The Beach Book Bundle: 3 Novels for Summer Reading: Breathing Lessons, The Alphabet Sisters, Firefly Summer (26 page)

“She looked kind of like this girl I always detested in elementary school,” Fiona said.

“Then you left us,” Maggie said.

Fiona said, “Actually, now that you mention it she must not have managed to split them up after all, because a couple of years later they had this baby that was kidnapped by a demented airline stewardess.”

“At first I couldn’t believe you had really gone for good,” Maggie said. “Whole months passed by when I’d come home and switch on the TV and check what was happening with Claudine and Peter, just so I could fill you in when you got back.”

“Anyhow,” Fiona said. She set her beer on the coffee table.

“Silly of me, wasn’t it? Wherever you had gone, you surely would have been near a TV. It’s not like you had abandoned civilization. But I don’t know; maybe I just wanted to keep up with the story for my own sake, so that after you came back we could carry on like before. I was positive you’d be coming back.”

“Well, anyhow. What’s past is past,” Fiona said.

“No, it’s not! People are always saying that, but what’s past is never past; not entirely,” Maggie told her. “Fiona, this is a marriage we’re talking about. You two had so much sunk into it; such an exhausting amount was sunk in. And then one day you quarreled over nothing whatsoever, no worse than any other time, and off you went. As easy as that! Shrugged your shoulders and walked away from it! How could that be possible?”

“It just was, all right?” Fiona said. “Jiminy! Do we have to keep rehashing this?” And she reached for her beer can and drank, tipping her head far back. She wore rings on every one of her fingers, Maggie saw—some plain silver, some set with turquoise stones. That was new. But her nails were still painted the pearly pink that had always seemed her special color, that could bring her instantly to mind whenever Maggie caught sight of it somewhere.

Maggie rotated her own can thoughtfully, meanwhile stealing sideways peeks at Fiona.

“I wonder where Leroy’s got to,” Fiona said.

Another evasion. It was obvious where she’d got to; she was right outside the window. “Give her a little more spin, now,” Ira was saying, and Leroy called, “Watch out, here comes a killer!”

“On the radio you said your first marriage was real, true love,” Maggie told Fiona.

“Look. How many times—”

“Yes, yes,” Maggie said hastily, “that wasn’t you; I understand. But still, something about what the girl on the radio was saying … I mean it’s like she was speaking for more than just herself. It’s like she was talking about what the whole
world
was doing. ‘Next Saturday I’m marrying for security,’ she said, and I just suddenly had this sense that the world was sort of drying up or withering away or something, getting small and narrow and pinched. I felt so—I don’t know—so unhopeful, all of a sudden. Fiona, maybe I shouldn’t mention this, but last spring Jesse brought this young woman he’d met to supper—oh, no one important! not anybody important!—and I thought to myself, Well, she’s all very well and good, I suppose, but she’s not the real thing. I mean she’s only second best, I thought. We’re only making do here. Oh, why is everyone settling for less? is what I thought. And I feel the same way about what’s-his-name, Mark Derby. Why bother dating someone merely because he asks you, when you and Jesse love each other so much?”

“You call it love when he signed that lawyer’s papers without a word and sent them back, not putting up the slightest token of a fight?” Fiona asked. “When he’s two or three or even four months late with his support check and then mails it without a letter or a note, not even my full name on the envelope but only F. Moran?”

“Well, that’s pure pride, Fiona. Both of you are way too—”

“And when he hasn’t laid eyes on his daughter since her fifth birthday? Try explaining that to a child. ‘Oh, he’s just proud, Leroy, honey—’ ”

“Fifth birthday?” Maggie said.

“Here she keeps wondering why all the other kids have fathers. Even the kids whose parents are divorced—at least they get to see their fathers on weekends.”

“He visited on her fifth birthday?” Maggie asked.

“Look at that! He didn’t even bother telling you.”

“What: He just showed up? Or what?”

“He showed up out of the blue in a car packed to the teeth with the most unsuitable presents you ever saw,” Fiona said. “Stuffed animals and dolls, and a teddy bear so big he had to strap it in the front seat like a human because it wouldn’t fit through the rear door. It was much too big for a child to cuddle, not that Leroy would have wanted to. She isn’t a cuddly type of person. She’s more the sporty type. He should have brought her athletic equipment; he should have brought her—”

“But, Fiona, how was he to know that?” Maggie asked. She felt an ache beginning inside her; she grieved for her son with his carful of wrongheaded gifts that he must have spent his last penny on, because heaven knows he wasn’t well off. She said, “He was trying his best, after all. He just didn’t realize.”

“Of course he didn’t realize! He didn’t have the faintest idea; the last time he visited, she was still a baby. So here he comes with this drink-and-wet doll that cries ‘Mama,’ and when he catches sight of Leroy in her dungarees he stops short; you can see he’s not pleased. He says, ‘Who
is
that?’ He says, ‘But she’s so—’ I had had to run fetch her from the neighbor’s and quick smooth down her hair on the way through the alley. In the alley I told her, ‘Tuck your shirt in, honey. Here, let me lend you my barrette,’ and Leroy stood still for it, which she wouldn’t do ordinarily, believe me. And when I had fastened the barrette I said, ‘Stand back and let me look at you,’ and she stood back and licked her lips and said, ‘Am I okay? Or not.’ I said, ‘Oh, honey, you’re beautiful,’ and then she walks into the house and Jesse says, ‘But she’s so—’ ”

“He was surprised she had grown, that’s all it was,” Maggie said.

“I could have cried for her,” Fiona said.

“Yes,” Maggie said gently. She knew how that felt.

Fiona said, “ ‘She’s so what, Jesse?’ I ask him. ‘She’s so what? How dare you come tromping in here telling me she’s so something or other when the last time you sent us a check was December? And instead you waste your money on this trash, this junk,’ I tell him, ‘this poochy-faced baby doll when the only doll she’ll bother with is G. I. Joe.’ ”

“Oh, Fiona,” Maggie said.

“Well, what did he expect?”

“Oh, why does this always happen between you two? He loves you, Fiona. He loves you both. He’s just the world’s most inept at showing it. If you knew what it must have cost him to make that trip! I can’t tell you how often I’ve asked him, I’ve said, ‘Are you planning to let your daughter just drift on out of your life? Because that’s what she’s bound to do, Jesse; I’m warning you,’ and he said, ‘No, but I don’t … but I can’t figure how to … I can’t stand to be one of those artificial fathers,’ he said, ‘with those busywork visits to zoos and small-talk suppers at McDonald’s.’ And I said, ‘Well, it’s better than nothing, isn’t it?’ and he said, ‘No, it is not better than nothing. It’s not at all. And what do
you
know about the subject, anyhow?’—that way he does, you’ve seen how he does, where he acts so furious but if you look at his eyes you’ll notice these sudden dark rings beneath them that he used to get when he was just a little fellow trying not to cry.”

Fiona ducked her head. She started tracing the rim of her beer can with one finger.

“On Leroy’s first birthday,” Maggie said, “he was all set to come with us and visit, I told you that. I said, ‘Jesse,
I really feel it would mean a lot to Fiona if you came,’ and he said, ‘Well, maybe I will, then. Yes,’ he said, ‘I could do that, I guess,’ and he asked me about fifty times what kind of present a year-old baby might enjoy. Then he went shopping all Saturday and brought back one of those shape-sorter boxes, but Monday after work he exchanged it for a woolen lamb because, he said, he didn’t want to seem like he was pushing her intellectually or anything. ‘I don’t want to be like Grandma Daley, always popping up with these educational toys,’ he said, and then on Thursday—her birthday was a Friday that year, remember?—he asked me exactly how you had phrased your invitation. ‘I mean,’ he said, ‘did it sound to you like maybe she was expecting me to stay on over the weekend? Because if so then I might borrow Dave’s van and drive up separately from you and Dad.’ And I said, ‘Well, you could do that, Jesse. Yes, what a good idea; why don’t you.’ He said, ‘But how did she word it, is what I’m asking,’ and I said, ‘Oh, I forget,’ and he said, ‘Think.’ I said, ‘Well, as a matter of fact …’ I said, ‘Um, in fact, she didn’t actually word it any way, Jesse, not directly straight out,’ and he said, ‘Wait. I thought she told you it would mean a lot to her if I came.’ I said, ‘No, it was me who said that, but I know it’s true. I know it would mean a great deal to her.’ He said, ‘What’s going on here? You told me clearly that it was Fiona who said that.’ I said, ‘I never told you any such thing! Or at least I don’t think I did; unless maybe perhaps by accident I—’ He said, ‘Are you saying she didn’t ask for me?’ ‘Well, I just know she would have,’ I told him, ‘if the two of you were not so all-fired careful of your dignity. I just know she wanted to, Jesse—’ But by then he was gone. Slammed out of the house and vanished, did not come home all Thursday night, and Friday we had to set off without him. I was so disappointed.”

“
You
were disappointed!” Fiona said. “You had promised you would be bringing him. I waited, I dressed up, I got myself a make-over at the beauty parlor. Then you turn into the driveway and he’s not with you.”

“Well, I told him when we got home,” Maggie said, “I told him, ‘We tried our best, Jesse, but it wasn’t us Fiona dressed up for, you can be certain. It was you, and you should have seen her face when you didn’t get out of the car.’ ”

Fiona slapped a sofa cushion with the flat of her palm. She said, “I might have known you would do that.”

“Do what?”

“Oh, make me look pitiful in front of Jesse.”

“I didn’t make you look pitiful! I merely said—”

“So then he calls me on the phone. I knew that was why he called me. Says, ‘Fiona? Hon?’ I could hear it in his voice that he was sorry for me. I knew what you must have told him. I say, ‘What do you want? Are you calling for a reason?’ He says, ‘No, um, no reason …’ I say, ‘Well, then, you’re wasting your money, aren’t you?’ and I hang up.”

“Fiona, for Lord’s sake,” Maggie said. “Didn’t it occur to you he might have called because he missed you?”

Fiona said, “Ha!” and took another swig of beer.

“I wish you could have seen him the way I saw him,” Maggie said. “After you left, I mean. He was a wreck! A shambles. His most cherished belonging was your tortoiseshell soapbox.”

“My what?”

“Don’t you remember your soapbox, the one with the tortoiseshell lid?”

“Well, yes.”

“He would open it sometimes and draw a breath of it,” Maggie said. “I saw him! I promise! The day you left, that evening, I found Jesse in the bedroom with his nose buried deep in your soapbox and his eyes closed.”

“Well, what in the world?” Fiona said.

“I believe he must have inherited some of my sense of smell,” Maggie told her.

“You’re talking about that little plastic box. The one I used to keep my face soap in.”

“Then as soon as he saw me he hid it behind his back,” Maggie said. “He was embarrassed I had caught him. He always liked to act so devil-may-care; you know how he acted. But a few days later, when your sister came for your things, I couldn’t find your soapbox anywhere. She was packing up your cosmetic case, is how I happened to think of it, so I said, ‘Let’s see, now, somewhere around …’ but that soapbox seemed to have vanished. And I couldn’t ask Jesse because he had walked out as soon as your sister walked in, so I started opening his bureau drawers and that’s where I found it, in his treasure drawer among the things he never throws away—his old-time baseball cards and the clippings about his band. But I didn’t give it to your sister. I just shut the drawer again. In fact, I believe he has kept that soapbox to this day, Fiona, and you can’t tell me it’s because he feels sorry for you. He wants to remember you. He goes by smell, just the way I do; smell is what brings a person most clearly to his mind.”

Fiona gazed down at her beer can. That eye shadow was oddly attractive, Maggie realized. Sort of peachlike. It gave her lids a peach’s pink blush.

“Does he still look the same?” Fiona asked finally.

“The same?”

“Does he still look like he used to?”

“Why, yes.”

Fiona gave a sharp sigh.

There was a moment of quiet, during which Leroy said, “Durn! Missed.” A car passed, trailing threads of
country music.
I’ve had some bad times, lived through some sad times …

“You know,” Fiona said, “there’s nights when I wake up and think, How could things have gotten so twisted? They started out perfectly simple. He was just this boy I was crazy about and followed anyplace his band played, and everything was so straightforward. When he didn’t notice me at first, I sent him a telegram, did he ever mention that?
Fiona Stuckey would like to go with you to Deep Creek Lake
, that’s what it said, because I knew he was planning to drive there with his friends. And so he took me along, and that’s where it all began. Wasn’t that straightforward? But then, I don’t know, everything sort of folded over on itself and knotted up, and I’m not even sure how it happened. There’s times I think, Shoot, maybe I ought to just fire off another telegram.
Jesse
, I’d say,
I love you still, and it begins to seem I always will
. He wouldn’t even have to answer; it’s just something I want him to know. Or I’ll be down in Baltimore at my sister’s and I’ll think, Why not drop by and visit him? Just walk in on him? Just see what happens?”

“Oh, you ought to,” Maggie said.

“But he’d say, ‘What are
you
doing here?’ Or some such thing. I mean it’s bound and determined to go wrong. The whole cycle would just start over again.”

“Oh, Fiona, isn’t it time somebody broke that cycle?” Maggie asked. “Suppose he did say that; not that I think he would. Couldn’t you for once stand your ground and say, ‘I’m here because I want to see you, Jesse’? Cut through all this to-and-fro, these hurt feelings and these misunderstandings. Say, ‘I’m here because I’ve missed you. So there!’ ”