A Wedding in December_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [46]
Toward the end of that year, Stephen began finding reasons to drink two or three times a week. “Let’s have a party,” he would say, or “Let’s get wasted.” Drinking was de rigueur on Friday and Saturday nights. He got caught once and was suspended for four days. He went home willingly to dry out. I’m not sure why Nora put up with it, except that Stephen was dangerous and exciting and ridiculously good-looking. And I don’t think she got the brunt of it, as I did. The vomiting, the hangovers, the self-loathing. And, to be honest, by spring semester of our senior year, a lot of us were drinking and partying, secure, we thought, with our college acceptances. Mostly we drank in the empty beach houses, the majority so flimsy we could easily break in. We’d wait until after dark and have a party inside if it was raining, outside on the seawall or the beach if the weather was halfway decent. Those were good times, and I wish I could remember them with fondness, but I can’t. It was during one of those parties that Stephen got drunk, walked into the ocean, and drowned.
No one realized he was missing until it was too late. We all assumed he’d walked back to campus along the beach, singing off-key as he had a habit of doing when he was plowed. When he didn’t show up in our room that night, I alerted a proctor. I’ve never forgiven myself for not going out earlier to find him on the beach.
His body washed up on Pepperell Island a week later. I’ve spent whole weeks, months, years even trying to forget that night. There was a funeral and a listless graduation, after which we all scattered, too ashamed and heartbroken, I think, to stay in touch. It was a tragedy for Stephen and his family. A filthy, shameful sort of tragedy for the rest of us.
Harrison put down his pen and wiped his brow. These were half-truths, a gloss.
I haven’t mentioned Agnes, the most grounded of us all. Nora’s roommate, Agnes was always old-fashioned and frumpy, but everyone’s good buddy. I’m not sure she ever had a date at Kidd. She teaches there now, the only one of us who stayed in Maine. She’s never married. I don’t know why. I’d like to think it’s because she knows us all—we men, that is—to be assholes. She’s here at the inn, but I haven’t run into her yet.
So there you have it, the cast of characters. Alive to me in some deep geographical stratum of my being. I sometimes think I know them better than I know my current friends—George, for example, with whom I’ve worked for twenty years. You must tell me one day if you feel the same about the friends you had when you were a teenager. I remember you talking about Rowena, but I’m not sure you’ve ever said much about anyone else.
I miss you, Evelyn. I wish I could watch you dress for the cocktail party tonight and then walk in with you on my arm. Every man there would envy me. And then you and I could come back to this spiffy room and fall into what looks to be an obscenely comfortable bed and parse the evening, and then make love. We don’t make love enough, but you know that. Every time we do, I ask myself why we don’t do it more. Our lives get in the way, don’t they? And the boys, whom we willingly wish in the way. They are treasures, and so are you.
Your grateful husband,
Harrison
Harrison put the letter in an envelope and wrote his own address on the front. He propped the letter against a lamp.
He rummaged through his luggage on the bed for his toilet kit and headed for the bathroom, stripping as he went. Once inside the shower, he let the hot water hit the back of his neck. With head bent and arms hanging loose, he refused thought, humming instead a few bars from “Lady Marmalade.” Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir? He stood in that position for long minutes until he began to worry about Nora’s water heater, about all the other guests trying to have simultaneous showers for their