That Summer by Jennifer Weiner (free e reader txt) 📗

diner, made herself eat some soup and half of a grilled cheese sandwich. There was a fancy-looking inn at the center of town, the kind of place that looked like it had “Ye Olde” somewhere in its name, where Emlen parents probably came for graduation and well-heeled alums stayed for reunions. She decided she’d prefer sleeping in her car to staying there, but, luckily, there was a Hampton Inn at the edge of town. She got a room, took a long, hot shower, and changed into the clothes she’d packed—her favorite sweatpants and one of Michael’s plaid shirts, which was soft against her skin, and smelled like him. Thus fortified, she dialed Katrina Detmer, who lived in a suburb outside of St. Paul, Minnesota.

All through dinner, all through her shower, she’d tried to come up with a story. I’m a researcher. I’m a journalist. Or some version of the truth: I knew those boys the summer they graduated from Emlen. In the end, she went with the truth, which she relayed to Katrina Detmer as soon as she got the other woman on the phone.

“My name is Diana Scalzi. I worked on Cape Cod the summer of 1987. I met a bunch of Emlen graduates who were on vacation there.”

Katrina’s voice was low and husky, polite, but not especially warm. “Yes?”

Diana curled her toes into the hotel-room floor. “One of the boys assaulted me at a party on the beach.”

Diana could hear her blood pounding in her ears, in her temples. There was what felt like a very long pause. Then, angrily, Katrina said, “How did you get my name?”

“From their yearbook.”

“Excuse me?” Katrina’s voice had gotten louder.

“The boy who—the boy who raped me—his name is Henry Shoemaker.”

“Poe,” Katrina said immediately. “I never knew why they called him that. They all had those names. Raven and Bubs and Griff.”

“I read Henry’s yearbook entry, and he mentioned you by name. And so did a few of the other boys in the class,” Diana said.

“What did they write?”

Diana swallowed hard. “It isn’t—it’s not very nice.”

“You don’t say.” The other woman’s voice was hard-edged and scornful. “Look, either you tell me or I figure out how to get my hands on their yearbook.”

Diana swallowed hard. “They all wrote ‘I climbed Mount Katrina.’ ”

Silence. Then Katrina demanded, “How many of them wrote that? And which ones?” Before Diana could answer, Katrina said, “How’d you find me, anyhow? Who are you again?”

Diana told her. “I saw the 1987 yearbook. You went to a dance with a boy named Teddy Bloch. There was a picture of the two of you, and your full name was in the caption. I just guessed that you were the Katrina in the…” Diana swallowed hard. “… other references.”

“Jesus,” said Katrina, in a more muted voice. “Teddy was my boyfriend, for my whole senior year,” she said. “He came to see me almost every weekend. I knew all those boys. Not biblically, of course, which certainly seems to be the implication there, but I knew them.” Through the receiver, Diana heard her swallow. “I thought they were my friends.”

“I understand,” Diana said. “The summer I knew Poe, I thought he liked me. That he wanted me to be his girlfriend.” Even now, her naivete burned at her, like a throatful of acid. “And that’s why I’m calling. I wanted to ask someone who knew him, back then.”

“But that’s the thing. I barely knew Poe. I mean, I knew him as one of Teddy’s friends, but I didn’t really know him.” Katrina’s voice was becoming increasingly higher, more distressed. “I certainly didn’t realize that I was a joke to them.”

“I’m sorry,” said Diana, and listened as the woman breathed. When Katrina spoke again, her voice was clipped, angry and direct.

“So what, then?” Before Diana could answer, Katrina said, “You want to know if Poe’s capable of raping someone. Because that’s what happened, right?”

Diana shut her eyes. “Yes.”

Katrina gave a mirthless laugh. “I guess anyone’s capable of anything, right? That’s our lesson for this evening. And I know it’s not your fault, but to tell you the truth, I wish you hadn’t called me. I could have probably died happy not knowing what they’d said.” There was a beep, letting Diana know that the call had been ended.

Diana sat back on the bed and opened her notebook. The Mount Katrina joke had made her furious, but, still, nothing had upset her as much as the news of Hal Shoemaker’s wedding, to the other Diana. Especially not after it turned out that the other Diana, thirteen years Hal’s junior, was also one of his classmates’ sister. She flipped to the page where she’d written it, word for word:

Your faithful correspondent is delighted to report that late bloomer Hal Shoemaker, aka the Last Man Standing, has finally tied the knot! Hal got hitched at the Four Seasons in Center City, Philadelphia, where he practices law, to Diana “Daisy” Rosen, a college student, and little sister to none other than our classmate Daniel Rosen. Danny played inadvertent matchmaker when he recommended Daisy’s services as a cooking instructor to Hal, who was looking for help for his father, Vernon Shoemaker (Emlen Class of 1963). Other Emlen classmates in attendance at the wedding included Danny’s brother, David (Class of 1985), Gerald Justin, Bryan Tavistock, Crosby Wolf, Richard Rutledge, and Brad Burlingham.

“She’s his sister?” Diana had blurted, drawing stares from a few nearby students. She’d gotten up to take a turn around the library, attempting to make sense of it. Danny had witnessed her rape. He’d known about it and kept quiet. And then he’d served his sister up, on a platter, to the boy who’d done it. It didn’t make sense.

Diana paced and fretted, mumbling to herself (out of earshot of the students), then dove back into her research. By the end of the afternoon, she knew that Daniel Rosen was married to a man. He and his husband lived in a small, artsy-looking town in New Jersey, across