Summer Sisters (12 page)

Since she’d fallen ill, Caitlin came to see her every day. She stood a kachina doll on the shelf above Vix’s bed. “If your medicine doesn’t ward off evil spirits, this will.” Then she sat at Vix’s bedside holding her hand. “You
know what I told you before school started … about having another life at school?”

Vix nodded.

“Well, I never would … that is, I didn’t mean … to hurt you or anything. I would never hurt you. Never. Compared to you my school friends mean nothing to me. Less than nothing.”

“You’re not the reason I got sick, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Who said that’s what I’m thinking?”

“You’re acting guilty, like it’s your fault.”

“I am not!”

“Okay … fine.” Vix rolled over in bed.

“You really make it hard,” Caitlin said, “you know that?”

“Make what hard?”

“Never mind. Just forget it. I’ll come back tomorrow. Or maybe not.”

If Vix hadn’t gotten sick, if Caitlin hadn’t felt guilty, would they be sitting together on the old glider swing now, arguing about summer jobs? Would their friendship have survived? Tawny said,
You can fill a lifetime with if-onlys … or you can get on with it. In our family, we get on with it
.

“So … what kind of job did you have in mind?” Caitlin asked.

“There’s only one thing we can do until we’re older.”

“Please … tell me it’s not what I’m thinking!”

Vix shrugged.

“I don’t even like little children,” Caitlin cried. “They’re so … demanding.”

“Do me a favor. Keep that to yourself if you decide to go with me.”

Caitlin decided to go with her. They were hired on the spot by the first person to interview them, a woman named Kitty Sagus, whose grandchild was coming for a month. As soon as she heard Caitlin was Lamb Somers’ daughter she was sold.

On their first day on the job they discovered Kitty’s daughter and son-in-law were Famous TV Stars. They recognized him right away—Tim Castellano. And even though she was pregnant and hiding behind huge sunglasses it was obvious she was Loren D’Aubergine.

Vix knew she was supposed to act cool, as if she didn’t notice they looked familiar, because, after all, this was the Vineyard and plenty of celebrities came here to get away from it all.

Right away The Stars announced that Max wasn’t toilet trained. “You mean he’s still in diapers … at three?” Caitlin asked, in her I-cannot-believe-this tone.

Max looked up at her with huge baby eyes. “I like diapers.”

You could tell Tim and Loren were embarrassed. Loren blushed and said, “If you can get him to use the potty, there’s a bonus in it for you.”

“A bonus?” Vix asked.

“Yes, a handsome cash bonus,” Tim explained.

“So long as you don’t threaten him or make him feel guilty,” Loren said. “We don’t want his toilet training to be traumatic in any way. It’s very important that it be his decision.”

“I get M&M’s if I go potty,” Max said, crashing his dump truck into his excavator. “Three for a pee, five for a poop. Yellows and reds are my favorites.”

One morning during their second week of work, Tim accompanied them to the beach. At first Vix thought he was checking up on them, not that she minded. The idea of being seen with Tim Castellano was pretty exciting, even though he wore a baseball hat and dark glasses to keep people from recognizing him. And maybe he did look like just another guy with his family at the beach because no one stared or paid extra attention.

Vix was trying to get up the guts to ask for his autograph for Tawny, who never missed his show. But when she saw the way he was watching Caitlin slather herself with suntan lotion, she changed her mind. “Want me to do your back, Spitfire?” he asked. That was his special name for Caitlin. He didn’t call Vix anything.

“Oh, thanks …” Caitlin said, lowering the straps of her red bikini. She was shooting up at an alarming rate, already taller than Vix who had reached her full height of five feet five a year ago—and even though she ate twice what Vix did she wasn’t gaining an ounce. Her breasts were still tiny. But Vix didn’t like the way Tim looked at her. Something was going on, something that made her uncomfortable. And she didn’t like it when he asked how old they were either.

“Fifteen,” Vix told him, loud and clear, though he hadn’t directed his question to her. “How old are you?”

“Thirty-five,” he said, laughing. “Old enough to be your father.”

But he wasn’t acting like a father. Especially when,
just before they were ready to pack up and head home for lunch, he suggested that he and Caitlin take a dip.

Caitlin said, “Sure.”

“You’ll watch Max, won’t you?” Tim asked Vix.

“That’s my job,” she told him.

“Be right back.” Caitlin tossed her hair out of her face, raised her eyebrows at Vix, then raced for the water. She dove under and began swimming out, with strong, confident strokes. Tim had thrown off his baseball hat and glasses and was hustling out of the shorts he’d worn over his bathing suit.

“Where’s Daddy going?” Max asked.

“For a swim,” Vix told him. “Let’s go watch.”

“Carry me.”

She held him in her arms, breathing in the sweet smell of his hair, while she tried to keep an eye on Tim and Caitlin. By the time they came out Caitlin’s lips were blue. Tim wrapped her in a towel and rubbed her down, the way they did with Max when he was wet and cold. But something about it didn’t feel right. When Tim took away the towel she could see Caitlin’s erect nipples through her wet suit.

She was scared Caitlin might do something foolish like that time last summer in the dinghy, when she’d taken off the top of the same bikini, just to see if anyone would notice. An older couple passing in a canoe waved at them, as if nothing were unusual. Caitlin had waved back while Vix picked up the oars and began to row as fast as she could in the opposite direction. “Maybe they thought I was a boy,” Caitlin said, disgusted. “Bet they’d have noticed if I was stark naked.”

“Why would you want them to notice in the first place?”

“So I don’t feel invisible.”

How could Caitlin possibly feel invisible?

This time Vix threw Caitlin her sweatshirt and was relieved when she pulled it over her head without taking off her suit.

“Your friend is a good swimmer,” Tim told Vix.

“Yeah … she’s a regular mermaid.”

He bent over to pick up his hat and sunglasses and as he did Vix let her eyes wander down his body to the curly hairs on the insides of his upper thighs, to his skimpy wet bathing suit, then to the bulky area in front. As he straightened up, he caught her in the act and smiled, though she’d already looked away.

Tim was the one who suggested a different route back to the house. He’d noticed a house under construction just down the road from the beach and knew Max would love it. He pushed Max in his stroller while she and Caitlin lagged behind. A hot, ugly feeling was building up inside her but she couldn’t express it. She hated the way Tim made her feel, as if she barely existed.
Buy one, get the second one free
.

When they reached the construction site Tim lifted Max out of the stroller, and hiked him onto his shoulders, moving in for a closer look. Max announced for the zillionth time, “I’m into construction!”

Vix and Caitlin followed though they hadn’t exchanged a word since the beach. As they approached the house Caitlin suddenly grabbed her by the arm.

“What?”

Caitlin pointed and Vix saw that Bru and Von were
part of the crew. Bru and Von looking unbelievably sexy in low-slung jeans, with strong, lean, suntanned backs and muscled arms. She was hit by a sudden wave of heat, making her face flush and her knees go weak.
Eat your heart out, Tim Castellano, because next to them you’re nothing!

A minute later both guys were coming toward them. Von recognized Tim. “Hey … you’re that cop on TV. No, wait … don’t tell me …
Sukovsky
… something like that, right?”

Actually, it was
Wolkowsky
, but Tim didn’t correct him.

Von said, “How’re you doing?” and put out his hand for Tim to shake. “That’s a damn good show.”

“Thanks, man,” Tim said, all of a sudden one of the guys. “And this is my kid, Max. He likes construction.”

“Hey, Max …” Von said.

“I have a hard hat,” Max told him. “It’s yellow.”

“Yeah … you want a job? We could use another helper.”

“I have to go to Kitty’s house,” Max said. “I’m having peanut butter for lunch. I always have peanut butter for lunch. With grape jelly.”

“Sounds good to me,” Von said. Then he focused on Caitlin.

“These are our baby-sitters,” Tim said. “Caitlin and … Vicky.”

“Vix,” she said under her breath, annoyed at Tim for getting it wrong.

“Oh yeah …” Von said. “We know them.”

Bru just stood there gulping Coke from a can. After
an uncomfortable silence, Von asked, “So … where’ve you two been hiding?”

“You’re the ones who’ve been hiding,” Caitlin said.

“How would you know unless you’ve been looking?” Von asked.

Caitlin punched him in the arm, like in the old days. But this time he grabbed her and threw her over his shoulder like a sack of dirty laundry. She was laughing as she whacked his naked back. “Put me down, you idiot!”

Max clapped his hands and started singing “Upside Down,” a three-year-old Diana Ross impersonator.

Vix could feel Bru watching her as she watched them.

“Okay, that’s enough,” Tim said, the expression on his face changing. “It’s time for Max’s lunch.”

Von returned Caitlin to the ground. She was glowing. “See you around,” she said to him.

“Not if I see you first,” he answered.

“Yeah … see you around,” Bru said to Vix.

“Not if I see
you
first,” she answered, playing their game. Oh, she was glad she’d given her sweatshirt to Caitlin. Glad she was wearing just shorts over her yellow suit. Glad she was tan and her long dark hair swung from side to side, that her skin was clear that day, and most of all, that she filled out the top of her suit, that she filled it out
really
well.

They went to see
My Brilliant Career
, about a young Australian woman who’s determined to have a career as a writer, and the man who loves her. Afterward they had a heated discussion. “She made the right decision,”
Caitlin said. “He was an asshole. She’d have been miserable the rest of her life with him.”

“Not necessarily,” Vix said. “She could have had him
and
her career.”

“Please!”

“Well, maybe not back then. But now …”

“Now? You think things are different now?”

“Look at Tim and Loren. They both have brilliant careers.”

“Oh, sure … but which one is pregnant?”

“So … she’ll have the baby and then she’ll go back to work.”

“I suppose you want a dozen screaming brats. I suppose your
brilliant
career is going to be
mother.”

“I really hate it when you tell me what
I
want! Just because I like kids doesn’t mean I’m going to have them. For your information I haven’t made that decision yet.”

Tim asked if they could baby-sit one night during his last week of vacation so he and Loren could take Kitty out to dinner. Max was already in his pajamas when they got there, ready for bed. Loren looked pretty in a loose white dress, funky earrings, her hair French braided. Tim made a big thing out of admiring her. “Do I have the most beautiful wife in the western world … or what?” he asked, kissing Loren in front of them while Max danced in a circle, hugging their legs.

They got back just before eleven. Loren was yawning. “I’m exhausted,” she said. “I’ll be glad when this baby is born.”

“That makes two of us,” Tim said, kissing her good
night. Then he offered to drive them home since Kitty had trouble with her night vision. Caitlin sat up front next to Tim and Vix climbed into the back, grateful that it was just a ten-minute drive. Tim tuned the radio to WMVY. From time to time he’d glance over at Caitlin but she stared straight ahead, speaking only to tell him when to turn off the main road, then directing him down the dirt road leading to their house. But instead of swinging right, into their driveway, he kept going, as if he knew he would wind up at the beach. When he did, he turned off the ignition. You could see the lights from Woods Hole across the water.

It was very quiet. Vix was aware of the sound of Tim’s breathing, of Caitlin’s, her own. Finally, Tim spoke. “I don’t want you hanging out at that construction site. I don’t want Max’s baby-sitters messing around with guys like that. You hear what I’m saying?”

“Excuse me?” Vix said. “It was
your
idea to go by the construction site, not ours. I mean
we
didn’t even know they were working there, did we, Caitlin?” She had to poke Caitlin to get a response and even then all Caitlin did was shake her head.

“I want you to be very, very careful.” He spoke slowly and softly, turning in his seat to face Caitlin, and Vix could see he was talking only to her. She had the feeling he wished
she
weren’t there. And to tell the truth, she was wishing the same thing herself. This was getting too weird.

“You come on strong, Spitfire. You give a guy the wrong idea.”

It wasn’t his business to talk to them about guys, especially at night in a dark car parked at the beach.

“Some guys,” he continued, in that seductive voice, “once they get turned on, can’t help themselves. They can’t think rationally. Some guys follow their pointers through life. Do you get what I’m saying?”

Caitlin made an odd sound, almost a laugh, but not quite.

“I think you should take us home now!” Vix said, leaning forward, her hand on Caitlin’s shoulder. She could not believe he was talking to them this way … and about
pointers!

“Relax,” he told her. “I’m just trying to talk some sense into your friend. It’s for her own good.”

Vix didn’t like the husky quality of his voice. Maybe he enjoyed talking to them about sexy stuff. Maybe it turned him on. She wondered how her mother would feel if she read about this in
People
magazine? Her favorite TV personality and his
thing
for fifteen-year-olds. Then she started to get scared. Suppose he was dangerous? Suppose he … you know … pulled his pointer out of his pants? The palms of her hands were clammy and she felt dampness under her arms. “Open your door,” she told Caitlin, leaning way over to make Tim aware of her presence. But Caitlin just sat there, mesmerized. So she reached across and tried to open the door herself but it was locked. He had them automatically locked from his control panel.