Page 12 of The Hampton Beach Café 4
“Sure, what is it?” she asked, curious.
Kennedy sat back in her seat and gestured at the photograph. Frances picked it up, studying the image closely. In it, she saw a young girl with waist-length, wavy brown hair and a bright smile. She wore a short white and teal checkered dress and held a bouquet of bright flowers in her hands.
Frances looked up at Kennedy, her expression softening.
“Is this you?” she asked, feeling a strange pull of connection to the girl in the photograph.
Kennedy nodded, tears welling up in her eyes. “Yes, that's me,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
Frances looked back down at the photograph, studying the girl in the picture. “You always were a knockout,” she said, sincerely.
Kennedy’s short, barking laugh made Frances jump.
“Thank you, I can’t believe I just heard you compliment me,” she said, laughing. “That was taken on my seventeenth birthday. My mother surprised me with a photoshoot, and honestly, I felt so special that day…I can’t remember another time where I felt like that again.”
Frances placed the photograph down on the table and looked over at Kennedy, seeing the sadness in her eyes.
“Why are you showing me this?” she asked, confused.
Kennedy took a deep breath. Clearly, she was struggling to compose herself.
“My mom loved this picture…she gave it to me a few years ago,” she said, her voice filled with emotion. “Looking at this photograph always brings back memories of her before he left and she…and she got so sad all the time.”
Frances wanted to reach across the table and take Kennedy's hand, but was pretty sure that wouldn’t exactly go well.
“I'm sorry,” she said, squeezing her own hands together instead.
After a long moment of silence, Kennedy pulled out a worn, black and white photograph of her and her father. Kennedy was dressed in a poodle skirt and posed on the hoof of a beautifully restored Cadillac. Her dad towered over her in a leather jacket and greased-back hair.
“This was taken when I was a few years younger,” Kennedy explained. “He took me to a retro car show, and they were doing these souvenir photos…Do you think we look alike?”
Frances studied the photograph for a moment before shaking her head.
“I don’t know…not really?” she said. “But you do look a lot like your mom…so that might be influencing me a bit.”
Kennedy nodded, seemingly satisfied with the answer. She leaned down on her handbag and retrieved another photograph. This time, it looked like it was a more recent one of her and her little brother at the beach.
“What about my brother?” she asked, pointing to the young boy in the picture. “Do you think he looks like my dad?”
Frances studied the photograph once again. “This is William?”
Kennedy nodded, and Frances wondered what in the world was going on––they both knew that Kennedy believed William was the product of an affair between her mom and Frances’ father.
“I mean…I don’t know, Kennedy. What’s the point of all this?”
She put the photograph down and stared across the table at her old high school bully, who was currently shredding a paper tissue into a pile of confetti.
“But he looks like me, right?” Kennedy asked, almost breathless.
He did. Frances had to admit that Kennedy’s mom had some strong genes right there––if you put all three of them in a row, they’d look like an advertisement for some wholesome family homemaker brand.
“Sure, you both look like your mom,” she said.
“My mom never told me,” Kennedy said in a hushed voice as the waiter arrived. “Never said one way or the other…I never had any proof that William was…you know.”
Frances understood now. Kennedy had been hoping for some kind of closure––closure she couldn’t give her.
They ordered their food and chatted about the café for nearly an hour before Kennedy finally asked for the bill and made her way out of the restaurant on her cell phone.
