Page 63 of Summers at the Saint
Sullivan’s face stretched into a wide grin. “Ah. Yes. There was this group of fabulous older girls—and by older, I mean they were maybe fifteen or sixteen. And when Hudson wasn’t around, these girls would let me sit with them at the pool. I was like their mascot. They let me pretend I was one of the cool kids instead of the pathetic little sissy boy I was in real life.”
“But you and Hudson were buddies, right?”
“Some of the time.”
“Tell me about that day. All of it, please,” Whelan said.
“Let me think,” Sullivan said. “Do you want something cold to drink?”
“No thanks. I’m good.”
“Just as well. I promised myself I was going on the wagon today. Okay… I think I met up with Hudson that morning at the game room. They had a jukebox in there, and a Pac-Man and a Ping-Pong table. We played Ping-Pong, but Hudson got pissed when I beat him. I remember, after I won, Hudson deliberately stomped on the Ping-Pong ball, and the game room attendant kicked us out.”
“What happened then?”
“I guess we left?” Sullivan absent-mindedly stroked the dog’s ears. “No. Wait. We were both on our bikes. We spent that whole week on our bikes, and I thought I was hot shit, because I could pop a wheelie on mine. We got on our bikes, and I think Hudson called me something, maybe a shithead? I popped a wheelie, and started to ride away.”
“What did Hudson do then?”
“You know? I was gonna say he rode away too, but now that I think about it, I remember I circled back, because I’d thought of some other incredibly rude name to call him. But just then, this flashy red car pulled up alongside Hudson’s bike, and the window came down and the driver was talking to him.”
“What kind of car?”
“I was nine. I didn’t know a Ford from a French fry. I remember I thought it was a cool car. And I was kinda jealous, because yourbrother knew someone with a cool car. Then, the driver handed Hudson a paper bag and he drove off, and I pedaled away too, to go to the pool because I was all hot and sweaty.”
Whelan leaned forward, his elbows planted on his knees. “You said the driver was a guy?”
“Did I? Hmm. I guess, now that you mention it, we saw that car around the Saint a lot that week.”
Sullivan snapped his fingers again. “Yeah. In fact, those cool girls I told you about? Lisa and Jessie, and oh, what was the name of the redhead with the big boobs? I don’t know. But they were always watching for that red car.”
“Whose car was it?”
Michael wrinkled his nose. “Maybe, like, a lifeguard? But maybe not. Maybe it was just one of those rich guys who were always around at the Saint.”
Whelan tried to hide his frustration. “Okay. Maybe that’s not important. Let’s talk about what happened later, at the pool.”
“Ugh. Let’s not,” Michael said promptly. “You asked me what was so traumatic about that summer? That. What happened at the pool. I still have nightmares about it.”
“I’m sorry to bring it up, but this is really important to me,” Whelan said.
Sullivan looked at him with something like pity. “Why? Why is it so important, all these years later? It’s been, like, twenty years. Why go dredging up all that mess?”
“The day Hudson died, that’s the day my mom’s life started to unravel. She blamed herself, because she told her son to get out of her hair and go play. And her asshole husband, who, by the way, was on a golf course at the time, blamed her too. They split up a few months later, and even though Brad had tons of family money, he made sure Kasey got almost none of it. I’ll spare you the details, but she was never the same after that.”
“Is she still… with us?”
“No. She died last year. We hadn’t really been very close in a long time, but after her death, I went to Spartanburg, that’s whereshe’d been living, to sell her condo. While I was cleaning it out, I found some papers, in a box in her dresser, that made me think there was more to Hudson’s death than any of us knew about. I decided I owed it to Kasey to find out the truth.”
“Okay, I get it. So, that day, a new kid showed up at the pool. And don’t ask me his name because I have no idea. We were jumping off the diving board. Having a cannonball contest. We’d been there around half an hour, and then Hudson shows up.”
“He didn’t go off the board with y’all?”
“No. He sat on the side of the pool at the deep end, yelling stuff, splashing water at us. Heckling us, I guess you’d say. We just ignored him. Which I think pissed him off even more. At some point, Hudson stood up and he started yelling and waving his arms and screaming that we’d pooped in the pool.”
“Right,” Whelan said. “And the lifeguards. Do you remember what they did then?”
“Shannon and Traci,” Michael said promptly. “Such cute girls. Traci was on the lifeguard stand at the deep end where we were, and Shannon was down at the shallow end. Traci yelled something like, ‘Code brown, everyone out of the pool,’ and then she and Shannon were blowing their whistles to make everyone get out of the pool.”
