The Goodbye Summer (24 page)

“So naturally I went and married a man just like him—tall, black-haired, and elegant. And remote. You know what I was thinking?”

“What?”

“You and I did different things for the same reason.”

“How do you mean?”

“You fell in love with Christopher because he was the opposite of your grandmother, and I fell in love with poor old Carl because he was the same as my father.”

“No. My grandmother—she’s not like your father. I
had
my grandmother. You didn’t have your father, you
longed
for him, you said.”

“Well, either way, I think we both found men we thought could fix us, don’t you? Oh, I wish I were your age again,” Thea said, sighing. “Just to learn that one lesson while there’s still time to do something about it.”

“But—what
is
the lesson?”

Thea laughed, not unkindly. “I’m not sure, but I think it’s to make the break between the past and the present
now,
not drag it around with us all our lives.”

Was that the lesson? Caddie traced her finger through the coating of dust and yellow pollen at the bottom of the steering wheel. The clock on the dashboard was permanently stuck at ten-twenty. The radio played only AM stations and the air-conditioning came and went, same as the heat. “I need a new car,” she said.

Thea flicked her broken window button up and down. “I think you do.”

“I never got to say goodbye to my mother, either. She died in a spectacular
car crash out in California. That’s what Nana called it, ‘spectacular.’ I don’t know where she got that word—it doesn’t sound like what they’d put in a police report, does it? She was working for a radio station, selling ads. I guess that was a disappointment for her, a sort of come-down.”

“You told me she was a musician.”

“Actually, I
did
say goodbye to her, now that I think of it. That’s—” She laughed, so this wouldn’t sound pathetic. “That’s the picture I see when I think of
my
childhood—me saying goodbye to my mother. In the doorway of Nana’s house, both of us waving to her. Her name was Jane. She was always leaving. She had a suede jacket with fringe, and she carried her guitar in a black case. She had long blonde hair, like Joni Mitchell.”

“And when she was gone,” Thea said, “you longed for her.”

Caddie nodded. “I had so many theories for why she didn’t want me. You know, scenarios.”

“I pretended my father had become a Pinkerton man and was working undercover. Out west.”

“I pretended my mother was a big star, she had so many shows and concerts she couldn’t come home. People were depending on her.”

“Caddie.”

“Hm?”

“Let’s go shopping. Before we slit our wrists. Start the car and let’s go shopping.”

“Okay. For what?”

“Girly things, earrings and funky greeting cards and candles, things we don’t need. Potpourri.”

“Funky.” She turned the car around in somebody’s driveway. “I don’t know anybody who says that but you.”

“I know. That’s your problem,” Thea said with a motherly smile, and turned on the AM radio.

They wandered in and out of the book and antique stores on Federal Street, and the gift shops and small clothing boutiques Caddie rarely shopped in because they weren’t in her price range. Then, too, who really
needed a pair of high button-up boots or a scarlet burnt-velvet cloak? In the end they didn’t buy much of anything, but it was fun to look. And afterward Caddie felt better, knowing she didn’t really want much from the stores she couldn’t afford to shop in.

“I used to like
things
more than I do now,” Thea said wistfully, fingering a printed silk scarf in a store called Ampersand. “Every time you move, when you’re my age, you leave more behind. If I live long enough, I’ll be down to my handbag and a toothbrush.” Caddie laughed. “I mean it, it’s like being a horse. The older you get, the less you feel like carrying.”

In a bath shop, they had an argument over some soaps they both liked the scent of. “Get them,” said Thea. “No, you get them.” “I don’t
need
them.” “Well, I don’t,
either.
”

Thea bought them and stuck them in Caddie’s handbag when she wasn’t looking.

“After that, I need a drink. Where’s a bar around here?” Thea gazed up and down Federal Street. “I don’t know a thing about the bars in this town, I was too young when I left.”

“There’s a café up there—it’s sort of ladylike, but I’m sure they have booze.”

“Lead on.” She took Caddie’s arm.

“Is your toe bothering you?”

“Oh, my curse. They can put a man on the moon but they can’t cure arthritis in my toe. I should have it amputated, that’s what, and Henry could make me a new one.” They chortled.

The pretty young waitress at the Amaryllis Café started to seat them at one of the tiny round tables with hard, spindly iron chairs, but Thea asked, with a smile and just the right amount of charm, if they might have a nice comfy booth instead. Sure they could, the waitress, whose name tag read “Ginger,” said agreeably, and Caddie thought,
Why can’t I ever do that?
She always went where she was told to go, sat where she was told to sit. She had a horror of appearing bossy or aggressive—slight as that chance was. Maybe you had to be old before you could get your way, but she didn’t think so.

“Ahh,” Thea sighed, settling herself on the cushiony seat, spreading her things out. “I’m taking off my shoes.” She looked at herself in the mirrored wall beside them. “I love my hair, I love it, I love it. Don’t you love it?”

“I do,” Caddie assured her, and Ginger said she did, too.

“What can I get you ladies this afternoon?”

Salads, they decided, but wine first. Caddie ordered without thinking, and the waitress brought two large, beautiful glasses of Chardonnay. “To vanity,” Thea toasted. “To looking fabulous for as long as we can.” They clinked glasses and drank.

“Oh, it’s delicious,” Caddie said. “I haven’t had a real drink since…”

“Since you found out.” Thea waited for her to explain why she was having one now.

“I still don’t know what I’m doing. Except I know I can’t keep it.”

“Last time we talked, you said you couldn’t ‘have’ it.”

“Well, that’s progress.”

Thea didn’t return her wan laugh.

“I did have thoughts of keeping it. For a little while, about an hour, before Christopher—said what he said.” She moved her wineglass around to the four corners of her place mat. “I could see this picture, you know, us and a baby. A little family.” She’d seen the picture from behind, two hands reaching down on either side, holding the tiny hands of a toddler. Perfect symmetry. “But then, afterward, when I knew he didn’t want either one of us, it was as if he’d obliterated the baby. As if I’d miscarried, or there never was any such thing. Here.” She sighed, pushing her glass across the table. “I can’t drink this. I’m not thinking straight. I’ll have the baby, because otherwise it’s…” Like erasing herself, her own life. She’d rather tear out an organ.

Thea reached across and touched her hand. “It’s going to be hard.”

“I’ve been to an agency, and I think it’ll be okay. Thea, these people—they show you pictures of them, and they all want a child so
badly.
All I have to do is pick the couple I like best.”

The couples, “Jackie and Todd,” “Maria and Bernard,” wrote descriptions of themselves under their photos. Of course they all claimed they
were loving and stable, devoted to each other but still lots of fun, and the only thing they needed to complete their happiness together was a baby. Whom they swore to love and care for and cherish as if it were their very own. Caddie had only to choose who she liked the looks and the sound of best, and the counselor would arrange a meeting. Or not; if she preferred, she could pick a couple without meeting them at all. It was up to her.

“The birth mother has all the rights; the parents don’t have any. It’s like a dating service designed just for me.”

“I don’t know if that’s better or worse,” Thea said, smiling.

“I know. Sometimes I think it was better in the olden days.” When you had to have faith in the system to find the perfect family, to whom you handed over your newborn child through tactful intermediaries without anybody meeting anybody. Like modern warfare; no muss, no fuss.

“All the couples sound wonderful—it’s impossible to pick. They’re all so much better than me. As parents, you know, so—that’s making it easier. A little.”

The only ones she didn’t trust were the ones who went out of their way to compliment her, the unknown mother, on her “courage.” As soon as they started on about the “selflessness” of her decision and how much strength and “heroism” it must take, she crossed them off. They were just sucking up. She didn’t understand her own motives, so how could they?

Thea started to say, “Caddie, are you—” but she stopped.

“What?”

“Nothing.” She shook her head. “How are you feeling—how’s your health?”

“Perfect, no problems. Except for being tired a lot. And I have the most powerful sense of smell, like a dog.”

“Any cravings yet?”

“No, but I have aversions, things that cannot pass my lips. Like mayonnaise. And melted cheese.”

“Have you told Frances yet?”

“I was going to, but she’s mad at me.”

Thea sat back. “Frances is mad at you?”

“Furious.”

“Why?”

As hard as it had been telling Nana what she’d done to her sculptures, it was even harder telling Thea.

“You didn’t. Oh, Caddie.” Her eyes had gone white around the rims with amazement.

“I know. It was awful. It was mean.”

“It’s
wonderful.
Oh, I wish I’d been there to see it. That night? With a pick and shovel? Caddie Winger—you’re an ax murderer!”

“I am!”

“Did it feel good?”

“Yes! Well, not afterward.
While,
yes, it was great, like I was on a mission. But afterward, it was awful. I had no right, Thea, no right, and I hurt her feelings. I don’t even know why I did it!”

Thea smiled, arching an eyebrow. “You don’t?” When Caddie didn’t respond, she said, “I’ve been meaning to ask you
—why
did Frances put green dye in the washing machine? I didn’t mind, my underwear was getting a little dingy, but what was she trying to do?”

“I think she was dyeing things green to stand for newness. As a contrast. To the
old
things in her project—you know she’s doing a project on oldness.”

“What color are
old
things?”

“You’d have to ask her. She’s gotten very secretive about it, though. The whole thing embarrassed her.”

“What did Brenda say?”

Caddie had been trying not to think about that. “She said it’s ‘suggestive.’ Nana doesn’t want to go home, she
loves
it at Wake House, but Brenda says she might have to. She can’t keep her if she gets—really wacky.”

“Well, I don’t understand that. What sort of elder-care place is she running if she can’t keep someone like Frances?”

Their salads came. While they ate, Caddie told Thea about the letter she’d found in her mother’s old room. “It’s signed ‘Bobby,’ and there was a Bobby Haywood in the band she was playing with then. There’s no return address, but it’s postmarked from a town called Clover in Delaware. I
looked it up on a map,” she admitted. “It’s tiny, only about four hundred people.”

Thea looked puzzled. “Who is it?”

“Well.” She inhaled. “It might be my father.”

“Oh, Caddie.” She brought her folded hands to her mouth. “Oh, honey.”

“I know.”

“Did you try to call him?”

“Not yet.”

“You didn’t call? Why not?”

She pretended to think. “Mousiness? I
will.
Sometime. But you know, Thea, he’s probably not there anymore, that was over thirty years ago. If he even
ever
lived there—he could’ve just been passing through, he could’ve been driving by a mailbox. He could live
anywhere.
”

Thea looked patient.

“I will! One of these days. I think about it all the time. But—this isn’t something you just
do.
”

The waitress came over to ask if they wanted another drink. “No, thanks. It’s no fun if I’m the only one,” said Thea, who’d finished hers and about a third of Caddie’s. “Besides, I might get even
wiser.
”

Caddie paid the check while Thea was in the ladies’ room. “So,” said Ginger, making conversation, “you and your mom having a nice day out?”

Caddie smiled up at her. “We went shopping, got our hair done.”

“Nice.”

“Yeah. We’ve had a wonderful day.”

Thea confirmed it on the ride home. “I had the best time. Thank you for lunch—you sneak, I’ll get you for that.”

“I did, too, the
best
time.” She found a place in front of Wake House and parallel parked.

“I know what I’m going to do,” Thea said, yawning. “Take a little nap. Wine in the day puts me right to sleep.”

“I’ll go in with you, I guess, say hi to Nana. See if she’ll speak to me yet.” She took Thea’s arm as they crossed the street. This time of day, people were usually out on the front porch, watching the sun start to set while the afternoon cooled off. But the porch was vacant. The house was empty inside, too, nobody but Cornel and Bernie sitting on the sofa in the Red Room, hunched over, hands between their knees. They looked lost.

“Where is everybody?” Caddie asked from the hall.

“In their rooms.” Cornel stood up.

“My grandmother, too?”

He nodded.

“What’s happened?” Thea asked, going over and taking him by the arm.

He patted her hand, blinking into her face, his turtle lips spread in a pained smile. “Edgie’s gone and had a stroke.”

“Edgie! Oh, no.”

Bernie lumbered up, too. “It happened right after you left.”

“Edgie?” Caddie quavered. She’d been here, she and Bea, sitting on the couch. Both sisters had waved goodbye and told her and Thea to come back from the beauty shop looking “glamorous!”

“She was reading the
Reader’s Digest
out loud to Bea,” Cornel related. “Bea said she started slurring her words and saying how she couldn’t see too well all of a sudden. Bea knew what it was right away and ran to get Brenda, who called the ambulance. Meanwhile, Edgie’s on the couch—Bea told her not to move, but she gets up and
bam,
her leg gave out. She didn’t know, just thought it had fallen asleep. She’s got a bruise on her face, but otherwise not too much. From the fall.” He looked down mournfully.