Last Summer

by Holly Chamberlin

  Meg looked carefully both ways before riding her bike across the street to the opposite sidewalk. She passed the old-fashioned family-owned-and-run pharmacy and saw that no one was inside. She found it hard to believe that the Robbins family could make a living when all those big stores like Hannaford and Walmart had huge discount pharmacies. But maybe some people still liked the charm of a small local store. Personally, when Meg was a kid she had loved to go into Robbins Drugs and Sundries and buy a pretzel rod for a nickel or a giant gumball for ten cents. Her mom had been cool about little things like that years ago, before Petey was born. Maybe money hadn’t been so tight with only one kid in the family.

  Meg pedaled past the florist and then past the tiny salon where her mother used to get her hair cut, ages ago. For the past few years, Mrs. Giroux had been going to a salon out by the mall that hired beauty school students, some of whom, in Meg’s opinion, were not very good at all. There were times when her mother came home from the salon and Meg itched to grab a pair of scissors. Anything she could produce, she was sure, would be more attractive than the disaster produced by those inexpensive but inexperienced students. How hard could it be to cut on a straight line?

  Ahead, Meg could see the spire of the church. Maybe, she thought, I should go to confession soon. She didn’t like having critical thoughts about her mother; even if it wasn’t technically a sin, having critical thoughts was in some ways a betrayal. Honor thy father and thy mother. It was a commandment, so criticizing her mother probably was a sin after all. And Meg really did love her mom. She even wished she could spend more time with her, but knew it would be useless to ask if they could hang out, maybe go to the mall or just take a walk after dinner. What would be the point? Mrs. Giroux was always complaining about being so busy. And she really was busy, so busy that she seemed never to have time for anything fun. For example, a year or two ago, Rosie’s mother had started a monthly book group and Meg’s mother had gone to only two meetings before dropping out because she didn’t have time to read the books. And if Mrs. Giroux wasn’t busy, she was exhausted. She was usually in bed by ten every night and snoring loudly soon after. Meg couldn’t remember the last time her mother had gone to a movie or had dinner out with anyone, not even Mrs. Patterson, her best friend. Correction, her onetime best friend. And Meg had ruined that.

  About a block away from the church buildings, Meg spotted Mrs. Abbott getting out of her car across the street. Mrs. Abbott worked at the gigantic Goodwill store in South Portland and was a bigger busybody than anybody Meg knew, and in a small town like Yorktide, that was saying something. Meg said a silent prayer that Mrs. Abbott wouldn’t see her. The last thing she wanted was to be asked questions about Rosie. The other day a checkout person in Hannaford, a young woman named Kari who Meg was pretty sure had a sister in Yorktide High School, had asked Meg if she knew why Rosie Patterson had missed the last weeks of school. Meg had thought she would pass out with embarrassment. She wondered if she was about to be publicly blamed for Rosie’s breaking down. Before she could plan a careful reply, she was lying. “I don’t know,” she said. “I have no idea.”

  The checkout person had kind of smiled. Or maybe she had frowned suspiciously. (A guilty conscience, Meg thought now, remembering the girl’s expression, needs no accuser. That was another one of her mother’s favorite expressions.) “Oh,” Kari had said. “I thought I heard that you two were best friends.”

  Meg had stammered something unintelligible and, grabbing the plastic bags of toilet paper and discount paper towels, darted out of the store.

  Luckily, Mrs. Abbott didn’t see her, or maybe, Meg thought, she had seen her and decided she didn’t want to approach a teenager with a big scowl on her face. There were benefits to being grumpy. People often left you alone. Meg reached the church parking lot and parked her bike apart from a few mothers waiting to pick up their kids.

  She recognized most of the women from church, but she didn’t really feel comfortable going up to talk with anyone. Some Sunday mornings Meg grumbled about having to get up early enough to make the ten o’clock Mass, but usually she didn’t much mind. The priest, Father William, gave pretty good sermons and Sister Pauline had been really nice to her when maybe she should have been angry. But then again, nuns were supposed to be nice and forgiving. One thing Meg knew for certain. There was no way she could ever be a nun, not with her short temper and general impatience with everything! Plus, she liked boys too much.

  Meg lifted her hair off her neck and then let it flop back down. Why hadn’t she brought a hair elastic with her? Because she had been preoccupied before leaving the house, hoping to catch a glimpse of Rosie coming or going next door. Pathetic. Maybe she had become like an island after all, alone and cut off from other people her own age. Her mother had never been able to afford to send her to a summer camp, but that had never really mattered, not with Rosie to hang out with. And as long as Rosie had been around, Meg had never felt the need to make other good friends, not during the summer, not during the school year. Now, without Rosie ...

  Meg roughly twisted her hair into a rope and knotted it so that it was semi-off her sweaty neck. Self-pity was lame. What was she complaining about? She had plenty to keep her busy all summer. She had those books to read for her English teacher and a lot of housework to keep her occupied. And then there was Petey to take care of....

  Petey’s day camp was pretty inexpensive and a few of his friends from school were also enrolled, so his summer wasn’t turning out so bad at all. Sometimes, but not too often, Meg felt a little resentful that Petey got so much more attention from their parents than she did, especially from their father. Not that Dad was a prize. But feeling a little resentful didn’t mean that she didn’t love her little brother. It was kind of hard not to. He was just an all-around good kid. Her mom deserved a well-behaved child, Meg thought, especially with Miss Grumpy Pants for a daughter.

  Mom should have had a daughter like Rosie, Meg thought now, idly watching one of the waiting mothers chatting away on her cell phone, a daughter who was always sunny and willing to do her chores without grumbling. And Rosie would make a great sister. She had doted on Petey since the day Mrs. Giroux had brought him home from the hospital. Sometimes, Meg thought, Rosie had treated him more like a doll than a living, breathing child. Long after he was able to walk, Rosie had carried him around when they were together, kissing his cheek and telling him how much she loved him. Well, Meg thought now, as long as she hadn’t tried to dress him up in ridiculous outfits. Meg—and her mom!—would have drawn the line there. She bet that Rosie missed Petey. But if she did miss him, why didn’t she try to spend some time with him? Why had she cut him out of her life like she had cut out Meg?

  Well, at least the entire Patterson family hadn’t turned their backs on Petey. Just the night before her mother had told her that Mr. Patterson had asked if it was okay for him to take Petey miniature golfing, like he used to do before everything had gone wrong. Mike Patterson had admitted that his wife was totally against the idea, but he had urged Frannie to consider allowing him back into Petey’s life.

  For her part, Meg felt grateful to Mr. Patterson. Her mother said she was worried about angering Jane and causing trouble between the Pattersons, which might, somehow, hurt Petey. Meg thought her mom was being too cautious. Petey needed someone like Mr. Patterson, especially when his actual father was such a jerk. Not that she would ever say anything bad about their father in front of Petey. He liked his dad. He wasn’t old enough to realize what kind of person Mr. Giroux really was. Meg, for one, didn’t look forward to the day when Petey saw the grim reality of his father. She had been able to handle that grim reality when it had hit her in the face, but she was tough. Her mother had always told her that. She was strong. Well, Meg wasn’t 100 percent sure she believed that about herself. Either her mother was lying or there was some truth to her opinion, somewhere.

  With nothing else to occupy her time except uncomfortable thoughts, Meg found herself listen
ing in to the conversation between the two women just to her right. Well, it was kind of hard not to listen in. They were talking really loudly about an outing they were planning together, a day at the outlet stores in Kittery with lunch at the Weathervane after. It’s weird, Meg thought. Those women could be adult versions of Rosie and me. One was blond and tall, and the other was brunette and kind of short. The blonde was wearing low-key preppy stuff, knee-length shorts, a polo shirt, and sneakers, and the brunette was wearing more stylish stuff, a really pretty flower-printed chiffon blouse, white jeans, and high-heeled sandals. Meg frowned and moved her bike out of range of their chattering. There would be no more shopping trips for Rosie Patterson and Meg Giroux.

  For the first time since she had apologized to Rosie, Meg realized that she felt a little bit angry with her. Maybe she had no right to be angry with Rosie, but she was. She had said she was sorry, and she was truly sorry. So why couldn’t Rosie forgive her? Why wouldn’t she? Even just a little bit, if only for Petey’s sake?

  If it was the other way around, she thought, if Rosie had told a secret about her, she would have forgiven Rosie by now. At least, she was pretty sure she would have. And it just didn’t seem fair of Mrs. Patterson to have gone to her mom and—

  “Hi, Meg!”

  Petey came racing out of the church’s recreation room door, clutching something in his left hand. Like his big sister he wore glasses, but his eyesight was way worse, so his glasses had those awful thick lenses that made his eyes look like they were two fish swimming in two ponds. But even with that distortion, there was no denying that Petey was a really cute kid. His smile was what Meg’s mother called infectious; it made you smile back even when you weren’t in a smiling mood. His hair was much lighter than Meg’s and he still had some of what her mother called baby fat. Other kids his age liked him, which pleased Meg. If anyone ever said or did anything mean to Petey, she thought she would go berserk. And she would probably wind up in jail for it. Then there would be two members of the Giroux family with a criminal record, Meg and her dad. She wasn’t entirely clear on his criminal past, but she had found out that he had been caught stealing cigarettes from a convenience store once. Her mother had blurted that bit of information after a particularly infuriating phone conversation with him. “You might as well know,” Mrs. Giroux had said when she had calmed down. “Better to learn the truth at home than on the street.” And by “street,” Meg had figured her mother meant one of Yorktide’s busybodies, like Mrs. Abbott.

  “Hey, Petey,” Meg said as her brother came to a skidding stop in front of her. “What’s up?”

  “Look what I made for Mom.” He held out a small square box made of Popsicle sticks and decorated with yellow glitter. Meg hadn’t thought people still used Popsicle sticks for crafts. Glitter, she thought, would never go away. “That’s really nice,” she told her brother. “I bet Mom will love it.”

  Petey nodded. “It’s for her treasures.”

  Her mother’s treasures. Meg doubted that her mother had any real treasures, certainly nothing her ex-husband or her children had ever given her. She did wear a tiny gold cross on a chain; it had once belonged to her mother, but Meg didn’t think you should count a cross as a treasure. She thought of the Mother’s Day just passed. She’d had the hardest time finding the right card. Every card seemed to imply that Mom had done a fabulous job of raising her kids and that those kids were happy and well-adjusted. Those kids were certainly not in trouble for having betrayed a friend and destroyed the friendship between the mothers. The messages on those cards seemed like a sham and a lie. Or maybe it was that the messages on the cards made Meg’s relationship with her mother seem like a sham and a lie.

  “Hey,” she said now, “you want to get some ice cream?”

  Petey’s face assumed an expression of great seriousness. “I don’t have any money,” he said.

  Meg laughed. “I do, silly. Come on. You can sit on my bike and I’ll wheel you. Just don’t take your hands off the handlebars, okay?”

  So she would never get those cute sandals, she thought as she hoisted Petey onto the bike’s seat and carefully stowed his treasure box in her saddlebag. It wasn’t the end of the world.

  11

  Frannie had some errands to run after work, errands that she couldn’t ask Meg to handle; Meg was too young to drive and the dry cleaners, for example, was too far away for Meg to get to easily on her bike. Not that Frannie often needed to go to the dry cleaners. It was just too damned expensive to get clothes cleaned outside the home. But certain items, like her one good summer suit and her winter comforter, couldn’t be tossed into the washing machine. Jane’s washing machine was bigger than hers and almost brand new. It could probably handle the comforter, but now there was no way Frannie could ask Jane for a favor.

  Not so much longer now, Frannie thought as she pulled out of the parking lot behind the dry cleaners, before Meg would have her license. Somehow they would afford a decent enough car and she could rely on her daughter for more help with the chores than she could supply now.

  As she drove along, past a fairly new housing development grandly calling itself Sea-mist Estates, Frannie tried to decide what she would make for dinner that evening. But a conversation she had had with Mike Patterson the day before pushed all thoughts of meat loaf and pasta out of her mind. Mike had called her from his office; Frannie had heard his assistant, Peggy, on another line in the background. He had asked how Petey was doing and said that he wanted her to consider letting him spend time with the boy again.

  “I’ll be honest, Fran,” he had said. “Jane doesn’t want our families to have anything to do with each other right now.”

  “I thought as much,” Frannie had replied. “Jane came over and told me to keep Meg away from Rosie.”

  There was silence on the line for a moment and then, his voice tight, Mike had said, “I didn’t know that.”

  Frannie had felt like a fool, though there was no way she could have known that Jane was holding something back from her husband. Before she could say something, anything, Mike went on.

  “Whatever Jane feels about the girls is a separate issue. I’m concerned about Petey. And yes, Jane knows that but no, I haven’t told her I was going to call you today.”

  Frannie had hesitated. Certainly, she agreed that her son did not deserve to suffer. In the past weeks Petey had asked, several times, when Mr. Patterson was going to take him miniature golfing again, and why Mr. Patterson hadn’t suggested they play Wiffle ball, now that it was summer and school was out. Frannie had been hard-pressed to come up with an answer that would make sense to her son. She suspected he didn’t really believe the excuse she had given him for Jane’s absence in his life, that she was super busy with work. But in the end she had told Petey the same thing about Mr. Patterson. It wasn’t technically a lie, but ...

  “I think,” Mike had gone on, “there’s a chance the girls will work things out. But in the meantime, why should Petey suffer?”

  By “the girls,” Frannie had wondered if Mike had meant only Meg and Rosie. She hadn’t asked Mike to clarify. In the end she had promised to think about his offer to pick up with Petey where he had left off weeks earlier. The fact that Jane was so adamantly against the notion was the real sticking point. If Frannie agreed to let Mike spend time with Petey, Jane’s anger against Frannie and even against Meg might strengthen. And things between Jane and Mike might suffer. The last thing Frannie wanted was to be responsible for damaging someone’s marriage, especially the marriage of two people for whom she had once cared so much. Who was she kidding? She still cared for Jane and Mike and wasn’t happy to see either of them acting behind the other’s back. That sort of thing could easily lead to trouble.

  Frannie slowed for a light that had just turned red. She felt a twinge of anger against Meg as the cause of all the messiness. It was never pleasant to be angry with your own child, but she supposed it was inevitable. Your child was still a person, with free will and the abil
ity to choose right from wrong. And sometimes, like every other person, she was bound to choose wrong. And you, as the parent, were bound to wonder if somehow you weren’t ultimately responsible for that wrong choice.

  The light turned green and Frannie continued on toward home. Yes, that was Bob Egan’s car parked outside the Simmons’ hardware store. It was unmistakable. No one else in the area drove an old Mercedes. And the vanity plates clinched the identification. MNYMAN. Money Man. Frannie suspected the car had been one of his wife’s ways to flaunt their relative wealth and that the license plate had been her idea of witty.

  Well, if Mackenzie Egan took after one of her parents, it was clearly her mother. The girl was what Frannie’s ex-father-in-law used to call “a piece of work.” Frannie remembered an incident that had taken place back when Meg and Rosie were in second or third grade and Mackenzie in third or fourth. Mackenzie had shown up at school wearing a face full of makeup, everything from lipstick to mascara and blush. She was sent to the principal’s office to await the arrival of her mother. The word was that when Mrs. Egan saw her daughter she burst into peals of laughter and simply refused to accept that Mackenzie had done anything wrong. The principal, not amused, instructed Mrs. Egan to take her daughter home, remove the makeup, and return her for classes. Mrs. Egan had complied, but the very next day, Mackenzie showed up again in full war paint. Not once during the battle with the school authorities had Mackenzie so much as flinched. She had made her point. After that, her reputation as an “individual” was cemented. Frannie herself remembered feeling a bit of grudging respect for the girl.