The Goodbye Summer (19 page)

“That’s fine, but you’re—” Cornel sucked in his breath. “Oh no, don’t do that, now.”

“I’m all right.” But she was weeping, tears slipping down her cheeks in quick streaks, spreading dark plops on the bosom of her dress.

Cornel was beside himself. He half stood, half crouched over her, moving his hands in ineffectual feints in Thea’s direction, almost touching, then jerking away. “Listen, don’t pay any attention, that was all bull. I get going and can’t shut up. Don’t cry.”

“I’m not.” She stood up. “It’s this
grass.
Is this what it does, Henry? I’m sorry, I never meant to get like this.”

“No,
my
fault,” Cornel insisted. “It’s that pot, you’re right. I got on a tear and couldn’t shut up! I’m not like this usually.”

That made Magill laugh. Cornel sent him an urgent
help me out
look.

“Are you all right?” Caddie said, coming close to Thea.

“I am perfectly fine. Let’s go in the living room.” She slipped an arm around Caddie’s waist, as if to cheer
her
up—and just that quick, Caddie felt like crying, too. Oh, to hang on to Thea and burst into tears, snuffle on her shoulder while Thea held her like a mother and patted her on the back and crooned, “There, it’s all right, everything’s going to be fine.” And she hadn’t even smoked anything.

“Caddie, do something for me,” Thea said, giving her waist a squeeze. “A favor.”

“Name it.”

Thea steered her over to the piano before she could think of resisting. “Play something. Play anything at all.”

“What? No.
Hey
—” She tried to laugh during a push-pull moment, a subtle but actual physical struggle with Thea before she had to give in, only to avoid embarrassment, and sit down on the piano bench. “Thea—you know how I am. Not so good at this—”

“But not tonight. Not with us.” She went behind Caddie and put her hands on her shoulders. Support or coercion? “What would you play right now if you were by yourself?”

Something incredibly depressing, Caddie thought, running nervous, uncertain fingers over the thighs of her jeans. “This is no fair. Anyway, I’m not in the mood.”

Thea leaned over, put her cheek next to hers. “Please, please, please. I’m begging you. Play something by Billie Holiday.”

“Billie Holiday,” said Cornel, coming over to stand next to Thea, “she was good. I thought you just played classical. You know any Dinah Shore?”

She felt silly. What was she afraid of? Turning into her mother, the musician, Dr. Kardashian said, giving her mother too much power over her, something like that; all his theories about Caddie’s stage fright had something to do with her mother. Her way of handling the problem was to surrender, just not play in public anymore. So simple, and it worked perfectly: no more sweaty palms, faintness, or nausea, and somehow the Michaelstown Community Orchestra had managed to get along without her.

Magill, half draped over the long top of the piano, watched her with interested eyes. “Play something you love,” he suggested. “Close your eyes and pretend we’re not here.”

“Yeah, but you
are
here.” Looking and listening. She ran one hand over the keys, indecisive. If she played one note, they’d have her.

“We’ll sing along,” Thea promised. “Do you know ‘My Funny Valentine’? Play something you like, and we’ll sing.”

“Oh, people always think they know the words, but they don’t,” Caddie said bitterly. “They know the chorus or the line with the title in it and nothing else.”

“I know the words to everything,” Thea bragged. “If it’s old enough. Come on, try me.”

This was a lose-lose. She flexed her fingers, played a few random chords. “Okay, okay. I’d just like to say I hate this.” She hunted a safe key for “My Funny Valentine” and started to fiddle around with an intro. People forgot what a sad song it was. If she
were
alone, she might’ve chosen it tonight. She kept her eyes on her hands and tried to give in to the slow, drifty melancholy of the piece, tried to forget herself. Thea sang with her for a little while, then hummed, then stopped completely, leaving her on her own. Of course.

Caddie liked her voice, she just didn’t like anyone else to hear it. She made it to the break and thought,
I can plow on now.
Like those people who walked on burning coals. Faith in something or other got them to the
other side, but she’d use common sense.
I might get burned, but I won’t die. Public performance is not fatal.

Clapping and compliments. She emerged from a grim, fuguelike state with Thea shaking her shoulders, pummeling her on the back. “
Wonderful,
oh,
Caddie,
I had no idea you could sing like that. Play some more.”

“Pretty damn good,” Cornel judged. “You know ‘Blue Moon’? How about ‘After You’ve Gone.’ ”

“Oh, that’s a good one.” Thea started to sing it but stalled after the first line.

Caddie’s cheeks burned with her excruciating pleasure and embarrassment. It was idiotic, but she was close to tears
and
laughter. She glanced at Magill, who was looking at her in that weird way again, as if he didn’t know who she was, or she’d suddenly turned into her own twin. “Fantastic,” he said softly, and she started to get up—she couldn’t stand it, it was too much—but Thea pressed her back down.

“ ‘Dream.’ Play ‘Dream’ for me, Caddie.”

“Okay.”

She got through that. Then “It Had to Be You” for Cornel. Magill asked if she knew any Dusty Springfield, and she played “Breakfast in Bed.”

“Hey, you’re good,” Cornel said, sounding amazed. “I heard this gal at the Holiday Inn once. She was okay, but you’re better.”

Caddie put her hands together in pretend-gratitude, but truthfully, she was thrilled. “Gosh, if I’d known you guys were going to be such
pushovers.
” Each song was a little easier than the last. The sensation that she was beating something, at least starting to get over a stupid, years-long hurdle right now,
right now,
made her feel breathless, and also as if she were sitting beside herself, observing. It was probably the company—what wonderful, kind friends she had, they were the next best thing to being alone, this probably wasn’t a duplicatable experience—but
still.
What a high.

“I’ll play one more, but I’ll have to bring it way down, so it’s not going to sound like the original. Be warned. But it’s the only
happy
Billie Holiday song I know. But I’m an alto and she had that sweet, almost, you know, childish—”

“
Play
it.”

She played “Miss Brown to You.” She was hoping they’d sing it with her, but of course nobody knew the words but her. Thea and Cornel clapped along, though, when she came to the long piano solo at the end, so it was almost like having a jazz bass accompaniment. This was a
great
song. She grinned up at Magill, who was practically lying on the piano with his chin on his folded arm, smiling back at her. “Play it again,” he said as soon as she finished, and she laughed and started over.

Thea’s hands suddenly went tight on her shoulders. Caddie stopped. It came again—the doorbell.

“I
knew
it.” Cornel shot up on his tiptoes, elongated with panic. “I’ll take the fall for you,” he promised Thea, moving her toward the sofa. “Don’t say a word, you’re an innocent bystander.”

Caddie got up slowly, feeling dazed. Who could it be? Thea said, “I’m sure it’s nobody, Cornel,” but she looked spooked, too. Magill was sliding the ashtray and the joint makings under a chair with his foot. The room still smelled like pot, though. It was after ten o’clock on a Saturday night; nobody ever knocked on Caddie’s door at this hour. Could Mrs. Tourneau have smelled marijuana through the open windows and called the cops?
Would
she have done that? The bell rang again.

Caddie shook her head at the three pairs of eyes staring at her in various degrees of alarm, smacked her hands on her thighs, and went to see who it was.

Christopher.

Christopher, standing there in the yellow porch light. In his pleated khakis and maroon polo shirt and his gold-rimmed glasses. He took his hands out of his pockets and smiled, dipping his head in the shy, self-deprecating tilt she loved. “Hi.”

Finney, ecstatic, hurled himself against the screen, trying to scratch it open with his paws.

“Christopher.”

“How are you doing?”

“Fine, I’ve been all right.” She didn’t know what she was saying. She couldn’t believe he was here, looking so normal, like this was nothing, not a miracle, standing on her doorstep and smiling at her through the screen.

“May I come in?”

“Yes, sure, come in,” and she opened the door and backed up. Finney threw himself on Christopher’s knees when he crossed the threshold. He said “
Down
” once, and the dog obeyed. Incredible.

“I, um, have some company,” she said, in an agony of self-consciousness, waving toward Thea, Magill, and Cornel in the living room. All three were sitting down, innocent but avid, craning and peering into the dim hall. “You’ve never met them. Come in and I’ll intr—”

“I can’t stay. I came by for those books.”

She stared at him stupidly.

“You said you’d return them.” He smiled, forgiving her. “I guess it slipped your mind.”

His dog books. He’d come for the dog-training books he’d lent her. Everything that had lifted up inside dropped back down, back into place. Her face was burning; that was strange, because it felt as if all her blood had drained to her feet. “Yes, I did, I forgot, I’m sorry. But I know right where they are—I’ll go get them.” Should she introduce him anyway? She couldn’t think. “Um…”

“Hello,” Thea said musically. “You must be Christopher.”

He cut his eyes at Caddie in a funny way, almost accusatory, and she thought,
Were we supposed to be a secret? Was I not supposed to tell?
But he turned his charming smile on Thea, slipped his hands back into his pockets, and sauntered into the living room. Caddie said, “Well, I’ll just…,” and ran upstairs.

In her too-bright room, she sat on the bed while her heart slowed. It came to her that, as intimate as they had been with each other, Christopher had never been up here, never seen her bedroom. Good, because it looked ludicrous to her, a girl’s room instead of a woman’s, with its pink-and-white-striped wallpaper, the narrow bed and the stringy white rug, the child-size closet. She embarrassed herself. She was angry with Christopher, but how could she blame him for moving on? Her life was as stunted as this room.

That he would come today of all days—did it mean something? Nana believed in signs, so Caddie didn’t on general principles. But this was too close, too much of a coincidence not to imply—something. She hesitated to call it a connection. That would be pathetic and self-deceiving, and yet, why would he come
tonight
unless it meant something? She leaned over and held her face in her hands.

Footsteps on the stairs.
Who?
Thea—Caddie let out a slow breath, realizing that’s who she wanted it to be. Of all people.

Thea paused in the door, took one look at her, and sat down on the bed beside her. “Is it that bad?” She stroked a wisp of Caddie’s hair back from her forehead. “Just give him his damn books. The sooner he’s gone—”

“Oh, Thea. Guess what I’ve gone and done.”

“What?”

“Can’t you guess? I thought you’d know by now.”

Thea looked into her eyes, and the light dawned. “Oh, baby.”

“Right. Exactly.”

Thea made a sound, a perfect mix of shock and sympathy, and slid her arms around her.

Caddie rested her head on her soft shoulder, inhaling the musty smell of pot in her hair. She wanted to stay like that, never move again. “Should I tell him? He doesn’t want a baby. Oh, God, I don’t know what to do.”

“Are you sure? Did you go to the doctor?”

“No, but I took the test yesterday and it was positive. So I got another one today, and it was the same. But I still can’t believe it. We were always so careful.” It must’ve happened that time, early in the morning, when they’d both been half asleep and started to make love without any protection. She was the one who’d remembered before they did much. But they must’ve done enough.

Thea shook her head sadly. “It can happen so easily. For some people.”

“Life is so damn
unfair.
” She felt as angry for Thea, who’d
wanted
a child, as she did at herself. “How could I be so stupid? I’m too
old
for this.”

“I don’t think there’s an age limit on it. Until, of course, there is.”

“But I’m supposed to be a
grown-up.
I just feel so…”

“Don’t. It just happened, and you’ll get through it. I know it feels like it, but this isn’t the end of the world.”

“Oh, boy, it feels like it.”

“But it’s not. Too many people care about you, and we’re not going to let anything terrible happen.”

“Please don’t make me cry, not now—”

“Absolutely,
no crying.
Not until he’s gone, anyway, then we’ll bawl. Oh, Caddie, you are so much stronger than you think you are.”

“I don’t feel strong. I feel like my life’s been leading up to this, one big—monstrously stupid thing—”

“Now, stop. You know how many girls this happens to?”

“Girls.”

“And grown women, too. Don’t be silly.”

“I know, I’m just trying not to think about the real—the real
problem
here. Thea,” she whispered frantically, “it’s a
baby.
”

They held on to each other for a long minute and didn’t talk.

“Should I tell him?
I don’t know what to do.
” She was back to that. “I know he has a right to know, but honestly—I don’t think he’ll care.”

“You don’t have to decide right now. Just because he’s here. You’ve only just found out, you need some time. It’s—”

“Caddie?” Christopher’s voice, calling from the bottom of the steps. “Look, uh, I’m in kind of a hurry!”

“Bastard,” Thea said with venom.

Caddie stood up. “I’m just going. I don’t know what I’m doing.” Panic flickered along her skin, made her hands perspire.

“Do whatever you like.” Thea got up more slowly. “Tell him or not, it’s
your
perfectly good decision.”

The high, righteous arch of Thea’s eyebrows gave her a swell of courage. “My decision.” She squared her shoulders. “God, I’m glad you’re here.” Books, she’d forgotten the books. She found them on top of the radiator. “I never read them,” she confessed, blowing the dust off the top one. Thea’s laugh carried her out of the room and down the stairs on another little wave of bravery.

Three heads swiveled when she walked into the living room. Somebody, probably Magill, had put a Lucinda Williams record on the stereo. He stood far across the room from Christopher, glaring at him and flexing his jaw muscles. Cornel looked belligerent, too. Only Christopher seemed relaxed and unconcerned. And Finney, who lay at his feet, gazing up at him adoringly.

“Well,” Christopher said, “really nice meeting you folks.”

Was she imagining a sarcastic edge to his voice? What in the world had the men been saying to each other? He crossed in front of her, heading for the door, and she followed. She had to put her foot across Finney’s chest to keep him in the house. “Stay,” she ordered, and slipped through the screen after Christopher.

It was hazy and hot outside, moths zipping and pinging off the porch light, fireflies flickering in the honeysuckle hedges. All at once the music inside the house went low—someone had turned down the volume. Christopher turned to face her at the top of the steps. When he looked at
her, did he see the same old Caddie? He looked strange and familiar to her, as if he were wearing a disguise or a costume. Over his shoulder,
Crone,
one of Nana’s scrap-metal constructions, swayed in the soft breeze, porch light dancing on her bicycle-chain hair and coffee-can breasts.

“Thank you for the loan,” Caddie said, passing the stack of books over.

“Sure thing. Think they helped?”

“Oh, definitely, he’s much more obedient. How’s King?” she asked, stalling.

“He’s got an ear infection. Nothing serious, but he hates the drops.”

“I bet. Poor thing.” It wasn’t his fault he loved his dog more than her. He was still a good man. And she had to tell him. She twisted her hands, struggling for a way to start.

“Oh, hey, I got the news this week that we’re moving.”

“CAT’s moving?”

“Well, no, I mean I am.”

“You’re moving? A new office?”

“Moving to D.C. I’ll be doing national PR and some political work. If everything works out and I do a good job, they want me for their full-time lobbyist.”

He was willing her to smile back at him with his smile, urging her to join with him in his gladness and pride, but she took two steps back and came up hard against the sharp edge of the living room window. “You’re leaving?”

“Not right away. The timing’s still iffy, but definitely by the end of the summer.”

“Well, that’s…I know you were hoping…so you’re taking it? It’s for sure?”

“Yeah, definitely. It’s what I’ve been wanting.”

She wrapped her arms around her waist. “Listen. We’ve never really talked about what happened. And—I have to tell you, I never understood. I thought…I was
completely
wrong, but I thought it was good, I thought you liked—us. What—what—”

“Caddie, let’s not start this.”

“I know, but what went wrong? What happened? It’s important,” she explained past the tightness in her throat.

“Nothing happened.” He put his hand on his forehead and looked up at the porch ceiling. “I told you, it was one of those things. It didn’t work out, that’s all.”

“Maybe we can fix it. If we talk, if we have a conversation.”

“Hey, I’m sorry, really sorry, but there’s no sense in going into it again.”

“Nothing in common, you said.”

“That’s—yeah, basically, I mean—” Amusement flickered for a split second in his sad, sympathetic face. He made half a gesture: he lifted his arm and swept it back, but stopped just before it could indicate the yard. The sculptures. “We’re different people, that’s all. We want different things.”

“How do you know what I want?” She held her hands out to him. “
I
don’t know what I want.”

He smiled in sad agreement. “And, see, that’s just not much of a turn-on for me. I’m sorry, Caddie. That’s all I can say.” He started to turn away.

“Wait. Christopher, wait.”

He looked so pained and patient, and yet—there was something in his eyes that gave her a sick feeling. He was only pretending to hate this. “What?”

“Do you think we’ll ever see each other again?” The spasm of disbelief that flashed in his face was just another layer of humiliation. But she plowed on, because that was her job now, all she had left to do. “What I mean is, there aren’t any circumstances—under which—you can ever see us getting back together. Right?”

He hesitated, as if he suspected a trick. “I said we can still be friends. If that’s what you want.”

“No, that’s not what I’m asking.” She sucked her lips in to wet them. “You don’t have any feelings for me anymore. Real feelings. And there’s nothing—you can’t think of anything that would change your mind, can you? It’s over, it’s completely over. No matter what.”

“No matter what?” He started to laugh, but it caught in his throat. She’d said too much; the horror in his fixed, staring eyes told her he’d guessed.

She said quickly, “No, I’m just asking—”

“Jesus, oh, God—”

“No, no—if I had a fatal disease! If I won the lottery, if I won—a genius award!” She flung a hand out, tamping down a bubble of hysteria. “It wouldn’t matter to you, it wouldn’t
change
anything, isn’t that right? Just answer. You wouldn’t suddenly fall in love with me. Nothing could change your mind. Christopher, just answer, that’s all you have to do.”

It felt like forever, but it was only a couple of seconds before he spoke. His smile was ghastly when he tried to say lightheartedly, pretending he had believed her, “Okay, no. I guess I wouldn’t fall in love with you. Nothing would change.”

She sagged a little. “Okay, then. I just wondered, that’s all. I just wanted to make sure.” She didn’t feel much of anything, not relief, not disappointment. Sore, that was all.

The screen door squeaked open. Magill stepped out on the porch, barefooted, holding Finney in his arms. “Oh, hi, kids.
Que pasa?
Thought I’d get some air.”

“Me, too.” Cornel shuffled out after him. “That the moon?”

“
Hey,
” Christopher said.

“Caddie?” Thea cleared her throat in the open doorway. “Everything all right?”

Christopher’s disbelieving laugh made her wince, it sounded so artificial. “What’s this, the cavalry?”

“Why?” Magill said interestedly, coming up close. Finney strained in his thin arms, but he held on tight. “Caddie need a cavalry?”

Christopher snorted. Caddie regretted everything she had ever told him about Magill, and she thanked God she hadn’t known about his accident, the awful details, until tonight. Otherwise she would surely have told Christopher, and he didn’t deserve to know.

But she didn’t trust the sparkly, reckless look in Magill’s eyes. “Nobody needs anything,” she said quickly. “Christopher has to go, he was just leaving.”

“Right.” Christopher pulled his lips into a patient smirk. What a relief for him that this scene was ending with other people behaving badly. “Nice meeting all you folks. Caddie, you take care.” He went down the steps.

Magill either couldn’t hold on to Finney any longer or he let him go on purpose. Either way, as soon as the dog hit the porch floor he flew down the stairs and latched onto Christopher’s foot, snarling and growling with mock ferocity, eager to play his favorite game.

“No,” Christopher commanded in that calm, godlike voice that never failed.

Finney let go long enough to bark, then clamped back onto Christopher’s loafer, wagging his tail with delight.

It could have been funny, and someone who wasn’t feeling very kind could’ve had a small laugh at Christopher’s expense. But he said “
No
” again, and Finney backed up, confused. Christopher pushed his hand down like a stop sign.
“Sit.”