A Week at the Shore

by Barbara Delinsky

  “Hard to believe he won’t sit there again,” I say, to which Jack threads a piece of hair behind my ear, then snakes an arm around my shoulder and tugs me close. It isn’t until he speaks again that I realize I’m comforting him, as much as the other way around.

  His voice is reverent. “For me, it was the dressing table where my mother did her hair. I used to hate it, because when she sat there, she was getting ready to leave.” I look up at him, but the memory has him in full grip. “The chair was a stool with a low back. It fit all the way underneath. When I was six, or eight or nine, I don’t know, I used to pull it out, like she had just left it and would be back. Dad pushed it in. I pulled it out again.” Taking a deep breath, he returns to me, looking down with eyes that are sad and resigned. “Yeah, it’s hard to believe. All of it.”

  I brush my cheek against his shirt collar, then draw back and touch it in awe. He had worked early that morning, but had showered and changed before coming here. A pressed shirt and slacks? So not like the Jack I remember, but apparently like the Jack he is now, because there are no price tags in sight.

  He cocks his head at the empty chair. “Tell me what you feel.”

  “You, first. About him.” If this is a moment of truth, I want it all. There was no love lost between my father and Jack. Jack has a right to blame Tom Aldiss for that empty dressing table. I’m okay with his being happy Dad is dead. Isn’t that poetic justice?

  But “happy” isn’t the word he uses when his eyes fall to mine. “Relieved.”

  “Really.” Milder than I thought. “That he’s dead?”

  “That there’s one less wall between you and me.”

  Not knowing how to answer that, I ask, “What else?”

  “Do I feel? Scared.”

  I don’t need any elaboration here, either. With my father gone and Anne hostile and Margo soon returning to Chicago and me to New York, what becomes of us as a couple is a huge question.

  “Bad timing, huh?” he asks with an unapologetic look. “Selfish of me?”

  “Confrontational,” I reply, then plead, “I can’t go there, Jack. Right now, I’m only thinking of now. Dad is gone. He can’t answer our questions.”

  “Yeah, and that’s another thing,” he says. “I’m fucking pissed at him for leaving us up in the air.”

  I almost laugh. This is more my Jack. “Maybe he told us everything he knows.”

  “Everything? Like what happened in the days leading up to that night on the boat? Like what he knew about my mother’s family estate? Like whether he was your biological father?”

  Turning to fully face him, I jiggle his arm. “Don’t be angry. Not today.”

  He raises his brows and looks to the ceiling. I’m not sure what he sees there, but when he returns to me, he is calmer. Something new, this self-control? Maturity? Compassion? Sheer force of will?

  Whatever, it is welcome. “Besides,” I say, “Paul will help.”

  “Has he said anything?”

  “Not today. It was enough that he made introductions when I didn’t remember people. I mean,” I wince, “old high school friends? I’d already seen Deanna Smith and Joe DiMinico, but … Alex LaRouche? Angie Ballantine? Mark Miller? And there was Paul, whispering names in my ear. He’s definitely on our side.”

  I do believe that. Paul will help us get to the truth. First, though, we have the funeral to survive.

  * * *

  Funerals have a way of stretching on when the deceased leaves a long list of hymns, readings, and eulogies, with the names of people to deliver them. The hymns and readings are a mystery to us, since Dad wasn’t a regular worshipper. The eulogies are more predictable. One is given by a fellow judge, one by the lieutenant governor of the state, one by Paul. Tom didn’t name any of us to speak. We can only guess that when he wrote his letter, he didn’t know whether Margo and I would even come. And Anne, well, Anne is not the kind of speaker he wants to paint a lasting picture of him. For one thing, she is a woman and Dad was a man’s man all the way. For another, he would have known she would be too weepy to say much.

  What do I remember of this day?

  I remember Margo’s husband and sons appearing in time for breakfast after flying in from Paris. She had told them not to come, and given that none of the three really knew Dad, the fact that they cut short their trip to be with Margo is special. I’m envious of that. More, I’m relieved that Joy has her cousins with her.

  I remember wearing the little black dress that Margo ordered online yesterday for early-morning delivery today. The eminent personal shopper, she chose different ones for each of us. I may have a full wardrobe of black in New York, but I’m not in New York, and neither Joy nor Anne has anything remotely appropriate to wear to a funeral. Jeans and Joe does have a sundress rack, but the offerings are beachy and short.

  I remember the church choir singing “Be Thou My Vision,” which took me right back to childhood Sundays with Mom, and “Eternal Father, Strong to Save,” since Dad was a JAG in the Navy, and “Amazing Grace.” I remember the arched windows running the length of the nave, clear-glassed and multipaned, and the pastor’s voice, another throwback to my childhood.

  I remember wanting to sit beside Jack—who wore a tie and jacket and looked so respectable that I hated it—but ending up between Anne and Joy. I held Joy’s hand, or she mine, while, sitting in the row behind, the so-respectable man in the tie and jacket put a hand on my shoulder at discreet moments. I remember the godawful ride behind the hearse to the grave by the sea.

  Dad does have a beautiful spot. It is deep into the cemetery, in one of the older sections within sight and sound of the surf. Gathering here, we are fewer in number, mostly those who were closest to him. I stand with Jack and Joy—because Anne is with Bill, and Margo with Dan, Teddy, and Jeff, and, really, is there anyone to question it? Jack and I were best friends back then. It stands to reason he would support me now.

  I remember a string of graveside prayers, the lowering of the casket, and Joy clinging to me when the first clod of dirt hit mahogany. I remember needing to touch each of my sisters as we turn to leave. And then there are others to thank before they walk back across the grass to their cars. Seeing blonde hair in retreat, I realize it is Lily and wonder, briefly, if she is here to make sure my father is well and truly gone.

  Then I stop short, and not out of guilt at this uncharitable thought. A woman stands alone, facing us from the very rear of the gathering. Dressed all in black—black blazer, slacks, and glasses—she looks vaguely exotic or would, if not for her hair. Though exotically dark, it is pulled into a messy bun that has nothing to do with style. Her beach waves simply won’t otherwise behave. I know. We’ve discussed it dozens of times.

  “Look, Mom!” Joy cries on a note of delight, but I’m already running forward.

  “Chrissie,” I say and hold her tightly for a long, long minute. “You did not have to come.”

  “Where else would I be? You’re my best friend.”

  “Thank you,” I say. Drawing back, I take what feels like my first deep breath in hours. Chrissie represents such a sane part of my world that the sight of her brings instant relief. “Did you just drive up? I didn’t see you in the church. You should have sat with us.”

  “Oh, no,” says my friend. “I didn’t make it to the church. Bad traffic out of the city, and Kian had a nightmare accident in his Captain America undies that I couldn’t leave for the nanny, so I was late. And anyway, I’m here under the radar, just for you. And Joy,” she adds with a brighter smile and open arms for my daughter. “Joyzie. I’m so sorry about your grandfather.” The hug barely ends when the direction of those dark glasses shifts to the man who has come up by my shoulder. “This is Jack.” Suddenly shy, even nervous, she holds out her hand.

  “The notorious Chrissie,” Jack remarks. I’ve named her as one of the reasons I love my life in New York, but whether he respects that or resents it is up in the air. I can’t see his eyes. Like Chrissie’s, they’re beh
ind sunglasses. “You look familiar,” he says.

  “Because she looks like me,” I explain. Chrissie and I have always joked about this.

  “I do,” she says with a tentative smile—which dies altogether when her focus moves past us.

  Turning my head to follow, I see Lina approaching. She wears a dowdy navy dress and clutches a small purse, neither of which is out of character for a woman who works in the shadows. But the look on her face? It is light years removed from the who-are-you stare she gave me in the kitchen Saturday morning. The one she is giving Chrissie is … what? Hurt? Shocked? Angry?

  Chrissie’s eyes remain hidden, but I sense a silent panic. She seems frozen, barely breathing, like she has no idea what to do. I slip an arm through hers to let Lina know that she’s mine, but it helps neither of them. Chrissie opens her mouth to speak, closes it, and swallows.

  There are several beats of ominous silence before Chrissie capitulates. Seeming to realize she has no other option, she takes a shaky breath and says, “Hi, Mom.”

  Chapter 24

  Mom? What the …

  I look from Chrissie to Lina for explanation, but neither seems to know what to say to the other, much less to me, and the silence doesn’t bode well. Chrissie always knows what to say. She is the ultimate diplomat, the ultimate mediator, the ultimate friend. She has never once in our seven-year friendship told me anything that wasn’t the truth.

  But … Mom? A tiny window of betrayal cracks open, just enough for appalling thoughts to snake under and in.

  My Chrissie’s full name is Christina, which can also be shortened to Tina, which is the nickname by which Lina’s daughter was known.

  My Chrissie’s last name is Perez. I don’t know her maiden name, because it never mattered. We relate to each other in the present, and in the present, I know that my Chrissie’s father is dead and that she is estranged from her mother, who refuses to accept her biracial husband.

  My Chrissie is three years younger than me, as was the little sister of my friend Danny Aiello. My Chrissie has a brother Dan. Margo would point to her husband and remind me that Daniel is a common name. But that common?

  “Why are you here?” Lina scolds with the hushed intimacy only a mother and daughter would share, which rattles me even more.

  I catch Jack’s eye, looking for something he knows that I don’t. He may remember Tina Aiello better than I do. He may have seen Tina in recent years and see no resemblance at all between that woman and this. But he is no help to me here. His twitch of a headshake says he’s as confused as I am.

  Chrissie isn’t confused. This is the kicker. I can’t see her eyes. They are hidden behind her sunglasses—hidden—like mine were when I climbed from the car at the square last Friday afternoon and wanted to stay anonymous. Chrissie wanted that, too, but she has been found out. To judge from the sudden flush on her cheeks, she is mortified.

  Turning her back on Lina, she clutches my arms and says in a desperate whisper, “I’m sorry, Mal. I never dreamed she’d be here. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have come. I wanted to be at the funeral for you, but the last thing I wanted was to make things worse. You don’t need this right now. I’m going to leave, just drive back—”

  “You are not,” I cut in. Staring into her barely-outlined eyes, I see my own reflection. The blend of the two is as freaky as anything else. “The damage is done. What’s going on?”

  “Not now,” she begs softly. “Not here.” In the next instant, though, her attention shifts. Focusing past me, she gives the tiniest shiver before breaking into an uneasy smile.

  “Hey,” Margo says, coming up by my side. She isn’t suspicious, just curious.

  “Margo, this is my friend Chrissie, from New York,” I say as casually as possible, but here is another thought. These two never met in the city, and through no fault of mine. When my sisters were coming to town, I repeatedly invited Chrissie to join us. I even appealed to her therapist-other by saying that if she met Margo and Anne, she could understand me better. But either she had to work or Kian was sick or Dante wanted to spend the weekend at the Jersey shore.

  Now I see why she was evasive. She feared Margo would recognize her, which lends credence to the fact that she’s known for a while that she was hiding a very, very important fact from me. I want to know why, and I want to know now.

  To Margo, I say, “Can Joy ride back to the house with you, so Chrissie and I can talk?”

  “But I want to stay,” Joy argues. She senses something is up. Of course, she does.

  Margo puts a possessive arm around her shoulders, gutting the protest, and gives Chrissie a warm smile. “Mal has mentioned you so often I feel like I know you. Thank you for coming.”

  I feel like I know you. How ironic is that, and Margo not even connecting Chrissie to Tina? Not that the lack of recognition is surprising. Margo is two years older than me, meaning five years older than Chrissie, which is a huge span in school, and Chrissie has changed a lot—at least, I think she has.

  My memories of Tina Aiello are vague. I recall a girl who was dark-haired and pudgy, who was smart but shy and wore tee shirts and jeans to fit into the crowd. My Chrissie struggles with body image issues. We’ve discussed it many times. She still carries extra weight on her hips, but you’d never know it from her chic way with tunics and long blazers. As for being shy, the woman who struck up a conversation with me seven years ago on an adjacent stair climber at the gym wasn’t shy. She was confident—and friendly and interesting and fun, all of which raises the horrendous thought that it was all a carefully-conceived plot—that she’d known exactly who I was—that she had deliberately chosen that particular stair climber—that she had been stalking me.

  No. Not stalking. Or maybe, in a watered-down sense of the word. But a pathological stalker? No. If Chrissie Perez was that, I’d have seen other elements of psychosis in her, and I’ve never seen a one. We’re that close. Still, if this brilliant woman, this sensitive woman, this loving woman hid such a crucial fact from me all this time, what does that say about our friendship?

  I need answers, but not with Joy listening. This is between Chrissie and me. And while Margo can’t possibly know what’s going on here, she has taken my daughter in hand. Again. And I’m grateful. Again.

  So I remind Joy, “Your cousins are here, babe. They want you.”

  Joy wants them, too, which is why her leaving doesn’t take any more convincing than that. But she doesn’t go before asking Chrissie, “Will I see you at the house?”

  And how to answer that? Worst case scenario, Joy and Chrissie may never see each other again. I’m agonizing about that, when Chrissie tugs on the side braid that falls thick and vibrant over my daughter’s collarbone. “I may have to head right back, Joy. But somewhere or other I’ll catch you. Go, be with your cousins.”

  When Joy gives her a parting hug, I realize something else. Chrissie is good at equivocating. She knows how to be vague in a way that sounds definitive but that doesn’t say a hell of a lot. A therapist does this. A friend should not. Chrissie could have told Joy she would see her tomorrow morning, or next week in New York, or next month at the Jersey shore, because Dante’s place is large. But any of those promises would lessen her options.

  The evidence mounts. Right now it’s circumstantial, but I sense that’s about to change.

  * * *

  After Joy leaves with Margo, Anne and Bill linger at Dad’s grave watching workers fill in the rest of the dirt. Jack stands with Paul a short distance from us, and with the rest of the mourners heading for their cars, it’s Lina, Chrissie, and me.

  “Why are you here, Mom?” Chrissie asks Lina, but she sounds confused, not accusatory.

  “She’s Dad’s housekeeper,” I explain.

  “Why are you here?” Lina hisses at Chrissie again.

  I answer this as well, perhaps more sharply than I might have, but I’m in a rush to move past the preliminaries. “We’re friends in New York,” I tell Lina, though all the while I
’m staring at Chrissie. I want her to know that I’m waiting. “She’s here to support me.” A beat passes. “Aren’t you?” I ask, hating the bitterness in my voice.

  “That was the idea,” Chrissie says with a snort. “Clearly it backfired.”

  She looks hurriedly around. Then, telling Lina that we need a few minutes alone, she grabs my arm and leads me down a paved path, past headstones and under trees whose leaves whisper in the ocean breeze, toward a stone bench facing the sea. As we walk, I smell age and foliage and ocean, even a trace of honeysuckle wafting from nearby bushes. I also smell Chanel’s Gabrielle, which I gave to Chrissie last Christmas.

  Her voice is breathless as we walk. “I know you have to be back at the house. This might have waited if my mother hadn’t seen me.”

  “Waited how long?” I ask as we leave the grass and reach the bench. Her hand has left my arm, removing this last bit of connectedness.

  I don’t sit. I can’t. I can barely even hear the sea, so if Chrissie thought that would calm me, this plan backfires as well. And here is another memory, poking at me like a bratty child. How many times have I told Chrissie about my love of the sea? How many times have I described growing up beside it, seeking solace in the fact that it is always, always there? These were doors that I naively opened, that she knowingly ignored.

  “Tell me, Chrissie. Now.” The warning in my voice is for real. Our friendship depends on what she says. As it stands, I’m feeling lied to and betrayed. The one relationship that I have relied on most these past few years is in serious jeopardy. If there isn’t truth, there isn’t trust, and if there isn’t trust, what is there?

  She puts the back of her hand to her nose. It is a gesture I know, one that means she is trying to decide what to do. Only this time, she isn’t grappling with her three-year-old’s all-out, on-the-floor temper tantrum.