Whole Latte Life (30 page)

In the car, she had grabbed her cell and dialed Rachel’s number. She’s been doing that a lot, dialing people she can’t call: her mother, Rachel. With her mother, though, she can still press the phone tight against her ear, close her eyes, and listen. And hear her mother’s thoughts. But with Rachel, the fissure is still too deep; no mere phone call can close it. She disconnected before Rachel answered and drove to Whole Latte Life instead.

What can she do? Send flowers? Write a note of apology for how she treated her friend in New York? Any attempt she comes up with seems so inadequate.

Looking out the window at the scene of Americana across the street, she sips her latte and turns to The Addison Weekly she picked up in town, browsing the pages alone.

“I want my nose pierced.” Summer says this over her grilled cheese and tomato sandwich, sitting at a small square table at the restaurant window.

“Your what?”

“My nose. You know, get one of those super small diamond studs?”

In Manhattan, nothing tempers the heat. The concrete soaks it up and the skyscraper windows reflect it right back at you like a boomerang. Summer has to be desperate to want to meet him for lunch in the city. At least in Queens she can sit in the shade of a tree.

“Everybody’s getting it done.”

“Is Emily?”

“No.” She plucks a French fry from her plate. “But the girls in Long Island are. They’re pretty cool. I mean, like they friended me on Facebook.”

There it is. Long Island. Facebook. If she has to live there, well God damn it, she isn’t going to just talk the talk. She has to walk the walk. “What’d I tell you about that Facebook? I don’t want you on there. There’s too many nuts online.”

“Everybody’s on Facebook, Dad. Are they all getting stalked and assaulted?”

“Well watch what you say on there, you hear me? And don’t you need a parent’s permission to get your nose pierced?” Michael asks, snagging a few of her fries while turning to see who just walked in. He’d always told her if you don’t want trouble, don’t dress looking for it. When the city is hot and the kids are out of school, he sees it all on his post. From atop Maggie, there are no secrets.

“If you’re not eighteen.”

“And these girls in Long Island. Do they live near where you’re moving?”

“Yeah. I talked to them last weekend when we went out to the house with the decorator. I waited outside while Mom did her thing.”

He adds mustard to his pastrami on wheat. “These girls, their mothers take them to get their bodies pierced?”

“Yes, Dad.” She stirs the straw in her soda. “And it’s not only mothers. Caitlin’s
father
took her.”

“You’re kidding,” he says around a mouthful of sandwich. “Listen. You’re not getting your nose pierced, your tongue, your eyelids, your navel, nothing. And your mother’s going to hear about this, too. If that’s what your new friends are up to, then you’re staying in Queens.”

“Fine by me.”

“Oh I get it. Nice try.” He sips his coffee. His daughter’s blonde hair is in a low braid, cheap mall jewelry, hemp and beads, hangs from her neck. She wears Bermuda shorts and a peasant top that covers everything. “What’s new with Emily?” Emily is safe. Emily only has her ears pierced, one hole each.

“I told you already.”

He lifts what’s left of his sandwich, then sets it down. “Told me what?”

“Dad, are you going senile? How do you get yourself dressed in the morning?”

He pats down the NYPD uniform, touching upon the badge, the gun, the club.

“The Cape? Remember I told you yesterday?”

“That’s right.” He sits back and finishes the sandwich. “When are you leaving?”

“Wednesday morning. Em’s parents think the holiday traffic will be lighter right on the Fourth.”

“Well, aren’t you lucky. A vacation at Cape Cod.”

“Yes!” She gives the air a mini punch. “A week and a half of getting a tan, listening to my iPod and hanging on the beach. A little mini-golf and tennis too.” She pushes her soda glass away. “I wonder if there’ll be any cute boys there.”

Michael knew it. Summer hid somewhere in there, behind all the Long Island huff and bluff. She only needs a dose of her old friend. Especially ten days on the beach with your best.

“Do me a favor,” he says. “When you’re at the Cape? The first day there, when you guys maybe take a walk on the beach after dinner? Watch the sky for the first star you see.”

“Oka-a-a-y.” She spins a fat silver ring around on her finger.

“I’ve got it on good authority that the first star at the beach is a perfect wishing star. Make a wish, okay?” He rolls his left shoulder, working out a kink. If anyone needs a wish right now, his daughter does.

Summer scrunches her eyebrows a little. “Okay. Whatever.”

He wonders if he should tell her to be careful at the Cape. Jesus, if anything ever happened to her. He tries the deep breathing exercises from the therapy he started up again, to control his controlling. Long slow breath in, hold it, exhale fully. He’s mastered it so no one even notices. Maybe he’ll just remind her to have her cell phone on her.

“Well,” he begins, then pauses. “Call me when you get there. So I know you made it there, okay?” Then he’ll tell her to be careful, over the phone. A little at a time.

“I will.” Summer drinks her Coke. “What are you going to do when I’m gone?”

“Work. Maybe go bowling or something.”

“You? Bowling?” He shrugs. “With who?”

She likes to do that, slip in a question like one of those sleight of hand tricks with a ball beneath one of three cups. She mixes them up and you really know you’ve kept your eye on the right cup. Until you confidently pick it up and are wrong.

“Maybe Rachel.”

“That same lady?”

“Yes.” He downs the last of his coffee. “You finishing those?”

“No. I thought she lives in Connecticut.”

“She does.” He scoops up her fries and studies the couple sitting behind her. “But she comes to the city sometimes.”

“What, for like, a date?” She waves at him looking past her, “Hello? You listening?”

“A date? I’d say so. If we have dinner afterwards, that makes it date-ish.” He watches her mind spin, calculating the late hours.

“How come I haven’t met her?”

“Do you want to?” He doubts she really wants to spend time with another potential stepparent. But she doesn’t have a mean bone in her either, despite her daily dose of attitude.

“I don’t know. Maybe some day. So, do you really like her?”

“She’s a friend.” He stands and picks up the bill. “And you ask too many questions.”

“Just like you. And it’s soo annoying. Now you know how it feels.”

“Hey, I worry about you. So are you hanging around the city and coming home with me later, or are you leaving now?”

“I’m going now. It’s way too hot here today.”

He leaves a tip and they walk back out into the street where heat waves rise from the pavement. “Remember the rules? Stay near other people?”

“Yes, Dad. Walk confidently. Keep my ID and money in separate pockets.”

“Just be alert.”

“Duh. Like don’t walk in front of traffic? You too, you know. Be careful patrolling.”

“And call my cell right when you get home so I know you made it safely.”

“Okay,” she says, and gives him a quick kiss. “Where’s Maggie?”

“Around back.”

“I want to see her. Please?”

He checks his watch. “Just for a minute. How about we walk you to the subway.”

She grins. “Cool. My own police escort.”

The Addison Weekly is folded into thirds on the passenger seat. At every stop sign, Sara Beth glances at the picture to which it is folded. Tom holds her close as they dance in the moonlight at the concert. And she glances at the Photo Credit beneath the picture. Rachel DeMartino.

Rachel couldn’t have known that she and Tom had come from the carriage house that night. That the evening had been charged with emotion. Yet in that photograph, Rachel captured it. Sara Beth and her husband are backlit by the stage lights, silhouetted against a misty evening, pressed into each other and barely moving, really. She remembers Tom’s mouth against her ear. He didn’t say much, but when he did, his words felt almost inside her head. They stopped for a drink before this picture, a good strong one in a local bar and got the talking started. While driving, she pulls her leather journal from her handbag and at the next red light, opens to a familiar page.

It feels like the carriage house just cost me Rachel.

Maybe this is the day the stars align to bring her friend back into her constellation.

“Sarah Beth?”

“Hi.” She stands outside the screen door holding a take-out tray with two citrus smoothies. “Can I come in?”

Rachel opens the door and she follows her through the house to the kitchen. That’s where all the good talks happen. Food, sunlight falling on scattered newspaper pages, it’s all good. It surprises her to see cooking ingredients strewn about the counter. Well. Rachel’s life goes on without her. You can always make room for two smoothies, though. She pulls them from the tray and takes a seat. Old Rod Stewart tunes spill from Rachel’s beach room.

“What are you cooking?” she asks.

“Lasagna.”

“Oh?” A flower arrangement sits in the center of the pine table. The type of copious bouquet you don’t buy for yourself fans out from a crystal vase.

Rachel sets down a bowl of meatballs and sausages in tomato sauce. She moves the flowers to the counter and returns with a placemat and a plate along with a fork and sharp knife. “I need a half dozen meatballs crumbled real fine. A few sausages, too. To add to the sauce.”

This is what they do. Walk into each other’s life and not interrupt, but meld right in. It’s like a dance step, one you do without thought, in sync. Sara Beth picks up the fork and plucks a meatball from the bowl. Finally.

“Having company?” She’s asked questions like that for twenty-five years. Except never before did a terminal breath of silence beat before Rachel answers.

“Kind of. I’m going away for the weekend and bringing the food with me.”

This is the kind of thing she does, bringing Ashley comfort food at college. “To New York?”