Learning to Swim (15 page)

I was silent for a long moment. “Who told you that I go to see Mrs. O’Leary?” I finally asked. “Do you go to see her?”

He shook his head. “Bob Harville told me. He’s about the only one that goes there these days.”

Captain Harville? The cop?
I found it odd that the cop would visit her, when even the best friend of Seamus O’Leary wouldn’t speak to the poor old widow anymore. But I didn’t think that was prudent to say.

He mistook my silence for offense. “Except you, of course,” he said.

“And Rory O’Brien,” I added.

He nodded slowly. When he spoke again, his voice was brisk and all business, it had lost any hint of emotion from before. “She’s very ill, Lia is. She thinks the O’Brien boy is her son.”

“She’s lonely,” I defended her. “I don’t think it’s hurting anyone. He doesn’t seem to mind.”

“Cora, I don’t dislike Lia. I feel just as sorry for her as you do. Probably more. I know Seamus is not clear of blame for their trouble. After their son disappeared, Lia was very depressed. And after the second baby, she was in a terrible way. And Seamus used that to his advantage. She was again very eager to leave, but so depressed, it was easier for Seamus to control her. He was protective; he was very afraid she would leave. But it wasn’t right for him to trap her there like that.”

“Trap her?” I repeated.

Mr. Hall shrugged. “Why guilt her into staying when she wanted to leave?”

I was quiet for a moment. I felt as though Mr. Hall still wasn’t telling me everything.

“There’s just one thing that doesn’t add up,” I said. Mr. Hall looked me in the eye, as if challenging me to unravel this story of the O’Learys’ which he had bound up so carefully. “If she wanted so much to leave,” I went on, “why is she still there in that house?”

Mr. Hall looked down at his hands. “Do you know where your mother is? I need to get back to my shop.”

I wanted to run straight to Rory and tell him everything I’d heard from Mr. Hall. He was the only other one who understood this mysterious woman’s life. But I couldn’t, of course, do that. Instead, I had to content myself with talking to Rosie. But I couldn’t tell her about Mr. Hall and Mrs. O’Leary. I felt silly to even have considered it.

She called late that evening with what she deemed “exciting news.”

“Just guess what I have to tell you!” Rosie dove right in without even giving me time to express interest in her story. No doubt it would have something to do with Stephen, or the subsequent boyfriend, whatever his name turned out to be. “Just guess!” Of course she didn’t really want me to guess. “It’s so surprising!” she barreled on. “Guess who asked about you? It shocked me, really! Josh! Josh asked about you!”

I, too, was shocked. My stomach did a quick somersault. Was it joy? I didn’t think so. I realized with a great sense of satisfaction that it had actually been many, many weeks since I had thought about Josh Watson.

“Sally Crawford told him you
still
had a crush on him—it’s okay, I already yelled at her for it—and so Josh came to me, and, like, asked about you. Like how you were doing and if you were dating anyone. Cora? Why are you being so quiet? Aren’t you psyched?”

“Uh, I’m sure you remember the debacle at the movies,” I said. “Do you need a refresher?”
Everyone
remembered that day. The day Cora Manchester was humiliated in front of half her friends, half Josh’s friends, and several movie-going families.

I remembered everything about that day. I remembered the jean shorts Rosie was wearing when she approached Josh, the soccer player I’d been crushing on for at least a year. “Enough is enough,” she had declared, before marching off to do what I wouldn’t. To ask Josh Watson out.
For me
.

I remembered the embarrassed look on Josh’s face when he heard Rosie’s suggestion. “No, thanks.” That’s what he’d said. It was worse than “No.” It was pity.

I hadn’t cried until I’d gotten home. I’d put on a flippant face for everyone, for all of our spectator friends, for Rosie, for my parents. And then I’d climbed into my bed and sunk beneath the covers and cried myself to sleep. Just once. One night. That’s all I would give Josh Watson. But it had ached in my soul ever since. That is, until this summer.

“Cora, people can change their minds!” Rosie chirped. “Apparently Josh has!” Her excitement, usually so contagious, wasn’t having an effect on me. Something was different.

I started to mumble a protest. I started to say that Josh was just being polite, asking about how I was doing, but I stopped myself. “I don’t really care,” I said instead.

And this time, it was the truth.

It sang like a glorious songbird inside my chest. I didn’t care! I did
not
care about Josh Watson! I didn’t care that my friends knew Josh Watson didn’t want me. That I wasn’t pretty enough or smart enough or popular enough or whatever enough for him. I was
over
it.

“Cora, I know you’re like, trying to be all calm, cool and coll—”

“No, Rosie, I’m not,” I interrupted. “It’s just that I
really
don’t care. It’s been a long time since I cared about what Josh thought about me.”

“Oh.” Rosie deflated.

I’m free
. This was huge news. I should have been ecstatic. But the songbird inside my chest had already fluttered away. There was one problem. I knew that the reason I hadn’t thought about Josh for so long was because I cared a great deal what somebody else thought about me now.

Somebody who had really big brown eyes. Somebody who swam like an Olympian.

Nuair a Casadh an Taoide

When the Tide Turns

In the meantime, barbecue season was in full swing and anniversary parties abounded with the families in the old houses. Apparently every middle-aged couple who summered in Oyster Beach had had a perfect summer wedding.

One such event was a flowery gathering in our own backyard. It was the Carltons’ anniversary, and Mom was throwing them a party. It was her first in Oyster Beach (a big day for her) so I was trying to be cooperative. I was wearing my resident fancy dress—the cream-colored one with the big pockets. The only thing I owned that would please my mother. The things Mr. Hall had told me about Mrs. O’Leary had moved me. Disturbed me, to say the least. And so I couldn’t help thinking of my own poor mother. I had relegated that dreadful lacey dress to the back of my closet, but my mother had successfully dug it out and implored me to wear it. I did so in order to avoid confrontation and maybe even to please her a little. As if in some way I could alleviate Mrs. O’Leary’s past suffering as a mother by being good to my own.

The evening of the party was unseasonably cool, but the backyard was glittering and gorgeous. There were tables and chairs spread around the perimeter with candles flickering to each other in the middle of each table. There were luminaries going down the stairs all the way to the boardwalk. And the back porch was festooned with little paper lights and tables heaped with food and drinks. The caterers had brought servers and they stood around the yard like obedient end tables, balancing trays with ever-replenishing glasses.

And there was to be dancing. A makeshift dance floor had been constructed by the caterers earlier. The band was set up on the landing midway up the stairs.

The guests started to appear at dusk, light summer sweaters and carefully-wrapped presents under their arms. It was picture-perfect, and my mother was beaming.

“Thank you,” she said unexpectedly. I was standing next to her at the top of the stairs. Dad was at the bottom, greeting the Ritzes and another family whose name I couldn’t remember.

“For what?” I asked.

She grasped my arm with one hand and held out the skirt of my dress in the other. “For being my daughter,” she said. She kissed me on the forehead and then rubbed the lipstick off with her thumb. There were tears in her eyes as she floated down the stairs. My stomach fell a few feet. Why was it always so difficult for me to just
be
her daughter?

She only has one. And not by choice.

I was always angry at her for not talking to me about these things, about the big things, about why we were here this summer, why she couldn’t let me make my own decisions about the rest of my life. But the truth was that she was always talking,
always
, I just didn’t want to listen.

The party was a smash hit, but I tired of it quickly. I managed to stand near the stairs with a look of silent amusement on my face, hopefully masking my disdain inside. All I thought about was Mrs. O’Leary. Or more accurately, Rory. And about how right he was. About everything he’d said. I even looked down on my own mother.

I wondered what Mrs. O’Leary would say if she saw these people in our backyard. Would she tell them her stories?
Would they make fun of her?
Surely Blondie would call her a crazy old bat. But these thoughts distressed me more, because I knew it wasn’t Mrs. O’Leary I was thinking of. Not really. It was Rory, what he thought of me, what he would think of this scene. And that just proved his point. Even when I thought I had the old woman’s interests in mind, they were purely selfish ones.

Not wanting to be a part of the good-byes, I made my way toward the beach when the crowd started to thin. The couples were saying their drunken good-byes to the Carltons and my parents, while kids sneaked away, grasping the hand of the opposite sex, or perhaps an armful of beers.

I laughed at the wine in my own hand. I didn’t even like wine. But I disliked it less than beer, so I had grabbed it from one of the servers. If only to stop the constant badgering, from guests and servers alike, to have a drink. And then I had grabbed another. And another. And who knows how many others.

Maybe I was drunk or maybe it was just my annoyance at seeing Owen approach, but I started to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” he asked, as he joined me on the beach.

I slipped off my shoes and ran to the soft sand left wet by the ebb tide. It was freezing cold, but I plunged into the water until the waves were up to my knees.

Owen hesitated at the edge of the water. “You’re drunk,” he said with a laugh.

Maybe I was. That could certainly be the ticket to stomaching life in the big houses. No wonder they guzzled wine and cocktails at an alarming rate. But I just shook my head with a laugh. “I’m not drunk. I’m just looking for Shoney.”

“For what?” he asked.

“The ale-loving water spirit,” I said simply.

“Is this another one of those fantastical tales you got from that crazy old lady?”

Before, that statement might have made me angry. I would have told him he was an ignorant, arrogant ass. But it didn’t hurt now. Because I regarded it as mere evidence of a truth. A once-painful truth. But now there was a scar where it hit, and it merely bounced off painlessly. “Yes it is,” I said. I swirled the wine around the glass and watched some of it slop over the side.

“You’ve gone insane,” Owen said. “She’s rubbed right off on you.”

For some reason, at this, I cackled. “Shoney! Shen-en-an-doya-ya. Shoney, I present to you this wine so that thou—” Here, I hiccupped. “Thou will send us good … good harvest for the coming … the coming harvest.”

“Wasted,” Owen muttered.

“Imagine,” I was saying, “someone so easily (hiccup) pacified.”

“That’s about all it takes for me,” Owen said.

“It’s supposed to be ale,” I said. “But I don’t know where to find that.”

That’s when we heard the shouts drifting down from the house. Angry, drunken shouts.

“Time to go, drunkie,” Owen said, holding his hand out to me. I let him lead me back up to the house, carrying our shoes, but Mrs. Carlton met us on the boardwalk in a huff.

“Come on, Owen, we’re going home!” she said, throwing daggers in my direction with her eyes.

“Mom—”

“Get away from that
tramp
, let’s go!” In shock, Owen let his mother pull him away north and off down the boardwalk. Striding past me, Mr. Carlton averted his eyes, his mouth a thin line.

My dad appeared beside me. He put a hand on my shoulder.

“Did I do some—(hiccup)?”

He sighed and shook his head.

“I’m not getting inta St. Bernard—ammi?”

He just shook his head again and went about setting the remaining guests on their way home.

Inside the house, my mother was standing at the kitchen counter, Princess hovering at her feet, carefully hopeful eyes on the servers who moved about, washing dishes and packing away rented plates and uneaten food. Mom watched them with glowering eyes.

I didn’t know whether or not to broach the topic, but I finally decided on a peaceful, “How are you, Mom?”

“For God’s sake, Cora, let’s not talk about it in here,” she said. Her eyes flashed around the room and she stalked into the empty living room. Princess was at her heels and I followed reluctantly. Of course she didn’t want to fight in front of the hired help, but I had the nagging feeling that this was about me—and I would have liked witnesses there in case she was in the mood for murder.