His triumph was short-lived. He spent the evening alone in his room, flipping through the endless channels on his television and watching the sun sink behind the trees. When he found nothing to watch, he flopped onto his bed and fell to tossing a balled-up sock into the air in a pathetic catch, repeat.
Out in the house he heard the telltale sounds of dinner conversation. Snatches of laughter. The clink of cutlery. He felt like a dog, shut away in the kennel to keep from biting the company. He couldn’t remember ever being so bored in his life. In previous summers, he and his friends would load up the truck and drive out to Becket Quarry, spend their afternoons diving off the cliff, their evenings huddled around a campfire. They’d all gone off to make something of themselves. To chase something better.
He was the only one who’d stayed behind. Chasing nothing but his own tail.
He rolled onto his side and watched the skies grow dark.
Gradually, the sounds of conversations grew fewer and further in between. Thomas drifted, dozing, lulled to the cusp of sleep by the twilit quiet.
He knifed upright hours later to a heavy thud, the distant slam of a door.
It was full dark; the sky outside his window was studded in starlight. He sat still atop his bed, listening intently, and heard nothing but the harsh saw of his own breath in his ears. The house was as quiet as a tomb, the dinner party long over. Slowly, he lowered himself back onto his pillow.
He didn’t know how long he lay there afterward, staring up at his ceiling and willing sleep to return, before the motion lights clicked on outside. He sat up, startled, and peered through the glass. Out in the dark, a lone figure staggered dizzily through the spotlight.
It was Vivienne, headed toward the pool.
He crossed to the window, one hand thrown up against the light. She was rendered in silhouette, the skirt of her cocktail dress flaring like a bell around her waist. For several seconds, she tilted precariously at the water’s stony edge, looking as though she was contemplating whether to jump. Instead, she wavered a moment more and then collapsed to her knees. Burying her face in her hands, she began to weep.
He felt like a voyeur, standing there watching.
He didn’t look away.
Eventually, the motion light clicked off. Thomas was left momentarily blind, blinking away swimmers. Little by little, the lines of her re-formed, lit from beneath by the pool.
In the dark, unease crept in. This was private, and he was intruding. He reached for the drapes and tried to tug them shut without drawing attention. It didn’t work. The grommets clattered noisily against the rod. Instantly, her chin kicked up. The motion lights winked on and they were each thrown into stark relief. Their eyes met through the glass just as he snapped the curtains shut.
He stood there a moment longer, his heart thudding, a formidable gulf torn open inside his chest. Too deep to explore. Too dangerous to try.
“Fuck,” he said into the quiet of his room.
Stifling his embarrassment at being caught, he climbed back into bed. He lay on his back and stared up at the ceiling, his face burning.
He didn’t sleep.
•••
The following morning, he dragged himself out of bed and headed out for a jog, determined to outrun the vision of Vivienne sobbing by the pool. He found Philip in the driveway, loading a briefcase into his car. He shut the door the moment he caught sight of Thomas, his smile genial.
“There you are,” he boomed, in a voice that sent a nearby swallow into flight. “I wanted to tell you—you’ve got next weekend off.”
Thomas blinked. “What?”
“Next weekend,Walsh,” Philip said again, this time with a grand sweep of his hand. His signet ring winked gold on his pinkie finger. Its flat white stone didn’t catch the light. “Surely you didn’t think you’d be working straight through the summer without a break here and there.”
“But Miss Farrow—”
“Will be with me,” Philip assured him. “It’s a bit of a tradition of ours in the summers. We go fishing out in Long Island Sound one Saturday a month. Do you fish?”
Thomas thought of a distant summer afternoon with his uncle, the rowboat spinning in a tired helix out in Pegan Cove—a bucket packed with pike and a cooler of Pabst Blue Ribbon sweating between them. The peaceable quiet had been broken only by the dry croak of an egret, his uncle’s familiar burr:Your mom tells me you’ve been getting in fights at school.
He cleared his throat. “Not with any regularity.”
“Most men in my line of work like to golf,” said Philip, following his phantom swing through with impeccable form. “They spend all day burning to a crisp out on the green, and for what? A little light networking? I prefer a day at sea. It’s good for the soul. It’s good for Vivienne, too—every once in a while, I like to take her swimming with sharks. Let her rub elbows with kingmakers, see how the money gets made. It’s a good life lesson, don’t you think?”
“Yes, sir,” said Thomas.
Philip peered up at the sun, shielding his eyes with a hand. “Maybe one of these days we’ll get you out there with us. Have you ever been out on the Sound?”
