The song concluded, and Marilyn led Larry by the hand to the cake table. Carolyn had everything ready—the purse, the lipstick, the breath mints. Tikki stood beside her, snapping pictures as the couple linked arms to sip their toast and politely offer each other their first bite of wedding cake.
The DJ turned up the volume, and the bass tones caused tiny ripples in the water in the crystal goblets around the table. Marilyn raised both arms in the air like an Olympic champion and pointed. Her gesture seemed to be a universally understood indication that the dance floor was now open for everyone to join in the fun.
Tikki was among the first to take Marilyn up on the invitation. Carolyn returned to her place at a table where she unstrapped the narrow band on her high heels and tucked her bare feet under the long white tablecloth. It felt good to wiggle her toes and stretch her arches. Her days of traipsing around in stylish but agonizing shoes had come to an end. Her duties for her sister were about to come to an end too. Carolyn drew in a deep breath.
Aunt Frieda came toward her carrying a piece of cake. Before taking her seat, she tilted her head at Carolyn and said, “I don’t know if anyone else has mentioned this to you, Carolina, but you should know that that shade of pink you’re wearing is not your best color.”
“I would agree, Aunt Frieda. It’s not my best color.”
“You look like you’re wearing undergarments.”
“I am wearing undergarments.”
“No, I mean the dress looks like an undergarment. If you didn’t have such nice legs, that outfit would be a complete disaster.”
“Thank you, Aunt Frieda. I’ll take that as a compliment.” Carolyn had a special place in her heart for her orange-haired aunt. Frieda insisted her stylist had done her a favor years ago by “coaxing out her inner redhead.” She refused to believe the shade was more on the orange side than the red side of the color spectrum. She also refused to believe that the quips that came out of her mouth were often more on the offensive side than the helpful side. Aunt Frieda was always herself and Carolyn liked her. Very much.
“Aunt Frieda, I’m surprised you’re not out there dancing your little heart out with Tikki and Marilyn’s girls.”
“I’m waiting for them to play the real music. Then I will show you what real dancing looks like.” Frieda lifted her arms over her head and snapped her fingers as if she were clacking a pair of castanets.
“I don’t think Marilyn requested that the DJ play any flamenco music.”
“No? Such a pity. You know, if it were not for the obvious fact that the two of you are identical twins, I would think Marilyn was your sister from another mister. You have the heart of a Woman of the Canaries, but Marilyn …” Frieda gave her wrist a dismissive flip in the air.
“She’s not been there yet. She didn’t have the same advantage I did.”
“That was her choice. You know she could have gone with you and your mother the summer you were eighteen, but she refused. Refused! What teenage daughter would refuse the gift of such a trip? There is nothing of the Canaries in her spirit. But you! You are the favorite. You always have been.”
Carolyn never enjoyed being compared with Marilyn, even if she was the one coming out ahead. Even so, she offered a faint smile of appreciation for the compliment.
“Now, dígame, tell me,” Frieda said. “What do you have to say of your romantic interests?” She leaned back, poised to receive all the pertinent details, her eyes fixed. She reminded Carolyn of a cat sitting in front of a fishbowl, swishing its tail, waiting for just the right moment to make its move.
“A palabras necias, oídos sordos.”
“Take no notice of the stupid things people say.”
I’M AFRAID I have nothing to report in that area.” Carolyn noted that it had taken her aunt longer than usual to bring up the question of Carolyn’s love life. She had her sister to thank for that, since Marilyn had been the focus of Aunt Frieda’s love life questions for the past six months. Now the spotlight was back on Carolyn.
Aunt Frieda lifted her right hand and pointed at Carolyn, with her large amethyst ring dominating her index finger. “Perro que no camina, no encuentra hueso.”
As a child Carolyn had picked up bits of Spanish here and there from her mother’s side of the family, who had come to the United States from the Canary Islands in the late 1950s. Three of Carolyn’s aunts had returned to the Canary Islands and had convinced her mother to join them almost fifteen years ago, when Carolyn’s father passed away. Since then, Aunt Frieda was the only Spanish-speaking relative who lived nearby. She took seriously her responsibility of keeping touches of their shared heritage alive, and Carolyn appreciated her efforts. But she didn’t remember enough Spanish to translate her aunt’s quote.
“You know what that means, don’t you?” Frieda asked.
“No, I don’t.”
“Of course you do. It means, ‘The dog that doesn’t walk doesn’t find a bone.’ And you know who the dog is, don’t you?”
“I suppose that would be me.”
“Exactly. If you don’t get out there and look, Carolyn, you’re not going to find anything. Nada. How can you stay warm in your bed at night with nada? Look at your sister. Look how happy she is. That could be you. But not unless you start to look.”
Carolyn was having a hard time keeping a straight face. Her aunt appeared so serious and intent, just like Tikki had with her admonition about getting a life. With Tikki, the advice stung. With Aunt Frieda, the presentation humored Carolyn.
“You aren’t listening to me, are you? Of all people, you should know that each of us must do what we must do.” Frieda pointed to her nose and tapped it as her object lesson for this conversation.
Carolyn should have known this oft-repeated topic would be Frieda’s next line of attack. Frieda was born with an unusually large nose. When Carolyn was eleven, she and Marilyn came up with a brilliant idea. They took a close-up, side view photo of their aunt and sent it to the Guinness Book of World Records. A month later an official reply letter arrived requesting measurements, and the twins were disciplined with the worst restriction of their lives.
The extended family had rallied to Frieda’s side now that the elephant in the room had been spoken out into the open. They all pitched in to start a reconstructive surgery fund, and within nine months the necessary amount was raised. Frieda emerged from the week of bandages and ice packs with the long, slender, Meryl Streep nose she had ordered. In the end, all the relatives gave Carolyn and Marilyn credit for the transformation, and Aunt Frieda insisted that her new nose resulted in her acquisition of a fine husband when she was forty-one.
Carolyn knew the moral of this object lesson and braced herself for Frieda’s pronouncement.
“Make opportunities for yourself. That’s all I’m saying. You need to help God work out his divine plan for you in this world.”
Carolyn quickly retorted, “I don’t think God needs any assistance from me. He seems to do whatever he wants.”
Frieda tilted her head, examining Carolyn’s expression. “Your mother and me, we worry about your heart sometimes, Carolyn. You have always had a heart of pure gold, un corazón de oro, just like your mother. But then you say something, and I see in your face such sadness. I taste the vinegar in your words. You cannot live like this. You must move on, mi niña. If your mother were here, she would be saying these same words to you. You need her. Call her. Tell her everything we talked about. She knows the sorrow you still sleep with.”
Part of Carolyn wanted to protest and part of her wanted to cry. But before she could do either, Tikki bounded up to the table, her skin glistening from dancing. She reached for a glass of water and took a long drink. A lightness returned, and Carolyn silently thanked Tikki for showing up at just the right moment. Scrunching her feet back into her shoes under the table, Carolyn saw this interruption as a good opportunity to make an exit.
But Frieda leaned back and clapped her hands in a private jubilation. “I have it! Yes
! ¡Perfecto!” She laced her ring-laden fingers as if congratulating herself. “You must go see her. The two of you. Carolyn, it will be just like the summer you were eighteen.”
Tikki looked at Frieda and back at her mom. “What are you two talking about?”
Frieda grabbed Tikki by the arm. “We are talking about your opportunity to reconnect with su sangre, your blood.”
Tikki pulled back her arm and cast a wary glance at both women. “Seriously, Mom, what are you two talking about?”
“I think Aunt Frieda is suggesting that you and I go to the Canary Islands to see my mother.”
“Sí! Abuela Teresa and all the rest of your relatives. Carolyn, you have not been there since you were eighteen! Cuando toca, toca. You know what that means, don’t you?”
“I have no idea,” Tikki said.
“Of course you have no idea. You have not kept up with what little Spanish you did hear as a child.” Frieda shot a disagreeable glance at Carolyn, presumably for her mothering skills, and translated the quote. “It means, ‘When it’s your time, it’s your time.’ And now is your time. For both of you. You must go.”
Tikki didn’t protest.
Frieda looked pleased. With a sly grin, she leaned closer to Tikki. “And who knows, Teresa Katharine, maybe it will be your turn to fall in love the way your mother did.”
Tikki’s eyes opened wide. “The way my mother fell in love? Is that true?”
Carolyn felt her face and neck redden. She knew she would have to be nimble with her responses, or Aunt Frieda would embellish the little she did know of that summer when Carolyn was eighteen.
Tikki pulled out a chair and leaned forward. “Did you fall in love, Mom? How come I’ve never heard this story?”
“Because there’s nothing to tell,” Carolyn said quickly.
“Nothing to tell?” Frieda made an unattractive scoffing sound. “Your mother fell in love with a ruffian.”
“It wasn’t love,” Carolyn heard herself say.
“Oh, it was love,” Frieda countered, piercing the remainder of her cake with her fork as if it were an arrow sent from Cupid’s bow. “It was teenage love. The worst kind.”
Now Tikki was fully engaged. “So, where is he now?”
“I have no idea.” Carolyn bent down and adjusted her shoes, ready to make her escape from this table and this topic.
“What’s his name? We can look him up on the Internet. Maybe he has a social media page. This could be fun, Mom. You obviously really liked him. It’s all over your face.”
Carolyn felt trapped. She looked down at her fingers and folded her napkin, matching the corners just right, pressing the sides so the lines would stay neatly in place.
“I am surprised at you, Carolyn. Why is it you have never told your daughter about Bryan Spencer?”
Carolyn couldn’t believe Frieda remembered his name. But then, Frieda was gifted in such matters.
Frieda jumped in again. “This young man was a wild one. Those broad shoulders and that hair! Crazy beach hair, kissed by the Canary sun. He was so good looking. His stepmother lived next door to my mother, and Bryan used every excuse he could think of to come over to our house, didn’t he, Carolyn?”
In an effort to give Tikki enough to satisfy her piqued curiosity and at the same time keep Aunt Frieda from providing any more details, Carolyn took command of the untold tale. “Bryan and I were about the same age. We were two American teens who ended up spending the summer with our families in Las Palmas. That’s it. The beginning and the end with nothing worthy of spinning into a fairy tale.”
“That’s not what you said the day you rode the camels,” Frieda argued. “You were smitten. All of us saw it on both of your faces when you returned with Tío Jorge. We accused him of not doing his job chaperoning the two of you. He said you were holding hands. And kissing! He saw you kissing under the canopy of bougainvillea.”
Tikki’s mouth opened in amazement. “I can’t believe I never heard any of this before. I especially can’t believe you rode a camel. I didn’t know they had camels on the Canary Islands.”
Frieda held out her hands to Carolyn, palms up in a position of supplication. “Do you see this? This is why you need to take your daughter to the Canaries. She knows nothing of the islands.”
“Yes, I do,” Tikki protested. “I know that Christopher Columbus set out from Las Palmas in 1492 when he sailed the ocean blue.”
“Everyone knows that. But do you know where the Canary Islands are located?”
“Of course I do. They’re off the coast of West Africa. See? I know where my blood is from—mi sangre.”
“Well, then, you must go. You will love the beaches. And the food! Such delicious fresh fish! And at night, you will see so many stars you won’t be able to count them all.”
“Sounds incredible.”
Aunt Frieda clapped her hands to mark another epiphany that seemed to have rushed over her. “I have it! We’ll all go! I’ll go with you! This summer. A return visit. Oh, your mother will be so happy to see us. And when we go, you can take Tikki to the sand dunes at Maspalomas. Then one day she can tell her daughter that she rode a camel just like you did.”
As Frieda had been talking, Carolyn picked up her plate, ready to slip away from the table and the conversation. “The only return visit I’m making at the moment is to the buffet. Does anyone want anything?”
“You can’t leave the table now,” Frieda said. “We have plans to make.”
“I’m not ready to make plans. I need time to think about all this,” Carolyn said firmly. “It’s a big decision. A big trip. I’ll give it some thought and talk it over with Tikki. We’ll get back to you.”
“I would love to go sometime,” Tikki said. “But this summer is probably too soon for me. I don’t have a lot of vacation time saved up yet at work.”
Frieda looked undaunted. “It will work out. You’ll see. We must have faith and stick together. We are the Women of the Canaries. The two of you need to be reminded of what that means.”
Tikki stood and gave Aunt Frieda a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Yo te amo, mi tía.”
Looking pleasantly surprised at Tikki’s use of Spanish to express her “I love you” words, Frieda replied, “Yo te amo a tí, también, mi niña.”
Tikki scooted off with Carolyn and linked her arm in her mother’s. “So? Did you notice how I shifted the attention from your summer love to the fascinating camels?”
“Thank you.”
“Anytime. I’ve got your back, Mom.” With a playful grin Tikki added, “But that doesn’t get you off the hook with me. I still want to hear all about bad boy Bryan.”
Carolyn felt her face flush once again. From the moment Aunt Frieda brought up Bryan’s name, the memories had come at her fast and vibrant. She remembered the camel ride as well as the sun-drenched afternoons on the beach at Las Canteras, the shimmering sea and the first time Bryan held her hand. For a glimmer of a second, Carolyn could see it all: the star-filled sky overhead, the rough side of the overturned green fishing boat, and Bryan waiting for her …
“We’ll see,” Carolyn said cautiously. “Some stories are better off left buried in the past.”
Tikki unlinked their arms. “I can’t believe you just said that. You’re the one who taught me to get things out in the open and use the past as the springboard to my future.”
Carolyn wasn’t sure what to say. Tikki was right. Those exact words had been given to Carolyn by a counselor soon after Jeff’s death. She used the phrase as a tool to help sixteen-year-old Tikki come to terms with the sudden and tragic loss of her father. But this … this was different. This was her past. Her long-buried memory. This story wouldn’t be a springboard into the future for Carolyn or for anyone else. Especially not for Tikki.
Tikki said, “You’re not going to tell me about bad boy Bryan, are you?”
Carolyn pressed her lips together and offered only a slight smile.
“I’ll pry it out of you
later. For now, I think you and I have some dancing to do. Come on, join me out on the dance floor.”
“No, Tikki, really, I can’t.”
“Of course you can. You just need to let down your guard and take a few risks.”
“It’s not that. It’s these shoes. I’ve rubbed a blister, and my toe is killing me.”
Tikki didn’t press any further. She gave her mom a grin. “One of these days you’ll dance with me for real. I’m confident that if you can ride a camel, you can dance with me.”
Carolyn smiled back. The relationship she had with Tikki was so similar to the closeness she had experienced with her mother during her teens and twenties. She missed not having that face-to-face closeness with her mother now. Marilyn, who never had connected with their mother at a deeply tender level, had spent most of her adult life expressing her bitterness over that lack and had used it as the primary reason she wasn’t as close with her two daughters as Carolyn was with Tikki.
“One of these days I’ll dance with you,” Carolyn promised.
“I’ll hold you to that.”
Tikki returned to where the action was while Carolyn returned to where she hoped the asparagus was. Unfortunately, the asparagus was gone. So were the mushrooms. Carolyn settled for some leftover pita chips and hummus.
A tall man in a dark gray suit came over and stood next to Carolyn, also examining the picked-over offerings. “I was hoping they had some of those mushroom caps left,” he said. “They were exceptional.”
“Yes, and the asparagus was good too.” Carolyn looked at the middle-aged man and was struck by his athleticism.
“You don’t remember me, do you?”
Carolyn’s expression must have made it clear that she didn’t because he connected the dots for her. “I’m Larry’s neighbor, Ellis.”
“Oh, right. You helped us when Marilyn moved in some of her things last week. You look different. All dressed up. I mean, in a suit instead of in running shorts.” She made herself stop before any even more awkward thoughts popped out of her mouth.