Summer Sisters

by Judy Blume

  “Aunt Victoria, from New York.”

  “Mom …” Amber shouted into the phone, “it’s Anti-Vix!” She pronounced it as if it were some right wing political group. “Mommy says hang on. She’s coming.”

  “Well, this is a surprise,” Lanie said.

  “I’m in Santa Fe. At the hospital. Dad has a heart problem but he should be okay.”

  “They called you before me?”

  “Let’s not argue about it, okay? Can you come up?”

  “Yeah … I suppose.”

  “Good.”

  “You think he’ll last the night?”

  “I certainly hope so!”

  “Then I’ll come tomorrow.”

  When Lanie got there Ed was sitting up eating applesauce. His color had improved. The doctor had checked him earlier. He could go home in a day or two with a new diet, an exercise plan, and beta-blockers. Frankie fussed with his pillows, offered water. Amber and Ryan were fascinated by the equipment monitoring Ed’s heart until they discovered the buttons to raise and lower the hospital bed. Lanie grabbed each of them by an arm and dragged them into the hall. You could hear her scolding, telling them to behave or she’d let them have it.

  Vix offered to watch the kids while Lanie visited with Ed. She took them down to the coffee shop where they ordered chocolate ice cream with strawberry syrup, whipped cream, and sprinkles. Amber asked Vix for a pony and if not a pony something from F.A.O. Schwarz, which she pronounced Fa-oh.

  “How do you know about F.A.O. Schwarz?” Vix asked.

  “From the movie Big. We have the tape. I’ve seen it a hundred million times.”

  “Oh, right …”

  “Mommy says you’re rich. So how come you won’t buy us ponies?”

  “Actually, I’m not rich.”

  “How come?”

  “I just don’t make that much money.”

  “Mommy says you spend it all on yourself, when you could be helping us.”

  “Mommy’s wrong.” She had to remind herself Amber was just six years old and Ryan, not even five.

  “Grandpa spends it on the Cow,” Ryan said.

  “What cow?” Vix asked.

  “The one sitting in Grandpa’s room,” Amber said, answering for him.

  “Frankie? You mean Frankie?” Vix said.

  “Uh-huh.” Ryan smiled.

  “It’s not nice to call her a cow,” Vix said.

  “But it’s funny,” Ryan told her. Now he was laughing, his face a mess of chocolate and strawberry.

  “Frankie’s a good friend to your grandpa,” Vix said.

  “Frankie’s a good friend to herself,” Amber said.

  Vix couldn’t believe the lines Lanie was feeding her kids.

  “My mom works three jobs,” Amber said proudly. “She takes care of horses, she cleans houses, and she pumps gas. Plus she takes care of us. How many jobs do you have?”

  “Only one at the moment.”

  “My dad doesn’t have a job,” Ryan said. “But he doesn’t yell at us like Mom.”

  “Will you take me to New York?” Amber asked.

  “Maybe someday,” Vix said. “When you’re older.” A lot older …

  Ed came home from the hospital the next day and the day after that he urged Frankie to go back to work.

  “You’re absolutely sure, Chick Pea?” she asked.

  “Go on now,” Ed told her. “I’ve got my own private nurse.”

  Frankie looked at Vix for confirmation. Vix said, “It’s okay … really.”

  When they were finally alone, her father said, “Big surprise, eh? Thought the old heart would just keep ticking, you know?”

  “Well, now it will.”

  “Till the next time.”

  “The next time won’t be for twenty years, at least.”

  “Twenty years. How old will you be then?”

  “Forty-four, almost forty-five.” She couldn’t imagine herself middle-aged.

  “Think you’ll be married by then, have some kids?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Or maybe you’re going to be one of those career women.”

  “Every woman’s a career woman these days, Dad.” She sat beside him, took his hand. “One of my roommates is in law school and the other one is climbing up the ABC ladder so fast she’ll probably be running the network by the time she hits thirty.”

  He smiled at her. “You’re a good girl, Vix. Always were. I told Frankie, ‘Vix is dependable. She’ll come if you need her.’ ”

  Vix swallowed hard.

  “How’s Caitlin? You see her lately?”

  She shook her head. “Not lately.”

  “Too bad. Got to keep in touch with your old friends. Old friends know you best.”

  She nodded.

  “You call Tawny?”

  “Yes.”

  “How’d she take it?”

  “She hopes you get better soon. She sends her love.”

  “Love, huh? That’s a good one.” He laughed. And Vix laughed with him.

  Vix was grocery shopping at Kaune’s, stocking up on heart healthy foods for him, when she wheeled her cart into the fresh produce aisle and found Phoebe, selecting avocados. “I’m thinking of a chicken and guacamole salad,” Phoebe said, as if she and Vix were in the middle of a conversation. “What do you think?”

  “High in cholesterol. Avocados, that is.” Vix tried to remember the last time she’d seen Phoebe, but couldn’t. Phoebe looked fantastic. She could have passed for Caitlin’s big sister. Vix wondered if she had staples in her scalp.

  “I suppose you know Caitlin’s on the Vineyard,” Phoebe said.

  Vix dropped the honeydew melon she was holding. It split open, spilling its runny guts all over the floor.

  Phoebe went right on talking, as if she hadn’t even noticed. “She says she needs to get back to basics. She’s going to raise sheep and spin wool and live a simple life. She thinks she’s Rumpelstiltskin,” Phoebe said. “Or maybe it’s Rapunzel. I always confuse the two.”

  “Rapunzel’s the one with the hair,” Vix heard herself saying, as a guy with a mop appeared and began to clean up the mess.

  Phoebe sniffed a box of strawberries. “Mmm … sweet. Want some?”

  “My father’s allergic to strawberries.”

  “Too bad. How’s he doing?”

  “Pretty well, considering.”

  “Send him my best.”

  “I will.”

  As she began to push her cart away Phoebe turned. “Vix … give Caitlin a call.”

  Phoebe

  SHE HADN’T MEANT to take Vix by surprise. That look on her face. The way she’d dropped the melon. Gads! She was sure Vix would have known. After all, the two of them were inseparable, weren’t they? She couldn’t begin to guess what game Caity was playing this time. Not that Caity tells her anything. Never has. Not really. She’s missed that part of the mother-daughter relationship. She has the feeling Vix has, too. Ah well … maybe they’ll do a better job with their daughters. The idea of Caity having a daughter makes her laugh, until she realizes that would make her a grandmother! Now there’s an experience she can do without for another ten years, at least.

  “I’M TRYING TO give my life meaning,” Caitlin said when Vix called. “Does that make any sense to you?” When Vix didn’t answer right away Caitlin added, “Why am I asking you? Your life has always had meaning.”

  “You sure you’re not confusing meaning with struggle?”

  “How do I know? Do you think by trying not to be ordinary I’ve become neurotic?”

  “Are you seeing a shrink … is that what this is about?”

  “Of course I’m seeing a shrink. Do you know anyone who isn’t … besides you?”

  “I can’t afford therapy.”

  “I’m sure Abby would help.”

  “Is that a jab?”

  “Does it feel like one?”

  “Yes.” After a long pause Vix said, “I’m sorry about your friend.”<
br />
  “Friends.”

  “Both of them?”

  “I’d rather not discuss it. My shrink is helping me understand that my involvement was inappropriate. In my quest for family I mistook them for … Oh, what’s the difference? Remember when John Lennon was killed? Remember how Lamb fell apart?”

  “Not really.”

  “Well, he did. Flying me in from New Mexico so I could keep the midnight vigil with him. Also inappropriate, in case you’re wondering.”

  “Are you sure your shrink is … qualified?”

  “Can anyone ever be sure? It depends on the results, doesn’t it?”

  “I guess …” Another long pause then Vix said, “I thought you were in Mexico, at a monastery. Why didn’t you let me know you were on the Vineyard?”

  “You sound angry. Are you angry?”

  “Why would I be angry?”

  “You tell me. I mean, last I heard you had no interest in living on the Vineyard.”

  “Neither did you … you haven’t set foot on it since you were …”

  “Seventeen,” Caitlin said.

  Vix couldn’t ask any of the questions running through her head. Have you seen him? Is he going with anyone? Does he ask about me? “So … have you seen Von?”

  Caitlin laughed. She knew damn well what Vix was really asking. “Of course. Von and his ridiculous wife. And Bru and Trisha and everyone else. I haven’t turned into a hermit. I’m just taking a break … a reality check kind of thing.” She paused, then said, “I’m sorry about your father.”

  “He should be okay.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “He’s got a … friend,” Vix told her. “Frankie. She calls him Chick Pea.”

  “Oh God …” They both laughed. “I miss you, Vix.”

  “I miss you, too. Come to New York for a weekend.”

  “You come up here.”

  “I don’t think so. Not now.”

  “Maybe over the summer?”

  “Maybe.”

  41

  THE NEXT TIME they talked it was late June. Caitlin called Vix at the office. “You have to come up.” She was using her breathy princess voice, the one she’d picked up in Europe, halfway between Jackie O’s and Princess Di’s. “I’m getting married at Lamb’s house.”

  “Married?”

  “Yes. And you have to be my Maid of Honor. It’s only appropriate, don’t you think?”

  “I guess that depends on who you’re marrying.”

  “Bru,” Caitlin answered, and suddenly she sounded like herself again. “I’m marrying Bru. I thought you knew.”

  Vix forced herself to swallow, to breathe, but she felt clammy and weak anyway. She grabbed the cold can of diet Coke from the corner of her desk and held it against her forehead, then moved it to her neck, as she jotted down the date and time of the wedding. She doodled all around it while Caitlin chatted, until the whole page was filled with arrows, crescent moons, and triangles, as if she were back in sixth grade.

  “Vix?” Caitlin said. “Are you still there? Do we have a bad connection or what?”

  “No, it’s okay.”

  “So you’ll come?”

  “Yes.” The second she hung up she made a mad dash for the women’s room where she puked her guts out in the stall. She had to call Caitlin back, tell her there was no way she could do this. What could Caitlin be thinking? What was she thinking when she agreed?

  When she came out her boss, Angela, was leaning over the sink taking out her contacts. Vix splashed her face with cold water and rinsed out her mouth. “Victoria …” Angela began, squinting at her. “You look terrible. You’re not coming down with that bug, are you?”

  “I don’t know … maybe.”

  “Go home,” Angela said, “before you infect the whole office.”

  She staggered home in the record heat. Her Bag Lady was singing, I am woman, hear me roar … She stuck her paper cup in Vix’s face but Vix brushed it away and the coins scattered on the sidewalk. “Bitch …” she called after Vix.

  “I give you money every day,” Vix shouted, “so watch who you’re calling a bitch!” The Bag Lady gave her the finger as someone else stopped to help retrieve her coins.

  Hours later, Maia and Paisley found Vix sitting on the floor of the apartment. She was surrounded by photo albums and piles of loose pictures, wearing only a tank top and Calvin briefs. The fan was turned to high but it pointed away from her to keep the photos from blowing. Pat Benatar was singing on the CD. Heartbreaker … love taker …

  “What?” Maia asked.

  “She’s marrying Bru,” Vix said.

  “Who’s marrying Bru?”

  “Caitlin.”

  “Jesus!”

  “She wants me to be her Maid of Honor.”

  Paisley and Maia looked at one another. “She can’t be serious,” Maia said.

  “She’s serious,” Vix told them.

  Paisley said, “I think I’ll send out for Thai.” She searched for the phone, finding it in the basket where they ripened their bananas.

  When the food arrived they sat around the coffee table, all three of them stripped down to their underwear with their hair pinned up. “Can I speak frankly?” Maia asked, munching on a spring roll.

  “Please …” Paisley said.

  But Maia was waiting to hear from Vix. “Go ahead,” Vix told her, knowing what was coming.

  “It’s time for you to get over him, Victoria. Once and for all.”

  “I thought I was supposed to get over her.”

  “Him, her … get over the whole mess.”

  Vix dug her chopsticks into the pad Thai.

  Maia took this as permission to continue. “And for God’s sake, call her up and tell her you’re not coming to the wedding. You have other plans. You’re … I don’t know … going to Hawaii with some gorgeous guy. And the next time she decides to get married and wants you for her Maid of Honor she should give you more notice.”

  Vix kept on eating, sampling the curried vegetables, then the pineapple shrimp.

  “You’re not thirteen anymore,” Maia said, growing frustrated. “She has no power over you. And I just don’t see the point in all … this.” She pointed to the albums, the loose photos. “In surrounding yourself with these … memories.”

  Paisley touched Maia’s arm. “Look …” she said, “being a member of the wedding party could be therapeutic for Victoria. It could offer closure … you know?”

  “What closure?” Maia asked. “It’ll just mean more photo ops, more heartache.” She shook her head at Vix.

  Maia

  SHE’S ALWAYS KNOWN Victoria’s fascination with the NBO girl would come to no good. From the day Victoria moved into their room at Weld South and set out those photos she knew. Go ahead and laugh, she tells Paisley when they discuss it. I knew!

  She disagrees with Paisley completely. Victoria should not go to this wedding. And really, what kind of guy marries his longtime girlfriend’s best friend? She’ll do everything in her power to keep Victoria from going to the Vineyard, short of tying her up and sitting on her, which, come to think of it, might not be a bad idea.

  Paisley

  SHE ADMITS, it’s a shocker. But it’s not the first time in the history of the world something like this has happened. It probably happens more often than they know. Only not to their friends. She disagrees with Maia one hundred percent. Victoria needs to be at this wedding. Needs to experience it. That’s the only way she’ll ever be free of them. Not that Victoria is listening to a word either she or Maia have to say on the subject. Her mind is already made up, was probably made up at the moment Caitlin asked her to come.

  FOUR WEEKS LATER Caitlin, her hair flying in the wind, met Vix at the tiny Vineyard airport. Vix spotted Caitlin from her window as soon as they landed but felt glued to her seat.

  “Going on to Nantucket with us?” the flight attendant asked and suddenly Vix realized she was the only passenger still on the plane. Embarrassed, she grab
bed her bag and hustled down the steps onto the tarmac. Caitlin found her in the crowd and waved frantically. Vix headed toward her, shaking her head because Caitlin was wearing a T-shirt that said simplify, simplify, simplify. She was barefoot, as usual, and Vix was betting her feet would be as dirty as they were that first summer.

  Caitlin held her at arm’s length for a minute. “God, Vix …” she said, “you look so … grownup!” They both laughed, then Caitlin hugged her. She smelled of seawater, suntan lotion, and something else. Vix closed her eyes, breathing in the familiar scent, and for a moment it was as if they’d never been apart. They were still Vixen and Cassandra, summer sisters forever. The rest was a mistake, a crazy joke.

  PART FIVE

  Steal the Night

  1990–1995

  42

  THEY SAY WHEN you’re about to die your whole life passes before your eyes like a movie run in slow motion. That night, at Caitlin’s prenuptial dinner at The Black Dog, Vix feels her whole life passing before her and wonders if maybe this is it. If this is how it’s all going to end, standing in Caitlin’s shadow, celebrating her marriage to Bru.

  Maia and Paisley are wrong. Caitlin isn’t someone to get over. She’s someone to come to terms with, the way you have to come to terms with your parents, your siblings. You can’t deny they ever happened. You can’t deny you ever loved them, love them still, even if loving them causes you pain.

  A commemorative T-shirt is handed out to every guest entering the party, featuring a screened picture of the bride and groom looking over their shoulders, each of them smiling broadly, a shared towel covering their naked backsides. The caption reads:

  Caitlin and Bru—July 31, 1990

  Nice of them to choose Vix’s twenty-fifth birthday for their wedding date. “That way you’ll never forget our anniversary,” Caitlin told her. As if …

  Earlier that day, Abby stopped by her room at the B&B where she and Lamb have put up some of their guests. “Can I come in?” she asked, knocking on Vix’s door. Vix threw on her robe. When she opened the door Abby hugged her. “Oh, Vix … I hope this isn’t too hard for you.”