East Avalonians began driving to the wholesale store on the mainland and carted cases of bottled water across the causeway. Those born factory class mocked their wealthy neighbors: Here they come with their holy water! But even they wrung their hands when the graffiti appeared that spring, just as the crocus broke earth. GRUDDER IS CANCER. GRUDDER KILLS.
But for now, it is June and the roses are in bloom. The tough and thorny Rugosa’s apple-shaped hips thrive on the island’s dunes, the bright-pink Swamp Rose in the marsh. Inland, in the leafy woods, there’s the Carolina Rose, Sweetbriar, Scotch Briar, and Dog Rose. High in the east hills, the air is heady from the ladies’ gardens—rows of hybrids whose names conjure Victorian women in high-collared and bustled dresses, strolling arm in arm under a parasol. La Reine, Leda, Bourbon, Starlight, Ballerina, and the aromatic American Beauty. Each bloom impeccable—a perfection that confirms the east islanders’ belief that all can be cultivated. Controlled. Their children and spouses and lovers and servants; their workers and factory; their island and country. Despite that liberal governor from Arkansas slithering his way toward the White House. Like the yellow-bellied draft dodger he is, the Grudder executives, some navy men, grumble on the golf green. Despite the death of the Cold War, the factory’s bread and butter; and the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union; and the defense budget cuts sparking rumors of layoffs at Old Ironsides.
By summer’s end, all of Avalon will have seen too much to play make believe at love and war again. So let them believe for now. Let them play. Those girls with dimpled smiles and scraped knees; those young men, lean and long but still capable of blushing; those unformed, and perhaps better, versions of the men and women they will become.
For now, they are young and beautiful, pure muscle and unblemished skin. They are in love—a faith that makes them tease death. They swing out over the sea cliffs clutching a tire tied to a tree; drop two tabs of acid and swim to the end of the ferry landing and back; drag race down the wrong side of the causeway at two in the morning; fly headfirst toward danger, deaf to their mothers’ warnings—Be careful—all to win a bet. To prove they are what they feel. Immortal.
PART ONE
The Hatching
June 5, 1992
Egg clusters contain from 100 to 1000 eggs.
Newly hatched larvae are black with long, hairlike setae. Older larvae have five pairs of raised blue spots and six pairs of brick-red spots along their backs.
—The Gypsy Moth: Research Toward Integrated Pest Management, United States Department of Agriculture, 1981
The young caterpillars spin silken threads and hang down from the tree branches. Wind often breaks the threads and carries the caterpillars to nearby trees and shrubs. This is called “ballooning.”
—Carolyn Klass, “Gypsy Moth,” Insect Diagnostic Laboratory, Dept. of Entomology, Cornell University, 1981
1.
Maddie
For Maddie Pencott LaRosa, newly sweet sixteen, the East Avalon fair, first of the season, was a coming-out party.
She strode down the fairway in Bitsy Smith’s pack, doubling her steps to keep up with the other girls. Bitsy, Vanessa, Gabrielle, and the newest recruits: Maddie and her best friend, Penny. Five pairs of angular hips bumping and bronzed shoulders rubbing, their long sun-lightened hair flowing behind in one stream of fiery light.
Maddie knew it was a coming-out for everyone on the eastern tip of Avalon Island, a chance to celebrate the end of a long, hard winter. The young mothers had painted their fingernails and tried out a new lip color; convinced their husbands to wear madras shorts, a Christmas gift ordered from a catalogue. Children raced down the fairway, candy apple in one hand, and in the other, a goldfish sloshing in a water-filled baggie. But Maddie felt all eyes pinned on her and the girls trailing Bitsy—the strands of her ringleader’s hair like golden threads of honey tying worker bees to their queen.
Everyone at East High knew Bitsy was the queen. Of the sassy head tilt, condescending eye roll, the who-the-fuck-do-you-think-you-are stance, one hip jutting as Bitsy’s sea-gray eyes slow-mo scanned Maddie up and down so it was crystal clear she judged every flawed bit. The new breasts Maddie had tried to hide under a sweatshirt all spring. The acne peppering her forehead, poorly concealed by uneven bangs she’d trimmed herself. Too impatient and broke—too stupid, she thought—to make an appointment at the salon in town.
Like the other girls, she’d worn white (a denim skirt and eyelet top), just as Bitsy had instructed over the phone the night before. Maddie caught her reflection in the window of the food truck selling fried chicken wings. She liked the way her tanned skin vibrated in contrast, and as the flashing bulbs of the Tilt-A-Whirl painted her uniform red-orange-blue-red-orange-blue it was like looking through a gem-filled kaleidoscope. Proof the night was as magical as she’d hoped it would be—dreams that had carried her through the winter of ’91 with its blizzards and the nor’easter turned perfect storm that had flooded the causeway, the island’s only exit. As she’d trudged through the snow toward the school bus stop, Tic Tac boxes filled with hot water tucked in the pockets of her peacoat, she’d imagined the fairway stretched like a green carpet across the town square. The carnival lights burning against an inky sky. She had tasted cotton candy melting on her tongue and heard the old-timey carousel tunes. The fair had been a present waiting to be unwrapped, held under her bulky sweaters all winter long, keeping her warm.
Now the air was sweet with the pastel cotton-candy clouds of her dreams. Caramel apples sweated in the new heat. Scents mingled—Love’s Baby Soft and Petite Naté for the girls and, for the ladies, perfumes with names that made virginal Maddie blush. Eternity. Obsession. Trésor.
The girls passed the dunking booth, where a toothy, smiling Tina Meyer sat. Tina was captain of the cheerleading team and president of SADD (Students Against Drunk Driving), and, Maddie had heard from bigmouth Vanessa, infamous for giving Troy Mayhew a blowjob in the back of the football bus on the drive home from an away game. A crowd of teenage boys (a few Maddie recognized) in blue-and-white varsity jackets—felted wildcats lunging across the white leather, teeth bared, claws sprung—circled the tank, their energy fanning out like the ripples in the pond behind St. John’s Church.
“Soak the slut!” a boy yelled.
The buzzer brayed and Tina Meyer dropped into the water. A few cold drops hit Maddie’s cheek and she wiped them away, careful not to smear her makeup. She watched as the dripping girl pulled herself from the black water streaked with colored light and back onto her perch—every curve outlined under her soaked Wildcats T-shirt. She was shivering, her lips gone purplish. Maddie barely knew Tina but wished someone would rescue her.
“For fucksake,” Bitsy said so everyone could hear, including Tina, “cover the girl so we don’t have to look at her mutant nipples!”