Osprey Island

The story coalesced in Gavin’s mind as not merely logical, but inevitable: He’d come to Osprey for one girl, but really it was another he was meant to meet. Heather became a sort of inadvertent Cupid in the story, Gavin’s anger melting to nothing. In the years to come, they’d all be friends—Heather and Chandler and Gavin and this girl—and their children would all be playmates! There’d be no hard feelings, no grudges, just the sheer good fortune of their good, loving lives. The girl kept catching him staring across the table, kept giving him a look, a profile, a demurred eye that said, You looking at me? Yes—he smiled bashfully— yes, you! And she came back at him confidently, pleased, seeming to say, Well, let’s introduce ourselves once this is all over, how about? And Gavin signed back yes with his eyes. If the girl was aware of Brigid’s fingers picking at the inner seam of Gavin’s pant leg as if searching for a secret way inside them, she did not let on. Gavin would have to squeeze himself out of this Brigid thing somehow. He sensed it wasn’t going to be pretty. He was tired of dealing with messes. He just wanted to go and do what he wanted to do. He wanted to know: Was that so unreasonable?

Brigid didn’t want to go to the Vaughns’ after brunch. Neither did Peg or Jeremy. And what was Gavin supposed to say? No, I really feel like I should pay my respects and eat coffee cake with the parents of a dead woman I never met? He had no choice but to return with the others to the Lodge.

Jeremy parked in the staff lot, and they climbed from the car, sleepy and hot and cranky as children. The asphalt under their feet was pitted and cracked with sand-filled fissures. All pavement on Osprey looked like it was made of tar mixed with pebbles and sand and shells, and it split and crumbled apart like the top of an overcooked sheet cake. They stood around and against the car, stretching, stalling. No one knew what to do next. “A swim’d be grand,” Peg suggested, and Brigid said, “I wish the baths were open, you know . . .”

“The pool, you mean?” Jeremy asked. “Should we go down to the water?” he suggested, as if it were his idea to begin with.

The girls shrugged their assent.

Gavin scratched his head, then rubbed at his eyes with his thumb and middle finger as though he had a headache coming on. “I think maybe I need to go take a walk, just clear my head . . .” He tried to make himself say alone, I need to go take a walk, alone, but it seemed too cruel. He knew Brigid was waiting for an invitation. He tried to make himself look as beat as possible, tried to show her that what he really needed was solitude. There were a few strained moments when they all seemed to be waiting for him to ask her along. When he didn’t, Brigid turned to Peg, lifted her head toward the barracks, and said, “I’ll fetch my swimming costume.” She reached out a hand and rubbed Gavin’s sternum—an intimate gesture, something to show she was cool. Not clingy, not resentful. Cool. “Enjoy your walk,” she said, and started up the hill. Jeremy wrapped an arm around Peg, and they followed Brigid, nodding to Gavin as they passed.

Gavin leaned against Jeremy’s car, the sun bearing down on him, heat from the car pressing up through his clothes. He waited until he heard the barracks door slam on its hinges. Then he stood decisively, looked around him, and walked toward the Lodge. In the dark basement, Gavin closed himself up inside the old-fashioned telephone booth and pulled the Osprey phone book from its resting place. Vaughn, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur. And there was a foldout island map on the inside cover. He found the street, studied it a moment, and then tore out the map and shoved it in his pocket.

Sand Beach Road curved away from the shore past Morey’s Dinghy and became Island Drive as it looped up behind the Chizeks’ house. As Island Drive climbed, the road wound, serpentine, up the hill, the canopy of trees growing thick, densely netted with leafy vines as insidious as kudzu. Down on the beach, the island felt hot, bare, and exposed, but just a few minutes inland and the woods were lush and green, the air damp and rich with the smell of rotting leaves and dark soil. Every so often a long, snaking dirt drive led away from the main road toward an old weather-beaten farmhouse.

Gavin imagined himself living up here, tucked away in one of those houses. He’d always be working on the place, painting and repairing, and his wife would say to him over breakfast, You think you’ll get to that rain gutter today? He’d take the kids outside with him when they were big enough to help hold the rusty coffee can full of nails and hand him the hammer when he needed it. Heather had always talked about the gingerbread Victorians closer to town, and they were beautiful, with their curlicues and porticoes and screened-in hammock porches surrounded by blooming hydrangea bushes. But Gavin liked it better up here, hidden away from the summer people, not packed in clusters like sleepover-camp cabins, where you could look over and see what the neighbors were barbecuing for supper. He liked the notion of living up here, out of sight of the world.

The eastern side of the hill was scrubbier, sparser, as though it were at a higher altitude or got more wind or sun or something. The road narrowed to one cratered lane, forcing cars to pull practically into the woods if another car came from the opposite direction. There were more visible houses over here too, lower-slung ranch houses set incongruously in tall meadows of cattails. Coming round a bend, Gavin caught an incredible view of the water below, a patch of cliff-bound rocky shore, a decrepit stone pier crumbling out into the bay, an abandoned bridge to nowhere. He walked in the middle of the road, ready to leap to the side at the sound of car wheels approaching from either direction. A rumbling behind him sent Gavin nearly diving into a honeysuckle bush as a dirty white truck passed him, then slowed, slowed further, and pulled right. The driver leaned out his window and craned back around toward Gavin. It was Roddy.

“You work at the Lodge, right?” Roddy called. “You going to the Vaughns’? Want a lift?”

Gavin jogged up to the truck. “Hey,” he said. He peered around Roddy and smiled tentatively into the cab at Suzy, Squee, and Mia. He couldn’t think of an appropriate greeting. He said, “Hello.”

“Welcome to hop in the back,” Roddy said, gesturing to the bed. An empty gas can lolled on its side amid a tangle of bailer’s twine and seaweed.

“Is it a lot farther?” Gavin asked. “I’m kind of . . . I like the walk, you know?”

Suzy leaned over Mia. “Another mile or so, but it’s all downhill.”

“Thanks,” Gavin said. “I guess I’ll just see you there. Thanks again anyway.”

“No problem,” Roddy was saying. He was already shifting out of park.

“Enjoy the walk,” Suzy called. The truck kicked up a cloud of dust that followed them down the road.

The Vaughns’ kitchen looked like the site of a suburban Tupperware party circa 1957, platters and containers overflowing with three-bean salad and fluffy green ambrosia. Mourners spilled out the open front and back doors and onto the lawns, so Gavin was able to approach and slip in without making a distinct entrance. He was glad to have run into Suzy and Roddy, as he knew people to look for now, and he was palpably relieved to spot the kids out back in the shade of a willow tree. Standing by them was a really pretty dark-haired woman holding a heavy-looking baby in her arms, and a older woman in a rose-colored dress, squatting down to talk to Squee and Mia at eye level, which was something Gavin sort of remembered his prof talking about in Psych 100, about putting yourself on the same level as being important for communication. He and