The Goodbye Summer

  “Well, then I’ll say thank you. It’s really meant a lot. Do you think you’ll keep on doing it now that your grandma’s not here?”

  “I guess I haven’t thought about it.”

  “Seems like it’d be a shame to quit. Mr. Kowallis over there, he was just telling Mama he’d be interested. Said he used to be a newspaper reporter, so I bet he’s got some interesting stories. Caddie, who are you looking at?”

  She started. “Oh—I was looking at Henry. Magill.”

  Dolores did a double take. “That’s Magill? The guy with the football helmet?”

  “Dolores—excuse me a sec, I have to go say hi.”

  He had a glass of punch in one hand, a piece of cake on a paper plate in the other. He held out his arms and made a helpless face, as if he’d embrace her if he could. Caddie stepped in and touched cheeks, kissing the air by his ear.

  “Happy New Year.”

  “Happy New Year.”

  “You look great. A tuxedo, wow. Does your bow tie light up?”

  “Thanks, you look pretty spiffy yourself.”

  “Oh, this old thing.” That was a joke, but she was too nervous to explain it—that she’d bought the dress she was wearing this afternoon. She felt warm and pleasantly uncomfortable under the intensity of his stare. Nobody had looked at her like that in a long time. “So you’re back at work and everything?” she asked. “How is it?”

  “Like running a marathon the day after they let you out of the hospital.”

  “But you love it,” she guessed.

  “Yeah.” He smiled, sharing the secret. “Good thing, because I practically live there now. Long hours, trying to get back the accounts we let slip while I was gone. So it’s more marketing than engineering right now, but that’s temporary. I hope. How have you been doing?”

  They wandered over to the fireplace. “Oh, I’ve been all right. Well, you know. Sad. It’s been a pretty quiet time.”

  They talked about Cornel leaving. About how much they missed Thea. It was like old times.

  “I heard Frances is back home,” he said.

  “Yes, so that’s been, you know—we’re all right, though. An adjustment. It’s getting better. Did you have a nice Christmas?”

  “I flew out to Phoenix to see my mother and stepfather.”

  “Oh! How was that?”

  “Hot.” He popped the square of cake in his mouth all at once, the way men but not women were allowed to do in public, and licked yellow icing off his lip. She’d never seen him enjoy food like that before. “Heard anything from Dinah?” he asked.

  “We talked on Christmas Eve. And we write. She’s fine; Earl, too. And Mother. Dinah asks about you sometimes.”

  “What do you say?”

  “I say—I haven’t seen you in a while.” She stopped fiddling with a piece of candle wax on the mantel and looked into his eyes. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to give him, or what she expected to get back, but it was time to make contact. “I’ve missed you.”

  “Hey,” he said softly. “You want to get out of here?”

  “What?”

  He touched the side of her hand with his. “I know a much better party.” He smiled hopefully. “Come with me.”

  “Oh.” He was going too fast. Too fast. She was still so tender. Anyway, he didn’t mean a party—he was making a double entendre, a suggestion. At least she thought he was. “I don’t think so, no.” He’d become his old self, so he thought she must have, too. Her fault; she’d been sending dishonest signals. It was this dress. “But thank you for asking me.”

  “Come on, Caddie, let’s go. You’d have fun.”

  She shook her head. “Actually, this party feels like my speed. I think I’m where I’m supposed to be. I’m s—”

  “No. Please don’t say you’re sorry.” Last time, he’d said he wasn’t angry with her, but this time he was. But trying not to show it. “Never mind, bad idea.” He put his cup on the mantel and left her without saying any more.

  She stared at the gay fire in the fireplace, transfixed. A log exploded behind the screen, shooting blue sparks. When she backed up, she saw her reflection in a round gold ball on the Christmas tree. She looked like a pear, squat and tiny-headed. Freakish.

  Be passionate. Angie claimed that was Caddie’s advice. It didn’t sound like her; she must’ve been speaking in the abstract. Do what I say, not what I do—that’s what she should’ve told Angie.

  She went through the motions of having a nice time, talking and laughing, eating and drinking. Susan Cohen arrived late with Stan, her boyfriend, and they announced they were getting married. Caddie congratulated them long and heartily, but inside she felt like a fraud. What did she know about romance? Why pretend to be happy for Susan and Stan when she didn’t even get the point? But that wasn’t true, she did get the point, and it wasn’t fair that Magill was through with her. She was still in mourning, and all around her people were saying “Happy New Year!” Why couldn’t life stop for her, or slow down? She needed to rest and think things through, get her bearings, she was a very deliberate person, but nobody would wait for her.

  “Announcement!” Brenda called from the hall on her way to the dining room. “People? Could everybody please come into the Blue Room? Just for a minute. I have a special announcement, people! Lord, it’s like herding cats.”

  Caddie wandered toward the foyer. As she crossed the hall, she stopped short at the sight of Magill coming toward her in his overcoat. “I have to go,” he said, jingling keys or change in his pocket. “Good to see you. Happy New Year.”

  “You’re leaving? It’s not even midnight.”

  “Yeah, I’ve got this thing, I told you.”

  He really had a party? “Oh, don’t go yet. It’s so early. And—Brenda has an announcement.”

  “So long, Caddie.”

  “Wait. Let’s do karaoke. Do you know ‘Indian Love Call’?”

  He frowned at her while he wound his scarf around his neck. He thought she was drunk.

  “Nelson Eddy and Jeanette McDonald. You know that song.”

  His face was a complete mystery, all locked up. She couldn’t even read his eyes; he was keeping them blank so she couldn’t get inside. “I’ve got some people expecting me. Night, Caddie,” he said, and went out.

  “Come on, everybody! Caddie,” Brenda called, “I know you’ll want to hear this!”

  Her special announcement was a surprise only to Caddie, not to anyone else. Everybody had already heard the news that, independent of her will, Thea had gifted Wake House with a new piano, and tonight was its formal unveiling. Caddie hadn’t noticed the bulky shape, obviously a piano, covered with green felt and a gold ribbon bow in the back of the room, or if she had noticed it, she’d thought it was some unfinished Christmas decoration, the base for a train set or something—she didn’t know what she’d thought. She wasn’t thinking too clearly now, either. But it was a piano, and after a short speech, Brenda whipped the green cloth away with a flourish and said, “Ta-da!”

  An Ellington classic grand, polished mahogany, magnificent. Stunned, Caddie joined in the clapping and cheering until Cornel stepped in front of the instrument and called for quiet.

  “I have something to say. Don’t worry, it won’t take long.” He scowled and stuck his head out, raptor-style. “I’ve been here three and a half years. Feels like home, that’s the best I can say about it. Now I got somewhere else to go, and we’ll see how that works out. Some people I’ll miss. Other people, like Bernie…haw-haw.” Luckily they knew Cornel well enough to laugh with him, even sad-faced Bernie, who would probably miss him the most.

  “I want to make two toasts,” Cornel resumed. “First one’s to Brenda. You put up with a lot, and not just from me. Thanks for everything. You’re a good person and I wish you all the best.”

  “Hear, hear.” Everybody who had a drink took a sip.

  “And…” He hesitated. “You new folks, you’ll have to take my word for it that there’s somebody w
ho’s not here tonight that was much loved. We lost her last summer, and we’re still…well, we’re not going to forget her. She brought us a lot of happiness. She warmed us up. If there’s a heaven, which I doubt but who the hell knows, she’s up there and she’s looking down on us now.” He coughed. “To Thea.”

  “To Thea.”

  Brenda took Cornel’s arm and leaned against him. “I know something that would’ve made Thea very happy tonight. If Caddie would play some Christmas carols on our brand-new piano for us. Will you, Caddie?”

  “Of course. I’d love to.”

  It was true. She wasn’t shy or nervous, just anticipatory. She played all the standards, and when somebody requested “The Little Drummer Boy,” a song she’d never played in her life, she ad-libbed the drum sound with catchy bass notes that had people clapping their hands in time. Gosh, she thought, I’m good at this. Realizing it made her joyful, but the two people she wanted to thank were gone, Thea forever. Magill, too, probably, because Caddie had broken his heart. Twice.

  29

  At eleven o’clock she started telling a lie: that Nana’s teenage sitter had to be home before midnight, so she had to leave soon. “Oh, stay,” they said, her sweet friends—the ones who hadn’t gone up to bed already themselves—but Caddie couldn’t bear the thought of all the gaiety that would be required of her at midnight. When twelve o’clock came, she wanted to be home.

  She held Cornel too long, saying goodbye to him at the door; he backed out of her arms and coughed, embarrassed by her affection. She hadn’t noticed till tonight how much he was like Finney. “You take care, Cornel, and be happy.” He looked skeptical. “Try not to be miserable,” she amended. “Promise me you’ll try not to be miserable.”

  “Okay. What I can’t figure out is what they want me down there for anyway.”

  “Because you’re family.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Incorrigible.”

  “You try not to be miserable. And don’t forget you’re coming to visit. I heard you, you can’t take it back.”

  “Then I guess I’ll have to come visit.” She stole a quick kiss on his whiskery cheek. “Safe trip. Love you, Cornel.”

  Maybe he heard that, maybe not. He executed a stiff military salute and pivoted. Before she went down the porch steps, she glanced back and saw his hunched-over, hungry-bird figure in the hall, peering at the photograph of Thea when she was a little girl.

  There wasn’t much traffic on the roads. By now most people were where they wanted to be at midnight. A carful of inebriated young people stopped beside her at a traffic light; a girl rolled down the back window. Caddie expected anything, including vomiting, but the girl stuck out her arm and offered her an unopened can of beer. “No, thanks,” she mouthed. The girl shrugged while her friends laughed uproariously. The light changed and they roared away. Be careful! she wanted to call after them, like a mother.

  She drove through town and, without thinking much about it, made a right on Antietam instead of going straight. She’d driven past Kinesthetics, Inc., a couple of times since that day with Thea—not on purpose, just because she happened to be in the neighborhood—and the small parking lot had never been this crowded with cars. Except for the restaurants and places like the Elks Club or the VFW, downtown was dark and deserted, but all the lights were on at Magill’s foot factory, and when she stopped at the curb and rolled down her window, she could hear the driving bass of dance music. Office party.

  She pulled into a no-parking space in front of the building and turned off the motor. In the dark, she found a comb in her purse. She freshened her lipstick more by feel than sight. Best not to know the details anyway, she decided.

  The farther she went up the concrete walk, the louder the music got. She was on a mission, an experiment in personal courage, but it wouldn’t be cowardly to peek through the modern glass doors first, check out the lay of the land. That would just be prudent. Too bad the black glass was opaque. What if the doors were locked? Well, that would be fate. Not to mention symbolic. She put her hand on one of the brass knobs and pulled.

  She was in a small reception room, brightly lit but empty. No point calling out “Hello?” because the music, coming down a corridor to the left, boomed in her ears like her own heartbeat amplified. The corridor was brightly lit, too, and she kept wanting a dark place, a vestibule where she could gather herself, see before being seen.

  From here she could see the party in progress in a large room at the end of the hall. A woman and a man danced past the doorway with their arms in the air, and behind them other people gyrated in couples, groups, and by themselves to an old Tom Petty song. She’d been expecting to see fake feet, Full Speed Feet, in some context or other, she realized, maybe on a production line, but the party room was just an office with desks pushed against the walls. Plates of food and snacks covered a long, candlelit conference table in the back; under it a copper washtub bulged with ice and bottles. Except for candlelight, the only other illumination came from a Christmas tree and a string of twinkling white lights over the long back window.

  Magill was nowhere.

  A man saw her, an Asian man about her age, with a glossy ponytail and a gold stud in his nostril. He popped the caps on two bottles of beer and zigzagged nimbly through the dancers to where she stood half in, half out of the doorway. “Happy New Year,” he shouted over the music, and handed her a beer.

  “Happy New Year.”

  “I’m Otis.”

  She’d heard of Otis. He was a biomechanical engineer, like Magill, and he was “brilliant.” In his spare time he designed toy electric trains. “Hi, I’m—looking for Magill,” she said instead of her name. “Is he here?”

  “He just left. But he’ll be back, he and Minnie went for more champagne.”

  “Oh.”

  “You’re Caddie.”

  “No, I’m not.” It just popped out.

  Otis’s black eyebrows came together. “You’re not? Sorry—I thought I saw you once at Wake House.”

  “At what?” She was terrified. She never lied, and she was doing it so well.

  “Uh, nothing.” Otis looked baffled. “Come on in. They’ll be back soon, because it’s twenty of twelve.” He backed up to let her in. The people behind him, dancing and yelling at each other over the bluesy music, looked just the way she’d imagined people who made feet with Magill would look, funny and serious, young, sort of nerdy, sort of hip. Nobody had on a tuxedo, but a woman with wavy red hair down to her waist had on a slinky silver evening gown and a tiara. Other people wore jeans and sneakers or cocktail dresses or suits.

  “Is there a ladies’ room?” Caddie asked.

  “Yeah, you just passed it.”

  “Great, I’ll be right back.”

  “Want to leave your coat—”

  “No, that’s okay. Be right back.”

  By the time she got to the ladies’ room door, Otis had melted back into the party; he didn’t see her keep going, put her beer bottle on the receptionist’s desk, and leave the building.

  Well, at least she didn’t feel ashamed. Lonesome, unlucky, unwanted, foolish, but not ashamed. She could have waited for Magill and Minnie, and embarrassed everybody instead of just herself, but she didn’t see how that would’ve been brave. It would’ve been stupid. And she could have told Otis who she was, but what difference did it make? Magill would figure it out anyway. Besides, in some weird way, lying to Otis had been the best part. She’d broken a rule.

  “Home already? It’s not even midnight.” Rayanne got off the couch and stretched. The TV was blaring rock music, but she looked half asleep.

  “How’s Nana?” Caddie asked, taking off her gloves.

  “She went to bed. She was going to stay up and watch the ball drop, but she crashed about an hour ago. Hey, if you’re back—you know what, I think I’ll run. My folks are having a party, and if I hurry I can get there before twelve.”

  “Sure, go—no, wait, I’ll drive you.” It was fiv
e of twelve, but Rayanne only lived in the next block.

  “Nah, I’ll just run, it’ll be faster.” She grabbed her coat off the newel post. “See you next week. Happy New Year and all.”

  “Bye—thanks—happy New Year!”

  On television, Dick Clark stood outside someplace over Times Square in his overcoat, talking about how many people were down there in the crowd, how many minutes were left before this year ended and the new one began. Why did people think that was a cause for celebration? It seemed to Caddie like a made-up holiday, as authentic as Secretaries’ Day. The second hand hits the twelve, so it’s time to jump up and down and blow horns and kiss each other?

  “It’s bogus,” she told Finney as they trotted up the stairs to check on Nana. Dirges should play at midnight, priests should say solemn masses, people should stay in their houses and be quiet. The passage of time only signified one thing, when you got down to it, and any moment that marked it was the opposite of a joyous occasion.

  Nana stirred when Finney jumped up on the bed. “Did you bring me those?” she murmured. The dog nuzzled her cheek and she opened her eyes. “Oh, hey. You’re home.”

  “I’m home.” Caddie sat on the edge of the bed. “Sorry we woke you. Were you dreaming?”

  “You were a little girl and you brought me a bouquet of dandelions. You thought they were flowers.”

  Caddie smiled. The light from the hall illuminated half of her grandmother’s face, left the rest in shadow. She looked dreamy and insubstantial. “Did you have a nice time tonight, you and Rayanne?”

  “Who? Oh.” She yawned. “We watched an old movie, something about a ship. Claude Rains. Where’d you go?”

  “Wake House.”

  “Have fun?”

  “Yes. Everybody asked about you.”

  “That’s nice.” She closed her eyes. Caddie thought she’d fallen back to sleep, but a moment later she mumbled, “Happy New Year. You making any resolutions?”

  Caddie thought. “Yes. I’m going to join the orchestra again. I’m going to get out more.”

  “That’s a good one,” Nana said. “I will too, then.”