Barefoot Girls (28 page)

“Amy? Are you there? It’s Pam. Hello?” Pam called, imagining the echo of her voice in that big rambling house of theirs. “Amy? Amy! Damn it! Oh…whoops. Sorry! Forgot about the little pitchers. I just got your message. How can you be gone already? Why won’t you get a cell phone? This is ridiculous!”

She hung up the phone and stood up, bolts of pain going through her knees. “Ow!” she said and bent over to put her hands on them. When did everything start hurting? When did she get so old? And fat?

She hobbled over to the mini-fridge she kept stocked with Diet Coke, cut-up veggies and fruit and grabbed a cold can, popped it open, and took a long drink. She was hungry. She eyed the colorful plastic containers of grapes and carrots and celery.  It wasn’t true, what the nutritionist had said. They still didn’t appeal to her, even in ready-to-eat condition.  Her eyes fell on the big bright red box of Mrs. Field’s cookies on top of the fridge that had been sent to her yesterday as a gift from her newest client, Fabulous.com, a website aimed at hip older women. The big bump in web traffic they’d gotten recently had been attributed to her press releases and link-building campaign, and Julia Luske, Fabulous’s founder, knew Pam adored cookies, particularly Mrs. Field’s.

Pam stared at the box, imagining the soft moist cookies inside, the oozing chocolate. No, she shouldn’t. She forced her eyes away and took another sip of her soda. Oh, just one. She opened the box and grabbed a chocolate chip cookie, biting into it quickly before she could change her mind. Oh, yes! Heaven! Chocolatey-chewy-melty!

Pam swallowed the last bite and wiped the crumbs off of her ledge of a bosom and bulging stomach. Damn. She just couldn’t stop herself. She would have to get rid of that box before she decimated the rest of its contents. She looked around and spied the door to the small reception area. That was it; put it out in reception with her twig-thin assistant. That girl could use a little beefing up. Pam picked up the box and went out to the reception area, seeing Ashley startle and hurriedly slap her iPhone down on the desk, covering it with both hands.

“Here, let’s have these cookies out in reception for guests, okay? Oh, and help yourself!” Pam said, putting the box on the corner of Ashley’s desk.

“Oh…thanks,” Ashley said, glancing at the box, “but I’m on a whole-foods diet. No white flour or sugar. But thanks for offering!” She smiled brightly at Pam, her teeth perfectly white straight Chiclets.

What was wrong with this kid? No white flour or sugar? “Wow! Good for you!” Pam said, her hand still lingering on the box. She wanted another cookie badly. “Uh, about the call. Did Amy say anything else? About Hannah? I couldn’t get her on the phone.”

“Oh, no, she didn’t. Sorry!”

Then Pam remembered Hannah’s novel. “By the way, did you get a chance to send out that book to Keeley Cohen?”

“Oh, yes, sent it right away. Two days ago.”

Pam nodded and said, “Thank you. That was important.” She almost started to brag about Hannah and stopped herself. She had tried to be friends with her assistant in the past. She would not continue to make that mistake. It made things too nebulous between them, unhinging any power she had and introducing a hyper-emotional element to their work together. Just being boss and employee was so much easier.

Pam removed her hand from the box of cookies, taking one last covetous glance at it, and went into her office. Half of her office was taken up by her desk and chair and the other half by a polished wooden conference table with six chairs pulled up to it, three on each side. On the table, a pile of Hannah’s novels still sat neatly stacked, and next to them, the print-outs from the bestseller list. Pam walked over to the table and picked up a copy of the list, gazing again at Hannah’s name and the title of her book.

The thrill of it, when she saw their Barefoot Baby’s name on it. Sure, Hannah’s book was at the bottom – one hundred and forty eight on
USA Today
’s list - but it was there.  Pam had to keep herself abreast of the lists; publishers were her bread and butter. Two days ago when checking the lists in the morning, she thought her eyes were deceiving her when she saw Hannah’s name. She had blinked, stared, and then whooped. Immediately, she’d printed out twenty copies of the page. At lunchtime, she ran out to the closest Barnes and Noble and bought all six copies of the book that the store had on its shelves. Once back in her office she asked Ashley to send a copy of the novel to Keeley with a note as well as a copy of the bestseller list. The note had read:

Keeley,

Our Barefoot Baby has a bestselling book! It’s a proud day.

I know neither of us has read it, but isn’t it about time? Here’s an extra copy to “get sloppy” with, as Zo says. You know, read it while you eat and get crumbs and smears all over it. That way your original one with Hannah’s John Hancock will stay pristine. That’s what I’m doing. Starting tomorrow, a little bite of Hannah’s book with breakfast every day.

Okay, time to break out the ‘pagne! Give me a call when you get this-

Love you,

Pam

Pam deliberately didn’t mention the review. The whole thing was stupid. Some idiot who didn’t even know them had jumped to foolish conclusions due to the pure genius of their Barefoot Baby’s writing. To Pam, that was the mark of great fiction – you thought it was true. So, Hannah was a great writer! She should be lauded, not accused. It was always that way with genius, though, wasn’t it?

Amy was all for pressing charges, but Pam thought it was better to just ignore it. All a lawsuit would do was give credence to the whole thing. Keeley, though, had reacted as if Hannah had written that poison herself. Wouldn’t even talk to the poor girl. Pam loved Keeley with all her heart – Keeley was their sunny cheerful Pollyanna - but Keeley’s tendency to overreact was legend.  There was a thin line in Keeley’s heart. If she loved you and felt loved by you, you were the center of the universe, but if she felt betrayed by you, she could cut you out of her life so completely, you disappeared. Pam hoped and prayed, on her knees twice, that this time would be different. This was, after all, their baby.

She turned her head to look at the framed collage of photos that hung on the wall nearby. Juxtaposed against the many elegant silver-framed photos clustered on surfaces around her office, mostly showing Jacob at various ages, this homemade collage was sloppy and childish looking, the fading photos curling against the glass. But to Pam, it couldn’t be more beautiful. Made by Hannah as a gift to each of her Barefoot godmothers on Mother’s Day when she was ten, it featured photos of them over the years. In the center of Pam’s collage was a photo of Pam holding Hannah when she was a newborn, Pam’s face cuddled up to Hannah’s little red one, Pam’s eyes glistening with the combined tears of joy and grief that had been a constant in those early days. As always, Pam’s eyes tracked over to the other photos, lingering on the one that she loved of Zo and five-year-old Hannah cuddled up in the hammock in their little house and reading a big storybook.

Pam put down the list on the table and straightened the pile. She had to get back to that press release for Expressia. She went to her desk, sat down, and made a to-do list. One, call Keeley. Why hadn’t Keeley called when she got the book and Pam’s note? That was weird. Two, read Hannah’s book already. Actually, she would have to read at least a little of it before calling Keeley. She hadn’t kept her promise about reading the book with breakfast every morning. She wasn’t used to reading books. What Pam loved were newspapers, magazines, and the internet.  A book always looked so dense, so intimidating. She wanted her reading bite-size and preferably decorated with colorful photographs.

Pam scribbled out the first list and rewrote it on the lower half of the page with the book at the top. Read a chapter, and then call Keeley. If Keeley didn’t call her first, that is. Pam put down the pen on the notepad and turned back to her keyboard, wiggling her fingers a little and hoping for some magic.

Chapter 25

Hannah ran down the boardwalk, her feet thudding hollowly on the wooden boards, heading toward the Barefooter house. The cold wind was stiff, whipping her hair back from her face and bending the tall grasses on either side of the walk sideways. In her ears rang the thrilling and terrifying words of her editor.

She hadn’t meant to be rude. She hoped Felicia wasn’t offended. But the bile had risen in her mouth, threatening; she had to get off of the phone.

She had dressed quickly, considering breakfast only briefly before rejecting that impossible notion. Then she was out of the door and running. Get away. Don’t think about it.

But..

No!

She ran and it felt good, her legs moving, her heart pumping. The Barefooter house was filled with ghosts, whispering the answers to her questions, waiting for her at the end of the boardwalk.

She threw open the gate, ran up the last section of the boardwalk, and pounded up the now-sturdy stairs that lead to the little house, the ringing and clanging of the wind chimes hanging from the eaves shrill and constant today as they were set tossing and shaking by the wind. A big puff of air pushed her into the house and slammed the door shut behind her. Inside, the noise of the chimes was muffled.  Instead it was the voice of the wind in the eaves that dominated the little house, rising and falling from a shriek to a moan and then back to a shriek.

She couldn’t help herself. “Tell me! What is it?” she shouted at the room, at the house itself. In her mind’s eye she saw all the meaningful glances between the Barefooters, lips that pursed, holding back. Her mother’s quick smile and smooth change of subject when Hannah asked direct questions about her father, or about anything in the past.

The living area, usually pleasantly lived-in with piles of magazines on the floor and scattered cast-off sweaters and moist beach towels on the furniture and the occasional half-finished cocktail making rings on the coffee table, was too tidy and composed. The old hammock her mother used to sleep on was folded neatly and sat on a trunk in the corner, probably the same old trunk from Aunt Zo’s story. The many photo albums, the ones Hannah had been dying to look at for years, still waited for her on the bookshelf.

Hannah walked over and found one documenting the eighties, Hannah’s childhood, and plopped down on the couch with it, her heart still beating hard, her breath just starting to slow. She opened it and looked. Turned the page. Then another. Suddenly she was tearing at it, flipping through it madly. Where was it, the evidence of her neglect at her mother’s hands? Where were the tears? The fear?

Smiles and sunshine and days at Jones Beach wearing sunglasses too big for her little face. At a fair and smiling a chocolate-coated grin up at the camera, the half-eaten ice cream cone held in her hand. Cuddled up and reading with Aunt Zo in the hammock. Sitting next to her mother in their Sunfish wearing an orange life-preserver and smiling with excitement over one shoulder at the photographer, eyes wide. At the beach making drip-sandcastles with Aunt Amy, bent over and intent on their work, dark smears of wet sand on their legs.

Hannah slammed the album shut and selected another, flipping through it even more quickly, searching. There was nothing.

 Shut that one, open another. And another.

The pile of rejected albums on the coffee table grew taller, and then toppled when she placed the fifth album on top. Hannah jumped up, grabbing at the falling albums, but was too late. They lay splayed on the floor, bindings twisted.  She fell back heavily on the couch and looked around the little room.

There was nothing here. Why had she thought there was? It’s just a house. A little shack that, without the women who brought it to life every summer, was just like any other building. There were no answers in the photo albums and artifacts from the decades of summers spent here. There were no ghosts either. Nothing waited here, not for her. For them, for the Barefooters, the house waited and gave and loved. But to Hannah it was indifferent.

Hannah stood up slowly and left the house. Walking down the boardwalk, she looked up at each little wooden house as she passed. Blank windows returned her stare. She thought of all of the people here who might read her book, especially now that it was on the bestseller lists. What would they think? What would they say to each other, to the Barefooters? Maybe, to them, it would simply be a work of fiction by one of Captain’s children. Something good, something to be proud of, like the sailing trophies displayed prominently on many of the island’s living room mantles from past Dog Days’ races.

Back at Pam’s house again, she went into the kitchen and picked up her book off of the table. She carried it into the living room, plopped down in one of the soft sagging chairs by the huge picture window overlooking the boardwalk and the water, flipped open the book, and started to read it again, trying to be objective. Was it that bad?

She re-read the first chapter that depicted an abusive and distant mother. Well, her mother wasn’t abusive. Distant …well, yes. The majority of her childhood, Hannah didn’t know which mother she would get from hour to hour. Sometimes she would get loving-and-enthusiastic Keeley, full of fun plans for the day and lots of kisses and hugs for Hannah. Sometimes she would get a shell, a mute vacant-eyed woman who seemed utterly blind to Hannah and her needs, or worse, would literally push Hannah away, telling her to leave her alone. “Go away, Hannah. Before something bad happens,” Keeley would say in a flat voice.