The Story of Beautiful Girl (40 page)

Finally: “Do you have a goal you want to achieve this year?”

For so long, there had been only one goal. But only Kate knew about Buddy and Julia, and that was a goal Lynnie could do nothing about, so she’d always answered no. Antoine must have expected that same answer now, because his hand was on one side of Lynnie’s file, getting ready to close it and wrap up the meeting.

“Yes,” Lynnie said.

Antoine raised his eyebrows.

“Way to go, kiddo,” Carmen said. “Change is the spice of life.”

Lynnie said, “I want to go on vacation.”

Sharona said, “I’ve never heard you say that.”

“I want to take Hannah and Kate. And I want to pay for everyone myself.”

“That’s so nice,” Hannah said, touching Lynnie’s arm.

“That might cost more money than you have,” Antoine said. “Where do you want to go?”

Lynnie said to Hannah, “You know that place we went to when we were little?”

“You want to go back there?”

“Where?” Carmen asked.

“It’s at the Jersey shore,” Hannah said. “It was the only vacation my family took with… before Lynnie went to the School.” She looked curiously at Lynnie. “Why do you want to go there?”

She wanted to tell Hannah the whole reason why. But Hannah hadn’t known for so very long, Lynnie couldn’t imagine telling her. So she gave a partial reason. “To have fun.”

Antoine said, “Covering the cost of a vacation for three, even just to the beach—”

“We could go off-season,” Hannah said.

“It’ll still take time to save up that kind of money.”

Lynnie said, “I want to do it myself.”

“How, Lynnie?” Hannah said.

“You could sell my art.”

“Are you serious?” Hannah asked.

“Yes.”

“But you’ve always said that since you couldn’t keep anything for so long, now you want to keep everything.”

“I want to sell my drawings so I can do this.”

“Are you sure?”

Lynnie nodded.

“How do you want to do this?” Carmen asked. “On sweatshirts?”

“No,” Lynnie said. “I have a better idea.”

On the day of the opening at the gallery in Ithaca, the crowds whirled around.

“I just love your work,” said a tall woman with triangular earrings.

“I was expecting primitivism,” added a man with a kerchief in his suit jacket. “Yet it reminds me of Howard Pyle, N. C. Wyeth, Frank E. Schoonover.”

“The Brandywine School,” said a man with a shaved head, nodding knowingly. “The great narrative illustrators.”

Hannah handed Lynnie a plate of cheese and crackers and said to those around her, “It’s really developed over time.”

“I’d thought outsider art would be amateur hour,” the man with the kerchief said. “This is a paradigm shift for me.”

Lynnie couldn’t figure out a single thing they were saying. All
she knew was that she and Hannah had worked for months to make it happen. First they tried to pick out the drawings Lynnie was willing to sell, but when Hannah pointed out that most of the drawings came in groups that told stories and said she hated to break up any stories, Lynnie gave her all the drawings—except for the one story Hannah didn’t know. Then Hannah made arrangements so Lynnie’s sales wouldn’t affect her government assistance. They set a date and Hannah invited everyone she knew, the weeks narrowed to days, Lynnie saw her work framed and mounted on walls, articles about her appeared in newspapers. Now here they were.

Lynnie felt shy around these strangers, though, so she just watched them milling about, looking at her drawings, saying things like “And to think that Hannah was sitting on this trove for so long!”

“How’s it going?” Hannah said, coming up to Lynnie and turning them away from the crowd. She was holding a glass of wine in her hand.

“It’s going good.”

“I’ll say. You’re probably on top of the world.”

“Just about.”

“Hey, how could it get better than this?”

Lynnie knew but wasn’t going to tell. “It’s a great day,” she said.

“Well, glad you think so, because I have a question for you.”

Lynnie couldn’t guess what she might say. She looked down at the plate with the cheese.

“You’re doing all this to give us a really nice gift. But you know I always take you to lunch when I see you. You must have realized that John and I would have enjoyed treating
you
to a vacation, along with anyone you wanted. You could have kept your pictures and still gone on this trip. So why, Lynnie? It’s such a generous thing to do, but I don’t understand why.”

“Because,” Lynnie said. And she told herself:
You can’t say there are two kinds of hope—Hannah will ask what the other one is. You can’t say you want to feel safe—Hannah feels bad enough about how long you were hidden. But there is another reason.

“Because you came back,” Lynnie said. “And you keep coming back. So does Kate.”

“Lynnie,” Hannah said, setting down her wine, taking her sister in her arms, “that’s about the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

Lynnie looked over Hannah’s shoulder, out the big gallery window. The sky was crying outside, and as she watched the drops come down, she thought:
A rainy day can actually be a very important day. And a small hope isn’t really small if it makes a lost hope less sad.

2001

K
ate spotted Lynnie immediately in the parking lot.

She’d thought she’d be too tired after the early morning flight from Indianapolis, followed by the train ride down the Jersey coast to the seaside town of Poseidon. She thought too she might not be able to find them in the huge parking lot, visible from her window seat as the train was slowing to a stop. But as soon as she’d stepped onto the raised platform, taken a breath of salty air, and gazed down into the lot, she saw the passenger door of the green Volvo burst open and a tall, silver-haired woman jump out. If Kate hadn’t known to be looking for Lynnie, she wouldn’t have recognized her, with her hair short, her eyes requiring glasses, her physique having become mildly, yet pleasingly, plump. Even at fifty, though, Lynnie was clearly excited over seeing Kate, as was apparent in her wide wave as she bolted for the platform. Kate waved back, then hoisted her carry-on bag higher on her shoulder. Lynnie was flying across the platform before Kate had taken a step.

“You’re here, you’re here!” Lynnie said into her hug.

“For the whole weekend,” Kate said. “Just like you wanted.”

It was heavenly to see Lynnie so happy, Kate thought as Lynnie hooked their arms together and they jaunted down the platform steps. Their visit in Harrisburg all those years ago had moved Kate to the bottom of her soul and still prompted tears of pride and admiration
whenever she brought it to mind. From their letters and calls since, Kate knew Lynnie had become even more assured of her own wants and more able to be independent. Now, as they crossed the parking lot toward Hannah, and Kate could see Lynnie’s confidence right before her eyes, Kate felt a pang that she wasn’t working with Lynnie anymore.
But time passes,
she consoled herself while she hugged Hannah.
My life took me away.
Kate’s co-workers often teased her for going beyond the call of duty, though they were impressed when Kate told them about this trip. “And it isn’t duty,” Kate corrected them. “Lynnie’s come to feel like an old friend.” An old friend, she’d added in her head, with a very sad history—redeemed by one little baby and one kindhearted old woman and decades of Lynnie’s own efforts.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Hannah said, loading Kate’s bag into the back of the car, “but we’ve decided to change our plans for this afternoon.”

“The weatherman says a storm’s on the way,” Lynnie said.

Kate looked up. On the train she’d marveled at the blue of the late May sky, thinking the weather perfect for a game of miniature golf, a ride on the Ferris wheel, a snack of saltwater taffy—all of which Lynnie had talked about them doing. The sky still seemed calm.

“And not just any old storm,” Hannah added. “A nor’easter. They don’t come much at this time of year. But you probably know they can be rough.”

Now Kate saw the first hint, a low cloud at the hem of the eastern horizon.

“So we’ve decided to have our tour today instead of tomorrow,” Hannah said.

“What tour?”

Lynnie said, “You know. So we can have someone show us around.”

Hannah said, “It seemed like a good way to get reacquainted with the sights.”

As they all got into the car, Kate noticed litter beginning to stir along the asphalt, leaves beginning to tremble.

“Fortunately, we were able to bump the tour up to this afternoon,” Hannah said as she settled into the driver’s seat.

“Is the storm coming that soon?”

“No point taking chances,” Hannah said, starting the car.

Kate looked into the front passenger seat, and even though she could see Lynnie only in profile, she could make out the broad grin, no doubt at having pulled this whole trip together. “I don’t care if it rains all weekend,” Kate said. “It’s just really nice to be here.”

Droplets had started before they pulled up to the souvenir store on Ocean Avenue, where their tour guide, standing under the awning, waved from under a hooded raincoat. A man of about sixty, with deep creases in his skin and bright blue eyes, he came up to Hannah’s window, introduced himself as Tom, and said he should do the driving. They rearranged themselves—Hannah to Kate’s right, Lynnie riding shotgun—and he got in.

“We might need to do a short version of the usual tour,” he said, turning to address everyone. “Usually we can go inside all the historic places, but folks are getting ready for the storm, so we might end up staying in the car a lot.”

“Do we have to?” Lynnie said.

He shrugged. “On days like this, people usually have their ways of letting me know. I guess we’ll just see.”

He pulled out onto Ocean Avenue.

“I remember that,” Hannah said, passing a hamburger joint with a giant metal-skinned mermaid out front.

“That’s Ackerman’s. It’s been here since 1925.”

“We ate there,” Hannah said. “You must remember, Lynnie. You drew her in one of your pictures.”

“I do remember.”

“And see over there?” Tom pointed to a town green with a merry-go-round in the center.

“Oh, Lynnie!” Hannah said. “Look.”

Tom said, “We used to have a tremendous amusement park on the far end of town. It was one of the major attractions of South Jersey, as famous as Lucy the tin elephant in Margate, or the Boardwalk in Atlantic City, and one of the reasons was this carousel. We’re really lucky, because when the park burned down in 1956, the carousel was saved, and a few years ago, we got permission to put it in our town center. They have rides on it, too.”

Tom circled the town green. The carousel was rocking in the rising wind, and a rope hung across the entrance. “Well, I guess we can’t get on,” Tom said. “At least you can get a look.” The horses and zebras and tigers and lions—with ornate saddles and headdresses, each creature painted whimsical colors never found in nature—stood suspended on their poles.

“The horses are the best,” Lynnie said.

“Yeah,” Hannah said. “They’re like the one Mommy and Daddy got me in a little shop.”

“You gave it to me.”

“Is that the horse we kept in your pouch?” Kate asked. “The blue-and-green horse?”

Lynnie turned back and nodded.

Tom gave them more background as he drove through the town. One of the oldest shore communities, Poseidon had repulsed a small invasion by the British during the Revolutionary War. In the early nineteenth century, it became a busy port for goods, which led wealthy shipping owners to build year-round homes. Then it prospered further when a glassworks opened. By the turn of the century, it had become a popular resort for both workers from southern Jersey and affluent Philadelphians. The grandest of
the houses remained, with some built right on the beach. “And here’s the Poseidon Inn,” Tom said. “Woodrow Wilson came once for the cool breeze on the porch. It’s said that Thomas Edison spent a night here, and when he woke up he’d finally figured out how to make his light bulb. Now I just have to make a little turn”—he went right, down a short street, then left, onto a broad, tree-lined boulevard—“and we’re on the famed Mansion Row.”

The name was not an exaggeration. Magnificent, meticulously kept houses graced both sides of the road. Tom drove slowly, pointing out who had lived where. Kate wondered if Lynnie really cared about all this history, but she seemed just as captivated by the sights out their window as the rest of them were. It took a few blocks before Kate understood why.

“I think that’s the one we stayed in.” Hannah pointed to a modern house with a flat roof.

“Is that it?” Lynnie asked.

“I’m pretty sure.”

“They had purple ice cream.”