That Summer Read online

  “Nothing happened,” said Diana, shaking her head.

  “Are you doing all right, though?” Dr. Levy’s voice was as gentle as a hand on her forehead, as kind as Dr. Emmerich had been, years ago.

  “I’m fine!” Diana’s voice was too loud for the little room. And what right did Dr. Levy have to come swanning in with her leather boots and her fancy bag, asking about things that were none of her business? Diana lowered her voice. “Really. I’m okay. I’m figuring things out.”

  “I want to make you an offer.” Dr. Levy clasped her hands and set them on the table. “I don’t know what happened that last weekend you were with us, or if anything happened at all, but I suspect that something did. On my watch.” She spoke each word clearly and deliberately. “You got hurt while I was supposed to be looking out for you, and I feel terrible about that. I can’t undo it, but I’d like to try to help you now.”

  Diana felt her throat tighten and her eyes begin to sting.

  “I told you that my parents used to bring me to Truro when I was a girl, right? That they had a little cottage?” When Diana nodded, Dr. Levy said, “The cottage is still there. My mother died, my dad’s not well enough to be up there alone, and my sister’s in California, so I’ve been renting it out for the summers. But it isn’t rented for this year yet.” She refolded her hands on the table. “I don’t know, maybe the Cape is the last place you’d ever want to be. But if you do want a place to stay, to get away from the city, and be on your own, and clear your head, and figure things out, like you said, I’d be more than happy for you to stay there.”

  Diana blinked. Even in her misery, she could recognize that she was being offered something significant. She felt her heart lift, and realized that there was some part of her that remembered Cape Cod, and how it had felt before it had gone bad: the particular slant of the light in midmorning, the exact green of the marsh grass and the darkness of the water, the sun setting over the bay, in a swirl of flame and molten gold.

  Dr. Levy was still talking. “It’s not like the big house, but it’s a sweet little place, right on top of the dune. I used to go there, when I was single, and then Lee and I went, when we were first married.” A smile curved her lips. “It’s just one room, with a sleeping loft, but there’s a full kitchen, and a deck, and an outdoor shower, and—”

  “Yes,” Diana blurted. She felt a spark of something unfamiliar and faint, something she recognized as hope. Maybe there was a path forward; a place she could go and hide, and heal. She took a gulp of her tea, scalding her tongue, swallowed, and said, “Please. I’d like that very much. But could I go after the summer’s over? I could pay you rent…”

  Dr. Levy shook her head. “No, no, don’t worry about that. Honestly, you’d be doing me a favor if you stayed. You could make sure the mice don’t move in.” She refolded her hands. “There’s a woodstove. And there’s oil heat. At least, there’s an oil tank. Theoretically, it’s a four-season house, but I’ve never been up there past Thanksgiving, so I’m not sure how warm you’ll be, if it ever gets really cold…”

  “I’ll get a space heater.” It felt strange to be making plans, strange to feel a smile on her face, and to feel a tiny pinprick of hope, after feeling hopeless for so long. “I… thank you. It sounds really great.”

  Dr. Levy said, “I’ll put the keys in the mail, and send you directions. It’s on an unmarked road, so it’s kind of hard to find.” She got to her feet. Diana stood up, too.

  “Thank you. I…” She didn’t have the words for what she wanted to tell her former employer, so she just said, “Thank you,” again.

  Dr. Levy nodded. “Take care of yourself.” She paused in the doorway, giving Diana a long, level look, and then a smile. And then she was gone.

  Diana walked back to the kitchen. Most days, she slept until the sun went down, right through dinner. She’d come downstairs at nine or so, eat something standing over the sink, and drive to work. That afternoon, she put Dr. Levy’s cannoli in the refrigerator, then stood there, considering her options, before pulling out eggs and butter. There was bread in the breadbox, a just-ripe-enough red plum in the fruit bowl. She put butter in the pan, bread in the toaster, cracked the eggs, and took a bite of the plum. Ten minutes later, she sat down to one of the rare actual meals she’d eaten since that summer. She sprinkled salt over her eggs, twisted the pepper mill three times, and sliced through the first egg, watching the yolk spill its gold onto the plate, thinking, Am I really going to do this? Am I going to go back, and live there, where it happened? Part of her whispered that it was folly, crazy to even consider, the worst idea she’d ever had, but another part remembered the freshness of the air and the colors of the sunsets. Those boys were only summer people, she thought, and the beach was just a beach, not to blame for what had happened there. Besides, there were lots of beaches in Truro. She’d never have to visit that one again. Five months later, she packed up her clothes into trash bags and cardboard boxes from the liquor store, and climbed into the ancient Honda that had been Julia’s, then Kara’s, and was now hers, heading to the Cape.

  7

  Diana

  The cottage stood at the end of Knowles Heights Road in North Truro, on the crest of a dune overlooking the bay. A screen of scrub pines, crabapple trees, and beach-plum bushes hid it from its neighbors, and it had expansive windows facing the sea. It wasn’t grand. There were no airy rooms or walls of glass, no pool or hot tub or stainless-steel kitchen. It was just one room, a building like a child’s drawing of a house, with a peaked roof, white walls, and black shutters, and a small deck out back. Inside, there were stained wood walls and bright rag rugs on the hardwood floors, and a couch in a white canvas slipcover. A short staircase past the kitchen led to the sleeping loft, tucked under the eaves, with room for a futon on a box spring, with a stack of books beside it. The roof formed a peak over the bed, and a pair of small windows let in the light.

  Diana set a box of books down on a coffee table made from a glass-topped ship’s helm. “Ahoy, matey,” she murmured. Just ten steps took her from the front door, to the far windows, but when she got there, she saw that the views were almost the same as the ones from Dr. Levy’s house. The ocean was spread out below her, as close as if she were standing on a ship’s deck. There were seagulls skimming low over the waves, and in the distance, a sailboat with two masts, its white sails full-bellied in the wind.

  Diana walked the length of the cabin, back and forth. She had the same feeling she got when she set down a heavy backpack or took off a too-tight bra—the same easing, the same sense that she could breathe freely, and move without restraint. She rolled her shoulders, still stiff from the drive, and imagined casting off all her years of numbness and sorrow, and turning into someone else. Maybe not the woman she’d once dreamed of being, the writer, the artist, the professor, but at least someone different than she’d been back home.

  Diana continued exploring. There was a stereo with a CD player tucked into a nook in the kitchen. Simple white curtains hung over the eye-level windows. The woodstove Dr. Levy had mentioned stood in the corner, and the bathroom had a grand, antique claw-footed tub that barely fit in the tiny room and looked as out of place as a dowager at a tailgate party. Diana stared at it, bemused, then went back to the main room, where a narrow shelf ran around three walls of the house at eye level. She saw paperback books, bits of sea glass, and driftwood. A dried starfish was propped up next to a glass jar filled with shells. On a small rectangle of canvas, someone had painted a competent seascape.

  Outside, on the deck, were a barbecue grill and picnic table. Around the corner, behind a screen of shrubs, there was an outdoor shower with a mural of a mermaid painted on the wooden wall of its enclosure.

  Diana opened the windows to chase away the lingering, musty smell of closed-up house that she remembered from her stay with Dr. Levy. She put her clothes in the wooden dresser, hearing the creaks as she worked its water-swollen drawers open and shut. She put cans of tuna fish and ba
gs of dried beans on the empty shelves in the kitchen, and put eggs and milk and half-and-half into the small refrigerator, noting, with approval, the coffee maker and the knives. That night, she fell asleep easily and didn’t wake up until almost eight o’clock in the morning. It was the longest and the latest she’d slept in years. She lay in bed with the windows open, listening to the sound of the wind, the surf, the kids on the beach. It was the third weekend in September, the water still warm enough for swimming, families still squeezing out the last drops of summer with beach trips and picnics and ice-cream cones. She imagined she could even hear the foghorn blast of the Lewis Brothers ice-cream truck. Maybe I’ll stay, she thought.

  But she’d need a job.

  On Monday morning, she got up early and walked on the beach, then took an outdoor shower, and combed her hair before pulling it back into a ponytail. She pulled on loose-fitting cargo pants and a bulky T-shirt, slipped her Birkenstocks on her feet, and drove to Provincetown. She parked all the way out at the West End, where the houses and shops and restaurants yielded to the National Seashore, and walked down Commercial Street, past the restaurants and nightclubs, the art galleries and performance spaces, the sex shops and the fudge shops and bed-and-breakfasts and the bike shops and the bookstores.

  At the end of the street she turned around, retracing her two-mile route, stopping in at every business where she’d seen a HELP WANTED sign in the window. In some cases, the signs had been put up to ensure a ready supply of employees during the summer months, and left up by mistake. “Come back in June,” the woman behind the counter at Angel Foods told her, and the man at Cabot’s Candy gestured at the crowded aisles and said, “Busy as it is in here right now, that’s how empty it’s going to be on Monday.” The Portuguese Bakery actually was hiring, but they needed an experienced line cook. The sex shop, with its assortment of leather harnesses to hold strap-on dildos in the window, was hiring, but Diana knew she couldn’t work there.

  At the Alden Gallery, the older woman with cat-eye glasses and pink hair had looked her up and down, then asked, “Do you know anything about art?”

  “Um,” Diana said. “I know it when I see it?”

  The woman had smiled, not unkindly. “That’s pornography, hon,” she’d said.

  Finally, Diana had worked her way down to the Abbey, an upscale restaurant with a small but lush courtyard that featured a tinkling fountain, a pair of wooden benches, flowering bushes and stands of tall grasses, and a statue resembling Rodin’s The Thinker (one of the few things she did remember from the art history class she’d taken). She’d never eaten there, but she remembered Dr. Levy mentioning it as one of the places she and her husband visited for date night at least once every summer. She sat on the bench for a minute to rest her feet and peruse the menu. Tuna sushi tempura (eighteen dollars for an appetizer). Almond-crusted cod with a mandarin-citrus beurre blanc (twenty-eight dollars) and butter-poached lobster (market price). The list of cocktails and special martinis ran two pages, and when she walked up the curved stone steps and stepped into the dining room, the views of the bay were gorgeous.

  “Help you?” asked the young man behind the host stand. He had pale blue eyes, and a willowy, long-limbed body. He wore white chinos and a blue linen shirt the same shade as his eyes. A red bandana was tied jauntily around his neck, setting off the translucence of his pale white skin. Beside him, Diana felt large, and drab, and clumsy.

  “The sign in the window says you’re hiring?”

  “I’ll get Reese.” The boy turned on his heel and went gliding through the dining room. A moment later, he was back with one of the first nonwhite people Diana had seen on the Cape. This man had medium-brown skin, a bald head, and a bushy white beard, gold-rimmed glasses, and a friendly smile.

  “Hello, my dear. I’m Reese Jenkins. I run this asylum.” He offered her his hand, which was warm and so large it made her own hand disappear. “And yes, because I can feel you wondering, I do play Santa at the Police Athletic League party every year. In Provincetown, Santa’s a black man.” He beamed at her, and the beautiful, willowy boy and turned his eyes toward the heavens with an expression suggesting he’d heard the line many times before.

  “Now!” said Reese. “What brings you here?” When he cocked his head, gold glasses twinkling, she was tempted to tell him what she wanted for Christmas, and then, when she opened her mouth, she realized that he’d already given her a gift. She could choose a different name, any name she’d ever wanted, and that’s what he would call her. That girl who’d been hurt, who’d been left on the beach like trash, whose life had been derailed—she didn’t have to be her anymore. Or, at least, she didn’t have to answer to her name.

  So Diana smiled and gave him her hand. “My name is Dee Scalzi.” If she got the job, she’d have to give her real first name and social security number on the paperwork, but she could always say that Dee was a nickname.

  Reese shook her hand. “Are you hungry?” he asked.

  She was. She hadn’t eaten breakfast, or stopped for a snack during her trek along Commercial Street. She was ravenous, and footsore, too, but she had just ten dollars in her pocket. The only thing she would have been able to purchase at the Abbey were the oysters, at two dollars apiece.

  “Could I have a glass of water?”

  “Don’t be silly.” Reese turned to the beautiful boy (up close, Diana could see that there was a pattern of tiny blue whales on the red-and-white belt he wore at the waist of his chinos). “Ryan, we’ll be at table twelve.” Diana followed Reese through the restaurant. He walked like a sailor, in a rolling, bow-legged stride, which added to her impression that they were on a ship, riding the waves of the sea. Diana could feel herself relaxing, ever so slightly, as he led her to a white tablecloth–draped table for two by the window and held her chair for her, waiting until she was settled before taking his own seat.

  “Chef’s just finishing the specials for the night, and, as the manager, it’s my responsibility to taste them.” She could see a flash of gold way back in his mouth when he smiled. “Nice work if you can get it. Have you ever been to the Abbey before?”

  “No.” She could see waiters and waitresses, in crisp white shirts, black pants, and black bow ties, bustling through the dining room. One woman was setting a single tea light candle in a hurricane glass on each table, another arranged a spray of white calla lilies in vases for the four-tops. At the host stand, Ryan was straightening stacks of menus and wine lists; at the bar, the bartender was decanting cherries from a jar into plastic dispensers. As Diana looked around, a waitress came by with a cruet of olive oil, bread plates, and a napkin-lined basket that held squares of golden-brown focaccia. Diana felt saliva flood her mouth.

  “So what brings you to the Cape?” Reese asked, helping himself to a square.

  Diana looked down at her hands, with their chewed nails, red and raw and chapped from the chemicals she’d used for her cleaning. They looked incongruous and ugly as they rested on the tablecloth. “I spent a summer here a few years ago, and then I had the opportunity to come back. I remembered how much I liked it, and I thought I could use a change of scenery.”

  “Hmm. Any waitressing experience?”

  “No. But I’m a hard worker,” she said. She wanted this, she realized. Wanted this job, wanted to work in this lovely place, wanted this man’s company. “I’ve been working for Boston University.”

  “Doing what?”

  She thought about lying, then decided he’d probably check her references. “In the custodial department.” Wiping up puddles of puke from the walkways and splatters of urine from tiled floors; a world away from this hushed, good-smelling, candlelit room with its spacious windows open to the sea. Reese was looking at her closely, in a way that made her feel like he knew some of what she wasn’t telling him.

  “You know,” he finally said, “this building was once a church. Our Lady of Good Voyage.” He leaned back in his chair with the air of a man preparing to tell a much-loved stor
y. “There’re a lot of Portuguese families on the Cape. They came over from the Azores in the 1880s, and they settled here to fish. According to the stories, a fisherman was out on the ocean when his oars broke. Or his mast, depending on who’s telling the story. Anyhow, something broke. He prayed to the Madonna, and the seas calmed, allowing him to return safely to port.”

  Diana looked around. Other than a small stained glass window toward the top of the peaked roof, and the beams of the ceiling, there wasn’t much that spoke of a house of worship. Reese pointed toward an iron loop, bolted high in a beam on the ceiling. “See that? That’s where the church bell hung. And it’s hard to make it out from here, but the window depicts the Madonna, holding a boat in her left hand.” He put a piece of focaccia on her plate and poured oil beside it. “Go on,” he said. “Please.”

  The square of bread was light, almost airy in Diana’s hand. The top crust was chewy; the bread beneath it was pillowy soft. She tore off a bit and swiped it through a slick of olive oil and sea salt, and ate it, trying not to gobble or moan out loud, as Reese watched her approvingly.

  “Good?” he asked.

  She swallowed. “It’s amazing.” She wiped her hands on her napkin.

  “I should tell you, Dee, that you’re here at the wrong time, if you’re looking to make a lot of money.” He nodded at the dining room, where there were maybe fifteen tables for two and another ten for parties of four. A single long table with seats for sixteen ran against the back wall. “When it’s high season, we run a happy hour from three to five o’clock. We have two dinner seatings: one at six o’clock, one at eight thirty. We turn every table in here, every single night, and there’s a waiting list, in case we have no-shows.”

  The kitchen doors swung open, and a waitress came to the table carrying two large, steaming white plates. She set the first one down in front of Reese and said, “Here we have filet of roasted halibut, caught this morning right here in Cape Cod Bay. It’s pan-seared in a sauce of black garlic, blistered cherry tomatoes, and shishito peppers, both from Longnook Farms, served over a bed of coconut-lime rice with sautéed bok choy.” She set the second dish down in front of Diana. “Here we have a confit of Maple Hill Farm duck leg and roasted duck breast in a balsamic-fig reduction, served over sweet-potato hash, with local roasted ramps. “Please enjoy,” she said, and gave a little bow.