A Hundred Summers

  “When is he back?”

  “The weekend. He only came up to settle me in. It’s so hard for him to get away, even in summer. Everyone at the firm depends on him for every little decision. He works such tremendous hours, it’s barbaric.” Her huge eyes fixed on me. “Please see me, Lily.”

  I stood up and dusted off the sand from the back of my robe. “All right. I’ll come by for lunch, how’s that? I’ll have to bring Kiki, if you don’t mind. Mother and Aunt Julie are hopeless with her.”

  Budgie jumped up and threw her arms around me. “Oh, I knew you would, you darling. I told Nick you’d stand by us.” She leaned back and kissed my cheek. “Now I’ve got to go. The workmen will be arriving any minute. The old place is almost uninhabitable. I hope my housekeeper’s managed to light the stove by now.”

  She put her arm through mine and we scrambled up the beach and around the edge of the cove, where the rising sun had lit the gray shingles of the Dane cottage into a radiant yellow-pink. She turned to me and kissed me again. “It was so lovely seeing you last night, darling. Nick and I talked about it all the way home, how nice it was to see you again. Just like old times. Do you remember?”

  “I remember.” I kissed her back. The skin of her cheek was like satin, and just as thin.

  EVEN WHEN WE WERE LITTLE, I never spent much time at Budgie’s house. She never invited me. We were always outside, playing tennis or out on the water. What little time we spent indoors unraveled mainly in the kitchen of my house, or else upstairs in my bedroom, and then only when the summer rain became too drenching to ignore.

  When I marched up Neck Lane at noon, holding Kiki’s hand, I recognized Budgie’s house only because I knew it sat next to the Palmers’ place, about halfway along Seaview Neck. For years, I had been averting my eyes as I went by, as I would from a scar. I stood outside now and gazed down the narrow path, overgrown with tough seaworthy grass and weeds, to Budgie’s peeling front door. A pair of trucks had parked outside, L. H. Menzoes, General Contracting lettered on the doors; the air rang with invisible shouts and hammering from the interior. Every window and door had been thrown open to the salt breeze, and Budgie’s familiar voice carried above it all, issuing orders.

  The Greenwalds’ house, I reminded myself. It belonged to both of them now.

  Kiki tugged on my hand. “What are you waiting for, Lily?”

  “Nothing. Come along.” I led Kiki up the path and knocked on the half-open door. The hinge creaked beneath the strain.

  Budgie’s head appeared from a second-floor window. Her hair was bound up in an incongruous red polka-dot scarf. “Come on in! It’s open!” she called.

  Kiki stepped first into the foyer and wrinkled her nose. “It’s awfully musty in here.”

  “They haven’t lived in it for years,” I said.

  Budgie was bounding down the stairs, tearing off the scarf from her head. The hair beneath fell into perfect lacquer-smooth waves. “Years and years! We were ruined, you see, Koko—”

  “Kiki.”

  “Kiki. I’m so dreadfully sorry. We were ruined, all smashed up in the markets, and I don’t recommend it to anyone. Lemonade? Something stronger? Mrs. Ridge just got back from the market, and not a moment too soon.” Budgie turned and waved her hand at a door to the right. “That’s the living room, completely shot with mildew, they tell me. You remember the living room, don’t you, Lily?”

  “I don’t. I remember almost nothing. I don’t think I came in here more than once or twice.” I looked about me. The Byrne house was relatively imposing from the outside, three stories high, with large bay windows on the first floor and gables on the third. Inside, it had the feeling of a barn, and roughly the same dusty outdoorsy smell, except laced with salt instead of manure. The rooms were airy and spacious, the walls covered with chipped paint and peeling floral paper. To the left, a door stood ajar to reveal a dining room, its corner cupboards thick with dust and its chandelier hanging a good three feet too low.

  “Oh, look,” said Kiki, bending down at the side of the stairwell. “I think there’s a family of mice under here.”

  “I’ve ordered furniture,” said Budgie, “but it won’t arrive for another month or so, not until they’ve fixed things up. I’d like to take out a wall or two and all these wretched doors everywhere, all these crumbling old moldings, and paint everything bright and white. I want everything gone.” She gestured grandly with her arms, left and right, leading us toward the back of the house.

  “It sounds like a lot of work.” I tore at a cobweb in the corner of the foyer. Frayed and empty, as if even the spiders had abandoned the place.

  “They’re hiring an army of people to get it done quickly. I told them to spare no thought for expense. Nick and I are staying in the guest bedroom while they fix up ours. That’s first on the list, of course. I want a modern bathroom, I absolutely insist on it. Out we go, now. I thought we’d have lunch on the terrace. I’ve been watching the sailboats on Seaview Bay and feeling terribly nostalgic.”

  Budgie ushered us through a badly hung French door at the back of the house and onto the terrace, which was made of good New England bluestone and fully intact, despite the years of neglect; only a few tufts of weed and grass sprang between the cracks. The sun poured down unchecked, making the waters of Seaview Bay flash and glitter as if alive. A small sailboat stood off nearby, trying to catch a decent wind.

  “Lemonade, did you say?” Budgie strode across the granite to an idyllic arrangement of table and four chairs beneath a large green umbrella. A pitcher sat sweating on a tray, surrounded by tall glasses, along with a bottle of gin, a pack of Parliaments, and a slim gold lighter.

  “Do you have ginger ale?” asked Kiki.

  “She’ll have lemonade, thank you,” I said. “And so will I.”

  Budgie poured the lemonade, added a generous dollop of gin to her glass. She motioned the bottle inquisitively above mine. I nodded and held my thumb and forefinger a crack of sunlight apart, to which Budgie laughed and poured in a good inch. Mrs. Ridge brought in sandwiches on an old blue-and-white platter, chipped along one edge.

  Budgie took off her shoes, propped her feet on the empty chair, and nibbled at her sandwich. Her toes were fresh and pink, the nails painted a bright scarlet. She looked across the bay with distant eyes, as if she was trying to pick out details on the mainland.

  “So tell me about everyone, Lily,” she said. “The old gang. Any gossip? Other than mine, of course.”

  “Not really. I don’t keep up. Anyway, it seems most people have settled down by now.”

  “Yes, even me!” She laughed and wiggled her scarlet toes.

  Kiki stood up, sandwich finished, lemonade empty. “Lily, may I go walk down the dock?”

  “Oh, sweetheart, it’s an old dock. There might be boards loose. . . .”

  Budgie waved her hand. “It’s fine. I went down there myself last night. You’re a sensible girl, aren’t you, Kiki?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Greenwald.”

  Kiki stood there innocently, her hands folded behind her back, her hair still tidy in its white bow. “Very well,” I said. “But be careful. Stay where we can see you.”

  “She’s a lovely child,” said Budgie, watching her saunter across the patchy remains of what had once been a lawn. “How lucky you are.”

  Kiki walked toward the dock with unaccustomed docility, aware of our watchful eyes. I’d dressed her in her best, or nearly so: a white sailor dress with a navy collar tied about her neck and shiny black Mary Jane shoes over white cuffed socks. Her dark hair tumbled down her back from its ribbon. She looked the picture of flawless girlhood.

  “I know.” My thumb drew circles in the condensation on my glass of tricked-up lemonade. I thought about telling Budgie more, about how we had dreaded Kiki’s arrival, about how unlucky we had felt that she should burst into our lives so inconveniently, without a father to raise her. About how she instead had saved us, had rescued me from a slough of despair so deep and profo
und I’d thought I should never rise again. How I could not now imagine a life without Kiki; how she had become the sun to my cold and desolate earth.

  But I said none of these things. Instead I waited for Budgie to speak. Budgie hated nothing so much as silence.

  Right on cue, she said: “It almost makes me think I should like to have one of my own.”

  “Well, you’re married now. I’m sure it won’t be long.”

  “Who knows? Maybe not long at all.” She put her hand on her abdomen. “Imagine that, Lily Dane. Imagine me, a mother.” She laughed and wriggled her toes again.

  “You’ll be a wonderful one, I’m sure.”

  “Just think. Your Kiki can help watch the baby.” She snapped her fingers. “Babysitter, that’s the word, isn’t it? All the girls are doing it for pocket money these days.”

  My Kiki had reached the dock by now. She stood at the edge for a moment, staring down at the water, and sat down and took off her shoes and socks. She turned to me and waved, and though she was a hundred yards away, I could see her wide smile.

  “I should call her back,” I said. “We should be going. Mrs. Hubert”—I thought quickly—“Mrs. Hubert wants to meet about the Fourth of July this afternoon. We still haven’t agreed on a theme.”

  Budgie took a drink of lemonade and reached for the pack of Parliaments. “Isn’t the theme self-evident? Smoke?”

  I took the cigarette from her and lit it. “We like to feature different aspects of the patriotic spirit. Last year was ‘America the Beautiful,’ which came off very well, everyone hanging pictures from all over the country, and once we did ‘Stars and Stripes Forever,’ more straightforward, as you can imagine, and . . .”

  “Lily.” Budgie blew out a long stream of smoke. “Listen to yourself.”

  I reached over the glass for the lemonade pitcher. It was nearly empty, and the ice had melted. I poured the remains into my glass anyway, just to avoid Budgie’s gaze. This time, when she leaned over with the gin, I covered the opening with my palm.

  She shrugged. “You’ve buried yourself. I always knew you would, if left to yourself, without someone to pull you along.”

  “That’s not true. I haven’t buried myself at all.”

  “You have. What a mess we made of things that winter. I shouldn’t have abandoned you like that; I’ve never forgiven myself.”

  “You couldn’t help it. You had your own tragedies, didn’t you.” I knocked the ash from my cigarette. A single ham sandwich remained on the platter. I reached forward and took it. The ham was delicate, thinly sliced, and the bread thickly buttered.

  Buried yourself. I thought of my desk at home in New York and the locked drawer at the bottom, in which a thick bundle of letters lay at the back, bound together with a rubber band, all of them addressed in efficient typescript to a post office box on Seventy-third Street. Dear Miss Dane, Thank you for your submission of three months ago. While we read the pages with some interest, we regret that the Phalarope Press cannot accept your manuscript at this time. . . . Dear Miss Dane, While your writing shows considerable promise, The Metropolitan finds this story unsuitable for publication in our magazine. . . .

  Budgie leaned forward and covered my hand. “I’m going to make it up to you this summer. I’m going to show you the best time. I’m going to invite down housefuls of bachelors for you. I’m sure Nick can think of a prospect or two.”

  “No, please. I’d rather not.” My eyes dropped irresistibly to the glittering rocks on the hand atop mine. Up close, they seemed even larger, like Chiclets, sharp-edged and modern, dominating the delicate long bones of Budgie’s fingers. The middle one was the largest, I could now tell, but not by much.

  She caught my drift. “Vulgar, isn’t it?” She laughed and turned her hand this way and that, a contented smile curling her mouth. “The first one he gave me was a joke, one stone, maybe two carats at most. I took it back myself and picked out this one. Don’t you adore it?”

  “It’s magnificent.”

  She laughed again. “Ha. Don’t choke on it. I’m guessing my ring isn’t your style at all, if I know my Lily. You who still summer on at Seaview year after goddamned year and likely haven’t bought a new pair of shoes since 1935. I’ll bet it’s all you can do to keep your head from shaking in disapproval right now. That Budgie, you’re thinking.”

  “I . . .”

  Budgie straightened and turned, as if tapped on the shoulder, and I looked back and saw a middle-aged woman walking across the terrace toward us, her black-and-white uniform etched crisply in the sun.

  “Hello, Mrs. Ridge,” said Budgie. “What is it?”

  “Telephone for you, ma’am. It’s Mr. Greenwald.”

  Budgie dropped her cigarette into the ashtray, folded her napkin in an elongated triangle next to her plate, and rose to her feet. “Excuse me a moment, won’t you, darling?”

  In the vacuum of Budgie’s absence, my thoughts suspended themselves. The terrace had grown hot in the midday sun, capturing warmth within its microscopic fissures, until I was surrounded in heat like a caterpillar in a cocoon, drawing down the last of my cigarette, the gin just beginning to curl around my brain. A fly hovered over my untouched sandwich, buzzing drowsily, while in the house Budgie talked to Nick on the telephone, probably twirling the cord about her finger, probably smiling the way new brides smiled. A hundred and fifty miles away, in New York City, Nick sat at the desk in his office and answered her.

  I couldn’t bear it anymore.

  On the dock, Kiki kicked her feet into the water. Her ribbon was coming loose, drooping in a spill of white down the side of her cheek. I stubbed out my cigarette and rose and walked toward her, my speed increasing at every step, until I was nearly at a run. A pair of gulls screamed at me from the pilings and took off into the air.

  “What’s the matter?” Kiki asked, looking up over her shoulder.

  “It’s time to go, sweetheart. Mrs. Greenwald is busy with the house, and I have a meeting with Mrs. Hubert.” I held out my hand.

  “All right,” she said reluctantly. She took my hand and stood up. She was warm from the sun, and smelled of water and wood.

  We reached the terrace just as Budgie came through the French door. “You’re not leaving?” she asked.

  “We must, I’m afraid. Thank you so much for lunch. I enjoyed catching up.”

  “But we didn’t, not really. We were just getting to the interesting bits. I told Nick he shouldn’t interrupt us.”

  “Did you have a nice chat?”

  “Not at all. These nasty party lines, out in the country. One can’t say a single important thing. I’m sure half the receivers were up, all along the Neck.” She held open the door for us. “Come along, then.”

  We passed back through the house, through the dust and hammering and the smell of mustiness being chased away by the ocean breeze. Kiki skipped down the path, shoes and socks in her hand, and crossed the lane to the beach.

  “Nick’s such a darling, though,” said Budgie, folding her arms and watching Kiki. “He phones me constantly. He feels dreadfully that I’m so alone.”

  “He’s very good.”

  “We’ll have to find someone for you, Lily. In fact, I’ve made it my project. I had a wonderful thought, a real brain wave, just as I was speaking to Nick.”

  “You shouldn’t bother, really. I don’t have time for that kind of thing.”

  “Everyone has time for love, darling!” She kissed my cheek. “Just you wait, Lily Dane. Just you wait and see what I’m cooking up in this old kitchen of mine.”

  I didn’t answer. I only returned her kiss, said good-bye and thanks for lunch, and followed Kiki down the path and across the lane, where I took off my own shoes and dug my bare toes into the sand of the beach. Kiki was already skipping through the curtains of water as they unfurled onto the beach. The sun hit my face full-force, and I wished I’d brought my hat. Why hadn’t I brought my hat, to block the sun?

  I put up my hand to shield m
y eyes and stood there, watching Kiki. Budgie’s voice rang in my ears.

  Nick’s such a darling. . . . He phones me constantly.

  Nick was up at dawn.

  Her long-fingered hand lying like a caress atop her belly: Who knows? Maybe not long at all. Imagine that, Lily Dane.

  The men just love it to death. . . . You should have seen the look on Nick’s face.

  Very slowly, I let my hand drop down to my side.

  Nick and I are staying in the guest bedroom while they fix up ours.

  I turned my face upward and closed my eyes and let the sun bathe my face, and it felt good, hot and languorous. It felt like summer.

  Why not? I thought. Why not go on a date with a fellow or two? Why not let Aunt Julie cut my hair and color my mouth with lipstick? Why not raise my skirts an inch or more, and let somebody kiss me again? Why not kiss again, and in kissing forget?

  Just think. Your Kiki can help watch the baby.

  Kiki was turning six. She would start school next fall. For years now, her need for me had consumed my life, had consumed mercifully all my love and thought and energy, but in the coming months and years she would need me less. The world would open its arms to her, bit by bit, and mine would be left empty, bit by bit.

  And I wanted to be kissed again. I wanted to remember what it felt like when a man held me in his arms, and lowered his head to mine, and told me what I meant to him. I wanted to feel his warm hands and his warm lips on my skin. I wanted to lie next to him, and listen to the sound of his breathing, and know he was mine.

  Why not kiss again, and in kissing forget, and in forgetting forgive?

  I watched the sun through my eyelids, let the late-May heat absorb into my bones. When I was warm enough, I walked down to the water’s edge and joined Kiki, skipping and giggling across the champagne foam.

  7.

  SMITH COLLEGE, MASSACHUSETTS

  Mid-December 1931