Nicola swallowed hard. She had never said these words aloud. Maybe now was the time. Maybe not. But she was going to speak. “Of my mother dying,” she said simply. “She’d had this big operation, but she wouldn’t let me visit her in the hospital and she never told me details of why she’d needed a radical hysterectomy—like if it was cancer.”
Sophie frowned. “Whoa,” she said. “That is scary.”
“Then,” Nicola went on, “when she came home from the hospital she was so sick and weak for so long. She kept me at arm’s length and since I’d already started to get into trouble, there was nothing at that point to stop me from getting into more trouble. The next thing I knew I was being shipped off to Maine.”
“I totally would have freaked out if my parents sent me away,” Sophie said.
“I did. At first. But not long after I moved in with Aunt Bonnie and Uncle Ken, I don’t know, I started to get back to the old me. And I started to grow up.” Nicola looked closely at Sophie. “Why do you want to know all this now? Is it something to do with what’s going on with your parents?”
“No,” Sophie said quickly. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
Nicola took Sophie’s hand. “You can talk to me and to your grandmother if you can’t get through to your mother or father. We’re not going anywhere.”
“You are. You’re going away for two whole years.”
“Well,” Nicola said, taking her hand from Sophie’s. “I’ll still be a part of your life, just not living down the road.”
Sophie shrugged. “Yeah, I know. Anyway, I’m fine. My parents’ problems aren’t my problems.”
“You’re right,” Nicola said. “They’re not. But remember this. When you’re fifteen, stuff can really seem insurmountable, but things usually aren’t insurmountable. When you’re a teen, perception is wonky. It wobbles between a kid’s view and an adult’s view, and when it comes to rest for a split second it usually lands somewhere in between, which is not in the least bit helpful. I don’t know how anyone survives being a teen. But the majority of people do survive and manage to forget the bulk of the torturous stuff they went through.”
“Really?” Sophie asked, after she had munched the last of her cone. “Or are you just saying that so I don’t do something stupid?”
Nicola’s eyes widened. “You’re not thinking—”
“No! Sheesh. I just meant are you telling me a lie to make me feel better?”
“I wouldn’t do that,” Nicola said earnestly.
“I believe you. A lot of adults would, though.”
“Thanks,” Nicola said. She was an adult. It wasn’t a new realization, but there were times when she felt so much like a teen still, or even a child, like the nights when she couldn’t get to sleep because she felt waves of generalized anxiety and all she wanted was to be back in her little room at Bonnie and Ken’s house, tucked safely into the narrow bed under the quilt Bonnie had made specially for her sixteenth birthday. It could be a shock to remember that she was a bona fide adult with an education, a career, a home. She paid her own bills and voted and recycled and kept her clothes clean.
But those weren’t the only things that made you an adult. Being an adult also meant that you treated others with respect; that you tried your best to forgive hurts and insults; that you exercised empathy and compassion; that you abandoned angry actions based on knee-jerk reactions; that you experienced your emotions without necessarily letting them determine your treatment of others.
“You in there?” Sophie asked with a frown.
Nicola shook her head and laughed. “Yeah, just thinking.”
“Well, it must have been about something terrible because you were frowning.”
“Not terrible,” Nicola corrected. “Just important.”
“I’m sorry about your mother being so sick back then,” Sophie said suddenly. “I know what it feels like to be worried about your mom. It sucks.”
Nicola smiled. “That’s one way to put it.”
“It’s not supposed to be that way. Kids aren’t supposed to have to worry about their parents.”
“Life is rarely the way it’s supposed to be,” Nicola said gently. “But it’s often pretty good anyway.”
Sophie’s expression brightened. “I know. Like, I’m totally furious with my dad right now, but the other day he gave me twenty-five dollars for no reason at all. One of the counselors at camp has this awesome red sports car, and he drove me to the outlets in Kittery and I got this fabulous denim miniskirt.”
Nicola restrained a frown. Scott’s giving his daughter money “for no reason” was of course a bribe to buy back his daughter’s affection. Not a great idea. Then again, if buying the skirt brought even a temporary smile to Sophie’s face, maybe Scott’s gesture hadn’t been entirely ill-conceived. But what did Nicola know about raising children? It could never be easy, for anyone.
Including Carol Ascher.
“Cool,” Nicola said. “I mean, about the skirt.” A silver lining to the dark cloud that had been looming over Sophie’s shoulder this summer.
Silver linings were good.
Chapter 52
“Well?” Sophie demanded. “Don’t you notice anything different?”
Julie looked up from her desk. “No,” she said after a moment. “Sorry.”
Sophie rolled her eyes. “My new skirt. Dad gave me the money to buy it. I got it on a super discount in Kittery. Isn’t it fabulous?”
Sophie was wearing a denim miniskirt. The word fabulous did not come to Julie’s mind. “How did you get to Kittery?”
“I got a ride from a friend at camp.”
Julie thought for a moment. What were the names of the other counselors? Sophie must have mentioned at least one or two of them. No matter.
“I was with Nicola earlier,” Sophie announced, propping herself against the old filing cabinet. “We went to the Nubble and we talked about a lot of stuff. She said my parents’ problems aren’t my problems. Well, I said it and she agreed.”
Sophie’s tone was combative. Julie didn’t know how to respond. She said nothing.
Suddenly, Sophie stood away from the filing cabinet. “Why don’t you just have an affair?” she said angrily. “Maybe it will make you feel better. Then you and Dad will be even and we can get back to being a happy family and you can stop being so . . . so not here!”
Julie’s immediate thought was not: That’s a bad idea. It was: Who would want to have an affair with an overweight, depressed woman?
Not: I refuse to stoop to revenge.
But: No one would find me attractive.
What sort of person did that make her? Weak? Self-absorbed? As bad a person as Scott?
“Mom?”
“Sorry,” Julie said, shaking her head. “Don’t be silly. I’m not breaking my marriage vows just to . . . No. That’s a very bad idea. Infidelity is wrong.”
“Well, do something! I can’t take much more of this. It’s like living with . . . it’s like . . . Grrr! I don’t know what it’s like, but it’s awfu l.”
Sophie stomped out of the room. Julie opened the notebook on her desk and picked up a pen. She held the pen poised above the empty page on which she was supposed to be writing her ideas about changes to the school’s dress code; the aim was to make the code more inclusive for all.
Ten minutes later, the page remained blank.
Suddenly, a sense of something amiss made Julie look up from the notebook.
Scott was standing in the door to the office.
“Why are you here?” Julie asked. “You should be at work.”
“I thought we could have lunch together and maybe talk.”
Julie looked back down at the blank page before her. “I’m not hungry.”
Scott sighed. “You don’t have to eat. We can still sit across the table from each other and have a conversation.”
What would Scott say, Julie wondered? That he was sorry? Well, she knew that already. That she wasn’t interesting enough for him,
or sexy enough for him? She knew that already, too. That he wanted to leave her?
“We can’t,” she said.
“We can,” Scott insisted. “You won’t. Julie, look at me, please.”
Julie did. She knew the expression on her face, in her eyes, was as blank as the notebook page before her. She could tell from Scott’s reaction. He took a step back and then turned around and was gone.
Chapter 53
“What are you doing here?”
Carol smiled and held up a plastic bag. “I brought you tomatoes from the cutest little farm stand out by the Morrison estate.”
Bonnie frowned. She hadn’t seen her sister since the debacle in this very cottage. She didn’t need Carol to bring her produce. She could get her own produce easily enough.
“Thanks,” she said. She took the bag.
Carol didn’t go away. Did she want an invitation to come inside? Bonnie was not comfortable being rude. She wanted to close the door in her sister’s face but could not.
Silently, she stepped back and Carol followed her into the kitchen. Bonnie put the bag of tomatoes on the table. “Do you want something to drink?” she asked stiffly.
Carol shook her head. “No, thanks. But you’ll never guess who I ran into at the farm stand. The editor-in-chief of the Yorktide Chronicle, Bill Elliott. He must be eight-five if he’s a day, but he told me he’s in no hurry to retire.”
“Bill is a nice man,” Bonnie said. The truth was she knew him only by reputation, but she wanted to stake some small claim to her fellow resident of Yorktide.
“He asked what I was doing back in Yorktide. I told him I was spending a quiet summer with my family. And then he suggested he do a feature article about Yorktide’s native daughter-made-good and how she finds the Yorktide of today compared to the one of her youth.” Carol smiled. “I didn’t have the heart to say no.”
Bonnie felt the blood rush to her face. That the Chronicle was going to publish an article about Carol Ascher was an insult to everyone who had stayed in Yorktide to make a living and raise a family.
Suddenly, something in Bonnie shifted. Or snapped. Or broke.
Until this very moment, she had never confronted her sister about the public falsehood she had labored under so long ago.
Until this very moment, she had never intended to tell Carol that she knew what had really happened between her and Ken.
In those first weeks after Carol had left for New York, people around town had talked ceaselessly about how they had known all along that Carol Ascher was too ambitious for a small-town boy who was set to take over his family’s auto repair business, and how it must have broken Ken’s heart when Carol left him. Bonnie had bit her tongue, refusing to break Ken’s confidence, and had let Yorktide assume that Bonnie was a rebound, when in fact she was nothing of the sort.
She was the Ascher sister Ken loved.
“I know the truth,” Bonnie blurted. “I know that Ken dumped you and that he let you tell everyone that you had been the one to end the relationship because he knew you couldn’t handle people knowing you’d been rejected.”
Carol laughed lightly and began to fiddle with the collar of her blouse. “Poor Ken,” she said. “He must have been more devastated than I thought. No, Bonnie, the truth is that I broke up with him. He was too boring and provincial for me. I guess he lied about what really happened to save his male ego.”
“Ken was not boring!” Bonnie cried. “And if he was provincial, then so am I.”
“Which made you two a better match than Ken and I could ever have been. I could see that we had no future, even if he couldn’t. So, I ended things.” Carol shrugged and let go of her collar.
Bonnie felt as if she had been slapped. “That’s a lie!” she cried.
“I should get going,” her sister said. “I’m interviewing a landscape architect this afternoon about rebuilding that old stone maze or whatever it is on the property. I think enough of it remains to get some idea of the original design, but without the actual plans someone will have to bring some creativity to the project. I was thinking maybe a zen garden would be nice, something to bring a sense of worldliness to the estate.”
The old stone maze. Since Bonnie’s childhood all she had known of it was a jumble of half-submerged stones, some of which seemed to have the remains of carvings made long ago, weather-worn and rubbed almost smooth by hundreds of passing seasons.
Carol was right about there being no surviving plans. And even if the Aschers had been able to locate the plans, there had never been enough money to restore or rebuild the structure.
But Carol had money. And Carol wanted Ferndean.
“Bonnie? I said I’m leaving now.”
Bonnie nodded. She was barely aware of her sister walking from the room. She sank into a chair at the table. Her heart was racing and she felt sick to her stomach.
Could Ken have been lying all the years of their marriage? Could Carol have ditched him and not the other way around? Could he have been in love with Carol all along?
No. Absolutely not. Bonnie had the memories—the facts, the witnesses!—to prove that Ken had loved her and only her for all the decades of their relationship.
And Ken had not lied about the breakup with her sister. Ken did not lie. He couldn’t even tell a white lie; there had been times when Bonnie had wished he had been able to be less bluntly honest, like when she had taken that pottery class and Ken had told her that while she was a gifted quilter it would be better if she abandoned the pottery wheel.
Bonnie put her head in her hands. Why had Carol felt it necessary to tell this lie now, after all these years? And why had she felt the need to confront Carol, to reveal that she knew the truth of the breakup?
Anger alone? The need to wound, the need to pay back a hurt? An eye for an eye.
One thing was sure. No matter what, Bonnie would not tell anyone what had transpired between herself and Carol that afternoon. It was all too dreadful and embarrassing. To tell would be a cheap bid for sympathy. She was better than that.
Bonnie got up from the chair and looked at the bag of tomatoes on the table. Nothing good could come of Carol’s being back in Yorktide, she thought.
Nothing at all.
Chapter 54
Carol sat at the table on the back deck. She had prepared a salad for her dinner but had no appetite for it. The glass of wine she had poured sat untouched. She felt frustrated. She felt ashamed of herself.
Why had she gone to Bonnie’s cottage in the first place? To brag about the article? Certainly, not with the sole intention of bringing a gift of tomatoes!
And why had she lied about the breakup?
As Carol gazed unseeingly at the expanse of lawn that ended in a virtual wall of fir trees, she remembered the day she had received a letter from her mother telling her that Bonnie and Ken were a couple.
Carol was still living at The Atlanta. Mail for the residents was left on a table in the building’s foyer. Carol remembered glancing quickly at the table that afternoon, not really expecting anything, but finding a letter from Shirley Ascher. That was odd; Shirley had written only the week before. Still, Carol had no sense of foreboding, no sense that this letter would be in any way significant.
She took the letter to her room. She sat on the bed, aware of the shrill laughter coming from the far end of the hall and the smell of burning soup—someone was using a forbidden hot plate—and opened the letter. She expected to hear more of the same—a mention that her father and her sister were well; a small complaint about Shirley’s own sister, Mary; and maybe the fact that Shirley had read a story in the Sunday paper about how dangerous the New York City subways had become. “I don’t know if the streets are any safer,” Shirley had added in one letter. “So maybe you had better take a cab when you need to go out. But aren’t they expensive?” So, what was she supposed to do? Carol had wondered. The answer was obvious. Move back to Yorktide, where she belonged.
But what Carol found this time was a bit
of real news. Her sister was dating Ken Elgort and according to Shirley, an engagement was imminent.
I didn’t mention this before now, Shirley Ascher went on, because it’s not wise to jump the gun, as my father used to say. But as every instinct tells me that Ken will be part of the family before long, I thought it right you should know. I’m sure you’ll want to wish your sister the best.
The letter was signed, as usual, Your Loving Mother in Maine. As if she would be anywhere else.
This news had come at a very bad moment. The bathroom Carol shared with the other girls on the hall was out of order; for the past three days, they had had to use the bathroom on the second or fourth floors. Tempers were short; people were late for work or dates; there was no word about when the third-floor bathroom would be back in use. A customer at the small lingerie shop where Carol was working claimed Carol had been rude to her and Carol was forced to endure a scolding by her boss. To make the day even more of a disaster, a five-dollar bill seemed to have gone missing from Carol’s purse. Had it been stolen? Had she been careless? Either way, now she would not be able to put a down payment on a blouse she had seen at a nice shop on Third Avenue.
All in all, it was not a great time to be receiving the news that your little sister was dating your ex-boyfriend, the only guy who had ever said no to Carol Ascher.
Carol balled up her mother’s letter and threw it in the direction of the waste paper can. Rather pathetically, it landed on the floor. She got up from the bed and stamped from one end to the other of the tiny room, then back again, until a pounding beneath her feet indicated that the girl in the room below hers had had enough.
So, Carol took her bad temper into the streets and for the next hour and a half she stalked the sidewalks with no aim in mind other than to keep moving. The sights and sounds and smells of the city barely registered as she darted across intersections, and around overflowing trash cans, and dodged rough-looking characters asking for handouts.
Later that night, worn-out, feeling the grime of the city on her skin though she had taken a very hot shower, lying on her hard and narrow bed, Carol suddenly realized that this was the very first time Bonnie had succeeded in getting something Carol had wanted or had possessed first. The revelation made her feel magnanimous. Poor Bonnie. She could have Ken. Carol didn’t want him.
All Our Summers Page 18
