Chapter Thirty-Six

LIFE WITHOUT JOE didn’t make sense. How could everything just keep going: the phone ringing, the radio bringing news, Nan going off to work, the mail carrier bringing cards and letters to Immaculata from so many people who knew Joe. Nan guessed the wheels of the world never stopped.

Immaculata’s sisters started to visit, especially Annunciata, who looked like Immaculata’s twin without the birthmark. Nan loved when she came over. Annunciata was the perfect foil for her sister, and she never shut up, ending the awful silence in the house. Nan hung around when she was there.

While Annunciata was listing, in great detail, all the items on sale at the grocers that week, Immaculata interrupted, “My underpants fell down today, right in the middle of the garden.”

Annunciata laughed so hard she almost fell off the porch bench but demanded to know how that happened.

“I’m getting skinny,” Immaculata confessed. “I can’t eat. They’re so big on me now.”

“That won’t last,” Annunciata said, patting her arm. “Just get new underwear in the meantime, before you give me a stroke from laughing so hard.”

Later Nan asked Immaculata why she’d stopped talking to Annunciata and her other sisters so many years before. She shrugged, then slowly recounted the story of how she’d wanted to go to college so badly but her family laughed at her, told her girls don’t go to college.

“All your sisters came to Joe’s funeral. They sat right up front, remember?” Nan asked. She hoped a new memory would chase away the past.

“I don’t remember a damn thing about that day,” Immaculata said.

But Nan could see how much she counted on her sisters now, how time and grief had healed that old hurt.

*

NAN MISSED JOE every time she walked down Main Street and saw a dog in a yard looking hopefully at passersby. She missed hearing the steady clink of his shovel turning over dirt in his garden and the hissing of the hose when he watered. She missed seeing his eyes light up at something funny Immaculata said at dinner and watching his shoulders jiggle, laughing silently with her. She even missed the sight of his flannel shirts flapping on the clothesline.

If she got the job in Provincetown, she’d be leaving Immaculata in an empty house. That would be hard. But it was hard anyway. She had to follow this dream to the tip of Cape Cod. That was her special place, her landing place, the place that had been beckoning her all these years; she was sure.

*

NAN SPOTTED CHUCK in front of the hardware store. He hugged her like the close friend that he now was, delight lighting up his face and eyes. A young woman stood next to him, her arms full of plants.

“My daughter, Kennedy.” He presented her with a flourish. “She’s helping me out at the store.”

Nan was so fiercely glad to see her out of rehab again, back home with her family, and looking so fresh-faced and clear-eyed through the new tattoos that covered her neck and forehead that she hugged both Kennedy and her armload of purple and pink pansies. The flowers almost didn’t make it, the potting soil in their container spilling out on both of them.

“I’m so sorry,” Nan apologized. “I didn’t mean to hug you. I should have asked. I am just so glad to meet you.”

“Call her off, Dad,” Kennedy said, laughing.

Nan brushed herself off, waved goodbye, and walked away. She then turned back to the beautiful sight of the father and daughter side-by-side, surrounded by flowers.

In Provincetown, there were so many gorgeous gardens. She had walked down every East and West End street there so many times that she could summon up the weathered fences with riotous pink rose bushes spilling over them, tall purple alliums poking up, cheerful black-eyed Susans, swaying tall grasses, and banks of violet hollyhocks.

She pictured herself in Provincetown, imagined a team of interviewers picking up her resume and waving it excitedly at one another—the perfect candidate for the library job, here she is. Let’s meet her immediately.

Nan would have to find a stupendously perfect outfit for the interview that was sure to materialize. Nothing she had was special enough. Provincetown required funky panache, cool queer fashion. Was she up to it? Hell yes, she couldn’t wait to get there. She was going to ace that interview.

*

“WHAT ARE YOU doing up there?” Immaculata shouted up. “You sound like a herd of elephants.”

It was the day of reckoning, when Provincetown Public Library would notify applicants who were selected for an interview. Nan had taken the day off work so she would know instantly when her summons came. She started out the day walking in circles around her apartment, her nervous energy at an all-time high.

“None of your business,” Nan shouted back. “Leave me alone, old lady.”

For once, Immaculata listened and didn’t bother her again.

By noon, Nan was glued to the computer screen, hitting refresh constantly. In case they called, she held her phone in her hand, checking to make sure the volume was on high and the reception was strong.

At 5:00 p.m. she checked to make sure that Cape Cod was on Eastern Standard Time. Maybe it was earlier there. Maybe she still had an hour of hope left. But no.

Finally, she gave up. The business day was over. It was possible, though, that they were running a day behind in notifications. She was sure it was an incredibly popular position. They had probably received thousands of applications. She told herself there was still hope, that anything could have delayed the process. She went to bed with a bottle of wine, but she never slept.

For the next three days, she called in sick and repeated the entire previous cycle of hope, waning hope, and despair. Then she gave up and crawled into bed, knowing her dream was over.

*

AFTERWARD, PINETREE LOOKED so tiny and dull to her. She’d walked down every street so many times, been inside every store enough that she knew which shelves held which items. She was sick of seeing the same parade of faces around her every single day. The library regulars. The shopkeepers. The crossing guards. The dog walkers. The mail carriers.

She still had fifteen years to work, at least, before she could retire. Was this town her final destination in life? Was running this tiny library the best she could do?

In a fury, she rearranged entire sections of the library. The only remedy for her disappointment was to change something, anything. Let the new book aficionados hunt for where she moved them to. Let the newspaper readers go to the back of the building instead of dominating all the chairs in front. Let the preschoolers twirl around the Children’s Room searching for the picture books, now replaced by encyclopedias. Reshelve the entire Reference Room in reverse order for absolutely no reason. Mona finally stopped her from dragging the entire children’s section up to the first floor with a flat No.

Okay, she couldn’t change a lot of things, but she could certainly change her hair. She stomped down the street to the hair salon in search of purple and green highlights to replace the turquoise and pink ones.

When she opened the door, she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. I must be in the wrong place. This shop is chock full of nuns. That can’t be right. Maybe I’ve walked into a nun boutique. Is there such a thing? She went back out again to check the shop sign.

It was the hair salon, and yes, it was overflowing with nuns. Round wrinkled nuns in black short habits reading People, Glamour, and Bride magazines and a curious style book of updos, Buns, Buns, and More Buns.

Nuns in Buns sounds like a really bad movie, one I’d watch after one too many cocktails on a rainy night. Nan could practically picture the movie poster.

Craggy-necked nuns bent back over the sinks with their sparse white hair covered with shampoo tufts. A fresh-faced baby nun sat on the floor, cross-legged and playing a game on her phone. More nuns at the styling stations held up hand mirrors to see the back of their new dos.

“You caught us at a busy time, love,” the shop owner called out. She was red-faced and sweaty, as if juggling so many nuns was as hard as running a marathon. “It’s the convent’s quarterly visit.”

Nan backed out slowly. Change was not easy. That was becoming increasingly clear. At least for her. Other people seemed to effortlessly get new jobs, move to new places, find new partners, sail through challenges, move through metamorphoses. She was thwarted at every turn, big and small.