Summer Friends

by Holly Chamberlin

  “Let’s change the subject, please.”

  “Just one more question. Is that why you and Harry don’t live together? Because he’s not technically single?”

  Delphine hesitated before answering. “No,” she said. “Harry would move in with me in a minute if I asked him to. It’s not that. It’s just that my life . . . I don’t really know how to say it. My life is very busy. It’s very full. People—a lot of people—rely on me for a lot of things. I like to close the door behind me at night and be alone. I need to be alone.” My home, my house, she added silently, is all I really have to call my own. But if I really had Harry, if Harry would marry me, would I still want to live on my own? She thought that the answer might just be yes.

  “Well,” Maggie said, “I can’t say there weren’t times when the girls were younger when I would have killed for a place of my own, even a small closet, any place with a door. And a lock. Maybe an armed guard outside. But now . . .”

  “Now, what?”

  Maggie shrugged. “I don’t know. Now, I think I’d appreciate someone barging in on my quiet time.”

  “But you don’t live alone. You live with Gregory.”

  “Yes. But sometimes, you can feel very lonely even with someone else in the same room. Somehow, that feels worse than being really alone. It can make you feel . . . desperate.”

  Yes, Delphine thought. I know exactly how that feels.

  “You know,” Maggie said, her tone thoughtful, “I don’t know if I can call Gregory the love of my life. I mean, I do love him and he loves me; I’m sure of that. We fell in love once, a long time ago. And he’s stuck by the family, which is more than you can say for a lot of men. He’s been a very good father. The girls have wanted for nothing. My mother adores him. But . . .”

  “But what?”

  “But he’s not like your Robert. I mean he’s not to me what Robert was to you. He’s not my big passion.”

  “Are you sure?” Delphine asked. “Maybe you’re rewriting history because some of the magic has gone from the relationship. I doubt that even if Robert and I had stayed together we would have still been so madly in love now. Maybe we would have been more deeply in love, more settled, maybe even more devoted to each other. But maybe we would be divorced. I don’t know.”

  Maggie thought for a few moments and then said, “No, I don’t think that I am rewriting my history. I think that some people just don’t ever find a great passion with another person.”

  “Then maybe your passion is your work,” Delphine suggested. “Or your children.”

  Maggie wasn’t sure about those, either. She loved her daughters, of course, but she was also aware of being—of having been—anything but a helicopter parent. And as for her career, well, in truth it was more of a means to an end than something fulfilling in its own right. Maybe it hadn’t started out that way, but that’s what it had become.

  “I don’t know about me,” she said finally. “Maybe I just haven’t found my one great love yet. Or maybe it’s right in front of me and I just can’t see it.”

  Delphine looked at her watch. It was already eight o’clock. The food was eaten, the water bottles empty, and the sun was almost entirely down. She got to her feet. “I really should be going,” she said. “I have some paperwork to do tonight. I can’t believe we’ve been here for so long.”

  Maggie got to her feet, as well. “Enjoying yourself isn’t the same as being negligent, you know.”

  Delphine shrugged. “I know. Now, let me fold the blanket. And are you going to eat that half of a brownie or what?”

  30

  “That was just delicious, Delphine,” Maggie said. “Thank you.”

  “No problem,” Delphine said, stacking the plates in the sink to wash after Maggie had gone. “I like to cook. And I like an appreciative eater.”

  It was Sunday and Harry had gone to visit his daughter in Falmouth. Delphine had invited Maggie for dinner, something that felt like a big step, though to what end she wasn’t quite sure. Much to her surprise, their conversation about Robert Evans had resulted in a slight but significant melting of her resistance to Maggie’s friendship. She wanted to make a meal for Maggie; she wanted Maggie to enjoy an evening in her home.

  She had made a fish and corn chowder (with a bowl set aside for Melchior), accompanied by a salad and whole-wheat rolls her mother had baked that morning. Maggie had brought a bottle of wine, a sauvignon blanc, and though Delphine didn’t know much about wines, she knew enough to realize that this wine was good.

  After dinner they retreated to the front porch. It was small, especially compared to Delphine’s parents’ front porch, but it was big enough for two people to enjoy a warm evening with a cooling breeze. An enormous butterfly bush with large pink flower spikes grew along one side of the porch. In the daytime, bees and hummingbirds and of course butterflies swarmed it. Now, at seven in the evening, life on the wing had gone home. Hollyhocks, orange and magenta, grew at the base of the porch, close to a patch of black-eyed Susans. A large pot of basil sat on the wooden rail of the porch. Between the two wicker armchairs stood a small round wicker table and on it two glasses of iced coffee.

  “I don’t know how you can do that,” Maggie said, pointing to the bag of yarn by Delphine’s foot. “Talk to me, look out at the view, and knit all at the same time. It seems almost like magic.”

  Delphine laughed. “More like practice.”

  “I tried to learn to knit once, when Kim was a baby. I was horrible at it.”

  “It takes a feel, I think,” Delphine said, “to be good and to enjoy it.”

  They sat in companionable silence for some time. Delphine found that she liked this, sitting on her front porch with someone by her side. Harry wasn’t a porch sitter. Neither was Jemima. Truth be told, Delphine didn’t allow herself this pleasure often, and when she did, she was always alone.

  She glanced over to Maggie, whose head was resting against the back of her chair. She looked utterly relaxed. Delphine wondered if she had the right to speak freely about something that had been worrying her. Well, she thought, Maggie certainly thought she had the right to probe into her life, so . . .

  “You were flirting with that man the night we were at the Old Village Inn,” Delphine said. “The one who came to the bar to order drinks for his friends.”

  Maggie raised her eyebrows. “And?”

  “Well, flirting is harmless, not that I’ve ever really enjoyed it. Maybe I just never knew how to do it right.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “Be that as it may . . . That first night you came to town, and then again last night, on the beach, you talked about your marriage not being what it used to be. That maybe Gregory is not the love of your life. I feel I have to ask. You’re not planning on having an affair, are you?”

  Maggie laughed a bit too loudly, in a misguided attempt to cover her embarrassment. “Oh, no, no, not at all,” she said. Well, that wasn’t really a lie. She wasn’t actually planning on having an affair. Which was not to say that the thought hadn’t crossed her mind lately. But she wasn’t at all sure that an affair would serve any purpose other than to be a selfish quick fix. She and Gregory had been closer once upon a time, sure. Maybe they were experiencing an inevitable drifting apart, something most if not all long-term couples went through. Maggie didn’t know if it was possible in her case to reverse that drift, but even if it wasn’t, a divorce would make a lot more sense and be a lot fairer to everyone involved than an affair.

  “Good,” Delphine said. “I just wanted to go on record as saying I think having an affair is never a good idea. And yes, I know you’re thinking I’m applying a double standard, given my situation with Harry.”

  Maggie was eager to get off the subject of affairs, and of Harry, of whom she had a pretty low opinion, so she said, “No, I understand you. Hey, did I tell you I went to the big Bartley College reunion event? Gosh, that was three years ago already.”

  Delphine nodded. “I remember getting
the announcement in the mail. Along with a request for a donation.”

  “But you didn’t go.”

  “No. And I didn’t send any money. My money is needed right here.”

  “Yes. There were rumors Robert was going to be there. It was going around that he was planning to give a talk or something. Nothing was official. Anyway, in the end he didn’t show up.”

  “Oh.”

  Maggie looked keenly at Delphine. “I would have liked to have seen you at the reunion. I suppose I should have called you, let you know I was planning to be there.”

  Delphine smiled vaguely. She hadn’t wanted to attend the reunion for several reasons. Robert was one of them. The chance of running into him after all those years was too frightening. Maggie was another reason.

  And the third reason was almost as daunting. She had been afraid that people she had known at Bartley might judge her for choosing the life she had chosen. All those classmates who had probably gone on to perform great public works and to make tons of money might look at her life as devoid of merit or value. Other people’s opinions mattered to Delphine, though she wished that they didn’t, at least not the opinions of strangers. It was a character weakness she continually fought and one she vigilantly kept hidden.

  “The past is the past,” she said finally. “There’s not much point in going backwards.”

  Maggie shook her head. “I don’t agree. I think that celebrating what was is a good way to, I don’t know, assess the present and plan for the future.”

  Delphine thought about that. If that was the motive behind Maggie’s return to Ogunquit—to assess her present life in light of what had been and then to make plans for a happier, more fulfilling future—had she been successful? Would she be? By the time she left for her home in Lexington, would she really feel she had accomplished something by spending evenings on Delphine’s front porch?

  Maybe. Still, Delphine doubted that a return to her own past would have any great transformative effect on her future. Everything was pretty much fine as it was and would go on being fine, or it would not. What would happen would happen. There was a limit to what anyone could do about her present, let alone what she could determine about her future.

  Maggie rose from her chair. “I’ll be right back,” she said. “It’s ‘that time’ of the month.”

  Delphine continued to knit, enjoying the feel of the wool between her fingers. She hadn’t hit full-blown menopause yet, either. Neither had Jackie, though she seemed desperate for it to come and go. “I’ve had my kids,” she told her sister. “I’m done. I can’t wait for the whole system to shut down.” Delphine didn’t feel quite so eager for her own reproductive system to shut down, in spite of the fact that she knew she would never be having children. Her feelings about the whole thing were complicated. She chose not to explore them too intensely.

  Maggie returned and sat back down with a sigh. “If perimenopause is this annoying, I can’t imagine what full-blown menopause will be like. I never know what to expect.”

  “I’m not looking forward to it,” Delphine said, “that’s for sure.”

  Maggie took a long sip of her iced coffee. She wondered if Delphine ever felt that she had wasted a great opportunity by not having children. Maybe someday she would ask her why she had never started a family of her own. Maggie herself had had children almost automatically. There she was, married, financially secure—so why not get pregnant, too? Starting a family had been more like fulfilling a social imperative than following a dream. Not that she had any regrets, but she imagined she might have been perfectly happy not having had children. She wondered if many other women felt as she did. It wasn’t the sort of thing you shared casually. The Mommy Police were everywhere.

  “Penny for your thoughts,” Delphine was saying.

  “Oh, I was just thinking about menopause. My mother calls it mental pause. Seriously, she claims her memory simply failed her during those years.”

  “My mother never mentioned anything about going through menopause,” Delphine said. “Of course, she must have experienced it, but I don’t remember noticing anything different about her behavior.”

  “Your mother is stoic. I can’t see her bitching and moaning about hot flashes or heavy bleeding.”

  Delphine laughed. “No, that’s definitely not my mother’s style. She could have a fork stuck in her head and she’d try to pretend it wasn’t there.”

  “Not my mother. God, she became such a drama queen about the whole thing. My father walked on eggshells for years. Even Peter and I suffered. Maybe that’s going to happen to me. Maybe I’ll become an unbearable bitch. Poor Gregory.”

  “Don’t think about it,” Delphine said. “Don’t anticipate anything about menopause, good or bad. What’s going to happen is going to happen. And then, it will be over.”

  “Now you sound like a stoic. And a bit of a defeatist, too.”

  Delphine shrugged.

  “What is that you’re making?” Maggie asked.

  “A coat, actually. Lori tells me that long coat-like sweaters are ‘in’ this fall. She showed me some pictures from a magazine and here I sit, knitting a coat.”

  “You’re a good person, Delphine Crandall.”

  Delphine shrugged. “Better I make it for her than she waste the money she should be saving for college.”

  “So, Lori’s planning on going to college?”

  “I don’t really know,” Delphine admitted. “I’d like to see her continue her schooling after high school. But it’s her decision.”

  “You could encourage her.”

  Like Maggie and her parents encouraged me, Delphine thought. “Yes,” she said. “I do encourage her. So does her mother.”

  “That’s good.” Maggie checked her watch and got up from her chair. “Well, I suppose I should be getting back to my hotel. You’ll want to read whatever tome it is you’re currently reading.”

  Delphine grinned. “I was an English major. With a minor in history. And one in art history.”

  “All big-volume subjects, yes.” Maggie rose and stretched. “Thanks, Delphine,” she said. “I had a lovely time.”

  Delphine hesitated a moment. And then she said, “Me too.”

  31

  Delphine came into the house from the office around two o’clock Monday afternoon to help her mother assemble and price items for a tag sale at her church. The sale would, hopefully, pay for new prayer books. The ones in current use were old and falling apart; some were even being held together by rubber bands. Delphine brought with her a child’s purple cotton sweater and three wool scarves, one in the “potato chip” stitch, her donation to the cause.

  The two women set to work in the living room at a rarely used formal dining table Patrice had inherited from an aunt. On the table were some of the items to be sold. There was a package of doilies made by one of the older churchgoers; a handmade rag doll with buttons for eyes; two wood birdhouses painted in red and yellow; and a variety of other items Delphine couldn’t imagine anyone wanting, let alone paying money for. But there was no accounting for a person’s taste. She was sure Maggie was reminded of that every time she looked at Delphine’s clothing.

  “Where’s Kitty?” Delphine asked her mother.

  “Out in the barn with Jackie and Lori,” Patrice said. “She wanted to see the new kittens. Their eyes have just opened.”

  “Did she have lunch?”

  “Of course. Though she didn’t eat very much.”

  “How does she seem to you?” Delphine asked.

  Patrice frowned. “I don’t like to interfere with a parent’s child-rearing decisions.”

  “What do you mean?”

  But Patrice just shrugged.

  “She has a big bruise on her leg,” Delphine said. “What’s that from?”

  “I saw it. But I don’t know how she got it. Neither does she. I asked. Kitty’s not usually clumsy. So, how long is Maggie going to be in town?”

  “I don’t know,” Delphine s
aid. “She hasn’t been specific. I know she’s accumulated a lot of vacation time.”

  Patrice folded a crocheted quilt contributed to the sale by a Mrs. O’Connell. “I think that woman has some figuring out to do.”

  Delphine laughed. “Don’t we all?”

  After a moment, Patrice said, “Some more than others.”

  Delphine didn’t respond. She wondered if her mother was implying that her younger daughter needed to fix her life in some way.

  “There’s something lost about Maggie,” Patrice went on, “for all her fancy clothes and sophistication.”

  “How do you mean ‘lost’?” Delphine asked.

  “Every summer, she was glued to you from the moment her family got here until the moment they left.”

  “Yeah, but wasn’t I glued to her, too?”

  Patrice shook her head. “It wasn’t the same. There was something almost desperate about her need for your friendship. Sometimes, it made me worried. Like she wasn’t getting any attention at home or that something was missing. I don’t know. You know I don’t like to interfere.”

  Delphine reached for a pile of dish towels a local woman named Mrs. Bubier had sewn for the sale and began to fold them. For all the years of their friendship she had seen Maggie as the more assured, the more self-sufficient, of the two. Maybe she had been wrong. Or maybe something had changed. Maybe loneliness was what was behind Maggie’s pursuit of their old friendship. She had talked a bit about loneliness, hadn’t she? Loneliness, and feeling restless and confused.

  “Why haven’t you introduced her to Harry?” Patrice asked, interrupting Delphine’s thoughts.

  “No reason.”

  “Delphine, there’s no point in lying to me and you know that.”

  “Fine,” she said with a sigh. “I just don’t think they have anything in common.”

  “Why should that matter? I think you’re afraid Maggie will find that Harry doesn’t measure up. Well, sure, his manners are a bit rough at times, but he’s a good man, not very exciting, but that sort of thing doesn’t matter in the end.”