The Wildwater Walking Club (11 page)

ROSIE WAS ALREADY STANDING OUT BY MY LAVENDER PATCH
when I got there.

“Morning,” I said. “Feels like it’s going to be a hot one.”

She looked up at my kitchen window. “The weather’s not the only thing that’s hot, from what I hear.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Date. Tonight. Dinner
and
dancing.”

“Really?”

Rosie was still whispering. “Just act surprised when she tells you, okay? I don’t want to get in trouble.”

“What,” I said, “you mean like grounded?”

We started walking around to the front to meet Tess. Rosie stopped to pull a weed that was tall enough to be leaning up against my house. “It’s weird, isn’t it, how it all turns around? It’s like the roles sort of reverse, but not completely, so in a way it feels like you’re the parent now, but you’re also still the kid.”

I’d almost pulled the exact same weed yesterday, but at the last minute I’d doubted myself and started wondering whether it might really be a good plant, after all.

“Yeah, it’s totally strange,” I said. “But at least you
have
some parenting experience.”

“That’s a good point,” Rosie said. “Not that most of parenting isn’t
just a crapshoot. What’s that old saying? Even a broken clock is right twice a day.”

Tess must have been looking out her screen door, because she opened it as soon as we got to my driveway. She was wearing a white terry cloth bathrobe.

“Not today,” she yelled. “I’ve been up all night.”

The door slammed shut. “What do we do?” I asked.

“Same thing we did that day you faked sick,” Rosie said. “We walk, and then we show up at her house later and make sure she’s okay.”

Tess’s door opened again. “And don’t come back and bug me later,” she yelled. “I’m not in the mood.”

“So much for that theory,” Rosie said.

Nothing against Tess, but it turned out to be much easier for two people to walk together than three. No moving forward and back in the little fairness dance we’d created, no changing partners so the same person wasn’t stuck up front doing a solo for too long. The conversational logistics were less complicated, too: simply wait till the other person stopped talking and dive right in.

“This is really selfish,” Rosie was saying, “but I spent the whole night tossing and turning and wondering what would happen if things worked out between your mother and my dad. I mean, there’s room downstairs and we could probably add a little kitchenette, but I don’t think I could handle living with one more person. Both my kids have friends over all the time, plus my husband’s crew is always in and out. My personal space is practically nonexistent already.”

“Well, they’re certainly not moving in with me,” I said. “My social life is nonexistent enough without a handicap like that. Maybe we could ship them off to my mother’s place in Florida.”

We walked for a while, considering. “I guess that could work,” Rosie said, “but I’ve kind of gotten used to having him around. And
here’s the thing: I turned my life upside down, uprooted my husband and kids, so my father didn’t have to move out of his house. If he moves to Florida with your mother, then what the hell are we doing there?”

I stepped in front of Rosie to go through the opening in the seawall. We stopped at the top of the beach just long enough to take in the view. Sailboats were zigging and zagging all over the place, and closer to shore swimmers were already venturing in. The beach day began earlier and ended later on the weekends.

We started walking again. I had a sudden vision of my mother careening off a cliff. “Is your father a good driver?” I asked.

“A little bit of a lead foot, but his reactions are still pretty good. Why, do you think we should have your mother drive instead?”

A piece of sea glass twinkled up at me, and I bent down and picked it up. “Probably not,” I said. “My father did most of the driving.”

Rosie took a little catch-up hop. “Okay,” she said. “How about my dad drives, and we wait and see how their second date goes before we worry about living arrangements?”

“Sounds like a plan,” I said. I blew out a puff of air. “Well, now that we’ve prematurely worked out our parents’ relationship…”

“No kidding,” Rosie said. “If we spent even a quarter of the time focusing on ourselves that we do worrying about everyone else’s lives…”

“Why do you think that is?” I asked. I really wanted to know.

Rosie bent down and picked up a small dried-up starfish, each orange-brown leg stretched out in a different direction. “I like to think it’s because I’m such a kind, loving, unselfish person.” She laughed. “But if I’m really honest with myself, I think I spend a lot of time hiding behind the never-ending needs of my family. It keeps me from having to think about what I want out of my own life.”

MY MOTHER FINISHED
making my breakfast as soon as I came in the door from walking with Rosie. This part I could get used to.

I sat down across from my mother at the kitchen table. “Thanks,” I said. “I haven’t had soft-boiled eggs and toast triangles in years. I completely forgot about the egg cups you sent me that time. Easter, wasn’t it?”

My mother nodded. “It was your favorite breakfast when you were a little girl. The yolks had to be just right, so you could dip the corners of your toast in.”

I dipped. “Yum,” I said. “Perfect. Not too hard and not too gooey.”

My mother sipped her tea and watched me eat. She was wearing white capris and a bright purple sleeveless top with matching purple flip-flops. Her freshly dyed dark hair was tucked behind her ears, and pink and purple parrot earrings dangled from her earlobes. I tried to make myself say something nice about the earrings, but I couldn’t quite get there.

I took a deep breath. “Mom, was I always a little bit lost? I mean, was the writing on the wall from, I don’t know, like, birth?”

“Where did that come from?” my mother asked.

I shrugged and took another bite of my perfectly cooked egg. There are parts of yourself you don’t really want to revisit. But, if you have to, it’s better to have your mother do the reality check than, say, your first boyfriend, or the kid you punched out on the playground when you were five.

My mother took a sip of her tea. She was probably trying to think of the best way to break it to me that I’d always shown signs of being not only a late bloomer, but a nonbloomer. Maybe she’d even known when she was pregnant that the baby growing inside her wasn’t quite like her other three. I suddenly really wanted to know.
How had my sister and brothers managed to thrive, while I’d floundered and floundered some more, and how soon had she been able to feel it in her all-knowing mother bones?

“You know, honey, your father and I never played favorites. We loved all four of you the same.”

I guess that was supposed to make me feel better, but I wondered if it might have cost me some pity points along the way. I stirred a toast point around in my egg yolk.

“But you were always the spunky one. Nothing ever got in your way for too long. You just backed right up and came at it again, full steam ahead. Your father used to tell everyone you were going to be the first female astronaut.”

“Ha,” I said.

My mother looked around my kitchen. “Look at all you’ve accomplished. A big job, a house of your own, and in a nice neighborhood.”

“Don’t forget the livestock issues,” I said.

She smiled. “I was seventy-one before I learned how to pay the bills. Your father always did it. I was barely twenty when we were married. I’d never killed a bug I couldn’t coax out of the house. I’d just lock it in a room until your father got home from work and took care of it. I’d never cleaned a clogged drain, washed the car, lived alone.”

I pushed my egg away and took a sip of my coffee. “It’s a blast, isn’t it?”

My mother shrugged. “It takes some getting used to.” She lifted up her mug and used her other hand to square her place mat with the edge of the table. “Honey, your whole life you were fine as long as you knew what you wanted. Sometimes it took you a while to decide, that’s all. You were good at almost everything you tried. Choice is a wonderful thing, but it can also be confusing. Things were different when I was your age.”

“When you were my age, you were already a grandmother.” It was a slight exaggeration, but it was practically true.

“Oh, stop,” my mother said. “Youth lasts a lot longer these days.”

“Sometimes forever,” I said. I was thinking of Michael, Rick, possibly all men. Maybe even me.

I closed my eyes and blew out three quick puffs of air. “Mom, I’m not working. I took a buyout from my company.” My eyes teared up. “And I don’t know what I’m going to do next.”

My mother reached out and put her hand over mine. “You’ll figure it out, honey. Do you need a little loan to tide you over?”

“No, no, I’m fine. They’re giving me my full base salary for eighteen months.”

“Well, then it would be silly to work if they’re giving away all that free money, now wouldn’t it?” She patted my hand a few times. “Something will come up the minute you stop worrying. My mother always used to tell me a watched pot never boils.”

This didn’t quite seem like a brilliant job hunting strategy, but I let it go. Just to clear the air, I said, “Mom, remember what I said about my boyfriend being away on business? Well, he’s not. I don’t actually have a boyfriend right now.”

“Don’t worry, sweetie,” my mother said. “A friend in my complex has a single nephew who lives in Boston. I could give her a call.”

I slid my hand out from under my mother’s and started patting hers. “Thanks, Mom,” I said. “I’ll let you know.”

“
HAVE A GOOD
time,” I yelled from my doorway as I waved at my mother and her date backing out of my driveway. Boyohboy, talk about a role reversal. How many times had my parents waved at me this way?

I pulled the door shut behind me and started walking down Wildwater Way by myself to finish the rest of the day’s mileage. I
was thinking about my father. He’d died suddenly, a massive heart attack in the middle of a golf game.
What a way to go
, we all said, even though we were devastated. I mean, if you have to die, better to be fine one minute, doing what you love to do, and gone the next. With luck, he never felt a thing.

The tough part was we’d never had a chance to say good-bye to him. Not even my mother. They’d been inseparable for over fifty years, raised four kids together, never spent more than a night or two away from each other. How do you move on from that? But, clearly, my mother had. She was the one with the date tonight.

Instead of the usual right, I took a left at the bottom of Wildwater and started winding up and down the newer developments off High Street. I’d lived here for years without checking out any of these streets. When I was working, I got in my car, drove to work, drove home, and pulled my car into the garage. If I had shopping to do, I’d do it on the way home, or get back in the car and drive to the store. It would never have occurred to me to wander around on a Saturday night by myself. If I didn’t have a date, I would have made plans with a friend, or stayed in.

It was still light out, and the streets of Marshbury were as safe as any can be in this crazy world. I’d taken the extra precaution of bringing my cell phone with me. I stayed on the sidewalks when they were available, and when they weren’t, I made sure I was facing the traffic, just in case I needed to jump out of the way of some nutty driver. I really liked this solitary wandering. It was a nice balance to the teamwork of our morning walks, where every little twist and turn was a group decision.

I passed Tess’s house on the way to mine. I looked up at the second-floor windows, imagining Hannah safe and sound in her own room. I’d definitely say something to Tess if I saw her sneaking out again.

I spent the rest of the evening flipping through a book Rosie had
loaned me about tussie-mussies, or Victorian speaking bouquets. Apparently the Victorians exchanged symbolic flower arrangements instead of letters, a way of subtly and gracefully expressing one’s repressed feelings. Oh, those daring Victorians.

I wondered if, back in the day, Michael might have sent me a dark and dreary breakup bouquet, which actually would have been a step up from just disappearing. Then I could have wandered my cutting garden in my long dress and button-up boots, shears in hand, carefully considering each bloom, and poking stem after stem through a hand-crocheted lace doily as I created my tussie-mussie answer.

“
ISN’T THIS THE MOST DIVINE LAVENDER
?”
MY MOTHER SAID
as she greeted Kent Stockton’s bouquet with an early morning sniff.

“Mmm,” I said. Lavender usually meant devotion, but it could also mean luck—Victorians were as cryptic as they were repressed. Either way, I guess it wasn’t a bad first-date message.

I followed her outside and watched her hang our freshly washed sheets and towels on my clothesline. I took a sip of the coffee she’d made for me, even though she only drank tea.

“So, how’d your date go?” I asked. I’d tried to wait up for her, which seemed only fair, since she’d always done it for me, but I conked out sometime right after ten. Must have been all that walking.

My mother took a wooden clothespin out of the little basket. The sheet she was holding flapped in the wind. I grabbed one end and looped it over the line. I held it steady until my mother pinned it down.

“Thanks, honey.” My mother tucked some hair behind her ears. She had earrings on already, panda bears this time. I didn’t quite get this wild animal motif. Maybe she’d been to the zoo lately. “Kent is a delightful man and quite the dancer. We had a grand time.”

I wondered if I’d ever have a grand time with a man who was quite the dancer. Or quite the anything. I walked over to check out
my tiny lavender plants. There were only a few stray flowers left, but I could see shoots of new, paler gray-green growth where I’d pinched the spent blooms back. I rubbed my fingers along the leaves and then held them under my nose. The scent was as intoxicating as ever.

“This is a marvelous clothesline,” my mother said. “You’ll have to get me one just like it for Christmas. Though I think I’d prefer one that’s a little bit jazzier, if you can find it.” We both looked up at the beige retractable plastic case Tess had screwed into the side of my house. “Maybe you could find one with a touch of animal print on it?”

At least that meant she wasn’t planning on still being here at Christmas. “Sure,” I said. “I’ll look around for some penguin clothespins, too.” I mean, better on clothespins than on her ears, if you asked me. “Wait, are you allowed to have a clothesline at your complex? It’s actually illegal around here—some kind of community ordinance.”

“We passed a law in Florida not too long ago. The entire state can let it all hang out now.”

“Wow,” I said. “That must be quite the sight.”

My mother grinned. “Well, I have to admit, we’ve gotten a bit competitive at my complex. We’ve all been upgrading our intimates.”

I burst out laughing. “So, that explains it. I thought you’d just turned into a wild woman.”

“Nothing wrong with putting a little spice in your undies,” my mother said. “You should think about it. There’s a woman in my complex who does home lingerie parties. I’ll have one next time you’re down.”

“Great,” I said. “Can’t wait.” I hoped this didn’t mean my mother had been going through my drawers when I was out.

I pinched off a little sprig of lavender and handed it to my mother. “Did you think about Dad last night?” I asked.

My mother held it under her nose and sniffed. “Of course I did, Noreen. I talked about him quite a bit, and Kent talked about his Rosalie.”

“Aww,” I said. “Her name was Rosalie? Rosie must have been named for her—her real name is Rosemary, you know.”

“Of course I know. We talked about our children half the night.”

My mother tucked the lavender behind her ear. Maybe the panda earring would think it was breakfast. She bent down and pulled a damp pillowcase from my laundry basket. “Lavender’s blue,” she sang, “Rosemary’s green….”

I wondered if she was thinking about my father or Rosie’s.

“
YES, I’M FINE
,” Tess said. “My daughter is grounded again, that’s all. And since she was already grounded for life, let’s hope reincarnation isn’t just a pipe dream. And no, I don’t want to talk about it.”

Tess walked up ahead of us on the sidewalk. Rosie rolled her eyes in my direction. “Good time?” she asked.

“Great,” I said. “How ’bout at your end?”

“He’s totally crazy about her,” Rosie said.

“Ditto,” I said. “Oh, and get this, my mother’s definitely not a hootchie mama. Apparently Florida has turned into a right-to-dry state, and everyone at my mother’s senior complex is buying slutty underwear to impress the neighbors.”

“Well, there’s no way I’m sending my father to Florida then,” Rosie said. “We’ll have to come up with something else. Did you hear they’re going bike riding today?”

Tess turned around. “What are you two, new best friends?”

“Sorry,” I said. Rosie walked up ahead and Tess dropped back next
to me. “So where did you get my retractable clothesline again? I want to decorate one to surprise my mother. Sort of a bon voyage present when she goes back to Florida.”

“That’s subtle,” Tess said. “We gave our son a new cell phone and a check for the first month’s rent to get him out again the last time he moved home. The hardware store, right on Main Street. You know, you could start a nice little side business selling air-drying paraphernalia. Plus, you’d make a real difference in the world. Clothes dryer fires account for over fifteen deaths and four hundred injuries annually.”

“I’m not going to ask how many of them you were personally responsible for,” I said.

Rosie turned around. “No way. If you start any kind of business, I mean, take my lavender, please.”

The last thing I wanted to do was ruin this beautiful day by thinking about what I should or shouldn’t do next. Plus, I still had over seventeen months of full base salary coming to me. We turned left and spread out across our side street.

“Have you heard from Annalisa?” I asked.

“Nothing yet,” Tess said. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of white paper. “But here’s what she posted Friday afternoon.”

“Ouch,” I said. “Someone should invent a sunscreen that doesn’t sting your eyes when you cry.”

We were all wiping our eyes with the sleeves of our T-shirts as we walked. “I wish my kids had Annalisa for a teacher,” Rosie said. “Or maybe I don’t. God, I hope she’s going to be okay.”

Tess folded up the paper and put it back in her pocket. “Maybe the e-mail I sent through her care site got lost in cyberspace. If I don’t hear from her by tomorrow or Tuesday, I think I’ll try again. I guess it’s too late for us to bring her with us, but maybe she can come with us next time. And I’d like to at least get those journals in the mail before we leave for Sequim.”

“Do you believe it’s this Thursday?” I said.

“Crack of dawn,” Tess said.

“Ohmigod,” Rosie said. “How am I ever going to get everything done before I leave?”

As soon as I got back from walking, I told my mother I was going over to do some weeding at Rosie’s. She invited herself along, big surprise. We changed into gardening clothes, and my mother followed me down the path.

“This is lovely,” she said. It felt about ten degrees cooler under the dense shade of the trees, and our feet barely made a sound as we walked along the carpet of pine needles.

The path ended, and we stepped into Rosie’s world. Her two sons, unmistakable in their resemblance to Rosie and her dad, even though they both had dark hair instead of red, were running around with a bunch of friends. They were all screaming and shooting one another with squirt guns. Rod and the Supremes were scratching away in the middle of the vegetable garden.

I looked at my mother. “Are you okay with the chickens being loose?”

My mother winked. “I think I’m feeling a bit faint. Kent may well have to rescue me again.”

Rosie poked her head out of the little lavender shed. She brushed some cobwebs from her hair and wiped her hands on her jeans.

She took a little skip toward us and held one hand out to my mother. “I’m so happy to meet you, Mrs. Kelly.”

“Lo,” my mother said. “Call me Lo.”

We followed Rosie inside the shed, and my mother oohed and awed over every little thing. “Lovely,” she said. “Just lovely.”

“More like overwhelming,” Rosie said. “I don’t even know where to start anymore.”

“You girls get out of here,” my mother said, as if we were ten and she was shooing us out to play. “Just tell your father I’m here, Rosie
honey, if you don’t mind. We’ll have this little dollhouse in shipshape condition in no time. And after that, we’ve got a nice little bicycle ride planned.”

Rosie made a fist and pulled her elbow down as we walked away. “Yes!” she whispered. “Who cares if your mother buys her underwear at Frederick’s of Hollywood? I totally love her.”

“
HEY
,”
MICHAEL’S VOICE
said behind me. “You look great. I didn’t know you wore dresses, Nora.”

I turned around to make sure he was really standing there. He was wearing jeans and an old leather belt with a rusty metal peace sign. His shiny brown hair still didn’t have a single strand of gray, and his eyes were still the color of a chocolate bar. He was shirtless. And flowerless.

“I didn’t hear the doorbell,” I said.

“Your mother saw me coming,” he said.

“That makes one of us,” I said.

He didn’t say anything.

“I thought you were sick,” I said.

“I’m a fast healer,” he said.

“Must be nice,” I said.

He held out a bottle of white wine. “It’s cold.”

I pushed past him without taking it. “Let’s just get this over with,” I said.

He and my mother clinked glasses. Michael held his glass up in my direction. I ignored him and took a sip instead.

“Thanks for inviting me, Lo,” Michael said. “It was really nice of you.”

“Nobody calls her Lo,” I said. “Ever.”

“Why are you acting like this?” he whispered.

“What?” I whispered. “You actually have the nerve to ask me that?”

“I miss talking to you,” he whispered.

“Good,” I whispered back.

“There’s been lots of stress at work,” he whispered. “I really needed to focus more on the job.”

I just looked at him.

“And I didn’t feel it was appropriate for me to stand in the way of a potential someone who could offer you a full-time relationship.”

I still didn’t say anything.

He sighed. “And I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”

“Good-bye, Michael,” I yelled, so loud it hurt my ears. I gave him a little push, and my hand went through him and disappeared into the cold night air.

I sat up in bed. My dream pillow landed in my lap with a plop. I picked it up and lobbed it across my room. “Not helping,” I whispered.