Beach Roses Page 16

  But for those like Faye and Katie, fantasy was short-lived.

  Knowing these things was one thing; but as Faye drove home from Joleen’s, she could not hide the hope—and yes, the fantasy—that when she pulled into her driveway, a car would be waiting there. The license plates would be from Avis or from Hertz; Greg would have rented it at the airport when he’d flown in from San Francisco or wherever.

  He might not be in the car. He might be walking on the beach. She’d walk down the small path through the grassy dunes and see him in the distance. He’d be more handsome now, if that were possible. His boyish looks would be gone; he was a man now. He’d have the golden aura of a California tan.

  Then he would notice her. And he’d move up on the beach, and he would stand in front of her, waiting for acceptance or rejection.

  And Faye would step forward and embrace her son.

  And together they would hug and they would cry.

  And then it would be over, the waiting and the guilt and the ache inside her breast that had nothing to do with the cancer, or had it after all? Had the emptiness within enabled disease to settle there?

  At last, the driveway was in sight. Faye inhaled a tiny breath and slowly made the turn. She drove past the scrub oaks and the pines and past the thick web of budding pink beach roses that crept and stretched and crowded empty spaces, because this was the Vineyard and that’s what beach roses did.

  She came into the clearing just beside the house. But no rental car stood waiting; no car was there at all.

  “He called six times,” Joleen reported when Katie went into the house. “He” must have been Miguel. If it had been Katie’s father, Joleen’s announcement would probably have been in unhinged syllables instead of hesitant, slow words. “Would you like to hear his messages?”

  Katie dropped her bag and stood there, limp. She did not cry; she could not cry; she had cried most of the trip back to the Vineyard. They must be sick to death of me, she thought about the others. They must wish they never met the selfish, whining child.

  She shook her head. “The bastard has a daughter,” she said. She walked into the sunroom without enthusiasm. She sat down on a rattan chair. “He never told me.” She put her hands over her stomach. “He told everyone at the funeral. Didn’t he think I would find out? Didn’t he think the media would pounce on that?” She looked up at her mother, surprised that tears were in Joleen’s eyes.

  “Maybe he was in shock,” Joleen said. “Maybe he wasn’t thinking clearly.”

  “But what about Daddy? He knew. He knew and he didn’t tell me, either.”

  Joleen sat down beside her. “How old is she, the little girl?”

  Katie shrugged. “Six. Maybe seven.”

  “Did you see her mother?”

  Her mother? God. Katie’s belly churned. That thought had tumbled over and over with every mile Faye’s Mercedes had traversed along Interstate 95. “For all I know, he’s married.”

  “Could he have been that deceitful?”

  She could not believe Joleen was asking such a stupid question. She placed her elbows on the arms of the chair and propped her head up with her hands. “I want to stay here for a while after the baby’s born. Would that be okay?”

  The telephone rang. Katie closed her eyes. Her breath turned rapid, angry, short.

  “Cara Katie,” his Latino accent called. “Please. Come to the telephone.”

  She did not move; neither did Joleen.

  “I know you were at the funeral,” he said.

  It didn’t matter how he knew.

  “I do not know what you saw or heard or did. But please know that I love you and I am going to make this right.”

  A jumble of words echoed through Katie’s mind: I want to show the world you’re mine … What am I? A man who only wants you for your money and your name? Had he ever tried to prove otherwise?

  “I wanted to tell you,” he continued. “So many times I wanted to … I would have told you before our baby’s born.”

  Her aching head began to throb.

  “It was all your father’s fault,” he said. “He knew about Adelaide. He made my mother stay in her old apartment, to take care of her.”

  Her father’s fault? Not Miguel’s at all? Did he think she was that gullible?

  “Please,” he begged, “don’t punish Adelaide. She’s just a little girl.”

  Something snapped inside her. She thought about the little girl that she’d once been while her father had been married to her mother and sleeping with Ina, too. She wondered if her father had ever used her as an excuse for his bad behavior.

  With more energy than she thought she had, Katie lunged for the phone before Miguel could utter another syllable of sweet deceit.

  “When?” she demanded in a firm but steady tone. “When did you plan to tell me? On our wedding night?”

  “Cara Katie, please …”

  “What about her mother?”

  He paused, then said, “She is in Puerto Rico.”

  “Is she your wife?”

  “Katie, please …”

  “Is she?”

  In the silence that followed, Katie grew oddly calm. Perhaps she’d expected this, or something like this, all along. She looked over at Joleen and could only think that now another woman had been deceived by a man.

  “Katie, you do not understand.”

  But, finally, she did. She understood that her father and Miguel were in this together, consciously or not, maliciously or not. As long as the truth was kept from Katie, she would stay with Miguel; and Cliff could continue to manipulate both Miguel and Ina and maintain the well-controlled machine that had become his—their—life. She did not ask what would have happened if she’d agreed to marry the man who apparently was not divorced. Instead, Katie lowered her voice.

  “And you didn’t care if the media found out before I did.”

  He did not reply.

  Then she asked the question she needed to ask. “How much?” She paused. “How much did he pay you?”

  “What?”

  “My father. How much did he pay you to help me get over Jean-Luis? To keep me happy and recording, to keep me up onstage?”

  Miguel did not answer.

  “Listen to me, Miguel.” Her voice was steady, dispassionate. “You stay the hell away from me. You stay the hell away from my baby. And if you set one foot on this island, I’ll have you arrested for stalking a celebrity and you’ll be thrown in jail. I don’t expect that would be a good thing for your daughter, now that your mother’s dead.” The telephone receiver met the cradle with a thud. It did not shake or tremble, it simply sat as if in shock.

  • • •

  “Of all the rotten, son-of-a-bitching luck,” Rita sputtered to Hazel once she finally was safe inside her house and felt like she could breathe again.

  Hazel put her finger to her lips. It might be afternoon nap time, but the walls still had giant, toddler ears.

  With an exasperated sigh, Rita put the teakettle on the stove. She hadn’t planned to tell her mother about Faye and Joe and her.

  If Charlie had been home, she’d have been able to forget it, to shove it back, way back, into one of the many files of her not-so-pleasant past. But he’d gone back to Nantucket and that left her with Hazel, and Rita had to talk to someone.

  “Of all the son-of-a-bitching luck, that woman in the group—the one whose kid died—it turns out she’s the wife of a guy I used to date. I met her many years ago under not the nicest circumstances.”

  Hazel shook her head and Rita plunked a tea bag into a ceramic mug that bore a big map of the Vineyard and a title EDGARTOWN, 1980. Kyle had bought it for her for Christmas when he’d been only ten.

  “I’ll tell Doc in the morning that he’ll have to find someone else,” she continued. “There’s no way I can do the group now.”

  “What about Katie?” The voice didn’t come from Hazel, but from Mindy, who was standing in the doorway looking quite perplexed.

/>   Rita moved her gaze from the girl back to her mother. How was it that she often forgot that Mindy was in the house? Perhaps because, at twelve, Rita had not been quiet and endearing, but a scrapper and a pain and always under foot.

  Hazel kept her eyes on Rita. “She asked if you went to New York for that woman’s funeral.”

  “Ina Enriquez,” Mindy said. “Katie’s personal assistant.”

  Rita went back to the stove and poured the water. “Mindy,” she said, “you know I can’t answer questions about the support group. It’s private, remember?”

  “You’re telling Hazel.” She moved into the kitchen and sat down at the table. “Please, please, Rita. I promise I won’t tell anyone. What was the funeral like? Did you see Miguel? He is such a hunk.”

  Rita did not have to see Mindy’s eyes to know they were wide and bright and loaded with anticipation. With futile resignation, Rita joined the other generations and sat down at the table. “The funeral was as funerals go. People sniffling, either because they were in mourning or because there were too many flowers in the room.”

  “Did Katie give a eulogy? Did she sing a song?” Mindy, of course, did not know of Katie’s estrangement from her father or from the “hunk,” Miguel, despite that she was pregnant with his child and soon the world would know. Sometimes the shift in morals was still hard for Rita to digest when she thought about her Kyle and how she’d had to hide him the first few years of his life, just so he’d be accepted later on.

  “No,” Rita replied. “It was a small ceremony.” No use telling Mindy things she didn’t need to know.

  “Oh,” said the disappointed fan.

  Rita was reminded of how Joleen’s music had carried her through the rough times, how she’d set Joleen up on a polished pedestal, worshiping from afar. It might have been absurd and immature, but it had given Rita strength. Idols, perhaps, were still important.

  “We saw a billboard of Katie, though,” she said. “In Times Square. It must have had ten thousand lights made to look like sparkling sequins. And the rose tattoo on her left cheek is lit with small, pink flashing bulbs.”

  Flecks of light and color danced in Mindy’s innocent eyes.

  “The billboard is for her concert in Central Park on July Fourth.”

  The dancing eyes slowed with suspicion. “But what about her baby? And what about the cancer? How can she stand up in front of half the world and sing if she’s still pregnant and she’s sick?”

  Rita sipped her tea and thought, So much for innocence. “I’m not sure that the concert will actually happen.”

  Hazel stood up. “They should cancel it,” she said. “Young people today try to do too much. They don’t take time to stop and smell the flowers.”

  Mindy looked at Rita. Rita winked. “We’ll see,” she said. “If there’s any way, I’m sure Katie will go through with it.” Stranger things, she supposed, had happened.

  “Then you have to keep doing the support group,” Mindy whined, and Rita was startled, because for a moment she’d forgotten about Faye and Joe and that other nasty stuff. How the heck had she forgotten that so fast?

  “You have to, Rita,” Mindy prodded as she moved forward on her chair. “I bet you’ll get free tickets, maybe in the front row! You’ll get free tickets, won’t you?”

  Rita took another sip of tea and wondered how you told a twelve-year-old that there were more important things in life.

  But were there?

  Was Joe Geissel more important? Was Faye?

  Was the Women’s Wellness Center? Well, maybe that one was.

  Though she’d only lived on the Vineyard just shy of sixteen years, Hannah knew enough to know there were things you didn’t talk about, like the scandal that had touched Rita’s state-appointed daughter, Mindy, or the fact that Katie’s mother was pretty much a hermit. Hannah supposed it was the same way no one ever spoke about Evan’s former pot addiction, though many islanders must have known and wondered about the details.

  “Not that gossip doesn’t happen,” Mother Jackson had explained to Hannah, “but we keep it to ourselves.”

  Hannah lay in bed, exhausted from the trip, feeling gray and glum and not herself, whoever that was now. She remembered it had taken her a long time to trust what Mother Jackson said was true, that islanders didn’t discuss one another’s dirty laundry, at least not to outsiders. She hoped the group followed that creed and wouldn’t spread the news about her incarcerated mother.

  Still, Hannah knew the time had come to tell her family, in case one of the women leaked the word, in case her husband or her kids learned some other way, in case Hannah died.

  She closed her eyes and tried to push away that thought, but the way she felt today verified the possibility.

  “Surprise!”

  Her body jerked because, yes, she was surprised, surprised that Casey and Denise barged into her room: Casey carrying a covered dish and Denise clutching a cluster of blue hydrangea that Evan must have forced to flower early in the greenhouse.

  Denise bounced on the bed and Hannah clutched her stomach to ward off the unexpected motion. She tried to smile. “What’s this?”

  “For you,” Denise said, handing her mother the blossoms, their stems bent and damp from the determined grip of seven-year-old hands.

  “We made your favorite,” Casey announced, removing the cover of the dish and presenting Hannah with something quite mysterious that smelled sort of like peaches. She tried not to mind that Riley was not with them.

  “Yum,” she cooed, as if this were the grandest gift ever given any mother. “But it’s not my birthday.”

  “We missed you, Mommy.” Denise’s small arms entwined themselves around her neck.

  Her wig tipped to one side. Hannah hugged her daughter and wondered how her children could ever understand about her mother and the things that she had done. Tonight, she thought, she’d tell Evan everything. Then tomorrow they could tell the kids. Together they would find the words.

  She ruffled her daughter’s hair, then gently fixed the wig. She smiled with gratitude for her two younger kids, for their lives and their innocence, and for keeping her—for the most part—sane. Then she quietly folded her hands and asked, “Did anyone bring forks?”

  The call had come that morning. Faye stood in her dining room and once again pushed the button on her answering machine, half in disbelief. Was there someone she could call—Claire?—to share the news?

  Not that there was any news to share. Not really. Not yet.

  And not that Claire would be so god-awful glad to hear from her once she learned that Faye had thanked Adam for lunch but told him not to call again. She was not interested. She did not want to date. Her fault, she said, it had nothing to do with him. Ha.

  Suddenly something else was more important anyway.

  “Faye,” the recording began. “This is R.J. Browne.”

  Her heart skipped a beat again, though surely this must be the tenth or twelfth time she’d played the message since arriving home that afternoon.

  “I have good news. I’d like to talk to you in person, and I could use a short vacation. So unless I hear otherwise, I’ll see you tomorrow on the Vineyard. No need to pick me up; I have a reservation on the ten-thirty ferry.” He paused, then laughed. His laugh was nice, friendly. “No trouble getting a reservation. You can tell it’s not quite summer.”

  The machine beeped and Faye remained in place, staring off at nothing in particular, hearing only those four words: I have good news.

  “Mouser,” she said quietly, not because the cat was anywhere in sight, but because it made her feel more sane to talk to someone, something, other than herself, “Good things are going to come our way.” The yin and yang of life were finally on her side, and she would not,

  would not,

  would not,

  think of anything but that.

  After dueling with Miguel, Katie took Joleen’s suggestion and went for a long walk on the beach. She was surprised the ac
he inside her wasn’t worse: perhaps she’d cried all her tears on the way back from New York; perhaps what she felt now was simply relief. Sadness, yes, but also relief. Without Miguel, she’d no longer have to wonder; she’d no longer have to feel that tiny, not-quite-right spot that had to do with him and her. Still, it wasn’t fair that her father had always known.

  Your father’s decisions are usually best for you. Ina had said, and Katie had once believed it. Maybe it had been true when she’d been twelve or twenty, even. She thought about how close she’d come to having another abortion. And then she realized she was an adult now; it was time to stop blaming Cliff Gillette for her success or failure. And to stop depending on him for the same.

  She stopped and closed her eyes and listened to the mournful cry of gulls. Then she slowly wondered if her cancer was a gift, a strangely wrapped endowment that had given her the chance to stand up on her own.

  Katie returned to the house to find that her mother had made soup: thick, hearty chicken soup the way she’d made it when Katie was a little girl and the family was a family.

  “The baby’s going to love this,” she said, and felt already nourished because Joleen had made the gesture. She noticed that the table was set with pottery and cloth napkins and a burst of wildflowers as a centerpiece. “How nice,” she said, because it was. I could get used to this, she thought.

  “Sit down,” Joleen commented, “we need to talk.”

  Katie sat and Joleen brought a tureen to the table. She ladled her creation into bowls, then went back to the counter and returned with a bulky envelope. She sat down. “Eat,” she said, so Katie ate. The soup was warm and wonderful.

  “After the baby’s born,” Joleen said halfway through the meal, “you cannot stay with me.”

  Katie set down her spoon. “What?”

  Joleen shook her head. “It’s my life, Kathryn, out here on the Vineyard. It’s not a life for you.”

  Because she knew her mother must be joking, Katie laughed.

  But Joleen did not.

  “You and your baby will always be welcome here,” Joleen continued. “Summers, winters, anytime. But not to live. Not as your permanent home.” She did not look Katie in the eye.