Chapter Seven
The next morning, Addison woke to the smell of eggs and sausage. The neighborhood dog was resting her head in Margot’s lap while she read an old People magazine with the headline Jude Law: Sexiest Man Alive. From the amount of hair on Jude’s head, it seemed to be from the early aughts. Addison had glanced through the mountain-like stash in the guest room closet, a diverse pile of reading material left by visitors over the years, from Popular Mechanics to Variety. An interesting array of faded names and addresses were affixed to their corners.
“Wasn’t I the one who was supposed to make you breakfast?” Addison pointed out sheepishly. “I was going to attempt Gicky’s famous scones.”
“That’s OK. I’m not exactly a paying customer.” Margot smiled. “Everything’s on the stove. Help yourself. I don’t want to move this happy girl.”
Addison couldn’t believe the dog was back. She had to board up that door.
She sat down on the couch with a cup of coffee and a plate of scrambled eggs. They were simple but delicious.
“Thyme?” she asked, trying to figure out what she was tasting.
“Yup, there’s a little herb garden on the side of the back shed.”
“Who knew?”
“Me.” Margot smiled and put the magazine down. Addison reached over and tapped on it.
“So, did my aunt Gicky always have a hoarding problem?”
“You see a pile of old magazines where Gicky saw a potential collage. One year when I visited, she was decoupaging old surfboards. I’m all thumbs, but she let me assist—a little.” Margot turned to look at her.
“What’s on your schedule for today?” she asked. It made Addison laugh. She had nothing on her schedule for the foreseeable future. She was, in fact, anchorless.
“What do you have in mind?”
“A long bike ride would be nice. Have you broken out the bikes from the back shed yet?”
She hadn’t even gone in the back shed yet—she had considered it, but it gave her those horror film vibes again. Somehow, with five-feet-nothing Margot by her side, she felt braver.
Addison slid the shed door open, bracing herself for a sleeping raccoon. Instead, she was happy to see a trove of regular shed stuff transformed, in typical Gicky fashion, into treasures. If Nora Ephron’s mother had famously said, “Everything is copy,” then Addison Irwin’s aunt would have declared, “Everything is an art project.” The watering cans were painted as a menagerie of trunked animals. The leaf blower was decorated to look like an aardvark, and a rainbow of rakes and brooms stood in the corner. The centerpiece, Gicky’s bicycle, looked like a mermaid’s chariot, with froth-crested waves painted on the frame and a wreath of shells adorning the front basket.
“Aaah. Annette Kellerman!” Margot exclaimed.
Addison spun around, expecting to see another one of Gicky’s contemporaries behind her.
“The bike,” Margot laughed. “Gicky named it Annette Kellerman. She loved this bike. Let’s take it for a spin—I’ll take the plain one.”
By “plain” she meant a bright red bicycle covered in orange flames with the words Hot Tamale painted across its carriage.
Through a smile, Addison swallowed a lump in her throat—more regret that she hadn’t known her aunt. She could blame it on her parents as much as she wanted to, but she was old enough to have reached out herself. Although the same could be said of Gicky. She thought to ask Margot about it, but really didn’t feel like going down the regret path. She went with, “Who is Annette Kellerman?” instead.
“Annette Kellerman was a lesser-known feminist icon.”
“Of course she was.” Addison smiled. “She sounds like someone you knew from the Bronx.”
“Nope, she was from Australia, I believe. She was a famous synchronized swimmer who invented the women’s bathing suit. Before that, women wore pantaloons to swim. Imagine?”
Addison pictured herself drowning in pantaloons.
The two set out on their bike ride, Addison riding Annette Kellerman and Margot the Hot Tamale. They stopped at the market to pick up turkey sandwiches—the good ones—before heading east on their journey. Once there, Addison found herself looking around every corner for You Again. When she recognized her disappointment, it surprised her.
Margot, it turned out, had embarked on this particular adventure a half dozen times with Gicky. It began with talking themselves into the gated community of Point O’Woods, an insular village where the land is owned by an association, with century-old houses passed down from generation to generation. Most were built in the New England style, with weatherworn gray shingles beautifully maintained by their preppy-looking inhabitants. The community reminded her of a J.Crew ad she’d once worked on. They rode by the clubhouse, tennis courts, and church. Addison took it all in and concluded that this would be the best location for the horror film in her head—she could get Jordan Peele to write it.
At the far end of POW, they locked their bikes and continued their adventure by exploring a board-walked nature preserve called the Sunken Forest. They stopped to eat their sandwiches at the picnic benches in the next enclave, Sailors Haven, which was not much more than a marina, before backtracking and heading home in time for Margot to catch the early evening boat.
They nearly forgot to look for Margot’s gift from Gicky and searched like mad in the fifteen minutes before they had to leave for the ferry.
Margot found it in the back of the guest room closet—wrapped in brown paper with the words For Margot written across it in script.
Even though she was basically out of time, Margot carefully untied the bakery string that held the brown paper wrapping in place to see what her friend had made her.
It was a painting of her and Gicky at around age twelve, seated on the living room floor of the old apartment on the Grand Concourse. Margot was holding an autograph book with the page open to Gicky’s salutation. She leaned in to read what it said, smiling and crying simultaneously.
Make new friends. But keep the old; those are silver, these are gold.
She wiped her tears and wrapped it back up.
“Let’s go,” she said, adding, “Keep an eye out for Shep’s painting. His wasn’t in there.”
By the time they arrived at the ferry, a line had already formed down the block to board it. Addison helped Margot with her things, and they embraced for longer than either of them expected. Her affection for her aunt’s best friend had grown substantially over the weekend.
“I hope you’ll come back next summer,” Addison gushed, adding more reasonably, “if I don’t sell the place.”
“If you don’t, I would love to,” Margot responded, happy the time with Addison had been valuable for them both.
The line began to move, and before moving with it, Margot patted Addison’s cheek lovingly.
Addison said a final goodbye and then took a few steps back to take it all in. The atmosphere at the dock reminded her of her childhood summers at the lake. Although there were no ferryboats there, Sunday nights meant an early dinner before her dad drove back to the city for the week. His goodbye would leave her mother softer for the hour after he left—slightly vulnerable and a bit melancholy. Now, as an adult, she realized it was love. Addison had never felt that longing for someone. When she was engaged to her college boyfriend, they were always together. And even when they broke it off—when she broke it off—she waited to feel that ache that her mother had clearly felt when her husband had only left for the week. But she never did. Nor did she feel free and unburdened, as she thought she would. She felt little of anything, and that’s when she began wondering if she had ever been in love with him to begin with. Years later, she still wondered.
She watched a woman say goodbye to her husband and kids, who were clearly staying out for the week. The youngest held on to her mom’s leg as if she were going off to war.
“Don’t be so dramatic, Harper. I’ll see you in four days,” the mom promised, wavering between guilt and amusement. Her husband held his wife’s face in his hands and placed a somewhat comical smooch on her lips. The woman released her laughter, and a feeling Addison could only describe as envy sank in. She turned her head, embarrassed that she had taken in their private moment. When she did, she noticed You Again standing on the dock.
Ooh!
It had been a while since Addison had felt the heart-stopping ooh, he’s cute feeling, and she had forgotten how good it felt. Ever since she had met him on the boat, she found herself looking for him at every turn.
She controlled the width of her smile and reached her hand up to wave hello. As she did, a woman exited the ferry and met him in a warm embrace that he returned tenfold. Addison quickly retracted her wave and turned her now crimson-cheeked face away from them.
The sun was setting as Addison walked home from the ferry, and though there was no denying that she was bummed to see that the cute guy had a girl, she was now relieved. To begin with, he was way too much to be her type. She valued modest over cocky. Add in the fact that he had clearly been flirting with her when he had a girlfriend, and she felt spared.
The streets were quiet, and the competing smells of Sunday night barbecues made her stomach rumble. The deer were already gathered on the grass-covered ball field for their evening buffet. After only a few days, Addison had grown accustomed to cohabiting with the herd, who were clearly quite used to cohabiting with the locals. Both were unfazed by the other’s existence.
Once back at the house, she stripped Margot’s bed, threw in a wash, took out the garbage in advance of Monday’s pickup, had nothing more than a big bowl of cereal for dinner, and crawled into bed with a book.
I couldn’t do this with a husband and kids, she thought with a smile.
Affirmation of her “anchorless” existence.
Still, she tossed and turned all night.