The Lucky Ones (4 page)

Cecile felt the red of her face clash even more hideously with that of her hair under her sister’s gaze. “The
Rammer
’s in,” she said.

“How can you tell?” Natalie’s voice was heavy with fourteen-year-old sarcasm.

“Captain Stone has a new cabin boy.”

“How exciting.”

Cecile should have known Natalie wouldn’t care. People who worked on the
Rammer
didn’t interest her; it was the women whose husbands had enough money to charter it who she’d care about. She’d study them closely for their clothes and shoes and hair.

At home, Natalie poured over the magazines their mother subscribed to: magazines filled with photographs of people on horses, mansions with turrets and gables, the weddings of strangers. There were reports about elaborate parties where women acted like children and wore costumes and masks—even feathers in their hair. The men wore navy blazers with white linen pants and loafers without socks, like a uniform. Everyone looked so much the same. Cecile couldn’t understand what Natalie and her mother found so interesting.

“Mom sent me to bring you up for dinner,” Natalie said, her eyes fastened on the boat. “She wants to see you before they leave.”

Cecile might have protested, but now another new feeling was running through her: She didn’t want
Natalie to be here when the boy came back. He wouldn’t be able to miss her, with the sun glinting off her hair like that and the ends of her shirt tied in a knot, revealing her flat, tanned stomach above her shorts.

Cecile was suddenly giddy with the need for them to leave.

“Lucy! Jack!
Viens ici!
” she shouted as she leaped onto the bench and waved her arms above her head. How pretentious, calling to them in French! She sounded like Miss Mathieu, her French teacher, who refused to speak to the class in English.

You look ridiculous, she told herself; she didn’t care.
“À table,”
she called as loudly as she liked. “Dinner!”

“What’re you doing?” Natalie said in a furious whisper. “Get down.”

Too late. The people on the
Rammer
had heard. The blond woman called out to Jack as he made his way slowly toward his sisters, holding the tip of his pole out over the railing so he could trail his bait behind him in the water.

Whatever he said made them all laugh.

“God, you are so immature.” Natalie’s voice was low and passionate. She turned and walked angrily up the stairs; Cecile’s relief at seeing her go was immense. She sagged onto the bench; the balloon had lost its air. Suddenly she had all the time in the world.

Cecile waited patiently for Lucy to make her way across the sand and then held her bucket while Lucy rinsed her feet in the faucet next to the boathouse.

“What did they want?” she asked Jack when he came up to them.

“They wanted to know if we were from France.”

“What’d you say?”

“I said we were from Connecticut.”

“You dope,” said Cecile, grinning. Then, with greater feeling, “You turkey!”

“They talked to me as if I was five,” said Jack. He was small for his age and accustomed to being underestimated. The combination of his size and his beautiful dark eyes and hair made people dote on him in foolish ways. Cecile had seen it happen again and again. Jack’s scorn was monumental.

“If Mom was here, she’d call them Nosey Parkers,” he said disgustedly.

“Nosey Parkers! Nosey Parkers!” Lucy picked up the words and started to chant.

Her shrill voice carried out over the water.

“Lucy, be quiet!” Cecile and Jack said in loud whispers.

But Lucy was wild with the sound of it. She stomped her feet and marched in circles. “Nosey Parkers, Nosey Parkers!” she cried.

Cecile clamped her hand over Lucy’s mouth, trying not to laugh, and carried her, struggling, up the stairs. She couldn’t imagine what they looked like to the people on the
Rammer
, and she didn’t care. The dinghy was still gone.

Jack ran behind her with Lucy’s bucket, bent over, laughing with the joke of it.

When she knew they were out of sight of the boat, Cecile dumped Lucy unceremoniously on her feet on the driveway. Lucy immediately set up a roar.

“Onward, Nosey Parkers!” commanded Jack. He raised Lucy’s net high in the air as if it were a flag.
Cecile scooped up Lucy again and carried her piggyback, bouncing her up and down as they went and chanting, so that by the time they rounded the corner onto Granddad’s drive and saw their mother standing on the front porch, waiting, Lucy was beaming.

“B
eep, beep! Coming through.”

Jack trotted up behind Cecile as she walked slowly down to the dock the next morning, and passed her. He held a large red thermos with a metal top firmly against his chest with both arms.

“Who’s that for?” Cecile said.

“Sis,” Jack called without stopping. “It’s her lemonade.”

“I hope she gives you a tip!”

Knowing Sis, she was sitting under her umbrella at the far end of the beach, as far away from the dock as she could get. Mrs. Harris, King’s and Sis’s housekeeper, set Sis up there a few mornings a week. Sis stayed all morning, her huge sunglasses covering half her face, a stack of magazines on a small table
next to her, a cooler at her feet. She rarely moved out from under the umbrella until after lunch, when Mrs. Harris reappeared to carry everything back up to the house with Sis teetering along behind her, empty-handed.

Now she has Jack fetching and carrying for her, too, Cecile thought. Rather him than me. She heard a car crunching along the drive behind her and turned, expecting to see Mr. Peabody, the Island caretaker, in his ancient station wagon with wooden slats, or the white delivery van from the grocer in Southampton that delivered groceries twice a week to Granddad’s house, but the dark car working its way toward her was unfamiliar.

People hardly ever came onto the Island who didn’t belong there; they must be lost. Cecile stepped back onto the grass and waited with a polite face to give directions.

The car slid heavily past without stopping; several pale profiles stared straight ahead inside. How rude, for people who weren’t even supposed to be here, to ignore her like that. Only one round face, as
pale as the moon, gazed back at her through the rear window. It was a little boy wearing a cap.

She trailed after them, watching as the car slowly came to a stop at the dock. There was a pause, and then four doors opened and five people got out: a mother, a father, and three children. Large and pale, with brown hair and prominent ears, they stood blinking uncertainly in the sudden glare like moles emerging from their tunnel. The boys wore dark pants, white shirts, and striped ties. The girl wore a white blouse with a Peter Pan collar and a plaid skirt.

Interlopers, Cecile thought scornfully; the name was instinctive and fatal. Interlopers was what the Thompson children had always called people who came onto the Island for a day or two; guests of Mrs. Miller, maybe, who had owned a small house. Or passengers on the boats that stopped at the dock to refuel. Interlopers didn’t get to
stay
, they were passing through.

Whenever these strangers arrived, the Thompson children would stand as suspicious and alert as savages who watched invaders pull their boats up onto
the shore, to see who they were. The minute they were identified as Interlopers, one of the children would shriek. Then they’d all start to shriek and run as fast as they could to hide under the dock or in the boathouse. If they were in the yard, they’d duck inside the huge lilac bush at the head of the driveway, which they’d turned into a fort with towels. Huddled together, they’d clamp their hands over their mouths to keep from laughing as the Interlopers walked past.

If their mother or father were around, one of them might say, “Don’t be so silly,” but nobody stopped them. Crouched down, peering through branches, exhilarated by their own silliness, they could hear the Interlopers coming. Their heavy steps got closer and closer, their loud voices exclaiming over things they saw along the drive. King’s turret poking above the trees, maybe, or the magnificent oak in Granddad’s garden. More than once, the children heard one of them say, “Who do you think lives in that big house?”

These Interlopers who had invaded by car were
the worst; they’d glided right by, without saying hello, and stood between Cecile and the dock. Serves them right, they’re hot, she thought. Look at them, in school uniforms and shoes and socks on the Island in the middle of summer. She felt their eyes on her and grew proud. She was so obviously an insider, and cool, in her navy blue tank suit with a towel flung over her shoulder.

Standing a little straighter, she walked toward them on bare feet without flinching. She tossed her head the way Natalie would have done and understood what it meant for the first time: You can come or go, my life will stay the same.

The girl was openly staring at her. She was about Cecile’s age, her wide, freckled face was flushed; her pale hair hung lank and damp. She looked hot and lumpy in her crumpled blouse; one of her knee socks had given up and fallen down around her ankle. Cecile couldn’t remember having been stared at with such interest before. She knew at once the girl was willing to be her friend. It made her feel aloof and powerful.

As quickly as her confidence had lifted her up, it dropped her like a wave breaking against the sand. Cecile felt the jolt as she caught the eye of the older boy. He was rocking the knot of his tie from side to side to loosen it and watching her. Could he really have run his eyes up and down her like that? How dare he! She was excruciatingly aware of her flat chest. It was all she could do to stop herself from bringing up her hands to protect it.

Because it wasn’t completely flat anymore; disks, round as quarters, were pushing their way up under her skin to form small bumps. Cecile had longed to stop them from the first morning she’d noticed them. She didn’t dare look to see if this Interloper could see them; he’d smirk if he could; she’d die. Oh, and her skinny legs, too. Cecile tugged at her suit.

The little boy and his parents turned away from the seawall and walked back to the car. “Wait until we get to the cottage, Leo,” Cecile heard the woman say as the boy started taking off his cap. “You’ll burn.” Leo settled it back over his wide brow again without arguing.

The cottage. Cecile’s heart sunk. They weren’t lost, they were staying. The cottage was the only property on the Island that was for rent. Its owner—frail, reclusive Mrs. Miller, who had vacationed there alone for as long as Cecile could remember with her nurse and her spoiled shih tzu, Fritz—had died during the winter. In one of the frequent bits of scandalous information Sheba passed on to them when they ate in the kitchen, the children had learned that Mrs. Miller’s family was squabbling over her will.

“There’s nothing like money to tear a family up,” is what she’d said.

“Having it, or not having it?” Natalie asked.

“Both.”

Maybe the Interlopers were Mrs. Miller’s grandchildren. Or maybe they were just renters. Either way, these pale strangers were going to run around their Island and fish from their dock. Cecile ducked her head and skirted around the group without saying hello, knowing she was rude. Wait until Natalie hears, she thought as she skimmed
along the dock toward the float. She’ll have a fit.

But Natalie didn’t have a fit.

“How old are they?” she said without opening her eyes. She was lying on her back on a striped towel with the straps of her new flowered two-piece bathing suit untied. Her arms and legs glistened with baby oil. Her stomach glistened, too. Cecile stared; she hadn’t seen as much of Natalie’s body since they’d stopped taking baths together, years ago.

“How can you go out in that?” she’d demanded when Natalie and their mother came home from the store and Natalie modeled it for her. “It doesn’t cover any more of your body than underwear.”

“I suppose you’re going to wear your swim-team tank suit for the rest of your life?” Natalie said as she twirled, delighted.

“Wait till you’re fourteen,” her mother had said with a knowing smile. “You’re going to want the same thing.”

“I never will,” Cecile said.

She felt more determined now, seeing that a pool
of oil had collected around Natalie’s belly button. She looked away.

“Are there any boys?” Natalie murmured.

“Two,” Cecile said. “But they’re funny looking.”

“Oh?” Natalie opened her eyes and leaned up on one elbow. “How old?”

“Natalie, they’re Interlopers.”

“Cecile, how old?”

The betrayal of it. She should have known. As long as it was a boy, Natalie wouldn’t care
what
he looked like. “Traitor,” Cecile said.

“You always make such a big deal of everything,” said Natalie. “Stop being such a baby and tell me how old.”

“That’s for me to know and you to find out.” Cecile turned and started up the ramp. “They’re ugly,” she said in too loud a voice when she reached the top. “And they’ve got big ears.”

“Would you be quiet!” Natalie clamped a hand over the top of her suit as she sat up quickly. She yanked the sunglasses resting on top of her head over her eyes and glared. “They’ll hear you, you idiot!”

“I hope they do,” Cecile said. “They deserve it.”

“Cecile!” Natalie called.

Cecile kept walking. She didn’t know who made her angrier: Natalie or the Interlopers. How could Natalie be interested in a boy she hadn’t even seen? Cecile fairly flew up the dock.

The glare when she reached the top of the stairs halted her in her tracks. Shading her eyes with her hand, she blinked dazedly at the parking area sitting empty and calm in the midday sun.

Hope flared up in her heart. They must have heard her. Heard her being rude and climbed right back into their ugly Interloper car with their big ears blazing with embarrassment. That would teach them to go to places where they weren’t welcome. Wait till Natalie heard. Who cared if she was furious?

A noise on the drive made her look. The dark car had stopped halfway down the drive. If it kept going straight, it would mean they were leaving. If it turned left, it would take them to the cottage.

Keep going, keep going, keep going…Cecile held her breath as the car started to roll. Then it
turned at the discreet metal sign that said
THE COTTAGE
and disappeared behind the hedge.

Their name was Cahoon. Sheba reported what she’d learned about them from Mr. Peabody at dinner that night as the children sat at the table in her spotless kitchen with the black-and-white tiled floor. There was a relaxed feeling in the air, the way there always was when their parents went out for the evening and they ate in the kitchen. Sheba didn’t mind if they came to the table barefoot, something that was never allowed when they ate in the dining room. She’d let Jack come to the table wearing only his shorts tonight, too, and bring his little men. He’d set them up in a circle around his plate: tiny gray men, some crouched, others standing, rifles aimed to protect his dinner.

Lucy rested her head on her arm between bites and stared straight ahead. Her eyes were at half-mast, her mouth moved slowly. No one told her to sit up. Sheba had put their plates in front of them in an easy, careless way, as if dealing out cards. Now
she was wiping the stainless-steel counters with slow, deliberate movements while they ate. Her gray uniform with its white collar and apron was spotless. Only the beads of sweat on her upper lip and forehead told of how long she’d stood over the hot stove.

A large fan in one corner moved lazily back and forth, sending a stream of gentle air over the group at the table and rippling the pages on the pad next to the telephone. A small photograph of a little brown-skinned boy with a wide grin sat on the shelf above it. He was Sheba’s son, Joey, waiting for her at their apartment with his father until Sheba got her Sunday off.

“William’s the oldest, then Jenny, then Leo,” Sheba said as she put the last of the pots upside down in the drying rack.

“How old is William?” Natalie asked.

“Sixteen. Same as Harry.” Sheba wrung out her dishcloth and draped it over the faucet to dry.

“How come he’s not working and Harry is?” Cecile said. “He must be spoiled.”

“Jenny’s a year younger than you, Cecile.”

“What do I care? I’m not going to have anything to do with them,” Cecile said. “They’re Interlopers.”

“They’re more interesting than anything else around here,” said Natalie. She aimed her ardent gaze at Sheba again. “Cecile said they were wearing uniforms. That means they go to private school.”

“So, what’s so great about that?” Cecile moved her food around on her plate with her fork without eating. “They’re funny looking, Natalie. You should have seen their ears.”

“Private school in New York City? Do you have any idea what that means?” Natalie said, dismissing Cecile with a look of utter scorn. “What does Mr. Cahoon do?” she asked.

Sheba laughed her low, good-natured laugh. “Why?” she asked, her broad face amused. “Did this boy William ask you to marry him already? Is that why you’re so interested?”

“See? Sheba knows it’s snobby,” Cecile said. “If William went to East, you wouldn’t look at him twice.”

“But he doesn’t, does he?” said Natalie.

She was already planning her strategy. Cecile could see the gears of Natalie’s brain turning, figuring out what clothes she would wear tomorrow, how to do her hair, whether or not she should put new polish on her nails.

As if Cecile had read her mind, Natalie splayed one hand in front of her, brought it closer to her face to examine her nails, and frowned. “I’m not hungry,” she said abruptly. “May I be excused?”

“Leave your dishes next to the sink,” Sheba said, flicking her eyes over Natalie’s half-full plate. “I don’t know why I bother cooking for a fourteen-year-old girl.”

“Fourteen and a half,” Natalie said happily. She put down her plate and glass and threw her arms around Sheba’s waist. “Oh, Sheba, I love you,” she said, smiling her dazzling Natalie smile.

“What you love is getting your own way.” Sheba gently pried Natalie’s hands from around her waist and gave her bottom an indulgent pat. “Go on and let the others finish.”

Another flash of her radiant smile, and Natalie was gone. The door swung closed on her heels. “I’m not hungry either,” Cecile said. She pushed away her plate and sagged against the back of the chair.

“Now, don’t
you
start getting crazy on me,” said Sheba. “This family only needs one wild girl at a time.”

“I’ll never be wild,” Cecile said.

“You’ll be a teenager yourself, same as your sister.”