Secrets in Summer(78)

Boyz took his time sauntering out of the living room, into the hall, and right to the threshold. He gave Darcy a smug look. “Remember, all you have to do is call.”

Darcy shuddered. How could she have been attracted to this man? Was she really so easily seduced by good looks? He did have a kind of magnetism, she had to admit that, but she’d built up a powerful shield against him.

“Boyz, I only want to go back to my very good book.” She stepped back and closed the door, practically pushing him out of her house.

But of course when she returned to her living room, she couldn’t read. An enormous hurricane of energy and emotions whirled through her. She was still trembling. She couldn’t sit down. She paced up and down her hallway, muttering to herself, wanting to strike something or pull out her hair.

It wasn’t because Boyz had come on to her. Boyz would come on to a statue if it had big enough breasts. It wasn’t his belief that she wasn’t able to get pregnant, it wasn’t his air of superiority and pity.

It was because he’d hit on a soft spot, because he did have one righteous point.

Willow wasn’t her daughter. Willow belonged to Autumn. Even if Autumn ignored Willow, she was still Willow’s mother. Even if she was a mediocre mother, she was still Willow’s mother.

Was Darcy “hanging out” with Willow? Yes, kind of…

But so were Mimi and Susan. That was what made them such an unusual and fascinating group, their different ages and lives.

Still, if Darcy were honest with herself, she’d admit that she felt something more than friendship for Willow. She loved her.

Was it wrong to love someone who doesn’t belong to you?

Memories flashed her back to the year she was nine. Darcy was living with Lala’s parents, and then Lala’s mother had a bad fall. She had an operation for a new knee and spent months in rehab, leaving Darcy with her grandfather, whose only cooking skill was stirring hot water into bowls of oatmeal from small packets. Darcy was shuffled off to live with an aunt and uncle, who made it clear she was an annoyance and a burden. Her only haven had been the school library, and it was there she developed an unexplainable fondness, a quiet adoration, for an older woman.

Bessie Bogan, the school librarian. She was African American, in her forties, happily, comfortably, bouncily fat, and endlessly kind. Bessie had taken an interest in Darcy when no one else seemed to give her a second thought. She noticed Darcy’s passion for reading and introduced her to nonfiction, fiction, and biography that opened up worlds to her. When Darcy spent an hour after school in the library—because no one cared what time she got home—Bessie was receptive to Darcy’s questions, and often, she’d say to Darcy, “Pull up a chair, honey. Let’s talk about this.”

As they talked, Darcy studied Bessie, trying to decide what made her so wonderful. Bessie wore a fragrance like vanilla and cinnamon. She wore pretty dresses in flower colors, often with lace at the neck or the wrists. Her teeth were a brilliant white, and she wore her very curly hair pulled back and held with a variety of hair clasps that coordinated with her earrings and necklaces. But it wasn’t Bessie’s beauty that fascinated Darcy. It was how she listened to Darcy speak, focusing all her attention on her, often remaining silent for a minute or two while she contemplated Darcy’s words.

“Um-hum,” Bessie would hum. “Let me think on that.”

The subject might be as enormous as the Holocaust—How could such a thing happen? Or as trivial as why women needed to possess so many pairs of shoes.

Often, Bessie would reply, “Child, I don’t think that’s a question anyone on this earth has the true answer for. The best advice I can give you is to keep reading.”

Darcy was in fourth grade at the time, and she moved to Nantucket when she was in fifth grade, and Bessie herself was no longer in Darcy’s life. But the lessons Bessie taught Darcy—not through words but through example—stayed with her forever. Bessie had a kind of patience with not having all the answers, with not being in control, and Darcy worked to achieve that in herself. Her mother lived a water-bug life, darting here and there, appreciating where she was or with whom only until something shiny gleamed, and she would zip away, never minding the turbulence she left behind.

Bessie Bogan never did anything with Darcy out of the library, although she had mentioned taking Darcy and three other interested fourth graders to the Chicago Art Institute. The trip never took place, and Darcy was sorry about that. She kept in touch with Bessie with Christmas cards for a few years, but the link between them gradually faded. Still, Darcy knew it was Bessie Bogan who had inspired Darcy to become a librarian.