Lola reappeared at the base of the porch. All the blood had drained from her face. She clutched the phone to her chest and blinked up at her sisters, her empty glass of wine, reflecting the last of the sunlight.
Susan ripped up from the porch. “What’s wrong? What’s up?”
Lola swallowed. In a strange, taut silence, Christine’s heart sank. She could never shake the feeling that always, in this life, you were only a few weeks, months, or even seconds from the next big disaster.
“Audrey is pregnant,” Lola whispered. She stepped delicately up the porch and reached for the bottle of wine, pouring herself another hefty glass. Her eyes were tinged red. “She’s terrified, just living in Chicago by herself, doing this internship. I tried to tell her everything I could about safe sex. I—I—” She collapsed on the picnic table bench and hung her head. “Condoms and birth control, all of it. I told her. I took her to the gynecologist. I wanted everything to be open and honest between us so that she didn’t make the same mistake I did. I had her when I was way too young to be a mother. Way, way too young. I barely scraped together a career after she was born.”
Lola’s shoulders shook as she fell into the first sob. Susan wrapped her arm around her shoulders and squeezed her against her.
“I just don’t know how this happened,” Lola whispered.
“Accidents happen,” Susan said. “And this is one of the happiest kind of accidents! Imagine if you hadn’t had Audrey all these years. Your life would be so much emptier than it is now. She’s the thing you love the most in this world, right? And now, she’s going to have her own baby. It doesn’t have to be a bad thing, Lola.”
Lola squeezed her eyes shut. “I just wanted so much more for her. I wanted her to do everything on her own terms, in her own time. This isn’t the ‘90s anymore. You have to make huge strides in your career very early. Audrey and I had a plan and a solid one. She was going to work in New York. She looks just like Mom; she has a face for television. Heck, she could be anything she wants. And now—” Lola’s hands came up and cupped her head as she started to cry again.
Susan and Lola huddled together. Susan drummed up a few more comments, none of which seemed to soothe Lola’s immense sadness. Most of them had the ring of, “Having children is one of the most beautiful things you can do in your life. You know that, Lola. And now, Audrey will know that, too.”
Suddenly, Christine bolted up from the picnic table. She was filled with panic, sadness, and fear and it swirled in her stomach, making her suddenly nauseous. She knew this wasn’t her battle to wage; this wasn’t her moment of personal sadness. However, all this talk of the “goodness” and “giving birth, and creating life,” nearly destroyed her. She knew that would never be in her future. Neither Susan nor Lola paid her any attention as she headed inside, unstable on her feet. From the door, she hollered out, “I’m going to take a drive. Call me if you need anything.” Neither of her sisters answered.
They were mothers, beyond anything else. Jake, Amanda, Audrey: those were the people who mattered the most to them. Christine hovered somewhere below. She couldn’t blame them for that.
She just couldn’t relate to it.
Chapter Nine
Christine grabbed the keys to one of the Inn cars and leaped into the front seat. When she revved the engine, an old Bob Seger song blared through the speakers, the sounds of long ago summers on Martha’s Vineyard. As she eased through the greying forests and the winding roads, she had only the slightest comprehension of where she wanted to go. The first few buildings at the edge of Edgartown surprised her. She gripped the steering wheel hard, her knuckles turning white. As she parked the car on a side road, she whispered, “Get ahold of yourself. You’re just going to a normal bar for a drink. It’s not a big deal.”
When she stepped out of the car, she swept her fingers through her hair and drew her shoulders back. Down at the end of the alley, in a little park, several Edgartown tourists collected in a circle around what looked like a marriage proposal. She watched as a handsome, early 30s suited-up man perched down on one knee, while his future blonde bride beamed out a ‘yes’ after he proposed. Christine, who had witnessed more proposals in her early days on Martha’s Vineyard than she could count, rolled her eyes and turned the other way. There was optimism, happiness, hope, but she was headed elsewhere— to the darkened, shadowy bar, where her dead mother’s ex-lover drank himself to death.
The oldest Edgartown Bar had now been upgraded inside to appeal to the locals and tourists, although it still kept many of its old design. Located next to some new buildings that were shinier, the rough exterior still scared off some of the faint at heart. Although, outside kept its rustic appeal, and in some areas on the inside kept its original appeal that hinted at the long history of spirited delights.
The bar was to the left of the door with wrap around seating, featuring jars of 75-cent pickled eggs that sat on the counter, and a few square tables, four chairs each, to the right. There were a couple of high-top tables along a line of windows facing the water, and another larger dining room with more tables and booths at the back. Brick walls, wooden beams, and white shiplap walls and ceilings adorned the space, plus plenty of televisions for anyone who was there for the broadcast entertainment.
There were more vibrant colors at the front of the bar, but once you made your way back to the booths and tables, it became dark and dingy, giving you a nostalgic feeling of the relic it had once been back in the day.
A woman in her late fifties or sixties entered the bar area. She had been seated with another lady, playing Scrabble, killing time. She placed her elbows on the bar and said, “What can I do for you, beautiful?”
Christine gave a slight smile. The woman seemed genuine if a little raggedy. “I’ll have a vodka tonic,” she said. “Please.”
“Coming right up.”
Christine waited at the edge of the bar while the woman made her drink. As her eyes adjusted to the bleary light, she scanned the room. Two older guys, both wearing baseball hats, sat at one of the corner booths, stewing over their beers. A woman around Christine’s age sat with a glass of wine at a tall table by one of the windows, which looked like it had been sealed from the outside with logs. On the walls were what seemed like hundreds of framed photographs from decades earlier.
The sound of the glass on the bar counter made Christine jumped. She turned to look at the bartender who smiled to show she had lost a tooth on the right side. “That’ll be five dollars, honey.”
After Christine paid, she walked toward the photographs on the main wall, many of which were in black frames. As she scanned over the long-forgotten faces, the husbands and wives in celebration, their glasses lifted toward whoever took the photograph, she felt hazy with nostalgia and sadness. The Edgartown Bar now seemed upgraded to what the owners could afford. If she wasn’t mistaken, she caught sight of the bartender, maybe twenty years before, in one of the photographs: much thinner and prettier, her hands on her hips, wearing an old apron that said, “Don’t Mess With The Bartender.”
Stan Ellis, as she had once known him, aged mid-thirties, was featured in two of the photos. In one, he had his arm strung around another guy’s shoulders, while the other guy held up a massive fish, recently caught. They both grinned madly, and their cheeks were sunburnt from the long day of fishing. This was the man her mother had loved. This was the version of him, anyway.
To Christine’s disappointment, her mother wasn’t featured in any of the photographs. She supposed her mom had been too careful for something like that to give her affair away.
Someone else entered the bar. Footsteps crept from the door to the bar counter, while Christine remained poised near the photographs. Every part of Christine’s body felt taut, panicked; after all, she suspected Stan would enter at any moment, but she didn’t have any kind of plan for what she would do when she saw him. Accost him? Demand to know why he had ruined her life?
But could she fully blame Stan Ellis for her r
uined life at this point?
“Christine Sheridan? Is that you?”
The voice rang out near the bar and chilled her to the bone. Slowly, she turned to the familiar sound, her nostrils flared. There, holding a large beer and standing in a near-perfect white v-neck shirt and a pair of jeans that made him look like a Calvin Klein model, stood Zach Walters. His blue eyes caught whatever light lurked in that dank place, and his smile snuck up toward his ears. He was both glad to see her and clearly confused.
“Are you stalking me?” Christine asked, arching a perfectly manicured eyebrow. A hint of a smile played at the corners of her mouth; however, she refused to let it show.
“Excuse me, but I think it should be the other way around,” Zach said. “I live in Edgartown. This is my bar.”
Christine glanced toward the bartender, who gave a half-shrug and added, “He does. We put up with him.”
“I imagine it must be a difficult thing to do,” Christine smirked.
“Rita, meet my high school nemesis, Christine Sheridan,” Zach said.
“I know who she is,” Rita said.
Christine arched her brow.
“Come on. Everyone knows who the Sheridan girls are,” Rita said, sounding annoyed. “You don’t think I’m stupid, do you?” She turned swiftly toward the back room, muttering to herself.
At this, Christine had to laugh. She glanced at Zach again, who chuckled and said, “This is Rita’s place. We have to play by Rita’s rules.”
Christine couldn’t take her eyes off Zach. They sat across from one another at one of the back booths, and she cupped her vodka tonic with both hands, feeling like a teenager. Was it possible that he was more handsome than the last time she had seen him? He tilted his head a bit, rubbing the back of his neck, and said, “Good lord, today was a tough one. We had this enormous dinner rush. Chelsea Clinton was there with a few of her college friends, and the security was over the top.”
“What did Chelsea Clinton order?” Christine asked.
“Salmon lasagna,” Zach said. “It’s a new specialty we added at the bistro, although we’ve been experimenting a lot with new menu items.”
Christine shrugged. “I think what we’ve always featured at the bistro has worked well.”
“But you know what it’s like. It’s my first full year there soon, and I want to feel like I’ve made it my own,” Zach returned.
“But it’s not really yours, is it? I mean, it’s my father’s. It’s the Sunrise Cove Inn’s bistro. Better to go for the profits than an experiment for your own vanity,” Christine said.
Zach’s blue eyes grew icy. He drank his beer and returned the glass with a clank on the table. “Always a pleasure to run into you, Christine.”
“I mean, sure. I know what it’s like to open your own place,” Christine continued. She felt her anger flare-up, the old familiar kind she had always had toward Zach.
“I mean, you don’t, right? That wasn’t your place...”
“But Chez Frank was so much of mine,” Christine insisted. “I helped switch the menu around all the time. As a head pastry chef, I had to coordinate everything so that the desserts matched with the mains. It was hectic work, but it was collaborative and it was...”
Zach chuckled. Christine felt all the blood rush to her cheeks.
“Why are you laughing?” she demanded.
“You just don’t know anything about how I operate at the bistro, and you want to pick it apart. It’s just like you always did in high school,” Zach stated as he leaned back against the booth cushion. “You were always such a judgmental creature. You never let anyone pin you down.”
Christine reached up and rubbed her eyes. Exhaustion engulfed her like a blanket. “I’m sorry. I am. You’re right. I don’t know anything about what you’re doing over there. Funny, also, I was just reading my mom’s diary from when I was around thirteen or fourteen and she said a lot of what you just did. I was always such an angsty wreck.”
Zach lifted his empty beer mug. “Hear, hear,” he said. “To being an angst wreck.”
Christine chuckled as she clinked her glass with his. “What the hell would you know about it? You seem like you’ve got it all together. Your own kind of bistro and your music. You probably have a beautiful house here in Edgartown, and so many friends, and....” She trailed off as his eyes grew hazy.
“Well, Christine. In the interest of honesty, no. I haven’t had it altogether so easy,” Zach said. His voice was light, but Christine could sense some mystery weaved within his words.
“What do you mean?” She tilted her head, curious.
Zach gave a light shrug. “Let’s just say it’s been a meandering road before now— a twisting, dark road with a lot of potholes.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Christine said. Her heart thumped a little bit faster. “I can relate. But you know that already, I guess.” She swallowed a lump in her throat and added, “I would tell you, you can talk to me about whatever happened, but I imagine that I’m not first on your list of people to talk to about anything like that; or anything at all, really.”
“And yet, here we are together,” he stated.
“Indeed. We’re so lucky,” Christine said, smiling through the sarcasm.
The door to the bar opened again. Slowly, Christine lifted her gaze in that direction. There, standing in the doorway, was Stan Ellis. He was stooped forward a bit, his wild hair showing bits of scalp beneath, his dark eyes brooding and his beard thick. Those eyes found Christine’s immediately as he stood there, like some sort of horrendous, terrifying, fisherman statue.
Christine knew that he recognized her. She matched his gaze for a long time. Zach balked, didn’t say anything, and turned to see Stan. It seemed as though all the air in the bar had been sucked out.
Suddenly, Stan yanked himself around, grabbed the handle of the door, and rushed back outside. Christine bolted after him.
“Christine! What are you doing?” Zach called after her.
But Christine wouldn’t have stopped for anyone, least of all Zach Walters. She charged for the door, ripped it open, and rushed toward the back alley. Just when she reached it, Stan revved the engine of his truck. The wheels raced across the alley bricks and shot him out onto the street. He moved so quickly; several tourists cried out, “Watch out!” Christine staggered toward the street and watched as he drove out of Edgartown, away from her and his ghost of the past.
Christine felt like a shell of a person when she returned to the bar. Zach hustled up to her, smearing his fingers through his hair. “What was that about?” he demanded.
Christine ignored him and walked to the bar. She lifted two fingers to Rita and said, “Can I have two shots of tequila? Please.”
Rita nodded and poured. The stereo played Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” while she drank the two shots back immediately, one after another, with Zach watching her in bewilderment. Finally, after she finished the last, Zach lifted two fingers to Rita and ordered the same.
“If you’re going on this journey, I don’t want you to go alone,” he said. Yet again, he delivered the most handsome smile Christine had ever seen.
If she had been a different version of herself, she might have kissed him right then. A wilder, more provocative, more interesting version rather than the washed-up and confused Christine she was now.
By the end of that half-hour, Christine and Zach hovered over the counter, begging and pleading Rita to change the music to their favorite tracks. They had both had four shots of tequila, and the night seemed glossy and filled with promise. Unfortunately for them, it was already quite late, and Rita confessed she couldn’t keep the bar open only for them.
“Not even for Christine? One of the famous Sheridan sisters?” Zach asked.
“Not even for the Queen of England,” Rita affirmed.
“You know, Rita, me and Zach actually hate each other,” Christine said, her voice bubbling with laughter.
“Do you? I really couldn�
�t care less,” Rita smirked with her hands on each of her hips.
Christine hiccuped and tossed her head back. “Susan and Lola would hate that I’m doing this. Hate it.”
“Why?” Zach asked as he scrunched his brows together.
“I don’t know. I think they would think I was going off the rails again.”
“Well, aren’t you?” Zach shrugged and tilted his head.
“I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe it’s what I need to do right now, so soon after everything fell apart,” Christine said. “Susan’s life fell apart, and she immediately went to work, putting our family back together again. But me? My life falls apart, and all I want to do is drink at a dingy bar at the edge of Edgartown. No offense, Rita.”
“None taken,” Rita said.
Christine sighed and dropped her head onto her fist, her elbow on the bar. “Lola is going to be a grandmother. She’s only thirty-eight years old.”
“Wow. You Sheridan women really get to work, don’t you?” Zach said.
“My sisters do, anyway. Not me, though. But maybe it’s better that way. None of my depressive DNA gets passed on to the next generation,” Christine murmured. “Maybe I got it from my mother. And maybe it ends with me.”
“That’s just silly talk, Christine,” Zach stated.
“I feel like I am as old as the Nantucket Sound,” Christine said playfully. “As ancient as the sandy beach.”
“Now you’re just being dramatic,” Zach said.
“Maybe.” She pondered for a moment, recognizing how lost her thoughts had gotten, yet allowing them to flow.
Finally, Rita convinced them to leave the bar. Zach called Christine a taxi, saying he would hand-deliver her car the following day. They waited outside together as the moon fluttered in and out of focus, behind the clouds. When the taxi arrived, Zach placed his hand on her lower back to help her inside.
“You know I don’t need your help, Zach,” Christine said as she adjusted her seatbelt over her waist.
Firefly Nights Page 6
