Barefoot Girls (24 page)

She deleted each message and then sat, staring at the phone and deliberating whether to call him back now or later at a more reasonable hour. It was only six forty-five in the morning. She remembered when she had shut off her phone. Two days ago. She had gotten depressed constantly checking for a message from her mother and had shut it off, thinking of watched pots that never boil. Turning it on this morning, she had crossed her fingers and hoped.

Four messages from Daniel and not one from her mother or any of the Barefooters. Even though she knew that only Aunt Pam and Aunt Zo had agreed to talk to her, she had been sure her mother would relent and call. She hadn’t thought once of Daniel. What did that mean? Did she care about him at all?

Hearing his messages, the growing sadness, bewilderment, and anger in his voice with each one, broke her heart. She yearned to touch him, to hold him right now and say, no, no, no. You’ve got it all wrong! But did he? Her head was all turned around. She couldn’t remember ever feeling so full of doubt and confusion, her thoughts ricocheting back and forth endlessly.

Yesterday was the last day of a brief late blast of balmy weather. Overnight, temperatures had dropped dramatically, making Hannah climb out of bed in the middle of the night to search for a quilt under the weak beam of a flashlight. Now, even bundled up in fleece sweatpants, a wool sweater and two pairs of socks, she couldn’t seem to warm up.

She checked the time again. It was almost seven. Should she call him now? Was he still asleep? He had called at midnight, so he probably was. But, the messages. He’d probably rather be woken up by her call than to continue to not hear from her.

She got his voicemail and left a message. “Hi honey! It’s me. I’m so sorry. No, it has nothing to do with us. I’m just…I’m all mixed up. My mom still won’t talk to me. It’s not like her to be this way. She never holds a grudge.  Anyway, I just wanted to call you and tell you that everything’s okay. At least it is with us. And don’t come out here, okay? Not right now. Later, all right? Love you! Bye!”

Hannah hung up and looked at her phone. It was funny how little she used to care about it. It rang or it didn’t, and it didn’t matter. It would always ring eventually, with her mother or one of the Barefooters on the other end of the line. Sometimes it was someone from work, looking for her to pick up one of their shifts. Sometimes it was a guy who got tired of texting her and never hearing back. She hated texting, unlike most of the girls her age. There was something so shallow about the abbreviations and excessive excitable punctuation. How r u??? 2MI!!! 143 4EAE!!! When Daniel and she were first dating, he texted her frequently, and as usual, she refused to answer.

Maybe that was the reason she didn’t have any girlfriends. Over the years, some of the girls that had seemed like potential friends had texted her.  Usually a single text, a question like “sup? fyi going to Solas tonight want to come?” She’d call them back but get their voicemail every time, and they’d never call back, they’d just text her again. She knew she was strange, hating texting, not being on Facebook. She knew that no one her age acted this way. Was it growing up on Captain’s?

Visiting Captain’s Island was like going back in time. Not only was there no internet, there was no electricity or running water. To get water you collected it in a rain-water cistern and used a hand-pump to get a flow at the sink. For light, you lit a gas lamp or a candle. And, to those who loved it, that was the point. Slow down, chill out, be real. Stop the madness, the crazy rush of modern life. And she had spent a good deal of her life on the island. Although she had never really fit in, lacking the kind of natural athletic ability and affinity for endless socializing that all the down-islanders seemed to share, she had absorbed the quiet, the shushing sound of the reeds as the wind passed through them, tossing their feathery heads. She had absorbed the lulling constants of the ebb and flow of tides, the rhythmic thumping of waves against the docks, the constant chatter of birdsong in the bushes and trees behind the houses. She loved the gentle peace that a place like Captain’s offered.

Captain’s was different for the Barefooters, though. A social rollicking place that was a continual party with plenty of Mean Greens to go around. Their friendship was rooted to the island, fostered and abetted by it. Why didn’t Hannah have friendships like theirs, with other girls on the island? Why did she always feel most at ease when alone? What was wrong with her?

God, she had to talk to one of them or she’d go insane. It was seven-fifteen now. Was Aunt Pam up? Probably – she had her son, Jacob, and he’d need to be fed and watered and shuttled to school. She dialed Pam’s cell number and prayed. It rang and then went to voicemail.

No! Please?

She hung up and dialed again. Pick up, pick up, pick up. Voicemail again.

What about Aunt Zo? She knew she’d already picked her aunt’s brain once recently, but this was an emergency, and if anyone was consistently delighted to hear from her, it was Aunt Zo. She just hoped her husband, Neil, wouldn’t answer. He always asked too many questions. Why was she calling? Could he take a message and have Zooey call her back? What was that number again? It was like reaching the executive assistant of a CEO at a Fortune 500 company.

The phone rang four times and just when Hannah started to sigh and prepare to leave a message on her machine, Aunt Zo picked up, her voice fuzzy with sleep. “Hello?”

“Aunt Zo! It’s Hannah. I’m so sorry to bother you so early. I woke you up, didn’t I?”

There was a shifting sound and a cough. “Of course you’re never a bother, sweetheart,” Zo said, her voice a sleepy croak, “What’s going on? Are you okay?”

Hannah stood up and walked into the living room to look out the picture window at the water. “I’m lonely, can you believe it? I don’t know what I’m doing here. I don’t know what I thought I’d find. It’s just…”

“What?”

“You know, it’s crazy. My mother is probably the warmest friendliest person I know, and yet I don’t know her at all. She’s like a foreign country. And she won’t accept my passport!” Hannah said the last with a bitter bark of a laugh. It still hurt. When would it stop hurting?

She heard Aunt Zo sigh softly. Aunt Zo said, “What do you want to know about her? That she loves you? Because she does. I know she says she doesn’t know if she can forgive you, but she will. She just needs time. She feels betrayed right now. That reviewer slandered her, and the review wouldn’t have happened if you didn’t write your novel. We’ve all been asking her to seek legal advice, but she won’t.”

Hannah couldn’t tell Zo. Saying something to Aunt Amy had backfired horribly. Amy had never called her back. Hannah wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.

“Aunt Zo?” Hannah said. “Remember how you always used to babysit for me? You babysat for me more than Aunt Pam and Aunt Amy. You were always over, sometimes even when Mom was home, remember?”

“Yes,” Aunt Zo said, and Hannah could hear her smile in her voice. “I was always there. I loved being with you two. Even my husbands couldn’t tear me away.”

“You always read books to me. I loved that. Mom wasn’t really into books and reading like you were. You’re the reason I love reading, I think.”

“Well,” Aunt Zo said, and cleared her throat. “That may be due to your dad being a big reader, too. He loved a good story.”

Maybe Aunt Zo would tell her? “What else did he love? What was he like?”

There was a pause. “I promised your mother that she could be the one to tell you about your dad, but I’ll tell you one thing: your dad was the love of your mother’s life. Her only true love. She loves Ben, but it’s different. Michael was her soul mate.”

Hannah couldn’t contain her excitement. “Michael was his name? Oh, thank you! Thank you for telling me! I always wanted to know what his name was and Mom wouldn’t even tell me that!”

“Oh, no!” Aunt Zo wailed and then coughed. “Damn it! This is what I get for talking to people when I’m still waking up. Okay, damage control. Hannah, you are not to say anything to your mother about this, okay? She does want to tell you, she
will
tell you, when she’s ready. It’s a painful subject, but she wants you to know the whole story. She knows you deserve that. She promised us she’d tell you someday. That day just hasn’t come yet, that’s all. Damn. I can’t believe I just blew that. Anyway, I probably should get off the phone and finish waking up.”

“Wait!” Hannah said. “Can you tell me a story? One about the Barefooters? I want to know how you guys did it. How does it work? Girlfriends, that is. How is it that the four of you have been friends forever and I can’t make even one decent friend? Is it me?”

“No! It’s not you, sweetheart! We were, well, incredibly lucky. I was probably the luckiest. You know, I’m naturally a loner like you. They just wouldn’t leave me alone, even when I wanted to be. They’ve dragged me along kicking and screaming for the last thirty-some years. You just haven’t been adopted by a wild tribe of party-girls, that’s all. God, we’ve had some great times.”

“You’re a loner?” Hannah said, and then it occurred to her. Who was the one who went off by herself with a book whenever she had a chance? Aunt Zo. Who was the one who had to be dragged out onto the dance floor or talked into doing one of their silly gags? Aunt Zo. And every time Zo went off by herself, the others chased after her, surrounded her, carried her back.

“Yes, I am, no doubt about it. I’m an introvert surrounded by extroverts. They work well as camouflage in the wilds of Captain’s social scene. I’ve spent so much time with them, I’ve adopted a lot of their ways. You’d think I was a social butterfly from all the stuff I’ve picked up from them over the years. Like how hugs are better than handshakes. Oh, and how to make a toast that gets a laugh. I even tell a pretty good joke, as you know. Those girls have a way of rubbing off on you.”

“Please?” Hannah begged. “Please tell me just one story? The Barefooter house has got tons of photos that are fun to look at, but they’re just like puzzle pieces and I’m no good at puzzles.”

Zo laughed. “Okay! Okay! One story. Hmmm, which one should I tell you? Did your mom ever tell you about the time we nearly died and the Barefooter house saved us?”

“No!”

“Oh, this is a good one. And it’s a good thing Pam isn’t telling you this, ‘cause she’d make like it wasn’t her fault we nearly died in the first place. Or wait, maybe it was your mother, really. She was the one that let Rose get to her that day. Or maybe it was really Rose…”

“C’mon! You’re killing me here!” Hannah said. “What happened?”

Chapter 22

The whole winter apart, the four girls had written each other weekly, keeping each other up to date on their lives, but nothing felt as good as their delayed reunion in late June. Although Amy, Keeley and Zooey were on the island for most of the month, playing together every day, there was the anticipation of the return of their fourth, Pam, who was attending a summer camp in the Poconos for two weeks. Pam hadn’t wanted to go, but it was her mother’s beloved girlhood camp and her parents insisted. While the three girls waited for Pam’s return, it was like they were holding their breath, never really relaxing while they played. Then Pam arrived, brown already from sailing every day on the lake at camp and the girls finally breathed freely, screaming and laughing more wildly than usual as they ran down the boardwalk toward the Lion’s Den.

The Lion’s Den was still the property of the cool kids on the island, and Zooey still couldn’t get over the fact that she was now welcome there. It wasn’t that she had been rebuffed by anyone; she simply hadn’t tried going there, knowing she was Zork the Stork. At least she used to be.

Unlike Zooey’s fantasy of a secret little wooden clubhouse hidden in a glade where you would have to knock and know the password to gain entry, the Lion’s Den was simply a clearing in the grasses under a large oak tree that was littered with broken furniture and other discarded items from various households. Sometimes contraband items like cigarettes or liquor were brought there and consumed with high ceremony. A tire swing had been strung up from one of the larger branches of the tree which was fun to swing on. Also, there was a very rough tree house comprised of six boards of wood that had been poorly hammered together and jammed in a section of the tree where three branches met and provided support near the trunk, but there was no ladder to climb up to it, you simply had to climb the tree itself to gain access.

When they arrived the day of Pam’s return, they expected to find other kids there playing, and hoped there would be some exciting plan being hatched that they could be a part of. The week before on a cloudy blustery day, the kids had started telling ghost stories and had ended up at Old Lady Bennett’s house, which everyone knew was haunted, sneaking peeks in the windows and then running away screaming that they’d seen a ghost. Zooey hadn’t seen anything when she peeked in, but Keeley and Amy had screamed, so she had screamed too. It had been deliciously spooky that day and they were hoping for something fun like that to celebrate the four of them being back together again.

The girls stopped short at the edge of the clearing when they saw who was there. Rose, their nemesis from last summer, was swinging on the tire swing, her long chestnut-brown hair flying, and talking loudly to Frannie, her new sidekick. Skinny and pale with limp blond hair and pale plastic-rimmed glasses, Frannie didn’t fit the athletic, tanned, and assured Captain’s mold and was, as a result, almost invisible to the other kids. When Rose adopted Frannie, it was both a bizarre and obvious match. Frannie was the only other girl in Rose’s age group.