The Girls of August

by Anne Rivers Siddons

  “What about you?” Baby asked. “If you could have anything in the world, Madison, what would it be?”

  I started to speak, but stopped. I knew if I uttered one word, I would burst into tears. That urge to cry, I told myself, was probably from the wine. I looked at Rachel first, then Barbara. They both knew what my Achilles’ heel was: my barren womb.

  Not having a clue, Baby said, smiling, “Well?”

  “World peace,” I blurted. “I’d want world peace.”

  Rachel guffawed.

  Barbara said, “Let me find your tiara!”

  “A queen is born!” Rachel crowed.

  Then everyone but Baby started laughing. She looked at us, one at a time, as if we were off our rockers, her pert little face knotted into a scowl. “What’s so funny?”

  “World peace,” Barbara said, wiping giggle-tears off her cheeks. “It’s what bubbleheaded Miss America contestants always say.”

  “Shoot,” Baby said, still clearly not getting it. “I always wanted to try out for Miss America but then I went and got married. You know, I can twirl a fire baton.”

  “You can?” I asked, happy to move the focus off of me.

  She nodded yes. “If I can get some kerosene while we’re here, I’ll show you.”

  “Great!” Barbara said. “Wine and a floor show.”

  “Talent show,” Rachel said. “Let’s have a goddamned talent show while we’re here.”

  “That would be woooonderful!” Baby said, jumping up and spinning around before falling on her round behind. “Whoops.”

  “No more wine for you,” Barbara said, pouring herself a refill.

  This was nice. The sea breeze. The bright moon. The stars. The easy conversation. “Well, ladies,” I said, lifting my glass while Baby scrambled to her feet and rubbed her bum, “welcome home!”

  “Welcome home!”

  “Welcome home!”

  “Welcome home!”

  We clinked glasses and Baby chugged from the bottle. And when the moon was nearly right above the house, causing the lightning rod with its cobalt ball to appear made out of quicksilver, we all hugged and then drifted to bed and no one said anything mean about Baby.

  I do believe that each of us slept the whole night through without our real lives interrupting our dreams.

  * * *

  I will not deny that I am a superstitious woman. I avoid black cats when at all possible. I never walk under ladders. I believe that I must tell Mac I love him each time we finish a phone conversation or else something horrendous will happen. After all, you never know when a meteor might plummet from the heavens and strike your house. Or when squirrels will chew through the wiring in your attic, setting the whole house ablaze. Or when a nest of rattlers will take a liking to the dark space under your driver’s seat…talk about an accident waiting to happen!

  That being the case, and in order to ensure a rollicking good time with the girls of August, I had developed a full first-day ritual: Get out of bed before dawn and watch the sun levitate out of the pink waters. If I didn’t, I feared all manner of mayhem could descend.

  As my eyes adjusted to being open and as my brain slowly began to fire on all cylinders, I imagined the sun rising out of the Atlantic: the golds, the wild blues, the pink stain, the illumination of a dawning day. It promised to be stunning.

  Not bothering to flip on a light, I slipped out of my pajamas and into my bathing suit in the dying darkness. I headed downstairs and into the kitchen in search of coffee. The heart pine floors were cool beneath my bare feet. Without the sounds of the wind and surf, Tiger’s Eye would have been resolutely silent.

  To my surprise, someone had already made coffee. I opened the cabinet door and found an array of big mugs in bright colors. Baby was a bit of a challenge, but she obviously came from a happy and loving family.

  Mug in hand, I pattered through the living room, eased open the front door, and encountered my second surprise of the morning. Barbara was sitting on the steps, staring at the water, holding her coffee cup in both hands. It’s OK, I thought, cautioning myself. This is not bad luck. This is good luck. Good, abundant luck.

  “Good morning, Barbara. Mind if I join you?”

  “Maddy!” She patted the empty spot next to her. “Have a seat.”

  “You’re up awfully early,” I said, settling down beside her.

  “Oh, well, you know…sleep, it’s overrated.”

  She gazed into the distance and I felt a smidge guilty for having interrupted her reverie. She surely seemed lost in thought. And, if I were blatantly honest, the gathering cloud of crow’s-feet around her pretty brown eyes deepened her beauty. “It’s starting,” she said.

  I looked at the horizon. Indeed it was. A glimmering line of liquid silver broke the darkness at the edge of the ocean. “It’s going to be a good one.”

  “Sure as hell is,” and she reached for something by her left foot. “Bailey’s?”

  “My, my, Barbara! Of course.” I held up my cup and she poured a healthy shot of sweet liqueur into my coffee and then did likewise with hers. This was a different Barbara. Up at the crack of dawn. Drinking at the crack of dawn. An assertive ease fueling her gestures. The Barbara I knew had always been a tad tentative. Rachel and I were the leaders of our happy band. Barbara had always followed us, a gentle acquiescence lighting her eyes. Now a fierce light burned, leaving no room for equivocation.

  She stood and her hair unfurled from its loosely caught ponytail. I liked this new Barbara.

  I followed her toward the ocean as the night slowly melted away.

  * * *

  After an hour or so spent walking the beach, watching the sun’s ascent amid a purple-and-gold sky, agreeing that Teddy Patterson could tack the title “cradle robber” onto his personal résumé right after “gold digger,” and sipping our spiked coffee, hunger pulled Barbara and me back to Tiger’s Eye, where Baby and Rachel were still soundly asleep.

  Barbara rinsed out our mugs and I studied the contents of the fridge. It was going on eight thirty and already I could feel our time slipping away. “You know what?” I said, looking over my shoulder. “This ain’t no slumber party. I’ll fry the eggs if you rouse those two out of bed.”

  Barbara scanned the kitchen, obviously deep in thought, as if a great idea were brewing. Then she grabbed a pan, a lid, and two big spoons. “We’re both going to rouse them,” she said, her eyes gleaming.

  “Aha!” I said, perceiving her meaning.

  We were a duet composed solely of cacophony. We marched through the living room and up the stairs, pounding on our makeshift instruments for all we were worth. The last time I’d behaved in such a fashion my bike still sported training wheels, and a training bra was nothing but a gleam in my un-made-up eyes.

  We reached the landing and headed down the hall. Barbara paused in her banging only long enough to throw open Rachel’s door and belt out a rewritten version of that old Tom Jones song. “Wake up, pussycat! Whoa-o-o-o-o-ah!”

  Rachel groaned, rolled over, and pushed her burgundy-colored silk eye mask up on her forehead. Her blue eyes were heavy with sleep.

  “What the…” She shaded her eyes and looked at us as though we were on fire.

  “You cannot sleep all day, Ms. Grump-along,” I said. “This is our first day in paradise, and we are going to have fun even if it kills us!”

  “Big whoop,” she grumbled. But she did throw back the sheet, sit up, stretch, and yawn loud and long. “OK, guys,” she said, removing the eye mask and tossing it on the white wicker side table, “you win.” She looked bedraggled, as if sleep had done her no favors.

  “Next up?” Barbara asked, her right eyebrow arched roguishly.

  “Baby!” we both yelled, resuming our pot banging, our lack of rhythm no doubt aided by the Bailey’s we’d ingested at sunrise. Giggling, we rushed out of the room as Rachel rifled through her sheets in search of something lost in the night.

  Barbara paused for a moment and I nearly ran i
nto her. Over the clanging, in a stage whisper, she said, “Ugh. I’m losing my enthusiasm.” She nodded her head in the direction of Baby’s room.

  “No can do. She’s one of us now.”

  Barbara narrowed her eyes. “Never!” She laughed like a madwoman and we took off again.

  As we hustled down the hall, I thought that surely with all the commotion Baby would be awake. Barbara pounded on the door three times: “I’m gonna huff!” Pound! “And puff!” Pound! “And blooow your house down.” Pound! Then she threw open the door. We clanked and hooted our way in. And then we stopped.

  Baby was still asleep, laid out like a silk ribbon on top of the sheet. She wore a long nightshirt the same color as her hair. But the golden girl in slumber did not look like her giddy waking self. Rather, there was something about her—maybe it was the turn of her mouth or the one hand clenched into a fist—that made me sad. But her deep sleep piqued my concern.

  “Is she dead?” I asked.

  “Maybe.”

  “Wouldn’t that just beat all?”

  “Damn, she’s got a good body,” deep-voiced Rachel said from behind us.

  Barbara stepped up to the bed and put her hand close to Baby’s mouth. “Nope. Not dead. Just a typical teenager’s sleep.” And then she held the pot an inch from Baby’s ear. Wham!

  I feared that perhaps Baby had gone deaf overnight, because she simply sighed, opened her eyes, shot us a dazzling smile, and murmured, “Oh. Hi. Hello, girls.” She looked around, appearing profoundly bemused, and asked, “What time is it?”

  “Noon, you lazy butt,” Rachel lied. “Now get out of bed and into your swimsuit. There are rays to catch and wine to drink.”

  “Y’all are the best,” Baby cooed. She stood, stretched her arms over her head, arched her back, yawned, and seemed utterly unfazed by our two-gal kitchen pot band. Then, in a split second, a sudden glint of glee lighting her face, she whipped off her nightshirt—to our collective relief she wore a polka-dot bikini underneath it—and ran past us, shouting, “Last one in the water is a rotten egg!”

  We heard the front door open and slam. The three of us looked at one another, astounded and, if I were honest, even a little bit envious. The child seemed to seize life in ways that had long escaped us.

  “What the hell,” Barbara said, taking the pot lid from me. “Fuck it. Let’s go.”

  * * *

  I was the rotten egg but only because as Barbara, Rachel, and I hurried out the door I suddenly became light-headed, as if all this sun and sand and glimmering water were exacting a strange toll on me. So I slowed down and made my way to the water’s edge, steadying myself as the girls splashed in the waves. Baby bodysurfed and I called out, “You best watch out for stingrays, hitting the bottom like that.”

  She scudded, facedown, across the sand, the waves lapping over her. Then she jumped to her feet and spun around, ignoring my admonition.

  I waded into the ocean, making my way over to Rachel and Barbara, who were both watching her. “What do you think?” I asked, realizing that we weren’t even twenty-four hours in and already Baby had driven us crazy, made us love her, and then driven us crazy again.

  “I think she’s fucking nuts,” Rachel said.

  “She’s exactly what Teddy deserves,” Barbara said, splashing water. “That piece of tail is going to give him a heart attack.”

  For some reason I found this wildly amusing. I started laughing and the mirth took hold. I could not stop.

  Rachel said, “No shit. Here lies Teddy Patterson, killed by his own wayward pecker.” And then she and Rachel joined in my laughter. We were three howler monkeys being jostled by the waves.

  “Hey! Hey!” Baby shouted above the surf. She stood at the water’s edge, hands on hips, lips in a perfect pout. “What’s so funny?”

  “You would never understand,” Rachel said, evidently not caring if she hurt Baby’s feelings.

  “It’s an old joke,” I said, my laughter slowly stuttering to a halt. “It’s nothing.”

  Barbara whispered, “Yeah, don’t worry your pretty little empty head over it.” Then she kicked up her heels and floated on her back, bobbing amid the swells, her platinum-streaked hair spreading out like a corona. “Ahhhh. Glorious!”

  Baby appeared to be thinking something over. And I could tell what it was. Fight? Or flight? But after a few moments of apparent contemplation, she chose neither. Instead she joined us. “I just love you guys!” she sang, repeating the previous night’s mantra as she splashed into the water.

  It was as though we were trapped in an episode of The Twilight Zone, all damned to repeat our roles: Rachel was about to blister Baby, Barbara was determined to ignore her, Baby was being obsequious, and I was the rescuer, playing Baby’s protector.

  “I want to thank you, Baby,” I said as she approached. “This place is beautiful. Thanks for sharing it with us.”

  She nodded, smiling, but her eyes filmed over. “My parents are dead. My big sister lives in Paris, France. And my little brother is trying to break into the movies in Hollywood. So Teddy and I are the only two who ever come out here anymore. That’s kinda sad, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah. Yeah. I do,” I said, trying to stay upright in the waves, and wondering if she was toying with us. Arabic-speaking? Pharmacy degree? A sister in Paris and a brother in Hollywood? “Do your brother and sister have any kids?”

  “Nope! Not my brother. He’s too busy becoming a heartthrob. My sister has three kids but they’re all Frenchies and look down their noses at me.”

  “Well then,” Barbara said, still floating on her back, “it looks to me like you and Teddy have the whole damn place to yourselves. Not bad! By the way, parlez-vous Français?”

  “Leh, leh. Tatakellum Arabi. I told you.”

  At least that’s what it sounded like she said. And then she dove underwater, doing only God knows what. I scanned the swells. No sign of her.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Rachel said.

  “What did she just say?” Barbara asked. “It actually did sound like freaking Arabic.”

  “She’s just fucking with us,” Rachel said.

  I started to count, panic rising one number at a time. I was on seventy-two when Baby shot out of the water as if from a cannon and gleefully shouted, “Wheeeeee!”

  Relief surged through me, but so did resentment. I didn’t like that I was being thrown into the role of baby-sitter.

  Rachel swam over. “I’m going to strangle her,” she said, wiping salt water out of her eyes. “Just you wait and see.”

  * * *

  After our swim we were famished, so we threw together an easy brunch. Cheese omelets, grits, toast, strawberries dusted in sugar and blessed with a hint of Cointreau. And then, of course, there was that pitcher of Bloody Marys. Just what the doctor ordered.

  Baby—who had been toasted a gorgeous golden brown by the morning sun—was preening, overly helpful, in her newfound role of I-know-where-everything-is-located.

  Barbara cheerfully swilled booze and made sure our glasses never ran dry.

  Rachel wasn’t as grumpy as she had been earlier in the morning, but she seemed preoccupied, unable to shake off whatever mental baggage she’d dragged with her from her real life all the way to Tiger Island. She pulled a stool over to the butcher block where I sliced and diced, staring into space, her eyes blue with distance.

  I stepped over to the stove, poured the whipped eggs into a sizzling pan, and promised myself that no matter the temporary cost, I would get to the bottom of whatever was eating the good Mrs. Oliver Greene.

  “Remember that crazy old haunted house we rented down in Florida?” Barbara asked as she squeezed a lime wedge into her Bloody Mary.

  “Oh, yeah…what was that place called?” I asked, grating a wedge of sharp cheddar.

  “What place was that?” Baby asked.

  “Started with an s…” Barbara snapped her fingers as if that would jog her memory.

  Baby doused her B
loody Mary with several jabs of Tabasco, paused, and shouted, “Sanibel!”

  “No, no, the other side of the state…Summer House…Summer Hope. Summer Day…no, no, no wait, I’ve got it! Summer Haven!” Barbara crowed.

  I sprinkled the cheese on the giant omelet that I planned to cut into fourths. “That’s right. Old haunted house. Remember, Rachel?” I asked, trying to pull her out of her funk and into the present.

  “How could I forget? I swear to God that ghost got in bed with me one night. The horny bastard tried to spoon me.” Rachel reached across for a scrap of cheese and I slapped away her hand.

  “Blame it on the ghost!” Barbara said.

  “Ooooo, paranormal sex!” Baby trilled, arms akimbo.

  Rachel glanced over at her and actually chuckled. “I almost wet the bed, it scared me so bad.”

  “You woke up the whole house. Remember? We were all scurrying around and bumping into each other. And then”—I reached for the spatula and shimmied it under the sun-yellow omelet—“Barbara, you grabbed that croquet mallet out of the corner by the front door!”

  “And Melinda grabbed the basket of balls as if she was going to pummel the ghost, one ball at a time!”

  We all started laughing except for Baby because, I knew, it was one of those you-had-to-be-there moments. Tears streamed down Barbara’s face. As she wiped them off, she said, “Melinda and I were going to crack that ghost’s head wide open.”

  Baby, despite what she’d said about Melinda the night prior, seemed unprepared for us to talk about her again. She stared down into her drink, her smooth brow furrowed, as though she were searching for a way out of the conversation.

  I felt a pang of regret. This was Baby’s house, yet Melinda had become the new ghost in the room.

  But, proving she could occasionally behave like a grown-up, Baby recovered. She twirled her celery stick and licked the Bloody Mary off it as though it were a Popsicle. “And then what happened?”