Barefoot: A Novel

“Not real y,” Josh said. Tom Flynn wasn’t much for beach picnics. Josh did, however, have memories of Sunday afternoons at the beach when he was younger. His parents and a whole group of their friends congregated each week out at Eel Point. There were twenty or thirty kids, Wiffle bal games, charcoal barbecues with hamburgers and hot dogs. His mother, in particular, had seemed to enjoy these Sundays—she sat in her chair with her face raised to the sun, she swam twenty lengths of the beach, she helped Josh and the other kids col ect horseshoe crabs, and she even pitched a few innings of Wiffle bal . At five o’clock she pul ed a bottle of white wine from the depths of their icy cooler and poured herself some in a plastic cup. Every week, she insisted they stay until sunset.

We have to enjoy it now, she’d say. Before winter comes.

“Do you know how to drive on the beach?” Melanie said. “I’d get stuck.”

“I can drive on the beach,” Josh said. He kept his tire pressure low and put his Jeep in four-wheel drive; most of the time, it was as easy as that.

“Years of beach parties.”

“Sounds like fun,” Melanie said. She smiled at him in a way that seemed to mean something. Josh felt his face growing warm and he looked at the kids. Porter was asleep already and drooling, and Blaine was getting that zoned-out look that came right before sleep. They weren’t going to make one minute of the beach picnic.

Josh was relieved when Melanie turned her head away. Ted gunned the motor and sailed up over the big, bumpy dune. The car lurched and rocked; everyone pitched forward, and at one point, Josh was bounced right out of his seat. Melanie grabbed on to the back of Vicki’s seat with one hand and clenched her midsection with the other.

“Hold on!” Ted cal ed out, and he whooped like a cowboy.

Josh shook his head. Tourists, he thought. Summer people. It would serve Ted right if he got stuck in the soft sand, if he had to cal on Josh to save his ass. But then Josh remembered that the picnic was supposed to be for Vicki’s sake, and when he checked, Vicki was smiling. Ted careened down the smooth backside of the dune onto the beach, where he wisely placed the Yukon in the existing tracks. Melanie turned around and grinned at Josh.

“Look at the water,” she said. “I can’t wait to swim. Wil you come in with me?”

“Oh,” Josh said. “Wel , I didn’t bring my suit.”

“Who needs a suit?” Melanie said, and she laughed.

“Right,” Josh said. He glanced at Brenda, but she was stil mooning out the window. It began to feel suspiciously as if he’d been asked along this evening as Melanie’s date. Was that what Ted thought? Did that explain the cold reception? Melanie was stuck to Josh like gum on his shoe; he was a sitting duck, wedged in the back between the kids.

Melanie must have sensed his discomfort because she said, “I’m sorry. I’m bugging you.” Her face got the same sort of crumpled expression that she had when Josh first saw her coming off the airplane. The expression addled Josh. It reminded him that she’d been abandoned, somehow, by her husband, even though she was pregnant. It made him want to help her, cheer her up. She was a nice woman and very pretty, but he didn’t want anyone to think . . .

“You’re not bugging me,” Josh said. “I’m just hungry.”

“Oh, me, too,” Melanie said. “The smel of the lobsters is driving me crazy.”

“I want a marshmal ow,” Blaine said.

Vicki piped up from the front. “After your hot dog.”

Blaine rested his head against Josh’s shoulder.

“He’s going to sleep,” Melanie said. “Vicki, do you want Blaine to sleep?”

Vicki turned around. Her eyes softened, and if Josh wasn’t mistaken, they were shining with tears.

“Look at my beautiful boys,” she said.

Instinctively, Josh mouthed, Don’t cry.

That was al it took: Tears dripped down Vicki’s face. Josh checked on Porter, who was mercilessly working his pacifier. Josh felt the bristle of Blaine’s hair under his chin and relished the warm, heavy weight of Blaine’s head on his shoulder. Look at my beautiful boys. Then he realized Vicki meant the three of them. She was gazing at them mournful y, and Josh wondered if his mother had looked at him in such a way in the weeks before she kil ed herself. He wondered if she had ever looked at him and questioned her decision to leave him. Just thinking this bugged him. He wasn’t used to thinking about his mother at al , but being around Vicki, he couldn’t help it. She looked like a foreigner in her scarf; her face was so thin, her eyes bulged. She’s vanishing, Josh had written in his journal the night before. By the end of summer, she’ll be gone.

Melanie took Vicki’s hand. Brenda stared out the window at the waves breaking, the plovers and oystercatchers pecking at the sand. She was either oblivious, Josh thought, or purposeful y trying to distance herself from the melancholy nature of this beach picnic. Josh was relieved when Ted banked a hard right and backed the Yukon up to a perfect stretch of beach.

“Here we are!” Ted boomed.

An hour later, Josh felt better, not least of al because Ted, maybe in an attempt to foster male bonding, or maybe as part of an evil plan Josh had yet to figure out, had offered Josh three ice-cold bottles of Stel a, al of which Josh accepted, and drank, happily. They were drinking and fishing.

Ted was fascinated by the bel s and whistles of the new fancy-schmancy fishing rods he’d brought from New York and he wanted to show them off to Josh. Blaine had revived enough to ask Ted, five hundred times in ten minutes, when he was going to catch a fish. “Catch a fish, Dad. I want to see you catch a fish.”

“You bet, buddy,” Ted said. He fiddled with the reel, attached a twenty-dol ar lure, and cast out, the line making a satisfying whizzing noise and then a plop as it landed. Ted looked to Josh.

“Go for it, man.”