Barefoot Girls (42 page)

“Milady, pray tell, will you let us enter your abode?” Amy said.

“Ta da!” Zo said, jumping up and down a little while fanning her hands out and wiggling them like a jazz dancer.

“Oh, sweetie-pie, let me give you a hug,” Pam said, dropping the rope on the cowbell and stretching her arms out toward Hannah.

Hannah put her hands to her cheeks, smiling widely. Her face felt so strange, like the skin was being stretched. Oh, it was smiling. Other than Daniel’s aborted visit, she hadn’t smiled at all. And the laughter! It had felt like sucking in breaths of life-giving air after being kept underwater too long. “You guys! I can’t believe you’re here!”

Pam reached for the screen door handle and pulled it open. “I need a hug, already!” She opened her arms wide and Hannah fell into them, relishing the warm soapy familiar smell of her aunt, the beer cans in her aunt’s hat making a crinkling noise.

“Hey, what about me?” Zo said.

She was released from the soft warmth of Pam into Zo’s crushing bony embrace and smelled the sophisticated musky French perfume Zo always wore. The scent reminded Hannah of all the luxuries her aunt shared with her: Dead Sea mud masks and Egyptian cotton sheets and afternoon tea served with little Italian almond cookies. “Are you all right, my princess?”

“Now!” Amy shouted from behind Zo. “Are you going to let us in or what? And where’s my hug?”

“Oh, of course!” Hannah said over Zo’s shoulder, looking down at Amy’s fierce little face.

Zo released her, and then Amy gave Hannah a quick one-armed squeeze before breezing past her to go inside. “We’ll bring in all the goodies in a minute – holy, what’s going on in here? Hurricane Katrina? Jeez!”

Hannah cringed a little. The house was a mess. She had never cleaned up after her search for the ring, Michael’s box still sat in the corner of the living room, and now there were all the photo albums added to the already cluttered room. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know anyone was coming,” she said, holding open the screen door for Zo and Pam to enter.

Zo stepped into the room, removing her hat, and stopped. “Wow. Hannah!”

Pam walked past Zooey, looked around and put her hands on her hips. “Aw, this is no big deal. Oh, wait! Did Daniel come?” She spun around and stared at Hannah sideways, bugging her eyes out and then looking away.

Hannah, who was still reeling from the shock of seeing them all here, took a minute to guess her meaning. Then she remembered about the Mean Greens recipe. Keep mum. “Oh, he stopped by, sure! Just for a little while.”

Pam’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean? I thought he was staying for the weekend?”

“Uh, yeah…he had to work. Yeah, he couldn’t stay.”

“Oh! Too bad,” Pam said.

Zo put her hand on Hannah’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, he’ll be back.”

“Of course he will!” Amy said, giving Zo a stern look. Zo removed her hand and stepped back.

“Now let’s get this party started,” Amy said, clapping her hands together. “First, we’ll clean up this mess, then mimosas on the dock in the morning sunshine. Once the sun comes up, that is.”

Looking around at her godmother-aunts, the giddy high Hannah felt only moments before plummeted and tears popped into her eyes. These women were her whole life; they were at the center of her every memory and belief she’d ever had. Yet they had known the truth all along and continued telling her fairytales about her father long after Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny had been outed. Or did they believe the lies? Were they lies? Thoughts flitted in and out of her mind with dizzying speed, doubt and hope warring.

“What? What’s the matter?” Zo said, seeing Hannah’s tears and reaching out to put her hands on her shoulders and stroking them. “I’ve never seen you cry, not in so long. You were just a little baby still.”

Sadness shot through her. It couldn’t be true. They all loved her; they couldn’t lie to her like that.

“I-“ Hannah said, and then let out a little sob before swallowing it down. “I’m just so happy to see you all. I can’t believe you’re here.”

“Group hug!” Pam crowed and jogged over to enfold them both in her embrace, her beer hat falling off in the process and tumbling with a clatter onto the floor.

“Hey,” Amy said. “No fair! My arms are too small to wrap around all of you.”

“C’mere,” Pam said, reaching out her arm and taking Amy into the clutch.

“That’s better,” Amy said, her face lifted up under Pam’s armpit, “But this gooshy stuff has got to stop. We’re here to cheer you up, kiddo, and that’s what we’re going to do. I knew you were turning into a sad sack hanging around here all by yourself, I
knew
it!”

A half hour later the four of them sat on low lawn chairs at the end of Pam’s dock bundled up against the autumn chill in sweaters and jackets and holding pink plastic thermal cups filled with orange juice and champagne. Hannah had scrambled to hide Michael’s box in her room while her aunts were unloading the boat, grateful Amy had directed her to take care of clean-up while they brought in supplies and their bags.

Amy, her breath puffing in clouds in the cool morning air leaned forward in her low-slung seat and raised her plastic glass in the air. “To fun times and sick minds!”

“Huzzah!” Pam said, lifting her glass to touch Amy’s.

“And to Daniel and Hannah’s wedding next summer right here on Captain’s – may true love reign!” Zo said, raising her glass and smiling at Hannah. She had been pushing for a wedding during next year’s Dog Days celebration ever since she heard about the engagement.

“Hear, hear!” Amy agreed, tapping her glass against the others a second time as did Pam.

Hannah tapped hers, too, and took a long drink. They were here, now, for her. She couldn’t believe it, how different the whole island was in their presence, even now after everything, the way it felt like a rollicking party already. There were tears still in her throat, but also a trembling high note of joy that pierced her from head to toe.

“Ah,” Amy said, sitting back and taking a sip of her drink. “At last. Except, something’s not quite right….oh, I know! Gotta get barefoot.” She put down her drink and bent over to untie her navy-blue canvas dock shoes.

Pam guffawed. “In this frigid weather? My feet will freeze off!”

Amy looked at her. “You promised – a real Barefooter mini-vaca for our Barefoot Baby. So, we’re here. Get ‘em off.”

“You guys aren’t allowed to look at my feet,” Zo said, bending over to slip off her loafers and exposing lily-white slender feet. “No polish. Didn’t have time.”

Amy said, “Hannah? Come on.”

“It’s fifty degrees out here!” Hannah said, laughing.

Pam shook her head long and slow, grunting a little to reach her feet, her rounded stomach and huge bosom in the way. “Nah, forty.”

“If it’s above freezing, it’s safe,” Zo said. “Come on, sweetie. It’s a tradition.”

“In the fall? I thought that was only in the summer.” Hannah reached for her sneakers and yanked them off and then peeled off her socks, feeling the icy air sweep over her feet. “Yikes!”

Picking up her glass again, Amy said. “Don’t worry, we’ll put them back on in a minute. But we must honor the Barefooter pact: naked feet, summer heat, water blue, friendships true.”

“More like blue feet,” Pam grumbled, trying to tuck her now-bare feet under her for warmth.

“You’re such a sissy,” Amy said, sticking her tongue out at Pam and then grinning at her.

“So,” Zooey said, her voice becoming suddenly deep and lugubrious. “What do you want to do?”

Amy answered in the same super-slow comical tone, turning her face up to the sky, “I don’t know, what do
you
want to do?”

Pam shook her head, making her sad-dog face. “I don’t know, what do
you
want to do?”

The Barefooters did this routine, sometimes for hours, when they just felt like relaxing and not moving an inch. Hannah sat and watched her aunts lean back in their chairs, wallowing in each other’s company. This was reality, her reality, wasn’t it? She wanted it to be. It was simple and it was good. It was what she knew. But she could still hear Mrs. McGrath’s horrible words, felt that click again, the one where everything suddenly made sense. Which was the truth: this or that? Both felt true and both felt wrong in different ways.

She leaned forward, “Aunties? I need to know something. About my mom?”

Zo’s head popped up. “What, honey?”

They were all looking at her then, lifted up a little in their seats, their languor gone. Hannah felt her face flood with heat. But she had to ask. “I...I was wondering something. I know it sounds crazy, but did my mom…did she want me?”

Pam tipped her head back and hooted. “Ho! Ho! That
is
crazy!”

“Of course, she did! We all did! You’re the most important thing in the whole world! You’re our baby!” Zo said, leaning forward, her face intent and suddenly serious.

“What do ya mean, ya looney tune?” Amy said, leaning over and reaching out wiggling fingers. “That’s crazy talk! Do you want a tickling? Am I gonna hafta tickle some sense into you?”

“No!” Hannah said, cringing away from Amy’s fingers. “I just, I was-“

“I’m gonna tickle ya!” Amy said, stretching even farther, the tips of her fingers brushing Hannah’s side near her armpit.

“Ha! Ha!” Hannah laughed helplessly.

“See! That’s what you needed! You needed a laugh attack!” Amy said, giggling herself and tickling Hannah in earnest now with both hands, her drink tipping over when she put it down in her haste to get at Hannah, her fairy goddaughter and beloved Barefoot Baby. 

The bubbly orange liquid splashed on Pam, who yelled, “Party foul! You lose ten points, Amy!”

And the game they always played on Captain’s was on. The early morning sun shot dazzling sparks off of the water of the bay, seagulls screamed as they swooped overhead, and Hannah laughed until her stomach clenched in pain and she was gasping for air.

Chapter 37

Amy stood at the sink in Pam’s bathroom, lifted the beaded chain to dangle the rubber stopper over the drain and then pushing the stopper into place with her other hand. If she didn’t know this bathroom as well as her own, she would have had to spend a few minutes to complete the process, the darkness only broken by the single beam of a flashlight she’d placed on the floor of the bathroom. The bold bright light filled one corner of the small room, but did little to illuminate the sink. She could have brought one of the smaller gas lamps, but it made her nervous to walk with one when she was this tired, one stumbling step spelling disaster. Her own house down the boardwalk was filled with battery-operated lamps, nightlights, and flashlights, but Pam was a traditionalist and used only gaslight for the most part.

She grabbed the handle of the sink’s hand-pump and filled the sink with rainwater with a few strong pumps. Then she plucked up one of the shell-shaped jojoba oil soaps Pam always kept piled high in a huge abalone shell by the sink, dunked her hands in the cool water and started scrubbing. It was good that the day had been a warm one or her hands would be frozen through already.

She looked in the mirror, which was long and low enough to show her entire face. God, even in this shadowy light she looked old. Like a child who had some strange aging disease, the circles under her eyes like bruises. She always looked the worst when she was exhausted, and today had pushed her to her limits.

It had been a good day, though, a success. The pinched sad look in Hannah’s face had disappeared. They had done all of their favorite things: sailing in the bay, a jaunt in the afternoon out to the North Fork area to hit a few of the wineries there and enjoy a long leisurely lunch at a pub, and then a walk on Jones Beach, letting the still-warm waves of the Atlantic foam over their bare feet. The three women had let Hannah win their Captain’s game, giving her every point, failing to call out things that took away points. When Hannah noticed and said something, they all blamed it on old age: insisted that youth as well as skill had won in the end.

By the time they stood together in the kitchen making spaghetti for dinner, Hannah tossing the salad while the four of them sang silly faux Italian songs like “Mambo Italiano” and “That’s Amore”, Zo doing little crazy dances to make Hannah laugh, Amy knew they’d achieved part one of what they’d set out to achieve. Now, it was time for part two. Only there was one problem: Zooey.

From the minute Amy picked her up early that morning, Zo had been raring to go; convinced the time had come to tell Hannah the whole story. Amy knew that one of the reasons behind this brash and dangerous decision was the lack of sleep on Zo’s part. She hadn’t slept at all. Instead of falling into bed for few hours of rest before their departure, she’d been awake and alternating being arguing with Neil about her trip to Captain’s and packing. The whole house had been lit up as if for a party when Amy pulled into her driveway at five am. Neil had followed Zooey out to the car, still arguing with her and even tried to appeal to Amy. As usual, Amy wouldn’t back down or even answer some of his more insulting insinuations. They drove away with him still standing in the driveway, fists clenched.

Another more compelling reason for Zo’s impetuous urge was Keeley’s recent MIA status. It was a situation that had gone on too long now, her decision not to talk to Hannah after that disastrous review followed by a disconnect unlike any they had ever known with Keeley. It was as if she had mailed the keys to Hannah and then washed her hands of everyone at once. Usually, Keeley was their sunshiney go-to girl, and if she was disorganized and sometimes unreliable, she was also endlessly enthusiastic, optimistic and ultimately always there when push came to shove.

Now she wasn’t even returning phone calls, which was so odd that Amy had called Ben to find out if she was okay. He had called her right back and said that, of course Keeley was fine, and what was the matter? Amy had stuttered out an embarrassed half-explanation mentioning the unreturned phone calls and hung up as soon as she could. After, she had stood in her kitchen for a long time with her hand on the receiver, staring out the window and wondering herself. What
was
the matter? No matter how long Amy thought about it, it didn’t add up. It was only after reading the first part of Hannah’s novel last night that she started to see an answer take shape.

Amy dried her hands on the towel hanging from a mother-of-pearl ring by the sink and tried to clear her head, prepare. She was not the touchy-feely type, yet she knew she was the best one to broach the delicate subject of Keeley and Hannah over dinner. Pam would probably burst into tears if she started telling the truth about Keeley’s childhood and Zooey, though she had agreed to wait per their original and sacred pact, was still too close to launching into a full confession for Amy’s taste.  Zo was worried and protective and Amy could certainly understand that, but now was not the time, though it appeared to be close on the horizon. It was strange being the one holding the whole thing together when the pact had been created at Zo’s insistence, Amy being the dubious one all those years ago.

After picking up the flashlight off of the floor, Amy left the bathroom and made her way across the covered back porch to the kitchen door. She opened it to a roar of laughter and the mouthwatering scent of Pam’s homemade marinara sauce. Pam was throwing strands of spaghetti at the wall with a huge windup and an underhanded pitch, while Hannah and Zooey clung to each other, laughing in that hysterical breathless way that was their own private humorous communion. Amy looked at them and felt, again, the warm glow and happiness that had infused the day. Yes, the time was coming.

Pam glanced over to see Amy’s arrival, her face red with wine. “Hey, check out this one – I’ll pull a through-the-legs pitch! This one’s a doozy!”

Amy waved at her while smiling and shaking her head. “Don’t use up all the pasta on the wall. I’m hungry.” They were drunk and she was glad they were home, safe. She was also glad she’d stuck to water at lunch and spat for the most part at the wine tastings today. She needed to be clear now.

She kept walking and went into the now-tidy living room. The albums had been stacked in piles on the coffee table, but they still made Amy uneasy. What kind of answers were in those photos? What was Hannah looking for? Well, if she was hungry for their history, she was about to get a big fat serving of it.

She found her little overnight bag and then her new cell in the side pocket, something she had given in to only last week after the school tried to reach her about Sam being sick and she had been unavailable, out training Molly for several hours in a shopping area. She hated gadgets, but decided this one was a necessity after all. There was a text from Gus:  “All good at the Shaws. How r things there?”

She awkwardly typed out a text in return, hunting and pecking with knitted brows:  “Pot about to boil. Will tell you more once my goose is cooked.”

There were no voicemail messages, no returned call from Keeley, even after Amy’s last message that included her new cell number. She sighed, put the phone back in her bag and stood, squaring her shoulders. She said in a low voice, “Let’s do this.”

Once they sat down at the long table in Pam’s sun room, bowls heaped with pasta and smaller bowls filled with salads, the vinaigrette making the lettuce gleam in the candlelight, Zo shot Amy a quick but meaningful bug-eyed look. Amy looked over at Hannah, who sat across from her, her face so rosy from laughter and wine, and felt a stab of regret. Then she put down her fork and began.

“Hannah? I just wanted to say again how proud we are of your book. You know, I finally read it, or at least a part of it.”

Hannah’s fork stopped in mid-twirl, spaghetti bunched in a spool around it. She looked up slowly, the warmth draining from her complexion. “You did?”

“It’s wonderful, it-“

“Oh!” Zo interrupted, trilling with enthusiasm. “It really is! I’m so proud of you. What a story!”

“But,” Amy said. “That’s the thing we wanted to talk to you about. The review that came out, your mom. We’re worried about you, and we didn’t know what to do. Giving you the keys and having you come out here to Captain’s seemed like a great solution; it was always the best remedy for us. But maybe that wasn’t the answer. Was it?”

Hannah shrugged and looked back down at her plate, she started twirling the pasta around her fork slowly against the side of the bowl. “I don’t know. I guess.”

“When you were born, we all pledged to be there for you, all became your godmothers in spite of that jerky priest, just went and did it ourselves with-“

“I know…I know the story,” Hannah said, still looking at her plate and sounding more like the petulant teenager she used to be than the young woman she had become. But she was listening, her fork poised mid-twirl.

“Don’t take that tone with me, Hannah. We’re here to help you. And really, after reading some of your book, I realized something I never saw before.”

Hannah looked up, her eyes glistening, her lips parted. Seeing her goddaughter’s expression of open raw need, Amy knew her instinct was right.

“I’ve known your mother for a long time, and as long as I’ve known her, I’ve seen what you described in the book, about the mother? The way she shut down and shut you out? She did that to you, too. Of course she did. I just always thought it was something she only did with me, with us. I just assumed, which seems stupid now.”

Hannah shook her head a little. “No,” she whispered.

Amy took a big breath. “Well, I’ve never taken it personally because I always knew why she was that way. Well, we all knew pretty early on. But you didn’t know; you had no idea. So you had to have taken it personally, that wall she puts up. You were probably so lonely and scared. I’m so sorry. We should have been there.”

Hannah’s eyes welled up again and huge tears splashed on her cheeks. “I-I was, but-“

“No buts! It’s time for you to hear about your mom, about your grandmother. Maybe then you’ll understand and you’ll stop blaming yourself. Because it’s obvious you do blame yourself, think Keeley was rejecting you, when all she was doing was trying to protect herself. That’s what it’s really about. She closes off, and then she heals.”

Pam said softly, “And then she’s her old self again. The one we love.”

Zo reached out and put her hand gently on Hannah’s shoulder, which was shaking now. “Oh, Hannah. What have we done? I’m so sorry, I should have told you a long time ago.”

Amy kicked Zo under the table, who jumped a little and looked over at Amy with a hurt look.

“What?”

Amy didn’t answer her, instead focusing back on Hannah. Now, now was the time. She forced out the words, the tale of everything they knew about Keeley’s childhood: her brother’s tragic accidental death, her father’s near-abandonment of the family, her mother’s grief which was turned and used as a weapon against her remaining child with the help of fists and frying pans and, eventually, a knife. Pam and Zo interjected with bits of the story, but it was Amy who told the majority of Keeley’s history.

Watching Hannah’s reaction, the horror, the shock, Amy was reassured. That had been her reaction, too, once. And if there was one thing Amy knew, she knew that she’d always been loved and that a child of love can’t understand what it is to live without it. Her greatest fear, that they had failed Hannah, slipped away as the words flowed more quickly and easily now, the truth rushing into the vacuum of silence they had foolishly maintained for too long.

Chapter 38

Phillip waited, sitting on the front porch and watching for his wife’s approach on the boardwalk. His neck hurt from craning it again and again, thinking he heard her footstep. The boating magazine he’d been attempting to read fell off of his lap onto the floor. He reached down for it and the muscles of his back screamed with tension and stiffness from sitting too long.

“Ow! Damn it!” He grabbed at the magazine and then slapped it down on the table next to the chair where he had been keeping his vigil. “Where is she?”

He stood up slowly. It was getting late. The sun had slid down the sky until it hovered over the marshes behind the island. Yesterday, it had been about three when she had returned from another of her solitary walks. Her face had been a mess with her eye makeup on her cheeks, clear tracks where tears had run down outlined in black mascara. Between the fading pink stripes on her cheeks from her nails and the black ragged tracks of mascara running in the opposite direction, she looked like some crazy kind of tiger. Yet, she’d been smiling and humming as she walked and her gait had been the lazy relaxed one of a summer’s afternoon.

Her open expression hardened when she saw him waiting on the porch. Actually, there was a brief minute or two where Phil could swear that Rose didn’t know him. She looked that puzzled. Then her eyes narrowed, her steps speeded up and she brushed past him, opening the door and heading inside.

“That was quite a walk,” he said to her receding back. It had been four hours since she left and the island took no more than forty-five minutes to walk from end to end, even when strolling.

Rose made an exasperated gasping sound and kept walking, going straight upstairs. She’d spent the rest of the night holed up in their bedroom. She locked the door and wouldn’t answer when he called to her through it. Finally, he’d eaten dinner by himself and gone to sleep in the guest bedroom, vowing to confront her in the morning.