I cast around for words and then, in a flash of inspiration, I start grabbing bolts of fabric from the shelves. I toss some midnight-blue corduroy down on the table first. “This is his voice,” I tell Summer, taking her hand and running it over the soft ridges and grooves.
“Ooo,” she says. “I like his voice.”
“Yeah, me too. And this,” I continue, reaching for a warm-brown woolen tweed, “is his eyes.” Glancing up at her I add, “They’re almost the same shade as yours, actually.”
Summer smiles.
I fish a skein of buttery mohair yarn from a basket on the floor to represent Simon’s curly blond hair, then ponder what to choose next. Aha! The cheerful cotton print I used for my latest Bébé Soleil creation catches my eye. Bébé Soleil is a French company that carries a few of my baby and toddler designs. My grandmother’s the one responsible for that—she sneaked an outfit I made for Maggie Crandall into her suitcase a few years ago when she went to Paris for Fashion Week, and all of a sudden I had a job. It’s still kind of mind-boggling, but fun—and they pay me, too, so my college fund is fattening nicely.
I reach for the bolt of fabric and hold up a length of it. “This is his smile,” I tell my friend, showing off the sunny yellow-and-orange mini-paisley pattern.
“I wish I had a Simon.” Summer sighs.
“Do you have a boyfriend?” The two of us didn’t get much of a chance to talk after the party yesterday. Sunday night is reserved for Project Catwalk around here. It’s Gigi’s and my favorite reality TV show—we love to see what the fashion designers whip up each week. My parents aren’t into it, of course, so it’s become a weekly tradition for that to be their date night, while Gigi and I order takeout and hole up in her apartment downstairs. Of course, now that Sophie is here, our cozy twosome has become a threesome. Mademoiselle Velcro sticks to my grandmother the same way she sticks to Stewart Chadwick. I barely ever get time alone with Gigi anymore, or with my mother.
Summer joined us last night while my parents took her mother out to dinner. Her family doesn’t have cable, so she’s never watched the show. She was completely enthralled, which Sophie seemed to find amusing. She spent nearly as much time watching Summer as she did watching the show. My guess is she’s pegged her for a hick. Or a dork. Or both.
Summer’s hostess gifts didn’t help matters. I was expecting another quilt, but instead it turns out she’d knitted us all matching sweaters. Kitschy sweaters with my mother’s campaign slogan on them, along with an image of a pair of handcuffs. Sophie looked bemused when she opened hers.
“Merci,” she’d said politely, but I could tell from the expression on her face that there was no way she was ever going to wear it. I put mine on immediately, just to spite her.
“I love it, Summer,” I said.
“Me too,” said my mother, giving her a hug. “What a thoughtful, unique gift.”
I look over at Summer now, who still hasn’t answered my question. It seems to have rattled her a bit, because her face is beet red. “Boyfriend? Um, no, not really,” she says finally. “I’ve kind of liked Sam Parker forever, though.” She gives me a beseeching look. “Don’t tell anyone, okay? Especially not Winky. You know how she loves to tease, plus we go to a small high school. It would be really awkward if word got around.”
“Hey, don’t worry. I understand awkward, believe me.”
Speaking of which, my mother comes in just then, trailing Sophie. Coco is frisking at the French girl’s heels, as always. My kitten makes a dive for the basket of yarn, and I reach down to head her off at the pass. Summer beats me to it and scoops her up for a cuddle.
“I thought I heard you two in here,” my mother says. “It’s almost time for your friends to arrive. Maybe you’d like to give Sophie a hand setting up for our meeting?”
“Yes, ma’am,” says Summer, springing to her feet.
Cassidy used to say that Summer Williams was so sweet, it made her teeth hurt. That was before we got to know her, of course. Summer is sweet, there’s no arguing with that, but nice sweet, not icky sweet. And she’s polite and thoughtful and really talented, despite the Handcuffs Wong sweaters. She’s a little naive, though, too, the way Jess can sometimes be naive, and over the next half hour I watch as she struggles to engage Sophie in conversation.
It’s not that Sophie doesn’t respond—she does. But she’s kind of monosyllabic, the same way she is with me. My mother and Gigi keep telling me to be patient, that she’s a long way from home and going through deep waters blah blah blah. Plus, they remind me that English isn’t her native language. From what I’ve observed, however, Sophie communicates just fine whenever there are boys around.
Summer seems blissfully unaware of any tensions between me and Sophie and chatters on, barely pausing for a response. By the time we’re done setting up the buffet and bringing extra chairs into the living room, she’s filled Sophie in on all the details about her family, school, her life in Wyoming, the Cup and Saucer, and her passion for quilting and knitting.
“Oh, and my parents got divorced a few years ago,” she adds, “which was really awful for a while, but things are better now.”
The minute she says this, Sophie drops all pretense of politeness. Without another word she turns and abruptly leaves the room.
Summer stares after her, dumbfounded. “Was it something I said?” she asks in bewilderment.
“It’s not you,” I assure her. “It’s Sophie. Her parents are getting divorced, too, and it’s a really touchy subject. I tried to talk to her about it once and she about bit my head off.”
The doorbell rings just then, and Summer runs to answer it.
“Bonsoir, girls!” calls Mrs. Chadwick, waltzing in with Zoe and Becca and Mrs. Winchester. “What a day we’ve all had!”
“It’s been wonderful,” agrees Bailey’s mother, who is right behind her with Mrs. Hawthorne and Bailey and Emma.
Mrs. Williams and my grandmother emerge from the kitchen. They’ve been in there for the last hour and a half, cooking something that smells delicious.
“I thought I heard voices,” says Gigi. “Welcome!”
Two minutes later the rest of our friends arrive and the living room echoes with excited voices. Gigi and my mother and I are wearing our “Handcuffs Wong” sweaters, and it doesn’t take people long to notice.
“Where did you GET that?” screeches Cassidy, grabbing my sleeve. “I NEED one!”
I explain about the hostess gift, and pretty soon everyone is lined up in front of Summer.
“I’ll be knitting from now until the election,” she says, laughing as she writes down all the orders. “Better get started now.”
I follow her to my bedroom, where she grabs her knitting needles and I grab my sketchbook. I’m in the mood to draw tonight.
Sophie’s door is closed. I can hear her talking to someone in French—it’s not Gigi, because my grandmother is back in the living room with our friends. I figure she must be talking to her grandfather again, or maybe one of her parents. What Summer said must have set her off.
Summer pauses as we start to pass her door and knocks softly. Without waiting for a reply, she opens it a crack, just enough to see Sophie motioning angrily at us to shut it again. But not before I spot her open laptop. Sophie’s not on the phone; she’s videoconferencing.
And the face on-screen is Simon’s.
All the air whooshes out of my lungs. Summer doesn’t seem to notice; she’s too busy apologizing to Sophie and closing the door again. I stand rooted to the spot, trying to catch my breath and figure out why on earth Sophie Fairfax is talking to my boyfriend.
There’s got to be a logical explanation, right? But what? They’re cousins, true. I have boy cousins in Hong Kong. But it’s not like we’re best friends. I see them once in a while, that’s all. We don’t talk on the phone and I don’t videoconference with them. At least not by myself.
And then I’m struck by an awful idea: Is Sophie the reason Simon broke up with me la
st fall? If she is, could she be trying to start things up again?
“Megs, are you okay?” asks Becca as I trail back into the living room behind Summer.
“Yup,” I tell her shortly. I’m not in the mood to talk right now, not even to my best friend. I take my sketchbook and retreat to the far side of the room, stretching out on the rug under the grand piano, where my suspicions continue to gnaw at me.
“Dinner is served,” Gigi announces a couple of minutes later. “Pies and Prejudice’s own vegetarian lasagna, accompanied by Victoria Williams’s world-famous Easy Cheesy Garlic Biscuits from the Cup and Saucer!”
“Yum!” says Cassidy, diving for the buffet.
“I don’t know if they’re world famous,” says Summer’s mother, looking pleased. “But our customers in Laramie seem to like them.”
“Aren’t you hungry?” my mother asks a few minutes later, bending down to peer under the piano. She holds out a plate.
I shake my head. “Not right now.”
She shrugs and takes the plate over to the sofa, where she starts up a conversation with Savannah and Professor Daniels. I notice Savannah glancing over at me once or twice, but I ignore her. Becca, too.
I draw furiously as the conversation flows. Our Gopher Hole friends are buzzing about everything they saw today in Concord and the neighboring towns. I’m just as glad we were in school and didn’t have to go sightseeing with them—I’ve seen the Old North Bridge plenty of times, and Sleepy Hollow Cemetery and Orchard House and the Lexington Battle Green and all that.
“Did you go skinny-dipping in Walden Pond again, Mrs. Chadwick?” Savannah asks when the talk turns to Henry David Thoreau’s cabin.
“Savannah!” squawks Mrs. Chadwick, her pale, robin’s-egg-blue eyes blinking behind her glasses.
Savannah grins. “Sorry,” she says. “My mother suggested I bring it up.”
“Your mother is a wicked, wicked woman,” says Mrs. Chadwick, but she’s smiling now too.
Savannah’s mother and Becca’s mother were roommates a long time ago at Colonial Academy. When we were in Wyoming, Mrs. Sinclair told us about some of the things the two of them did back when they were students. Like skinny-dipping at Walden Pond.
Normally, I’d be laughing along with everyone else. But tonight the last thing I feel like doing is laughing.
Sophie eventually emerges from her room and takes a seat beside my grandmother. She doesn’t even glance in my direction.
“Let’s kick off the official part of our meeting with fun facts,” says Mrs. Hawthorne as dessert is served—Mrs. Sloane-Kinkaid’s killer brownies, which for the first time ever don’t even tempt me. My stomach is as tight as a clenched fist. “Most of tonight’s facts were covered in Simon’s film yesterday, but I thought perhaps you’d all like to add them to your collection, anyway.”
I feel my lip tremble at the mention of Simon’s name. Usually it brings a smile to my face, but not this time. Not even Coco, who has wandered over to join me for once and is batting happily at the tip of my drawing pencil, can cheer me up.
“Here you go, Megan,” says Mrs. Delaney, passing me a sheet of paper.
FUN FACTS ABOUT CHARLOTTE
1) Charlotte and her brothers and sisters early discovered a love of writing. Spurred in part by their father’s gift of a dozen toy soldiers to Branwell, they developed a rich fantasy life around the “Young Men,” as they called them, inventing a cast of characters and entire worlds for them to inhabit—worlds with such names as Glass Town, Angria, Verdopolis, and Gondal.
2) Charlotte and her sisters and brothers wrote many stories, and from the age of ten she put them into tiny books, bound by hand, and printed in miniscule handwriting meant to mimic real type. These books still exist today and can be seen at the Brontë Museum in Haworth.
3) Charlotte was prolific, writing novels, plays, stories, and poetry. At fourteen, she made a list of her life’s work to date; it included twenty-two volumes, most of them stories written about Glass Town.
4) Charlotte was ambitious, and at age twenty sent some of her poems to Robert Southey, the poet laureate of England, confiding in him her desire “to be forever known.” His response was not encouraging. While he admitted that she possessed “the faculty of Verse,” he stated flatly, “Literature cannot be the business of a woman’s life: & it ought not to be. The more she is engaged in her proper duties, the less leisure will she have for it. . . . ”
5) The Brontës loved animals, and they owned several cats and dogs over the years, including Emily’s dog Keeper and Anne’s dog Flossie, a King Charles spaniel.
6) Patrick Brontë’s income was modest, and his daughters would have little, if any, dowry and so were unlikely to find husbands. Realizing he had to prepare them to earn a living, he eventually sent Charlotte to Roe Head School when she was fifteen to learn to be a governess. She had a much better experience this time, making two lifelong friends and rising to become the school’s top pupil. (She was also legendary for her storytelling ability, and once scared the wits out of the entire dormitory with a ghost tale.)
7) After teaching for three years at Roe Head, Charlotte found work as a governess. She hated it. “A private governess has no existence,” she complained in a letter to her sister Emily in 1839. She stuck it out three months and quit. Eventually, she went to Belgium to learn French so that she could open her own school, a venture that unfortunately proved unsuccessful.
8) Charlotte discovered and read some of her sister Emily’s poetry (much to Emily’s dismay, for she was very private), and hatched a plan for herself and Emily and Anne to self-publish a small collection of their poetry. They chose the pseudonyms Acton, Currer, and Ellis Bell. Their volume was well-reviewed, but only sold two copies.
9) Encouraged by the reviews, the sisters each set to work on a novel. They formed a sort of family critique group, meeting around the dining room table at night when the rest of the household was asleep. They wrote, read aloud, argued, discussed, and shared their excitement and passion for their work. But who would be the first to publish?
“Nooooo, Mrs. Hawthorne!” Madison protests. “You left us on a cliffhanger!”
“Bwahaha!” replies Mrs. Hawthorne, faking an evil laugh. “You noticed! Fear not—I’m sending the final fun facts home with your mothers, and the blanks will all be filled in at your next meeting back in Gopher Hole. Meanwhile, does anything here strike you as particularly interesting?”
I listen quietly, still sketching.
“I can’t believe that poop of an old poet told Charlotte that writing wasn’t for girls!” says Mrs. Delaney. “The nerve!”
“I guess he wouldn’t have approved of Chicks with Sticks,” says Cassidy.
“It reminds me of something that Jane says at one point—hang on a sec, let me find it.” Bailey flips through her copy of the book. “Here it is! Listen to this: ‘Women are supposed to be very calm generally; but women feel just as men feel. They need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts, as much as their brothers do . . . and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings.’”
“What’s the matter with knitting stockings?” protests Summer, holding up her knitting needles.
This draws a laugh, and Mrs. Hawthorne continues, “Excellent connection, Bailey. I’ve often wondered whether Charlotte had Southey’s letter in mind when she wrote that.”
“Whether or not she did, look who had the last laugh,” says Madison’s mother. “Today hardly anybody’s heard of Southey, but everybody knows Charlotte Brontë and Jane Eyre.”
“She got her wish to be ‘forever known,’ didn’t she?” says Winky, and everybody nods.
“I noticed something,” says Becca. “The Brontës had five daughters, just like the Bennet family in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. I mean, before Maria and Elizabeth died they had five. Anyway, they worried about marrying them off ju
st like the Bennets did.”
“Another excellent connection,” says Mrs. Hawthorne. “And just like the Bennets—and Jane Austen herself—the Brontës worried about money. So many things we take for granted today, like women being able to earn a living in careers of their choice, just weren’t options back in Charlotte’s day.”
“She’s like Jane Austen in another way, too,” adds Emma. “Jane Austen wrote a lot when she was young, and so did Charlotte and the rest of the Brontë children.”
Her mother nods. “Good point. Anybody else?”
I could say something if I wanted to. I could say that I know exactly how Jane Eyre felt when she was betrayed by the person she loved best in the whole world.
But I don’t.
“Okay, it’s been a long day, and I think we’ll wind it up here,” says Mrs. Hawthorne.
“Ladies of Gopher Hole, remember we’re meeting at the tea shop tomorrow morning at eight thirty again,” Mrs. Chadwick announces. “We’ve got a lot of ground to cover in Boston.”
Becca comes over to say good-bye, and I crawl reluctantly out from under the piano.
“Are you feeling okay?”
I shake my head. It’s not a lie. Right now all I want to do is go to bed.
“Call me in a bit?” she whispers as she gives me a hug.
I lift a shoulder. “Maybe tomorrow,” I tell her. “I’m really tired.”
Later, as we’re getting into our pajamas, Summer asks, “What were you so busy drawing tonight?”
I shrug. “Nothing much.” In fact, I was so worked up I’m not even sure. I wait until she heads through the door to the adjoining bathroom, then reach for my sketchbook to find out.
Simon.
Of course I drew Simon. Who else would I draw? His likeness stares back at me from the page. Around his head, circling like planes trying to land, are question marks.
Lots and lots of question marks.
I climb into bed and pull the quilt that Summer made for me up under my chin. I lie there in the dark, fingering the embroidery that stitches the scraps of velvet and muslin and lace together like puzzle pieces. If I were to take a snapshot of my life right at this moment, it would look exactly like this crazy quilt. Only my patches are Sophie Fairfax, Coco, my grandmother, Handcuffs Wong, and Simon.
Wish You Were Eyre Page 17