Summer Beach Reads

by Thayer, Nancy

  Of course she was wearing a dress. She was the only female on this windy island who regularly wore dresses. She insisted she couldn’t find jeans to fit, but really Vanessa had developed a kind of camouflage of loose dresses covered with looser sweaters to make less of a display of her shape. Her arms were full of bags of flour, chocolate bits, butter, and sprinkles, and when she came in the front door, she was laughing.

  “I couldn’t help it, I sampled some of the chocolate, the bag was just leaning there, tempting me.”

  Carley lifted one of the bags into her own arms. “You’ve got chocolate on your chin.”

  Vanessa followed Carley into the kitchen. Together they unpacked the groceries.

  “There’s fresh coffee if you want it,” Carley told her.

  “Yum.” Vanessa knew this kitchen as well as her own. She took a mug off a shelf and poured herself a cup of the fragrant brew.

  Cisco strolled into the room. Lanky and trim in the tee shirt and boxers she wore for pajamas, she edged herself onto the corner of the table. “Whatcha doin’?”

  Vanessa gave Cisco a big hug. “Good morning, darling. We’re going to make cookies for the bake sale. Want to help?”

  Cisco hugged Vanessa back. “No, thanks. I’m going over to Delphine’s to practice.”

  “When’s your next recital?” Vanessa asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Cisco told her. Her face grew wistful. She was longing to wear pointe shoes, but at twelve, she was not yet allowed. Lost in her reverie, she slid off the table and wandered out of the room.

  “She’s such a beauty,” Vanessa observed.

  “I’m not thrilled about this ballet obsession,” Carley confided. “Cis worries about her weight, and she’s already a little twig. I don’t want her becoming anorectic.”

  “Honey, she’s not. Enjoy this phase. In a flash, she’s going to be getting her teenage hormones, complete with periods, breasts, zits, and mood swings.”

  Carley rolled her eyes. “Oh, help.”

  As they talked, they moved around Carley’s kitchen, sharing the work with familiar ease. Carley was proud of her kitchen. It was the one part of the venerable old house she’d insisted on having renovated. It had two ovens, and a rack hung with pots, skillets, and utensils over a central island. She’d had the two rooms that once had served as pantry and butler’s pantry opened up to make one large room, and a long pine kitchen table with comfortable captain’s chairs stood at one end of the kitchen, next to a small desk where the household calendar and computer were kept. Her kitchen was the command control center of her own domestic world. Sometimes she thought she’d rather be here than anywhere else.

  She set out the measuring cups, mixer, and bowls. “How’s Toby?”

  Vanessa shrugged. “Busy. Too busy. We really could use another pediatrician on this island. Well, I knew what I was getting into when I married a doctor. Or I thought I did. Most days we scarcely have time to talk before he falls into bed, exhausted.”

  Vanessa measured out two cups of flour, then stopped and looked directly at Carley. “Carley, sometimes … sometimes Toby kind of bores me.”

  Carley gave Vanessa a gentle smile. “Every marriage goes through phases like that.”

  Before Vanessa could reply, the front door opened. Footsteps sounded down the hall and Maud appeared, her two exuberant sons at her side.

  “Hi, Carley! Hi, Vanessa!” Maud’s enormous blue eyes were wide in her heart-shaped face, and she looked rather like a child herself, with her turned-up nose and brown hair cut in an easy Dutch-boy bob. Under her quilted jacket she wore black tights and a leotard, which made her look even more petite. She kicked off her clogs and settled into a chair. Recently she’d been dropping her boys off at Carley’s while she went for an hour of yoga. “I’ve got a few minutes before class. Tell me everything.”

  “Chocolate chips!” Spenser yelled.

  “Chocolate chips!” echoed his brother Percy.

  “Cookies later,” Vanessa told them sternly.

  Margaret ran into the kitchen. “Percy! Spenser!”

  “Hide and seek!” Spenser yelled.

  The three children exploded out of the room.

  Maud rolled her eyes. “Wild things.”

  “Want some coffee?” Carley asked. “It’s fresh.”

  “Sure. No, it will make me pee. Any gossip? What are you doing?”

  Vanessa told her, “Making cookies for the bake sale.”

  “Oh! You should have asked me. I would have helped.”

  Vanessa gave Maud a steady committee woman stare. “And that would be before or after yoga?”

  Maud dodged the issue. “Vanessa, it should be against the law to look that gorgeous in such baggy clothes!”

  Vanessa smirked. “Flattery will get you nowhere.”

  “What can I say?” Maud leaned her flower-face in her hand. “I’m selfish, unaltruistic, and useless. I’ve never baked for a good cause in my entire life. You two are admirable, and I admire you, I really do.”

  “Oh, stop,” Carley ordered. “You write fabulous books that make children happy.”

  Margaret raced into the kitchen, hair flying. A pink barrette had slipped down and dangled from one clump of black hair.

  Maud caught Margaret in her arms and kissed her. “Slow down.”

  “Can’t!” Margaret giggled, and raced off, down the long front hall. Seconds later, Spenser stampeded into the room, followed by Percy, who tripped over his shoelaces and did a perfect comedic pratfall onto the floor. The five-year-old didn’t allow himself to cry.

  “Ooopsie,” Maud said.

  “Shoelaces.” Capable Vanessa captured the child. She held him on her lap and managed to tie the flopping laces even as Percy wriggled to get down.

  “Which way did she go?” Spenser demanded.

  “We’ll never tell,” Carley said.

  The boys burst from the room, yelling with glee.

  “All that energy,” Maud sighed. “If I could only plug into it for half an hour.”

  “Tell me about it,” Carley agreed. Pulling herself up straight, she announced, “Listen, you two. I need some advice. I need to make some money.”

  Vanessa’s brow wrinkled with sympathetic distress. “Oh, honey. Of course, with Gus gone …”

  Maud tilted her chair back and stared at the ceiling for inspiration. “Sell baked goods?”

  “I’ve thought of that,” Carley told her. “Too many great bakeries already on the island.”

  “Sell your body?” Maud teased.

  “Right,” Carley snorted. “That’s an attractive thought.”

  “Sell your SUV and get an older, cheaper one,” Vanessa suggested.

  “That’s not a bad idea!” Carley clapped her hands. “At the least, I can sell Gus’s BMW. I know it’s paid off, and we don’t need two cars anymore. Why didn’t I think of that?”

  “I’ve got it!” Maud held her arms out wide, enclosing the entire cluttered kitchen. “Hold a tag sale.”

  Carley brightened. “Maud! What a good idea!” She sagged. “But it’s almost January. Will anyone come?”

  “Are you kidding? What else is there to do on the island in winter? Anyway, people always love tag sales. Hold it on a Saturday, in your garage.”

  Vanessa chimed in. “You’ll make a fortune. I’ll bet you haven’t seen half the stuff lurking in the corners of this big old pile.”

  “True.” Carley grabbed up a pad and pen and scribbled notes as she talked. “Things Gus and I brought home from vacation then wondered what in the world we were thinking. I’ll have to be careful not to sell anything that has sentimental value to the Winsteds. Oh, I can sell the baby things, the crib, the high chair.”

  “Oh, no!” Vanessa cried. “Carley, don’t get rid of the baby things!”

  “Vanny, I’m a widow. I’m hardly going to have another baby anytime soon, if ever.”

  “Well, that’s just sad.”

  Carley put her arm around Vanessa. “Whe
n you get pregnant, you’ll want to buy all new baby things, wait and see.” She took a deep breath. “I’m going to sell some of Gus’s things, too. His clothes.”

  Maud groaned. “His parents will flip.”

  “They’ll have to flip. I was going to give them to the thrift shop anyway. But why shouldn’t I sell them? I need the money, and they’re all such good quality. Shoes, overcoats, suits, shirts, and his CD collection, or most of it. I never did like most of his jazz.”

  “You should do that on eBay,” Vanessa suggested.

  “Maybe. A tag sale would be quicker.”

  “What will the girls think?” Maud asked.

  “They both have piles of toys in the attic they’ve outgrown. I know—I’ll tell them they can have their own table and keep any money they make.”

  “Selling their toys? It seems sad somehow,” Vanessa said.

  “No,” Carley stated firmly. “It will help them learn a bit about the financial realities of the world.”

  “When are you going to hold it?” Maud asked. “I’ll come over and help.”

  “Me, too,” Vanessa said. “And Carley, I think you should have a table of baked goods. Everyone goes crazy for your scones and tarts. I bet they’d fly.”

  Carley stood in front of her kitchen calendar. “I’ll have to put an ad in the paper. That comes out next Thursday, but I can make the deadline. I’ll have to organize the girls to get ready. Oh.” Doing an about-face, she scrunched up her face at her friends. “I’ll have to tell Annabel and Russell.”

  Her friends groaned sympathetically.

  Cisco appeared in the kitchen, dressed in leotard and track pants. “Mom, I’m going to Delphine’s.”

  Maud stood up. “I’ve got to run. I’ll come back for the boys later, Carley, before lunch, okay?”

  “Sure, or they can have lunch here.”

  “Oh, bless you. I can do a few errands.” She hugged Carley and pecked a kiss on the top of Vanessa’s head. “Cisco, want a ride?”

  “Cool.”

  “Come on, then, sweetie.”

  Cisco tossed her mother a kiss. Cisco looked thin, Carley thought, too thin, but for the moment she was simply grateful that her increasingly temperamental daughter was happy.

  When Maud and Cisco left, the three children thumped around in the attic and Carley and Vanessa started back on the cookie project. They worked in peace for a few moments.

  “I worry about Maud,” Vanessa confided. “She’s not seeing any man or even interested. She’s been alone a long time.”

  Carley paused, a carton of eggs in her hand. “I worry, too. How can she meet anyone? She doesn’t get out of the house at all. She’s always with her boys or writing. She has started taking that intensive yoga class twice a week, and she needs it, really, because her writing and drawing are messing up her back and shoulders.”

  “But she’s not going to meet a man at a yoga class.”

  “Probably not.” Carley carefully cracked eggs into the mixing bowl. “Maybe she doesn’t need a man.”

  Vanessa snorted. “If anyone needs a man, Maud does. She’s so fragile I doubt she can open a peanut butter jar by herself.” She slid a cookie sheet into the oven and set the timer. “What about Wyatt Anderson?”

  “What about Wyatt?”

  “He could date Maud. They’d be cute together.”

  “Wyatt would be cute with Cruella de Vil,” Carley quipped. “He must know she’s divorced. He’s been at some of the parties and I haven’t seen him chat her up.”

  “Maybe he just likes younger women.”

  “Oh, moan. Vanny, I’m sure Maud will meet Mr. Right sometime.”

  “I hope so.” The room filled with the warm buttery aroma of cookie batter, eggs, sugar, and chocolate.

  Vanessa dropped dough by the spoonfuls onto the cookie sheet. “At least Maud has two children.”

  “Oh, honey.” Carley turned and embraced Vanessa, taking care not to get egg white on her clothes. “It’s so unfair.” Releasing her, she tried to be optimistic as she returned to her bowl. “Have you and Toby talked about adopting?”

  “Not yet.” Vanessa’s voice was low, her face averted. “I want the experience, Carley. I want to feel a baby grow in my belly. I want to give birth.”

  Carley laughed. “Believe me, it’s no walk in the park.”

  “I know that. Well, actually, I don’t know that, but I want to.” Vanessa turned away. “Sometimes I think I’m too intense about everything. You’re just so easy with all of it, Carley. All the kids.”

  “I like kids, Vanessa. I like people. I like—” She held out her arms, indicating it all, the mess of the kitchen with the mixing bowls and bags of flour and coffee cups and glasses scattered everywhere. “My mother’s run a day care all her life, and it has her entire heart and soul. Dad’s a dentist, and he does a lot of free work, too. You’ve met my sister and her partner. Sarah’s an emergency room nurse and Sue is a social worker. It takes a trauma or at least a head wound to get attention from my own family.”

  Vanessa laughed, then turned serious. “Do you miss Gus terribly?”

  Carley said, “I do miss him. Every day.” Briskly, she turned toward the sink and rinsed her hands. “I’m going to gain weight if I don’t stop eating the batter. Come on, let’s get these done.”

  It was early afternoon when the dozens of cookies were decorated and carefully covered with cling wrap, ready for the bake sale at four. Vanessa offered to drop Maud’s boys back at their house, and she rounded them up and drove away. Margaret, exhausted by boy play, went down the street to her friend Molly’s house to play with dolls, and Cisco phoned, just checking in, telling Carley that Delphine’s mother had given them lunch and then they were going to walk around town.

  Carley was alone in the house. It felt like being on an abandoned ocean liner in a calm sea just after a gale-force storm. She loved the chaos and clutter of people, but she loved the quiet, too. She walked through the house, returning the umbrellas the boys had used as swords to the umbrella stand in the hall, gathering up the toys and clothing—a headless doll, a striped sock, one of Gus’s father’s ancient hats—that had somehow been used in the children’s games.

  Margaret’s bedroom had been ransacked by the children. The boys had crammed Margaret’s shoes upside down on her stuffed animals’ heads—they did look funny. Her pink duvet was balled up against the wall and the construction paper from her child’s desk had been scattered around the room. Carley would have Margaret help her tidy it.

  Cisco’s room was perfection. The boys knew better than to enter Cisco’s room—she was twelve. Sometimes, on special days, Cisco allowed Margaret in her room, but Margaret thought the sun shone out of Cisco’s belly button, she treated Cisco’s possessions like religious icons. She could spend hours trying on Cisco’s shoes and sweaters and walking solemnly around the house in them, and she always put them away carefully, because the items were precious.

  The master bedroom was tidy, too. Without Gus there to drop his clothes on the floor, his change on the dresser, his books and magazines on the tables, everything was easier to keep neat. At Christmas at her parents’, in a burst of “I’m getting on with my life!” optimism, Carley had treated herself to a new bedspread and matching curtains in a floral pattern that Gus would have hated. Now the room looked luscious, but so feminine. So solitary.

  There were three other rooms on the second floor of this spacious old ark. Two of the rooms were kept as guest rooms. One was a playroom, a lifesaver on snowy or rainy days. The children had left it in what Carley liked to consider a creative disorder. Doll carriages and cradles and toy stoves and refrigerators had been upended and piled together to make some kind of ersatz vehicle, no doubt a space ship.

  There was also the attic. From its half-moon windows, views of Nantucket Sound glistened and sparkled into the far horizon, compelling the imagination out to foreign fantasies. Antique settees, fabulous old opera cloaks, boxes of china, oil paintings of
some rather ugly ancestors, and other souvenirs the Winsteds hadn’t yet decided to have valued, filled the large room, giving it a sense of otherworldliness. The kids loved playing up here. It was a Shangri-La for the imagination.

  And it was chock full of all sorts of good stuff for a tag sale.

  8

  • • • • •

  Sunday morning, Carley brushed Margaret’s hair till it shone like black silk. She allowed her to choose one of her favorite, frilliest dresses. Cisco’s outfit, for once, did not involve either tights or leotard, but rather a plain skirt and top. The older Winsteds always dressed for church and Sunday dinner, and Carley followed their lead. She wore a loose brown cashmere dress, high heels, and family heirloom gold jewelry Annabel had entrusted to her over the years. Out of her regular jeans and tee, she felt like an imposter or a changeling.

  After church, Carley and her daughters stood with Annabel and Russell on the sidewalk, chatting with the rector and other members of the congregation. Carley knew her in-laws liked this, liked showing off their pretty, polite little granddaughters. Then, in the weak winter sunshine, they all walked over to the older Winsteds’ house for Sunday dinner. Russell immediately went to the den to watch a news program. The females gathered in the kitchen. Annabel had put a small turkey in to roast early that morning, and the room was warm with delicious odors.

  “How can I help?” Carley asked Annabel.

  “Just heat up the veggies,” Annabel told her. “I’ll make the gravy.”

  “I’ll set the dining room table,” Cisco said cheerfully, tilting her head to be sure Carley noticed how helpful she was. Carley smiled, and she was proud of her daughter, but she would never understand why it was Cisco loved doing chores at her grandparents’ and complained miserably about doing them at home.

  Margaret was babbling, as usual. “Robin’s dad built her a tree-house! Really, it’s for Robin’s older brother, and we have to wait till Robin’s mother comes out to stand by the ladder when we climb up, but that’s silly, because we are very careful climbing—”