The Forever Summer Page 9

  Was that an issue? The thought upset her. She gained ten pounds. The doctor told her she was fine. Still, no baby. She made the mistake of expressing her frustration to Kip.

  “The time isn’t right—for either of us. I have to really buckle down, Blythe. We’ll start a family when I’m more established.”

  But she was afraid he’d never be “established” enough to slow down, to be a husband, let alone a father.

  The doctor had told her to check with him in six months if she didn’t conceive. But at the half-year mark, she didn’t have the nerve to make the follow-up appointment. Of course she hadn’t conceived; her husband never touched her anymore.

  Again, she complained to Kip. “Maybe we should see a marriage counselor?”

  “Blythe, you have to relax. I have enough on my plate right now. Stop trying to control everything.”

  Control everything? She had control over nothing. Her life was shapeless and empty. When she had first learned ballet hands, her instructor had told her to hold her middle finger and thumb as if a fluffy cotton ball were suspended between them. That was where she existed right now—in that tiny, amorphous space.

  The Philadelphia Museum of Art was hosting a new exhibition of the Cubist masters: Picasso, Braque, Léger, Gris. Blythe was interested in the Cubist movement mostly because it coincided with the height of the Ballets Russes; Picasso had even collaborated with Sergei Diaghilev.

  Her first stop inside the museum was the gift shop, where she lingered among the Impressionist posters, miniature Liberty Bells, and big expensive coffee-table books. She spotted a writing journal with Degas’s Dancers in Blue as the cover art, picked it up, and flipped through the blank pages. She imagined holding it in her bed at night, filling it with her frustrations and her dreams and her longing.

  She bought it.

  The entrance hall was surprisingly crowded. It was such a beautiful day outside, she’d expected the museum to be virtually empty. In her mind, everyone was enjoying the first blush of summer the proper way—outdoors—except for her. But no, the line for tickets stretched the entire length of the museum’s first floor. Inexplicably, Blythe felt like crying. The universe was conspiring against her.

  After an hour, a uniformed museum docent walked the length of the line, asking people to come back in half an hour, one hour, two, depending on where they were in the queue. They needed to open up space in the lobby. The crowd was a fire hazard.

  As everyone herded toward the door, a man behind quipped, “I can’t believe this many people are interested enough in Cubism to stand in line for an hour.”

  She turned to him, her frustration needing an outlet. “You stood on line for it, so I don’t know why you can’t believe it.”

  He wore jeans and a black Cocteau Twins T-shirt. His eyes were nearly black.

  “I have to be here—it’s a school assignment. Believe me, I can think of a lot better ways to spend a summer Saturday.”

  She wanted to say, Oh yeah, like what? But her second glance at him shut that right down. He was too good-looking. It would sound flirtatious, an invitation. She noticed he was carrying a sketch pad. She couldn’t resist asking.

  “Where are you in school?”

  “University of the Arts,” he said, adding, “School is the only reason to be in a town like Philly.”

  Something about his overt negativity, his impatience, the way his dark eyes claimed her face and her body in that merciless way only artists possessed, gave her the feeling of emerging from underwater.

  She wanted to tell him she’d come to the city for artistic ambition too. She wished, in that moment, that it was still the reason she was in the city.

  Outside, the sun was hidden behind fresh clouds.

  “So what are you going to do for an hour before we are allowed back in?” he said. His black eyes were an invitation. Her heart leaped.

  Looking down, the dozens and dozens of steps between her and the street seemed an impossible hurdle. She was rooted in place. There was nowhere to go because she didn’t want to exist beyond that very moment. She didn’t want to lose the feeling of the world suddenly expanding. “I have no idea,” she said.

  “I do. I’m going to make love to you,” he said.

  “Excuse me?” Was he for real? Who talked like that?

  “I need inspiration.” He glanced behind them. “And I’m not going to find what I’m looking for in there.”

  “I don’t even know your name,” she said, stalling.

  “My name is Nick.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Amelia was a creature of routine: Every summer morning she served breakfast to her guests from seven to nine. Then she biked to Herring Cove Beach to take a long walk and scour the sand for shells and sea glass and other small treasures.

  Now it was after nine and the table was still empty except for a brazen seagull that perched on the end of the bench. Amelia set out the hand-painted cake tray with her signature egg tarts, then returned to the kitchen to make fresh coffee. Looking out at the table through the window, she wondered if the entire breakfast would go to waste.

  Were they all late sleepers? Just when she was about to give up and head to the beach, she spotted the glossy dark ponytail of one of the girls.

  It was Marin. The quiet one. The one who looked so much like Nick.

  She must have gone out the front entrance and walked the long way around to the yard.

  Amelia would talk to her. It was strange to have these young women in her home, knowing they were her granddaughters. She knew it, she could see it, but she could not yet feel it. What she felt the most was the sting of no response from her daughter to the letter. Kelly had been right; she shouldn’t have opened herself up to hope. But she would open herself up to these girls. Her expectations were not unrealistic. Truthfully, she had none. They could not change the past, but they were an undeniable link to it.

  Nick, a sperm donor. Of all things! She’d have given him the money for school. It had been tight then, with the inn just getting off the ground, but she could have figured it out. Otto would have helped. In the first few years after their divorce, he’d written her off, but certainly not the kids. But then, it was a good thing Nick hadn’t come to them for money. If he had, then he would be really and truly gone now. Instead, she had this beautiful young woman sitting in her backyard.

  Marin sat on the edge of the bench near the farthest end of the table, staring out at the water. Sunglasses covered half her face and she was dressed in white jean shorts and a black tank top.

  Amelia took a deep breath and pushed through the swinging screen door to the rear of the house, carrying the chipped yellow porcelain coffeepot her own mother had used. Marin didn’t turn away from the water until Amelia set the coffee on the table, next to the orange juice, broa (Portuguese corn bread), and a bowl of fresh berries.

  “Good morning, dear.” She poured coffee into one of the cups, a lovely pale blue patterned china she’d found at an estate sale with Kelly a few summers back. “Do you take milk in your coffee?”

  Marin looked at her almost blankly. “What? No, thanks. Black is fine.”

  The pain in the young woman’s eyes was unmistakable. Amelia understood—it all must be quite a shock. Rachel had explained that she’d always known about the sperm donor but told her in the last phone conversation before her arrival that Marin hadn’t had any idea.

  “I know this has to be a big adjustment,” Amelia said.

  Marin turned back to the water. When it became clear that she was not going to respond, Amelia felt uncharacteristically compelled to fill the silence.

  “If it’s any consolation, I simply could not be more thrilled to meet you girls. And your mother seems lovely. Maybe later this afternoon I can show you around the island?”

  The back screen door slapped shut with its familiar thwap. Amelia turned to find Rachel bounding toward them.

  “Good morning!” Rachel said.

  “Did you sleep well,
dear?” said Amelia.

  “Totally! Like, better than I have in so long. Wow, this all looks so amazing. Thanks.” She reached for the coffee.

  “I was just telling Marin that I’d love to show you around the island later today.”

  “Yes! I want to see everything. I feel like a week is barely going to be enough time.”

  Amelia laughed. “It’s a small island, but in some ways you’re right. I’ve been here most of my life, and I’m still discovering things.”

  “I love that! How many generations of your family have lived here?”

  “Your great-great-grandmother settled here when it was just a remote fishing village. No one could have imagined it would become—”

  “Excuse me,” Marin said, standing abruptly. She headed for the house, taking her coffee with her.

  Amelia and Rachel shared a glance of mutual concern, and the unexpected, easy intimacy was startling.

  While she felt bad that Marin was unhappy, she couldn’t help but feel a swell of happiness that she was connecting with at least one of her granddaughters.

  “She’s a stress case,” Rachel said, reaching for a piece of corn bread. “This looks awesome.”

  “I feel bad that she’s having a hard time with this. That it’s a source of pain and not joy.”

  “She’ll get over it.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “She pushed me away at first too. And now she’s here. So I’m not worried about it.”

  Amelia smiled. What a bright and optimistic soul.

  “You know what I really want to do? Like, ASAP, if it’s not too much trouble? I want to see photos of my father.”

  Amelia felt her smile falter. When was the last time she’d been able to look at a photo of Nick? Aside from the anniversary of his death every year, she kept the memories of what had been lost tucked away—literally and figuratively. The photo albums from her life in Boston, the years of raising Nick and Nadine, were boxed up in the attic, along with their baby books and the baby clothes she’d saved in case she was ever blessed with a grandchild.

  She bit her lip. Here was the grandchild, all grown up.

  “Oh, dear. Of course I have photos. I just need some time to get them down from storage.”

  “I’m so excited. I’ve been dreaming about this forever.”

  She put her hand on Amelia’s and squeezed.

  Coming here was a mistake, Marin said to herself, pulling open the drawers and throwing clothes back into her suitcase. Really, what had she been thinking? Her father always advised clients not to make big decisions when they were dealing with death or divorce, and what had her past weeks been if not a sort of death and a sort of divorce? She was in mourning—mourning the loss of her job, her relationship, and, yes, her father.

  She wanted so much to talk to her dad and tell him what was going on. But her mother was right in saying that it would only hurt him.

  She turned her focus to the logistics. If she drove back to New York now, she would be leaving her mother and Rachel stranded. But they could rent a car. Or take the ferry to Boston and fly back. They would figure it out. All she knew was that she needed to get out of there as quickly as possible.

  Suitcase packed, she rolled it into the hallway, hoping for a clean getaway.

  No such luck. Down the hall, Kelly’s red hair waved like a flag as she hoisted a huge rectangular mosaic and inched her way toward the stairs. Her T-shirt read NO ONE LIKES A SHADY BEACH.

  Marin backed into her room.

  “Marin?”

  Too late.

  “Um, yeah?”

  Kelly slowly set down the obviously heavy object, balancing it against her knees. Her green-eyed gaze settled on Marin’s suitcase.

  “If you have a sec, can you help me get this out to the truck? I overestimated my stamina here. Or maybe I underestimated the weight of this beast.”

  Cornered.

  “Um, sure.” What else could she say?

  She looked at the piece, a giant mermaid of tiles and shells and all sorts of things that should have created a hot mess but instead came together in a glorious riot of color and texture.

  “Where’s it going?” Marin asked.

  “A client commissioned it so I’m driving it to her house on the other end of town.” She eyed the suitcase again. “I can drop you off somewhere if you need a lift.”

  “Oh, I…no, that’s fine. Thanks.” She kicked her suitcase back into her room.

  Marin grabbed one end of the mosaic while Kelly handled the other, and they hobbled down the stairs in awkward, synchronized steps.

  “Whew. Thanks. You’re a lifesaver.”

  They continued their step-and-stop movements out to the front of the house, where they lifted it into the back of Kelly’s Dodge pickup.

  “So you work here full-time even though the inn isn’t open this summer?” Marin said.

  Kelly smiled. “I don’t work here, darlin’. Amelia’s my wife.”

  Oh! Marin felt herself blush for her naïveté. Should she somehow have guessed that? Some New Yorker she was; how could she have made such an unsophisticated assumption?

  “I’m sorry. I feel like an idiot.”

  Kelly laughed. “Don’t. It’s the age difference, right? It throws everyone.” She opened the driver’s side, climbed in, and then stepped out and peered back over the truck at Marin. “Why don’t you come for a ride?”

  “What? Now?”

  “I could use the company. Amelia would usually come with me, but frankly she’s so excited to have you all here, I doubt I can tear her away from the kitchen.”

  Marin thought of the packed suitcase in her room. If she left now, she could be back in the city by late afternoon. And yet, she found herself saying, “Sure.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Toward the east, the town became markedly more residential. The houses had a stately beauty. They were homey and grand at the same time.

  “This would be a great walk if we weren’t lugging the mosaic,” Kelly said.

  “How far is the drive?”

  “Not long. A few minutes.”

  “Oh. I thought you said these people were all the way on the other end of town.”

  “They are. The whole town is only three miles long.”

  Marin couldn’t imagine living on a small peninsula. As far as she could tell, the place was two blocks wide. “How many people live here?”

  “Year-round? Maybe three thousand. But in the summer—I’d say another twenty thousand.”

  What? “That sounds kind of crazy.”

  “Of course it is. Provincetown is most definitely crazy. And so are the people who love it.” She looked over at Marin with a smile.

  Marin turned to her window. She wished they could just keep driving and driving. She wouldn’t have to think beyond the sand dunes in the distance, Kelly, her amiable guide. There was something steadying about Kelly. She couldn’t imagine her ever fucking up. Something about her suggested she never had a moment’s self-doubt.

  “So who commissioned the mosaic?”

  “A woman named Sandra Crowe. She came here from Boston last summer for an art auction and ended up buying a house. Now she fancies herself a painter. Not that there’s anything wrong with being a hobbyist—in the summers, this town is filled with people who want to indulge their artistic sides. But Sandra drove our friends crazy pushing for shows in their galleries. Finally, our friend Bart let her show in his gallery for a few weeks. In the end he lost money, but at least he shut her up.”

  “Took one for the team,” Marin said.

  “Exactly. The East End is technically the fancy part of town,” Kelly said, steering the truck around a bend. “Back in the day, you would not be hanging out on this side of the wharf.”

  “I wouldn’t?”

  Kelly shook her head. “Nope. You’re from the working class, doll. Portuguese fishing family.”

  Great. Not only was she a disgraced attorney, she was from a lineag
e deemed undesirable by her grandmother’s own native town.

  To the left, in the shade behind hills and dunes, a Colonial Revival mansion. The sprawling front lawn was a patchwork of purple and red flowers. The house, all white, had a starkness to it that reminded her of Greg Harper’s summerhouse in East Hampton. She shook the thought away.

  Kelly pulled the truck into the circular driveway and parked.

  “Mind helping me get the piece to the front door? Then your service is fulfilled—promise.” Her smile was heartbreakingly lovely.

  “Sure.”

  They resumed their positions around the canvas and stepped in tandem up the stone walkway until they reached the front portico.

  “I used to have a dolly to transport these things, but I have no idea where it went. I think some guests used it to get stuff into their car and took off with it in the trunk.”

  A young woman with a blond ponytail wearing khaki pants and a white polo shirt answered the doorbell.

  Kelly, clearly surprised, said, “Tanya—what are you doing here?”

  “I’m working for Mrs. Crowe this summer.”

  “Really?” Kelly’s inflection conveyed the unspoken words That’s the best you could do?

  “Well, I would rather have worked at the inn again, but…”

  Kelly turned to Marin, made the introductions. “Tanya goes to the Rhode Island School of Design. This is, what, your third summer in town?”

  “Fourth,” Tanya said. “Kelly, this mosaic is one of my favorites of yours. Really awesome. And it’s being given the place of honor around here, apparently,” she said.

  “Oh yeah? Where’s it going?” Wiping her brow, then putting her hands on her hips, Kelly surveyed the two-story entrance hall.

  “In the dining room.”

  “Sounds good. All right, kiddo. See you around.”

  “Wait! Don’t go. She’s out back and she’s expecting you.”

  “Another time. We have to run.”

  “Kelly, don’t leave me hanging. She’ll kill me if you don’t say hi.”

  Kelly groaned. “Fine. Lead the way.”

  The house had dramatic high ceilings and was air-conditioned to an arctic temperature. It was all white walls and monochromatic pale furniture. The only splashes of color came from the oil paintings and sculptures.