by Unknown
Chapter 11
Two hours later, boxes and bags piled around Aunt Pam’s living room, the windows open to blow away the stuffy mousy smell the house had developed after being locked up for a month, the sun was starting to set. Outside, the water in the channel had turned from brilliant sapphire to dark cobalt blue and was flecked with golden late-day sunlight.
Now, before it was too late. While there was still daylight to fill the Barefooter house.
She didn’t see the point of going there after dark: the flashlights and gas-lamps they relied on in the absence of electricity only illuminated disjointed patches of a room like scattered pieces of a puzzle. It was light for conversation and ease, not discovery or productivity. Her mother and aunts had always loved the lack of electricity on the island, its power to stop even the most efficient Type A in his or her tracks, force languor, encourage intimacy. Lately, as older women with all the usual wrinkles, sags, and bags, they’d grown to appreciate even more deeply the gentle flickering light and its forgiveness.
Hannah had a flash of a memory from that summer, the engagement party the women had thrown together last minute for her and Daniel. She saw them all standing around her mother’s kitchen, champagne glasses in hand, tiny wild strawberries that were so perfect they didn’t look real floating among the golden bubbles. Candlelight and gaslight filled the room, making the scene glow. It had been warm inside and out that night, love like electricity, passing constantly between everyone in the room. Happy relaxed faces that were so open, they were like children’s. Only on Captain’s was it like this. The night wouldn’t have been the same anywhere else.
Hannah had placed all the keys her mother had sent her on one key ring to keep from losing them, but now decided to separate the Barefooter house key. It had to be special, kept apart from the mundane. It was her shining hope, the fact her mother had given it to her. There was a road between them - overgrown with brambles and shadowed by dark woods – but it was there.
She pulled on a knit hoodie against the cooling air, grabbed a notepad and pen in case she was inspired to make notes for her novel-to-be, palmed the key, and closed Pam’s front door behind her without locking it. Despite Mr. McGrath’s fear of dangerous intruders, the island was only rarely targeted by vandals and thieves. Doors were never locked except during the winter and only because the houses would stand empty until late spring.
It had been a warm day, and the crickets had woken and were singing in the tall grasses as Hannah headed down the dock, her feet bare against the wooden boards, the rough and the smooth of old and new boards communicating through the soles of her feet. How much longer could she go barefoot? She wanted to, in honor of the Barefooters, who never wore shoes on Captain’s.
She looked at the houses as she passed them en route, thinking of each family or couple that owned them and trying to remember details about them. She hadn’t been on the island much, except for the weekend she’d been there with Daniel this August. The Schuster’s, did they still live there? Maybe they had sold. She thought she could remember hearing something about that. She squinted at the last house before the Barefooter house that sat engulfed in tall tufted grasses and was painted a soft pale green that made it seem to be part of the island, organic to it.
She was out of touch. Since high school, she had spent a full week on the island every year, usually for the big annual party the Barefooters threw. This year, she’d only visited that one weekend with Daniel. As a child, she had lived on the island from mid-June until Labor Day, just as her mother had. Keeley had wanted that for her daughter, to have the same island experience she’d had as a girl, and had struggled financially to make sure they had it every year.
The gate that marked the end of the public boardwalk wasn’t truly locked, not with the kind of lock where you needed a key. The only lock was a childproof latch, the kind commonly used at community pools with a button on top that you pushed down on to release. On the gate were two notices. The first was a manufactured metal sign, its message sober and clear: Private Property – No Trespassing. The second was loud and red and hand-painted: Beware! Attack Chipmunk!
Hannah laughed. She always did when she read this sign. It was true Barefooter humor, the kind that loved Monty Python’s Knights who say ‘Ni’ and Jack Handey’s Deep Thoughts. Aunt Amy, the cartoonist of the bunch, had painted a little sweet looking chipmunk at the bottom of the sign with big soft brown eyes and furry cheeks with a speech balloon coming out of its mouth that said, “Hi!”
She opened the gate and passed through. The approach to the house was unlike any of the other houses as the patches of sandy beach interspersed with tall tufted grasses, trees, and shrubs that ran alongside the boardwalk gave way to a grassy sandbar. When you reached the house, the grasses and sand, too, gave way, and house stood above the water on pilings partially crusted with barnacles from where they were covered by water at high tide.
Hannah stopped where a short flight of steps rose to the elevated house and looked at it in its present incarnation. White painted shingles and a bright turquoise for the shutters, the house looked both tropical and fantastical with all of the fish and sea-themed sculptures, weathervanes, signs, and wind chimes covering the roof and swinging in the breeze from every eave. Every time the Barefooters took a vacation together, which was at least two or three times a year, they brought back another decorative item for their shared house. Years of this had led to the current cacophony of décor, and rather than looking cluttered, it gave the house the feeling of a wild festival, color and life shooting out from every inch of it.
Or maybe that was just how Hannah saw it.
You had to know the Barefooters – the way they danced and sang and laughed. You had to experience the way that even their humblest slapped-together party became a huge rollicking success, the way that a spontaneous road trip on a Saturday afternoon became a fun-filled adventure, the way that even the most boring event was enlivened when they showed up.
She looked up at the house, remembering all the colors it had sported over the years. The years where every side of the house was a different and complimentary shade of blue, the “Purple Rain” years in the 80’s when all of the four women had been in love with Prince and had painted the house purple in his honor, the one year it had been re-shingled and the unpainted shingles turned a soft gray in the salt air.
God, how she missed them all, especially her mother. Hannah had grown up feeling like an addict: she could never get enough of her mother’s attention and time. Was it that Keeley gave so much of herself and her love to the Barefooters? Partly, but also it was her mother’s nature, her open-armed way with everyone, how she invited strangers into her life constantly, how she enjoyed entertaining the masses. It always felt like Keeley gave away the entire loaf to everyone else and left only a crumb for Hannah.
And there was something else, something Hannah could never quite put her finger on. What was that?
She looked up at the house. It was like coming upon a room strewn with confetti, with empty wineglasses and half-eaten pieces of cake on the tables. How different it was now than when they were here.
Hannah turned around and sat on the stairs. She’d go inside tomorrow. If she went in now the fading light would only accentuate the emptiness. A house full of morning sunlight was jollier, less lonely. She put her notepad on her lap, uncapped her pen, and began to write quickly, needing to get the memory that had just popped into her head onto paper before it fled away.
Dear Diary, or something like that,
I spent the early years of my life believing that life was a musical – or at least, that musicals were highly accurate reflections of life. Everyone broke into song regularly, didn’t they? Everyone knew a little soft-shoe routine, started to boogie whenever they were happy, threw their legs in the air like high-kicking Rockettes when the mood struck them. Didn’t they?
That was the Barefooters without exception. Each had her own personal style, of course, her own talen
ts.
My mother had the clear bell-like voice of a boy in a choir. She loved her vibrato, wiggling her voice around whenever the song allowed. She sang in the shower as many do, but she also sang everywhere else as only the Barefooters did. She preferred Judy Collins songs that showcased her similar voice as well as other female folk artists like Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell. When she danced, her moves were sweeping and wide and flexible, like the ballerina she dreamed of being as a girl. Barefoot on Captain’s, she loved to point her toes and show off her high arches.
Aunt Amy had the best voice of all – a dead ringer for Stevie Nicks, and of course, knew all the words to every Fleetwood Mac song. Unlike Mom, she sang everything, a little Madonna here, a little Motown there, a dab of country. She was the best singer not only because of her husky-beautiful voice, but also because she never hit a wrong note. The others faltered at times while she was always spot on. Aunt Amy, though, was also the worst dancer, shaking around like a nervous leaf on a tree, but hell, did she throw herself into it! She was completely unselfconscious and danced as soon as music started playing in the most public of places, wiggling down grocery store aisles to Muzak and shaking her shoulders to her own personal rhythm at wedding receptions.
The deepest voice belonged to Aunt Pam, and when they sang together, she harmonized perfectly with the others. Unlike the rest, Aunt Pam only sang along with others or along with the radio, but she sang loudly when she did, her strong voice as muscular as her swimmer’s arms. Aunt Pam was a sexy dancer, shaking her moneymaker like a pro, and when she hit the dance floor at any party, she always had a group of men vying to dance with her. Per the gossip which wasn’t meant for my tender virgin ears, Aunt Pam was as good in the sack as she was on that dance floor, too.
Aunt Zo danced like she had had a run on Broadway. She knew every move and every kind of dance step and was superb at them all. She was the only Barefooter to regularly take dance lessons including tap, ballet, modern, jazz and ballroom. Her favorite was the Tango, and whenever Tango music started playing, Aunt Zo would swoop down on one of the other Barefooters and tap them to dance. Whoever she chose jumped right into the act, grabbing any nearby flower to clench between their teeth and allowing themselves to be led across the dance floor in Aunt Zo’s arms. Aunt Zo had a warbling voice like a yodeler and an enormous range, able to sing the highest and lowest notes beautifully.
What do I mean when I say they were always breaking into song? If the Barefooters were driving on the road and saw a police car, they broke into “I Fought the Law”. If someone complained it was hot, they sang “(Love Is Like a) Heat Wave” complete with all the Martha and the Vandellas’ moves. Any associative word could get them started. Whenever they were in a car together, they sang all the way to where they were going, shouting out song names and then singing them. Their all-time favorite songs were “Under the Boardwalk”, “Sweet Caroline” and, of course, “Margaritaville” by their hero, Jimmy Buffett. I know every word to these songs, too. Me, a girl who has no social life to speak of, knows every word to songs that are considered “partier” songs.
Now, dancing, that required a little more than a word from someone, but not much more. All they needed was music. During the summers on Captain’s, they attended practically every concert being held at Jones Beach Theatre. And at every concert, they were standing and dancing in front of their seats, or preferably as close to the stage as security would allow them. Bad weather didn’t stop them either. In the pouring rain they danced in hooded ponchos, sipping out of “nippies”, what they called the tiny bottles of liquor sold in liquor stores that they smuggled into every concert in their bras.
But their favorite off-island activity was karaoke. The introduction of karaoke to local bars in the 90’s led to a serious addiction for the Barefooters. If my mother could find a sitter, I would stay behind, but unlike the concerts which I had heard them talk about but never attended, they couldn’t resist the call of the karaoke and would take me along if no one would babysit, giving me candy and plenty of caffeinated soda to keep me awake. I remember that though I was usually a shy reclusive child, in those bars I would run wild, being petted and admired by patrons while hopped up on a high of sugar and caffeine and attention.
Song and dance was an intrinsic part of my childhood and the very joy of it was catching. You could be in the worst possible mood, all the way in the dumps, and a song would start to play on the radio and my mother and her beautiful exuberant friends would start to dance and sing along, and it was impossible not to smile, not to feel that lift. I dare anyone to try and not be swept up by it.
It was not until I hit the ripe old age of seven that I started to understand that life was not, in fact, a musical. I went to classmates houses on play dates that my mother had set up and to other little girls’ birthday parties. Music would come on the radio and no one would dance. No one burst into song. Sometimes a mother or a teacher would hum, but that was the extent of it. I started looking around when I went shopping with my mother and saw that no one else was dancing in the store.
It was crushing and mysterious. Why didn’t anyone else sing and dance? How could they help themselves when a great song started playing?
I asked Aunt Zo about it on one of the nights she was babysitting me. We were doing our own routine at the time, our goodnight routine that we reserved for when she babysat. I was afraid of my next birthday because I loved it so much. I thought that eight might be too old.
Our routine: while I picked out the book I wanted to have read to me, she would pull the shades and turn down my bed while singing, “It’s Only a Paper Moon”. I would sing along with the chorus and at the end yell out what I said the first time I heard the song at three years old, “I believe in you, Aunt Zo!” And then Aunt Zo would snatch me up and tickle me saying, “Oh, yeah? Do you believe in me now? How about now? Huh? Huh?”
The next part of the routine was that she would read me the story of my choice, or part of a longer book I’d selected and I would cajole her to read me more and she would give in again and again, which I loved. I didn’t want to go to bed. I wanted to stay up and have fun with Aunt Zo. Aunt Amy was always firm and never gave in. Aunt Pam gave in just a little, but then she would say “Enough!” and it was over, lights out.
Not Aunt Zo! I was her fairy goddaughter, her “darling girl”. I could do no wrong and I got whatever I wanted. I loved it.
That night after my epiphany, just before we started reading, I asked her about the dancing and the singing. “Aunt Zo?” I said, as she tucked me in, folding the blanket neatly under my chin.
“Yes?”
“I’ve been noticing something.”
I told her all about it and she just looked at me a while, thinking. Then she told me the truth. That the Barefooters had made many pacts between them. One of the pacts was that they would never be old and stodgy. That if their bodies wouldn’t play along and they grew old anyway, then they just wouldn’t act it.
And they had kept their promise. Even though they all knew Aunt Amy couldn’t dance. Even though Aunt Pam was embarrassed by her voice (although it was lovely and no one could understand why). And that was why no one else was like this. They hadn’t made a promise to their best friends. Those other grown-ups, too, had loved to sing and dance and laugh at silly things when they were little. And now they were walled off from it by adulthood.
Aunt Zo had made quote marks in the air when she said adulthood, as if it was an imaginary thing. Then she looked at me again, the look careful and sad. She said mournfully, “It’s already getting you, isn’t it?”
And we both knew she was right. I made a lame argument. She nodded and looked away, embarrassed that I was lying to her.
It had gotten a hold of me already, “adulthood” and its insidious shoulds and mustn’ts and have-tos. Somehow, in spite of being raised by the Barefooters, in spite of a magical childhood on Captain’s, it had grabbed me around the neck and was strangling real life out of me, drop
by drop, no by no, stop by stop.
Chapter 12
Hannah, her face wet with tears, walked back to Aunt Pam’s house in the dusk. She hadn’t been able to cry openly in years, yet lately it seemed to be all she could do. Writing that little essay had unplugged the well again, and it felt oddly pleasurable.
Back at Aunt Pam’s house, she crouched in the shadowy living room and pawed through the boxes searching for a flashlight. She found one and flicked it on, shooting a circle of light across the room. Good, but she would need to have some real lamplight. You didn’t wander around with flashlights on Captain’s; you lit gas lamps with shapely glass hurricane lamp shades. The only time to let in blasphemous electricity was in a pinch, like now while Hannah searched for the matches using her flashlight. It was also acceptable in the middle of the night, when a small switch-on electric camping lamp was handier and safer when you only needed to use the toilet for a minute.
Lamps lit and the air full of one of Hannah’s favorite Captain’s scents, sulfur from the lighting of matches, she set about making dinner. She laid out apples, French bread from her favorite bakery, and a wedge of ripe swelling Brie and made herself an apple and Brie sandwich. Biting into the crusty bread, she realized how ravenous she was. When was the last time she ate? Oh, that awful fast-food burger that didn’t even taste like beef. What was that filler they used? Soy? She ate lustily, finishing off the entire loaf of bread and all of the cheese along with a tall bottle of seltzer. One apple remained and would be good tomorrow with breakfast.
Now what?
If it had been summer, the meal would have been boiled crabs or pan-fried fish and sliced vine-ripened tomatoes and corn on the cob and a green salad. There would have been a crowd of rosy candlelit faces around the table – everyone gathered together to eat at night – and laughter and talk. Once they finished eating someone would jump up and run to the piano or pick up a guitar and the player or the singers would start picking songs at random. Everyone would sing and most would dance. Some would pair off to play checkers, or someone would grab up a board game, shout its name, and slap it down on the table once the plates were cleared. Often someone would yell out the name of a local bar and they would all pile in a boat and head off to “wreck the place”, returning much later that night.