The Girls of August

by Anne Rivers Siddons

  “Bacon! I want bacon!” Barbara yelled as she rounded the corner. “That’s what my kids say every Sunday morning.”

  “Is that what you want?” I asked.

  “You bet.”

  “You got it, sleepyhead,” I said.

  “What does she have?” Baby yelled from the living room. She bounced into the kitchen, curls damp, skin scrubbed and glistening. “I am sooooo hungry! Can you make pancakes?” She pecked me on the cheek.

  Surprised, I pulled away and moved over to the sink, where I grabbed a sponge and stared out the window. The world looked washed clean. And with three cheerful women on my hands, it appeared that the storm had washed clean their sorrows, fears, and other inner malaises as well.

  Baby held her arms out from her sides and spun. “It’s gonna be a beautiful day, mothers!”

  I turned around. Whom was she talking to?

  “Mothers!” Barbara’s eyes flashed wide as she watched Baby spin.

  “Yes! Mother, mother, mother!” She pointed to each one of us on mother, saving me for last.

  Rachel shot us a look that clearly said, What the fuck?

  I shrugged. No use even trying to figure out this child. “OK, you want pancakes. Who else?”

  Barbara and Rachel raised their hands.

  “Pancakes! Yay!” Baby shrilled and she jumped up and down three times. I thought suddenly that she must be ADD. That, or she was on drugs. Dear God.

  “Don’t forget the bacon. In fact, I can make it.” Barbara, I noticed, had turned a soft shade of amber under all this sun.

  “No you won’t. Too many cooks in the kitchen.”

  “Great! Then I’ll make the mimosas.” Barbara headed to the fridge, retrieved two bottles of champagne and a carton of orange juice, closed the door with a bump of her hip, and then said, “Shoot!”

  “What is it, Mother?” Baby hung a casual arm around Barbara’s shoulder.

  Barbara flinched and moved out of range. “I forgot to bring the champagne flutes I bought for us. They’re the cutest things. The stems look like palm trees. They’re cut crystal and everything.”

  “Palm trees!” Baby carolled. “How cool is that! I’ve never seen anything like that. But no problem, Mother.” She shot into the pantry and yelled, “We keep a stash of champagne glasses in here. They’re not fancy, but who cares!”

  “What is wrong with her?” Rachel whispered.

  “I don’t know.” I grabbed a paring knife, plucked an apple from the fruit bowl, and started to peel.

  “She’s plumb out of her mind,” Barbara said, tapping her temple.

  “Hey, Baby,” Rachel called, “while you’re in there, see if you can find your stash of Ritalin.”

  “Riddle what?” Baby appeared at the doorway of the pantry, holding four cobalt-blue champagne stems. I realized that I had mistaken her hot-pink, spaghetti-strap sundress for a T-shirt.

  I stared down at the honeyed skin, and silently lectured myself that young women were different these days. They flaunted their bodies. And maybe that was OK. But if she had been my daughter…

  “Never mind,” Rachel said. “Just fix me a goddamned mimosa and hold the OJ.”

  “Yes, ma’am, Mother!” Her voice spiraled and I felt my hand tighten on the knife. As she prattled about how drunk she and Teddy had gotten on their wedding night, I closed my eyes. Apple pancakes. Not murder. Apple pancakes. Not murder. Apple pancakes…

  * * *

  Baby prattled nonstop through breakfast, hopping through subjects like a jackrabbit on speed. And then when I was seven my parents sent me to a private school. I do not know what the big deal is about Kim Kardashian and her fake butt. Once you start faking things, you should not be allowed on the news. Teddy says that if he can get away over Christmas, we’re going to go to Montserrat, wherever that is, but I think I’d just like to come here. Mothers, do you think I ought to have a baby now or wait a couple of years?

  “What is it with this ‘mother’ shit?” Rachel snapped, tossing down her napkin as though she were getting ready to rumble.

  Baby, who was licking syrup off her fingers, paused and said brightly, “Because you all are mothers. And you are all old enough to be mine!” She belly-laughed and slapped the table. Again, the question hung in the air: What in the hell was wrong with her?

  “Well, Baby,” I said, my voice rising an octave even though I was working hard at holding myself together. “I’m not.”

  “Sure you are,” Baby said, continuing to lick her fingers. “Wait! Oh, I get it.” Her eyes gleamed with newfound knowledge. “You mean you don’t have any kids. But you’re still old enough to be my mama!” She jumped to her feet and started spinning again, showing her thong underwear the full 360.

  “Baby!” Rachel snapped.

  “Yes, Mother?”

  “Enough with the mother stuff. Make yourself useful and clear this table and then help Barbara and me clean the kitchen.”

  Baby snapped to attention, clicking her heels, and saluted—stiff, tall, chest out. “Yes, Mother. Right away, Mother.” And then she giggled again.

  Barbara closed her eyes and shook her head. Baby didn’t seem to care or notice. She stacked the dishes, jabbering away about an old boyfriend who’d had a nervous condition that got so bad he lost all his hair.

  “How the hell old was he?” Rachel asked.

  “Grandpappy old, most likely,” Barbara retorted. “Hell, Teddy is probably young enough to be the old boyfriend’s grandbaby.”

  “That’s not funny!” Baby said. After a couple of silent moments during which I thought she might slide into a snit, she burst into a convulsive peal of laughter. “Oh, oh, oh my gawd! Young enough to be Geoffrey’s grandbaby!” She slapped her leg and guffawed. “That is soooooo funny!”

  Barbara and Rachel both rolled their eyes and Rachel poured more champagne. Baby snatched the plates off the table and headed to the sink, giggling all the way.

  I left the kitchen and headed upstairs to change into my bathing suit and sit for a few minutes in blessed silence. I hadn’t even gained the first riser when I heard her say, “You know, Mothers, Geoffrey was only twenty-two when he went stark, raving bald…”

  * * *

  When I finally ventured back downstairs, I found that the kitchen was spotless, Barbara and Rachel were gathering drinks, towels, snacks, and sunscreen for what promised to be a long day in the sun, and Baby was sitting at the kitchen table stacking packets of Sweet’n Low into diminutive towers while singing a song in a foreign language I couldn’t identify.

  I caught Barbara’s eye and she mouthed, “Help me.”

  Rachel looked over the top of her big Jackie O sunglasses and said, “Baby, this is your mother talking. Stop playing around and go put on your damned bathing suit.”

  “Huh?” Baby feigned surprise, slapped her hands on her hips. “Oh, Mother, must you be such a bore!” And then she returned the sweetener packets to their container and marched upstairs to her bedroom, singing all the while. When she came back down, much to our relief, she was subdued.

  But relief was destined not to last long. We could not have been seaside for more than an hour when Baby jumped from her lounge chair like a bottle rocket. “Come on, y’all,” she chirped. “This is perfect weather for birthday suits! Take ’em off. God made your birthday suits. Now wear ’em! Let’s go skinny-dipping!”

  “He made swimsuits too,” Barbara growled. She stood, her paperback fell onto the sand, and she didn’t bother picking it up. “I’m going to go lie down. I feel one of my migraines coming on.”

  I watched Barbara make her way back to the house, staggering a little. I considered going after her but decided I should just let her rest and get her bearings. Maybe she’d fall asleep and sober up.

  “For God’s sake, Baby,” Rachel snapped, “nobody is going skinny-dipping and don’t you dare take off your swimsuit. I swear, you are behaving as if you are a hyperactive six-year-old. How does Teddy stand it?”

&nb
sp; Baby actually stomped her foot. “He stands it because we love each other. And yes, I’m ADD. And yes, I misplaced my meds. But I’m still a good person,” she screamed.

  “Sit!” Rachel ordered.

  And Baby did. She pouted and fumed, but eventually she ran out of steam and fell asleep under the hot, heavy sun.

  “Zach behaved just like that when he was a toddler,” Rachel said, rummaging through her beach tote. “But, of course, like most children, he grew out of it.”

  “You asked the twenty-five-thousand-dollar question. How does Teddy stand it?” I reached for my tumbler of ice water and realized that I almost felt sorry for him.

  “You know what?” Rachel shook her head as she gazed at the ocean. “With the notable exception of Melinda, all that man has ever really done is think about tail and chase tail.”

  “Well,” I said, pressing the cold, sweating tumbler to my cheek, “he didn’t get any from me.”

  “And look how long you lasted,” Rachel said.

  I chuckled. She was right about that. And I was grateful that I’d never slept with him. I’m not sure that we’d all be friends if things had gone that far with Teddy and me.

  “You know, I think I might go back to the house,” I said. “The sun is starting to get to me.”

  “Let’s go for a dip first. Sure cure for sunstroke.”

  I almost said no, but then I looked at Rachel’s calm, open face—it still belied last night’s terror—and I thought, I want to spend every last second I can with you.

  Arm in arm, we waded into the water. “I love you, Madison McCauley. Don’t you ever forget that,” Rachel said as a wave slapped our thighs.

  “I love you too, Rachel Greene. You know what?”

  “What?”

  “We’re going to have to find her meds.”

  “Yep.”

  Rachel slipped away from me and dove below the surface. When she emerged, she was on her back, gazing at the sky. “Ahhh,” she murmured, “what a beautiful day.”

  * * *

  Baby might have dozed off to sleep in a snit, but she woke up equable and sweet-tempered. She seemed, I don’t know, almost mature. Her mood swings made me believe that in addition to the ADD, her hormones were probably raging.

  As we gathered our belongings before hiking back up to the house, I whispered to Rachel, “You get her in a game of cards, and I’ll search her room.”

  They sat at the kitchen table, arguing over whether to play gin rummy or poker. Baby won. Gin rummy it was, and a sleepy-eyed but sober Barbara joined them.

  I went upstairs and tiptoed into Baby’s room. I scanned quickly. Her pills were nowhere in sight. I eased open her top dresser drawer. There, amid scant silk panties, were two Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, a plethora of scrunchies, and a worn-edged hot-pink journal. Unable to squelch my nosiness, I pulled it out and scanned its pages.

  Doodles were interspersed between inspirational sayings handwritten in loopy script. “Don’t walk. Dance” was sandwiched between “It is in our darkest moments that we must struggle to see the light—Aristotle (Onassis, the other Greek)” and “I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination—Jimmy Dean (sausage master and singer).” Two pages were filled with Arabic script; it looked as if she’d been practicing penmanship. And then there was this, which made my heart break: “Dear Mommy, I miss you more than life itself. I wish I had been a better daughter. If I could do it all over again, maybe you’d still be alive. All my love, Baby.”

  What on earth? I closed the journal, returned it to its nest amid the panties and candy, spied a prescription bottle on the floor—it had rolled under the bed—retrieved it and set it on the dresser so that it was impossible to miss, and wondered what had happened that made Baby think she’d been a bad daughter. Surely she wasn’t responsible for her mother’s death. Or was she?

  * * *

  After dinner we sat around a beach fire Rachel and Barbara had made and talked about this and that…old flames, old houses, old jobs, old and discarded dreams, old favored books, long-loved movie stars. Baby stayed right there with us, bundled up in a too-big sweater and too-tight jeans, turning her face to listen to each one of us as we spoke. Saying little but apparently absorbing whatever we offered, she sometimes nodded, as if agreeing with us. She was so still and silent that I knew for sure she had found her meds. To be honest, I liked this quiet, more thoughtful Baby. And I hoped she would stick around.

  At one point, after the fire had taken on a steady life and the moon had sailed far across the sky, the subject turned to movies in which the actresses so inhabited their roles that we remembered them years after we’d seen the films.

  “Meryl Streep in The Deer Hunter,” said Rachel, who, we were quite sure, had seen every movie ever made since the advent of talkies. “I was a lanky teenager in braces. My parents took all of us, which I think they ended up regretting. It was not a happy movie. But all I could think was Meryl, with that long, golden hair, was the most beautiful person in the world. I wanted to look just like her. Me, the dark-eyed Jew from Jersey!”

  “Well, if you’re talking about faces,” Barbara chimed in, “what about Anjelica Huston in that movie with Jack Nicholson. What was it called?”

  “Prizzi’s Honor,” Rachel said. “I loved that movie.”

  Barbara snapped her fingers. “Yep. That’s it. Not a pretty woman, but a handsome woman. And I mean that in the best of ways.”

  “I just wish I had one ounce of Halle Berry’s good looks. She’s going to be hot when she’s a hundred and five,” I said.

  “You’ve got that right,” Barbara said. “I saw her on the cover of one of those supermarket tabloids last week. In a bikini. And I mean H-O-T.”

  We all nodded and in the light from the beach fire I thought we all looked beautiful too.

  Then Barbara, perhaps the kindest of us, looked across the fire at Baby and said, “What about you? Who’s your candidate for a great actress? Or one who’s a major knockout?”

  “Mmmmm, I’m not sure,” she said, staring into the flames. “But I think maybe”—she tapped her chin with her fingers—“maybe Rooney Mara.”

  We looked at each other.

  “Who?” Rachel asked.

  “Rooney Mara,” Baby repeated, looking at us as if she couldn’t believe how uninformed we were. “She’s really good. She’s gonna be in that movie coming out about a dragon tattoo. Teddy and I saw the previews. It looks awesome.”

  “Never heard of her,” Barbara said.

  “Nope. Me neither,” Rachel said. “Rooney Mara sounds like a man’s name.” And then, as if she had forgotten Baby was sitting there, she murmured, “Too bad about young people…”

  “What do you mean?” Baby asked.

  Rachel looked at her, and without a stitch of animosity, said, “You don’t know anything. All the great things in the world escape you because your generation is only interested in what’s in front of your face. It’s scary.”

  I had no idea why Rachel was being so bullheaded.

  “Hold on there,” I said, trying for damage control. “I think young people simply know things we don’t and vice versa.”

  Missing my cue, Barbara jumped in. “What do you and Teddy talk about, anyway? I mean, you’ve got nothing in common. For goodness’ sake, your cultural references are decades apart.”

  Baby didn’t respond, which, I grudgingly thought, was wise. I suspected she felt outnumbered, picked on, hurt, and with good cause. She kept her big-eyed gaze on the fire, and we all trailed off into an uncomfortable silence.

  Finally, Barbara said, “Well, it’s late. I think we best throw some sand on this fire and go to bed. How about it, Baby?”

  “Yeah, yeah, sure, I’ll put out the fire.” She stood and grabbed the shovel that was lying in the sand beside Rachel. “You know, I’ve been thinking.”

  “What’s that?” Rachel asked, standing and slapping the sand from her rear end, to
tally unaware that she’d insulted Baby to her face.

  “I know that Maddy has been doing all the cooking because she’s, well, you know, a chef. But what if I cook breakfast in the morning? Give you the morning off, Maddy.”

  We all looked at each other in stunned amazement. We had never even seen Baby near the stove, and I could tell that my cohorts were stifling giggles. But what was more impressive to me was that after Rachel’s rude smackdown, Baby seemed intent on taking the high ground.

  “Why thank you, Baby, that would be wonderful,” I said.

  She smiled that wide, pretty smile of hers, leaned over, and pecked my cheek. This time I did not move away. “Y’all go on to bed. I’ll get this.”

  “You sure?” Barbara asked.

  “Absolutely. Go on.” She waved us into the house and we took our leave.

  I looked after her. She’s not a dumb bunny, I thought. Under all that—goofiness—she’s as smart as a whip. I wonder what’s going on with her.

  As we entered the living room and closed the door, Rachel said, “Well good goddamn, looks like we’re rubbing off on the poor little thing.”

  “Does she even know how to turn on the oven?” Barbara asked.

  “Whether she does or doesn’t,” I said, “we’ve got to let her try. You know, she’s not the enemy.”

  “Yeah,” Rachel grumbled as she headed upstairs, “I guess we ought to be a little nicer. Damn it.”

  And with that we ascended the stairs, offered our good nights, and drifted off to our own rooms, where, I suppose, we each considered sleepily what the next day would bring.

  As I pulled up the covers and settled into the cool sheets, my thoughts turned to Rachel, with whom I could never really be mad. In the darkness I tried to imagine what a dying woman dreamed of. I decided that she dreamed of her children.

  “Her children,” I whispered, and I saw her five kids—all young adults, most already in college—crowded around their dying mom. All were weeping. That was the last thought I had before sleep took me.