I stare at her, open-mouthed.
“You think I don’t know you’re taking pills?” Bess goes on. “We share a bathroom. And you’re obviously looped out of your mind half the time. I can’t believe our parents haven’t noticed. You’re falling apart, Carrie, and it’s hard to even sympathize with you because you don’t care one ounce about me. You never think of me, never talk to me. You basically try to get rid of me, any time you can. So no. I actually don’t care if Penny kissed your boyfriend. I can’t believe he even liked you in the first place.”
49.
WHEN BESS LEAVES, I take a long shower. I clean my room and fold the clothes in my drawers.
I don’t want to see anyone. Ever. Maybe I’ll stay up here for the rest of my life, medicating myself and talking to Rosemary, safe in my room where no one can hurt me.
But eventually I get hungry.
I run a comb through my hair and put on clothes.
In the kitchen, my mother is folding napkins into neat squares. She makes me toast with apricot jam while I fix myself coffee. If she notices my swollen eyes, she doesn’t comment. “I need you to do a boat run,” she says as I sit down to eat.
“？’Kay. How come?”
“Gerrard is busy with the bush guy.”
“What’s a bush guy?”
“Putting in my new bushes,” she says. “Snowball viburnum and honeysuckle. I told you about it.”
“Do you need shopping?”
“Luda will do the shopping on the Vineyard. I need you to take people to Woods Hole.”
“Oh. Who’s leaving?” I don’t want to take Pfeff.
“Erin needs to go home,” she says. “And so does Yardley.”
“Yardley? I thought she was here all summer.”
“Well, she changed her mind.”
“How come?”
“She didn’t say. Just came to breakfast and said she needs to go back to the mainland and would I arrange transport. And that was just after Penny told me Erin was leaving, too.” Tipper laughs bitterly. “I think we’ve been good to that girl. Weeks of sand and sun, meals, everything anyone could want. And now she’s leaving with no notice, as if she doesn’t even like it here.”
“I thought you didn’t want to have so many guests anyway.”
“The boys,” my mother says. “The boys are a bit much. Erin is fine. Quiet as a mouse and keeps Penny occupied.”
My head hurts from the pills and all the crying last night. And the fight with Bess. “I’m sure she’s grateful. She probably just feels like she’s stayed too long.”
“Then I haven’t been a good hostess,” says my mother. “No one should ever feel they’re anything but welcome here.”
I would actually love to get off the island. Away from everyone. “I’ll take them,” I say. “I’ll tell Erin how much we loved having her. It’ll be fine.”
Tipper hugs me. “You’re a good girl,” she says.
* * *
—
I MEET YARDLEY and Erin at the family dock at noon. Tipper has packed them Brie-and-sun-dried-tomato sandwiches. They each have a container of sliced nectarines, another of salt-and-peppered cucumber, and a wax paper packet of ginger cookies. I hand them their brown paper sacks and they hold them like schoolchildren.
Erin will catch the bus home. She got a ticket by phone, which she can pick up at the ferry terminal. Yardley’s mother is sending a car and driver for her.
Uncle Dean and Tomkin come down to the dock right after me. Tomkin hugs Yardley and says goodbye. Dean silently loads the boat with both girls’ bags.
“Sweetie,” he says to his daughter, almost jocular. “I’m gonna tell you: I think you should stay.”
“No thank you.”
“Things will settle down. You’ll understand. Nothing’s that bad.”
“Not gonna happen,” says Yardley. “Carrie, could you start the boat, please?”
I do as she asks and we pull out into the water.
“Bye, Yardo!” yells Tomkin. “See ya soon.”
“Bye,” she calls. “I’ll miss your ugly little face a lot, you know.”
* * *
—
THE SUN IS strong overhead and all three of us put on sunglasses. I am filled with curiosity about Yardley’s situation, but I’m also spent. My painkillers are kicking in and my muscles feel weak and droopy. I am cried out. My fury at Penny and Pfeff is at a low ebb, though it is slowly rebuilding in my gut.