Page 13 of The Summer that Ruined Everything

CHAPTER 12

A fter Independence Day, Cal’s carefully constructed and manicured life began to take on a funhouse quality. Everything was just slightly off, like a representation of reality distorted to expose flaws that were at times comical and at other times hideous.

His house, the beautiful seaside mansion that was the envy of Westerly, became a prison fraught with hazards, as he navigated the aftermath of the yacht trip disaster. Theodore, who had escaped the encounter with a slight bruise on his cheek, rarely let a meal go by without making a snide remark about the house next door. Judith spent all her time hinting at weddings; her lack of subtlety would have been embarrassing if he cared enough for it to be.

Katherine, for her part, demonstrated extreme poise and cleverness at every turn like he had never seen before. She handled Judith with ease, placated Theodore, and managed to praise Cal enough that he even began to think his parents were seeing him in a different light.

“Well, I wouldn’t know,” she said one evening over oxtail soup while the parents were discussing Kennedy’s deployment of National Guard troops to desegregate the University of Alabama. “I never bother myself with such things. Calloway may have some insight, however.”

Joe Thornton turned to Cal. “What do you think?” he asked. “Should universities be forced to desegregate?”

“Harvard has black students,” Cal said. “And from my experience, they have not only earned their places, but contribute to the marketplace of ideas with valuable perspectives that deepen every student’s experience. Isn’t that the point of a university?”

“Perhaps,” Theodore said. “But Harvard has willingly admitted black students for a hundred years?—“

“Not many,” Cal countered. “My class has nearly twenty, I believe, many more than usual.”

“Emphasis on the word willingly,” Theodore said with a withering stare. “The question is whether universities should be forced to desegregate, not whether desegregation has educational benefits. Surely, if having black students improves the educational quality of a university, the best students will choose desegregated schools and the problem will resolve itself.”

Recognizing his father’s tone of dismissal, Cal was ready to let it go, but Katherine jumped in again.

“Calloway, what were you saying to me the other day?” she asked. He racked his brain, but couldn’t come up with a single conversation they’d ever had about desegregation, let alone in the last week. “Something about equal protection?” she prompted.

“Well,” he fumbled, “that equal protection is the basis for desegregation in general?” She nodded encouragingly, and he continued. “And if the point is to provide black students with equal opportunities in education, they benefit from the marketplace of ideas as well. Keeping them from a government-provided marketplace cannot be equal. Which is what the Supreme Court said. Surely, the Supreme Court’s ruling should be respected, and if a university refuses, the ruling can be enforced? If not, what good is the ruling?”

Joe Thornton nodded. “I suppose that makes sense.”

“Seems an overreach by Kennedy,” Theodore said. “Using the National Guard like that. But perhaps you’re right.”

Cal stared down at his soup in disbelief. The conversation shifted, but he shot Katherine a grateful smile, and she winked in return. He suddenly felt like they had this partnership, and it was comforting, but also unsettling.

Interactions with his longtime friends were also somewhat strained. It was like they could sense, for the first time, that Cal was feigning interest in most of what they talked about or did. Katherine helped there, too, and he let her take the reins in the socializing that no longer held the escape from his parents or his impending future that it once had.

He couldn’t help it. He saw all of them morphing into versions of their parents. Every discussion, every outing suggested, every reminiscence felt like he was stepping into Theodore’s shoes and putting on a costume he didn’t want but couldn’t seem to avoid. It left a bad taste in his mouth and a churning in his stomach, so he yielded to Katherine’s social graces and let her make apologies ( he’s had a rough morning; a small row with his father; he had a touch too much to drink last night; the heat makes everyone a little restless) .

Even time spent next door was altered. With his help, Katherine had tentatively found her place among Jack’s crowd. He confided in J.C. that Katherine knew his secret, and J.C. took Katherine under her wing as a co-conspirator.

“I’ll teach her everything she needs to know, Cals,” J.C. said the first night, over cold beer on the back patio. “Don’t worry about a thing. By the time she goes back to her fancy beaches in New York, she’ll be well on her way to being a pro.”

“Thanks,” Cal said. “But don’t call me ‘Cals.’”

“Sure thing, Cal-o.” J.C. kissed him on the cheek and bounced away, leaving Cal rolling his eyes in her wake.

Since Katherine was now around all the time, however, he felt less free at Jack’s than he had before. Jack noticed.

“You’re so…tense,” he said one afternoon, peering down at Cal. Jack was straddling his waist, and they’d been in the middle of a good makeout session when Jack had abruptly stopped and sat up with a frown. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Cal said quickly. He was desperate not to ruin the time they had left, and it suddenly felt like there wasn’t enough of it, as if it was whizzing by like cars on the new interstate.

“It’s not nothing,” Jack said. He slid to the side and curled up against Cal, tucking his nose into the place where Cal’s neck met his shoulder, a favorite spot of his. “Come on. Talk to me. What’s got you wound up?”

“I don’t know,” Cal said. “I think I’m just…it’s weird with Katherine around. Isn’t it?”

“Not really,” Jack said. “Not for me, not now. But then, I haven’t known her my whole life. Maybe it’s just hard for you to adjust to the way she is now? The role she’s playing?”

“She’s part of the other me.” Cal searched for words to explain his hesitation. “She represents the Cal that is for public consumption. Calloway, the Buchanan heir. She doesn’t belong here. In this space, with us. With who I am here. And so it feels weird to let her see this me and not be hiding it. It’s like I’m too exposed and it’s…weird.”

“You’ll get used to it,” Jack said reassuringly. “It’s a change, that’s all.”

“I just keep feeling like I’m doing something wrong.”

“Wrong…with me?” Jack asked.

“No. Yes. I don’t know. I know most people think it’s wrong — what we do — that’s been clear to me my whole life. But before, I just accepted it, that I was going to do this wrong thing, that I was wrong, but as long as no one knew and it wasn’t hurting anyone, I was okay with that and it didn’t feel wrong, inside. But now, with Katherine knowing? It's a link. To the rest of my life.”

“That worries you,” Jack said.

“If she gets mad at me, it’s all over. She could ruin me.”

Jack was quiet for a minute, and then asked, “Do you trust her?”

“Maybe?” Cal sighed. “Yes, mostly. I guess I don’t have much choice. She already knows so there isn’t a thing I can do about that. I just don’t like someone else…”

“Having power over you?” Jack asked.

“Yeah. Like it’s out of my control. Before, the only people who knew were also like me. So it was mutually assured destruction. But it’s different with Katherine, because there isn’t that balance.”

“Sometimes, you have to accept that people have power over you, in certain ways,” Jack said. “I have.”

“Yeah?” Cal asked. “Like how?”

“Getting involved with you was a risk for me. More than you know.” Jack kissed Cal’s neck. “A good risk. Worth it. But a risk nonetheless.”

Cal turned that over in his mind. He’d been thinking he was the one taking all the risks, involving himself with a man in his home environment where he could be so easily discovered. He hadn’t considered Jack’s risks.

“Tell me more,” he said. “If you want.”

“I told you I had to get out of L.A. for a while,” Jack began. Cal made a noise of assent. Jack had said that, and alluded to some problem back home. He’d wondered about it. “There was a scandal. Or an almost scandal. I’d been seeing this producer — on the down low, of course, and nothing serious — for a couple of months. It was fun, he was fun. Until his wife found out.”

“Fuck,” Cal said, feeling an empathetic surge of anxiety even as he squashed the jealousy at the idea of Jack with another man. “How did she find out?”

Jack laughed. “She walked in on me blowing him in his pool house. Not my best moment. Or his.”

“What did you do?”

“Well, it turned out to be a set-up. She’d suspected he was cheating and told him she was going out of town, then circled back with a Polaroid camera, intending to use it to ask for a divorce. When she found me , and not some busty blonde, I think it threw her for a loop. But she shifted gears and immediately moved to blackmail.”

“Fuck,” Cal said again.

“Yeah. She said I could keep fucking her husband if we paid her monthly. I decided it wasn’t worth it — it was running its course anyhow — and said no way. But she threatened to leak the photographs to the press, and…” Jack ran a hand through his hair. “My agent was furious. Fuck who you want but be discrete, Jack. He yelled at me for an hour, and then told me to leave town and he’d handle it.”

“Did he?” Cal asked.

“I assume so. I haven’t seen any photos of me on my knees with that prick’s dick in my mouth in the papers.”

Cal flinched at the visual. “Well, that’s good.”

“Yeah. But I was supposed to lay low this summer. My agent encouraged me to party it up…with women. Have ten women. Hell, have twenty, he said. I was definitely not supposed to find a boy to enjoy.”

“Why did you?” Cal asked. “I mean, if you’re taking a pretty big risk, why would you bother?”

Jack propped himself up on an elbow and smiled. He trailed his finger along Cal’s lips one by one.

“What kind of a question is that?” Jack asked softly. “I met you. There was really no other choice to be made. I told you, sometimes you have to accept that someone else has power over you.”

He leaned down and touched his lips to Cal’s, and then bounced up and off the bed.

“Let’s do something,” he said. “I need to move.”

“Do what?” asked Cal.

“I don’t know. You live here. What haven’t we done? Take me somewhere.” Jack grinned and tugged at his curls. “Take me on a date.”

Cal’s heart leapt at the phrasing, but he hesitated. “It’s risky,” he said. “Speaking of risks.”

“So it’ll be good practice for Katherine. Come on, I want to go somewhere. With you.”

Jack’s enthusiasm was infectious, and Cal couldn’t help but smile. “We could go up to Providence, have dinner on Federal Hill,” he suggested. “You like Italian.”

“Not just dinner,” Jack said. Isn’t there somewhere we could move around? I need to burn off some energy.”

Cal thought for a moment, and then had an idea. “How do you feel about chowder and clamcakes? And ferris wheels?”

Jack’s face lit up. “A carnival?”

“Better,” Cal said. “Let’s go to Rocky Point.”

* * *

An hour later, they were speeding up the Interstate towards Rocky Point Beach. Katherine was chattering excitedly to J.C. in the back seat.

“You’re going to love this,” she said. “Seriously, what a great idea. The food is incredible and the park is so much fun.”

“What is it, exactly?” J.C. said. “Jack said carnival.”

“It’s not temporary like a carnival,” Katherine explained. “This place is always there, and they have amusement rides and midway games. I heard there’s a new one this year, a haunted house.”

“Are you going to be okay going into the haunted house with tiny little me and not the Jolly Green Giant?” J.C. asked. “I’m not going to hold you close.”

Katherine laughed. “I’m made of stronger stuff than you think,” she said. “Maybe I’ll protect you.”

Cal listened to the conversation and glanced at Jack beside him. “What do you think?” he asked. “Will you protect me in the haunted house?”

Jack snorted. “Sure, just tuck yourself behind me, and I’ll shield you, baby.”

They were seated at long tables in the Shore Dinner Hall just as the sun began to dip towards the horizon. There was still an hour or so until sunset, but the light began to take on that late evening look, with faint pinks and oranges beginning to show in the sky above the waves of the Narragansett Bay.

The servers came by with giant platters of clamcakes, steamed clams, bread, corn on the cob, lobster, watermelon and bowls of clam chowder. Jack’s eyes went wide at the sheer quantity of food being deposited in front of them.

“Holy fuck,” he said.

“First time here?” asked a girl to his right.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m from out of town.”

“Well, it’s all you can eat, so dig in. Hey, anyone ever tell you that you look like…what’s his name…that actor guy? Jack something?” She squinted at him.

“All the time,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows. “I should thank the guy someday. He helps me get dates.”

Across the table, Katherine giggled. Cal snorted into his clam chowder.

They struck up a conversation with their table mates as they took advantage of the “all you can eat” policy. The group had been to the park a few times that season already and were full of recommendations.

“The Flume is always our first stop,” said one guy. “But the new Castle of Terror is boss.”

“I’ve been to haunted houses,” Jack said. “What makes this one special?”

“It’s not just a haunted house,” one of the girls said. “It’s a ride. And it’s in the dark and super spooky.”

“Your ladies will want to stay close,” said the guy with a wink.

“Maybe the guys will want to stay close,” Cal said. “Equal rights and all.”

Jack kicked Cal’s foot under the table and Cal hid his smirk behind his corn on the cob.

After dinner, Jack complained about the amount of food he’d eaten. “I’m bursting at the seams,” he groaned. “Why didn’t you stop me?”

“That’s half the fun,” Cal said. “You’ll be fine in an hour. We can hit the midway games until we’ve digested.”

After miserably failing to knock cans off of pedestals or pitch tiny rings onto soda bottle necks for a while, Jack huffed.

“You’re going to go broke paying for all these games,” Jack said.

“He can’t go broke,” said Katherine. “Don’t worry about it.”

“What do you mean?” Jack asked.

“He’s got the trust fund,” she said.

Cal rolled his eyes as Jack raised an eyebrow.

“I get it in August,” Cal explained. “When I turn twenty-one.”

“No wonder you toe the line with your parents,” Jack said.

“Oh, my parents can’t touch the trust,” Cal said. “My grandfather set it up. It has nothing to do with my father or my mother.”

“That’s lucky,” Jack said. “Well, even so, these are rigged, I think,” he said indignantly, turning back to glare at the midway operator.

J.C. laughed. “There’s a duck pond over there. We can fish out a plastic duck for you. Everyone wins a prize, it says. You might get a keychain.”

Jack rolled his eyes. “I’m not that desperate. Yet. Let’s try again later, I want that big stuffed lobster.”

They bought books of tickets and hit the Castle of Terror first. As they stood in line, Katherine shuffled next to Cal, and he took the cue and put his arm around her shoulders.

“This looks so good,” she said. “Jack, do you like haunted houses?”

“Sure,” Jack said. “Who doesn’t like to be scared?”

“I don’t,” J.C. said. She stood on her toes to peer over the line, and eyed the two-person carts that rumbled along the track and disappeared into the castle behind swinging doors. “In fact, I’m having second thoughts.”

“Don’t make me go alone,” Katherine said. “It’ll be fine, I promise. It’s probably cute and not actually scary. And why don’t you like to be scared?”

“I just don’t see the need in being fake scared when there are plenty of real life things to be scared about, like nuclear war and pesticides in our food.” J.C. grimaced. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be a drag.”

“You’ve read Silent Spring,” Katherine said.

“Yeah. Did you?” J.C. asked.

Katherine pushed away from Cal and moved up to talk to J.C., pushing Jack behind her. “It scared me, and not in a good way.”

Jack fell in place beside Cal and let his knuckles brush against Cal’s hip. “Well look at that,” he said. “The girls seem to be getting along.”

“That’s lucky,” Cal said. “Think we should let them take the ride together?”

“Might as well,” Jack said.

Cal grinned. It seemed like a natural conversation. Had the girls planned it? Katherine shot him a wink, and he grinned harder.

Cal had to fold himself into the tiny cart, and Jack giggled away at the sight.

“Hurry up, it’s going to get to the doors before you’re in,” he said.

Cal finally managed to squeeze his knees into place — at an angle — and reached out for Jack’s hand to help him in. Because of the angle of his knees, they ended up smooshed together on one side of the cart.

“Good thing you’re skinny,” Cal observed.

“Too bad you’re huge,” Jack fired back.

Cal glanced behind them, where the girls were already settled. J.C. gave a wave, and the carts lurched forward into the castle.

Katherine had been right. The Castle of Terror wasn’t that scary, a lot of small jump scares and cartoony horror murals on the walls. But it was dark, and Jack grabbed Cal’s hands and didn’t have to let go.

They went up a ramp, gears clanking ominously beneath them, and hurtled out of the Castle onto an overlook. Jack still didn’t let go, and Cal didn’t worry about it.

When they re-entered the Castle, they were in complete darkness. Chains rattled around them, along with the wailing of ghosts.

“Cal,” Jack said. “Look at me.”

“I can’t,” Cal said, turning his head into the black. “There’s no light, so mmph?—“

Jack’s mouth closed over his urgently. Cal’s stomach somersaulted. Public , his mind whirred. Dark, was the thought that followed. He kissed Jack back until they thumped through another set of doors and back into the light at a second overlook, breathing rapidly.

He glanced at Jack, who was enjoying the view of the park and smiling a smug smile. Cal laughed.

As he climbed out of the cart at the end of the ride, Cal’s cheeks were flushed. Jack had taken advantage of every dark spot in the ride.

“Want to go again?” he asked, and Jack laughed.

“Later. Definitely.”

They rode the Flume next, floating along the elevated half-tubes and laughing down all the dips. The watery track wound its way through the trees, and there was no one around, so Cal scooted forward and wrapped his arms around Jack’s waist until they got to the final plunge.

They all rode the Tilt-a-Whirl together, then the Music Express and the Spider, and afterwards took a break for cotton candy and doughboys.

“How am I even eating?” Jack asked, breaking off a piece of doughboy and shoving it in his mouth. Cal did the same, enjoying the crunch of the sugar and the gooeyness of the hot fried dough.

“Rocky Point magic,” Cal said. “Ferris wheel next, now that it’s dark.”

They rode the ferris wheel twice. The first time, they each rode with their girls.

“Thanks for including me in this,” Katherine said, as they rotated up into the air and back down. “Thanks for giving me a chance.”

“I should be thanking you,” Cal said. “You’re the one doing me a favor.”

“I’m having fun,” Katherine said. “It’s nice. There’s no pressure on me, and I can just hang out with J.C., who I actually like.”

The cart stopped near the top, and Cal looked out over the lights of the park. The anxiety he’d been feeling earlier, the unsettled, slightly off feeling, began to dissolve. “You’ve been so great about everything,” he said. “I can’t…you don’t have any idea how much this means to me, what you’re doing for me, right now.”

“I think I do,” Katherine said. “I can see how much you care about each other.” She nudged him with her shoulder. “Do you love him?”

Cal’s breath caught in his throat. “It would be stupid of me if I did,” he said. “Wouldn’t it? It’s only for the summer, and then we’ll both return to our lives.”

“Love is never stupid, I don’t think,” Katherine said. “I loved you, or…no, I did. I do, still, even if it’s not romantic. And I don’t regret that. It’s not a bad thing, to love and be loved.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t?—“

“I said I don’t regret it, silly,” Katherine chided. “No need to be sorry. So do you? Love him?”

The wheel started up again, and Cal chose to remain silent. He was silent as they unloaded, returned to the line, reshuffled, and loaded a second time. As he settled into the cart with Jack, Jack eyed him.

“You okay?” he asked as they moved up to the next level and stopped. “Did something happen? Did Katherine?—“

“She’s fine,” Cal said. “Great, in fact. I think this might…I think it might work, what she’s proposed.”

He tried to imagine his life with her at his side, doing the things she’d been doing all week. Supporting him and his choices, easing the way, sharing the burden. There was something comforting about it…but at the same time, the comfort was distorted.

Because he couldn’t quite imagine anyone besides Jack as the third person in their triangle, and that was going to be a problem.

The cart moved up again, stopped again.

“No,” Jack said. “Something is off. What did she say to you?”

He reached over and took Cal’s hand, and Cal stared at their laced fingers. He tried to imagine riding this ferris wheel and holding someone else’s hand, and it made him sick to his stomach.

“Nothing,” Cal said. “I just…you…” He turned to Jack. What was he supposed to say? What do you say when you realize you’re in love with someone you can’t have?

The cart continued up towards the top.

“Cal.” Jack took Cal’s face in his hands. “Come on. Something is going on, can you just let me in on it? Let me help.”

Cal locked his gaze onto golden-green eyes full of concern. One more shift, and the cart came to a halt, swinging back and forth at the top of the wheel.

Commitment isn’t really my thing, Jack had said. He’d also been clear about the time constraints on their relationship: we have the summer, he’d said. He’ll get distracted by someone eventually, he always does, Ginny had said.

At the end of the summer, Jack would go back to L.A. and his producers and actors and Hollywood life. At the end of the summer, Cal would return to Harvard and take the final steps into the mold that had been waiting for him since the day he was born.

At the end of the summer, he’d have to let go. But maybe in the meantime…

Love is never stupid, Katherine had said.

Cal looked into Jack’s eyes, the eyes filled with concern, and thought about the other side. How Jack had been jealous, how he’d stuck up for Cal in front of Theodore, how he seemed to always know how Cal was feeling.

Getting involved with you was a risk for me. Worth it, Jack had said. Sometimes you have to accept that someone else has power over you.

Suddenly, nothing was off. It all clicked back into place, and Cal’s vision was clear.

“I think I’m in love with you,” he said quietly.

Jack’s lips parted.

“I’m sorry,” Cal said.

“What are you sorry for?” Jack’s lips curved into a smile.

“I don’t mean to put pressure on you. I know we?—“

“I don’t feel pressure,” Jack said. “The only thing I feel is — Cal, I’m in love with you, too. I think I have been since that day we walked the beach in the rain.”

Cal’s heart pounded hard twice, and he surged forward, capturing Jack’s lips. They kissed until the wheel began to rotate again, reluctantly pulling apart as they sank into view of the rest of the park.

“Now what?” Cal asked, breathless, as they swooped towards the top again.

“Now you’re going to win me that stuffed lobster, and then take me home and show me a good time.” Jack grinned at him. “That’s what boyfriends do, after all, or so I hear.”

Boyfriend. Cal grinned back.

“It’s a deal.”

The lights of the park twinkled around them, brilliant and undistorted. Cal didn’t have a clear view of what his life was going to look like after August, but for now, for the summer…

…he was in love, and that was clear enough.