Breathe, she told herself. But all she felt was panic. If she had to, who could she even stay with until she got on her feet? Michelle had the baby and a husband. Her other friends had boyfriends or studios so tiny there wouldn’t be room for even an extra house-plant. The summer people were starting to arrive, and even on one-room studios the prices were already skyrocketing. And she couldn’t ask Charlie. Not now.
Going through the mail didn’t help. Her electric bill was due, her rent. She still owed her dentist five hundred dollars for a chipped tooth he had repaired. And then a white envelope slid forward. She picked it up and suddenly felt sick, as if she needed to brace herself for another blow. The photography school. She had completely forgotten that she had applied. They had said on the brochure they’d let her know by summer, and now here it was.
Bad news comes in threes, Nora used to tell her, but she had said it after Isabelle’s father had died young, after Nora had lost her job at the library for repeatedly refusing to let kids take out books she felt were antireligious, and Isabelle had begun sneaking out to see Luke, a boy Nora considered pure poison. But now, here it was again. One, two, three. Charlie, her job, and probably a polite little letter: Dear Isabelle Stein, We’re sorry you weren’t good enough for us. We told you not to count on anything, didn’t we, but as usual, you refused to listen.
She slid the letter on the table and then picked it up again and opened it. There it was in her hand. Her future.
ISABELLE WAS PANTING when she got to Charlie’s. She flung her bike on the grass and bounded up the stairs. She had to see Charlie, she wanted to see Sam. The world had suddenly opened up for her and she had to share it.
She buzzed and then the door opened and there was Charlie.
“Isabelle!” Charlie said. “What are you doing here?” He looked tired and shaggy, but the house was quiet. “Sam couldn’t sleep last night, but he’s finally napping,” he said. Charlie stepped outside onto the porch. “He’ll be out for a few hours,” he said. “It’s good school’s almost out. He won’t miss too much.” He touched Isabelle’s hair. “Stay a bit. Sit out on the porch with me.”
“I’m too excited to sit.” Hands shaking, she showed him the paper.
“What’s this?” He took the paper but his eyes stayed on her.
“I got in! They want me!” Isabelle cried. “They gave me a scholarship!”
He studied the paper. “This is for photography school?”
“You don’t understand—I never really graduated high school. I just have my crummy little GED, so most programs wouldn’t even want me. But this! This is the real thing, this is credentials. I could go someplace with this!”
“It says it’s in New York.” Charlie gave her a funny look. “You’re leaving us?”
Isabelle paced excitedly. “Charlie, remember you once said that you could imagine us being together for real?” She swallowed and then she decided to just say it, to just take the leap. “We could all leave. Go to New York together.”
“I have a house here. A business.”
“You could rent out your house. You could find work in New York or maybe you could come back here a few days a week. We could all see how we felt being really together.”
“Sam just got better! He just found out we’re a couple. I can’t spring it on him that we’re all moving to New York!”
“Nobody is springing anything! We all work this out together! And when Sam gets well, we can make real decisions about us.”
“I don’t know,” Charlie said slowly. “Kids with asthma don’t get well. This is chronic. Anything could set him off. Sometimes I think that if I wasn’t so intent on moving on, Sam would have been safer.”
“Charlie, that’s crazy. You always put Sam first!”
“Is it crazy? He could have died.”
“But he’s all right now. And Sam knows about us now, we don’t have to sneak around.”
The way Charlie was looking at her made Isabelle step back. “You’re not saying, Isabelle, what a brilliant idea,” she said.
“Sam just told me that his mother wasn’t driving away with him, that she meant to go alone, and now you tell me you’re leaving? How can you do this to us?”
“I don’t want to leave you! I want you to come with me!”
“I don’t want you to leave! We need you here. I know it’s been rough, but things will get better. Can’t you at least wait until Sam is a little older? Can’t you give us more time? I can’t make a decision like this with all that’s going on now!”
“I don’t have more time! My money’s just about gone. Work is drying up at Beautiful Baby. I never intended to stay here for good.”
“But you have stayed.”
“Because of you. And Sam.” Isabelle dug her hands in her pockets. “Charlie, I don’t have anything else. I’ve been combing the want ads, making myself insane. This is my shot for a real future and I want you and Sam in it.”
Charlie rested his hands on the porch railing. “I built this porch the summer before Sam was born. This is our home. This is what Sam knows. And we can’t live in New York. The pollution there is terrible for asthma. It’s hard enough when Sam goes to visit his grandparents there. He can’t be exposed to more of that.”
His hair was so long now, it fell like a wing. She wanted to cup his face. She wanted to kiss his beautiful mouth and then his throat. She swallowed. “If I stayed, Charlie, I’d have to give up this chance. I don’t know if I could get in again or if there might be other chances for me. Would you really want me to do that?”
His face turned tense and miserable.
“And if I stayed, if I did give it up, what would happen?” She pushed on, unable to stop herself. “Do you love me, Charlie?”
“How can you even ask such a question? Don’t you know how I feel?”
“I have to know there’s a place for me here. You keep asking me to wait, but for how long? I want more. I need more.”
As soon as she said it, she knew she had made a mistake. Charlie looked at her as if she had just struck him, and she felt suddenly hot and shamed.
“You don’t understand,” Charlie said. “Last night, I mentioned your name and Sam had an asthma attack. If I tell him you and I are serious—or if I tell him you’re leaving—I don’t know what could happen. How can I promise you anything? I just have to take things moment by moment right now. Please—we need you here. I need you.”
She took a step closer to him. She thought of Michelle and her husband, who had known he was going to marry her the second he had met her. Then she thought of Sam, who was so angry with her now he didn’t want to see her—who would never really be hers because Charlie couldn’t trust her enough to let them try.
She thought of all the ways she was going to be lonely from now on. “I can’t stay here any longer. I can’t be just on the edges of your life,” she said. “I love you. I love Sam. I want you to come with me. And I have to do this.”
“Is this it?” he asked, shocked. “You’re really leaving?”
As soon as he said it, she felt an emptiness, like her bones had filled with air.
“What about Sam?” Charlie said.
“I’ll talk to him. I’ll explain. I have to say good-bye to Sam. And you have to let me.”
Charlie stared at her as if he didn’t know her.
Isabelle stepped back from him. “I don’t understand a single thing about what’s happening here. Some people fall in love at first sight and stay that way their whole lives. Is that you with April? Is there really no room for anyone else? For me?”
“And some people fall in love and the timing is wrong and nothing they do can ever fix it. My son’s in the middle here, and you’re asking me to jeopardize him to find out if we could be together. You’re asking me to bet on all these what-ifs, and I can’t, Isabelle, I just can’t. Sam was almost killed leaving with his mother. And he’ll be almost killed by your leaving.”
Isabelle grabbed her purse. “I love him. I l
ove you. And I have to go,” she said.
AFTER ISABELLE LEFT, Charlie sat on the porch. This couldn’t be happening, not like this. Not again.
He went in to check on Sam. He was sleeping. Charlie gently pushed the hair away from his face. You’re all I have, he thought. Charlie put his head in his hands. He felt something, like a whisper at the back of his neck, and he looked up, but all he saw was the room, sparkling with light.
Charlie got out a rag and began to dust. He thought about the day April left, the morning when all he had to do was say different words and she might have stayed. None of this might have happened and she’d still be here. If he had held his tongue, if he had run back into the house and apologized, he’d still have his family. And now Isabelle was leaving and he had said everything he could think of to get her to stay. He had no idea what to do differently, what else to say.
He used to work with a sheetrock guy whose wife and child had died in a plane crash. The man never got over it, and it used to irritate Charlie the way Hank would say, “I dreamed about Jean and Suzie last night,” and everyone would look sort of stricken, wondering, Why doesn’t he get over it already? But that was the secret, wasn’t it? You never got over what you lost. You always carried it with you, stitched to you like Peter Pan’s shadow. And you never wanted to get over it, because who wanted to forget a time that had been so important? No, the truth was, you wanted to remember it always.
Charlie sat heavily on the couch in the living room, where he used to cuddle with April and watch old movies, where he had spooned with Isabelle as if they were teenagers. He had begged her to stay. He had pleaded for more time. But she was going.
He had Sam. No matter what, he still had Sam.
SEVENTEEN
ISABELLE DIDN’T CALL CHARLIE. She had already said goodbye, and she didn’t need to hurt either of them any more. A part of her kept expecting him to show up at her door, telling her he had changed his mind, that he and Sam were already packed; but all that happened was that the June days got hotter and hotter. There were more summer people on the streets, and when she walked past the school playground, she saw that the sturdy black gate was locked, the windows of the school shut until fall.
She packed and planned, marking off one week on her calendar and then another, and then went to Beautiful Baby to give Chuck her notice. He was in his office on the phone, and when he saw her, he yawned. “Oh, Isabelle,” he said, as if he had just remembered who she was. “I’ll get right back to you.”
She waited at the door, not moving, even when he kept giving her pointed looks. Finally, he hung up the phone, and shuffling some papers, waved her in. He motioned for her to sit. “So,” he said. “We need to talk about you and Beautiful Baby.”
“I quit,” she said.
He sat up straighter. “Aren’t you being a little dramatic?”
“I’m going to photography school in Manhattan.”
She had wanted him to be impressed or excited, but his face was impassive. His eyes glazed over as if she had just told him she was going food shopping.
“Well, good for you,” he said finally. For a moment, she wished he didn’t look so relieved. He pumped her hand. “You want a good-bye party?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
She stood up and shook his hand and as soon as she left the office, she heard him pick up the phone again. “Because the order was due today, that’s why,” he snapped.
It wasn’t until she was outside, her skin prickling in the hot sun, that she realized he hadn’t asked her why, or when she was going, or even if she would keep in touch.
ISABELLE DECIDED TO take a walk. Luke used to insist that if she ever left the Cape, she’d miss it, but she didn’t think so. If she went to New York, she’d never go to Coney Island. She’d never miss salty air or pine trees.
She still hated the Cape. The endless beaches, the sand that always got into everything, even the sheets. She hated the tide of summer people, the way the town seemed to fill up and empty out with the seasons. No matter how long she lived here, she’d never really feel that she belonged. She knew she’d never really be a part of Charlie’s family, not with Charlie still living with the ghost of April. Sam would never really be her son. She knew she needed a new life because this one didn’t really have a place for her.
SHE CALLED MICHELLE to talk. “Listen,” Michelle said. “You’re doing the right thing. You need to move on. This is your chance. And guess what? Remember that illegal sublet you were supposed to get last year? I was just talking to my friend Dora and she said the guy renting it moved out. It’s available again, but you’d have to take it now.”
“What?” Isabelle wrapped the phone cord around her wrist.
“Say the word and I’ll call Dora. And even better, I’m driving down to Manhattan next week to see about starting a jewelry business from home. I’d love the company.”
Isabelle tried to think. Next week. Photography school didn’t start until September, but was there any more reason to stay here? Could she afford to pass up on this sublet and a ride to the city? She would have to get a job as soon as she got to Manhattan. Waitressing, something part-time. She’d start to save so she could work less when her classes started, which were supposed to be intensive. Could she do this? “Yes,” she said. She hung up, and then without thinking, she called her mother.
“Oh, the prodigal daughter,” Nora said dryly, and then Isabelle told her she was going back to school. She told her about Charlie and Sam, and her mother was silent.
“That’s good, what you’re doing,” Nora finally said.
“It is? I thought you’d disapprove, because of my age. I thought you’d think because of my divorce, I was a failure.”
She heard Nora sigh on the phone. “I never liked Luke. You knew that. And you know what? Marriage is a funny thing. I put my whole trust in your dad instead of God, and your dad was the one who broke my heart. I used to see the same thing happening with you and Luke, but you wouldn’t listen.”
“It wasn’t the same,” Isabelle said. “Dad adored you. I adored Luke. It took me a while to figure out that Luke adored himself.”
“Listen to me now. I’m apologizing. I was wrong to be so hard on you. I have to forgive myself every day for it, and I ask God for forgiveness, too. But you did the right thing with this Charlie person. You couldn’t lose more of your life for another man, especially not for a man who won’t lose some of his life for you.”
“Mom. I can’t believe you think this.”
“Sometimes marriage isn’t such a sacred covenant. There. I said it.”
“Why didn’t you ever answer my letters? I sent a million of them. I made a thousand calls. You never responded.”
“I couldn’t. Not while you were with Luke. I couldn’t have been any part of it.” Isabelle heard something in the background, a hum of voices, a TV turning on. “But now that you’re going to school, maybe I can visit. If you want. We’re still family.”
“I want,” said Isabelle.
THE MORNING OF Isabelle’s departure, the radio was warning about traffic jams. “Everyone’s headed back to the Cape!” the announcer boomed. How many times had Isabelle heard that and yearned to leave as fast as she could, and now, here she was and leaving wasn’t anything like she ever had imagined.
She had one last call to make. Luke. When he picked up, she heard a baby crying in the background, a female voice soothing. For a moment, her stomach tightened, but she didn’t feel like running away. Instead, she was running to something.
“You’re leaving!” Luke said. “Well, good for you.”
They talked a bit about where she would live, what she was going to do, even about Chloe, his sunny little baby. And then, just as she was going to ask about his job, he grew so quiet. She felt something dissolving through the wires. “I’m so sorry, Iz,” he said. “About everything.”
“You don’t have to apologize. All that feels like such a long time ago.”
T
he baby’s laugh sparkled in the background. “I hope everything is wonderful for you,” he said.
“For you, too,” she said. “But it sounds like it already is.”
When she hung up, her jumpy heart was more about getting ready to leave than about Luke. She spent all morning looking for a special photograph she wanted to give Sam. She had enlarged it to 8 × 12, and it was black and white and full of shadows. It was a photograph of the two of them, her favorite, and though they weren’t looking at each other in the picture, you could tell how connected they were. She turned it over and carefully wrote “Some connections are never broken.” She packed the photograph in a box with an old zoom lens that she knew Sam would love, with directions on how to press the button to get the old lens off and put this new one on. Then she wrote a letter to him. It took her several tries to get it right.
Dear Sam, I had to leave to go to school, but it’s not forever. No matter what, you have to know that I love you. That that love will always be there for you. That I didn’t leave because of you or because of your dad. I left because I had a chance to go to school. This is my new address and I will have a phone number soon that I will get to you, and I hope you’ll call and visit and write. I’m sorry I wasn’t an angel, but that doesn’t meant there isn’t magic in the world.
Love, Isabelle
P.S. The zoom lens is for your Canon. You can see much more with it.
Michelle was coming to pick her up in two hours, so she still had a little time. Her apartment was empty.
The day was clear and hot, the sky like watercolor wash. During the whole walk to Sam’s house she missed him so much, it felt like a wound.
Pictures of You Page 25
