Surreal. Like the odd light of day when the sun is eclipsed, or the melting of time and reality in a Dali painting; that is how the physical act of returning to Rainytown felt to Callie Hethers. Parallel parked in her green BMW and neatly pressed in her country club whites, she quietly surveyed the blue-collar universe she had just reentered. Looking across the street at the modest row home in which she grew up, she saw Callie Mason, dirty kneed and pigtailed, swinging Barbie by a tuft of platinum vinyl hair as she played jump rope with the neighborhood children.

Aunt Emily’s voice was loud and cheerful as she called her niece to supper, reminding her to perform the necessary preprandial ablutions, then announcing that evening’s fare as if to coax her into obeying.

 “Don’t forget to wash up! Then we’ll have spaghetti!” came the familiar cry. Once, Callie Mason wanted to know what would be served if she didn’t wash up.

 “The palm of my hand on your rear end,” her aunt teased.  “And just for that, I want you to wash behind the ears…twice!”

Callie giggled and scampered off to the powder room, returning ten minutes later with the rest of the family in tow: Barbie, Ken, Smokey the Bear, and Bailey the cat. The animate family members, Aunt Emily, Callie, and Bailey, were all privileged to have chairs of their own at the dinner table, while the rest of the brood had to share the one remaining chair and to eat pretend food.

Callie Mason had been only six when she came to live with her aunt, Emily Phillips. Her mother, Anisa, who had been quite a beauty, married a wealthy older widower from Philadelphia’s Main Line at the age of twenty-three, deluding herself into believing that the procurement of a fortune was all one required for a happy life. Love, companionship, a sense of purpose, a career, and family were all extraneous concepts not worthy of prenuptial consideration. Anisa’s name had barely been added to her husband’s credit card accounts when the stork handed her an I.O.U. — just moments before her first New York shopping spree had come to pass. Nausea en route to Bloomingdale’s! What had she done (as if she didn’t know) to bring on such a cruel cosmic joke? She certainly had no desire to shop for “fat clothes” and “baby things” — just to prepare for a child she hadn’t even ordered. Perhaps if the young Mrs. Mason had matching friends with whom a new baby would’ve been an social asset, a pregnancy might have been advantageous to her. But as things stood, it was not.

When Callie was born, however, Anisa did her best to make sure that the nannies and servants took good care of the infant, while she attended to more pressing matters, like reclaiming her figure and acquiring her long-overdue wardrobe. Once accomplished, she actually had time to develop a fondness for the little one, but it was a fondness one develops for a friend’s or a neighbor’s child — not for one’s own.

Samuel Mason, Callie’s father, who had been childless on his first go-around, doted on his little girl to the best of his ability. Most of his efforts, however, were wasted trying to please the child he had married, not the one he had sired. With great patience, he endeavored to slowly ease Anisa into his circle of friends, but she was not interested in “those old codgers, coots, and curmudgeons, who played something called bridge instead of jumping off of one.” Exasperated by the sheer futility of his efforts, and realizing that the various “C words” also described him, Samuel left town to oversee his European business concerns. Anisa stayed happily behind, taking up with a string of naughty young men, mostly opportunists like herself, who, when she had finished with them, called her some “C words” of their own.

***

Sinking quickly into her own quagmire, Anisa planned a foray into the society she had previously snubbed, a tight clique comprised mainly of the offspring of her husband’s friends. Realizing that her reputation had long since preceded her, and that she was neither wanted nor welcome, she tried contacting the friends she had known before marrying. But they had no interest in reuniting with someone who had clearly discarded them long ago. And so, with nowhere to go, Anisa dove headfirst into the bottle, where she splashed around recklessly for the next several years. At the age of thirty, she came close to “drowning,” and on the day following her suicide attempt, Callie was sent to live with Anisa’s older sister, Emily, while Anisa was discreetly carried off to a “resting hospital,” one with pastoral grounds and a pleasant-sounding name.

Emily, whom the times considered a maiden aunt and not a single woman, was delighted to raise Callie. At forty-five, she had long since given up hope of getting married and had resigned herself to being a temporary mother to the many fourth-graders who passed through her classroom. Meantime, Samuel Mason had taken up permanent residence in London, seeing his little girl only on occasional visits home, though he made a point to call her at least twice a month. Callie adored her elusive father, who had promised his daughter and her aunt a trip to England for Callie’s twelfth birthday. Sadly, he died of a heart attack just two months short of fulfilling his promise.

Feeling bereft of parental ties, Callie informed her aunt that she wanted to visit her mother in the “resting hospital.” Emily agreed to make the necessary inquiries, only to learn that Anisa had “unofficially released” herself years ago, leaving no forwarding address. The doctor whom Emily spoke with was quite surprised to hear that her former patient had never arrived in Rainytown. Anisa, it seems, had loudly proclaimed to the attending staff that she had every intention of reclaiming her daughter upon release, official or otherwise. But she was never heard from again and that was just fine with Emily. And so, Callie continued to live a life without biological parents, though Emily made a finer mother than biology could ever have provided. And, although he was no longer able to offer paternal affection, Samuel left behind a very large trust fund to pay for Callie’s college and living expenses and to help her live subsequently in the manner to which she would become accustomed.

Callie’s greatest happiness in those years, without a doubt, came from her best friend, Mary Frances “Frankie” Cavalese, a young girl of the same age who resided just on the other side of Callie’s bedroom wall. When the girls were ten, they joined forces to develop their own “horse code,” a series of long and short knocks that conveyed secret messages. It was actually the brainstorm of Frankie’s younger brother, Paulie, who had seen it in a war movie on TV, although he was never rewarded for his suggestion by being made privy to the code once it had been devised.

During Callie’s first four years in Rainytown, as much as she adored Emily, she was often envious of Frankie for having “a real family,” one that included a brother, a mother, and a father. But there was nothing utopian about the Cavalese family. With each passing year came more fights, more slamming of doors, and more ugly words that rang loudly through the shared walls.

Late one night, when the girls were twelve, with no previous notice, Louie Cavalese left for good. While his girlfriend sat outside in the car, with the engine purring, Louie said good-bye to his children and told his wife, Ruby, he was calling it quits. Then, looking right through her, he grabbed the suitcases he had packed in secret the previous morning and fled into the night. Ruby, who had followed him as far as the porch, canceled her pursuit when she saw him jump into the waiting car of another woman.

Now, as Callie Hethers sat in her BMW, waiting only for the courage to cross the street, she remembered Ruby Cavalese’s tortured howl upon realizing that her husband had left her for someone else. She recalled how Callie Mason and Emily, awakened from their sleep, had rushed next door to investigate, just as the neighbors up and down the street had stepped onto their own porches to witness the fireworks. Frankie, she remembered, had cried, while a devastated Paulie reacted with frightening nonchalance. Emily, after realizing what had happened, put her arms around Ruby with sweet comfort, then quickly ushered Callie, who had recently lost her own father, back to bed.

Mindlessly, Callie Hethers picked up the chamois cloth that lay on her dashboard and began polishing the area in front of her. As she wiped down the leather steering wheel, she thought about Frankie. Going around for the second time, she wondered what became of her, and on the third revolution, it struck her just how much she really cared. Discomforted by this revelation, she looked desperately around the front seat for something else to focus on, but there was nothing else to distract her but well-paid-for elegance, reflective of the life she had been fortunate to lead in the twenty-three years since leaving…and a road map.

On the day that Callie left for college, both Frankie and Callie had silently feared the inevitable: that despite the best of intentions, their friendship would never survive the impending changes. Frankie, who dreamed of going to art school to become a teacher, took a job as a waitress at the Rainytown Diner. Louie’s checks were not enough to afford her the luxury of a further education, and Ruby’s salary as a supermarket cashier was just enough to keep the family going. With the hope of a brighter tomorrow, Frankie, saddened but not complaining, put her blue-and-white uniform on and went to work.

Just seventy-five miles away, in an idyllic Pennsylvania town, Callie was also putting on her blues and whites. Everyone agreed: it was important to have a proper wardrobe in the school colors, especially during football season. And while Callie learned the football cheers, Frankie learned diner lingo: “put out the lights and cry” meant an order of liver and onions, and “throwing it in the mud” meant adding chocolate syrup — but none of it meant anything at all.

When Callie came home that Christmas, the girls tried to pretend that circumstances had not divided them, knowing full well that their bond, at best, was strained. They exchanged gifts and made plans for the summer, but Callie never came home again, at least not to stay. That summer, she and a college friend headed for Nantucket and learned to sail, while Frankie learned that “wrecked hen fruit” means scrambled eggs and that life is never fair.

In her junior year, Callie met a Swarthmore senior named Jackson Hethers, whom she married two years later. She was drawn to his sense of humor, his appreciation of the absurd, and his sensitivity; they were qualities that she and Frankie both sought in a man (they’d discussed it so many times), and she knew Frankie would approve of her choice. But Callie never found the opportunity to introduce the two. Frankie, who heard about the wedding through Emily, pressed her for all the details, despite the fact that she was shattered by the snub. But when Emily brought word that Callie’s twins, Stephen and Molly, had been born, Frankie was no longer interested in any elaboration. She just went to her room and cried, then swore never to think of Callie Mason Hethers again.

***

Over the years, Callie had made a diligent effort not to think about how her swift emigration from Rainytown might have affected her former best friend, despite the fact she had valid reasons, she believed, for having done so. But she had her own issues with abandonment, having been tossed aside by her parents, and didn’t need or want the guilt of having done the same to someone else, especially someone whom she loved so much and who had loved her so much in return. But that didn’t make her any less aware that she had most likely caused Frankie grievous pain; she merely relegated those feelings to a latent corner of her mind.

Callie unbuckled her seat belt, flipped down the sun visor, and checked her makeup in the small mirror, removing a tiny black ball of dried eyeliner from the corner of her left eye. No more stalling: she had a tough job ahead of her, and it was time to get started. Emily, who had been living in a nursing home for the past ten years, had recently died and the old lady who had been renting her house had gone to live with her granddaughter. Now the house was empty, and it was Callie’s job to remove Emily’s possessions, to make arrangements for the distribution of her personal effects, and to have the house cleaned out for the new owners. To Callie, it seemed as if everyone she cherished had left her in one mass exodus. Emily, the only mother she had ever known, was dead; Jackson was working ridiculous hours; the twins (with lives of their own) were leaving soon for college; and the closest friend Callie had, Patty, had just relocated to Houston with her husband. There were few people left who could offer Callie more than just a peripheral relationship, and she was in desperate need of a friend, especially the kind she had once known in Frankie Cavalese.

Callie clutched two fingers around the door handle and braced herself for the journey across the street. But just as she was about to open the door, she noticed some movement on the Cavalese porch…and stopped.

She was amazed. How could almost a quarter of a century have passed with so little having changed? There she was, Ruby Cavalese, just the way Callie Mason had last seen her: wearing a print house dress that hid her figure, her hair untrimmed and nondescript, with old sneakers and short white socks, tenderly and purposely watering her plants.
She hadn’t always look so withered, Callie remembered. Before Louie left her for someone else, Ruby had been a striking woman, who almost always took fastidious care of her appearance. It was as if Ruby’s self-esteem and reason for living had walked out of the house with him, permanently nullifying her faith in her own value. Callie thought of Louie’s girlfriend, the one who had waited outside in the car that night. What a callous and unfeeling bitch, to lie in wait with her motor running while a family was being destroyed.

Callie, mesmerized, drifted back to the present as she watched Ruby, with her back to the street, pulling dead leaves from the plants and discarding them. The Cavalese house had always been filled with plants. Ruby loved them; it was one joy that Louie’s departure did not destroy. She took better care of the plants than she did of herself. Next to beer and cigarettes, and her children, Ruby loved her plants and flowers.

And now, from what Callie could surmise, little had changed. Ruby’s no-maintenance look had stayed in Rainytown vogue, at least for her. It was amazing, Callie thought, that Ruby’s hair had not turned grayer in all these years. Surely a woman who ceased styling her hair some thirty years ago would not think to color what she rarely combed. Such action defied the laws of nature; it was an enigma, and certainly one worth pondering. It was also a good excuse to remain in the car, at least a few moments longer.

Suddenly, there was no mystery; it had been revealed with a turn of a head. Ruby’s hair was not gray because the woman on the porch was not Ruby.