The Goodbye Summer (2 page)

“Lord, I’m tired all of a sudden. Wheel me inside, honey, I have to lie down.”

No more was said about old folks’ homes, and Caddie was pretty sure the subject was closed. She gave Nana her pain pill and got her settled on the couch, then went in the kitchen and tried to be quiet while she chopped onions for a casserole. Her grandmother confused her with her talk of leaving, but no more than she confused herself. What did
she
want? Normalcy, she’d have said, her unsuccessful goal since about age ten. And Nana was offering it to her, at least temporarily, a chance to be
really
invisible. She could bring a friend home and not have to worry that her grandmother would invite what was left of her nudist club over to join them, or that she’d have finger-painted Coptic symbols on the front door, or dyed Finney beige for fun. Caddie wouldn’t want to fall through the floor. Being by herself was
nothing compared to that. Anyway, you didn’t have to be alone to be lonesome.

They had a quiet dinner. Nana watched
Jeopardy!
while Caddie did the dishes and tidied up, fed the dog. When she went in the living room to get Nana ready for bed, she found her with the telephone on her lap, dialing.

“Who are you calling?”

“Sh.” She pressed the phone to her ear with her shoulder and held up her left wrist. “Good thing I put this on”—she flicked a rubber band—“because
you’d
sure never’ve remembered.”

“What?”

She put a finger to her lips and screwed up her face, listening. “Oh, for Pete’s sake. Well,
this
doesn’t bode well.”

“Who is it?”

She cleared her throat and spoke in her message-leaving voice. “Hello, this is Frances Winger. Please call me back at your earliest convenience.” She gave the number and started to hang up. Changed her mind. “And frankly, even if this is the business office, I think you ought to have a human being at the helm over there, not a machine. Even at night.”

“Nana, who are you calling?”

“If you’re a
home,
you should be
homey.
”

“Oh, boy.”

Nana hung up decisively.

“How’d you get the number?” The phone book was in the kitchen.

“Information.” She wore a smug smile. She plucked at her skirt, arranging it over her cast just so. “We’ll go there tomorrow, check the joint out.”

“Wake House.”

“Wake House.”

“And it’s just temporary?”

“Just temporary. Did I tell you I used to know the Wakes? Well, not know as in
know…
”

Nana had to have all her art supplies with her,
all
of them, so it took a whole day and about seven trips back and forth in Caddie’s old Pontiac to move her into Wake House. “Wish I could help,” she’d say every time Caddie staggered into her sunny, spacious, second-floor room with a box of engraving tools or an armload of canvases. Wake House had an elevator—Nana had been right about that, thank goodness—but it also had six steps between the sidewalk and the front walk, four more up to the wide front porch. By late afternoon Caddie was on her last legs.

“Go home,” Nana told her. “Put your feet up, have a drink.
Hey.
” She sat up straight in her wheelchair. “Do they serve booze here? We never even asked.”

Caddie blew a damp fall of hair out of her eyes. “I’ve only got a few more things to bring in.” One more, actually: Nana’s nude, life-size, papier-mâché statue of Michelangelo’s
David.
She had to have it, even though she used it only for a hat rack. Caddie had been saving it for last, hoping the front porch would be clear of witnesses by now. Half a dozen elderly Wake House residents had been monitoring the whole moving-in process since morning, and they all had kindly, welcoming smiles and eagle eyes.

“No, you go home, I mean it. I didn’t even do anything, and
I’m
exhausted.”

“You met people—that’s tiring.”

“I met a hundred people,” Nana agreed. “Can’t remember a single one’s name. Except those two gals—”

“The Harrises,” Caddie guessed, and they laughed together. Mrs. and Mrs. Harris were seventy-something ladies who lived on the same floor but never spoke a word to each other because—according to Claudette, the activities director—they used to be married to the same man. The late Mr. Harris.

“And Lorton,” Nana recalled, “somebody Lorton, him I remember because he’s the only one who’s older than me. He’s a hundred and ten.”

“I’ve seen lots of people who look much older than you.”

Nana grunted, blinking drowsily. Her eyes looked clear gray, almost transparent in the glare of late-afternoon sun.

“Wouldn’t this be a good place to set up your easel? In front of these pretty doors.” Lovely old French doors leading to a tiny balcony over the front yard and Calvert Street. “I bet the light’s perfect here practically all day. For painting.”

“Quit talking, I’m trying to doze off.”

“Oh! Okay, I’ll come and get you around six, then. Brenda said that’s when people start to gather in the blue parlor before dinner, a little get-together every night.”

“No, thank you. I want to go down on my own steam, eat dinner, and go to bed.”

“Well, I wasn’t going to stay for dinner, just the little get-together. To help, you know, sort of get you settled—”

“I don’t need any help.”

“But it’s your first night and I just…I thought I’d slip out right before the meal.” The busiest time, when Nana was in so many people’s capable hands, food in the offing, everything a little bit hectic. So she’d hardly even notice Caddie was gone.

“No, slip out right now.
Get.
” She turned her chair around to face the sun sliding down behind the glass doors.

“Oh, well. Okay, then.” Nana’s thick gray braid hung down in back, light against the black of the wheelchair. Caddie gave it a gentle tug. Her grandmother wasn’t much for hugging. Caddie leaned down anyway and
put her lips on Nana’s soft cheek. The backs of her eyes stung right before they filled with tears.

Nana saw. “Well, for the Lord’s sake.” She found Caddie’s hand and gave it a hard, jerky shake. “How silly can you be. I’ll probably be home in a month.”

“I know.”

“I’m a fifteen-minute drive away.”

“I know.” She wiped her face. “So I’ll call you as soon as I get home, okay?”

“
Caddie
…”

She laughed. “That’s a joke.”

Nana punched her on the arm. “Go, goodbye. Do something crazy while I’m out of the way. Go wild. Kick up your heels while you’ve got the chance.” She dropped skeptical eyes to Caddie’s shoes: sensible black flats. “Try, anyway.”

“I love you, Nan.”

“Likewise. Oh, and another thing, don’t miss me. That’s an order.”

“Don’t miss you?” She laughed, but her grandmother wasn’t smiling. “Sorry,” Caddie said softly, “that I can’t promise.” She blew Nana a kiss and backed out of the room.

The entrance hall, like the rest of Wake House, was a sort of good-natured jumble of grand and gone-to-seed. It had flocked peony wallpaper; blackish, shoulder-high wainscoting; and a chandelier looming over everything like a big, dusty bunch of grapes. More lights in sconces lined the walls above brown-painted benches that looked like church pews. Pocket doors on either side led to identical parlors called the Red Room and the Blue Room. You went to the Blue Room for arts and crafts, exercise class, bridge, house meetings, things like that. The Red Room was the formal parlor; you had to be quiet in there, read a book, play checkers or chess, entertain sedate visitors.

Caddie was crossing the hall—the scuffed parquet floor was so creaky it sounded like little firecrackers exploding under her feet at every step—when
Brenda Herbert came around the corner from her office. “Caddie!” She had a hearty, booming voice, as if a microphone were pinned to her lapel. “All moved in? Poor thing, you must be worn out. Sorry we couldn’t give you more help, but I had no idea how much—how many—I do hope there’s
room
for everything,” she finished tactfully, planting herself in front of Caddie and folding her arms. She owned Wake House. She was round-faced, solid-bodied, a widow; Caddie had never seen her in an apron, but she seemed like the kind of person who’d feel at home in one. “How is Frances?” she asked, wrinkling her forehead in concern. “Is she all right? Settling in okay?”

“Fine! Great! She loves it already. I think she’s going to fit right in. I really do.”

She didn’t like the way Brenda patted her on the arm and softened her megaphone voice to say, “Oh, dear, I hope so, I do hope so.”

“No, really, she’s going to be
fine.
” She said that too fervently, but Brenda had the wrong idea about Nana. “She’s
eccentric,
” Caddie had already tried to explain several times. “She’s always been like this, this is how she
is,
” but the skepticism in Brenda’s face never really went away. “Anyway,” Caddie reminded her, “it’s just temporary—till her leg heals. The doctor didn’t give a time, he just said it’ll be longer than usual because of her age.”

“Well, even if it takes a year,” Brenda said in a dry tone, “we can be sure she won’t run out of art supplies.”

Thumping footsteps sounded on the wooden front porch. An old man with thick glasses and wild, Albert Einstein hair stomped inside the house. He had on baggy-kneed trousers and a bow tie. His body bent forward at the shoulders in a predatory hunch, like a half-plucked but still dangerous bird, and Caddie was glad when he ignored her and dove straight at Brenda.

“So now the plan is to freeze us out? Eh? I thought it was to
burn
us out when you painted the damn windows shut.”

“Ah, Cornel. Good day to you, too.”

“You think it’s a good day? You think so? You must not live on the third floor. You must not’ve been standing in the shower at seven-thirty this morning.”

“Oh, dear.”

“Seven-thirty
A.M.
You think it’s unreasonable to expect the hot water to last till half-past seven in the morning?”

“Sorry, Cornel, there must’ve been a run on showers this morning.”

“That’s not the problem. The problem is the boiler. You got ten people trying to wash at the same time, and you got a boiler big enough to heat water for eight.”

Brenda held her ground when he bent even closer. She said, “Well, I guess we all—”

“I can
hear
Mrs. Brill, and I happen to know she stands under that shower for fifteen minutes every damn day of the week. What’s a woman that age got to wash off for fifteen minutes? And she’s not the only—”

Brenda cut in jovially, “Look who’s here, Cornel, we have a new resident, I know you’re going to enjoy her so much, she’s an
artist.
Cornel Davenport, this is Caddie Winger, her grandmother is
Frances
Winger, she’s upstairs but you’ll be meeting—”

“You’re new?” Cornel said accusingly, looking Caddie up and down. “Christ almighty, they’re getting younger every day. What do we do, charge double if they’re under fifty? This makes three now—”

“No, it’s not me—”

“And if you ask me it brings down the tone of the place. No offense, and not that it had such a high tone to begin—”

“
Not her,
Cornel,” Brenda raised her voice to say.

“What’s that?”

“Her
grandmother.
”

“Oh. Grandmother. Which one’s this?”

“Caddie,” Caddie said. “Pleased to meet you.”

They shook hands. His was dry and hard. He had such thin lips; if they were smiling, it was hard to tell.

“Cornel’s one of our oldest residents,” Brenda said, “almost a charter member of Wake House.”

“Yeah, and fifty cents’ll get me a cuppa coffee.
Sleep
House, that’s what we call it.”

“He’s also our resident grump.”

A tall, frail-looking boy in wrinkled blue pajamas shambled around
the corner from a corridor Caddie hadn’t noticed before. He stopped when he saw them. “Oops. Company,” he mumbled. The suddenness of halting must’ve thrown him off balance: he took two backward steps and smacked against the wall, causing a framed aerial photograph of Wake House to fall off its nail, strike the parquet floor, and break. Glass shattered.

Cornel laughed, a surprisingly pleasant sound. “This is Magill,” he told Caddie, “he’s one o’ the young ones—we got two. We like him, though, he gives old age a good name.”

“Don’t move,” Brenda instructed when Magill, who was barefooted, stretched out one of his thin legs as if he meant to step over the glass. Was he drunk? He had a black eye and a livid bruise on his left temple. And he wasn’t a boy at all, Caddie saw, he was a grown man; beard stubble shadowed his gaunt cheeks, and a piece of bloody toilet paper was still stuck to a cut on his chin.

“No, stay put,” Brenda ordered over his muttered apologies, rushing over to take his arm. “Watch out, honey, be careful. This way, look at your feet.” She kept one arm around his waist and one on his forearm while she led him over to where Caddie and Cornel stood under the chandelier. He had on kneepads, the kind skateboarders wore. Had he been skateboarding? In his pajamas?

Cornel said, “This here’s Caddie something—”

“Winger.”

“She’s dropping off her grandma. We got almost a full house again.”

Magill reached up to straighten his hair, which was black and shoved up on one side like a cardinal’s crest, flat on the other. “Hi.”

“Hello. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m sure your grandmother will like it here.”

“I’m sure she will.”

He had a slow, sweet smile. Or maybe it was sly. “Make sure she stays on Brenda’s good side, though,” he said confidingly. “Otherwise…” He turned his head and made a quick, furtive gesture toward his swollen and bloodshot eye. “Kind of a hothead. I know, you’d never think it. And usually she’s fine, but you just don’t want to cross her.”

Caddie stared at him with her mouth open.

A whoop of laughter exploded from Cornel; he rocked with it, leaning forward to slap his thighs.

Brenda rolled her eyes, chuckling in sympathy.

“Oh,” Caddie said, so glad it was a joke. “Oh, I see.”

A phone rang somewhere. “Sorry, ’scuse me,” Brenda said, and dashed off down the hall.

Caddie told Cornel and Magill she was happy to have met them, and they said the same to her. They made an odd couple, she thought, glancing back from the front porch. They stood in the hall to watch her go, the older man with his arms crossed and his legs braced to bear the weight of the younger one, who leaned against his shoulder and cocked his eyebrows at Caddie, smiling the sly, sweet smile.