Last Summer

by Holly Chamberlin

  A car sped by in the left lane and Jane’s hands on the steering wheel tensed. Yes, she thought, courage wasn’t her strong suit. Case in point—she still hadn’t told Mike about her encounter with Frannie on Main Street. She thought that she might never tell him. She was too ashamed, and she was pretty sure Mike would be angry with her for having betrayed Rosie’s personal business. She wasn’t afraid of Mike’s anger—he would never hit her or even raise his voice at her—but she was desperately in need of his good opinion and approval. Sometimes, in the middle of a sleepless night, she would lie awake wondering if someday he would realize how disappointing a person she was and decide to leave her.

  Well, she thought, hopefully this outing would in some cosmic way make up for her poor judgment in her encounter with Frannie. And hopefully, she had learned a bit of a lesson from Stella’s bravery. She had definitely learned a lesson from a six-year-old boy. Petey had come by after camp the other day with a bouquet of Queen Anne’s lace (and some weeds) plucked from the side of the road.

  “My mom says you’re very busy,” he said when Jane opened the door to his timid knock. “I know I’m not supposed to bother you, but I wanted to give you these. I know you really like flowers.”

  The tears had sprung to Jane’s eyes as she reached out to accept the little bouquet. God, she thought, he could be the son I never had.

  “I didn’t mean to make you cry!” Petey said, alarmed.

  “Oh, these are happy tears,” Jane assured him, smiling and wiping her cheeks. “Thank you, Petey. Does your mom know you’re here?”

  “No. She’s still at work. Meg’s on the computer. I just came over.”

  How alone he is, Jane had thought. She had ushered him in for a snack, and before too many minutes had passed he was munching an oatmeal cookie and chattering on happily about day camp and how they had gone swimming at the Y and how they were putting on a puppet show next week. He was excited because he would be operating a marionette in the shape of a cat. Petey liked all animals. Once Jane had caught him offering a peanut to a squirrel in their backyard. He said he thought it looked hungry.

  She had felt so happy sitting at the kitchen table with Petey. It was such a simple but such an important happiness. How, she wondered, could she have chosen resentment over love, especially where a child was concerned? She had no good answer for that. There was no good answer.

  After a while Jane had walked Petey home. Meg was horrified to realize that he had left the house without telling her. She had also seemed very embarrassed and had apologized profusely to Jane.

  “I hope he didn’t bother you,” she said, when Petey had gone inside and up to his room.

  Jane, too, had felt awkward and embarrassed. “Not at all,” she assured Meg. “It was a pleasure to see him. I hope the cookies I gave him don’t spoil his appetite for dinner.”

  Meg had smiled. “Oh, I don’t think that will be a problem. Thanks again.”

  And they had parted. It had been on the tip of Jane’s tongue to say, “Tell your mom I said hi,” but she had caught herself just in time. First, she wasn’t sure that Meg would want her mother to know that Petey had gone over to the Pattersons’ and that Jane had brought him home. And second, Jane wasn’t sure Frannie would want to accept a greeting from her. Best just to leave everything the way it was for the moment.

  But things had changed thanks to Petey’s unexpected visit and Jane’s brief exchange with his sister. Unwittingly, Petey had created an opportunity for Jane to take her courage (such as it was) and her maturity in hand. That evening, via Mike, who had gone over to the Giroux house to see if he could fix their printer, she offered to take the girls to Old Orchard Beach for the day. Reluctantly or not, Mike hadn’t said, Frannie had given her consent.

  “Okay, girls,” Jane said now, turning on to Old Orchard Road. “We’re here.” She parked the car in a small lot across the street from the Palace Playland. With exclamations of “Awesome!” and “Psych!” Rosie and Meg clambered out of the car. Jane followed with less enthusiasm.

  Palace Playland was a major attraction for locals as well as for families on vacation. It was New England’s only beachfront amusement park, which gave it some cachet. While the girls were well past spending time on the rides in Kiddie Land, they could choose from the “family rides” like the inevitable bumper cars and the Wave Swinger and the carousel or the classic Ferris wheel. Or, and this would be Meg’s preference, they could go on the “thrill rides” like the Galaxi Coaster, the Pirate, or the Power Surge. Jane’s preference would be that they stick to playing safe games like the roulette-style Spin-N-Win, but she wasn’t naïve enough to think that was going to happen.

  Not far from the amusement park, the Pier jutted out five hundred feet over the ocean. It was lined with overstuffed shops selling a variety of inexpensive souvenirs, including T-shirts, sunglasses, and visors. There were also five restaurants and five bars. Jane remembered that Frannie and Peter used to enjoy going to one of the bars. Jane wondered when Frannie had last been to her favorite stomping ground and figured that it probably wasn’t since Peter’s dismissal. She had certainly known better than to ask Jane to join her! Jane didn’t like hanging out in bars.

  The beach was wall-to-wall people for what looked like its entire seven miles, as was the water for what looked like seven miles out. No one could actually swim, though plenty of people seemed to be having fun just bobbing and splashing around. Jane shuddered. Looking at the mass of bodies crammed together made her think about germs and fungal infections and kids peeing on each other’s feet.

  The hordes of skimpily dressed teenaged girls annoyed her, too. Tight skirts that were indecently short, short shorts that looked more like underwear, tank tops that exposed more skin than they covered. Jane couldn’t help but feel the girls were demeaning themselves without knowing it and that the boys, with their baggy shorts worn down almost below their butts, were taking full advantage of the girls’ pathetic need to please them. She would never allow her own daughter to dress that way. Never. But I’m lucky, Jane thought. Rosie isn’t that kind of girl. She has no need to flaunt herself. She knows better.

  Like she knew better than to keep the bullying a secret. Like she knew better than to take a razor blade to her arm. Jane swallowed hard. You could never tell what might happen in life. Never. She wasn’t superstitious, but still, there was no point in tempting fate by being absurdly sure of your own good luck. After all, look what had happened to Rosie this past school year. Never in a million years would Jane have imagined her daughter not only the victim of bullies but also someone who engaged in self-harming. Never.

  Complacency was dangerous. She would try to remember that.

  Once actually inside the grounds of the Palace Playland, Jane did her best to hide her distaste. But it was difficult.

  “Oh, my God,” Meg cried, pointing toward a man carrying a massive stuffed animal. “Look at that giant yellow monkey! I would so love to win that for Petey!”

  Jane forced a smile. Frankly, she couldn’t stand anything about the place, from the giant yellow monkeys to the greasy fast food. She knew she was being a snob and a prude and maybe overly fastidious, but there it was. Meg loved everything about Old Orchard Beach, especially the scarier rides in Palace Playland (she had always been a bit of a daredevil), and Rosie liked what she called the pageantry of it all (she said it reminded her of what a medieval fair might have been like, without the bear baiting, of course, old people and young people having fun together). So Jane bought each girl a hot dog and a funnel cake and a bunch of tickets for the rides, and refrained from openly criticizing the style, or lack thereof, of the majority of the crowd. Old Orchard Beach was definitely more Frannie’s scene. She was far more tolerant of—well, of people than Jane. For example, Jane thought, wincing, she would laugh at the sight of the guy over by the stand selling fried dough. He was wearing a baseball type hat with a big foam hot dog perched on top.

  The girls decided to go on a ride
called the Orient Express. Jane waited in a rare spot of shade, thankful for a moment alone. (As alone as anyone could be in a teeming crowd of revelers.) She spotted the girls climbing into their car (or whatever it was called) and waved. Both girls waved back and Jane smiled. She was finding that interacting with Meg was not as difficult as she had imagined it might be.

  The ride began and Jane thought back to earlier visits to Palace Playland and Yorktide Memorial Park and Ogunquit Beach and York’s Wild Kingdom, all the places she and Frannie had taken the girls when they were little. Jane waved again but this time only Meg waved back. She wouldn’t be surprised if Rosie’s eyes were clamped shut.

  Meg’s personality had always been big, not bossy but determined and decided. More than once when the girls were small Meg had come to Rosie’s rescue, like the time they were at the playground and that boy had tried to take Rosie’s tricycle. Rosie had stood there, tears welling in her eyes, but before Jane could rush to the rescue, Meg had walked right up to the boy, who was bigger and older than she was, and demanded he give it back. Maybe it was the shock of a smaller, younger girl standing up to him, but the boy had immediately released the bike. And then there was the time Rosie had ventured higher than she ever had on the jungle gym and suddenly, been too scared to come down. Again, before Jane could lift her to the ground, Meg had scrambled up to where Rosie stood clutching a bar and basically talked her slowly down, taking each careful step by her side.

  Then what, Jane thought now, had made Meg turn against the friend she had loved since before she had even known what the word meant? What had changed inside Meg? What pain or misery or anger had caused her to lash out at Rosie, the person she had always protected? Jane felt at a complete loss to understand. She wondered if even Meg understood her own motives, then or now.

  Jane spotted the girls again as the ride whipped past. She had to look away when Meg raised her hands high above her head. Rosie’s hands looked riveted to the safety bar. Over time, Jane realized, peering up again at the ride, she and Meg had become friends of a sort. Unlike Rosie, Meg had a real interest in fashion, and she definitely had an eye for style. Jane had enjoyed sharing her passion with Meg, passing along items she no longer needed or wanted, like a purse or a sweater, pointing out styles in catalogues and magazines. Vaguely now she recalled having promised to teach Meg how to sew. But she had never made good with that promise, had she? Maybe, she thought, now was the time to offer lessons. Maybe soon.

  And she was surprised by that thought. The idea of finally offering to teach Meg how to sew had come to her unbidden. Maybe it was an indication that she was ready to begin the process of real forgiveness, at least where Meg was concerned.

  Jane watched now as the ride came to an end and the girls came loping toward her.

  “That was awesome!” Rosie exclaimed.

  “Really?” Meg said. “I thought it was kind of lame. Well, not lame, exactly, but not super exciting. Not as good as the Galaxi Coaster.”

  “Well, nothing’s as good as the Galaxi Coaster!”

  “Meg,” Jane said, interrupting the analysis of the rides, “the back of your neck is getting a bit burnt. I have some sunblock... .” She rummaged in her bag and produced a tube.

  “Thanks, Mrs. Patterson,” Meg said. “I totally forgot to bring any.”

  “Mom is always prepared,” Rosie said with a smile. “She’s a grown-up Girl Scout.”

  It was true, Jane thought. She always carried a tube of sunblock in her bag, that and a bottle of ibuprofen, a small spray bottle of Bactine, a few Band-Aids, and of course, a pack of tissues. How many times had she come to Frannie’s rescue over the years when Meg, taking a physical risk, had skinned a knee or scraped an elbow? Interesting, Jane thought. She couldn’t remember Meg ever crying when she had gotten hurt. Rosie had bawled at the slightest bump or bruise. But maybe that was partly my fault, Jane thought. She had always come running to the rescue, panic and alarm clear in her expression and attitude. Maybe Rosie had learned by example that the tiniest incident should be blown up into a tragedy.

  Meg handed the tube of sunblock back to Jane and Rosie announced they were going to try their hand in the arcade. “But I thought you didn’t like to play games,” Jane said. Rosie shrugged. “I don’t, really. But I guess sometimes it can be fun.”

  Jane opted to wait outside. The din of the rattling and ringing machines in the dark, almost subterranean space made her nerves twitch. The darkness made her worried about pickpockets. She had never ridden on the New York City subway and if she had her way, she never would. She had found Boston’s clean and well-lit T system challenging enough.

  Jane perched on a bench across from the arcade, but only after wiping the seat with a tissue. She hoped that no one decided to sit next to her. She doubted she had much to say to just about anyone else at the park, especially, she thought, not to someone like that woman with the massive multicolored tattoo on her chest and those horrid big round ear plugs in her earlobes. She was greedily consuming a triple-scoop ice cream cone, and the melting ice cream was running down her hand and arm.

  Jane felt her stomach lurch and looked away from the woman. Her attention was almost immediately caught by a familiar figure standing by a mechanical fortune-telling booth. His back was to her so she couldn’t be sure, but ... The man turned a bit so that she could now see his profile. Yes, it was Peter Giroux! The slouch was unmistakable, as was the paunch. And he was with a much younger woman—a girl, really—in tiny shorts and super-high wedges. Jane prayed to a god she didn’t believe in that Peter and the girl would be long gone before Meg came out of the arcade. And she prayed that Peter didn’t spot her on that bench. It would be just like Peter Giroux to make his way over to flaunt his new girlfriend in front of Jane, assuming that she would run back to Pond View Road and tell Frannie about his latest prize. Only, Jane would never do such a thing.

  She watched with distaste as Peter rubbed his potbelly, as if proud of it. Poor Frannie, she thought, to be saddled with such a man for the rest of her life. Because as the father of her children he would always, always be a part of Frannie’s life, even if only in memory, even if he chose to entirely abandon Meg and Petey. Jane had a surprisingly strong urge to get off that bench, march right over to where he was standing with his friend (ha!), and ... And what? Tell him what a jerk he was? Slap him in the face? With an enormous feeling of relief she watched Peter and his gal pal head in the direction of the parking lot. She could only hope they would get in a car and drive far, far away. Or maybe into the ocean where they would drown and never cause Frannie or Meg or Petey trouble ever again. The force of that last, nasty thought took Jane by surprise.

  “Mom?”

  Jane jumped at the sound of her daughter’s voice and finally noticed Rosie and Meg standing in front of her. “Oh,” she said. “Hi.”

  “We’ve been standing here for, like, three minutes.”

  “Maybe two,” Meg corrected.

  “Whatever. You looked like you were in a trance or something.”

  “I did?” Jane attempted a smile. “Sorry. I was just thinking about something.”

  Rosie shrugged. “We want to do the Pier now, okay?”

  Jane stood and tried to hide her reluctance behind another smile. “Sure,” she said.

  An hour later, the Pier “done,” the girls climbed into the backseat of the car, not much worse for wear in spite of sun, spine-shattering rides, and bad food. Jane, on the other hand, felt weary to the bone. It’s good to be young, she thought. Except when it’s not, she added, thinking of Petey. Like when you think you’re responsible for an adult’s bad behavior.

  Traffic was fairly light on the way back to Yorktide, and Jane was glad for that. She was always highly aware of the enormous responsibility she shouldered when another person’s child was in her car. She owed it to Frannie to keep Meg safe and to return her in sound condition. Until last year, Jane hadn’t let anyone but Mike or Frannie or the school’s bus driver (and that with
protest) chauffeur Rosie around. Maybe, in retrospect, she had been overly cautious. Maybe that sort of behavior had further set Rosie apart from the other kids at school. Maybe that had marked Rosie as different and vulnerable and ...

  “Thanks, Mrs. Patterson,” Meg said from the backseat, interrupting Jane’s dark thoughts. “It was really nice of you to ask me to come along.”

  Jane noted Meg’s choice of words and was at a loss as how to reply. “You’re welcome,” she had finally said, hoping her voice held steady. It would have to suffice for now.

  39

  Dear Diary

  Friday

  Thank God school is over for the week.

  I realized that Mom was right. It’s a good thing I don’t have a dog, not because I’m too young but because I’m an idiot. I would probably only forget to feed him and then he would die. Then I’d be arrested for animal cruelty and go to jail where I would rot away until I died.

  Disgusting.

  Dear Diary

  I remember when the weekend was something I looked forward to. Why? Was one day better than another? Now every day is the same. Too long and too sad.

  Meg asked me if I wanted to go with her and her mother to the outlets in Kittery. I said no. She didn’t ask me why.

  Dad wanted the three of us to go to dinner at some expensive restaurant in Perkins Cove Saturday night. A special treat, he said. I told my parents I wasn’t feeling good, which wasn’t really a lie, and to go without me. They did.

  Why would I want to shop? Why would I want to get dressed up and go to a fancy dinner? Why would I want to do anything?

  Why would anyone want to do anything with me?

  Meg and her mother and Mom and Dad all probably asked me to join them out of pity.