Return to Summerhouse (The Summerhouse 2)

“Okay, so now tell us what made the town hate you,” Faith said.

“Ah, that,” Zoë said. “The entire memory of that came to me at what I think was exactly the time that my accident happened. I’d meant to pay attention to the date and take care of myself, but when I got to New York, I went to Russ’s that first day, and we hit it off rather well, so, uh…”

“You were in bed with him when the wreck was to happen, weren’t you?” Amy said.

When Zoë nodded, Faith said, “How are you doing this?”

“I don’t know, but it’s like I can see it in print. I just seem to know. But I’ll stop talking. Zoë, tell us what you remembered.”

“I don’t like to remember it even if I know it didn’t really happen. At least not my part in it.”

“What did your sister do to you?” Faith asked, making the others smile.

“Now you’re the storyteller,” Zoë said. “And you’re completely accurate. It was all my sister’s fault.”

“I don’t want to hear another word,” Zoë said to her sister, Karen. She put her hands over her ears. She was sitting in Karen’s living room, on the old, worn-out couch, and her sister was pacing.

“You have to help me. You’re the only one I can trust.” Karen put her hands on Zoë’s wrists and uncovered her sis

ter’s ears.

“What about Bob?” Zoë asked. “How could you do this to him?”

“Bob?” Karen said in disgust. “What does he care? The highlight of his life was when he made three touch-downs in one game. It’s been downhill since then. Please, Zoë, this is for my whole life.”

Zoë looked up at her sister and wondered how she’d been able to pull off an affair with the most important man in town. Alan Johnson was the oldest son of the richest man in town and he’d done nothing in his life that hadn’t flourished. He was on every charity committee. He was married and had two children, a boy and a girl, who were polite and sweet-tempered. His wife was beautiful and spent the time her children were in school volunteering at hospitals and old-age homes.

“I don’t understand why he was having an affair with you,” Zoë said.

Karen whirled on her in a flash of rage. “For your information, underneath all of this—” She waved her hand to include the house with its aluminum windows, its stained carpets that were littered with kids’ bright plastic toys, and herself in her often-washed sleeveless dress. “Underneath this I’m a very desirable woman.”

Zoë was really trying to understand, but she couldn’t see it. Yes, her sister used to be quite pretty, but not in a movie star way. She was more hometown-girl pretty. And the years since she’d married had not been kind to her. The fact that she smoked two packs a day and drank Coke that was half bourbon with dinner didn’t help.

“He really loves you?” Zoë asked.

“Do you find that so impossible to believe? Alan does love me, and he’s going to divorce that cold bitch of a wife of his and marry me.”

Zoë just sat on the old sofa and stared at her sister. Karen was always telling Zoë that she knew nothing about life, but even she knew that this was a story so old that comedians used it in their stand-up acts. But Zoë also knew that she couldn’t reason with her sister. When she was like this, smoking one cigarette after another, and saying she had to do this and had to do that, she was impossible to talk to.

“I want you to go with me,” Karen said.

“Where?” Zoë said and hid her crossed fingers. Please don’t let it be to go see Mr. Johnson. One year he’d dressed up as an Easter bunny and had given Zoë the prize for the most eggs found. She didn’t want to have to face him in this ugly affair. And, too, there was Bob, Karen’s husband. Maybe he wasn’t the most exciting man in the world, but he loved their children and he was totally devoted to them. Last year he’d been passed over for a promotion because he’d missed so many days at work when he stayed home with the kids because Karen couldn’t “get herself together.”

“To see Alan.”

“Karen,” Zoë said, her voice a whine. “I don’t want to do that. Please don’t make me do that.”

“After all I’ve done for you!” she started, saying all the things that she’d said a million times before. It seemed that Zoë was to give her life to Karen in eternal gratitude for taking her in when she was orphaned. Never mind that Karen got a free live-in babysitter.

“I’ll stay with the kids and you go. You should be alone with him,” Zoë said.

“No. I want Bob to stay with the kids. That’ll keep him from snooping into my life.”

“He knows about you and Mr. Johnson?” Zoë asked in horror.

“Will you stop calling him that? You make him sound like a…a pillar of the community and I’m the slutty secretary. It’s demeaning to me.”

Zoë looked down at her hands and avoided her sister’s eyes.