Summertime Nights

by Katie Winters

  Now, Carmella stepped off the plane in New Mexico as a very different woman. Forty-two years old and much more self-assured, at least she hoped so. She collected her luggage and hailed a taxi. As she watched the driver place her suitcase in the trunk, she lifted her cheeks toward the sunlight. “It’s different here than out east,” she told him as she got in. “The heat is so dry, and it’s difficult to breathe.”

  “I’ve never lived anywhere else,” the driver told her. He got in and then lifted his hands to the steering wheel. He wore turquoise jewelry, the likes of which were tremendously popular out there. Carmella remembered that she had worn her own share of it in her youth. She had no idea where those pieces were these days; she’d lost them along the way.

  Carmella relaxed for a while in her hotel room. She put some of her dresses and skirts and blouses in the closet and liked the way they looked, hanging like that, as though she’d transplanted her life to a new realm. Cody texted her just past six in the evening to ask how everything had gone.

  CARMELLA: Not bad. It’s so hot! We have a welcome dinner at seven-thirty. Guess it’s time to mingle.

  CODY: Mingling. Your favorite thing!

  CARMELLA: Maybe I can learn to like it. Who knows? Maybe we can grow and change in adulthood.

  CODY: Gosh, I hope so. :)

  The acupuncture clinic was held at the very school Carmella had gone to twenty years earlier. Carmella stepped into the main hallway and was surprised to find that much of the space was exactly the same. They’d even stuck with the horrible light green walls. On the far end, there were a number of photographs of the various graduating classes. She found hers in the middle. There she stood, the front row, off to the right. She looked youthful and bright and happy. If only she’d actually felt that way at the time. It was funny what old photographs seemed like, compared to the reality.

  Carmella recognized a few people from her class as they ambled into the larger reception hall. She greeted a woman named Clara, who she’d always liked back in the old days. Now, Clara told her, she had an acupuncturist clinic in Seattle and enjoyed a very comfortable life. “I got married around age thirty, but we never had children,” she explained. “Just three dogs. They’re my world.”

  Carmella sidestepped any feelings of jealousy. Sure other people had moved on and built their lives. It hadn’t been something she had ever been able to do and that was okay. It had to be okay.

  Carmella grabbed a glass of wine and sat in the crowd. There were to be a number of announcements about the following few days of the clinic, along with several guest speakers. She was surprised to find herself excited. This was a good next step in her career; she was there for the singular reason that she wanted to push herself forward and become a better version of herself professionally.

  The new president of the acupuncturist school stepped to the center of the stage and greeted everyone. “I’m happy to say that I’ve been the president of this school for the past four years, and within that time, we’ve taught hundreds of wonderful acupuncturists in this ancient medicinal practice. It’s been a unique pleasure. And now, with so many of you grads back, I see the wonderful work this school has done for people all over the world. Anyone who’s ever practiced acupuncture knows that it’s a wonderful practice of endless gratefulness.”

  The crowd applauded. The man set his jaw, smiled, then continued on.

  “We have a very good schedule crafted for you over the next few days. Conversations and speeches and clinics that will assuredly round out your practices all over the forty-six states you represent. I think we even have a few countries represented, correct? France? Yes? And Belgium?”

  There was more applause. Carmella’s heart ballooned. She was a part of a bigger mission. She was a piece of a greater puzzle. It was all so beautiful. It felt so right.

  “Now, without further ado, I want to introduce you to one of our most important speakers for this year’s clinic,” he continued. “She came to this clinic years and years ago, has been a frequent guest lecturer, and continues to have her own acupuncture center in Wisconsin. I’ve asked her over and over again through the years, why Wisconsin? And she just tells me she got tired of the desert.”

  Everyone chuckled. Carmella joined in.

  “Now, everyone, please give a warm welcome to Karen Brosnahan,” the president said. “My dear friend and a prominent acupuncturist in her own right.”

  Carmella stopped breathing for a full twenty seconds. She kept her hands plastered to her thighs as a familiar woman marched out onto the stage. There she stood: Karen, the woman her father had married so many years ago and the mother figure Carmella had latched onto during some of the darkest moments of her life. This woman had altered Carmella’s relationship with Elsa in nearly every conceivable way. And when Neal had divorced her, Carmella had struggled to forgive him, as she’d felt it was a direct rebuke of her comfort, her love.

  “Good evening, everyone.” Karen beamed up into the crowd. “Thank you for the warm welcome. I always love returning to the Southwest. It’s where I got my start. It’s where I learned about this beautiful field. And when I come back here, I always feel this previous version of myself — a young girl who was largely clueless but brave enough to take hold of her life and make things happen.”

  Karen was in her sixties but still just as beautiful as she’d been twenty years before. Her hair was grey-blonde, and she remained slender and chic. As usual, her fashion was on point, yet she had aged it up appropriately. Carmella had always been impressed with her stylistic ability; she’d always evoked charm in everything she’d done. Elsa had called this “manipulative,” but Carmella hadn’t believed it for a second.

  And even now, as Karen spoke, Carmella’s heart surged with love. Once you loved someone, it never really went away. She’d always believed that.

  Carmella couldn’t concentrate. She hardly heard what Karen said. Suddenly, she realized she’d joined the rest of the audience in applause — then stood up with the rest of them and headed back to the reception hall. She paused near the back of the hall and glanced back to make sure Karen would follow. She had to speak with her.

  When Karen appeared in the doorway, she was still in conversation with the president. If Carmella had to guess, the president had a crush on her. And why shouldn’t he? Karen was beautiful.

  Carmella waited a few feet away from her ex-stepmother. She couldn’t help but compare her current feelings for Karen with her newfound feelings for Nancy. She and Nancy had just never really connected; Nancy had fallen head-over-heels with Elsa, and nothing else had mattered, it had seemed like. Yes, there was room for Carmella and Nancy’s relationship to bloom and maybe it would, in time.

  Karen tilted her head the slightest bit as her eyes landed on Carmella. Her lips parted in surprise. She lifted a finger to the president and said, “I have to step away for a moment.” She then snapped over to Carmella as though Carmella was a magnet.

  “My dear. You look positively stunning,” Karen said.

  Carmella’s cheeks burned with excitement. “As do you.”

  Carmella nodded as her eyes filled with tears. She wrapped her arms around her ex-stepmother and felt it all over again, this sadness toward the endless passage of time. What had it all meant? Where were any of them headed toward?

  “Wow,” Karen breathed as she stepped back again. “How have you been, my love?”

  Carmella’s eyes widened. “Good! Good.” She struggled to know what to say next.

  Karen lifted Carmella’s left hand and said, “I guess no ring on this finger?”

  “No.”

  “And there never was?”

  “No.”

  Karen nodded and dropped Carmella’s hand. What was it behind those eyes? Was it pity?

  “Well, we should really have dinner together, shouldn’t we?” Karen suggested

  “Yes, that would be wonderful. There’s a lot to catch up on,” Carmella agreed.

  “What about tonight?�
� Karen suggested. “I know they’re having a dinner here, but I think it’s supposed to be rubbish.”

  Carmella laughed. “I don’t mind going tonight.”

  “Great. I know of a really wonderful Mexican place,” Karen suggested. “Nothing like the Mexican food on the Vineyard. I always told Neal how wretched it was.”

  “Dad was always a sucker for anything on the Vineyard,” Carmella agreed. “He never saw anything faulty about it.”

  Karen collected her eyebrows together over her nose in sudden worry. “Darling, I really was so sorry to hear about his passing.”

  Carmella’s eyes glistened once again. “Yes. It was a surprise.”

  “It must have been difficult.”

  “It wasn’t easy.”

  Karen nodded. Her face flattened again. “I’ll just finish up here, grab my things from the office, and then we can head out together, huh? Girls’ night!”

  “Girls’ night,” Carmella echoed. Her heart pounded with excitement.

  Finally, she would get the closure she’d always craved. Finally, she’d be free.

  Chapter Five

  Karen had rented a car for her stint in the Southwest. She clicked the key fob and pointed it toward a bright white Porsche, and the lights flashed. Carmella struggled to know what to say as she walked alongside this woman, a woman she had once loved like a mother. Was she a stranger now? As she slipped into the front seat, her mind flashed with the final memory she had of Karen just before she’d left Martha’s Vineyard. “Don’t let Neal and Elsa destroy you,” she’d said as her eyes had darkened.

  But now, the Southwest sun eased into the soft slumber of twilight, and all the horrors of their yesterdays had no bearing on reality. Karen messed with the stereo and said, “I always love the radio stations in Santa Fe, don’t you?” Carmella remembered when she had lived there how she’d marveled at the way her life had shifted so completely from her time on the Vineyard. She had been a completely different person, with different friends, a different closet. Why had she ever left the Southwest? Maybe she could have stayed on there, opened her own acupuncture practice.

  She said this to Karen, now. “Sometimes, I wonder why I ever left.”

  Karen nodded somberly. “I wonder why you did, too. But I guess we’ll get to that over some margaritas, huh?”

  A wave of Mexican food scents came over them as the door opened. Karen smiled at the hostess, who greeted them and sat them immediately at a booth near the table. Within the first few minutes, they had their first salt-lined margaritas. Karen lifted hers toward Carmella and beamed.

  “To us, right?”

  Carmella nodded. “To us.” She meant it with all her heart.

  The sour liquid traced a line down the back of her throat. Karen tapped her tongue against the top of her mouth and then said, “Oh, they really have good fajitas here. Are you hungry?”

  Carmella felt it was so strange to hear such a normal question after so much time away. Was she hungry? She had no idea. What did she feel, exactly? At a loss. Maybe that was a better way to put it.

  But instead, she just said, “Starving. I haven’t eaten anything since I left the airport in Boston.”

  “Then fill up on these chips,” Karen said brightly. “They make their own salsa here. It’s divine.”

  Carmella remembered a long-ago night when she had actually been to this exact same Mexican restaurant. She’d been on a date with a guy she had met at the acupuncture school. It had been strange, one of the first dates of her life, in fact, and she’d spilled that homemade salsa all over the table. Carmella thought about telling this anecdote to Karen but then thought better of it. She didn’t want Karen to think she was some idiot.

  “I can’t believe you’re here,” Carmella said, just after they finished ordering.

  Karen nodded. “And you! The thought didn’t even cross my mind.”

  “But you knew that I came here for school,” Carmella pointed out. “We talked about it so much before you left.”

  “You mean before your father kicked me out of the house,” Karen corrected.

  Carmella shifted her weight on her chair. Karen’s words felt like a strange smack in the face. Almost immediately, Karen fixed her face and lifted her eyebrows and said, “But that’s all in the past now, isn’t it?” She then took a chip and scooped up a lot of salsa.

  “Anyway, this school totally changed my life,” Carmella said. “It made me who I am today. And I’ve really loved being an acupuncturist.”

  “You’ve worked at the Katama, have you?”

  Carmella nodded. Her smile faltered again.

  “I wondered if you’d ever go out on your own,” Karen said. “Away from Neal and Elsa. Away from everything you’d ever known.”

  Carmella swallowed. Karen had the smallest of chip crumbs on her chin, but she still continued to look at Carmella with those intense eyes.

  “I remember you so well as a teenager,” Karen said then. “You were so sullen.”

  Carmella’s nostrils flared. “I mean, my mother and brother had both—”

  At that moment, the waitress arrived with an appetizer. Carmella had forgotten they’d even opted for one. Karen thanked the waitress and then lifted a fork and knife, prepared to dive in.

  “Oh, but we shouldn’t talk about all that,” Carmella tried brightly. “Why don’t you tell me what you’ve been up to?”

  “Gosh, there’s so much to say,” Karen began. “I guess, after the Vineyard, I took some time over in Europe. It was so beautiful to be back. I was in the south of France, mostly before I headed into Spain. By the time I thought about your father again, I’d already mastered the Spanish language and taken a Spanish lover.”

  Carmella swallowed again. “Wow.”

  “Yes, but it wasn’t meant to last. Nothing good in life is ever meant to last,” Karen told her. “In time, I returned to the States. I got married again — to a banker, of all people, and then we divorced about five years ago. Around then, I went to Wisconsin, which is where my sister lives. I have to admit that I like having her around.”

  Carmella felt the immensity of Karen’s life without her. How had Karen done so much during her time away? How had she lived so much while Carmella still felt handicapped in her own life?

  “You know, I never really loved the Vineyard,” Karen said a few minutes later. “It was so stifling to be trapped on an island like that. Your father wouldn’t have ever dreamed of going anywhere else.”

  “The Lodge was his life,” Carmella pointed out.

  “Yes, well. I asked him to hire new management so that we could go begin a new life elsewhere,” Karen said. “I think both you and Elsa would have had more opportunities if we’d even gone up to Boston or gone to New York. Your father had the money to afford anything. Yet, there you two went off to that silly school in Edgartown. I couldn’t understand it. I asked Neal over and over again why he didn’t want the best for you. But he just wouldn’t leave the island.”

  These were things Carmella had never known about Neal or about Karen. She wasn’t sure she liked to hear them, now.

  “That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy some parts of my time there, of course,” Karen continued. “Sailing and swimming. And spending time with you, of course, Carmella.”

  She said it as though it was expected of her to say it. Carmella found herself not fully believing her.

  “But what keeps you there?” Karen asked then. “A boyfriend? You were always so chummy with that boy. What was his name?”

  “Cody,” Carmella recited.

  “Yes. What happened there?”

  Carmella furrowed her brow. “He’s still on the island. He married someone, but they got divorced.”

  “He was so in love with you,” Karen said. Her words seemed sinister and unkind.

  Carmella shook her head. “We’re just very good friends.”

  “Right. I don’t think men just have female friends like that, but what do I know? So tell me about Elsa
. Of all the people I’ve met in my life, I swear, she’s one of the slimiest,” Karen sneered. “She was the ultimate reason Neal broke our marriage off, you know.”

  Carmella had been terribly resentful toward this very fact. She wasn’t so sure about it now.

  “Actually, Elsa and I have begun to mend our relationship,” Carmella told her.

  “Ah. Is that so?” Karen sounded bored with this idea.

  “I figured I couldn’t stay mad at her forever,” Carmella said. “And she’s been through a lot. Aiden died last year and you know how close she was with Dad. She didn’t take his death well.”

  Karen arched an eyebrow. “Well, yes. That all sounds very hard.”

  Again, she sounded sarcastic. Carmella’s heart darkened.

  “She has two kids?” Karen asked.

  “Three, actually. Cole, Mallory, and Alexie.”

  “Huh. She got busy, I guess,” Karen stated in a tone Carmella didn’t like.

  “She’s a great mom. She’s actually a grandmother, now.”

  “Wow. Time really does pass, doesn’t it?”

  Their food arrived. Carmella had never been less hungry in her life. She watched as Karen tore into her fajitas and listened as she told another anecdote about another man she’d had an affair with. Carmella had had relations with fewer men than she could count on one hand. It just hadn’t happened much for her; she’d allowed it to all pass— all of it.

  “Anyway, how did it go after I left?” Karen asked as she scraped her plate clean. “Did your father and Elsa ever get over their anger toward you?”

  Carmella allowed her fork to fall to the plate below. She blinked at Karen. “What do you mean?”

  “You know. It’s why I wanted to take you with me. They never got over your brother and everything that happened. Gosh, it was a tragedy, wasn’t it?” Again, she said it all as though it had happened to someone else.

  Carmella’s throat felt on the verge of closing. In truth, she’d never really gotten over it, not any of it. How could she have? It seemed as though Colton lived on in everything she did; he was in the air and the water and the sands. He was her constant ghost.