The Summer House by Jean Stone Read Free Book Online

don’t care.”
    “He’s Jewish.”
    “I don’t care about that, either.”
    “Well, maybe he does.”
    Liz looked at her sister. “Why would he care that he’s Jewish?”
    “He might care that you’re not.”
    Liz rose from the bed and paced to the window. She looked out onto the sandy earth below, lit only by the firelight that spilled from the living room downstairs, and by the half-moon that had risen high in the sky. “I’ve got to find a way to see him again, Beebs.”
    “You’re smitten, Lizzie. It was bound to happen and now it has. Do yourself a favor and forget it. Trust me, it will pass.”
    Liz did not answer, but stared out the window.
    “And aside from the obvious, don’t forget that Father has picked out Michael for you.”
    “Michael is nice,” Liz replied dreamily. “But he’s not quite as … I don’t know …”
    “Hormonal,” BeBe said, then moaned. “Oh, Lizzie, don’t do this. Don’t even give Josh Miller one more ofyour thoughts or Father will know, and Father will have him removed from the face of the earth.”
    Liz leaned against the window screen, breathed in a deep breath of cool Vineyard night air, and wondered if, in order to do that, Father would use the pistol that Evelyn had brought Daniel, the pistol with plenty of ammunition, because you never knew what might happen next.

Chapter 5
    Late the next morning BeBe came outside, lit a cigarette, bent the match, and stuffed it into the grass. Father, of course, did not allow her to smoke in the house. She wondered if he considered smoking worse than being in love with a Jew. She inhaled deeply and thought about Liz. Her sister had finally grown into her legs and was becoming the kind of elegant beauty that would be perceived as classic, timeless, and all those other Romanesque words; refined beauty that attracted men for the long haul, way longer than one night; beauty that was very much unlike BeBe’s own unique, ungroomed style.
    So Liz had grown into her little-girl legs and now her heart had caught up. BeBe exhaled her relief on a slow stream of smoke, grateful that now the shock might not hurt if Lizzie ever learned that her sister, her idol, had slept with the boy that Father had chosen as Lizzie’s ideal mate.
    BeBe closed her eyes. She tasted the coarse taste of her morning cigarette, felt the dewy ground soak into her butt, and realized that “slept” was not exactly the rightway to say it. “Had sex” was more like it. Or simply “fucked.”
    “We shouldn’t be doing this,” Michael had slurred after too many beers with tequila chasers.
    They had slipped from the graduation-eve party and found a secluded dark spot on West Point’s Flirtation Walk, under an oak tree, behind a stone wall.
    In her heart, she knew Michael was right, but by that time she had pulled down her panties and was positioning herself over him. At that point she did not care whose penis it was, as long as it fit, as long as it would make her feel wanted and make her feel good, and smooth out—if only for a few moments—the rough edge that encircled her heart.
    It did.
    What had not made her feel good was that immediately after, Michael had asked if her sister had a boyfriend yet and if she’d be on the Vineyard with the family this summer.
    He asked BeBe these things while her skirt was still raised and while she still had his wetness deep inside her.
    But before she could answer, Michael passed out, drunk as the skunks that Daniel loved twirling.
    BeBe had quickly dressed and told herself that none of it mattered; that she, after all, had been the one to pursue Michael at the party. She was not trying to steal him from Lizzie; she was trying to show Father that she was good enough to get a “good” boy, too, whether he believed it or not.
    At least, that was how it seemed after several gin and tonics.
    Of course, her plan had backfired, but after sobering up, BeBe told herself it was better that way.
    Still, she thought now,