Dr. Cone nodded. “How about we go onto the porch?”
“I’ll be right back,” I said to Izzy. “Don’t climb off the stool. Just stay here and keep cleaning. Okay?”
“Okay.” Izzy’s head was down. She appeared to be scrubbing each groove of every shell with her tiny fingernail. I knew she was fully in the task and no longer worrying about Jimmy.
Out on the porch, I took a deep breath. “Izzy and I found Jimmy with Beanie Jones behind a sand dune.”
Dr. Cone blinked several times. “Were they doing drugs?”
“No.”
“What were they doing?”
“I think they were making love.”
Dr. Cone paused for a few seconds. Then he said, “Did you tell anyone else?”
“No. I told Izzy they were wrestling, and I think she believed me. But she also knows that the naked wrestling was wrong and that Sheba will be angry.”
Dr. Cone nodded. “Let’s keep this between us for now. After Izzy goes to bed, we’ll deal with it. As a family. Me, you, Bonnie, Jimmy, Sheba.”
“Okay.” I nervously smiled. Until I’d met the Cones, I had no idea that a family would dare discuss something as volatile and embarrassingly personal as infidelity. In my own house, each day was a perfectly contained lineup of hours where nothing unusual or unsettling was ever said. In the Cone family, there was no such thing as containment. Feelings were splattered around the household with the intensity of a spraying fire hose. I was terrified of what I might witness or hear tonight. But along with that terror, my fondness for the Cones only grew. To feel something was to feel alive. And to feel alive was starting to feel like love.
Izzy squatted on the dining room table. She placed the horseshoe crab shell, back up, in the center of the table. On the spiny, hard dome, she put the tiniest seashells, one by one. Around the horseshoe crab shell, she placed the bigger seashells, alternating faceup with facedown.
“That’s so beautiful,” I said.
“It’s the centerplace.”
“The centerpiece.”
“The centerpiece.”
Jimmy came into the room. We hadn’t seen him since the dunes, though we’d seen Sheba and Mrs. Cone as they’d passed through the kitchen to go to their rooms to dress for dinner. Jimmy was wearing cutoff shorts and no shirt. The leather string with feathers dangled on his neck. It seemed to be pointing down toward his crotch. I couldn’t stop myself from seeing his penis again, the way it had bobbed up in the air. My stomach lurched. I was now certain that I was a sex addict. I would have to ask Dr. Cone to treat me. But how would I pay for the therapy? And would he be required to tell my parents?
“Jimmy!” Izzy raised her arms, the signal to be picked up.
“Izzy, baby!” Jimmy lifted her up off the table, twirled her around, and then hugged her close to his chest.
“We saw you wrestling,” Izzy whispered.
“I know. I’m sorry.” Jimmy carried Izzy toward me, and with her still in his arms he hugged me. “I’m really sorry.”
“Um.” I didn’t know what to say. Jimmy clung to me and the three of us rocked back and forth, Izzy squished between us. I could smell the sun on Jimmy’s skin, and his chest hair tickled my face. His penis popped up in my mind again, just as it had popped up in the air.
“I’m really, really sorry.” Jimmy held on tighter and kept rocking. I closed my eyes. It felt good to be wedged in there like that. I tried to push Jimmy’s penis out of my mind, but instantly discovered that willing it away put as much focus on it as not willing it away.
When Jimmy let go, he stared into my eyes.
“I told Dr. Cone but no one else,” I confessed. Tears sprang to my eyes. I was angry at Jimmy for betraying Sheba, and for making love with the married（！） Beanie Jones. But I knew he was an addict. I knew his body was like a teenager’s that he had to wrangle into control every day. Until I met Jimmy, I hadn’t understood that people you loved could do things you didn’t love. And, still, you could keep loving them.
“I know, he told me. It’s okay.” Jimmy wiped my tears with his thumb.
“Mary Jane, are you crying?” Izzy leaned out of Jimmy’s arms into mine.
I shook my head, but tears were spilling down my face. I’d cried more this summer than I had in all the years since I was Izzy’s age. And I’d never been happier.
“It’s okay, Mary Jane. You didn’t do anything wrong.” Jimmy leaned in and kissed my forehead and this made me cry a little harder. I inhaled deeply in an effort to suck it up. I didn’t want to freak Izzy out.