Page 16 of Under the Stars

Meredith

Winthrop Island, New York

“So then my dad’s like, if you tell your mother I’ll beat the crap out of you. And I’m like, go ahead, I don’t care.” Coop wove his fingers through hers. “You’re the asshole who’s fucking his wife’s best friend, right?”

“Tolstoy,” said Meredith.

“Tolstoy?”

“Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

He lifted his head to peer at her face. “How do you know Tolstoy ?”

“Like, we do read books here. Long winters, no cable TV.”

The waves slapped the hull. It must be midnight, one o’clock. She should get home. Her mother was going to kill her. That voice in her head— You’re headed for disaster, Meredith. Something’s going to happen to you. You’re going to get pregnant or addicted to drugs. Or worse.

Meredith, in her head— Wait, what’s worse than that ?

But she already knew. What’s worse than something happening to you is nothing happening to you.

Is staying in your room, night after night, recording mix tapes and reading books and watching your life rotate inch by inch into eternity while your fresh cheeks fade, your fresh eyes hood over, your hair grays—until you end up just like your mother.

The grin spread across Coop’s mouth. “Fucking A, Meredith. I just, like, walk into the Mo on a Thursday night and there you are. ”

“Here I am.”

“Like a dream come true.”

“For you, maybe.”

He sat up. He had done the line of coke, like he promised, and a wiry energy sprang from his pores. “So what’s the deal with Mike?” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“Are you guys, like, together or whatever? Or exes? Because there was definitely a thing going on there between you.”

“What, Mike ? I’ve known him all my life. We sleep together sometimes, that’s all. But we’re mostly just friends.”

“And you don’t think that’s weird? Like fucking your brother or something?”

“Eww, gross. Mike’s not my brother . I mean, yes, I’ve known him all my life, but we don’t live together. Our families barely even know each other.”

He laughed. “How does that work? On an island of, like, two square miles?”

“For your information, asshole, it’s eight miles long. Population a thousand. And my mom’s family used to be a big deal. Back in the day, I mean. She was a debutante and everything. Boarding school in Virginia—”

“Seriously? Which one?”

“Like I would remember the name? I don’t know. She brought her horses.”

He nodded. “Foxcroft, probably. Or Chatham Hall?”

“Whatever. Then her dad died and left her and my stepmother the house here on Winthrop and a shitload of debts. They had to sell everything else. Some mansion on Long Island. The horses. Everything. But my mom still thinks she’s the shit, right?

So she doesn’t really socialize with the—whatever you call them. Townies.”

“Like Grey Gardens or something?”

“Sort of. But saner. I mean, not completely batshit crazy, more just garden-variety eccentric. My aunt’s kind of a famous actress, actually. Or was.”

“No kidding. What’s her name?”

“Miranda Thomas?”

“No fucking way . Your aunt is Miranda Thomas ? Like, legendary Oscar-winning actress? That’s your aunt ?”

“Sort of. She’s my mom’s stepsister. But yeah, she’s always been like an aunt to me.”

“Holy shit. So what’s she like?”

“I don’t know. She hasn’t come to visit in a while.

Not since Granny died. Granny was her mother, right?

Even though my mother was the one who lived with her.

There was some fight over the will or something and now my mom won’t speak to her.

” Meredith shrugged. “But she was awesome, growing up. She and her family would come to stay during the summer and she would put on plays with the residents.”

“The who now?”

“Granny and Mom turned the house into an art colony after her dad died. So we had all these artists come to stay each summer.”

“That’s wild. No wonder you’re such a fucking hippie.”

“I guess it was pretty cool. I loved doing the plays.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet you were in your element.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Coop leaned back against the hull and pulled back her tousled hair to expose her face. “Because you’re so beautiful, gorgeous. You belong on the stage. On the screen. Millions worshipping you. Not some dive bar on Winthrop Island.”

“But then you wouldn’t have met me.”

“No,” he said. “I wouldn’t have met you.”

They stared at each other, grinning. Meredith had never done coke before, so she’d only inhaled a tiny bit, just to see how it felt. It felt…good. Like tiny fires lit under her skin. Daring. Incredibly horny. She sat up and swung her leg across his hips to straddle him.

“Look at you, ” Coop said.

“Look at you .”

“Honey,” he said, “I need a condom.”

“Not if you pull out first.”

“I don’t think I can do that. I’m so fucking horny.”

“Me too.”

He took her by the hips and slid up inside her, groaning like it killed him.

Meredith grabbed his shoulders and ground against him.

The sheets were a soft, satiny white and the lamps glowed expensively on Coop’s skin.

It was like screwing in a hotel room—not that Meredith had ever stayed in a hotel room.

Like a scene in a movie, then, like Pretty Woman .

Glamorous movie-star sex, not sex with Mike in his bedroom on the Mo’s cramped third floor, under his quilt that smelled of dog.

She and Coop rocked deliriously together.

Beneath the beer and sweat she smelled his cologne, his rich-boy waft.

She tilted her head back and let the fumes percolate through her brain.

“You are so hot,” he gasped. “I want to come all over you.”

“You better not come in me.”

“If you get pregnant, I’ll marry you,” he said.

“Sure you will.”

“I will, I swear. We’ll get married and move to the Bahamas and lie in the sun all day, doing whatever the hell we want.”

“Fuck you, Coop.”

He rolled her on her back, thrust a few times, then turned her on her stomach and pushed back in.

Pinned her to the bed like a butterfly while he pounded her with quick, heavy strokes.

She came so hard she screamed. He kept going another minute or two and then shouted and pulled out.

She felt the warm squirts tickling the small of her back.

A sensation of intense well-being flooded her nerves.

“That was close,” she said.

—

Instead of taking her back home, Coop prepared another line of coke along the top of her right breast and snorted it in. “I want to go all night,” he announced, as he raised his head.

Meredith closed her eyes and smiled. “Whatever. I’m going to sleep.”

She didn’t mean she was actually going to sleep, of course.

Just to rest a minute inside this delicious post-orgasmic haze before she found her way back to Greyfriars and settled in her own humble bed, her threadbare sheets and thin pillow, at some point before her mother woke up and realized something wasn’t right.

That was her plan, anyway—a little fuzzy on the details but clear in purpose.

Still, it was whatever o’clock in the morning and she’d had sex three times and the next thing she knew, she was opening her eyes to a disorienting movement, a disquiet in her soul. The room around her was dark and uncertain. Not her own bedroom, not her own bed. Where the hell was she?

Mike? she murmured. Then she remembered.

She sat up and banged her head on the bulkhead. “Coop?” she called out, rubbing her crown.

There was no answer. She swung her legs out of bed and pulled the sheet around her body. When she set her feet on the floor, she realized it was moving beneath her.

Shit, she thought.

She staggered through the galley and crawled up the stairs.

The smell of cigarette smoke hung in the humid air.

The night sky sprawled over her, sprinkled with fuzzy stars.

The moon had fallen low in the west. She saw the shadow of a rocky shore, not far away, and her shoulders slumped.

Thank God. She’d never been so grateful to see the rocks of Little Bay.

“Coop?” she called, more softly.

“Right here, beautiful. At the wheel.”

“What the hell? Where are we?”

“Just going for a sail, that’s all.”

“Going for a sail ? It’s the middle of the night!”

“Come on, babe. Where’s your sense of adventure? Tell me where you want to go. Anywhere in the world.”

“Like, I don’t know, back to the marina before my mom rips my head off?”

Coop laughed. He had one hand on the wheel, one hand dangling a cigarette. He had put on a pair of boxers but his chest was bare. “Your mom’s not going to rip your head off. Your mom’s gonna love me. Your dad might rip my head off.”

“My dad’s not going to rip your head off, trust me.

” She came to sit next to him and idled her hand through his hair.

The boxers were bright blue, decorated with a motif of Labradors in all three flavors—licorice, chocolate, vanilla.

His hair was damp and limp, in need of washing.

“Come on, sweetie. Take me back to shore. This is stupid.”

He laid a hand on her thigh. “Tell me about your dad, gorgeous. Why haven’t you told me about him?”

Meredith looked down at the hand on her leg. The cigarette poked between his first and second fingers, nearly finished. She went on stroking his hair, like you would stroke a nervous dog. “I don’t know,” she said. “He has his own family. He and my mom had an affair.”

“No way. You bastard.”

“You’re so funny. They were supposed to get married when they were younger, but they split up for some reason and he ended up marrying someone else. But they were still really into each other, you know? So, yeah. It’s fucked up.”

Coop finished the cigarette and tossed it over the side.

Something uneasy roiled under his skin, some wildness.

Probably the coke, she thought. She’d never seen someone this high.

On the island, people got drunk or stoned but rarely high.

At least, not in public where other people noticed.

She lifted her hand from his hair and crossed her arms.