The Bar Harbor Retirement Home for Famous Writers_And Their Muses

by Terri-Lynne Defino

  “Daily tea with the infamous Alfonse Carducci, and nightly walks with a handsome murderer.” A giggle disobeyed. She gulped it down. “When did your life become so thrilling?”

  “Olivia . . .”

  “Oh, come now, dear. Alfonse is infamous and Finlay is a murderer. What did I say wrong?”

  “You’re way too smart to pull that off.” Cecibel pointed. “Is that the notebook?”

  Olivia had forgotten she’d brought it out with her. She clutched it to her bony breast once as plump and white as a dove’s. “Yes. I was going to read it back again before handing it off.”

  “Who’s next?”

  “Enzo, it has to be.”

  “I still haven’t read the part Switch added,” Cecibel said. “Can I read it before you give it to him?”

  “I don’t know. Can you?”

  Cecibel rolled her eyes. “May I?”

  “Of course you may.” Another disobedient giggle. She held the notebook out to Cecibel. “Be sure to get it to Raymond tomorrow. And don’t let Alfonse see you.”

  Cecibel took the notebook. “Are you feeling all right?”

  “A little loopy, but otherwise, grand. This new weed makes me almost forget the pain. Almost. It hurt when I fell off the chair, but not a fraction as much as when Charles tossed me down a flight of stairs like a little raggedy doll.” More giggles. “He thought he was such a man, doing the things he did to me.” Threatening giggles. “Couldn’t come if there wasn’t pain involved, you know. His pain. Mine.” The giggling churned in her belly now. Gurgled. “Is it any wonder I could not love my children, conceived the way they were? I tried. I tried so hard.”

  “It’s all right,” Cecibel crooned. “Hush.”

  “And then he turned them against me. He bought them, the ingrates. I should have stayed with that monster? I should have let him continue misusing me, humiliating me?”

  “Take a deep breath, sweetheart. Deep, deep breath.”

  Her head resting against Cecibel’s breast, Olivia was nearly overwhelmed by the desire to bury herself in so maternal a haven. Mama. Sweet Mama. “She told me I’d regret it,” Olivia whispered. “She said I’d rue the day I let jealousy dictate my heart. I only wanted him because Lucille had him. He was so handsome and charming and wealthy. I didn’t listen, and then I could never, ever admit it. Not until she was gone and couldn’t say she told me so. Not until Alfonse . . .”

  “Shh, Olivia. It’s all right. He’s long gone. You’re safe.”

  Giggles tamed, the tears she’d so seldom shed in life replaced their blatant disobedience. “They pay my bills with money I earned,” she blubbered. “My money, from my books. But do they know that? No. They think their sainted father provided for his errant, evil wife. They have no idea his family money was gone long before I ever left, that it was my success that kept them in boarding school and university and homes in the Hamptons. They don’t know his cruelty, though ask any woman who’d ever fucked him. Ask them. There were plenty. And I got a broken back for loving a man who loved me in return.”

  Doubling over, Olivia ignored the shock of electric pain. Momentary, absorbed by the cannabidiol, and gone. She’d smoked too much. Too, too much. Stupid, stupid woman. She knew better than to overindulge in a new product.

  “Just get her back to her room,” she heard Cecibel say. “Don’t tell the nurses or Dr. Kintz. Let her sleep it off.”

  “You got it, sugar.”

  “Sal’s going to take you home, Olivia.” Cecibel was at eye level now, Olivia in a wheelchair. She nodded obediently, banished tears with a mercurial swipe of her once-elegant hand. Now it was old, liver-spotted, like crepe paper. Fingers were twigs sticking out, at odd angles, of knuckles like golf balls. She’d been so beautiful. Once. Beautiful. Talented. A force of nature only one brick wall had ever stopped. She learned her lesson well, paid the price for the only freedom open to her. But she’d taken it. By God, she had! Charles Peppernell, her ungrateful children, would all be lost to time. Olivia Peppernell née Stuart would be remembered, dammit.

  Dusk had already tipped nearer to night, the line of ultramarine blue edging over the world now a fat band splashed with alizarin, aubergine, cadmium yellow, and indigo. Words, ever hers to conjure and recall, filled her head, her heart. Dear companions. Greatest loves. They’d never failed her. They never would.

  * * *

  “‘Do you see in yon sunset sky, that cloud of crimson bright?’” Olivia’s singsong drifted on the sea breeze. “‘Soon will its gorgeous colors die, in coming dim twilight.’”

  Sal wheeled Olivia away. Cecibel clutched the notebook to her breast. Interesting lives exacted a price, one that nobody actually elected to pay but that all were forced to. All that pain, the heartache. At least Olivia set her story to the music of her prose. What did Cecibel do with hers?

  Weaving down the path to the beach, sand still warm between her toes, Cecibel tried to let it go. Tea with Alfonse was always thrilling in ways she didn’t quite understand, but her walks with Finlay were just the opposite. Comforting. Relaxing. A long sigh after a hard day. All the pent-up and confusing emotions released into the simplicity of their friendship.

  “Sorry I’m late.” She trot-slid her way down the dune to him. “I had to get Olivia taken care of.”

  “I seen her in the arbor.” Finlay chuckled. “Woman smokes a lot of weed.”

  “She’s in a lot of pain otherwise. You know she broke her back about thirty years ago.”

  He nodded. Cecibel didn’t elaborate. Whatever Fin knew or didn’t, he could keep to himself.

  “Can you—” She amended, “Will you put this in your backpack for me?”

  “Sure.” He took the notebook from her without asking what it was. “Ready?”

  “Ready.”

  They walked in companionable silence, flashlights at the ready. They picked up shells and sea glass, pebbles smooth and white. The wind blew and the surf hissed warm over their toes, sucked the sand from under their soles. The rhythm, the pulse of the sea soothed and electrified. Maybe it was this that made Finlay Cecibel’s comfort after a long day, and not the man himself.

  “Want a beer?” Finlay shouldered the backpack off, dropped down into dry sand just beyond the tide line. “Before they get too warm.”

  “Sure.” Cecibel flopped down beside him, a little too close. Her hip brushed his. Shifting away would be too obvious. She stayed where she was, trying to pretend she didn’t notice the intimacy.

  Fin twisted off the cap and handed her the bottle. She sipped, fizz tickling her mouth, her nose. Drinking out of a bottle was easier than from a can or cup. Had he noticed and planned accordingly? The thought made Cecibel smile secretly.

  “How’s about we go out, Bel? I don’t mean a date or nothing. Just out. I know dinner won’t work for you, but what about a movie?”

  “Don’t you enjoy our walks?”

  “Sure I do. It’s just, I’d like to get off this property once in a while, wouldn’t you?”

  When was the last time she’d set foot off the Pen’s grounds? Cecibel was certain it hadn’t been all that long ago, but for the life of her, she couldn’t remember when. “Maybe. What’s playing?”

  “Funny you should ask.” He grinned so big. “You like Star Wars?”

  “Why not simply ask if I enjoy breathing?” She laughed. “Oh, you mean the new one?”

  “Well, no. I meant the originals, but yeah, the new one is still playing in town. One final week. I just thought, maybe, you’d want to go see it.”

  “I hear it’s terrible.”

  He shrugged. “So what if it is? We’re the Star Wars generation. It’s part of our American culture. We kinda have to go. It’s our patriotic duty.”

  “Well, when you put it that way . . .”

  “Yeah?”

  It would be dark. She’d be extra careful with her hair, maybe even use hair spray to make sure it didn’t slip out of place. Fin was right; they both needed to get off the pr
operty now and then. “Yes. Let’s do it.”

  The blush was instant and furious. Thank goodness for the dark and her hoodie.

  “How about Friday night?” he asked. “Movie starts at eight-something.”

  “Uh—yeah, sure. Friday night. I don’t drive, by the way.”

  “Then it’s a good thing I do.” He pulled a paper bag from his backpack, took both their empty bottles, and put them inside. Rising, he offered her his hand and didn’t let go once she was on her feet. Instead, he led her to the rocks, where, come high tide, the sea would crash.

  “What are you doing?”

  Fin handed her his backpack and climbed farther out onto the rocks. He held up the paper bag, then dashed it once. Twice. The bag split. The shards scattered. Crumbling the bag up carefully, he joined her where she stood.

  “Sea-glass seeds.” He took his backpack from her and put the bag inside. “Ready to head back?”

  Climbing the dunes to the arbor, they walked side by side. His backpack bumped her shoulder each time he stepped with his right foot, until she synced her pace to his. Rhythm again. A pulse set to the music of the sea. A man and a woman, both broken and somewhat repaired. Stepping left foot, right, left, right. Swaying like sea grass buffeted gently by the wind.

  “Oh, your book.” Setting the backpack on the chair Olivia had been sitting on, Fin pulled it from within. “Sorry. Looks like it got a little wet.”

  Cecibel brushed the droplets of water from the cover. Condensation from the beer, or maybe the sea. The pattern of drops long sitting and swirls just made with the side of her hand looked a little like pussy-willow branches swaying in the wind. With any luck, no one would notice. If anyone did, Olivia would take the blame.

  “G’night, Bel.” Fin squeezed her shoulder. “If I don’t see you before, I’ll see you Friday night. Meet me in the lower lot?”

  Of course he didn’t offer to pick her up. He knew better, and how she loved him for it. A good friend, Finlay. Why in the world had it taken her so long to discover such a thing? The answer nudged her from behind but she ignored it. Not now. Just, not now.

  “Sounds perfect. Seven thirty?”

  “Make it seven. We want good seats. Line might be long, considering it’s the last week.”

  “Seven, then. See you, Fin.”

  He went one way, she the other. Another balmy July night stuck to her body, her clothes. Sand coated her feet and toes even after rubbing them in the scrubby grass. Salt tightened the skin of her face and bound the individual strands of her hair into clumps like thin dreadlocks easily brushed smooth. If she closed her eyes, it could be another July night, Cecibel walking sticky by the sea. She was seventeen. Portland, Maine, not Bar Harbor. Her face was whole and beautiful. Her hair even longer, even thicker. Her body was new and ripe, untouched but ready. She was meeting Dennis on the beach. A bonfire, just the two of them. First love. First time. It was supposed to have been the best night of her life.

  “Jen.” She choked on her sister’s name. Of course she’d been at the same beach. Wasn’t it where everyone hung out? There, where police and parents gave a little leeway to the amorous and intoxicated? No bonfire. No lovemaking. Sirens and an ambulance. Police and questions she couldn’t answer.

  What did she take?

  How much?

  How long ago?

  When did she lose consciousness?

  All the friends who could have answered such questions had long since fled by then. No one wanted to be associated with such a thing, not even for a girl universally loved. Pitied. They all knew what she’d been through, knew her pain. They’d been standing over her, panicking when Cecibel happened upon them. Stand her up. Get her breathing. Call 911. They did, and they’d fled, leaving only the little sister who didn’t meet Dennis after all, who never saw him again once he heard what happened.

  Who are you to her?

  What’s your home address?

  Do your parents know where you are?

  Did you take anything?

  Will you submit to a drug test?

  Those were questions she could answer and did. She rode in the ambulance with Jen, who didn’t die completely, but did a little bit. Every time.

  Wiping the tears from her cheek, Cecibel opened the door to her room, blinked away the pink-and-yellow frill of her youth and found the homey comfort of the present. She leaned against it in the dark. Breathing slowly in and out. Her grip on the notebook clutched to her chest eased. She tossed it onto her bed, went to the bathroom, and rinsed herself free of the salt and sand.

  After so many years spent forgetting, blocking, pretending, Jennifer was so clear Cecibel could almost see her reflected in the mirror, right behind her. Not the Jennifer she’d become, but the Jennifer she’d been before.

  “I miss you,” she told the phantom. “You don’t think so but I do. You never got that it didn’t matter, that as long as you were alive, there was a chance you’d get better. I’d have lived every day of that horror over again for that chance.”

  Cecibel dried her face. When she looked up again, only she looked back. More than a decade since the monster’s birth. More than a decade since finding Jennifer that last time. More than a decade spent forgetting, after all, for nothing, because there was no forgetting. Any of it.

  A crisp, cotton nightgown from her drawer felt good against her skin. Fresh. Clean. Scented with sunshine, dried on the line. Cecibel scooped up the brown notebook, sat on the edge of her bed. The watermarks had dried, but left behind their shadows. Settling between the July-damp sheets, she switched on the bedside lamp.

  Chapter 22

  Paterson, New Jersey

  December 20, 1959

  Cecilia

  Sucking in, Cecilia Parisi pulled the all-in-one girdle into place, leaned over to arrange her breasts in the strapless cups. She groaned upright. Excruciating, but it did the trick. The lumps earned with two babies in less than four years smoothed.

  Enzo loved her softness, earned giving him the children he adored. He’d run his hands over her plush belly and it would arouse him faster than any slinky lingerie. Cecilia used to be self-conscious about it. He was a strange duck, the man she married. A better man than she deserved. But what was fine and dandy behind closed doors would never do where her Christmas dress was concerned—a little black dress like the one Marilyn Monroe wore in the publicity shots for The Asphalt Jungle. Cecilia had the exact picture, torn out of a Hollywood magazine, taped to her mirror. She even had the white fox stole to go with it, though wearing it in the house was a little ridiculous. She’d find a reason to go outside, maybe for a seldom-smoked cigarette. How glamorous she would look in that outfit, hair swept off her neck, smoking a cigarette from a holder. Enzo couldn’t possibly object, looking the way she would.

  In her old bedroom of her parents’ house on Derrom Avenue, Cecilia slipped her dress over her reshaped frame, her feet into black satin pumps, and grabbed the stole from the back of her chair. A quick swipe of lipstick and her makeup was done. Babies might have stolen her body, but they’d robbed nothing of her beauty. She was only twenty-two, after all.

  She tiptoed across the hallway to the nursery that was once her brothers’ playroom. Joe and Nicky had taken up residence in the old servants’ quarters over the kitchen. The rooms were small and not so fancy, but they were private—a definite perk for teenage boys and their paternally encouraged libidos. But heaven help any girls caught in their beds. Mama was happy enough to turn a blind eye, as long as it could remain blind.

  Baby Frankie slept in his crib, the image of his father. Dark hair, thick lashes, the little cleft in his perfect chin. Enzo Francis Parisi III. It had been Enzo’s idea to call the child by his middle name while holding on to the tradition of the first. Cecilia wasn’t overly fond of either name, but at least calling her son Frankie avoided the confusion in a family full of uncles and cousins named for the common grandfather dead longer than any of them had been in the United States.

 
; “My God, you look gorgeous.” Enzo’s arms slid around Cecilia’s cinched waist before she could turn around. “I may have to follow you around with a bat or something.”

  Cecilia placed a finger to her lips and gestured to the door. She closed the nursery, her sleeping son inside, and twined her arms around her husband’s neck. “Your chivalry astounds me, darling.”

  “Caveman chivalry.” He laughed softly, kissed her nose. “How’d I get the most astonishing woman in the world to love me?”

  “Our dads arranged it.”

  He squeezed her closer. “They got the ball rolling is all.”

  “True enough. I guess it must have been the last several years of you brainwashing me.”

  “That must be it. Hell, whatever works, right?”

  It was ever thus. A game they played. He had no idea, so it was fine. Her conscience could survive her lies, but not his pain. “Where’s Patsy?”

  “Downstairs with your mother.” Enzo let her go. “We really should get her to bed. She’s too little to stay up late.”

  “It’s barely seven, and it’s Christmas. Let her be.”

  “As long as you’re the one putting up with her whining all day tomorrow.”

  “Deal.” They both knew she was lying. When they were back on Derrom Avenue, Patsy belonged to her grandmother. She’d take the child shopping and come home with a new holiday dress and a doll and buggy slightly different from the ones back at their home in Princeton. Too many sweets, too much indulgence, it would be days before the child recovered from the visit. As always. Cecilia didn’t much care. Her blond-haired, blue-eyed cherub of a child was universally loved; that was all that mattered.

  “Where’s the sitter?” she asked. “I don’t like leaving Frankie alone too long.”

  Enzo sighed almost imperceptibly. “He’s ten months old. The doctor said—”

  “I know what the doctor said, but he wasn’t there. I was. If I hadn’t checked on him . . .” She couldn’t say the words. Cecilia had never once checked to make sure Patsy kept breathing in her sleep. The child had been born the size of a three-month-old and slept through the night almost from day one. Frankie had been half her size, bluer coming out than Cecilia remembered her daughter being. A son for Enzo to make up for the secret he kept, for the love he showered on Patsy as if she weren’t his secret shame. But for a frightening article she read in a waiting room magazine after her second child’s birth, she’d never have started monitoring Frankie’s slumber.