by Anne Fall
On the motorcycle, David drove more carelessly than usual. She leaned in closer to him. He continued, and the motorcycle skidded along the road.
When they reached her aunt's house, Sylvia stepped off the motorcycle with shaking legs. David's eyes were still hurt.
"If I had been a summer boy, would you have stayed with me?" The question was an insult, a slap.
"If I were a townie, I might have." Her eyes flashed. What was she to any of them? Sylvia turned and ran then. Sunrise was already on the horizon over the ocean. Instead of heading toward the house, Sylvia headed to the sea. The sound of David's motorcycle leaving ricocheted out behind her like a gunshot, and she stopped as if it had hit her in the back before shaking it away.
The ocean greeted her, rolling roughly in front of the sunrise. Sylvia put her hands on her face and felt the planes of it. It was the morning of July 4, and she had no idea what the world was going to do to her next.
That night, the household went downtown. The women looked lovely. Catherine and Vivian each wore a pair of impossibly delicate gloves and broad hats. Fashionably flared, their skirts formed a bell accentuating the roundness of their lower halves. They walked together, arm in arm. The men walked behind them, and Sylvia trailed, as she always did. The shops were lit up brilliantly, boldly presenting their selections surrounded by red, white, and blue. The candy store had an endless line crowding the sidewalk. The entire community had turned out, and the sidewalks were teeming with laughing faces, scented women, and dashing young men who overflowed onto the crowded streets. Sylvia was repeatedly jostled, and she struggled to keep up with the continually disappearing backs of Adam and Eric. As they approached the entrance to a small park, the crowd thickened. The blankets she carried close to her chest smelled like the house.
The bandstand stood in a small depression in the park, lit up blazingly. It was really a quaint gazebo but all were gathered here, filling up the small park with blankets and laughter. The sheer number of people gave the bandstand more significance than its physical structure warranted. It became a focal point, seemingly larger than it actually was. Men in red uniforms stood under the gazebo roof and tuned their instruments harmonically. Children ran about wildly, patriotic balloons trailing behind them. For a moment, Sylvia felt like joining them.
Adam spread out the two quilts in the grass, and the two ladies sat in a muffled hush of rustling fabric. Was it taffeta? It gleamed lightly with the texture of linen and the shimmer of satin. Sylvia sat with them, arranging her skirt. Her too-slender legs stretched out in front of her. With her seated position on the ground, her skirt became too short, and it made her uncomfortable. An image of herself flattened against the earth of the cranberry bog filled her mind. After the three of them were settled, Eric and Adam went to get ice cream for them. They were gone a long time, and while they were away, Catherine and Vivian whispered in murmurs to each other, as if Sylvia were not present.
"He's been so much better."
"I know, darling. Men don't understand. Adam, especially, needs an outlet for all that energy of his. He's not active enough. I thought the rowing training would do it." Catherine spoke softly, and a child darted between the two blankets, calling out for his mother.
"It helped, it did. He just, he needs more purpose, Catherine. We know that, but it's hard. Eric has his painting, you know. Men must feel like they own their piece of the world."
"The art show, I hope it goes well. You think it will, don't you? You and Adam will buy something, won't you?" A slight tone of supplication entered Catherine's voice, and Sylvia heard it with a shiver. It felt false.
"Of course we'll buy something. I can't wait to see what he's done. You know how I admire his work. I've never seen anything like it. I wish he would paint me."
"You are too beautiful to capture with paint." Catherine leaned forward and kissed Vivian's cheek. The tuning of the instruments in the gazebo blended with their voices until it made a song, a symphony of notes, true and false, tuned and untamed.
Sylvia's silence grew around her until all the other voices and noises faded out. She was alone in it, that silence. Her head hurt, and she looked through the crowd for David. She wanted to make it right. It must be made right.
The two women did not appear to notice her but kept their confidences to themselves. Sylvia could see they loved each other a great deal, and it turned her heart to watch them. Suddenly, she longed for a female friend. Who could she talk to? Feeling she had failed in the cranberry bog, Sylvia did not want to be like Vivian, so held back by decorum and expected behavior that she could not live without breaking out in an act of self-destruction.
The rules, who wrote these rules? She'd been told all along that ‘it’ was supposed to be ‘saved’, ‘saved’ they always said, as if her body were a victim. Was it not hers to give? It was still there, the fear that someone would take what she had before she could offer it. Was it a possession they wanted to steal?
There were couples and families seated all around them now. Some people on the outskirts of the park stood, as room had become limited. The entire area echoed and buzzed with excitement. The mood was high, and people were pleasantly intoxicated with the communal energy that radiated through the audience.
"Hello! Happy Fourth of July!" The voice echoed across the crowd. Applause boomed in response. "I'm Whit Tileston, and I'll be keeping you moving tonight!" The man speaking, from what Sylvia could see, was a handsome sort of fellow. His broad smile had something in it that pleased all. She felt she knew him, although she could not say why. The band began playing. ‘America’ rang out through the crowd, and the applause rose again in approval. It was terribly fashionable to be patriotic on July 4.
Throngs of couples moved forward toward the grass around the bandstand. It was sectioned off by thin ropes in traw colors, and Sylvia watched wistfully. She wanted to stand and dance, even if it meant dancing alone. Starting to rise, she was stopped by the return of the men onto the stage of their faded blankets. Adam and Eric both held tall ice cream cones. The sweet coldness of them was passed around, and Sylvia ate hers without thinking. The creamed sugariness of it did not reach her mind, and there was no pleasure in it. Her thoughts were elsewhere.
In the crowd, David moved around the perimeter. Sylvia continued to search for him, but he was not as visible as her blondeness. The laughter of the four adults seemed far away. They joked, teased, and provoked each other like teenagers. Catherine looked limp her body stretched out in repose on the blanket, like she awaited a young lover. Vivian sat with her prim properness, but her tongue on the vanilla ice cream looked red. The two men watched the women with pleasure. Sylvia remained outside of them, separate and alone.
The music drifted in slow smooth waves, and the songs had slowed. Couples danced shyly apart in view of the families sitting on their blankets. Sylvia watched them unhappily. While she had waited for Ericto notice her again, his presence on her blanket took some time for her to detect. He had moved silently away from the others and sat next to her. His darkness and shadows allowed him to transition unnoticed to her.
"How are you?" Her voice sounded flat in her own ears, like she was speaking from the distance of a trance.
"I'm here. Tell me, how are you? You look changed, as you have every day since I've met you." The music moved around them, making intimate conversation between them easy.
"I don't know how I am. I feel different." Her profile in the light from the bandstand was barely visible, something that could not be seen as much as felt.
"You are different." The words spoke of the gap between her and them, and she did not know if it was flattery or criticism.
"Am I that different?"
"Only in every way." He smiled as he spoke, and Sylvia faced him and turned her shoulders inwards to hide her breasts behind them.
"I don't want to be different. I just don't know how to be the same. Why don't you ask me to dance with you?" Her question came out as daring and possibly harmful.<
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"Will you dance with me?"
"Yes." She stood, and he stood. He murmured something to the rest of them, and they walked toward the grass they would dance on like a rug in a bedroom. The light from the bandstand blazed in front of them, and from behind, Eric and Sylvia looked like blackened silhouettes, figures cut out of paper.
Once underneath the lights from the bandstand, Sylvia found herself nervous. It was like being on the beach, and there were no shadows. He held his hands deliberately still on the small of her back, and he did not move them. In fact, they were too still. She realized she was as powerful as Vivian and Catherine.
The song ended, but it took a moment for the two of them to move away from each other. Sylvia recognized, when she finally looked him in the eyes, what it was that she asked of him. He moved away from her first. Sylvia followed his every movement, as she had during the dance. She walked behind him, placed her feet where his had been, retracing his steps as if they walked through deep snow.
That night, fireworks lit the sky above them. Children everywhere laughed, screamed, and cowered with delight under the display. It looked like a thousand colorful stars bursting into being. Their quick fiery motion barely held in the hand for a moment before they were gone, dead from their own passion. When the blankets were rolled up and the now sleeping children picked up, the mass movement of the crowd began toward the entrance to the park. Sylvia finally saw David. His eyes were on her face. It was jealousy that flooded his face with color, and Sylvia realized that he had seen her and Eric dancing.
That night, Sylvia lay in bed listening to Eric and Catherine above her. They were loud tonight, she thought to herself. Their laughter rang out, and she could hear what sounded like the movement of furniture on the floor. Her isolation was increased by their union.
CHAPTER 11
The next morning, Vivian called Sylvia into her bedroom. It was too early for a normal conversation and Sylvia hesitated before knocking on her door. She tapped, and Vivian's voice called out softly for her to come.
The curtains in the bedroom were thrown open, and the dimness of the first time Sylvia had secretly entered the room had vanished. The lace sheers received the honey-thick morning sun. Vivian sat at her dressing table. Her face looked wan, as it always did in the morning.
"Did you sleep well?" Vivian thoughtfully applied something wet to her curls, pinching each curl sharply to force it into a tighter spiral. Her dressing gown glided over the stool and touched the floor in a puddle. It had countless polka dots in black and white, and the angles made by the slant of Vivian's legs were sharp.
"Yes, very well, thank you." Sylvia took a seat on the bed and watched Vivian's face in the mirror.
"It was a lovely time last night, wasn't it?" Her curls were finished, and Vivian turned her head from side to side, examining each one.
"I liked it. I've never seen better fireworks." Sylvia sat very straight. Their first few sentences to each other were only an attempt to pave the way to the next subject. Vivian stood and opened her dressing gown. Her body was china white, and her skin had slightly raised goose bumps, like the texture of an eggshell. Her taupe undergarments were darker than her skin. Vivian lovingly smoothed a powder puff over her body, making her skin even fairer. The moment passed quickly, and Vivian tied her robe, but the image was seared into Sylvia's mind. It was like she had faced a too bright sun, and the outline remained.
"I brought you in here to speak to you about something quite private, Sylvia." Vivian sat back down on the backless stool at the dressing table, this time facing Sylvia. She took a breath before speaking. "I wanted to tell you that you are welcome to come with us to New York in August. We'll be going to Long Island for a final break. There's a hotel there. You'd like it—everyone does. The divorce might take a little longer than we expected. Apparently, your father wants rights over you. Your mother is very upset, but I told her that you were more than welcome to stay with us as long as you need or want to. You know you've brought a lot of happiness to this house, Sylvia." Sylvia's thoughts whirled but she could not think clearly as she was struggling to maintain her facial expression. What was it Vivian was saying to her? Long Island? No, she was going home in August. It was supposed to be over in August.
"Thank you, Aunt Vivian. I'm grateful to you and Uncle Adam." The words were cold in her mouth, marbles.
"We love you, Sylvia. After all, you are my niece. Adam is in complete agreement. You're old enough to understand that your mother is under an enormous strain right now. Any weight we can lift from her is necessary. Eric and Catherine won't be with us then, but we would love to have you." Vivian examined her face. "Think about it, Sylvia. We would love to have you." The words, what did the words mean: ‘her mother under an enormous strain’? Why did they not see her? Could none of them see that she was ‘under an enormous strain’? How could she stay any longer? God, not longer with them! Her father wanted rights? What could that possibly mean? They were fighting over her?
"Although, it's hard to say, this could stretch into the autumn. There is a lot at stake, Sylvia. There are good schools we could send you to, if needed. You wouldn't want to be surrounded by the gossip in your school at home. No one would know you in New York; you could start afresh. I don't think it will come to that, but Sylvia, we will do whatever it takes to make you happy." Vivian rotated the slender length of her body and faced her dressing mirror in finality.
"Thank you, Aunt Vivian."
"Stay with me while I finish dressing. We'll go down to breakfast together. Someday, you will have to do all this to be beautiful, and don't look so sad. No one wants to see a sad woman." Vivian's smile formed as she spoke, presumably unaware of Sylvia's inner howl that she had not been able to move from the pit in her stomach to her lips. Vivian continued with her toilette, humming a little as she worked. By the time she was finished, she looked fresh and sparkling. Sylvia, in the midst of her confusion, was amazed by the amount of effort it took for Vivian to prepare herself for the breakfast table.
"Come, let's go eat. Things always look better after breakfast, and don't forget to smile. We want you happy."
Happy. Happiness? What was happiness? Why did they all seem to be in search of it, as if happiness would make them whole? Why did they think life was about personal happiness? It was such a dirty lie, and she could hardly bear to think about the word ‘happy’, never mind feel it. She wanted to smear something, smash something with her hands.
Breakfast passed in a blur. Longer, how much longer must she stand this parody When did people begin to see one another? Had they ever? She looked at all their laughing faces and kept the smile pinned on hers. Sylvia wore the smile like it was a bruise that protected her from further abuse. Surely, they must know the truth about each other. What was this vast effort to stifle it? Sylvia wanted to announce it, then and there. You are transparent, you fools! Instead, she excused herself and walked down to the beach.
She allowed herself to smolder in the sun until the bare portions of her body were furiously hot. Her tears were absent. They would move her where they pleased, these players over the chessboard of her life. What was she to them? Her loneliness echoed around her, as if she stood in a hollow empty room. Sylvia went to Hanna's garden and walked around for a long time, examining the fruits and vegetables. They were as helpless as she, reliant upon the gardener who tended them to provide the care they needed. Something struck her as wrong about the thought, and Sylvia tilted her face upwards to the sky. Something else provided the rain and sunshine, those constants. There must be constants in her life she could rely on. What were they? Her thoughts turned inwards, and she tried to pray. She prayed for her mother and father, she prayed for Vivian, Adam, Eric, and Catherine. She prayed for David. Most of all, Sylvia prayed for herself, because what else could she salvage here?
That afternoon, they sat in the front room. The east facing windows made the room cooler than the west side. It was exceptionally hot, and sweat appeared on all their
brows. They were drinking crème de menthe over large chunks of ice. Sylvia sat near the front window, gazing out at the sea. She barely listened to them.
"This infernal heat. It might as well be hell we're in!" Catherine spoke too loudly, the back of her hand resting against her forehead, as if she were an actress.
"We must have ceiling fans next summer, Adam." Vivian spoke irritably.
"Ceiling fans, yes. This house needs updating." Adam stood and walked the perimeter of the room, already taking measurements in his mind. His broad physical presence felt like a blazing furnace in the heat. "It would be easy, if we could find the right man to do it." Adam's voice conveyed that he did not believe finding ‘the right man’ to do the work would be possible.
"Oh, Adam. We'll find someone. It's not that hard." Vivian kept her voice cool but flecked with warning.
"We'll find someone? You mean, I'll find someone." Verging on aggression, the two of them eyed each other across the room with equal readiness for a fight.
"Let's go to the movies." Catherine announced this irrationally, almost without thinking.
"Yes, the movies, dark and cool. Can't we, Adam?" Even Vivian's sentences were shorter, as if the heat took away her breath and limited her words.
"Damned fine idea, Catherine. I think we should. Call, Vivian. Find out what's playing." Adam stood with his hands on his hips, assessing them. Vivian stood slowly, as if heavily pregnant, and walked toward the library. The idea of going anywhere had exhausted them all, and silence followed Vivian's departure. The sound of the heavy ice in the glasses clinked as each took their turn, sipping and sighing. Vivian returned in a gust of motivated freshness.
"Roman Holiday is playing on the north shore at five o'clock. Shall we go?" Her smile had returned, and she seemed more enthused.