The Goodbye Summer

  She had some over-the-counter sleeping pills. She took two, knowing they’d make her feel groggy in the morning, and went to bed early. But the pills just gave her anxious, unsatisfying half-dreams. She got up at eleven and made some herbal tea. She stared at the phone. Christopher liked to go to bed early.

  She called him anyway. “Leave a message at the tone,” he recommended.

  “Are you there? Are you out of town? Christopher, if you’re home, would you call me? I’ve been worried that something’s wrong. Um, everything’s fine here. It’s Sunday. Night. I was just thinking about you. Hoping you’re not mad or something. If you are, would you call and tell me? Okay, well. Sorry if that’s—paranoid,” she said hurriedly, and hung up.

  “Call him,” Thea suggested.

  “I have called him. He’s either not there or else he’s not answering.”

  “Then go knock on his door. Caddie, you have to find out. You’ll make yourself sick if you just sit here and do nothing.”

  “We don’t have—we haven’t been having the kind of relationship where I do the calling. You know, the initiating. It just started out that he was the one, so now—if I do, it’s too…”

  “Well, that’s silly. Aren’t you a liberated woman? I thought you modern girls called men up at the drop of a hat.”

  “Anyway, I have called him. I can’t reach him.”

  “And nothing went wrong over the weekend, you didn’t have a spat—”

  “Nothing. It was almost perfect.”

  “Almost.”

  “Well, nothing’s perfect,” Caddie said practically. She didn’t want to think about that one little moment—and certainly she couldn’t tell Thea about it—the only possible culprit she could imagine. “Christopher’s perfect, though. I still want you to meet him. Oh, I hope you can.”

  “I’m dying to. How long have you been seeing him?”

  “About five weeks.”

  “Are you in love?”

  “Oh…it’s so soon.”

  “Do you think? I fell in love with my first husband in one night. He took me to see On the Waterfront. I had blonde hair then, lighter than yours, and he said I looked like Eva Marie Saint.” She laughed. “Naturally, I was a goner.”

  “When did you first tell him?”

  “You mean, that I loved him? We were on a picnic. We were lying on an army blanket, I remember, looking up at the sky through the tree leaves. Holding hands. He said it first. Then me.”

  “How long had you known each other?”

  “I don’t remember exactly. Not that long, though.”

  “Weeks?”

  “No…”

  “Months?”

  “I suppose. Why?”

  “Oh, Thea,” Caddie burst out, caution gone, “I’m afraid I did something. To scare him away—I think it’s because of what I said.”

  “Sweetheart. If you told him—”

  “I did. I said it, the last night. But so softly, and I thought he was asleep!”

  It had to be that, those murmured words she couldn’t hold back. They’d just made love, and she’d felt so fragile inside, so tender and moved, she’d cried a little. Christopher had seen her tears, but he’d only smiled, hadn’t said anything. He’d just pulled her into his arms, and soon after he’d fallen asleep. That’s when she’d said it: “I love you,” on a soft exhale of breath.

  “He must’ve heard me,” she said miserably, “and it was too soon. No, it was, I shouldn’t have said it.”

  “But Caddie, if you felt it—”

  “I scared him away.”

  “I don’t believe it, not from what you’ve told me about him. Christopher would not do this.”

  “I don’t know, I don’t know.” If only she’d kept quiet. But the words had sounded so daring and bold. She’d never said them to a man before, and she’d wanted to for so long. Now that she finally had, she’d ruined everything. “I am such an idiot.”

  “No, you’re not. Call him,” Thea said. “Call him, because I’m not going to fear the worst until I hear it from your lips.”

  She waited until her last student left. Christopher’s machine came on, and she was stumbling through another awkward, pretend-carefree message when he suddenly picked up. “Hello?”

  “Christopher? Hi! It’s me! Where’ve you been?”

  “Hang on a sec.”

  Waiting through half a minute of squeaky, muffled quiet, as if he had his hand over the mouthpiece, she had time to worry that his “Hello” had sounded impatient, maybe even irritated. How many messages had she left for him in the last seven days? She’d lost count.

  “Hi,” he came back on to say. “Sorry about that, I had to finish something.”

  “Are you working?”

  “I’m always working. How are you? What’s up?”

  “I’m fine, I—I’ve been worried about you. Did you get my messages?”

  “Yeah, I was going to call you.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’ve been really busy, I just haven’t had a chance.”

  “Oh.”

  “Everything okay with you? Anything new?”

  Her mind went blank. She couldn’t think of anything new. There must be no point to this call, then; she was only interrupting his work. What was happening?

  “You sound funny,” she said finally. “You don’t sound like yourself.” What she meant was, they’d never had a telephone conversation like this. Always before, they were playful on the phone, even sexy; in truth, she often felt more comfortable talking to Christopher on the phone than she did face-to-face.

  “Yeah? Who do I sound like?”

  She tried to laugh. “Somebody who wants to get off the phone.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  She waited through an excruciating silence with her eyes shut tight. “Are you angry with me for something?”

  “No, I’m not angry. I’m preoccupied. I told you, I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

  “How’s work going? How’s—”

  “It’s busy.”

  “Would you like to come over? Take a break?” Stupid, he never came here, he didn’t like her house. “Or I could go over there,” she said when he didn’t answer. “If you like. Whichever.”

  He took a deep breath, a reverse sigh. “It’s not a good night.”

  She couldn’t say anything for a full minute. He didn’t help her. She put her hand on her throat and asked, “Are we breaking up?”

  Another long, unbearable silence, and the answer in it was obvious.

  “What happened?” She had to whisper to get that out.

  “Nothing happened. Caddie, it’s one of those things.”

  “It’s because of what I said, isn’t it?”

  “What? What did you say?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Look, it’s…it’s just that we don’t have that much in common. I mean, when you think about it, we have nothing in common.”

  She slumped. It was true. She’d known it all along. “I thought we were having a good time, though.”

  “We did. No, it was fine. It’s just, I think maybe it meant more to you than me,” he said, and finally his voice sounded kind, not cool and impersonal. But the change wasn’t consoling; it just made it impossible to argue. “It’s a bad time for me to have a serious relationship. It’s not your fault. And I think it’s better to break it off clean rather than drag it out.”

  “Yeah.” But what if I hadn’t called? she thought.

  “Caddie? You okay?”

  “Yes. Fine.”

  “I’m really sorry. You’ve been great.”

  She hiccuped a laugh.

  “I hope we can still be friends.”

  She had to pull the receiver away from her ear for a second. “Yeah,” she got out. “Me, too.”

  “Oh—Caddie?”

  “Yes?”

  “You can keep the CDs, but you know those books I lent you? On dog obedience and companion animal training? I’m going to need t
hose back. Sorry to ask, but—”

  “Okay. I have to hang up now.”

  “Right, okay.” Now there was life in his voice for the first time. She was a load off his mind. “Well, Caddie, you take care.”

  Years ago, in graduate school, she’d had a cat, Abigail. A scrawny, mostly gray alley cat a child in the neighborhood had foisted on her, but she’d grown to love it. One evening Abigail crawled home, sick and injured, bleeding from the mouth; she’d been hit by a car. Caddie rushed her to the vet, who’d kept her overnight. In the morning, he’d called. “I’m so sorry,” he’d said in the gentlest voice, “Abigail didn’t make it. We made her comfortable, but she was bleeding too much inside. She died about six o’clock this morning.”

  She’d wanted so much to thank the doctor, who was kindness itself, but she’d been unable to speak because she was crying, and that had embarrassed her. She’d had to hang up without saying a word. Not even goodbye.

  This was like that, only worse.

  13

  Before Caddie could put the Pontiac’s brake on in front of Wake House, Thea waved to her and started down the steps. Right behind her came Magill—with Cornel holding on to his arm. Cornel? Why was he coming? Oh, brother.

  Bea and Edgie Copes sat in their side-by-side rockers on the front porch and called out over the railing, “Woo-hoo, Caddie!” On either side of them sat the Harris wives, ignoring each other as usual. Maxine waved her church fan; Doré acknowledged Caddie with a nod of her perfectly permed head. “Have a nice time!” Bea called out, and Caddie smiled and waved through the window, feeling guilty.

  They’d all swallowed the cover story: she was having a very tiny student music recital in her home tonight. She’d be having others later for similar small groups, but to this first one she could only invite two people (which was completely absurd, and yet nobody had questioned it). Well, apparently she’d found room for a third: Cornel shambled down the walk looking even grumpier than usual, dressed in blousy seersucker pants and a powder-blue golf shirt. Between him and Magill, it was hard to say who was supporting whom; Magill had problems with his balance, but Cornel, much as he denied it, had arthritic hips, and on bad days they made him take short, mincing steps, like a woman in a too-tight skirt.

  “Did you make the score?” Thea asked, still six feet from the car.

  Cornel cringed. “Shhh!” he said, which made Magill laugh, which made them both tip dangerously sideways against the stair rail.

  “I made the score,” Caddie assured Thea once she was in the car and buckled up. She looked so pleased and excited, Caddie had less trouble hiding her own dismal mood than she’d thought she was going to. She’d considered canceling the pot party, postponing it till she felt better, whenever that might be, because it could hardly have fallen on a worse day in her life. But now she was glad she hadn’t. It might even cheer her up. She’d been miserable for two weeks, each day as wretched as the last, no differentiation, no distinction. Until two days ago, when everything had gotten immeasurably worse.

  “And you didn’t have any trouble?” Thea asked her.

  “No trouble. I was born for the doper life.”

  Magill’s dealer buddy, a balding, clean-cut young man named Chip, had come to the house yesterday, right in the middle of Caitlin Birnbaum’s piano lesson, and he and Caddie had made the exchange on the front porch: a little plastic baggie inside a paper sandwich bag for ninety-five dollars in cash. “This is highly excellent stuff, I can personally recommend it,” Chip had told her. “You want to sample it first, that is no problem whatsoever.” She’d whispered that that wouldn’t be necessary and wished him a nice day.

  “I’ll write you a check when we get to the house,” Thea said happily, patting her pocketbook. “Why don’t you put the top down, Caddie? I haven’t ridden in a convertible in I don’t know how long.”

  “It’s stuck, it doesn’t go down anymore. Rust.”

  “You people have completely lost your minds,” Cornel grumped, settling himself in the backseat. “How’s it going to look if you get caught? Have you thought about that? It won’t be so funny when you’re behind bars. And you,” he told Magill, “you won’t be wearing that smirk on your face when you’re a jailbird.”

  Magill caught Caddie’s eye in the rearview mirror. “Cornel’s the designated narc.”

  “Laugh, go ahead, you’ll be glad when one of us is sober,” Cornel said darkly.

  “Straight,” Thea corrected, “not sober. You’re our straight man.”

  He kept it up all the way to Caddie’s house, warning about bad trips and drug busts and reefer madness. “Cornel,” Thea finally turned around in her seat to say, “Caddie can take you back to Wake House right now if you’re going to spoil this for the rest of us.”

  He scowled and shut up.

  Magill couldn’t get over the sculptures in the front yard. The sun was going down, glowing orange between the dark leaves of the oak tree in Mrs. Tourneau’s yard, casting shadows that added length and a little dignity to Oppression and Earth Mother. He had a cane tonight, and he used it to navigate around Nana’s grass-blooming earthworks and metal contraptions. “These are amazing,” he marveled. “Incredible.” Thea had seen them before and Cornel wasn’t impressed, so they left Magill wandering in the yard and came inside with Caddie.

  She put them in the living room and went to get drinks. “This is pretty nice,” she heard Cornel say on her way out. “Feels good to be in a real house, doesn’t it?” Funny; she’d thought the beauty of Wake House was that it was a real house.

  When she came back, Magill was sitting cross-legged on the floor, rolling a joint, with Thea beside him and Cornel looking on from a superior distance in the armchair. She set a tray of glasses, snacks, soft drinks, and a pitcher of iced tea on the coffee table. “I have booze, too, if anybody wants a real drink.”

  “Got any cold beer?” Magill asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Me, too,” said Cornel.

  “That sounds wonderful,” said Thea.

  “Oh, okay.” So they were drinking. She returned the soft drinks to the kitchen and came back with beer.

  “What’s that noise?” Thea asked after everybody had toasted.

  “I don’t hear anything,” Magill said.

  “Yeah,” Cornel noticed, “like a bird chirping.”

  “Oh, it’s Finney,” Caddie said. “I locked him in Nana’s bedroom. I can let him out if nobody minds.”

  Nobody minded.

  “He should be fine since you’re already here—it’s when strangers come to the door that he goes nuts.”

  She went upstairs to let him out. He hardly spared her a glance before tearing down the hall, down the stairs, yipping, squeaking, a whitish blur of excitement. By the time she got back to the living room, he was wriggling on Thea’s thighs in uncontrollable delight, leaving a blizzard of hairs on her skirt.

  “Should we have some music?” She went to the stereo and leafed through the CDs currently scattered on the shelf. She put on a Brahms symphony, but after a couple of seconds she turned it off. “That’s not right,” she said, talking to herself. “Something lighter. I guess.”

  Magill came over to help. He’d cleaned up for this night out; he wore a pressed shirt and a nice pair of gray slacks. They were both too big for him, though, and the worn place on his belt was a couple of inches away from the current notch in the buckle. But still, he looked tidy and clean-shaven, and he might even have gotten a real haircut instead of letting Maxine cut it for him.

  “You look very nice tonight,” she told him.

  “I like your hair that way,” he mumbled.

  “Oh.” She had to touch her hair to remember how she’d combed it. Behind her ears with two barrettes. “Thanks.”

  “So what have you got that’s really decadent?”

  “Decadent?”

  “For Cornel.” He ran his index finger along first one stack of discs, then another. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Is t
his what you listen to all the time?”

  “What’s wrong with it? Not all the time.”

  “What’s in here?” He squatted down and opened the cabinet under the stereo. “Aha. Your secret stash. Why do you keep the good stuff down here, Caddie? It’s not…”

  It’s not pornography. That’s what he was going to say, she was sure. She watched his ears turn pink and concentrated on not laughing.

  “Bessie Smith. Sippee Wallace, Ma Rainey, Jelly Roll Morton. Memphis Minnie?”

  “She’s good,” Caddie said, defensive for some reason. It was almost as if he’d stumbled on her secret collection of erotica.

  “Who else…Eubie Blake, Koko Taylor. Alberta Hunter.” He turned an old Etta James disc over and read from the back, “ ‘Hot Nuts, Get ’Em from the Peanut Man.’ ” He grinned up at her. “Play this. It’s perfect.”

  She shrugged. “Fine, I’ll put on a whole stack. There’s nothing the matter with the blues.”

  He straightened up, using the edge of the shelf for balance. “That’s for sure.” He was looking at her with a sweet, intent expression, as if seeing something new, some intriguing facet he hadn’t suspected. She’d revealed too much, she felt obscurely, and she wasn’t even sure how. Or, for that matter, what. She shrugged again, signaling indifference, and stacked the CD player with music.

  Cornel got up and closed the curtains over the front window. “For security,” he told them.

  “It’s going to get hot,” Caddie warned. It already was hot. She had an air conditioner in her bedroom, but down here only a fan.

  “Anybody can stand on your porch and look right in. I for one don’t want to get arrested tonight.” Instead of going back to his chair, Cornel plumped himself down next to Thea on the floor, knees cracking. His pant legs rode up to show hairless white calves above shiny black socks.

  “Cornel, why won’t you let me write your biography?” Caddie asked him.

  “Because I’m not dead yet. I told you.”