“She’s adorable,” I called.
“Thanks.”
Alex had started the wall the September after she and Casey moved in, first with a handful of framed photos clustered where they were easily visible from the middle step. The collection had grown outward, the spacing tightening over the years as real estate got scarce.
I knew so many of the images. Casey blowing out birthday candles at three and four and seven, her cheeks round, her eyes bright. Casey jumping off dive blocks at swim meets, her age only discernible by the length of her blurry legs. Casey and Alex on the trip to Mexico when Casey was fifteen, toasting with their margarita glasses in some awful spring-break club. Casey in the garden, pretending to mash herbs with Alex’s mortar and pestle, her raised eyebrows showing just what she thought of Alex’s pagan phase. Alex at her pottery wheel, squinting into the sun, her cheeks and forehead flecked with white clay. Alex as a toddler on the beach in San Francisco, the ruins of the Sutro Baths behind her. I looked at that one closely, trying to identify the old Victorian up the hill that Sam had turned into his shop, years after the photo was taken. But I couldn’t find it.
I’d once been on the wall, too. Prominently featured. By senior year I was in ten pictures. My favorite had been positioned eight steps up. Me and Casey in the kayak, raising our paddles over our heads and laughing, water pouring down in shining streams around us.
But that one was no longer there, and neither were any of the others. I’d been curated out of the gallery.
I walked down the stairs, smiling so Casey wouldn’t know what I’d been thinking.
“My mom still has them.”
“Has what?”
“The pictures of you. She keeps the one of us in the kayak in her studio.”
I nodded. What was I supposed to say? No worries?
“So,” Casey said, walking to the kitchen. “Wine? Rosé all right? And I wasn’t kidding about the cheese. I didn’t know what you’d like so I got it all. Hard, soft, everything in between.”
“What, no cookie dough?” I followed Casey across the living room.
“Cookie dough?”
“You know, trio of cookie dough.”
She turned to face me.
“Trio of cookie dough,” I said. “Manicures. Crank calls?”
“What are you talking about?”
And I realized it even before my hand closed around the invitation in my pocket.
The invitation Casey hadn’t sent.
I’d handled the hot-pink envelope so much over the past three weeks it had gotten soft. I passed it to Casey and she pulled the card out. After one glance she walked over to the rolltop desk in the corner, so fast I didn’t have a chance to read her expression.
She handed me a piece of filmy blue stationery. “We’ve been had.”
The handwriting’s resemblance to mine was impressive.
“‘Dear Casey, I’ve been thinking about our friendship a lot lately, and missing you. Would you mind if I came for a visit? I’ll be in town on...’”
I didn’t need to read any more.
“Your mom,” I said.
“I’m going to strangle her.”
“Do you want me to go?”
“Do you want to go?”
* * *
When Casey stomped to the refrigerator for the rosé she found it had been replaced by a six-pack of Bartles & Jaymes wine coolers with a fat manila envelope taped on top. Girls, it said on the outside, in Alex’s unmistakable curly handwriting.
Alex had even remembered our flavor preference from senior year. Junior year our favorite had been Snow Creek Berry, but by the fall of 1998 we’d transitioned to Peach Bellini, and that’s what she’d bought.
We sat on the sofa with our drinks, Alex’s envelope between us. Casey studied her bottle’s label, circling the round B&J logo with her index finger.
“Do you want to open it?” I said.
“You’re the guest, you should have the honor.”
“I need a minute.”
“She turned in a pretty goddamned good performance of acting surprised when I showed her the letter,” Casey said. She swigged her Peach Bellini, her grip on the bottle so tight her knuckles blanched. “I mean, Golden Globe–worthy.”
“She took that acting class in Pinecrest,” I said softly. When was it? Sophomore year? It didn’t matter, but it was all I could handle at the moment, that one fact, so I concentrated hard until I pulled it from my memory. Spring of sophomore year. Endless monologues from Uncle Vanya and Streetcar.
“Right. Then suddenly she said it would be better if she wasn’t here, if the two of us had ‘quality time’ together. And today she blew town with Elle.” Casey’s cheeks had reddened. Her angry clown look, Alex had always called it.
I could leave.
But Casey hadn’t kicked me out. She’d hot potato’d the question of what to do right back at me.
In the Stay column, at least Casey was sharing a piece of furniture with me.
In the Go column—she could not be farther away. The sofa had two big seat cushions, and while I sat in the middle of mine, Casey was so far away, wedged against the opposite arm, that she’d made her cushion lift up in the center of the sofa like she was raising a little padded drawbridge between us.
Another for the Go column—she was gripping her wine cooler so tight I could see the raised outline of the delicate center bone inside her wrist.
I sipped my sickly sweet peach drink.
Jett settled on the floor between us. Casey stretched her leg out so her heel could rub circles around Jett’s fluffy midsection. I put the fact that she was petting my dog in the Stay column. “Let’s at least open the letter.”
“You do it, I’m too pissed.” Casey took another swig of her drink and set it on the coffee table. She squeezed her left hand into a ball, then radiated her fingers out again like a magician in the “abracadabra” moment of the act. A de-stressing technique I used myself sometimes.
I set my bottle down a respectful distance from hers and tore open the envelope. Alex had taped a hundred-dollar bill to the top of a handwritten note. I carefully peeled off the cash and waved it.
“What’s that for?” Casey said.
I scanned the letter. It was all so perfectly, ridiculously Alex I couldn’t help smiling in spite of everything.
“What’s funny?” Casey said.
“You’re not going to like it.”
“The hundred’s a bribe? It’s not even a decent one.”
“It’s not a bribe, listen,” I said. “‘Girls. I know you must be a little angry, and...’”
“Ha. Just a little.”
“...‘and I don’t blame you. Okay, maybe you’re more than a little angry.’
“‘But remember you’re angry at me, not at each other. It was always that way, wasn’t it? I was to blame then, too. I was the adult.’”
Casey snorted.
“‘Correction. I was supposed to be the adult.’ Supposed to be is underlined...” I tried to meet Casey’s eyes but she wouldn’t look at me. She was staring at her bottle.
“‘So please see this for what it is: my attempt to make things right.’
“‘Or see it as one last scavenger hunt. They were fun, weren’t they? At least at first? I want this to be fun for you, too.’”
I waited for Casey’s comment.
“Fun. God, I’m going to kill her... Sorry, sorry.” Casey held up her free hand in apology. “Keep going.”
“‘I’ve made up a list.’” I fished out another piece of white paper, this one printed from a computer and folded in half. I held it up for Casey, who had inched closer. I didn’t open it. I set it between us, facedown, so it bridged our couch cushions.
“‘There are ten things. Five photos to take and five things to find, just
like when you were in high school. I put a lot of thought into choosing the items. I couldn’t find the right film for the old Polaroids so I got you a new instant camera at the Sharper Image...’”
“Unreal.” Casey closed her eyes. “Doesn’t she realize we can take pictures with our phones now? Not that we’re going to be taking pictures anyway...”
“Wait, listen... ‘I realize you can take pictures with your phones now...’” I pointed at Casey and gave her a chance to get her sarcasm in. We had a nice rhythm going.
“Because that makes this totally reasonable,” she said.
“...‘but I thought it’d be more fun this way. More like old times, you know? The camera is in the top left drawer of my dresser. A couple of these clues will take you out of town (hint, hint) so the money is for gas and incidentals.’”
“My mom did not write incidentals. What is she, a corporate accountant all of a sudden?”
“She did write incidentals.” I tilted the letter so she could see.
“‘I’ll be monitoring your progress so no cheating. This will only work if you do it right.’
“‘When you’ve finished all ten things on the list I’ll trade you for something you’ve both wanted for a long time. Something I probably should have given you years ago.’
“‘Please trust me one last time. I know that’s a lot to ask. But you have to complete this game before I give you your prize. You’ll understand Sunday, I promise.’”
“That’s it?” Casey said.
“No. She signed it. ‘Love, Alex.’”
I unfolded the paper and skimmed the first few clues. They were written in rhymes, but didn’t seem too hard. Not by Alex’s old standards. “Want to know what’s on the list?”
“Let me guess. A syrup jug from the Creekside. The mayor’s watering can. A picture by the drinking fountain at school.”
“You’ve got the basic idea. A guided trip down memory lane. It’s all summer stuff.”
“Adorable.”
“So what do you think the prize is? Something we’ve both wanted for a long time.”
“Right now I want to throw a Sharper Image novelty Polaroid camera at her face. No, I want to punch her in the face.” Casey clenched and unclenched her fist again, as if imagining the satisfaction she’d get from delivering the blow.
She grabbed the list, crumpled it up without reading it, and tossed it, aiming for the wall opposite us. It barely cleared the coffee table. Jett bounded over and returned it to her, wagging her tail. “She even got your dog into the act.”
I patted my knees. “Give it, Jetty.”
I unfolded the damp paper on my lap. “She wrote the clues in rhymes. Five-line rhymes.”
“Those are called quintains. You missed the morbid poetry phase she got into after 9/11.”
“The clues seem pretty easy,” I said. “Listen to this one:
“‘Here you used to glide and spin
Young and swift and free
On hoofs of brown and orange you’d...’”
Casey interrupted. “The skating rink. Tough clue, Mom.”
“I don’t think she wants the clues to be hard. I don’t think that’s the point this time.”
Casey pressed her bright cheek against the side of her wine cooler. “She was good, I’ll give her that. Acting as surprised as me when your letter showed up. Talking me into how great it’d be if you came and I should at least give it a chance, how hard it must have been for you to reach out after all this time...” She broke off. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” I picked up the sheet of blue stationery from the coffee table. Until half an hour ago Casey had thought I’d sent it. And I noticed something that I hadn’t the first time. “My” letter had a tracery of lines in it. Casey had crumpled it up, too. Maybe Alex even had to fish the balled-up letter from the garbage. I couldn’t blame Casey; I’d resisted, too. But it hurt.
“She outsmarted us,” I said.
“Those handwriting samples we did junior year...” Casey said.
“Sophomore year.”
“Was it? Anyway, I can’t even deal with that part right now, the idea of her holing up in her studio, plotting this twisted fiesta when I thought she was painting. She was up there copying our handwriting while I was down here reading Lemony Snicket with Elle, totally oblivious.”
“She thought we needed an activity,” I said. “Like toddlers.”
“This says it all.” Casey picked up the manila envelope and punched the word Girls, denting the paper.
I nodded, though I knew Casey was getting worked up for reasons that had nothing to do with being treated like a child.
The scavenger hunts Alex masterminded when we were in high school weren’t just party games to keep us entertained. Maybe they’d started off that way. But they’d become something else, and the final prize, for both of us, had been the end of our friendship. Alex couldn’t make that right with an apology and ten bad poems.
We sipped our drinks. Casey petted Jett with her foot and I read Alex’s list.
Most of the items were in town. Walking distance, even. The only item that would take some effort was the last one.
Not that we were doing it.
The grandfather clock struck eight and after the final, resounding bong it felt even quieter than before.
“So I get that she wants us to make up,” I said. “But why now?”
Casey shook her head, focusing on a spot in the air above my head. She whispered something.
I tapped her knee, then, startled by the familiarity of the gesture, pulled my hand back. “Did you say no?”
Casey cleared her throat. “I said, ‘I know.’” She shook her head as if to reset her thoughts. “I know why she’s doing it now.”
“Why?”
She smiled, but her eyes were glazed. Jett whimpered and snuffled into her lap.
“Because you have your little girl?” I said.
She shook her head.
“Then it’s...because we’re thirty-five? Or I am, and you will be in August. And thirty-five is, I don’t know, the age you miraculously become older and wiser and able to get over the past according to your mom?”
“No.”
“So tell me.”
Casey’s hand trembled as she set her drink down. She shook her head again. Then, so fast I hardly knew what was happening, she was gone. Out the front door. Barefoot, launching herself into the cold night.
I waited five minutes. Ten. Long enough to feel the cool air coming in through the open door. I reread Alex’s list, trying to find clues between the clues. Why now, Alex? The answer tried to burrow into my thoughts, but I couldn’t latch onto it.
Jett whimpered, her nose pointed at the front door.
“Should we go after her, Jetty?”
She thumped her tail, and then ran to the door, where I clipped on her leash. At the last second I returned for the clue list.
6
Messy
Even before I saw Casey’s green sweatshirt in the light of the gazebo, I knew that’s where she’d be.
We’d dreamed away so many hours under its rotting roof, every morning before school and after every party.
The bright gazebo looked like a stage in the shadowy park, which was otherwise lit only by one weak streetlamp. Casey sat cross-legged on the floor, leaning against the lower wall with her eyes closed. “Sorry about that,” she said, not opening them.
“It’s okay. Jett was worried, though.”
Casey held out her hand and let Jett snuffle into it. “I’m sorry, Jett. Your mom’s old friend is crazy.”
“No. It’s been a crazy day.”
I looked around. In my time the small park by Casey’s house had been scrubby and neglected, but now it was spruced up. The grass was groomed and there was a red play s
tructure on one of those rubbery black surfaces that kept kids from breaking their arms when they plummeted off the monkey bars.
The gazebo had been fixed up, too, repaired and painted a glossy white.
The upper wall of the gazebo was plain white lattice, curving into a domed roof. But the lower wall had always been special, even when it was falling apart. I knelt so I could examine the mosaic running around the bottom. It was whole again, a fantastical lake scene for small children to enjoy, built at their eye level. Swimmers, fish, swaying underwater plants, and the imaginary friendly water creature everyone called Messy. Loch Ness had Nessie, Lake Tahoe had Tessie, and we had Messy.
I crawled along the floor, running my hand on the cold tiles. “They did a good job on this.”
“What? Oh, shit, I forgot. Are you okay being here?”
“Sure. It’s beautiful.”
A brass plaque by the steps stated that the gazebo was built in 1945 in memory of Lieutenant Rupert Collier II, who had died in Normandy during World War II. A shinier plaque below said the gazebo had been “restored in 2012 thanks to a generous gift from the Coeur-de-Lune Historical Society in honor of William T. Christie.”
My dad. I’d sent checks to the Historical Society on his birthday every year. I’d donated an extra-large sum on what would have been his eightieth, four years ago.
“They had an artist out of Truckee do it,” Casey said. “She spent months matching colors. So many tiles were missing.”
“I wonder why.”
“Some hooligans had been prying them off.”
“How terrible.”
She smiled, wiping her shiny cheek with her sleeve.
“Did you give her the tiles?” I said.
“I sneaked over in the dark and left them in a shoebox.”
“And she used them?”
“All fifty-seven.”
Fifty-seven blue tiles. Casey had counted them, and remembered.
Fifty-seven nights, sitting here in the dark, picking off loose tiles, talking over whatever we’d done that evening. As innocent and free and unaware of time as the creatures swimming in the mosaic.
The Summer List Page 6