Barefoot Girls (14 page)

Knowing how intimidated she was of big mechanical things like generators, Hannah had brought along a battery-powered cell phone charger and had been charging her phone since she unpacked the charger from one of the boxes piled up in Aunt Pam’s living room. She took the phone off of the charger and walked to the large picture window that dominated the living room and faced out over the channel. In the daytime she would have a view of the dock stretching out into the water and the small powerboat tied up there, the grasses on either side of Pam’s yard, the blue moving water of the channel and the causeway beyond. Now it was a study in gray and black shapes shot with tiny slivers of orange from the streetlights on the causeway in the distance.

She dialed her mother’s number and held her breath while it rang. It was only six-thirty, but that could mean many things. Some nights, Keeley would have consumed a full bottle of wine by now. Another, a single glass. Which would it be?

“Well, if it isn’t my long lost daughter on the phone. My, oh, my. And to what do I owe this honor?” Keeley said, her voice booming a bit.

Hannah breathed again. Her mother had picked up at long last. And only one glass, she was pretty sure. “Hi Mom. Thank you for picking up. It’s so great to hear your voice.”

A pause on the other end. Then a sigh. “It’s good to hear yours, too.”

“Thanks
so
much for the keys. You don’t know how much this means to me.”

“Oh, well, I think I do. And let me tell you something, Hannah. It was a big deal for me. After all that you did, it was a really big thing to send you that key. Our little Barefooter house represents why I’m still on this planet and around to be your mother, no matter how flawed and fucked-up a mother I apparently happen to be.”

“It was a fictional novel. A novel!”

“No, don’t you start that with me! You’re twenty-two years old. You don’t have it in you to make up all that stuff. Though, who knows where the hell it came from,” Keeley said. She paused and then blurted. “Do you realize that I can’t socialize at all anymore? I mean, other than the Barefooters. I’ll never be able to show my face in Fairfield again.  And in the city, Jesus. You’d think I was a leper. Not that the ladies-who-lunch ever had much to do with me in the first place. It’s been like that since I got here. I miss Connecticut. And now I can’t go back.”

“Oh, Mom, I’m sorry. I-“

“No, I don’t want to hear it! Listen, I can’t talk to you right now. I will, but not right now. It’s been a long day and I’m tired. Call your Aunt Zo. She’s dying to talk to you. As usual. Okay? Okay.”

The connection was cut.

Hannah looked at the phone. Why was it always like this between them? The more Hannah reached for her mother, the more Keeley backed away. But if Hannah sat very still, her mother would creep up and sit down right next to her, tell her a story or a joke, give her a huge bear hug and a kiss. It was Hannah needing, wanting, that was somehow repulsive to her mother, the natural caretaking instinct misfiring somewhere in Keeley’s brain.

It made Hannah feel horrible, disgusting. It made her want to wall out the world. And she had, hadn’t she? She was laying bricks even now, a new wall between her and Daniel, the concrete spreading neatly beneath her practiced hand.

“Oh, God. What am I going to do?” Hannah moaned.

She dialed the phone again. It rang four times and an old-school answering machine picked up. That was Aunt Zo for you, having all the money in the world and still having one of those ancient tape-playing answering machines. Aunt Zo’s voice said, “Hello! We’re not here right now. Please leave a message and we’ll call you back tout de suite!”

“Aunt Zo? Are you there? It’s Hannah,” Hannah said to the machine. “Oh, I guess not. I...I just wanted to talk to you. Mom won’t talk to me. She never does, you know? Even when things were good, she was too busy or something. Oh, I shouldn’t be talking about this on your machine. It’s probably at full volume. When are you going to get voicemail, anyway? Okay, I’ll call you back tomorrow. I hope you’re not away on one of your trips. Wait, aren’t you in Paris? Oh, no. You are, I think. Damn! I really wanted to talk to you. Well, I’ll call you anyway, in a few days. Maybe you’ll be back. Love you!”

She hit the end button, and sat down on the couch in the dark living room, listening to the shushing sound of the wind in the grasses outside. She could call Daniel, of course. But he didn’t know her mother at all, and that’s what she needed right now. To know Keeley, to understand her. Real understanding, the way only the Barefooters understood her mother. She could call Aunt Pam, but she didn’t like getting calls at night, so it would be iffy at best. Better to wait until morning.

 Aunt Amy was out completely. Ever since the review came out, Amy was just as incommunicado as her mother, every call going to voicemail and never returned. Hannah knew why. Amy had been her biggest cheerleader all along, not knowing what Hannah was writing but saying to everyone it would be “genius”. She had given Hannah her old car when she traded up for a newer model, no strings attached. She had co-signed on her lease when Keeley wouldn’t.

Keeley had thought the carriage house too fancy, had said that Hannah was acting spoiled about it and should get a regular apartment like everyone else, not some romantic vine-covered carriage house in back Greenwich.  “It’ll just isolate you more. You need friends, Hannah! Get out there! Meet people!” Keeley had said. And she had been right, the carriage house had made her life smaller and quieter and her social life had shrunk even more.

But Aunt Amy had said, “Let her be happy, Key! She is who she is. She’s isn’t you, she’s Hannah.” That was Aunt Amy, her bulldog. Except now she had reverted to being a guard dog for her mother; if there was a choice between them, the choice would always be Keeley.

Hannah sat in the pitch-black room, her phone in her hand, and suddenly hated the quiet, the emptiness of the little house. She was tired of being alone, tired of building walls, and yet she had no idea how to stop herself.

Chapter 13

Waves thumped against the pilings of the boardwalk. She was on Captain’s and it was summer. Everyone was on the island and Hannah was walking the boardwalk, visiting each house. But something was wrong. At each home the people, friends she knew well, the Donaldson’s, the O’Connell’s, the McDaniel’s, they all ignored her, looked past her as if she were a ghost. When she spoke to them, no one answered. She started running from house to house, looking for someone who would see her, talk to her. At each of the Barefooters’ houses, no one was home.

A tinny song started playing, warbling notes. Where was it coming from? She knew that song. It was "Crystal Blue Persuasion"!

She smiled and looked around, searching for its source. Wait, the song was starting from the beginning again, like a broken record. But no one had records anymore. And it was weird sounding, high pitched, like a ring tone.

 Aunt Zo’s ring tone. Hannah jerked her face up from the pillow, and opened her eyes. Bright sunshine was blaring through the window. The phone was on the nightstand next to the bed. She scrambled for it.

“Hello?”

“Hello, my sweetheart! What are you doing?”

“Thank God! I thought you were in Paris or somewhere,” Hannah said, sitting up in bed.

“I was, but I got back yesterday. Are you on Captain’s? Your mom promised us she’d send the keys.”

“Yeah, I got them. I’m here,” Hannah said, sitting up and tucking her knees under her chin, she looked around the sunlit bedroom with its big bowl of peach-colored tinkle shells on the bureau and white muslin curtains on the windows. “I don’t know. It’s weird here without everyone. I thought it would be different.”

“Different, how?” Zo asked, taking a loud slurp from what was probably her coffee. For a woman who could be so elegant, her tendency to slurp beverages was jarring.

“I don’t know. I thought – I thought I’d feel closer to my mother. I mean, this is her place, Captain’s. When she’s here, she’s more herself than anywhere else. I thought by being here I could tap into that, somehow.” Hannah heard how naive this idea sounded, saying it out loud. “That sounds stupid, huh?”

“No, Keeley loves that island more than anything."

“I’m going to your little house today, going inside, all by myself!” Hannah said, and then laughed at herself, the obvious delight in her voice. She couldn’t help it; it had been so long since she was there. The summer she had been turned out seemed both recent and distant. Keeley had said, “Now, you go play with your friends, and I’ll play with mine. You’re a big girl now, Hannah. Go out there and have some fun on your own. It’s time to stop following me around like a puppy.”

Aunt Zo laughed in response to Hannah’s laughter, and said, “Good, it’s about time! I always thought your mother was a little harsh about that. But, I guess she just wanted you to have what she had: a big gang of girlfriends. You weren’t going to get that hanging out with us, that’s for sure. She worried about you…still does.”

Hannah hugged her knees tightly. “God! I always wanted what you guys have. It’s not like I was fighting off friends or something. They just weren’t there. No best friends, not what you have, anyway.”

Another big slurp. “True, true. What we have is pretty rare.”

“You know how I want to write that book, a book about real friendship, the kind you Barefooters have?”

“Yes, I do. I think it’s a very noble cause. The best.”

“Can you help me? Can you tell me about the Barefooters? About how you met? Mom always shakes her head at me when I ask, like I asked something totally inappropriate. It’s weird.”

“Well, there’s a reason for that. Your mother hates to talk about the past, prefers to let bygones be bygones. There’s a part of that story that could hurt someone who still lives on the island. Keeley probably just wants to forget about it. It’s unpleasant and you know how your mother will do anything to avoid the unpleasant.”

“What? What! Come on, Aunt Zo! Who would I tell? I promise not to say a word. Come on, I won’t put it in the book either. Please?”

There was a pause. Hannah sat, holding her breath and hoping, her muscles straining with excitement.

Aunt Zo sighed, and said, “Okay. Our friendship started with a slap. A big fat slap that was heard all around the world, or at least all around Captain’s.”

“What!”

Chapter 14

Zooey was taller than any of the other seven year old girls lined up on the McAllister’s dock. She was even taller than all of the eight year olds and some of the nine year olds. She looked down at the queue of dripping wet girls in their swimsuits lined up for the diving contest. The fact that she was bone-dry standing in her new bathing suit was another thing that stuck out. Every other girl had been in the water for the last hour or so, practicing their dives for this afternoon’s contest. And why not? The winner for each age group won a twenty five dollar gift certificate to Sammy’s Ice Cream Parlor over on Oak Beach. That was a lot of ice cream. Zooey thought of her favorite treat, their chocolate fudge brownie sundae that had real hot fudge, not just Hershey’s syrup, and came with whipped cream, a sprinkling of chopped walnuts, and a bright red cherry on top.

She wasn’t going to win, of course. She couldn’t dive to save her life, so she was just going to jump in, feet first, as usual. Her mother would ask her why and then let it go, no matter what her daughter’s explanation was. Zooey looked over at her mother, standing among the other mother’s on the dock, squinting under her sunhat and looking even older and paler than usual. That was another thing that set Zooey apart, her parents’ age. They were really old, had their “happy accident” of conceiving Zooey in their late forties. They had tried desperately for years, and had been rewarded for their efforts by having their first baby when they had finally gotten over not being able to conceive, when all their friends’ children had grown.

One good thing about having an older mother who was ridiculously happy to have you at all: you got away with murder. Well, could’ve gotten away with it if anyone would even play with her. Instead they called her Zork the Stork - skinny tall half-bird half-girl - and laughed and pointed at her bizarre bony legs before running away.

Zooey’s mother smiled at her, a painful smile, begging. Zooey looked away. Being in this contest was her mother’s idea, not hers.  She had signed Zooey up without even asking.  She couldn’t believe her mother had done that to her own daughter. Well, Zork the Stork would not perform for everyone’s entertainment today. She would just jump in and be done with it.

The line on the dock in front of Zooey was getting shorter, the five year olds and six year olds having been judged. Mr. McAllister and two other grown-ups were judging the contest. The diving contest and all the other contests and races were Mr. McAllister’s idea. He was the Grand Poobah of parties on Captain’s, having one of the largest houses that was also smack-dab in the middle of the island.

Every year, he and his wife, a slim elegant woman who looked funny next to her goofy and rotund red-faced husband, threw a Fourth of July clambake complete with a greased watermelon race for the toddlers, diving contests off of the diving board at the end of their huge dock for the older children, and sailing races around the island for the teenagers and grownups. All of this was followed with the clambake: clams baked on hot coals buried in the sand and covered with seaweed, big platters of corn on the cob, bowls of various salads, a groaning buffet of potluck desserts - Zooey’s favorite part - and, of course, kegs of beer, big jugs of wine, and tons of mysterious bottles lined up on a card table that was only for the grown-ups. The McAllister’s house, fully decked out with red-white-and-blue bunting and sharp-looking with a fresh paint job, would look like a hurricane hit it tomorrow, and tonight the loud singing and shrieking laughter would probably end with a drunken boating accident as it did almost every year.  Hopefully no one would get hurt this time.