School would be out for the summer in mid-May. I knew Tyler had a birthday coming up in June, and I was already thinking about the cake I had promised him. My thought was to replicate the island’s playground, because we’d had so much fun there while Archie and Sharon were away on that fabulous romantic honeymoon of theirs. I was thinking of using a whole sheet cake covered with green icing on the top to represent grass. I’d ice the sides in waves of blue, to make it seem like the water around our island. I’d already started looking for Lego sets that looked like playground equipment. I could make shrubs and children and even dogs of marzipan and tiny flowers of tissue. I was pretty excited. It was a lot more exciting than Happy Birthday from the Gang! on a ten-inch round that, depending on how you cut it, serves ten to fourteen.
When Carin was alive and one of the boys had a birthday, she’d have their whole class over, including their parents. I could still see Carin’s beautiful face, flushed with joy as she replenished pitcher after pitcher of sweet tea and lemonade. Or as she stood in the sun, holding her hair back from her face because of a stiff breeze while she listened intently to another parent telling her whatever it was that concerned her. And I could see Archie, grilling hot dogs and burgers by the score, stopping to shake hands with this parent or that one or leaning down to take a special request from one of the children. Carin and Archie couldn’t do enough to fete their birthday boys like princes.
I hoped the tradition would continue, because I felt like the more things went on as they had been, the easier it might be for the boys to continue to adjust to and move past all the traumatic changes.
Leslie and Charlie continued to correspond, and the date of his lip-sync competition grew closer. She came to the conclusion that she wasn’t going to go to Las Vegas for this whatever-it-was. But she was developing a broader view on the whole subject.
We were sitting on the porch in the dark, waiting for the stars to come out, just solving humanity’s problems.
“Think about Dame Edna,” she said to me. “That Australian guy? And what about that whole Monty Python gang? They were always dressing up as women. It doesn’t mean a thing!”
“That’s true,” I said. I had to agree with her about them.
“And they’re hilarious! It turns out that as Cher, Charlie is hilarious. I mean, who knew?”
“Really? How weird is that? Like Clark Kent has superpowers when he’s wearing his cape?”
“Sort of. But yeah.”
“The human mind is fascinating. If I had it to do over again I might be a neurologist or a psychiatrist. You going out tonight?”
“No, I think I need to spend some time really thinking about where my marriage is going. You know? And what do I want my future to look like?”
“You say that like you’re in charge of it,” I said.
“What? My future? Of course, I’m in charge. And, darlin’ Holly, if you don’t think you’re in charge of yours, we’ve got a lot of talking to do.”
“I could probably use some direction, because I think I may have painted myself into a corner.”
“Well, then, we’ll have to find a way for you to paint yourself out. I mean, your life should make sense. Example, if you look at Charlie’s new lifestyle objectively, you can break it down to the point where it makes perfect sense,” she said.
“Oh, please. Let me hear this new slant on the world,” I said.
“Well, let’s start with the things Charlie never told me about his childhood,” she said.
“Wait a minute, I want to check the sky.” I got up, stepped outside, and looked up. Only half the stars were visible, so I went back to my rocker. “Okay, I’m ready.”
“Well, he was attracted to pretty things—you know, jewelry, perfume, or just good smells in general.”
“Like what?”
“Well, fresh baskets of laundry that were still warm. He didn’t like the smell of people’s sweat. Apparently, when he got around anyone working in the yard in the heat of summer or around his father after a long tennis match, the smell of body odor made him nauseated.”
“Can’t say I’m a fan, either,” I said.
“Well, anyway, that extended into high school. You can imagine, the locker room was disgusting