Summer Days, Starry Nights

by Vikki VanSickle

  “Please don’t pout, Maureen. It isn’t ladylike.”

  I tried to shake it off, but no matter how I tried, Bo always got to me. I was certain Gwendolyn would never do such a thing.

  * * *

  Before bed that night I went down to the kitchen to get a glass of milk. On my way back I noticed a light in the dining hall. It was late and we didn’t have any guests yet, so I went to investigate. I found Mimi, sitting by the windows, her feet tucked under her. She was hunched over something.

  “Mimi?”

  She looked up sharply, then smiled. “Reenie. What are you doing up?”

  “I wanted a glass of milk.”

  “Come here, sweet pea.”

  She hadn’t called me that in ages. I flushed with pleasure and padded over, happy to have a moment alone with her. As I got closer, I saw an old silk scarf on her lap and a jumble of familiar objects in front of her on the table.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, even though I knew.

  “Remembering,” Mimi said with a sigh. She patted the chair beside her. “Come here.”

  I knew these objects. They belonged to Mimi’s past. When I was little I used to love sitting with her and hearing all about her life, before Daddy and before us. It sounded so glamorous, like something out of a book, but here were the objects to prove it. There were notes and cards, mostly from friends, but a few from admirers. Like the playbill she kept as a memento of a date with a much older man.

  “A theatre producer,” she confided.

  “What was it like?” I asked, clutching the playbill, hungry for romantic details, like candlelit dinners and dancing across marbled ballroom floors.

  But Mimi misunderstood my question. “It was mediocre at best,” she sniffed, meaning the play. “The lead slurred his lines and the nicest thing any of the critics could say about the leading lady was what a knockout she was.”

  I fished through the pile on Mimi’s lap, looking for my favourite objects: a slim brass key, an old locket, and a photograph of my mother, taken when she was eighteen.

  The key was from Mimi’s first apartment. “It was just a room in a rooming house for girls, not really an apartment at all,” Mimi admitted. “About six of us shared a bathroom that was so cold I felt like I was back home in the outhouse every time I needed to use the toilet. We used to hang our towels over the radiators in our rooms to keep them nice and toasty so at the very least you could step out of an ice-cold shower into a warm towel. But it was the first place where I was on my own. I could lounge in bed all day or eat eggs at two o’clock in the morning and no one could stop me.”

  The locket had a broken clasp and was not very grand. Being tied up in a scarf all these years had taken the sheen off the silver, which was now cloudy looking and felt greasy beneath my fingers. Inside, a loop of light hair was braided and curled. It was pale and wispy, like Scarlett’s hair. Or maybe it was a lock of Mimi’s baby hair. I took the loop of hair out to get a closer look.

  “Don’t touch that!” Mimi said sharply, rapping me on the wrist.

  Ashamed, I set the loop of hair back into the locket as gently as possible and clicked it shut, as if I were tucking it into bed. I was too flustered to ask about the hair and which of us it belonged to. I didn’t want to risk being scolded again.

  The photograph featured my mother and her best friend, Grace. Gwendolyn’s mother. I studied it carefully. In the photograph, they are posing in front of a busy outdoor rink, bundled up against the cold in sweaters and scarves. They look like sisters, with their light hair curling under their fuzzy hats. Mimi stares right into the camera, smiling with all the charm of a movie star. Grace is holding onto my mother’s arm with both hands, looking both delighted and afraid.

  “Grace had never been skating before,” Mimi remembered, shaking her head. “Can you imagine?”

  I couldn’t. All the Starrs learned to skate almost as soon as they could walk. Daddy would clear a patch of ice near the beach every winter, and we’d spend Sunday afternoons learning our cross-cuts and playing ice tag.

  Grace and my mother rarely saw each other after Mimi moved up here, but Grace still sent a Christmas letter every December, detailing the events of the year and filling us in on her life. I couldn’t have cared less about the prices at Eaton’s or what kind of car the neighbours bought, but I loved to hear about Gwendolyn. And to think — soon she would be here, at Sandy Shores!

  I thought of Mimi’s keepsakes — the key, locket and photograph — as clues to her past. On more than one occasion I’d spied her in her room, on the bed, the scarf sitting open in her lap, crying silently to herself. I never asked her what was wrong, because I was afraid of the answer.

  “Mimi?”

  “Mmm?”

  “I’m glad that Gwendolyn is coming this summer.”

  “Me, too.”

  “It’ll be nice to have another girl around,” I said. “Show Bo he’s not the king.”

  Mimi laughed softly — a little sadly, I thought — and kissed the top of my head.

  “It’ll be nice for all of us.”

  I finished my milk and left Mimi in the dining hall, remembering. It took me ages to fall asleep. I was too busy doing some remembering of my own. I wanted to recall everything I could about Gwendolyn. I couldn’t wait until she got here. It felt like someone had lit a sparkler inside my chest.

  I hoped she remembered me.

  The Mess Hall

  Before Gwendolyn arrived, Mimi insisted we spruce up the mess hall. “We can’t very well hold dance classes in the dining hall,” she said.

  “What’s wrong with the front lawn?” Daddy asked.

  Mimi gasped. “Frank! You can’t mean it—”

  Daddy grinned. “Of course I don’t. Come on, Reenie. Let’s see what kind of damage we can do.”

  Mimi laughed, but it sounded a bit strained. I was worried. Most of the time now she seemed happy and interested in our lives, exclaiming over Scarlett’s artwork, displaying my report card on the refrigerator, asking Bo to play her a tune on his guitar. But there were still moments when the sad look on Mimi’s face took my breath away.

  I was happy to be doing my part, helping Daddy in the mess hall. Though sometimes I worried that I was becoming a flat-out failure as a girl. Mimi was grace and beauty and tinkling laughter, everything a woman was supposed to be. Next to her I was a mess of knees and elbows. It didn’t help that every day Scarlett was growing into a mini-Mimi. It didn’t seem fair that even at six years old, grace was so effortless for her. But with Daddy, I felt useful. With Daddy I could do things I knew that neither Mimi nor Scarlett could do.

  “What a mess,” Dad said. “I guess it lives up to its name.”

  We hadn’t used the mess hall in ages, even for games. The dining hall had become the centre for all indoor activities. The mess hall had become an oversized storage room, a place to stash things we weren’t quite ready to part with, or things Daddy had meant to fix but had never got around to. There were old picnic tables, a lawn mower that was so twisted and rusted out it looked like a demented robot, and inner tubes in need of a good patch job.

  “Let’s get to it.”

  Daddy and I spent the better part of the morning hauling things out to the lawn.

  “You know this isn’t the first time there will be dancing in this old place,” Daddy said. “In your grandpa’s time we used to hold dances here.”

  “Really?”

  “He made me stand there all night, serving refreshments. I was excited until I realized how boring it was to watch other people dance.”

  Daddy pointed to the corner and I smiled, imagining him as a boy, forced to dress up and watch the grown-ups dance, itching to get out to catch fireflies or dig for worms in the dark.

  “But you loved dancing with Mimi,” I said.

  “I did. I still do. Your mother makes every other girl look like they have two left feet.”

  After hours of hauling, sweeping and a good scrubbing, the mess
hall was empty and full of possibility, like a blank page. Daddy and I sat on the floor at one end, considering the space. My muscles ached and sweat settled over me like a second skin, but I felt exhilarated, proud of the work we had done.

  “Your mother thinks we should have a stage, so I’m going to build a platform on the far end over there. I’ll build some drawers to fit underneath where we can store the chairs.”

  “I’ll help, Daddy.”

  He patted my knee then hauled himself up. “You’ve done plenty, Reenie. You should go catch the sun before she sets. I can take it from here.”

  “I can help measure out the wood,” I suggested, not ready to be finished. “Or hold it steady while you hammer.”

  “Nah, that’s okay. But if you see your brother, send him this way. It won’t hurt him to learn a thing or two about construction.”

  “But I want to help,” I said, feeling as small and unimportant as a water bug.

  Daddy smiled at me. “You did. I couldn’t have done all this without you. Go for a swim. You’ve earned it. Or if you like, you could help your mother in the office.”

  I walked back to the lodge, his dismissal hot and heavy in my belly like a stomach ache. I paused outside the office window and peered in. Scarlett was putting on a show for Mimi, parading around the office in Mimi’s high heels and an old straw hat. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but Mimi had her hands clasped in front of her face and was laughing, delighted.

  I had no idea where Bo was, but decided if Daddy wanted his help so badly he could go find him himself.

  I made a beeline for the beach and dug my feet into the wet sand, letting the cool water kiss my ankles while hot tears burned my eyes. I felt like a stranger in my own family.

  In my opinion, Gwendolyn Cates couldn’t get here fast enough.

  Arrival

  “They’re coming! They’re coming!”

  Scarlett jumped to the ground from the Lookout, bending her knees deeply to cushion her fall, and then took off running across the front lawn toward the office, where I was helping Mimi sort keys at the reception desk. Mimi’s hand flew to her throat.

  “I wish she wouldn’t do that,” she muttered. “One of these days she’s going to break her neck.”

  “No, she won’t; she’s a great climber!” I smiled in spite of Mimi’s tone. Teaching Scarlett to climb was the only thing I taught her that seemed to stick. She didn’t care a lick for caterpillars or rock hunting or canoeing, but climbing trees she loved. It was something we shared. I didn’t even mind that Scarlett had adopted the Lookout as her own — letting her claim it seemed like the sisterly thing to do. Now, whenever you couldn’t find her, all you had to do was look up, and there was Scarlett, straddling a branch or sitting cross-legged in the crotch of the tree.

  Scarlett banged up the front steps and ran into the office, the screen door slamming behind her.

  “Did you hear me?” she gasped between jagged breaths. “They’re coming — I saw Daddy’s car!”

  “We heard you,” I said.

  “Is the room ready?” Mimi asked me.

  I nodded. “I aired it out yesterday and made the bed this morning,” I said.

  “Which linens did you use?”

  I blinked, not understanding the question. “The ones we always use.”

  Mimi looked shocked. “The flowered ones?”

  “What else would I use?”

  “I told you to use the guest linen.”

  “I did.”

  “That is not our guest linen; it’s the linen we use for any old customer. Now go get the real guest linen out of the closet in the hall; it’s light blue cotton with satin edging.”

  I searched my brain, but I couldn’t ever remember seeing such linens, let alone using them. My good mood was beginning to sour. I had taken special care with Gwendolyn’s bed, folding down the top sheet and fluffing up the pillows. It looked especially pretty in the afternoon, when the midday sunshine mellowed and poured in through the window, clear as lemon juice and just as fresh. Mimi hadn’t even seen it and already she was criticizing me.

  “I don’t see what the fuss is about,” I protested. “Daddy says we should treat all of our guests the same.”

  “Well, Gwendolyn is not just a guest, is she?” Mimi replied.

  Before she could say anything else, a horn beeped. We both looked out the window as Daddy pulled into the lane. Mimi flapped her hands in my direction, accidentally knocking a slim vase full of forget-me-nots to the ground.

  “Look what you made me do! Scarlett, go grab the mop. Reenie, you march yourself upstairs and change those linens!”

  “Yes, Mimi.” Scarlett hung her head like a scolded puppy and scurried off to the kitchen to fetch the mop. I raced upstairs, ripped the perfectly fine flowered sheets off the bed and remade it using the blue ones that, sure enough, I found in the closet, still encased in the box. I did the whole thing in record time, racing back downstairs just as Daddy and Gwendolyn were entering the office.

  “Look who I found at the bus station,” Daddy said, holding the door open with one hand and juggling a woman’s suitcase and a crate full of records in the other arm. “Our very own prima ballerina!”

  Gwendolyn entered; at least I thought it was Gwendolyn. The Gwendolyn I remembered from so many years ago had looked like she’d walked right out of my fairy tale book. She was silvery and ethereal, like something from another land.

  But now it was hard to tell who was behind the big black sunglasses, especially with her hair wrapped up in a silk scarf in garish shades of purple, yellow and red. A sleeveless white blouse two sizes too big was tied just below her midriff, and her dancer’s legs seemed to stretch on forever under her red flat-front shorts. I knew she was only four years older than I was, but suddenly the difference in our ages felt like a whole lifetime.

  “Gwendolyn! You look so grown up!”

  Mimi rushed forward, as if she were about to embrace Gwendolyn, but thought better of it, awkwardly taking Gwendolyn’s hands in her own instead. I flushed, embarrassed for Mimi. Usually she was much more self-possessed with guests. But, as I had so recently been reminded, Gwendolyn was not just a guest.

  Gwendolyn took off her sunglasses and hooked them on the front of her blouse, in the vee just above her bosom. It made her look hopelessly cool, like someone in a movie.

  “I go by Gwen now,” she said, smiling politely. “Thank you for having me.”

  Mimi waved it off. “Oh, no. Thank you! You’re doing us a big favour, bringing some culture to the place!”

  Mimi laughed, and Gwendolyn shrugged, looking uncomfortable.

  “Well, I’ll leave you ladies to it,” Daddy said, waving and leaving us in silence. If he noticed Mimi’s comment about Sandy Shores lacking culture, it didn’t show. As always, he was the perfect gentleman and a gracious host. I felt a surge of pride for him and decided no city ballerina, no matter how glamorous, could be as wonderful as my dad.

  We stood around, staring at each other, Gwendolyn, Scarlett, Mimi and me.

  Finally, Scarlett said, “I like your scarf.”

  Gwendolyn reached up, as if she had forgotten she was wearing a scarf, and said, “What, this old thing?” Then she slipped it off and tossed it to Scarlett. “Here, you can have it.”

  Scarlett and I gaped — Scarlett, at the scarf as silky as coloured water in her hands, and I at the straw yellow curls rioting around Gwendolyn’s head. Gone was the silvery hair I remembered. It had been cut, dyed, curled and sprayed solid, by the looks of it. Coupled with her red, red lips, she looked like a bona fide movie star. She was beautiful, no doubt about it, but I missed the otherworldly sheen of her hair as I remembered it.

  Mimi was the first of the Starrs to recover.

  “That’s awfully kind of you, Gwendolyn,” she said. “Now what can we do for you, would you like some water? Lemonade? Would you like Reenie to give you a tour before dinner?”

  “Please, call me Gwen,” she said. “And I
think I’d like to lie down for a bit. I had a late night.”

  “Of course! Girls?”

  Gwen didn’t make a move toward her suitcase. She was a girl used to having things carried for her. I didn’t mind, I was a girl used to being at the service of someone else. I reached for it with one arm and found I was going to need both if I was going to manage it all the way up the stairs. I’d have to come back for the records later. Scarlett skipped ahead, waving her new scarf behind her like a flag.

  “This way,” I said, somewhat needlessly.

  “Dinner is between five and nine in the dining hall,” Mimi said. “You can come down whenever you like. We try to eat together, as a family, at six. I would love for you to join us.”

  “Maybe another time,” Gwendolyn said. “I’m not very hungry.”

  She must have seen the look on my mother’s face, which went from hopeful to hurt in less than three seconds, because she added quickly, “I would love to, really, it’s just that I’m so tired.”

  Mimi brightened, the clouds that had crossed over her expression breaking up and clearing off as if they had never been there.

  “Of course, forgive me. We’re just so excited to have you. Now, you have a good long rest. We have all summer to get to know each other.”

  Something flickered across Gwen’s face, but it happened so quickly I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. Like Mimi, she seemed to be a master of controlling the face she displayed for the world to see. “Right,” she replied.

  Mimi smiled and disappeared back into the office. After she left, Gwen let out a long sigh and blew at a stray curl that had fallen over one eye.

  “And so it begins,” she said.

  I smiled, quizzically. “What begins? Your summer?”

  Gwen stared at me, searching my face; for what, I didn’t know. Maybe she found it, because she smiled at me and gestured toward the stairs. “Lead on,” she said.

  * * *

  Scarlett and I sat on the bed, watching Gwendolyn — no, Gwen — unpack. I tried not to stare, or look too interested, but I was desperate for any indication of the old Gwendolyn. That girl had been lovely, diffuse with light, like a moon princess. This girl was brash and had too many hard edges.