Postcards From Last Summer Read Free Page B

front of her eyes. “You no longer exist in my world,” she said as she repositioned her hand to block her view of me. “I have blotted you out. Not an easy task, at your size. But . . . there. You’re gone. That’s a relief.”
    As she turned away and ran over to croon over the lame boyfriend, I lifted my board and tried to talk myself out of feeling any responsibility for the end of this relationship. Darcy had always been a high-maintenance friend, and somehow I was the one making peace between Darcy and Elle, smoothing things over between Darcy and Tara, hiding Darcy’s smokes or her diaphragm, tutoring her in math so that she could get out of summer school. I was the great facilitator, and did she thank me?
    As I paddled out, I wanted the cool water to wash me clean of any bad feeling. The Darcy years were over. Done.
    End of a bitchy era.

2
    Lindsay
    I had mixed feelings that afternoon as I leaned my board against the shed and ducked into the coolness of the Southampton house, the screen door slamming behind me. Home in the Hamptons was a three-story cedar-shingled house on Rose Lane that over the years had been a boardinghouse to any number of McCorkles and their friends, dogs, cats, two snakes, and a pet hamster named Wiggles who met an unfortunate end in a ride down the laundry chute that was supposed to be all in good six-year-old fun.
    I’d left the beach with a vow to skip dinner, but once here in the kitchen, with the savory smell of goulash swirling from the kitchen and Mom smiling expectantly as she stirred, I knew I’d be obligated to fill a bowl and sit down with the crew, as was everyone in the McCorkle house.
    â€œIsn’t tonight the night your friend Milo is coming for dinner?” Ma asked.
    Milo, of course! I smacked my sunburned forehead. “I forgot.”
    â€œForgot?” Ma rapped the wooden spoon against the kettle. “Well, then, I suppose you were serious when you said he was just a friend.”
    â€œYou gotta meet Milo, Ma,” I said. Milo Barry was a friend from college, my lab partner in bio who’d become a great sounding board and confidant. This year he was sharing a house with a bunch of guys in Sag Harbor, parking cars at Hamptons clubs to make summer money. I hadn’t met any of the summer shares in Milo’s house, but I sensed they would not be wild and crazy frat boys. I was fairly sure Milo was gay, though not sure he knew that just yet. So for the time being we avoided the topics of sex and romance, except to make our usual disparaging remarks.
    As I stole a celery stick from the cutting board and headed up the back stairs to shower, it struck me that I had a lot more in common with Milo than with any of my Hamptons friends, or former friends, in Darcy’s case. Milo and I shared a similar socioeconomic background—working our way through college, patching together scholarships, scrambling from one on-campus job to the next. I worked in the library and dormitory, he worked for the registrar and the theater box office. Our parents didn’t hand us cars and clothes and spending money. No silver spoon for me, unlike Darcy and Tara, whose fathers were high-profile, high-salaried professionals. My father had been a New York City cop when he died, my mother a homemaker and a crossing guard in Brooklyn.
    Basically, we McCorkles were a Hamptons novelty. Years ago working-class fishermen, trappers, and farmers resided in the Hamptons, but as the years went by it was changing as rocketing real estate prices made it more lucrative to build condos than work the land. Although my family had possessed the good fortune to buy this house on Rose Lane years ago, we would never have been able to afford it today. “Thank God your grandparents had such foresight,” Ma always said. So while we enjoyed the house and the beach and the beautiful town of picket fences, tidy gardens, and majestic beaches, the McCorkles were not