Page 110 of Summer Longing
How easy it would be to just talk amiably with Clifford and Santiago, to ignore the serious conversation she had to have in favor of the playful one she was engaged in. But she couldn’t.
“Can you excuse me for a minute? I have to talk to my daughter.”
“Go forth and mingle,” Clifford said, then headed off to the buffet table.
Ruth looked ahead, trying to locate Olivia in the growing crowd near the bar. She saw her standing near the far end of the backyard, where the short stretch of grass gave way to sand. The bar had been set up in this waterfront section, and the guests migrated toward it. Olivia was deep in conversation with Marco, who was dressed as some sort of nautical king. Poseidon? He held a three-pronged trident in one hand.
They were eye-locked with each other, engaged in the type of intimacy that made it clear they were a party unto themselves. Ruth walked toward them.Here it goes,she thought.
This was the right thing to do. It was a conversation she had to have. It had seemed, when she awoke in the middle of the night, so obvious. At four in the morning, still foggy and operating on dream logic, she had complete faith in her idea to set things right. Now, in the bright light of reality, she wasn’t so sure. Still, even one more day of inaction was unthinkable.
Olivia noticed her approach but pretended she didn’t. Marco was the one who greeted her, welcoming her into their tight twosome.
“Poseidon?” Ruth said to him.
“Yes, you got it,” he said. “Love the sailor dress.”
“Thanks. And Olivia, you make a beautiful…” What was she dressed as? Her long hair hung loose, and she wore a sea-green gown with a fitted bodice and a full skirt that was decorated with what appeared to be real seashells. She carried the same trident as Marco. “Mermaid?”
“I’m Amphitrite,” Olivia said.
Amphitrite.The name of the boat on which she had lost her virginity to Ben.
It was suddenly so hot. Ruth swayed, just enough to catch Marco’s attention. He reached for her arm. “Are you okay?”
“Fine, fine,” she said, trying to collect herself, to focus on the task at hand. “Marco, I need to borrow Olivia for a few minutes.”
Olivia protested, made some excuse about how they were just about to go inside to the buffet, but Marco offered to check out the spread and bring her some hors d’oeuvres.
When they were alone, Olivia turned to her in a huff. “What is it, Mother?”
Chapter Forty-Seven
Ruth led Olivia away from the bar to the opposite end of the sandy stretch, closer to the water.
“I know you’ve been upset with me for keeping Jaci’s secret. And I know it can’t go on, butsheneeds to be the one to break the news—not me, not you, not Amelia.”
“Amelia? She knows about this?”
Oops. “Never mind. The point is, Jaci needs to see that there’s a good alternative to the choice she made. She doesn’t want to jeopardize her college education and future career, but she also doesn’t want to burden her retirement-age parents with a baby, forcing them to start over.”
“It’s Lidia’s granddaughter. I don’t believe she’d see it as a burden.”
“Not emotionally, no. But there are practical issues. There are things you can’t understand if you’ve never been a mother.”
Olivia crossed her arms. Her eyelashes were thick with blue mascara, her eyebrows lined with turquoise sequins. It was distracting to have such a serious conversation dressed as a 1940s sailor girl talking to a mythological queen. And yet she had the feeling many an important conversation had occurred in Provincetown under even more outlandish circumstances. Wasn’t this in part why she’d fallen in love with the place? The sense that anything can happen, that anything goes?
Hadn’t she returned to recapture that very feeling?
“What’s your point, Mother?” Olivia asked.
Ruth shrugged. “Well, you’re here, and you’re involved with Jaci’s brother. The two of you could help out…”
“Mother, I’m sorry. This is some absurd fantasy of yours, some idealized life you think I should be living. You’ve asked me to understand and respect the choices you made, and you need to respect my plans.”
“What plans?”
“I have a job opportunity in the city, a chance to start my own company—just like you.”
