Evvie at Sixteen

by Susan Beth Pfeffer

  “Do you want to spend the school year here with her?” Evvie asked.

  “No,” Sam said. “Besides, even if I wanted to, Granddad would never allow it. And I’m his ward, so his decision stands. I’m just as glad about that. I wouldn’t want the responsibility of making that decision.”

  “Sometimes it helps to be young,” Evvie said.

  “Sometimes,” Sam agreed. “The advantage of powerlessness.”

  They sat quietly on the beach. Evvie could hear kids playing in the distance, but the spot Sam had found for them was deserted. Most of the beachfront was private property, so they were probably trespassing, but Evvie didn’t care. As a Winslow, it was her birthright to trespass.

  “Have you ever been to Europe?” Sam asked.

  “Twice,” Evvie said. “Once when I was real little, and once when I was ten. That time we all went, Nicky and Megs, and Thea and Claire and Sybil and me. We had a maid and a nanny. Nicky even had a valet. I’m not sure if that was the last time we were really really rich, or if it was important to Nicky that we seem to be, but either way, we lived it up that summer. Chalets, Rolls Royces.” She paused for a moment, and stared at the Atlantic. “Most people don’t live that way, do they?” she said. “Little bursts of glory breaking up the tedium.”

  “I don’t know how most people live,” Sam said. “Although none of my friends had FBI agents at their bar mitzvahs.”

  “That’s probably atypical,” Evvie agreed.

  Sam looked at her and smiled. “We’re some pair,” he said. “Your parents are Heathcliff and Catherine. Mine are Bonnie and Clyde.”

  Evvie laughed, but then she grew thoughtful. “Clark says history repeats itself,” she declared. “That we’ll all keep making the same mistakes over and over.”

  “That was in relation to me, I assume,” Sam said.

  Evvie nodded.

  “Then he’s wrong,” Sam replied. “Because I’m not going to make the same mistakes my parents made and neither are you. We’re not even going to come close. I may not be Clyde, but I’m not Heathcliff, either. I’m just me. Sammy Sam Steinmetz Greene.”

  Evvie laughed. “And I’m just Evann Eve Evvie Sebastian,” she said. “I never robbed a bank or broke a heart in my life.”

  “You could break mine,” Sam said.

  “I know,” Evvie replied. “But I’m not about to.”

  “Good,” Sam said. “I’m not in the mood for more pain.”

  Evvie took Sam’s hand and held it in hers. Their fingers locked together. Evvie felt as though she could sit that way forever, just the two of them surrounded by sand and sky and ocean, apart from everything else.

  “I’ve been to Europe,” Sam said. “We go winter vacations one year, spring vacations the next. Granddad has a lot of money. Heart surgeons live well. They take me to Europe in the school year because I’m here all summer. But I wanted you to know that, about the money, I mean. You can tell your parents. Lou and Belle might not be rich, but Gran and Granddad are. Or at least they’re not poor. There was a housekeeper when I was a kid, and I could go to prep school, too, like Schyler, if they wanted, assuming one would take me. We do have money, if that’s important to you.”

  “Not especially,” Evvie said. “But Claire will be glad to hear it.”

  “Only any life with me will include lying,” Sam said. “There’ll be things you won’t be able to tell your family.”

  “That’s all right,” Evvie said.

  “Don’t say it so easily,” Sam said. “Give it a lot of thought, Evvie. Unless things change drastically with my mother, I’ll be lying for the rest of my life. The fewer people who know about me, the fewer who are likely to be hurt. I’m a target. And if you become involved with me, then you’re going to be a target, too.”

  Evvie wished there were a joke she could make. “Just be honest with me,” she said. “I can take the rest if I know you’ll always tell me everything.”

  “Things can never be the same with your family,” Sam said. “There’ll be secrets. And there may be lies.”

  “What they don’t know won’t hurt them,” Evvie said. “Besides, it isn’t like they tell me everything, either.”

  Sam looked at her. “Is that what happened in Boston?” he asked. “You found out some secret?”

  Evvie nodded.

  “I didn’t think it was something I’d done,” Sam said. “But I wasn’t sure. Sometimes I lose perspective. Did you learn something really bad?”

  “I learned the truth about a lot of lies,” Evvie replied. “Just the way Aunt Grace wanted me to. And it upset me, just the way she wanted it to.”

  “She’s good,” Sam said. “The FBI should hire her. My mother wouldn’t stand a chance.”

  “I love you, Sam,” Evvie said. “And someday soon, if you want to hear it, I’ll tell you what I learned about my father. The truth is my gift to you.”

  “I’ll try to learn how to return it,” Sam said. “But it won’t be easy.”

  “None of this is going to be easy,” Evvie said. “Even when you go back to being Sammy Greene, it’ll still be a trick just to see you. You’ll be back on Long Island, and I’ll be wherever it is we’re living now, Pennsylvania I guess. And then in a year you’ll be in college and I’ll still have high school to finish, and you’ll spend your vacations in Europe. And I’d be pushing my luck if I asked Aunt Grace if I could spend next summer here with her just so I could see you.”

  “We’ll manage,” Sam said. “That’s just distance and planning and time. We’ll pick a college we both want to go to, and we’ll go there. I’ll start first, and you’ll join me. And until then we’ll see each other every chance we get. That’ll be the easy part.”

  “You’re right,” Evvie said. “It’s always easy to see someone if you really love them.”

  Sam laughed. “You might think so,” he said. “You know, I thought I might hear from my mother. Because of Lou. I thought she might get a message to me.”

  “Maybe she needs more time,” Evvie said.

  Sam shook his head. “She’s had almost fifteen years,” he said. “She hasn’t tried to reach me since she went underground.” He swallowed hard. “You’d think if she loved me … I don’t even know if she’s alive.”

  “She probably thinks you’re better off with your grandparents,” Evvie said.

  “She probably doesn’t think about me at all,” Sam said. “That’s my gift of honesty to you, Evvie. You asked me once about my mother and now you know.”

  “Oh, Sam,” Evvie said, but she knew there was no comforting him. You couldn’t change your family history. Parents had pasts before you were born, and the best you could do was live with what was handed you and create a better history for yourself. Sam knew that better than most, and Evvie was starting to learn it herself. She looked at him, and then she laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked.

  “At least I won’t have a meddling mother-in-law,” she said.

  Sam stared at her, and then he laughed, too. “Come on, Evvie,” he said. “Take off those ridiculous shoes, and I’ll race you back home.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “I don’t believe you fell in love this summer,” Thea said approximately thirty seconds after Evvie had dumped her suitcase on her bed. “All summer long, that was all I wanted to do, and there was nobody, absolutely nobody in this town to fall in love with. At least, nobody I got to meet. And you go to stay with Aunt Grace and fall in love practically the second you get off the train. It isn’t fair. I just don’t believe it.”

  “I didn’t mean to,” Evvie said, checking out the bedroom. It still was an ugly barn of a room, especially compared to the bedroom she’d just spent the summer in, but Thea and Sybil had made their marks on it. Thea had decorated her space with photographs of her favorite TV and rock stars, one third of whom, Evvie noticed, looked a bit like Schyler. Sybil had left most of her wall space bare, but she had put up a chart. Evvie walked over to look at it, an
d saw it was an accounting system of some sort. She couldn’t be sure whether it was just Sybil’s way of keeping track of her allowance, or whether it was a system for figuring out the stock market. At some point, she’d have to ask.

  “Now that you’ve gotten used to having your own room again, I guess you’ll want my room,” Claire said. She sat down on the bed, next to Evvie’s suitcase, and stared glumly at her sister.

  “Keep the room,” Evvie told her.

  “You’re kidding,” Claire said. “Why are you being so generous?”

  “Because she’s in love,” Thea said. “When you’re in love, you can afford to be generous. Did you wear the blouse I gave you?”

  “I wore it a lot,” Evvie said.

  “This dress is new,” Claire said, opening Evvie’s suitcase. “Boring, but new.”

  “Clark bought it for me,” Evvie said. She took the navy dress out and hung it up in the closet she shared with her sisters. She discovered then that, while she could deal with sharing a room again, she really wished she had her own closet.

  “Clark has boring taste,” Claire said.

  “I picked it out,” Evvie replied.

  “He still has boring taste,” Claire said. “In love with Megs all these years. Did he go on and on about it?”

  “Not on and on,” Evvie said. “Just on.”

  “Tell me about the boy you didn’t fall in love with,” Thea said. “Schyler. Was he really gorgeous?”

  “Unbelievably,” Evvie said. “I’ve never met anyone that good-looking in my life.”

  “Then why didn’t you fall in love with him?” Sybil asked. “Aren’t looks important?”

  Evvie smiled at her youngest sister. After a summer of helping put the house and garden together, Sybil looked slightly less potatolike. Not enough to satisfy Aunt Grace, perhaps, but there was definitely an improvement. “Looks count,” she said. “But I preferred Sam.”

  “I’d fall in love with Schyler over Sam any day,” Thea declared. “Schyler Hughes. It’s such a great name. And he’s Clark’s cousin. Megs would have loved that.”

  “Yeah, Evvie,” Claire said. “You would choose a Sam Steinmetz over a Schyler Hughes.”

  “I didn’t mean to,” Evvie said. “It just worked out that way.” She took her clean underwear and started to put it in one of the drawers in her bureau, only to discover the drawer was filled with Thea’s things.

  “Sorry,” Thea said. “I kind of spread out this summer.” She ran over to the bureau and cleared the drawer out.

  “But why did you?” Sybil persisted. “Pick Sam over Schyler?”

  Evvie put the underwear in the drawer and walked back to her bed. “I didn’t really have a choice,” she said. “Sam was what I wanted.”

  “There’s always a choice,” Claire said. “You could have picked Schyler anyway, just because he was good-looking and rich.”

  “No, I couldn’t,” Evvie declared.

  “It’s just like Nicky and Megs,” Thea said. “Only Nicky was better-looking than Clark.”

  “It’s not just like,” Evvie said. “For one thing, Sam gave Aunt Grace a kitten. How could you not fall in love with someone who gives Aunt Grace a kitten?”

  “Easily,” Claire said. “Steinmetz probably doesn’t have a penny to his name.”

  “Oh, no,” Evvie said. “The Steinmetzes aren’t rich, but the Greenes, the side of the family Sam lives with, are. His grandfather’s a heart surgeon.”

  “That’s the first good thing you’ve said about him,” Claire said. “Can he ship us some of that money fast?”

  “Nicky’s deal is taking longer than he expected,” Thea said. “But things are going to work out just fine.”

  “Nicky always says that,” Claire said. “Harrison is going to be a wash out.”

  “What do you think, Sybil?” Evvie asked.

  “Nicky was hoping for more action,” Sybil replied. “But that doesn’t mean there won’t be any.”

  “Everything’s going to be fine,” Thea declared. “Nicky says we could be out of here by Christmas. We’d still stay in Harrison, of course, but we’d buy a house, move to Wilson Avenue. That’s where all the really beautiful old houses are. Nicky says Megs could do wonderful things with a house on Wilson Avenue.”

  “Don’t hold your breath,” Claire said. “It’s a good thing you’ve fallen in love with money, Evvie. We’re really in the depths of degradation this time.”

  “Did you fall in love with money?” Sybil asked. “Is that why you liked Sam more than Schyler?”

  “Schyler Hughes must have money,” Thea said. “He’s Clark’s cousin.”

  “He has money,” Evvie said. “That wasn’t why I fell in love with Sam instead.”

  “Then I still don’t understand,” Sybil said. “If they both have money, and Schyler’s better-looking, why did you fall in love with Sam? It can’t just be because he gave Aunt Grace a kitten.”

  Evvie nudged Claire over and sat down next to her. “I can’t tell you why I fell in love with Sam,” she said. “I don’t understand it completely myself. But I can tell you how I knew I was in love.”

  “I know how you know,” Thea declared. “I fall in love all the time. You spend all your time thinking about him and dreaming of him and your stomach hurts.”

  “Is that how you knew, Evvie?” Sybil asked.

  Evvie shook her head. “At first I fell in love with Sam because he’s cute and funny and smart, and he liked me so much,” she replied. “And because Aunt Grace was opposed. It’s fun to do things she doesn’t like.”

  “What do you mean, at first?” Sybil asked. “Did you fall in love with Sam twice?”

  “Sort of,” Evvie said. “I fell in love with him first because of all those things I just said. Kind of the way Thea falls in love. Fast and fun.”

  “There’s nothing fun about being in love,” Thea declared. “Not the way it makes my stomach hurt.”

  “Well, it was fun for me,” Evvie said. “And I could have fallen in love with Schyler then, too, for pretty much the same reasons, except for the part about Aunt Grace. She liked Schyler.”

  “Naturally,” Claire said.

  “Naturally,” Evvie repeated. “Only instead of falling in love with Schyler, I fell really in love with Sam.”

  “But how did you know?” Sybil persisted.

  Evvie smiled at her. “I knew because I realized all the things I was going to have to give up loving Sam, and even though it scared me, it didn’t scare me nearly as much as losing him did.”

  “What did you have to give up?” Claire asked. “This sounds almost interesting.”

  “Don’t get your hopes up,” Evvie said. “I didn’t give up anything dramatic. It’s more like I gave up part of being in this family so that I could be part of his.”

  “Did Sam give anything up?” Sybil asked.

  “He gave up part of his defenses,” Evvie replied.

  “I wish he’d given up part of his inheritance instead,” Claire said. “But I wouldn’t mind giving up part of being in this family. For the right price, that is.”

  “It’s like Megs,” Thea said. “Giving up being a Winslow to be with Nicky.”

  “Sort of,” Evvie said. “A little less dramatic, though. A little less romantic.”

  “When I fall in love, it’s going to be really romantic,” Thea declared. “There’s going to be passion and heartbreak. Like Romeo and Juliet, only nobody’s going to die. And there are going to be love letters, too. Lots of them.”

  “Sam wrote me a love letter,” Evvie admitted. “He gave it to me before I got on the train this morning.”

  “He did?” Thea said. “Let me see it.”

  “Come on, Evvie,” Claire said. “Read it out loud.”

  Evvie shook her head. “It’s private,” she said.

  “That’s not fair,” Claire said. “Telling us, but not letting us see it.”

  “Love isn’t fair,” Evvie said. “Now if you’ll excuse
me, I think I’ll say hello to our parents.”

  “I’ll find it, anyway,” Claire shouted after her. “There are no safe secrets in this house.”

  Evvie smiled. Even if Claire did find it, she probably wouldn’t recognize it as a love letter. Evvie knew it was one, the minute she read it. And it took less than a minute to read.

  She dug into her pocket, and found the note Sam had scribbled. It was short, just two complete sentences.

  “Dear Evvie,

  On our wedding day, I’ll call you Eve.

  Love,

  Sammy Sam Steinmetz Greene

  P.S. And you can call me anything you want, except late for dinner.”

  Evvie stared at the piece of paper and wished once again that Sam was with her. They had agreed they would see each other over Thanksgiving. Neither one knew how, but they both knew they would. Until then, there would be phone calls and letters, and constant yearning to bind them together.

  Evvie found her mother in the kitchen, kneading bread dough. Megs was wearing a T-shirt and blue jeans, with a ratty apron to cover herself. She had a flour smudge on her forehead, and her hair was flying in a hundred different directions. In spite of it, she was the most beautiful woman Evvie had ever seen. And when she smiled, Evvie found she was even more beautiful.

  “I felt your homecoming deserved fresh bread,” Meg declared, putting the dough down. “We’re having a feast tonight, in your honor.”

  “Prodigal daughter returns,” Evvie said, perching on a stool.

  “I don’t know about the prodigal part,” Meg said. “I missed you so much, Evvie. This summer was the longest I’ve ever been parted from one of my girls. I know I’m going to have to get used to it, but it really bothered me.”

  “I missed you, too,” Evvie said. “Especially staying in your old room, meeting people you used to know. I wanted to share things with you.”

  “Eastgate seems like a hundred years ago to me,” Meg said. “It was a lovely town, and I was always glad to be there, but now it hardly has any meaning for me. Nicky and my daughters are what count, not long-ago summers of beach parties and cotillions.”