The Violets of March

by Sarah Jio

  I pointed down the hallway. “The pink room.”

  She nodded. “Yes. Keep reading the book, dear. And you will know when it’s time to speak to Bee, but be gentle with her when you do.”

  Just then, Bee peered around the corner with a steaming platter in her hand. “Dinner’s ready, girls,” she said, “and I have a bottle of Bainbridge Island white here. Let’s fill those glasses.”

  It was nearly midnight before I made it to bed. Bee and Evelyn had captivated me with their stories of debauchery and drama. There was the time they snuck out of French class to share a bottle of gin with two boys from the football team, and the day they stole the pants from a particularly handsome math teacher while he was swimming at the pool. Their friendship, so seasoned and honest, made me think of Annabelle. I missed her already—our daily and sometimes twicedaily talks, even her not-so-gentle prodding.

  I propped up my pillow and climbed into bed, but a few seconds later, I found myself hovering over my suitcase, searching for the little painting I’d brought with me from New York. I found it tucked under a sweater and studied it again. The couple looked natural together, made for each other, even. There was a harmonious quality to the composition—the hands clasped together, the waves cascading onto the shore and the weather vane twirling above. What will Bee say when she sees the canvas again? It was a window into a distant corner of Bee’s world I knew little of. I wrapped the sweater back around the painting and tucked it away.

  The diary beckoned from the drawer, and I obediently pulled it out. I thought about what Evelyn had told me, but mostly I thought about Bee and this mysterious story from so long ago—one that had some kind of connection to her.

  Bobby was a fine man. Honest and hardworking. And when he handed me a ring and asked me to marry him on that unseasonably mild January day on the ferry coming back from Seattle, I looked into his eyes and said yes, plain and simple. There was no other answer to give. I would have been a stupid woman to decline his proposal.

  There was a war going on, but Bobby was exempt for medical reasons: He was nearly legally blind, and even with his glasses, the ones with such thick lenses you expected them to weigh ten pounds, the Army still wouldn’t let him in, even though he wanted so desperately to go. I hate myself for thinking, now, that if he’d gone to war, perhaps none of us would be in this mess.

  But Bobby stayed home and pursued a career. And while so many people were out of work on the island, he had a job—a good job in Seattle. He could take care of me, and I suppose that was all any young woman could ask for in those times.

  I remember the way he looked when I accepted his proposal, all smiles and grins, with his hands in the pockets of his brown corduroy pants, which always seemed to hang the wrong way. The wind was blowing his thin, straight brown hair to the side, and he almost looked handsome as he reached for my hand. Almost handsome enough.

  As fate, or bad luck, would have it, Elliot was on the boat that day too—with another woman. Elliot always had women around. They swarmed like flies. I remember this one because she wore a white silk scarf wrapped around her neck and a red dress that clung to her body like a tight glove.

  Before the boat docked, Bobby and I walked past their seats—not that she was using hers; the woman was practically hanging off of Elliot.

  “Hello, Bobby, Esther,” Elliot said, waving to us. “This is Lila.”

  Bobby said something polite. I just nodded.

  “Well, should I tell them or should you?” Bobby said, turning to me.

  I knew exactly what he meant, but I instinctively hid my ring finger, burying it in the side of my dress until I could feel the ring’s prongs burrowing into my skin. It was a fine ring, of course—a simple gold band and half-carat gemstone most worthy of admiration. No, it was my history with Elliot that gave me pause.

  “We’re engaged!” Bobby blurted out, before I could interject. His exclamation was so loud that many of the other passengers seated nearby turned to look at us.

  When my eyes met Elliot’s, I could see a storm brewing; waves of betrayal, or maybe sadness, churned in those dark brown eyes I knew so well. Then he looked away, stood up, and patted Bobby on the back. “Well, how about that,” he said. “Bobby goes and gets himself the prettiest girl on the island. Congratulations, my friend.”

  Bobby beamed as Elliot turned back to me and just stared. There were no words.

  Lila cleared her throat and frowned. “Excuse me, Elliot? Prettiest girl on the island?”

  “Next to my Lila, of course,” Elliot added, wrapping his arm around her waist so suggestively I had to avert my eyes.

  He didn’t love her. We both knew that, just like we both knew that Elliot belonged to me, and that I belonged to Elliot.

  I could feel his heart aching and cracking at that moment, just as mine was. But I had said yes to Bobby. I had made my decision. In two months, I would be Mrs. Bobby Littleton, even though I loved Elliot Hartley.

  It was almost two a.m. and three chapters later before I set the book down. Esther indeed married Bobby. They had a child together, a baby girl. As for Elliot, he was drafted to the South Pacific thirteen days after their wedding, where he watched them exchange vows from the shadows of the back pews. When Bobby slipped the ring on her finger, she thought of Elliot, and when she said her vows, she glanced toward the back of the church and her eyes met Elliot’s.

  No one had heard from him since he had deployed, and every day, Esther walked to town hall, pushing her baby in the stroller to check the updated casualty list for his name.

  As I closed my eyes, I thought about Bee. You’d have to know love, and heartache, to write like this.

  Chapter 5

  March 3

  “Emily,” Bee called out from the hallway. I could hear her voice getting nearer, and then the door opened, creaking a little until I opened my eyes and saw Bee’s face poke through.

  “Oh, sorry, dear, I didn’t realize you were still sleeping. It’s nearly ten a.m. And Greg is on the phone.” Her smile was half encouraging, half teasing.

  “OK,” I said groggily. “I’ll be there in just a sec.”

  I stood up and stretched, put on my sage green fleece robe, and walked out to the living room, where Bee was waiting, phone in hand.

  “Here,” she said, whispering. “He sounds excited to talk to you.”

  “Shhh,” I hissed at her. I didn’t want Greg to get the idea that I was sitting around waiting for his call, because I wasn’t. Plus, I hadn’t had my coffee yet, and my patience level was at a negative two.

  “Hello?”

  “Emily, hi.”

  “Hi,” I said, instantly warming when I heard his voice. It had the effect of a double espresso.

  “You know,” he said, “I still can’t get over the fact that you’re back on the island. Do you remember the time we found that old rope swing down by Mr. Adler’s beach?”

  “Yeah,” I said, smiling, suddenly recalling the color of his swim trunks: green, with blue trim.

  “And you were afraid to try it,” he said, “but I promised you I’d be waiting in the water to catch you.”

  “Yes, but you failed to mention the belly flop that would come with the deal.”

  We both laughed, and I realized that nothing, and everything, had changed.

  “Hey, what are you doing tonight?” he asked, a little more self-consciously than the Greg Attwood I had known in the summer of 1988. He had either lost some confidence or gained some humility. I wasn’t sure which.

  “Well, nothing,” I said.

  “I was just thinking, maybe, if you wanted to, we could have dinner at the Robin’s Nest. A friend of mine opened the restaurant last year, and, I mean, it’s nothing compared to New York standards, but we islanders think it’s pretty great. It has a terrific wine list.”

  “That sounds wonderful,” I said, grinning. I could sense Bee’s eyes on me.

  “Good,” he said. “Would seven be OK? I can pick you up.”


  “Yes,” I said. “I’ll be here.”

  “Great.”

  “Bye, Greg.”

  I hung up the phone and turned to Bee, who had been listening to our entire exchange from the kitchen table.

  “Well?” she said.

  “‘Well,’ what?” I replied.

  Bee gave me a look.

  “We’re going out. Tonight.”

  “Good girl.”

  “I don’t know,” I said, grimacing a little. “It feels, well, weird.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Bee said, folding her newspaper in half. “What else would you be doing tonight?”

  “Point taken,” I replied, sinking my hand into a jar on the coffee table that held a massive collection of miniature seashells. “It’s just that, well, first Greg, then Jack—I’m so rusty at all of this.”

  When I uttered Jack’s name, Bee looked out the window to the shore the way she does when something is too cumbersome to talk about. She would get this way when anyone brought up her late husband, Bill, or when someone asked her about her art.

  “Well,” I finally said, breaking the silence, “if you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine. But if you disapprove of Jack, will you at least tell me why?”

  She shook her head and ran her fingers through her gray hair. I loved that she had a bob haircut and didn’t succumb to the short, coifed dos of every other woman I knew over the age of seventy. Everything about my aunt provoked a reaction, even her name. I asked her once, as a girl, why she was named Bee, and she told me it was because she was like a honeybee: sweet, but with a terrible sting.

  She sighed. “I’m sorry, honey,” she said in a distant voice. “It’s not that I disapprove. I just want you to be careful with your heart. I was once hurt, deeply, and after all you’ve been through, I’d hate to see you endure any more pain.”

  Bee’s cautions resonated. I’d come to Bainbridge Island to escape the heartache that seemed so thick and ever present in New York City, not to take the kind of risks that could put me in vulnerable places. Yet, part of my journey, as Annabelle had urged me, was to take life as it came—not to question or to edit myself, the way I did every time I sat down at my computer and typed out a mediocre sentence. This March, my life was a free write.

  “Just promise me you’ll be careful,” Bee said softly.

  “I will,” I said, hoping I could hold up my end of the bargain.

  Greg was twenty minutes late picking me up. I thought of those summers so long ago, when he didn’t show up at the rope swing or the movie theater or the beach when he said he would. For a moment I even hoped he wouldn’t show up. It was more than a bit ridiculous that I was actually going through with this—having dinner with a high school boyfriend. Who does this? I panicked. What am I doing? Then I saw headlights coming down the road. He was driving fast, as if trying to make up for every lost second.

  I clutched the doorknob and took a deep breath.

  “Have a good time,” Bee said, waving me off.

  I walked outside to the patio and watched as he pulled his car into the driveway—the same old light blue 1980s four-door Mercedes he’d driven in high school. The years hadn’t been as kind to it as they had been to Greg.

  “I’m so sorry I’m late,” he said, jumping out of the car. He put his hands in his pockets, then took them out again, nervously. “Things got really busy in the wine department just before my shift ended. I had to help a customer find a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape. She stood there debating between the eighty-two and eighty-six forever.”

  “Which did she pick?”

  “The eighty-six,” he said.

  “A very good year,” I said mockingly. I once dated a man who had the whole wine bit down to a science. He swirled and sniffed and followed up his first sip with things like “a first-rate vintage,” or “such a brilliant meritage of flavors.” These were the reasons I stopped returning his calls.

  “It was a good year,” he said, smiling boyishly. “It was the year we met.”

  I couldn’t believe he remembered. I hardly remembered. But when I did, I remembered everything.

  I was a flat-chested fourteen-year-old with stringy blond hair. Greg was a tanned hotshot sophomore with hormones pumping through his blood—and I mean pumping. He lived a few houses down the beach from Bee’s. It wasn’t exactly love at first sight, at least for Greg. But by the end of the summer, I was wearing makeup and push-up bras, courtesy of my cousin Rachel, and Greg seemed to notice me for the first time.

  “Nice arm,” he said, as he watched me tossing a Frisbee to Rachel on the beach one day.

  I was so startled that I didn’t say anything back. A boy had just talked to me. A cute boy. Rachel dropped the Frisbee and ran to my side, jabbing her bony elbow into my arm.

  “Thanks,” I finally blurted out.

  “I’m Greg,” he said, extending his hand. He didn’t say anything to Rachel, which, at the time, I couldn’t make any sense of. Boys always noticed her first, and for some odd reason, Greg was looking at me. Just me.

  “I’m Emily,” I said in almost a squeak.

  “Want to come down to my place tonight?” he asked, leaning toward me. He smelled of Banana Boat suntan lotion. My heart was beating so loudly, I almost didn’t hear the next part. “Some friends of mine are coming over. We’re having a bonfire.”

  I didn’t know what a bonfire was. I thought it sounded illegal, most logically something one did while smoking marijuana. But I said yes anyway. I would follow this boy anywhere, even to a possibly illegal, drug-fueled bonfire.

  “Good,” he said. “I’ll save a spot for you.” And then he winked. “Right next to me.”

  He was cocky and sure of himself, which made me like him even more. And when he turned to walk back down the beach to his alluringly ramshackle house, Rachel and I watched, mouths gaping wide open, as the muscles in his back flexed with each step.

  “Well,” she said, sounding very offended. “He seems like a real jerk.”

  I just stared, too stunned to speak. A handsome guy just asked me out. But if I’d been able to open my mouth then, I would have said, “He seems absolutely perfect.”

  Greg ran around to the other side of the car and opened the door for me. “I hope you’re hungry,” he said, grinning. “Because you’re going to love this restaurant.”

  I nodded and climbed inside the car, which looked like it had seen better days. I brushed what seemed to be a petrified french fry from the seat before sitting down. Inside, the car smelled just like the Greg I remembered: the heady scent of unwashed hair, engine oil, and a hint of cologne.

  When he put the gearshift into Drive, his hand grazed mine. “Oh, sorry,” he said.

  I didn’t say anything, but hoped he didn’t see the goose bumps that had erupted on my arm.

  The restaurant, less than a mile away, must have been a favorite on the island, as the parking lot was jammed with cars. Outside, he led the steep climb toward what looked like an elaborate tree house perched on a hill overlooking the sound. I reached into my purse and discreetly popped two aspirin into my mouth.

  “Pretty cool, isn’t it?” Greg said, looking around as the hostess went to check on our table.

  “Yeah,” I said, wondering if this was such a good idea, me going out with Greg.

  He said something to the hostess, who pulled out two menus and led us to a table on the west side of the restaurant.

  “I thought we could catch the sunset,” Greg said, smiling.

  I couldn’t remember the last time I’d caught a sunset. It occurred to me that this is something people do on Bainbridge Island, something New Yorkers had forgotten about. I smiled at Greg and looked out the window to see clearing ahead, and two orange sunbeams poking through the clouds.

  Our waitress brought a bottle of red wine that Greg had selected, and we watched as she filled our glasses. There was a certain quiet crispness to the air. Anxious air, as Annabelle would call it. The wine trickling into each gla
ss sounded unusually loud.

  “Can I get you anything else?” she asked.

  “No,” I said, on top of Greg’s “Yes.”

  I laughed. He apologized. It was awkward.

  “I meant, ‘Yes, we’re fine,’ ” he said, tugging at his collar.

  We both reached for our wineglasses.

  “So, is it good to be back, Emmy?”

  I relaxed a little in my chair. He hadn’t called me Emmy since, well, 1988. It felt good to hear him say it.

  “It is,” I said unapologetically, spreading a thick layer of butter on a dinner roll.

  “It’s funny, I never thought I’d see you again.”

  “I know,” I said, looking at his face a little longer, now that the wine had entered my bloodstream.

  “So, how did it go with Lisa?” I asked, after another long sip.

  “Lisa?”

  “Yeah, Lisa, the girl you dated in college. Your sister mentioned her when I came to see you on the beach that next summer.”

  “Oh, Lisa. That lasted about as long as . . . English 101.”

  “Well,” I said, giving him a half grin, “you still could have called.”

  “Didn’t I call?”

  “Nope.”

  “I’m sure I called.”

  I shook my head, feigning anger. “You didn’t.”

  He tried to manage a smile. “And to think, if I had called you, we could be sitting here, married. An old Bainbridge Island married couple.”

  He meant it as a joke, but neither of us laughed.

  After a tense pause, Greg poured a little more wine into both of our glasses. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t believe I said that after all you’ve been through—with marriage and all.”