Autumn Dreams

by Gayle Roper

  Cass grinned. She sounded like she was writing brochure copy again. Enjoy the sun’s kiss on your own private balcony at SeaSong, Seaside’s premier B&B.

  The family phone rang. Cass stared at it. What had Jenn forgotten today? She answered cautiously.

  “Cassandra? This is Mrs. Martin.”

  Cass’s heart sank at the sound of the high, slightly shaky voice of the old woman. There was only one reason for Mrs. Martin to be calling at this hour—or at any hour. “Mom?”

  “She’s sitting in my living room right now.” Mrs. Martin made a tsk-tsk sound. “She’s come looking for Elsie.”

  Cass closed her eyes. “I’ll be right there.”

  “Don’t rush. She’s calm for the moment, drinking a cup of tea.”

  Cass grabbed her red sweater, her keys and purse; patted Flossie quickly as she rushed past; and raced to her car parked in the paved area off the back alley. What was she going to do about Mom? And where was Dad, for heaven’s sake?

  Oh, Father God, what do I do?

  Thankful that her parents lived only a few blocks from SeaSong, Cass turned the corner onto Scallop Street, a residential neighborhood full of small, cozy retirement homes set back five blocks from the ocean. All the houses were neat and tidy, all lawns small with healthy but unimaginative plantings, all except her parents’ home where mums, marigolds, and petunias still bloomed in clusters of lush color while a clematis vine with small, sweetly scented white flowers climbed the porch rail.

  She pulled up in front of her parents’ white clapboard home and hurried up the walk past the porch planters of still glowing if slightly leggy red geraniums. Maybe Mom had come home. She opened the front door. “Dad? Mom?”

  “I’m in the kitchen, Cassandra,” her father answered. “Come on back.”

  Cass walked through the jam-packed living room where floral-covered chairs too big for the space sat cheek and jowl with a monster plaid sofa that could be pulled out into a queen-sized bed, had there been room to open it. The clutter and colors always made Cass shudder. Home décor had never been Mom’s strong suit, and recently that shaky skill had deteriorated even more.

  “I can’t give up my treasures,” Mom had said when she and Dad moved into the small Seaside house from the much larger one in the Gardens at the north end of the island where they had raised Cass and the brothers. Mom had not only held on to almost everything, but she’d added considerably to her stock courtesy of all the garage sales she faithfully attended.

  “Look at this beautiful vase.” Or picture or little statue. “I thought of you as soon as I saw it.”

  Somehow a matador on black velvet didn’t seem the perfect gift to Cass, though her lack of enthusiasm never deterred her mother. Sleazy treasures appeared mysteriously in her antique-filled B&B. After years of trying to convince her mother that plastic flowers and little gnomes with their noses chipped didn’t go with SeaSong’s decorating scheme, she’d given up. She couldn’t deal with the flood of tears that filled Mom’s pale blue eyes at the criticism.

  Instead, she rounded the knickknacks up after Mom left. Since Mom never remembered what she’d put where, the only price Cass paid for her lack of appreciation for her mother’s eclectic taste was a back room full of atrocious oddities. She’d have a garage sale of her own if it weren’t so bad for business. Tacky. Plebian. When you aimed to be the best in the county, maybe even the state, and when you had guests paying a considerable sum for the privilege of staying at SeaSong, such things mattered.

  “Where’s Mom?” she asked her father as she walked into the kitchen, bright with sunshine and the yellow and white color scheme. The yellow was so brilliant and the paint finish so shiny that Cass invariably got a headache every time she spent more than fifteen minutes in the room.

  Dad sat at the kitchen table and barely looked up from the papers he was playing with. “I don’t know. Upstairs, I guess.”

  She looked at his bent head. He had beautiful white hair, thick with barely any receding at the hairline. His slim mustache matched his hair, and he kept it carefully clipped. When he was younger, she’d always thought he looked like Errol Flynn, though she never told him so.

  “Those people involved in movies are in league with the devil,” was one of his favorite lines as she and the brothers grew up. To be compared to one of the hedonists, even a handsome, swashbuckling one, would have insulted him. Instead she told him he looked like Walter Cronkite, the Most Trusted Man in America.

  Right now he was bent over a collection of sweepstakes envelopes and forms. They were his latest passion, and she shook her head at the waste of time they entailed. But what else should an eighty-year-old man do?

  Cass left him and started upstairs to the two small bedrooms, his and hers. Dad snored so much Mom refused to sleep in the same room. He in turn refused to talk to the doctor about easing the affliction.

  “She’s just a grouchy old lady,” he’d say. Then he’d grab her and kiss her, a real smackeroo, he called it. She in turn would punch him softly in the stomach as she preened under his love.

  Cass had always wanted a man to love her as her father loved her mother. Ardently. Faithfully. It was one of life’s sorrows that it had never happened for her.

  “Mom?” Cass peered into her mother’s rose room, the bed with its rose quilt neatly made and covered with every rose, pink, magenta, or crimson pillow Mom ever found at a garage sale. No one was there.

  Cass peered into her father’s room, stark in its lack of amenities. Cass often wondered if he was unconsciously reliving his Army days during the Good War, the glory days when he accomplished great feats. If it weren’t for the blue paint and the plain blue quilt, the room would look like a barracks.

  She rushed downstairs. “I’ll be back,” she called, though she doubted Dad heard. When he was filling out the forms for all those prizes he was convinced he would win, he heard nothing. She hurried across the street. A straw wreath sporting some well-weathered dried flowers and a bedraggled scarecrow hung on Mrs. Martin’s front door. The scarecrow’s hair, made of Spanish moss, reminded Cass of Mrs. Martin’s permed curls. Cass raised her hand to ring the bell, but the door opened before she had a chance.

  “She’s in here.” Mrs. Martin, a solidly built woman who should really buy her clothes a size or two larger, stepped back for Cass to enter. “She didn’t want to go home just yet. She’s convinced Elsie’s coming to my house today.”

  Cass shared a sad look with Mrs. Martin, a young thing at a mere seventy-two. Mrs. Martin was as aware as Cass that Aunt Elsie had been dead for over ten years.

  Charlotte Merton sat primly on Mrs. Martin’s floral sofa, looking pleased as could be to have the opportunity to wait in such a pleasant place for her sister. Her face was carefully made up, her cheeks a soft pink, one eyebrow carefully drawn, the other a bit too heavy for her fragile bone structure. Her soft perm made her hair stand out like dandelion fluff, and when she saw Cass, she smiled sweetly.

  Cass smiled back as her heart caught. Mom’s eyes behind her trendy specs were glassy and vague. Where had the intelligent, wise woman Cass so admired gone? Who was this stranger in her mother’s body? “Hello, Mom.”

  Mom blinked, and the vagueness diminished. “Cassandra Marie! How wonderful to see you, dear.” She set her cup of tea carefully on the end table beside her. The powdered sugar doughnut in her hand was liberally dusting both her chin and the navy blouse she had on. “Would you like a cup of tea while we wait for Elsie? She should be here any minute.”

  “Would you like some tea?” Mrs. Martin asked, clearly uncertain what she should do in light of her neighbor’s strange behavior.

  Cass gave Mrs. Martin an appreciative look but shook her head. “Thanks, but no. Mom and I have to get home.” She held out a hand to her mother.

  Mom waved her away. “If we leave, we’ll miss Elsie.”

  “Mom, I think that if Elsie comes, she’ll come to your house, don’t you? I don’t think she knows Mrs. Martin
.”

  Mom looked at Mrs. Martin in surprise. “Is that right? You don’t know my sister? I thought everyone knew Elsie.”

  Mrs. Martin shook her head. “We never met.”

  “Oh.” Mom stood, befuddled. “How sad. Elsie is a lovely person. When we were young, people always said she was the brainy one and I was the pretty one. It took Lew to figure out that I was both pretty and bright.” She simpered, like a child might. It both broke Cass’s heart and grated across her nerves.

  Mom took her teacup and drained it in one great swallow. She carefully set it on its saucer, picked up her napkin, and carefully blotted her lips. Unfortunately, the action missed most of the sugar on her chin.

  Cass took her mother’s arm and gently led her outside. Her eyes met Mrs. Martin’s, and she nodded her thanks to the woman. Mrs. Martin, her eyes sad, nodded back.

  Reminder: Never let Mrs. Martin move from Scallop Street.

  “You’ve got some sugar on your chin, Mom.” Cass pointed as they walked to the street.

  “Oh, dear.” Mom brushed at the offending powder. “Is it gone? I don’t want Lew to see me looking sloppy. He always says I’m the best looking girl in Seaside.”

  Cass nodded, knowing her father often made that very comment. How she wished someone would say wonderful things like that about her.

  Mom stopped at the curb. “Oh, Cassandra Marie, look!” She clapped her hands like a girl. “There’s Elsie’s car, right in front of our house.” She giggled. “Imagine. You were right.”

  Cass glanced at the only car sitting at the curb in front of her parents’ home. “That’s my c—” she began.

  She got no further. Mom pulled free and dashed into the street, waving her arms. “Elsie, dear, here I come.”

  “Mom! Watch out for the car!”

  Two

  EVEN IF HE hadn’t had his car windows lowered to enjoy the crisp, salt-tanged air, and even if he hadn’t heard the shout of the woman in the red sweater, Dan Harmon would have been aware of the old lady charging into the street. How could he miss her?

  Her halo of white curls shone in the sunlight and her navy blouse fluttered as she gave her geriatric impression of a sprinter. Her gait might be a bit creaky, but she made surprisingly good time for someone who barely lifted her low-heeled shoes when she ran.

  Dan pumped his brakes and slowed to a stop.

  The old lady stopped too, right in the middle of the street. She threw her arms wide. “Elsie, dear!” she called in an impressive roar for someone her age. “Here I am. Where are you?” A great smile curved her lips. “I knew you’d come.”

  Dan blinked. The old lady didn’t know he was here, a mere five feet from her. Even if she was hard of hearing and couldn’t perceive his engine idling, shouldn’t she feel the heat that poured from it through the hood?

  The woman in the red sweater and jeans rushed from the curb where she’d been frozen. “Mom!” He could see strain in her face. Well, if his mother went around dashing into the street screaming for Elsie, he’d probably feel stressed too.

  The woman took the old lady firmly by the arm. “Come on, Mom. Out of the middle of the street.” She gestured toward Dan. “We’re holding up traffic.”

  The old lady glanced at Dan, looking thoroughly surprised to see him. Then she grinned broadly and wiggled her fingers in a coy wave.

  He nodded and smiled back. When she was young, she must have been one of those cute women that young men flock to, the ones who seem helpless and make all males want to protect them. Even now she was a cute old lady. Not too smart apparently, but cute.

  “He’s handsome, Cassandra Marie,” she said loudly enough for the whole neighborhood to hear. “Ask him his name.”

  While Dan grinned at the outrageous comment, Cassandra Marie turned as scarlet as her sweater and shook her head. He hoped she wasn’t disagreeing with her mother’s assessment of his looks but rather with the order to ask his name. He glanced in the rearview mirror to assure himself that he hadn’t sprouted a second head since he left New York City early this morning.

  His dark red hair had barely receded and was silver only at the temples. He wore dark sunglasses that concealed his navy blue eyes. He was proud that he didn’t yet need glasses and that he had all his own teeth, though there was enough silver amalgam in his mouth to fund a small country. At forty-four, he still had more than his share of women asking his name, though usually not under orders from old ladies.

  He studied Cassandra Marie, a tall woman, five ten or five eleven, big-boned though not fat, with long, long legs. She stood between her mother and his fender, a protective presence, though he wasn’t sure whether she was protecting her mother from the car or him from her mother. Or maybe herself from the need to look at the man her mother thought handsome. All he saw for the moment was her blond ponytail held back with a fat red ribbon. Then she glanced at him, and he saw strong brows that sheltered worried looking hazel eyes.

  “The handsome ones always like Elsie,” the old lady said as Cassandra Marie turned from the car and tried to pull her from the street. “It makes me mad sometimes.” She shot Dan a dirty look, and he felt like protesting his innocence. He’d never even met Elsie.

  Slowly, slowly the women moved toward the curb while Dan impatiently waited for the road to clear. Not that he had anywhere special to go. It was just that sitting still made him antsy.

  The old lady stopped in the narrow slice of road between Dan’s car and the one parked against the curb. She looked at Dan and pointed. “This is Elsie’s car.”

  Uncertain whether she expected a response, he nodded, but she had already turned away. She scanned the front yard of the house where flowers bloomed in profusion.

  “Now where’s Elsie?”

  Dan had been wondering exactly the same thing. With all the shouting, shouldn’t she have heard?

  “That’s not Elsie’s car, Mom,” Cassandra Marie said as she dragged her mother around the red car and toward the curb. “It’s mine.”

  The old woman eyed her daughter stubbornly. “Elsie has a red car.”

  “Yes, Aunt Elsie had a red car.” Cassandra Marie helped her mother step up onto the curb. “But hers was a Dodge. Mine’s an Accord. See?” She pointed to the insignia on the trunk. “A Honda Accord.”

  Clearly the old lady wasn’t buying it. “Looks like Elsie’s Dodge to me.”

  The road was clear, it was time to go, but Dan hesitated a minute longer, not quite trusting the old lady to stay where she was. Apparently, Cassandra Marie didn’t have much confidence in her mother either because she kept a firm hold on the woman’s navy-clad arm.

  “Elsie, Elsie, Elsie,” the old lady chanted. “Where are you?” She turned to Cassandra Marie. “Where is she?”

  Something in the woman’s childlike singsongy voice made Dan’s nerves contract.

  “Why do you think Aunt Elsie’s coming over today?” Cassandra Marie’s voice was kind, but Dan noticed she didn’t answer her mother’s question.

  The old lady looked disgusted. “Because she called, of course.”

  Cassandra Marie stilled. “She called?”

  Dan recognized real distress, and things began to make sad sense.

  “That’s what I said,” the old lady snapped as she began to stalk up the front walk past the mums and marigolds. She spun and pointed a finger at her daughter. “Sometimes, Cassandra Marie, I worry about you.”

  “And I worry about you, too, Mom.”

  Dan just bet she worried. She turned and flicked a small wave in his direction, offering a distracted smile as a thank-you for his patience. The small smile lit up her face, and he saw what a pretty woman she could be. He smiled back and nodded as he pulled away.

  Just how long had Elsie been dead?

  Poor Cassandra Marie. Poor Mom.

  A picture of his own mother formed in his mind. She was about the size of Cassandra Marie’s mother, but there all similarity ended. His mom could be the Over the Hill Gang’s national
poster child for mental health, strength of character, and common sense.

  “Dan!” she’d said when he told her he was storing all his belongings and going to Seaside indefinitely. “Are you feeling quite well?”

  The thought flitted through his mind that she could make a case for him being as bad as Cassandra Marie’s mom, totally out of touch with the real world, looking for that which was long past finding. Not that she’d ever say anything like that even if she thought it. She was too committed to being positive in her outlook. What she had said when she got over the shock of his drastic realignment of his life was, “Go with God, Danny. Go with God.”

  He sighed as he drove south a few more blocks, then turned the next corner and found himself a block from the bay. A wooden barrier constructed of railroad ties blockaded the end of the road so no one could drive off into the water of Great Egg Harbor. He pulled up to the barrier and climbed out of his silver BMW.

  The steel blue bay stretched before him, reaching from his feet to the distant mainland. To his right he could see the Ninth Street Causeway; to his left was the Thirty-fourth Street Bridge. Fading away on either side of him were homes, condominiums, and apartment complexes whose main entrances were on the street but whose living areas all faced the water. Most of the residences had gigantic decks filled with colorful patio furniture and overflowing planters, miniscule lawns lovingly tended, and docks sticking out into the water, boats bobbing alongside.

  Not bad, he thought as he took in the vista that the owners and renters enjoyed daily. Not bad at all. I could live with this.

  Even on this fall Friday, several boats plied the bay—some fancy white speedboats with high pilot bridges gleaming in the sunlight; some no-nonsense aluminum fishing boats with raised seats and men serious about their sport; some sailboats, sheets apuff in the breeze.