The House on Fripp Island Read online

  “You’re not? I’ve heard some of the conversations you’ve had with Poppy.” Scott’s black, triangular eyebrows arched high.

  Lisa blinked, surprised by this. “So you eavesdrop while I’m on the phone with my friend and use our private conversations as ammunition not to spend time with her family? That’s nice of you.” Lisa wound a thick chunk of her red hair into a rope and tossed it back over her shoulder. “But since you brought it up, it’s not alcohol Poppy’s worried about. John had surgery on his back a year or two ago and still has a lot of pain. They’re trying to work out the right medications to keep it at bay. It’s under the close watch of his doctor and they’re trying to work it out. But thank you for your concern. Well meaning as ever.”

  “You always assume the worst of me.” Scott looked directly at her as he said this, and it occurred to Lisa that this was the first time their eyes had actually met during this entire conversation, perhaps the first time today. This entire week. She couldn’t decide which of his eyes to look at. God, they were out of sync. Things had gotten worse and worse between them over the past few years, and now they were worse than bad—they were complicated. Inscrutable. She looked away, and he looked back at his laptop.

  Lisa went to the refrigerator, deciding that she really didn’t give two hoots about this vacation anymore, didn’t even care if she was invited, when over her shoulder Scott said, “Oh, hell with it. Run it by Poppy, then.”

  Lisa closed the refrigerator and spun to face him, carton of cranberry juice in hand. “Really?” she said. She felt something hopeful spike within her chest.

  Scott, staring at his laptop once again, seemingly uninterested in further talk of vacation, looked suddenly enthused by something completely unrelated.

  She said, “Scott?”

  He looked up, his eyes wide but unfocused on her, empty as poached eggs. “Huh?” he said.

  “Did you say I can invite them?”

  “Oh,” Scott looked back down at his computer. “Whatever makes you happy.”

  2

  AS THE FORDS WAITED in a long line of cars to cross the bridge onto Fripp Island, Poppy observed others coming and going from the island in their BMWs, Suburbans, and Audis. She and John and the kids were in their ’81 Dodge Omni with rusted-out wheel wells, and the car released a supersonic squeal from below the hood every time they made a sharp left turn.

  Poppy pulled down the passenger’s visor to look at herself in its tiny, smeared mirror. Her shoulder-length black hair seemed to double in size in the humidity of coastal South Carolina. Her face was deeply tanned from long days in the sun. She worked for an entertainment company based out of Wheeling that provided bounce houses, inflatable pools, photo booths, and other props and costumed characters for special events. Poppy managed the delivery, assembly, and teardown of the bounce houses, dealt with damaged equipment, and handled all the waivers and consent forms. In the off-season, she helped contract out Grim Reapers, Santa Clauses, princesses, and Big Birds. Occasionally, she had to suit up and play Mrs. Claus or Jasmine if somebody called in sick at the last minute. It was ridiculous work, and she had to deal with more than her fair share of brats and meth-addicted freelance clowns, but it beat waiting tables, which is what she had done from the time she was fifteen until she was almost thirty.

  In the mirror, Poppy poked at her symmetrical acne scars, which could almost be mistaken for dimples at this stage of life. Her dark eyes were bloodshot; they had left Wheeling at four a.m. and she was low on sleep, even though John had done a lot of the driving. Her nose looked greasy, so she took a napkin from the glove compartment and rubbed it.

  When she looked out her window, she saw some elegant blond people in a Lexus in the next lane over, giggling into fists as they gawked at the Omni. Poppy could feel a familiar and deeply unpleasant volatility stirring inside her. Being around rich people made her feel small and precarious. It made her want to be mean.

  She glanced backwards over her shoulder to make sure both Ryan and Alex were still asleep, and they were. She said to John, “Did you see those people staring? Looking at us like we’re from the goddamn moon.”

  “What people?”

  “In the Lexus.”

  John said, “Who cares?”

  Poppy gazed out her window. She was sweating. On full blast, the AC offered only an abysmal lukewarm breeze that smelled weird. She opened her window a few inches to see if she could catch some fresh air. The Omni buzzed while idling and sounded more like a lawnmower than any sort of vehicle for transportation.

  “I just find rich people so . . . useless and predictable,” she said.

  John chuckled. He was a big bear of a man, six foot six and three hundred pounds, and when he laughed, his belly jerked around beneath his shirt like it was trying to make a break for it. He said, “We talked about this, though, Pop. You’re the one convinced me this would be a good time.”

  “I know, I know, I know,” she muttered. “I’ll be fine once we get ourselves settled. I’m just in a mood. How’s your back?”

  “It’s fine,” John said, shifting in his seat, far too big for this car, arching his shoulders in a stretch. The muscles of his neck bulged. “I’ll be ready for a pill soon as we get there.”

  Poppy looked at the digital clock. “I’m glad the higher dose isn’t messing with your stomach.”

  John said, “I swear they’re doin’ something to my sense of smell, though. Ever since they started me on these ones, coffee don’t smell like coffee. And my short-term memory’s for shit. Speaking of, what’s their older one’s name again?”

  “Rae,” said Poppy. She reached for her purse at her feet, pulled out a piece of Big Red. “She starts high school this fall.”

  “And the younger one is Kimmy, right?”

  Poppy nodded. She folded the gum into thirds on her tongue, balled up the foil wrapper, and set it loose, hippety-hopping across the dashboard. “Kimmy’s just a few months older than Alex,” she said. “And I did warn Lisa about Alex, by the way, just so there’s no . . . confusion.”

  The two of them shared a smile, and Poppy glanced over her shoulder again to make sure both kids were still sleeping.

  John said, “What did Lisa say?”

  “She said, ‘You know, there’s a transgendered in Rae’s class.’ ”

  John made a face like he’d walked into a spider web.

  Just a few months earlier, Alex had announced that she wanted to go by “Alex” instead of “Alexis.” Several days later, she had cut off her foot-long black ponytail, then asked Poppy to finish it off with electric clippers, a buzz cut, like she had seen Poppy do for Ryan many times. There had been no talk of changing pronouns, using the boys’ restroom, or switching from the softball team to the baseball team. Nothing like that. But Alex was reveling in her new look, that much was clear, asking for a fresh buzz cut every week or so since the first.

  John said, “Crying out loud. She’s eleven years old.”

  Poppy snapped her gum. “I just told her, you know, ‘Alex can be whoever the hell Alex wants to be.’ ”

  John grunted. “And she’s got plenty of time to decide that on her own, without a bunch of grown-ups slappin’ labels.”

  He glanced at his daughter in the rearview mirror. Alex slept peacefully, mouth sagged open, a tiny thread of drool connecting her lip to her Cincinnati Bengals T-shirt.

  Alex and her father shared a special bond. Ever since she was small, she loved helping John change the oil in their vehicles, stack firewood, and clean out the gutters, and she begged to accompany him on trips to the lumberyard, the shooting range, and Ace Hardware. Alex’s most coveted possession was her BB gun, and she and John spent countless hours doing target practice on Coke cans in the backyard. Alex would mimic everything John did: wear her cap backwards, roll a toothpick back and forth across her lips, sniff defiantly as though someone had changed the rules every time she missed the can altogether. When she was a toddler, she’d sit on the bathroom counter an
d watch her father shave, then ask to have shaving cream put on her own chin, which she would remove with a comb in the same long, measured strokes that John used with his razor.

  Alex’s idolizing of John flattered him, especially since Ryan had never shown an ounce of interest in his father’s hobbies. Furthermore, in the last year or two, Ryan had become downright judgmental about John’s love of hunting and fishing. One of Ryan’s high school teachers had taken the kids on a trip to the Shenandoah River, done a bunch of tests on the plants and the water, photographed the animals they saw, and picked up litter, which got Ryan all wound up about the ecosystem. Even before this, Ryan had always been happier reading books about anything from aliens to Antarctica to forensic psychology, or going on long bike rides by himself, rather than accompanying his father on tasks and excursions. Lately, Ryan’s solitary bike rides had gotten longer and longer, but John didn’t ask questions.

  Ryan was a much better student and just plain much smarter kid than either John or Poppy had been. Fast reader. Great memory for facts, whiz at math. Hard for John to imagine he shared any DNA with the kid whatsoever. Several months ago, Ryan had been admitted to the West Virginia University on a full scholarship and would start there this coming fall.

  John couldn’t believe how lucky he had gotten with Ryan and Alex. He had friends with kids who had problems John could hardly fathom. One of his buddies had a kid who had overdosed on heroin and was found dead on the floor of the bathroom at Shoney’s. Fifteen years old. Another one had a twelve-year-old who was sitting in Juvie for stabbing his grandma after she unplugged his Nintendo in the middle of a game. So John knew not to take anything for granted—Ryan and Alex were great kids, easy kids, the best a parent could hope for. Even if Ryan could be a smug little shit about fishing sustainably. Even if Alex and her shaved head invited some questions.

  The Dalys had arrived at the house a few minutes earlier and were bringing their bags inside, settling into bedrooms and snacking on fruit. The house was painted a pretty seafoam green, the front door grand and glass-paneled, the shutters white. On the beachfront, it had a narrow wooden walkway that passed over a small marshy patch on the way down to the water. Inside, the house was big and bright, high-ceilinged, with bland, nautical-themed art on all its walls. Everything was blue and white, clean and smelling of artificial lemon.

  Poppy ran to Lisa and hugged her. “Thanks for letting us crash your vacation,” she said. “I’ll try to behave like a dignified person.”

  Lisa laughed. “You’re a saint, looking after my mom like you have. This is the least we can do. I’m so glad it worked out.”

  Poppy opened and closed her arms like hinges, airing out. “That was one hell of a drive,” she said. “How was yours?”

  “Fine,” Lisa said, “when Scott wasn’t driving like a total maniac. That straightaway beyond Yemassee? He was pushing ninety. It’s a miracle we lived.”

  “Oh, for God’s sakes,” Scott said, turning to John. His expression made it clear he expected an instant ally in his guest.

  “Poppy’s a speed demon too,” John offered.

  “Am not,” Poppy said. “How would you know anyway? The Omni maxes out at sixty.”

  Alex piped up, “Mom, you were going seventy in a fifty-five this morning, I saw it.”

  “I would never,” Poppy said. “You must have dreamed it.”

  Kimmy stared at Alex’s shaved head but did not comment on it. Instead, she announced, “We saw a gator on the way in. It was right in the middle of the road. Daddy almost ran it over.”

  Alex said, “That happened to us too.”

  “The other thing we saw,” Kimmy said, addressing the whole group now, “was we were behind this car back in North Carolina, and the lady in the passenger seat reached over and picked something out of the driver man’s ear and she ate it, just like a chimp!” She demonstrated this, reaching over to Rae’s head and withdrawing something invisible from her ear.

  Rae swatted her little sister’s hand away. She said, “You’re making that up.” Sourly, to the others, “She’s making that up.”

  Ryan lifted his hand in a shy greeting to the Dalys. He had Poppy’s wild black curls, and they were stuffed under a baseball cap. He was tall and tanned and broad-shouldered like his father but not yet sporting John’s round gut. His eyes were dark and lovely, gentle and long-lashed like a deer’s.

  Lisa said to him, “God, you’ve grown. Are you six feet?” As soon as this came out, Lisa saw Scott’s posture go hard in her peripheral vision—he was self-conscious about his own height—and she couldn’t help feeling amused by the success of her unintended jab. She clapped her hands together brightly, eyes still on Ryan. “And congratulations on university. You start in the fall, right? Studying science something or other?”

  Ryan nodded. “Ecology.”

  Poppy turned to Rae. “And you start high school in the fall, right?”

  Rae nodded. She was very pale and pretty and green-eyed, her light copper-colored hair cut straight around at her chin, big hoop earrings. Kimmy looked like a miniature version of her older sister, same complexion, same eyes. Similar haircut, although the hairdresser had gone a bit too short with Kimmy’s bangs, giving her the look of someone in a state of perpetual shock. And Kimmy’s permanent teeth were huge in her tiny head, her smile was rabbity and severe.

  Lisa said, “Anyhow, we thought you two,” nodding toward Poppy and John, “could do the bedroom right up these stairs—it has a wonderful deck, queen-size bed—and you two,” pointing at Alex and Kimmy, “can take the bunk room in the basement. That leaves the two rooms with the double beds, one for Rae and one for Ryan—they’re both in the wing off the master.” She pointed down the hall.

  Rae said to Ryan, “I already looked at the rooms, they’re both nice, you can decide.” She couldn’t quite bring herself to meet his eyes. He was so much more handsome than she remembered. And she loved boys so much. God, Rae could hardly stand how much she loved boys these days. She could think of little else. Her brain went haywire every time she spoke to one; words became weird and soft and dry in her mouth.

  Ryan said, “Doesn’t make any difference to me.” His voice was deep and full, not like the boys her age, who had voices that were still either as high and singsong as her own or croaked between octaves like a broken clarinet.

  They all walked through the house together and Poppy tried to conceal her awe, which quickly gave way to discomfort. She had never set foot in a place like this. She’d only seen homes this nice on those TV shows that featured the houses of athletes and pop stars. It had to be worth many millions. Lisa breezed through the place looking perfectly at ease in her white linen dress, grazing her fingers elegantly over this piece of furniture and that piece of art. Scott sniffed things up close and picked at several imperfections throughout the house: a scratch on the coffee table, a stain on the bathmat. It occurred to Poppy that Lisa and Scott probably vacationed in places like this all the time. Probably even nicer. They didn’t exactly seem thrilled with the house.

  Lisa said, “Careful for splinters going barefoot on the deck, looks like it’s been a while since it was refinished,” and, “The only clothing steamer I’ve seen is in our bedroom, so if anyone needs it, just ask.”

  Poppy said, “Clothing steamer?”

  “Like an iron but does a better job,” Lisa explained. “Less direct heat.”

  Kimmy said, “It is hot, though. I burned my thumb on ours at home when I touched my communion dress before it cooled down. I even have a scar.” She shoved her thumb into the air at Poppy’s nose.

  Poppy searched for the scar but gave up after a few seconds.

  Next, Lisa pointed out the juicer and SodaStream water carbonator in the kitchen.

  It came as a strange realization for Poppy to consider that there were many parts of Lisa’s home life and daily routine that were completely foreign to her, objects that seemed senseless and redundant, whereas Lisa would be all too familiar with the
things in Poppy’s home. The duct tape that held the screen door together and kept the batteries in the remote, the stockpot that lived under the leak in the garage. Coupons and buy-one-get-ones. Lisa knew Poppy’s life inside out because she had once lived it, but Poppy would only ever have these curious glimpses into Lisa’s daily existence.

  As they continued through the house, it pleased Poppy to notice that her children seemed either unintimidated by or completely oblivious to the wealth on display. Ryan and Alex made polite comments about the accommodations but seemed keener to get down to the beach than continue gawking at the house.

  After the tour, all four kids changed into their swimsuits, and before they headed down to the water, Lisa gave strict instructions for Rae and Ryan to keep a close eye on Alex and Kimmy.

  “It’s low tide and not much in the way of waves,” she said, “but make sure you’ve got eyes on whoever’s in the water.” She looked at Rae for a moment. “What’ve you got those for?”

  Rae was sporting a pair of binoculars on a black leather strap around her neck. They bounced against her navel, a shallow and demure innie.

  A bright flush appeared on Rae’s cheeks when all eyes in the room turned to her. She shifted her weight, popped her hip to the side. “For watching birds, Mom. God.”

  Lisa put her hands in the air, a sign of retreat. “Forgive me,” she said. “I did not know you were into birds.” Lisa turned to the others. “They’re nice binoculars, though. I got them for Rae before the Keswick Horse Show last spring because our seats were so far away. If anyone else wants to watch the birds . . .”

  Poppy said, “I’m gonna use them to spy on our neighbors.”

  Kimmy stared at Poppy in wonder, lips back, teeth prominent. “Are you really going to do that?”