The Beresfords (35 page)

I must say, Rachel doesn’t have an ounce of baby fat on her—she looks fabulous and she knows it. She hardly ever travels with Greg on the road, she says, and if she misses him it doesn’t show, but she seems happy with her lot in life. She’s got the house, the clothes, the trophy husband (but
what
a husband! Living proof that looks aren’t everything). Even Eric couldn’t have done as much for her as Greg, and I know that is exactly what Rachel wants me to think, whenever Eric’s name comes up and she gives me a certain hard look. Ouch!

As for Julie, she’s gone down the granola road. Strict vegetarian, tie-dye, Birkenstocks, the works. Your uncle is
not
pleased! Really, Frannie, he says nothing but I know your cousins are helping your cause.
You
might be stubborn and disobedient and ungrateful, but Rachel and Julie have become
alien
in his eyes. He looks at them like he’s thinking, “How did I produce these creatures?” Believe me, I recognize the look, having had a variation of it aimed at me the past few years. And your aunt Marie misses you outright. She’s forever saying how she wishes you were here to read her
her
magazine articles, or how no one arranges flowers like Frannie, or
how no one can find her keys/brush/purse/book like Frannie, et cetera et cetera et cetera, blah
blah
blah
!

But I ramble on. Jonathan says hello. Do write soon and let us know all the news of your exile. And, if you can manage, drum up a tender thought for my suffering brother, O heartless one.

Love,

Caroline

It was hard to say if her letter made me feel better or worse. Almost none of her news was pleasing; she barely mentioned Jonathan; I felt left out of the family reunion and was the only one never to see Baby Jimmy, and yet—and yet, to hear about all the people I loved (excepting Eric Grant, of course) was like water in a thirsty land, as the Bible would say. And to learn that Uncle Paul was possibly softening and that Aunt Marie truly missed me—I had barely read the letter through twice before I was scrambling for pen and paper to write her back.

There was not a lot to say. Or not a lot that could be committed to paper. Contrary to my mother’s advice, I had not succeeded in making new friends in Colorado. Apart from the Dawes’ and a librarian and grocery clerk or two, I had not met anyone at all. Oh—scratch that—I did meet a couple older people and some families at the churches I visited the last two weekends, but I knew that would hold no interest for Caroline. And it wasn’t really
meeting
someone just to shake hands during the greeting time. Who knew if I would even see them again when I went back this Sunday?

I chewed the end of the pen. Would she rather hear how Bill worked at U-Haul, weekends, and for the city doing maintenance other days? How, during the school year, Mom was a food service lady at the middle school? Or would Caroline be more interested in Robbie’s and Jamie’s adventures? The staying up till all hours, the fighting, the injuries? In my three weeks there I tried to institute some order, some routine, in their lives, and while I had middling success with Robbie, Jamie proved responsive. It helped that we shared a bedroom. I made a game of hanging our clothes or putting them away in the drawer, of finding secret hiding places for the toys, of who could make the biggest mountain of garbage and carry the biggest load of it outside, of vacuuming patterns into the carpet, of who could brush her teeth the longest without spitting, or brush her hair the fewest times to remove all the tangles. With more sleep every night Jamie grew less whiny, less apt to collapse in a fit on the floor if Robbie antagonized her.

Robbie, who would start kindergarten in the fall, shocked me with his illiteracy. The question, “Which letter makes a ‘w’ sound? ‘
Wuh
’ ‘
wuh
,’” drew a total blank. After a minute of frowning he shrugged and pointed at an E. I added to my list of Ways to Pass the Summer, teaching him his alphabet and numbers. When she observed this, Jamie surprised me (and irritated Robbie) by volunteering all sorts of information and even reading a few words. It turned out she learned them from Phil Donahue and commercials. Considering how the television was
on most waking hours, I guess the real wonder was that Robbie
didn’t
pick up on it. Putting his little sister back in her place provided motivation now, however, and he labored over his letters, identifying them, tracing them, combining them under his breath.

The walk to the library was too far for their short legs, but they could ride the bus for free, so once a week I took them with me. They gloried in their library cards and the freedom to pick out any five books they liked. Mom said only, “As long as you’re the one who has to read to them, Frannie.” Meanwhile I checked out books and articles on addiction, hiding them in my backpack, not that I need have bothered. Mom and Bill showed not the least curiosity in my school work.

“Found all the letters!” yelled Robbie, interrupting my train of thoughts. He shoved the catalogue at me, thumping it with his index finger. “See? See? Check them!”

“Okay. While I’m doing this, let me see if you remember how to write your name and address and phone number. Pretend you’re lost and I’m the policeman.”

Pushing away my blank letter to Caroline, I leafed through the catalogue.

No, what Mom and Bill were most interested in, in the whole world, was NASCAR. They watched races, taped races, read about races in magazines and newspapers. It was Winston Cup this and Dale Earnhardt that and the Miller High Life 400 and the Pepsi 400 with Lake Speed’s big rollover crash. The children didn’t trail far behind in fanaticism. Robbie and Jamie “raced” me on their bicycle and tricycle, made me play pit stop crew, set up Matchbox speedways in the hall and kitchen and everywhere underfoot. Instead of Disneyland, the Dawes’ dreamed of seeing Talladega. When Bill learned I’d never seen a race before coming to them and that I didn’t know a stock car from a stocking cap, he had little more to say to me, and I was too embarrassed to ask any questions. It was a replay of when I first moved in with the Beresfords, only all the criteria for acceptance changed. I added another thing to my list: learning about NASCAR. In between addiction and biology books, I studied teams and cars and numbers and colors. The apostle Paul’s verse came to mind: “I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might win some.” Or was it save some?

Speaking of saving some—church was another uncomfortable topic. I asked Mom the second week, “Would you mind if I went on Sunday morning to a church nearby? One I could walk or take the bus to?”

“Christ! You’re not even with the Beresfords now. I won’t tell if you don’t go to church.”

“Oh. But is it…okay if I went anyhow?”

“Do whatever you want. You’re eighteen. It’s time to start thinking for yourself.” Adding under her breath, “Or start thinking,
period
.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me.”

But on Sunday when I was eating my toast and orange juice, she shuffled into the kitchen and threw her car keys on the counter. “Don’t hit anyone and have it back by noon.”

The first Sunday I went to a tiny Lutheran church of old people. They were so surprised to see someone new and younger than eighty that I was afraid my appearance might hurry them along to their Final Destination.

The second Sunday I found myself at a warehouse church of no discernible denomination. Uncle Paul would have hated it, with its drums and guitars and everyone wearing jeans. I didn’t know any of the songs, but the message was familiar enough and the people next to me friendly. I was considering returning there this weekend, although Robby and Jamie were jealous of my absence and begged to go along with me next time. If Mom and Bill allowed it and my siblings liked the Sunday school, I would be locked in.

Jamie grabbed my cheeks between her little hands. “Frannie! Didn’t you hear me? I said it’s time to make paper dolls. Give it back, Robbie!” But Robbie was already off and running, Jamie’s prized Spiegel catalogue held above his head.

I sighed. I would make peace between them. In a minute.

Taking the sheet of blank stationery, I folded it in thirds and slid it in the envelope with Caroline’s letter. My lack of news would have to wait.

July passed. The Beresfords went to the cabin a couple times, and once Caroline and Jonathan joined them for a few days. Uncle Roger’s gout flared up. Greg Perkins pulled a hamstring and got put on the disabled list. Million Dollar Bill won the AC Spark Plug 500 to my stepfather’s nostalgic disappointment. “Damn that broken wrist he got early in the season,” he lamented. “
Coulda
made it two Cups in a row.”

On the last Thursday, I helped Doreen from church get ready for the Cherry Pie Celebration, rolling out crust after crust in her cramped kitchen. When we were done it was nearly five-thirty. Doreen paid me with one unbaked pie, but the real reason I did it was because she was the church secretary and had gotten me a series of little jobs in the childcare center for evening events. In any case, getting the pie home intact was a miracle. I balanced the prize-winning goodness on the handlebars of the neighbor’s borrowed bike while I steered, one-handed, the fifteen blocks home. Disaster nearly struck when Robbie’s skateboard tripped me up in the garage, sending me lurching, shoulder-first, into the house, cradling the pie to my chest like a glass infant.

When I looked up, laughing, I found Mom and Bill had a guest. There on the couch, iced tea in hand, wedged in by clutter but looking immaculate, sat Eric Grant.

My laugh cut off like someone had slit my throat.

Jamie saved the moment, rushing forward with a squeal to grab the pie. “Can we have it? Can we eat it, Frannie?”

“It has to bake,” I murmured.

“Yummy!” shouted Robbie. “Cherry pie! Let’s bake it now—please please
please
!”

I thought Bill would say something about how the house was too damned hot to turn on the oven (we had not had a stove-cooked meal or the curtains open in days), but instead he said, “That’s a great idea, Robbie. Then we can offer our guest some.”

That guest had sprung up to help me by this point. I remembered and recognized the dark eyes, the narrow mouth, how he was exactly as tall as I was. But somehow, at the same time, he was all brand new. My heart gave a lurch and a flutter as I pulled my hand away to brush myself off. “What—what are you doing here?”

“Hello to you, too,” he grinned. “I was passing through—some business in Fort Collins—and thought I’d stop by.”

I had never cared how I looked for him or what he thought of me, but that I could maintain such indifference in
this
setting was more than could be asked of any teenage girl. I saw the Dawes’ house through his eyes—the disorder, the noise, the dust, the heaps of
stuff
—and then there was my family! Mom in her velour sweatpants and NASCAR t-shirt, her hair hanging unfashionably lank, Bill in jeans and a wife-beater, Robbie still in his Scrappy-Doo pajamas, and Jamie with no shirt on at all, her lazy-eye patch making her look like a miniature drunken pirate. And I—I was worst of all, to my self-absorbed adolescent mind. A mess—red, sweaty, dusted
with flour, and sporting a large cherry juice stain on my shirt. My own hair, perfectly
permed
the last time he saw me, was halfway grown out and scraped back in a bushy ponytail.

Eric Grant and I stared at each other. He was thinking, I was positive, that he couldn’t imagine what he ever saw in me. That it was all the packaging that fooled him—the Beresfords’ house, the Beresford aura, the Beresfords themselves. But—just plunk Frannie Price down in a cluttered, unventilated rambler in the Cherry Pie Capitol of Colorado, surround her with the salt of the earth (her blood relatives), let her grooming go to pot—and watch the magic disappear. She was just ordinary. Nobody, really.

We were what we were. But I drew some comfort from seeing everyone on his best behavior. Chalk it up to Eric Grant, I suppose, who managed to carry his aura with him intact. My mother twisted her hair up and pinned it; Bill turned the television volume down; Robbie and Jamie perched on arms of furniture and listened, breathing through their mouths. Bill and Eric talked car racing at first. Eric admitted to limited familiarity with NASCAR but redeemed himself with knowledge of Formula One. Having never heard him mention it before, I was amazed by the fund of anecdotes he called up, and my family responded with enthusiasm. Robbie especially peppered him with questions and exclamations—I suspected the next time the kids raced me down the street,
Ayrton
Senna
would annihilate me, rather than Dale Earnhardt.

When that topic was at last exhausted, Eric moved on to the Beresfords and how they sent their best wishes, but Mom stiffened and he sensed it instantly and veered off a different direction. The beauties of the weather, of Colorado, the drive from the airport. Was Bill a mechanic? No? He would have guessed that, from his car expertise. Somehow Eric Grant coaxed a monologue from my stepfather on facilities management (to which he then contributed opinions on fire extinguisher design and installation), followed by another on people’s lack of spatial perception and how that played out when renting U-Haul trailers.