The Summer Cottage (26 page)

“You take care of things well,” said Helen. “You’ve always taken good care of me.”

“You were always easy to take care of,” said Claire, as close to tears as Helen had seen her in weeks. “You were always a source of great strength to me. You still are. And this house should be with you. You are the center of this family. You’re the reason Thomas, Pammy, and Charlotte are even here.”

“They’re here for you, Mother,” said Helen softly.

“At your request, Helen. Hold them together. Use this cottage as a gathering place and bring them to you and keep them with you. Family is everything. And I know you know that, but I just wanted to have a chance to tell you again before I go.”

“You’re not going anywhere.” Helen swallowed hard.

“We’re all going,” said Claire, “some of us a little faster than others. I’m not afraid. I’m ready, actually. I miss your father so.”

“I miss him, too.”

“Well, then I’ll tell him you say hello.”

Helen smiled. “You do that, Mother.”

“Good night, Helen,” said Claire. “Sleep tight now.”

“You too,” said Helen, standing. “I love you.”

“Yes, as I do you.”

Helen walked out of her mother’s room and back into hers. She got into bed and lay close to Charles. Putting her head against his chest, Helen heard his heart beating. Listening to him breathe, she eventually fell asleep.

C
HAPTER
32

 

C
laire Gaines pulled off her tan linen shorts and red T-shirt and kicked off her Birkenstock sandals and then slipped on her white tennis skirt and white Lacoste shirt. She checked her watch. It was ten minutes shy of five o’clock. Grabbing her sneakers and white socks, she ran down the stairs and out the kitchen door and onto the lawn. There she found Thomas, Charlotte, and Pammy, the very three people she was to play tennis with, in now fewer than ten minutes, sitting on the picnic table in their wet bathing suits. “Who are you playing with, Mom?” Thomas asked when she sat down with them.

“You,” said Claire, pointing her index finger at Thomas, “and you and you.” She pointed her finger at Charlotte and then at Pammy. Thomas’s response was to stare at his mother, while Charlotte and Pammy exchanged confused glances. “I told you this morning.” Claire sat on the picnic table bench and pulled on her socks. “We have the court from five to six thirty, and it’s almost five now.”

Pammy and Thomas made unpleasant-looking faces, but hopped off the table and went into the house to change. Charlotte didn’t budge. “I’m not playing,” she said.

“Oh yes, you are.” Claire slid her socked feet into her Tretorn sneakers.

“I hate tennis.”

“I’ll see you on the court in five minutes or you’ll be grounded for the rest of the week.” Claire stood.

“You’re so unfair,” Charlotte protested, standing.

“Life isn’t fair, Charlotte. The sooner you learn that the better.”

Charlotte hesitated for a moment, studying the chipped pink polish on her fingernails. She looked back at her mother. “Where’s Helen?”

“She’s at Susan’s house.” Claire tied her laces into double knots.

“Why can she be at a friend’s house and I have to play tennis?” Charlotte was stalling now. Claire didn’t have, never had, patience with those who stopped progress. Everyone in Claire’s world was expected to suck up whatever was bothering them and move forward.

“Get changed, Charlotte. I’ll see you on the court in five minutes.”

Charlotte walked into the house and up the stairs to her room, her new room. She had talked her parents into letting her paint and decorate the bedroom she had inhabited since early childhood, with its inherited furnishings, sun-streaked curtains, and dusty wool rug. She was tired of living like an eighty-year-old woman, she told Claire and John. She needed to make the space her own. She showed them the shade of lavender she had chosen at the paint store to coat the dark pine-paneled walls and the fabric she would sew into curtains to hang at the windows. After hearing her pitch, Claire and John told her it was okay with them as long as she finished once she started. If chores were an indication of Charlotte’s ability to follow-through, they suspected she would paint half the room and then quit, called away by her latest boyfriend for a boat ride or to a party. To Charlotte’s credit, she had finished the painting in two days, and had done an admirable job. Claire was pleased to see some domesticity in her oldest daughter. While Claire was much more concerned with her children’s sense of independence and competence, she was smart enough to know that most women, at some point in their lives, would have to cook for themselves, cook for a family. Claire considered proficiency in the kitchen a plus rather than a minus, a strength instead of a weakness. Other women complained about being chained to their stoves, but Claire viewed cooking as a competition, another skill she could master and control.

The finishing touch on Charlotte’s room was a hand-painted sign that read K
NOCK
B
EFORE
Y
OU
E
NTER.
Thomas blew right past the sign and into her room, mostly to tell her that it looked pretty good. But before he could compliment her, she screamed at him to get out. And then she forbade him to ever again set foot over the threshold without permission.
Oh heartbreak,
Thomas had said from the hallway where he had retreated.
Now I’ll have to go to the store to get condoms
. Charlotte called him immature and insensitive. Thomas had said he was plenty sensitive.
For example,
he had said
, I already know you’re almost out of tampons and will have to dash to the store soon, as you must be expecting your period any moment.
With that comment, Charlotte slammed the door.

Her wet bathing suit on the floor, Charlotte sat naked on her vanity stool. She peered into the mirror, looking for the courage to tell her mother to stuff it. “Fuck off, Mother,” Charlotte said. “I’ve never liked tennis, and I never will. You can take your dreams of my winning the club championships and flush them down the toilet.” Charlotte checked her watch. She had two minutes to get to the tennis court. She pulled on underwear, shorts, and a pink tank top, knowing that her mother would be furious at her for 1) not wearing a bra, and 2) disregarding the white-clothing-only rule imposed by the association that maintained the two clay courts available to beach residents for an annual fee. She grabbed her sneakers and ran out of the house.

“Here she comes,” Thomas announced when he saw his sister rounding the corner onto Seaside Avenue, the street that connected the tennis courts and modest clubhouse to the beach and the Sound. He was surprised by the fact that she was jogging.

As soon as Charlotte was in Claire’s line of vision, she slowed her pace to a walk. She sat down on the grass next to the tennis court and tied her sneakers, and then pulled her hair back in a ponytail and secured it with a plastic barrette. “I’m playing under protest,” she said, standing.

“You live life under protest,” said Thomas, sending a forehand flying over the net toward his mother.

“Thank you for coming, Charlotte,” said Claire.

“As if I had any choice.”

“You want forehand or backhand?” asked Thomas.

“Forehand.”

Thomas hit another ball over the next, this time to Pammy, who missed it. “Bad choice. You’ve got backhand.”

“What a gentleman,” said Charlotte, walking past Thomas to her relegated position on the court.

“Everybody ready?” asked Claire.

“Are you kidding me, Mother? I just got here,” said Charlotte. “How could I possibly be ready?”

“You missed warm-up,” said Claire.

“For God’s sake,” said Charlotte. “Somebody hit me one ball.”

Pammy hit a ball crosscourt to Charlotte. She swung tenaciously, sending it flying into the air and back over the net, where it landed way out of bounds.

“Looks like you’re extra warmed up,” said Thomas, smiling.

“Looks like you’re still an asshole,” Charlotte whispered to him.

“What was that?” Claire shouted from the other side of the net.

“Strategy,” said Charlotte.

“
M
or
W,
” Claire called, spinning her Wilson tennis racket in the air.

“S!”
Charlotte shouted impetuously.

Claire stopped the spinning racket in her hand and looked at Thomas. “Just ignore her, Mom,” Thomas said.

“
M
or
W?
”

“M,”
Thomas said.

“It’s
W,
” said Claire. “We’ll serve.”

She took a yellow tennis ball out of her pocket and tossed it to Pammy, who stood at the baseline in anticipation. She caught it, dropped it, and then stopped to pick it up and put it into her pocket with the other ball. She looked across the net at Thomas. “First ball in!” she called. “FBI!”

“CIA!” shouted Charlotte in return.

“Why not,” Thomas called back, ignoring his partner. Three seconds later, a ball went screaming past his left ear and hit the fence without touching the ground. “The speed’s pretty good,” Thomas yelled, “but you’re going to have to work on placement.” Pammy made a face at her brother. She tossed another ball into the air and hit it just as hard as the first. It bounced off Thomas’s head. “Check on placement!”

Charlotte laughed.

“Okay,” Claire said over her shoulder to Pammy. “That’s enough fooling around, Pammy. You can do this. Just put the ball in the box, okay?”

Pammy wound up a third time and pushed the ball gently over the net into the server’s box to Thomas’s forehand. Thomas cocked his racket back into position, then hit the ball soundly back at her feet. In defense, Pammy staggered backward and used her racket to scoop the ball into the air, after which it landed, miraculously, on the other side of the net.

“I’ve got it!” Charlotte yelled, moving closer to the net. She waited for the ball to drop. Then, when it sat three feet above her in the air, she swatted it, sending it careening, untouchable, down the middle of the other side of the court.

“Nice shot,” said Claire, before turning to strategize with Pammy. “You’re going to have to move over just a bit if we’re going to have a chance of getting those down-the-middle shots.” Pammy dutifully scooted toward the center of the court, even though she was certain her mother would not have been able to return Charlotte’s slam either.

“Nice shot, indeed,” said Thomas, giving his sister a high five. Before she could stop herself, Charlotte smiled.

Pammy served to her sister’s backhand. Charlotte put two hands on the grip of the racket, dropped the head, and then hit the side of the ball, giving it a topspin she hoped would baffle her mother at the net. Claire, looking as fierce as a warrior, held her racket firmly and dinked the ball back over to the other side. Thomas and Charlotte were miles from where it bounced. “Hit it like a man,” said Thomas, walking back to the baseline to receive the next serve.

“I did, Thomas,” said Claire. “That particular shot is your specialty.”

“The Drop-Shot King,” said Charlotte on her way to the service line.

“Okay, okay,” said Thomas, facing his mother and sisters. “Are we going to chat all day or play tennis?” Pammy served the ball, which against all odds hit the tape, sending the ball sideways instead of back. Thomas didn’t even swing.

“Nice serve, Pammy,” said Charlotte, walking backward to the baseline.

Thomas looked at her. “You sure that was in?”

“As sure as you are,” she said.

Thomas turned and retrieved the ball in the corner of the court and hit it to Pammy. “Good going, Pammy.”

Charlotte hit the ball in the net after Pammy’s next serve. Then Thomas, still smarting from the ace, launched his next return of serve into the air and over the fence surrounding the court.

“That’s game,” Pammy called, grinning. She hardly ever won her serve, which was the part of the game that gave her the most trouble. She also missed most of the balls that were hit to her at the net because she was afraid of balls hit directly at her that didn’t have time or space to bounce. Her mother told her if she wanted half a chance of hitting balls at the net, she’d have to open her eyes. Claire had further explained to Pammy that a tennis ball is just a ball, not a weapon, and that the sting she felt when she got hit would quickly pass. But Pammy was afraid nonetheless. It was this fear, Claire thought, that prohibited Pammy from competence at tennis and all other sports. At Pammy’s tender age, Claire had been fearless. In many ways, at forty-nine, she still was. She signed Pammy up for tennis lessons every summer—and her daughter had improved somewhat—but the instructor couldn’t, no one could give Pammy the courage she needed to play the game well.

So Pammy was pleased, as she had conquered, if only temporarily, her reluctance to serve. It was nerves, she guessed, more than faulty technique. Whenever she played with her mother, she got a stomachache. When no one responded to Pammy’s announcement, she called out again, “That’s game!”

“Yes, Pammy,” said Charlotte, “we all know how to keep score.”

Thomas returned to the court, having retrieved the ball from outside the fence surrounding it.

“Oh yes,” said Thomas, tossing the ball to Charlotte, staring at her. “Some of us know how to score all right.” Charlotte flipped up the middle finger of her left hand at her brother.

“You all are something today,” said Claire, walking from her side of the net to the other side. “This is supposed to be fun.”

“For whom?” asked Charlotte. “I mean, other than you, of course.”

“I’m having fun,” Pammy said tentatively.

“That’s because you just won your serve for the first time ever.”

“Enough, Charlotte,” said Claire. “You could be having fun, too. In fact, you could be a very good tennis player, Charlotte. There’s more to life than boys and cigarettes.”

“Says you.”

“Believe me,” said Claire, putting her hand on her daughter’s shoulder, “I’m smarter than I look.” Charlotte looked at her mother, unable to retort. Claire dropped her hand and walked beyond Charlotte to the forehand side of the far court. Charlotte looked back, shrugged, and then walked to the other side of the net. She took two balls to the baseline to serve. “I’ll take a couple practice serves.”

“What is this, Wimbledon? Just start in,” said Thomas.

“Fine,” said Charlotte, who bounced the ball five times, like she always did, before tossing it several feet into the air. And when she connected, the ball shot over the net, as if it emerged from the mouth of a cannon. By the time Pammy got to the spot where it landed, all she could do was watch it fly past her.

“Jesus,” Thomas urgently whispered to his partner. “Give the poor kid a chance.”

“She’s never going to get better if we lob them to her, Thomas.”

“Yeah, and she’s never going to get better if she can’t hit them either.”

On the other side of the net, Pammy was retrieving the ball out of the corner of the court. When she turned around, Thomas could see that her face was red, like it always got when she was angry or frustrated.

Charlotte next served to her mother. Claire returned the ball to Charlotte’s backhand. She sent it back over the net to her mother’s backhand. Claire blooped it over the net to Thomas, who hit his return gently to Pammy. Pammy sent the ball into the air, and Charlotte slammed it at her mother’s feet.
This game,
she said to herself as her mother rubbed the welt on her right ankle,
does have its merits
. Charlotte called over the net, “Sorry, Mom.”