Summer Sisters

by Judy Blume

  He begins to kiss her. Soft little kisses at the sides of her lips, then hungry deep kisses. He takes her hand and leads her quickly, quickly down the road to his truck and without a word they head up island to his cabin.

  She awakens to the sound of the foghorn just before dawn, her heart pounding, her head throbbing. She grabs what she can find of her clothes from the pile on the floor, tiptoes barefoot to the door, and quietly, so as not to wake him, lets herself out. She steps into her shoes, drops her dress over her head, then she’s running … running through clumps of beach plum and bayberry that scratch her legs … running … running, until she comes to the main road, where she hitches a ride with the first car to come along, two women on their way to the early morning ferry.

  Maybe she should keep going, just get on the ferry, get off this island. But they’d worry about her. Abby would say, Look, her bed wasn’t slept in. Something terrible has happened … I know it. They’d call the police who would find her underwear in Bru’s truck or his bed or wherever she left it and accuse him of something even worse than the truth. The wedding would be postponed.

  “Is this close enough?” the driver asks at the sign pointing to the B&B.

  “Yes, thanks.” As Vix is walking the mile back she runs into Philippe—shit—who’s out for an early morning jog. Does he notice she’s still in last night’s clothes?

  “Ah, Veek-toria … enjoying an early morning walk?”

  “Yes,” she tells him, picking up her pace. “I always walk before breakfast.”

  He eyes her up and down and she knows that he knows she didn’t sleep in her room. But he doesn’t have a clue about where she spent the night or with whom.

  44

  BY TEN THE SUN has burned through and as Vix dozes in the worn wicker rocker on the porch of Lamb’s house she breathes deeply, catching the scent of the stargazer lilies from Abby’s garden. She pictures herself walking down the aisle an hour from now, wearing the straw hat that’s resting on her lap, the gauzy ivory dress skimming her ankles. She’ll be carrying sunflowers. She’s been instructed to smile. After all, she’s Caitlin’s Maid of Honor. Or is it Made of Honor? She winces at her own bad joke. She can’t help wishing the same fairy godmother who let her be Caitlin’s friend in the first place would swoop down and rescue her now, carrying her away from this island, this island of memories—all the best and worst of her life.

  She hears Caitlin calling to her from far away. “Vix … get your ass up here! A Maid of Honor’s got responsibilities, you know.” Caitlin laughs and an echo of laughter follows.

  Phoebe shakes her gently. “Vix …” When she opens her eyes Phoebe asks, “Hard night?”

  Vix fans her face with the straw hat. Philippe has probably told Phoebe that he saw her early this morning, that she’d pulled an all-nighter. She prays none of them will ever know the truth.

  Abby has finally redone Caitlin’s room. The walls have been whitewashed, the old twin beds have been replaced with an antique iron bedstead piled high with lace-trimmed pillows. Books line the shelves where broken toys once sat. Their beach stone collection, sorted by color—lavender, tortoise, gray—is stored in glass canisters. A blowup of a black-and-white photo hangs on the wall, taken that first summer when she and Caitlin were twelve, arms around one another, looking into each other’s eyes, as if they’re sharing a delicious secret.

  Caitlin waltzes across the room holding out the ivory satin skirt of her wedding dress. She’s exquisite, as radiant as if she just stepped off the cover of Bride’s magazine. “It’s my grandmother’s gown,” she tells Vix. “I took you to see her grave once … remember?”

  “I remember.”

  “Dorset sent it to me. It fit perfectly. Didn’t even need alteration. I wonder if Grandmother Somers will notice? Probably not. She doesn’t see that well. She’s ninety-something.” She stops in front of the mirror. Her face is flushed. “I can’t imagine living that long, can you?”

  Vix can’t imagine anything beyond today and she’s having trouble with that. She lifts the veil from its nest of tissue paper but before she can set it on Caitlin’s head, Caitlin catches her by the arm. “Wait …” She turns away from the mirror to face Vix. “About last night …” she begins.

  Oh God … she knows … he’s told her! Maybe she should confess now, get it out of the way, beg her forgiveness …

  “What I said in the Jeep?” Caitlin continues, as if she’s asking a question. “When I told you I wasn’t sure about marrying Bru?”

  Vix feels dizzy.

  “I never finished what I was trying to say, what I needed to say …”

  “You don’t have to explain,” Vix tells her, hoping she won’t. “Everyone gets last-minute jitters.”

  “No, it’s not about last-minute jitters,” Caitlin says. “It’s about Bru and me …”

  Vix holds her breath. She’s never regretted anything the way she regrets last night. If only she could take it back.

  “I always wanted what you had,” Caitlin says.

  “You’re the one who had everything.”

  “That’s not the way I saw it. You were the daughter Abby always wanted. You were worthy of the Somers Foundation scholarships. You even had breasts. So I had to prove I was sexier. I had to prove I could have any guy I wanted … even Bru.”

  “Well, now you’ve got him.”

  “I don’t mean now, although there’s something quaint about marrying your first lover.”

  Vix is thoroughly confused. “Aren’t you forgetting the ski instructor … in Italy … junior year?”

  Caitlin shakes her head. “I invented him for you.”

  “You invented the ski instructor?”

  “So you’d think I was first.”

  Vix is having trouble digesting this. “You mean you lied?”

  “Couldn’t we just say I was imaginative?”

  “Imaginative?”

  “Okay … so I lied.”

  “What about Von? Did you make him up, too?” And what about the other hundred or so she’s heard about over the years?

  “Oh, Von … we never actually, you know, consummated our affair. He wouldn’t wear a condom. You can see where that got him. Anyway, he liked all the other stuff better.”

  They stand there looking at one another until Caitlin says, “You mean you never knew … you never guessed?”

  Vix feels as if she can’t breathe. She grasps the bed rail.

  Caitlin’s voice goes whispery. “After Nathan … after the funeral, when I came back to the Vineyard …”

  Vix turns away. No! She refuses to believe this. She looks out the window as the flower girls line up by size, each one carrying a bunch of daisies.

  “You asked me to explain to him,” Caitlin says. “You asked me to tell him why you couldn’t come back.” She comes up behind Vix and lays a hand on her arm. “It just happened. It didn’t mean anything. Really.”

  Vix doesn’t move. Caitlin grabs hold of her, forces her to listen. “I admit I was jealous because he loved you so much … but even more, because you loved him. I wanted to prove to you that he was just like all the others, following his pointer through life.”

  “Bru was never like that.” She can’t believe she’s standing here defending him after last night. She’s going to tell Caitlin the truth. Right now. She’s going to even the score.

  But Caitlin hasn’t finished. “Why do you think I stayed away?” she asks. “Haven’t you ever wondered about that?”

  You think you know someone really well and then you find out …

  “It never happened again,” Caitlin adds. “We never even saw each other again until a couple of months ago when I came back.”

  Vix catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror and is shocked that her face shows nothing, nothing.

  The photographer knocks. “One for the road,” she says, pushing open the bedroom door with her foot. She asks Vix to lean over Caitlin’s shoulder while they both look into the mirror. “That’
s it …” she says, guiding them, “a little closer, so that your faces are almost touching. Yes!”

  Vix places the headband with the attached veil on Caitlin’s head, centers it just so, fluffs it out so that bits of lace and seed pearls frame Caitlin’s lovely face. The photographer snaps that one, too.

  Before they leave the house Caitlin leads Vix over to a table in the living room where Abby has displayed the wedding gifts. “Look at this,” she says, holding up a porcelain figurine of a girl in a tutu, standing atop a horse. The card reads:

  Darling girl, if all else fails, join the circus!

  Vix begins to laugh. Caitlin joins her. They hold on to one another, convulsed, until Phoebe separates them. “Time to get going,” she tells Caitlin, “if you’re sure you want to go through with this.”

  At the church, Grandmother Somers asks loudly, “Which one is she marrying?” Dorset points to Bru. “Oh, he’s quite handsome, isn’t he? Who are his parents? What do they do?”

  Sharkey escorts Phoebe down the aisle. She’s relaxed, smiling. Daniel escorts Abby, who looks tense, although she’s trying to hide it. The two women sit next to one another. Vix can’t look at Bru. She prays he won’t say anything … ever. How can he be sure Vix will keep their secret?

  Caitlin sails down the aisle on Lamb’s arm. He looks so proud, so loving, tears come to Vix’s eyes. Caitlin smiles directly at her. She has a feeling that Caitlin is about to pull something but she doesn’t know what. She half expects her to shove her island-grown bouquet of cosmos, bellflowers, and daisies in Vix’s face and say, You marry him. You two deserve each other!

  Bru

  HE WAS CRAZY last night. Out of his fucking mind. What was he doing? Trying to get out of it? But here comes Caitlin on Lamb’s arm, drifting down the aisle like some kind of angel. Smiling right at him. Shit! What’s he supposed to do?

  He remembers the night she came to him with a message from Victoria, just after Nathan died. Beautiful Caitlin at seventeen, looking so sad, so sad … He’d taken her in his arms to stop her tears. Hadn’t meant to kiss her. But the way she’d looked at him, her lips parted and moist. Hadn’t meant to make love to her. And jeez … she’d been a virgin … had bled all over the place. A real surprise after all those stories Von told him. A mistake, he’d told her, after. Did she understand? Because it was never going to happen again. She understood. And she’d stayed away from the island, away from him … until now. It suddenly occurs to him he was not only Victoria’s first lover, but Caitlin’s. Maybe that’s his problem. He loves them both. He’s glad he doesn’t have to choose. Glad they’ve done it for him.

  CAITLIN AND BRU face the young minister who plays hockey with the guys on Mondays and Thursdays. She promises to love, cherish, and respect Joseph Brudegher until death do them part and he promises the same to her. They slip matching rings on one another’s fingers. The minister pronounces them husband and wife. They kiss and the guests applaud while the smallest flower girl lifts her dress and scratches her backside.

  A tent is set up on the lawn of the house, with tables to seat one hundred fifty. Vix’s heels sink into the soft ground as she marches in with the other attendants and takes her place at the head table. The guests dance to the music of the Martha’s Vineyard Swing Band on a wooden floor that slopes downhill. Vix drinks only designer water but feels light-headed anyway. Fini, finis, finito … Maybe Paisley was right when she told Maia this could offer closure. They’ll all be grownup now, won’t they?

  She dances once with Bru, who says, “About last night … ”

  “Forget last night,” she tells him. “Last night never happened.” Her knees don’t go weak. Her stomach doesn’t do flips. Last night was the end and they both know it. She can sense his relief.

  “She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” Bru asks as they both watch Caitlin waltzing with Lamb. “I can’t believe she’s my …”

  “Wife,” Vix says, finishing the sentence for him. The music ends but they don’t break apart. She thinks about asking him if it’s true, if he and Caitlin really … But what’s the point? For all she knows Caitlin made it up, like the ski instructor. For all she knows there was no woman in Paris who cut up Caitlin’s panties, no Tim Castellano in L.A., no married man who got her pregnant in London. It hardly matters anymore.

  Gus comes up beside her, slips his arm around her waist. “I think this one is mine, Cough Drop.”

  Trisha and Arthur sail by dipping and twirling. None of the younger people know how to dance to this music but they follow the older generation’s lead and pretend they’re dancing anyway. “So,” Gus says, “the beautiful princess marries the prince and lives happily ever after on a magical island. True or false?”

  “True,” she tells him.

  “Suppose he turns into a frog. Then what?”

  “Suppose she does?”

  Gus laughs and pulls her closer.

  The rowdy cousins cheer when the band switches to rock. Abby hands out earplugs to anyone in need. The little children chase each other up and down the lawn. Von has too much to drink and rambles on toasting the bride and groom. Lamb comes to his rescue but Patti leaves in a huff anyway, taking the two little girls with her. Dorset moves in for the kill. She’s been eyeing him ever since the party last night.

  Late in the afternoon, after the cake has been sliced, after the requisite pictures of bride feeding groom and groom feeding bride, the cousins carry Bru down to the pond and throw him in. When one of them picks up Caitlin and slings her over his shoulder she pounds on his back and cries, “Not in my wedding dress, asshole … it’s an antique!” He puts her down and she steps out of it, leaving it on the grassy bank above the pond. They throw her off the dock wearing just her long ivory slip. Bru catches her in the water. They kiss. He wades out of the pond with her in his arms, as if he’s carrying her over the threshold. The photographer captures the moment.

  “You’re next, Victoria,” another of the cousins says, sweeping her up and tossing her in from the end of the dock. Then they all jump in, one after the other, the cousins, their wives and girlfriends, most of the young guests and some of the not so young, all in their finery. But not Sharkey, who has taken Wren out in the dinghy, and not Daniel or Gus, who wait for Vix to emerge. “You can’t stay in all day,” Gus calls, laughing.

  She feels awkward and self-conscious, like an unwilling contestant in a wet T-shirt contest. When she finally comes out, her arms folded across her chest, Gus wraps a beach towel around her. “You always were on the shy side, Cough Drop.”

  “Are you going to keep calling me Cough Drop?”

  “What should I call you?”

  “How about Vix?”

  “Vix …” he says, trying it out.

  Upstairs, Caitlin hands her a pair of shorts and a T-shirt so she can get out of her wet clothes. Caitlin has already changed into jeans. She’s zipping up her backpack, preparing to leave for her honeymoon, a camping trip to Maine. “Thanks, Vix … for being here with me.” She looks up at the photo of the two of them at twelve. “Who says a picture isn’t worth a hundred words?”

  “Thousand,” Vix says. “I think it’s a thousand words.”

  Caitlin laughs. “We were a great team, weren’t we?”

  “Yes.”

  Caitlin hugs her. “I’ll always love you. Promise you’ll always love me?”

  “You know I will.” And it’s true, Vix thinks, no matter what, she’ll always love Caitlin.

  Caitlin hoists on her backpack. “Did you ask Bru … about that summer?”

  “Yes,” she lies.

  Caitlin nods. “Did he tell you the truth?”

  “Yes.” Another lie.

  She nods again. “I figured he would.”

  45

  THE FOLLOWING MAY Caitlin gives birth to a baby girl. They name her Somers Mayhew Brudegher but they call her Maizie. Vix drives up for the naming ceremony with Gus, who’s moved to New York to write for Newsweek. They’ve been seeing each other since the
wedding, going to movies, sharing late dinners, blading on Sundays in the park. They’re friends, but neither one has been willing to risk spoiling things by changing the relationship.

  One night, coming out of a movie in the Village, they’re caught in a downpour. There’s not a taxi in sight. They’re closer to his place on Tenth Street than hers on Twenty-sixth so they run for it. They’re drenched by then so he hands her a towel, a sweatshirt, jogging pants. She takes off her clothes in the bathroom, and is about to pull on the sweatshirt when she spies a robe hanging on the back of the door. She wishes it were silk instead of flannel as she pulls it on, tying the belt around her waist and rolling up the sleeves. She runs a comb through her wet hair, then rummages around in her purse for that sample of Obsession she’s been saving. She dabs some between her breasts, behind her ears and knees, which are beginning to shake. She hears John Coltrane playing on the CD.

  Gus has changed into a T-shirt and jeans. At first he’s not sure what she has in mind. She can see his confusion and smiles. His eyes go to the opening of the robe. He turns away. “Don’t do this unless you’re sure, Vix.”

  “I could say the same to you.”

  “I’ve never been so sure about anything in my whole life.”

  The attraction between them is so strong she’s sure there will actually be sparks when he touches her.

  A year later they gather on the Vineyard for Maizie’s first birthday. Caitlin is distant, distracted. Bru is careful and protective. When Maizie cries, Abby is the one who picks her up and comforts her.

  The next day Vix flies to Florida with Gus, to see Tawny. They haven’t seen each other in years. But Tawny has called, asking her to come. There’s someone she wants Vix to meet. And Vix has news for her, too.

  In Key West Tawny watches shopping channels. She says she likes to dream she has the money to buy everything she sees, though she knows most of it is junk and she wouldn’t want it even if she could have it. Everyone has fantasies, Vix supposes. Tawny seems relaxed, even happy. She lives in Old Town, in a tiny yellow conch house with a jacaranda tree shading the veranda. She can walk to the ocean every day if she wants to. The someone she wants Vix to meet is Myles, a beefy, suntanned man in a captain’s hat. Vix isn’t sure if Myles is his first name or last. “He’s retired navy,” Tawny says proudly. “With a good pension.” She shows Vix a photo of him in full uniform. “He was dashing, wasn’t he? Of course this was taken a while ago but you can still see it.”