Summertime Nights

by Katie Winters

  Chapter Nineteen

  Carmella wasn’t fully sure how to get through the night. Her heart raced her toward very near panic attacks and her thoughts purred loud into a violent roar that had her pressing her hands to her ears, an attempt to make them stop. She paced back and forth in her apartment, sipping wine late into the night. She had brought French fries and onion rings back from the diner, her only sustenance for most of the day, and she barreled toward midnight, then two and then four.

  She’d only texted Cody once in the wake of his storming out.

  CARMELLA: Please. Just talk to me. Let’s talk about this the way we’ve talked about everything else. I want to be there for you in everything.

  There was so much to say aloud. It suddenly seemed as though the events with that stupid journalist, Cal, meant absolutely nothing. Carmella now felt all the words from Elsa, Karen, Nancy, and even her father over the years. “That Cody would do anything for you.” Then, the knowing looks. Carmella had always slightly resented that any relationship between a boy and a girl was always reduced to “are they romantically involved?” Cody meant the world to her. Their relationship had nothing to do with other relationships she’d heard of over the years — the ones that had resulted in boxes of belongings thrown out of windows, tense fights about things like which coffee tables to buy and where to put them in the house and who would get the coffee tables during the inevitable divorce, things that made Carmella’s head spin around with sorrow. Those silly, romantic-turned-dark relationships had nothing to do with her and Cody.

  But now, now he’d made his big confession. And with this confession, he’d attributed something to her that she didn’t fully like. She had been selfish. All these years, she had considered only her heartache, her sorrow — the fact that it had been her fault and only her fault, all the events that had gone wrong. There had been so many other people in the picture. She hadn’t been alone; she had just told herself a story of loneliness that she’d believed in, a story that had grown almost impenetrable over the years. Yet here and now, it had begun to crumble.

  Around five in the morning, Carmella made peace with the fact that she wouldn’t sleep. She stepped into the shower and scrubbed herself clean, digging her nails deep into her skull in an attempt to wake herself up still more. By six, her hair was dry, and she adjusted herself into a dark burgundy dress with a turtle neckline. The reflection in the mirror told a story of a beautiful, middle-aged woman who was brave enough to face all the trauma, all the pain, the immensity of the story of her life, and make something of it. At least, she had to believe that.

  Carmella sat out in the sun on the back porch of the Katama Lodge. Nancy stepped out from her first yoga class of the day. She wore a tight-fitting tank-top and a pair of stretchy pants, and her hair was scooped up into a vibrant ponytail. Sometimes, it was difficult to remember that this woman was fifty-nine years old.

  Her eyes didn’t smile when she spotted Carmella. Her lips curved up the slightest bit — maybe a nervous tick. Carmella rose from the rocking chair and lifted a hand.

  “Could we talk for a moment, Nancy?”

  Nancy paused for the slightest moment. Her shoulders curved forward. “Elsa and I still haven’t come to any kind of conclusion about what to do.”

  “I understand,” Carmella breathed.

  “Elsa is devastated. You know what this place means to her. And it means all that to me, too. We thought it meant something to you.”

  Carmella’s throat tightened. “It always has. It means everything to me.”

  Nancy gave a half-hearted shrug. “I don’t know what to say. I just, I—“ She paused for a long time and wiped a patch of sweat from her forehead. “I have to meet Helen down at her cabin for a private session. But maybe we can talk more about this later.”

  “I hope so,” Carmella replied.

  Nancy heaved a sigh. “Remember what I said to you and Elsa last month? About learning to bridge beyond your differences? About learning to love one another properly?”

  Carmella remembered it well. It was a crazy, screaming version of Nancy in the kitchen, a woman who demanded she and Elsa take a second look at the destructive relationship they’d built for themselves over the years.

  “I really thought we were close to building something again,” Carmella said as her voice cracked.

  “Maybe there’s still hope,” Nancy offered. “I just don’t know.”

  LATER THAT EVENING, Carmella found herself at The Hesson House’s outdoor dining area, where Lola Sheridan had agreed to meet her. Lola sat with a glass of chardonnay at one of the far-off tables, closer to the dock. The last of the evening light seemed to burrow itself within that single glass of wine — almost as though it had magical properties. Lola glanced up and delivered a vibrant smile, then beckoned for Carmella to sit. Carmella’s heart skipped a beat all over again. When she had called Lola earlier that afternoon with her proposition, she hadn’t thought for a moment Lola would go for it.

  “Hey! I just got off the phone with my editor,” Lola started as Carmella slid into the chair across from her. “I thought I wouldn’t get through to him today. He took the week off to build sandcastles on the beach with his kids, apparently — and he says he’s miserable. He misses the newsroom. Isn’t that ridiculous?”

  Carmella wasn’t exactly in the mood for this kind of light banter, but she heard herself laugh, then felt herself toss her head back, as though this was the most fascinating story in the world.

  “At any rate, I told him about the article, which he’d already read, and also about the counter article that you and I have already discussed. The only thing is for him to agree to it — we really need that interview with Helen.”

  Carmella pressed her lips together. This was the tricky part. It added a level of power to their article that Cal’s had lacked, which was the “straight from the horse’s mouth” element, that would come from Helen herself. Carmella had seen Helen only once that day, during which she’d been in close conversation with Janine as tears had glittered around her eyes. It hadn’t been a particularly good time to bring up something like an interview.

  “Do you think she’ll go for it?”

  “I really have no idea,” Carmella said finally. She felt strange and despondent and outside of herself. “But if it’s my only chance, then I guess I have to ask her.”

  “Do. And tell her it’s for the Lodge, you know? The Katama Lodge has gone all out for her over the past week. Your lives have been affected. And now, in the wake of that article, it’s frankly possible that your revenue will slant downward.”

  “We’ve already received several requests for cancellations for the next few months,” Carmella affirmed softly.

  “Shoot. People love to read slander, don’t they? It’s the one thing that sells. And as a journalist, I remember being twenty-one, twenty-two, with a very young daughter to feed and contemplating if I would drop down low enough to write anything, like tabloid trash, that would put a paycheck in my hand and food on my table.”

  “Did you?”

  “No. I didn’t. But I sometimes wonder how much easier my life would have been if I’d just done some sort of article about Kate Winslet’s bra size or Colin Firth’s love life.”

  Carmella chuckled appreciatively. “But you’ve managed it without all the filth and ruining someone’s life.”

  “I have. Somehow, it all worked out. Sometimes, I have to pinch myself when I remember the past,” Lola said. Her eyes grew suddenly shadowed and far away. “Oh, but this isn’t about me. Talk to Helen. I’ll get cracking on what you’ve already given me. And you said something about Henry’s documentary?”

  “Yes,” Carmella affirmed. “Janine’s boyfriend. He filmed loads of interviews with women who’ve spent time at the Lodge over the years. I think it was mostly through the lens of what the Lodge and Neal meant to these people because Janine wanted to show it to Nancy, her mother, as some sort of — hmm. How do I put it?”

  “L
ike, she wanted to show Nancy that she appreciated how much she’d done here on the Vineyard?”

  “Something like that.” Carmella paused and turned her gaze toward the water. “I’ve always felt that other people are much better at resolving their conflicts and moving forward than I am. It’s like I always cling to my grudges like my life depends upon them.”

  Lola frowned the slightest bit. She seemed to take Carmella’s words and roll them about, give them their full weight. “I’m sure you will find a way to let go of them when you’re ready. Maybe you’re just not ready yet.”

  Carmella’s smile grew wider as the inner aching of her soul grew heavier. “Maybe. Or maybe I’ll just be terribly frightened forever. And I’ll die knowing that I didn’t take every risk.”

  Lola splayed her hand over Carmella’s and held her gaze. “If you can already see the potential for this, then maybe you can fight it. It doesn’t have to be your destiny if you don’t want it to be. All I can say is this. Until last year, my sisters and I refused to speak with one another. Our father was our greatest enemy. And now, we all live here, on this gorgeous island, together. It’s never too late to be or do anything you want to do. Make every decision with love and forgiveness, especially with forgiveness and tenderness toward yourself.”

  That night, Carmella drove back to the Katama Lodge. She told the head guard that she needed to grab something in her office, swept down the hallway, then weaved her way to the front desk, where she was able to dial Helen’s cabin all the way down by the water. It was better to call. A knock at the door was ominous and invasive. This way, Helen always had the option not to answer.

  Helen’s dreamy, soothing voice answered on the third ring. When she discovered who it was, she immediately invited Carmella down to her cabin. Carmella had the frantic energy of a much younger girl. She whisked down the hill between the greater Lodge and her cabin, then appeared at the door as Helen swung it open. She looked every bit the part of a “movie star” on the verge of retiring for the night. She wore an enormous, fluffy robe, one that swept out in a more cape-like fashion than ones Carmella remembered her mother wearing back in the old days. Her hair was bulbous and it cascaded down her shoulders marvelously, and she smiled as though she’d had one too many glasses of wine in preparation of embarking to dreamland.

  “Carmella, I’m so glad to see you,” she said as she beckoned for Carmella to enter. She poured her a glass of champagne and watched with cat-like eyes as Carmella collapsed on the yellow couch. She was perched beside a large potted plant, one that, it seemed, Helen had shipped in even since Carmella’s sailing expedition with her.

  “I suppose you’re still reeling after everything that happened?”

  Carmella puffed out her cheeks. “It seems like everything always happens at once. And now, my best friend has turned on me.”

  Helen arched an eyebrow. “You’re feeling lonely.”

  “That’s an understatement.”

  “Welcome to the club. You’ve come to the right place.” Helen’s laughter was like music. “But you knew that.”

  “I guess I knew that.”

  Helen lifted her glass of champagne and clinked it against Carmella’s. They shared a moment of silence before they sipped. Carmella imagined that each of the popping champagne bubbles upon her tongue cost upwards of two hundred dollars.

  “How are you feeling?” Carmella asked.

  “That’s a very good question. I wish I knew the answer.”

  Carmella nodded.

  “Your sisters and stepmother have been so generous toward me,” Helen continued. “They’re the type of women who’ve seen tremendous pain and understand a little bit better how to handle mine own. I feel I don’t go to them and just drop all my pain at the door. Instead, they help me find ways to cope and heal. Janine said something about feeling everything, accepting the wholeness of it, and then moving forward.”

  “Don’t judge yourself for your feelings, I suppose. Such a tricky task,” Carmella said.

  “Tricky indeed. Of course, I’m sure your sisters and stepmother told you how difficult I was to manage during my first days here. So resistant, if only because I stirred in such self-hatred.”

  “They understood.”

  Carmella licked her lips, sipped her champagne a final time, and then said, “That article really damaged the Lodge. It’s all my fault. I don’t know how I can ever find a way back to my sisters or my stepmother. I honestly don’t know how they could ever forgive me.”

  “The press is a horrific thing— only out for sales and not caring who they destroy in the process.”

  “But don’t you think sometimes, it could do beautiful things? If given the right material.”

  Helen bowed her head the slightest bit. Realization seemed to pass over her.

  “I don’t mean to be invasive. I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do,” Carmella said then, as softly as she could.

  “No. No. It makes sense. It does. It’s partially my fault that this article was written to begin with.” Helen sipped another bit of champagne and nodded. “I won’t talk about anything that happened in my life.”

  “You wouldn’t have to. Only about the Lodge and your experience.”

  “Just about the Lodge,” Helen agreed. “And what a remarkable place it is. Your sisters keep telling me that I can leave whenever I want. My only question to them is, where else on this earth would I possibly want to go?”

  Chapter Twenty

  It was the last Saturday in August. Carmella stood on the tiny, made-for-one porch that hung off of her apartment building and sipped her steaming coffee with her chin lifted toward the sky. In some respects, the August sun steamed hotter than ever, but occasionally, when the breeze sliced just right, she felt it: that sinister creak toward autumn. She wondered what the next months would hold. Perhaps she would be just as lonely as the previous years or perhaps even worse, as she no longer had Cody by her side, either.

  Cody had finally texted her, but only to tell her that he still needed to think, to decompress. He had a lot on his mind and he wasn’t sure he could trust himself to say the right thing. Carmella’s response had been: “You’re my best friend. I never need you to say the right thing. I only want you to say what’s in your heart.” But he hadn’t responded. Perhaps it had been too heavy, what she’d said. Perhaps she would never fully know.

  When she asked her own heart what she felt about Cody, about the love between them, she faltered slightly. It was so difficult to comprehend what that would mean. They had hardly ever held hands. In therapy, Carmella had brought up the concept, and her therapist had dug into the idea of “intimacy” problems, about whether or not Carmella could really let people beyond her personal-built boundaries. Carmella had chuckled at the thought. “Let people in through these immensely thick walls, which I’ve spent the previous thirty years building? I won’t fall the way Rome did. I’m not stupid.”

  Her therapist had laughed at her joke, but she’d also scribbled something in her notepad, which had left Carmella tossing and turning throughout the night. What had she written? Probably something like, “Uses humor to deflect.” That was true, wasn’t it? Not a whole lot to unpack there.

  “What is your ideal life, a year from now?” her therapist had asked her recently. “Picture it. Tell me what it’s like. Where are you? Are you on the Vineyard? Are you far away?”

  Carmella had closed her eyes and really, really tried to envision the next steps of the course of her life. Unfortunately, she had seen only the grey shimmer of light behind her eyelids. She laughed again and told her therapist that she’d always thought she was more creative than all this. “I guess not.” It hadn’t been the most productive of therapy sessions.

  Carmella wandered back inside, washed her coffee mug, dried it, and then placed it back on its shelf, alongside her other three. She so rarely had anyone over for coffee. She so rarely had anyone over at all.

  Her phone buzzed. The name o
n the message was Elsa’s. Carmella hadn’t heard from her at all in days. She drew open the message and read it once, twice, then again, as her heart fluttered with excitement.

  ELSA: Hey, Carm. We’re having a BBQ at the house. We’d love for you to join.

  It was a second olive branch. Carmella hadn’t imagined a world in which she’d been allowed that. She quickly wrote back a resounding yes, then lay back on her bed and practiced, over and over again, the appropriate words to say to the sister she loved so much. “I’m sorry. I just really liked him and I lost my head. I’m sorry. You and the Katama Lodge mean more to me than I can possibly express. I’m sorry. How many ways can I say the words, I’m sorry?” She sounded frantic. She was reminded of long-ago days when she’d been so excited that Elsa had invited her for silly things with her much older friends — like watching a PG-13 movie or staying up till midnight playing on the internet. Little slivers of Elsa’s life, which Elsa had had total control over but could give to Carmella or deny.

  This felt like a gift.

  Carmella went to the local natural wine store and selected a bottle. While she waited for the cashier, she noted the pile of newspapers off to the side of the register. They all held today’s news — wars, gossip columns, oil shortages, everyday horrors and everyday triumphs. The article about Katama Lodge was now in the past. You couldn’t purchase it anywhere any longer. This had to be some sort of a triumph. They were headed toward the future.

  Mallory stood out in front of the house with Zachery across her chest. She spoke on the phone with Lucas; at least that’s what Carmella assumed based on the tough tone she administered.

  “I can’t take him tomorrow. You know that I have to work at the Lodge,” Mallory said as she gave Carmella a distracted smile. “And I know you only want to get out to see your friends.”

  Carmella swept past Mallory, praying that this Lucas guy would get his act together. If he didn’t, she prayed that Mallory would find a way past him. She prayed the heartache wouldn’t cut too deep.