The Yellow Braid (3 page)

If Marcie had been alive, she and Caro would
have driven out to the beach house on Saturday and enjoyed the
festivities the Hamptons offered to celebrate the Memorial Day
holiday. But the mere thought of throngs of happy-go-lucky
vacationers made Caro want to cry, so she arranged a Tuesday
arrival with the realtor. By then, most of the tourists would have
gone home, leaving only the weekend husbands to drive west toward
their jobs and New York flats, as she headed east.

Marcie had acquired the rental from Gwen
Henderson, a friend of a friend who was traveling through Europe
for the summer and needed house-sitters. She glanced again at the
photo of the house Gwen had sent.

Located on Dune Road in the village of
Westhampton, the house was oceanfront. That fact alone made Caro
grin as she crossed over one of the bridges that attached Dune Road
to the mainland.

A paved strip of land and fragile dunes that
ran the length of a barrier island defined by beach, ocean, and
salt marshes, the island’s shores had been inundated since the
1980s by Wall Street millionaires. Consequently, Dune Road hosted
an eclectic mix of architecture ranging from steel-embellished
post-modern estates to 1920s cottages gone black with age.

Number 83 was a fern-green Arts and Crafts
structure sitting behind a white stucco monstrosity. Caro
acknowledged the chauffeur who was wiping down a Bentley and drove
the remaining four hundred yards to the house. She passed alongside
a dense row of red cedars, which separated the two properties.

The bungalow was typical of its style:
one-and-a-half stories with a long, sloping roofline and a wide
overhang that seemed nestled into the earth. This earthen tie was
exaggerated by a foundation and pillars made of river rock that
broadened at the base; the screened-in porch sat low on the
dune.

Because the house was situated on a high
rise, the ocean was out of sight of the circular driveway. Caro
stepped out of the car and the sea air grabbed her hair and
ballooned out her caftan top like the wings of a giant sting ray.
The smell and sound and the salty taste of it made her spread her
arms and breathe deep through her nose.

She stripped off her sandals, tossed them on
the porch, and scuttled up the dune by a slim path cut through the
cattails and leggy reed grasses. The sand, in early June, was cool.
Her feet sunk into it almost to her ankles and she was practically
on all fours when she reached the top.

A hodgepodge of blankets, coolers, and
umbrellas defined the boundaries of miniature islands of humanity
that ran the length and breadth of the shoreline: mothers with
children whose juvenile voices leaped above the din of the
breakers; rich twenty- and thirty-year-old women in bikinis; their
older counterparts under wide-brimmed hats reading romance novels
alongside their gray-haired husbands.

Caro shaded her eyes against the sun as she
followed a pair of gulls diving for some bit of food. A queue of
roadrunners, intent on baby hermit crabs, skittered their way in a
zigzag across the sand.

The tableau typified the Hamptons. It was
the kind of day that Marcie had valued for her ability to afford
renting in a luxury resort area after a career of establishing her
worth in the publishing industry. Caro knew from Ethan that this
year was to be particularly notable because he had planned to make
Marcie a partner. She died without knowing she had achieved her
most ambitious goal.

Caro gave in to a snivel and her eyes teared
for the life that Marcie had lost as well as for her own feeling of
emptiness. She knew that Marcie wouldn’t want her to brood. Yet
Caro passed several minutes staring at two women engaged in
energetic conversation before she could turn away and tromp back
down the other side of the dune to unload the car.

Inside the bungalow, a departure from the
traditional Arts and Crafts design revealed expansive sheets of
glass that opened up the interior. Caro’s heart raced at the sight
of the vast ocean; the surging surf that seemed to spill at her
feet and confuse the boundaries between inside and outside.

She opened the sliding French doors.
Halfway in and halfway out the door, Caro suddenly felt bisected,
cut through the middle: middle-aged, adrift in the mid-ocean of
mourning, in the middle of a book,
In Search of Eros
, her collection of poems whose beginning she
could scarcely remember and an ending she could not
foresee.

Glancing over her shoulder into the recesses
of the great room, the solidity of the wooden architecture soothed
her melancholy, while the sunlight that splashed like giant puddles
onto the polished pine floor made her smile.

On the deck, she squinted to a point on the
horizon where she wanted to believe Marcie was looking back at her
from the thin crease between sea and sky.

Later that evening Caro ate sushi in town on
the porch of an 1800s converted cottage. The tiny restaurant was
situated between a liquor store and barber shop and across from a
gourmet deli and an antiques shop—the extent of the storefronts
that was considered the community’s main street.

After dinner she bought wine and a few food
staples, taking the opportunity to introduce herself to business
owners, and then went home. She was glad that she’d unpacked and
stowed everything away upon arrival; now she could enjoy her first
night in contented orderliness.

So thinking, she yanked on an old sweatshirt
of Zach’s that she refused to throw away; the fabric was at the
baby-soft stage that only comes after hundreds of washings. She
poured a glass of chardonnay and made her way barefoot down the
steps and along the salt-worn catwalk to the beach.

It was too early in the season for
mosquitoes and the air was benign. A sailboat in the far distance
crossed her line of vision, its lights glittering in the coming
dusk. She breathed in the pungent smells of the ocean and sipped
her wine, letting the corn silk-colored liquid roll against her
teeth.

Caro settled into a welcome reverie. Even
after she projected mental images of Marcie she managed to maintain
an inner calm. This night was for taking the best of what the
moment had to offer.

She remembered a day when she and Marcie had
hunted the East Village for a late-nineteenth-century reticule. It
was to be a wedding gift from Marcie for her niece to fulfill the
“something old” custom of giving. After a full day of rummaging
through vintage clothing stores, Caro spotted a particularly
delicate one, embroidered with lace and seed pearls.

“Perfect!” Marcie pronounced and purchased
it.

Worn out from schlepping the city blocks
from East Fourteenth Street to Houston, the north and south
boundaries for the Lower East Side, they’d stopped into a bar to
relax over drinks.

They’d ordered then sunk into comfy chairs
in peaceful retreat. After a few minutes, Marcie kicked Caro’s foot
under the table and nodded to a pair of women kissing over bottles
of Guinness. Caro scanned the room: two more women were sitting
shoulder to shoulder in a booth, one of them with her arm slung
around the other. A college-aged girl behind them read to her
companion from
Curve Magazine
.

“I love this. Stumbling into a gay bar. What
are the chances?” Marcie whispered in Caro’s ear. “It’s
so…trendy.”

Caro frowned. “I think some of these women
would take offense at the notion of being considered
trendy
.”

“Oh, don’t get on your soap box. I only
meant that, well…” She paused and then blurted, “I’m a
post-middle-aged divorcee who hasn’t been out on a date in
ages.”

“That’s your own fault. You could have gone
out last week with that literary agent Ethan brought around. He
seemed really into you,” Caro said.

“
He was ten years my junior,” Marcie
retorted. “But that’s not the point. What I’m saying is that it’s
just different being here and I like the feel of
difference
.
Makes my social life seem less limited.”

Caro noted a seldom-heard vulnerability in
Marcie’s voice, and asked if she’d ever thought about being with
another woman sexually.

“No. I told you I’m just feeling…out of
touch. I’m not looking to change my sexual preference. I like
men.”

“I have…thought about it. Actually, I
thought a lot of women did at one time or another. Seems almost
natural to me, like masturbation.”

Marcie screwed up her face in distaste.
“Masturbation—”

“Well, have you ever?” Caro coaxed.

“I’m not saying.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake, we’re best friends.
Tighter than tight. If you can’t talk about this stuff with me,
than who?”

“With no one, that’s who,” Marcie said
flatly.

Caro playfully cuffed Marcie on the arm.
“Did I ever tell you that you can be a pain-in-the-butt prude
sometimes?”

Marcie nodded.

“So I guess that means you don’t want to
talk about orgasms either, or S&M?”

“No, and no,” Marcie said, and signaled the
waitress for another drink.

“Well, I like it here,” Caro said in a
contented tone. “Makes me feel safe being surrounded my women. Very
Sapphic. And that, my dear, is my last word on the subject…”

A fruit fly buzzing around Caro’s ear
interrupted her daydream just as a masculine voice addressed
her.

“Excuse me. Hello.”

Caro looked up. She first registered the
man’s basso voice and lopsided smile, touches of gentility that
countered his shaved head and the matching dagger tattoos on his
forearms. A woman was with him. A camera with a zoom lens bumped
against her chest as she leaned into her companion and slung her
arm around his neck. Her skin was glossy with a dark tan gotten
only from dedicated baking; the tangled length of her hair was
caught up in a scruffy pony tail.

“Tommy and Nina Winters,” the man said,
nodding to his wife. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

Caro got up, wiped herself of sand and shook
their hands. “Caro Barrone.”

“Tommy should explain. Gwen heard from the
real estate woman you were coming this afternoon. Great to have
you! Gwen wanted someone nice who’d take care of the place,” Nina
offered congenially.

“Settled in yet?” Tommy asked.

“Pretty much. I kept to the bare minimum.
Which is yours?” Caro asked, indicating the line of houses that
extended along the beach in both directions.

Tommy pointed to the neighboring three-story
structure with a lighthouse-inspired tower.

“It’s an incredible design,” Caro said,
appreciative of outstanding architecture from years of studying
plans that Zach had brought home for her opinion.

“My brother,” Nina said. “When we decided to
build, he invited us to Cape Cod to see the one he’d designed on
the bay. I have a special thing for lighthouses and the stories
they tell.”

“
We both fell in love,” Tommy said. He put
his arm around Nina’s waist. “Listen, next time you’re at the
library check out the local author section.
She’s
got a coffee-table book out called
Lighting the Way
from Bar Harbor to Key West
. The photos taken in North Carolina along the Outer Banks
are my favorites.”

Nina gave her husband’s arm an affectionate
hug. “It’s self-published and never made a dime.”

“It made a few dollars,” Tommy said.

“Hah!” Nina’s eyes darkened. “Enough to take
you out to McDonald’s.”

“Don’t get that way, Baby.”

Caro’s mental vision flashed back to Zach
showing off one of her books. Like Tommy about Nina’s photography,
Zach had been proud to say that his wife was a poet.

Tommy changed the subject. “By the by, if
you need a hairdresser while you’re here, come see me. I have a
salon and spa in Southampton on Meetinghouse Lane.”

Caro resisted the urge to touch her hair as
she imagined the grey roots that had inched up the brown dye; she
was weeks overdue for an application. “I will,” she said in a small
voice.

A stiff breeze skidded off the ocean and
Caro saw Nina shiver in her midriff top. “It’s getting chilly and
I’m beginning to feel the effects of moving in—I better go in. But
thanks for introducing yourselves.”

“Enjoyed it.” With their arms linked at
their backs, they began to walk away and then Tommy swung them back
around. “We have Nina’s niece with us for awhile, so if you see a
thirteen-year-old hanging out, it’s her.”

“What’s her name?” Caro asked.

“Livia.”

Nina warned, “She’s very shy so don’t be
insulted if she doesn’t talk the first few times.”

“I won’t,” Caro replied and then watched the
couple climb the catwalk that led up the dune to their house.

Caro went inside as well, ready to settle in
for the night. The space she lived in was important to her and the
bungalow had met her every expectation. In her condo in New York
the most important rooms—her bedroom and study—were appointed with
infinite care and detail. Believing that she’d been born a century
too late, she felt most at home among Victorian furnishings:
Persian rugs, Tiffany lamps, and tufted fabrics in warm reds and
chocolates.

Thus it was surprising to her that she found
these Bahamian seaside tones of apricot, peach, and seaweed green
so charming. Gwen’s tastes were eclectic, however, and Caro had
chosen the smaller of the two guest rooms for her bedroom that was
painted in lavender.

Gwen even had arranged for a bouquet of
fresh lavender to be brought in for Caro’s arrival. So infused was
the room in the purple flower that Caro’s mood at once eased, and
it wasn’t long before she was nested in the floral linens. Even
after she flicked off the lights, she felt the fabric’s blooms
envelop her in the invisible arms of safety and comfort.