Island Girl
Page 1
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
RUBY
LIZ
GRACE
RUBY
LIZ
GRACE
RUBY
LIZ
GRACE
RUBY
LIZ
GRACE
RUBY
LIZ
GRACE
RUBY
LIZ
GRACE
RUBY
LIZ
GRACE
RUBY
LIZ
GRACE
RUBY
LIZ
GRACE
RUBY
LIZ
GRACE
THE GREY FALLS …
“Ruby, put the scissors down.”
I turned, saw Mark in the doorway. “I can’t,” I told him. “I have work to do.”
“No, you don’t. We’re going canoeing, remember?”
“I can’t go anywhere now. I have clients. Grace can’t handle this alone.” I looked around. “Where’s my notebook? I need my notebook.”
“I don’t know about the notebook,” Mark said. “But I do know that Grace is doing okay on her own.”
“Okay? Okay? Mark, look around. She’s made a mockery of everything.” I turned to the woman in the chair. “What’s your name?”
“Ruby, it’s me,” she said. “Joannie from Algonquin Island.”
“Of course you are.” I swung around to the women on the couch. “The rest of you … I don’t know. I’ll figure something out. But right now I need my goddamn notebook.”
Mark put his hands on my shoulders. “Ruby, give me the scissors.”
Maybe it was the way the silence suddenly pressed in on me or the looks on the faces all around me. I don’t think I’ll ever know what stopped me, what made me come back to the moment. But for some reason, I was acutely aware of what I had just done.
My daughter was outside, crying. My best friend was on the verge of it herself, and my clients, women I’d known for years, women I considered friends, were staring at me as though they’d never seen me before. They were right. They hadn’t. This was the new Ruby. Big Al’s girl. And she was down by more than a few points.
Titles by Lynda Simmons
ISLAND GIRL
GETTING RID OF ROSIE
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
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This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Copyright © 2010 by Lynda Simmons.
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PRINTING HISTORY
Berkley trade paperback edition / December 2010
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Simmons, Lynda, 1954—
Island girl / Lynda Simmons.—Berkley trade pbk. ed.
p. cm.
eISBN : 978-1-101-44569-3
1. Alzheimer’s disease—Fiction. 2. Mothers and daughters—Fiction. 3. Domestic fiction. I. Title. PR9199.4.S’.6—dc22 2010027941
http://us.penguingroup.com
For Hedy,
with love from the troll
acknowledgments
While I was working on this book, people who weren’t familiar with the Island would often ask, “Is this a real place?” I was always delighted to tell them yes, the Island is real, and magical, and truly unique. A place where farm animals and Ferris wheels blend easily with parkland, bird sanctuaries, and a neighborhood of homes that only survived because of the dedication of those who stood together to stop the destruction of everything that had once been. As a result, history on the Island isn’t merely a reenactment or a collection of empty buildings and commemorative plaques. History here is part of a living and vital community. And the Island is the only place I know of where it doesn’t matter who you are or how much money you have. If you want to own a little piece of this paradise, you have to get in line and wait like everyone else—and I hope that never changes.
I’d like to thank the many Islanders who shared their time and their stories with me, including Peter Holt, who answered questions about the smallest details with a patience that was always appreciated. Elizabeth Amer, who served me tea and gave me wonderful insights into the fight to save the Island homes. David, Ellen, and Eric Smiley, who allowed me a glimpse into everyday life on the Island. And, of course, Albert Fulton, who not only opened the archives to me but also helped me navigate through the volumes of information he lovingly gathered and painstakingly maintained for so many years. And finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t give a tip of the hat to Toronto Island Connection, the online group who welcomed me into their discussions of Island lore, and made an outsider feel like one of the gang.
I also owe a debt of gratitude to the families and patients who were so generous in sharing their experiences with Alzheimer’s. And a kiss to Lorraine and Edna, whose lives have touched me deeply.
RUBY
If I were a teenager, this would be a coming-of-age story. But having celebrated my fifty-fifth birthday yesterday—complete with champagne, cake, and more candles than anyone wants to see in one place—I suppose this is more a coming-of-old-age story. The tale of a woman well aware that the best is no longer yet to come. Proud that all the years of canoeing and weight training and green tea have given her firm arms, a straight back, and a heart so strong the little darling will probably beat for years and years to come. Yet knowing with aching clarity that none of these things will stop, or even slow, the inevitable decline before her.
Fortunately, it’s not all bad news. As those thoughtful cards from the Humorous Birthday section of the Hallmark store pointed out, I may be “Over the Hill” and “Past My Best Before Date,” but I am also officially a “Junior Senior” now, entitling me to a free coffee refill at Donut King and a 10 percent discount on power
tools this week at the hardware store on Sherbourne. Pity I swore off coffee twenty years ago and already have a shed full of tools courtesy of Jack Hoyle—the man who finished renovating my second-floor bedroom yesterday and shared it with me last night after the party.
While I never expected my handyman to hang around for the long good-bye, a kiss on the cheek or even an elbow in the ribs would have been better than waking up to find an empty pillow on my right and a few words scrawled on the back of an envelope stuck to the fridge. Catching early flight from Hanlan’s. Tools in shed for safekeeping. Good luck, Jack.
I couldn’t believe it. After everything I’d explained, after everything he’d read, the idiot had still booked a flight out of the Island Airport. Another blatant example of self-interest trumping reason. Then again, what else could I expect from a man with broad shoulders and a narrow mind?
“Good luck to you too, Jack,” I whispered, dropping the note into the garbage and smiling as I went to plug in the kettle. I’d always meant to tell him that the old shed leaks like a sieve, see if he wanted to stick around a while longer, maybe fix it for me. But like so many things these days, it must have slipped through a crack in my Junior Senior mind, and I can’t imagine I’ll remember to add that repair to one of my lists any time soon.
The lists are everywhere now. Grocery lists, address lists, lists telling me where to go and when and why. I write them to keep myself on track, to stem the flow of details through those damn cracks. For the most part they work, which is why I am dressed in my best trousers and jacket with my hair freshly highlighted and sprayed into submission. The next ferry leaves at 8:30 A.M. and I plan to be on it, because the first line on today’s to-do list reads, Find Liz, and the city is as good a place to start as any.
Of course as my Grandma Lucy used to say, The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft a-gley, which roughly translates into Shit happens, and while I was dropping tea bags into the pot, one of those Junior Senior cracks opened wide and in danced Mary Anne Biggs, my closest neighbor, my best friend, and my first Tuesday morning appointment—something I would have remembered had I checked my appointment book before climbing the stairs with Jack last night.
“Wonderful news,” she announced, waltzing herself over to the barber’s chair that takes up far too much room in this tiny house but has enormous sentimental value. “I have decided to have both a trim and a permanent wave. But you’re not to cut my bangs. If you so much as brush my bangs with your nasty great shears, I shall be utterly wretched for weeks.” She sat down and started pulling pins from her hair, slowly unleashing miles and miles of frizzy salt-and-pepper tresses upon a hapless world. “Now, I must know. Did you get your secret paramour out before Grace woke up, or is the poor boy still hiding upstairs?”
Mary Anne is the only person I know who is ever utterly wretched or refers to men as paramours. I put it down to too many years teaching Jane Austen at the University of Toronto. If she had taken a sabbatical now and then as I suggested, or perhaps taught contemporary lit for a few years, she might have something in her closet now besides long skirts and straw hats—and she might even let me update her hairstyle by at least a century.
“Jack is hardly a boy,” I said, writing Check appointment book at the top of the next page in my notebook and underlining it. Twice. “And he was already gone when I woke up.”
She squinted at the page. “Was that planned?”
I closed the book. “No, but it’s for the best. And Grace will never be the wiser.” I poured boiling water into the teapot, went to the table for the cozy, and glanced out the kitchen window, thinking I’d see Grace on her bike, certain she should be home by now.
While I like to start my day with a paddle around the lagoons, my younger daughter prefers a morning ride, pedaling the five kilometers from our house here on the eastern tip of Ward’s Island, all the way across Centre Island to the dock at the western end of Hanlan’s Point. I like to think she pauses there, giving a finger to the Island Airport before starting back, arriving home while the air is still cool and the ferries have yet to start bringing the hordes across the bay from the city.
Hundreds of years ago the hordes could have come on foot because the Island was nothing more than a peninsula of sand-bars protecting Toronto Harbour from attack. All that changed in April 1858 when a storm severed the peninsula once and for all. Decades of dredging and remodeling since have created five major landmasses all connected by paved paths and foot bridges and collectively known as the Island—the city’s oasis in the lake.
A ten-minute ferry ride is now the only way over, and from mid-April to October three of them ply the water between the Island and Toronto Harbour every half hour. During the summer months, sweltering city dwellers jam those boats every day, coming across to enjoy the parks, the rides, and Toronto’s only nude beaches. Don’t misunderstand me, I know I’m lucky to live with the parks and the beaches, and the hordes would be fine if they stuck to Centre and Hanlan’s. But inevitably they find their way here, to the narrow shaded lanes of Ward’s and Algonquin.
They wander our streets and peer at our homes, taking pictures and passing judgment—My God, these places are small. Why are they cheek by jowl like that? And honestly, look at that garden—acting as though they’re visiting a zoo, as though we can’t understand what they’re saying or doing. Most of them are okay, but there are always those who knock on our doors, demanding to know how much it costs to rent a place on the Island for the summer. It never fails to amaze me. They live ten minutes across the bay yet have no idea that we’re here year-round and have been for generations.
“Ruby?” Mary Anne called. “Ruby, are you all right?”
I turned to find her watching me intently. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Because you’ve been staring out that window for the last five minutes.” She sat back, massaging her scalp with her fingers. “Tell me the truth. Are you unhappy that Jack left?”
I laughed and put the cozy back on the table. “Not at all. I just didn’t think he’d do it on a flight out of the bloody Island Airport. But on the plus side, I scored a shed full of tools. Know anyone looking to buy a miter saw?”
She went back to pulling out pins. “They say a vengeful heart is usually a broken one.”
“And sometimes it just wants to make a buck. Would you like tea?”
Without waiting for an answer, I poured a cup and set it in front of her, hoping to avoid another rant about the inseparability of love and sex in the female constitution. Because no matter what I said—or how loudly—Mary Anne would smile and nod knowingly, confident I was covering up. Lying to avoid confessing to a shattered heart, a splintered soul, or something equally ridiculous when the truth is that I have never been even a little bit in love with most of the men I have known, including Jack Hoyle. It was sheer coincidence that he was the first one to stay under my roof in close to eighteen years.
With two daughters in the house, discretion was always my first concern. Even when they lived in the city I was vigilant, keeping sex and home separate, knowing it would matter when Grace came back again. Jack Hoyle had been a slipup. Someone tall and strong, and standing in the right place at the right time when I hit a low ebb. He didn’t question why I was waiting on the stairs wearing nothing but high heels and a frosty bottle of his favorite beer when he came back from lunch. He just went along. Swept me off my feet and carried me up those stairs. Allowing me to believe, if only for a while, that I still had something to offer, that I wasn’t already finished.
It was a scene Mary Anne would have appreciated if I’d told her about it, which I hadn’t because I was still embarrassed by my own reaction. Who knew he’d pick that moment to pull a Clark Gable on me? And who knew I’d like it? But I would never mistake lust for love.
“Ruby!” Mary Anne said too sharply. I looked over. She was watching me again, obviously waiting for an answer, but I had no idea what the question had been. “Ruby, what is going on wi
th you?” she asked, and I could not have been more grateful when Grace came up the stairs calling, “I’m home,” saving me from a discussion I was not yet ready to have.
“You’ll never guess what I saw,” Grace sang, shedding sandals, notebook, and binoculars on her way to the fridge.
My younger daughter may be an adult, but she’s as carefree as any ten-year-old. Her hair is usually caught up in a ponytail, she wears jeans or cutoffs, and her Tshirts invariably have a slogan: Walk for the Cure. I’m with Stupid. The list goes on and on. She picks them up at the Bridge Boutique, our local clothing swap at the foot of the Algonquin Island Bridge.
This morning she’s sporting an electric blue number that is far too large and reads It’s Good to Be Queen. As always, I am struck by how beautiful she is. Tall and willowy with white blond hair, pale blue eyes, and a misty, far away look, just like her father. Eric Kaufman. Now there is a man I have loved. One who will never know he has a daughter who looks just like him.
“I saw a Cooper’s hawk,” Grace said, her head in the fridge, her hands routing through jars and plastic containers. “That’s really rare, and since I don’t have any customers till ten, I—”
“Grace, I’m sorry.” Her hands stilled and I took a step toward her. “I know this is short notice for both of you, but I have to go into the city, so you’ll have to take care of Mary Anne.”
“Fine by me,” Mary Anne said. But I didn’t breathe until Grace said, “Okeydokey. Just don’t ask me to cut those bangs.”
Mary Anne pointed a triumphant finger at her. “There’s a girl who knows a thing or two about hair. I shall trust you to give me both a trim and a permanent wave.”
Grace laughed, a sweet, rippling sound that had my shoulders relaxing, my breath returning to normal. “Anybody want eggs?” she asked, holding the carton aloft like a prize.