The Beresfords (31 page)

Frannie girl—

You silly thing! Eric tells me he
bared
his heart to you at our place last week, and you stomped all over it. What comfort can I offer my poor, suffering brother?

I tell him he went about it all wrong—that you’ve never had a boyfriend or gone on a date, and so had no idea how to respond, being taken completely by surprise. Believe me—your lack of experience adds to your charms, in Eric’s eyes. He’s seen too much of aggressive girls!

But listen to me, as your friend and almost-sister.
You may now give free rein to your feelings
. Eric cares for you more than I’ve ever seen him care for anyone, and he’s been turning down all sorts of other opportunities for your sake. Do please be
kinder
to him and let the poor boy take you out! You know I think the world of you, and I mean it as the highest compliment when I say I think my brother the only one deserving your affections.

I expect these words to work their magic, and that the next time I see him, he will be a happier man.

—Caroline

I could hardly hold the note, so aware was I of Eric Grant’s eyes on me. Only the gist penetrated my addled head: Caroline thought I liked her brother but was too shy to admit it. Worse yet, she credited her brother with feelings for me. “Eric cares for you more than I’ve ever seen him care for anyone”—that was exactly, exactly the Grants. I had seen examples of his caring; if that was the emotional bar I cleared, it wasn’t much to brag about. Even so, I struggled to believe it. That Eric Grant would prefer me to my beautiful cousins—to the talented co-worker—to “all sorts of other opportunities”—to everyone! I, who had given him no encouragement whatsoever. I, who was young, gawky,
unbrilliant
, overlooked. It couldn’t be true. Or, if true, it couldn’t last. How could I not have made myself clear?

Almost as incredible were Caroline’s personal praise of me and declarations of affection. She was never far from a joke, but did she really “think the world of me”? Care for me, beneath
her constant teasing and laughter? Despite my anger at her managing note, I felt an unexpected surge of affection for her.

“Do you have any answer for her, Frannie?”

“I’ll—I’ll call her later.”

“I think you can guess what I wanted to talk to you about.” He
propped
his
Oakleys
on his head. “I didn’t mean to freak you out the other night. You’re so different from any other girl. I shouldn’t have taken you by surprise like that.”

Stuffing Caroline’s note in my back pocket, I nudged my kickstand up. “It—uh—it—wasn’t how you said it. I just would rather not…talk like that.”

“Wait up, Frannie.” He grabbed my wrist but released it the second I pulled away, holding up his hands in surrender. “I’m not going to manhandle you this time, but can you hear me out? We’re good friends now. You know I’m not a scary guy. We do math together; we go to the same church. Our relatives are married. Your aunt and uncle know me well. They like me. This is a natural progression.”

“Please,” I tried several times to interrupt him. “I told you. I don’t feel that way about it. Please don’t make me say hurtful things. I know this will pass. Don’t mention it anymore.”

“Can you just tell me you’ll think about it?”

What could I say? I had already been ruder than I had ever been to anyone in my life, but my protests bounced off him. If I said no, he would insist. If I said yes, he would think I meant to give in eventually. As for being more explicit about my objections to him—it was impossible. I could never explain how I knew he slept with Rachel that first summer or that he continued to pursue her after she was married. Things no one knew I knew.

“There’s no point,” I muttered to the ground.

“Frannie, come on. You’re eighteen now. More! I’m not gonna be the only guy you ever meet who asks you out. Just give me a chance. Go out with me—for practice.”

I swung my leg over my bike and nearly overbalanced in my panic.

“Tell me this, at least,” he persevered, “—there’s no one else you’re interested in, is there?”

To this I could manage no answer whatsoever. I could only shake my head and mumble a good-bye as I pedaled away. I knew I was acting like the freakiest, most maladjusted teenager on the planet, but so be it, especially if it made me less attractive to him.

Please, please, please, God,
I prayed and pedaled, not daring to look over my shoulder
—please don’t let him be coming over for dinner!

“Here you are, Frannie. What—not swimming on such a hot afternoon?”

I sprang up from my lounge chair, as if Uncle Paul had come upon me smoking pot, instead of just lying on my stomach watching the ripples in the pool.

“I’m not hot,” I lied. “It’s not so bad in the shade.”

“Relax, relax,” he urged me back into my seat, as he slipped off his loafers and socks and began rolling up his pant legs. “I can’t say the same for myself. I think a couple minutes out here would melt me—
Aaaaaaahhh
!” The scream of surprise my uncle gave, when he plunged his feet in the water and then snatched them out, was so uncharacteristic that I clapped a hand to my mouth so I wouldn’t laugh.

“Why isn’t the pool heater on?” he demanded. “That water can’t be more than seventy-five degrees.”

It wasn’t on because Aunt Terri thought it was a waste of her brother’s money to heat it when there was only one child left at home, and that one child
never had friends over. “If Julie doesn’t get her summer internship…” I fumbled, “If she’s home too—Aunt Terri says then…”

“Right.” My uncle cleared his throat as his mind make quick work of my hints. “I see. Always economical, your aunt. Still, if I’m taking the trouble to fill it—” He retreated to the lounge beside mine and sat on its side, facing me. “We’ll address that later. I—ah—wanted to speak to you Frannie.”

“Yes, sir?” I squeezed the cushion beneath me.

“You’re a good girl, Frannie. You have never given me or your aunt Marie cause for worry.”

My grip tightened. “I hope not.”

He took a measured breath, the line between his brows deepening. “You might already guess my subject today.”

I had a surmise or two, none of them pleasant. And if it were one topic in particular, I had no desire to hasten its introduction.

“I’m sure you’re well aware that we have seen a lot of the young man Eric Grant lately. Although he is Caroline’s brother, I had no decided opinion on him until the last few months, but I was favorably impressed by his patience and generosity in tutoring you and his general manner of carrying himself. He also holds a promising job at a young age, a job he got based solely on his own merits.”

He said this last thoughtfully, and I felt myself bristling, perceiving some slight to Jonathan in his words. No, Jonathan didn’t get his job at Core-Pro ‘based solely on his own merits,’ but he did respectably well there, despite having no heart for his work. Better than Tom had, at any rate, whose truancy and obvious disinterest during his tenure proved an ongoing source of concern.

“However much he might have reminded me of Tom’s other friends when I met him,” Uncle Paul went on, “he has improved greatly. I was sorry that it didn’t work out for the two of them to live together. I thought he might have rubbed off on Tom.” Now the only person rubbing off on Tom was his girlfriend Marcy.

I didn’t reply.

“Furthermore, I have seen Eric’s work,” said my uncle, “and believe he will be very successful. In fact, we’ve had numerous in-depth discussions about our companies joining forces in future on some of the products in their pipeline. Ahem—but, be that as it may—I only mean
that I think he’ll do well for himself. Added to these things, whatever his past wanderings, he has become a believer, and I know, Frannie, how seriously you take your faith.”

My face had steadily grown redder until now my uncle couldn’t be blamed if he mistook me for a heatstroke victim. So this was not simply an impromptu paean to the Wonders of Eric Grant. It was a sales pitch, and I was meant to be the customer.

“A believer,” Uncle Paul repeated. “One with—I’m sorry to say it—more obvious convictions than my own children.” I looked up at him then, but he was watching the hose from the pool vacuum drift around. He gave a heavy sigh. “I suspected for some time that Eric was interested in you, Frannie, though his behavior was everything that was proper. Because I approved of what I saw of him and knew your own modesty and character, I decided to let matters run their course. Eric and I had lunch a week or so ago—we talked business for a while, but then things got personal. He explained that he would like to ask you out, but that he knew the difference in your ages and that you were shy, so he wanted my permission to proceed. I have to tell you, Frannie, I was very, very pleased that you drew the attention of such an unexceptionable young man and by his respect for our family. I gave him my hearty approval.”

“Uncle Paul—” my throat felt as it did the time I swallowed too big a bite of Aunt Terri’s casserole, not chewing so I wouldn’t taste the bell pepper. “Uncle Paul—after he spoke to you, Eric Grant asked me if I wanted to go on a date and I said no thank you. I—I don’t like him that way. I asked him not to mention it again.”

“What?” He stared at me.

I managed to shake my head but couldn’t bear to repeat myself.

“‘Don’t like him that way’? Now, look, Frannie—I know these things make you very uncomfortable, but you’re a sensible girl. I’m pleased that you haven’t let your emotions run away with you and behaved in a silly manner, but now that you have my permission to consider Eric I don’t see the harm in exploring the possibility.”

“Thank you, Uncle Paul,” I whispered. “But—but—I don’t think I could ever think about Eric Grant like that, so I’d better not.”

He could find no words for some moments. Standing up, he paced the length of the patio, untwisted the pool-vacuum hose, returned. He ran fingers through his crisp gray hair in a gesture that reminded me of Jonathan. “Well, I can’t say I understand this. Of course I’m not going to tell a teenage girl that I know better than she does what she feels, or that I require her to feel a certain way. These aren’t the Dark Ages. But this mystifies me! That you would be so categorically
against
considering Eric Grant when he seems to have many qualities attractive to other young women.”

How could I explain that those very qualities were what repelled me? Especially when two of the young women he proved so fatally attractive to, were Uncle Paul’s own daughters?

He settled opposite me again. “You know, don’t you, Frannie, that I believe marriage is a perfectly respectable option for a young woman, especially one without college ambitions. Your aunt Marie married me without finishing college; Rachel married Greg. I know you yourself have no plans to go to college like Julie. And while your aunt and I are fine with that decision,
we do ask that you continue to set goals. Your cousins—even Tom” (sighing as he said this) “have gone on to support themselves and live independently. We expect you to follow in their footsteps.”

“Of course—yes—I know, sir—”

“And while we are proud of you for your perseverance with your school work and your job at the savings and loan, I don’t imagine working as a teller would ever pay enough for you to be independent.”

What was he saying? That he and Aunt Marie
were tired of
supporting me? So tired of it that they would lunge at anything that came along, to be rid of me? If college wasn’t going to get me out of the house, I should marry somebody—
anybody—
?

The heat was pressing the air from my lungs. Of course no one wanted to raise a child who never stood on her own two feet. I knew I was expected to do something with my life, but I had not known the timeline was so urgent. Look at how Tom still exploited his parents’ generosity, and he was twenty-five! Not that I could bring that up, or that I thought of Tom as a role model. I rubbed my sweating palms on my shorts. Should I tell Uncle Paul about the management trainee program Monica had me in mind for? She, at least, didn’t think me burdensome or hopeless. But she hadn’t mentioned it for a while, and it was never any sort of ironclad promise—

“You’re passing your classes this semester,” my uncle continued, “which leaves only your independent study and an English class in the fall. Have you thought beyond that time?”

I nodded.

“Working, I suppose?” He laced his fingers together around his knee and leaned back, rocking slightly, for all the world as if we were discussing the weather.

“Yes.”

“And continuing to live here.”

There was no possible answer to this. Of course I couldn’t continue to live with the Beresfords if the Beresfords did not want me to. But where would I go otherwise?

“We have done our best to stand in the place of parents for you, Frannie. But just as I am firm with my children, I am firm with you. I would not be doing you a favor if I consented to coddle you—to let you drift along through life. You would hardly be better off than if we left you with your mother in her—difficulties. I am not saying you need to go to college. I recognize you are an individual and your gifts do not lie in the academic direction. Nor am I saying you need to marry immediately, if that were even a possibility, as it was for your aunt and for Rachel. What I am saying is that you need to determine a direction for your future life. And one entirely legitimate course of action would be becoming a wife and mother. But all goals must be worked at and pursued, even in the face of fear or obstacles or discomfort. You may never come upon another young man like Eric Grant. One so worthy or familiar to you or familiar
with
you. One so willing to be patient with your hesitations and shrinking away. I would have been glad to see either of my daughters approached by someone of his caliber. Rachel has managed all right, but if Eric Grant asked my permission to date Julie—to
marry
Julie, even—I would have given it
with the greatest satisfaction. This is what you are saying no to, Frannie. What you are ruling out without even the appearance of consideration. You are rejecting a young man who is not only related to the family that has rescued and sheltered and raised you, but who has himself been fully embraced by that family for his own qualities. A young man whom I thought you were flattered by and encouraging, in your own modest way, and whom your aunt and I then flattered and encouraged. For months now! Who knows if I would have gone ahead on the business dealings if—well—I” He straightened up even more, if that were possible, before continuing, “If you were Julie I would speak much more directly than this, but you are not, in all actuality, a daughter of the family, and I can’t exact from you the same duty and respect. I did hope, however, that though you stand on different footing, you would give my convictions equal weight with your own, if only out of
gratitude
to your aunt and myself—”