The Goodbye Summer (29 page)

She only stumbled in the seventh measure, that fast, barrel-rolling, left-hand-over-right booby trap, but when it came around again she played it perfectly. Never play ragtime fast: Scott Joplin himself had said that, and Thea was an obedient student. Her pace was more stately than sprightly, but so
steady,
it wasn’t long before feet started tapping and heads nodded in time. Thea was right, this song made people happy. Bea had been sad and worried for so long; how wonderful to see her relax and pat out the beat on her hips with her hands. Old Mr. Lorton was practically dancing a jig on his short bowlegs.

When she finished the song, Thea laughed and clapped along with everybody else, giddy from pleasure and relief. Caddie kissed her warm cheek, exclaiming, “Beautiful, perfect, thank you, oh, wonderful—play it again!” and she did.

She saw Magill slide in—literally, bracing his back on the wall and stepping into the room sideways, crablike. He must be having a bad balance day. She waved to him over all the bobbing heads, and he sent back a wink and a rakish salute. Just what she wanted, the old Magill, quirky and teasing, not serious. Thea’s gift to her was this song, and Magill’s was his funny smile that said—she thought it said—they were friends again.

Thea grabbed Caddie’s hand and made her take bows with her to applause, like the soloist and the conductor. “Is that it?” Brenda said. “No more presents? Okay, then—who’s for some cake and ice cream?”

Caddie wasn’t surprised when, in the middle of the shuffling exodus to the dining room, Nana poked her on the shoulder and drew her over to an empty corner of the foyer. “Hold on a minute. You didn’t think I’d forget your birthday, did you?” She had a funny look in her eye. She’d dressed up for the party in her favorite sundress, even put a bow at the end of the long braid she’d wound her wiry gray hair into. But there was something going on behind the glitter in her smile. Something up her sleeve.

“No, Nan, of course not. You never forget.”

“Here.” She took Caddie’s hand and slipped something smallish into it. “Careful, it’s fragile. No wrapping paper, but that’s not my fault. I’m living like a monk here.”

Caddie gently pulled away the tissue paper from around the object. “Oh, it’s a…a…” A clay figure. Of a woman. She had an instrument
in one hand, a violin, so Caddie recognized herself, but that wasn’t the only giveaway. With her other hand, the nude, smiling, flat-chested, long-haired female was holding up a great, sloping, pregnant belly.

“Like it?”

Caddie felt her cheeks getting hot. She kept staring at the figure, not looking up. “How did you know?” she finally managed.

“I’m psychic.”

“No—really.”

“A grandmother senses these things.”

“Who told you?”

“Maxine.”

She looked up. “Maxine!”

“Who heard it from Bernie, who got it from Cornel. Everybody knows, Caddie Ann. The question is, when were you going to tell
me
?”

“Today,” she blurted. “Today, Nan—it was going to be my birthday present to you.”

“Hey, you two,” Brenda called from the dining room, “the ice cream’s melting!”

“Well, well. That’s all I can say,” Nana said, folding her arms. “Well, well, well.”

“Are you mad?” Caddie asked. She felt like a child.

“Course I’m not mad. What do you take me for?” Her stern face gentled. She reached out and patted Caddie’s stomach with the soft cup of her palm. “Chip off the old block,” she said in a tender voice. “Whose is it, the dog man?”

Caddie nodded.

“Hmph. Well, don’t you worry, we’ll get through this.”

“I know we will.”

“Like we always have.” She linked arms with Caddie and they began to move toward the dining room. “You know I always said men stink.”

“You never said men stink.”

“Well, I should have. The point is, you’re much better off without that guy.”

“You think?”

“Oh, sure. This way’s purer. You, me, and the baby—who’s a girl, it goes without saying. Winger power. The way it’s always been, right?”

Caddie’s brave smile wavered only at the corners.

Maxine and Doré had made a three-layer chocolate birthday cake. Not together—Maxine made the cake and Doré iced and decorated it—but still. Pretty amazing. Bea’s outburst had accomplished something, even if it was subtle, a change in the atmosphere if not in the women themselves. After the singing and candle-blowing, there was a champagne toast—Caddie’s birthday qualified as a house celebration, so there could be booze—and with her own eyes she saw Doré and Maxine lean across the table and clink glasses. Wow. What a shame Bea wasn’t there to see it, but she’d left early, gone back to the rehab place to be with Edgie. She went every morning and stayed till the nurses made her go home.

They’d put Caddie at the head of the table, Magill on her right. His voice was a true, full-hearted tenor, she discovered during “Happy Birthday.” But he looked ridiculous in his cone-shaped party hat, which he wore low on his temple like a horn. “How come you never mind looking silly?” she asked.

“I look
silly
?” He made a stricken face.

She giggled—that quarter glass of champagne. “Most people, men especially, they, I don’t know…”

“Care about their dignity.”

“Yeah. No.”

“Hey, I’ve got dignity up the ying-yang.” With his teaspoon, he carefully cut out the fat yellow rosette of frosting on his piece of cake and dropped it on her plate. She’d have demurred, but she craved the oily sugar blob, had to have it—how had he known that? He said, “You don’t think clowns have dignity?”

“You’re not a clown.” Even with his goofy hat, even with the loopy smile he turned on her. They were the same age, but because of his thinness, his hollow cheeks and knobby wrists, the way his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat, the way his clothes swam on him, she used to think
of him as a boy. But not in a long time. He’d merged, boy and man, and now she thought she knew him. The real Magill.

“Promise me something,” he said.

“What?”

“Promise.”

The humor in his eyes reassured her. “Okay, I promise. What?”

“You’ll sing a song with me this afternoon.”

“Out loud? You mean in front of people?”

He laughed.

“Wait, I don’t—”

“Too late, you promised.” He stood up. “Time for Caddie’s big present,” he announced, and everybody quieted down. The anticipation on their faces, especially Thea’s, twisted Caddie’s nerves. “You’ll need some help,” Cornel said, and started to get up, but Magill said no, he wouldn’t, he had it right here. He walked over to the window, the floor-length drapery at the side. “Caddie, close your eyes.”

“Why?”

“Close your eyes!” everybody yelled.

“Because I didn’t wrap it,” Magill said, “that’s why.” She heard scraping, something heavy being shoved across the floor in her direction. “I got it, I got it,” Magill said when Cornel tried again to help him. What on earth? Something big and bulky, something heavy. She had no idea.

“Okay. Ready?”

“No.”

“Wait—my camera,” Thea said.

“Okay. Open your eyes.”

A machine. A big, silver machine with a million dials, buttons, and knobs. A tape player? No, too big, and it had microphones on the sides and two enormous speakers at the bottom, a place for CDs. A boom box? Then she knew.

“It’s a karaoke machine.”

“Yes!” Clapping and exclamations of delight, laughter. “Isn’t it great?” “It was Magill’s idea.” “Don’t you love it?”

“Ohhh” was the best she could do. She leaned over it and clasped her
hands together, as if overcome. She was overcome. They all thought this was so
funny.
“How funny,” she said enthusiastically. “What a riot.”

“You hook it up to the TV and it shows the words,” Bernie was telling her, “then you sing in the microphone and drown out the real singer’s voice.”

“We tried it last night,” Thea said.

“We didn’t think you’d mind,” Maxine said. “We wanted to iron out all the kinks first.”

“But there weren’t any,” Magill said. “There’s nothing to it, you just turn it on and put in a CD.”

“You don’t have one already, do you?” Mrs. Brill asked anxiously.

“No,” Caddie said. “No, I sure don’t.”

“Plug it in, let’s play it,” Cornel said, and people started getting up. Bernie picked up one side of the machine, Cornel took the other, and they carried it out of the room.

“Oh,” Caddie said, “now? Right now? Here?” Nobody even heard, they were too busy making a beeline for the Blue Room.

“So,” Magill said, taking her arm. “How are you on ‘I Believe I Can Fly’?”

She
wanted
to be a good sport, heaven knew. Why wouldn’t she? How much easier to go along with what everybody wanted her to do
—sing!
—than draw even more attention to herself by begging to be excused. What
was
this? She thought something had changed, she thought for sure she’d gotten over this stupid, sickening stage fright the night she’d played and sung for Thea and Cornel and Magill, but here it all was back in a big, hot, soupy wave, no better than before. Worse.

“Caddie, come on, everybody’s doing it,” “It’s your present, you
have
to, if you don’t you’ll hurt our feelings,” “But you’re so
good,
and there’s nothing to it, come on, Caddie…”

Luckily for her, there were so many surprise hams at Wake House—Mrs. Brill! Maxine Harris!—that her reticence was passed over as temporary, cute, not antisocial, not a negative comment on the gift itself. Certainly not evidence of any humiliating personal pathology.

The worst moment came when Magill crouched on the floor in front of her—she’d taken a seat in the “audience,” as far away from the “stage” as possible, the stage being a cleared space before the television set and the hated karaoke machine—and tried to jolly her into a duet. He made it sound like such innocent, cheesy, uncool fun, it was painful to turn him down. “I got ‘It’s Only Rock ’n Roll,” so we can be Mick Jagger and Tina Turner. Come on, Caddie, let’s do it.”

She shook her head, helpless.

“No? Okay, did you ever hear Dr. John and Etta James—”

“No, honestly, I can’t do this. I know I promised, but you tricked me.”

“Sure you can. Okay, watch for a while, we’ll do one later. How about the Carpenters? I’ll be Karen.”

And it wasn’t as if whatever song she might’ve decided to “sing” with the machine, with or without Magill, would’ve been that much worse or more foolish or any sillier than anybody else’s impromptu performance. Then again, maybe not so impromptu: Brenda, Maxine, and Nana performed “Stop! In the Name of Love” with so many coordinated hand moves, they had to have practiced last night. And Bernie wasn’t bad at all on “New York, New York,” even though he mangled the words because he couldn’t find his glasses. The best singer was Mrs. Brill—she sang “Amazing Grace” and brought down the house—and the worst was Doré Harris, who was tone-deaf. She chose “Somewhere over the Rainbow,” and she sang it cocktail lounge–style, very dramatic; she even used a scarf. But nobody laughed or snickered; they smiled, but they didn’t
laugh
—and if that wasn’t a good reason to just get up and join the party, Caddie didn’t know what was.

“Oh, quit asking her,” Nana finally advised all the coaxers, “she’ll never do it, not in a million years. She’s a scaredy-cat.”

No, the worst was when Magill tried one last time. He knelt in front of her again, and this time he even took her hands. His persuasive grin was nothing but hopeful and sweet, and she thought vaguely,
Good, you still don’t know about me. What a flop I am.
“What’s the problem here?” he asked, giving her hands a gentle shake. “You’re not really scared. You sang for Thea and Cornel and me, before, and you were…” He looked past her,
as if he were picturing that night. “Incredible. You blew my head off, Caddie. So what’s the trouble?”

He made her blush. “I don’t know. It’s me, I’m just like this. I thought I was better, but—turns out I’m not. It’s a wonderful present, really, you were so nice to think of it. I hope it didn’t cost too much.”

He looked up at her through his black lashes, his eyes all tolerant and accepting. “It’s safe here, you know. Nothing to be afraid of. Act out a little,” he said softly. “It’s not going to turn you into your mother.”

“Oh.” She pulled her hands away and folded her arms across her chest. “Hey. It’s not really that big a deal, is it? I’m not doing that.” She gestured toward her grandmother, who was trying to sing “Mack the Knife.” “That’s all, I’m not doing it.”

“Okay.”

“And I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t try to second-guess my motives. You told me not to psychoanalyze
you,
so I’d—appreciate—”

“Okay.” He wobbled slightly when he got up. “You’re right, it’s no big deal. Sorry I nagged you.” He made a bow—she hated it; he probably meant it kindly, but to her it looked ironic and horribly final—and left her by herself.

She must’ve looked pitiful. Thea came over and sat down on the arm of her chair. “Happy birthday,” she said, and pulled her in for a kiss on top of the head. Wouldn’t it be nice to lay her head on Thea’s lap just for a minute, Caddie thought. It wouldn’t cure her of anything, but it would make her feel better. “Sorry I’m such a jerk,” she mumbled.

“Oh, hush.”

“I am, though. I can’t do anything. Can’t sing a song, I can’t even decide on a family for this baby. I can’t pick up the phone and call…some man.” Who might turn out to be her father.

“Everything in good time.”

She let out a heavy sigh. “What does that mean?”

“Mmm.” Thea patted her lips, thinking. “I guess it means you and I are on different schedules.” She looked tired and dreamy, as if Caddie’s troubles weren’t particularly important to her at this moment. “I’m going to have to learn a new song, aren’t I? What should it be? Chopin? You could
simplify one of the preludes for me.” Caddie couldn’t tell if she was kidding or not. Probably not. Thea smoothed her skirt over her knee with a pink-nailed hand. She had small hands, veiny with age; the pretty wedding ring Will had made for her was too big for them. “I’m sorry I’m having a better time at your party than you are.”