Edward

Chapter Seven

Slaters Beach, Massachusetts - 2004

It's August and it's been a six weeks that Jack and I have been together. The girl with the piercing eyes is gone. If she's on the beach she does not come to the snack bar. If I bring Jack clam-cakes and a lemonade at his lifeguard stand, she and her friends are no where to be seen.There are other beaches maybe she's somewhere else. Or maybe she's hidden herself in the throngs of people populating the three mile stretch of beach from shore to the dunes between the parking-lot and the sand. . This is horseback beach, a big public beach. Jack and I work here. This is the beach I've spent most of my time at but now I also go to Slater's Beach, the rich alcove separated from the working class Westport and North Dartmouth. It's close enough to bike there from my parents house - middle class on a couple of acres, closer to Horseback Beach than Slaters. Sometimes after work, I bike through the dusk, down country roads, dappled light through the oak and maple, woods that separate the homes in North Dartmouth. Sometimes I drive my sister's Volkswagen. Now that I have my license it's become imminent domain. She'll go to UMASS Amherst soon and it will be mine. I've even hung a Volkswagen Beetle shaped air freshener from the rear view mirror. It is always in the glove compartment after Anne has driven it. "Please" she'll say if we're riding together and I try to retrieve it. "Please." She's bossy my sister who I look so much like. It's partly because our features are so similar, so much like our mother. It's also because without being completely conscious of it, I copy her. The same straight sandy blonde hair, bob cut, mine still long enough for a pony tail. Hers short enough to see her long dangling earrings. She is not as relaxed as I am, more practical and my father says it's because she "has to be" and that I fill the sweet, light hearted quota for the family.

Jack isn't from our home town. He's not a "townie." Instead he's from a wealthy Boston family. They have a summer cottage on Cape Arch on Slater's. It's bigger than our house and with updated everything. Part of it's appeal is it's "charm." Despite the latest appliances and well built decks. A sauna, even a library it's still got the beach, casual charm. It struck me when Jack first brought me there that it's a privilege reserved for the very rich to have a second or third home so well appointed. To get from our suburban Massachusetts town,  you have to pass through the little "village" of Wonsette. The roads, still well maintained, have sand and sea grass on the shoulder. There is about a mile of curves through past the Arch Cove bay, sand dunes obstructing the view of the blue water and clear skies. Sailboats dotting the shore out towards the horizon. There's a stretch of road where there's woods on one side and the rocky shore on the other. Sometimes rich parents and their children are wading in kaki shorts and faded t-shirts exploring tide pools or digging up clams. Finally, just before we enter the summer community there's a wooden bridge that connects the peninsula to Slater's. There is one long road, the woods still on one side. The houses are off the road, Jack's family's property is down a half  mile lane the opens to his weathered shingled two story summer home. The back has a small patch of woods and a path down to the rocky part of the shore. Out front —the part of the house facing the bay is a log stretch of lawn, it reminds me of the mansions I used to visit on school field trips Newport, once the summer paradise for the wealthiest American's like the Vanderbilt's or Rockafellers. Jay Gatsby sort of place. The lawn leads down to a stone retaining wall, and there beyond that is their own private beach. The houses are far enough apart that it is completely secluded. There, on a blanket - not long after we met Jack and I hd sex for the first time. I had sex for the first time.

Now, only a month and a half into our relationship, I am a welcomed and familiar addition to the Clark family. Often, it's Jack, his mother and me. Often his cousins or other relatives are visiting. His grandparents have been there for two weeks starting in mid July. Mrs. Clark tells me they'll stay the rest of the summer.

There's also Mr. Clark who is home on weekends. He's the stern patriarch. He has a competitive nature with Jack and in particular Jack's older brother and only sibling, Edward. Edward visits rarely. He had only been to the beach house one weekend since I started seeing Jack. The sumer was almost over and when he did arrive he didn't make a fuss over his mother or even really acknowledge me. Edward broke the family rules and it added a tension that I didn't like. I think it's a brooding intellectualism that separates him - isolates him- from the rest of us.