Summer People Read Online Free PDF

gently pulled it away from her face.
    “It’s okay,” he said.
    She blinked away her tears, was it the second time she’d cried today, or the third?—and then, because it was David Ronan standing before her, she began to worry what she looked like. Her hair, her wrinkled blouse. The bags under her eyes.
    “I’m fine,” she said finally. “I am fine. Thank you for your condolences. How are you?”
    “Surviving,” he said.
    “That’s all we can hope for,” Beth said. “I want to ask about Rosie and the girls, but I can’t right now, David. I’m too … I’m too frazzled. We just got on-island an hour ago. Will you forgive me if I just shop?”
    “I forgive you,” he said. “We can catch up later. I’ll stop by the house sometime.”
    “Good idea,” Beth said. He was being polite, just like every time she happened into him. He wouldn’t come by the house; he never did. He was busy in the summer. If she bumped into him again in a few weeks, or a month, he would explain how busy he’d been.
    David made haste in dumping his lettuce into a plastic bag and headed for the deli. Then around the corner, out of sight. Beth took a head of lettuce herself and breathed out a long stream of anxious air. David Ronan. Of all people.
    Beth lingered in the produce section trying to transfer her angst into concentration on the mundane task at hand: Did she want strawberries? Yes. Grapes and bananas? Yes. What else? What kind of fruit would Marcus eat? The same as everybody else, she assumed. He was, after all, just a person. No different because he was black, because he was poor, because he was sad. David Ronan, too, was just a person. Why then did he seem like so much more? Beth was afraid to leave the produce section. She bought red and yellow peppers and some button mushrooms. It was too early in the season yet for really good zucchini or corn. She was afraid that David Ronan would be standing at the cheese case or in front of the cereal. She couldn’t bear to see him again. She would have to stay by the produce until she was certain he’d left the store.
    The produce section, however, was freezing. Beth had to move on. Besides, she was an adult. That was one of Dr. Schau’s favorite refrains:
You’re an adult, Beth. You have years of experience in how to cope. Use that experience.
Okay, Beth thought. She saw David every summer, sometimes several times a summer, and that one year they’d even socialized at the cocktail party. (Arch was the one who’d wanted to go. Beth pleaded to stay home until Arch insinuated that her reluctance meant that she still felt something for David. So they went to the party and Beth drank too much.)
    She’d never been this alarmed to see David Ronan before, so why now? Because Arch was gone? Yes, that was it. She was no longer happily married. Her fairy tale had come to an end, and so she felt vulnerable, somehow, to David Ronan and the memories of pain and love that came with him.
    As she moved carefully into the next aisle, her insides filled with an awful, heavy guilt. She remembered Arch, years earlier, in the hour before they left for the Ronan cocktail party. Arch teased her because she stood in the closet in her bra and panties with a glass of white wine debating what to wear. She put on a sundress, then declared it too matronly and went with silk pants and a skimpy halter. Arch whistled in such a way that let her know the outfit was too sexy. She poured herself another glass of wine and changed her top.
    You’re making a big deal out of this, Beth,
Arch said.
    No, I’m not.
    The guy’s crazy about you. He always has been. He’ll think you look beautiful whatever you wear.
    Shut up,
she said.
Why aren’t you jealous?
    Why should I be jealous? I got you in the end, didn’t I? I’m happy to go. I want to gloat.
    That was Arch through and through. Never jealous, only proud. That was the perfect way in which he loved her. At the party, Beth drank too much, laughed too