by Cecilia Lyra
“I’m her granddaughter.” I shake his hand.
“Bertie used to talk about you and your sister all the time.” He looks me over—I’m wearing a plain, white summer dress and flats. “You’re not Julie.”
Of course he knows I’m not Julie. Nana probably showed him pictures of us, and his eyes popped out of their sockets when he saw Julie’s long legs and pouty lips. I know this because that’s everyone’s reaction to seeing a picture of Julie. What annoys me is that while I may not be beautiful, I can certainly be pretty, particularly when I’m dressed up and my hair is tamed. But no amount of grooming will ever make me the pretty sister. Not when my competition is Julie.
“I’m Cassie.”
“So is your sister here as well?” He looks behind me.
Five minutes into my mandatory vacation and this guy, this virtual stranger, is already asking for Julie. Well, he’ll have to wait. She isn’t supposed to get here until tomorrow.
“I don’t think so, no.”
There’s a beat. I know I’m being curt, and I don’t care. I resent his presence in my grandmother’s house. Being here is difficult enough without having to deal with a nosy outsider. It’s why I came a day early: I wanted a day by myself to get my bearings, process my emotions without interruptions.
“I’m happy you both agreed to come,” he says. I must have given him a funny look because he continues, “Bertie told me about the will.”
“She did?” I narrow my eyes.
“Yeah, I didn’t think she would go through with it, though…” I follow his gaze as he stares at Nana’s rocking chair. I wonder if he’s thinking of her.
“Were you with her, when she…?” I let my voice trail off, unable to finish my sentence.
“No, it happened at night. Mrs. Bunsen found her the next day. They were supposed to go to the club.” A pause. “We spent a lot of time together, though. I helped her around the house. I kept telling her to get a nurse, at least for the night, but you know Bertie.”
“Stubborn.”
“I was going to say proud, but, yeah, that sounds about right.” A sad smile.
“How was she doing?” I ask, feeling guilty that a complete stranger knows more about my grandmother’s final years than me. “I mean, physically. She said she was fine, but then this happened…”
I didn’t shut Nana out completely, like I did my father and Julie, but I didn’t make much of an effort to see her, either. I didn’t blame her for what happened, but Nana rarely left the island and the memories of this place were just too much for me. We had regular phone calls, but other than the brunch at Finale four years ago, the last time I saw her was when she came into town for Julie’s wedding—though, of course, she didn’t tell me that’s why she was in town, maybe because I never got an invitation (not that I wanted one). That was nine years ago.
“She looked well. She had her routine, tending to her plants when it was warm enough, meditating on the porch…I always thought it was impressive how she could sit down on the floor and get up all by herself at her age. My kids kept her pretty busy, too. They call her Nana Bertie…or called her, I guess.” He looks down. “Plus, she had her friends. A group of four or five of them went to the Yacht Club for lunch every other Saturday and I know they played cards at least twice a week, though Bertie said it was less.” A low chuckle. “And she met with Mandy weekly. If I’m not mistaken, it was Mandy who helped her come up with her…plan. You know, to bring you and your sister here.”
“I’m sorry, who’s Mandy?”
“Her therapist. Her grandmother is—”
“Nana had a therapist?” How could I not have known about this?
“Holistic therapist,” he explains.
A chip falls into place. “Do you mean her psychic?”
He laughs. “That’s the one.”
“At least now I know who to blame for all this.”
“Anyway, I’ve never seen her sick or anything. She was fragile because of her age, but that’s about it. It was very unexpected. We were all surprised.”
“Yeah,” I say, looking at my canvas flats. I should have visited. Occasional phone calls just aren’t enough.
I wonder how often Julie came to visit Nana. Part of me wishes I hadn’t changed the subject every time Nana brought up Julie’s name.
“It would’ve meant a lot to her that you two are giving this a chance.”
“Hmm,” is all I answer. I’m not about to open up to a guy I just met, even if he claims to have been close to Nana.
“Do you have bags in the car? I could give you a hand.”
“No, thank you. I’m good.”
“All right. Well, like I said, I live next door.” He gestures to the left with his thumb. “So if you need anything, just holler. Most evenings I’m at Holly’s. Do you know it? About five minutes from the Lobster Roll. It’s not from your day, but it’s a great diner.”
“No, sorry,” I answer. I’m feeling bad for having dismissed him as a Julie groupie. She isn’t even here and he’s being really nice.
“We serve the best crab legs in all of Southampton. Maybe you and Julie could stop by. I’d love to meet her.”
Never mind. I was right the first time.
“Sure, I’ll let her know.” A lie. Julie may be the pretty sister, but I’m the smart one. I’m not about to send Julie off to meet some random guy at a bar.
“It was great meeting you. I’ve been looking forward to it,” he says.
Yeah, right. I’m not the sister he wanted to meet.
Six
Julie
Wednesday, June 27th
There’s something wrong with the Hampton Jitney.
This isn’t my first ride. I’ve been on them countless times as a girl, but back then they weren’t quite so…bumpy. And were they always this full? I can’t remember. What I do remember is that I used to love the ride here. I spent every second inside the bus reveling in the thrilling anticipation of spending two whole months with my grandmother and my sister. I’d practically jump from the window when I saw Cassie and Nana waiting for me. Cassie would be as close to the jitney’s parking spot as possible, ready to secure my purple unicorn bag so that we could get in Nana’s car and drive off, blasting Summer Nights on her CD player, singing along with gusto. Neither of us were very good singers, but what we lacked in talent we made up for in enthusiasm.
I don’t know if I realized this at the time, but we were such happy girls. At least when we were together.
Of course, today there won’t be anyone waiting for me. I should’ve hired a driver, but I didn’t want to give Patrick an opportunity to remark on my expensive habits. He enjoys it a little too much. The subtext is not lost on me: he’s reminding me of what I owe him. I wouldn’t have gotten used to the finer things in life if he hadn’t married me. Hence, the jitney. The bumpy jitney.
I fully regret my choice of transportation the moment I arrive. The taxi line looks like an improvised street conga. Schlepping to Main Street and finding a cab isn’t an option—I have too many suitcases.
“Do you need help with that?” I look to my side to see a cheerful-looking man in his fifties wearing wrinkly linen clothes in summer pastels. “I can bring those over to your car.”
“Oh, no thank you,” I say. “I’m taking a cab.”
He looks at the line and grimaces. “Ouch, sorry.” He points to a group of people who are waving at him from a parking spot. “My family came to pick me up. I’d offer to give you a ride, but our car is full.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it,” I say.
“Isn’t there anyone you can call?”
I look down at my impractical wedge heels. “I’m actually the first one in my party to arrive.” A lie. The law office called me yesterday to let me know that Cassie had arrived a day early. They didn’t tell me why, but I’m hoping it’s because she’s actually looking forward to our mandatory month together. A girl can dream.
“Oh, well then, you’ll do a good deed and pick the
m up when they get here.”
I nod, thank him again, and say goodbye.
One hour later (I repeat—one hour), I am standing in front of Nana’s house.
“Hello, Julie,” Cassie says, opening the door.
I shouldn’t have rung the doorbell. This is my house, too.
“Hi,” is all I say back.
Cassie is holding a stack of what looks like old magazines. She catches me eyeing them. “I’m clearing some of Nana’s old things. I’m staying in her room.”
The unilaterality of her decision annoys me. I don’t complain, though. She was the first one here. Besides, I wouldn’t be able to sleep in Nana’s room.
“I’ll go put my things in our old room then,” I say.
In response, she purses her lips and turns around.
I leave my tote bag on the dining table and haul my luggage up to my room. I stop midway up the stairs, catching a whiff of old wood, ocean breeze, and something else I can’t quite pinpoint. It’s so…Nana. It’s been three years since my last visit. I’ve missed this place so very much.
My eyes examine the picture frames hung on the wall. So many of them are of Cassie and me. The two of us singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to ourselves, paddleboarding at the Yacht Club, grinning with ice cream cones in hand, swimming on the beach. I find the one we took of our identical eyes—emerald green with dark lashes—by flipping the camera, a makeshift selfie of the time. A haunting image.
“Something’s ringing,” I hear Cassie say. I jump when I see her walking over to the dining table, where my iPhone’s screen is flashing with a familiar ringtone.
I can picture Sophie’s face popping up. My mother is the only person who calls me on FaceTime.
“I got it!” I yell and sprint to pick it up.
Cassie gives me a funny look for about two seconds, and then walks out to the porch.
I bow my head and jog up to my room, phone in hand.
“I had to see it for myself,” Sophie’s eyes dart frantically as I take the call.
I adjust my earphones, drawing a deep breath. “Hello to you, too, Sophie.”
“Don’t hello me.” I watch her light up a cigarette. “I had to hear you moved out from your husband.”
My skin burns with irritation. I should’ve known Patrick would call her. “I didn’t move out.”
Sophie cranes her neck. “Is that not your grandmother’s house I see?” She pinches her lips when she says grandmother.
I wonder if Sophie has a good enough idea of the house to know that I’m inside our old room. Our—Cassie’s and mine. It looks like my childhood: striped blue-and-white wallpaper, slanted ceiling, twin beds with matching quilts. On our first night together, Cassie gave me the bed next to the window and took the one closest to the door. I assumed Nana had put her up to it, making her give me the bed that overlooked the ocean. I remember glancing out the window, pretending like I was aboard a cruise ship. From my bed it was all blue—blue water, blue skies. Not a speck of land.
“I’m only here for a month.” I take a seat on my bed. “I told you about the will.”
“The will! Such a ridiculous American custom,” Sophie scoffs.
I stifle a laugh. Is she under the impression that the French don’t leave wills?
“Patrick said he can take care of it. You won’t lose the house.”
“I want to be here.”
“After everything I’ve done for you, this is how you repay me?”
This is the turn all our conversations take. It doesn’t matter that I’m discussing my life. Sophie can make anything about herself.
“This is something I have to do for me.”
A stretch of silence. Sophie eyes me suspiciously. I understand why: I’m quiet, unruffled. This is unusual—Sophie is an expert at ruffling my feathers. I meet her gaze. With her flawless, creamy skin, cocoa-colored hair and leonine golden eyes, Sophie is a beauty. Right now, she looks like a painting of a woman considering her next move.
“Is this about that girl?” she asks. That girl: it’s what Sophie began calling Cassie, ever since she and I became friends.
“No.”
“But she is there, is she not?” Sophie takes a puff of her cigarette.
“Yes.”
“So it is a coincidence that you’re willing to throw away your marriage now that you have a chance to play make-believe sister with her again? Do I need to remind you of all she has cost us?” She pronounces “us” as if it had a z. Her French accent is still strong even after thirty-five years in the United States—and I know this is by choice.
“Sophie, what she cost us?” I bring my voice down to a whisper. Sound carries through these walls. “Cassie lost her mother.”
“Katherine was folle!” Sophie retorts. “Like the Americans say, batshit crazy!”
“Enough, Sophie.”
“She is the reason you never had the family you wanted.”
“I said enough.”
A sharp exhale from Sophie. “Look, Julie. I know it’s not her fault. But she is still the raison. You have a good life back here. A good husband, a beautiful home.” She moves her hands in the air, a maestro conducting a symphony, waving her cigarette with precision.
“I’ve told you before…Patrick doesn’t want to have children with me,” I say, my voice cracking. I’ve dreamed of a family since I was a little girl. Surely, Sophie remembers this. Understands this.
I look away from the camera, my eyes landing on the chest of drawers that stands between the two beds. Specifically, on the frame that sits atop it: a photo of Cassie and me, taken when we were in our teens. I wonder if she’s seen it. If she cares. If Nana were here, she’d find a way to get Cassie to talk to me. I’d give anything to have Nana here with me. With us.
“How many times do I have to tell you: men don’t know what they want,” Sophie says. “It’s your job to know for them. Just get pregnant. You shouldn’t have any trouble doing that. I did teach you how to seduce a man.”
Ew.
“I’m not doing that.” This is something I’ve told her before. More than once.
What is that saying about insanity being repeating the same thing over and over again, expecting different results? Whoever said it missed the point entirely. The cause of insanity is listening to one’s mother say that same thing over and over again, expecting different results.
“You think it’s better to leave him?” Her tone is accusatory, belligerent.
“I’m not leaving him. It’s only a month.”
“By the time you get back, he will have someone else, Julie. Men can’t stay by themselves, especially not a man like Patrick.”
I raise my eyebrows. “You mean rich?”
“I mean a man who can give a woman all that he has given you. All that we never had. Do you know how hard I had to work so you could go to a nice school and have nice things?”
Maybe it’s my imagination, but I catch her glancing wistfully behind me. I realize I never considered how Sophie would feel about me inheriting Nana’s house. Does it hurt her to know that this place is now legally mine—but it’s never been hers, not even by association? I’ve never summered here with Katherine, but I’m positive she felt perfectly at home at her mother-in-law’s house. Katherine was family. It’s one of the many differences between a wife and a mistress.
I hate that word. Mistress. On the surface, it sounds sexy, in a forbidden sort of way. But that’s only when it’s used in the abstract. In context, its connotation is always dirty, taboo. Immoral.
“At least you had your career,” I say, thinking of Posh, the fashion magazine where Sophie has worked since I was nine years old. Before that, she had two jobs: hostess at a French restaurant on Newbury Street and unlicensed “esthéticienne”. “I feel like I have nothing.” I raise my hands to inspect my nails. I feel a prick of anxiety when I see that I have a chip on my left pinkie. I’ll have to book an appointment today. But then I realize that Patrick isn’t here. I don’t have to g
et a manicure at all. Or I could get a manicure and paint my nails whatever color I want. Bronze. Coral. Even red.
“You have a husband. You have a ring on your finger and a document that says he is yours. A career can evaporate in a second,” she pauses for effect, snapping her fingers, “but this is binding.”
“This is important to me,” I say. Cassie is important to me. I absentmindedly begin picking at my chipped pinkie. It’s oddly comforting.
“Fine, suit yourself. But there’s something you should know about that girl.” Sophie’s lips curl into a knowing smile. “After all, it’s awfully convenient that she didn’t have plans for the summer, don’t you think? Why do you think that is?”
“Maybe she also wants to—”
“Rumor has it she is seeing a married man.”
Wait. What?
“How do you—”
“Sources at Posh.” Her tone drops a register. “You know that after she wrote that little book, she became…quasi-famous.”
“She became a lot more than that,” I say.
“That’s debatable.” I watch as Sophie wrinkles her nose. Cassie’s success is something of a sore subject for my mother. “People talk. And that’s what they’re saying.”
“Even if it’s true, what does that have to do with me?” I stare at my pinkie, now polish-free. I pull at my cuticles.
“Julie, don’t you see? She is going on this little vacation because she has no life. That show of hers doesn’t come back until the fall, she isn’t married, and if this story is true, she is about to lose her career. I’ll bet her boyfriend is summering with his wife just like Stephan did with his in that very house.”
“It’s really none of my business, Sophie.” I ignore my spinning mind. “Or yours.”
“Do I have to spell everything out for you? You’ve always been the better daughter, Julie, charming and fun and not the least bit boring, a product of love and not some sham marriage. And yet you used to hero-worship that plain girl with horrible posture who always had her nose stuck in a book! And now you’re leaving your husband to try to be friends with her again. And don’t tell me that’s not the reason why you’re there. Patrick has been Patrick for years now and all of a sudden you decide to leave? Quelle coincidence!”
