When Hope Is a Dangerous Thing

Annie stands at the balcony railing outside her bedroom and stares with wonderment at the night sky questioning how the small pin-pricks of light in the darkness inspired her to dream of a degree from MIT.

 “He’ll be here tomorrow night,” Annie says after exhaling a long wisp of white smoke away from Dottie who is sitting on a small rocking chair behind her. “I think I’ll make him a chicken pot pie.”

“You ok? We haven’t even talked about the letter.”

“That seems like a long time ago.”

“You read the letter at lunch time.”

“It’s funny, you know, I never asked why I didn’t have a father, I just accepted it, I guess. Maybe because there were so many men around, Papa and Uncle Tommy that I never thought someone was missing. And I was always looking at the stars and maybe I knew, maybe I was searching for Chapman Todd.”

“I suppose.” Is all Dottie says before lighting the tip of the cigarette she holds in her mouth.

“Do you want to hear the story, the real story?” Annie asks without turning to look at Dottie. “What happened that summer on Martha’s Vineyard.”

Annie stands still at the railing, the colorful patched quilt Dottie left on the bed wrapped loosely around her shoulders, and thinks about Josefine Sarfati, JP’s Mama. When she met Josefine on the Oak Bluffs dock waiting for the ferry to arrive, Annie didn’t know yet that Josefine Sarfati loved watching the tourists watch her and that she hummed when she swept the yard of her Vineyard house. Josefine always wanted to be the center of attention and was frustrated by the loud tourist-neighbors who she felt made the neighborhood feel common. Josefine Sarfati was grateful for Annie’s company that summer because she  didn’t see Annie as capable of upending her control of JP, and was as shocked as everyone when that happened.

 “I understood why Mama Sarfati loves that island,” Annie says out loud, allowing her mind to recall the lost memory. “The island light, it seduced me,” Annie says closing her eyes to grasp a wisp of that light left in her memory from the summer over twenty-years ago. “We thought we could trick Mama, but she knew. She watched us.”

Dottie exhales smoke into the cool night air but doesn’t say a word. She focuses on Annie’s back and waits for her to continue.

 “But I watched her too, and she liked to have fun. Mama Sarfati liked to say that when the gin came out the party really started. I watched as her worry ramped up and her cocktail hour moved earlier each day as the summer days passed. By August she had  a glass in her hand no later than noon.” Annie turns to look at Dottie and nods, “Truth.”

“Alcohol can do the devil’s work,” Dottie mutters with the cigarette still tight between her lips.

 “By August her special friend Ted,” Anne smiles remembering the vision of Josefine with her wide brimmed hat and floral sundress, perched carefully in Ted’s red canoe with Old Town in white script written across the port side, “had gone back to New York and she was a little bored and lonely. Did you know he was Byron and Todd’s Uncle?”

“Honestly honey, everything about that woman is a mystery to me. How did she find two men to marry her? And why are they both dead? She had every man in her life wrapped around her little finger, even JP until you fixed that.”

“I helped him see who she is and why she isn’t his responsibility. It’s not his fault she always needed a man and moved him around and then sent him away.”

“I suppose.”

“JP’s mama was both clueless about him and controlling, JP never seemed to see that until I pointed it out.”

“And then ran away.”

Annie turns away from her mom and looks back up at the stars and thinks about  the weekend when everything changed.

The ferry that brought Maeve and Lorenzo to Martha’s Vineyard arrived in the early evening at the Oaks Bluff wharf in the middle of August that summer. They had walked from the bustling center of town together, laughing and teasing each other as they passed by the colorful cottages, until they reached where Josefine was sitting on her Adirondack chair on the front lawn with a large martini in her slim hands staring over the patch of green space across from her house, facing toward the marina where the last light of the day disappeared.

She watched JP, Annie, Maeve and Lorenzo walk toward her with the pink and blue clouds stung across the horizon and a seagull floating across the darkening sky. But Josefine had stopped enjoying these moments because she was upset about her romantic failures, perseverating on why Ted didn’t want to stay with her.

On the walk to the ferry, JP and Annie had started hatching the plan on what would happen before the end of the summer. For weeks JP had been sharing with Annie why he was afraid of what September would bring. On the morning before Maeve and Lorenzo’s ferry had arrived, JP and Annie had ridden their bikes to Long Point beach and had spent the day jumping into the cold, clear ocean waves and left when the piping plovers arrived in the late afternoon. On the bike ride home JP had said, “I can’t go back with Mama in September, let’s run away.”

Dottie says quietly, startling Annie from her memories. “How did it start? You were his tutor. He wasn’t even eighteen.”

“He turned eighteen that summer. The first time was sort of a birthday present.”

“Nice,” Dottie laughs.

“We liked to ride our bikes out to a kettle pond in the middle of the island. It was almost always deserted. For hours we would float on our backs and stare at the sky. I had been there about a month, his birthday is the middle of July, and on the day of his party we stopped at the pond. Usually Todd and Byron were with us, but they were setting everything up for the birthday event.”

“Those boys do know how to have fun,” Dottie says with a smile on her face remembering the boys in the band.

“There was a bulldozer working on a house renovation and it  had pushed over a tree at the edge of the property and it was overhanging into the pond. JP climbed across the trunk to the thinnest outer branch that bent under his weight. He launched into the pond and shot up with a toss of his head, his black curls were still perfect, I remember.” Annie stares out at the dark night sky and tries to remember how they were and feels the tension JP brought to her right where she always felt it and smiles. “Jump! He challenged me and I did. It was a beautiful day and I felt light and unburdened and playful like a child – it reminded me of jumping from the rocks on the Maine shore.” Annie turns toward Dottie but doesn’t sit down, and Dottie stays still in her seat.

Annie thinks of how she landed gracefully in the cool water, floating up through the patch of lily pads blooming with small pink-flowers, and how when she bobbed her head above the water JP was not around. He had dived into the water and reappeared at her feet, floating up in front of her. Annie had laughed when he held her arms and stood before her, his hairless chest tanned and muscled pulsating against her.

“I didn’t expect him to kiss me,” she says, surprised by the power of the memory. She had felt the current run from his lips to the tips of her toes and would not, could not, release him when he moved himself back from her. The day was lighter and the sky seemed bluer, and the world held hope and a little joy. That afternoon they smoked a joint in the tree, and laid on the sand and learned each other’s bodies. She never imagined it would lead to anything but fond memories of a glorious summer days. “And that is how it started.”

 “But what happened when Maeve came? Why did you agree to leave with him? ”

Annie thinks for a moment because she’s not really sure what she remembers. After that first afternoon on the beach it had become part of their day. They had even had sex in her room on the days that Mama was out with Ted. On the day before Maeve and Lorenzo came to visit Annie and JP had laid together on the warm sand watching a hawk fly above, sailing alone in the clear blue sky. “I want to fly away from here,” he’d said, but Annie couldn’t understand why. She loved the Island and thought she could stay there forever. But she knew, by then, it was different for him. “Because he asked me,” Annie answers honestly. “JP said, ‘Will you run away with me? I want a normal life.” And I did.”

 “But you haven’t had a normal life.”

“True,” Annie admits and takes a seat next to Dottie. “But how could he. He likes cats more than people, and loves quiet but he’s a rock star. He likes to read Flannery O’Connell short stories and so much science fiction. And he loves Martha’s Vineyard and his Mama, even if she is certifiable. He’s looking forward to spending some time with Mama while she gets better. Lucky the car accident wasn’t worse but he does worry that she lives alone out there in the winter. And she was driving that old car!”

“The car you left when you ran away?”

“The roadster, yes.”

They sit together under the night sky and as Dottie takes a final drag of her cigarette she finds the courage to ask what she’s thinking. “Will you leave with him?”

Annie turns to Dottie and smiles. “No, not now. As a matter of fact I’m thinking of renting the garage across the street from Saint Catherine’s. Father Lorenzo is encouraging me to have my own dream, maybe I’ll open a bakery.”

“Are you staying that long.”

“Maybe, I’m waiting for a sign.”

 “I left Portland,” Dottie says. “Charlie showing up at the t-shirt factory was the sign I needed. That was my dream, I got out. That’s something no one in my family had done.”

“I don’t know what my dream is, I thought it was MIT but that summer.” She stops and turns her head toward the moon shining above. “I wouldn’t have gone to the Vineyard that summer if I hadn’t helped him pass calculus. It was on those nights at the sleep lab, when he was done playing, we finished his math homework together. Mama Sarfati was so happy with his math grades that she invited me to tutor him on the Vineyard so he’d be ready for college.”

“That didn’t go exactly as planned.”

“No,” Annie turns and smiles at Dottie.

“Did you really love him? Were you just running from here?”

“Mom, the truth?” Annie pauses and nods a few times before finishing her thought. “Sometimes I think maybe I just wanted to get back at Lorenzo.”

Annie cringes remembering how angry Lorenzo had been when he called her on the road when he understood she was gone. He’d taken Maeve home on the ferry at the end of that weekend but had waited a few days to call Annie to apologize, expecting she would come home and they’d figure it out, but she didn’t.  

 “There are many things to be scared of but love isn’t one of them,” Dottie says quietly. “You love him now, JP.” And just as the words leave Dottie’s mouth the glowing lights of a black SUV brighten the dark street. Annie and Dottie stand together to watch as it stops at their house and his black curls appear just before he sees her standing on the balcony, crying out when he does like Romeo to Juliette, “I miss you Annie McGrath and I  need you. I love you. I forgive you.” And as she throws the colorful quilt from her shoulders and races down the front stair she feels her broken heart begin to heal.