Barefoot Girls (17 page)

Hurriedly packing up her picnic, iPod, and the novel she had been looking forward to reading, she fled the beach as fast as she could, unable to outrun the tears. In the car she hunkered down to stay out of sight and let herself cry – an act that felt weird and awkward, her face contorting. She never allowed herself to cry, but she couldn’t help herself for the first time since she was a child. By the time her tears had abated, she had made her decision.

She would force her mother to talk. She would make it impossible for her to change the subject or take the upper hand. She would invite her mother for lunch at her cottage and corner her. Although her mother had disapproved of Hannah moving into the little remote carriage house to live all by herself “like a hermit”, once Hannah was ensconced, Keeley had relented. Lately she had been making noises about the house. What was it like? When would she be invited to see it?

Hannah knew Keeley would jump at the chance if Hannah suggested a weekday luncheon. Keeley spent every weekend in June and July on Captain’s, but went home to Manhattan with Ben during the week, not liking to be alone on the island without her usual entourage. But Manhattan and that lavish apartment also made Keeley uncomfortable. Hannah could tell by how itchy Keeley acted there, stiff and strange and nothing like the fun-loving happy person she was on Captain’s.

As expected, her mother had taken the bait, exclaiming, “At last! I was wondering when you were going to invite me out there. Now don’t make anything. I’m going hit Zabar’s and get us a huge pile of goodies and then we can just relax and enjoy the afternoon. Should I bring wine?”

Hannah insisted on supplying Mean Greens, knowing they would loosen her mother up, make her chattier. In fact, she pulled out all the stops. She put on Al Green on her MP3/CD stereo, one of her mother’s favorite recording artists. She bought daisies and arranged them simply in a glass pitcher, knowing her mother loved them and considered them “honest” flowers. It was a nice day, so she opened all the windows to let the fresh air circulate, just the way Keeley liked it.

And everything had gone perfectly at first. Her mother was visibly charmed by the tiny house, gasping, “Oh, isn’t it sweet!” They toasted with their Mean Greens in the kitchen and her mother admired Hannah’s new engagement ring, telling her how happy she was, how she couldn’t wait to meet Daniel. She cooed over the pictures that Hannah had of him, praising Hannah’s taste in men. “And he’s a pilot, too!” Keeley had giggled, and toasted Hannah again.

Hannah showed her mother into the dining room, but her mother stopped cold, looking at the fully-set little card table with it’s cheap cotton tablecloth and arrangement of daisies. “Oh, no, no, no!”

“What?” Hannah said, her heart stopping. And it had been going so well!

“We can’t eat in this little room on such a beautiful day! Let’s make this a picnic! We can sit on your adorable little lawn and enjoy the sunshine!”

Hannah breathed again. “Great idea, Mom!”

Once they settled in on the blanket they set on the lawn, Hannah let her mother take a few bites of her chicken salad sandwich before broaching the subject of her father.  Her mother chewed and swallowed. “Mmmm! Oh, I’m being so bad! But I’ll be good tomorrow. Do you know I still weigh what I did in high school?”

Hannah had heard this a million times. Keeley was a perfect size two, slim and as lovely as a girl with just a few smile lines around her eyes. In contrast, Hannah’s weight was variable, rising and falling according to her good and bad moods. She admired how her mother held steady at one hundred and ten pounds, but couldn’t make herself follow her mother’s lead of weighing herself and her food religiously and counting every calorie that passed her lips. Beautiful and blonde and popular, her mother was like a movie star. How Hannah wished she was like her. Instead, she was a little heavy in the hips, dark haired, and generally preferred the company of books to people because she never knew what to say, how to act. She only wished she could be a social butterfly like her mother, to be able to shine and sparkle in public, utterly at ease, laughing loudly and without restraint.

“You are tiny,” Hannah said, nodding, and took a bite of her own sandwich. Chewing and looking around at the garden, the sunflowers and the rose bush she had planted a few weeks ago growing nicely, the bees happily buzzing by, she thought of her segue. “It’s great, the gardening I’m getting to do here. I just love getting my fingers all dirty and smelling that earth-smell, you know? Well, you’re not really into gardening, though, right? All we ever had was a lawn and that little meadow in back of the house. I must get that from my father, huh?”

Her mother was searching through the many containers of various types of salad she had brought from Zabar’s. When Hannah said the last sentence, her hand paused mid-reach.

“Uh…, maybe. Maybe!” Keeley said, in her usual bright hard voice she used when Hannah’s father was mentioned. Shellacked it was, her tone was that glossy and hard and impenetrable. 

Hannah wouldn’t give up this time. “Well, you should know. Didn’t you know him for years? Did he like being outdoors? Digging around in the dirt? Planting stuff?”

Keeley found the pasta salad she was looking for, popped off the top, and grabbed a plastic spoon to serve it with. She didn’t answer right away, instead spooning the pasta curls and the chopped pieces of red pepper and celery onto her plate. Finally she spoke, “Who knows if these things are even passed down? I’m not like my mother, thank God in Heaven. And even if they are, who cares? The past is gone and done. It’s the future and right now that counts. What’s that quote again?”

Oh, no, her mother was going to change the subject and start talking about great quotes, one of her favorite topics. Hannah said, “The past isn’t done for me because part of it is my dad. I just want to know more about him, that’s all.”

Keeley sat up very straight and took a bite of the salad and chewed, closing her eyes as she always did when she enjoyed something.  When she swallowed, she said, “Mmm! This is definitely the best salad they make. I could eat the whole thing!”

“Mom, please.”

“Oh, stop it! Do you know why people are miserable in this wonderful country, in this wonderful time in history when we all have more luxury than any culture has ever had before? Because we sit around and find things to whine about. We focus on things we can’t change, like the past. God, that’s what’s really evil about psychotherapy! Those therapists actually encourage people to find some long-ago bad thing that happened to them and dwell endlessly on it. It’s terrible!”

Hannah put down the sandwich on her plate. She could feel her mother influencing her, forcing her to turn away from what she wanted to talk about, what she needed to talk about. “But I’m not going to focus on some bad thing. You yourself said that my father was, quote, a God among men, unquote. How could that be bad to want to know about a wonderful person who happened to be my dad?”

Keeley put down her plate and reached for her Mean Green. “I declare a no-history’s-mysteries rule for this lovely picnic. Let’s just have some fun, okay? You’re always so serious, geez!” She laughed, took a sip of her drink, and then looked at Hannah. “Look at you! Relax already! Life is for living! Here, let’s toast to life.”

Keeley reached her glass across to toast with Hannah. Hannah looked down at her lap. No, not again. Not again!

“Mom, all I want to do is ask a few silly questions about my dad. Then I’ll drop it. I promise. Please.” Hannah knew she needed more than that, but anything would be good, a thimble-full of water in the desert.

Hannah looked up. Keeley was still holding her glass out expectantly. Hannah reluctantly picked up her glass and touched it to her mother’s.

“To life!” Keeley said, raised her glass up as if toasting the sky, and then took a long drink.

“Mom?”

Keeley looked at her and rolled her eyes. “Eye-yi-yi, do you ever give up? No! I did sign up for this inquisition. I came out here to see your little house and have some fun with you!” Keeley said, smiling at her daughter in her usually irresistible way.

Hannah realized her mother wasn’t taking her seriously, as usual. What could she do? Action, that’s what Keeley responded to.

Hannah put down her drink and got to her feet. She looked down at her beautiful unreachable mother.  “Did you ever think that I might have things that I want? You want to have fun. Well, I want to talk about my dad. I’m not asking for much, Mom.”

“Oh,” Keeley said lightly, sipping her drink and looking up at Hannah. “Well, honey, I didn’t sign up for that.” Her voice was steel underneath.

Hannah felt herself crumbling, tumbling down. “You don’t care. You just don’t, do you?” Hannah felt tears start again in her eyes. What was with the waterworks?

Keeley’s expression softened. “Sweetheart, I’m just trying to tell you something I’ve learned about life. The truth is that sometimes when you go digging into the past, you find things that are better left buried. That’s why I focus on the present and the future, because that’s what really matters.”

Hannah shook her head. “For you, that’s what matters. Not for me. I just wish you’d let me have this.”

Her mother looked down at her drink. “Not today, Hannah,” she said softly.

Hannah left her mother then, walking swiftly to the bathroom in her cottage to sit on the closed toilet and cover her face with her hands and feel the hope drain out of her along with a few hot tears. Finally, she composed herself, washed her face, and went back out to join her mother who seemed completely unaffected, sitting basking in the sunlight and nibbling on almond biscotti. Keeley acted as if their argument hadn’t happened, and Hannah didn’t broach the subject of her father again.

When Keeley left later that afternoon, they stood together in the driveway and she hugged Hannah hard.  “I’m so happy for you, honey. Can’t wait to meet Daniel at Dog Days! It will be a blast!” Then Keeley climbed into her car, sang out, “Love you!” while waving extravagantly and then drove away, beeping out their family’s code from Captain’s as she left in a cloud of dust.  Hannah waved until her mother’s car was out of sight.

The car-horn code dated back to the days before cell phones, when the only way that a family on the island knew that their guests had arrived was to have them beep out a specific pattern much like Morse code on their car horns, poised and waiting across the channel. Each family on the island had their own code. The Barefooters had hijacked the practice, using it as a way of announcing their arrival at each other’s houses even on the mainland and always in farewell as they drove away.

Just hearing their code made Hannah both wistful and angry. Why couldn’t she be an insider like the Barefooters? Even as “their baby” she had always felt like the odd one out. Of course her mother assumed Hannah would bring Daniel to Dog Days. It was something Hannah had assumed, too. But, now, hearing her mother make that confident assumption infuriated her.

No, she wouldn’t bring Daniel. Let her mother get a taste of what it was like to want something and not get it. You withhold my father, I’ll withhold my fiancé.

Unfortunately, she had already told Daniel about Dog Days, how great it was, how much fun they would have. So she had to make up an emergency at the restaurant: they were shorthanded and needed Hannah to pitch in. The lie felt sour in Hannah’s mouth when she told him over the phone, the only way she could stand to do it.

He had sounded pained. “Oh, no! I was really psyched for that party! It sounded awesome! Damn! Are you sure we can’t go?”

No, they really needed her, Hannah said, and then assured him that they would go next year. She emailed her mother about not being able to make it, purposely failing to give a reason. Her mother had called and left messages for Hannah. “What do you mean, you’re not coming for Dog Days? You’re kidding, right?”

Hannah wasn’t kidding. She didn’t return the calls. On the morning of the celebration there was one last message from her mother left on her voicemail. “You’re seriously not coming? Come on, Hannah! What is this about?” Later that afternoon, messages started coming fast and furious from all her Barefooter aunts, each beseeching her to get her butt out to Captain’s, pronto.

That weekend was hot and humid and boring. She couldn’t have Daniel visit her in Greenwich and she couldn’t go to visit him in the city because it would expose her lie. She tried to get some extra shifts at the restaurant, but they were fully staffed and she only got Saturday night, as usual. Even having the best shift wasn’t that great as the restaurant was only half-full, most locals being away in Nantucket or the Hamptons or Maine, enjoying cool sea breezes and sailing and attending lawn parties where the women wore brightly colored Lily Pulitzer dresses and the men wore pastel button-downs and khakis. Hot, bored, and miserable, Hannah hoped her absence at Dog Days was ruining Keeley’s weekend as much as it was ruining hers.

Now, looking at the photos piled on top of the album, the ones from this year, Hannah couldn’t see even a flicker of unhappiness. No, Keeley was glowing in each shot, her shiny blond hair in a casual knot at the nape of her neck wearing a pretty green and white shift that accentuated her tan and flattered her slim waist. Here was Keeley flanked by two of the many men on Captain’s who worshipped her, everyone with their arms around each other’s shoulders. Here was Keeley sitting with the other Barefooters on the dock, each turned around to look over their shoulders at the photographer, their mouths open in laughter. Here was a shot of Keeley holding up a full pitcher of Mean Greens with both hands like a prize, a wide grin on her face.

Her mother had obviously had a wonderful time. As usual.

Hannah closed the album feeling contrite. What had she accomplished after all that? What was she accomplishing now, sitting in their little house alone? It had been kind of them to send her the key to their house and Pam’s, but wouldn’t she have gotten more out of a visit with each of the Barefooters, rather than sitting in an empty beach house on a nearly deserted island? What was she doing here?

One thing she could say is that on the island, even alone, she felt closer to her mother than anywhere else. She just wished she hadn’t been so foolish about Dog Days. Thank God Daniel pushed so hard for a visit later in the month, or she would have missed the entire Barefooter month, and missed her last chance to see her mother. Now, her mother had done something she had never done before. She had cut Hannah off. Keeley may have been constantly distracted and busy with her over-the-top social life, leaving Hannah only crumbs of attention, but it had never been intentional. It just was who Keeley was. Now it was on purpose, and even with her letter and the keys to her most sacred place, the wall was definitely up, all the way up, a hundred times worse than before.

Hannah stood and put the album back on the shelf, and then looked at the shelves stuffed with similar albums filled with happy Barefoot Girls memories. Her mother and the Barefooters had a knack for happiness; it was documented thoroughly here. Had their lives been just purely lucky and full of joy? If so, why had her mother left her – a defenseless child - all alone all those times? What happy person does that? And why didn’t her mother remember doing it?

She suddenly didn’t want to be in the house anymore. No more being alone. She wanted to talk to someone. Anyone.

She left the house, closing the windows and locking the door, and walked toward the north end of the island. She would walk by the McGrath’s house. Maybe they wanted company. She
needed
company. If not them, then Daniel? No, not Daniel. Not yet. She needed island people. People who knew her mother. Mr. McGrath knew her mother, Hannah had seen that look of recognition.

Just as she was passing Aunt Amy’s yellow house, she saw a boat approaching from up-island. It was Mr. McGrath!

As he pulled nearer, she started waving at him. He didn’t respond, so she waved more elaborately, practically pinwheeling her arms. Didn’t he see her?

“Mr. McGrath! Mr. McGrath!” she called. He seemed to glance at her, but then he looked away. Maybe he didn’t hear her. His boat's engine was loud.

His boat turned away and headed toward the community dock. “Mr. McGrath!” she yelled as loudly as she could, her vocal cords straining. His boat headed across the water, his head not turning to look back.

She watched him go, glanced down the boardwalk towards the north end of the island. Should she dare visit his wife? But she might frighten her. Mr. McGrath may have not told his wife about the other resident on the island. No, not a good way to start. Especially if she wanted to try and pick their brains at some point. And she did. Maybe these two islanders would be willing and useful sources of information. She knew one thing. She wasn’t giving up.

Hannah turned, stuffed her hands in the pockets of her favorite soft hoodie, and strolled back up towards Pam’s house, wondering what she should have for lunch.

Chapter 16

“Mr. McGrath!”

God, the girl was screeching! Quick, turn the boat away, head toward the causeway.

He kept his head rigidly still, face impassive, in spite of his panic. He didn’t want to give any sign he had seen or heard her.  How he could have missed the girl, flailing her arms like that and screaming his name on the top of her lungs? What did she want? It didn’t matter. All that mattered is that she stayed away, especially now.

Could things get any worse?  Today should have been one of their good days.  October on Captain's was Rose’s favorite time. The island was all theirs, the colors golden and mellow, the sounds soft and sighing. On days like this, Rose used to get dressed early and walk outside to raise their flag. Then, she would look up and down the empty boardwalk with a big smile on her face, stretch her arms out wide and exclaim, “Mine! All mine!”

He loved that exuberant Rose, her possessiveness. They both called the island “our island” to strangers. You would think no one else lived on the island but them, which was always true in October. Except for this year.

But the trouble this morning couldn’t be pinned on the O’Brien girl. Rose still didn’t know she was here. Phil, having half a brain, didn’t tell her and used every excuse to keep them up-island every day when they went fishing and for walks. They had always sailed their Vanguard Fifteen on the north end of the island, usually heading out of the Bay to open waters, so that wasn’t a problem. But Rose not knowing about Hannah didn’t stop what had been slowly happening to her, the changes, the sickness that had been sucking her down.

This morning he heard Rose get up first, dress and go downstairs to make coffee. All the usual sounds, her pumping water at the kitchen sink, grinding the coffee beans in the battery-operated grinder, drifted up from the kitchen. He relished them, digging deeper into their warm bed and thinking about the wonderful night they’d had together.

They weren’t big drinkers. A glass of wine occasionally in a good restaurant. Champagne on New Year’s. But, desperate to pull her out of the funk she had been in for the last week, Phil had run out yesterday and bought a bottle of extremely expensive champagne and a selection of good cheeses and crackers to surprise her with at sunset. It had been a beautiful day, but Rose had spent it sitting on their screened-in porch, brooding over her fashion magazines. Somehow, he was able to convince her to go for a sunset ride on their little powerboat, and he surprised her there with the champagne pulled from the cooler and a little platter he’d arranged of the crackers and cheeses.

He could still see her face open up, her sudden girlish delight. She loved surprises. He was thrilled because, for once, she went off her rigid diet and sampled the cheeses, even asking for a second glass of champagne. They had toasted each other and talked the way they used to; wandering comfortably from subject to subject, interested in what the other had to say. Rose’s recent obsessions about aging and youth didn’t interrupt them. At one point, Rose actually laughed a real belly laugh at a little joke he’d made. It made him want her again, want to feel her underneath him. When she opened her arms to him in bed later, he felt as if a long war had ended and they were both the victors.

After almost a full year without sex, being with Rose had been both familiar and strange. She felt different, hard and muscular from her hours spent daily at the gym. All the softness was gone. But she smelled and tasted the same, she moved the way she always moved with him, eyes closed. Their old routine in bed, the one that took years to perfect, felt a little rusty but worked the same way it always did. He was triumphant. He had finally found the solution, the way in to her after a year of watching her pull farther and farther away. Originally, he had thought the solution was Captain’s in October, and for the first few days it had seemed that he was right.

Upon arrival, Rose had swung into her usual Captain’s rituals: putting up their flag, going for a swim as soon as they finished unpacking in spite of the cold air and cooling water, wandering the island looking for wildflowers to cut for all the small vases she placed around the house. She had made the blueberry muffins she always made on the first day there and even let herself have a little butter on one with their first cup of coffee in the house.

He had been pleased to see the butter, saw it as a sign of the return of the part of Rose who could have some fun, loosen up a little. Recently, it had been fat-free everything, organic everything, whole-food everything. It was deathly boring eating steamed vegetables with brown rice every night. He missed his steaks and the puddles of butter in his baked potato. A sugar-filled blueberry muffin with a smear of butter was like a shout to him: it will be okay!

It was their new neighbors, Jackie and Nat Lloyd, who had tipped the balance for the worse. Before they moved in next door, Rose had started to get peculiar about things, picky. She had started reading all the books on health and nutrition she could get her hands on. She said to Phil, “I will not get old, Phil. Will not!” It was said with triumph and confidence, as was everything she said, but it was an odd statement for her. Of course they would grow old. They used to relish the little stories they told each other about how their golden years would be together. Only in their forties and solidly middle-aged, it was a fairly long way off to decrepitude, but it was something they used to enjoy the thought of. Someday they would take walks in charming woodsy parks holding hands and letting other younger couples admire them. They would take up ballroom dancing and wow everyone. They would be that happy and vibrant elderly couple you pointed at and yearned to be someday.