Osprey Island

Gavin felt a discomfort he knew from childhood: Thanksgiving dinner, too hot, overdressed, trapped at an overcrowded table. To make things worse, Brigid kept stroking his leg under the table, and Gavin thought he might run for his life from that luncheonette were it not for a girl sitting diagonally across the table among some other locals. He’d seen this girl at the funeral. He’d seen her because she’d stopped to talk to Heather Beekin, who was there with her parents, and Chandler, and his parents, and everyone. What had surprised Gavin, as he watched, was how it wasn’t Heather he was fixating on, but the other girl, who was thin and a little vampiry-looking, hair dyed black, skin pale. Somehow, even in this terrible diner-window light, she looked almost regal, sort of untouchable and interesting. She had bony arms with a tendency to flail, and hips Gavin could think to describe only as womanly, and he kept finding himself picturing her with a little kid hitched to her side, one deceptively strong, skinny arm wrapped around the chubby baby.

The story coalesced in Gavin’s mind as not merely logical, but inevitable: He’d come to Osprey for one girl, but really it was another he was meant to meet. Heather became a sort of inadvertent Cupid in the story, Gavin’s anger melting to nothing. In the years to come, they’d all be friends—Heather and Chandler and Gavin and this girl—and their children would all be playmates! There’d be no hard feelings, no grudges, just the sheer good fortune of their good, loving lives. The girl kept catching him staring across the table, kept giving him a look, a profile, a demurred eye that said, You looking at me? Yes—he smiled bashfully—yes, you! And she came back at him confidently, pleased, seeming to say, Well, let’s introduce ourselves once this is all over, how about? And Gavin signed back yes with his eyes. If the girl was aware of Brigid’s fingers picking at the inner seam of Gavin’s pant leg as if searching for a secret way inside them, she did not let on. Gavin would have to squeeze himself out of this Brigid thing somehow. He sensed it wasn’t going to be pretty. He was tired of dealing with messes. He just wanted to go and do what he wanted to do. He wanted to know: Was that so unreasonable?

Brigid didn’t want to go to the Vaughns’ after brunch. Neither did Peg or Jeremy. And what was Gavin supposed to say? No, I really feel like I should pay my respects and eat coffee cake with the parents of a dead woman I never met? He had no choice but to return with the others to the Lodge.

Jeremy parked in the staff lot, and they climbed from the car, sleepy and hot and cranky as children. The asphalt under their feet was pitted and cracked with sand-filled fissures. All pavement on Osprey looked like it was made of tar mixed with pebbles and sand and shells, and it split and crumbled apart like the top of an overcooked sheet cake. They stood around and against the car, stretching, stalling. No one knew what to do next. “A swim’d be grand,” Peg suggested, and Brigid said, “I wish the baths were open, you know . . .”

“The pool, you mean?” Jeremy asked. “Should we go down to the water?” he suggested, as if it were his idea to begin with.

The girls shrugged their assent.

Gavin scratched his head, then rubbed at his eyes with his thumb and middle finger as though he had a headache coming on. “I think maybe I need to go take a walk, just clear my head . . .” He tried to make himself say alone, I need to go take a walk, alone, but it seemed too cruel. He knew Brigid was waiting for an invitation. He tried to make himself look as beat as possible, tried to show her that what he really needed was solitude. There were a few strained moments when they all seemed to be waiting for him to ask her along. When he didn’t, Brigid turned to Peg, lifted her head toward the barracks, and said, “I’ll fetch my swimming costume.” She reached out a hand and rubbed Gavin’s sternum—an intimate gesture, something to show she was cool. Not clingy, not resentful. Cool. “Enjoy your walk,” she said, and started up the hill. Jeremy wrapped an arm around Peg, and they followed Brigid, nodding to Gavin as they passed.