Lies of the Heart (54 page)

Katie bends her head.

“What is he talking about, Kate?” her mother says. And then to Richard, “You don’t understand my daughter—she didn’t want Jerry to overhear that conversation. She didn’t know how he would interpret it—”

“I’ll let
you
finish the story,” Richard says, ignoring her mother. He lowers his head, stamps away.

“Katie,” Dana says. “What’s he talking about?”

They all stare at her now, three confused-worried faces, waiting.

“That day,” Katie whispers to Dana. “That day—on your porch?”

Dana becomes thoughtful, her mind searching. “What day?”

“Jerry,” Katie says. “On your porch.”

Dana’s eyes fill with understanding. “But, you told them, right? Back then? They already knew. Nick and—”

She stops when she sees Katie’s look, the slow shaking of her head. “What?” her mother asks, head turning back and forth between Katie and Dana.

“Later, Mom,” Dana says, watching Katie. “At home. We need to go home now.”

S
ummer has come to New England in full force. Just a few weeks of cold rain, and then the humidity and blazing sun have appeared each day, wilting newly planted gardens, causing tempers to flare and wavering mirages to hover over the hot asphalt of I-95 as Rhode Islanders make their desperate escape to the South County beaches.

Right now, Katie thinks as she drives, Scarborough Beach and Matunuck and Misquamicut must be jam-packed, blanket to blanket, the air filled with laughter and suntan lotion and blaring radios.

Katie wonders again how long it will take—how long until the world will stop offering Nick back to her so often, like this: As she makes the left onto Oakland Beach Avenue and heads to the seawall, she sees him again, standing on the rocks near Iggy’s. His face raised slightly into the sun. Scanning the glimmering ocean, watching passing sailboats and Jet Skiers, munching causally on a doughboy. All the time in the world to stare and wonder at the beauty in this world.

It will happen,
they’ve all assured her, and Katie believes them, even if she can’t feel it yet. Although there have been moments already—fleeting, gone before she can sink into them—when he has turned back into one of the mirages she sees just up ahead in the road, his outline wavering, face blurring. The same way she used to see him in her dreams when they were still together.

She hesitates for a moment at the booth before she pays the three-dollar fee to park by the seawall; her plan was to sit inside her car facing the ocean, the air conditioner blasting, and let her mind silently wander across the water for a few minutes before she drove to the address printed on the invitation—knowing that it would require some fortitude not to feel envious, to experience one of those bottomless “this could have been me” moments that had a way of lingering inside the body for days, even weeks. But the parking lot is almost full, crammed with cars and motorcycles and big SUVs, and with people who wander and socialize or sit on their hoods, tipping back beers and munching on greasy burgers and fries. The small picnic area is crawling with people, too—families tending to smoking grills and coolers and racing children who need to be reeled back in. Even the seawall is overrun with men holding buckets and fishing poles, and children clambering up and down the huge rocks to collect stones and shells to skip into the ocean. Somewhere amid the happy noise and laughter is the deep call of a father to
get out of the parking lot
and the slow, persistent bass of a radio pulsing into the sticky air.

“Drivin’ through or parking?” the boy at the booth prompts Katie, tipping his baseball cap back and swiping his arm across his forehead.

Katie nods to herself, offers him a five. Tells him to keep the change.

“Youse guys should be at the
real
beach,” he says moodily. “Crazy people.” He pockets the bill without thanking her, shakes his head.

Katie pulls between a Hummer and a motorcycle. For a few minutes, she tries to concentrate on the diamond light that flashes from the tops of whitecaps, but then a young couple moves into view on the rocks—about thirty feet off, slowly making their way to the long jetty. The girl leads, jumping first onto a flat rock and somehow managing to keep her hand intertwined with her lagging boyfriend’s. The girl hops again, her arm stretched back behind her, a look of studious concentration on her face as she searches for the next smooth rock. Her boyfriend loyally follows, his eyes just as studiously tracking her ass. After two more hops, the girl turns back suddenly, poised to say something to the boy, but stops: she sees where his attention is focused. She turns all the way around, smiles. Pulls the fist that their hands make together up to her chest. Katie feels a choking moment building inside her throat, so she pops open the door, gets out. She moves to the back of her car, jingling her keys in one hand, and leans against the trunk. Keeps her eyes on the cracked shells that are ground into the pavement by her feet.

The heat descends quickly onto her bare skin—within minutes she can feel the sweat pooling under her arms and then slowly trickling down inside her dress. The sounds of happiness are amplified now without the protection of the car—all around her is the noise of stubborn people stubbornly enjoying the crushing humidity. She finally looks up, crosses her arms—the picnic area is a blur of moving bodies at first, but then she allows herself a slow inspection: A father hauling his daughter up and onto his shoulders, the little girl’s joyful-scared scream as her hands clutch underneath his chin. A man passing a heaping paper plate to a woman sitting cross-legged on a blanket—the way she offers him her thanks with only her eyes. Two little girls, knee to knee, wordlessly passing little clothes back and forth, dressing their Barbie dolls. A group of teenagers playing Hacky Sack, kicking the small ball with the sides of their sneakers, the tips of their bare toes. They ignore a lonely old man who walks by them slowly, leaning heavily on his cane, and Katie watches as the ball suddenly flies off course and in this man’s direction—but then the cane is tipping up expertly, and the ball is shooting in an arc back to the teenagers. A roar of surprised happiness rises from the group, and Katie watches as they stop and stare, as one of boys moves forward to offer the old man his palm for a high five. A few seconds more and the teenagers are scooping their hands at the man, inviting him into their circle.

She’s suddenly thirsty—more than thirsty; her throat feels like it’s coated with shell dust. She should get something to drink, something tart and icy, but Iggy’s, up the hill and to the left, has an endless chain of people waiting in the takeout line. For a moment Katie just stares at the odd movement around them until she realizes that most of them are fanning their faces with their hands.

And then she has an urge to walk to the picnic area, to offer a dollar to one of the families for a drink from their cooler. She thinks how bold this would be, wonders at the reaction she would get. Would they offer her one? Smile and say,
No charge
? Or would they stare wordlessly at her? Their eyes traveling up and down her body as they made hasty assumptions? (
Step away from the crazy lady, Susie!
) She has her keys, she could jiggle them a little: not a lunatic wandering around and begging, not a well-dressed homeless person, but a thirsty woman who owns a car and doesn’t want to wait in a long line with all the hand-fanning people just up the hill.

Katie can’t tell from watching any of them—if they’d smile or shake her hand, maybe even ask her name, or if they’d simply step back, send her away with a guarded look. She checks her watch—almost time to go—and then a silver minivan pulls right up into her line of vision, blocking her view of the picnic area. The window on the passenger side slides down, and, inside, Katie sees a woman in the passenger seat turned all the way around, the top half her body leaning into the backseat. Katie sees the sullen little boy back there, too—sitting beside a sleeping child in a car seat, his face being scrubbed with a limp tissue by his mother. He sees Katie watching, glares, and pushes his mother’s hand away.

Katie looks past the mother, who has turned around to stare at her, to the person speaking: the man behind the wheel, younger than Katie but almost bald, with a weary, harassed-looking face. For a second she has the crazy idea that he has read her thoughts:
Are you going to get that drink or what?

“Lady?” he says, pointing at her hand.

She holds up the keys, looks at them. “Yes,” she tells him. “I was just leaving.”

She checks the directions again: the last right off Oakland Beach Avenue onto Prior, and then a quick left onto Chelmsford Avenue. She sees the big house up ahead—an enormous gray Victorian with pink and blue balloons tied to the mailbox out front. The wide driveway is full, and cars are lined up on both sides of the street, so Katie has to park almost a block away. She hauls the plastic-wrapped basket off the backseat, opens the door, and steps into the humid air.

A tall woman who looks like an older version of Sandy greets her at the front door.

“How adorable!” she says, propping her hip against the door and taking the baby basket out of Katie’s arms. “My Lord, you look like you’re about to melt. Come in, come in!” She shakes the basket, the tiny silver rattle inside twinkling. “This is just precious!”

Katie introduces herself, enters the noisy, cavernous living room: women everywhere, chatting in groups and holding small china plates bearing finger sandwiches, some holding babies, a couple of them almost as pregnant as Sandy.

“You must be Sandy’s mother,” Katie says.

“Guilty as charged,” the woman says, smiling. “Please, make yourself at home, Katie. I think Sandy might be out on the veranda—No, wait, there she is.”

Sandy spies her from across the room, and with her eyes still on Katie says something to the woman next to her; she waddles over, one hand on her huge belly.

“You made it!” Sandy says, leaning in for a hug.

They try to embrace with Sandy’s stomach between them, then give up, laughing; they lean in, press their cheeks together.

“Jeez, I’m a
whale,
” Sandy says, pulling back and grinning at Katie. She turns to the room.

“Everyone, this is Katie. My good friend Katie Burrelli,” she says, her arm on Katie’s shoulder.

Sandy points, introducing everyone. “Well, you’ve met my mom, of course, and then there’s Kelley over there, almost as pregnant as me, and there’s Lynn with sweet little Kim-Lee on her hip, and my cousin Susan . . .”

It isn’t as bad as Katie feared, mostly because she finds herself pouring coffee and lemonade and collecting plates, and then helping Sandy’s mother and one of her friends in the kitchen, even during the opening of presents.

“Why don’t you go on now, enjoy yourself,” Sandy’s mother urges her at one point. “We can do this.”

Katie peeks into the living room. A line of tiny clothes is making the rounds, the women cooing and smiling, and sharing their own stories about babies and husbands who are home watching the kids.

Sandy’s mother peeks in, too, then regards Katie for a moment. “You know what?” she says. “We actually need someone to make a fresh pot of coffee, and if it’s okay, maybe you could help me find those extra napkins?”

Later they are standing side by side at the counter, wrapping food, making leftover plates for some of the women, when Sandy wobbles in.

“Still at it?” Sandy says to Katie, then stretches up to kiss her mother on the cheek. “It was perfect, Mom. Thanks for everything.”

“She’s right, you’ve done enough,” Sandy’s mother says to Katie, then eyes Sandy’s belly. “You, too, Sandy,” she says, and they all laugh.

Sandy and Katie sneak away to the veranda, plant themselves on an iron bench facing a huge garden that is spilling over with flowers and creeping vines; tiny hummingbirds flutter above it, their wings almost invisible as they sip from enormous orange and red canna lilies.

“Well, you know I’m going to ask, girl,” Sandy says. “How was it?”

“It was fun. You have so many friends—”

“No, no, not the shower,” Sandy interrupts, “I mean yesterday and last week. How was it?”

“Weird,” Katie admits.

“But you like this woman?”

Katie considers this a moment. “She’s very patient.”

“Well,
that’s
a good thing,” Sandy teases, and Katie smiles.

After months of Dana’s gentle hints, and her mother’s blatant badgering, Katie has finally given in, is trying to give therapy a chance. She doesn’t know how long she’ll last, because it’s so unsettling and foreign to her—offering her feelings to a stranger, when she’s spent a lifetime keeping most of them from the people she loves and knows best. But this woman, an old colleague of Dana’s and in her fifties, is not only patient, she’s also surprising insightful after only two meetings.
You can’t stake all your happiness on another person, Katie. You can’t hide behind them, or hope they’ll eventually offer you something that will make you feel complete.