Heat Wave

by Nancy Thayer

  Carrying the plants into the house, she set them on the sink, hung up her raincoat, and dried off the containers. Such clever things people created: these pots looked like blue-and-white Delft china but in fact were plastic, or vinyl, lightweight and durable. She spent a while deciding just where to place them in the living room.

  She woke Cisco and Margaret and got them organized for the school bus. She drank a cup of fresh coffee while watching her girls eat breakfast. Now that Cisco was riding, she ate well and looked healthy. Carley not only promised her daughters to save some cookies for them for after school, she took the first batch off the sheet and tucked them into their old beehive cookie jar to prove it. She walked them down the drive to the school bus.

  By the time she got back to the house, her first guests were up. They were a young couple, serious birders, completely prepared for the rain with all sorts of waterproof gear. From the Midwest, they were excited about seeing shore birds, especially the oystercatchers with their cute carrot-orange bills, legs, and feet. They talked about terns, eider ducks, various gulls, including the delicate black-hooded Bonaparte’s gulls that Carley had never heard of and suddenly longed to see. It was fascinating to be around people who were on this island not because of the sandy beaches and sparkling seas but because of the bird population, and she felt so enlightened by listening to them that she packed up thermoses of coffee and bags of warm cookies for them to take out into the rainy day.

  The birders left. Four other guests came chattering into the kitchen. They were all women, friends from college who’d decided to get away from it all for a few days. They were in their early fifties, Carley thought, good-looking, educated, active women.

  As Carley served them breakfast, they discussed their plans for the day. One woman, obviously the leader of the pack, consulted her iPhone for hourly weather predictions, times the museums were open, and menus at different restaurants. As Carley set her fruit bowl in front of her, she looked up at Carley and announced, “What you’ve got at your table is a perfect cross section of middle-aged American women.”

  “Really. Wow.” Carley leaned against the kitchen counter, crossed her arms, and asked, “How so?”

  “Four women.” The leader, with silver hair cut short and chic, pointed to each woman at the table as she spoke. “Divorced. Widowed. Happily married. Unhappily married.”

  Carley burst out laughing at the final category.

  “You left out a category,” noted the plump, creamy-skinned blonde who was divorced.

  “Oh? What?”

  “Never married.” She had her own little instrument in her hand and held it up triumphantly. “Twenty-eight point nine percent of all women in Massachusetts have never been married.”

  “Yes,” Silver Chic argued, “but many of them are young and will get married.”

  The gray-haired woman with adorable dimples waved her hand at Carley. “Do you have a moment? Sit down. Join us. What are you?”

  Carley pulled out a chair. “What am I?”

  “Divorced, happily married …”

  “Oh. Widowed.”

  Dimples’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, dear, I’m so sorry.”

  All four women made regretful noises.

  “It’s okay. It was almost a year ago. And I have two wonderful daughters.”

  “You are so young,” Creamy Skin said. “And gorgeous. I’m sure you’ll get married again.”

  “Well, she could,” Silver Chic cut in, “but should she?”

  “Statistics show that the happiest people are married men and unmarried women.” This was from the brunette with a true hourglass figure.

  “General statistics have nothing to do with an individual life,” Creamy Skin insisted.

  Carley agreed. “I have a friend whose husband left her. She’d always wanted children so she went off and got pregnant. She’s very happy.”

  “My point precisely!” Creamy Skin nodded. “Women never get over the Cinderella myth. Marry the prince equals the happy ending. But that myth is outdated. In the modern world, women make their own money, own their own property, and have their own children.”

  “But perhaps that’s too hard on the children,” Dimples argued.

  It seemed that everyone talked at once. Carley joined in, enjoying the frank debate, the give-and-take, and especially the way the other women offered statistics and information from books they’d been reading. She found herself wishing Vanessa was there. And Maud, too.

  “Wait a minute,” she interrupted. “Do you all live in the same town?”

  “Heavens no,” Hourglass replied. “We all live in different states. We get together once a year for a sanity break. Of course we talk on the phone all the time, but this is different. This is special.”

  “And we always choose a part of the country we’ve never been in before,” Silver Chic added. “So we learn something new while we’re together. And by the way, if we’re going to see anything of Nantucket, we’d better get our asses in gear.”

  They asked Carley if she wanted to join them. She thanked them but declined, saying she had so much work to do. Really, she knew they didn’t want her with them. Later, after they’d cleaned up and gathered their things, they went chirping off down the driveway in their bright autumn sweaters, full of plans, bossiness, suggestions, and laughter.

  It cheered Carley to watch them. She missed her own little group, Las Tres Enchiladas. The mysterious chemistry that bonded friendship was not much different from that bonding lovers, she thought. It worked only with certain elements, certain people. Would she, Vanessa, and Maud ever get together again?

  She cleaned the kitchen and put a load of towels into the wash. Cisco had transitioned between friends naturally, she thought. She was still friendly with Delphine from ballet, but they seldom if ever got together. She seldom saw Polo except at school, for which Carley gave thanks. Carley had seen the boy Polo was dating, a senior with a car and a reputation for getting drunk. Polo’s crowd was what Carley’s own mother would call “fast.” Cisco’s current obsession was with horses, so she saw all ages out at Lauren’s. But recently she’d been spending some time with Jewel, the daughter of the man Lexi was dating. Carley was pleased about that. Jewel was a darling girl, well-liked, much-admired, smart, and for some reason, she preferred to be alone much of the time. But she seemed to enjoy Cisco’s company, perhaps because Cisco liked to read, too.

  Margaret’s best friend was still Molly from down the street. Since preschool, the two little girls had been inseparable. Carley had tried to bond with Molly’s mother, Millie, but while Millie was nice, she was staggeringly boring. She could talk for hours about which detergent or toilet paper to use; the first time they’d gotten together, Carley had almost believed Millie was pulling her leg.

  It was different, finding a “best friend” as an adult, Carley thought. Life changes were so dramatic, some purely geographical—she’d lost touch with her best friend from high school back in East Laurence. Her sister, Sarah, would always, in a way, be her best friend, even though their lives were so very different, because Sarah had seen Carley grow up. She’d seen Carley at her most spoiled, tantrum-throwing, thumb-sucking, worst, and never had there been a moment when Sarah wouldn’t put her arms around her and hug her tight. She rejoiced for Carley’s happiness, too; she adored Cisco and Margaret. She was proud of Carley’s persistence with the B&B.

  Once, Maud and Vanessa had been as close to Carley as Sarah. Alone, Carley felt muddled in her thoughts. During past evenings with Maud and Vanessa, when they all tossed out their problems and brainstormed solutions, Carley had believed she was one of a trio of wise women. Back in the days of Las Tres Enchiladas, there had been no problem she couldn’t solve or at least cope with.

  Lexi was certainly becoming a close friend and their bond was strengthened by Cisco’s friendship with Jewel. But it took time to learn to trust someone.

  Carley sat at the kitchen table eating dinner with her daughters and feeling u
npleasantly gloomy. Perhaps it was the chili and cornbread she’d made that was darkening her mood as much as the early twilight and the shorter, colder days.

  In the past, she and Gus held a Halloween evening party for children and adults. Their huge old house was made for just such an event. They started off with chili, cornbread, hot apple cider, and pumpkin cake, served in rooms decorated with jack-o’-lanterns and ghosts. Each year, the party became more elaborate. The girls dreamed up all kinds of creatures to add to the atmosphere. They made spiders in cobwebs and bats with fangs to hang from the ceiling. They instituted a best adult costume and best child costume prize. Friends and relatives gave them creepy store-bought ghouls, monsters, and battery-operated demons with low maniacal laughs.

  Carley wasn’t sure she had the energy to organize such a party this year. But would it hurt her daughters if she didn’t have it? Or would it seem disrespectful to Gus if they did have it?

  She decided to ask them. “Girls, I have a question. Should we have our Halloween party this year?”

  Cisco and Margaret exchanged glances.

  Delicately, Cisco inquired, as if Carley were a little child, “Would you like to hold it?”

  It was sweet of Cisco to be protective of her, Carley thought, and a little sad.

  “Honestly, I’m not sure.” She toyed with her napkin, thinking aloud. “Daddy’s been gone for almost a year, and I don’t think it would be wrong for us to have the party. I believe Daddy would want us to be happy, to enjoy life. Daddy always loved the party.”

  Cisco began to tear at a fingernail. Margaret bit her lip and rocked sideways.

  “It used to be, not long ago,” Carley told her girls, “that societies had strict rules for mourning. That’s what we’re doing, you know. We’re mourning Daddy. Missing him. Being sad. A hundred years ago, we might have had to wear black clothes, and only black clothes, for an entire year.”

  “Ick!” Margaret exclaimed.

  “There were other rules, like no laughing or running in public, that sort of thing. The mourning family had to be decorous, that means very dignified, Margaret.”

  “Why?” Margaret asked.

  “I suppose to prove to the world that you were honoring the person who had died. That you were suffering his loss.”

  Cisco spoke up. “My counselor says that some groups don’t get all weepy when someone dies. They have a party, they sing. They dance. They celebrate the life of the person who died. They give thanks because that person lived.”

  “That’s true,” Carley agreed. “I like that way of honoring the person who died.” She was silent for a moment, gathering her thoughts. “Still, Halloween is such a strange kind of time.”

  “It’s when the dead can cross through the curtain between death and life,” Cisco offered. “We studied that in school.”

  Margaret’s eyes went wide. “Will Daddy come see us?”

  “It doesn’t work like that,” Cisco snorted.

  “Those are silly ghost stories,” Carley reassured Margaret, who was too young for a talk about All Hallows’ Eve and All Saints’ Day. She didn’t want her younger daughter confusing thoughts of her father’s death with creepy skeletons, ghosts, and things that went bump in the night. For that matter, Cisco, for all her sophistication at thirteen, was just as impressionable.

  Carley changed tack. “We’ve always been so busy getting ready for our party that we’ve never had time to go to the parade on Main Street and the party at the Fire Station afterward. That might be more fun this year.”

  Margaret perked up. “I’d get more candy!”

  Cisco brightened, too. “Could I go with my friends? Polo and Kyla and Holly and I thought we might go as rock stars. We all want to be Lady Gaga, she’s the most fun, but Polo said she’d be Madonna, the young one, not the old one, and Holly could be Taylor Swift.”

  “Just don’t tell me you want to go as Shakira,” Carley teased. Cisco rolled her eyes.

  “But what about you, Mommy,” Margaret asked. “Will you be sad if we don’t have the party?”

  “Oh, sweetie.” Carley picked up her daughter and cuddled her on her lap. “I’ll be happy, if you want me to be honest. I’ve got such a lot to do, it might make me crazy, trying to get things ready for a big party.”

  “I’m going to call Kyla and tell her!” Cisco escaped from the room, glowing with excitement.

  “You and I can have coordinating costumes,” Carley told Margaret. “Like you can be Sleeping Beauty and I can be the Witch.”

  “Oh, Mommy, you’re not a witch!” Margaret protested.

  “Well, then, what should we be?”

  Margaret lit up. “I’ll be the Good Witch of the East and you can be Dorothy!”

  “Shouldn’t it be the other way around? I mean, Dorothy is shorter than the Good Witch.”

  Margaret’s face fell. “But I want to wear the pink sparkle dress and carry a wand.”

  “Oh, I see. It’s decided then. I’ll be Dorothy.”

  34

  • • • • •

  Her girls were in bed, sound asleep. Tomorrow Wyatt would leave on his hiking trip. Tonight he was here, looking disheveled and distracted.

  “I only just finished the work Russell needed help with,” he said, giving Carley an absentminded hug. “I hope he’s going to do all right without me.”

  “Of course he will. He always has before.” Carley led Wyatt into the kitchen. He wore a suit but his tie was undone, his shirt was rumpled, his hair mussed. “It’s his business, after all, Wyatt.”

  “True. But Russell’s in his sixties. He’s lost his only son. He’s excited about going to Guatemala, but I think he’s really going because it’s what Annabel wants to do. I’ve seen him have spells of shortness of breath. He has high blood pressure.” Wyatt paced, running his hands through his hair. “I hope I’m not doing the wrong thing by leaving him alone for a few weeks.”

  “Would you like some coffee? Or a sandwich? Have you eaten tonight?”

  “What? Oh, no thanks, Carley. We ordered in a pizza. I wouldn’t mind a beer.”

  She took one out of the refrigerator, uncapped it, and handed it to him. Leaning against the sink, Wyatt took a long thirsty sip. She looked at the movement of his elegant throat. Everything he did turned her on. Just looking at him made her blood flame. This was terrible, insane, it was like being thirteen again and having a crush on a rock star, so reduced by emotions into a trembling mass of nerves and desire she was always on the verge of hysterical tears. But should she build a life on passion?

  “Thanks, Carley. Wow. I needed that.” He slumped into a kitchen chair and stretched. “I suppose I feel responsible for Russell and Annabel. I feel Gus would want me to watch over them.”

  Carley sat down at the other end of the table from Wyatt. “Wyatt, I love them, too. I’ll watch over them while you’re gone.”

  “Great. I’m glad they have you and the girls.” Wyatt shrugged. “The funny thing is, I don’t worry about my own parents at all. They’re the same age, but they’re both busy, happy, healthy—”

  “They didn’t lose a son.”

  “True. And they’ve got my sister and her kids. They’re crazy about the new baby.”

  “Yes.” Carley’s thoughts turned inward. “Babies are pretty special.”

  “They kind of terrify me,” Wyatt admitted. “Wendy’s little girl is either screaming or sleeping.”

  “She’s what, four months old? She’ll change.”

  “Her face gets so red when she’s mad. Almost purple. And the way she squirms—when I hold her, I’m afraid I’ll drop her.”

  Carley said, teasingly, “Somehow, centuries of babies have survived men holding them.”

  Wyatt looked across the table at her and all at once, he was really seeing her. His smile faded and his eyes grew warm and solemn. He said, “Carley.”

  His look was like a magnet, pulling her to him. His gaze was eloquent, luminous with desire.

  “I’m a
dope,” Wyatt said softly. “Rambling on about babies and work when I could be in bed with you.” He stood up, walked around the table, and held out his hand. “Let me take you to bed.”

  For a while, it was like heaven. For a while, Carley’s skin was like new spring leaves and Wyatt’s breath and touch was the sun. Everything disappeared, all worries, all fears, all the niggling complications of daily life. She was lifted up out of the normal world into a warm, golden realm of ecstatic connection. They were the flame, heat, and blaze of a fire in winter. They were incandescent.

  When they fell apart, they were both slicked with sweat. They lay beside each other, breathing deeply, and the afterglow of sated desire flowed through Carley like a drug. I do love him, she thought. I must tell him, before he goes, that I love him.

  She glanced over. His eyes were closed. As she watched, he began to snore. He’s asleep, she realized, and closed her eyes, and she, too, fell asleep.

  In her dreams, her boat was rocking on a tossing sea. She came awake to see Wyatt scrambling out of bed.

  “Carley, it’s almost five in the morning.” Wyatt reached for the clothes he’d left scattered on the floor.

  Carley sat up, dazed. They’d never done this before, fallen so soundly asleep after sex. She’d always asked him to go home so the girls wouldn’t see them in bed together. Margaret still often woke in the night.

  She looked admiringly at Wyatt’s long stretch of naked back. The bed smelled warm and sexy. She didn’t want anything to change.

  “I can’t believe we fell asleep.” Wyatt yanked on his boxer shorts, his suit pants, his shirt. Without buttoning it, he snatched up his shoes and socks and sat on a chair, putting them on, tying his shoelaces.