Summer by the Sea

by Susan Wiggs

  “So anyway,” she said, “we should get started. I’ll help you.”

  Pop scowled. “What help? I don’t need any help.”

  She eyed the cluttered room, the cardboard boxes stacked on the stairway as they had been for weeks, waiting to be taken up. She stood and pushed in her chair. When she was certain he was looking at her, she said, “I’m going to get the boys’ room ready for Joey.”

  He didn’t object as she seized one of the boxes and headed upstairs. She hadn’t been up here in ages, and neither had Pop, judging by the cobwebs in the stairwell.

  A curious sensation came over her. She was not just walking up a flight of stairs in the house where she’d grown up. She was ascending to a place where old memories shimmered like dust motes in the air around her. The boys’ room, as it was still called even though the “boys” hadn’t lived here in twenty years, was frozen in time, a snapshot of their world the day they had both left for basic training.

  Robert had been eighteen, the ink barely dry on his high school diploma. Sal was a year older, though he’d stayed home the year after high school. Rosa had been too little to understand why he had stuck around while all his friends were heading out into the world to find their lives. Now, as an adult, she knew exactly why.

  He had stayed home because that was Mamma’s last year on earth. He, Rob and Pop had known. Mamma had known. But no one had told Rosa.

  Sal had spent more time than anyone else with their mother. Along with the nuns and a visiting nurse sent by their church and funded by St. Vincent de Paul, Sal became Mamma’s primary caretaker. Rosa could still picture him smiling gently as he spooned lime Jell-O into her mouth when she was too weak to feed herself. He had unflinchingly emptied and cleaned the tubes and bags that had become her prison in the end. Sometimes he would go to another room and sit down and cry in rough, jagged sobs that made his whole body shudder. But he never cried in front of Mamma.

  Mostly, he sat by her side, held her hand and read to her, everything from the Bible to James Herriot books to a new novel called The Color Purple. Those times, Rosa believed, had brought him to a state of grace. At the side of his dying mother, he discovered the path his life was to follow. He found the strength of his convictions, and he made her a promise. He would be a priest. And he’d done it, attending seminary courtesy of the United States Navy, because they needed men of faith. Now he was a chaplain, and as good a priest as he was a warrior.

  Rosa’s brothers had left on a clear morning in June. She and Pop had driven them to the train station in Kingston, had stood numbly on the platform, waving goodbye. They’d returned to a house that was eerily quiet and diminished by loss, the same way it had been when Mamma died.

  That afternoon, Rosa had gone to work with Pop because she was too young to stay home alone. It had been that same afternoon, she recalled, that she met Alex Montgomery for the first time.

  The boys’ room stood virtually untouched, as though Rob and Sal had just walked out of it five minutes before. There was a Winslow Spartans pennant on the wall, a shelf of baseball and Greco-Roman wrestling trophies, a dresser covered with photos yellowing in their frames. There were shots of Rosa at six, dressed like a miniature bride for her first communion, and at eight, proudly holding aloft a bluefish she’d caught while out on the Carmichaels’ boat. The photos of her mother formed something of a shrine, and the faded quality of the prints seemed to enhance the deep, ethereal beauty of Celesta, haloing her with a look of untouchable grace.

  Rosa cleared out the closet—Levi’s and Chuck Taylor sneakers and shirts with pointy collars—and threw everything into plastic sacks for the dump. She was not about to burden the Salvation Army or Catholic Charities with old gym socks and Dukes of Hazzard T-shirts.

  Eventually some combination of curiosity and guilt brought her father to the room with a dust mop, a can of Pledge and a roll of paper towels. He said nothing, but started on the floor in desultory fashion. They worked together in companionable silence until Rosa stripped the bunk beds and bundled up the sheets to take to the basement for washing.

  “What are you doing that for?” asked Pop. “Those are clean sheets.”

  “They need freshening up.” He didn’t seem to catch “freshening” so she signed it.

  “Suit yourself,” he muttered, moving the things off the dresser to squirt it with Pledge. He wiped down the surface and then dusted each photo with care, smiling a little at the images.

  She waved to get his attention. “What are you thinking about?”

  He set aside a photo of Rob and Sal in their Little League pinstripes. His face was creased by lines of sentiment. “Thanking God for all of this, thanking God that it happened to me.”

  She ached for him, knowing he could recall a time when his hearing was keen and the house rang with laughter, when disease and disaster were things you read about in the newspaper. The accident twelve years ago had changed him, darkened his spirit.

  She helped him arrange the pictures. “There are plenty of good times ahead, Pop.”

  He patted her hand. “You bet.” Then he studied her face, and she could feel him reading her; he’d always been able to guess at her thoughts. “You are going to start seeing him again, eh? The Montgomery boy.”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe.” She had no idea why she said that. She kept telling herself it was long over; she didn’t want to see Alex again. But Pop had a way of getting her mouth to speak up before her brain could censor her.

  “Rosa. This is a boy who hurt you. He did a terrible thing and the heartbreak nearly—” He stopped himself, she could see, with sheer force of will.

  She knew he was thinking about her extreme reaction to the accident and Alex’s departure. “I was a kid,” she said. “I didn’t have good coping skills.”

  “Well, now you got a perfectly fine life. Don’t go messing with a boy like that. He’ll do you no good at all.”

  Alex would always be a boy to Pop, a spoiled rich boy.

  “Everybody changes,” she pointed out, wondering even as she spoke why she was taking Alex’s part. Probably because Pop took the opposite side, and the two of them loved to argue.

  “His wedding got called off and he’s just lost his mother. He’s looking for a shoulder to cry on.”

  She paused, Windex bottle in hand. “Sounds like you’ve been keeping up with all the gossip.”

  “I read the papers.”

  “Then maybe you’ve read that he manages a trust to provide health care for the needy.”

  “Montgomerys are good at making money. They can’t help it.”

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

  “Never mind that boy, Rosina. You got better things to do with your time.”

  She went downstairs and got some new lightbulbs; most seemed to be burned out in here. As she unscrewed a corroded bulb from the ceiling fixture, sparks shot from the socket. She nearly fell off the chair she was standing on.

  “The wiring’s terrible in here, Pop,” she said. “This place is a firetrap.”

  “I’ll get Rudy to come take a look at it.” Rudy was a retired electrician who lived down the block.

  “You do that, Pop. Tomorrow.”

  fifteen

  The main street of Winslow was lined with shops that catered to summer visitors and well-heeled browsers. The hardware store hummed this time of year, peak season for gardening and home improvement. Business was always brisk for Eagle Harbor Books, the Twisted Scissors Salon, the Stop & Shop and Seaside Silversmith. At the end of Winslow Way was a beach-access parking lot bordered by summer-only stands called “She Sells Sea Shells” and “I Scream For Ice Cream.”

  There were three dress shops, one that attracted the matronly golf set, one for tourists and trends, and a bridal boutique owned by a local woman named Ariel Cole. Her mother, a P
ortuguese immigrant, had started a tailor shop decades before, and Ariel still did a decent trade in alterations, but the larger part of her business was Wedding Belles, the bridal shop.

  Linda’s bridesmaids gathered at the boutique to try the three options Ariel had selected for them. Wearing strapless A-line gowns in aqua silk shantung, Rosa and Linda’s sister, Rachel, stared at their reflections in the boutique mirror while Linda and Ariel stood back, examining them with a critical eye.

  “This can’t be right, Ariel,” said Rosa. “This is a great dress. It actually looks good on us.”

  “And your point is...?”

  “Bridesmaid gowns are supposed to be ugly so they don’t outshine the bride. Isn’t that a rule or something?”

  “Not in my shop, it isn’t,” Ariel said with a sniff. She had always taken pride in her exquisite taste. She turned to the other bridesmaids, Linda’s sister Rachel, and Sandra Malloy, a local writer who had become fast friends with Linda. “Well?”

  “We love it.” Sandra, who hadn’t tried on the dress, patted her hugely rounded stomach. “This is our favorite. Now all I have to do is make sure the baby comes before the wedding. No idea what size I’ll be, though.”

  “I’m doing the alterations myself,” Ariel said.

  “You look like a fertility goddess,” said Linda, holding the gorgeous fabric against Sandra’s pregnant belly.

  Rosa was blindsided by a swift, sharp pang of yearning. Oh, she wanted to feel the way Sandra must be feeling now, as a contented wife with her first baby on the way. She wanted that with all her heart. She had for a long time, but the distance from the wish to the deed was vast.

  “Earth to Rosa,” Linda said, nudging her. “Last chance to cast your vote.”

  “I don’t know,” said Rosa, shoving away the painful thoughts. “It seems too easy. We’re not objective enough. I want to go show Twyla.” She went outside and headed for the Twisted Scissors Salon a few doors down. Rosa had always given Twyla full credit for rescuing her from the world’s worst haircut when she was thirteen, and she’d been Rosa’s stylist ever since.

  As she hurried down the sidewalk, she noticed a tall man in painter’s pants and a paint-spattered T-shirt and cap, carrying a five-gallon bucket out of the hardware store. Rosa slowed her pace. She was not in so much of a hurry that she couldn’t stop for a moment to enjoy the view. She’d always been a sucker for a guy in work clothes.

  She was thinking seriously about having her condo repainted when she realized who she was staring at with such lust. As he lowered the tailgate of a white SUV and loaded the paint in the back, she knew that perfect male butt could only belong to one man.

  Rosa ducked her head and started walking again. But being inconspicuous on the street while wearing a strapless turquoise gown was impossible. A wolf whistle from the direction of the truck alerted her that she’d been spotted. She stopped before he could do it again, drawing even more attention to her. He closed the tailgate of the truck and walked over to her.

  “Rosa.” Alex’s gaze slipped down and up, twice. “Nice dress.”

  His look alone gave her goose bumps, which she tried desperately to will away before he noticed. “Thank you. So anyway...if you’ll excuse me...” She edged toward the salon.

  He stepped in her path. “I’ve been thinking about our conversation...at the club last week.”

  The club. He had no idea how that sounded. “I’m sort of in a hurry here.”

  “I meant what I said about seeing you.”

  “Look your fill.” She spread her arms and faced him with reckless confidence, goose bumps and all, even though she knew he’d dated women far more beautiful than she. Pictures of his glossy public life sometimes ran in the “Evening Hours” column of the Times. He always favored a “type.” Patrician, fair and WASPy, his dates were as tall and thin as uncooked spaghetti.

  Judging by the expression on his face now, Rosa suspected he might be willing to keep an open mind about his type. His eyes didn’t just look, they touched. She felt a swift phantom caress on her lips, her throat, her breasts, as his gaze slipped over her.

  “That’s not enough,” he said.

  “That’s all I’m offering.” She brushed past him. “I have to go.”

  He took her by the arm and pulled her back to face him. “Not so fast.”

  Rosa hated herself for feeling that touch all the way through her, like a jolt of electrical current.

  “It’s not a lot to ask,” he urged her. “I need to see you again.”

  As always, this was about his needs, not hers. He hadn’t changed one bit. In spite of herself, Rosa remembered how she had ached with missing him, how she’d grieved for the future they’d never have together. To her horror, all those feelings came rushing back at her now, swirling around and engulfing her like a powerful undertow, pulling her feet out from under her.

  How could this not have changed? she wondered in a panic. We’re different people now. Why do I still feel this way?

  Neurolinguistic implantation, she thought, dredging up something she’d learned in a cognitive science course. An event in the present evokes past sensations. But science couldn’t explain how a foolish heart had the power to overrule common sense. Run, Rosa, run, she urged herself, yet somehow she stayed planted right in front of him. Maybe if he wasn’t touching her, she’d be able to think straight.

  “Let go of me, Alex.”

  He didn’t, but rubbed his thumb along the inside of her elbow until she felt the heated sting of temptation.

  “I don’t want to.”

  She caught her breath and asked, “What about what I want? You don’t even know whether or not I’m spoken for.”

  “You’re not. I checked.”

  She pulled her arm away. “You’ve been checking on me?”

  “Not really. I was bluffing, and you just told me what I want to know.”

  Oops. “I don’t need you—or anyone—in my life. I’m perfectly happy with the way things are,” she snapped.

  He met her furious glare with a calm smile. “Remind me not to piss you off.”

  “Too late,” she said with a small laugh. “I believe your exact words to me were ‘We’re not going to happen.’ I think that still holds true, don’t you?”

  The expression on his face told her that he recalled the conversation, probably as clearly as she did. They both still remembered exactly what he’d said the night he had told her goodbye forever.

  “Don’t you believe in second chances, Rosa?”

  Refusing to answer that, she studied him for a moment, subjecting him to the same scrutiny he gave her. There was a time when she had known every thought in his head, every wish in his heart. Where was that brilliant, lonely boy who had opened himself to her, who’d been the keeper of her deepest dreams and secrets? For a second, she thought she saw the boy’s yearning and desperation in the man’s blue eyes, but that was probably just a trick of the light.

  “What?” he asked her.

  “You’re getting too skinny,” she said, and that was true, judging by the gaunt shadows under his eyes. He clearly wasn’t treating himself well, all alone at the beach house. She tried to imagine what it was like for him, grieving alone, wondering what had driven his mother to take her own life. The bleakness of that image touched her in spite of herself. “You should eat.”

  “So feed me.”

  “Book a table at the restaurant, and I’ll feed you.”

  “Your friends there are overprotective.”

  “There are other restaurants in town,” she said. “Or—here’s a concept—you could learn to cook.”

  He shook his head and gestured at the buckets in the back of the truck. “I have other projects going on.”

  “Why are you painting your own house? Couldn’t you hire someon
e to do it?”

  “Stop by and I’ll explain it.”

  Rosa realized they were garnering stares from passersby. “I have to go.” She turned and fled to the salon. He wouldn’t dare follow her there.

  She was wrong. She stepped inside, and just as she began to think she’d made a clean getaway, the bell over the door jingled lightly. Even before turning around, she knew it was him.

  “Look, Alex—”

  “I’m looking.” He took off his painter’s cap and offered everyone a friendly grin, stirring up a flurry of female sighs among Twyla and her customers. “Pardon me, ladies. I was just trying to make a date here—”

  “I already told you no,” Rosa snapped in frustration.

  “What are you, nuts?” asked a woman whose head was covered in strips of foil. “The guy’s asking you out.”

  “So you go out with him,” Rosa said.

  “I’m asking you, Rosa,” Alex said. “And not for the first time.”

  “Then you should know you’re wasting your breath. I won’t change my mind.”

  He stood very still with his cap held over his heart, and she thought that at last she’d gotten through to him. For a second, she felt the tiniest twinge of regret.

  Then he grinned again, put his hat back on and headed for the door. “Sure you will, honey,” he said, loud enough for everyone to hear. “Sure you will.”

  sixteen

  “My God, Alex,” said Gina Colombo, getting out of her rental car and goggling up at the place. “You live in a frigging ark.”

  Alex came down the porch steps to greet his most trusted colleague at the firm. “But you don’t have to come aboard two-by-two.”

  She gave a happy little yell and hugged him with un-abashed affection. “It’s good to see you. How are you doing?”