by Nancy Star
“Oops,” Glory called out. “Forgot the gravy.” She disappeared into the kitchen.
Mimi swiveled to her sons to give a rush of instructions. “Just take a taste. You’ll eat for real at Granny’s. And don’t use the gravy. And don’t eat the sausages. Anything tastes bad, just spit it in your napkin when Grandma looks away.”
“And stay away from that asparagus fish,” Ginger said. “I mean asparagus dish.”
Glory swept back in holding a bowl of cranberries and an open can of gravy. “Now we can start.” She stood behind her chair. “Who wants to say Face?”
“Grace,” Ginger corrected her.
“Thank you.” Glory passed the cranberries to Troy, Mimi’s youngest. “Try these. You’ll love them. They’re darling.”
Troy put a cranberry in his mouth and turned to his mother. “These are weally hard.”
Mimi picked one up and examined it. “Did you forget to cook the cranberries?”
“Why would I do that?” Glory turned to Troy. “They’re not weally hard,” she told him. “They’re really hard. Can you say really?” She turned to Mimi. “I’ll never understand why you insist on paying a stranger to help him when I could do it better for free.”
“See what you started,” Mimi said to Ginger under her breath.
Ginger knew Mimi was still mad at her for pointing out Troy’s speech impediment in front of their mother. His problem wasn’t the usual Tangle mangling which Glory and the sisters all had to a degree, though Mimi, through force of will, had pretty much managed to get over it and Ginger only slipped up occasionally, usually after her mother got under her skin. Troy’s problem was more run-of-the-mill, certain letters in certain combinations.
Not surprisingly, Mimi had ignored Ginger’s recommendation for a speech pathologist, opting instead for a doctor who’d written the definitive book on articulation disorders. No matter that the woman’s office was on the upper east side of Manhattan, or that her only open time slot meant Troy would have to miss most of band practice twice a week. Getting Troy out of mandatory band practice was a small-potatoes problem for Mimi. That Troy would have to slink out of the practice room early while children made fun of his speech behind his back was not on her worry list. Unlike Ginger, Mimi did not have a worry list. The worst part for Mimi was dealing with this, Glory grousing about why she wasn’t asked to help.
“I don’t get why you schlep him into the city to see that woman,” Glory complained. “All he needs to do is sing. Singing is the best cure. Troy, sing with Grandma. ‘There once was a boy in the north country. He had’—come on Troy, sing with me—‘he had sisters.’”
“No singing,” Mimi snapped. “And that woman is a doctor.”
“Oh, a doctor.” Glory shrugged. “Troy doesn’t need a doctor. He needs an actress. Who can project and enunciate and sing. You know,” she told Troy. “Before you were born, I used to sing and dance. I was quite the actress.”
“Good grief,” Mimi said. “You were in a community theater group fifty years ago.”
“Since when does talent have an expiration date? Anyway, didn’t I go on tour last year?”
“Yes.” Mimi nodded. “You toured all the best nursing homes in northern New Jersey.” She turned to Neil. “What time do we have to be at your mom’s?”
Neil was an excellent ear doctor, but he rarely listened. “Hmm?”
Glory grabbed hold of Troy’s wrist. “I’m going to tell you a story.” Like everyone else in the family, the boys knew this one by heart. “There was a woman in my theater group name of Shirley Gewirtz.” Hunter, Mimi’s middle boy, started lip-synching along until Mimi shot him a warning look and he stopped. “Not very good. Nothing to look at. Never got the leads. One day, changed her name to Sunny Worth. Sent out her head shots. Got hired for television”—she snapped her fingers—“like that. That’s how good we were. Imagine.”
“Shirley Gewirtz did one commercial.” Mimi didn’t notice that Hunter was now lip-synching her words. “For Lavoris. That’s it. Her entire acting career. Halitosis.”
“Not one of my problems.” Glory stood up. The discussion was over. She fetched the gravy can and raised it. “Time for a toast. Isn’t this darling? All of us here, together.”
“We’re not all here.” Ginger immediately regretted having spoken. “What I mean is, just because Julia is home sick doesn’t mean we should forget her.”
“No one’s forgetting her,” Richard said quietly.
“Gingie’s right,” Glory said. “I forgot about Julia. I forget all the time now. I swear, if my head wasn’t screwed on”—she twirled her finger in the air—“I would forget. I forgot what I would forget. Who got me started on this, anyway?”
A subject change was in order and Ginger quickly ran through possible options. Last week’s splinter epidemic at school might work. She went over what happened in her head to make sure there were was nothing in the anecdote she would regret. But before she could begin the story, Wallace, Mimi’s eldest, broke the silence.
“Is that what happened with Aunt Callie? Did you forget her?”
“Wallace,” Mimi hissed. “Why would you say that?” She and Ginger turned as one toward Glory, but their mother had vanished into the kitchen. “Who told you about Callie?” She looked at Ginger. “Did you tell him? Didn’t we have an agreement that subject is off-limits?”
“Julia,” Wallace interrupted. “Julia told me. And it’s okay. I don’t think Grandma heard.”
“Thank god.” Mimi glared at Ginger as if it was her fault that Julia and Wallace were friends.
In a way it was. Ginger knew being an only child could be lonely, so she did whatever she could to encourage Julia’s friendship with her cousins. And she couldn’t leave it up to chance. Despite being the same age, Julia and Wallace had little in common in their day-to-day lives. Julia went to public school for one thing, while the Popkins boys went to private. And while Ginger insisted Julia pick a team or join a club after school—her daughter was not going to be one of those teenagers who roamed free all afternoon when school got out, getting in trouble—she did not curate Julia’s activities like Mimi did with the boys, strategizing which ones would look best on a résumé. Even eating was different in the two households. Ginger shopped weekly at the supersized Pathmark, where she brought a list of staples like potatoes, chicken, whatever pasta and tomato sauce was on sale, and for a treat, single-serving bite-sized dark chocolate. Mimi, on the other hand, ducked in daily to Whole Foods to buy whatever struck her fancy, black-eyed peas pâté for a snack, organic beet-leaf pasta to serve with grass-fed bison bolognese.
To help the kids forge a friendship, Ginger pushed for the families to eat dinner together every few weeks. When dinner was at the Popkins’ house, she was always relieved that Julia was polite even when it was a struggle to get down the goat cheese–oat truffle crepes Mimi presented as if they were jewels. At Ginger’s house, the boys had no such problem. They were like gluttons, digging into the mashed potatoes and washing chocolate down with big gulps of milk that was not made of coconut, soy, or almonds.
“So is what Julia said true?” Wallace asked now. “We have an uncle who died?”
“I’m back,” Glory sang out in case they didn’t notice, and Wallace knew enough to stop talking. “Grandma coming round the mountain with the turkey. Who wants dark?”
Even though she preferred white, Ginger volunteered.
Glory speared an undercooked drumstick. As she passed it to Ginger, blood marked the trail. “Could someone get the seltzer? Before the tablecloth gets brained.”
“Stained,” Ginger and Mimi corrected her together.
Richard got a 2-liter jug of club soda from the kitchen and handed it to Ginger. Their hands touched for a second, and then Mimi grabbed the bottle. “I’ll take that.”
She poured the seltzer on the drippings, and they all watched the wet spot spread like a lie that could no longer be contained.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Next day breakfast was Corn Flakes Lillian Hellman–style, which according to Glory meant two teaspoons of sugar sprinkled in each bowl. What made this Lillian Hellman–style, Ginger had no idea, but her mother had greeted them in a mood as sunny as her yellow halter-top bathing suit, and no question seemed worth the risk of unsettling her good humor.
After the rest of them got dressed for the beach, Glory hustled them to the car and told them their itinerary. The morning was for exploring. They’d stop for a look at the Vineyard Sound, the Nantucket Sound, and if there was time after that, some island ponds. After lunch, if all went well, best for last, they’d head to Jungle Beach.
“Why best?” Charlie asked.
“Why last?” Mimi added.
Why if all goes well? Ginger wondered to herself.
As usual, Ginger got the booby prize, front seat, and as usual, Glory drove like she was an actress sitting in the chopped-off half of a fake car on an old-time movie set, images of the world whizzing by as if on a screen. It was all, look over there, as the car swerved to the right, and look at that, as she overcorrected to the left. Anyone watching would surely assume they were a carload of drunken teenagers, and not a family with a mother who drove, forearms pressed against the wheel, as she inexplicably applied and then reapplied her lipstick every five minutes. Really, it was a mystery, how the same woman who could sit perfectly still, studying a single puzzle piece for minutes at a time, had to fidget constantly while driving. Suddenly a self-proclaimed expert on country roads, her hands fluttered like hummingbirds, to the radio looking for a better station, to her purse searching for a lozenge. Everything was urgent, her need for a tissue, for a nail file, for some Chiclets. And though she checked the rearview mirror frequently, communicating with glares or smiles to whichever child was or wasn’t displeasing her, she seemed oblivious that they were all clutching their seats with white-knuckled grips.
Making matters worse, the drought had turned the unpaved roads bone-dry, so their car traveled in a cloud of its own dust. “Like Pig-Pen,” Callie cheerfully observed, too young to understand the danger held in the equation of lack of visibility plus dreamy driver.
The road to the first of Evelyn’s recommended beaches was only wide enough for one car to pass at a time. This meant oncoming vehicles would suddenly rise up, each in a cloud of its own dust, threatening to crash into them. The road’s shoulder was a confusion of brush, hiding an infinite possibility of pitches and slopes down which a car might tumble. It all made for a game of chicken Glory seemed to have no idea she was playing. When a white Dodge Dart rose in front of them like a ghost, Ginger slid low in her seat, so as not to watch herself die in the windshield’s reflection. Glory swerved into a bush just in time, and when the car passed, she swerved back onto the road, indifferent to the sound of twigs scraping the car door.
“Sit up, Gingie. Do you want to end up bent over like a question mark? Up, up, up. Books on your head.”
Ginger sat up and pretended she had books on her head, which did help keep her from screaming. How could her mother not notice that a red Plymouth Fury was now hurtling toward them? The imaginary books tumbled. Ginger bit her lip and her tongue and screamed out, “Slow down!” The Fury veered off the road to avoid them.
“For the love of god, everyone knows it’s the car coming off the beach that’s supposed to pull over, not the car going on.”
Ginger turned to see what happened to the Plymouth. “I think they went into a ditch.”
“They’re fine. How did you get to be such a worrier?” She fiddled with the radio, looking for something better. “I’m not a worrier. Your father, that’s another story.” The wind whipped up, grabbing a hodgepodge of trash and lost objects and tossing them about. Through the window Ginger watched a child’s pink cloth bucket hat dance by followed by a picnic of napkins and then a crushed pack of Lucky Strikes. The road narrowed. Glory drove on.
When they reached the parking lot, everyone scrambled out and ran to the shore, relieved to have survived the ride. The beach, a narrow strip of sand facing a stretch of shallow water, was perfect for Callie. But Glory warned them not to get too comfortable. “We’re not staying. We’re just looking, remember? We have lots more to explore.”
As the morning wore on, she hustled them in and out of the car, speeding too fast down narrow dirt roads, looking at—but not swimming in—ponds, sounds, and tidal pools. The sun got hot and then hotter, and they did the same. Callie needed a bathroom. Mimi was starving to death.
“What kind of explorers are you?” Glory pulled into a fry shack with a picnic table out front. “Imagine if Lewis and Clark stopped every time their stomachs growled.”
At precisely two, hands glistening with grease from their fried shrimp and potatoes, Glory announced it was time for Jungle Beach. Ginger was back on navigating duty, though this time there was little to do. The treasure map showed one street, South Road, and one landmark, a stick-figure drawing Mimi decoded was meant to symbolize a farm.
“Should I keep going?” Glory seemed nervous about missing it. “Did we pass it?”
As Ginger scanned the landscape for any hint of a beach ahead, an acid-green pickup truck barreled up alongside them, a crush of hippies bouncing in the open cargo bed. She read the sign painted on the door in tangerine psychedelic script. “Look at the truck. It says Jungle Beach.”
The driver honked and sped past them. A woman in the front seat stuck her hand out and offered a peace sign. The flatbed passengers waved. Then the pickup slowed and heaved onto a grassy shoulder ahead of them, the last in a line of cars and trucks parked there.
“I guess this is it.” Glory bumped the car onto the grass and came to a hard stop inches from the back of the hippie truck.
The flatbed passengers were piling out in a swarm. They danced their way across the street together, and when they got to the other side, they all disappeared into what looked like a hole in a thicket of bushes.
Ginger glanced at her mother to see what she made of it, but Glory wasn’t looking out the window. She was staring at her reflection in her compact, putting on a swipe of lipstick and then pulling a few hairs loose from under her hat to better frame her face.
She smiled, to make sure nothing was in her teeth. “Ready or not.”
Ready for what, Ginger wasn’t sure. But when she got out of the car, she followed her mother’s gaze down the road and saw two figures, a lanky man and, beside him, a boy.
“Ship ahoy!” Glory called, waving her arms.
The man turned and waved back, matching her movements like a faraway shadow. It was Mr. Diggans, and as he got closer, Ginger saw the boy was Thomas Clarke.
“Thomas,” Glory called out. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.” Thomas stared at his feet, looking shy. “Be a peach,” Glory told him. “Give us a hand unloading the car.”
Mr. Diggans surveyed the gear in the trunk. “Afraid you’ll regret it if you try bringing all that in. Bit of a hike ahead.” He blinked, and Ginger noticed his eyes were set unnaturally deep in his face, like holes. “Let’s see what you’ve got.” He parceled things out so that everyone got something: an umbrella, straw mats, buckets and shovels, a couple of light chairs, some towels. The rest, he advised, would be better left in the car. “Unlocked is fine. It’s safe. You can even leave your purse if you want.”
Glory hesitated and then sang out, “Why not,” and threw her purse in with abandon.
Mr. Diggans picked up the chairs and smiled, showing off his horsey teeth. “Ready to hike into the most beautiful beach in the world?”
And Glory answered, “We sure are.”
The two of them walked side by side, laughter falling behind like scraps. When they crossed the road, Mr. Diggans headed toward the break in the bushes where the truck-people had gone. “The entrance is here. Duck when you go in. Single file. Thomas, you take the rear.”
The bushes made for an overgrown tunnel tall enough so that only Mr. Diggans had to stoop as he walked.
“Stay close to the person in front of you,” he cautioned, leading the way. “Don’t want anyone to fall into a boggy ditch.”
“Watch out for skunks,” Thomas added, and Ginger thought he sounded sad.
They walked single file until, a few minutes in, the path widened. The bushes over their heads parted so that now they could see sky, but thorny branches reached in from the sides.
“Bushes are biting me,” Mimi complained.
“Hug yourself,” Mr. Diggans advised, and flashed a smile to Glory, whose arms were already wrapped tight around the towels. The ground turned spongy beneath their feet. “Planks of wood ahead.” Mr. Diggans stepped up onto something. “Here we go.” Ginger heard his sandals tapping across a board someone must have placed over the boggy ground. “Watch out for splinters. No bare feet. Not yet. No bare anything yet.” He gave Glory a wink and then continued up an incline. When they reached the top, the vegetation changed to succulents. Ground cover became sparse. The sun bore down. Ginger smelled the sea. “Here we are,” he said. “Welcome to Jungle Beach.”
Ginger heard a whinny and swung around in time to see a horse gallop out of the bushes a few yards down from where they’d just emerged. The rider, a young woman with long crimped hair, pulled the horse to a stop and leaned over toward Charlie. “Do you like huckleberries?” Before Charlie could answer, she handed him a basket, clicked her tongue, and took off, the horse trotting down to the far end of the beach and disappearing to the other side of the rocky cliffs.