Emily Franklin - Principles Of Love 06 - Labor Of Love (6 page)

"Yeah?"

"A lot happened in LA," I say.

He blushes. "How lame am I for not diving right into that barrel? My selfish behavior is only indicative of wanting to straighten things out with you--and with my family." He looks at me as he drives the truck into the center of Edgar- town, pulling into a loading space in front of the Whaling Church. It's a popular location for weddings, and there've been many times I've ended a shift at the caf� and walked onto the brick sidewalk for some fresh air to find I have a view of other people's happiness--the bride and her at tendants, little girls in dresses. I'm not someone who spends any time fantasizing about a wedding--it's just not that big a thing to me (I do think about the partnership, the mar riage, but the actual wedding doesn't occupy my thoughts). But seeing it here, in this special place, does make me smile. Today, though, the church is devoid of people, the sunlight changing, and my boyfriend waits for me to speak.

"I don't know where to start." I look at him and un buckle my seat belt.

He stays strapped in, clearly not joining me at Slave, and

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puts his hand on my shoulder."That's just how I started my speech to my parents when I told them about going back to Cambridge."

"Oh my god--do not be one of those people who says they `go to college in Cambridge.' " I put air quotes around the phrase. "It's like `I go to school in New Haven.' Oh, re ally, what school might that be? We all know it's Yale. . . ."

Charlie gives a small laugh."I will try not to fall prey to those stereotypical behaviors. Anyway . . . about the Silver and White?"

"Are you asking me?"

"Officially."

I nod. "I never thought I'd know people who go to that, let alone be asked . . . but yes. Officially." The Silver and White is the island's premier summer closer event.Airy open tents are erected oceanside on Squibnocket Point, and the Vineyard elite mingle with the wealthy and wonder ful--some of whom don't summer here, but simply fly in for the event. For others who do spend several months of the year, the glittering silver and white colors are the first signal that the autumnal orange and reds are around the corner. They literally pack up the next day and leave the island before the grounds crew has rolled up the tents and put away the sterling silver�rimmed plates. The fact that I'll have nothing to wear to this event is the least of my

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concerns--first I have to come to terms with the image of going in the first place.

In the sticky heat of the pickup, I feel lucky to be with Charlie. Glad he's open to talking about the future and his family, and only a tiny bit concerned that he didn't know he was being aloof and distant around the pool at his parents'.

"I have to write a paper," Charlie says and laughs. "A paper! Haven't done that in a while. . . . It might take some time--and it's due on Monday."

"Translation being: Don't freak out if I'm incommuni cado this weekend?"

He nods and smiles. His eyes travel from mine to my lips and I can't help but mirror the gesture, focusing again on his mouth. He hasn't grinned from the side of it yet--and I wrinkle my forehead trying to figure that out. Doesn't Charlie do that? Doesn't his mouth curl up on one side when he's made a funny remark? I reach forward and twist his lips with my fingers, laughing while I do it.

"Whatthehell?" He says the words smooched together while I play with his mouth.

"Nothing," I say. "I just couldn't remember a certain expression."

"Was it this?" Charlie twists his mouth. I shake my head. "Was it this?" He sticks out his tongue.Another head shake. "Was it this?" Charlie swoops in, grabs me, and right here--

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in the middle of Edgartown, in a no parking zone, where brides say their I dos--we kiss.

A few minutes later, I'm out of the truck. I walk around and stand on tiptoe so I can lean into the driver's-side win dow and kiss him again. A quick one--before we get carried away again. Just how far carried away will I get with him, I wonder as we do the good-bye peck.Will he be that one-- the one you remember forever? A flash of writing letters to Jacob comes back to me--how he asked me my thoughts on virginity.What if Charlie is the one? This freaks me out for a second, so I quickly pull back and position my whole self back on the sidewalk.

"What?" He drums his fingers on the oversized wheel and tilts his head. Still no side-grin. Maybe it's a gesture he left back with his lobster traps and fishing gear.

"Nothing."

"So, you're going to keep me in the dark about LA?"

I open my mouth and take a big breath."I'm still in the dark, I think. So until I know more . . ." I don't want to spill out all the info the way I did to Chris. It's as though if I tell it too much, it won't mean the same thing. I don't want to keep the fact that I have a half sister a secret, and I don't mean to hide that my biological mother is here--right here, on this island, perhaps in the corner chair--the one with the purple cushion--at Slave to the Grind II at this very mo

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ment, but I don't want to share it yet.And I sure as hell want to avoid the who-is-Jacob conversation with Charlie for a while longer, too. I mean, I don't even know who Jacob is to me anymore, so I can't very well explain him to Charlie.

"I understand. I'll know when I need to know."

"Hey--Mable used to say that," I say and smile. I miss her every day, my aunt, but her words have stuck with me like a continual loop I can rely on.The easiness of being with him fights with the part of me that comprehends that my mother could be waiting down the street.That if she's not at the caf� right now, she could be in an hour. If not, I know where her cottage is and I can just show up when I'm ready.

"I know she did," Charlie says. He sticks his hand out the window and I reach for it. His fingers slip easily in between mine."It's so hard to back away from you."

Charlie stares at me."Good."

For once, the one-word sentence suits the moment per fectly, and I repeat it and replay his look while I walk the few blocks back home.

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� N ou seem to have settled back into the flow," Chili says after she's placed her order for a mocha-latte frapp�.

I make the blended drink, and nod."Not like I was gone long."

"Long enough, right?" Chili shakes her head in wonder. "How are you not imploding from all that info?" I switch the blender on and read her lips while the noise blocks out the sound. I can't make out everything, but my smile fades as soon as I make out the words total bitch. Not because I dread those words, but I know they can mean only one thing:

"Lindsay Parrish?" I stick my tongue out for a second and then see Doug and Ula, the caf�'s new owners/manag ers, shoot me a look.They're busy making plans for the un veiling of the new sign out front, a sort of grand reopening opening for here and the caf� in Boston next week. After

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that, both places will be called Mable's. Slave to the Grind will cease to exist.

Chili sucks on her straw and then presses her hand to her forehead. "Ah, brain freeze. And yes, Lindsay. She was here--gasp--"

I act out the gasp as Chili says the word."Here?"

"On your island, I know--the nerve." Chili laughs and raises one eyebrow. I can do that, too, and we both do it now until I have to get someone else's order and she trots back to the coffee station so we can keep talking.

"She came in for the fourth," Chili explains.

It hits me."Don't tell me she ferried in for Henry Ran dall's party. . . ."

"Um, don't you mean his dad's party? But yeah, she came in just for one night and she flew, FYI."

"Of course she did." I steam milk and then pour the airiness onto the top of a cappuccino. Someday I will go to Italy and drink truly Italian cappuccino. I will eat croissants in France and I will experience pad thai as served on the street in Thailand.This swirl of countries all disappears after I serve the drink.

Chili leans on the counter and I plate a cookie for her. We share it--me sneaking bites while Doug and Ula have their backs turned and Chili gives me the lowdown. "You didn't miss much." She looks at me."And don't give me that

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expression--yeah, I went to the party. It was fun, actually. Or, it would have been almost enjoyable if Little Pony hadn't showed up."

When she visited school this spring and saw for herself the hurricane that is Lindsay, Chili started inventing other names that go with the initials L and P. Little Pony. Lame Princess. Lost Preppy. "But what was the purpose of her visit?" I have that sick feeling of needing to know everything I can about Lindsay while despising her.

"I'm not a customs agent, Love," Chili says."But I imag ine her reasons for visiting the island are pleasure. Or--no-- make that business and pleasure."

"I cannot believe I have to deal with her on a daily basis in a month."

"Well, I get the feeling she's not thrilled about seeing you that much, either. She tried to corner Haverford and ask him where you were. Like he knew."

"Why would she care?" I make a face and shrug. "The girl needs to get a job. Then maybe she wouldn't have so much spare time to plot her evil. . . . Then again, I have a job and it doesn't stop me from all my ramblings. . . ."

"You can't compare Lindsay's malevolent social deal ings with your familial and romantic intrigue." Chili bites the last of the cookie and speaks with her mouth full. I smile at her, filled with relief that she'll be at school with

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me in the fall--with Arabella going back to London, she and Chris are probably the closest friends I have. "Speak ing of which . . . have you . . ." She doesn't complete the sentence.

"No."

"When will you?"

I probe my mouth for cookie crumbs and make sure there's nothing in my front teeth--nothing like trying to serve the public with food remnants."Today," I say, the real ity of the statement hitting me as I say it.

"Really?" Chili clenches her fists and her eyes widen.

I nod. "I'm ready, I think. Or, as prepared as I can be." I wipe the counter, washing away all the drinks that rested on it this afternoon, leaving the marble free of debris. "Today's the day I'm going to finally meet my mother."

After lunch by the docks with Chris, after hearing about his still-unrequited crush on Haverford Pomroy, my stom ach is full of fried food and the rest of me is consumed with fear. What if she's mean? Or what if we have nothing to talk about? In my mind, my mother has a sort of amoebic form--sometimes similar to Aunt Mable, with a quick wit and natural affinity for all things music-related--and other times an amalgam of mothers I've seen in movies and on TV, retro hairstyle and apron along with a matronly voice telling

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me I need to work hard on my studies and not let a boy go all the way. Not that I need that advice--although, given the way things are going with Charlie, perhaps it's more relevant than it once was.

As I walk from the waterside past the art galleries with their large canvases of hazy baseball fields and boats, past the candy store, and the seafood shack, I realize that both images of my mother are obviously wrong. Or, more than that, they're direct fodder from my psyche. I want her to be one way--cool and relatable like Mable was--or so cli ch�d I don't have to take her seriously. Mosquitoes peck at my legs and I lean down to slap them, crouching on the bricks inlaid to make the sidewalk. Just like cobblestones, these bricks served to keep the huge shipping schooners balanced in the days when Edgartown thrived as a whal ing village. Each brick is part of a greater pattern, wedged in just so to form something solid I can stand on. People are like this, too. Maybe Gala isn't so much one thing or the other, but a whole array of emotions, experiences, and characteristics I have yet to encounter. I wouldn't want my mother to receive a summary of me on paper the way I tried to neatly package her, so I try--in the last few minutes before meeting her--to stop boxing Gala in with imaginary descriptions.This is exactly what colleges do: Judge you by paperwork--grades, scores, recommendations, essays, and

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maybe an interview. And I don't want to do that to her. I don't want it done to me.

As I decide this, I feel less of a gaping hole where she should have been my whole life--a hole I didn't ever pay attention to until this past year, really--and in its place, a buoyant solid.The best part of not meeting someone yet is the newness, the unpaved road ahead with them. Nothing has happened yet, so it's not bad feelings, just unfeelings.

I smile and take a deep breath, proud of my maturity and calm.Then I get about a foot away from the steep stairs that lead to the cottage--her cottage, where I stayed with Mable and Arabella--when it hits me. It's not unpaved, this road with Gala. It was paved a long time ago.Way back when she left. So I suddenly feel stupid and scared all over again--not to mention pissed off with her and with myself. How could I overlook that fact?

Maybe, I realize as I force myself up the first step, it's because I need to.

At the door, I take one last mother-free breath and knock. The moments afterward seem to stretch out end lessly as I wait for the sound of footsteps, or a voice that is both unrecognizable and familiar. But I hear nothing.Would it be wrong to open the door? It's not my house, but I feel personally connected to the place. I figure that if Gala has come all this way from California to meet me as my dad said,

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if she's waited while I get my nerve up, then she won't care if I let myself in. She could be in the bathroom or using a hair dryer or blender and not hear the knocking. The old me, someone I was maybe sophomore year, might have accepted no response, but I'm older now. More resilient. I reach for the brass knob, turn it, and am not at all surprised to find it unlocked.

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> nside, everything is the way it was when I was last here with Mable. It was her last time on the Vineyard before her death, and a wave of sadness brushes up, lapping at my feet. But it doesn't crash. I guess that's what happens with loss: First you're drowning in it; then you're swimming, until fi nally the waters recede and you're sitting there on a regular beach, with waves and surf kicking up every so often.