“He’s just embarrassed. It’ll be okay, Laur.”
“Did the posse of church people come?”
“Is two people a posse? It was only Marjorie Pettit and some other lady. By the time they came we’d cleaned up and it was only me and my mom. They said something about a noise complaint and stomped off. It would’ve been a nightmare if your dad hadn’t warned us.”
But it was a nightmare.
“Laur. You still there?”
“Yeah.”
“I meant, a nightmare for all of us. Not just you... My mom’s dying to talk to you, here...”
“I can’t talk to her right now.”
A pause, then Casey’s underwater-sounding murmur. She’d put her hand over the phone to tell Alex I didn’t want to talk to her. A wail of protest: Alex’s. Loud enough to break through Casey’s hand barricade. Just let me talk to her.
“J.B. then,” Casey said.
More murmurs, knocking sounds—the handset being dropped on a table?
And then J.B.’s low, slightly raspy “Hey.” His voice sounded so warm and concerned that I felt better immediately. We could fix it.
“Hey.”
“You think if I talk to him it’ll help?”
“Maybe. He won’t even look at me. He’s always defended Alex and now...”
“I know. Alex is crying, she really wants to talk to you...”
“I can’t right now.”
“Are you sure, she’s—”
“Tell her I’ll smooth things over.”
* * *
I hoped when I walked into the sunny kitchen the next morning things would feel better.
But my dad didn’t look at me. He concentrated on his crossword.
“I’m sorry, Daddy. What you saw. Alex was just playing around.”
“You’re eighteen,” he said, studying his puzzle.
I was eighteen, but I’d kept my secrets well. He was sixty-seven, and it had looked ugly to him—me in my bra with boys nearby, a needle piercing my flesh, a trail of blood on my arm, couples in the bedrooms, beer bottles, the sweet cloud of pot on the path. We’d made a fool of him.
Still, I knew I could fix it. He just needed time.
Casey said Alex was writing him a letter. She wanted to get it perfect. Casey read it over the phone, “‘You trusted me with your daughter, and I’ll do whatever it takes to regain that trust. I know what you saw looked awful. There’s no excuse. I’m responsible; I was the adult...’”
But my dad never read those words.
Five days after the party he had a heart attack in the hardware store, playing backgammon with Ollie. By the time I got to the hospital he was “stable but serious,” and they told me he was very lucky. Only a moderate “event,” a warning sign. Doctors were talking about stents and balloons and catheters. He was sleepy, but when I came into his room he reached for my hand.
“There’s my little one,” he said, smiling. He showed me the glowing red monitor attached to his index finger. “E.T.,” he said, lifting his hand and winking, then drifting off to sleep. We’d seen E.T. together at the theater in Red Pine when I was little.
They told me he was fine, to go home.
The next morning when I came downstairs my mother was already at the kitchen table gripping her mug of coffee with two hands. She’d set out another mug for me; that’s how I knew.
I stared at the sun on his empty chair.
“He went very peacefully.”
44
Skipping Stones
Five days later
Everyone came to my father’s service, which was short, and which he would have liked. I stayed near my mother’s side, grateful for her steely reserve. She wore a thick black wool dress and I studied the embossing on the skirt, like overlapping clovers, while people spoke about my dad’s goodness.
“Bill Christie loved digging into the history of this town,” Ollie said. “And now he’s part of it. And if he had a choice he wouldn’t want me talking about him. He’d want me to remind you that this building was completed in 1853 and restored in 1962, and you should all appreciate the joists in the corner over there.”
Relieved laughter.
Food after, at our house. Our kitchen counter paved in casserole dishes. J.B. with his hair tucked down his collar. Casey and Alex in long blue dresses I’d never seen.
Alex trying to talk to me, the worry on her face so raw I had to look away. Me finding excuses to avoid her.
The whole town was there. Pauline Knowland hugged me, genuine tears in her eyes, and I thought about what my dad said. People change, if you let them.
* * *
Casey slept at my house that night for the first time. My mother didn’t object. We lay in the dark for hours, talking. I couldn’t sleep, but around one I pretended to so Casey would sleep for real.
When her breathing slowed, I carefully crawled out from under my comforter, leaving my music box under my pillow, and tiptoed downstairs in my thin nightgown. I pulled my dad’s biscuit-colored Fair Isle sweater off the peg by the back door and wandered outside to my kayak. The moon was nearly full, an almost perfect circle, but on the water it was a great, shivering diamond, and I thought: if only I could paddle out to the very center of that diamond. Lie down in the middle of it in my dad’s good-smelling, thick sweater and close my eyes. Then, maybe, I could sleep. I pulled the sweater on, hopped into my kayak, and paddled hard.
But when I saw the garden lamp on at The Shipwreck I changed course, my arms making the decision before my brain.
I wanted to see Alex. I wanted to tell her it wasn’t her fault, that I was sorry I’d avoided her all day.
No one had forced me to surrender my body to her. I could have helped Casey get control of the parties long before. And I’d liked it, sneaking upstairs with J.B., being at the center of things, keeping Alex’s secrets along with my own.
That part wasn’t Alex’s fault.
Alex would hug me, say my name in her special way, make me tea from some foul-smelling garden herbs. Tell me it would get better, that my father would have come around. Of course he would have.
I tied up on the Shepherds’ dock and walked across cold sand, grass scattered with sharp pine needles.
There were voices in the garden. Alex’s and someone else’s, a man’s.
It hurt, realizing she’d gone on a date after my father’s service. The anger rushed back, a dry heat filling my chest, my tired head.
I turned, headed back toward the water. Then froze. Because the male voice was now rising up loud enough to recognize.
“We should tell her, Alex. Not now. Not right after her dad. But soon.”
“No.”
“I could tell her, if you can’t.”
I crept back, holding my breath. They were sitting together on the garden bench, their backs to me. Alex had her hand on his elbow.
“We can’t tell her,” Alex said. “Can’t you see? She’ll tell Casey.”
“It’s not right, Alex. Lying.”
“Would you want to know, if you were her?”
If he responded, I couldn’t hear it.
“See, we can’t tell her,” Alex said. “I have to protect Casey.”
“What a hopeless fucking mess,” he said. “Sometimes I wish I’d never delivered to your studio that summer.”
“No one made you come back this summer,” Alex said sharply.
For a minute there was only my shallow breathing and the whisper of a breeze ruffling through the pines.
“I know.” He sighed. “I should have just forgotten about it.” He choked out a bitter laugh I’d never heard. “You know she used to pretend you were her mother? She almost convinced herself it was true? You mean that much to her. She trusts you that much.”
“Sweet girl.”
&nbs
p; Slowly, Alex rubbed his shoulder. Slowly, she moved closer to him on the bench. Sank against his chest, crying. “I know it’s wrong,” she said. “I didn’t mean for it to turn out this way.”
J.B.’s hands stayed stiffly at his sides for a moment. Then he reached up and touched her hair. “We’ll figure it out,” he said.
There was a second, even after I heard this surreal exchange, even before I saw Alex in the warm nook where I’d rested my own head so many times, when I still believed it wasn’t possible.
But I was already looking at my memories differently, shading and highlighting, just a few lines and erasures here and there, as if I was sketching with my worn-down graphite pencil.
The way Alex had teared up the day I introduced J.B. The way he stared at her photos by the stairs.
The way she’d looked in the Polaroid, kissing poor, shy Stewart against a tree. Of course I stopped him. But in the picture she’d been closing her eyes.
You can’t see her, Laur!
When had it started? The summer they moved in, right before Alex and Casey became my life? J.B., driving for Pedersen’s, innocently delivering paint, garden mulch. Delivering those sawhorses for Alex’s studio. Lugging them upstairs... Thank you, no problem. And then.
And then the two of them. Not just before J.B. and I were together.
I should have just forgotten about it.
No one made you come back this summer.
This summer. Trysting secretly, planning their lies. Pitying me, biding their time.
I allowed another wave of grief to join the others that had been trying to drown me for days, and it was done.
When I saw her for the last time, Alex was sitting in perfect stillness as J.B. consoled her.
I paddled home quietly and slipped under the comforter next to Casey. She was still dreaming, unaware that everything had changed.
* * *
Years later I would wonder: If I had heard this conversation any other time, when I wasn’t feeling so ashamed, so raw about my last week with my father, would things have been different? Would I have burst through the rusty garden gate, demanded explanations? Details? Told Casey to get my revenge?
Would I have listened to that weak voice in my head whispering something’s not right here?
But I felt certain I’d made it happen. Pushed the two of them together somehow. I’d done it with my greed, my secrets. The terrible power of my longing for something different.
* * *
I sent Casey away at dawn, telling her I needed to be alone. I didn’t leave my house or answer the phone for five days.
When I finally called Casey back one morning she said, “Hey, lady,” with such love and relief in her voice I had to get it out fast before I changed my mind.
I’d decided. I would never tell Casey; I owed her this. It was all ruined anyway.
“I’m not going to CalArts, Case. I’m so sorry. You can have my half of the deposit.”
“I get that. But you can’t stick around Coeur-de-Lune being sad. Move into our place anyway. Go to the beach all day. Start next quarter when you’re ready. Or—”
“I’m not sticking around Coeur-de-Lune. I’m going to SCAD instead. Savannah College of Art and Design, remember? It’s a good program. I start September 18 but I’m flying out early.”
“You turned them down. You’ve never been there.”
“I told them about my dad and they’re letting me accept after the deadline.”
“You’re not thinking straight. Freaking Georgia? J.B. said you won’t talk to him or see him either and—”
“I’m so sorry, Case. I’ve got to go.”
“Laur, please—”
Click.
I sent J.B. one email.
Things have moved way too fast. I need a break. A fresh start. Time to grieve. I hope you will respect that. I’m going to school in Savannah instead of LA.
Take care,
Laura
I hit Send then blocked him. [email protected] could no longer send anything to [email protected]. I hid under my covers, cowardly as someone starting the timer on a bomb.
He created a new account, sent me an email that I read in spite of myself:
Please. Don’t. I love you.
But [email protected] got blocked, too, and after that he stopped.
He called fourteen times that day. Nine the next, seven the next. The refrigerator door was papered in phone messages. My mother took down every one faithfully. I eavesdropped, tiptoeing down the hall so I could hear her murmuring to J.B. on the study phone. “Yes, I’ve given her all the messages.” Her voice was surprisingly soft. “Yes, I will tell her. She’s resting.” Another time—“Thank you...No, you’re not intruding...That’s very kind.” And I wondered what he’d said to warm her at last, now that it didn’t matter.
* * *
I avoided Casey. When she came over I told my mother I didn’t want to see her, that I had to rest.
Casey wrote me a letter. “I love you, L. Please don’t shut me out. Please.”
Alex wrote, too. “I’m so sorry about what you’re going through, sweetie, and about the garden. Your dad loved you and was so proud of you, always. Nothing could have changed that. I want to help you. We all want to help you...”
But of course Alex’s words were as false as everything else about her, and there was nothing anyone could say to make it right, to take us back to how it was. How I’d thought it was.
If I stayed in Casey’s life, I’d surely spit out the truth someday. And I didn’t want her to know. Alex was right about that. Casey couldn’t know. If I told her she’d never forgive Alex, and she’d lose her family, too.
I could save her from that. I could do that for her, at least.
* * *
I visited Casey one last time before I left.
I went on a Wednesday night, when Alex would be at her Reiki class. I walked over. I wanted to make sure Alex’s car was gone. Anyway, I hadn’t felt much like kayaking lately.
Casey was sitting at the end of the dock, kicking her legs in the water, staring over at my house. When she heard me she turned, happiness and relief spreading across her face. “How are you doing, I’ve—”
“Can you give this to J.B.?” I sat next to her and handed her his blue shirt. I’d soaked it in ammonia, but the sleeve still had the ghost of a bloodstain where it had rubbed against my arm as I ran home.
“Sure, but—”
“And this is for you.” I pulled the music box from my pocket, held it out.
“No.”
“You keep it. Keep it safe.”
She clenched her fists. “Laur. It’ll get better. We’ll help you, all of us.”
“My dad was my family. This isn’t my family. Please, take it.” I dropped the music box in her lap and stood.
“Laur. Don’t.”
“I have to pack. My flight’s first thing.”
“Laura.” Casey stood up. She shook my shoulder with one hand, gripping the music box with the other, her voice rising when I wouldn’t meet her eyes. “Don’t.”
I whirled away from her, hoping to make it down the dock before the tears came.
“So you’re leaving? Just like that? Talk to me! You’re mad at her, but I get punished?”
Halfway down the dock now. Not much farther to escape her voice.
“Right. Perfect. Prude little church girl’s embarrassed in front of Daddy, and the world has to end. She has to do penance for her sins. No, Laura. We all have to.”
I stopped walking, and she went on, screaming now.
“Nobody forced you to join her stupid...performance. If you hadn’t followed her so fucking blindly, if you hadn’t wanted her to be your mommy so fucking bad...”
I wiped my face, turned toward her. “Good to know what
you really think of me. Have fun at school, Casey.”
“Laura, wait!” Her voice was strained, frantic.
But mine was strangely calm now. Calm, and certain, and cold. “I have to go. Goodbye, Casey.”
Her arm flew out.
The gesture was not planned, or even conscious. I knew it. Even then. She threw it because she didn’t know what else to do. Like slapping someone when they’re a danger to themselves. That’s all. Even then, I knew she didn’t mean to throw it.
I watched it soar over the sunset mirror of the lake. There was a strange beauty in it, like Casey was skipping stones. The moment stretched out so slowly it was almost as if we could stop it, if we wanted to.
But I didn’t want to. It would make it easier for me to give Casey up.
She watched my most precious thing hit the water. An animal cry escaped from her throat, and she jumped, but I knew it was too late. The metal inside would take it down. Before Casey had one arm over her head in a half stroke, a silver hinge glinted in the sun and disappeared.
Casey was resurfacing, sputtering lake water, when I turned and ran. I heard her scramble onto the dock, her feet pounding behind me.
“Laura,” she cried as I passed the garden gate, the break in her voice almost enough to pull me back.
Almost, but not enough.
45
Extreme
2016
Sunday, late morning
Casey and I sat on her bench in the garden, taking inventory. One by one, I pulled items from the goody bag and set them between us on the wooden slats. Four rows of two. A tile, a stuffed mermaid. A leaf, a napkin. Four pictures.
“Look at your perfect grid,” Casey said. “Just like the ones you used to make on my vanity.”
“Always trying to make sense of the disorder,” I said, smiling.
“And does it make sense, when you arrange it like that?”
“I wish.” I shuffled the items around, messing up the grid.
“Can I ask you something?” Casey said.
“Of course.”
“Are you happy? Have you been happy?” She faced me, her eyes serious, searching.
The Summer List Page 28