Barefoot Girls (50 page)

He smiled to himself as he pulled out onto the causeway and turned on the radio. The Grateful Dead’s “Truckin’” filled the car at full volume and he laughed, loving yet another thing about his bride-to-be. He rolled down his window and let the cool moist salt-air whip through the car as he headed down the road, singing along and trying to remember exactly how that sick joke went that Keeley had told the night before. Did the duck come in the bar first, or was it the priest?

Chapter 47

Rose couldn’t believe it. They were here. All of them. She crouched in the bushes outside Pam’s back porch and listened, the house swimming in and out of the thick white fog that was blowing across the island. She could hear them cackling away in there. Were they laughing at her?

It was still so hard to believe that they were here. And now, of all times. She’d found out while sitting out on the porch, taking a rest after another fruitless search for her cell phone. She’d been sitting there trying to remember the last time she’d talked to Dr. Omin. How many days had it been? But the blank spaces were becoming numerous in her days, making it harder and harder to keep track. She had to talk to him soon, the world was shifting too quickly, time like a wild dizzying ride.

Phil was gone, had taken their small rowboat and then was gone somehow. How he’d gotten a ride, she didn’t know. But she had ventured across the channel in their boat to check the parking lot and their station wagon was still there. He probably called a cab on his cell. She remembered standing by their car and staring at it, then she looked up, something catching her eye. Abruptly, there was one of her blank-outs, and the next thing she knew she was walking back into their house on Captain’s. She’d felt a stinging in her hands and lifted them up in front of her face, surprised to find her palms red and sore with a painful welt by her right thumb. What had happened?

Yesterday, well, she was pretty sure it was yesterday, she’d done another search for her phone. She knew she should just leave the island, get home and see Dr. Omin, but she was afraid. Afraid of finding their house in Sea Cliff empty, Phil truly gone. She was also genuinely afraid of driving, that one of those blank moments might hit her as she steered onto the highway, causing her to lose control of the car. There was also the stubborn part of her that didn’t want to leave and end her holiday early. This was her time, the one she counted on all year, her time to rest and relax. Besides, her phone had to be somewhere in the house. If she could just find it and call Dr. Omin, she’d be fine.

Sitting on the porch wrapped in a big woolen blanket and mentally retracing her steps, trying to envision the phone’s location, she had seen the phantom-like figure appear out of the rain-darkened morning, coming from around the bend of the boardwalk and heading north. Tall and dark-haired, the person reminded her of Michael. “Michael?” she said with a little gasp.

Then she laughed a little, feeling silly. Of course not. He was gone long ago, the only boy who had ever really seen her, really loved her. Every other man had been after a little t-and-a when she was young, but not Michael. He didn’t touch her, not even once. He respected her that much. That was the worst of it, that such a gentleman existed and then that tramp, Keeley, destroyed his good name. She’d birthed and raised a bastard child and led everyone to believe it was Michael’s, easily done when he wasn’t around to set the record straight. Keeley was disgusting. It was all so unfair.

Rose watched the stranger’s approach with trepidation. Who was it, then? It wasn’t Hannah – although she was also tall, the girl had a distinctive hourglass figure and a wild head of long wavy dark hair. Really, the girl looked nothing like her diminutive blond mother. The figure stopped in front of the Delaney house and stared up at it. That was when she realized that the stranger was Zooey Delaney. Rose hunkered down in her seat and watched Zooey. What was she doing here? Probably visiting Hannah. But if there was one of them, that coven of witches, the others weren’t far behind. She leapt to her feet. No! Not now! They had the island the rest of the year, they couldn’t have it now, too.

Her movement had caught Zooey’s eye and the woman turned and looked in her direction. Rose made herself stand very still. Then Zooey looked away down the boardwalk in the other direction. No, she hadn’t seen Rose. Rose sank back down in her chair and waited. Was she going to come here, investigate? Zooey was looking back at Rose’s house now. Rose held her breath. Zooey turned and started walking away, heading down-island. Rose let out the air she had trapped in her lungs. Then Zooey started running. What a strange one that woman was. Running away as if something was chasing her. Well, maybe Rose should give chase, chase them all off.

Rose squatted in the bushes and listened to the party-like sound of the women in Pam’s house. Rose couldn’t resist coming here this morning, needed to know if she was right about the others. She was both satisfied and outraged by the confirmed fact of it, the sound of their chatter and movements in the house. She watched Hannah and a young man leave, take one of the three boats the gang of them had tied up at Pam’s dock. She had craned her neck around the corner of the house when they’d left, but she couldn’t tell where they went, the boat fading into the fog.

She wanted them all to disappear. More than that. She wanted them dead. Especially Keeley.

She shook her head. It was wrong to think like that.

She heard her father’s voice in her head. “Winners don’t just lie down and lose. They do whatever it takes to win. Whatever it takes.” Her father and mother had been hard cold people, but she appreciated their tough-love as she grew older, especially now. It had made her strong, a winner. Except when it came to Keeley. Keeley, that slippery snaky woman, always managed to triumph over Rose, to wrest every prize out of her grasp. Keeley clearly did it on purpose, knocked Rose down just for the pleasure of seeing her fall.

Rose shook her head again. No, she wouldn’t let it happen. She wouldn’t let these women force her off Captain’s this time. She stopped coming to the island every summer in order to avoid them. Now they were here in October, taking the last slice of time worth anything, a month she’d once resigned herself to but had grown to love. She couldn’t take this lying down. She couldn’t lose again.

The sky was starting to grow lighter, the fog burning off. She knew she had to go soon or risk being caught and the last thing she wanted was for them to know she was watching them. Had Hannah said anything to them about her? Would she, after what had been revealed? She prayed not. No, this time they wouldn’t see her coming. This time, things would be different.

Chapter 48

Hannah was so distracted, worrying about her car and wondering if Daniel was right about the teenagers, that she almost didn’t see her mother and Aunt Amy getting ready to leave. Luckily, they spotted her standing by the boat where she’d just tied up, lost in thought and staring off at the watercolor horizon created by the lifting fog.

“Hey, Hannah-baby!” Keeley called.

Hannah, turned to see them on the boardwalk, bags in hand. “Where are you guys going?”

Aunt Amy shouted, “We’re getting too old for sleepovers. My neck is killing me. We’re going to open up our houses and sleep there tonight on
real
beds. Don’t worry, though, we’ll be back in a few, just going to shake out the cobwebs.”

“It was fun last night though! We all adore Daniel. It’s unanimous,” Keeley said, lowering her voice as Hannah approached, walking up the dock. “Did you two have a nice goodbye?”

Hannah realized at that moment that she hadn’t looked around at the other cars after they discovered the damage to her car. What if they were all vandalized? She and Daniel should probably have called the police, too. Why didn’t she think of that?

She imagined the other cars in shambles, dented, windshields smashed. Now, everything was going to be ruined, her at-last moment with her mother slipping away yet again. She reluctantly said, “Well, I have some bad news…”

Two hours later, after crossing the channel together to check on their cars and finding them intact and then deciding to have breakfast together at Pam’s, Aunt Amy and Keeley left again to open their houses and prepare for that evening. Amy was making up her guest bedroom for Aunt Zo even though she protested that she wanted to stay at Pam’s with Hannah. “I love the couch, really!” she had said, earning eye-rolls and back pats from the rest of the Barefooters. Hannah had offered her bed, but Zo had refused that as well.

Now, it was just Aunt Zo and Hannah sitting in the kitchen and picking at the remains of their breakfast, Aunt Pam having taken her boat to go to Buddy’s Marina for desperately needed supplies as they had used everything remaining to pull together their breakfast of powdered eggs and stale bread made edible by a toasting in the oven and heavy hand with the last of the butter.

Hannah could imagine Pam at Buddy’s now, loading two or three of the hand-held baskets - that was all the mini-mart had, it being too small a grocery for full-size carts – with enough food and goodies and wine to last them weeks instead of the two remaining days they had all finally agreed on. None of the Barefooters wanted to leave now that they were here at their favorite place, each of them expressing surprise at how nice it was on Captain’s in the fall.

“We’ll have to make this another tradition,” Amy said over the rim of her mug and then blowing on her coffee to cool it down.

“Okay, I’ve got it,” Pam said, “The whole month plus Dog Days in August, then we’ll stay through September hitting every karaoke night-“

“And bikini contest!” Keeley squealed.

“Stop!” Amy said, bursting out laughing.

“Seriously! We could be the Cougar-crew, winning every prize on the coast!” Keeley said, grinning and fluttering her eyelashes at Amy.

“Nu-uh,” Pam said, patting her tummy. “Unless it’s the fatty brigade. Well, at least maybe there I’ll find one of those elusive men they say love women who have some meat on them. I’ve been dying to sight that unicorn.”

“Or what about men who leave well enough alone?” Zo said. “Neil could learn a few lessons from them.”

“I’m not going in any bikini contest.” Amy shook her head.

“Come on!” Keeley said. “You’re still a hot chickie, Amy. Shake it for us!”

Amy paused a minute and then put down her mug. She jumped to her feet, turned around and shook her rump at the table, smacking both butt-cheeks with her hands. They all burst out laughing. Amy turned around and curtseyed delicately. Then she sat back down.

“I don’t want to leave!” Keeley wailed. “We all have to stay here ‘til Christmas. Christmas on Captain’s!”

“Well, that’s all fine and good, but who’s going to take care of my kids? Gus couldn’t even take one full day off and though my babysitter is a saint, she’s expensive and not all that bright. You should hear the questions,” Amy said, picking up her coffee mug again.

“Yeah,” Pam said, her voice sad. “And I have to go on that book tour. Damn de-damn-damn.”

Zo piped up. “Come on, we’re here now. This is a special time. An important one, right, Keeley?”

Hannah looked at her mother and then back at Aunt Zo. She’d walked in on them having a heated discussion in the sun room while Pam and Amy were scraping breakfast together. She’d just been wondering where they’d disappeared to, and wandered into the living room. When she heard their lowered but urgent voices, she followed their voices into the room where they were standing and talking.

As she walked in, Zo let out a moan and hugged Keeley. “Oh, thank you.”

“Well,“ Keeley said, her eyes squeezed shut as she hugged Zo back. “It’s-“

Then her mother’s eyes flew open and looked sideways to see Hannah standing there. “Oh!”

“I’m sorry!” Hannah said, hungry to know more. “I just-“

They both turned to face her. “It’s okay. We were just talking. Is breakfast ready?” Keeley said, her words running together she was talking so fast. Then she abruptly flitted out of the room.

Aunt Zo remained, smiling at Hannah. For a minute, Hannah was convinced that Zo was going to tell her something. Something important. Then Pam hollered from the kitchen that breakfast was ready and the moment was gone.

Sitting quietly with Zo now, Zo sipping her tea and telling her about the smaller house she was planning to buy down-island, Hannah wondered if she could broach the subject of the conversation she’d walked in on.

As she started to try to figure out how to bring it up, Aunt Zo changed the subject. “So, how was it, being all alone out here on the island?”

Hannah looked at Zo. Did she know about Mrs. McGrath? Should she tell her what the woman had said? No, it was too horrible to repeat. Besides, how much of it could be trusted? Parts of what the woman had said were definitely untrue, others more nebulous. What she really needed was to speak to the source: her mother. She needed to have a serious conversation with Keeley, one away from the others and any distractions. They had to talk everything out at long last and, in so doing, kill the dark curling vine of jealousy that was choking Hannah’s heart. Because she felt it even now, even after spewing it out onto the page in her novel, it had continued to grow. Every time she felt love for her mother, she also felt that old aching pain, right there beside it.

Hannah looked at her Aunt Zo. Her other godmothers were vital to her, but Zo was a soul mate, a twin. There was a comfort there she only wished she had with her mother. She knew she could tell Zo anything. Wasn’t it time to be honest? “I’m used to being alone, really,” she said and sighed, shrugging. “You know, I’ve always felt like an outsider-“

“You? You’re as inside as it gets, sweetheart.”

“No, there was always this thing between mom and me. It’s still there. We’re just so…different. How come I’m not more like her? That’s the reason why I think…” She paused. Just say it. Maybe Aunt Zo knew something about how Keeley felt about her. There was one way to find out: ask. “You know that saying, ‘A face only a mother could love’? They always talk about how a mother’s love is different; it’s unconditional, all-encompassing - almost like they worship their child. Well, my mom seems to want to love me like that, really wants to, but loves me more like, I don’t know, a niece.

“A niece! No! She loves you more than anything. I love you more than anything.”

“That’s it! I kind of know how it feels, a mother’s love, because you’re like that with me. Everything I do is wonderful according to you.”

Aunt Zo reached over and stroked Hannah’s hair for a moment, looking thoughtful, before putting her hand back in her lap. “Well, that’s because everything you do
is
wonderful. No, it’s not true, what you’re saying about your mom.”

“It feels true. I’m on the outside with her. You guys are on the inside with her. It feels like there’s something she’s always holding back when it comes to me. And it makes me more shy and careful than I already am, I think. This morning, I laughed along with you guys, but I felt like I was watching a show rather than being in it. I’m on the outside looking in, and I just want to break through. Am I making any sense?”

“Yes,” Zo said, seriously. “You’re an introvert. We already talked about this. It has nothing to do with whether people love you. You know, I’ve felt like that way with them, too. Watching? They’ve dragged me along for the ride, but I’ve never been as at ease with them as they with each other. I admire them. And they help me. I don’t really know what I’d do without them.”

“I wish I could just be appreciative. But there’s this
thing
with mom and me.”

Zo reached over and put her hand over Hannah’s clenched hands that rested in her lap. “Keeley loves you, that’s the whole story.”

Hannah shook her head. “But it isn’t. You’re not hearing me. You guys say it’s because of what happened with her own mom, my grandmother. You think it’s because I’m introverted.  But it’s more than that. There’s something intrinsically wrong, something that’s eaten away at us, made us fight all the time about nothing. Do you know that I’m jealous of her? I’m jealous of you all, all insiders to my mom, and she keeps me outside. Like there’s this wall-“

Zo suddenly gripped Hannah’s hands hard. Tears sprang into her aunt’s eyes. “It’s going to be okay. I swear. It’s-“

Hannah could feel her heart swelling. This was it. Aunt Zo knew something.

The front door squeaked open. Aunt Pam called into the house, “Is anyone going to help me with the groceries? Please?”

Chapter 49

Amy walked into Keeley and Ben’s house without knocking, as was their habit. In fact, if she found that Keeley was using the bathroom and she really needed talk to her, she’d simply stand outside the door and talk through it. There was nothing that the other could do that would make them feel awkward or embarrassed, no need for politeness or privacy. All that had left long ago, before they knew each other’s every quirk and tic. Even each other’s bodies were well-known territory, having skinny-dipped together regularly since they were children.

Hannah was right: there were no barriers between them. For Amy, who often felt overwhelmed with holding up her authoritarian crack-the-whip roles of mother to three young boys and trainer to each puppy that entered their home, being with her three best friends was like slipping into her favorite love-worn pajamas after a long day. It was just so relaxing and comfortable.

Amy walked through the polished Ralph Lauren Home-decorated living room that she was still having trouble accepting, it being Captain’s, not the Hamptons, and found Keeley leaning against the kitchen counter holding a wall calendar in front of her and staring into space. As Amy entered the similarly stylish stainless steel decorated kitchen – everything powered by their generator instead of the island’s typical propane and gas - Keeley jerked her head and looked at her.

“Whatcha doin’?” Amy said, stopping in front of her friend and gesturing at the calendar. Keeley had said they’d meet at Amy’s house after she did a quick check and bed-making at her own house so they could make up the guest bedroom for Zo together, but she never showed. Amy made up the room herself, feeling a little put-out, and went to find Keeley.

“It’s the full moon tonight. I didn’t realize.”

“So?”

“I told Zo we were going to talk to Hannah today.”

“Uh huh…and?”

“It’s the full moon! Do you know what craziness that brings out in people? We can’t tell her today. We’ll have to wait until tomorrow.”

“Talk about crazy,
that’s
crazy, Keeley. You’ve waited so long. Too long, really. I should have said something. Well, no, it was up to you two. But still, it’s time. You’ve already told Zo, you can’t back out now.”

“I’m not backing out. We’re just talking one day here.”

“Because of the full moon.”

“Your tone is a little insulting. I’m serious about this. This is nature we’re talking about. The whole world is sensitive to the moon’s phases: tides, menstrual cycles, animals – not just people. Every time I go out and do things socially on the full moon, I end up regretting it. Honestly, I’d love to hide out here until tomorrow. I know, I know, obviously I can’t. But I want to.”

“Holy macaroni,” Amy said, shaking her head. “You’re serious.”

“Yes, I am,” Keeley said, put the calendar on the counter and crossed her arms over her chest.

“Are you stalling because you’re afraid?”

“I’m not stalling, and that’s a pathetic question. You know better.”

“You’re right, fear stopping you? That’s a laugh.” Amy raised her hands in the air, palms out. “Okay, I’m sure it can wait another day. I’m just worried about Zo.”

“Zo? Why?”

“She just seems…fragile, lately. I think Neil’s getting to her. You should have seen them go at it in their driveway the other morning.”

Keeley shook her head sadly, her arms dropping to her sides. “Poor Zo. She had the worst luck of all of us.”

Amy cocked an eyebrow. “And the best, at least when it came to money.”

In unison, they said in singsong voices, “And money never bought happiness.”

“It did buy me some pretty nice digs here, though, huh?” Keeley added, gesturing at her top-of-the-line designer kitchen.

Amy shook her head. “Ben is so obviously not from the island. This was his idea, wasn’t it?”

“Yup, he wanted a showplace.”

“Honestly, this house is an affront to everything Captain’s is about. Look at it!”

“You bitch every time you visit. I’m starting to think you’re jealous,” Keeley said, smirking.

“Jealous!” Amy barked out a dry laugh. “No, Keeley, far from it. You can have it. I like the way things usually are here, hand pumps on the toilets, bucket showers, gas lamps. Down to basics.”

Keeley shrugged and smiled. “Okay, it’s true, I kinda do miss that stuff.”

“Gotcha! I knew it!”

Keeley smacked Amy’s arm. “Come on, smarty. Let’s take our Barefoot Baby fishing!”

Amy looped her arm around her friend’s and they walked together out of the kitchen and through the living room. “In this fog?” Amy asked.

“How many times do I have to tell you?”

Amy smiled, loving her friend’s encyclopedic knowledge of the natural world. “Fish bite more now, on foggy days?”

“Cloudy days, rainy days, foggy days. Unfortunately, we have a full moon, though.”

“And?”

“Awful – new moon is best.”

“Do you like sounding like an earthy-crunchy flake?”

Keeley nodded. “Yup, that’s me and you love it.”

“I’m not denying it.”

“Good, because that would be embarrassing for you.”

Outside the front door they paused while Keeley locked up. Keeley stopped and looked around. “Really? Should we lock up? It’s just so strange, so non-Captain’s.”

Amy shrugged. “Well, then, don’t.”

Keeley sighed. “No, I will. It’s just weird, we never lock doors. As if someone’s here, waiting for us to leave our innocent houses unlocked.” She locked the door and then turned around.