The Yellow Braid (4 page)

Is there no way out of the
mind?
~
Sylvia
Plath

Caro dragged a canvas chair the length of the
catwalk, then down a short flight of steps. The near-empty beach
was a balm to her melancholic mood; she had had a repeating dream
of Marcie the night before.

The dream began the same way with her and
Marcie hiking on rough mountainous terrain up a narrow trail that
dropped off on either side to several hundred feet below. Being in
the lead, Caro doesn’t realize immediately that Marcie stops
walking in order to let a hiker pass by who’d come up behind her.
Instead of continuing on the path, however, he turns to Marcie and
accuses her. “You’ve kidnapped my wife.”

“No,” Marcie says. “I haven’t kidnapped
anyone. I don’t even know you.”

“Yes, there,” he insists and points to
Caro.

“She’s not your wife. She’s my friend. Go
away! Go on your way.”

The man is large and inches Marcie toward
the edge.

Caro shouts, “Get away from her!”

“Come to me and I will,” the man says.

Caro steps toward him.

The man says, “Good wife,” to Caro, and then
turns to Marcie and with both arms shoves her over the side.

Caro screams, “No!” She runs at the man and
begins to hammer his chest with her fists. “You shouldn’t have done
that. She was my best friend. You shouldn’t have killed her.”

“Too late,” the man cackled. “Like always,
you were too late.”

Caro woke up every time at this point in the
dream to the heaviness of Marcie having died all over again, and
the illogical sense of guilt that she had some culpability in
Marcie’s death for not being in the park with her the day she was
killed.

She looked out over the beach and shook her
head, a motion to clear out her brain of Marcie’s image. Only a few
brave hearts who weren’t bothered by the cool temperature lay out
in bathing suits. The others, like her, dressed in sweatpants and
jackets.

Before long, however, the noonday sun burned
down into the sand and sent a pleasurable heat up through her body.
Caro sank down in the chair and gave herself up to the cacophony of
the gulls’ cries as they executed flawless dives in search of food,
the hum of a lone fruit fly, and the low slapping of the waves as
they licked the edges of the shore.

Her sadness slowly transformed itself as her
memory wrapped around the familiarity of this beach. She’d not
known the allure of yellow heat and tumbling surf until her sister,
Tereza, married Sean, a contractor she met while visiting a college
friend. After the wedding Sean built a home for them in the
neighboring hamlet of Remsenburg, an unimposing suburb away from
the smog and hustle of Manhattan.

Only thirteen when her sister married at
nineteen, Caro had had the luxury of summering on the Island. Her
brother-in-law was happy to have company for his relocated wife. In
the mid-Sixties, the Hamptons, especially Westhampton,
traditionally considered the poor sister of its more affluent
southern and eastern siblings, had yet to be “discovered.” Duck and
potato farms were still measured in hectares and spanned the Island
from the Atlantic on the north fork to Peconic Bay on the
south.

Caro was old enough to be helpful around the
house and young enough not to cause any concerns with borrowing the
family car. And dating wasn’t a worry either until Caro developed a
crush on a sixteen-year-old boy, the son of a local policeman. They
got caught parking in an off-limits area on the beach in his jeep
on a couple of occasions until Sean threatened to send Caro home to
New Jersey if she didn’t stop seeing him. Tereza tried to intervene
on her sister’s behalf but Sean remained firm. In word, Caro
complied; in reality, she found ways to date the boy behind her
brother-in-law’s back.

Oftentimes, Caro, Tereza and Sean set out
with baskets after he came home from work. He’d gas up the
motorboat and they’d head across the Sound to a stretch of beach
kept private due to its inaccessibility by land. They’d swim, dig
for clams if the tide was right, and eat, sometimes not returning
until dusk. The unadulterated joy of those two summers between
childhood and young adulthood was untouchable, sacred for its
innocence—

Caro opened her eyes. Covering them with her
hand she sat up and put on her sunglasses. The twosome came
immediately into sight.

“Livia, look this way.” Nina directed her
niece toward an invisible spot to the right of the lens. “That’s
great,” she said. Crouching around her niece, she clicked multiple
shots.

Livia sidestepped the eye of the lens and
held up her hand to beg no more.

Nina let the camera drop onto her chest.
“No, Livia. I’m not done yet. The light is perfect.”

Livia gripped her aunt’s arm with both
hands. “Please, we’ve done enough.”

“No. Now get in place again.” Nina jerked
her arm free.

Livia planted her feet and stared at the
spot on the ground where her aunt indicated. Slim and flat-chested,
Livia didn’t have the full-fledged figure of other girls her age.
She was all young ballerina arms and legs but without the apparent
grace that either training or maturity brings. And so she stood in
coltish stubbornness until the sea coughed up a light spray,
inducing her to move. She raised her foot to take up her position,
but stopped mid-air.

“Get,” Nina ordered.

Livia stumbled into place and tears seeped
out from under her lowered eyelids.

Caro watched the scene play out between aunt
and niece, photographer and model. She wished she could see Livia’s
face to know what made her such a special subject, for even the
perspective from her back stirred Caro. There was something about
the way Livia’s plaited hair purled along her spine, wavelike—a
symbolic tribute to the ocean that rushed homeward in dedicated
routine only to leave with equal constancy. Or was the tidal
movement a metaphor for the girl’s position on the threshold of
young adulthood, her defense mechanism against the uncertainties of
life?

Nina observed Livia’s slackness through the
lens. “Shit!” she said half aloud, and then to Livia, “All right.
Get out of here.”

Livia started toward her aunt but when she
spotted Caro she set off for home, making a wide arc well out of
reach of the approaching woman.

Nina put up her hands. “I told you she’s
shy.”

Caro shrugged off the apologetic words.
“She’s young,” she said and joined Nina as she followed Livia’s
retreat.

Livia pumped her arms as she ran and her
honey-blonde braid bumped lightly on her back. When she got to the
catwalk, she skidded to a stop.

Caro hoped she would turn around. She waited
for it without knowing why. But Livia did not oblige and
disappeared from sight.

Nina replaced her camera in its case and
then put the case into a large, plastic-lined canvas bag safe from
the elements. “I’m anal,” she said, patting the bag.

Caro lowered herself onto the chair. Nina
leaned back on her elbows on the blanket and stretched out her
legs, crossing them at the ankles.

Caro noticed Nina’s smoothly waxed skin and
immaculate pedicure. If Marcie had been here, she would’ve already
made appointments for them at Tommy’s spa. On her own, Caro was
lazy about her grooming, then felt embarrassed when she found
herself in a situation like this one. She desperately tried to hide
her chipped red toenails. She gave a small toss of her head.

“Does Livia model for you a lot?”

“Bribery used to work. Lately, it’s only on
command. She has no idea what a rare beauty she is. Just heats up
the camera.”

“How long is she staying with you?”

“Two months. Maybe more. Her mother and new
husband are traveling through Singapore and China, part honeymoon,
part business. He’s an exporter looking to find a base in Hong
Kong.” Nina smirked. “The family thought my being in the arts—a
photographer—was capricious and more prone to multiple divorces.
Meanwhile Tommy and I have been together eighteen years. This is
Carmen’s third husband.”

“Where’s her dad?” Caro asked.

“Oscar’s sweet and stays as involved as he
can in Livia’s life, but he’s busy with his own family. Inherited a
handful when he remarried—three teenage stepsons.”

Nina raised herself into a sitting position
and, gathering her hair in a thick tail, flipped it to one side.
She shifted the talk to Caro. “Gwen mentioned you were supposed to
rent with someone else. Did she change her plans?”

Caro hesitated. “She died.”

“
Oh, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be so
nosy
.
”

“
It’s fine. It’s just that I knew Marcie
for a long time. We were, I mean, she
was
an incredible person.” Caro said.

“Do you have family,” Nina asked.

“My daughter, Abby, lives in London. And my
husband’s been dead for several years, so I’m used to doing things
on my own.”

Caro felt a current of unease slither along
her backbone. She was uncomfortable talking about people she loved
to someone she had met only the night before, no matter how genuine
Nina seemed.

“If we can do anything at all…” Nina
offered.

“What?” Caro asked.

“…you know, with Marcie not here.”

“Thanks,” Caro said. And then, “I think I’ll
head in.”

They got up simultaneously; Caro helped
gather Nina’s belongings.

When they got to the steps that climbed up
the dune, Caro saw Livia at the window in the tower. In the bright
sunlight, the girl appeared made out of gold. Caro suddenly felt
her heart pound, and an inexplicable desire to get to know Livia
rose to her consciousness.

Nina tapped Caro on the shoulder.

“Sorry,” Caro said startled, and turned
quickly away.

“No problem. You can put everything down
here,” Nina said.

Caro set down a large canvas bag and a
retractable tripod. When she straightened up, she couldn’t help
herself and glanced in the direction of the tower. Livia was
gone.

“Thanks for the extra arms.” Nina pushed
through the double doors and called, “Hey, I’m home,” to her
niece.

***

Later that evening, inspired by Livia’s
surprising entry into her life and Nina’s own attractiveness, Caro
pondered again the connection between ideal love and beauty. As for
herself, she didn’t look in a mirror unless the task called for it:
fixing her hair or applying makeup. Even in public bathrooms where
rows of glass striped the walls above the sinks, Caro shrunk from
her reflection.

She wasn’t ugly, just not pretty. An artist
friend once told her she was a study in lightness. Oatmeal and bone
and sand came to mind when she contemplated her features. The
irises of her eyes were small and of the palest river-stone grey.
Habitual scowling had driven a rut between her eyes, which she
obsessively tried to rub smooth with her forefinger. Everything
about her was millimeters out of balance. Even her right eyebrow
arched higher than the left, a defect made obvious when she wore
her glasses and one brow dipped below the frame.

Caro let out a small sigh. In the Hamptons
all the women seemed bred from a common pool of superior genes. Not
knowing any of them personally made them easier to ignore as they
passed her on the sidewalk. In contrast, Nina’s close proximity and
friendly personality were going to make it impossible for Caro to
forget her own physical failings.

Snickering at herself, she flicked off the
bathroom light and went into the bedroom where she’d left her pen
and journal on the dresser. The pen, unlike the mirror, seemed
forgiving. If there was any reflection to be had from the pen, it
was of her soul.

As always when the mirror disappointed, she
felt all the more inspired to create. Images transformed into words
that swam in and out of her awareness. She wanted to hook the words
in her handwriting, to feel the physical sense of each curve and
curl stringing the letters together in a cursive mosaic. The
transference of inspiration to the pen and then onto the page was a
choreography of sorts; the only guesswork was in the mechanics of
style.

Caro opened a spiral notebook—its pages
clean and tight—and positioned a new pen, only to have the words,
that moments before had been poised for expression, drift away. An
unstoppable stream of snapshots of Livia filtered into her
consciousness. Caro studied every image, holding each one up to a
mental frame as if someone was passing her tangible photographs.
And once again, she felt an unnamable attraction to the girl.

Writing, I think, is not apart
from living. Writ
ing is a kind of double living.

The write
r experiences everything
twice.

Once in reality and once in
that mirror which waits always before or behind.
~
Catherine Drinker Bowen

Caro negotiated her way through half-naked,
oil-slick bodies in order to get closer to the water. Now
mid-afternoon, the temperature hovered at seventy-eight, and a
northeasterly breeze kicked up the surf.

The day before, she’d bought a portable
beach canopy and already acknowledged the value of her purchase as
she sat in the shelter of its nylon walls, immune to wind, sun, and
prying eyes. She’d eaten lunch in clean comfort and now, with her
skin a pale pink from an hour of sunning, she was enjoying a brief
respite when she heard someone talking.

“Aunt Nina says you’re a poet.”

As the words registered, Caro’s heart sped
up and her eyes came open with a start. As each inch of Livia came
into Caro’s view, she expelled her breath in a soft rush, unaware
she’d been holding a lungful of air in her chest. She’d been wrong.
Her earlier imaginings about what Livia looked like close up did
not compare with the beauty that stood before her.