From the back seat Alexa laughs.
The ferry parking lot is busy, as it always is, and Sam pulls as close as she can to the passenger drop-off point, then puts the Wagoneer in park and hops out so she can help unload the bags. Alexa disappears and comes back with a luggage cart, then disappears again. Gertie whips out a baseball cap, puts it on, and winds her hair into a low bun. With the addition of the hat and the subtraction of the hair she’s transformed herself into an average person, just another vacationer whose time in the sun has come to an end.
“Sammy,” says Gertie. She opens her arms and into them goes Sam. Despite the shimmering summer heat Gertie looks and smells as fresh as a mountain spring, and she feels as cool as one too. “Sammy, Sammy, Sammy. It was the summer of a lifetime. Truly it was, and I wouldn’t have wanted to do it without you. Icouldn’thave done it without you.”
Sam is suddenly too overcome to speak. She nods into Gertie’s neck, and then she lets go of her, and then she hugs Uncle Timothy, and by this time Alexa is back, without the luggage, so—why not?—Sam hugs Alexa too.
Timothy places his hand lightly on Gertie’s forearm, and she doesn’t move away, but Sam notices she doesn’t move closer either. “Shall we beat on?” Which Sam figures is some kind of actor-y code forwe really can’t miss this ferry.
“We shall,” says Gertie. Her voice is throaty with some kind of emotion—regret? Love? A combination?
And then the three of them turn, and melt into the crowd, and Sam watches them until she can’t make them out any longer.
Timothy
Back in Benedict Canyon, in front of his koi pond, Timothy feels pensive. It’s good to be back in L.A., but it’s also terrible to be back in L.A. He misses the house on Mohegan Trail, and the wraparound deck, and the steps leading down to the beach. He misses the frigid Atlantic water, and the rise and fall of the hills as he drove the jeep around the island. And he misses Sam, and Gertie. He misses the air and the light of New England. He misses the trees. Here the air feels thinner, the light a bit flatter. He’s been invited for dinner at Magari, and for drinks at the Hollywood Roosevelt, and even to one of Jennifer Aniston’s famously intimate dinner parties, and he’s declined all of these, because what he really wants is to be with his family. He even misses Amy—heespeciallymisses Amy. He’s thinking of inviting everyone out to L.A. for Christmas.
What’s the end of summer in L.A. anyway? Nothing. There are no seasons to L.A.; therefore, the end of one season and the beginning of another signifies very little. He closes his eyes, imagining what the ferries must look like now, the upper decks full, the Bloody Marys flowing. He imagines Ballard’s: the volleyball court, the reggae band. He thinks about the lines at the ice cream shops. Poor People’s Pub; McAloon’s; the porch at the National. His heart hurts.
When he opens his eyes, Alexa is standing in front of him. “Sorry!” she says. “Sorry. I didn’t know if you were asleep. I didn’t want to wake you.”
“I wasn’t sleeping,” he says. “I was... daydreaming.”
“Barry’s here for you. Should I show him back?”
Timothy sighs. Is he in a Barry mood? Not really, but it doesn’t so much matter. He’s not in any kind of mood. “Yes, please. Show him back.”
“Hey, hey!” says Barry. He steps over the small wooden bridge that crosses the koi pond. He’s carrying a bottle of kombucha. His sunglasses are pushed to the top of his head. Barry has been Timothy’s agent for decades now, but somehow he still looks much the same as he did during their very first meeting.
“Barry,” says Timothy. “To what do I owe the pleasure of a house call? Did somebody die?”
“Not that I know of,” says Barry. “I come bearing news! May I?” He indicates the bench adjacent to Timothy’s chair, and, when Timothy nods, he sits. He makes a big show of screwing the top off the kombucha and taking a long pull. Timothy shudders: How can people drink that stuff? When Barry lowers the bottle he says, “They want you in London!”
Timothy sits up a little straighter. “Who wants me in London?”
“Regent’s Park needs an interim artistic director for their summer season. Someone just left abruptly. It could turn into a permanent position, or it could be for just one year. Apparently somebody associated with it saw your little play on Block Island and was mightily impressed.”
“What’s the pay?”
Barry looks at him. He might be raising his eyebrows at Timothy, but he appears to have recently refreshed his Botox so it’s hard to say for sure. His tan is deep and even. His cologne is almost too much, but it might in fact be just enough. “The pay is terrible,” he says. “Is that a deal breaker?”
“Nope.”
“I didn’t think so.”
“What’s the season? Have they planned it yet?”
“In process,” says Barry. “You’d be part of that process. But you’d have to get some actual clothes on and get over there pretty quickly.”
“I’m wearing clothes,” Timothy says. He’s wearing shorts, a navy T-shirt screen printed with an outline of Block Island and the wordhomewritten across it, and his Red Sox cap. Nobody in L.A. wears shorts. Definitely not men in L.A. But on the island this summer he’d come to appreciate them.
“Those aren’t clothes,” says Barry. “Those arecloths.What do you say? To London?”
“What arethosepants?” he asks Barry, pointing.
“This?” Barry fingers the fabric above his knee. “This is a meta pant. See? Stretchy. They’re a transition from the sweats we all got too used to during the pandemic.”
“You never wore sweats during the pandemic.”
