by Maggie Dana
As if I would!
They don’t seem a bit surprised to see us.
Colin leans out the fort’s window. His bottle-green shirt is unbuttoned and I can see a faint patch of light brown hair on his chest. I think he looks a bit like Burt Lancaster. Sophie and I watched From Here to Eternity on the telly last weekend. She was hot for Frank Sinatra but all I could do was gawp at Burt. I mean, he’s old. Same age as my dad, but he was dead sexy. Just like Colin. They’ve both got crooked grins and their hair falls exactly the same way over their foreheads. Sophie says I’m barmy.
Colin grins down at us. “Come on up.”
If I could fly, I’d be there in a millisecond.
“I’ll go,” Sophie says. “You stay here. I’ll make them come down.”
“Thanks.”
Sophie scrambles up the tree, skips across the plank, and disappears. A minute later, she returns to earth with three boys following her like baby chicks after a mother hen.
We sit around the boys’ campfire. They tell jokes, and although I try not to, I blush at the worst ones. They flex their muscles, beat their chests, and make Tarzan noises. They fart. They have burping and spitting contests.
Hugh and Keith lie down nose to nose and arm wrestle. Their faces turn red, their muscles bulge like tennis balls. They grunt and groan. It’s hard to tell who’s winning.
Sophie pokes her brother in the back. “Your shoulder blades stick out like chicken wings.”
“Do not!”
“Gotcha!” Keith slams Hugh’s arm on the ground.
Pissed at her for making him lose, Hugh forces Sophie’s arms up behind her. “So, let’s see your shoulder blades then.” Her bones stick out. More than his. Then, suddenly, everyone’s vying for biggest chicken wings. Even me. I arch my back and reach behind and of course this makes my boobs stick out too.
Keith leers at them. “Jill wins. She’s got the biggest ones right here.”
I look down. My blouse buttons have popped open.
“You dirty-minded little sod.” Sophie rams his thigh with her foot. Keith reaches for her, but Colin intercepts.
“Cut it out.”
I turn away and fasten my blouse. Maybe I’ll go home.
Sophie says. “Let’s make tea.”
“I’d rather have a fag.” Keith holds out a packet of Players. Hugh takes one. Colin shakes his head. So do I. God only knows what would happen if Mum smelled cigarette smoke on my clothes.
Hugh and Keith light up. Colin tells them they’re stupid to smoke, then goes off to gather more firewood. Sophie unearths a packet of Typhoo tea and a tin of sweetened condensed milk in the boys’ stash of food. They’ve only got three mugs. Blue and white enamel. Chipped. Dented. One’s missing a handle.
“I’ll share with Hugh,” Sophie says, scowling at her brother. “We’re family. We’ve got the same germs.”
Colin comes back with an armload of wood. He dumps it by the fire. “Oh, good. You found the tea.”
“We don’t have enough mugs,” Sophie says. “I’m sharing with Hugh.”
“Then I’ll share with Jilly.” Colin flashes his Burt Lancaster grin. Good thing I’m sitting down or my legs would’ve given out.
Keith stubs out his cigarette and claims the third mug.
The tea is strong and sweet enough to make my teeth tingle. Grass clippings and specks of dirt float on top, but I don’t care. I hand the mug to Colin. Our mug. The one without a handle. The most beautiful mug I’ve ever seen. He takes a sip from the same side I just took one from and hands it back.
His lips and mine have touched the same bit of mug. Does it count as a kiss?
I catch Sophie’s eye and she grins. Colin’s shoulder brushes against mine and I’m wondering how hard I dare lean into him when a spider the size of a Brillo pad runs up my arm.
I’m not scared of spiders, but I scream anyway.
Colin, who is terrified of them, grabs it and hurls it into the fire.
“Aren’t you the brave bugger,” Keith says. He pushes his friend in the chest. Colin pushes back. I hold my precious mug tight to keep it from spilling and the next thing I know, they’re rolling on the ground laughing and yelling and it’s a tangle of arms and legs, elbows and knees.
Someone’s foot kicks a bit of burning wood. Sparks fly. They land in the grass and Hugh dumps his tea on them. He chucks his empty mug at his sister and joins in the fight. Sophie laughs. Is she egging the boys on? I can’t tell if they’re serious or just mucking about.
Keith crashes into me and I roll away from him. That’s when the cramp hits. Groaning, I curl into a ball, wishing I was anywhere but here.
Sophie whispers, “Did that idiot hurt you?”
“No.” I groan again. “Cramps.”
The boys stop fighting, or wrestling, or whatever the hell they were doing. Keith shuffles off to check his fishing lines and Hugh disappears into the woods. To pee, probably.
Colin squats down beside me. “What’s wrong?”
I begin to shiver. Colin takes off his shirt and wraps it around my shoulders, then helps me up. “I need to go home,” I whisper to Sophie. Home, of course, means Sophie’s house. Not mine. My mother has no sympathy. She’d tell me to stop whining, that I was being a baby.
“I’ll come with you,” Sophie says.
“Let me.” Colin cups a hand beneath my elbow.
Sophie clamps her mouth to my ear. “This is your big chance. Don’t fuck it up.”
* * *
I stumble beside him and wonder how much boys know about periods and cramps and having babies. Hell, I don’t know much, and I’m a girl. Sex ed at school is a joke, and Mum certainly won’t discuss it.
Sophie’s mum is in the kitchen. The place reeks of paint. Not the cheap, one-coat-covers-everything junk that Sophie and I used in her bedroom, but real paint. Oil paint. The stuff used by artists who paint pictures. Like Claudia Neville. Her blond hair is pulled back in a twist and secured by a couple of thin, long-handled brushes. Her face is dotted with paint—red, purple, and yellow—and a half-finished landscape leans against a wooden easel beside the fridge.
Claudia was twenty-one when Sophie was born. My mother was thirty-five when she had me, which means that Mum is now fifty and Claudia’s only thirty-six.
Big difference.
Maybe that’s the problem. My mum doesn’t understand teenagers and Claudia does, because she can still remember what it’s like to be one.
She takes one look at Colin, then turns her soft gray eyes toward me. “Why don’t you go and lie down on Sophie’s bed? I’ll be up in a minute with a hot-water bottle.”
Chapter 3
Sands Point, Connecticut
June 2010
Funny, isn’t it, how you’ve not thought of someone in years and then, without warning, something as dumb as a bucket of nails triggers a memory and you’re knocked almost breathless by it. This morning I was on the roof, nailing down loose shingles, and suddenly, there he was, up in that tree, fixing the fort Hugh and Keith had been trying to build all summer. Good thing I wasn’t near the edge or I’d have fallen off. I blinked, and Colin Carpenter vanished.
Jeez. Where the hell did that come from?
I’ve not seen Colin in what? Thirty-four years? Longer?
I used to think about him. A lot. Mostly because I loved him to bits, but also because I never knew what happened to him. None of us did. Not even Sophie’s brother.
Wiping the sweat off my face, I climbed down the ladder to begin my next project, which is where I am now—wedged inside the cabinet beneath my kitchen sink, trying to undo the trap and trying, mightily, not to think about Colin.
I tug at the wrench. Metal scrapes against metal. Nothing moves except rust. Grit adds more freckles to my face. I rub it off and try again. No dice. This sucker isn’t planning to move any time soon. At least, not for me. The sink will have to stay stopped up till Monday when I’ll call in a plumber.
If my bank account can handle
it.
The fax phone in my office rings and startles me. I jerk my head.
Ouch!
Bad move. I grab my tools and wriggle out from under the sink. Who’d be faxing my office on a Saturday? Elaine Burke? Please, not her. It’s bad enough putting up with her during the week. I don’t want her invading my weekends as well. I’ll ignore the fax. For now. Elaine can wait till I’ve mowed the lawn, had a shower, and washed my hair.
It’s almost seven by the time I remember to check my office. The fax is lying on the floor. Mangled as usual. One of these days I’ll treat myself to a machine that doesn’t mutilate paper. I bend to pick it up and wince. My back’s on fire. And no wonder. I forgot to wear sunscreen this morning.
The fax isn’t from Elaine, thank God, and I’m about to toss it in the trash when I recognize the writing.
My dogs are multiplying, the dishwasher’s on life-support, and Keith turned fifty-three last month. We had a party. A bunch of old faces showed up, including Colin Carpenter. Nobody’s seen him in years. He asked where you were. I told him you live in America, and …
I stare at the end of the page where Sophie’s last sentence breaks off. I turn it over. There’s nothing on the back. Duh—this is a fax. Maybe there’s a second page. Sinking to my knees, I check my fax machine’s preferred drop zones—behind the file cabinet, between my desk and the bookcase, in the waste bin—but find nothing except dustballs the size of small sheep and enough rusty paperclips to build a pocket battleship.
I read Colin’s name again and get a lump in my throat.
Three decades dissolve like ice in hot water. Memories bubble up. That picnic at Roddy Slade’s in the pouring rain when we danced on the lawn with bare feet. The time we met in London for a Led Zeppelin concert and I missed the last train home. Keith’s nineteenth birthday party when Colin and I went to the tree fort by ourselves.
Now I don’t believe in clairvoyance or precognition or whatever they call it, but right now I’d believe in almost anything. I mean, what are the chances of my conjuring up Colin on the roof and then having him roll out of my fax machine a couple of hours later?
Zachary sidles into my office and leaps on the laser printer—his favorite spot in the house—and washes his paws.
“Out of bounds!” I shove him off. I’ve just spent a fortune having my printer repaired and all because one of his hairs got stuck inside the drum and fouled up the optical system. He lands with a thud and stalks off with his tail in the air.
I check the time. Almost midnight—in London. Will Sophie be at work or in bed? Hard to know. Her catering jobs take place at all hours, especially on weekends. I punch in her number and wait. Nobody answers, not even Sophie’s machine which she has, no doubt, forgotten to turn on.
I sit down—my legs have gone wobbly—and read the fax again.
Colin Carpenter.
Where the hell have you been for the past thirty-five years?
* * *
My best friend, Lizzie McKenna, shows up at noon the next day with an armload of hydrangeas that match her eyes. Not the oversized purple and pink jobs from the supermarket’s flower shop but those amazingly sky-blue blossoms that grow like weeds along the shoreline.
She pokes her head around my kitchen door. “May I come in or are you still grumpy?”
“Of course not.” I grit my teeth and pull hard on my wrench. I’m back under the sink, having another go at the pipes.
“Does that mean ‘Of course I’m not pissed off,’ or ‘Of course you can’t come in’?”
This sounds way too complicated for me to sort out. “Lizzie, I’ll be done in a minute.”
“Why don’t you call Mike, or is he on your hit list as well?”
I grimace and twist the wrench again. Twice. Extra hard. Once for Mike the plumber and once for me. We’d dated a few times, a long time ago, then he met a girl half my age and married her.
Lizzie bends to my level and a wedge of gray-blond hair falls in front of her face. She pushes it to one side and grins at me. “Well?”
I grin back because we both know what she’s talking about.
* * *
Two nights ago, Friday, we’d had wine and pizza on the beach. It’s a weekly ritual in the summer. Just the two of us. No kids, no men. Just Lizzie and me. She provides the pizza, we take turns buying cheap wine, and I provide the beach.
For once, it was blissfully quiet. We had the place to ourselves—even the sand flies were busy elsewhere—until a couple strolled by and wrecked my peace of mind. Complete strangers. Tourists, probably. They definitely weren’t locals.
“That really frosts me,” I said.
“What does?”
I pointed. “Those two. Valley Girl and Viagra.”
Lizzie squinted at the couple. “It’s just a guy out with his daughter.”
“Yeah, right.”
The man was at least sixty, bald, wearing bicycle shorts, gold chains, and a Rolex. The girl—long legs, cutoffs, and a crop top—clung to his arm like a cheap dress. Not the sort of clinging done by a daughter. He kissed the back of her neck. Definitely not the sort of kissing done by a father. She giggled and I looked closer. They both wore diamond-encrusted wedding bands.
“Okay,” Lizzie said, helping herself to more wine. “So what? He’s just another middle-aged stud with a trophy wife.”
“The minute she turns thirty, he’ll replace her.”
“Like Richard did?”
“And keeps on doing,” I said. My ex-husband was on wife number three. “They get younger and younger. His next will be in diapers. It’s demeaning.”
“The diapers?”
“No. Men who choose girls instead of women their own age.”
“Here,” Lizzie said, handing me a slice of pizza. “Have the last piece. You need it to keep up your strength.”
“What for?”
“Staying mad at a whole generation of middle-aged men.”
* * *
Turning over, I back out of the cupboard, taking care not to scrape my sore shoulders on the frame.
Lizzie dumps her flowers in the sink. It’s full of dishes and dirty water. “I take it the pipes are blocked up again?” she says.
“Third time this month.” I nod toward the flowers. “They’re lovely”—I hug her—“and so are you.”
“I figured you could use a treat. You were spitting nails on Friday.”
“I spat a few more yesterday. I finally fixed the roof.”
“In your bathing suit?” Lizzie eyes the burn on my shoulders. “Jill, for God’s sake get help. You’ve no business romping around the roof at your age.”
“The guy who fixed your roof last year is older than me.” I hand her two apples and a bag of corn chips. “I’m thinking of asking him for a job.”
Lizzie sighs. “One of these days you’ll fall off that ladder and break your damn neck.”
We’ve had this discussion before. Lizzie, who calls an electrician to change a light bulb, doesn’t understand my do-it-yourself approach or the acute lack of funds that makes it necessary. She also has no idea what it’s like to run your own business. She works in a community college where students turn up on an annual basis, paychecks are deposited directly into her bank account, and a whole department of financial wizards takes care of paying the bills. Computers are fixed, the water cooler is filled, and her printer is never ruined by stray cat hairs.
“Here,” I say, handing her a jug of lemonade. “Take this lot to the beach and I’ll be out in five minutes. I’ve got a phone call to make.”
“Hot date with a new plumber?”
I flash my best Mona Lisa smile, knowing it’ll drive her nuts.
“You gonna cough up or make me guess?” she says.
“I’ll tell you later—on the beach.” I push my friend toward the door. “Hurry, or you’ll miss the best of the sun.” This’ll get her moving. Lizzie’s a born-again sunbather. But, unlike me, she never forgets to use sunscreen.
&n
bsp; Wearing a loose dress that flatters her fullness, Lizzie sails out of my kitchen, through the living room, and onto the back porch where she fights for control of a floppy straw hat Zachary frequently uses as a cat bed. I think the hat suits him far better than it suits Lizzie.
We met sixteen years ago at McDonald’s amid French fries and ketchup and small, exuberant children. After swapping phone numbers and marital details—I was newly divorced and she was still married to Fergus—we invited ourselves to each other’s houses. Our kids grew up in the best of both worlds: rocks and trees at Lizzie’s old house in the woods; shells and crabs at my place on the beach. The last time he was home, my elder son, Jordan, asked what Lizzie and I found to talk about after all this time. I said, “Oh, we grumble about menopause and lower back pain and how we can’t remember much of anything, and the next day she’ll say, ‘Did I tell you about my hot flashes?’ and I’ll say, ‘No, I don’t think so,’ and we’ll discuss them all over again.”
I find a vase for Lizzie’s flowers, dump Drano in the sink, and try Sophie’s number again. This time, her machine picks up. I leave a message, change into a swimsuit, and set off to join Lizzie. On my way through the porch I see Zachary has won the battle of the bonnet. He’s curled up inside it like a dollop of butterscotch pudding.
The flagstones I laid last summer scorch my bare feet. Why the hell didn’t I think to wear sandals? I race across my patio and head for the path between the dunes that separate my back yard from the beach. The tide’s coming in. I jump a line of seaweed and shells and plunge into the waves. The cold takes my breath away. Ducking under, I swim a few strokes, then tread water and watch windsurfers bounce like butterflies across the metallic blue chop. In the distance, a freighter ploughs its way toward New York, and just beyond the lighthouse a small fishing boat chugs into the harbor.