Whole Latte Life (17 page)

Initial sketches contain rudimentary shapes and forms. They help to translate an image onto canvas, which makes sketching an important early step in the development of a piece of art. So through studying the artist’s sketches behind glass, one can observe the stages of the Impressionist’s paintings hung close by.

Now she can see in the ovals of Rachel’s eyes and in the lines of facial expression, the past three days. Because if art is done right, no words are necessary. But still, when Rachel turns to pick up her bag to leave, the tears lining her face catch Sara Beth by surprise. Which is the intent of great art: to move, to evoke.

Rachel’s words had all been sketches, rudimentary shapes and forms, leading to this image. Their friendship had reached this damaged layer, one that felt irreparable. For the past hour, no words that Sara Beth had put on the canvas, no sketches of reason, of anger at losing her displaced dream, no shading of loss within her own life, loss of her mother, of her self, no delineation of time slipping away, no word sketches of the secret carriage house holding her antiques, could change the layer at which they’d arrived.

Sometimes, in museums, Sara Beth is moved to tears. The very reach of the artists’ brush strokes goes that deep, making the work more than a painting. It is a lover, a friend, a mother, a child, whispering some truth to her. So she understands her tears now, sitting alone, trying to piece together the weekend in her mind.

Everyone wants the same drawing. No one wants to sketch her in different angles or different lighting. The reach of that brush stroke devastates.

Between that and another tension headache, which scares her the way it came on so quickly, it’s all she can do to stand up and open the door when someone knocks. But she wants to try to explain herself to Rachel, if she’ll give her another chance.

“Tom!” she says when she opens the door. His bulky presence filling the doorway overwhelms her and she has nothing left inside to deal with it. No words, no feelings, just a headache and exhaustion. She’d sketched herself in every way imaginable all weekend.

Tom steps in and takes her arms. “Jesus, Sara Beth. What the hell’s going on?” He leads her inside and sits her on the couch. “Are you okay?” After searching her face, he goes to the bathroom for a glass of cold water.

“Here. Drink this,” he tells her as he sits beside her.

The cool water passes easily over her tongue, her head pounding.
A ruptured aneurysm may quickly become life threatening,
she thinks, and quaffs half the glass before stopping.

Tom reaches forward and pushes her short hair behind her ear. His fingers touch her new piercings. “Sara Beth?”

Michael figures he’ll have a ham sandwich, then do a little yard work before catching up with Rachel. Pop always said that gardening clears your head. It also loosens his back and shoulder muscles, stiff after sitting on horseback all week.

Two rhododendron bushes grow at the front corner of the cape-style house. He turns over the soil beneath them, the shovel sinking into earth, slicing through dirt and stone. The sun warms his back and the street is Sunday still.

“Hey Dad,” Summer calls from the sidewalk.

He leans on the shovel and brushes his arm across his forehead. His daughter could be a model straight from an American Eagle catalogue, the way she casually dresses. Half her hair is pulled back in a messy bun and a tangle of beaded necklaces hangs around her neck.

“Did your mother drop you off?”

“I took the bus.”

“Again? Do you have your phone with you?” he asks as he sets down the shovel. “In case you had a problem?”

“Ye-e-s,” Summer says as she gets nearer.

“And it’s charged?”

“Dad! Can we quit with the interrogations? And hey,
your
light’s burned out on the front step. When I came over the other night, it didn’t work.” She sits on the stoop, leaning back on her hands, tipping her face to the sun.

“Let me get a bulb inside.” He walks around her and brings one out along with a rag to wipe the pollen off the mailbox and door frame.

“So what’s going on?” he asks, stepping around her hands. He gives her the cover of the light fixture. “Hold this.”

“I felt like coming over. Can’t I visit you?”

“For no reason?”

“Well. I told this guy that I was busy so I wouldn’t have to go to the movies with him. So then I had to make myself busy.”

“What guy?” he asks, twisting in the new bulb. “Where’d you meet him? Not online?”

“Ryan. He goes to my school.”

“How old is he?”

“Sixteen. But we only talk on the phone, you know? It’s fun. Except he keeps asking me to do something, like go to the movies. Or go on a date, I guess.”

“And you don’t want to?”

“No. Then it gets weird, I don’t know. I just like him as a friend. For now.”

He glances down at the top of her blonde head knowing damn well there are fifteen-year-olds out there having sex. But with the rug pulled out from under her, first with the divorce and now moving, Summer’s energy is sapped keeping her home life straight. There’s nothing left for messing around with guys right now. He hopes.

“Don’t be going on that Facebook. You don’t know who you’re talking to.”

“Dad, everybody’s in the book. It’s what we do.”

“Yeah I know. And that’s the problem. Anything else on your mind?”

“No. Except I got tired of watching Mom pack up the house.”

“She’s not changing her mind then.”

“Huh. Like shit.”

“Hey.” He takes the fixture cover from her. “Watch your mouth.”

“Well she doesn’t care what I think. And I don’t want to move. Can’t I live here?”

“First, you do live here, sometimes. Second, she does care and so do I. Your new home is in a better neighborhood and has a better school system.” Summer rolls her eyes. “She’s trying to do what’s best, even though you don’t think so.”

“Best for her. Between watching her pack and listening to Ryan, I had to get out of there.”

“Well I’m glad you came here. But tell Ryan I said no dating. You’ve got your whole life to go to the movies with a guy. Wait a year or two.”

“Oh thank you. Now that
you
said it, he’ll stop asking.”

“Maybe he’ll stop calling, too.” He pats her shoulder, wishing he could stop the move as easily as the dating. “Emily around?” he asks, wiping the pollen off the mailbox.

“Idk.” At her friend’s house across the street both cars are in the driveway. “Guess I’ll walk over.”

There is no magic for what is eating his daughter. If she lives with him, she’ll be home alone too much. But is moving to Long Island worse? Will Barbara be around for her? It ticks him off, really, after they kept Summer’s life so stable, keeping her in the same town after the divorce, the same schools, same friends. She’s a good kid.

“You need a ride home later?” he asks when she stands and brushes off her hands.

Summer turns back to him. “Can’t I stay for dinner?”

“Not today, kiddo.”

“Why not? I took the bus all the way here.”

“I’ve got plans,” he tells her as he wipes off the storm door.

“Are the Yankees playing?”

“They are, but I’m not going.” Lately she hasn’t wanted to go to the games, anyway.

“Then why can’t I stay?”

He sees it: She thinks he never makes plans. It’s either the Yankees or some day trip with her, no life other than the one laid out in front of her. “You know how I said that you have your whole life to go to the movies with a guy? Forty-four is a good age to do stuff like that.”

“Wait a minute.” She puts her hands on her hips. “You have a date?”

“Not a date. I have to stop in the city and see a friend.”

“A friend? Who?” Summer asks.

“Someone I met at work.” He checks his watch and calculates the yard work and a quick shower. “I’ll drive you back home in an hour and a half.”

“That’s it? I get an hour and a half?”

“You’d better hurry. If you want to see Emily for a while.”

Summer turns on her heel and crosses the street.

“Is your phone on?” he calls out. When she waves it in the air, he adds, “And don’t be going on the computer over there.”

So this is something she never saw coming. All Sara Beth saw was her own life taking the shape she’d waited years for, the shape she worked on so often with her mother. They had her story all planned out, starting at her fortieth birthday: an antique shop, a bold new venture, her passion finally defining her.

She never saw, never wrote to her mother in her antique journal that she’d have to repair the friendship gravely injured. She never jotted down that Tom would need to be placated.

It’s terrible, how much he’s sweating. The black pants she wore most of the weekend lay in front of him on the bed. He folds the pants into the suitcase, dropping them as though he’d like to burn them while Sara Beth paces behind him.

“I never meant to hurt anyone, Tom. I thought that what I did would be good. For you, the kids. Everyone!”

“What could you possibly have done with yourself alone for three days?” He glances at her and winces at her short, tousled hair.

“I told you already.” She grabs the clothes from the closet and drops them on the bed.

“Went to auctions? To store more old tables in the garage?”

She holds it all inside. Her carriage house that she’d never told him about, keeping it still a beautiful secret between her and her mother. Telling him might risk losing it. The secrecy of the stunning antiques is like a butterfly cupped in her hands still.

“See what I don’t understand.” Tom turns to her, his face pale. “Is you’re not yourself. I mean, the Sara Beth I know wouldn’t ride a boat back and forth between Staten Island and Manhattan.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“I saw Rachel downstairs. She filled me in a little, okay?”

“I don’t know, then. All right? I just did it, Tom.”

“But all night? You didn’t get a room somewhere? What’s wrong with you?” He shoves her velvet jewelry box in the suitcase. It makes her think of the girls. Jen. What insecurities Kat must be writing in her diary and how this will make matters worse now.

“It was only last night.” Only after spending hours in a cathedral she’d come upon, The Church of St. Paul the Apostle. She holds this in, too. Something led her up its stone steps, drawing her into its dark interior where she slid into a back pew. She knelt, head bowed, for how long she didn’t know, trying to find a way out, or back. The only certain thing was the voice that eventually came beside her of a young Paulist priest who’d sat nearby. He must’ve worried about her solitude. “Sometimes,” he said in a hushed tone, “it helps to look up.” He motioned to the star map painted on the ceiling. “January 25, 1885. The skies of that day.” He stood then, touched her shoulder, and left the church. Her eyes never left the image, knowing that the stars we see are only some of the celestial bodies. Our vision doesn’t have the capability to see beyond them, to the others with their endless stories. It was only when she realized that just because we can’t see them, doesn’t mean they don’t exist, that she blessed herself and walked out into the evening light. Afterward her troubles, her anger, everything tying her down, dropped deep into the Hudson River beneath those stars, and grief got lost in the spray.