Page 55 of On Fire Island

The shock turned to anger. “What? She can’t do that. That’s not fair to Matty.”

Matty caught the last line on his return. Apparently it was the final straw. He held nothing back and didn’t care that Shep and Ben bore witness. Everything he’d been thinking for the year rolled off his tongue like a steamroller.

It began with a reaction to Tuck’s comment “that’s not fair to Matty” and continued until the poor kid was folded into a ball on the couch, crying, with his father rubbing his back and begging his forgiveness. Tuck took full blame, which both surprised meand made me happy, though he kept mixing up the wordsaffectandeffect, which made me want to strangle him.

In the end, Ben agreed to help Tuck craft a letter to Renee, Cyrano style, and Matty agreed to give it to her.

It went like this:

Dear Renee,

I don’t know where your head is right now, but I have to tell you where mine is. I miss my family and I would do anything to get back what we had. I made an awful mistake and with each passing day I regret what I’ve done—to you, to us, and to Matthew—more and more. You did not deserve the pain I caused, and I would give anything for the chance to spend the rest of my life making it up to you. I understand you may need time to process this. I hope you do. I will be back to watch Matt play in the Homeowners’ Game. If you could find some time to talk, then I’d be grateful.

With love,

Tuck

I watched Renee read the letter that night, quietly sitting at her kitchen table. Her face was blank afterward. She didn’t cry or laugh or tear it up. She put it in the pocket of her robe, grabbed a pint of ice cream and two spoons, and headed back upstairs to her young lover.

thirty-two

High Tide

In between softball, and mourning, and sitting at the beach staring at the ocean, and drinking Scotch like it was water, and watching old home movies of Shep and Caroline on Shep’s 35-millimeter projector that was somehow still up inourattic, the “boys” spent the greater part of August trying to get rid of the trike. It became a sport—and not one they were lettering in. The damn bike always came back.

Today it was the garbage man’s turn to return it. Shep had convinced Matty to ride it straight into the dump the night before.

“I was told this belongs to you?” The man rolled in the bike—thinking he would be greeted with joy and appreciation.

Shep grimaced. Ben thanked him. Then the silverware klepto, Lisa Marlin-Cohen-Fitzpatrick, showed up with another pie.

Ben, tired of her making moves on him, said it as clearly as he could. “I don’t like pie.”

“I do!” said the garbage man.

“Look, Ben, you made a match,” Shep joked.

I laughed, alone as usual, and wondered, again, where was Caroline? I didn’t feel any closer to leaving than I had on day one,and Ben didn’t seem any better, really. Nothing was moving forward, until late that night, when the tide quite literally turned.

At around 2:00 a.m. Dylan banged on Matty’s window. Everyone was only half-asleep—in anticipation. Matty pulled open the shade and motioned for her to go around back so he could let her in. They were both very excited for the big night, and no, it had nothing to do with their virginity.

Dylan had come up with a plan to push the trike out to sea at high tide, in the middle of the night when no one would be watching. Matty questioned the environmental effect of it, but Dylan insisted that it would sink out at sea, and between the tires and the metal, create a much welcomed artificial reef.

Matty didn’t think it would work, but she promised it would. She had once seen a couple of cidiots (as her dad referred to them) mis-navigate the tides and lose their brand-new Range Rover to the ocean during the off-season. It got caught on some rocks and they had no choice but to abandon ship—or car, as the case may be. When the water rose over the wheels it took the sturdily built machine out to sea like it was nothing more than a piece of driftwood. Dylan had watched in awe with her dad from the wooden stairs that descend from the end of each block.

“More proof that city folk have no place here in the winter,” Jake had said.

The locals who drive on a daily or weekly basis (only in the off-season) are über-aware of the tide schedule.

In order to have a car on Fire Island, you have to live there for a year straight, and living there for a year straight proves quite difficult without a car. It’s a purposeful catch-22 to ensure that too many people don’t get car permits.

Another fun literary fact: Joseph Heller, who wrote the bookCatch-22, also summered on Fire Island.

Dylan and Matty hovered over Ben, Shep, and Sally the dog, all asleep in our king-size bed.

Dylan whispered, “It’s a little weird how they sleep in the same bed, no?”

“Maybe it’s weirder for them to sleep alone,” Matty responded, speaking straight from his old soul. He gently shook Ben. “Wake up. It’s high tide.”

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