Cecily gave him the finger. Kevin never said anything. He just sat next to Bruce and giggled. The beach boys were exactly that-boys. They set up the umbrellas in the morning and then plunked themselves in the sand like a couple of ugly frogs, and when a member needed help with chairs or towels, the boys reluctantly got to their feet. They had an even cushier job than her own.
Cecily walked by Mr. and Mrs. Spoonacre, Mr. and Mrs. Patterson, and stopped at the kelly green umbrella closest to the water where Major Crawley sat Always the same spot closest to the water, always a kelly green umbrella, and always alone-because Mrs. Crawley was allergic to the beach. Major Crawley had retired from the army before Cecily was born, but he still looked like a major. He wore army green trunks, aviator sunglasses, and his gray-silver hair was clipped in a crew cut.
“Hello there, lady friend,” the major said.
Cecily crouched in the sand next to the major’s Sleepy Hollow chair. They had a short conversation every day. Cecily’s father told her the major deserved extra attention. He’d been a Beach Club member for almost fifty years. “Hello, Major. Happy Fourth of July.”
“Let me tell you a little something,” the major said.
Major Crawley loved to tell Cecily stories about her grandfather. Sometimes, if Cecily was lucky, he would talk instead about his days on the last mounted cavalry in Germany, riding through the forest, looking for runaway Nazis.
“Your grandfather, Big Bill Elliott-and we all called him Big Bill-asked me for advice when he bought this Beach Club. You know what I told him?”
“Complimentary towels,” Cecily said.
“That’s right. Do you know why?”
“It’s the small courtesies that make a place stand out,” she said.
“Someday all this is going to be yours, and you’re going to have to see that the place is run with integrity. I might not be around to prod you.”
Cecily had heard the same speech dozens of times. She wanted to tell the major that she had no intention of running the Beach Club, because deeper, more exotic voices called her name. Other countries, other cultures. “Tell me about Germany again.”
“Germany?” the major said. “My time in the hills, you mean? Riding Liebchen? That was a good horse. A mare. Mares don’t frighten easily, and that’s why we all rode mares. Because we were looking at some scary stuff there in the hills.”
“Nazis,” Cecily said. “The murderers.”
“Had one of them Nazis hold a gun to my head,” the major said. “Thought I was dead. Only eighteen years old. And do you know what I was thinking about, right at that second?”
“Mrs. Crawley?”
The major’s aviator sunglasses slid to the end of his nose. “Hadn’t met Mrs. Crawley yet. She came later.”
“Your parents?”
“Nope.” He poked at his sunglasses. “Thought about cigarettes and beer. Those were the two most important things in my life. All I wanted to do was smoke Luckies and drink Miller High-Life. And I thought how sad it was that all my smoking and drinking potential was about to fall facedown in the mud with a bullet shot through it.”
“So then what happened?”
“The slimy German had the gun to my temple, pressed right into my brain and I could smell him. He stank like a pig. He had me on my knees and my eyes were level with his crotch and then I saw that the stinking bastard was wetting himself, he was so afraid. I knocked the gun out of his hand and that kid ran off. Someone in my company found him later and shot him dead.” Major Crawley took off his sunglasses and lay back in his Sleepy Hollow chair. “I often wonder if maybe that weren’t such a bad kid. Anyway, we killed him. Couldn’t have mercy on someone who agreed to stand behind all that murdering of the Jews.”
“There was a kid at my school who’s a Nazi,” Cecily said.
The major shook his head. “No, lady friend, not possible. We got them all.” The major’s words grew low and grumbly. “Today’s the Fourth of July and I’m happy to say you’re in a safe place. No Nazis here.” He nodded off to sleep in his chair. Cecily pulled his complimentary beach towel over his legs, so they wouldn’t burn.
Cecily threaded her way between the umbrellas in the front row, past Mrs. Minella, the Papales, and the Hayeses, the only African American Beach Club members. She heard someone call to her.
“Miss! Miss!” A man under one of the canary yellow umbrellas gestured to her. Cecily walked slowly toward him and his wife, skimming her eyes over the list. These were new members this year-the Curtains? The Kershners? The man was balding but made up for it with a perfectly trimmed goatee. The woman had red hair like Cecily, only she had millions of freckles, whereas Cecily tanned.
Cecily smiled. “Hi, how can I help you?”
“We need you to settle an argument,” the man said.
“Douglas!” the woman said. She folded her arms across the sheer top of her Chanel bathing suit.
Douglas and Mary Beth Kershner. Cecily found their names on the list.
“What you need to understand is that my wife is a giving person,” Douglas Kershner said. “Charity woman supreme.”
“Douglas,” Mrs. Kershner snapped.
“And under the guise of the Church, she has planted a garden for the poor, so that the less fortunate citizens of Groton, Connecticut, can enjoy fresh produce,” Douglas Kershner said.
There were tiny wrinkles in the corners of Mrs. Kershner’s mouth.
“I didn’t know there were any poor people in Groton,” Cecily said. She’d only been to Groton once, for a field hockey game.
“There are poor people everywhere,” Mrs. Kershner said.
“But now, in Groton, Connecticut, the poor can enjoy arugula, raddichio, and tarragon,” Mr. Kershner said. “Tarragon for the poor!” He raised his hands above his head in a gesture of mock political triumph, giving Cecily a view of his hairy armpits. “Have you ever heard of anything so absurd?”
“Douglas!” Mrs. Kershner said.
“Why don’t you plant corn?” Cecily asked. “Or tomatoes?”
“Or potatoes,” Mr. Kershner added. “Something of substance.”
Mrs. Kershner sniffled. Behind her black cat’s-eye sunglasses, she was crying.
“You don’t respect me, Douglas,” she said. “You ridicule everything I even attempt. And you drag in complete strangers to throw rocks at my spirit.”
Cecily took a step back. She hadn’t meant to throw rocks at anyone’s spirit. Gardens for the poor was a good idea. She thought about tending a plot of land, harvesting tomatoes and corn and shiny green peppers. Putting the produce in a basket and distributing it around Nantucket’s public housing development, to the single mothers who drove a taxi or worked at the Stop & Shop. She wondered what her father would think about this. Cecily drifted away from the Kershners, but she couldn’t help herself from turning around to look at them one last time. Mrs. Kershner packed her things to leave the beach, while Mr. Kershner continued speaking, waving his arms at the water.
At the very edge of the property Cecily found Maribel asleep facedown with the straps of her bathing suit untied. Her blond hair was caught up in a messy bun and her back was brown and slick with oil. Cecily sat carefully next to Maribel’s towel and looked to her left at all the umbrellas neatly lined up in rows and columns. It was like an obstacle course she had to complete in order to get to this safe place, this good place, next to Maribel. With Maribel, Cecily could be herself; with Maribel, Cecily could talk about love.
Cecily had been in love for almost a year with Gabriel da Silva, a Brazilian who lived in the dorm across the quad from Cecily at school. Gabriel was a year older than the other boys, and taller, more muscular, more sophisticated. He spoke three languages-English, Spanish, and the beautiful Carioca Portuguese-and unlike the other boys, Gabriel had a soul. He told Cecily about the favelas in Rio, where children starved. Gabriel had adopted a family in the favelas-a mother and three sons. He gave them money and he watched the little boys while the mother, Magrite, sold coconut ice cream at a stand on Copacabana Beach. Gabriel would like the idea of a garden for the poor. Cecily pictured Gabriel without a shirt, standing under the brilliant Brazilian sun, his dark skin tanning to the color of tree bark, as he shoveled the rich, black earth-a garden in the favelas.