The House on Fripp Island Read online

  They fell quiet. Several minutes later, Alex reeled in her line and examined the worm. “It’s dead now,” she said. “And most of the blood’s drained out.” She dangled it over in John’s direction. “See?”

  “Yup.”

  “No wonder I’m not getting any bites with this floppy old thing.” She removed the flimsy worm remains from her hook and reached into the Styrofoam cup for a fresh one.

  John said, “You can do another one or two, but let’s not waste all the good bait today if we’re not gettin’ a single bite. Like that guy said, today just might not be the day.”

  Alex rejoined John on his side of the pier. She swiftly and methodically attached a fresh worm to her hook. Mashing, knotting, stabbing. Slime. Guts. She wiped her dirty fingers on her thigh. Her skinny legs dangled over the concrete. She cast her line.

  After a bit, Alex said, “A predator is like a bear, right? Or a shark?”

  “Yup.”

  “Somethin’ that hunts somethin’.”

  John nodded.

  “So, humans are predators?”

  John considered this. “I’d say so.”

  Alex gazed out over the water and bounced her line.

  The art gallery was a bust; it featured the work of only one artist, who had a special talent for producing watercolor sunsets that were indistinguishable from one another except for the placement of a few faraway and poorly rendered seagulls.

  Lisa, Rae, and Kimmy returned to the house and went to their rooms to change into their swimsuits. As Lisa tied the straps of her halter-top bikini, her eyes fell on Scott’s white leather golf glove. It was on the floor, on the far side of the dresser, half hidden by a bath towel that had been carelessly tossed in the same vicinity.

  In all the years Lisa had known him, Scott had never once forgotten a single element of his golf getup. He took an inordinate amount of pride in his gear—more so than in his actual play. Must’ve been in a rush, she thought, and as she recalled now, it did seem that Scott had been itching to get out the door this morning after he took that phone call. The others must have scheduled an early tee time.

  Lisa carefully situated her white wraparound cover-up at her shoulders, and arranged it to display one classy inch of cleavage. She tightened the tie at the waist. She pulled her hair into a low ponytail and put on her wide-brimmed straw hat, then went to the kitchen to pack a small cooler and wait for the girls.

  Down at the beach, Ryan appeared to be sleeping flat on his back, a T-shirt shielding his face from the sun, and Poppy was paging through an old Good Housekeeping magazine that she had found in the rec room. Poppy waved as Lisa and her girls approached. Poppy’s skin was deep red-brown and gleaming with sunscreen and sweat. Lisa set up her umbrella next to Poppy and silently applied sunscreen to her arms and legs.

  Kimmy immediately went for a swim.

  Rae dragged her beach chair and book to the edge of the water, where she sat with her bottom half-submerged. She wore a swimsuit that Lisa would have forbidden if Rae had had even an ounce more in the way of womanly curves to fill it out. It was a tiny string bikini, bright green, with gold glitter and stripes that matched her gold hoop earrings. As it was, on Rae’s late-blooming, scrawny fourteen-year-old frame, the strings that tied over her hip bones and hung across her rib cage were about as suggestive as ribbon around plywood.

  Lisa finally settled in next to Poppy.

  “How was the art gallery?” Poppy said brightly. She was sipping from a Bud Light in a Texaco koozie.

  “It sucked,” Lisa said distractedly. She fiddled with the tie on her cover-up for a moment, then said in a low voice, “Pop, I swear to God, I’m about to blow my lid. I’m trying to keep it together for the kids, but . . .”

  Poppy took off her sunglasses and stared at Lisa. “What’s up?” she said.

  Lisa swallowed. “These new golfing buddies of Scott’s?” she said. “The phone call? He said he was going to go play a round with them this morning?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Just now when I was up at the house I found his golf glove in our room.”

  “He forgot it?”

  “You don’t know how he is with this stuff. The fancy gear, that glove, it’s like his thing. Hear me out—I was willing to accept that. The glove. But then . . .” Lisa paused, took a deep breath, and placed her palms out, facing the ground, as though it was moving beneath her and she needed to steady herself. “But then I went to the kitchen to fill up a cooler, and on the kitchen table, near all the brochures and takeout menus and stuff that came with the house, I saw both club passes sitting there.”

  “What are those?”

  “He got them when we crossed the bridge onto the island yesterday, when we got the parking pass and the golf cart voucher and the fishing voucher. If you plan to golf, they give you the club pass, which you need for admission to the course. Scott got two, one for him and one for John. They would have used them when they played yesterday.”

  “OK . . . And?”

  “So both passes are still at the house,” Lisa said. “Scott didn’t take either of them.”

  “Oh,” Poppy said, understanding now. “Ohhhhh.” She winced. “Yes . . . ,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “If it had been the glove or the pass, it wouldn’t seem like anything at all, but—”

  “And the whole thing smelled fishy to me already yesterday,” Lisa said. “When he disappeared with strangers during that storm for well over an hour, left John to sort out the stuff with the cart, I thought that was awfully strange. But I wasn’t going to make a fuss about it. But now this? With all this . . . it’s pretty obvious what’s going on, wouldn’t you say?” Lisa’s white chest was speckled with angry red at the sternum. He’s cheating on me here, on our family vacation,” she hissed. “Pop, that bastard is with another woman on this very island, right at this very moment.”

  Poppy winced again. She reached over to lay her hand on Lisa’s wrist.

  Words tumbled from Lisa. “I know I talked a big game yesterday, fine with Scott having an affair, blah-blah-blah. I really thought I was, and I really think I would be, if it wasn’t on this island. I mean, what the hell? Did he make arrangements for his mistress to stay here all week, somewhere across the island? Or is he just, what, picking up local escorts? Hookers, I mean. Prostitutes. How does that work?” Lisa was trembling, and her voice had risen to a volume where Poppy was concerned that it might wake Ryan.

  Lisa had tears on both cheeks, dripping to her collarbone.

  Poppy swallowed. She held her friend’s hand tightly in her own, then pulled it to her lips and kissed Lisa’s fingers. She whispered, “I’m sorry.”

  Before Poppy could say more, her eyes were drawn to the beach, where Kimmy was on her way toward them, shivering and clutching her elbows.

  Lisa sighed mightily. “OK,” she whispered. “I need to keep it together for the girls. I’ll have to find a time to confront him when it’s not going to blow up in front of everybody.” Lisa sniffed in long and hard and wiped the tears from her face. “I’ll have to find a way to control myself until the time is right.”

  Poppy massaged Lisa’s shoulder. All the words of comfort or consolation that rose to her tongue seemed small and insincere. Lisa shuddered from the base of her spine as though an ice cube had been pressed to her neck. She pinched her nostrils and straightened up as Kimmy drew near.

  Kimmy wrapped a Tweety Bird towel around her shoulders and shook her hair out wildly. Then she looked to her mother and Poppy for affirmation.

  Poppy said, “Nice moves.”

  Kimmy did the whole routine again.

  Lisa said, “You should re-up on sunscreen, your nose looks pink.”

  Looking a bit dazed from her head-banging, Kimmy gazed behind them, toward the house.

  “Goodie, Alex is back,” she announced.

  Poppy turned to look over her shoulder. John and Alex were making their way to the beach. He was hopping and swiveling awkwardly to avoid prolonge
d contact with the scorching sand. Alex wore flip-flops and knee-length board shorts over a red one-piece swimsuit.

  When they had made it down to the others, Poppy teased her husband, “Hey there, first-timer.”

  John set his towel next to hers. He yanked his white T-shirt off over his head. His chest was strong and brown. His belly was big but tight as a drum, abdominals toned from years of physical labor, beneath the years of fast food and Budweisers.

  “Huh?” John said, rubbing sunscreen on his face.

  “You ever been to the beach before?” Poppy said. “Doncha know to put something on your feet? Sand’s about a thousand degrees on a day like this.” She reached over to rub a smear of sunscreen on the backs of his knees.

  Alex stood with her thumbs hooked into the belt loops of her board shorts and said, “We didn’t get a single bite.”

  Kimmy said, “Not one single bite? How boring. Were you so bored? We were bored too. The gallery was such a drag.” Poppy could tell from the way Kimmy said this, and from the accompanying gesture—chin in the air, a graceful flop of the hand—that she was repeating her mother’s words verbatim and feeling quite pleased with herself for delivering this sophisticated observation as though it was her own.

  Alex picked at a callus on her palm. “I’m hot,” she said.

  Kimmy said, “Do you want to go for a swim?”

  The two of them bounded toward the water. They passed Rae, who was motionless at the water’s edge, nose in her book, and splashed with high knees, hands in the air, losing their balance and tumbling full force into the waves. They bounced and dunked and kicked, their laughter and high-pitched squeals reaching far up the beach.

  Poppy glanced at Lisa, whose eyes were hidden behind large sunglasses. Poppy wished she could warn John that serious trouble was brewing between Lisa and Scott, so that John wouldn’t stumble innocently into some question or topic of conversation that would send them all down a dark path. Poppy could still feel anger radiating off Lisa—the air between them crowded and noisy with conflicting and dangerous frequencies. Fortunately, it seemed John would not be sitting near them right at this moment. Still standing, he stretched his back and rubbed his eye sockets with his knuckles and puckered his face in the bright sun. Poppy said, “Did you forget your sunglasses too?”

  John nodded. “ ’Fraid so. These pills . . . my friggin’ short-term memory . . . Anyway, I’m gonna go for a swim.”

  Poppy was tempted to join him, preferring the thought of John and his easy company to further conversation with Lisa, but she felt it would be better for her to stay and offer Lisa the opportunity to say more, if there was more to say.

  Once John was out of earshot, Lisa said, “Should I follow him?”

  Poppy was confused. “John? Into the water?”

  “No, Scott,” Lisa said impatiently. “Tomorrow, when he goes to ‘golf.’ ” She air-quoted. “Catch him red-handed. I don’t want him to think he can weasel out of this—plausible deniability.”

  “True,” Poppy said.

  “Or the other option, if I knew I could hold my tongue, I’d just wait until we’re home,” Lisa said. “That would probably be the best way to handle it, because I don’t know how he’s going to react when I bring it up. Depending how the conversation goes, what if he . . . I don’t know, Pop, what if I confront him here, and he drives off and disappears for the rest of vacation? The girls would be . . . For it to happen like that, on vacation . . .”

  “You really think he’d fly the coop?”

  Lisa mashed her lips together in thought. “Not really,” she said. “But if he did, or if anything happened to upset the girls . . .”

  “If he’s cheating, and if the two of you split up, the girls will be upset whether it happens now or ten years down the road. That’s inevitable and it’s not your fault, it’s just life,” Poppy said. She scratched at her itchy scalp through black hair that had become a sun sponge, as hot and greasy as tar.

  “I might murder him,” Lisa said, humorless. She ran a finger along her brow, catching delicate tiny bulbs of sweat. In the sunlight, her red hair looked like it had been spun with gold. Poppy marveled at her best friend’s beauty, despite the grim, sickly expression that Lisa now wore.

  Lisa turned to face Poppy. “What should I do?” she said in a voice that was suddenly as small and defenseless as the first murmurings of a child.

  Poppy was so hot she was finding it difficult to concentrate on Lisa, even in her moment of great need. Her mind had melted to slush. Words swirled. She rubbed her eyes and screwed her face around, trying to force some blood to her brain.

  She took Lisa’s hand. “I think you should take some deep breaths, maybe go for a swim, maybe go inside and have a glass of wine and a lie-down . . . Things will shake out how they’re gonna shake out.” Poppy stopped speaking when she saw that Ryan, who had been napping on his towel several yards away, shifted his position, appearing to wake. “None of this is your fault,” Poppy continued in a lower voice.

  Ryan slowly worked his way up to a seated position and looked casually their way. The T-shirt that had covered his face was now draped around his neck like a shawl. “Hey, Ma,” he said. “I’m gonna go in for a snack. You want me to bring you anything?”

  “No, I’m fine, hon,” Poppy said.

  She watched Ryan for a bit as he loped sleepily toward the house. It was curious, she thought, how lackluster Ryan seemed today, given his high energy yesterday—thrashing in the waves with Kimmy and Alex, collecting crabs and shells and scampering around like a little kid all day, no need for a nap. Maybe he slept poorly last night, she thought. She’d ask him before bed tonight if he wanted the air conditioning adjusted lower or higher in his room, or if he wanted a different pillow.

  Beside her, Lisa suddenly inhaled so forcefully her throat rattled, and she scrambled to her feet, sand kicking out to both sides. “No,” Lisa whispered under her breath. Then she said “NO!” again, and this time it was a cry, loud and anguished. Then she was running toward the water, her cover-up wrap dress undone and flapping out at her sides like huge, lopsided white wings.

  Poppy’s startled gaze reached the shore, Lisa’s destination.

  Next to Rae’s beach chair was a chocolate Lab, nuzzling up to Rae’s neck as she draped an arm over its back. The dog’s tongue was long and pink against Rae’s face. Keats Firestone stood there, lean and muscular in swim trunks and a backwards hat, smiling down at Rae, the dog’s leash wrapped loosely around his wrist.

  “Oh, shit,” Poppy breathed.

  She rose from her chair, not particularly wanting to be at Lisa’s side when the confrontation took place, but wanting to be close enough that she could get a good read on the situation and intervene if necessary.

  Poppy began to jog slowly in the direction of the water just as Lisa was reaching Rae’s beach chair. Poppy couldn’t hear the language Lisa used, but she could make out some very emphatic words spoken, accompanied by a shooing motion. Then Keats turned abruptly, pulled the dog by its leash, and started speed-walking back from where he had come. Poppy watched as he speed-walked, then he jogged, then he ran.

  When Poppy reached her, Lisa was holding her sunglasses in one hand, wiping her face with the back of her wrist. Her face was splotchy red on white, like peppermint, and she was shuddering with uneven breaths.

  Rae sprang up from her beach chair, outraged and incredulous. She stared at her mother like Lisa had just shot the Labrador in the head.

  Lisa gasped for breath and waved her hands around her face as though deflecting insects. “I’m sorry,” she wheezed.

  “What the hell?” Rae hollered. “That was so embarrassing!”

  Hoping that Lisa would collect herself and avoid revealing more to Rae, Poppy stepped between mother and daughter to address Rae directly. “What happened?”

  Rae spoke quickly, bewildered and irate. “That guy was walking by, and his dog was really cute so I sort of whistled at it, and the dog came over real fri
endly, and I was just petting it, and my mom”—she pointed violently toward Lisa, as though she were on the stand and had been asked to identify the perpetrator in the courtroom—“Mom came running up, totally crazy, and said to that man, ‘Stay away! You stay away from her!’ Waving her arms like, like the guy’s trying to murder me with an ax. And then”—Rae sputtered, still in disbelief—“he took his dog and left. Well, you saw,” she appealed to Poppy. “You saw. They just left after my mom scared them off. What the hell?”

  Rae’s hands were angry little white balls.

  Poppy stole a quick glance over her shoulder at Lisa, who looked shell-shocked. Shoulders low, hands cradling her own elbows. Face long and open. Poppy felt a surge of pity for her friend, who had been through the ringer in the past hour.

  Poppy turned back to Rae. Her mind worked fast. “Chocolate Labs are notoriously aggressive,” she said.

  Rae crumpled her brow, looking skeptical.

  “It’s true,” Poppy ventured, eyebrows high and persuasive. “Especially toward kids. They can get aggressive really fast. Violent.”

  Delivering this quick lie with such conviction, Poppy half wondered if it was true.

  Rae’s expression was still dubious.

  Poppy lowered her voice to a softer pitch. “Your mom has had a really hard morning,” she said, looking Rae directly in the eye.

  Rae snorted. “Oh, really? A hard morning? Because the art gallery sucked? I didn’t know that was enough to make a person lose their freaking mind and scream at a stranger, chase him off the beach.”

  “I yell at strangers every day,” Poppy offered. She reached out a gentle hand to Rae’s shoulder. “Let’s just let it go. It won’t happen again. Right?”

  Poppy turned around to confirm this with Lisa.

  Lisa was bent and fanning her face, gazing at the horizon. “Of course not.”

  Out in the water, John, Alex, and Kimmy were swimming happily in a gentle surf that broke over the sandbar, oblivious to what had taken place at the shore.