Summer Sisters

  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.

  THE NEXT DAY Tawny approached Vix. “While you’re at it, you might as well marry into it. Then you can take care of your father and me in our old age.”

  Vix was trying to come up with some smart remark, some remark that might or might not get her face slapped again, when Tawny asked, “What about the brother?”

  “The brother?”

  “You know who I mean.”

  “Sharkey … you mean, Sharkey?” Vix started to laugh.

  “Why is that funny? He’s not that way, is he?”

  “What way is that?” she asked, but Tawny wouldn’t say.

  Sometimes she thought her mother wanted her to fail so she could say, I told you so. I told you you don’t belong in their world.

  Her father argued with Tawny on her behalf. “A good education opens doors.”

  “If she wants an education so badly she can go to UNM,” Tawny said. “She doesn’t need Harvard.”

  “This is a pointless argument!” Vix cried. “Who knows if I’m even going to get in?”

  But she did get in. And while she was celebrating on her own, keeping her pride and excitement to herself, Lanie celebrated by announcing her pregnancy.

  Abby

  IT’S HER FIRST TRIP to Santa Fe and she’s anxious about meeting Phoebe at graduation. She wears her taupe Armani, a string of pearls, little heels. She’s going for an elegant, understated look. But she sees right away she’s got it all wrong. The other women gathered in the quad at the Mountain Day School are dressed like cowgirls. “At best, Linda Evans in The Big Valley—at worst, Dale Evans as herself.” She wishes Lamb hadn’t dropped her off while he went to park.

  The Countess rushes to her side. Precious Girl, she cries, taking her arm, leading her to a striking woman in fringed leather, silver and turquoise jewelry, her hair braided. Darlings … the Countess coos, you two really must get to know one another. After all, you’ve had the same husband, you share the same children.

  Her instinct is to run, but her feet won’t move. She can’t swallow. Phoebe breaks the ice first. What a wicked girl you are! she tells the Countess, who laughs heartily, then excuses herself to greet someone else, as if she’s the hostess at a garden party, leaving her alone with Phoebe, who leans close and says, They don’t call her the Cuntess for nothing!

  She imagines them in bed together, Phoebe and Lamb, then shuts her eyes tight, trying to erase the picture. She hadn’t expected her to be so exotically beautiful, the long hair, the green eyes. Every male standing in the quad, every straight male, anyway, has his eye on her. And Phoebe knows it.

  Phoebe

  WELL, WELL, WELL … isn’t she something! So chic, so East Coast elegant. In Armani, for God’s sake. And all this time she’d been so sure it would be Trisha. She tries to contain her laughter.

  She hears Caity warning her—Be nice at graduation, Phoeb, okay? How sweet of Caity to feel protective of Lamb’s new wife, though she’s not sure she likes the idea. Shouldn’t Caity be protecting her?

  She tries to imagine Lamb and his bride in bed together, but she’s bothered by the image of him holding this woman the way he once held her. Does she have regrets? Let’s just say she has fond memories. Maybe if he’d been willing to do the Aspen thing, the Santa Fe thing, but Boston … God help her! She wasn’t about to wind up a proper Yankee wife. How ordinary, how boring!

  Tawny

  SHE HOLDS ON to Ed’s arm, feeling out of place. Not that she doesn’t recognize the faces gathered here. Most have been guests at dinner parties she’s arranged for the Countess. And isn’t she acting her part today, bringing the dogs to graduation! At least she’s brought along a dog walker. Handsome young man. She doesn’t recognize him. The Countess is full of surprises. Oh, Lord … she’s introducing Phoebe to Abby! Well, that should be interesting. She doesn’t trust Abby. Ed thinks she’s crazy. You’re too suspicious, he tells her. The woman doesn’t have any ulterior motive. She’d like to know how he can be so sure. And now here comes Abby, waving at her as if they’re long-lost friends. At least Phoebe understands the rules.

  Lamb

  HOW PROUD HE IS of his daughter. He tears up as she marches in to “Pomp and Circumstance.” And that smile, as she accepts her diploma. Caitlin Mayhew Somers. He’s sure the audience is as awed by her charm and beauty as he is. He holds Abby’s hand tightly. Sharkey sits on his other side and next to him, Phoebe. Sharkey hadn’t sent her an invitation to his graduation from Choate. Two parents at graduation is enough, he’d said. And as far as he knows, Phoebe never noticed the snub.

  Now Phoebe leans across Sharkey and whispers something to him. He gets a whiff of her perfume, the same one that used to drive him crazy. He moves closer to Abby and smiles, letting her know it’s okay, he’s there for her.

  Then the headmaster calls, Victoria Leonard. Vix accepts her diploma plus a five-hundred-dollar award for academic excellence. The audience claps politely. Thank you very much, she says. I couldn’t have done this without my family’s support. She finds him and Abby in the audience, smiles, then looks over at her parents. Abby squeezes his hand, sniffles, and reaches for a tissue. Their summer daughter. How lucky they are.

  24

  EVERY TIME SHE TURNED around Abby and Lamb dangled another opportunity in front of her. “Come on, kiddo …” Lamb said. “Go with Caitlin. See the world. Think of it as a graduation present.”

  She and Caitlin were standing in the shade of a cottonwood tree, both of them in white summer dresses, both of them clutching their newly earned diplomas. Vix hadn’t known until then that Caitlin wasn’t going back to the Vineyard. That she’d opted for a trip to Europe instead.

  “What do you say?” Lamb asked.

  “I can’t,” Vix told him.

  “What she means is she can’t leave her boyfriend,” Caitlin said. “Isn’t that right, Vix?”

  “No …” She didn’t even know if she still had a boyfriend. She had her eye on her parents across the quad, standing alone and looking uncomfortable, while Lewis and Lanie sat on the steps, bored out of their minds. You couldn’t tell Lanie was pregnant. Vix hoped she wouldn’t have a sudden bout of nausea and vomit on campus. She hadn’t told anyone about the pregnancy, not even Caitlin, afraid Tawny would accuse her of washing their linen in public.

  She caught a glimpse of Sharkey, checking out the new arts building, a gift from some Hollywood hotshot who had recently moved to town and enrolled his children at Mountain Day.

  “It’ll be an unforgettable experience,” Lamb told her.

  Every experience with Caitlin was unforgettable. That wasn’t the point. “I can’t,” she told them. “Not that I don’t appreciate …”

  “It’s her boyfriend,” Caitlin said again. “Never mind the great time we could have. She cares more about him than seeing the world with me.”

  “That’s not it,” Vix said, the pressure building.

  Abby said, “Vix has to listen to her heart.”

  Caitlin said, “I don’t think her heart is what’s making this decision.”

  “Will you quit answering for me!” Vix said.

  “Sorry,” Caitlin told her. “It’s just that I know you’re going to regret this decision.”

  “But it’s her decision to make,” Abby said.

  Caitlin rolled her eyes.

 
Didn’t they understand? The scholarship was one thing. That came from the foundation and she’d earned it, by graduating second in her class of thirty-two, with Board scores close to fourteen hundred. The scholarship wasn’t exactly charity. But a trip to Europe … She wasn’t their daughter. Besides, she’d already signed on full time with the cleaning service on the Vineyard and had a second job lined up, hostessing two nights a week at the Homeport, determined to earn her own spending money for college.

  Tawny and Ed were heading in her direction. They were taking Vix to lunch at the restaurant in Tesuque where her father had a new job, as manager. The restaurant was described in The New Mexican as serving “traditional southwestern fare in a charming setting.” Her father wanted to make it a party, inviting Caitlin and her family, but Tawny had vetoed the idea. “We don’t have to pretend we can play in their league.”

  25

  SHE WAS THE ONE to suggest Bru meet her at the Flying Horses. After all, that’s where it all began. She got there early and, on a whim, bought a ticket and rode an outside horse. She’d worried for weeks about how it would be when she and Bru saw each other again. Would the feelings still be there or would they take one look, turn, and run in opposite directions? She wasn’t the same person she’d been last summer. She’d never be the same person. She was amazed, when she thought about it, that she could still eat, fall asleep at night, get up, brush her teeth, even laugh with friends, when all the time there was a hollow numbness someplace inside her.

  The boy who collected the rings was a thin teenager with unwashed hair and bad skin, nothing like the National Treasure of her first island summer, with his sun-streaked ponytail and muscled arms. A small girl in denim overalls rode the horse next to hers and as the carousel began to spin she grasped the pole tightly with both hands and shrieked.

  When they were in full whirl she caught a glimpse of Bru, moving through the crowd. She resisted the urge to call out to him and watched, instead, as he scouted the area, his thumbs hooked in the pockets of his jeans. She didn’t recognize his shirt. She was wearing something new, too, a white cotton pullover with a deep V neck. She’d let her hair hang loose, the way he liked it, and she’d dabbed Love’s Baby Soft on all his favorite places.

  When he spotted her he jumped onto the moving carousel. She held her breath as he worked his way toward her, that slow smile lighting up his face. Then he was alongside her. She licked her lips because suddenly her mouth went dry. He touched her bare shoulder, making her knees go weak, her stomach tumble.

  “How’re you doing?”

  “I’m okay. How about you?”

  “Pretty good.” He looked deep into her eyes and she could feel the heat between her legs. So, that part of her hadn’t died.

  “How’s Caitlin?”

  She didn’t want to think about Caitlin. “She’s in Europe.”

  “Yeah, Von’s disappointed. How come she took off like that without telling him?”

  “I guess he wasn’t that important to her.”

  “Not like you and me.”

  “No. Not like you and me.”

  Bru

  WHAT TO SAY? Damn! He never can find the right words when he needs them. But she’s waiting for him to say something. He feels it. Something about her brother’s death. Something about how sorry he is. How he understands.

  And he does. Really. He’s been through it himself. Not the same thing, exactly. But close enough. His mother …

  Tell her about his mother? No way … forget it. He never talks about his mother, about those two years she was sick. There are no words for what happened. Oh yeah … there’s the C word. The Big Unmentionable. There’s that. But that doesn’t say shit. Doesn’t say how she screamed and cried from the pain. Doesn’t say how the fucking chemo made her so sick she begged them to put a plastic bag over her head. Or how, when it was over, he’d tried to end it, too. Swallowed a bottle of aspirin. Had to pump out his stomach. What the fuck? He was just a kid. Fifteen. How can he tell her that?

  Instead, he kisses her, hoping his kiss says it all … how he’s thought about her all winter, wants to be with her, wants to make love to her. It doesn’t have to be tonight. He can wait until she’s ready. He hopes it’s soon though. Real soon.

  FROM THAT NIGHT ON nothing else mattered. She counted the minutes until she could be with him, said his name a hundred times a day, smiled to herself just thinking about him. Every love song spoke directly to her. After feeling listless for so many months she had energy to burn. She could work all day and still stay up half the night making love. When she was with him, time stood still. Every cliche she’d ever heard about love made complete sense.

  “I don’t mean to pry, Vix,” Abby said, “but how serious is it with you and Bru?”

  How serious? Did she mean were they making plans? They never talked about the future. Wasn’t it enough to be in love? Totally, completely, hopelessly in love?

  “I just want you to give yourself every opportunity,” Abby told her. “Don’t mistake physical attraction for love. I did, when I was your age, and it cost me … and ultimately, Daniel, too. I was engaged to Daniel’s father when I was just nineteen. Nineteen, Vix. What did I know at nineteen? And nobody tried to stop me. My mother was pleased because he was a law student, someone who’d be able to provide for me. She never thought I should learn to provide for myself.”

  “Don’t worry …” Vix said. “I’m going to provide for myself. I have goals.” Isn’t that the motto she’d chosen for her senior page in the Mountain Day yearbook?

  A life without goals isn’t worth living.

  “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Caitlin had asked when she’d seen Vix’s yearbook.

  “Goals. Haven’t you ever heard of goals?”

  “What goals are we talking about? I’d say a life without adventure isn’t worth living, a life without learning, a life without sex, even …”

  “It’s just a quote,” Vix said. “It doesn’t have any hidden meaning.” She couldn’t admit that her goals included escaping from her family, finding out what else was out there, trying out life on her own, though she knew Caitlin would have applauded her. Instead she asked Caitlin, “What does your quote mean?”

  “Mean?”

  “Yes … since you’re making such a thing out of mine. What exactly does ‘Tiger, tiger, burning bright’ mean to you?”

  “It’s who I am,” Caitlin said. “It’s how I define myself.”

  “Really,” Vix said.

  “Yes, really,” Caitlin answered. Then she looked hard at Vix. “Why are we having this conversation? Why are we acting as if we’re angry. Are we angry?”

  “I’m not angry,” Vix said.

  “Good … because neither am I.”

  “Maybe we’re scared,” Vix said.

  “Scared?”

  “Of being apart. Of losing each other.”

  “We’re never going to lose each other,” Caitlin said, holding Vix in her arms.

  It was strange staying at the house without Caitlin. Their bedroom, with all its memories of past summers, felt empty. Vix played a tape they’d made singing “Dancing Queen” … and laughed at how young they sounded. She lay awake on her bed running through the details of every summer, but she could feel the panic of her last morning in this room, too, the morning she’d packed and left at sunrise a year ago, never to return.

  “Would you rather stay in the boys’ room?” Abby asked when she’d arrived, anticipating her feelings. Neither Sharkey nor the Chicago Boys were coming back that summer. They were off doing their own things. She would finally have her chance to be an only child, the focus of Abby’s and Lamb’s attention, not that she wanted it now that she had Bru. She was grateful when Abby began to fill the house with guests—her college roommate, who lived in San Francisco; her parents, whom Vix had never met; old friends from Chicago; new friends from Cambridge. They’d eat dinner late and Vix was invited to join them anytime she wished, but after work she??
?d head for Bru’s cabin in Gay Head.

  He’d moved in mid-July—one room, woodstove, no plumbing or electricity, but cozy, with a real bed and curtains made by his aunt. Sometimes, as she slept in his arms after making love, she’d dream of Nathan. One night Nathan, his body straight and tall, was pushing her through the woods in a baby carriage. When they reached their destination, a beautiful vista at the top of a mountain, he tilted the stroller so she could see. But she wasn’t strapped in and she slid out, then down, tumbling through space, her arms and legs splayed, a look of terror on her face. She cried out in her sleep, waking herself and Bru.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Bad dream,” she said, burrowing into his chest.

  “It’s okay,” he said, wrapping his arms around her. “I’m here … I won’t let anything bad happen to you.”

  She never allowed herself to spend the night in his cabin. She forced herself to climb out of bed, night after night, throw on her clothes, and drive home along Old County Road, the road where Lamb’s parents were killed.

  The phone rang late one night at the house, rousing all of them. Lamb or Abby must have picked up and Vix fell back asleep until Lamb knocked on her door and called, “Vix … if you’re awake, it’s Caitlin. She wants to talk to you.”

  She picked up the bedside phone, the one they’d installed for Caitlin the summer before. “Hello?”

  “Vix … I’m in Arles … you know, the place where Van Gogh cut off his ear? And it’s so fantastic … the colors of the sky, the fields, the village. You’ve got to come … just for a week. And don’t tell me you can’t. If you want to, you can. That’s all there is to it!”

  “It’s the middle of the night,” Vix said, still half asleep.