Summer Sisters (8 page)

Two women with a springer spaniel stopped for a minute, admiring their work. Caitlin and Vix continued to dance, ignoring them.

It wasn’t that they didn’t have The Power anymore, it was that they couldn’t use it together. They didn’t know why. Something about it just didn’t feel right. They agreed that for now they could use The Power by themselves, but Vixen and Cassandra were dead. Dead and buried.

8

V
IX WOULDN’T
have thought twice about Lamb’s boyhood if Caitlin hadn’t said, “Lamb was raised by his grandmother. She’s coming soon. I forget when. She’s a real bitch. But you’ll see that for yourself.”

Her interest was piqued even more when Caitlin fished an old eight by ten photo out of her bottom dresser drawer. “Lamb’s parents,” Caitlin said, tapping the photo. “Amanda and Lambert. Killed in a car crash on the island when Lamb and his sister were just babies. You know how old they were when they died? Twenty-five. Is that pathetic or what?” She didn’t wait for Vix to respond. “They were both drunk on the night of the accident. That’s why Lamb never touches the stuff.
She
was driving. I look like her, don’t you think?”

Vix covered the thirties hairstyle with her fingers. She did look like Caitlin.

“They wouldn’t have been very good parents anyway,” Caitlin said, slipping the photo back into a glassine envelope.

“They might have stopped drinking,” Vix said.

“I doubt it.”

“Some people do.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter, does it? Because they’re dead!”

“Why are you getting angry at me?”

“Who’s angry? Did I
say
I was angry?”

“No … but you’re acting like you are.”

“You take everything personally, don’t you?”

“Just
some
things!” Vix told her. Now she
was
getting angry. And over what? She took a couple of deep breaths and said, “Lamb turned out okay.”

“Lamb was perfect … until he married her!”

Vix wondered if Caitlin was ever going to get over Abby.

Grandmother Somers looked elegant in her white linen pants suit and wide-brimmed straw hat. Her face was still beautiful and hardly wrinkled, even though she had to be really old. Caitlin said Grandmother had plastic surgery the way other people had their teeth cleaned. “She’s got staples in her scalp.”

“Staples in her scalp?”

“And maybe behind her ears, I’m not sure.”

While Vix was contemplating having staples behind her ears Caitlin introduced her to Dorset, Lamb’s sister, who was tall and muscular, with long honey-colored hair held off her face with tortoiseshell combs. She’d been married three times and had been at Hazelden for rehab twice. At the moment she was living with Grandmother in the big house in Palm Beach. Caitlin said anyone who could live with Grandmother Somers deserved a medal. Dorset had a great tan.

“No matter what Grandmother says,” Caitlin whispered, “don’t talk back.”

“Me, talk back to somebody’s grandmother?” Vix had to laugh it was such an absurd idea. Besides, she was still in shock that the name,
Regina Mayhew Somers
, neatly printed in green ink inside all the hottest books in the house, belonged to somebody’s grandmother. “A grandmother read those books?” she’d asked Caitlin.

“What are grandmothers supposed to read … the Bible?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Vix said. “I don’t have any grandparents.”

Grandmother Somers was so polite, so refined, that Vix couldn’t believe it when she came inside and after a quick look around, said, “So this is what the Jew did to my house. Well, it’s quite something, isn’t it? Quite a statement.”

Vix felt prickles down her spine but she remembered Caitlin’s warning.
Don’t talk back
. Lamb winced but didn’t say anything either. Vix was grateful Abby was in the kitchen and hadn’t heard Grandmother’s remark.

Regina Mayhew Somers

S
HE TRIES NOT
to let her memories of this island intrude. The police at her door on the night of the accident. The hastily arranged double funeral. The realization that it would be up to her and Lamb Senior to raise those tiny orphans, to begin again just when they’d planned on celebrating his retirement with a round-the-world cruise. And his anger at
her
for devoting herself to the babies! She never could understand that. What was she supposed to do, walk away from her responsibilities? To get out of it he’d keeled over one Friday afternoon at the club, on the seventeenth hole, dumping it all in her lap. The children, the responsibilities, and, yes, the money. Not that the Mayhews didn’t have their own. She’d trusted Charlie Wetheridge to advise her, until Charlie had gone and died on her, too, literally, in bed at the Ritz. She’d stayed close with Lucy, his widow, who’d never suspected Charlie was more to her than a financial counselor.

No, it wasn’t easy, raising two children by yourself in those days. And having to listen to that awful music. Elvis, and then those English boys. And the most unbecoming clothes and hairdos. As far as she’s concerned you can take those years and flush them down the toilet.
Revolution
, indeed!
Make love not war!
Where did that get them?

And now her house! He’s let this new woman have her way with it. This
Jew!
It was all more than she could bear. Really.

Dorset

S
HE PRAYS FOR
Grandmother’s death. Get it over with while they’re all together so Lamb can take care of the details. She doesn’t wish her pain or suffering. Just closure. So she can take control of her own life.

Why does she have to die for you to grow up and take control of your own life?
her shrink wants to know.

You tell me, Dr. Freud
.

So far he hasn’t.

W
HEN DORSET ASKED
for a volunteer to help her run errands, Vix jumped. Last stop on the list was John’s Fish Market, to pick up the poached salmon Abby had ordered for lunch. The second they walked into the fish market Vix stopped dead, because who should be working behind the counter wearing a long white apron but the National Treasure himself. Wouldn’t Caitlin be sorry she hadn’t come!

“Well, well …” he said when he finally noticed her. “Look what the cat dragged in.”

Vix was flattered he remembered her, although her loyalties lay with Bru. Still, the heat from his smile drifted across the counter and made her fidget. She ran her hand over the lemons sitting in a basket while Dorset asked if Abby’s order was ready. Von disappeared into the back and came out carrying the salmon arranged on a platter, decorated with flowers. He presented it with a flourish, singing, “Ta-da … ”

“Flowers …” Dorset said. “How pretty.”

“Yeah … and they’re edible,” he said, eyeing Dorset up and down even though she had to be old enough to be his mother. “I never knew you could eat … you know … flowers until I started working here.”

Dorset cleared her throat and took her time signing the charge slip. Then she said, “Could you get the door please, Victoria?”

“What?” Vix asked, because by then
she
was locked into a staring contest with Von.

“The door,” Dorset repeated.

“Oh, sure …”

“Wait …” Von called. “I’ve got something for your friend.”

He disappeared into the back again.

Vix could see Dorset wondering what all of this was about. Von returned and handed her a small brown bag. “Give her this, with my regrets … I mean,
regards.”

Just when she thought it couldn’t get any better she stepped outside and there, sitting in a parked truck with his feet propped up on the dashboard, was Bru.
Oh God, oh God, oh God …
she couldn’t believe her luck!

“Hey …” he said when he saw her. He was doing something to his finger with a pocketknife, maybe digging out a splinter.

“Hey,” she answered.

“What’ve you got?”

“Got?”

“In the bag … I’m starving.”

“Oh. I doubt you’d want what’s in the bag.”

“Let’s have a look.”

“I don’t think it’s …”

“Vix!” Dorset called. “Let’s get going.”

“I have to go.”

“Take it easy,” he said.

“Yeah … you, too.”

“He’s a little old for you, isn’t he?” Dorset asked, on the way home.

“Oh, it’s not like that,” Vix explained. Was she talking about Von or Bru? “We’re just sort of … friends.”

Dorset mulled that over. “Good. Because I don’t like to see young girls getting in over their heads. It’s just not wise.”

Vix nodded, as if she knew exactly what Dorset was talking about.

The minute she got home she handed Caitlin the bag from the fish market. From the way Caitlin sucked in her breath when she opened it, Vix knew it must really be a fish head.

“Have either of you seen my Percocet?” Dorset asked, dumping everything out of her purse onto the kitchen counter. “Because I was sure I had it with me.”

“Sorry,” Caitlin said and she and Vix took off, running all the way to the beach, tripping over each other, laughing hysterically as they fed Von’s gift to the cormorants.

9

U
NTIL THE NIGHT BEFORE
Vix hadn’t realized Lamb’s full name was Lambert Mayhew Somers the Third, or that Sharkey was named Lambert Mayhew Somers the Fourth, like some king, some king who pumped gas at the Texaco station on Beach Road. They’d planned on calling him Bert, Caitlin told her, to distinguish his name from Lamb’s, but when he was little he became so fascinated by sharks they started calling him Sharkey and the name stuck.

“When they made
Jaws
Lamb took him down to the lagoon to meet Steven Spielberg,” Caitlin said, “but all Sharkey cared about was that huge mechanical monster. Then Lamb made the mistake of taking him to see the movie and Sharkey totally freaked out. He hasn’t gone swimming since. Did you see it?”

“The shark?”

“The movie.”

Vix shook her head. “My parents wouldn’t let me.”

“If they show it again we’ll go together. It doesn’t scare me,” Caitlin told her. “You know what a shark bite feels like?”

“No, what?”

Caitlin suddenly jumped onto Vix’s bed and bit her on her rear end.

“Cut that out!” Vix yelled.

When Sharkey joined them at the house for lunch, Grandmother bopped him over the head with her purse. “Straighten up, Bertie. Walk tall. You’re a Mayhew.”

Sharkey slumped into a chair at the porch table, set for lunch with Abby’s blue and white dishes. Vix could feel the tension building and wished she could escape to the beach with a peanut butter sandwich and a book. Maybe she’d run into Bru and Von again. Now that would be interesting!

Dorset sat across from her, a blank expression on her face. Her eyes were unfocused, as if she were already somewhere else, probably back at the fish market with Von. She fiddled with the combs in her hair, first taking out one and repositioning it, then the other.

The conversation at the table centered on Grandmother’s health. “But you’re looking so well, Mrs. Somers,” Abby told her.

“Oh, pfoo,” Grandmother said.

Vix had to remind herself that this woman was
Regina Mayhew Somers
, that she’d once read
Valley of the Dolls
and
Peyton Place
. She probably knew all about
coitus interruptus
.

“I’m not well at all,” Grandmother continued. “And those Florida doctors can’t find the problem. But you know who you get down there … doctors looking for sunshine, doctors who want to fish all day or sail boats
… and so many of them of the Jewish persuasion. Not that they don’t make good doctors,” she hastily added.

“Now, Grandmother …” Lamb said, putting down his fork.

“Oh, I knew you would take that wrong!” she cried, as if she were a naughty girl. “But Abby understands, don’t you, dear?”

“Yes, I understand completely,” Abby said.

“We all understand, Grandmother,” Caitlin added.

“Well, that’s good, isn’t it?” Grandmother asked lightly.

Regina Mayhew Somers

O
H, WHAT FUN
, making them squirm in their seats! But if they’re going to treat her like some kind of relic she’ll act the part. Not that she’s denying her years … far from it … she’s proud to be an octogenarian. Of course, she doesn’t look a day over sixty-five. She could easily be taken for Lamb’s mother, not his grandmother. There’s still plenty of spunk in the old girl.

Caitlin is quite a beauty, isn’t she? She should marry well. What about Charlie Wetheridge’s grandson? An investment banker, she hears. But Caitlin isn’t ready yet, is she? No … she’s just thirteen or fourteen.

Bertie’s an odd one. And that noise he makes. Even with her hearing loss it’s obvious. Isn’t Lamb aware? Can’t he do something about it?

This salmon is quite tasty, actually. Maybe she’ll ask for a second helping. Good thing the Jew doesn’t go in for those ethnic dishes. She’s heard they have strange dietary habits.