Page 47 of On Fire Island

“That’s not what I hear,” the Lacoste player shot back.

Shep whipped the tomato back at them. “Catch!”

They both moved out of the way. Ben put his hand on Shep’s shoulder. “No need to live up to your reputation,” he whispered with a laugh.

Shep smiled and took a symbolic step back as Ben stepped in. Half the team had now gathered around.

“OK, boys, what is it you came over here to say?” Ben asked.

“Oh, Benjamin, I heard about Julia’s passing. I am so sorry for your loss.”

Ben acknowledged the words with a simple nod, while Shepgot back into the mix. “What about my loss? Throwing a tomato at me!”

Ben placed his hand back on Shep’s shoulder and continued, “Thank you, Sid, let’s finish this up. We have a game to play.”

“OK, well, we think we should continue with the same three-strike rule we had before the new net went up.”

The rule was: over the net once, out for the game; twice, out for three weeks; third time, out for the season.

Ben agreed, adding, “That’s fine—it will never happen with that tall net, anyway.”

Or will it?I thought, appreciating the foreshadowing.

They all dispersed and went off to play their games.

•••

That afternoon, we walked in to the phone ringing. Ben braced himself and grabbed it. This time it was Shep’s oldest daughter, Beatrix, looking for her dad. Somehow, word of last night’s shenanigans had gotten all the way to Ohio, where she taught English lit at Kenyon College. When Shep hadn’t answered his house phone or his cell, which was home dead in a drawer somewhere, she called the market and asked for Little Les. They had grown up together, and while Little Les felt for the old guy, his allegiance lay with Beatrix.

Shep usually had more patience for Bea than his younger daughter, Veronica, who now lived in Palo Alto, the wife of a tech giant and a stay-at-home mom of twin teenage girls. But today he wasn’t taking it and told her so.

“I played a lousy game today, Beatrix, and am in no mood to be lectured like a child.”

It always amazed me how much their moods correlated withhow well they played ball that day, though, dealing with his daughters was never Shep’s strong suit. It hadn’t always been like that, especially with Bea. When she was young, the two were thick as thieves. Bea adored her dad and would do anything Shep suggested just to be with him. Tossing a ball, fishing in the bay, mixing and delivering him the perfect martini, memorizing the words to his favorite poem, “Gunga Din”—anything to spend time with her father. It was pretty obvious that he favored her over Veronica. Also, Bea looked a lot like Shep’s own mother, with her dark hair, olive skin, and full, round figure—and while it was clear from early on that most people preferred to look at long and lithe Veronica, Shep preferred looking at Bea. Being with her warmed his heart.

Veronica looked more like Caroline’s side of the family: the British side. She had strawberry-blond hair and fair skin like her mother. And like her mother, she burned easily, so taking her along fishing or to play ball or just to go to the beach had always involved coating her from head to toe in sunblock. That kind of meticulous preparation was not Shep’s jam—in fact, the one time he attempted it he missed so many spots that the kid came home looking like a stick of cherry fruit-striped gum. Beatrix, with her easily-tanned skin and overall sturdiness, was relatively indestructible. Except, as it turned out, for her heart.

The only connection the two sisters maintained during their adult years was through conversations with their mother. After the inciting incident had occurred with the lifeguard, Caroline didn’t dare mention Veronica’s name to Beatrix, but as the years went on curiosity poked holes in the anger for each sister, at least allowing them to tolerate hearing about the other. That was basically the extent of their interaction, if you could even call it that.When Caroline had died suddenly over the winter, Shep thought the two would put their differences aside, but they couldn’t. Devastated by the entire situation, he put his foot down, saying, “I was never sure why your mother stood for your bullshit, but I will not. Don’t come back until you can be real sisters again.”

And so far they had listened.

twenty-eight

The Dreaded Trike

Apparently, word of last night’s incident had traveled all the way to Palo Alto as well, and Veronica did what she usually did when faced with a problem—she threw money at it. She called Steve at the hardware store—whom it was rumored she once had a thing with—and bought a souped-up tricycle for her father. I like to believe she thought she was doing the right thing, but the notion was hard to swallow.

The next day, Big Les asked Matty to make a delivery that no one would want to make. He said it real casually. “I need you to walk over to the hardware store in town and pick up a trike for Shep.”

Big Les knew it was not a casual request.

“Sorry, kid. He needs a way to get around, and I figure it’s better coming from you than from Corey.”

That was for sure.

An hour later Matty wheeled the trike up the ramp to our house, a big fake smile plastered on his face for encouragement. Shep silently wheeled it back down and parked it at the baseballfield to be stolen. It was back up on our deck within the hour, this time with Shep’s name written in Sharpie beneath the saddle.

The trike wasn’t the only unwelcome surprise of the day.

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