I Cannot Get You Close Enough (33 page)

Andria got out the corn muffin pans and I began to beat up cornbread dough. Jessie made ice tea. Olivia cut up salad. Mr. Daniel drifted in and made toddies for himself and Miss Lydia and a diet Coke for Miss Crystal and we ate in the kitchen on an assortment of plates and saucers.

Afterward we went out into the yard and watched the stars for a while and talked about how nice it was to be on the water without mosquitos and no-see-ums exacting a price for the night.

It was so nice but it was all a front. Miss Crystal and Miss Lydia and I thought we had those teenage girls right where we wanted them, living in the safety of the past. But we were mistaken. The sewing club and the permanent waves and the interest in fashion were all a front. The whole time they were sewing beach coats all Olivia and Andria were really thinking about was the secret cult they had started to study the works of Anna Hand and make copies of her letters. They were trying to find clues to where she had gone. They did not believe she had committed suicide. They believed she had gone off somewhere to try some desperate cure. Olivia had told Andria and Crystal Anne she had a letter from Ms. Hand after she died telling her she wasn't dead. Then the letter mysteriously disappeared. She made it up to make herself important because she was so jealous of her sister having a love affair with King, then she began to believe it. By the time we found out and stopped it, Olivia believed every word she had said.

“I never believed it,” Crystal Anne said, “I only wanted to get a permanent wave. I only wanted to make my beach coat and have a hairstyle.”

They had made Xerox copies of the letters on one of their trips to town. I found one months later when I was cleaning out a box of Crystal Anne's games. She had drawn some Barbie clothes on the reverse side. On one side was this ball dress for Barbie colored in silver and bronze and gold crayons with a little tiara to match and long white gloves and a bottle of Perfume Pretty cologne.

On the other side, the Xerox side, was this terrible sad letter Anna Hand had written to Miss Noel.

Dear Noel,

Do not feel guilty. DO NOT FEEL GUILTY. It is not your fault that he killed himself. I don't care what you said to him. We all say horrible things to each other every day of our lives. And THINK WORSE THINGS.

But we don't kill ourselves because of it. If he killed himself it's because he couldn't take the heat of his notoriety, fame, whatever we call this two-edged sword. Please stop telling people that you killed him. They will start believing it.

Love from here,
Anna

OLIVIA Last night I woke up in the middle of the night and thought Aunt Anna was out on the beach waiting for me. I put on some shorts and sandals and went out there, there was a full moon, so beautiful, so much light. I walked as fast as I could down to the water's edge and let it climb up to my thighs and then I saw her floating above me like a cloud, in a white dress, and she said, Write, Olivia. You will write great poems. Don't drown yourself. I want you to stay alive and finish my work.

Then I went to the boathouse as fast as I could and lit candles and started writing everything. I wrote about ten poems before it was dawn. It was so wonderful and then I ate all the cookies left in the sack and walked back down to where I had seen her but it was only the beach at dawn. One more thing. Even when she was floating above me telling me to write poems, at the same time I thought she was in the water waiting to eat me up or drag me under.

9

TRACELEEN Then it was August and Lydia's birthday. We made a cake and had a party in the backyard. We covered a picnic table with a pink linen cloth and had the party just as the sun was going down in the mackerel clouds. The children had worked for days making a stage play. They hung Japanese lanterns from the trees and built a stage and brought out an upholstered chair from the parlor for a place of honor for Lydia. As soon as we had all gathered in the yard the show began. Crystal Anne started it off. She danced a beautiful dance to a piece of music called
Liebesträume
while Olivia read a poem she had written to go with it.

The music swings and sings and swirls

And seems to fill the room

While we wait unknowingly

Of what may be our doom

Will someone come to fill my arms?

Will he love and heal me?

Will I walk alone forever?

Undaunted, cold and free?

It was a very beautiful poem and everyone was astounded that Olivia had made it match the music so perfectly. Crystal Anne had on this seafoam green tutu they had made for her in the sewing room. It was hard to imagine anything they could have next that would rival that.

Then Andria came out and read a poem about what it is like to be half black and half white. It made chills run down my spine to hear her read it. Next she sang a song she had written while Jessie accompanied her on the guitar. Andria's song was called “Ice Angels on My Wings.”

Get them ice angels off my wings

I got rid of my daddy

I got rid of you

I got rid of my math teacher too

All the men that haunt me

I don't let them haunt me

But the ghosts keep hanging on

Get those ice angels off my wings

Melt them in the light of day

Melt them like Antarctica

Melt them like the Arctic Sea

Leave my gossamer alone

Let me fly away and flee.

Oh, get the icy ghosts of men

Melted off my silver wings

Let me fly to find my destiny,

How the bell that calls me rings.

All those men who haunt me. I don't let them haunt me

But the ghosts keep hanging on.

That got a big round of applause. After that night I noticed everyone treated Andria differently. Even Lydia warmed up and began to take a real interest in her.

After Andria's performance Crystal Anne danced again, this time in a yellow outfit. Then King read a scroll dedicated to Lydia about what a good friend she was to young people and understood them. I took that to mean she had taken Jessie to Planned Parenthood behind our backs.

Next Jessie sang some folk songs accompanying herself on the guitar. She looked beautiful in a peasant skirt and white off-the-shoulder blouse. Still, even Jessie could not compete with Andria and her song about ice angels on her wings. Of course, Andria had spent the summer devoting herself to literature while Jessie devoted herself to love.

Later that night Mr. Manny called and said he was coming up. He was very upset about a letter he had gotten from Crystal Anne. He was sending it to Miss Crystal on a Fax machine first thing in the morning and he was coming up as soon as he could get away.

“What have you been writing to your daddy?” we asked her, when we told her he was coming. “What did you say to upset him?”

“I told him he should come up here. Now he's coming.”

“He thinks you're sad. Are you sad, Crystal Anne?” This from Miss Crystal.

“I am sort of. I'm tired of being here. I want to go home.”

“I thought you were having so much fun, with your show and everything and all your clubs.”

“It's time for people to go home.” She went to her mother and put her hands on her mother's knees and looked up at her with that very honest look that melts anyone's heart when a child will do it. “Are we going to have a broken home?” she asks. “I don't want to have a broken home.” Then she began to cry. She pulled away and went to stand in the shelter of the refrigerator door and began to sob. It scared Miss Crystal and me to death. We had never seen Crystal Anne that way. She has never cried, even when she was a small child. She rises above her tears.

“There won't be a broken home,” Miss Crystal says. “We are only on a summer vacation to broaden our horizons. Stop crying, Crystal Anne. Stop being so dramatic. I want you to go and take a bath and wash that makeup off your face. Your daddy might want a broken home when he sees what you've done to your hair.”

Crystal Anne cried harder at that, putting her hands to the side of her hairstyle. Miss Crystal relented. “He'll love your hair,” she said. “He likes modern art.”

I interfered at that point. I picked Crystal Anne up in my arms and took her off to have a bath. “Your hairstyle is very nice,” I told her. “At least you didn't dye part of it blue.”

10

TRACELEEN The next morning Miss Crystal and I drove into Rockland and waited for the letters to come out on the Fax machine. I hated for the woman at the copying place to see our personal mail but I suppose she reads so many things each day that she has lost interest in the details. There were five letters. Four Mr. Manny received early in the summer and one he had gotten that week. Except for the last one I didn't think they were that upsetting and only went to show that Crystal Anne had inherited her father's brain and is very advanced for her age.

Dear Daddy,

I want you to come up here immediately. I want to show you this ocean and I'm sooo lonely for you. It is not good to work work work all the time. Alan is here with his friend Joe and they are giving us lessons. I hit five perfect serves in a row today. Joe says I could get on the pro circuit if I wanted to. I wish I could go back to camp. It's hard to swim in this ocean. This ocean is dark and cold. It isn't like Moorhead or Sea Island or even Gulf Shores. I guess it is good for us to see the world.

We stopped on the way up and saw Plymouth Rock. Momma said when you were a little boy you sat on it. Is that true? You couldn't sit on it now. There's a fence around it. Momma said you were real little then. How little were you?

Your loving daughter,
Crystal Anne

Dear Daddy,

I dreamed last night you were putting me to bed. You said, I want to be sure she has a nice bed with a good pillow. You pulled the covers up around my chin and kissed me and then you left the light on for me. You said, I am leaving this light on, don't be afraid. It is the first time I have ever dreamed a dream with you in it.

Please write back.

Your loving daughter,
Crystal Anne

Dearest Dad,

Mom said you might come up in a week or so. I hope you are. I'm dying of lonesomeness for you. You're the only father I have. And I could use some discipline.

My lessons are over now as Joe and Alan left, but Andria has been playing with me. She and Traceleen hired some people to clean the kitchen. Andria doesn't like to work. She only likes to nurse me and go to school. Well, that's civil rights. I'm glad they got it. Traceleen said you were one of the main ones that worked on it. She said you were a guard at McCormick School when they let children of all races go there. Good for you. I am proud to be your daughter.

Love and love again,
Crystal Anne

Dear Dad,

It is storming today. A northwester. There are advisories on the radio. Get the boats to port, they say. It is storming outside right now as I write this. Someday I will read this and remember it was storming like crazy when I was in Noel's mansion in Maine. I will not have forgotten it because I captured it on paper.

The rain comes down in waves and the wind blows it like the sea. You could drink the rain if you needed a drink but not the sea. If you are in a lifeboat and you drink seawater you will only want more and more. The more you drink the more you want. It will kill you finally. Many sailors have died that way. Dana, my friend that comes over to play with me, her father was at sea for many years. He told me about drinking seawater. He said everything in life can be that way if you let it. The more you drink the more you want.

Love from Maine,
C.A.

Those were the letters that weren't too bad. Then we read the one that set Mr. Manny off and made him come to Maine.

Dear Dad,

Something terrible is going on. Olivia says she is going to drown herself if she doesn't get into Harvard. That's one thing she said when they were drinking rum Cokes. The next day she said she didn't mean it. She is always saying Momma's cousin Anna isn't dead. Then sometimes she is dead and we have to talk to her on the Ouija board. They made me swear not to tell Traceleen or Momma, but they didn't say not to write you. So I am writing you. I think you ought to come up here and take us home.

Love and love again,
Your daughter,
Crystal Anne

P.S. Could I get the kind of cancer Ms. Hand got even if I'm only related to Grandmother? Olivia says all the Hands will get it. Three out of five will get it. The whole family may have to go up to Duke University to get tested. I hope I don't get it. It eats up your bones and your chest. Well, don't worry about that for now. Love again. C.A.W.

As soon as we read that Miss Crystal and I went home and marched straight down to the boathouse. There is Crystal Anne and Olivia and Andria and King and Jessie all lying in the sun. Miss Crystal starts asking questions.

“Okay,” she says. “What is this about a Ouija board and Anna being alive? Olivia, is this some of your doing?”

“You told,” she says, and glowers at Crystal Anne. “You big baby. You told your mother.”

“No, I didn't,” Crystal Anne says. “I only wrote to Daddy and I told him not to tell.”

Then they all began to tell different lies and parts of the truth and accuse each other of things. Except for Crystal Anne, who was so glad to get it off her chest she told us everything. Then Miss Crystal and I went into the boathouse and got the letters and all the copies we could find and the Ouija board and the incense and took it to the house. Olivia follows us demanding we give the letters to her. “They are mine,” she says. “She was my aunt that came and found me and messed up my life getting me to live with Dad. I guess I at least get to have some souvenirs.”

“I'm going to call your daddy,” Crystal says. “This is scary, Olivia. I don't know what to think. You don't really believe Anna is alive, do you? Tell me you made that up.”

“She might be alive,” Olivia began, but when Miss Crystal reached for the phone to call Daniel she decided to change her mind. “Well, I know she isn't really alive but I had to keep their interest up or they wouldn't come to the meetings.”