Summer Sisters (34 page)

C
AITLIN AND
B
RU
face the young minister who plays hockey with the guys on Mondays and Thursdays. She promises to love, cherish, and respect Joseph Brudegher until death do them part and he promises the same to her. They slip matching rings on one another’s fingers. The minister pronounces them husband and wife. They kiss and the guests applaud while the smallest flower girl lifts her dress and scratches her backside.

A tent is set up on the lawn of the house, with tables to seat one hundred fifty. Vix’s heels sink into the soft ground as she marches in with the other attendants and takes her place at the head table. The guests dance to the music of the Martha’s Vineyard Swing Band on a wooden floor that slopes downhill. Vix drinks only designer water but feels light-headed anyway.
Fini, finis, finito …
Maybe Paisley was right when she told Maia this could offer closure. They’ll all be grownup now, won’t they?

She dances once with Bru, who says, “About last night … ”

“Forget last night,” she tells him. “Last night never happened.” Her knees don’t go weak. Her stomach doesn’t do flips. Last night was the end and they both know it. She can sense his relief.

“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” Bru asks as they both watch Caitlin waltzing with Lamb. “I can’t believe she’s my …”

“Wife,” Vix says, finishing the sentence for him. The
music ends but they don’t break apart. She thinks about asking him if it’s true, if he and Caitlin really … But what’s the point? For all she knows Caitlin made it up, like the ski instructor. For all she knows there was no woman in Paris who cut up Caitlin’s panties, no Tim Castellano in L.A., no married man who got her pregnant in London. It hardly matters anymore.

Gus comes up beside her, slips his arm around her waist. “I think this one is mine, Cough Drop.”

Trisha and Arthur sail by dipping and twirling. None of the younger people know how to dance to this music but they follow the older generation’s lead and pretend they’re dancing anyway. “So,” Gus says, “the beautiful princess marries the prince and lives happily ever after on a magical island. True or false?”

“True,” she tells him.

“Suppose he turns into a frog. Then what?”

“Suppose
she
does?”

Gus laughs and pulls her closer.

The rowdy cousins cheer when the band switches to rock. Abby hands out earplugs to anyone in need. The little children chase each other up and down the lawn. Von has too much to drink and rambles on toasting the bride and groom. Lamb comes to his rescue but Patti leaves in a huff anyway, taking the two little girls with her. Dorset moves in for the kill. She’s been eyeing him ever since the party last night.

Late in the afternoon, after the cake has been sliced, after the requisite pictures of bride feeding groom and groom feeding bride, the cousins carry Bru down to the pond and throw him in. When one of them picks up Caitlin and slings her over his shoulder she pounds on
his back and cries, “Not in my wedding dress, asshole … it’s an antique!” He puts her down and she steps out of it, leaving it on the grassy bank above the pond. They throw her off the dock wearing just her long ivory slip. Bru catches her in the water. They kiss. He wades out of the pond with her in his arms, as if he’s carrying her over the threshold. The photographer captures the moment.

“You’re next, Victoria,” another of the cousins says, sweeping her up and tossing her in from the end of the dock. Then they all jump in, one after the other, the cousins, their wives and girlfriends, most of the young guests and some of the not so young, all in their finery. But not Sharkey, who has taken Wren out in the dinghy, and not Daniel or Gus, who wait for Vix to emerge. “You can’t stay in all day,” Gus calls, laughing.

She feels awkward and self-conscious, like an unwilling contestant in a wet T-shirt contest. When she finally comes out, her arms folded across her chest, Gus wraps a beach towel around her. “You always were on the shy side, Cough Drop.”

“Are you going to keep calling me
Cough Drop?”

“What should I call you?”

“How about Vix?”

“Vix …” he says, trying it out.

Upstairs, Caitlin hands her a pair of shorts and a T-shirt so she can get out of her wet clothes. Caitlin has already changed into jeans. She’s zipping up her backpack, preparing to leave for her honeymoon, a camping trip to Maine. “Thanks, Vix … for being here with me.” She
looks up at the photo of the two of them at twelve. “Who says a picture isn’t worth a hundred words?”

“Thousand,” Vix says. “I think it’s a thousand words.”

Caitlin laughs. “We were a great team, weren’t we?”

“Yes.”

Caitlin hugs her. “I’ll always love you. Promise you’ll always love me?”

“You know I will.” And it’s true, Vix thinks, no matter what, she’ll always love Caitlin.

Caitlin hoists on her backpack. “Did you ask Bru … about that summer?”

“Yes,” she lies.

Caitlin nods. “Did he tell you the truth?”

“Yes.” Another lie.

She nods again. “I figured he would.”

45

T
HE FOLLOWING
M
AY
Caitlin gives birth to a baby girl. They name her Somers Mayhew Brudegher but they call her Maizie. Vix drives up for the naming ceremony with Gus, who’s moved to New York to write for
Newsweek
. They’ve been seeing each other since the wedding, going to movies, sharing late dinners, blading on Sundays in the park. They’re friends, but neither one has been willing to risk spoiling things by changing the relationship.

One night, coming out of a movie in the Village, they’re caught in a downpour. There’s not a taxi in sight. They’re closer to his place on Tenth Street than hers on Twenty-sixth so they run for it. They’re drenched by then so he hands her a towel, a sweatshirt, jogging pants. She takes off her clothes in the bathroom, and is about to pull on the sweatshirt when she spies a robe hanging on the back of the door. She wishes it were silk instead of flannel as she pulls it on, tying the belt around her waist and rolling up the sleeves. She runs a comb through her wet hair, then rummages around in her purse for that sample of Obsession she’s been saving. She dabs some between her breasts, behind her ears and
knees, which are beginning to shake. She hears John Coltrane playing on the CD.

Gus has changed into a T-shirt and jeans. At first he’s not sure what she has in mind. She can see his confusion and smiles. His eyes go to the opening of the robe. He turns away. “Don’t do this unless you’re sure, Vix.”

“I could say the same to you.”

“I’ve never been so sure about anything in my whole life.”

The attraction between them is so strong she’s sure there will actually be sparks when he touches her.

A year later they gather on the Vineyard for Maizie’s first birthday. Caitlin is distant, distracted. Bru is careful and protective. When Maizie cries, Abby is the one who picks her up and comforts her.

The next day Vix flies to Florida with Gus, to see Tawny. They haven’t seen each other in years. But Tawny has called, asking her to come. There’s someone she wants Vix to meet. And Vix has news for her, too.

In Key West Tawny watches shopping channels. She says she likes to dream she has the money to buy everything she sees, though she knows most of it is junk and she wouldn’t want it even if she could have it. Everyone has fantasies, Vix supposes. Tawny seems relaxed, even happy. She lives in Old Town, in a tiny yellow conch house with a jacaranda tree shading the veranda. She can walk to the ocean every day if she wants to. The
someone
she wants Vix to meet is Myles, a beefy, suntanned man in a captain’s hat. Vix isn’t sure if Myles is his first name or last. “He’s retired navy,” Tawny says proudly. “With
a good pension.” She shows Vix a photo of him in full uniform. “He was dashing, wasn’t he? Of course this was taken a while ago but you can still see it.”

Vix knows it’s important for her to agree with Tawny. So she says, “Yes … I can still see it.”

Myles spends his days tooling around in a small wooden boat. Tawny still works for the Countess, who lives a block away in a pink eyebrow house on Francis Street. She’s tethered to an oxygen tank. She can hardly take half a dozen steps without it. Tawny supervises the round-the-clock caregivers. The Countess is partial to handsome young men. And they adore her.

Tawny tells Vix the Countess is leaving most of her money to animal rights, but there will be a small trust set up for her. “I won’t be rich but I don’t need much living down here and I intend to stay, even after the Countess … is no longer with us. This way your father can have his savings for himself and Frankie. So if all goes well, you won’t have to worry about taking care of us when we’re old. At least we can do that much for you.”

Vix is stunned. She’d assumed Tawny had just written them off.

Tawny

T
HERE, SHE’S DONE IT
. She’s been practicing for a week and she’s finally told Victoria she’s a good daughter and deserves only the best. Well, maybe not in so many words but she’s sure Victoria got the message. Nice young man. She hopes they’ll be happy. Just don’t expect anything from her. She’s already given everything she has.

T
AWNY LIKES GUS
. Everybody does. Vix feels incredibly lucky. True, he can make her crazy sometimes but his sense of humor saves them every time. He knows just how to make her laugh. She feels comfortable, yet deliciously sexy with him. They’re not afraid to play. Once he suggested she straddle him in the bathtub.
Bite my neck …
he’d whispered,
pull my hair …
Another time, while they were driving on a country road, she’d smelled peonies and felt so horny she’d unzipped his fly and reached inside his pants. He’d pulled off the road and they’d made love in the car, with the passenger door thrown open and her head hanging down. When she’s nestled in his arms she knows the others were just practice. This is for real. There’s no way she’ll ever be bored with him. She won’t let him grow bored with her.

When she takes him to meet the Countess they’re greeted by one old dog who sniffs Gus but doesn’t even bother with Vix. The Countess pats her bed and tells Gus, “Sit here and let me look at you.” He sits beside her. She holds his hands and gazes into his eyes. Finally, she nods and says, “Love’s a hard game to play, my darlings. Play it well.”

“Stevie Nicks,” Vix says.

“Who?” the Countess asks.

“It’s the title of a song I used to like.”

“Stevie knew what he was talking about.”

Vix doesn’t tell the Countess Stevie is a
she
. She kisses the Countess on her cheek. The skin feels paper-thin against her lips.

They’ve decided to marry in September, the best
month on the Vineyard. It will be a small wedding at Abby’s and Lamb’s, just family—her father and Frankie, Gus’s parents, his brother and sister-in-law, his sister and her boyfriend—and a few close friends. Maia and Paisley joke that maybe one or the other will fall for Daniel. Vix tells them not to count on it.

They’ll be married in the garden by a judge from Boston, the same one who married Abby and Lamb fifteen years ago.

A week after Maizie’s first birthday, about the same time Vix and Gus are returning from Key West, Caitlin takes the ferry to Woods Hole, drives to Cambridge with Maizie, and asks Abby and Lamb to watch her for the day while she does some shopping. She calls at six to ask if they can keep Maizie overnight. She’s run into an old friend and they’d like to have dinner together. She doesn’t add that dinner will be on a plane en route to Paris. But when she next calls that’s where she is. She promises to return in a week, two at the most. Two weeks turns into two months, two months into two years.

Bru

H
E SHOULD HAVE
seen it coming. Maybe he just didn’t want to. Maybe that was it. That would be like him. Ignore all the signs. But something was wrong from the start. As soon as the wedding was over she changed. He figured it was the pregnancy. Too soon, maybe. And sick every day. But he knew she’d love being a mother.
Babies
. That’s what they all wanted. His cousins complained that once there was a baby around forget it … no more sex.