A Thousand Summers

Paradise.

Part 1

Summer of 1960

Chapter 1

As a child, Massey Roberts spent her summers at the seashore where she and Mama rented a cottage each year. In the small town of Seaside, Oregon, the salty air gave them an appetite, browned their skin to a healthy glow, and all but carried the fearful echoes of winters out to sea. For three months each year, she and Mama lived a fantasy life free and safe from Massey’s father.

For Massey and her Mama, their yearly jaunt to the coast became more than just a pleasurable respite from an otherwise adverse condition. It was something the two looked forward to, lived for, months in advance. It was a way of survival, of rekindling their spirit. Coming to Seaside each year was a journey to a place called Paradise.

From the time she and Mama packed up the big red Cadillac at their home in Boise, Idaho, and started their trek west, Massey was beside herself with excitement. Way back in March, she’d begun to count the days until they would leave, beginning with a round number of one hundred and two.

Yesterday, the calendar shouted one more day to go. Today was day zero. Blast off. Mama, who never counted the days, started the engine of the car and offered her daughter a hopeful, but pallid smile. To spend summers in Paradise meant everything to both of them.

It was nearly a ten hour drive from Boise to Seaside, so Mama insisted on stopping for lunch at the usual roadside café, an unwelcomed departure from Massey’s usual plan. If it had been up to her, the girl would have breezed straight through, lifted up her skinny legs, and fanned out her long thin arms. She would have flown there like a seagull. All the way to the sea.

Their rented cottage was on the southern end of town just steps from the Pacific Ocean and blocks from the carnival atmosphere of downtown Broadway. Set back from the sand a fair distance on the opposite side of the broad promenade, the summer house stood weathered and gray with a wide wrap-around front porch, deep eaves, and massive corbel braces.

As soon as the car pulled onto the crushed gravel drive, Massey burst open her front door and made a mad dash jumping onto the old wooden porch. A blast of warm ocean air caught her in a joyful motion, tossing against her bare legs and smiling freckled face. All around her was the pungent smell of salt and sea like some kind of expensive perfume. The girl could hardly wait until Mama unlocked the door so they could make their way to the coolness inside.

Upon their arrival, Mama always insisted Massey help her unload the car before she set out to explore the house and beach. And, of course, there was her best friend, Patty Jo Corvette, who was waiting for her next door. She’d probably seen her drive up in the car. Jump out. Run inside. Waiting for her to run out again and come on over. Massey and her mama had been coming to Seaside to spend their summers for as long as she could remember, but Patty Jo and her family had only arrived last summer. And she knew the girl was already here. Massey reeled with excitement.

For nearly as long as Massey was counting the days until their departure from Boise, Idaho each year, Gerald was threatening to make good on his promise not to allow her and Mama to leave. Even up until the night before, while mother and daughter were packing for their summer escape hoping against hope he’d change his mind, it was a possibility he’d remain true to his conviction and not to let them go. But somehow Gerald always came through. He hated the ocean and its small touristy towns. That was the reason why he chose not to come to the coast, but why didn’t he want her and Mama to come?

It was a control thing, Mama told her quietly one night when she was tucking Massey into bed. The girl didn’t know what that meant. But none of it mattered now. All that was important was she was here in the midst of all she loved. Here in Seaside, where nothing bad could ever touch her.

Massey was the best possible help to Mama. Lugging her heavy suitcase up the narrow creaky stairs of the rental house, she filled her nose with the smells of aged wood and the mustiness which had overrun the closed up cottage during the long stormy winter.

She was always anxious to see her bedroom first thing — to see if the landlady, Petunia Blount, had kept everything just the way it’d been when Massey left the previous September. And it was always the same. The paneled white bead-board half way up the walls, above which faded wallpapered violets danced along the sharply angled ceiling. The deep-cushioned chair in flowered lilac still stood near the front paned window, appearing a little more ashen and threadbare with each passing year. It was where Massey loved to curl up on lazy afternoons with a Nancy Drew novel and Kismet The Cat, the vacation house’s resident feline.

Kismet The Cat could do some pretty remarkable things like perching on the edge of the throne to do his business, and wrapping his long calico tail around the chain high up on the wall, giving a yank to flush. And that wasn’t all. Massey was sure she’d heard him speak more than once, which didn’t surprise her in this magical place called Paradise. Kismet The Cat had attitude. He hated tourists. They gave him bowel trouble. And fish. Good grief!

The seaside bungalow was furnished with old painted tables more chipped and scarred than the girl had remembered, antique lamps, and cushy overstuffed chairs. The old wood floors shone throughout the beach house, and filmy white curtains hung from the deep-set windows. Upstairs, a hand-crocheted coverlet lay on Mama’s big brass bed, and a tall pine clock ticked in the central hall. Petunia Blount added fresh cut flowers, seashells, and books to the cozy summer house. Warm. Welcoming. It was always like coming home for Massey and her mama.

After she threw open her window and her collection of summer shorts, shirts, and underwear into the musty dresser drawers, Massey ran around offering cheery greetings to every room in the summer cottage. She’d missed everything about it and couldn’t help but feel a rush of glee now that she returned. She imagined the house was as happy to see her as she was to see it.

Massey wanted to plunge herself into every part of the cottage, every nook and cranny that she knew so well. She opened closet doors and said her hellos, gazed happily at familiar things in cupboards and drawers, touching everything. Even the crack on the bathroom tile floor. And then it was time to hurry next door and give Patty Jo a giant hug. After all, she hadn’t seen her friend for nine whole months!

Massey recalled their first meeting the previous summer when both girls had turned eight years old. She and Mama had just returned from a morning walk on the beach, their pockets spilling with sand-covered shells. A Plymouth Suburban station wagon the color of a baby’s dirty diaper, rattled onto the gravel driveway separating their rented property from the neighboring one. With a sudden jerk, it stopped directly behind Mama’s red topless Cadillac.

The wagon was packed with every conceivable item that may be needed at the seashore that summer and many that wouldn’t. Inside adjacent to the bulging leather suitcases were giant beach balls, sand buckets, and shovels. More luggage as well as bicycles and lawn chairs were tied precariously to the roof of the car. All were covered with a thin film of brown road dust. Massey and Mama could only stand and gape at the jumbled mess.

The car horn blared making Massey and Mama nearly jump out of their skin. Kismet The Cat ran through the young girl’s bare legs and hid under the purple hydrangea bush at the side of the cottage, his ears back and tail coiled as a bedspring.

Tourists! he grumbled. He really had to have a talk with Petunia about this.

The driver of the Suburban, a woman about Mama’s age with bleached yellow hair ratted into a huge beehive and red cat-eye framed sunglasses, stepped out. She wore a pair of yellow pedal-pushers, a tight yellow blouse tied at her midriff, and yellow spiked heels. A sunny plastic bracelet wrapped about her wrist, and big gold earrings hung from her ears. She was a vision of yellow. Massey thought she looked silly, and Kismet The Cat, now hiding under the hydrangea bush, gave his head a quick shake and yowled. He hated yellow.

Hey, does a Mr. Matheson own a house around here? the woman asked in a squeaky voice, snapping the gum in her mouth as she spoke. She stood fanning herself with a folded road map, a bubble growing from her mouth, bigger and bigger until it popped. Snap!

Massey and Mama stared at the woman with fascination, while Kismet The Cat began to hiss. You want the house next door, Massey’s mama told the woman in sunny yellow.

We’re renting the house for the summer. I’m Dorrie Lee Corvette, and these are my kids, Bruce, Patty Jo, and little Bo. Dorrie Lee chewed and popped.

From inside the car, three heads bobbed up between boxes and giant beach balls. They smiled and waved in unison, showing the same brilliant Pepsodent smile.

And this is fat, prissy Miss Peen, she added proudly. The woman pulled out a huge Persian cat from the front seat of the Plymouth and cradled it in her arms. She chewed and popped another bubble.

Massey and Mama couldn’t believe their eyes. Prissy Miss Peen was the fattest cat they’d ever seen. She must have weighed thirty pounds. And she was pink! The feline had been dyed a deep magenta color with polished claws to match. A big satin ribbon encircled her generous neck, and her eyes were an astonishing shade of teal when she smiled. When she smiled?

Kismet The Cat groaned.

Fat, prissy Miss Peen doesn’t like to get her feet dirty so I carry her everywhere, Dorrie Lee explained to the woman and her daughter.

It all started when she was a kitten and accidentally stepped into a pile of ... well, you can just imagine. She was traumatized. I had to take her to my shrink for three months! Well, you can just imagine what they charged a feline patient. Fat, prissy Miss Peen wouldn’t stop howling until I promised her she’d never have to set paw down anywhere ever again. Well, you can just imagine what I’ve been through. Snap!

Yes, of course, … uh, no. Massey could not imagine any of it.

I’m Annie Rose Roberts, and this is my daughter, Madison, Mama introduced herself and Massey in return, trying not to stare at the fat ball of fuchsia fur.

Massey grimaced. No one called her Madison except her father, Gerald, probably because he knew how much she hated it. There should be a law against naming an innocent girl child Madison, or Martha, or Adele. Or a boy child Maynard, or Albert, or Leroy, for that matter. Mama once told her that as a young girl, she’d promised herself she would never marry a Gerald, or an Oscar. She should’ve listened to her instincts and kept the promise, Massey often thought. Mama would’ve been a whole lot happier if she had.

Grandma Gertie had been the first to call Madison, Massey, for which the child would forever be grateful. Grandma had a cousin who lived in South Carolina, or was it South Dakota, Massy could never remember, whose name was Meredith. Anyone and everyone had called her Massey. With Madison, too, the nickname had stuck, at least with most of the people most of the time.

Did you say your name is Corvette? Annie Rose asked the woman standing before her holding the fat pink cat.

Yeah. Dorrie Lee answered. Like the car. She popped another bubble as fat, prissy Miss Peen purred and smiled.

Kismet The Cat dragged himself out from under the hydrangea bush. He stopped to glare at the yellow lady and her dreadful pink pussycat and bolted for the house. Catzazz! Tourists got on his nerves.

The girls’ friendship was cemented that first summer in 1959 and they swore undying love and devotion to always remain together. In those early days, Patty Jo was quick to inform Massey how her mother’s boss was always making passes at Dorrie Lee, how Patty Jo’s brother, little Bo, had been held back from kindergarten because all he did was talk, talk, talk, and how her parents had divorced soon after little Bo was born because her father stopped loving her mother.

Patty Jo and Massey were as different as the sky and sea. Patty Jo had long dark hair, which she set each night with empty orange juice cans after Scotch-taping her bangs down flat. She had brown eyes and olive skin that tanned as deeply as Massey’s fair freckled skin burned. Massey’s dark hair was kept short in the same pixie cut she’d had since she was six years old.

Patty Jo was more outgoing and braver than Massey in nearly everything. She was a flirt, never really happy unless she was surrounded by boys, a fact that the Sisters of Our Lady of The Eternal Virgins would not approve of in any way, shape, or form.

Patty Jo climbed trees, swam, rode a bike, and skied during the long winters in the state of Washington where her family lived. And she even went horseback riding.

She loved horses. At home in Vancouver, her bedroom walls were nearly covered with pictures of horses, she told Massey. One day she hoped to own her own mares. There was very little Patty Jo didn’t do, or at least try so unlike Massey Roberts.

Scared to climb trees, swim, ride a bike, or ski, Massey’s activities were limited. She tried, though fear gripped her as well as the occasional asthma attack. Massey owned a bike, a bright blue Schwinn. She had begged her father for one, and finally three years ago for Massey’s sixth birthday, he and Mama presented it to her with a huge red bow. Massey rode it up and down the streets. Back and forth. As long as the bike had its small slick training wheels screwed to the rear wheel, she rode it everywhere.

Then one sunny Sunday morning, Gerald threatened to remove those small wheels much to the girl and her mother’s horror.

You’re a big girl now, Madison, his deep voice growled. It’s about time you acted like one.

After taking off the stabilizing tires, he guided Massey running alongside her two-wheeled bicycle. He let go without warning and watched his daughter and her bicycle tumble onto the unforgiving sharp sidewalk. Massey skinned her knee and arm badly. Gerald said she was disgusting, that everything she did was half-assed backwards. That was when she first began to lose trust in her father as well as confidence in herself. So afraid, Massey hadn’t gotten on that bicycle again, and for the next three years it stood in the garage collecting dust. Her father never let Massey forget it, bringing up the situation with nasty quips whenever he sought the need, which was all too often.

Massey tried to learn how to swim, but each time she gained enough confidence to beat her fear of the water, she suffered an asthma attack. Having difficulty breathing, she would begin to wheeze and would no longer be able to attend her swimming lessons. Massey would regain her fear of the water and retard her confidence, only to begin the next class from the beginning.

Mama experienced her own fear of the water and continued to push her daughter to learn to be safe when she was near it. But this summer Mama announced she wouldn’t force her daughter to learn how to swim. It was like pulling teeth, she said.

Just stay away from the water, Massey, she made the girl promise.

I will, Massey answered, more than a little relieved about the whole thing.

It would’ve been wonderful to know how to swim, to press a button and have the skill to keep up with her friends. To share that fun with them at birthday parties and the like. Not to feel left out – again. Never again. However, it was too scary to go through the process to learn. And when things got too scary, Massey retreated back to her safe world of books and dreams.

She was a dreamer, a romantic like her mother. They sat and cried through the same sad movies, sobbed through the same sad books, and both secretly longed to be loved. Truly loved.

Massey was not athletic. She was the last one to be chosen to be on any team at school and the first one to bring a note from home excusing her from gym class. With the asthma it was easy to do.

Massey never ran. Running made her asthma act up, and she would start to wheeze again. The only time she remembered running was the summer she turned six. Mama had planned a large potluck dinner, having invited many of their family and friends to come. Massey was so excited. She loved when Mama entertained. She could flit from one dinner guest to another accepting hugs and greetings as she went. It was always about the love.

On any given night when Massey, Gerald, and Mama were eating dinner, Massey was not allowed to speak. She wasn’t able to tell her father about her day, or to ask him about his. She had to sit quietly and eat while he listened to the nightly news broadcast from the blaring television in the next room. And if Massey interrupted?

Be quiet! You I can hear anytime! he would bark.

Massey wondered when that anytime would be. Ironically, he never took the time to listen. So it was a happy time when guests came to the house as Gerald always behaved when other people were around. In public, they portrayed the perfect family.

At this party of Mama’s, Massey’s Aunt Sophie brought a homemade apple pie. Aunt Sophie made wonderful pies! Massey’s father was carrying it around the corner of the house to the kitchen where Mama would put it in the oven to keep warm. Massey, filled with child-playfulness, bounded around the blind corner of the house directly into the pie. Her head cracked the glass Pyrex plate just missing her left eye by a fraction of an inch.

Blood splattered everywhere, and as Mama held Massey’s head under the cold rushing water at the kitchen sink, all the girl could hear was Gerald’s stern and critical words.

None of this would’ve happened if you’d remembered to walk instead of run, he reminded her.

The tirade continued as Massey lay in Mama’s arms, her head wrapped in a bath towel as their car sped off to the hospital a few miles away.

If I told her once, I told her a thousand times not to run, Gerald started up again as the surgeon stitched up Massey’s eye and continued on the entire drive back home. She worked hard after that, catching herself whenever she ran, scolding herself for doing so if she forgot. Only stupid girls ran, Massey told herself. Only disgusting girls ran.

Massey was afraid of pain — afraid she’d get hurt. And boys? They were a species she could only gaze at, curious and dumbfounded.

Terrified of rejection and desperate to fit in, Massey struggled. She longed to be accepted. But where did all this fear come from? From the fact that her mother was so overly protective of her? Or because her father had told Massey so many times that she was too disgusting to do it, so why even try? Consequently, she didn’t try. She had no confidence. Even Patty Jo had begun to call her Mouse, and Massey didn’t mind. It was true, after all.

However, it bothered Mama. Don’t you mind Patty Jo calling you Mouse? she asked one afternoon standing in the kitchen at the wooden ironing board, the kitchen window open to the afternoon breeze.

Massey shook her head. Who cared? Calling her Mouse was better than Madison.

What do you call her? Mama urged. She was sprinkling Massey’s blouse with water from a bottle with holes in its red plastic top.

Patty Jo, Massey answered simply.

And when Patty Jo told her best friend all about her father, Massey feared to tell Patty Jo about her own. She did mention that he worked for his brother as the Parts Manager at Louis’ vending machine company, Roberts Distributing. She did mention that he was so indispensable her uncle couldn’t possibly let him leave on vacation. But Massey didn’t tell Patty Jo she had an abusive father and that she was afraid of him. It was her and Mama’s secret.

Gerald never asked for time off to join them on the Oregon Coast, and that was just fine with Massey and Mama.

Massey and Patty Jo lay on the bumpy, white chenille-covered bed in Massey’s bedroom; they were sharing their lunch of bologna and peanut butter sandwiches with Kismet The Cat. Massey leafed through a current fashion magazine as she munched, gazing at the models in their short skirts.

That one’s cute, she pointed out to her friend.

Look how skinny she is. I wish I was tall and skinny, Patty Jo stated, and popped another bite of sandwich into her mouth.

The nuns at Our Lady of The Eternal Virgins would have a conniption fit if any of us girls wore a skirt that short. If they have any suspicions about the length of our skirts, we have to sit up on our knees, and if our hems don’t touch the floor, we’re sent home to change. And our shoes … we can’t wear Patton leather for fear of the boys being able to see the reflection of our panties up our dresses. Can you imagine? Patty Jo offered Kismet The Cat another morsel from her sandwich.

I don’t think I’d make a good Catholic anyway. I can’t stand the smell of incense, Patty Jo added.

The girl’s eyes beamed across Massey’s flowered bedroom until they rested on a man’s photograph on top of the old dresser. Is that your father? she asked.

Massey followed Patty Jo’s gaze to the picture of a man beside her collection of pretty shells and colorful hair bows. Yeah, she said. That’s Bernard.

I thought your father’s name was Gerald. Patty Jo was picking off bits from her bologna and peanut butter sandwich, and feeding it to Kismet The Cat.

The feline licked Patty Jo’s sticky fingers. Then he burped once, twice with great satisfaction.

Yeah … uh, sometimes, Massey answered.

It wasn’t easy for Massey to lie to her best friend, but she did. The girl always lied about Gerald, and Patty