Butternut Summer (21 page)

No, you don't
, Daisy thought.
You almost never make a mistake
. But when she saw Jessica's face brighten, she was grateful to Frankie for saying it anyway, and when he turned to wash up at the sink, Daisy leaned over and gave Jessica a hug and whispered in her ear, “You'll be okay, Jessica. You just need to find a guy who's as nice as Frankie.”

C
aroline yanked open the door to the commercial freezer and stared glumly at the economy-sized tubs of ice cream on the top shelf. It had been a busy day today at Pearl's, and there were only two flavors left now, vanilla and butter brickle. She preferred vanilla, but they might need it all tomorrow, when apple pie à la mode was on special, so butter brickle it was. She reached up and slid the tub off the shelf, then lugged it upstairs to her apartment, feeling slightly ridiculous as she did so.

If eating ice cream was going to become a nightly ritual, she decided, hefting the container onto the kitchen counter, then she was going to have to start buying quarts of ice cream at the grocery store, like a normal person. Then again, since ending things with Buster ten days ago, she'd felt like anything
but
a normal person.

The days, at least, were busy. She didn't have a lot of time to think about anything other than work. But the nights? The nights were interminable; the nights were when she missed Buster. Because while she knew she'd made the right decision, it didn't stop her from missing him, missing him enough to have almost called him and told him how much she missed him. But she hadn't done it. It wouldn't have accomplished anything, and it would have been unfair to Buster. After all, the impasse they'd reached would still be there. He still couldn't give her what she needed, and she still couldn't give him what he needed. And whatever comfort they might find now in each other's words, or even in each other's presence, they'd only be postponing the inevitable. From now on, they'd have to live their lives without each other. Maybe one day they could be friends again, but that day hadn't come yet.

Still, as she peeled the lid off the tub of ice cream, a part of her wished she hadn't forced the point with Buster. What had been wrong with what they'd had?
Nothing
, she thought bitterly, swiping a spoon out of a kitchen drawer, nothing at all. Everything had been fine, or, if not fine, than
fine enough
. Until she'd somehow gotten it into her head that she needed more. More passion, more spontaneity, more . . .
more love
, she realized with surprise.

Caroline tested the ice cream with a spoon, but it was still too hard to eat, so she put the spoon down on the counter and stood there, waiting for the butter brickle to soften. And, as she waited, she felt an ache of loneliness so deep that she wished, for a moment, that she'd taken Daisy up on her offer to stay home with her again tonight. But she hadn't; she'd figured there was no point in both of them having a bad time. Even so, Daisy had been conflicted, and when Jessica had invited her over to her house to spend the night, Caroline had had to practically push her out the door.

She sighed, poked at the ice cream with the spoon, and wondered if Buster felt as lonely as she did. She thought not; Buster was good at being alone, good at not being lonely. And there'd been times in her life when she'd been good at those, too, though being alone and being lonely could be two very different things. You could be surrounded by people, and still be lonely, or be completely alone, and still feel perfectly content. But tonight, tonight she felt both alone and lonely.

There were only two other times in her life she'd felt this way. One of them was when Daisy had left for college, and the other was when Jack had left for good. Of those two, though, Jack's leaving had been the worse. She'd felt so lonely then that she'd thought her loneliness would swallow her whole. And it might have, too, if she hadn't had a three-year-old daughter to raise and a business to run. Even so, though, it was years before she learned to keep the loneliness at bay, years, too, before she stopped missing Jack with an intensity that was like a physical hunger. Because for all the craziness in their marriage—all Jack's craziness, really—all the drinking and the lying and the cheating—she'd loved him. Loved him and the way he'd made her feel. Because when things were good, when they were happy, which, admittedly, was less and less often as the marriage progressed, she'd felt so . . .
so full
. So full of life, and so full of love. And that had been the opposite, she understood now, of being lonely.

Caroline suddenly felt a flash of exasperation with herself.
Stop doing this. Stop dredging up all these old feelings
.
And for God's sake, stop thinking about Jack
. She'd already spent enough time thinking about him since he'd come back this summer, and it hadn't done her a bit of good. That story was over now; it had been over for a long time. And the only part of it she needed to remember was this: he'd left her,
left them
. And he was the same man now that he'd been then, the same man who had left them. Daisy could give him the benefit of the doubt—Caroline wasn't going to.

She tried, again, to dip the spoon into the ice cream but discovered its surface was still virtually impenetrable.
My God, it's like Arctic permafrost
, she thought, chipping away at it in vain. She considered putting it in the microwave. But no, the tub was too big to fit in there. She'd just have to wait some more, even if waiting wasn't part of her plan. Her plan, such as it was, was to eat as much ice cream as was humanly possible while watching the worst television program she could find. (She'd narrowed it down to two possibilities: one about toddlers in beauty pageants, and the other about mob wives in New Jersey.) Then, when her brain and whatever was left of the ice cream had both sufficiently melted, she would get into bed and slide, gently, into a sugar-induced coma.

She tested the ice cream, again, with her spoon. It was still frozen solid.
Oh, for heaven's sake, I can't wait all night to eat this
, she thought, especially when she wasn't even really looking forward to it. What flavor, exactly, was butter brickle anyway? She got the butter part, but the brickle? She made a mental note not to order it from their supplier anymore, then dumped the tub of ice cream, unceremoniously, into the sink and tossed the spoon in after it.

She walked out of the kitchen then and, grabbing her handbag from the hall table, hurried out of the apartment. She went down the stairs, out the door, and turned right onto Main Street. Then she walked up the quiet block, seeing, without really seeing, its businesses and shops, shuttered for the night. She knew this town so well she could have navigated it with her eyes closed, and sometimes, like tonight, she all but did. This familiarity with the town, Caroline knew, could make her feel by turns both comforted and claustrophobic. But tonight she felt comforted by it. There'd been enough unpredictability in her life this summer to make her crave the predictable.

Two blocks up Main Street, Caroline stopped at the Corner Bar, its neon sign blinking on and off in the dusky evening light, and, before she could change her mind, she pushed open the front door and walked inside. She was immediately enveloped by a dim, air-conditioned coolness, and by the soft clink of glasses and the quiet murmur of conversation. Jack had liked this bar, she remembered, hesitating in the doorway. She wondered if he might be here tonight, but a quick look around told her he wasn't. She felt a twinge of disappointment then, which she could only attribute to temporary insanity.

She closed the door behind her and walked over to the bar, then leaned on it, a little self-consciously, while she waited for Marty, the Corner Bar's longtime bartender, to finish serving another customer and look over in her direction.

“Caroline?” he said when he did.

“I'd like a drink, Marty,” she said, since this was the new plan, the plan to replace the recently thwarted eating ice cream/watching television plan. She was going to have a drink. She was going to have several of them, actually.

Marty frowned. “You want a drink?” he repeated, coming over to her.

“Yes, Marty,” she said, annoyed by the defensiveness she heard in her voice. “You do sell alcoholic beverages here, don't you?”

“I do,” he said slowly, picking up a glass and polishing it with a cloth. “I've just never sold one to you before.”

“Well, I've been known to have the occasional drink,” she said.
Very occasional
, she added, silently. Once or twice a year, she'd have a beer at a picnic, or a glass of eggnog at a holiday party. But that didn't mean she couldn't drink alone on a weeknight if she felt like it, did it? Besides, it wasn't like she was going to get drunk, drunk as in fall-down, pass-out, sleep-with-your-shoes-on drunk. No, she was going to get pleasantly, woozily, just-drunk-enough-to-forget-all-your-problems drunk.

“So what'll it be, Caroline,” Marty asked now, looking at her speculatively. “We have a nice chardonnay you might like. I just opened a bottle of it.”

“No, I don't think so,” she said, because chardonnay sounded too polite. She'd go for the hard stuff, she decided. But here her knowledge of liquor failed her. She glanced up at the bottles neatly lining the back of the bar behind Marty.

“I'll have a vodka,” she said, her eyes resting on one of the bottles.

“A vodka and what?”

“Just a vodka.”

“A vodka straight up?” Marty frowned.

“Straight up,” Caroline said. She liked the way that sounded. It sounded like a serious drink.

Marty didn't make any move to pour her one, though. “How about a screwdriver?” he suggested, after a moment. “That's vodka and orange juice.”

“I know what a screwdriver is, Marty,” Caroline said, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. “And I don't want one.” The orange juice, she figured, would take up too much space in the glass, and it would take her that much longer to feel the vodka's effects.

“All right, well, then, how about a vodka tonic?” Marty suggested. “That at least should taste better to you than just plain vodka.”

“Marty, do I tell you what to order when you come into Pearl's?” Caroline asked, a little frostily.

He shook his head.

“I didn't think so. Now, I'd like a glass of vodka.
Please
.”

He sighed and reached for a glass under the bar and a bottle behind him. Then he scooped some ice into the glass. “Vodka on the rocks,” he announced resignedly as he poured the vodka over it. He set the glass down on the bar in front of her.

“How much will that be?” she asked a little contritely, hoping now she hadn't been rude to Marty.

“For you, it's on the house,” he said.

“That's not necessary.” Taking a ten-dollar bill out of her wallet, Caroline left it on the bar. She had no idea, actually, what a drink cost, but she figured that ought to cover it, with a generous tip thrown in on top. Because if there was one thing Caroline couldn't stand, it was a bad tipper.

Now she took her vodka and a cocktail napkin over to a shadowy table in the corner and sat down, relieved to be away from Marty's censorious gaze. Jeez, the man was a bartender. Who knew she'd have to practically wrestle him to the ground to get a drink? She looked around, noting with satisfaction that she didn't recognize any of the other patrons sitting at the small tables scattered about the room. Summer people, she decided. They came in June, moving into the rental cabins, crowding the aisles in the grocery store, and taking over the town beach. And then, in August, they departed as suddenly as they'd arrived, leaving an odd, empty feeling to settle over the town and the lake, while all the locals adjusted to life without them for another nine months. But Caroline never complained about the summer people; they were her bread and butter. Or, more accurately, she and Pearl's were
their
bread and butter.

Caroline turned her attention back to her drink, raising the glass to her lips and taking a tentative sip.
Ugh
, she thought, as it burned first her throat, and then her stomach. She thought about asking Marty for a glass of wine instead, but when she glanced over at him, she was irritated to see he was watching her uneasily. So she took another sip, a bigger sip, for good measure, and forced herself to smile at Marty afterward.
See Marty, I'm fine
, she wanted to say. But he looked away then and went back to polishing glasses.

So Caroline sat there and drank her vodka one reluctant sip at a time, and she wondered why it wasn't making her feel better yet. The problem, she decided, was that the vodka wasn't turning off her brain; she was still thinking. And worse, she was still feeling. Feeling lonely, yes, but feeling sad, too. Because so far the theme of this summer seemed to be one of loss. She'd lost Buster, obviously, or, more accurately, the two of them had lost each other. But she felt, in a way, as if she'd lost Daisy, too, at least temporarily. Because ever since Daisy had started dating Will Hughes, Caroline had felt as if she wasn't really there anymore. Either she was with him, or thinking about being with him, and they both added up to the same thing.
It's like she's a million miles away
, Frankie had observed the other day, watching Daisy bus an empty table with a dreamy, faraway expression on her face. And Caroline had nodded somberly. Because that million miles, it turned out, was much farther away than the two hundred fifty miles that separated Caroline from Daisy when Daisy went back to college every fall.

And then there was Pearl's, the one constant in her life, threatening to close. If she couldn't make the balloon payment on her loan come September, and there was no reason to think she could, that would be gone, too. The thought of it was enough to make her finish her first vodka and order a second.