Summer Sisters (14 page)

“It just happened.”

“It can’t
just
happen.”

“Well, first we had to get out of our ski clothes if that’s what you mean.”

That wasn’t what she meant. “Did it hurt? Did you feel the Power? Was it exciting?”

Caitlin laughed. “Exciting? Yeah, I guess so … for about two minutes. That’s how long it took till he finished.”

Vix laughed, too. “Did he use something?” she asked.

“Of course. I’m not totally crazy!”

“Do you love him?”

“Love him? I hardly know him. I’ll probably never see him again. It was mostly … curiosity. But at least I got it out of the way.”

Vix had no intention of doing it just to get it out of the way. Caitlin called her impossibly romantic, swearing that sex and love not only
can
be separated but
should
be. “What gets women into trouble is the way they confuse the two,” she said. “Men have always understood the difference. That’s one thing I’ve learned from Phoebe.”

And so, as Vix watched Caitlin whooping it up with the guys on the beach, she assumed there would be no holding back this summer. When Caitlin called “Vix … catch!” and the Frisbee sailed overhead, Vix reached up and grabbed it, then zigzagged along the beach, trying to avoid Bru who was heading straight for her. She managed to get rid of the Frisbee just before she hit the ground. She heard Caitlin shriek, then she was flat on her belly, wrists pinned, with Bru straddling her.

“Promise to be good and I’ll let you up,” he said.

“I’m not making any promises,” she told him, spitting out sand.

“Then you can’t get up.”

“Okay.” She wished she’d left her T-shirt on over her bikini because eventually she was going to have to get up and when she did he was going to get an eyeful.
She never should have bought this stupid suit with strings instead of straps.

The second he let go she raced for her beach bag, rummaged through it, but couldn’t find her shirt. She pulled out a towel instead, quickly draping it over her shoulders, and just in time, too, because he was back, dropping to his knees beside her in the warm sand, offering a beer.

She still hadn’t learned to like the taste of beer. She couldn’t understand why the Chicago Boys went on and on about it, debating the merits of ale versus lager, draft versus bottled, but she was thirsty, so she took it, held the can to her mouth and tried swigging. It made her cough and when she did, she dribbled beer down her chin and onto her chest—reminding her of that night two summers ago when the redhead had thrown beer in Bru’s face.

“So, what’s behind that mask, Double?” Bru asked, pulling the towel from her shoulders. They were no longer
Double Trouble
, the team. As of today they’d become individuals. She was
Double
and Caitlin was
Trouble
.

“Mask?” Vix asked.

“Yeah, that mask you’re always wearing.” “You’re the one with the mask,” she told him, whipping off his mirrored sunglasses. Right away she regretted it because now he looked directly into her eyes, making her squirm. She broke the spell by looking away first.

“Now
Trouble
…” he said, leaning back on his elbows, watching Caitlin and Von frolicking like pup
pies, “she wears it like a badge. But you don’t need to advertise, do you?”

The side of her brain that could still think, still function, was impressed by his observations. He reached up and caught a strand of her hair as it blew across her face, then tucked it behind her ear, letting his fingers drift to her neck, across her shoulder, down her arm, making her breasts ache and her Power tingle. When he got to her hand, he turned it over. If he kissed it the way the Countess once had she’d faint. Faint dead away. She’d tell him it was the sun, that she always passed out from too much sun. But no problem, he traced a line across her palm instead. She could hardly breathe.
So this is what it’s like, this is how it feels
.

He let go of her abruptly, cleared his throat, chugalugged some beer. “How old are you now?” he asked.

“Seventeen.” Her voice came out a whisper. “Seventeen this month.”

“Seventeen,” he repeated.

“And my name is Victoria.” She couldn’t believe she’d said that. Never once had she called herself Victoria.

“Victoria,” he said.

“How old are you?” she asked.

He found this funny. “How old do you think?”

“I don’t know … maybe twenty …”

“Twenty-one in September.”

“You
were
or you’ll be?”

He looked at her and shook his head. “You worried about me being legal?”

No, that wasn’t what was worrying her
. She reached
into her bag again, determined to find her T-shirt. This time she came up with it.

“Cold?” he asked, as she began to pull it over her head.

“No.”

“Then don’t …”

So she didn’t.

His hand was on her shoulder again. She tried to swallow, as if by swallowing she could make her thoughts go away. Her skin was burning. All she could hear was her heartbeat and Pat Benatar warning her—
Heartbreaker … love taker …

Finally he said, “You’re not scared of me, are you, Victoria?”

“Scared?” she said, too loud, as if she were some parrot who could only mimic words. She shrugged, wishing she could say,
No, I’m not scared of you. I’m scared of these feelings
.

“Don’t be scared.” And he gave her that slow smile, the one she’d first seen at mini golf the night she’d celebrated her thirteenth birthday.

Later, during the famous Menemsha sunset, Bru leaned back against a rock with his legs outstretched. She fit into the space between and relaxed into him, her back against his chest, his arms around her, although by then she was wearing a sweatshirt and wasn’t really cold.

There were no official fireworks up island but someone with a yacht delivered an impressive show, lighting up the sky for fifteen minutes. When the display ended Bru walked her back to Caitlin’s truck, stroked the side of her face with the back of his hand, then kissed her good night, a warm kiss, but quick, as if he didn’t want
to get started. She felt dizzy, weak, the crotch of her bathing suit was damp. She didn’t want it to end yet. “You’re not scared of
me
, are you?” she teased in a husky voice, a voice she didn’t recognize as her own.

“Yeah, I am …” And from the way he said it she was almost sure it was true.

16

A
BBY BROUGHT HOME
a pair of Jack Russell terriers and named them for her grandparents, Irene and Jake. Caitlin was indignant. “She thinks those little
rodents
can take Sweetie’s place? And naming them after her
grandparents!
Can you imagine naming your dogs after your grandparents? I mean, what is wrong with that woman?”

Sweetie had grown old and tired last summer. She’d hardly been able to walk. Still, when she’d collapsed and with one final shudder died at Lamb’s feet, Caitlin was devastated. They all were. They’d had a service for her on the beach. “Lord, we give you our Sweetie,” Lamb said. “She asked for nothing, she gave everything.” Caitlin, tears streaming down her face, ran up and down the jetty, scattering Sweetie’s ashes. Later, Vix helped her build a memorial to Sweetie out of sand and shells, but when the first storm washed it away Caitlin begged Lamb for a proper stone. They planted it near the house, between the big pines.

Sweetie
Faithful Companion
1970–1981

After that, Caitlin was consumed by death. Did Vix believe in past lives? Because Phoebe did. Phoebe had her own channeler, the same channeler who was helping Shirley MacLaine find her previous selves.

But Vix was more interested in this life than any other.

Caitlin asked how many times a week Vix thought about death, because she thought about it every day, sometimes more than once a day, like Woody Allen. He was obsessed by it. Most creative geniuses were.

“Are you planning on being a creative genius?” Vix asked.

“Absolutely,” Caitlin said. “What else is there?” Then she laughed and gave Vix a jab in the ribs. “You take everything so seriously.”

“Sometimes it’s hard to tell with you.”

“I’m going to be a woman of mystery, don’t you think?”

“Either that or a schizo.”

Caitlin’s face froze. Now it was Vix’s turn to laugh. “Who takes everything seriously?” But just to prove that she, too, could speak of the unspeakable, Vix said, “I saw a dead person once.”

“Really … who?”

“Darlene.”

“Who’s Darlene?”

“My mother’s …” She hesitated before spilling the beans, before admitting Darlene was her grandmother, knowing Tawny wouldn’t like it. Instead, she said, “She was an old family friend.”

“How’d she look?”

“I was really young. I don’t remember that much.”
She was sorry she’d brought up the subject in the first place.

“Was she in a coffin?”

“No, she was at the hospital.”

“Were you there when she actually … died?”

“I wasn’t in her room if that’s what you mean.” She’d been in the hallway with Lewis and Lanie, trying to engage them in a game of Go Fish because Tawny had told her to keep them out of the way and quiet. But she couldn’t get Lewis to stop crying, not even by letting him go first. When she went to tell her mother, she found the curtains drawn around the bed and doctors and nurses all over Darlene. Her mother had grabbed her arm and led her back outside.

The following week Caitlin woke her in the middle of the night. “Vix … are you afraid to die?”

“I don’t like to think about dying.”

“But we’re all going to, aren’t we? I mean, nobody lives forever. In order to get to our next life, or what-ever’s on the other side, we have to actually … die.”

“I suppose …”

“I wish I were a dog.”

“They die, too.”

“But they don’t lie awake at night thinking about it.”

“Maybe it’s like
Our Town,”
Vix said, trying to calm her. “Maybe we get to stand around after … and watch.”

“But then we’d be invisible.”

Vix liked the idea of being invisible, of watching and listening without anyone knowing. But she didn’t say so.
“Could we finish this conversation some other time because I’m really, really tired.”

Caitlin didn’t say anything else and Vix fell back asleep. She’d no idea how much time had passed when she felt Caitlin’s hand on her arm. “Vix …” Caitlin was kneeling beside her bed. “I’ve made a decision. I’m not going to hang around waiting for it to happen. I’m cutting out before it all falls apart … before I’m old and ugly and nobody wants me.”

Vix feigned sleep, uneasy with the direction of Caitlin’s thoughts. Woody Allen was one thing, this was another.

“Promise you’ll go with me,” Caitlin said. “I’d be too scared to go by myself.”

When she didn’t respond Caitlin shook her. “Vix … promise you’ll go with me?”

When she
still
didn’t say anything Caitlin said, “Vix … I’m scared. Can I get in with you?”

She moved over and Caitlin slid in beside her. Only then, with Vix’s arms around her, could Caitlin get back to sleep.

Caitlin’s fear unnerved Vix. She was almost relieved when last summer’s focus on death turned into this summer’s obsession with sex. Caitlin was drunk with her Power. It wasn’t enough to have Von lusting after her, she flaunted it at home, too, coming on to Gus and even Daniel. The house was abuzz with sexual vibes. Caitlin was alive and well and anxious to prove it.

Sharkey hardly ever crossed paths with them, except for the night he came out of the bathroom and found Caitlin and Vix waiting their turn in the hall. Caitlin was in a short robe, loosely belted, with nothing underneath.
“Cover yourself up, will you!” Sharkey growled, shoving his towel at her.

“Shark …” Caitlin said, “we used to take baths together. What’s the big deal?”

“You’re not
four
anymore, that’s the big deal.” And with his head down he pushed past them.

A minute after she and Caitlin stepped inside, closing the bathroom door behind them, Gus knocked. “Bathroom in use?”

Vix opened the door a crack. “What does it look like?” she asked, her toothbrush sticking out of the side of her mouth. He was in shorts but no shirt. His chest had a patch of dark curly hair. Bru’s chest was hairless and smooth. She wondered for half a second how it would feel to press her naked breasts against Gus, then looked away, totally embarrassed by such a revolting thought.

Gus

J
ESUS
! When she opened the bathroom door and he caught a glimpse of her in that flimsy T-shirt, and under it the swell of her breasts, he was right back where he’d been two years ago, that night Abby and Lamb had almost blown it. Something happened to him that night, something he didn’t want to think about because his father always said,
You don’t shit where you eat
. But that night, just for a minute, he’d wanted to take her in his arms, feel her body against his.

He’d warned himself.
Cool it, she’s just fifteen
.

Yeah … so?
he argued. He knew girls her age who put out. Hell, he knew a fourteen-year-old who gave great hand jobs.

He’s kept his distance since then, afraid to give in to his feelings. But now she’s seventeen and it’s a whole different ball game, isn’t it?

17

C
AITLIN CALLED IT
the Summer of Their Brilliant Careers. They were working as a team for Dynamo, a cleaning service, earning good money, and Caitlin never complained about the long days or the foul condition of some of the houses. She was proud of herself for learning to clean out a toilet bowl, for scrubbing a tub until there was no scum left, things she’d never learned from Phoebe. They awarded the most disgusting bathrooms the New and Improved Dingleberry Award.

They never met or even saw most of their clients but they were privy to the most intimate details of their lives. They knew who was constipated by the boxes of Fleet enemas hidden in bathroom drawers or the prune juice and raw bran stocked in the fridge. They knew their clients’ medications and why they were taking them. They knew what their clients were reading, what music they listened to, and who watched porno tapes on the VCR.