Vintage (15 page)

“Yeah. The autopsy was inconclusive.” April’s shoulders tensed up again. “The coroner couldn’t settle on a specific cause of death because the wreck was so bad.”

She knew what Charlie was implying—that maybe it was no accident that her mother’s car had veered off the icy Beltline and over the guardrail. April had considered the possibility before. She couldn’t help it. On nights when she couldn’t sleep, it was hard not to think the worst. But thinking it was one thing. She didn’t think she could stand to hear it said aloud by the one person in this world who loved her as much as her mother had.

“I just meant the insurance claim could be denied,” Charlie said. “That’s all.”

“If you mean it
could be denied
because you think my mom killed herself, I’ve thought about that, too.” April’s voice came out sharp, defensive. “But I know she would never have done that. She may have had her problems, but there’s no way she’d have gone that far.”

Charlie shrugged. “Okay.”

“You don’t believe me, do you?”

“It doesn’t matter what I think.”

“It
does
matter. It matters to me.” April got up from the table and paced the floor. The cold tile on her bare feet sent a shiver through her. Not knowing exactly what had happened the night of her mom’s accident kept her in a holding pattern, a whirlpool of grief and questions that sucked her in and spit her out, no matter how hard she tried to swim out of it. Being four months pregnant, too, seemed to magnify every emotion.

“I shouldn’t have brought it up.” Charlie put his head in his hands. When he looked up again, he asked, “How can I make it better?”

See, that’s the problem,
April thought. Charlie came from a lush-lawned world where a signature on a check or withdrawal slip could heal most wounds. He didn’t know what it was like, as a kid, to wonder if the phone was going get turned off again, or to wake up every morning wondering if it was going to be a good day or a bad day, based on his mom’s mood swings.

“If you think there’s an easy fix—some money or magic words that will solve all our problems—then maybe you’re more like your parents than I thought,” she said.

Now Charlie stood up. “I’m
nothing
like them. And anyway, just because my parents didn’t struggle to pay the bills doesn’t mean my family didn’t have any problems. Sometimes I think growing up with money can make things worse, in a way.”

“It’s easy to say that when you had it. We’ll see what you’re saying when we’re struggling to pay the rent.”

“So what are you saying, exactly?” Charlie crossed his arms over his chest. “That you don’t think I can hack it without Mommy and Daddy to pay the bills?”

“I’m saying that to pay for four years of med school—that’s a lot of money. And, since you’ve never had to worry about money, I’m not sure you’ve
really
thought about what it means to turn down that big of a sum.”

“I didn’t
have
to think about it,” Charlie said. “I didn’t think about it for even a second.”

“That’s what worries me,” April said. “It’s all sweet and romantic right now to tell your parents to screw off. All Sonny and Cher and—what was that old song? ‘I Got You Babe.’ But we’ll see what happens when things get harder. I don’t want you to hold it against me someday.”

“You know, maybe
you’re
the one who is having second thoughts and that’s why you brought this all up.” Charlie pressed his lips together in a hard line. “You know, maybe my parents were right.”

“About what?”

“Well, maybe you can’t commit, just like your mom. She couldn’t commit to your dad or to any of the crazy business schemes she thought up.”

“She had an
illness,
Charlie,” April said through a clenched jaw.

He dropped his arms to his sides. “Yeah, and how do I know you won’t go crazy someday, too?”

She felt as if Charlie had just punched her in her swollen stomach. Until that point, their fight had been about their families, their circumstances. Now Charlie had made it personal. Ending up like her mom was April’s worst fear, and it could still happen. Her mother’s bipolar disorder didn’t surface at a diagnosable level until she was in her twenties.

“You’re right,” she said in her iciest voice. “You
don’t
know. And I suppose you don’t want to stick around to find out.”

“That’s not what I—”

“Oh, I know what you meant,” April said, her ears ringing with anger. “Hell, our baby will probably turn out crazy, too.”

“
Fuck.
” Charlie slammed his hand against the table. “Can’t we just reset this whole conversation? Pretend it didn’t happen?” His voice bordered on desperation.

“I don’t think so. Now that I know what you really think . . .” April’s vision blurred as tears filled her eyes. “I can’t live my life with you watching me every day, wondering if today’s going to be the day I lose my mind. Maybe your parents
were
right. Maybe you should just cut your losses and get on with whatever they’ve got planned for you.”

April expected Charlie to protest, but he didn’t. Instead he just stood there, mournful and unmoving, as if he couldn’t quite believe what was happening. He opened his mouth—to apologize, maybe—but no sound came out to fill the stunned space that stretched between them.

Charlie shuffled to the table and picked up his laptop. He met April’s eyes with a helpless expression and held her gaze for a few long, sorrowful seconds. Then he slumped, as if in a daze, out the side door.

As soon as he was gone, April picked up her plate from the table and threw it on the floor. Jagged pieces of glass and broken cracker scattered on the tile
.
She realized her parents had probably fought in this very kitchen, though she’d been too small when they split to remember any details. What she did remember was growing up with the sense that family relationships were fragile and for some people, like her father, replaceable.

She kept her phone close by her bed that night as she turned beneath her blankets without sleeping. April knew, of course, that she could call Charlie. But to do so seemed like an admission that she’d been more in the wrong than he had. Sometime in the early-morning hours, before the sun came up, she resolved that no, she wouldn’t call.

This was a test. A test to see if Charlie was up to the task of loving her unconditionally, despite genetics, money, and a dead mother. It was a test and she wanted more than anything for him to pass, but he had to do it on his own.

The next day, her heart nearly stopped when the doorbell rang. April couldn’t conceal her disappointment when she opened the door to see a political canvasser, clutching leaflets for the Green Party candidate in the state senate primaries. She nearly slammed the door in the poor guy’s face, and in the faces of the UPS driver and of the band kids selling candy bars later that week. They all smiled at her, oblivious to the fact that they were not what she wanted. What she wanted was a chance at a normal family, and with every agonizing day that passed without word from Charlie, that chance grew slimmer.

April hated waiting. She hated the powerless feeling it produced. But even more than she hated waiting, she hated the conclusion she was coming to—that Charlie was no more reliable than the other people she’d loved in her life.

April stopped waiting when, exactly two weeks after her and Charlie’s fight, she checked the mailbox and found an ivory, calligraphed envelope nestled among discount-store flyers and debt-collection notices addressed to her mom. The return address on the scripted envelope read “Mr. and Mrs. Charles Cabot III.” She tore it open and pulled out a thick, stiff piece of paper. There, engraved in black ink on Strathmore cotton cardstock, was the announcement that the wedding had been canceled.

INVENTORY ITEM
: handbag

APPROXIMATE DATE
: 1950s

CONDITION
: fair

ITEM DESCRIPTION
: Straw handbag with fake-flower embellishments. Some fraying of the straw weave on bottom of bag.

SOURCE
: purchased from a friend of Betsy Barrett

Violet

WHEN VIOLET ARRIVED AT
the store the next day, she noticed that April looked tired. Violet didn’t envy the heartbreak the girl had endured. Still, she noted with a bit of jealousy that although April’s belly was growing larger by the day, she continued to be one of those lucky pregnant women who didn’t get bigger anywhere else.

Betsy Barrett waved at Violet from one of the orange chairs outside the dressing room, where she sat paging through a magazine.

“Hi, Betsy,” Violet said. “What brings you in today?”

Betsy gripped the arms of the chair with her arthritis-knobbed hands and began to push herself up.

“No need to get up,” Violet said, going over to her. “I hope you haven’t been waiting long.”

“Nonsense, I’ve been entertaining myself.” Betsy pointed at a picture of a young woman in a perfume ad with an elaborate maritime tattoo spread across her shoulder blades, complete with mermaids and a multisailed vessel floating in a sea of skin marked with rippling green waves. “That ship would have sunk years ago if it were on my body.”

Violet laughed and clipped a flyaway piece of black hair behind her ear with a rhinestone-studded hairpin. “So what brings you in today?”

“I’ve got some things for you out in the car, but I’ll need some help bringing them in. April offered to help, but I told her she shouldn’t be lifting heavy bags in her condition.”

“Sure, I can get them,” said Violet. “April, I’ll be right back.”

Betsy handed her the keys and said, “I’m at a meter out front.”

Violet stepped outside into summer sunlight and heard the twang of dueling fiddles coming from the street musicians on the corner. A man playing the harmonica tipped his hat at her and she waved.

She spotted Betsy’s silver Mercedes parked in front of the bike shop next door, Solidarity Cycles. Through the rear window of the car Violet could see several shopping bags on the backseat. She opened the door, and as she leaned over to grab the bags, she caught sight of a slip of paper on the console between the front seats. It looked like a bill, and at the top it said
Turtle Bay Cancer Treatment Center.
Her eyes watered as she grabbed the bags and set them on the sidewalk.

Violet dabbed at her eyes with her sleeve, debating whether she should confront Betsy about having seen the paper. She didn’t want to seem nosy, but then again Betsy had left it out in plain view and hadn’t stopped her from coming out to the car on her own. Violet wasn’t sure about the etiquette in this situation. On the one hand, it would be hard to pretend she didn’t know. On the other, she wanted to respect her friend’s privacy.

She picked up the shopping bags and lugged them back to the store. Inside, April was dusting glassware on display shelves while Betsy chattered.

“ . . . so I told them that unless they made a rule banning parents from auditions, I wasn’t giving another cent to the Young Shakespeare program.” Betsy shook her head. “Honest to God, you’d think it was Broadway the way these parents act.”

Violet’s throat constricted as she listened to her friend’s voice. Betsy looked fine—a little thin, maybe, but she’d always been thin.

April set down a cranberry glass vase and placed her hands on her middle. “I’ll have to try to bite my tongue when this little one starts getting involved in extracurriculars.”

“Shall we see what we have here?” Violet placed Betsy’s shopping bags on the counter and started going through them.

“Oh, you take your time with that,” Betsy said. “I can come back later. I’ve got an appointment to get to.”

The mention of an appointment made Violet worry about her friend even more. She hugged Betsy good-bye a little tighter than usual. “It was good to see you again.”

After Betsy had gone, April came over to the register. “Hey, I might need to take a day off soon. Is that okay?”

“Sure. Any fun plans?”

“Unfortunately, no. I need to go through my mom’s old stuff. I’ve been trying to do it after work, but lately I’ve been so tired when I get home I end up going to bed early. My Realtor said all the clutter is kind of off-putting for the potential buyers that have been through the house so far.”

“Do you need any help?” Violet asked.

“Most of it’s junk I’ll probably just give to Goodwill.”

“That’s what my mom said when my grandma died. But it’s only junk if you don’t know what you’re looking for. And if there’s any heavier stuff you need to lift, I can do that, too.”

“Look at you being all protective,” April said. “You sound like my doctor.”

“Yeah, well, I know you’re capable of doing a lot on your own. But accepting help once in a while is okay, too.”

April put her hands on her hips. “You should take your own advice, you know.”

“I’m working on it.”

S
am Lewis called Violet on the Fourth of July to report that the blue hat with the birdcage veil had been a hit with his students. He also asked if Violet wanted to go see the fireworks with him that night. She accepted, remembering the goose bumps she’d gotten when she and Sam had brushed hands in the shop. It had been a couple of weeks since then, and Violet had figured he wasn’t going to get in touch with her. She was glad she’d been wrong.

After she closed the shop that evening, Violet ran upstairs and tried on several different outfits for her date, casting each of them aside and piling them on the bed. Miles, looking irritated at this invasion of his prime napping space, huffed out a big-jowled sigh and moved to the living room couch. Violet finally decided on an outfit that was both a little bit retro and a little bit patriotic—a blue and white striped dress with a fitted bodice and full skirt. It had short sleeves, so it showed off the tattoo on her upper arm. She finished off the look with a red leather belt to highlight her curves.

By the time Sam arrived to pick her up, Violet had worked herself into a buzzing bundle of nerves. She didn’t know why she felt so anxious. She’d been on plenty of dates in the years since her divorce, most of them courtesy of Internet dating sites or a friend’s setup. The setups were usually the most disappointing. Violet used to approach them with high hopes, but she’d since learned to dread the phrase “I have this single friend.” Usually it meant that the man in question was the only other single person, besides Violet, that the friend knew.