Cody paused at the fence and leaned against it. He stared down at the water as it rushed against the side of the rocks and frothed up. As kids, they’d made up little stories about the froth as though the ocean was a kind of dessert.
“We’re not back together, by the way,” Cody said finally. “Me and Fiona.”
Carmella’s throat nearly closed up.
“I figured you’d think we were after you saw us at the festival. But she asked if I would help out with Gretchen that night, and I said, of course, yes. To be honest, it was kind of cool. To be there, just the three of us, but when I saw you — I knew I didn’t handle it well. I’m sorry.”
Carmella shook her head that her hair swished across her ears. She wasn’t fully sure what to say. She placed her hand over her lips and told herself not to cry. Tears came anyway.
“I want you to be with her if you want to be with her,” Carmella breathed as her voice broke off to a whisper. “I really mean that.”
“Well, I don’t want that.”
Carmella blinked up at him. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, I am.”
Carmella returned her gaze to the water. How could she say all the things she wanted to say? How could she translate decades of whatever this relationship had meant to her?
“You’re right, you know,” Carmella murmured.
“About what?”
“About my selfishness. I was so obsessed with my own heartache for so long that I really struggled to see anyone else’s. No wonder you broke that day. I pushed you for years toward that breaking point,” Carmella said.
Cody shook his head. “No. What I said was wrong.”
“It wasn’t. But there’s more. Cody, for years, I haven’t known how to love anyone because I haven’t really known how to love myself. I don’t know how long that journey toward self-love will take. My therapist can’t give me a number, unfortunately.”
Cody cracked the slightest of smiles.
“I want to try. I want to try to be myself, or at least a version of myself that we both can stand. And I was wondering if — if it was too late? If maybe I’ve missed every chance? If maybe you don’t want to at least try?”
Cody’s eyes were wet with tears. Suddenly, his arms were around her; his lips found hers. How strange and how beautiful it was. His scent, his warmth — it was all so familiar, but there was more to it, an excitement, a sizzling energy that she hadn’t anticipated. His lips were so soft, so tender, and they seemed to ache with longing for her. He pressed his body tightly against hers. And when their kiss broke, he continued to hold his nose against hers as he whispered, “You know, I’ve wanted to do that for thirty years, or so. That was the longest wait in the world.”
Carmella and Cody found themselves in the car an hour later. They had torn into the cake, which Cody had declared, “Absolutely passable.” They licked chocolate crumbs from the fork tongs and kissed between bites. Carmella genuinely felt that she was lost in his eyes.
“So, one final question,” Cody said as he dug his fork into the cake once more.
“What’s that?”
“Will you go to prom with me?”
Carmella laughed toward the night sky. “I already did. You were my date, dummy.”
“Yeah. But you wouldn’t let me dance with you. Not properly.”
Carmella stuck her tongue into the side of her cheek as memory of that night fell over her. “I wanted to.”
“You did?”
“Yes, but it seemed so lame,” Carmella confessed. “Now, I wish I had that memory.”
“I’ll dance with you soon. I know it.”
“Maggie’s wedding is coming up.”
“Janine’s daughter?”
“The very one.”
“Won’t that wedding be really ritzy with loads of Manhattan socialites?”
“I just pray to God that Janine’s ex-best friend, who stole her husband, doesn’t show up,” Carmella stated.
“Sounds like a wild ride. I’m in!”
Carmella curled her head against his chest and exhaled somberly. What was it about falling in love that made her so in-tune with her emotions? She felt every ache, every sadness, and every happiness. She was ever-changing like a storm.
“I really do love you, Cody,” she breathed.
“I love you, too, Carmella.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Cody. I think this time the task is yours.” Bruce extended his arm and, with it, an enormous spatula that he had planned to use to flip the burgers. Apparently, Susan Sheridan, his boss, had some kind of emergency in Oak Bluffs, where he worked at the law office. He wagged his eyebrows and said, “It’s up to you to feed the Remington girls. I don’t know if you can handle it. But you have to give it your all.”
Cody stepped forward and gripped the spatula. His eyes feigned sternness. “I’ll do my very best, sir.”
“Your best isn’t good enough!” Bruce cried before he smacked him across the back and said, “I’m really sorry to leave, everyone! Save me a burger?”
“Of course,” Elsa said. She stood and kissed him gently, then said, “Don’t work too hard, okay? That Susan Sheridan really has the whip on you.”
“She’s a good egg, really,” Bruce affirmed. “She’s an extremely hard worker. One that crams more hours in the day than anyone I know.”
Carmella stood alongside the grill and watched as Cody splayed a spatula across the browning meat, then sent one of the little disks toward the sky. He wagged his eyebrows and said, “What do you think? Think I’ll be accepted into the family with these flipping skills?”
“Oh, come on, Cody. You were already going to be accepted into the family,” Elsa said, feigning sarcasm.
Janine entered from the living room and hollered her own greeting, a glass of wine in hand. “I swear that wedding can just go ahead and happen already. I’m so done! One fire after another.”
“Hopefully not literal fires?” Nancy asked. She sat alongside Janine and furrowed her brow.
“Not yet,” Janine affirmed. She lowered her voice, then added, “Apparently, Alyssa told her father that he couldn’t bring his new, you know, girlfriend. And he lost it and screamed and said that he is paying for the wedding, which is true. It just totally overwhelms me, thinking about all of this happening at home. I mean, at home in Manhattan. This is my home, now.”
Nancy patted the top of her hand. “That’s right. This is your home. All that chaos over there in the city has nothing to do with you, now. And besides—“
At that moment, Henry marched through the screen door. He held his video camera and directed it toward Janine as he put on a mocking, old-world television announcer voice. “And here, over here, we have the world-famous Janine Grimson, a woman of such remarkable grace and poise and artistry that she puts even the likes of Marilyn Monroe to shame.”
Janine blushed like a teenager. Cody arched an eyebrow and caught Carmella’s eye. She drew up to her tip-toes and kissed him on the lips, just as Elsa strode past and snapped her fingers. “Don’t pay attention to Carmella, Cody. Pay attention to the burgers. We have a huge family to feed— all very hungry with huge stomachs to fill.”
“No pressure, huh,” Cody joked. “I understand.” Just then, Cody’s phone buzzed. He winced and said, “That’s Fiona. She said she’d be dropping Gretchen off around now. But—” He nodded toward the spatula and the pinkish-brown burgers.
“I’ll go get her,” Carmella offered as brightly as she could. “I don’t mind.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course.”
Carmella bounded through the house and then headed out the front door. Sure enough, Fiona’s car sat out front, the engine still humming. Fiona was halfway into the back seat, where she unbuckled Gretchen’s car seat, then whipped her out into the beautiful late summer air. When she placed Gretchen’s feet in the grass, her eyes found Carmella’s. She flinched.
“Hi there.” Fiona stepped forward, her hand still
wrapped around Gretchen’s hand.
“Hi.” Carmella stepped closer. What the heck was she supposed to say? Did this woman hate her?
“Cody told me about you guys,” Fiona said.
Carmella nodded.
“And I told him — finally.”
Carmella’s eyebrows rose. “Really?”
“Yes. It was always so clear to me about you two. It made me so jealous for a long time, but now, I think it’s better this way. And Gretchen already adores you. That’s the most important thing to me, you know? That I know who’s with my child. Think of it. If Cody and I had gotten divorced, which was probably inevitable anyway and then he’d ended up with some random woman I hated? That would have been awful.”
“Cody wouldn’t have done that to you,” Carmella said.
“You’re right. He’s not that kind of guy,” Fiona agreed. After a pause, she added, “He’s actually the best kind of guy. And I think I was too dumb to treat him right.”
Carmella shook her head. “It took me thirty years to realize that we should even try.”
“Well, I’m damn glad for that. We wouldn’t have Gretchen if you’d jumped the gun,” Fiona said. This time, she gave the slightest of smiles.
Carmella was so grateful for that.
Carmella gathered Gretchen up in her arms and said goodbye to Fiona, who got in her car and sped off toward her own house, which was probably empty. Carmella couldn’t help but think of Fiona and her loneliness as she was allowed to enter back into the throng of loud voices, loads of various types of food — so much that they all stuffed themselves silly for the next few hours and then eventually went back for more.
Gretchen lifted a little tube of bubbles and blew long and hard as big, boisterous bubbles flew out from the little bubble wand. Each time, Nancy and Elsa and Carmella clapped for the bubbles, and they floated out toward the sand and the water beyond. After twenty minutes, Gretchen accidentally spilled the bubble liquid across the porch. Tears were shed, but soon, Carmella gathered Gretchen on her lap and pointed out toward a bright light on the horizon line.
“Do you know what that is?”
Gretchen shook her head.
“It’s a boat. It’s sailing across the waters toward home. And do you want to know what they’re doing on that boat right now?”
“Yes.”
“They’re blowing bubbles, just like you. And those bubbles are floating up and up, into the starry sky.”
“Really?” Gretchen looked mesmerized.
“Yes. And they’re competing to see which of them can blow the biggest bubbles.”
“Wow.” Gretchen’s eyelids slowly dripped toward her cheeks.
Cody grinned and gestured toward the others, telling them with his eyes that Gretchen had fallen asleep. Slowly, Carmella rose, carrying Gretchen’s little body toward the screen door. Just before she entered, she caught Elsa’s eye.
“I remember when Mom used to carry you just like that from this very porch,” Elsa said then, just soft enough for only Carmella to hear.
The words painted the most glorious picture.
For the first time ever, Carmella felt a part of a greater circle of events — of life, love, childhood memories and death. It was all connected. She wasn’t alone anymore.
Upstairs, Cody and Carmella placed Gretchen at the center of the bed and then layout on either side of her, listening to the soft rise and fall of her breath.
“Can you believe we met each other not long after her age?” Carmella asked.
“We had no idea what we were getting into,” Cody affirmed.
“Do you think we know what we’re getting into, now?”
Cody shifted his head so that he peered at Carmella through the grey shadows that separated them. “No. But I like not knowing.”
“It doesn’t scare you?”
“Everything scares me.”
“Me too.”
“But I think everything scares everyone,” Cody whispered.
Above Gretchen’s head, Cody splayed his hand out across the pillow. Carmella linked her fingers with his. They held hands like that in the dark as Gretchen slept gently alongside them. It was the end of summer, yet the start of so many things. The only thing left to do now was soar.
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Summertime Nights Page 15