What’ll I wear?
Her jeans were off the menu as they now were shorts on the right leg. And she didn’t want to wear the same white skirt she’d worn when she and Brandon had gone to Rex’s restaurant. The denim one or the faded black one she’d arrived in were far too casual. Her navy sundress was tired and worn out, like her. But she didn’t dare attempt driving again. Maybe in the morning she could call a cab and go clothes shopping in town. Or maybe Evelyn would feel up to going with her.
No!she scolded the new Madelyn Clarke. First, she’d rather not have Evelyn involved; second, she didn’t want to think of this date as requiring a new outfit. Millionaire or not, it might make her feel that this was more than a casual lunch.
And third, she really needed to stop thinking of herself as tired and worn out.
Then, one of her famous intuitions kicked in. Rex might like to see her in Grandma Nancy’s skirt, the one that Maddie had put in the tribal pile, the one with the colorful beads in the diamond-shaped pattern just above the hemline. It would be perfect. Before getting too excited, she hobbled into the bedroom, dug it out, and tried it on just as the sunset applause rose from the beach as if cheering her on. But the applause did no good—the waist was too tight.
Discouraged, she stepped out of the skirt . . . which was when she discovered a fist-sized bump in the backside of the waistband. Examining it closely, she found a burlap pouch attached to a fabric loop. She unknotted it from the loop and eased the drawstring open. Something inside was wrapped in tissue. Slowly, she pulled it out and unwrapped the tissue. And in her palm lay three strands of necklaces, all made of wampum.
She was pretty sure she knew where they’d come from.
Holding them gently, she rushed to find the box of photos she planned to save. It didn’t take long to find the one of her grandparents on their wedding day. She’d been right: along with the skirt, Grandma Nancy wore the same strands of wampum around her neck.
Maddie cried. She was overcome. Overwhelmed. Over-everythinged.
When she finally stopped blubbering, she put on the beads, then stepped into the skirt again. Without the pouch at the waistband, it fit. The hemline fell halfway between her knee and her foot, which helped camouflage her cast. With her white knit top, the outfit would be fine. The only jewelry she’d need were the wedding necklaces.
Then she checked her image in the full-length mirror.
And gasped.
She looked as if she’d stepped out of her grandmother’s photo collection. She looked, well, pretty, she supposed. But, mostly, she looked very much Wampanoag.
Staring at her reflection, whirling in another pool of emotion, she barely heard a faint knock on the front door.
* * *
“CiCi,” Maddie said after she struggled to make it to the front door.
The woman didn’t speak. She stared at Maddie the way Maddie had been staring at herself.
“Wow,” the real estate agent finally said. “That skirt, those beads . . . you look like a Wampanoag.”
Maddie let out a nervous bubble of a laugh. “Do I?” She promptly forgot that, like with Evelyn, she hadn’t wanted CiCi to get too close. She opened the screen door and invited her in. “I kind of thought so, too.”
“Well. The skirt and the wampum help.”
“Agreed. But you probably didn’t stop by to catch me trying on my grandmother’s old clothes.”
Shaking her head, CiCi said, “No. But I was in the neighborhood.”
Maddie was tempted to ask her to swear to that on her grandmother’s Praying Indians’ Bible.
As if reading her mind, CiCi started to toy with her long, dangling earrings—shiny, bright coral discs that evening that almost, not quite, matched her flaming orange sheath that was splattered with a design of pink hibiscus blossoms. Maddie guessed it was a holdover from the nineties.
“I have a client who wanted to see the sunset on the beach,” Maddie’s flowered visitor said. “We came in separate cars—he and his wife had late dinner reservations at the Outermost Inn, so they went on their way, and I went on mine. But when I looked up the hill, I saw your lights on and . . . well, I decided to check up on you. I noticed your cast when you were at lunch with Attorney Morgan. And I presumed that the crutches standing in the corner belonged to you.”
Two days and several hours had passed since then. Maddie thought there was a better chance that CiCi had stopped by the Chilmark Town Hall yesterday or today and pumped Lisa for details about Maddie’s leg.
She sat on a kitchen chair again and asked her to take a seat. CiCi chose the sofa. Maddie declined to offer tea; instead she launched into details about her embarrassing spill. When she was done, CiCi whistled.
“I’ve never known anyone who broke a foot on a sand dune. Maybe you’re lucky it wasn’t worse.”
Maddie looked at the cast that barely peeked from below the beaded hemline. “The doctor told me not to be impatient. Easier said than done.” She was proud that at least she also remembered that from her appointment, in spite of her head being stuck in a cloud of romantic potential with Rex.
“Years ago,” CiCi continued, “my second husband broke his foot windsurfing at South Beach. He hit the water too hard thanks to an offshore wind. It didn’t help that it was his first time out, or that he always acted like he knew how to do everything. He never took a single lesson or listened to anyone who knew better.” She squinted. “Damn fool.”
