Keeping Lucy Page 21

  He’s too old for a bottle. He’s too young to give up his naps. He needs a spanking, Sylvia suggested more than once when Peyton acted up in the way that toddler boys are prone to do. All the while, Sylvia was perched at the edge of Ginny’s sofa as if it were a public toilet she didn’t want her bottom to touch.

  When Ab came home with Arthur as a Christmas gift when Peyton was three, Sylvia had tsk-tsked herself into a tizzy.

  “Animals are meant to live outside the house, not in it,” Sylvia had said, shaking her head as poor Arthur tried to nuzzle against her.

  “You grew up on a farm, didn’t you?” Ginny had asked. “You didn’t have any pets?”

  “My father didn’t believe in pets,” she said. “Animals serve one purpose only, and that is to provide food.”

  It took all Ginny’s imaginative powers to picture Sylvia growing up on that farm in Vermont. She was the kind of woman who wouldn’t say shit if she had a mouthful (as Ginny’s father might say); when Ginny tried to imagine Sylvia’s former life, she could only conjure an image of her in her delicate kitten heels stepping over cow patties as though they were land mines, Chanel purse dangling from one bent elbow.

  “Don’t you ever miss it?” Ginny asked her once. “Living in the country? It’s so beautiful in Vermont.”

  Sylvia had seemed startled by the question.

  “Of course not,” she’d said, gesturing as though this home (Ginny and Ab’s) was her own. “This is what one aspires to, Virginia.” And Ginny realized she meant a home like this in general terms: gleaming floors and luxurious drapes and candlesticks and linen napkins and brand-new appliances.

  “What about the city, then?” Ginny had persisted, wanting desperately to understand this woman. “New York? Ab said you were a singer on Broadway? That must have been thrilling. I’ve never even seen a Broadway show.”

  Again, Sylvia clucked her tongue as if in disdain of the woman she once was.

  “I was a girl, Virginia,” she said. “Foolish.”

  Ginny couldn’t help but think that this word was aimed at her as well. Perhaps Sylvia saw a bit of herself in Ginny: the poor girl who somehow navigated her way to this elegant suburban life. A girl who was always studying the teeth of this gift horse, looking for decay.

  Despite the creature comforts of this new world, however, there were times when Ginny dreamed her way back into the stacks at the Converse, back into her old life. It was an odd nostalgia she had for those years in which her life had still felt like something on the other side of a window. There had been such exquisite pleasure in the anticipation of what her future held for her. But it seemed now that each decision, each choice she made, had narrowed those possibilities down, until there was but one solitary fate.

  Of course, she knew she was not the only person who had felt this narrowing, this closing in. It was, in every way, the way that life tricked you into believing in destiny, when in fact she had been the one to determine everything. You could drive yourself crazy with what-ifs. She’d watched her mother do it after her father died. What if she hadn’t sent him out for that gallon of milk? What if she had made the long trek to the market on foot? What if she’d kissed him good-bye? Would those two seconds of affection have been enough to prevent the seemingly inevitable collision? Ginny tried not to entertain such foolish unraveling. What if she hadn’t accepted Ab’s tickets to JFK’s convocation and instead camped out with Marsha for a spot to see the president? What if they hadn’t forgotten the condom, and she hadn’t gotten pregnant that first time—Ab would have gone off to Vietnam with the IVS. Though this was one part where she hesitated. They hadn’t known then what Vietnam had in store for them. For the boys of this country. Had he not gone to law school as his father had always planned, he might have wound up in Vietnam anyway—but as a soldier this time. He might not have come home at all, and then where would she be? A single mother, a widow. Exactly like her mother.

  No, it was best not to try to untie the knots of a life. It was best to simply accept responsibility for what her life had become and make all future decisions carefully. Here was one such decision.

  Still, a pervasive sharp pinch plagued her. Regret. That was what it was. The sense of having done the wrong thing, made the wrong choice. It was what niggled at her those nights when she lay awake alone waiting for Ab to come home, the times when she was so exhausted and lonely she just wanted to walk out the front door of that colossal house and keep walking. The times when she longed for a different future. A second chance.

  Thirty

  September 1971

  The storm coming up through the Gulf of Mexico was a full-blown hurricane now, according to the AM radio station they managed to tune in to, though what this meant for the Gulf Coast of Florida was simply rain. Lots and lots of rain. The sky was thick with it. The trees and foliage at the side of the road bowed under the weight of all that water. The windshield wipers on Lorenzo’s car could barely keep up. Several times they had to pull over and wait for it to let up enough for them to see the road ahead. There were cars parked all along the side of the highway doing the same thing; even when they were back on the road, the slow procession of vehicles seemed almost funereal.

  It was only thirty miles to Weeki Wachee from where the Dart had broken down, but for nearly an hour they drove along the highway in fits and starts. Both children were soggy and restless, and Ginny wanted nothing more than a hot shower and a clean bed to fall into. She planned to call her mother as soon as they got settled in. She’d ask her to wire some money, to help hold them over, and then she knew she’d need to deal with Ab. Her hope was that with this week to think about everything, with her gone, he’d realized that she was serious. That if forced into a choice, she’d choose the safety of her children. Both of them. This is what she told herself; however, she felt the sharp sting of the truth. While Lucy was no longer in that horrific place, was she really safe? She thought of Peyton slumped over in the backseat, holding his arm after they hit the deer. She thought of him slipping away from her, nearly disappearing at that roadside citrus stand. She thought of Marsha clutching the gun as that man leaned in. What if it hadn’t been Gabe’s brother? And what about the car, nearly bursting into flames with them still inside it? She’d done nothing but endanger not only Lucy but Peyton as well. If Abbott Senior had any idea what they’d been through, the dangerous situations she’d put them in, he’d likely make Ab take both children away from her. Argue that she was unfit.

  And perhaps she was. Perhaps she was only competent within the safe confines of the house that Ab had given her. Perhaps she could only function effectively as a mother when her environment was one of his making. She thought of the way he doled out her allowance each week, she thought of the daily, weekly, monthly chores she was expected to fulfill (though of course he never said so in words, this was her end of the exchange). She thought of that pervasive hiss, the one that whispered at her ear, that gnawed at her spine as she ironed, and folded, and scrubbed, and shopped. As she cooked and coddled. As she sewed on loose buttons and affixed Band-Aids. All the mind-numbing hours spent pacing like a caged tiger inside those same four walls, wondering what the point was. Looking for a crack, a fissure, a weakness through which she might escape. Perhaps that was what Lucy had been. Just a week ago, she had been so numb she could hardly feel her own misery. And then she’d seen the opening and pushed herself through.

  But to what end? To the swamps of Florida? With no money and only a bag of laundry? What had she been thinking? She felt like she was an animal escaped from the zoo, wandering through an unfamiliar city. A hostile place. Perhaps she would have been better off to stay confined. At least in that cage, she was safe.

  “Here we are!” Lorenzo said, pulling off the road. The Weeki Wachee Springs sign was less showy than the billboards advertising the mermaids for the last thirty miles.

  Lorenzo pulled into the parking lot, and as they gathered their things, he reached into his glove box and pulled out an
envelope.

  “Gabe asked me to give this to you,” he said to Marsha.

  Marsha looked at him for an explanation, but he only shrugged.

  “Thanks,” she said as she took the envelope, then leaned over and kissed his cheek. He seemed startled by the gesture but broke into a grin.

  “I’ll let Gabe know I found you. But please give him a call yourself after you open that up.”

  Marsha nodded and clutched the envelope tightly.

  “Speaking of which, I need to find a pay phone to get ahold of Triple A. You guys gonna be here for a while?”

  Marsha nodded. “Not going anywhere until you get back here with the car. You sure you can fix it?”

  Lorenzo nodded. He shook off the rain and climbed back into the Duster. As he drove away, Ginny, Marsha, and the kids walked toward the Weeki Wachee Springs entrance. The rain was coming down hard now and the wind was tugging at the trees, pummeling the battered red arrow-shaped sign for the park that promised 9 LIVE SHOWS TODAY, RAIN OR SHINE.

  “What’s in the envelope?” Ginny whispered, though Lorenzo was long gone by then. “A letter?”

  “Oh, who knows,” Marsha said dismissively, but Ginny noted she was still clutching it in her hand.

  “Does Theresa know we’re coming today?” Ginny asked.

  “The last time I talked to her was back in Savannah,” Marsha said. “I was going to call her on the road, but we got a little sidetracked.”

  Ginny held tightly to Peyton’s hand. She’d warned him that if he ever, ever decided to wander off again, she’d have his hide. She wondered if it would be cruel to put a leash on him. With her other arm, she held on to Lucy, who had found a comfortable spot on Ginny’s hip. Her back was aching from only a few days of lugging around the extra thirty or so pounds. At least Lucy had finally calmed down in the car when she realized that Lorenzo was harmless. Ginny still shuddered whenever she tried to imagine what was causing such a visceral reaction to every man who wore a beard.

  “Are you sure they’re even open?” Ginny asked.

  The parking lot had been nearly empty, save for a few cars.

  Marsha didn’t answer, which was Ginny’s signal to stop asking questions. Marsha marched forward, and Ginny quietly followed behind.

  The man at the ticket booth seemed surprised to see them, apparently the only show-goers in sight. He ran his hand across his thin hair, combed over a bald pate. Adjusted the collar of his Hawaiian shirt.

  “How many tickets y’all need?” he said. “Kids under three are free.”

  “I’m actually here to see my sister? Her name’s Theresa Malone?”

  The man let out a loud laugh and said, “You mean Terra?”

  Marsha had mentioned to Ginny earlier that Theresa had changed her name when she moved to Florida, though Ginny thought Terra was an ironic name for a mermaid.

  “Yeah,” she said.

  “Shoulda known from that hair! You come to be a mermaid, too?”

  “Nah,” she said. “I don’t even like to swim.”

  “Then Florida seems like a crazy place to come!” he said, chuckling. “That’s like saying you don’t like cheese and heading off to Wisconsin! What about you?” he asked, turning to Ginny. “You could get a job here. Pretty girl like you.”

  “I suppose it’s one of my many prospects,” Ginny said.

  He scowled. Apparently, men didn’t like it when their compliments were met with sarcasm.

  “Well, isn’t she a feisty one,” he said to Marsha. “Usually it’s the redheads that are made of piss and vinegar.”

  Feisty was not a word anyone had ever used to describe Ginny. Something about that made her smile. Just a few hours in Florida, and she was already becoming someone completely new. Maybe she would change her name, too.

  “Listen, it’s been real quiet because of the storm,” he said. “But like the sign says, the show goes on rain or shine. How about I go ahead and give y’all complimentary tickets for the next performance. Come back here after and I’ll make sure you get backstage to see your sister.”

  They made their way down a long sloping hallway and into the theater, which consisted of several rows of seats facing a curved wall of glass. The seats were hard and uncomfortable, and there was something nearly suffocating about the muggy air.

  They got the kids situated, and not long after, lights illuminated an underwater stage. It was as if they were peering into a giant aquarium, complete with sunken caverns. She turned to Peyton, whose eyes widened at the spectacle.

  The “mermaids,” beautiful girls in shimmery swimsuits and flippers, performed a sort of water ballet. Taking periodic breaths of air via long rubbery tubes hidden behind the rocks, they held their breath for minutes at a time until bubbles tumbled from their lips. Peyton and Lucy were both rapt.

  Lucy’s chest rumbled, and she coughed again. This damned muggy air. Ginny hoped she wasn’t coming down with a cold.

  “You okay?” she asked, and Lucy leaned into her. Ginny rubbed her back.

  Music was piped in through speakers overhead, and it was mesmerizing.

  “There she is!” Marsha said, squeezing Ginny’s arm and gesturing to a dark-haired mermaid who had just emerged from one of the caverns. She wore a bejeweled emerald bikini top and a shimmery tail, and her hair, like Marsha’s, was a wild tangle of dark curls.

  Ginny’s memories of Theresa were of a sullen teenage girl with glasses and hunched shoulders. Theresa was five years older than Marsha and rarely came out of her bedroom. How funny to see her now, this glamorous, otherworldly creature. It really was possible, she thought, as she watched Theresa—Terra—navigate the waters as though she truly were part of that underwater habitat, as though she had become someone else.

  When the brief show ended, they filed out, and as promised, the man from the ticket booth led them to the backstage area, where he left them. “Dressing rooms are down that way. Little fella, you’ll cover your eyes, won’t ya?” he said to Peyton.

  “Yes, sir,” Peyton said.

  * * *

  Marsha knocked on the battered dressing room door, and someone inside hollered, “Hold on!”

  Marsha shrugged and smiled.

  It was Theresa who answered the door, though it seemed to take her a moment before it registered that her sister was standing there.

  “Marshmallow!” Theresa said. “You made it!” She hugged Marsha and then pulled back, still holding on to her shoulders, studying her face. Then she noticed Ginny, who was standing behind. “And Ginny! Come in, come in. Oh, my God, it’s so nice to see y’all.” Not only did she have a new name, but an entirely new accent. Smooth and southern, sweet as peaches. “These must be your sweet babies?”

  Ginny nodded. She was carrying Lucy, as always, and Lucy reached out to touch the sparkly green strap of her costume.

  “Ain’t it pretty?” she said to Lucy.

  Ginny waited for Theresa to notice Lucy’s disability, but she didn’t. Instead she continued talking to her.

  “I like how it sparkles, too. A girl can never have too many sparkles.”

  “Spaw-kul,” Lucy said.

  Ginny caught her breath.

  “And what did you think of the mermaids?” she asked, leaning down to Peyton. Peyton was suddenly, inexplicably shy, hiding behind Ginny’s legs. Then again, he’d never met a real-life mermaid before.

  “Let me get changed, and then we can all go get something to eat across the way. Figure out what’s next.”

  * * *

  Theresa emerged from the dressing room just five minutes later with another girl. They’d both traded in their sparkly mermaid costumes for T-shirts and bell-bottom jeans, only their wet hair remaining as evidence of their underwater exploits.

  “This is Brenda Hopkins,” Theresa said. “My roomie. At least for now. Her boyfriend Tony’s stealing her away, though. Convinced her to go to Vermont, of all the godforsaken places.”

  Vermont! How funny. Sylvia’s old haunting grounds.
What were the chances?

  Brenda was strikingly beautiful. Tall, with impossibly long legs and golden hair, like walking sunshine. Sleepy, doelike eyes. She was the kind of girl that mystified Ginny: flawless, nearly gilded skin. Not an unwanted pound on her body.

  She smiled. “Tony’s mom was a mermaid at Weeki Wachee, too. She took off when he was just a kid. He came down looking for her but found me instead.”

  “She left her son?” Ginny asked in disbelief. The idea of leaving her children to pursue a dream, any sort of dream, seemed unfathomable.

  Brenda shook her head sadly. “I know. He was just a baby still. Like your little one,” she said, smiling at Lucy.

  “Wow,” Ginny said.

  “Not much work for mermaids in New England, I imagine?” Marsha said.

  Brenda sighed. “Well, there may not be much work down here for us, either, what with Walt Disney World about to open. They’re predicting all the roadside attractions are gonna suffer. I figured I’d jump ship before it sinks.”

  * * *

  They walked en masse across the road to the Holiday Inn, which had a small café inside. Theresa and Brenda were friendly with the waitresses, Theresa explaining that many of the mermaids picked up shifts at local restaurants when they weren’t performing.

  “So, I think Terra told you, y’all are welcome to come down and stay at the orchard,” Brenda offered. “We’ve got plenty of room. Me and Terra stay there with my folks. There aren’t any more rooms in the big house, but there’s plenty of space in the old pickers’ quarters. Nothing fancy, but a warm, dry place to stay until you get your feet on the ground.”

  “Or your tail in the water.” Theresa winked.

  “We don’t have much money,” Ginny said. “But I’m going to call my mother tonight and get some wired down.”