Gina looks at me as though I’ve gone nuts. “Um, earth to Elle? I’m kidding! I can’t believe you honestly thought I’d be pissed off about the sandwiches.” She laughs, but for a millisecond a strange expression flashes across her face, and I wonder if she has felt my intestines unfurling.
“Of course not.” I force a laugh. “I’m losing it. It’s either the Ambien or perimenopause.”
Gina puts her arm through mine, drags me over to the others. “I’m just glad you got here. Jonas is refusing to come into the water. Is this the most beauteous day, or what?”
“It’s too hot.”
“I swear to Christ, I will never understand you Back Woods people. You have the perfect life in the most gorgeous place on the planet and all you can say is ‘It’s too hot.’ Jonas was like pulling teeth this morning. Swim time,” Gina calls out to Finn and Maddy. “Last one in, cutie pies. It’s time to boogie.” She gives a little booty shake. Maddy looks over at me with an expression of pure horror, but they follow her down to the water, racing to dive in headfirst.
“Hey, missus,” Peter calls over to me. “Toss me that water jug, will you? I’m dying of thirst over here.”
I take aim and throw the thermos at him. It slaloms through the air and lands perfectly upright at his feet.
“Nice,” Peter says.
Jonas turns then. Looks directly at me. He stands up and brushes the sand off his palms, walks toward me, arms outstretched, grabs the stack of towels I’m carrying, leans in to kiss me on the cheek. “I missed you,” he whispers in my ear.
“Hi,” I say softly. I can’t bear it. It is too much to bear. “I missed you, too.”
He runs the tip of his finger down my arm and I shudder.
“Who’s going in?” Peter calls over to us. “It’s bloody broiling.”
1977. February, New York.
Fifth grade. A snow day. Anna and I are staying with her godfather Dixon for the week. Dad and Joanne are living in London—he has been transferred for work—and Mum and Leo have gone to Detroit for a gig. They are getting married in May. Dixon is Mum’s “cool” friend. Everyone loves Dixon. He has long dirty-blond hair in a ponytail and drives a pickup truck. He knows Carly Simon. Mum says he doesn’t need to work. They’ve been best friends since they were two years old; otherwise I don’t think he would even speak to her. They went to preschool together and spent summers together in the Back Woods, skinny-dipping and digging for quahogs and littlenecks in the muck when the tide was out. “Even though I hated shellfish,” Mum says. “But Dixon has a way of making you do things.” A long time ago, Anna asked Mum why she hadn’t married Dixon. “Because he’s a rake,” Mum had said. And I thought of leaves.
The Dixons live in a rambling apartment on East Ninety-fourth right off the park. Dixon’s daughter Becky is my best friend. Anna and Becky’s older sister Julia are the same age, but they’ve never really clicked. Julia is a gymnast. Two years ago, their mother left them to join a commune. Becky and I spend most of our time unsupervised, playing cat’s cradle, going into Central Park on roller skates, coming up with disgusting recipes we force each other to eat. This morning we made shakes in the blender out of brewers’ yeast and instant strawberry pudding mix. Dixon says he doesn’t give a shit, as long as we eat. The last time Mum left us at Dixon’s he took us to see Deliverance at the Trans Lux. We ran around the rest of the weekend screaming, “Squeal like a pig.” Mum had a fit, but Dixon told her to stop being so narrow-minded and puritanical. He’s the only person who gets to talk to her like that.
A strange quiet has come over the city. Out the window there is nothing but a blinding flurry of white. I listen to the clanging of hot steam in the pipes as they expand and contract. The apartment is claustrophobic with dry heat, and the metal radiator cover burns the fronts of my legs as I lean forward, using all my weight to inch open the heavy window, but it refuses to budge.
“Can someone please help me? I need air.” But no one moves. We are playing Monopoly, and Anna has just landed on Marvin Gardens. She needs to think.
Dixon and his new wife Andrea have been in their room all morning with the door shut. “They have a water bed,” Becky says, as if this explains everything. Andrea and Dixon met at a sweat lodge in New Mexico. Andrea is six months pregnant. They’re pretty sure it’s his.
“I don’t mind her,” Becky says when Mum asks what she thinks of her new stepmother.