23.
Alexa
“Hampton Beach?” said Alexa when Cam called her later to solidify the plans. She thought she might have heard wrong. Hampton Beach was not a place she typically hung out. North of Salisbury, south of Rye, there was a certain... well, for lack of a better word, a certain element there. The beaches themselves were beautiful, and there was supposed to be phenomenal surfing by the Wall, but. It was a little biker-y, a little weed-and-Miller-Lite-ish, and when the sun went down the freaks came out. When Alexa thought of Hampton Beach, she thought of tattoos. And not tasteful little hip tattoos (Alexa herself sported one of a starfish that she got when she turned sixteen) but dark, heavy, sleeve tattoos.
Alexa could practically hear Cam grinning over the phone. “Yup,” he said. “I scored two tickets to see a Dave Matthews cover band at the casino. And tonight is your lucky night, because one of those tickets has your name on it.”
“Dave Matthews?” said Alexa. “The Hampton Beach Casino?” The casino, though storied, was where the has-beens played, and where the old people went to get drunk and reminisce. What she was supposed to be doing tonight was saying good-bye to Tyler before he left for Silver Lake, but she had conveniently left his texts unanswered. When she thought of what Caitlin told her, she didn’t feel an ounce of guilt about this.
“The one and only,” said Cam. “Well, not the one and only because that would be the real Dave Matthews. But close enough!” Dave Matthews was one of Alexa’s mother’s favorite artists. When she had more than one glass of Cabernet, she’d been known to play “Crash Into Me” on repeat at an excessively loud volume. Since Peter’s death she did that a little more often than she used to. Rebecca and Peter had seen Dave Matthews together live three times. Even Morgan liked Dave Matthews! Somehow the gene for that had skipped Alexa. Maybe the Dave Matthews gene was recessive and her biological father hadn’t passed it on to her: another reason to feel left out. Maybe it was the same as the nice gene.
“Um,” she said. “I don’t know...” She scoured her mind for an excuse but came up empty. The truth was, Caitlin’s tidbit about Tyler had put her in a tailspin. Her mother was going out “with the ladies,” which probably meant early cocktails and fish tacos at the Deck. Even Morgan had plans—she was sleeping over at Katie’s house.
“I will brook no refusal,” Cam said. “And I’ll have you home before you turn into a pumpkin. I’m the lector at the sevenammass tomorrow at the IC. I need to get my beauty sleep.”
Was. This. Guy. For. Real. A church lector at Immaculate Conception? “Okay,” she said. “I guess if you’re not brooking refusal I can’t refuse.”
“It’s a date!” he said. “Where should I pick you up? Home, or work?”
“Home,” she said. “I’m off today.” She would wear her new Ramy Brook tank top in bright blue, which brought out the color of her eyes. She’d bought it for two hundred and eighty-five dollars at Neiman Marcus online. When her mother complimented her on it, she claimed that she got it at Marshalls, marked down 75 percent, even though anybody who knew anything knew that you would never find Ramy Brook at Marshalls.
She would have only one drink. Maybe two drinks. She would behave herself even though her mind was full of chaotic, unsettling thoughts.
When they were in the minivan, driving up 1A (Cam had chosen the coastal route, which Alexa appreciated even though the highway would have been faster), Alexa broached the subject of Shelby McIntyre. As it turned out, Shelby had left two days earlier on a service trip to Kenya with Newburyport Youth Services. “This will be the fourth year in a row she’s done it,” said Cam. He shook his head and smiled, as if he could not believe the marvel that was Shelby.
“Oh,” said Alexa. “Wow. That’s really amazing. Good for Shelby. Those service trips are supposed to be incredible.” Alexa had zero interest in a service trip, where you went like six days without showering and had to eat things like goat meat and gruel. Clearly Shelby McIntyre was on the fast track to Heaven. “Will she mind?” she asked. “That you’re doing this, with me?”
Was it Alexa’s imagination, or did Cam’s hold on the steering wheel tighten?
“We’re not exclusive anymore,” he said. “That’s over.”
“I see,” said Alexa. “I’m sorry?”
“Nothing to be sorry about,” said Cam. He pressed his lips together and kept his eyes on the road. Alexa looked off to the right, where the sun was just beginning to lower over the Atlantic. The strips of beach that whizzed by them were nearly empty.
Alexa couldn’t resist her next question. “Whose idea was it? Not to be exclusive?”
“Both,” said Cam. He stopped at a crosswalk and they watched a sandy family—two parents, a stroller, and a kid on a scooter—make their way across.It’s never both,thought Alexa,it’sneverboth,but she let it slide. Then Cam said, “We agreed it was better for her to go back to UVM unencumbered.” Alexa took that to meanthat Shelby decided it was better forShelbyto go back to UVM unencumbered.
“What about you?” Cam asked.
Tyler was on a 7:35a.m.flight the next day, which meant he would leave for the airport at 4:30. If Alexa wasn’t seeing him right now, she wasn’t going to see him until he returned from Silver Lake in three weeks. She thought again about Tyler and Zoe Butler-Gray getting out of Tyler’s car at Blue Inn, and her blood boiled.
Alexa said, “Unencumbered.”
24.
Rebecca
Morgan had been invited to stay the night at Katie’s house, and Alexa was out with Tyler, who was leaving the next day for Silver Lake. Rebecca was happy that Morgan wanted to spend the night somewhere—since the sleeping bag incident she’d turned down all sleepover invitations.
Rebecca checked the 360 app and saw that Alexa was at the Hampton Casino.The Hampton Casino?She opened her laptop, checked the casino’s Web site for the schedule, and saw that tonight there was a Dave Matthews cover band. That didn’t seem very Tyler-like, or very Alexa-like. Come to think of it, Rebecca didn’t really know Tyler’s musical taste. She knew he liked Cap’n Crunch cereal, and that he was a good lacrosse player and a solid C student in non-honors classes, and that Alexa had to get a ride home with someone else from junior prom because Tyler had had too much to drink at one of the after parties. She knew that Alexa could do better than Tyler. She knew that a mom, even a loving one, even a grieving one, couldn’t interfere too much in her teenage daughter’s romantic life as the daughter was learning to make her own decisions. She knew that Alexa had sprouted some protective edges since Peter’s death that, like the quills of a porcupine, hurt more coming out than they did going in. She knew enough to be careful.
She was supposed to go to the Deck with the ladies, but she was dragging her feet. She’d go in a few minutes. Or never. She checked her e-mail. There was a message with the titleHoliday House Tour Initial Meetingfrom Patricia Stone, who was the head of the committee. Rebecca had volunteered to help with the house tour five years in a row, but last year, after Peter, she dropped out. Gina had temporarily taken her place on the committee. Now Patricia probably wanted to know if Rebecca wanted her spot back. The idea of it all made her feel tired. She closed her computer. As she was contemplating how much she didn’t feel like getting dressed to go out, a rogue wave of nostalgia hit her, probably brought on by the thought of Dave Matthews. Peter had loved Dave Matthews. They had loved Dave Matthews together through various live shows in various venues.
Rebecca poured a glass of Cabernet and indulged in an energetic round of crying while she listened to “The Space Between.” Bernice came and sat on her feet, and she got through “Satellite” and “Crash Into Me” before the tears subsided.
Peter had loved lots of things, not just Dave Matthews. Hazelnut ice cream. Lobster tacos. The soft skin on the inside of Rebecca’s arm. Travel! He’d been so excited to go to Dubai for the first time, and then he’d gone and died before he made it all the way home. From Dubai he had texted them the most stunning pictures. The city skyline at dusk, with an orb of pink lowered over it, as if by the hand of God. The flamingoes at Ras al Khor. The observation wheel at Bluewaters. A farmers’ market with signs in Arabic in front of a rainbow of peppers and tomatoes.I have all the time in the world, he probably thought, as he touched the camera button on his phone again and again.This is just one of the amazing things I will see in the rest of my life, and there are many, many more to come. It tore Rebecca’s heart in tiny pieces when she thought about what his face must have looked like, the way his eyebrows shot upwhen he got excited, the way he looked around for someone with whom to share the wonders. He was probably eagerly nodding at perfect strangers the whole time he was taking those pictures. That was Peter.
