Summer Sisters (18 page)

One morning Trisha asked her about Bru. When Vix told her they were lovers Trisha pressed her hand and said, “Oh, honey … are you being careful? You’re using condoms or something?”

“Yes,” she answered, secretly thrilled to be discussing this with a woman of experience.

“Because you have to think ahead. You don’t want to get pregnant or catch some disease.”

“We’re careful.”

“And is it … enjoyable for you?”

Vix felt herself blush.

“You don’t have to answer. It’s just that in the beginning … well, some guys have no idea what they’re doing. No idea how to make it good for you.”

Vix didn’t tell her about Bru’s slow moves, about how he loved to feel her quiver.

Lamb

H
E KEEPS ASKING
Trisha if she can handle it when he doesn’t know how to handle it himself! Abby’s pushing for him to take a stand, to insist Vix come back. She goes on and on about responsibility, making his head ache.

He can see for himself Caitlin is miserable without Vix. Quit her job. Just sails the Sunfish all day. If he asks her anything she answers,
What is this … the Spanish Inquisition?
What’s he supposed to do?

Trisha tells him Vix is okay. She’s keeping an eye on things. The boy is from a decent family. They’re using birth control.
Birth control!
He doesn’t want to think of some boy taking advantage of Vix … or Caitlin. And he remembers very well what boys of that age are after …

S
OMETIMES VIX
would get a pang, realizing it was already the middle of August, that summer would be over in a couple of weeks and she’d be thousands of miles away from Bru, a schoolgirl again. Maybe she should stay on island for senior year. She was sure Trisha would welcome the company, and if not, she and Bru could get a cabin. He’d been talking about moving out of his uncle’s house. She’d find an after-school job and help pay their expenses. That way they wouldn’t have to be apart.

But she never had to make that decision because three weeks after she’d packed up and left Caitlin, while she was setting up tables for dinner, the manager came over and whispered that someone was here to see her, outside.

Her first thought was Bru. But no … it was Caitlin and, a few steps behind her, Lamb and Abby. Vix saw it right away, in the expression on Caitlin’s face, in her eyes. “What?” she asked.

Caitlin said, “It’s Nathan.”

“No,” Vix said.

“Vix … I’m so sorry. He died this morning.”

Vix screamed. “No … please God, not Nathan!”

Caitlin grabbed her, kept her from keeling over. Then Abby was pushing a glass of something in her face. Vix knocked it out of her hand. “They didn’t even tell me he was sick!”

“It happened too fast,” Abby said.

“I have to go home.” Vix broke away. “I have to see him.”

“We’ve already booked a flight, kiddo.” Lamb had his arm around her shoulders and was holding her tight.

Caitlin slid into the back seat of the Volvo next to Vix. “I’m coming with you.”

Vix shook her head.

“I know how much he meant to you,” Caitlin said, reaching for her hand. “Please, Vix … let me be your friend.”

She never had the chance to say goodbye to Nathan, never had the chance to keep her promise. Instead, she slipped the Disney World brochure into his coffin, along with Orlando and a letter telling him she loved him, apologizing for thinking only of herself that summer, for being too much in love.

When she asked her family why no one had called to tell her he was sick, Lanie answered, “He wasn’t
that
sick. It was just a summer cold. Two days later he had pneumonia. We didn’t know he was going to … die.”

23

A
FTER
N
ATHAN DIED
nothing was the same.

She felt more like an outsider in her family than she ever had. Tawny sat stony-faced in the living room. “His suffering has ended,” she repeated over and over, like a mantra. “He’s with the Lord now.”

Her father lay on Nathan’s bed, shutting her out, leaving her alone with her feelings, alone with her grief.

“Come back to the Vineyard with me,” Caitlin said.

Vix shook her head.

“It’s just for a week, just until Labor Day. It’d be good for you.”

As much as Vix wanted to see Bru, have him hold her, comfort her, she felt guilty for making love while Nathan lay dying. And it crossed her mind that this could be her punishment for enjoying sex, for defying her mother. She tried to push those thoughts away. What kind of god would punish her by taking Nathan’s life just because she was having sex with someone she loved? “I can’t leave my family,” she told Caitlin. “Not now.” Only weeks ago Vix had been convinced her friendship with Caitlin was over. How childish that seemed to her now. If a friend is someone you can depend on when life
gets tough, then Caitlin was her friend, traveling home with her, holding her hand at the funeral, even staying behind at the house afterward to clean up the kitchen once those who had come to pay their respects had left.

She started a letter to Bru, but the words wouldn’t come. So she asked Caitlin to give him her message. “Tell him about Nathan and explain …”

“Why you couldn’t come back?”

“Yes … and also …”

“That you miss him?”

Vix nodded.

“What about love … should I tell him you love him?”

No, she thought, shaking her head. That would be too personal. That would have to wait until they were together again.

Vix helped her father dispose of Nathan’s clothes, his toys, the contraption for his bath, his wheelchair. When she said she would like to keep Nathan’s books for herself—
Green Eggs and Ham, Stuart Little, The Great Brain
—her father broke down and sobbed, the only time she’d ever seen him cry. She tried to console him but he bolted, unable to share his feelings.

If Lewis or Lanie were sad about Nathan’s death they didn’t say. They went on with their lives as if nothing had happened. Vix sometimes thought they were relieved. What kind of family were they? she wondered. What kind of family isn’t able to comfort one another?

When Caitlin returned from the Vineyard she hand-delivered a sympathy card from Bru, stiff, formal, with
some bullshit message that began
In your time of need …
It was signed,
I’m sorry. Bru
. She sent an equally formal card, thanking him for his expression of sympathy and signed it
Victoria
.

At Christmas he sent a card showing a snowy Vineyard scene.
Hoping to see you next summer. Bru
. She sent him a card showing a Santa Fe scene.
Hoping to see you, too. Victoria
.

The Countess asked Tawny to accompany her on a trip to Europe. Tawny went and stayed away almost three months. When she returned she had very little interest in anything or anyone. Lanie was running wild and Lewis was sullen at home, when he
was
home, which wasn’t often.

Caitlin decided men were too much trouble. “I’m applying to Wellesley,” she told Vix at school. “I think I’ll do better without men around to distract me. Besides, I’m thinking of becoming a lesbian … to make a statement. Are you interested?”

“This is a joke, right?”

“It’s whatever you want it to be.”

Vix laughed uneasily.

“I take it that means no?”

“Come on, Caitlin …”

“Where’s your sense of adventure … your curiosity?”

“Obviously
not
where yours is!”

Caitlin sighed.

“Besides,” Vix said, “if you’re really a lesbian you’ll be more distracted at Wellesley than a coed school.”

“Good point,” Caitlin said. Still, she didn’t send in any other applications and in spite of her study habits she was accepted.

Abby convinced Vix to apply to Harvard. “It’s Lamb’s alma mater. He’ll write a letter of recommendation for you.”

Harvard?
She’d never thought about any school but UNM. But Harvard was in Cambridge, close enough to the Vineyard to commute, if not every day then at least once a week. And Abby and Lamb lived there. She’d have family. So maybe those weren’t the best reasons for choosing a school but who cared? She didn’t think she had a prayer of getting in but she filled out the application anyway.

When it came to listing her special talents all that came to mind was
Victoria is a good listener
. Her seventh-grade English teacher had written that on her final report card. Was there a way to translate
listening
into a talent? And if so, how would she describe it?
Caitlin Somers chose me as her summer sister because I was smart but quiet. She knew I wouldn’t ask a million questions and get in the way
.

She thought about the day she and Caitlin had gone to see
The Turning Point
, about best friends, ballerinas, who chose different paths, one giving up performing to marry and have children, the other giving up everything else to perform. “I can’t imagine wasting all that talent,” Caitlin had said, identifying with the character played by Anne Bancroft.

“Suppose you’re not that talented?” Vix asked.

“Are you saying I’m not?”

“I’m just saying not everyone has that kind of talent.”

“But we do.”

“Really?”

“Yes,” Caitlin said. “I can juggle and you can … do jigsaw puzzles.”

“That’ll get us far!” They’d exploded with laughter and rolled around on the floor until their sides ached.

She skipped the talent question and put her effort into the required essay instead, choosing as her topic
The Most Influential Person in My Life
. Instead of writing about a parent, a teacher, or a superstar like the other seniors, Vix wrote about Caitlin. She compared their friendship to a finely woven tapestry. They’d been pulling threads for years, one here, one there. So far the tapestry could still be mended, and each time it was mended it became stronger. But suppose they pulled the wrong thread? Would the whole piece unravel? Would she and Caitlin have come back together this time if it hadn’t been for Nathan?

She had a local interview with a Harvard alum, Matt Sonnenblick. They talked energy, karma, alternative lifestyles, goals. He dug out his yearbook and showed Vix his senior picture. “I graduated at twenty and made it big before I was forty. I had it all, maybe too soon. That’s why I came out here … to think, to reflect.”

But Vix wasn’t listening this time, because right above
his
picture was
Lambert Mayhew Somers III
. He’d played soccer and belonged to the Hasty Pudding Club, which made Vix think of instant tapioca. What did his
graduation picture tell, anyway? Nothing, except he was good looking. It didn’t tell a thing about how his parents had died when he was a baby, how he’d been raised by his grandmother, how he’d once loved Trisha but had married Phoebe, and then Abby.

By the time her mother returned from Europe, Vix had mailed in her application. “I don’t like the way they’re taking over your life,” Tawny told her. “First the Mountain Day School and now Harvard. They’re turning you into their own personal charity.”

“They’re not taking over my life. They’re interested in my future, which is more than I can say for you!”

Tawny hauled back and slapped her in the face.

Vix was stunned.

“Don’t forget where you belong, Victoria … where you come from. You think you can be one of them by going to their fancy schools? Fine. Go. See if you fit in. See if they accept you. The rich are different. Believe me, I know what I’m talking about. People who’ve never had to worry about money—”

“Well, I’ll never be like that,” Vix said, before Tawny had finished. “I know how to worry about money.” She walked away, her hand against the side of her face. One thing she knew, she wasn’t going to wind up like her mother, disappointed and pissed off at the world.

Tawny

S
HE WAS GETTING MORE
like Darlene every day. Bitter and hard. Slapping Victoria that way! Was she coming unglued again? The Countess had recognized the signs. Had taken her away before she’d done something to herself or one of the children.

Ed had given his blessing.
Just get well over there
, he’d said.
Just get over … what happened. We always knew we wouldn’t have him for long. Be thankful he didn’t suffer at the end
.

Was Ed God? Hadn’t he been right there in the hospital room? Was that what he called not suffering?
The other children need you, Tawny
, he’d told her.

No, they didn’t need her. They never did need her. They had him. He was the one they depended on. They wouldn’t even notice she was gone.

I need you
, he’d said.

She doubted that, too.

Sometimes she felt her mother was trying to take over her mind. She had to fight her every day.
Leave me alone, Darlene!
she wanted to scream. But she wasn’t one to scream.

She should apologize to Victoria. She hadn’t meant to smack her. But if they let her make this move … oh, what was the point? Victoria had turned into the same restless girl she herself had been, counting the hours until she could escape. They might as well write her off now and be done with it.