Family of Liars

Carrie waits for Penny in her room and soon returns with Erin in tow. Penny and Carrie go outside to talk, and Carrie berates Penny, telling her that she would never do something so hurtful to her. Penny claims that “I wasn’t doing it to you” (173) but admits that she did do it in part because Carrie’s “mooning” (173) over Pfeff was annoying to her.

Penny finally admits that she was trying to make Erin jealous. Penny reveals that she has had feelings for girls for a long time and that she and Erin have been secretly dating. She tells Carrie that she could not say anything because of how their parents would react and that she does not know if she is gay or bisexual.

Penny concludes her confession by saying that Erin wants to break up and leave the island tomorrow so they can return to being friends and that she hoped by kissing Pfeff, she might make Erin jealous. Carrie knows that she should feel bad for her sister and support her, but her anger clouds her empathy, and she yells at Penny, telling her that she should have tried to be “a halfway good person” (176) instead of kissing her sister’s boyfriend. Penny begins to cry and apologizes, but Carrie ignores her apology and tells her that she will not ever forget what Penny has done.

Carrie sleeps late the next morning and runs into Bess in their shared bathroom when she wakes up. Bess tries to convince Carrie not to be angry with Penny, explaining that Penny had three beers in an hour and probably did not even want to kiss Pfeff. This angers Carrie, and she storms out of the bathroom. Bess follows her and tries to apologize but then tells Carrie that she walks around acting as if she is the only one with emotions “when really, you’re just the only one who’s a complainer” (179). She also tells Carrie that she knows she is taking pills and that she is falling apart.

Tipper asks Carrie to take the boat to shore because both Yardley and Erin need to go home. Carrie meets Erin and Yardley at the dock at noon, and Uncle Dean and Tomkin join shortly after that. Dean tries to convince Yardley to stay, but she declines and asks Carrie to start the boat.

The three girls drive in silence for a while, and Carrie wonders why Yardley is leaving. Carrie feels torn between her family’s belief that “silence shows respect for someone else’s interior life” (182) and the knowledge that once Yardley leaves, she will have no allies on the island. She reaches out and puts her arm around Yardley, telling her that she wishes she were not leaving.

Yardley says that when Carrie told Yardley about the photograph in Tipper’s room, it made Yardley reassess things about her father’s shady business dealings that she had been ignoring. She tells Carrie that her father was the financial advisor to a man who invested in small businesses only to undermine them. One of the businesses the man ruined belonged to the mother of Yardley’s childhood best friend. Dean knew about the crimes. These revelations made Yardley realize “he doesn’t care who he hurts if he’s making money” (185). Yardley tells Carrie that while Dean is a good father, she cannot sit by anymore and let him get away with his crimes, so she told Harris what she knew, knowing that Harris would disown Dean for not being a “credit to the family” (186).

Yardley disowns her father, so she does not have to take any more of his dirty money. She tells Carrie that she broke up with George, realizing he was only with her for his money. They pull into shore, and Carrie hugs her cousin goodbye, knowing that it is the last summer they will spend together. 

The next day, Uncle Dean and Tomkin leave the island as well. Carrie reveals that years after the events of this summer, she learned that Harris paid for Yardley’s college because she would not take her father’s money and that he bought out Dean’s half of the island. Carrie explains that her father tears down Pevensie and builds new homes on the island for each sister. The three sisters continue to go to Beechwood each year with their own families.

Once she returns to Beechwood, Carrie stays in her room. Tipper brings her dinner on a tray and tells her that the boys have asked if they can stay for a few more days so that they can make arrangements for the rest of their summer. Tipper tells Carrie she hopes she feels better soon so she can enjoy her last few days with Pfeff, knowing “you’ll miss him very much” (190). Carrie does not correct her and thinks about how she does miss Pfeff, thinking she may be able to forgive him, especially if he begs for forgiveness.

Over the next day, Carrie wishes her sisters would visit her, and she begins to dress to go talk to Pfeff, but each time she reaches her door, she stops herself. She spends her time with Rosemary. On the third day after Yardley’s exit, Carrie leaves her room to attend the clam bake that night on the beach. She decides she wants to talk to Pfeff and show him that this is her home; he does not get to “eat my strawberry shortcake without facing up to what he’s done” (192).

Carrie leaves her room and goes straight to Goose Cottage to get an explanation from Pfeff and make him understand how much his actions hurt her. Carrie sees the boys on the beach beyond Goose Cottage, and Pfeff spots her. Instead of coming to shore, he goes back out with his boogie board to get another wave.

Carrie goes to the water’s edge and asks Pfeff if they can talk. She calls his name again until he finally turns around and comes closer, still not getting out. Carrie tells Pfeff that she wants to talk, but he tells her he does not want to discuss anything. He makes an excuse, telling her that he is “impulsive. I make bad choices” (195) and that she knew this about him from the beginning. When Carrie begins to talk, Pfeff interrupts her and tells her that while he is sorry that she got upset, he is going to college in a few short weeks and that “this is like, a surreal, enchanted summer that I stumbled into, and I never pretended that it was anything else” (195). Carrie tells him that this is, in fact, her life and that Pfeff owes her an explanation. Once again, Pfeff refuses to take ownership of his actions, leaving Carrie on the shore increasingly infuriated. She returns to her room, takes a double dose of sleeping pills, and cries until she falls deep asleep.

Carrie awakes at one in the morning to Bess entering her room. She whispers, “Carrie [...] we need you” (196) and tells her that she would not ask if it was not important. Bess leads her downstairs and outside to the family dock, where Carrie can see the outlines of the sailboat and motorboat. Bess turns back to Carrie and puts a finger to her lips to shush her.

At the dock, Carrie sees Penny standing in the water, rubbing her face. Carrie calls out to her, asking if she is okay, but Bess tells her to leave Penny alone and that they called her down here for something else. Bess leads her to the end of the dock, where Carrie notices the missing wooden board lying on top of the dock. Carrie sees human hairs attached to the exposed nails, and then she notices the body lying at the end of the dock. Bess explains that he is dead; Penny and Bess found no pulse. Carrie leans down and sees that the body is Pfeff and someone has smashed his head with the board.

Carrie next notices that Pfeff’s shirt is off, and his shorts and underwear are below his hips. Carrie says they must get an ambulance and call the police, but Bess says no. Carrie then asks who could have done this and asks how Bess and Penny found him, but Bess then admits that she killed him.

Bess explains that she watched Pfeff leave Goose Cottage with Penny earlier that night to go for a walk. Bess says that she wanted to follow Pfeff and Penny because it was not fair to Carrie. Penny comes to the dock and tells her side of the story, that she and Pfeff came to the dock to make out, but he became increasingly aggressive and pushy, trying to assault Penny and pulling at her pants. She says she tried to resist him, but he continued to plead with her, begging her to have sex with him. While Penny was panicking about what to do, Bess came up behind Pfeff and hit him in the head with the board. Penny and Bess finish their stories and then look at their oldest sister, wondering what they should do. 

Carrie mulls over their options, not wanting to tell either their parents or the other boys what has happened and not wanting to involve the police, knowing how unsympathetic they will be to a girl like Penny, who has almost been raped. She also wants to protect Bess from whatever ramifications await her for her actions.

Carrie decides to take control of the situation herself: “I am choosing my sisters. I am choosing their safety” (205). Carrie turns to Bess and gives her a list of items to collect from Clairmont, including a bottle of whiskey, their bathing suits, sweatshirts, food, and a roll of paper towels and cleaner. She tells Penny to go to Goose Cottage and to enter after everyone else is asleep and the lights are off. She instructs her to make coffee, fill four thermoses with it, get beach towels, and go to Pfeff’s room and mess it up so that it looks like he slept in it. She also tells her to grab one of Pfeff’s shirts for him.

Now alone with Pfeff’s body, Carrie wraps his head in her sweatshirt, not wanting to further dirty their cleanup. She drags his body toward the motorboat and lowers him inside. Then she takes the loose board to the beach and washes it as best she can of Pfeff’s blood. Bess returns with the cleaner, and Carrie cleans the board and the rest of the dock, checking for errant blood and hair. Carrie checks the rest of the contents of Bess’s bag and sees that she forgot the whiskey, so she decides to go to Clairmont herself. She goes downstairs to the liquor storage in the basement, and when she turns on the light, she finds Rosemary sitting in an old rocking chair. 

Rosemary asks why Carrie’s pajamas are wet. Carrie is torn between wanting to comfort her sister and knowing that she must act quickly to cover up Pfeff’s murder successfully. Rosemary asks Carrie again why she is in the basement in the middle of the night, and Carrie lies, telling her sister that she came downstairs for some wine to help her sleep. Rosemary warns her against this, telling her that she will “get alcoholic” (210) from drinking alone.

Carrie takes Rosemary upstairs and puts her in her bed. Rosemary begins to cry about everything she will never get to do again now that she is dead. Carrie tries to soothe her but then tells her she will be right back after taking a bath. Instead, Carrie grabs dry clothing and leaves through the connecting door in Bess’s room. She grabs a whiskey bottle from the basement and returns to the dock while cursing herself for betraying Rosemary.

Bess is alone on the dock when Carrie returns. Bess says that Penny never came back and that she cleaned the boards twice over. Carrie leaves Bess and goes to Goose Cottage, where Penny is sitting outside. Penny explains that Major and George only just went to bed but that a light in the bathroom is still on. Carrie waits with Penny, who reaches out and holds Carrie’s hand. Bess eventually arrives even though she is supposed to be watching Pfeff’s body. Bess offers to go upstairs to mess up Pfeff’s room while Penny gets the beach towel and thermoses. Carrie makes the coffee while Penny asks if she should get a suit for Pfeff as well. Carrie tells her they will weigh down his body, and Penny tells Carrie she trusts her.

Carrie begins the motor and leads them out even further. She takes her sweatshirt off Pfeff’s head, and Penny points out that the rocks do not seem heavy enough to help him sink completely. Carrie ties the boat’s anchor around Pfeff’s waist and tells her sisters that they will never talk about it again and forget it happened, just like they did with Rosemary.

Penny and Bess tell Carrie they think about Rosemary every day. Bess tells her that they do not like to bring her up because it is so upsetting to their parents, and Penny says she does not like it when people know how she feels. Carrie tells them they can all pretend that this night did not happen because they have been so successful at acting this past year. She quotes one of Harris’s mottos, “No way out but through” (219), and together the three sisters drop Pfeff into the water.

Carrie leads them away from where Pfeff’s body lies. After a while, she stops the boat, and they burn the paper towels used to clean the dock. They pass around the bottle of whiskey. Bess asks if either of them remembers the time their mother’s friend took them camping. Carrie does, but the memory is vague. Penny says she has no idea who the man was, but he gave Carrie a bag of jellybeans and told her to share them with her sisters. Suddenly, Bess calls out, “Buddy [...]. That was his name” (221), and Carrie realizes that her birth father, Buddy Kopelnick, took them camping. Penny says that the trip was supposed to be just Carrie and him, but Penny and Bess threw fits, and mother let them go as well. Carrie can recall only bits and pieces from their camping trip and cannot remember Buddy’s face.

The sun rises, and they take some of the coffee from Pfeff’s thermos, pour it into their own, and replace it with whiskey to make it look like he drank at least half of it. They throw the whiskey bottle into the ocean, along with Pfeff’s shirt and anything they were wearing the night before. They arrive at the shore at nearly 7:00 am.

The three sisters run into the house where their parents are eating breakfast and explain their story through tears. When the girls finish their fabricated tale, Tipper insists on calling the police, but Harris says that he does not want to get them involved, preferring instead to treat this as “a family matter” (226). Tipper suggests that the police could search for him and find Pfeff alive, but Carrie states that he is not alive. Eventually, Tipper wears Harris down, and the police arrive and request to interview each sister separately.

In her interview with the police, they ask about the timeline of their story and whether Pfeff was Carrie’s boyfriend. Carrie says that her relationship with Pfeff was more like a summer fling. Carrie repeats multiple times that Pfeff was drunk while on the boat and asks whether the police will send divers to look for Pfeff’s body, knowing that she told their parents that they took the boat in an entirely different direction. The police assure her that they will be in touch and are following standard procedure. The police take photographs of everything on the boat, and Carrie notices that the board, the murder weapon, is missing from where she knows she put it back.

Carrie resists the urge to ask her sisters where the board went, wanting to keep their agreement to never speak of that night’s events again. The police contact the Sinclairs later that day to inform them that the divers have not yet found a body but that they would go out again tomorrow. They also tell them that Pfeff’s parents have been notified of his disappearance.

After a somber dinner, Penny, Bess, and Carrie go to Goose Cottage to help Major and George pack. They suggest watching a movie instead. Partly through the movie, George eulogizes Pfeff and raises a toast to him, and Major follows suit with his own remembrance. They both look at Carrie, expecting her to say something, and she raises her can of Coke to Pfeff, wishing him well “in the big sleep” (232). Carrie feels a bitter taste in her mouth because of all she cannot say about Pfeff.

George leaves the room at one point, and Bess and Penny have fallen asleep. Carrie turns to Major and suggests that he did not like Pfeff very much. Major admits that he did not because of how Pfeff treated Carrie and that “down deep, I don’t think he thought about anybody else. Nobody else is really a person to him” (234). Carrie and her sisters leave before the movie’s conclusion, hugging George and Major and wishing them luck.

On the way back to Clairmont, Carrie tells her sisters about the missing board. Penny and Bess insist they did not move the board, and Carrie warns them again of how bad it will be for them should anyone find it. Carrie returns to her room, afraid to see Rosemary again after the way she abandoned her, but Rosemary does not appear.

Workers come and completely rebuild the dock. This takes four days, and in that time, Rosemary has still not returned to visit Carrie. Mr. and Mrs. Pfefferman also arrive on the island. Tipper offers to host them in Pevensie, and the sisters agree they will speak to them as little as possible.

After dinner, Mrs. Pfefferman pulls out a baby album of Pfeff. Tipper tells Mrs. Pfefferman that they, too, lost a daughter the year before. Harris states that they miss her every day and the pain of losing a child never goes away. Carrie stays and watches the grieving parents go through the photo album, which ends with a photo of Pfeff at his high school graduation. Mrs. Pfefferman thanks Tipper for her hospitality and tells Carrie how lucky she is to have her as a mother. Tipper sends the Pfeffermans to Pevensie and tells them that the police will arrive around noon tomorrow.

Carrie tells Tipper that she will clean up and that she should go on to bed. Tipper hugs her and begins to cry, saying that she misses Rosemary. She tells Carrie that she thinks about her every day and even thought she saw her the first night they were at Clairmont this summer. She says she was scared to see her and knew that “I mustn’t think of Rosemary and how I failed her, or I’d fall apart” (242). Tipper says that she copes with her grief by being busy and that it is the only way she can survive. Tipper apologizes for being so emotional and says that she will be back to normal in the morning. 

As Carrie cleans the kitchen, she calls out to Rosemary to try and encourage her to visit, apologizing for abandoning her. She tells her that the family is all trying to pretend everything is fine, but they are just trying to navigate the challenges of learning how to live again in Rosemary’s absence. Carrie goes to the den to turn off the television before going upstairs and sees Rosemary sitting on the couch. Carrie apologizes to her again, and Rosemary waves it off, pointing to the television and asking to watch Saturday Night Live. Carrie relents, and they watch it together.

Before the police arrive the next morning, Carrie helps clean Goose Cottage. Carrie goes upstairs to Pfeff’s room, resisting the urge to feel sad or sorry for what happened to him. She thinks of the good qualities Pfeff had but quickly reminds herself that he was capable of terrible things and of hurting her sister. She reminds herself that for all of Pfeff’s good qualities and faults, ultimately, he was just a person. Carrie suddenly realizes that Pfeff, like Rosemary, might return to haunt the island, and the thought startles her.

After cleaning Goose Cottage, Carrie begins walking to Pevensie to search for quilts. On the breeze, she hears a familiar song from Mary Poppins, a tune that Pfeff and the boys often sang. 

Carrie follows the song to the beach, where she sees Pfeff standing in the shallow water at the far end of the beach. Pfeff turns around and says that after visiting his mother the night before, he realized that he had a lot to apologize for. Carrie asks what he remembers about dying, and Pfeff admits he was drunk and does not remember much about the event. He says that after dying, he woke up again on the beach, hungry, and found his mother sitting on the porch of Pevensie. He told her about the events of that summer, including hurting Carrie. Pfeff admits that what he did was wrong and holds out his hand to Carrie, asking if they can apologize to each other.

Carrie tells him that she does not owe him an apology. He disagrees, saying that she turned everyone on the island against him. He tries to convince Carrie that he only went after Penny because she “explicitly [went] after him” (251) and put him in this situation. Carrie yells at him to leave. Pfeff walks toward the ocean and begins to swim away. Carrie watches him go until he disappears under the waves.

The Sinclair sisters fall into an uneasy new normal, coping with their lingering guilt the best they can, and alone. Yardley calls Carrie and informs her that George tried to get back together with her after Pfeff died but that they are still separated. Yardley asks Carrie about the night Pfeff died and why she would be out on the boat with Pfeff and Penny after what they did to her. Carrie tries to play off the relationship with Pfeff like it was just a meaningless fling, but Yardley insists that Carrie should not have to pretend “that Lord Pfefferman was a saint or even a decent guy, just because he died” (257) and that she will personally never forgive Pfeff for what he did to Carrie. She closes by telling Carrie that “you would never, ever hurt anybody like that” (257).

Yardley’s closing words ring in Carrie’s ears as she recounts her story for Johnny in the present day. Carrie worries that if she is not entirely honest with Johnny about her story, he will be unable to rest.