Summer of '69(103)

Halfway down the stairs, she freezes. It’s not David because the first ferry in doesn’t arrive until ten. Who else would be knocking on the front door so early on a Saturday morning? Someone on a mission. Someone from the U.S. Army.

Kate feels light-headed. She sits on the step, fourth from the bottom. She won’t answer the door. She can’t. She’ll sit here for the rest of her life if she has to, she will turn to stone, but she will not answer the door to the news that Tiger is dead.

The knocking persists. A female voice says, “Open up! I know you’re in there!”

A woman? Kate thinks. She pushes herself to her feet.

Standing on the front step is a woman with long dark hair. She’s wearing a black-and-white tie-dyed T-shirt, a denim skirt, and an anklet made of tiny bells. Her feet are bare.

“Can I help you?” Kate asks. This woman is a flower child, a hippie, and likely a beggar or a squatter or here asking for money for some imaginary charity. But because Kate is awash with sweet relief, she’ll give the woman a quarter and tell her to please be on her way. Maybe she’ll send her down the street to Bitsy Dunscombe’s house. Kate brightens at the very idea of this prank.

The woman is wearing a pair of tiny, round mirrored sunglasses. When she raises them, Kate sees ice-blue eyes.

Dear God, Kate thinks, and it takes everything in her power not to slam the door shut in the woman’s face.

“Katie?” the woman says.

It’s Lorraine. Lorraine Crimmins.

Kate falls back on her manners. “Lorraine,” she says. “I’m sorry…you’ve given me a shock. I…we…weren’t expecting you, were we? Bill…your father…didn’t say anything…”

“He doesn’t know I’m coming,” Lorraine says. “He’ll be more surprised than you.”

“Ah,” Kate says. She’s at a complete loss. “I’m sure he’ll be happy to see you.”

“Doubt that,” Lorraine says. “But I didn’t come to see the old man. I came to get my boy.”

“Well,” Kate says. The polite thing to do is invite Lorraine in but Kate can’t bring herself to do it. Now that she’s recovering from her shock, she feels the old hatred surfacing inside her, like pollution in a river. “You’ll have to check with your father about that. My understanding is you up and left Pick by himself. I’m not sure what reason a mother would ever have for doing such a thing, but if you ask me, you don’t deserve the boy back. He’s quite happy here with us. He has a job and a girlfriend. In the fall, he can go to high school here.”

“Ha!” Lorraine laughs like Kate has told a joke. “Come off it, Katie.”

“I heard him on the phone the other day, Lorraine, trying to call the…place you live, or used to live, looking for you, and no one could tell him where you were. He was upset.”

“Well, then, he’ll be happy to see me.”

Kate shuts the door and leans against it. Lorraine starts pounding. Kate wants Exalta to wake up, but she sleeps with earplugs in so there is little to no hope of her hearing all this. Ever so stealthily, Kate slides the dead bolt; there’s a telltale click. Lorraine stops knocking.

Good, Kate thinks. Lorraine gets the picture—she isn’t welcome. Kate considers calling the police but she can’t bear to make a scene so early on a Saturday—or at all.

Kate hurries down the hall, through the kitchen, and across the yard. She needs to wake up Bill Crimmins. But when she lets herself into Little Fair, she sees his bedroom is empty. A quick check out the window confirms his truck is gone. It’s early, but not that early. Bill has already left for work.

Kate leaves Little Fair just in time to see Lorraine opening the back door and entering the kitchen at All’s Fair.

“What are you doing?” Kate calls out in a furious whisper. “I did not invite you in!” She flies into the kitchen to find Lorraine already seated at the table. Lorraine chooses a peach out of the fruit bowl and takes a sloppy bite, her eyes defiant. Juice drips down her chin.

“Get. Out.” Kate looms over Lorraine. She is so angry, she wants to strike her.

“Go ahead,” Lorraine says. “Slap me. I know you want to. You’ve wanted to for sixteen years.” She stands up and presents a cheek to Kate. “It will give me great satisfaction to watch Katie Nichols lose control.”

“You’re despicable,” Kate says. “You were despicable then and you’re even more despicable now. Where is your self-respect? You show up here barefoot like a common hobo. You stink to high heaven. And I’m sure you don’t have any money.”

“True,” Lorraine says with a smirk. “I don’t. But my father will give me some.”

Kate silently concedes that point. “You are not staying here, Lorraine.”

“It’s actually Lavender now,” Lorraine says. “If you don’t mind.”

“What I mind, Lavender, is you barging into our family home uninvited.”

“You know, I’ve actually missed this house,” Lorraine says. “It has so many unique features. The mural, the buttery…”

“Watch it, Lorraine,” Kate says. She can’t believe how brazen the woman is being. She must be on something.

“And so many fine antiques. Exalta’s whatchamacallits—and that spinning wheel. Hey, do you remember when Kirby got in trouble for breaking the spinning wheel and she wouldn’t apologize? That’s because I was the one who broke it. I had taken a bunch of your diet pills and I was buzzing and wanted to see how fast it could go.”