Souvenir (6 page)

Eight

M
EG SAT IN THE KITCHEN
S
ATURDAY MORNING, COFFEE IN HAND, NOTEBOOKS
stacked on the table before her. Brian had gone for his usual Saturday breakfast with his cronies, first dropping Savannah at Rachel’s so they could go…someplace; Savannah had told her, but Meg, distracted by the diaries and her ambivalence about reading them, had passed Savannah off to Brian and thought no more about her daughter’s plans.

The house was peaceful now, which made it easier to decide to try reading an entry or two. Just to prove to herself that the diaries were frivolous, that she could throw the whole lot away without regret.

She paged through, sampling the entries, surprisingly compelled to turn the pages. Even the shortest of her mother’s comments revealed pieces of her past—their past—she hadn’t seen before.

June 8, 1985

Meggie’s been hired on at the bank. We need her here, but we need her there, too. Or somewhere that pays good. The Lord knows the money will be useful! We had to let our health insurance lapse, so I just pray none of us takes sick. Blessed Mother, watch over us all.

So they’d gone without insurance; the very thought of it was frightening, even long after the fact. She remembered her mother’s pinched face from back then, the worry lines ringing her mouth and wrinkling her forehead. It hadn’t mattered how early Meg got up in the morning, her mother was always up before her. No matter how late she stayed up, her mother was still up too. Little wonder her mother’s blood pressure was high.

“June eighth…” she said. The day she met Brian.

Her first day of work at Hamilton Savings and Loan. Her training was set to begin at ten, but first she was required to meet her boss—Brian, who was the owner’s son, only six years older than herself. Belinda Cordero, head teller, led her to his office doorway and disappeared, leaving her feeling self-conscious and somehow wrong for this moment in time, as if she’d been dropped into the scene by mistake. Her real life was waiting in the paddocks—horses that needed to be exercised, tack that awaited repair. She wanted to bolt.

Brian was sitting at a desk that looked older and more distinguished than
he
was. He wore an off-white linen jacket and a pastel pink shirt, a là Sonny Crockett from
Miami Vice.
His hair was longish and styled just right, meant to dazzle all the women and show the men he was on top of the trends.

He sat back and waved her in. “Hi, come on in, Meg. I’m Brian Hamilton.”

She took three small steps and stopped. His office smelled of old leather and young ambition, embodied by an expensive cologne she would forever associate with him. She took one more step and stopped.

Brian folded his hands behind his head. “Welcome. We’re glad to have you as part of the Hamilton team. Eileen tells me you’re a rising senior at North Marion High?”

“That’s right.”

“Good in math?”

She nodded. She did her best to keep eye contact, the way her father had told her she should, but it was hard. Brian kept smiling at her as if he knew that her black polyester skirt and ruffled brown blouse came from a thrift shop. Her shoes, too—though she hoped he couldn’t see them while she stood there in front of his desk. It was the same outfit she’d worn for her interview the week before, and she suspected Eileen Guillen had told him everything.

She’d gotten the job out of sympathy, she was sure. Everyone in Ocala seemed to know how tenuous things were for the Powells; her father broadcasted his failures as loudly as his successes, afternoons at the co-op. She had applied for a position with the janitorial staff, the job advertised in the
Ocala Star-Banner
, but during her interview with Eileen Guillen, director of human resources, she’d talked about her plan to study accounting after she graduated. Because of that, instead of cleaning floors and toilets in the historic building that Adair Hamilton had rebuilt right after the 1883 fire, Meg would become a part-time teller. “We like to give our people the best possible start,” Eileen had told her. “’Specially those who need it most.”

Brian said, “I like math a lot, myself. My degree’s in economics, and I’ll have my MBA soon. Do you plan to go to college?”

“I hope to.”

“Terrific.” He clapped his hands, an exclamation point. “We like our people to be motivated beyond all this marble and brass.” He stood and offered his hand. “It’s great to have you here. I know Belinda’s waiting for me to turn you back over to her, so I’d better let you go.”

At first Meg thought she’d rather be cleaning toilets; working as a teller meant being visible, presentable, and this was a challenge for a girl whose best clothes were jeans and T-shirts without patches or stains. She and her mother scoured the thrift stores for decent professional wear with some success, but being dressed up in skirts and heels every afternoon was like wearing a costume. A costume that wasn’t quite as nice as the ones the other tellers wore. Brian went out of his way, though, to help her feel like she was a valuable part of the Hamilton team—that’s how he always talked about the tellers, as a team. If her white blouse was dingy because they’d run out of detergent, he overlooked it. If the fake leather on the heels of her shoes was peeling away, he overlooked that too. Was she good with people? Was she careful with procedures and funds? Those were the things that mattered. By the time school started again, her senior year, she’d been converted to permanent employee status, which Belinda said was “super high praise.”

Brian made a point to befriend her. He would find her during her breaks, ask the occasional question about their farm or her family, her boyfriend, her aspirations in life. She thought he did this with everyone—they all talked about what a hands-on manager he was, how he was destined to be a big success—and only learned later that he’d singled her out. Sometimes he joined her and a few of the other employees at the Trough, after work—a treat she allowed herself only every other Friday. Carson never went. “Too many guys with ties,” he joked. She went anyway, wanting to fit in if she could. They all talked about their career goals, and once, she admitted that her dream job wasn’t in finance at all, but in medicine. Maybe veterinary, maybe human, she wasn’t sure. “I’m used to doctoring everyone and everything already,” she’d said. “My sisters, the horses, our cats…. I’ve helped with foaling—and I even gave our pony stitches once.”

Brian slapped the tabletop. “Then do it,” he said, surprising her. “Figure out what you want and how to make it happen, and do it.”

But surely he knew how impossible that was for her, for any Powell girl. Every paycheck she earned went to her parents, to help pay for groceries. Trying for medical school of either type was as futile as trying to use her arms to fly.

Brian. He’d known so well how to play her, when the time came.

Nine

A
T THEIR
N
ETTLE
B
AY VILLA
, C
ARSON WATCHED
V
AL AND
M
ARIE
-L
OUISE,
the ambitious French real estate agent Val had picked, pore over photos and property fact sheets on the patio’s café table. He knew he should be as immersed in the activity as Val, knew by the way she kept looking over at him, sitting on the rattan chair to her right, that she thought the same thing. And he
wanted
to be. He wanted to be fully focused on ideal elevation, proximity to the best surf, amenities such as built-in pools and spas and breeze-catching screened rooms. But his seditious mind kept moseying back in time, to the evenings when he and his father had sat at their square kitchen table and sketched out plans for a very different new residence, one he’d share with a very different girl.

He could see it, as clear as if it had happened last week instead of twenty years ago: his dad looking young and capable in the heavy twill pants and cotton button-up shirt he always wore to work in the groves; the kitchen light, a cone-shaped pendant, hanging above the table’s center, its circle of golden light on their outspread papers; his mother singing some ’60s tune while she updated the books at the desk nearby—the Carpenters, he thought, hearing her contralto in his memory. And Meg, sitting close at his left, pushing her long hair off her shoulders and smiling at him, at the future they were drawing with a wooden ruler and pencils sharpened with a knife.

How different a scene that was from what came later.

He remembered his twenty-second birthday, long after the breakup, months after Meg’s wedding in ’89. George Pappas, his good friend and would-be guitarist, had taken him out for lunch and a few beers. They were waiting at a red light in George’s faded brown Chevelle, Pearl Jam blasting on the aftermarket stereo. He didn’t notice the glossy red sports car pulled up alongside the left of them at first. Four or five—or six?—beers since lunch had made him almost oblivious, to his surroundings and to the fact that he was spending another birthday without Meg. It was the first since her marriage, but who was counting?

“Hey,” George said, tapping his window. “Isn’t that Meg?”

Carson turned at the same moment she looked over, her hand pressed to the glass; they stared at each other as if George wasn’t seated between them, as if they weren’t passengers in two different cars, separated by window glass and harsh words and wedding vows.

George started to roll down his window. What did he think, that they’d all just have a nice little chat? That she’d wish him a happy birthday and throw a kiss? But then the arrow turned green, and the Porsche pulled out, turning left.

George whistled. “Nice wheels, eh, bro?” he said, as the car moved farther and farther away from them, disappearing into the Ocala twilight. “She did pretty well for herself.”

“Fuck you,” Carson said.

He was jarred back to the present when Val elbowed him. “Carson! I think this is the one!”

He cleared his mind of the memories of Meg so that he could be, instead, with the woman he was reasonably sure
would
marry him. Sitting up straighter, he leaned in to see what Val was looking at. “Yeah? Let’s see.”

Val passed him a fact sheet for a charming blue-roofed house, its stucco exterior and arched doorways reminiscent of South Florida’s Caribbean-influenced architecture. Or rather, the Florida homes mimicked the ones here in St. Martin, which were influenced by French tastes—which of course was true about many structures in the West Indies. This was, he decided, the architectural circle of life, Caribbean version. It could be a reality show.

Marie-Louise said, “That one, it’s in Terres Basses—‘lowlands’
en français.
It is
très exclusif
.”

For three-point-five million U.S. dollars, it ought to be, he thought.

“That’s where we were looking yesterday morning,” Val reminded him.

“
Alors
, there is a view of the Caribbean Sea from the stone pool and spa—so nice for romantic soirées, no?” Marie-Louise smiled her ingratiating smile. “But if you get company—maybe your real estate agent, yes?—you have four guest rooms, three baths—and your kitchen, well, it is
magnifique
!”

He fought to keep from rolling his eyes. Marie-Louise reminded him of the kinds of women he tried hardest to avoid. She would make an ideal host for his imaginary reality show, he decided, viewing Caribbean properties with wealthy couples and booting off the islands anyone whose net worth turned out to be less than ten million dollars.

“Carson
loves
to cook, right, Car?” Val said.

“‘Loves’ might be a little strong.”

“He’s being modest. He’s terrific in the kitchen—his Thai food is
killer
. Men should be self-sufficient, don’t you think?”

“Oh,
oui
,” Marie-Louise said. “They must cook and clean and make the money—it’s what
we
do,
non
?”

“Equality,” Val said, nodding.

“
L’égalité
,” Marie-Louise agreed, both women looking at Carson.

“I’m all for it. I’ll cook, and Val can do the dishes.”

“Not!”

“Spoken like a twenty-first-century princess.” Carson smiled. He’d known how Val would respond—she was useless in the kitchen, capable of little more than pouring cereal and pouring wine. It was part of her charm.

“The Princess
de la Mer
,” Marie-Louise declared.

Val took the fact sheet from him. “And this house looks like the perfect princess hideaway. What do you think, Car? Want to go see it?”

He considered what might happen if he said no, if he told her he thought dropping
any
million on a vacation house felt ridiculous and unreal and contrary to what his life was about—not that he could fully define
about;
he considered how her smile would falter, replaced by confusion over his uncharacteristic—to her—behavior. She’d never seen him pessimistic or witnessed one of his “philosophical jags,” as Gene liked to call the lapses into dark introspection that seemed to sneak up on him now and again. He hadn’t had one since hearing that Meg’s mother had died so suddenly last September, just before he and Val met. Val wouldn’t know what to do with
that
Carson, much as he usually didn’t know himself. And maybe it was unfair to marry her without her having witnessed one of the spells—though he’d told her about them. Maybe he should make her see his full range, first.

Or maybe, in marrying her, he would effectively short-circuit his melancholy side and they’d live happily ever after. He stood, reached for Val’s hand, and said, “Let’s go.”

A few minutes later he trailed the women down a flagstone path to where the real estate agent had parked her late-model Mercedes. The reality of his surroundings—the ridiculous blue of the Caribbean sky, the palm trees so perfect they hardly looked natural, the sculpted shrubbery, the flash of the $79,000 diamond on Val’s left ring finger as she swung her arm—this reality was not the one he had planned for, growing up. It was not the reality he thought he was built for. Yet here he was. He trusted that if he tracked all his life’s events or decisions in the long sequence that had led him to this moment, this reality, it would all make sense. It had to: he was getting too jaded, too tired of the rock-star life to maintain its status quo. This vivacious young woman in front of him in her faded denim short-shorts and snug pink tank wanted to marry him. She was, if not exactly the sort of woman he once thought he’d spend his life with, a very appealing alternative. So, barring brain damage or death, in four weeks they’d return to the island with wedding apparel, parents, and friends, and get the deed done.

Maybe then, he thought as he held the car door open for Val, he could put the past behind him for good and all.