“Yeah. Well, when Dad died, he spiraled out of control and sealed up his heart. Locked it all up.”
Lorna stroked Doreen’s arm lightly. “Kind of like his big sister, right?”
“Maybe something like that.” Doreen leaned over the arm of the chair and brought her lips toward Lorna’s face, but instead looked over Lorna’s head and murmured, “We got company.”
Anya Catalvo, Lorna’s Mexican live-in caretaker, strode up to them. Doreen cleared her throat and pulled back, bringing her reading material back up to her eyes again.
“Oh, hello, Misses.”
Lorna shaded her eyes, “Hi! You going to join us for a little relaxation?”
“Oh, no, not today. I came to tell you there is someone in the lobby who is asking to see you. She did not, well, would not give me her name. She said she was an old, old friend of yours, had not seen you for many years, from up north and wanted to surprise you.”
Lorna’s hackles rose immediately. “Oh? What did she look like?”
Anya shrugged. “Like a woman, really.”
“Okay. Well.”
Doreen asked, “What’s up, hon? Do you think you know who it is?”
Lorna felt her pulse quicken. It couldn’t be. “What did you tell her, Anya?”
“I told her you were getting some relaxation with Miss Doreen. She asked me to tell her how to get to where the beach was, and I thought maybe I should tell you first. She is wearing, like, high heels and a skirt. So I told her to sit in the lobby, and I brought her some lemonade. Then I came down here to tell you of her arrival.”
Doreen asked, “Do you think it’s an old friend from college or something?”
“Yeah, from school.”
Doreen cocked her head. She studied Lorna for a few moments and then seemed to catch on. “Ah, oh shit.”
“Yeah, oh shit.”
Anya said, “You want me to tell her you are busy just now and maybe to come back later?”
Lorna stared out into the vast Atlantic. Crystalline whitecaps flowed carelessly to the beach, the surf lapping quietly over the shells and debris. The sun warmed her shoulders. She was just starting to relax after the crazy week of renter calls.
She sighed. “No, I’ll be right up.”
She felt Doreen’s hand on her arm. The warmth of it made her feel safe. She stood up, slipped on a tank top and beach wrap, then leaned over to kiss Doreen. She whispered, “I’ve got this.”
As she and Anya took off on the path to the motel, she thought, I hope.
Lorna knew it was Jeanie, her first true love from high school seventeen years ago. Jeanie Doyle, the first and only person who had wakened Lorna’s youthful heart with a seismic shift, filling it with magic and then taking it away in the blink of an eye.
In the years since Jeanie, Lorna’s relationships had fallen flat because no one measured up. No one made her feel like she did when she fell in love with Jeanie. No one had the chance.
Lorna felt it in every bone of her body. Her heart skipped, and her head swam as she strode with Anya up to the main building.
Anya had to run to keep pace with her. “Slow down, Miss,” she panted. “This is how we will get heart attacks! It’s like you are on a commission or something.”
Anya’s misnomers never failed to make her smile.
Lorna stopped to look at her. “I’ve got it from here, Anya.”
“All right, Miss. If you need me, I will be right around the corner.”
Anya split off toward the cabin she shared with her husband, Milton—the other half of the caretaking team.
The front door loomed. Lorna hadn’t had time to process this. With sweaty palms, she opened the door and entered the building.
And there she was. A beige suit jacket was laid neatly over the back of the couch where she was sitting. Lorna walked around to the front of her and stared. She whispered, “Jeanie?”
Jeanie nodded. “It’s me. In the flesh!”
Lorna managed to shake her head slowly. “I … don’t even know what to say.”
Jeanie snorted lightly, “Hello would be a good start.”
Lorna responded immediately. “Hello.”
Jeanie appraised her. “You look … incredible, Lorna. Wow.”
Lorna was still staring at Jeanie’s face. God, how she loved that face. The long angular nose, the thin but shapely lips. So many hours spent so many years ago tracing her features with her fingertips, her lips. Now Jeanie looked thin, almost frail.
Lorna finally swallowed. “Thank you.”
Jeanie patted the empty space on the couch next to her. “Come sit.”
Lorna chose instead the chair opposite her. “How did you find me? I mean, what brought you down here?”
“I know you’re shocked to see me after all these years.”
“Yes I am.”
“Lorna, I have so much to talk to you about, so much to say. I don’t know where to begin. I wasn’t sure how to contact you but, as fate would have it, I was having lunch with my daughter Lily, she’s fifteen you see, about a week ago at our favorite offbeat restaurant—remember Tommy’s?”
Lorna nodded.
“It was like that but in downtown Philly, where we live.”
“I see.”
Jeanie talked quickly and gesticulated with her hands. “Anyhow, I guess Lily inherited her bohemian edge from me. God knows she didn’t get it from Kurt.” She chuckled.
Lorna smiled, trying to keep up, but felt an internal heat rise from her belly into her chest and up through her shoulders.
“Well, Lily was reading Lesbian Connection when I arrived.”
Lorna’s eyebrows rose.
Jeanie saw Lorna’s reaction and added quietly, “Lily thinks she might have lesbian tendencies. She’s not sure how she feels about boys and all, but I … um … sorry. I’m getting sidetracked here. Anyhow she showed me your ad.”
“Really.” A statement more than a question.
Jeanie cleared her throat, her neck beet red. When Jeanie got uncomfortable with a conversation, her neck gave her away. She said, “I told her about us … you and I … a while ago when she confided to me that she had feelings for her best friend, Andrea. She took an interest in my … our … experience together in high school and asked me what your name was. She recognized the name in the Connection and asked me if you were the one and the same. I read the ad you placed, looked at your picture, and told her it was indeed you. She thinks you are very pretty.”
“Well, that’s nice. Thank you.”
“But that isn’t my agenda for coming to see you.”
Lorna nodded without saying anything. Her intestines signaled a possible run to the bathroom. She tried to calm herself down.
Jeanie looked Lorna square in the eye. “I’m just … of course now that I’m here, right in front of you, my strength seems to be petering out.” After a few beats she asked, “Are you still angry with me?” Her voice was quiet, timid.
“I was.”
Jeanie leaned in and blurted, “It’s wasn’t very easy for me either, you know.”
Lorna studied her. “Why now?”
Jeanie looked directly into Lorna’s eyes—an action that had typically disarmed Lorna in the past, but this time Lorna waited for an explanation without getting lost in Jeanie’s pale blue eyes.
“Because for seventeen years I’ve done battle with my emotions. After I got back from the coast, from school, I met Kurt. We got married six months later because I was pregnant with Lily.” Jeanie sighed deeply, looking away from Lorna. She fidgeted with the hem of her skirt, then said, “Maybe this was a mistake, coming here.”
“What were you hoping for?”
“Resolution?”
“Absolution?” Lorna quickly countered.
“Probably both. I don’t want you to hate me for the rest of our lives.”
“I don’t hate you, Jeanie.” Lorna looked down at her bare tanned feet, hoping the answer would be there, somewhere in-between her r
ed painted toes. It wasn’t. But the pause gave her a chance to put the next few sentences together.
She looked up. “I was terribly hurt. After I found out about you and Aaron—from your mother no less—and that the two of you …” She swallowed hard. “God, you took all the beauty we created out of my heart without so much as a warning. You drained the colors and senses right out of my soul. I gave everything to you. You had it all.” Lorna’s eyes misted. She turned her head away from Jeanie and tried to stare at something else in the room. She would not give Jeanie the benefit of her tears.
Jeanie cleared her throat, trying to maintain a sense of calm. She also fought down the emotional wedge that simmered and threatened to erupt in her throat. She promised herself she would not cry or buckle. During the drive to Heatherton County that morning, she had played through several scenarios of how this visit might turn out. But it wasn’t going according to plan. She’d hoped Lorna might be more receptive.
“Okay.”
Lorna continued. “Why did you leave me? Us? Why didn’t you talk about it with me when it happened? You just …” She caught a sob in her throat and reached for the Kleenex on one of the end tables. “… hung me out to dry. Most times I couldn’t even breathe, and I had to fake it at home. I had to live my life as if nothing had happened.” She blew her nose and tried to keep the years of pent-up emotion in check. She struggled.
Jeanie swallowed and reached for a tissue herself. “I know. I’m sorry. It was hard on me, too. I was scared. Scared of the lesbian lifestyle. And the labels. The looks. The scorn from everyone at school. Aaron provided a safety net for me.”
Lorna said, “So you took what was so sacred between us and labeled it? We were in love with each other, and nothing else mattered!”
Jeanie sat up a little straighter now, her voice carrying more conviction. “Oh, come on, Lorna. What in the hell did we know back then? Hmm? Life mattered! I mean, look how hard it was for us to integrate the us into our lives? We…we had to be sly and secretive with our family. Our friends understood the free love thing only so far. My parents were cool but to a point. I think they saw this young love as a phase. And I was going to go to school in California, and you were heading to Case.”
Lorna said, “I compared everyone to you afterward. No one had a chance.”
Jeanie sighed, resigned.
They sat in uncomfortable silence looking at one another.
Lorna realized something quite clearly, and it made her sad. The spark was gone. All that was left was rawness. Lorna did not know if she was glad Jeanie had come to her or not. She always dreamed of running into her somewhere on the street or in a restaurant or… She never even knew Jeanie had moved away from Cleveland. She’d had her shields in place. But now the years had clearly defined them apart.
Jeanie said, “I will always love you, Lorna. You were my first, and there is nothing that compares with that.”
Lorna nodded. Her heart now was surprisingly calm. A little heavy but calm. “I will always love you as well,” she said quietly.
After another long moment of silence, Jeanie tried to be upbeat. “So, what brought you to Florida and this?” She looked around the lobby. “Last I heard, from the high school alumni newsletter that is, you were lawyering in Cleveland.”
“It’s a long story.”
“So, give me the short version?”
What Lorna wanted to do was to tell Jeanie to hit the road. But she tried to keep it conversational. “Well, after Dad died late last year—”
Jeanie sat up. “Your father died? My God, Lorna, what? How?”
“Right in the middle of a board meeting. Heart attack. He went quickly.”
Jeanie’s eyes softened, “Oh honey, I am so sorry. He seemed like such a healthy man.”
Lorna wanted to get back on track. “After he died, I felt like I needed a change in my life. I was bored and fed up with work, my love life was going nowhere, and the winters in Cleveland were killing me.”
What Lorna did not expound upon was the bittersweet relief she felt when her father died. It released her from a life of rote expectations from a man who did not accept failure of any kind. It gave her the “out” she had dreamt about since becoming junior partner at the same law firm her father used.
Lorna explained, “I was on the Board for The Arts Council of Greater Cleveland, and after hearing story after story about how these very talented people couldn’t get ahead because of monetary setbacks, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I hired a real estate broker who found me this property, and I decided to start the collective—the one you read about in the paper—here at the motel.”
Jeanie shook her head slowly. “Wow. You never cease to amaze me. You just reinvented yourself like …” She snapped her fingers. “… like that?”
“It was time. I wasn’t getting any younger.”
“Thirty-five is hardly over the hill, Lorn.”
Lorna shrugged. “Well, it was time.”
Jeanie asked, “Did you ever think you’d be doing this?”
Lorna chuckled, “You sound like my best friend, Avril. She thought I was nuts for wanting to do this. Thought I was having a midlife crisis. The opportunity presented itself, and I grabbed it. The cost of the property was dirt cheap. The time was right.”
Jeanie remarked, “And that garden out there, the one from the picture in the paper. Just gorgeous! Was it here when you bought the place?”
“Ah, no. It was an old tennis court, not very appealing to the eye. We decided to dig it up and turn it into the garden you see now.”
The front door opened, and Doreen stuck her head in. “Hi there.”
Saved by the gorgeous brunette. “Come on in, babe.”
Doreen entered a bit gingerly. “Well, I don’t want to interrupt anything here.”
Jeanie turned to look at her, then at Lorna.
Doreen approached Lorna and put her hand on her shoulder. The connection was immediate, and the gesture grounded Lorna. “Jeanie, this is Doreen. Doreen, Jeanie.”
Doreen reached across the table for Jeanie’s hand. “Nice to meet ya. I’ve, ah, heard a lot about you.”
Jeanie nodded. “Same here. Well, not that I’ve heard a lot about you, but nice to meet you.”
Well, there they were.
Now what? thought Lorna. She stood up.
Jeanie picked up on the signal and stood up too. She gathered her suit jacket and purse and said, “Well, I think I’m going to check out the town of St. Augustine. I’ve heard it’s a quaint lovely place. Maybe get a bite to eat.”
Lorna said, “It is. Just head out over the bridge and take a right onto the main road. You’ll see signs.”
Doreen and Lorna walked Jeanie outside and to the door of her rental car.
Jeanie stopped before opening the door to the car. She said, “The garden is more exquisite in person, Lorna. It’s truly peaceful and inviting.” She looked around and sighed. “It’s pretty heavenly here. So rustic. Homey. Congratulations on your endeavor. I can’t help but feel a bit jealous of your surroundings.” She opened the door to her car and deposited her suit jacket and purse on the passenger side seat. As she got into the car, she said, “Thank you for seeing me.”
They watched her drive out of the turnaround and take a right onto Bridge Street.
Doreen asked, “You okay, honey?”
Lorna took in a deep breath and felt her eyes well up. She could barely talk. “Hollow. I feel hollow right now. Maybe seeing her was supposed to put closure on the whole thing. Maybe it’s more about that than anything else.”
Lorna burrowed her face into Doreen’s shoulder. The tears ran freely. It felt good to release the darkness. “It’s right here, right now, that I feel the safest.”
Doreen held her quietly.
Monday, September 19, 1980
Red Hook Minimum Security Prison
Red Hook County
Miami
Georgie went back to his cell and pulled one o
f his sketchbooks from a small shelf, opening it to a blank page.
He picked up a charcoal pencil from the metal desk and drew some lines on the scratchy white paper. He looked up through his window and sighed. Some of the guys were playing basketball in the yard. Others were sitting reading, staring out into nowhere or chatting with one another. It all looked so normal, almost like a college campus, except for the guards standing at every entrance/exit to the building, and the bars on the windows.
Georgie was a good inmate. He did what he was told, worked hard in the kitchen, and kept to himself.
He filled almost thirty sketchbooks during his incarceration. He fought the impulse to use his charcoal and watercolor chalks on the walls because he knew the penalty would be scrubbing every visible surface in the joint twice over or, worse, they would take his supplies away.
His sketchbooks were his sanity. The prison screws were lenient, and a few of them even took interest in his work. But for the most part he kept to himself and lived within the confines of his real and art-inspired world.
Three more months and the world would be his once again.
He pictured the cabin at the Pagoda Motel. The very place where his grandfather, Gino DiLarusso, had governed and made big decisions about “the family.” Where he had supposedly hid three million dollars in cash. Which supposedly no one had retrieved, according to his uncle, who knew quite a bit about the family history.
It was during a visit from Irene that Georgie had hatched the plan. It was a Saturday afternoon in late July. Irene had shared a conversation she’d had with one of her regulars at The Upside Diner. His name was Vinnie Regazzini.
“That’s my fuckin’ uncle,” Georgie informed her.
Her eyes lit up. “Your fuckin’ uncle?”
“Yeah! Gino DiLarusso was my grandfather.”
“Holy shit. Do you know about the money buried at some motel up north?”
“What motel? What money?”
“Vinnie tells me stuff all the time. Big stories—I don’t know if they’re true or not. But seems like there were some big shots in your family, Georgie.”
“There were. My father got shot after someone poisoned Gino because he hit a bunch of guys on our side of the family ’cause they were skimmin’ off the top. I guess the story goes that the son gets hit too. So my dad got it one night while we were having pizza. My sister watched it too. It was pretty bad.”
Ladies of Pagodaville Page 2