to invite them, I won’t. But I’d prefer if you didn’t try to come up with all these excuses, like they’re to blame. Don’t make it like you’re all of a sudden . . . well, concerned about John’s drinking, for example.”