Summer Friends (29 page)
Authors: Holly Chamberlin
59
At the same time that Delphine was rejecting a walk down memory lane, Jackie was seated in a back booth at Bessie's diner in the center of town, waiting for Maggie. Maggie had asked Jackie to meet her. She needed to talk. She hoped their conversation would be more enlighteningâand less insultingâthan the conversation she had had with Jemima Larkin.
Maggie arrived a moment later and walked back to the booth where Jackie was sitting. “Thanks for coming,” she said, taking a seat across from her.
“Sure,” Jackie said. “I don't have much time, though. Sorry.”
“No, I understand.”
When their coffee had been brought to the table, Maggie told Jackie about her offer to buy the Crandalls' land, about Delphine's rejection of that offer, and then about the awful fight they had had in the parking lot. Jackie wasn't quite sure how to react to it all. Maggie's offer, for instance. That was almost unbelievably generous. And a little bit crazy, as was Delphine wanting to meet in a parking lot. For a moment Jackie wondered if one or both of the women were having some sort of nervous breakdown.
“I'm sorry about the fight,” she said finally. “And your offer . . .”
“It's sincere.”
“I believe you.”
Maggie took a sip of her coffee. “It's the same thing that happened when I offered to find Dave Junior a lawyer when he got into trouble with that other boy. Delphine rejected my help without even considering it. I told her I might be able to get someone to handle the case pro bono, but that didn't seem to matter.”
Jackie shook her head. “She didn't tell me you had offered to help us with Dave Junior's trouble, either.”
Maggie smiled ruefully. “She has a habit of keeping secrets. I don't know why.”
“Well, thank you. Thank you for your concern about my family. I wish Delphine had told me so I could have thanked you earlier.”
“Will you consider letting me buy the land?”
“It's a generous offer, Maggie,” Jackie said sincerely, “and I appreciate it; I really do. But Dad's already promised to sell to the Burtons. It wouldn't be right to go back on our word now. Thank you. You're a good person.”
Maggie blushed. “Delphine and I were always there for each other. Until she came back here after college.”
“That was a long time ago, Maggie,” Jackie pointed out. “Delphine's used to being on her own. You can't expect her to be someone she no longer is.”
“Do people really change that much?” Maggie said. “Can they really become entirely different from who or what they once were? I just don't believe that. Or maybe, I can't believe that. I won't let myself.”
Jackie shook her head. “I can't talk philosophy, Maggie. I just know what I see.”
Maggie hesitated.
Well,
she thought,
why not? What else do I possibly have to lose? Certainly not my dignity. I seem to have given that up some time ago.
“Maybe you'll think I'm a sentimental fool,” she said. “Maybe I am one.” And she told Jackie about the aquamarine necklace.
Well,
she thought,
why not? What else do I possibly have to lose? Certainly not my dignity. I seem to have given that up some time ago.
“Maybe you'll think I'm a sentimental fool,” she said. “Maybe I am one.” And she told Jackie about the aquamarine necklace.
“So, it's in my hotel room right now,” she finished. “Hidden away in the lining of the drapes. It's something my father taught me, how to hide valuables when traveling if there isn't a safe in the room.”
“Wow,” Jackie said. She was touched by Maggie's keeping the necklace for all these years. But she was also worried about the obvious depth of Maggie's loneliness and what Jackie saw as desperation. She thought now about Jemima's question: What did Maggie want from Delphine? It seemed as if Maggie had placed all of her hope for happiness, love, and emotional fulfillment in Delphine's hands. Jackie did not believe that was a burden her sister could, or wanted to, handle.
“I wish,” she said now, “that I could tell you that everything will be all right between you and my sister. But I can't guarantee anything, Maggie. Delphineâwell, lately, she's been . . . Your coming back here has shaken her up, I think. I don't know if that's good or bad or something in between. And I'm not saying that anything is your fault. Just that I can't speak for Delphine. I'm sorry.”
“I know.” Maggie reached for her bag. She had taken up enough of Jackie's time. “Thank you for listening to me, Jackie,” she said. “I appreciate it.”
60
At about ten o'clock on Thursday morning, Delphine opened the front door to find Harry standing on her porch.
“I thought you were working today,” she said. It wasn't the nicest of greetings, but she was startled by his unexpected presence.
“I switched a shift with Buck,” Harry said. “I need to talk to you.”
Delphine stepped back and Harry followed her into the house. “Okay,” she said. “But I have to get back to the farm soon. I only came home to get some papers I'd forgotten this morning.”
“I know. I went to the farm first. Your sister told me where to find you.”
Delphine gestured toward the kitchen. “Do you want some coffee?”
Harry shook his head. He remained standing, hands shoved into the front pockets of his jeans. From the couch, Melchior watched, eyes narrowed. A sliver of fear ran down Delphine's spine.
“Why didn't you tell me about this Boston trip?” Harry demanded.
Delphine's heart began to pound. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I meant to. I guess I just . . .” But she didn't know what else to say.
“I don't understand, Delphine. How was I supposed to find out? When I showed up at your house for dinner and found that you were gone? Do you have so little respect for me that you were going to leave town without telling me?”
Harry was right. Her behavior had been appalling. She had shared a bed and, to a large extent, a life with this man for ten years and she had been prepared to skip townâalbeit for only a nightâwithout a word of warning or explanation.
“I'm sorry,” she said again. “I am. I was wrong. I don't know what I was thinking.”
Harry laughed bitterly. “I know what you were thinking. That good old Harry doesn't have any feelings. That he wouldn't worry, that he wouldn't try in every way he could to find you. Damn, Delphine.”
“Really, Harry, I'm sorry.”
Harry sighed and took his hands from his pockets. “I don't know what to say, Del. I don't know if I can accept your apology.”
“I'm sorry,” she said again. “It's just that . . . Lately, I don't know . . . Lately, I feel so angry with you. Angry with myself, too, I guess. I just wanted to be . . . away.”
“Angry at me?” Harry seemed truly puzzled. “What have I ever done to hurt you? I've been honest about my marriage since day one. I've never lied to you. I've never cheated on you. How have I hurt you?”
Delphine lowered her eyes for a moment. Maybe Harry was, indeed, blameless. Maybe she was the one who had been hurting Delphine Crandall all these years.
“I know you're a good man,” she said, looking back to him. “I know I should respect your devotion to your wife, and I do, really, but what do I get out of all this? A friend, yes, a dinner companion, even a lover, but . . . It's not enough. I'm just not . . . happy.”
Harry threw his hands into the air in frustration. “God, Del, why didn't you ever tell me you're not happy? Am I supposed to just guess what you're feeling? I'm not a mind reader, you know.”
“If I had told you, what would you have done about it?” she challenged.
“Whatever I could do.”
“Which doesn't include marrying me.”
Harry paused before asking, “Is that what you really want, Del? To be married to me?”
Delphine rubbed her forehead. “Honestly,” she said after a moment, “I don't know what I want, Harry. Not anymore, anyway.”
Harry went to the front window and stood with his back to Delphine. “It's that friend of yours, that Maggie somebody or other. Ever since she's come to town you've been different. Discontent, touchy.”
“This has nothing to do with Maggie,” Delphine said firmly. Though, of course, in some way it had everything to do with Maggie, and she knew it.
“I don't believe that.” Harry turned back around to face her. His expression was hard. “I think you two have something in your past that's, I don't know, not right. It's like you've got your own secret club, just the two of you. I don't know who you are anymore, Delphine.”
I don't know who I am anymore, either,
she answered silently. She had a powerful urge at that moment to tell Harry that she had once been engaged to the famous journalist and political commentator Robert Evans. That who she once had been was Robert Evans's love. But she said nothing.
she answered silently. She had a powerful urge at that moment to tell Harry that she had once been engaged to the famous journalist and political commentator Robert Evans. That who she once had been was Robert Evans's love. But she said nothing.
Harry sighed. “I'm leaving,” he said. “Call me when you've figured yourself out.”
Harry slammed the door behind him. Melchior hissed. Delphine walked into the kitchen. She didn't know why. She didn't blame Harry for being angry. She was angry, too. She was also scared.
She didn't like confrontation and yet in the past few weeks her life had been riddled with confrontation. She didn't like change and yet in the past few weeks her life had been rattled and bruised by change.
She looked at Kitty's noodle picture, taped to the front of the fridge. Suddenly, she felt overcome with exhaustion.
Life,
she thought,
is so stupidly unfair.
Life,
she thought,
is so stupidly unfair.
61
There was another knock on the front door. Delphine shot to wakefulness. When Harry had gone she had taken some ibuprofen and lain down on the couch, Melchior pressed against her legs. Within minutes she was asleep. Now she checked her watch.
Damn.
She'd been asleep for almost an hour. She had to get back to work.
Damn.
She'd been asleep for almost an hour. She had to get back to work.
She struggled upright, annoying Melchior, and walked to the door. She opened it to find Maggie standing there.
“Hi,” Maggie said.
Delphine sighed. First her mother, then Harry, and now Maggie. Three unadvertised visits in the space of two days. It pissed her off. She was losing control of the life she had so carefully constructed. “What are you doing here?” she said.
“I wanted to see how you were coping,” Maggie said.
And I'm a brave and sometimes foolish person.
“I went out to the farm first. Jackie told me you had gone home to get something.”
And I'm a brave and sometimes foolish person.
“I went out to the farm first. Jackie told me you had gone home to get something.”
“I'm fine,” Delphine said shortly. “I'm grabbing a cup of coffee and going back to the farm.”
“Could I have a cup, too?”
Delphine shrugged and turned toward the kitchen. Maggie followed her inside the house and shut the door behind her.
“How is Kitty?” Maggie asked on the way to the kitchen.
“Fine. As good as she can be.”
Delphine poured the rest of the morning's coffee into a saucepan and put it on the stove to heat.
Maggie took a seat at the kitchen table while Delphine fetched cups. “I talked to Gregory,” she said. “He's still in Chicago. Of course, he feels terrible about Kitty. I tried to tell him how I was feeling about . . . Well, about everything that's been going on between you and me. But he didn't understand at all. Somehow he managed to make it all about himself. I meanâ”
Delphine slammed a cup onto the table. “Stop it!” she cried. “I'm tired of hearing about your petty problems! All those years and you never even sent a postcard from your fancy vacations, never even called to see how I was doing, and now when you finally have a problemâyou're bored in your marriage! Poor you!âyou come running for my help. What in God's name do you want from me? What?”
Maggie was stunned. For a moment she felt physically afraid. She took a deep, steady breath and then, ignoring the distortions in Delphine's accusations, she said calmly and quietly, “I want you to be my friend.”
There followed an awkward silence. Maggie looked down at her hands. Delphine rubbed her temples and then turned off the flame under the bubbling coffee.
“Don't you have any other friends?” she asked finally, tiredly.
“Not like you.”
Delphine almost laughed. “I think you misjudged us, Maggie. I think you thought we were something we were not.”
“No,” Maggie insisted, looking back up at Delphine. “I haven't misjudged us.”
“I can't be who you need me to be. Your sister, your twin, something more, a soul mate. I'm not who you remember. I'm not who you think I am.”
Maggie rose to her feet. “Then, who are you? Tell me.”
Delphine stepped away. “I wish you had never come here. Why don't you go back to where you belong?”
“I'm not sure I know where that is anymore.”
“I'm sorry for you,” Delphine said, “I really am. But I can't help you.”
“No,” Maggie said, and the tone of her voice was different now. Cold. “Of course not. No one can help you, either. Certainly I can't. Good-bye, Delphine. I won't bother you again.”
Maggie walked quickly through to the front door and closed it firmly behind her. Delphine stood rigidly still for a full minute and then, as if compelled by a force she could not name or control, she ran into the living room and over to the old cardboard box her mother had found in her attic. She knelt beside it and rummaged through the detritus of her childhood until her hand closed on the dirty, frayed macramé bracelet Maggie had given her all those years before. She would cut it to shreds; she would stuff it in the garbage. She would burn it out behind the house; she would tear it to pieces.
But the moment she saw the bracelet clutched in her hand, she fell from her knees to the floor, flooded with a sense memory of love, literally knocked over by a wave of emotion. Later, she would recall this moment as one of supreme catharsis, similar in a way to the cathartic moment she had experienced at the protest rally all those years earlier. But at the time, she simply thought she might die.
Sitting on the floor of the living room, clutching the old gathering of string, Delphine cried, deep, painful sobs. She cried for the sake of the love she once bore her friend. It had been a real, living thing, their friendship, and she had in effect murdered it. They had grown together from childhood to womanhood and all that life together had to count for something in the present. At the very least, the reality of the friendship deserved respect.
She cried, desperately hoping that Maggie would forgive her. She cried for Kitty, for her own blighted maternal life, for the child she had never been wise enough to have. She cried for Harry and for Ellen, for the marriage that had been stolen from them, and she cried for his devotion to what was only a memory.
And she cried for her own broken heart. She had never allowed herself to properly grieve for Robert and the love they had shared. She had loved him so much, with such an intensity and such a joy. It had been a once-in-a-lifetime love that she had killed before its time. The realization of such accumulated loss threatened to overwhelm her. She lay down on the floor now and curled into a ball. She felt a warm pressure against her back and realized that Melchior had come to sit with her. She stayed on the floor for a long, long time.
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