Summers at Blue Lake

by Jill Althouse-Wood

  We never owned a DVD player.

  Bryce picked up the phone. “Bobbi?”

  “Hello, Bryce.” I made my voice sound as sunny as possible to disguise emotions I could not even name.

  “I don’t want you to worry about us boys. I am taking care of Sam. This just happened so quickly. We were out at glow golf-”

  “Bryce. It’s okay. I know it was an accident.” Sunny, sunny, sunny. I breathed. “He is five. These kinds of things are going to happen. I just wish I could be there for him.”

  Bryce sighed. “Oh, good. I was so worried you would freak out over this.”

  I pictured him raking his hand through his hair in relief. “I am capable of rational moments, Bryce.” I tried hard to hold my tongue, but the retort slipped out. I quickly recovered. “What did the doctor say?”

  “It’s a buckle fracture on his ulna. Very common with kids his age. They said that most often parents don’t come in until the third day, when the kid is still complaining about it. I didn’t want to go into the emergency room on a Saturday night, but I erred on the side of caution because I knew you’d never let me live it down if something happened to Sam while he was with me.”

  “Well, you got that right.”

  “I called Mike, an orthopedist I represented last year. He said to bring Sam in any time on Monday morning, and they’d squeeze him in. He even got on the phone with Sam and told him he could pick out the color of his cast and that he’d still be able to swim with it on.”

  “How long will it be on?” I asked.

  “Mike said about four weeks, which means he’ll still have it on when I bring him back. He says he has a friend from med school in your area. He’ll get me his card.”

  “I guess that’s good. Can we get copies of the X-rays?”

  “I’ll look into it. I’m sure it won’t be a problem. And Bobbi?”

  “Hmm?”

  “I just wanted to thank you. I know I was a jackass, and you had every reason to make things difficult. I can’t thank you enough for keeping things clean, good for Sam.”

  “I needed to move on, too, Bryce. I didn’t do it for you.”

  “I know, but I admire you. I think if I would have known how gracious you would be, I would have had second thoughts about going through with the divorce.”

  “You have a new life now, and so do I.” I kept my voice clear and unwavering.

  “Is that why you weren’t home at eleven last night and didn’t call back until this morning?”

  There was a pause. I almost told him that I had been at work in my studio until well after midnight, but I caught myself. I wasn’t interested in playing games and making him jealous, but I wanted that line of separation between us.

  “Yes, Bryce.”

  He took the hint and was quiet. Without either of us having anything more to say, the conversation came to an awkward and abrupt end. When I hung up the phone I felt unsettled and somewhat agitated. After I showered and dressed, I tried to sit down with my account books and receipts, but I could not concentrate. Nonna’s notebooks sat opened on my desk. I reached for them and turned to the last page I had read. Nonna’s birth.

  May 5, 1991

  I was nearly three before my father came back from the war. I had seen his beautiful paintings, but this broken man bore no resemblance to the sensitive artist I imagined. Now we had the madness of two people in a house reserved for only one lunatic. One of them had to go. My grandmother died the month following my father’s return.

  My mother was stuck between two grieving men with shattered dreams, and she aligned herself with my father. She nursed and loved him. Demons visited him after dark, and my mother’s nightgown grew damp with the sweat of his remembrances.

  I had always slept with my mother, and this man displaced me. My mother did not allow me to use the word hate about anyone, but I felt the emotion toward my father even if I could not speak it. Sometimes, at night when others were sleeping, I would climb the attic stairs off my bedroom and view his paintings by moonlight. I imagined myself in those square hills, running and jumping. These could not be the works of the madman sleeping beside my mother.

  I learned to stay away from the men of the farm, especially when circumstance brought them together. I spent many dinner hours looking for crayfish in the streams or playing in the loft with the barn cats. My grandfather would grumble that I was undisciplined and wild, but my mother could not bear to punish me and have one more battle on her hands. My father couldn’t have cared less. He all but ignored me. I made a game out of spying on him throughout the day as he talked nonsense or worked at tasks that weren’t real. He did things like stacking the hay bales into magnificent structures or mowing serpentines in the front lawn. My grandfather was livid. He resided more each day inside the terrible pit of his anger.

  In 1925, when my mother told me that we would move to France, I shouted hurrahs into her hair. We would finally get away from my angry grandfather, and I just knew that the painter would replace my imposter of a father. Ada suffered greatly for her alliance with my father; Gustaf disowned her.

  “Mama, will Daddy paint me into his pictures?” I asked one evening while she was brushing my hair. I wanted him to paint me. It would mean the painter had returned and that he recognized the daughter before him.

  My dreams for Europe did not come true in France. My father’s nightmares increased the closer we came to the deep slashes of earth that my mother called trenches. None of my father’s old friends recognized him on the street, or if they did, they looked away in embarrassment. Day after day, he painted black canvases, and by nightfall, he threw them on the fire. My mother kept the windows of our chalet open even in winter to help disperse the noxious fumes of our hearth.

  Finally, the black paint ran out. In 1927, we took a holiday to visit some of my dad’s distant cousins in a seaside village in Greece. (He held to the weak claim that our family name had been Stephanopolis.) We never returned to Paris. It was in Greece that I glimpsed my father, the painter. For the decade we stayed, he painted my mother, the land, the sea, the fruits of the field, and me, over and over again. Those paintings sold well; I don’t own a one. In those magic years, I could touch my father’s face and cause him to smile. He embraced my mother passionately and unabashedly in front of me. Motherhood had softened her beauty, made it touchable instead of threatening. I don’t think I was ever happier.

  May 6, 1991

  Our relatives were not gypsy people, but I surmise that they could be the lost kinfolk of the wandering strain. These were the sons and daughters of Zeus. They still believed in Dionysian festivals and the power of wine and cathartic theater.

  The land and sea, as well as its people, welcomed us into their folds. The flavors of Greece were strong and earthy, the likes of which I had never tasted. My own perspiration took on the flavor of olive brine. This, I discovered at play. As I came of age, I, too, drank the sweet wine and enjoyed the love games with both boys and girls. There was no shame in this world where hedonism had no name.

  I had many lovers, not all in the typical sense, but enough. With one girl, we washed each other’s hair and then anointed the parts on our scalps with olive oil. We braided our locks and let them dry in the sun until, unplaited, our hair crimped and glowed like the edge of a coin. With another youth, a boy, I splashed naked in the sea and built fires on the beach. We looked up at the sky and identified obscure constellations. Not all of my encounters were so innocent, I assure you, and I enjoyed the caresses of boys and girls alike. It did not matter that I came home smelling like sex and the sea. They were the same scent.

  In Greece, I learned as much about cooking as I had about making love. My mother and I baked enough breads and sweets for not only the villagers but also the sailors who followed the heavenly aromas from their ports to our ovens. I became very proficient in my art. My pastries rivaled those of Old World grandmothers. You have heard that boast before. It was true, and soon our kitchen overflowed with na
tives and travelers alike.

  The foreigners, mostly men, brought with them the scent of unrest. They were quick to look over their shoulders, and eager to quarrel. Many of the village women had the gift of second sight, but we did not need their foreboding. In 1937, I was already an adult. Though I had received many marriage proposals, opportunities to marry and settle there, I knew that I was not of this place. The rest of Europe was encroaching on our haven.

  We set out for America, the forgotten land of my birth. For years afterwards I wondered if Greece ever really existed or if I had dreamed the entire experience. We had no paintings or possessions to show for our time there, only a few recipes, not written on cards, but quilted into the hemispheres of our brains.

  Our original plan was to open a bakery in New York City, but my grandfather died as we made our voyage. He willed Mulberry Farm to me. Although I didn’t want the property, my parents decided it would be best if we settled nearby so I could manage my inheritance. We found a suitable tenant, and opened our bakery in Philadelphia, around the corner from Temple University. (Do you remember when I pointed the building out to you? The building is red brick with a blue awning. Barbara Jean tells me it’s a photocopy place now. Kinko’s, I think it is called.)

  After so much time in Greece, I found America to be cold, narrow, and dark. My limbs slowed in the cold, and my tongue tripped over the thickness of the English language. I had no accent; English was my native language, but the words did not flow easily.

  I hated the college students who frequented our shop. The girls played different love games than the ones I knew. Their approach was all about offering a prize and then snatching it away. The boys begged for their kisses in a manner that was too humiliating to watch. I wanted none of this scene. I served them coffee and doughnuts, powdered with disdain.

  America did have one advantage over Greece, and that was the cinema. I went to the movies every afternoon, after the bakery closed for the day. I didn’t care if I had seen the movie before or that I was sitting alone. All that mattered was that for two hours I was transported to another dimension. I began to play my memories of Greece back in segments like movie scenes, until I convinced myself that I must have been wearing Judy Garland’s ruby slippers. Greece was Oz in Technicolor, and Philadelphia was the still gray world of Kansas.

  May 7, 1991

  The same year as The Wizard of Oz, 1939, I met your father. It was a golden age for films. They say that more great movies were made in that year than any other. Is it any wonder I met your father in a movie theater? You have heard that bit of trivia before, but I never told you that he was on a date with another girl. I sat behind him and to the left. He had his arm around this girl, but he kept stealing glances at me. He had the round face of a youth, even though he was twenty-one, one year younger than I. His blond eyebrows and his dimples made him appear even more boyish. I was not impressed by his attentions. I am sure I wore my trademark schoolmarm scorn as he tried to catch my eye.

  The next day, he came into the bakery alone.

  “Hello,” he said.

  “What can I get for you?” I pretended not to recognize him. His white-blond hair was flipped back into a smooth wave above his forehead.

  “I would like to take you to the movies.”

  I didn’t respond and showed no interest. I refilled the coffeepot.

  He kept talking. “Preferably a movie you have seen before, so we can kiss, and get kicked out by an usher, and then go to dinner. You’ll wear a red dress, and we’ll go dancing for the remainder of the night. I will drop you off at the bakery in time for you to open the shop to work all day while I go back to the dorm to sleep until I can see you again.”

  Most girls would have been appalled by this speech, but I had not witnessed such truth in dating since I had arrived in America. It was refreshing and honest.

  “Okay,” I said without looking at him, “but my dress will be blue.”

  “Okay?”

  “That is what I said.” I finally looked at him. His eyes were a hue I had not seen since we had left Greece. Those eyes were the white arches of stucco churches that framed the azure of the sea. His pupils were the tower bells, darkened from copper to black by the saltwater.

  “Your name is Anja.”

  “Yes.”

  “I am Charlie Graybill. I will pick you up at four.”

  While Charlie was honest with me, I was less than forthright with him. He was an architecture student in his final two years of study. His family was from upstate New York where they had a dairy farm. He was the first in his family to go to college. Charlie was Lutheran, devout even in his college years. He had even considered seminary school for a short time.

  The talk about religion made me self-conscious. America as a whole was so much more religious than the places I had seen. I amended our life in Greece to read like a Jane Austen novel, proper and polite and more British than Aegean. The playacting did not seem like such a lie. In America, I was still a virgin; I had taken no lovers. I had lived as two different people in these two different worlds. Some days I believed that I had been twinned and that my double was still drinking wine and swimming naked in the warring seas of Europe while I rolled cold dough and watched the battles in movie theaters in America.

  Our first date was quite pleasant and not unlike Charlie’s prediction of it. My parents winked and nodded at each other as I nearly fell asleep frying doughnuts the next morning. My mother took over that job while I got the less dangerous job of cutting those circles out of dough. They did not say much about this new influence in my life. I never knew how they felt about Charlie, but I did know that they would do anything to keep from alienating me, even if that meant putting up with a careless employee.

  May 9, 1991

  I did not take Charlie to see my farm. I didn’t want the property to influence what he felt for me. We continued in the strange platonic rituals of dating for two years. I hid my lustful tendencies behind an intense concentration. I listened carefully to every word Charlie spoke.

  I had never met anybody so filled with passion about his studies, except my father. I wanted to tell him how I had played among many of the ancient temples that he held in esteem. My father and I often camped near these hallowed grounds, while he would paint me dancing among the white columns. I later learned the names of these columns—Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian—when I paged through Charlie’s thick textbooks. I not only wanted to learn about the things he loved, but I also wanted to fill in the gaps of my informal education to be a better companion for him. Charlie, in return, took me to dance halls and to the movies. Not once did I catch him looking over my head at another girl.

  Even he could not sit through enough movies to satisfy my appetites. I was alone at a Sunday matinee when the news hit the public that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. I was still trying to adjust my eyes from the dim theater to daylight when a stranger on the street rushed up to me with his high-pitched “Have you heard?” I immediately went to find Charlie in the room he was keeping on Market Street. By that time, he had graduated from college and had recently taken a job as a junior architect with the Willis and Ludwig firm.

  Charlie was not in his room. Bob, his roommate and fellow architect, told me he had gone to find me to tell me he was enlisting. Somehow, I already knew. Charlie agreed to delay his registration until we were married. I wore a red dress.

  I was so nervous on our wedding night, but it wasn’t the usual bridal jitters. I was afraid that Charlie would find out the truth about my love-littered past. That night we made love in a manner I had never experienced before. We were in love. That made a difference, of course, but it was more than that. Our lovemaking was reverent. Afterwards, Charlie cried. I held on to my boy groom, my too-soon soldier, and tried to think of tender apologies for my bridal impurity. I was mistaken. He was not sobbing because I was not a virgin. On the contrary, he was crying because of the intensity of the beautiful act against the somber backdrop of war. �
��Why did we postpone our love?” he asked me. I knew the answer. We had waited for him to be ready.

  ♦ 37 ♦

  I CAME TO THE end of the first small notebook. I contemplated starting the next one, the thicker of the two, but Travis would be coming soon, and I had to get ready. I ran upstairs and swiped a brush through my hair. Carefully I pinned its length off my neck. One strand refused to cooperate, and I traced its path on my neck as it fell.

  It was obvious that Nonna had a reason for telling this story to my mother. There was a purpose to this tale, but what? Nonna had hinted at bits of her past all these years. The passion was no surprise, and yet her telling of it was. I had longed to know my grandfather, the blond soldier in the photograph, and here beneath the uniform was a man and a lover. As I read the letter, I experienced the sensuality in the story, felt born of it.

  I let my mind wander. How would I tell my own tale of love? What images would I choose? I closed my eyes and instantly saw water rippling on the screen before my mind’s eye. The light danced along the surface, and I felt the warmth on my neck. I imagined a man’s beard grazing my shoulder with its coarseness, replaced a moment later by the softness of lips against my skin. I jerked my eyes open and looked around my bedroom.

  Travis. Of course, Travis. It was only natural I would choose him. He was the one who distracted me from the pain of missing my son. He took me on his boat, coaxed dark confessions from me without judgment, and shared openly from his own book of disappointment. We were two imperfect souls, floating together over living waters. And if that wasn’t enough to sway a woman’s heart, he was the man who held secret the mysteries of my youth.

  When Travis appeared at the door minutes later, I was vulnerable to him. He kissed me lightly, and I opened to him. The moment I did it, I knew I had caught him off guard. Travis squeezed my shoulders, and I released him. He studied me, but I wiped my mouth and looked away. The last thing I needed was for him to see any desperation on my part. Outside, the truck engine was issuing a guttural reminder, an urgency that superseded any desires I might have.