“Oh.”
“By the way, do you like the ring?”
I nodded. “A lot. But you knew I would.” I smoothed out the carpet.
“What was that tone?” she asked.
“What tone?”
Ellie was vulnerable, a nerve ending of emotions. She leaned forward. “There was a tone. You do think I’m controlling everything.”
“Well, no, just that I haven’t had a say about the cake, the rings, the place, even the wedding itself.”
“You do resent me!”
“No. You picked the same things I would have. And you’re right. I have trouble doing more than two things at a time, so I doubt I could’ve pulled this off.”
Her face fell to her knees. “I didn’t do this because I don’t think you’re capable. I thought we felt the same about each other, and I wanted to be romantic for once in my life and surprise you.”
“What do you mean, for once in your life?”
“Come on. I’ve ruined more romantic moments. You’ve told me! The first time you kissed me, I laughed.”
“Yeah.” I remembered.
“And the time you kissed my neck and I was watching TV over your shoulder and said that House Hunters was going to Costa Rica.”
“Yeah, that was…yeah.”
The door swung open. Mom, always a morning person, announced breakfast a little too cheerfully. “It’s the big day!” she proclaimed.
So we came out into the living area, sporting our matching rings, and everyone applauded. I guess that’s as normal as any reaction to the marriage of two women. Unbeknownst to them, I grew up in the same homophobic culture they did. And I felt strange. I admit it. It seemed like we were doing something totally wrong or, at the very least, weird. As far as I knew, we were just supposed to live together until we died.
We joined the others at the table. I had a thin piece of toast for breakfast.
Meanwhile, Nathan brought in grilled sausage and tried to slide it onto everyone’s plates. He loved breakfast, especially breakfast meats. Ironically, my sister despised breakfast because it reminded her of going to school and the time she had a stack of pancakes and threw up on the school bus. This morning, she wandered out in her bathrobe, took one look at the sausages he was pushing and groaned, “Ugh, vomit.”
“And you won’t be having any,” Nathan said casually, immediately retracting the offending spatula.
I held up my hand to show off my ring. Joanne’s opinion was the most important. She took my finger and studied it. “Beautiful,” she said. “It’s very you.”
Then she looked around. “Where’s your dad?”
Nathan said, “He’s staying a few places down, near Morgan and Fran’s cottage.”
“Oh, right. Well, good, everyone has a place.” Joanne was so tense her shoulders were up near her ears.
Penny knocked tentatively on the door that was already open.
“Who keeps leaving the door unlocked?” Mom demanded. The mystery of where I’d gotten my OCD had been solved.
“I was hopin’ I could join y’all for breakfast.” Penny looked like she’d literally just rolled out of bed. “I can’t do anything in that shack without touching a wall. It’s smaller than my apartment!”
It was a shame. The sweet Penny I knew and loved would be cranky today. I had learned this from living with her. Without sleep, she would morph into a Southern Godzilla.
“Come on.” Ellie touched my knee and nodded toward the beach.
“We’ll be right back,” I called, feeling rude, as if I had to keep everyone entertained.
We walked that morning for what seemed like miles but wasn’t really that far, along the shore, looking out at the unusually gentle ocean and a lazy sunrise that I rarely got up early enough to see. Aside from sharp rocks shredding the bottoms of my feet, I felt a certain peace and comfort with my hand in Ellie’s, as I always had. We didn’t talk, especially not about the evening’s event, and I felt a real happiness in the quietness.
“Remember when we watched The Horse Whisperer the other night?” I asked.
She nodded.
“And I was crying so much I used all the Kleenex,” I continued. “Well, I was thinking…if I can’t write something that good, that makes people feel what that story makes me feel…then there’s no point in being a writer.”
“You can do that,” Ellie said without hesitation.
“Why are you so sure? Because you’re totally blinded by your lust and admiration for me?”
She kicked some freezing water at me. “You know I don’t like to read,” she said finally.
“Yeah,” I muttered ironically.
“You gave me your manuscript, and I finished it in one night. All two hundred pages.”
“Yeah, well why can’t you be a publisher?” I joked. She slid her hand back in mine, and all was right again. It amazed me the power she had to make the world rotate on its axis again just when I thought we were headed toward a black hole. Ellie didn’t know it, but she could do things like that.
Back on the deck, Joanne was staring out at the motionless sea.
“Hey.” I put my hand on her shoulder.
“Oh hey.” She turned around. “I was meaning to talk to you before, you know.”
“Sure.” Suddenly I was transported to Tampa when we had our last talk as single sisters just before her wedding. I’d felt sad, like it was the end of a major chapter of our lives, but a necessary change at the same time.
“I want you to know something,” Joanne said. “I know you hear me screaming at the kids and always looking for their fruit snacks so they won’t get bored. It seems chaotic to you. But sometimes I look at their faces and think, ‘Wow, we made that.’ What I mean is, I wouldn’t trade anything. And yeah, I was going through this phase where I didn’t want Nathan to touch me, but I’m past that now.”
“Good.” I didn’t know how to take back my wide eyes. “Well, I can tell there’s real love between you, even now.”
“Yeah?”
“Oh, yeah,” I said. “Just the way he knows how to calm you down when you’re having a hormonal crisis or how not to ever give you breakfast. He just knows. That’s love.” I smiled at her, and there was that unspoken sister understanding. I was lucky she was here, lucky she always accepted me, and grateful that had never changed.
Later that morning Aunt Rita burst into the cottage and before we knew it, there was a sweet-smelling powder filling every corner of the living room.
“Sydney! Come here!” she hollered in a raspy voice, arms outstretched.
I succumbed to the machine gun kisses she shot across both of my cheeks, then waited for her appraisal. This was the first time in six years that I’d seen her in person, and I was surprised at how much she looked the same. She still bleached her hair, had a small waist but pear-shaped, chunky body and none of the typical lines or age spots I’d expect for someone in her seventies or early eighties. She looked pretty compared to some of my relatives. Dad used to compare me to Aunt Ida, which offended me. He’d say, “What? She was quite a handsome woman in her day.”
“Dad,” I’d argue. “She has a mustache.”
I missed him, especially today. Just thinking of him, I swallowed hard to rid myself of the lump in my throat. He never really approved of my orientation when he was alive. He never said it, but I knew it.
Then I braced myself for the explanation I knew I needed to provide Aunt Rita.
She glanced over at Ellie and reached out. “You must be Ellie,” she said gently but with a devilish smile. Then she looked at me. “Your mother told me everything in the car. I’m so glad you found someone before I died.”
Then she scooped up Ellie and I watched in awe.
Mom smiled knowingly in the corner.
I could picture my mom and her sister Rita growing up in 1940s and ’50s Miami, where every car was aqua and no one had a decent refrigerator or hairstyle. Boys and girls shared straws at malt shops. Beaver Cleaver would ne
ver have been gay—even though he hung out with a guy whose nickname, Lumpy, was kind of peculiar. With that history, I just assumed there would be no way Aunt Rita could understand. Even my own mother sobbed when I first told her. She’d been brought up in Catholic school. But after many years, it was not only okay with her, but she’d send me cut-out newspaper articles about gay celebrities or anything having to do with coming out. I’d forgotten how supportive she’d become.
I did wonder, though, about Dad, with his Protestant leanings and his grim face when the subject was raised. When he’d first passed away, I used to wish he’d come to me in a dream and tell me it was all okay. But he never did. I’d see him in weird dreams, walking among irises, which he loved. But he never told me he was okay with me being gay. Mom would say, “Oh, he knows, and he’s smiling on you.” But that’s a thing a mother would say. It’s better than, “Oh, I don’t know. He probably still thinks you’ll burn in hell.”
The day Dad died, we were all having lunch together in the sunroom of their house in Fort Lauderdale. It was the house they always wanted, right on a strip of water. We were having pork chops and talking about our dead-end jobs, Joanne and me, and I resented how they told her she didn’t have to worry about working because she had Nathan to take care of her. Val was offended because we were seen differently as a couple—and because everything offended Val. Just as I was getting worried about Val ripping the tablecloth off or something along those lines since she was prone to fits of impulsiveness, Dad reached for his forehead. We all stopped talking and watched him holding his head. We watched helplessly as he collapsed forward onto his plate. Just like that. It happened in seconds. One minute he was there, advising us about the stock market, and the next, he was silent, heaped over his potatoes and green linen napkin and other insignificant details that I’d never forget for the rest of my life. It was so sudden it took our breath away. I lost all feeling on one side of my face for about two months. Every time I drove up a ramp, I’d imagine it suddenly collapsing. Every time I went to bed, I imagined not waking up the next day. Suddenly everything became fleeting and random, as his death had seemed. I’d always struggled with my faith, but now it was on major probation. Actually, I didn’t feel like I had any left at all.
I was pulled away from my thoughts by Aunt Rita’s thundering voice.
“I got shrapnel in my head from the war,” she told Ellie, knocking on her skull.
“No,” Mom explained quietly to everyone. “She was never in the war. There was an explosion in the textile factory where she worked.”
Aunt Rita settled in with a whiskey sour at noon. She locked eyes on poor Ellie, who was too polite to leave the room.
“You know the Great Depression?” Aunt Rita continued. “Pretty bad. Folks jumping out of windows. I was smarter than that. I had the good sense to just become an alcoholic.”
Ellie found my eyes, and I could see her surprise behind a cool exterior. We exchanged secret smiles.
Fran and Morgan came in around lunch, both looking tired again.
“Sorry,” Fran said. “She dragged me down a bike trail.”
“Shut up, Fran!” Morgan pulled leaves out of her hair. “If you had an inner tube around your belly and a cheesecake ass, you might want a little exercise too!”
“Are these the friends?” Aunt Rita finished sucking down another drink and rose unsteadily to greet them. “I’m the aunt who’s been around since Jesus. Wanna drink?” She hugged Morgan hard, nearly choking her.
“Good to meet ya,” Morgan answered politely.
“Yeah, yeah,” Aunt Rita grunted. “I never had a thing for the ladies, although I heard Katherine Hepburn did. She was a cool lady, met her once in a department store. She liked to wear flannel. A lot.”
Fran grinned warmly. “It’s good you could come up all the way from Florida.”
“I hate flying,” Aunt Rita barked. “Hurling across the sky in a piece of tin. It’s suicide. But my niece is worth it.” She squeezed my cheeks, then noticed Mom putting out turkey and ham cold cuts for lunch. “You got anything that wasn’t slaughtered in a cruel, inhumane way?”
All of our appetites came to a screeching halt.
Just then, Mr. Hutchins burst in, wearing a straw hat that he thought was tropical and a blob of sunscreen on his nose.
“Who’s this pretty lady?” he asked, kissing Aunt Rita’s hand.
“I’m Rita, from Miami,” she replied, suddenly dainty.
“Don’t tell me,” he continued. “Are you a gay too?”
“No, but my niece is. She played a lot of softball as a child.”
“Excuse me?” My face turned crimson, but Ellie grabbed my arm.
“Don’t do it,” she whispered.
Chapter Thirty-Four
“The Ex Marks the Spot”
The doorbell rang and I jumped.
“Are we expecting anyone else?” I asked Ellie with trepidation all over my face.
“No,” she said, going to the door. “My sister in Chicago would’ve been here, but she has jury duty.”
When she opened the door, it was Marc, her ex-husband, with Megan and Matthew at his sides. With his smiling eyes and the jolly twinkle that was always in them, at least in the photos I saw, I could sometimes see what Ellie saw in him. He had dangerously thinning blond hair and some gold stubble clinging to his chin, which he kept to look extra manly. He was a testosterone-packed sort of guy. He seemed like the kind of guy you could have a beer with and then spit off a bridge or something equally manly.
“I, uh, offered to bring ’em,” he mumbled, his bomber jacket crinkling.
Ellie stood frozen in disbelief. “Of course Greta said yes.” She scowled. She knew her neighbor had always had a soft spot for him.
“I was in the area,” he continued. “The ride gave us a little time to catch up.”
Ellie whisked the kids inside, still staring at Marc. “Excuse me,” she told everyone and went outside with him.
“Hey, guys,” I welcomed them before Aunt Rita could scare them.
Megan had to be cool no matter what the situation, so she couldn’t look too happy doing anything.
“Hey,” she grunted.
“Is this your stepdaughter?” Mom asked, coming in for a hug. She hadn’t met Ellie’s kids before.
“Not exactly,” I answered quickly. “Well, not yet, I guess.”
I didn’t know how much Megan and Matthew knew about the wedding. And Ellie would have killed me if I’d given away a surprise. I really didn’t know what to say.
If anyone knew a secret about anything, it was Matthew, the future CIA operative.
“We know,” Matthew assured me and hugged my mom.
“It’s cool with us,” Megan informed me, her mouth turned upward in an almost smile.
Aunt Rita strolled over, smelling like strong whiskey and now with bloodshot eyes. “You two are cute, the spitting image of Sydney!”
“We’re not related,” I told her.
“Then they look like her.” She gestured toward Ellie outside and laughed at her own mistake, raising her glass to Nathan for a refill. He glanced at Mom for permission to pour one, and she nodded, overwhelmed.
Meanwhile, I didn’t hear the conversation outside, which was gradually irritating me the longer it took place. Don’t ask me why. There was no rational reason why each passing minute ticked me off more and more until finally Ellie came back inside. She donned her painted-on smile for the group of anxious onlookers, who pretended to not be watching.
Everyone continued their various conversations; Joanne eyed me curiously, the kids started pulling out their Wii controllers and taking over the TV. I motioned to Ellie to join me out on the deck where we could be alone.
“What took so long?” I asked before we were outside.
“What do you mean?” She closed the slider. I hated it when she acted like she didn’t know what I was talking about.
“He flies through town, and all of a sudden, you hav
e so much to catch up on?”
The belching and popping motor of his sports car out front was more annoying than any other sounds I’d heard, even more than screaming babies on a plane.
“He doesn’t come by that often, and they are our kids.” She always took a defensive position where Marc was concerned. Three years later, it still bothered me.
“He rides through town to spend some quality seconds with his kids?”
Her mouth tightened. “It’s kind of a big deal for him to come all the way to the Cape, knowing I was planning to do this.”
“Yeah, how big of him.”
“What is it, Sydney? Really?”
“I guess when you have low expectations for someone, you’re so much more impressed when they do something that would just be considered decent if anyone else did it.” My eyes pierced her.
“True. I don’t expect much. I never do. Still it was thoughtful to bring them down. He picked them up from Greta’s to spend a few hours…”
I kicked away sand on the deck. “Yeah.”
“It’s always going to be an uneasy relationship with Marc. But he’s still the father of my kids!”
“I know!” I shouted. “You never let me forget that! You think I need to be reminded again? Especially today.” I laughed bitterly to myself. “On our wedding day.”
“You don’t want to go through with it.”
I took a deep breath, searching for answers in the water. The sun was like diamonds on the ripples. Oceans seemed so spiritual; I always wanted to get important answers whenever I was there. If any place could give me a sign about whether or not I was going in the right direction in my life, it should be the ocean. But I got nothing. Just wave after wave crashed repetitiously, and I wondered if it was symbolic of human beings. We crash on the shore, over and over, expecting something to change. But it never does.
The right woman, the right job—how does anyone ever know? With women, I’d always listened to my heart. With jobs, I listened to my head. Usually, I never regretted the decisions I’d made with my heart, no matter how crazy they may have seemed. But I did regret plenty of decisions made with my head. I guess that was my answer. With Ellie, I was going with my heart but fighting it every step of the way.
The Comfortable Shoe Diaries Page 21