by Jean Stone
And then he stopped walking and turned back to the protestors. He reached into his pocket and drew out what appeared to be a wallet. He flipped it open and revealed a shiny silver badge. “Lieutenant Samuel Oliver,” he proclaimed. “Detective with the New York City Police Department. On special assignment here on Martha’s Vineyard.”
The picketers did not say a word. Two, then three, lowered their signs.
“I suggest you take your opinions and get off this pier,” Sam continued, “before I call out the local authorities.”
They stared at him a minute, then looked to one another. Sam coolly replaced his badge into his pocket. By the time the big ferry pulled into the dock, the signs had been removed, the small crowd had been dispersed.
Nikki shook his hand with thanks. “I didn’t know you were a police officer,” she said, as they waited for their kids.
“One of New York’s finest,” he replied.
She smiled and turned toward the boat, wondering if good luck was finally moving her way.
* * *
The rest of the day was filled with nonstop activity, chatter and clatter, asking and answering questions a dozen times or more. Shauna and Jason had come to help: Nikki was both surprised and pleased. Shauna spent the day with Alice handing out a registration packet and “goodie bag” to each of the kids; Jason hauled suitcases and duffel bags and helped everyone get settled in their cottages. Nikki tried to conceal her disappointment that Dee had left the island without seeing her again, without making an excuse about their missed dinner, without saying good-bye.
By early that evening, Nikki was exhausted. The counselors were holding a get-acquainted party at the dining commons; Sam Oliver had gone to the ferry for the last of the campers; and Nikki had sent the volunteers, including Alice, home for some well-deserved rest.
She was in the registration cottage, sorting through the files of the kids who had arrived. She did not dare put them away, because she feared she’d screw up Alice’s system. And “system” was a word that Nikki had always avoided, like “organized” and “practical.” The very words that had directed her mother’s rigid, ordered life.
As she straightened the files into a stack, her eyes fell on the name of the child who’d been there first—Molly Oliver, Sam’s daughter.
She did not have to look inside to remember the background information. Nikki and Alice had sorted through hundreds of applications to Camp4Kids. Every kid had a gut-wrenching story, every kid had a need for laughter, love, and fun. They had tried to select those who were most needy. Their final decision was based on the essays: “Why I want to come to camp.” Nikki reached into Molly’s file and withdrew the little girl’s essay. It was printed like a letter to Santa Claus.
“Dear Nikki and Alice,” the letter read. “My name is Molly Oliver and I am 5 years old.” She’d crossed out the “5” and made it into a “6.”
“I want to come to Camp4Kids because I have AIDS. My Mommy did, too. I got mine from her. We were in a car accident before I was born, and the blood she got was tinted but nobody knew it.”
Nikki pressed her hand to her mouth when she read that. She remembered how she and Alice felt when they’d first read it: The blood she got was tinted. Not tainted, but tinted. Perhaps a child’s perception of blood that was sick and not the color it should be.
The letter continued. “I want to come and be with the other kids. Daddy says Mommy would want me to. When I was a year old Mommy got real sick. She died two years ago.”
Nikki sat silently. She had not, until now, put a face to that letter, the face of the little girl with curly red hair with a father who’d arrived early and donated his time, not just because his child was sick, but because other children were sick, too. A father who was a New York City policeman. As soon as Sam returned tonight, she’d tell him about Lester.
“Nikki?” The voice startled her. Nikki looked up, and there he stood.
“Sam.” She quickly slid Molly’s essay back into the file, hoping she didn’t look like that godawful cat who ate the big, fat bird of embarrassment.
“These are the last of our campers,” he said, stepping inside with a round-faced girl who didn’t have much hair. Beside Sam was a similar round-faced boy.
“Dennis and Debbie,” Nikki said with a wide, welcoming grin, because their files were in front of her and because theirs, too, was a heartbreaking story, a brother and sister from inner-city Philadelphia whose mother was an addict. Debbie, however, was now clean of the virus. They’d allowed her to come because she’d still been positive when the application had been sent by their caseworker and because, God, hadn’t they been through enough?
She reached for the goodie bags—the crayons and coloring books and lightsticks and small toys—as Sam cleared his throat.
“There’s someone else I picked up at the ferry, too,” he said. “Someone you haven’t seen for a while.”
It couldn’t be Dee, because she had left.
It wasn’t Dee.
It was a woman who was pretty and slight and older than Dee. She wore black cotton cropped pants and a short white sweater. She carried a large black bag and a small gray suitcase.
“Nikki,” the woman said, “I don’t expect that you remember me.”
No, Nikki did not.
The woman smiled a cautious smile. “It’s me, Nikki. It’s your cousin, Gabrielle.”
11
It was impossible to tell whether Nikki was shocked or pleased or merely unmoved. Maybe Gabrielle could have judged her cousin’s reaction better if she were not so nervous, so filled with trepidation that … that what? That Nikki would say “Who asked you to come here?” or “Go away. We got rid of you for a reason.”
It was impossible to tell because Nikki simply stood there and stared, and Gabrielle stared back, wondering if she’d have known Nikki on the street or at the market, if she had not been told it was Nikki Atkinson in the flesh.
She was older, of course. Nearly thirty years had lightened her hair and loosened her jawline. Yet she had the blue eyes … they all had the blue eyes …
Nikki moved forward as if in slow motion. Gabrielle clutched her suitcase more tightly, not because she was afraid she’d drop it, but because it was something to hang onto, somewhere to deflect the tremor that had begun in her hand.
“Gabrielle,” Nikki said. She was about a foot from her now. She reached up and rested her hand on Gabrielle’s cheek. Gabrielle wondered if her skin felt as fiery to Nikki as it felt from the inside out.
“Gabrielle,” she repeated. Then she took another step and put her arms around her and said “Gabrielle,” again, as if it were the only word she knew.
Gabrielle let out her breath, let go of the suitcase, and hugged her in return, closing her eyes and feeling Nikki’s warmth, the warmth of another human being who was connected to her, forever linked by a road map of DNA, whether either of them liked it or not.
When Nikki pulled away, her eyes were wet. With trembling hands—or were those Gabrielle’s?—Nikki knitted Gabrielle’s fingers through hers. “I can’t believe it’s you,” she cried. “You are so lovely. You are so old!” She paused again and stared. “You look like your mother. You look so much like Rose.”
Gabrielle smiled. “Yes,” she replied, her voice small and quiet. And then it hit her: Nikki was surprised she was there. Didn’t she know about Carla DiRoma or the demise of their trust funds? Should Gabrielle have left things alone?
Suddenly Nikki’s expression turned somber. “Lester Markham,” she said. “Is that why you’re here?”
Gabrielle cast a glance to the doorway where Sam Oliver still stood. It seemed hours ago that the taxi driver at the docks had pointed to the Camp4Kids bus when Gabrielle had inquired for a ride to the Atkinson estate. “If you’re looking for Nikki Atkinson,” he’d said, “you’ll find her at the camp.” So she’d approached the bus, whose driver said to “hop aboard.”
“Sam?” Nikki asked. “Would you please ex
cuse us?”
Sam smiled. “Sure thing, ladies. I guess my work is done.” With a wave, he left.
“We have so much to talk about,” Nikki said as she touched Gabrielle’s cheek again. “But first I need to get Dennis and Debbie settled, okay?”
In her excitement, Gabrielle had forgotten the two children who stood off to one side. She quickly moved to an overstuffed chair and sat down, her mind and her heart and her feelings awhirl. Nikki knew about Lester. But she hadn’t been expecting her … which must mean she hadn’t been the one who’d sent Carla DiRoma; she hadn’t been the one who’d known how to find her.
Gabrielle closed her eyes and felt the damp Vineyard air seep into her skin. Then she sank back on the seat and realized that she finally had come home.
They climbed into Nikki’s VW—no longer a Beetle, but a Passat. Gabrielle buckled her seat belt and tried to act as if everything were wonderful, as if this were the homecoming of which she had dreamed for so long. She wished it were daylight so she could look out the window and see if she recognized anything—a street corner, a house, the curve of the shoreline.
“Tell me about your camp,” she said. It was safer than asking about the future or the past.
Nikki nodded as if she understood. “Somewhere in the nineties, AIDS stopped being a disease and became an issue,” Nikki began. “It grew to a crescendo, then I guess people grew tired of hearing about it. The benefits and marches dwindled off. But AIDS is still killing people. Kids. Innocent kids.”
Gabrielle’s mind was so full that though she heard Nikki, she could not absorb what her cousin was saying. Crescendo … tired … innocent kids. She’d been an innocent kid once. Was death by emotion still considered death if it wasn’t accompanied by disease?
“I fund the camp with the income from my trust fund,” Nikki continued. “Or I should say I funded it with my trust fund. I have no idea what I will do now that the money’s gone.”
“Without your money your camp will have to close?”
Nikki laughed. “The whole foundation will be defunct,” she said, then smiled. “I named it The Rose Foundation, Gabrielle. In honor of your mother.”
The Rose Foundation. Gabrielle closed her eyes. Nikki had named the foundation for the woman Gabrielle barely remembered from another world, another lifetime. Opening her eyes, she gazed out the window. Signs were vaguely familiar: Pennywise Path, Mariner’s Way. She wondered why Nikki was being so kind. Was it out of guilt? She seemed genuinely happy to see her, and yet …
Nikki put her hand on Gabrielle’s arm. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I’m going on and on like an old fishwife. I haven’t asked a damn thing about you. Are you still living in Europe? Have you had a happy life?”
Gabrielle smiled because smiling felt easy. Sitting here with Nikki, riding into Edgartown felt more easy than familiar, as if somewhere in a distant part of her mind, Nikki, this road, and this island had been there asleep, waiting, perhaps, for this night and this time. She thought she should feel angry, but she did not.
“I am happy,” she said, and that had been the truth. “I am married to a wonderful man and I have a beautiful daughter, Rosa, who is five. We live in Italy. In Tuscany, where we work a small vineyard that’s been in Stefano’s family for generations.” She did not tell her that Stefano was a count or that she was a countess. She did not say they were poor, except, of course, for the twenty-three million she had stashed in Zurich that she’d made damn sure the man she loved knew nothing about. She did not tell her, because it all seemed so … insane. Nearly as insane as the fact that she was back on the island, the place she’d once loved, then hated.
A green sign with white letters pointed left to Edgartown Center, right to West Tisbury, Katama, and the airport. They turned right.
“What about you, Nikki? Are you married?”
“Past tense. And I have a nineteen-year-old daughter whom I love from a distance because when we’re in the same room we often think of murder.”
Gabrielle laughed.
“I’m not sure who I argue with more,” Nikki continued. “My daughter or Mary Beth.”
“Mary Beth.” She said the name and tried to picture what her other cousin must look like. “How is she?”
“The same. Still trying to be her idea of perfect.”
“Is she here?”
“Not yet, but any day now. Her daughter’s getting married in a few weeks. Here.”
The big black-shuttered white houses of Edgartown lined both sides of the street now. They were familiar; they had not changed in twenty-seven years or perhaps in three centuries.
Nikki turned to Gabrielle. “How long will you stay?” she asked quickly. “Will you stay for Shauna’s wedding?”
No, she had not planned to stay a few weeks. She could not be gone that long without Rosa! And yet, until she knew more …
“We need to talk about our trust funds,” Gabrielle said quietly. “And maybe, at some point, you can tell me why you all abandoned me.”
The air between them shifted to a tenuous pause, a gulf that could create irrevocable damage.
“We’ll talk,” Nikki said softly.
“Well,” Gabrielle replied, “I guess that’s why I’ve come.”
Nikki turned her head toward her. “For what it’s worth,” she said, “I’m really glad you’re here.”
Gabrielle’s tears formed again. “Me, too.”
Then the VW turned left into the driveway that was still too narrow and still made of dirt. The car bumped over ruts that had been there forever and dodged the scrub oaks that seemed to close in on them. They passed the caretaker’s cottage, then came to the clearing. Even in the darkness, Gabrielle could see the outline of the house, the big house up ahead.
Suddenly Nikki stopped the car. “Here’s where we get out.”
Gabrielle was confused. “Not at the house?”
Nikki pointed to the right. “Home sweet home,” she said.
Slowly, Gabrielle turned her head, though she already knew what she would see. It was the stalwart white pillar that looked out to sea, the setting for all of Gabrielle’s nightmares, then and now.
“The lighthouse?” she asked. “You live in the lighthouse?” Her voice was small and without much breath behind it.
Nikki placed her hand on Gabrielle’s shoulder. “It makes me feel close to her, Gabrielle. To your mother. She was a good person. The best of all the Atkinsons.”
But Gabrielle kept staring at the image before her eyes and all she could remember was the horror and the pain.
Mack’s red truck wasn’t parked in front of the caretaker’s cottage. Nikki stood at the window, peering through the light that rose just after dawn, wondering how soon she should tell him Gabrielle was there.
He had, no doubt, left for Chappaquiddick, where he greeted each day with a long walk on Cape Pogue among the cedar thickets and salt marshes and barrier beaches. He’d often told Nikki how he loved monitoring the deer tracks and the osprey nests.
“The mayflowers have all but gone,” he’d said only last week, but added that the sanderlings still skipped along the surf’s edge, feeding on tiny crustaceans and mollusks left there by the tide, their small white and brown bodies hurrying up the beach ahead of each breaking wave, as if they didn’t know that summer had set in and that the tourists were infringing once again.
Mack detested summer and the assault that the season and its people brought upon the land. He was a gentle man who sought gentleness in life. Gentleness and peace.
As much as Gabrielle resembled Rose, she seemed to have much of Mack in her. Perhaps that was why when they arrived last night Gabrielle had said that she would talk better tomorrow, that all she wanted then was to go to sleep.
And now it was morning, and Nikki knew she should tell Mack, before he found out for himself. The risk, however, would be great and maybe, just maybe, Gabrielle would leave as quickly as she’d arrived and then it wouldn’t matter.
Would it?
It was so hard not to cry when that was all that you wanted, when you ached from the waist down and the waist up and your guts and your heart and your head all felt as if they were going to explode at the very same time.
Of course, Mary Beth would not cry. Not even to her best friend, Roxanne, who was in the next shampoo stall as part of their regular, once-a-month appointments for highlighting and lunch. She would not cry because she was afraid that once she started she would never stop.
As the warm water trickled through her hair, Mary Beth wondered why she hadn’t canceled lunch today. Roxanne would want to talk about the wedding and the what-to-wears and the who-will-be-theres. Mary Beth only wanted to talk about death and how soon it might come.
“All set,” the shampoo girl said, interrupting her thoughts with a vigorous towel rub. “Are you having a trim?”
“No, just a blow-dry.”
“Lori will be with you shortly.”
The shampoo girl left and Mary Beth sat waiting for Lori, the blow-dry expert. She looked into the huge mirror and wondered why mirrors were the mainstay of the beauty salon decor. At the entrance and the exit, perhaps, they’d be appropriate as proof of the Before and the After of the hundreds of dollars dropped for the During. But why would any woman in her right mind want to sit and study her reflection while clad in a shapeless black smock, her face framed by foil packets or by thick, opaque color that leaked around her hairline? Why would any woman want to view herself in towel-dried hair that went this way and that?
“Ms. Atkinson?”
She blinked at the image that had come into the mirror, because in the beauty salon one looked at everyone and everything backwards, right to left. It was not Lori, the blow-dry girl. It was a young woman in black spandex carrying a telephone.
“You have a call,” the face in the mirror said and handed over a cordless that appeared in the glass as well as on Mary Beth’s lap. She hadn’t brought her cell phone today because it did not fit inside her teeny Gucci purse, but she had forwarded her calls in case of an emergency, which, as the wedding loomed closer, seemed inevitable. She would have preferred to go to a desert island with no phone, fax, or mail, e-mail or otherwise.
