The Last Camellia: A Novel (31 page)

She was right. It was a fine story. It was a best seller, for crying out loud. So why couldn’t I feel proud of it? Why didn’t I feel
connected
to it?

“I’ve known you a long time,” she continued, “and I know that it wasn’t a story that grew out of your life, your experiences.”

It wasn’t. But what in my life could I draw from? I thought about my parents and grandparents, and then shook my head. “That’s the problem,” I said. “Other writers have plenty to mine from—bad mothers, abuse, adventurous childhoods. My life has been so vanilla. No deaths. No trauma. Not even a dead pet. Mom’s cat, Oscar, is twenty-two years old. There’s nothing there that warrants storytelling, believe me; I’ve thought about it.”

“I don’t think you’re giving yourself enough credit,” she said. “There must be something. Some spark.”

This time I permitted my mind to wander, and when it did, I immediately thought of my great-aunt Bee, my mother’s aunt, and her home on Bainbridge Island, in Washington State. I missed her as much as I missed the island. How had I let so many years pass since my last visit? Bee, who was eighty-five going on twenty-nine, had never had children, so my sister and I, by default, became her surrogate grandchildren. She sent us birthday cards with crisp fifty-dollar bills inside, Christmas gifts that were actually cool, and Valentine’s Day candy, and when we’d visit in the summers from our home in Portland, Oregon, she’d sneak chocolate under our pillows before our mother could scream, “No, they just brushed their teeth!”

Bee was unconventional, indeed. But there was also something a little
off
about her. The way she talked too much. Or talked too little. The way she was simultaneously welcoming and petulant, giving and selfish. And then there were her secrets. I loved her for having them.

My mother always said that when people live alone for the better part of their lives they become immune to their own quirks. I wasn’t sure if I bought into the theory or not, partly because I was worried about a lifetime of spinsterhood myself. I contented myself with watching for signs.

Bee.
I could picture her immediately at her Bainbridge Island kitchen table. For every day I have known her, she has eaten the same breakfast: sourdough toast with butter and whipped honey. She slices the golden brown toasted bread into four small squares and places them on a paper towel she has folded in half. A generous smear of softened butter goes on each piece, as thick as frosting on a cupcake, and each is then topped by a good-size dollop of whipped honey. As a child, I watched her do this hundreds of times, and now, when I’m sick, sourdough toast with butter and honey is like medicine.

Bee isn’t a beautiful woman. She towers above most men, with a face that is somehow too wide, shoulders too large, teeth too big. Yet the black-and-white photos of her youth reveal a spark of something, a certain prettiness that all women have in their twenties.

I used to love a particular photo of her at just that age, which hung in a seashell-covered frame high on the wall in the hallway of my childhood home, hardly in a place of honor, as one had to stand on a step stool to see it clearly. The old, scalloped-edge photo depicted a Bee I’d never known. Seated with a group of friends on a beach blanket, she appeared carefree and was smiling seductively. Another woman leaned in close to her, whispering in her ear.
A secret.
Bee clutched a string of pearls dangling from her neck and gazed at the camera in a way I’d never witnessed her look at Uncle Bill. I wondered who stood behind the lens that day so many years ago.

“What did she say?” I asked my mother one day as a child, peering up at the photograph.

Mom didn’t look up from the laundry she was wrestling with in the hallway. “What did
who
say?”

I pointed to the woman next to Bee. “The pretty lady whispering in Aunt Bee’s ear.”

Mom immediately stood up and walked to my side. She reached up and wiped away the dust on the glass frame with the edge of her sweater. “We’ll never know,” she said, her regret palpable as she regarded the photo.

My mother’s late uncle, Bill, was a handsome World War II hero. Everybody said he had married Bee for her money, but it’s a theory that didn’t hold weight with me. I had seen the way he kissed her, the way he wrapped his arms around her waist during those summers of my childhood. He had loved her; there was no doubt of that.

Even so, I knew by the way my mother talked that she disapproved of their relationship, that she believed Bill could have done better for himself. Bee, in her mind, was too unconventional, too unladylike, too brash, too
everything
.

Yet we kept coming to visit Bee, summer after summer. Even after Uncle Bill died when I was nine. The place was kind of ethereal, with the seagulls flying overhead, the sprawling gardens, the smell of the Puget Sound, the big kitchen with its windows facing out onto the gray water, the haunting hum of the waves crashing on the shore. My sister and I loved it, and despite my mother’s feelings about Bee, I know she loved the place too. It had a tranquilizing effect on all of us.

Annabelle gave me a knowing look. “You
do
have a story in there, don’t you?”

I sighed. “Maybe,” I said noncommittally.

“Why don’t you take a trip?” she suggested. “You need to get away, to clear your head for a while.”

I scrunched up my nose at the idea. “Where would I go?”

“Somewhere far away from here.”

She was right. The Big Apple is a fair-weather friend. The city loves you when you’re flying high and kicks you when you’re down.

“Will you come with me?” I imagined the two of us on a tropical beach, with umbrella cocktails.

She shook her head. “No.”

“Why not?” I felt like a puppy—a scared, lost puppy who just wanted someone to put her collar on and show her where to go, what to do, how to be.

“I can’t go with you because you need to do this on your own.” Her words jarred me. She looked me straight in the eye, as if I needed to absorb every drop of what she was about to say. “Em, your marriage has ended and, well, it’s just that you haven’t shed a single tear.”

 

 

On the walk back to my apartment I thought about what Annabelle had said, and my thoughts, once again, turned to my aunt Bee.
How have I let so many years pass without visiting her?

I heard a shrill, shrieking sound above my head, the unmistakable sound of metal on metal, and looked up. A copper duck weather vane, weathered to a rich gray-green patina, stood at attention on the roof of a nearby café. It twirled noisily in the wind.

My heart pounded as I took in the familiar sight. Where had I seen it before? Then it hit me.
The painting. Bee’s painting.
Until that moment, I had forgotten about the five-by-seven canvas she’d given me when I was a child. She used to paint, and I remember the great sense of honor I felt when she chose me to be the caretaker of the artwork. I had called it a masterpiece, and my words made her smile.

I closed my eyes and could see the oil-painted seascape perfectly: the duck weather vane perched atop that old beach cottage, and the couple, hand in hand, on the shore.

I felt overcome with guilt. Where was the painting? I’d packed it away after Joel and I moved into the apartment—he didn’t think it matched our decor. Just like I’d distanced myself from the island I’d loved as a child, I had packed away the relics of my past in boxes.
Why? For what?

I picked up my pace until it turned into a full-fledged jog. I thought of
Years of Grace
.
Did the painting accidentally end up in a box of Joel’s things too? Or worse, did I mistakenly pack it in a box of books and clothes for the Goodwill pickup?
I reached the door to the apartment and jammed my key into the lock, then sprinted up the stairs to the bedroom and flung open the closet door. There, on the top shelf, were two boxes. I pulled one down and rummaged through its contents: a few stuffed animals from childhood, a box of old Polaroids, and several notebooks’ worth of clippings from my two-year stint writing for the college newspaper. Still, no painting.

I reached for the second box, and looked inside to find a Raggedy Ann doll, a box of notes from junior high crushes, and my beloved Strawberry Shortcake diary from elementary school. That was it.

How could I have lost it? How could I have been so careless?
I stood up, giving the closet a final once-over. A plastic bag shoved far into the back corner suddenly caught my eye. My heart raced with anticipation as I pulled it out into the light.

Inside the bag, wrapped in a turquoise and pink beach towel, was the painting. Something deep inside me ached as I clutched it in my hands. The weather vane. The beach. The old cottage. They were all as I remembered them. But not the couple. No, something was different. I had always imagined the subjects to be Bee and Uncle Bill. The woman was most certainly Bee, with her long legs and trademark baby blue capri pants. Her “summer pants,” she’d called them. But the man wasn’t Uncle Bill. No. How could I have missed this? Bill had light hair, sandy blond. But this man had thick, wavy dark hair.
Who was he? And why did Bee paint herself with him?

I left the mess on the floor and walked, with the painting, downstairs to my address book. I punched the familiar numbers into the phone and took a long, deep breath, listening to the chime of the first ring and then the second.

“Hello?” Her voice was the same—deep and strong, with soft edges.

“Bee, it’s me, Emily,” I said, my voice cracking a little. “I’m sorry it’s been so long. It’s just that I—”

“Nonsense, dear,” she said. “No apologies necessary. Did you get my postcard?”

“Your postcard?”

“Yes, I sent it last week after I heard your news.”

“You heard?” I hadn’t told very many people about Joel. Not my parents in Portland—not yet, anyway. Not my sister in Los Angeles, with her perfect children, doting husband, and organic vegetable garden. Not even my therapist. Even so, I wasn’t surprised that the news had made its way to Bainbridge Island.

“Yes,” she said. “And I wondered if you’d come for a visit.” She paused. “This island is a marvelous place to heal.”

I ran my finger along the edge of the painting. I wanted to be there just then—on Bainbridge Island, in Bee’s big, warm kitchen.

“When are you coming?” Bee never wastes words.

“Is tomorrow too soon?”

“Tomorrow,” she said, “is the first of March, the month the sound is at its best, dear. It’s absolutely
alive
.”

I knew what she meant when she said it. The churning gray water. The kelp and the seaweed and barnacles. I could almost taste the salty air. Bee believed that the Puget Sound was the great healer. And I knew that when I arrived, she would encourage me to take my shoes off and go wading, even if it was one o’clock in the morning—even if it was forty-three degrees, which it probably would be.

“And, Emily?”

“Yes?”

“There’s something important that we need to talk about.”

“What is it?”

“Not now. Not over the phone. When you get here, dear.”

After I hung up, I walked downstairs to the mailbox to find a credit card bill, a Victoria’s Secret catalog—addressed to Joel—and a large square envelope. I recognized the return address, and it only took me a moment to remember where I’d seen it: on the divorce papers. There was also the fact that I’d Googled it the week before. It was Joel’s new town house on Fifty-seventh—the one he was sharing with Stephanie.

The adrenaline started pumping when I considered the fact that Joel could have been reaching out to me. Maybe he was sending me a letter, a card—no, a romantic beginning to a scavenger hunt: an invitation to meet him somewhere in the city, where there’d be another clue, and then after four more, there he’d be, standing in front of the hotel where we met so many years ago. And he’d be holding a rose—no, a sign, and it would read, I’M SORRY. I LOVE YOU. FORGIVE ME. Exactly like that. It could be the perfect ending to a tragic romance.
Give us a happy ending, Joel
, I found myself whispering as I ran my finger along the envelope.
He still loves me. He still feels something.

But when I lifted the edge of the envelope and carefully pulled out the gold-tinged card inside, the fantasy came to a crashing halt. All I could do was stare.

The thick card stock. The fancy calligraphy. It was a wedding invitation.
His
wedding invitation. Six p.m. Dinner. Dancing. A celebration of love. Beef or chicken. Accepts with pleasure. Declines with regret. I walked to the kitchen, calmly bypassing the recycle bin, and instead set the little stack of gold stationery right into the kitchen trash, on top of a take-out box of moldy chicken chow mein.

Fumbling with the rest of the mail, I dropped a magazine, and when I reached down to pick it up, I saw the postcard from Bee, which had been hiding in the pages of
The New Yorker
. The front featured a ferry boat, white with green trim, coming into Eagle Harbor. I flipped it over and read:

I pressed the postcard to my chest and exhaled deeply.