April & Oliver (27 page)

April has seen pictures of Nana in her twenties, so much like April they could be the same person. There is a difference,
though. When Nana smiles with her head tossed back, squinted eyes sparkling, she radiates brilliance and composure April could
never hope to match.

“All my life it took me two tries to get anything right,” Nana says. “And all of a sudden I’m old.”

April takes her hand, chapped and ropy with veins, and holds it.

“I’m not sad,” Nana says. “Just the opposite. Everything good in life has been sweeter because it took me twice as long to
find it. You’re like that.”

April smiles. “So you think there’s still a chance I might get something right?”

“No one’s hopeless,” Nana says. “Not even you.”

“Thanks.” April laughs. “I think.”

Nana touches her cross, brings it to her lips, and kisses it. “Here,” she says, pulling it over her head. “You need this more
than I do.” The necklace has been around Nana’s neck as long as April can remember. She has never seen her take it off.

“What are you doing?” April says. “Put it back before it gets lost.”

“I’m giving you something precious. Are you going to be ungracious about it?”

“Please,” April says. “It belongs with you.”

Nana opens April’s purse on the seat beside her and slips the chain inside.

“Nana, I can’t wear that. Spencer gave it to you.”

“Actually, no.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean it wasn’t Spencer,” Nana says, looking down her blouse, adjusting the buttons.

“Well?”

“Did I ever tell you about the time I lost twenty pounds from a kiss? Couldn’t eat for months.”

“Wait a minute. I thought we were talking about the necklace.”

“It wasn’t long after I came here from Spain. I had a waitressing job even though I really should have been in school. One
day this boy came in. He didn’t look much older than me, but he was in a soldier’s uniform and had a duffel bag. He was sweet
and shy and did a lot of staring out the window, playing with the sugar packages. He hardly ate his eggs. I asked if they
tasted okay and he said fine, just fine. He asked my name. Said his was Johnny. He sat there for a long time with his cold
cup of coffee and even though the place got busy, I didn’t give him his check until he asked for it; he seemed like he was
thinking something important.

“When I came out of the kitchen with platters in my hands and noticed his booth was finally empty, I felt disappointed. Then
I realized he was standing right in front of me in the aisle between the tables. Before I knew what was happening, he put
the chain over my head. I felt the cross go down inside my blouse, warm against my bosom. Heaven above, it was a miracle I
didn’t drop those plates right then. He cupped his hands around my face and kissed me. I stood there trying to balance an
omelet in my right hand and pancakes in my left. It wasn’t a long kiss but it wasn’t short, either. He took his time. His
mouth smelled like coffee and butterscotch. The whole restaurant went completely still. People stared at us like the breath
had been snatched out of them. He stepped back, looking at me, and said my name. I can still hear just the way he said it.
Then he picked up his duffel bag and left.

“I stood there for what must have been a full minute before I had the presence of mind to put down the plates and follow him
out. I was a madwoman. Imagine all those people staring at us, my boss included! What if I had been married? Or had a boyfriend?
What right did he have, a perfect stranger? So I ran out into the parking lot. A bus was pulling away from the bus stop, and
I chased it. I never ran harder in my life. My lungs burned. Finally the bus turned a corner and I couldn’t see it. I fell
down and tore my white stockings. Ruined my makeup, too. I’d never been kissed like that in my life, before or since.”

“Well,” April says finally, clearing her throat. “I’m sure I haven’t, either.”

“You’re still young.”

“You don’t understand.” April chuckles. “Guys today don’t waste time with kisses, not the kind you’re talking about.”

“You mean
your
guys.” Nana eyes her. “Keep the cross before I change my mind.”

“Nana, I can’t. Honestly.”

“Why? Because you’re afraid to change your life? Fine, live from one black eye to the next.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You need to start doing what’s uncomfortable for you, April. Because your idea of what feels right took a left turn somewhere.”

April looks out the window, feeling the breeze lash through her hair.

“I know you’re afraid to lose the necklace,” Nana says. “But take the chance. It has no meaning in a box. I want you to wear
it.”

“All right,” April says finally. “But why don’t you keep it until Christmas?”

“That’s you,” Nana says. “Always looking for an out. No, April. The time is now.”

O
LIVER POKES AT THE FIRE
, causing sparks to rise. The night is cool and sumptuous, the turbulent surf resounding in the darkness. Stars rise over
the ocean, the Milky Way teeming into the spray. There are no clouds, yet the air smells of rain.

April draws shapes in the sand, light flickering on her face. Oliver finds it hard to believe only two months have passed
since the assault. She appears wholly recovered, radiant, in fact. She smiles at Al as they listen to the chortling snores
of Nana, who is stretched out on a lounge chair, mouth agape. April covers her with a beach towel.

“It’s all right,” Hal says. “I’ll bring her up to the house in a minute. It’s late for her.”

“Come on.” Al stands. “Let’s go for a dip.”

“It’s too cold,” April says.

“The water’s warmer than the air. Once you’re under, you’ll think you’re in heaven.” He turns to Oliver and Bernadette. “How
about it?”

“Not a chance,” Bernadette says, cozying up to Oliver. “I’m in heaven already.”

Al rolls his eyes and Bernadette laughs. “No takers?” he says.

“All right,” April says. “Why not.”

They start down toward the surf. The wind picks up and April’s hair whips behind her. It is dark, but Oliver sees her lift
her shirt over her head and wade into the ocean. Al lunges ahead of her, diving into a wave. Oliver has never swum at night.
The idea spooks him. At times he has waded in up to his knees or hips, felt the cool sensuality of the dark water, but he
could never bring himself to dive in.

“They ought to be careful,” Bernadette says. “It’s about to rain.”

The eastern sky flashes. Hal folds his beach chair and rouses Nana. Bernadette picks up empty bottles while Oliver pushes
sand onto the fire, trying to smother it. He thinks back to earlier in the day, when he slipped into April’s room while she
was unpacking.

“Did you bring it?” he asked.

“Oliver,” she said, closing her bag. “I think you should wait and think about this.”

“Did you bring it?” he asked again.

“I’m not sure what your mother would have wanted. She never explained.”

“April. I’ll ask you once more.”

“No,” she said. “Look, I haven’t read it myself. I don’t feel right.”

He bit his lip. “I realize you’re trying to do the best thing here, but this is my mother we’re talking about. I think I have
rights.”

“I’m not saying you don’t.”

“When we get home then,” he said. “You’ll bring it to me?”

“All right,” she said.

April and Al swim out beyond the breakers until Oliver can no longer see them. The surf pounds and wind sucks spray from the
waves into Oliver’s face. His heart races; he doesn’t know why. He places his hand on his chest, feels the blood coursing
through him.

“Oliver,” Bernadette says. “The fire’s out already. Let’s go.” He looks up at her. She stands shivering, wide-eyed and expectant.
His father and grandmother have gone up to the house. “Hurry,” Bernadette says. “Before it pours.”

He looks at the ocean but it is impossible to see them. He feels random drops sting his face. The rain is cold. He takes Bernadette’s
arm and pulls her toward him. He kisses her before she can speak. “Oliver,” she says. “This is romantic, but I’m freezing.”
The rain falls harder, soaking his sweatshirt. He pulls it off, draws her down, and lowers himself over her. “You’re kidding,
right?” she says.

“Tell me you’re not tempted,” he says.

“Yes, but we’re two minutes from a warm, dry bed.”

“I want you here.”

She looks at him for a moment, then rolls over, straddling him. “Okay, cowboy,” she says. “Be careful what you wish for.”

The skies open, saturating them, the deluge pummeling Oliver’s skin.

When they return to the house, the rain has let up. Most of the lights are out. Giddy, Bernadette kisses Oliver on the stairs
and goes up to shower. Oliver pops his head in his father’s room. Hal is in bed with a book on his lap. “Should I lock up?”
Oliver asks.

“April’s out walking,” he says. “She’ll close up.”

Oliver nods. He is wet and sandy. It must be obvious what he and Bernadette were doing out there, but his father pretends
not to notice.

“Good night, then,” Oliver says.

He paces, waiting for Bernadette to finish. After a moment, the light goes out in his father’s room. He hears his grandmother
snoring at the end of the hall. The door to April’s room is ajar. He hesitates and then enters. Her knapsack is open on the
bed. He quickly runs his hands through it, but finds nothing. He is about to leave when it occurs to him to check under the
bed pillow. He feels something hard, and pulls out the diary. She lied.

Oliver does not hesitate. He takes the book to his room and slips it into the night table drawer.

The next morning, a few minutes after Bernadette leaves for her morning jog, the door to Oliver’s bedroom opens. He supposes
she has forgotten something, her water bottle, probably, and doesn’t bother to open his eyes. “It’s on the dresser,” he mumbles.

The door closes again and he feels a whack on his arm. He bolts up.

“Bastard,” April says in a fierce whisper. “What is this? Blackmail? Take your mother’s goddamn journal. Just give me back
mine.”

“What?” Oliver says.

She hits him again with the book. “Where is it?”

He is bare-chested, in his boxers. He gets out of bed, disoriented. “What are you talking about?”

She enunciates each word with exaggerated pauses. “Where— is—my—journal?”

“Yours?”

“Don’t act like you haven’t read it. You were up all night, weren’t you.”

“Think what you like. I never turned a page.” He pulls open the drawer. “Here.”

She grabs it, and autumn leaves slip from the pages. They are dry and fragile, perhaps years old. She kneels on the floor,
collecting them. Oliver crouches beside her and picks up a blood-red maple leaf, large as a human hand. He gives it to her.

She leaves, slamming the door behind her, and Oliver stands alone in the sun-bleached room. There, tossed on the rumpled sheets
is an olive-green book, threadbare and old, the same diary he lifted from April’s drawer years before. He picks it up and
runs his hand over the binding, feeling the coarse, frayed fabric. He opens to a random page, and sees the familiar loops
and curves of his mother’s careful handwriting.

When Bernadette returns, overheated and exuberant from her run, Oliver explains that he needs to go into town to find a fax
machine; there is an important memo he forgot to leave on his boss’s desk the day before. It is an elaborate and outright
lie, not something Oliver is accustomed to, yet it flows from him without effort.

He drives some distance before finding a coffee shop where he orders a cup, strong and black, and begins reading his mother’s
diary.

It is a disappointment at first. She wrote it much earlier than Oliver imagined, when he was a toddler, and it is full of
mundane details about his and Al’s development, his first steps, his fall from a bed. As they progress, the entries become
less frequent, and her handwriting harder to decipher. Oliver is ready to give up and return home when he skips ahead and
notices something unusual.

There is a description of thoroughbreds, or photographs of them, Man O’War, Citation, Whirlaway, and the layout of a room
with knotty-pine paneling, a desk and vinyl sofa. The place is familiar to Oliver, yet he cannot place it. Then the description
moves to something else, a man’s touch, someone she refers to as “S.”

There is no way of telling who “S” is, except for the setting. Oliver looks back at the dates. The affair occurred when Oliver
was three, his brother five. “Oh, God,” Oliver says aloud, closing the book. Several people look up from their coffee. He
stands to leave.

It occurs to him halfway home that he forgot to pay for his coffee. He considers turning around, driving an extra fifteen
minutes to make an honest man out of himself, but it is starting to rain, and that is reason enough to keep going.

As he drives, he keeps seeing the framed horses, their tense musculature, ears alert, oiled coats gleaming behind glass. It
comes to him when he stops at a light. Once he remembers, there is no mistaking. The place his mother described was the back
room of his uncle Bede’s tavern.
S,
he thinks. Bede Simone.

Cars honk. The light has turned, but Oliver is frozen, idling in the intersection. His sternum aches, kicked in, his body
inverting itself. The light goes red again, and he relaxes his grip on the steering wheel, covering his face. Without wanting
to, he imagines his uncle’s calloused hands in his mother’s fine-spun hair, his repulsive swagger as he cajoled and wheedled
her. He probably asked her to come by on the pretense of needing help. Oliver imagines him sitting next to her on the vinyl
sofa, fabricating a tale of desperate unhappiness and luring her into some gesture of consolation. Uncle Bede, the consummate
ladies’ man. How could he help but go after his stepbrother’s beautiful wife?

T
HE CORN IS YOUNG,
the husks tight as immature buds. April feels the stiff, squeaky resistance as she peels back each layer, exposing the kernels
to light. Bernadette sits beside her on the front porch. Together they have shucked a dozen ears.