Page 23 of Dead of Summer

HENRY

While he waits impatiently for the sun to go down Henry makes himself dinner, chopping up peppers and onions and frying them in olive oil with slices of sausage and sliding them onto a piece of toasted bread.

Nothing fancy, but it does the trick. Henry once loved to cook.

Back when he and Margie still went places, he put so much energy into their meals, blackening whitefish and taking the boat out to collect clams by the beach to make linguini alle vongole.

But it’s hard to be inspired day in and day out.

He sets a plate on the edge of the counter for Margie.

Henry brings his plate to the telescope and looks out at the diners congregating on the back decks of restaurants to watch the sunset.

He recognizes Steven Hanson, one of the island’s most respected firefighters, sitting with his wife and their children, a steel gray tower of chilled oysters between them.

Henry wonders if Steven’s family knows about the affair he’s been having with one of his colleagues at the station.

Henry has watched Steven meet her late at night when he’s meant to be on his shifts, sneaking up the rickety back staircase to her apartment above the liquor store.

A few tables over two twentysomething couples sit at a table overlooking the water.

They are all young and beautiful, relaxing on vacation.

He watches as a server fills their glasses from a bottle of rosé sitting in the center of their table.

The woman closest to him reaches for her glass, her bare shoulders catching the fading sunlight.

Henry appreciates the shape of them, the way the muscles move across her back as she lifts the wine to her lips, smiling coyly at her dinner companions. He feels a stab of envy.

If there is one thing Henry misses about being part of the rest of the world here, it is having company with his meals.

Now that it is summer, he likes to pretend he is dining with them.

He watches quietly as bottles of wine are uncorked and poured, the plates of calamari and baskets of bread are served.

People smile and laugh and sip from glasses with stems and reach for bread.

A piece of sausage drops from his plate, bouncing against his chest and leaving a circle of grease on his shirt before splatting onto the floor.

Henry sighs, wondering how he would even handle being at a restaurant anymore.

Would he be presentable, or would he stare rudely and dribble food on his shirt?

The thought of it tugs at him in an unpleasant way and he quickly refocuses his attention on the ferry pulling in.

It’s nearly nine when the last red sliver of sun disappears over the edge of the water.

Now he brings the telescope up the shore and watches, his breath shallow with anticipation as the lights in the houses along the water start to go on, setting each of them like tiny stages.

Windows looking onto the street are nearly always curtained, but lucky for him no one worries about being seen from the water.

Who is out here besides a few fishermen?

Henry scurries over each of the houses with his telescope, watching the people inside move like shadow puppets.

He eagerly moves the telescope first to the far left, looking for Orla, but there is no sign of life in the O’Connors’ house.

The windows are black and opaque. His chest heaves with anxiety.

She couldn’t have left the island, though.

Not yet. He’d been watching carefully enough, monitoring each ferry in and out of Port Mary.

He’d have seen that red hair. Like a beacon. Or a warning.

Henry swallows nervously, panning farther right and up over a ridge to the Clarkes’ mansion, where every light seems to be turned on.

No one worries about conserving electricity at that house.

He watches as a team of private chefs prepare something in the kitchen.

He goes toward the living room. It is spacious and austerely furnished with low-lying white sofas and a huge swooping light fixture.

It is empty except for the young woman he saw earlier on the porch, who is there alone perched on the edge of one of the sofas.

She is dressed as though she is ready for dinner out somewhere fancier than exists on the island of Hadley.

Her hair is done in loose waves just past her shoulders, and she is wearing a dark pink dress printed with some sort of yellow flowers.

It’s remarkable, he thinks, how much she looks like an older version of Alice; even her mannerisms are the same.

He watches her crossed legs bob impatiently, her eyes traveling back to the doorway, waiting.

The woman stands abruptly, crossing the room to a mahogany bar.

She glances behind her to the doorway before uncorking a bottle and pouring herself a glass of something clear.

She adds a few ice cubes and a splash of something pink.

He can see the glint of a silver spoon as she mixes it.

Now she walks with it toward the window, her forehead creases as she looks out across the bay toward him.

Henry feels bad for her all alone in that house. Where is David?

Henry finds him for her. Farther to the left, past several darkened windows in a wood-paneled office lit by a single desk lamp.

Both the Clarke men are there. They look tense.

Geoffrey leans back in a large chair behind an oversize desk while David paces the length of the office in front of him.

His mouth is moving quickly, his fists clenching and unclenching with each stride.

He turns toward his father and stops. His hands flop at his sides as though he is a young child having a tantrum.

Henry almost expects him to stomp his feet.

At this display the elder Clarke’s face folds in obvious displeasure. He leans back and turns away from his son toward the window, and for one terrifying moment it seems his angry glare reaches through the telescope. Henry’s throat goes dry. He steps back, breathing deeply to regain his composure.

When he returns to the room, David has dropped onto a low sofa across from the desk.

He cradles his head in his hands. Geoffrey stands above David.

He looks calmer now, but his face is still red as he says something to his son.

Then he turns away, his lips tight, and storms out of the office.

There is a long pause before David finally lifts his head.

He wipes his face with the heels of his hands and then stands up, following Geoffrey out of the office.

They both disappear into the hallway, out of Henry’s view, leaving the office light on to be turned off by one of the invisible staff of silent stagehands that skitter around and manage their employers’ privileged lives.

“You’re watching the Clarkes again, aren’t you.” He hears Margie’s voice behind him, a bitter edge to it. Henry doesn’t turn around. He doesn’t need to. He already knows the disgusted expression on her face, the one she reserves especially for the Clarkes.

“David looks fairly miserable,” Henry says, knowing she’ll like this.

“It’s a great mystery of the world how the rich seem determined to make themselves miserable.” Margie has never liked the Clarke family, not even before the incident. Of course, behind Geoffrey’s back most of the islanders hated the Clarkes. It was no secret that Geoffrey was an all-around prick.

Despite his massive fortune, Geoffrey was known to never leave a tip or to pay any of his staff on time.

But no one hated him as much as they feared him.

His stinginess was matched only by his pettiness.

Because it was also known that with one phone call Geoffrey Clarke could end your career or have your son expelled from school.

Ruin your life. And where would you be then?

Trapped on an island where everyone knew one another.

No one on Hadley could afford to take that risk.

“What is happening over there now?” Margie asks as Henry peers through the telescope. In between sentences he hears the sound of her chewing. “I feel like I can see something happening on the lawn.”

“I thought you didn’t want me to look,” he protests, giving her a hard time. She snorts. He knows that it is pointless to try to hide the tents that have started going up out on the lawn of the mansion. They are getting ready for some sort of event.

“Preparations,” he says simply, trying not to get Margie worked up.

“What kind of preparations? Geoffrey installing some sort of throne for himself?” she asks suspiciously, pacing behind him.

Henry wasn’t planning on mentioning the woman but finds he can’t help himself. “And David seems to have a new love interest.”

This juicy tidbit stops his wife in her tracks. He can hear her breathing heavily as she decides how she feels about it. “Pretty and young, no doubt?”

He doesn’t answer.

“Well, she won’t last long,” she says simply. “That family goes through women like old newspapers.”

“That’s not true,” he interjects. “Geoffrey was married a good ten years to that one, ah, what’s her name?”

“Bethany Shaw? Oh, and look what became of her. Drug addiction! Depression! And then, a sudden disappearance? You’re only proving my point.”

“Oh, come on now,” Henry says. She’s beginning to make him tired. Besides, he knows this timeworn line of conversation all too well. “We don’t know anything about his ex-wife.”

He looks back from the window as Margie throws her hands into the air and turns on her heels back to the kitchen, where she angrily starts cleaning up dinner, banging her plate into the sink and running water in a way that lets him know she is exasperated.