Night Swimming (44 page)

“What took you so long?” MaryAnn asked when she was finally able to get close enough to Charlotte.

“You said yourself I would be uncharacteristically late, as I recall.”

“That I did. You know, Charlotte, we should have a party, to celebrate. Let’s all go over to Bickfords.”

“MaryAnn,” Charlotte said, her arm around her friend, “I don’t know how else to say this, so I’ll just say it: Fuck Bickfords!”

“Really? I thought you loved it.”

Charlotte simply rolled her eyes. And as she did, she caught sight of nothing less than a miracle: Skip. He was standing at the bottom of the court steps, waiting for her.

“Oh, my God,” she screamed, and rushed toward him, collapsing into his arms as if he were a life raft that had floated in. “When did you get here?”

“I got here this morning. I heard everything. I was in the back; that’s as close as I could get to you until now.”

Charlotte looked at Skip as if her heart would break with happiness.

“Sometimes the gods punish you when they answer your prayers, and sometimes they just answer your prayers,” she said, drawing ever closer to Skip.

“Did I tell you today how proud I am of you, how lucky I feel, how much I love you? Because if I didn’t, it was a grievous oversight.”

“Oh, Skip, I love you, too, love you, love you, love you...”

The crowds were still surrounding their hometown queen. But Skip was anxious to be with Charlotte alone.

“Is there someplace we can go?” he asked.

There was really no place that Charlotte could think of. “Where are you staying?”

“A little hotel two towns over. Let’s go there,” Skip said.

“You have to tell me everything that’s been going on with you, Skip. And I have to call Dolly. She won’t believe this.”

CHAPTER 77

N
EVER RELEASING THEIR HOLD
on each other, they entered the Comfort Inn and found their way to Skip’s room. He waited until Charlotte had sat down on the bed.

“Charlotte, I have to tell you something.”

“What?” Charlotte asked, so happy to be here, in this room, with Skip.

“There’s no easy way to tell you this, so I’m just going to tell you.” He sat down and put his arms around Charlotte. “Dolly . . .” He paused. “Dolly passed away last Wednesday, Charlotte. They think it was a stroke.”

Charlotte sat there stunned. It was as if a knife had been driven through her heart. All joy disappeared.

“You’re lying,” she said, knowing Skip would never lie to her. However, it was not an accusation; it was a plea. She wanted him to retract the statement, say something else—anything else. But it was clear, he would not.

“Oh, my God,” she cried, and the tears began to come like rain. “Oh, my God, my God, this can’t be. How can this be?” She rocked back and forth, back and forth, but she could find no comfort within her own skin. Skip held her and just let her cry. She needed to.

“Shhhh, shhhh, shhhh,” he said softly. “I’m so sorry, sweetie; you cry; you cry as long as you want.”

“But she was fine, Skip,” Charlotte wept. “She was going out to Palm Springs with Dr. Cohen; she was happy.”

“She was. And that’s something to feel grateful for. She was happy. She had no regrets.”

“Did she have a funeral yet?”

“Yes, in the Jewish religion it happens quickly.”

“So I can’t even say good-bye to her properly.”

“You’ll never say good-bye to her.”

“That’s true. That’s a nice way to put it.” Charlotte paused. “But it’s still not fair, Skip; it’s not.”

“No, it’s not.” He held her to his heart, wishing he could absorb all her sadness. But just as much as he couldn’t bring Dolly back, he could not take Charlotte’s sorrow away. Suddenly, something occurred to her.

“Jesus, what about Jigsy and Pip? Who has them?”

“We do. She states that she wanted you to have them. I brought them with me. Along with Vinny. They’re all in a kennel.”

“A kennel? Where?”

“Don’t worry. I did my homework. There’s a kennel in Andover, Massachusetts, that’s more like a country club for dogs. I figured they’d be happier there—just until we can pick them up.”

“They must be so confused. So sad.”

“They’re going to a loving home—ours. We just have to figure out where we’re going to live. But we can get them as soon as you want.”

“Tomorrow. I want to get them tomorrow.”

Skip was not sure where they would all go, but he didn’t care. They’d figure it out. Somehow, it would be all right. They would get them tomorrow.

“Perhaps it’s not the time to even mention this, but there is one other thing,” Skip said.

How could there be one other thing? There was nothing more to say. It had all been said.

“Dolly’s lawyer called me. She wanted you to have this.” Skip handed her a letter. It was a copy of part of Dolly’s will. She had left Charlotte close to ten million dollars, which, as Charlotte came to find out, was only a fraction of what she had. She’d left money to the hospital for an ongoing wizard and therapy dogs to continue there, to the children’s families who were in need of money to pay hospital costs, to the animal rescue shelter where she had gotten Jigsy and Pip, and to numerous other causes—including her husband’s, which got the greatest share. Charlotte looked at the paper and could not understand it. It was unfathomable to her. She looked at Skip.

“Could you explain this to me? I...I...”

“She bequeathed this gift to you in her will, Charlotte. She wanted you to have this money.”

“Why?”

“She loved you... like a daughter.”

Charlotte lay back into the pillow and quivered with grief.

“I don’t even want it. It seems so mercenary to have her money and not have her. Like we’re going through the pockets of the dead.”

“Maybe you can do something with the money. Something that Dolly would have loved. Something from your heart, Charlotte.”

Charlotte stopped crying for the first time. She was thinking. Yes, she could do something Dolly would have liked. Something that would have made her happy.
No, something that
will
make her happy.

She sat up and hugged Skip. “This is good; this is very good. I will do something with it that Dolly will love. Thank you, Skip, thank you.”

She got up and threw some water on her face. The feel of it reminded her of the cool, renewing waters of her nightly swims. She remembered floating on her back and looking up at a sky dappled with diamonds. And now her friend, her beautiful friend, was lost somewhere among those stars...or, knowing Dolly, not lost at all but dancing among them.

She returned to the bed, and as she was lying back down, she caught sight of the box she had given Skip. There it was, sitting on top of the bureau. She could not believe Skip had carried it with him all the way to New Hampshire.

“The box, Skip. You brought it with you.”

“Yes, of course I did. It was the only thing of you I had to hold on to.” “Bring it over here,” she whispered. He brought the box over to the bed. “Did you know that there is something very special about this box?”

“Other than the fact that you gave it to me?”

“Yes,” Charlotte said, sliding the invisible drawer open. Skip was seeing this tiny, well-kept secret for the first time. “I had no idea that drawer was there. All this time and I never even saw it.” “Because it was made this way for a very special reason. Years ago, someone kept their letters, their love letters, in this box.”

“Really?”

“Yes. And do you remember asking me what the very last thing on my wish list was? I told you I’d tell you one day. Well, I did tell you, ever so briefly, the day I was taken away. But earlier, much earlier, I had enclosed a little note to you. I didn’t know if I’d ever get to tell you anything before I died, when I thought I was dying. So I wrote you a letter because, in your words, I wanted ‘no regrets.’”

Skip was bewildered. He opened the letter and read it quietly to himself. It was everything she had felt for him, everything she wanted for him, everything she loved. And it was signed,
With no regrets, Blossom.
He walked over to her and laid her back on the bed just as he had that night in the pool. He drew his body around her so close, there were no state lines, no prison bars, nobody to separate them anymore. They were one.

Everything seemed so odd to Skip, as if a strange alchemy were dusting the world with a bit of sugar and magic. And he began to smile. And somehow, through the pain of loss, Charlotte was able to find the smallest bit of relief rising to the surface.

“My beautiful Blossom, my sweet Charlotte, my lovely, lovely Lila Nata. Lila Nata, Lila Nata, Lila Nata. You’ll always be my night swimmer. Do you know that?”

“Yes, I know that now.”

Skip paused. “How is this possible?” he asked softly.

“How is anything possible? You, me... love.”

He took her in his arms.

“Love. I certainly went the long way ’round to find it,” she said.

“If there’s a short way to find it, show me the way,” Skip murmured as lightly as a butterfly kiss against her cheek.

“I miss Dolly.”

“Yes,” said Skip. “I do too.”

“She was always this bright bunch of balloons whenever she entered a room. Ever notice that? And now she’s . . . she’s just slipped away, just like those balloons, somehow lost from the hand that was holding them. If I could have been there, I would have held her so tight, she never would have been able to go.”

“Sometimes we have no say over such things. And you know what? She’s left a legacy with you. It’s everything she always said. “Love is how we stay alive after we die.”

Charlotte looked amazed Skip knew this. “Those were her exact words to me!”

Skip simply smiled.

“Why do you think it’s so hard to come by, Skip? Love and all. So many times when I thought about life or thought about love, it kept eluding me over and over. I just couldn’t seem to grasp it. I may as well have been trying to grasp the distance between stars.”

“Maybe because there’s not enough of it to go around...or maybe because most of us don’t know how to get it...or maybe because when you finally, finally get it, it’s all the sweeter for the wait.”

“Like honey from a rock,” she sighed, echoing the wisdom of an old bartender from New Orleans.

“Exactly,” Skip agreed. “Like honey from a rock.”

They wound themselves together and curled up into a single braid under the blankets. She was thinking about Dolly again, and then she was remembering what Henri told her: “You have to know sadness to know happiness. Sadness is a gift. You give it its due and then you move on. Without it, how can you really know the worth of being happy? But when you finally get it, it’s as sweet as honey. That’s what happiness is about. It’s like getting honey, like getting honey from a rock.”

“Honey from a rock,” she repeated one more time, as if by just saying it she could suck all the sweetness out of that stone until it lay like a whisper on her lips. And then she kissed Skip, hoping he could taste it. And he could. And she, at long last, could, too.

EPILOGUE

C
HARLOTTE SETTLED BACK
in the passenger seat, newspaper on her lap. Skip was driving her to Logan Airport, for a trip that would be her first time away from him since the arrest. She picked up the paper before her to read the latest column about her most recent escapades. The
Gorham Times
’s lone gossip columnist had revealed in detail every episode of Charlotte’s year. It was, to say the least, the most exciting read the town had seen in years, but it still amazed Charlotte to see her name in print. Why? how? seemed to be her mantra. Nonetheless, this was the latest installment in her personal saga.

CHARLOTTE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD... AGAIN!

Sometimes dreams do come true, as proven by Charlotte Clapp. As our readers know, Ms. Clapp inherited ten million dollars from one Dolly Feingold, of West Hollywood, CA. Ms. Clapp took that money to build a much-needed medical center in Gorham, New Hampshire, and named it after its benefactor: The Dolly Feingold Medical Center. This came at a crucial time for Gorham, as the town no longer had a practicing physician.

Our Charlotte didn’t give it all to charity, though—she had to save a little for the wedding. Dennis Loggins Jr. (better known as Skip) proposed to Charlotte Clapp eight months after their moving in together. The celebration was attended by everyone who had ever lived, passed through, or read about Gorham and its famous first lady. Judge Cavallo presided over the nuptials. Their three dogs, dressed in tails, were unlikely witnesses to the ceremony, while MaryAnn Barzini served as matron of honor....

Charlotte stopped reading for a moment and laughed, recalling the unbearable purple chiffon dress MaryAnn had worn. It made her look like a puffed pastry. MaryAnn told Charlotte, in no uncertain terms, that wearing that dress made them finally and forever equal in the eyes of the “bridesmaid gods.” Charlotte picked up the paper and continued reading:

Mr. Loggins has taken a job at the very prestigious architectural firm of Bookman, Barkley and Birkbeck while simultaneously attending Harvard University’s school of architecture.

Ms. Clapp’s story is now being made into a major motion picture. The production company has invited Charlotte to attend some of the filming in an effort to create some public relations buzz around the movie. She now goes to Hollywood, not as a fugitive but as somewhat of a celebrity herself. For Charlotte, it’s a long overdue opportunity to meet some of the stars she had always wanted to meet.

Finally, Ms. Clapp gave us an exclusive on another important story she announced just yesterday. It seems Skip and Charlotte are expecting their first baby, a girl! When asked if the happy couple had a name picked out, she said yes, but that would remain a secret between three people: her husband, herself and the angel on her shoulder.

The article ended there. Charlotte stared out the car window, thinking about all that had transpired and all that was about to. Here she was, her belly full of butterflies—not to mention a baby— her mind full of memories, going back to Hollywood. Except this time with first-class airline tickets and accommodations at the Four Seasons.