“So there is a connection.”
“Bonita thanked me, Mitch. She said she can’t step out on him because people would find out. It’s awful hard to hide an affair in Dorset.”
“It’s impossible,” said Mitch, whose own relationship with Des had become hot news all over town before either of them knew what hit them.
“Next morning I couldn’t look my dad in the eye. Or Bonita. And for damned sure not Callie, who is such a genuine, sensitive person. She’ll never understand. I figure our relationship’s toast if she finds out. I moved out of my room and onto the Calliope that day so I wouldn’t be right down the hall from Bonita. Callie had a late class that night. Didn’t come over. I locked the Calliope down good and tight and went to bed early. I thought I’d be safe out there. I was wrong. At three o’clock in the morning Bonita’s out on deck pounding on the hatch cover and calling out my name. I let her in so she wouldn’t wake up my dad. Right away she was all over me again. I stopped her. I said that what happened last night was never, ever going to happen again. Bonita is… gorgeous. And she can be real persuasive. I totally wanted her again even though I knew it was wrong. I wanted her so bad that I went nuts and shoved her the hell off me. She cracked her head on the corner of a bookcase. Then she started screaming at me so loud she woke up my dad. Lights came on all over the house. She ran back inside and intercepted him. Made up some lame story about hitting her head in the kitchen. Told him she’d been awake because she was afraid there’d be a drive-by shooting next door. Just a bunch of paranoid, racist crap. But he totally bought it because he’s wired that way.” June broke off, swallowing. “This can’t go on, Mitch. Any day now the crazy bitch will lose it and tell him what really happened. I humiliated her. You don’t do that to Bonita. And she’ll mess up my thing with Callie for sure. I totally love that girl. I want to spend the rest of my life with her. But we’ve got to get out of this place right away or it’ll destroy us. Destroy Bonita, too.”
“Destroy her how?”
“My dad will beat the crap out of her. He used to beat up my mom. That’s why she left him.”
“I thought Bonita split them apart.”
“Everyone does. But my mom told me their marriage was over long before Bonita came along-because of his temper. He has no control over himself, Mitch. Like father, like son.”
Mitch kept his eyes on the road. “You’re not your father, June.”
“Yeah, I am,” he said bitterly. “Deep down inside I’m no good. I want to do what’s right. Go far, far away with Callie. I just don’t know if it’ll ever be the same between us after this. People who love each other don’t keep secrets. But what am I supposed to tell her-that my stepmother sort of raped me and that I sort of went along with it because she’s a real bunny in the sack?”
“Yeah, I don’t think I’d phrase it quite that way.”
“Mitch, you’ve been married. You know women better than I do. Will you give me an honest answer if I ask you something?”
“I’ll certainly try.”
“What would you do right now if you were me?”
“So what would you do?”
“Me? I’d grab Callie and sail the hell out of that nuthouse as fast as the wind would take me.”
“But that’s running away, doughboy.”
“You bet your sweet tuchos it is.”
The sky over Long Island Sound was bathed in a pinkish glow as they walked Big Sister’s narrow beach together at sunset. The air was still insanely warm for late October. According to the Weather Channel’s ace storm tracker, Jim Cantore, a storm front would bring thunderstorms tomorrow night along with much colder temperatures. For now, it felt like August as they strolled along barefoot in shorts and T-shirts, sipping Bass Ales and holding hands. Mitch relished these precious moments with his lady love. And he never took them-or her-for granted.
There was a decommissioned lighthouse out on Big Sister, the second tallest in New England. Forty or so acres of woods. And four houses besides Mitch’s antique post-and-beam caretaker’s cottage-all of them belonging to the Peck family. It was the Pecks who’d founded Dorset back in the 1600s. A rickety wooden causeway connected the private island to the mainland at the Peck’s Point Nature Preserve.
“So is that what you told June to do?” Des asked him.
“No, I’d never tell some young guy to quit the family business and take off. Who am I to tell him that? Although it’s pretty clear that he does need to get out from under his father’s-”
“Wife?”
“I was going to say thumb. But if you want to talk dirty…”
“I don’t.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Positive. Move it along, mister.”
“He asked me if I thought he should tell Callie. I said that when the time was right to tell her, he’d know. And he would tell her. He’d want to because they’d be a serious, committed couple by then and he’d want her to know everything. I’m not sure whether that was sound, mature advice or just something I picked up from watching Gidget Goes Hawaiian. But it was the best I could do. Hell, I’m driving along with the guy in this shiny new truck and he drops this on me. Do you think I need a new truck?”
“She’ll never understand. She’ll forgive him- maybe. But never understand.”
Mitch glanced over at her as she strode along next to him, her smooth skin glowing in the pink sunset. “What would you have told him?”
“I have no idea. And you don’t need a new truck. You already have the world’s greatest truck.”
“It doesn’t have air conditioning.”
“Open a window.”
“It doesn’t have heat.”
“Wear a jacket.”
“It won’t go faster than fifty-five.”
“Good. You shouldn’t.”
“Yeah, that’s kind of what I thought.”
Des sipped her beer and said, “I thought I sensed something between June and Bonita this morning. The way she looked at him. And the way he didn’t look at her. I can’t believe she actually played the race card just to cover her skanky ass. She’s a thoroughly reprehensible person. And Justy’s no dreamboat either.”
“He used to beat up on June’s mom, according to June. It’s only a matter of time before he starts in on Bonita-if he hasn’t already.”
“Really nice bunch of people. It’s a heartwarming story.”
“Welcome to Dorset, where life is beautiful all of the time.”
“Do you believe June’s version of the story?”
“Which part?”
“The part where he woke up inside of another woman and didn’t know it. Because you’d know if you were making love to someone and it wasn’t me, wouldn’t you? I’d sure know if it wasn’t you.”
“Well, that’s not a fair comparison. You’ve grown accustomed to incredibly high standards in terms of technique, attention to detail, girth… Okay, ow, that hurt.”
“I’m serious, Mitch. Do you believe him?”
“No, I don’t. I believe he’s spinning the truth about what happened so that he can live with himself. ‘This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.’” On her blank stare, he explained, “That’s from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, a very good picture John Ford made toward the end of his career. Lee Marvin slays in it.”
“Do you realize that sometimes I have no idea what you’re talking about?”
“But sometimes you do. How cool is that?”
“Justy and Bob Paffin persuaded me to pay a ‘courtesy’ call on our newest, blackest resident this morning.”
