Beach Girls (10 page)

“What's that?” her aunt asked, watching Stevie's face.

“Oh, I was just thinking of Henry,” she said. “He was just cautioning me about falling in love.”

“He's a fine one to talk,” her aunt snorted.

“Won't Doreen give him a second chance?”

“How about a
hundred
-and-second chance? Henry sailed the seven seas, always expecting that she would be there waiting for him. Then he left the Navy, expecting to just move in and expect her to welcome him with open arms. She wanted a commitment; Henry, as much as I love and adore him, wanted a roommate.”

“He loves her,” Stevie said.

“Does he?” Aunt Aida asked. “Or does he just want her to be there when he wants her? I'm unconventional in plenty of ways, but I think he should have married her. It upsets me to see him so sad. Just as it upsets me to see
you
so sad. . . .”

Stevie blinked, looked away. “I'm fine,” she said.

“Sweetheart,” Aunt Aida said. “You are not. I can see it. It's a beautiful summer day, and you are troubled. Meeting Nell and her father has stirred you up, and it's not just about Madeleine, is it?”

Stevie shook her head. Sometimes she and her aunt didn't even need words. Aunt Aida had been there for her after her mother's death; no one could ever take her mother's place, but her aunt had loved her so steadily, and knew her so well.

“We think love's supposed to solve everything,” her aunt said quietly. “But so often, it's just the opposite. It creates difficulties we never even dreamed of.”

“Love?” Stevie asked. “I barely know them. . . .”

“You loved your friend Emma,” her aunt said. “And they are her family. I have the feeling that meeting them, seeing them together, has set you thinking about your own life. About
family . . .”

“You're my family.”

“I love you, Stevie, but I'm not enough. You deserve to find someone to really share a life with. Have children with . . . I had my years with Van—and the happiness of watching Henry grow up. I wish Van and I could have had kids of our own, but it wasn't to be. Henry's like a son to me.” Her gaze became very somber. “I don't want you to be lonely.”

“I'm not lonely. I'm just being careful—I'm not going to make the same mistakes again. I have you . . . Tilly . . . my work. You know what a balm it is, our painting,
our art . . .”

“Tell yourself that, my love,” Aunt Aida said, “when your whole life has passed you by, and you have nothing but canvases to show for it.”

Stevie felt herself blush. She stared at the wood grain in the pine table, shocked by the feeling in her heart.

“When do you think you might call Madeleine?” her aunt asked, gently changing the subject.

“I'm not sure,” Stevie said. “Maybe after Jack and Nell leave the beach.”

“Too bad you have to wait that long,” Aunt Aida said. “I have the feeling that she's in great need of a friend. And so are you. . . . Perhaps more to the point, Nell's in need of an aunt.”

The words hung in the air. Stevie waited, but Aunt Aida said nothing more. The only sounds were birds singing in the trees outside, and her own heart pounding in her ears.

Driving home, Stevie remembered one sunny day—the afternoon of the July full moon. She and her friends had walked through the path to Little Beach. They were teenagers, wanting to escape the prying eyes of adults. Boys were on their minds. Everyone liked someone—the details were delicious and absorbing. Falling in love was one summer-long fever.

“They want us,” Emma said.

“And we want them,” Madeleine said.

“I told Jon I'd meet him on the Point,” Stevie said. Desire was new to her. Already she was experiencing the loveliness of obsession, the crazy heat of getting lost in wanting someone, thinking about him all the time.

“What time did you say you'd be there?” Madeleine asked.

“Two,” Stevie said, and Madeleine nodded, as if to say she'd better go.

But Emma had a different take on it. She grabbed both her friends by the hand and pulled them down the hard sand, just below the dry seaweed of the tide line.

“Nighttime is for them,” she said. “Daytime is for
us
.”

“But . . .” Stevie began.

“Listen,” Emma said. “After dark is boy time. When the sun goes down, and the air is cool, and we get chilly, so they put their arms around us . . . And our bare feet get so cold, and their kisses are so hot . . .”

“And driving around in their cars,” Maddie said, “listening to the radio, where every song reminds you of what you're going to do later.”

“And makes you want to marry them,” Stevie said.

Maddie chuckled, but Emma shrieked with laughter. Stevie stood there, turning red and trying to keep her expression steady—to look as if they hadn't just cut her to the quick. They thought she was joking. How could she explain to her two best friends that she was completely serious. She knew it was crazy, but that was how she felt.

“Good one, Stevie,” Emma said. “You're going to marry
Jon
?”

“I didn't say that,” Stevie said, knowing that her friends thought he was too shy, too serious, and not tall enough.

“Let me just tell you something about the reality of the situation,” Emma said. “My mother's younger cousin is visiting us. She's only twenty-two—just graduated from Wellesley—so for me, it's like spending the summer in a sex seminar. I know things you don't. You have to be very careful about finding the
right one
. You have to choose someone who'll be your friend for life. He has to be cute enough to want to kiss forever. That's a tall order, in itself. When you find that person, then you go on the twenty-four-hour plan, all day and all night long, around the clock . . . but till then . . .”

“We get your days,” said Madeleine, who, with an older brother, seemed to know the same thing. “And full-moon nights.”

“Not nights,” Emma said.

Stevie smiled, but she felt rattled inside. Was something wrong with her? Her friends seemed better equipped for the uncertainties of dating. She hadn't been kidding when she'd said songs on the radio made her dream of getting married. She wanted to feel safe forever; she wanted to know that the person she loved would never leave her, never hurt her. She wanted to get it all nailed down.

Emma ran up to the tall grass that grew between the beach and the marsh. She looked around, came back with a long white driftwood stick, bleached by the salt and sun.

“What are you doing?” Stevie asked.

“Drawing a magic circle,” Emma said. “With us inside.”

Stevie and Maddie gathered together, holding hands. Emma joined them, reaching her arm out and tracing a big “O” in the sand. She spun around and around, scoring the circle deep and sure.

“It's like the sun and the moon,” Stevie said.

“Heavenly bodies,” Maddie said.

“Exactly,” Emma said. “Boys are one thing, but true friends are another. Let's never forget that, okay? No matter what happens? We can't lose each other. . . .”

Stevie's throat tightened. Already she had felt herself being pulled away: wanting to be with Jon, instead of her best friends. She wanted summers to continue forever, with the beach girls by her side.

There was nothing like being held in the night, by a boy whispering her name. But why couldn't Emma and Maddie fill the void instead? If she willed it, tried hard enough, she could make it so. . . . As the girls turned round and round, Emma's stick tracing the hot sand, it seemed as if a spell was being cast.

“We can't lose each other, we won't lose each other,” Maddie chanted, getting into the spirit of the magic.

“By the power vested in me,” Emma said, “by the power of . . .”

“The noonday sun,” Madeleine supplied.

“The full moon and the Pleiades,” Stevie added.

“I now pronounce us . . . bonded for life,” Emma finished.

Dizzy, they all collapsed on the sand. It occurred to Stevie that Emma was stating the obvious: bonded for life. Hadn't that always been so? They lay on their backs, laughing till they cried. For Stevie, lying on her back in the sun, the tears streaming down her cheeks were pure emotion, and only half laughter.

When they got up, they ran to the most private part of the beach, behind the big rock that looked like a great white shark. Emma was the first to peel off her bathing suit. The others followed, and ran into the water after her. They formed a new circle, just offshore.

“We should do this tonight—skinny-dip in the moonlight,” Madeleine said, treading water.

“She doesn't listen,” Emma said with pretend sadness.

Stevie waited—she was thinking the same thing as Maddie.

“Daytime is for us,” Emma said. “Nighttime is for
them.
”

“Boys,” Maddie said.

“Jon,” Stevie said.

“It's how we keep them,” Emma said. “We already know we have each other . . . but even though we're not together, looking up at night, we have to just know that the girl in the moon is winking down at us. . . .”

“The girl in the moon?” Stevie asked, delighted.

“Yep,” Emma said. “That old man in the moon got tired, and the future was clear.”

“It's a job for a woman,” Stevie said.

“That's clear, all right,” Maddie said.

“You know it,” Emma said, and they all dove laughing into the next wave.

STEVIE DROVE
home from her aunt's house that July day intending to call Madeleine that afternoon. But in the end, she didn't phone at all. She called information and got an address for Madeleine Kilvert on Benefit Street in Providence, and wrote out an invitation. Driving to the post office, to mail it, she held it in her hand. She might be making things worse; she hadn't been completely forthcoming in the note. . . .

But the sound of Nell crying for her aunt, and the memory of three best friends on the beach, were too much for her, and Stevie did the only thing she could: dropped the envelope into the box and hoped for the best.

ONE MORNING,
while Nell was at recreation, Jack took a walk up the hill. He told himself this was all business—it had nothing to do with the dreams he'd been having, passionate, sweat-drenched dreams, during the few hours of sleep he'd had this last week. This visit was strictly because Stevie had had a childhood similar to Nell's—she'd lost her mother young. Maybe she could help him know what to do.

He knocked at the door, feeling like one of those young boys climbing the tree outside her window—afraid of intruding, yet wanting to know what happened inside her world. His heart was beating in his throat. She walked barefoot into the kitchen, dressed in jeans and a halter top.

“Hi,” she said through the screen door.

“I don't want to bother you,” he said. “Are you painting?”

“That's okay—come in.” She held the door open, and as he walked past he waited for her to say something about seeing him at the beach, at dawn, but she didn't. They were both pretending it hadn't happened. Even though he had been here before, this felt all new. He wanted to seem serious, to cover up the strong attraction he felt toward her. And this
was
serious—he needed help with Nell. He stood in the kitchen.

“Is everything okay?” she asked.

“It's fine,” he began. “Well, it's not really fine. Nell . . .”

“I'm sorry about what happened, when you were here,” she said. “I didn't mean to get her so upset.”

He nodded. The memories of how Nell had been the last few nights surged up. He was exhausted from not sleeping. “She's really having a tough time,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“Not falling asleep, crying a lot. We—she—has a therapist in Boston. Dr. Galford. He's a nice guy; he was recommended by the psychiatrist she saw in Atlanta after her mother's death.”

“That's good,” Stevie said. Her eyes were so bright. The smile was there, as warm as ever, but just not as big. It made Jack want to embrace her. He wanted to be held.
That's it
, he thought. He just wanted someone to put her arms around him and tell him he was doing a good job. That he wasn't screwing up too badly. That's what Stevie's smile made him feel like. But he'd been drawn in by smiles before—and he didn't quite trust himself to know what was happening.

“Good that she sees Dr. Galford? Or good that she saw the one in Atlanta? See, I
don't know . . . about any of it. I never went to a therapist when I was a kid. Neither did my sister. We never had anything—any reason to go. We thought that only troubled kids saw shrinks.”

“I saw one,” Stevie said.

“You did?”

She nodded. The smile was gone from her lips, but it was still there in her eyes. Jack leaned toward her. He wanted to lean right into her. He wanted her to know how much he wanted her to catch him. He felt
so tired . . . he'd made a mess of his life with Emma. He couldn't do it again—not to Nell. He made himself stand straighter.

“After my mother died,” she said. “I saw someone every week. I don't think I'd have survived without her.”

“Really?”

“Really,” she said, with complete resolve.

“What did you do with her? How did she help?”

“We played,” Stevie said. “She had a dollhouse, toys, dolls. I would sit at her table and draw. I didn't know it then, but I was learning how to be an artist, and how to make sense of my world by telling stories about it . . . they were always about birds. Bird mommies and babies . . .”

“Like your books,” he said.

“Yes. It was easier to write about robins falling out of the nest, blue jays flying away and not coming back, than people. Does Dr. Galford draw with Nell?”

“I don't know,” Jack said. “Our deal is that what goes on between them stays there.”

“That's good,” Stevie said, the smile coming back. “My father did that. Let it be between me and Susan. That was her name—Susan.”

“I wanted Nell to have a summer off,” Jack said. “I just wanted her to have some time to be normal . . . to not have to spend these beautiful beach days seeing a doctor.”

“Maybe that's how she'll be able to enjoy the beach days,” Stevie said. “By seeing her doctor.”

Jack moved his hand on the counter; his finger brushed against Stevie's. She moved her hand away—but when he looked into her eyes, he saw such emotion, again he wanted to hold her. She was rocked—maybe remembering her own painful childhood. He had to let her know how much talking to her helped. But before he could come up with the words, she spoke.