The Summer Cottage (29 page)

Helen sat down on the top of the table and then lay back to look at the stars just beginning to show in the twilight. “Star light,” Helen whispered, “star bright, first star I see tonight.” She stared at her star, trying to think of an extra-special wish because it was so bright. Suddenly, another light caught her eye. Tracking it, she discovered it was a moving light, a flickering light, an on-and-off-again light. A firefly! Helen jumped up from the table and ran into the kitchen to look for a glass jar, which she immediately found in the pantry, and a screw top, which proved elusive. The tops in the bottom drawer were too big or too small. Helen searched frantically and finally found a plastic lid that fit perfectly. She took a sharp knife from a drawer in the kitchen and then, putting the lid down on the cutting board, poked five, six, seven holes through it.

She dashed back out to the picnic table, holding the jar in one hand and the lid in the other. Looking and listening, as if she could actually hear the fly turn on its light, Helen walked around the yard, paying close attention to the gardens that lined their property. All bugs like gardens, she remembered from school, as she squatted down to examine the daylily leaves. She flipped over a leaf, and a firefly flew out of the azalea bush next to her and into the open yard. Helen flew after it. Closer and closer she came, waiting for the perfect moment. The hapless fly chose a dandelion on which to rest, and Helen pounced. She scooped him up and snapped on the lid. Holding up the jar for inspection, Helen examined her specimen, waiting for the intoxicating flash of light. Racing around the yard, from one plant to another, Helen filled her jar with flies. When Thomas, changed into his pizza garb, walked out the back door, Helen ran to him with her prize. “Look!” she said, holding up the jar for inspection.

“Very impressive,” he said. “You must have a dozen in there.”

“Fourteen,” said Helen, proud.

“Wow.”

“Want to help me get some?”

“I’d love to another time, Helen. I’ve got to get to work.”

“Are you delivering pizza tonight?”

“Yes,” said Thomas. “Don’t wait up for me because I’ll be late.”

“I always wait up for you.”

“And it’s silly,” said Thomas. “I always come home.”

“That’s because I always wait up.” Thomas smiled at his sister. “Watch this,” said Helen.

“Watch what?” Thomas asked.

“I’m going to let them go.”

“That’s a great idea.”

“You think so?”

“If you want them to live, yes. If you want them to die, then keep them in the jar.”

“I want them to live,” said Helen. “I think they’re sad in there.”

“I imagine they are.”

Helen set the jar back down on the table and took the top off. She stepped back to give the flies room, and watched as they slowly lifted themselves out of the jar and into the sky. “They seem happier now.”

“I think they are,” said Thomas. “They want to be free.”

“It was fun to have them for a little while.”

“I’ll bet.”

“Where will you deliver pizzas tonight?”

“All over,” said Thomas. “I’m the only late-shift driver.”

“Maybe Anna will order one,” Helen said, looking at her brother.

Thomas was quiet for a moment and then said, “I don’t think so.”

“Do you miss her, Thomas?”

“Yes,” he said. “I do.”

“You don’t want to call her?”

“I can’t call her, Helen.”

“Why can’t you call her? If you’ve been thinking about her, you should call her.”

“It’s part of the stupid game, Helen. I just can’t call her.”

“If she called you, would you talk to her?”

“Of course I’d talk to her.”

“Then I’m sure she’d talk to you.”

“It’s different. If I call her, I’m admitting that I miss her. I’m admitting that I still love her.”

“Do you, Thomas?”

“Do I what?”

“Do you still love her?”

“Yes,” he said. “Part of me will always love her.” Thomas picked Helen up and kissed her forehead. “I’ve got to go. Be good.”

“I’m always good,” Helen said. “Teach me how to be bad.”

“Talk to Charlotte,” said Thomas, walking toward his car. “She’s the master.”

Helen watched him leave and then turned back toward the house. She walked into the kitchen with the jar, washed it out in the sink, and placed it upside down in the drying rack. Her mother insisted her children dry the dishes after a meal, but she was okay with one or two items drip-drying. Helen stashed the perforated plastic lid in the drawer that held the table linens, underneath the blue and white-checked tablecloth her mother spread on the picnic table for holiday celebrations, for the next time.

Walking through the dining room and living room to the porch, she told her parents, who immediately lay their books on their laps when she appeared, all about the fireflies. Claire told Helen that she was a budding scientist who would one day change the world with an important discovery, and John gently laughed and then complimented Helen on her compassion. She then told them, magnanimously she thought, that she was absolutely in for the night. She had no plans to sneak out. They told her they were pleased and then returned their attention to their books. This nightly habit of theirs allowed Claire and John to read a book a week over the course of the summer. Claire read mostly nonfiction so she could learn something, she told her children. But John, who was busy with his medical practice, made time for prolonged reading only during the summer. And he read fiction. A nice change, he said, from the medical journals that inundated his office mailbox.

Helen climbed the stairs and then walked down the hall to the room she shared with Pammy. “Hi,” she said, as she opened the door.

“Hi.” Pammy was lying on her stomach on the bottom bunk reading.

“What are you doing?”

“Reading,” said Pammy.

“What are you reading?” Helen asked, sitting down next to her.

“What’s it about?”

“It’s a romance novel.” Pammy did not look up from her book.

“Is it good?”

“The sentence I’ve just read three times was good.” Pammy turned now and looked at her younger sister.

“It sounds dumb.”

“Helen, I don’t make fun of your books.”

“I’m bored. Let’s bug Charlotte.”

“I don’t think she’s in the mood to be bugged.”

“You never know.”

“No, you never know. I always know,” said Pammy, returning to her book.

Helen got up from Pammy’s bed and walked out of the room, closing the door behind her. She walked the few steps to Charlotte’s door and knocked. “Who is it?”

“It’s Helen. Can I come in?”

“What for?”

Helen hadn’t anticipated that question. “I want to see how you’re feeling,” she said. Seconds later, Helen heard Charlotte unlatching the door. Helen walked into the lavender room and sat down in the armchair next to the window. Charlotte walked back to her bed and sat down amid her books, magazines, box of Kleenex, and a pad of paper. “Are you feeling better?” asked Helen, looking at her sister.

“Yeah, the cramps are almost gone,” said Charlotte. “The Midol makes me want to puke, but it does take care of the lousy cramps. The heating pad is also a must.”

“Are they really bad?”

“They can be. Tonight, they were awful.” Charlotte lifted her T-shirt, exposing her red and bubbled abdomen. “I had the heating pad on so high that I gave myself blisters.”

Helen shuddered. “I never want to get my period.”

“I don’t blame you for feeling that way.”

“But I’ll get it, won’t I?”

“You will, indeed, Helen.”

Helen shifted in the chair. “Well, I’m sorry you’ve had such a crappy night.”

“And I’m sorry about making cracks about your game. You were very patient, and I shouldn’t have said anything. I was just feeling lousy.” Helen took her sister’s willingness to talk as a sign to chat more. Charlotte wasn’t normally interested in prolonged conversation with anyone but boys her age or older.

“When do you think I’m going to get mine?” Helen asked.

“When are you going to get your what?”

“My period.”

“Oh,” said Charlotte, picking up a nail file that had been buried in the blankets. “Well, I got mine when I was fourteen. And I know Pammy’s close because she’s been insufferable lately. So I would guess around fourteen, give or take a year.”

“What’s it like?”

“Horrible.”

“Do you bleed a lot?”

“Depends,” said Charlotte, shaping her thumbnail. “Some days you bleed more than others.”

“I don’t really understand this whole thing.”

“Nobody does. It’s all biology.”

“Why do we have to bleed anyway?”

“So we can have babies someday.”

“That sounds okay.”

“Well, sure. When you want to have the babies, everything’s fine.” Charlotte was actually glad to have her period, her first since her abortion. She had bled for a week after the procedure, but she hadn’t been sure, until she got her period that morning, that everything had been cleaned out of her, that she was no longer pregnant. She’d had sex with Steve Johanson a few times, but she had been adamant about condom use—even though they had previously done it without protection. “And here’s the extra crazy thing,” said Charlotte, wanting to shake the abortion image from her head. “You continue to have your period until you’re really old, like fifty. Who needs a period for forty years when most people have their children in five or six?”

“I don’t know,” said Helen, who had never before thought much about periods.

“Nobody,” said Charlotte, filing her pointer finger. “Trust me.” Thomas had advised Helen never to trust Charlotte, but on that particular night, discussing this particular subject, Helen did. Helen watched her sister file the rest of her nails. Charlotte looked up and saw Helen watching. “Come here,” she said, patting the bed next to her. Helen got up from her chair and went to Charlotte’s bed. Charlotte cleared a place for Helen and told her to sit down and hold out her hands. Charlotte inspected Helen’s nails and began filing the rough edges. Mesmerized by her sister’s attention and the rhythm of the board going back and forth across her nail, Helen sat quietly and stared at her fingers.

“You should file your nails instead of chopping them off with that barbaric clipper,” said Charlotte. “They’re very nice.”

“My nails?” said Helen, coming out of her trance.

“Yes,” said Charlotte. “They’re strong, and they have a nice color.”

“Thank you,” said Helen, as she always did in response to a compliment.

“What color would you like?”

“I thought my color was good,” said Helen, confused.

“What color polish, silly.”

Helen looked into the green plastic bucket of nail polish. She took them out, one by one, and studied their labels. Purple Passion, Ruby Red, Cool Cocoa, Striking Strawberry, Summer Pink, Pearly Pink. “That would be good for you,” said Charlotte, taking the Pearly Pink out of Helen’s hand. “It’s subtle.”

Helen nodded in agreement and held out her nails to her sister. Someone knocked on the door. “What’s the password?” asked Charlotte, winking at Helen.

“Sex,” Pammy whispered through the keyhole.

“I can’t hear you,” Charlotte sang.

“Open the door, Charlotte.”

“Get the door, will you, Helen?”

Helen popped off the bed and unlocked the door for Pammy, who casually entered the room, then locked the door behind her. “What are you guys doing in here?”

“Talking about woman things,” said Charlotte, buffing Helen’s nails with a chamois cloth.

“What kind of woman things?” said Pammy, joining them on the bed.

“The monthly woman thing. The chief woman thing.”

“Oh.”

“Did you get yours yet?” Helen asked Pammy.

“No,” she said. “The doctor thinks I will soon, though.”

“Honey, you don’t need a doctor,” said Charlotte, “to know it’s right around the corner.” Pammy smiled at what she considered friendly banter.

“You want to get it?” asked Helen, incredulous.

“Absolutely. It means I’m a woman,” said Pammy, repeating what she’d heard in health class.

“What it means,” said Charlotte, painting Helen’s thumbnail, “is excruciating pain and general grossness.”

“That’s not the way I look at it,” said Pammy.

“That’s because you don’t have it,” Charlotte said flatly.

“I never want mine.” Helen shook her head.

“I thought you wanted babies,” said Charlotte.

“Well, yes, I do want the babies. I just don’t want the period.”

“I don’t think anybody can cut you that kind of deal, Helen,” said Charlotte. “Sooner or later, it’s going to happen.” Charlotte finished painting the nails on Helen’s left hand and started on the right. Helen held up the finished hand and blew on the opalescent polish to help it dry.

“They look nice,” she said to Charlotte, who stopped painting to take a closer look.

“Yes, they do,” she said.

“Will you do mine next?” asked Pammy.

“Only if you can tell me that you’ve kissed Michael.”

Pammy reddened. “You know I haven’t.”

“Why, for God’s sake?” asked Charlotte.

“Two words, two breasts. Tammy Jennings.”

“He’s not a breast man. I have that on good authority,” said Charlotte, using the word
authority
to sound official. It was a phrase she’d heard her father say to a neighbor about the weather forecast for the weekend.

“Tell him that,” said Pammy. “Everybody’s a breast man.”

“You have other attributes,” said Charlotte. “For starters, you’re much cuter than Tammy.”

“You think so?”

“Definitely,” said Helen, blowing on her nails. “What’s attractive about a big nose and stringy orange hair?”