Family Reunion (7 page)

“Give it a rest, Miranda,” said Carolyn. “Want to play tennis, Shelley?”

I don't know how to play tennis. I'm not a great swimmer either, but I needed distance, so I said, “I think I'll swim while you play tennis.”

The water was warm from the sun, and it helped me keep my temper. It did nothing to calm my fear. My father had to leave Barrington? What did that mean?

I swam slowly to the far end of the pool and got out on the opposite side and sat on the edge, my feet in the water. Travel
is so strange. We'd left Vermont before breakfast and arrived in Barrington in midafternoon, yet my life did not feel hundreds of miles away. It felt hundreds of years away. My father seemed so distant, he might actually be the person Aunt Maggie said he was, never there when you counted on him.

A bunch of boys charged out of the dressing rooms. I graded them according to Joanna's system. A definite ten, a nine and the rest eights. Barrington knew how to do boys. Joanna would have a great visit. The boys drew closer, and instead of taking advantage of this fine perspective, I glanced down at my knees. Last year we had to take health class. The teacher skipped quickly over tough health subjects (sex, AIDS, pregnancy) and went straight to an easy health subject: relationships.

The whole curriculum was designed to ruin me. “Children of divorce,” the teacher told us frequently, “especially if it is the mother who has abandoned them, have a poor self-image. They fear affection. They shrink from love.”

Mother abandoned Daddy, that's true. But she didn't abandon us. The first two years, she and Jean-Paul lived two blocks away and we saw her all the time, and she did homework with Angus and shopping with Joanna and giggling with me. Then, when Jean-Paul had to go back to France— even then she wasn't abandoning us. It was just that she couldn't have Jean-Paul and us too.

I didn't explain this to the health teacher. In fact I got a
low grade in that class. “Not participating,” wrote the teacher, for whom silence was not a virtue. But the truth is, I remember everything she said better than Shakespeare or the Preamble to the Constitution. Sometimes when I am very sad and the blankets on my bed aren't heavy enough or warm enough or cozy enough, I think, She did abandon us.

One of the boys sat down next to me. The nine. Very tan, the hairs on his chest sun-bleached gold. His face was slathered with sun protection he hadn't rubbed in enough, and his sunglasses had slid down to the tip of his slippery nose, and I looked straight into his eyes. My hair was drying fast in the heat, and its damp corkscrews brushed against his arm, he was sitting so close.

“Hi there,” he said. “You must be Carolyn's cousin.” His voice was deep and scratchy, as if he needed to clear his throat. Had Carolyn pointed me out? Or did everyone in Barrington really and truly know everyone else, and I was the only stranger in town?

I nodded. “My brother's here too.”

“Hey, great. I'm, um, coming to the party tomorrow night. For your, um, dad. Looking forward to meeting everybody.” He pushed his sunglasses up and hid his eyes.

“He won't be there,” I said. “Aunt Maggie planned the party without consulting us, and my father isn't coming till next week.”

“Oh, no!” The boy burst into laughter. “That sounds just
like Mrs. Preffyn. I've tangled with her. So it's just you and your brother?”

“And my father's wife. Annette.”

He took the sunglasses off and looked intently at me.

I was abruptly, wildly, crazily, intensely attracted to him. I was aware of my new parrot-colored bathing suit and how it fit. I was aware of his baggy trunks and how they fit. I was breathless and happy and scared.

Like Joanna, would I now see each boy the way a grocery shopper sees peaches? This one isn't ripe; this one has a bruise; this one is perfect—I'll take it!

“You have stepbrothers or stepsisters?” he asked.

“No. Thank goodness. It's hard enough taking on a stepmother.” I told him about Angus—bomb shelter, leg, rain dance and all.

“He sounds terrific,” said the boy. “I can't wait to meet him. I don't have the kind of personality that can take on stuff like that.”

“Few do,” I said. “For which we can all be grateful.”

We laughed together. I was resting part of my weight on my hand, which was spread open on the wet pool tiles. His hand was doing the same, and there was perhaps half an inch of space between our fingertips. I considered crossing the distance and touching his hand. Maybe this was love at first sight. If so, every sacrifice made was going to be worth it.

Carolyn trotted up. She knelt down between us. “Hi, Toby,” she said. “Thanks for baby-sitting the cousin for me.”

The cousin.

Sometimes you hear men refer to their wives like that. The wife. I hate that.

What I needed to know was, was this the Toby?

Who knew the answer? Who wouldn't smirk when I asked? Who wouldn't give me a list of things my father had done wrong? Who would give me the answer I wanted, which was that Angus had made up his Toby, and this Toby—another Toby entirely—sat beside me because he thought I looked interesting, and possibly pretty. He was not related to me.

But Toby, whoever he was, vanished with his friends while Carolyn and I pedaled home to change clothes and
help with dinner, although Aunt Maggie was so organized there was nothing to help with. Annette and I sat by the pool while Carolyn prepared for our picnic.

First she covered the large redwood table with a scarlet cotton cloth that had weights sewn in the corners so it wouldn't blow away. Then she took four white runners, which she thumbtacked right down into the table, making eight place mats. Horizontally down the center, creating a plaid, she tacked a narrow, brilliant blue ribbon. The table setting was pretty and patriotic, but more like something a kindergartner would design than Carolyn, who seemed eager to be sophisticated.

The words of my sophisticated sister, Joanna, ran through my mind. I always used to think that Daddy and Celeste had a son they never told us about, and somehow I would meet him, all unaware…

The person with whom I could have shared my thoughts right now was DeWitt, the only one who possessed all the background information. But I couldn't even e-mail him, with that safe, enclosed feeling e-mail has, because e-mail isn't safe or enclosed, and anyway, he was off hiking and almost certainly was not backpacking e-mail access.

At that moment, as Carolyn patted the picnic table, the loss of DeWitt, whom I scarcely knew, was as dreadful and piercing as the loss of my mother.

“I thought of this color scheme,” said Carolyn proudly, as if she personally had invented red, white and blue. “When I
was really little. Ever since, we've done every single picnic just the same way. I used to color in the white paper napkins with my own designs, but I don't anymore.” She held up large white cloth napkins, on which a child's lopsided, madly grinning crayon figures had been embroidered. “Mother immortalized some of my masterpieces,” said Carolyn, laughing.

My eyes got misty. We don't have family traditions from when I was little. After Mother left, nobody felt like keeping anything going, and Annette hasn't started any new ones. Besides, once you're as old as I am, it's too late.

Carolyn went back into the kitchen. Annette walked over to the table and picked up an embroidered napkin and fingered it. “That is so sweet. When I have a baby, I'm going to do everything like that, too.”

I practically fainted. “When you have a baby? Are you—I mean—you and Daddy—you're—”

“No,” said Annette sharply, “and don't start any rumors. But I might. Someday. I love kids.”

I thought this was very brave of her, considering what the three kids she knew best had subjected her to for the last year and a half.

But it was too much. Too many people, too much coming and going, too many contrasts, too many worries. I felt the way I had when I was eleven and the divorce was happening; when both my parents were both right and wrong, and
we loved them and hated them too; when sleep was never restful and meals never peaceful.

My grandmother came slowly into the yard and lowered herself onto a pile of cushions. I poured her a glass of tea, and she held it against her cheek, already overheated.

Angus raced into the yard brandishing a tennis racket. “Uncle Todd is teaching me how to play!” he shouted. “Uncle Todd says I'm a natural. Uncle Todd says I'm probably going to be a tennis star pretty soon.” Angus swatted invisible tennis balls with great vigor.

The balls felt real, bouncing off me, bruising me.

“Shelley, darling, are you all right?” said my grandmother. “It's the heat, isn't it? Barrington is such a furnace in August. Civilized people can hardly survive backyards in August. Come sit in the shade with me, sweetie. You and I haven't had a chance to talk yet. You must tell me everything.”

I made myself skinny so I could lie on the chaise lounge next to Grandma. Even in the fierce heat it was wonderful to snuggle and be soothed. Grandma said a person couldn't be too careful in the sun, and I looked a little pink to her. She hoped I was not the kind of girl who obsessed about a tan, because too much sun was bad for lovely complexions like mine. When was I coming to visit her in Arizona? She had missed me so much.

It was pretty nice to have somebody worrying about me besides me.

Grandma took some of her own sun-protection lotion and began massaging it into my hands and up my arms. The veins in her hands stood out, knotted blue against age-spotted skin. Her knuckles were twisted, and her rings swung loosely on arthritis-curled fingers.

Grandma is old, I thought.

At the surprise party, everybody would say to Angus and to me, “My, how you've grown!” but they would say nothing to Grandma. You couldn't say, “My, how you've aged!”

I had no grandmother now laughing on her old front porch while our roller skates dented her floor. No more changes, I thought desperately. I can't face any more changes. Grandma is slowing down, but don't let her come to a full stop.

“Now, after supper,” said Uncle Todd, flipping hamburgers on the grill, “we can't play tennis, Angus, because we'll be watching Brett's Little League team. He coaches Town and Country Gas.”

“He what?” said Angus.

Carolyn gurgled with laughter. “The teams are named for their sponsors, who provide the uniforms and the ice cream afterward. We're very big on ice cream and T-shirts in Barrington. Win or lose, you get ice cream, you get a T-shirt. Tonight, Town and Country Gas is playing against Crest Septic Service. Those kids have a motto printed in maroon letters on their T-shirts: SEPTIC PUMPING IS BEST WITH CREST.”

Angus was reverent. Nobody in New York would have a §3
T-shirt that said that. He wanted a T-shirt from Crest Septic Service.

“It won't be an exciting game,” Carolyn warned us. She passed potato salad, and Angus, who hates mayonnaise, gagged. She passed deviled eggs, and Angus, who hates hard-boiled eggs, gagged. “Better fix me six or eight hamburgers,” he told Uncle Todd. “There's nothing else to eat.”

“Why won't the ball game be exciting?” Annette asked.

“Because they're only nine years old. If they even hit the ball, we stand up and cheer, but mostly they only get to base by being walked. I don't think there's any such thing as a really great nine-year-old pitcher.”

We were eating and passing plates and not using our embroidered napkins, because they were too good to be used, when I realized that Grandma was filming us. I choked on my potato salad, and she laughed and put away the video camera. “The moment you're self-conscious, the film's no good,” she said. “But think what pleasure I'll have next winter putting this in the VCR to play for myself and have a nice, warm and sunny my-family-is-the-best-in-the-world moment.” She sat beside me, but it was difficult for her to swing her legs over the picnic-table bench. Uncle Todd held out a hand to guard her against falling.

“I'll film!” shouted Angus. He spent the rest of the meal taking close-ups of people chewing.

“Time for presents,” announced Grandma. “You have to
eat lots and lots before you open presents, so you're stuffed and happy and ready. Then you rip off the ribbons and the paper and see your new treasures and top them off with cake and ice cream.”

“My kind of schedule,” said Angus.

Aunt Maggie filmed Angus opening his first. Videos, of course; old favorites—early James Bond, early Indiana Jones, early Star Wars, early Harry Potter. At least we wouldn't be subjected to the rain dance again. He also got a pogo stick, which he immediately hopped himself into the pool on and surfaced still bouncing at the shallow end. Finally, a tennis racket and two containers of neon yellow balls. “This is better than Christmas,” said Angus, hanging up his pogo stick to dry and hugging Grandma fiercely, the way Daddy has taught us to hug. Squash the person.

“Easy,” said Grandma, “I need my ribs intact.” She wasn't joking. Some of Grandma had gone by, vanishing like the color of trees in autumn. She was closer to winter now, frail and easily broken.

“Gather round,” Grandma told us. “Shelley's gift is small.” She handed me a velvet box the size of my spread hand, and I opened the box's clasp, which was the shape of a princess's crown. Inside lay a necklace of gold lace with tendrils of seed pearls dangling from the gold and, at the center, one large pearl wrapped in a gold ribbon.

“It's beautiful!” I breathed. “Is it old?”

“It was your grandfather's engagement gift to me, Shelley,” she said.

I could hardly remember my grandfather. I thought of them, all those years ago, young and in love, when such a necklace was just the right gift.

“But it isn't the kind of thing people need in retirement communities. I want you to have it. You'll be going to proms and dances, and this is a necklace for very special occasions.”

“Shelley has just the neck for it,” said Aunt Maggie. “Long and fashion-model.”

“I'd have to have the perfect dress, though,” I said, holding up the filigree of gold.

“Very, very low-cut,” said Carolyn.

“Not that low-cut,” said her mother.

“This will be such fun,” said Annette, touching the lacy gold curlicue around the large pearl. “We'll spend months shopping for the perfect dress, Shelley. Promise me not to find the right dress the first afternoon we look.”

I promised, although it seemed to me that even more crucial than the perfect dress was being asked to this dance by some perfect boy to start with. “Oh, Grandma!” I said. “Thank you so much. It's so lovely.”

“Don't cry, darling,” she said, holding me and the necklace close. But I cried anyhow, and for a horrible moment I thought everything painful might come out of me, in one great sob, but luckily Angus said, “Don't get mushy. Yuck.”

“Girls do that,” said Uncle Todd. “You get used to it. Come on, everybody, quick. We've got to get to the game.”

Grandma stayed home, because she was tired, but the rest of us climbed into the huge, shiny SUV and headed for the baseball diamond behind the elementary school. Green-painted bleachers held parents, brothers and sisters. The sun was going down, the heat was tolerable and there was a nice breeze. All the little players hit their bats against the ground to make dust storms, and all the coaches squatted about, giving advice nobody listened to.

“Which is Brett?” I asked.

Carolyn pointed. “Blue-and-yellow baseball cap on backward. Come on, we'll sit with everybody else.” She grabbed us two cans of soda from Aunt Maggie's canvas holdall and a pack of cupcakes.

I knew Annette did not want to be deserted, so I didn't meet her eyes as I deserted her. We clambered over the bleachers to the top row on the far side, where a dozen older kids sat in the shade of a huge oak. As we left, Annette was being introduced to somebody. “Oh, Charlie's latest wife!” said a cooing woman. “How sweet.”

Miranda looked down at me from the top bleacher. “Oh, the cousin,” said pointy-toothed Miranda. “How sweet.”

Carolyn and I sat below Miranda, presumably to avoid looking at her nasty little face.

“Brett get his car back yet?” asked Miranda, poking her nose, which had the same profile as her teeth, into Carolyn's face.

“No,” said Carolyn woodenly.

Miranda burst into a flutter of giggles, like pigeons on a sidewalk when you scuffle through them. “Your cousin Brett,” she said, pointing her nose at me, “believes that anybody who obeys the rules of the road is just a coward. You should see Brett drive. Of course, you won't, because his father took away his car, and Brett moved out of the house and is living with Johnny Cameron, and of course the Perfect Preffyns aren't admitting that they have a sort of problem with their unperfect—”

“Shut up, Miranda,” said Carolyn.

Miranda was not the shutting-up sort. “Brett was chalking up points by hitting old ladies, Seeing Eye dogs and toddlers in diapers,” she told me gladly.

“He was not!” hissed Carolyn. “He took the corner too fast, his tires screeched and scared the old lady, and she stumbled on the curb and that's how she broke her ankle. Brett did not hit her. Nobody hit her. And Brett called the ambulance and went with her to the hospital. So there.”

“Now you're saying that,” said Miranda. “But at the police station, you were first in line to lynch your own brother, you were so mad at him for not being a Perfect Preffyn.”

By now we had missed the first inning. I glanced at the
scoreboard. It didn't matter. Nobody had gotten on base, never mind made a run.

I could hardly wait to tell Annette about Brett. What ammunition. Not just a flaw, but a huge, gaping—

Midway between the grown-ups and us, alone on a middle bleacher, Angus was slowly wrapping himself in toilet paper. He had used half a roll, and both legs looked as if he had plaster casts. He was working on his left arm. He finished the arm and began on his forehead.