Read Online Summer People by Brian Groh - Free Book Online

invitation over. Nathan’s face flushed with prickling shame. In his uncertain role as chauffeur/ caregiver, he had crossed a line by reading her mail. She continued to stare at the card while Nathan returned to the couch and sat down.
    â€œWere those invitations?” he asked.
    â€œMmm.”
    Nathan raised his empty glass to his lips, swallowed dryly, and then let it rest between his legs. He waited until she’d opened the other two envelopes, and then said, “I noticed one of the letters was from Bill McAlister. Do you know him very well?”
    Ellen looked up from the invitation she was holding. After a moment’s hesitation, she shrugged, sighing, and stared into the fire. “Oh, yes, we’ve spent a lot of time together.”
    Something about the sad tilt of Ellen’s head and the way she sighed made Nathan realize where he had heard the man’s name. On the night Carl hurled his wineglass at the ocean, he’d mentioned that a man named McAlister had possibly saved Ellen’s life by discovering her the morning she’d driven her car into the rock. Nathan wanted to ask Ellen about the incident, but she had already demonstrated that she did not want to tell him the story. Looking down into his glass, Nathan asked, “Do you think you’ll want to go to the parties?”
    â€œTwo of the invitations are old,” Ellen said, resting her head on the back of the chair.
    â€œDo you think you’ll want to go to the one that isn’t?”
    â€œOh, I might like to.”
    Nathan waited for what seemed a long time, then cleared his throat. “Do you think you might like me to go with you?”
    He felt as if he was asking for her forgiveness. But Ellen allowed only a trace of a smile and did not turn to face him. She grunted indecipherably. Her blue bathrobe looked gray in the flickering shadows of the fire, and with one hand resting regally on her cane, she reminded Nathan of a dying queen.
    Â 
    H e wanted to know how many of her brain cells had burned out. Or rather: How much did she understand, and how much was pretending? His father had suggested he call Ellen’s grandnephew Ralph. But Nathan half-suspected Ralph suffered from something like Tourette’s syndrome. Last Wednesday, during Nathan’s informal interview at Ellen’s mansion in Cleveland, Ralph had acted as master of ceremonies and had done most of the talking. He wore cut-off khaki shorts and a faded Social Distortion concert T-shirt, sported a frizzy tangle of dark, rust-colored hair, and looked like he hadn’t shaven in days. He said he was a student at Case Western and wanted to be a professional photographer. Did Nathan know Walker Evans? Henri Cartier-Bresson? Ralph admired their work and thought that cropping your photographs was cheating. Roaming downtown streets for scenes to shoot, he often carried one of the guns he kept upstairs. On the old Zenith television in front of them, Venus Williams and Martina Hingis hustled from side to side across a tennis court, and Ralph occasionally halted his monologue to comment on Hingis’s supposed ability to give great blow jobs. Enough that Ellen eventually turned, confused, and asked, “You think she smokes a pipe?”
    Now Nathan wondered if it was too late to ask the questions he should have asked during that meeting. Pouring himself another drink, he watched a TV movie about the blossoming friendship between a deadbeat grandpa and his retarded grandson. But his interest in the movie was overwhelmed by thoughts of Ellen. He walked onto the porch and stared at the boulder a long time before he walked back into the kitchen. Opening his address book, he finished the last half of his drink and dialed.
    â€œChateau Hassett,” a man answered. His voice was barely distinguishable over the roar of music and people talking.
    For an instant, Nathan wondered if he had dialed the wrong number. “Ralph? This is