Camptown Ladies (41 page)

I had permanently moved myself into the log cabin, and Vince had moved Katie and her son into the condo after Lisa decided to be a snowbird and spend the winter in Florida. Lisa’s exact words had been: “I’m taking a lesson from the fairies and heading where the bitches are wearing less clothes.” And off she went. (Lisa’s snowbird was more like a rooster . . . with the mind of a cock.)

Uncle Freddie had left long before for Italy and I settled into a solitary existence I assumed I would dislike. Remarkably, it ended up being a relief not to have to act cheerful around Vince, when I really just wanted to sit and brood over Erica. I did lots of that, since
one of the many advantages of being wealthy was I didn’t have to do anything but make sure I had food in the cabin, and wood for an occasional fire. When I was feeling particularly industrious, I would bundle up and clear portions of the grounds surrounding the cabin, which eventually gave me a cleared path all the way to the main road. It was an improvement on the path Erica created when she built the place, since she had to clear enough trees to get equipment through to build. When it could almost pass as a driveway, I moved my car from the Campground Ladies to make the trips out for food much simpler, and hikes only for pleasure.

One afternoon, I was walking back from the car toward the log cabin when I pictured Erica standing up on the roof, sunglasses perched on her head, looking down at me with that smile. I put my things down on the porch and surveyed the railing around it. Before I could talk myself out of it, I climbed onto the railing, and gripped the edge of the roof to attempt to pull myself up.

Images of the night of the storm kept going off in my head like flashes of lightning. I coached myself out loud, but it turned out I was the type of coach that would get shit canned from even the worst community college:
Come on, you fucking weakling, pull yourself up! What is wrong with you? You climb like a fucking girl! What kind of lesbian are you anyway? A disgrace to your kind! You were always a wimp!! It’s those tits of yours. Listen, if you can’t haul them around, you have no business having those fun-bags!

When had my inner voice turned into Lisa?

Negative coaching was not very inspiring, and my arms were too weak to haul myself over the edge, and the closest I got was on the first try. Even the image of Erica up on the roof, hands sarcastically planted on her hips, couldn’t give me the strength to hoist myself up. I couldn’t do it even when I imagined getting over the edge would allow me to kiss her again.

When I had lowered myself to the porch railing, I realized my arms weren’t the only failed extremities. My legs had also gone weak with the memory of almost falling off the roof of the Dove, saved only by Erica’s grip, then later by her kiss.

I attempted this silliness every day, and every day I got closer. By
the second week, I decided I’d better get a TV, that the alone time was taking its toll. Would I someday be the spooky weird lady in the woods, the Freddy Kruger of Camptown Ladies? Would the young campers tell stories about how I would wait on rooftops for an unsuspecting person to walk below, before swooping down for the kill? All good questions, I thought as I prepared to attempt my roof walk again. I positioned my hands closer together this time, having learned I had more leverage that way, and reminded my legs that on three, I would have to spring as hard as I could, as the first attempt would be my best chance of success.

“Mare, what the hell are you doing?”

“Mom won’t let me say that word,” said a tiny voice, and I knew without turning around that it was Vince and Buddy. I imagined Erica on the roof, my brother behind me, having changed his mind about giving her up, and my legs sprang with the adrenaline rush from being watched. I was determined to get up this time, and I did, easily. After I’d pulled myself up, with feet pumping an invisible bicycle, I spun myself around into a seated position, like I had been doing this effortlessly for days.

“Hey, Vince. Hey, Buddy,” I tried to control my breathing from betraying the Herculean effort it took to propel a large set of Italian breasts over the best quality roofing shingles money could buy.

“Problem with your roof?” Vince asked, as he shielded his eyes from the lowering sun. Buddy looked over at him and put his tiny hand up to his forehead too. Since he didn’t know why he was doing it, he looked like he was reenacting the John-John Kennedy salute.

“Problem with your roof?” Buddy echoed, and Vince beamed down at him.

“Nope,” I said, “just checking the view. I come up here sometimes.” I casually swayed my legs back and forth over the roof edge.

“Can I go up with Auntie Marie?” Buddy asked.

Warmth spread through me as it did every time he said that. Auntie Marie. Sure, it sounded more like a rotund Italian relative with the female beard-growing skills of Johnny Depp, but I’d never been called Auntie before. Mom and Dad had accepted the fact that our generation would end the Santora lineage with a
grandchild that was a Miniature Pincher named after a Christmas special, so hearing Buddy call me Auntie made my heart grow ten sizes that day.

Vince said, “Sorry, Bud, your Mom would have my ass.”

Buddy moved his saluting hand to cover his mouth. “You said a bad word again,” he said, as he giggled through his fingers.

“That’ll have to be another thing we don’t tell your Mom,” Vince said, making wide eyes showing this was something that happened quite often. “So, really, Mare, what are you doing up there?”

“Just wondered what the view would be like,” I said. “You know, if I were the type of person that could climb a roof.”

Buddy was used to being disappointed by his dad, so he rarely asked for anything, but on this he was relentless, “Can I please see the view! Please?”

Vince and I had an entire wordless conversation with our eyes:
Think we should?
He would love it.
His mother will kill me.
Oh, he’ll be fine.
I could hand him up to you.
Just for a minute or two.
Don’t you dare let him fall.
I would never let him fall.

Vince scooped him up, and Buddy let out a high-pitched yelp of joy, and while my new nephew looked just like a child, right then he seemed more like a wriggling puppy. This was a creature I understood, I thought, as Vince easily lifted him to me. Vince kept his hands open to catch him, until well after I had pulled him safely into my lap.

“Wow!” Buddy said, as he took in the view, “This is the best house ever!”

“Sure is,” I said, keeping a hold on him with both my arms wrapped around him from behind, as if he might need a chicken bone released from his throat. I saw the view from Buddy’s perspective, the long stretch of woods, the horizon oddly lower than us, and the feeling that if you could climb a roof, you could have anything in the world you wanted. I wondered if I had ruined that feeling for Erica. Even the scent of pine was heavier from this vantage, or maybe it was Buddy’s hair. A closer look revealed a sticky patch of tree sap leftover from his salute.

Vince hopped up on the rail, and, after a bit of struggling, he
was sitting next to us. “On the first try, just like me. Impressive,” I said.

“Wow,” Vince said, “Buddy is right, this is the best house.” I could feel Buddy tense with the excitement of having Vince join us, or maybe because Vince had copied him. The three of us were quiet for a minute before Vince put his arm around me, and, with just enough detail to keep Buddy in the dark, he asked, “Did Lisa tell you we finally got those papers finalized?”

“That’s so great,” I said.

Vince said, “We don’t know why. Or how. One day the papers were signed and left under the door.”

“Creepy,” I said.

“You don’t seem surprised. Funny, Lisa wasn’t either,” he said, and then he raised an eyebrow at me.

I said, “Your girl is a capable woman. Good for her for getting that monkey off her back.”

“There’s monkeys up here?” Buddy said, searching the trees.

“She’s capable of kicking my a—, butt, if she finds out I let her son on a roof.”

“A really, really high-up roof,” Buddy said.

“That’s one more secret we don’t need Mommy to know, OK, Bud?” Vince said and Buddy nodded seriously at him.

“I’m cooked. He’ll serve me up,” Vince mumbled to me as I nodded back. Then he smiled at Buddy again, knowing the view was made more exciting because his mother was not supposed to know.

Vince asked, “So, when you’re up here, are you remembering that thunderstorm, the night before we opened the Dove?”

Right on target. That scene had gone through my head a hundred times.

“I guess so,” I said.

“You guess so?” he said, as he tightened his arm around my neck, “I would think you’d remember kissing Erica, seemed like a good one from what I saw.” When I turned to look at him, he was gloating just a little. I, on the other hand, felt sick.

My throat tightened up when I tried to speak. “I know you’re happy now. But that doesn’t change what I did. And since I can’t
take it back, I’ve been trying to think of a way to tell you, and to prove to you that hurting you was the last thing—”

“You proved that,” Vince said. “You let her go.”

I leaned my head on his shoulder, remembering how I had leaned on him when Lorn left me the first time.

Vince gave my neck another squeeze. “What were you thinking?” he asked, as I waited for the talk I had been dreading: the one where he asked me how I could let anything happen with the woman I thought he loved.

Vince continued, “How on earth could you do it? You get a woman like Erica, and then you let her go? She dumped me, so I have an excuse. But you are an idiot.”

I tried to stop my lip from quivering as I felt a tear roll down my cheek. And I imagined my body as an air mattress with the plug pulled, and all the guilt finally rushing out. “I love you, Vince,” I choked out.

“I can say the word ‘idiot,’ too,” Buddy said.

“Go for it,” I said, wiping my eyes behind him so Buddy wouldn’t see. I still had my arm tightly curled around his waist.

“Idiot!” Buddy yelled, and we all laughed when it echoed back to call me an idiot again. Buddy thought it was magic, while I thought the trees were finally making some fucking sense.

I exhaled heavily, realizing how much the guilt had still been weighing on me. Now, all that was left was the misery of losing Erica. “Ain’t love grand,” I said.

Vince said, “It is for Uncle Freddie.”

“What?”

“Well, it turns out that he wasn’t just going back to Italy for the winter to help build a house for his niece,” Vince said. His eyes were gleaming with the thrill of breaking news before Lisa, a rare accomplishment indeed. “There’s a new woman in Uncle Freddie’s life.”

“Get out!” I said, and laughed in spite of my own pathetic love life. I thought about how our other Uncle Tony had found love with Lorn’s mother, Katherine. What was it with these old Italian guys?

“Yup. Uncle Freddie’s exact words to Mom was that he was going
back to Italy and taking a young woman with him to boss him around.”

I smiled serenely at this news before it struck me, just like lightning on a rooftop. I hugged Buddy more tightly and leaned over to kiss Vince on the cheek, “Oh my God, Vince!
Erica’s in Italy!
”

Thirty-Four

 
When Your Ball Hits Your Thigh, Like a Big Pizza Pie . . .

Vince volunteered to go on the trip with me, and just a few days after I’d guessed Erica was in Italy, we were booked on a flight to Naples. I picked Vince up at his condo and watched him kiss his new little family goodbye. Vince whispered something into Katie’s ear that made her smile, lean into him, and kiss him again. Then he crouched down to Buddy and mimicked our dad, telling Buddy he was to take care of his mommy, the house, and his new bulldog puppy. (To Lisa’s delight, Buddy had insisted on naming the pup after her.) We were running a little late, so Katie held on to Buddy who wanted to get in the car to visit. She told him to wave to his Auntie Marie. Then Katie shouted, “I’m counting on you to make sure your brother behaves! And hey, Marie, I’d feel better if that woman were off the market, so, really, good luck!”

“Good luck!” Buddy repeated as he copied his mom’s wave, and I was glad he’d said it. I would need all the help I could get. Then Vince bent down to Buddy, and Buddy yelled out to me, “Where’s Uncle Lisa?” I shook my head at my brother, in a silent warning that he was going to get his ass kicked. It could have been worse. Vince had been debating whether to have Buddy call her Guncle (Gay-Uncle) Lisa.