by Melissa Bank
My mother interrupted. "I think I'm going to be ill."
I never talked to either of my parents seriously about love, let alone sex. The closest we'd come was talking about drugs, which I wasn't interested in.
—•—
On the last day of school, I realized I had no plans for the summer. Instead of looking forward to Nantucket in August, I'd be at home in the suburbs and at the shore in New Jersey, just dreading school in September.
I said good-bye to friends who were going off on wilderness adventures and teen tours, to camps with Indian names and Israel. We traded addresses and each time I wrote mine I felt the impending boredom of the summer days to come. When one friend asked what I'd be doing at home, I found myself saying, "I might get a job."
I told my parents at dinner.
My mother said, "I thought you were going to take art classes and work on your tennis."
"I could get a part-time job," I said.
"Maybe you could work in Dad's office again," she said, looking over at him.
I liked seeing Dad in action, the Chief of Neurology in his white coat, as he shook patients' hands and ushered them into his office. But I said, "I need new experiences,
Mom."
"What about an internship," she suggested, "in something you're interested in?"
I reminded her that I didn't have any interests.
"You like to draw," she said.
I told them I was thinking of being a waitress.
My dad said, "Practice by clearing the table."
—•—
I went through the help wanted section of the newspaper, but every job seemed to require experience. I called anyway to make my case, using the words I read in the paper: "I'm a detail-oriented self-starter." No luck, though. I gave in to a summer of art classes and tennis, swimming at my friend Linda's, and going on errands with my mother.
The nights were quiet. Dinner, and then I went up to my bedroom and wrote letters to my friends or sketched. I drew people standing in groups, as though posed for a photograph that would go in an album.
My father read his magazines, the green-covered Neurology and Stroke, up in his study. My mother read the newspaper in the breakfast room. She would call up to him, asking if he wanted a piece of fruit, and I'd go downstairs and back up to deliver the peach or plum or nectarine. Before bed, I walked Atlas, while I smoked a forbidden cigarette.
Most nights, I passed Oliver Biddle, who was middle-aged, yet lived with his parents—my own personal cautionary tale walking a miniature schnauzer. He was suburban-soft in stretchy clothes a grandfather would wear for golf, and he puffed a cigar. I'd heard rumors that he was retarded or a genius, but I didn't believe either. Oliver Biddle was who you became if you couldn't find anyone to love except your parents.
I'd say, "Hello, Oliver," and then, to his schnauzer, "Evening, Pepper."
Oliver said hello back, but always after a delay, as though each time deciding whether to answer. By the time he did, I'd be at least a few steps away and I'd say, "Good night," as though we'd passed the evening together.
—•—
Julia and Henry got out early on Fridays and were already at the shore when we arrived. She'd made dinner, and seemed more relaxed. Henry seemed hardly to have aged at all.
After dessert, they invited me to go with them to the arts center for a Russian film with English subtitles.
I said, "I don't like to read during movies," and once Julia laughed it became a joke and made me feel that I was irrepressibly witty. So I went with them.
It was the bleakest movie I'd ever seen; everyone died of heartbreak or starvation or both. At home, Julia threw herself on the sofa in Slavic despair and said, "Please to get me some wodka."
They didn't kiss or hold hands in front of me, though once, at lunch, Henry sort of rubbed my foot under the table, thinking it was Julia's. I leaned over to him and whispered, "You're really turning me on." I was a teenager, after all, an expert in the art of mortification.
—•—
At the beach, we left our sandals and sneakers on the path with the other shoes, and spread our towels on the sand, facing the ocean. Henry stood a minute looking out, then bounded into the water.
The ocean was rough, and as the waves rose you could see clear jellyfish and green popping seaweed. Up where we were, clumps of seaweed had dried almost black in the sun. The wind blew so strong that the seaweed whipped loose and rolled down the beach like tumbleweeds.
I looked around us at the people on the beach. A group of women my mother's age wore bikinis and gold bracelets and were already deeply tanned. The really thin ones looked mean. A small community had set up chairs near our towels. A man was pouring something clear out of a thermos into outstretched plastic glasses, while a woman passed a Baggie of lime wedges.
Julia wore a blousy white beach dress and a big straw hat, and slathered herself in sunscreen though she stayed in the shade under an umbrella. She was reading, as usual.
"You seem to really like your job," I said.
She nodded. Then she asked me if I had any idea what I wanted to do when I grew up.
"I'd like to be a great singer," I said.
"Maybe you will," she said.
"I won't."
"How do you know?"
"Tone-deaf," I said.
I sat up on my elbows, watching Henry in the ocean. The water was just getting warm, and he was the only one in for a while. He waited for his wave in a standstill crawl position, his body facing us, but his head turned back to where the waves formed. Then he swam hard, caught the wave, and rode it all the way in to shore. I loved how he looked the last second of his ride—his hair sluiced back, his part zigzagged, his face pure joy. Sometimes he would actually laugh out loud. When he stood up, he'd look toward us, but he couldn't see without his glasses.
I joined him in the ocean. It was cold, but I kept up with him and went under when he did. I stood beside him, and he pulled my arms out in front of me. He'd been trying to teach me to bodysurf for years. "Now wait for your wave." He looked behind him. "Swim hard," he said suddenly. "Now!"
But I missed that wave, and the next one. Then Julia came in. The two of them swam beyond where the waves broke, and I got out.
On my towel, I watched them bob with the swell of the wave just forming. Then he dove under. He pointed his hand out of the water, like a shark fin, and went after her. I saw her arms flailing as she was pulled under.
The next time I looked up, she was coming toward me. Before she put on her beach dress, I got a good look at her figure. She had on a black one-piece and was even thinner than I suspected, with smaller breasts than I had.
That year, all of a sudden it seemed, there my breasts were, and my mother and I kept having to go to Lord & Taylor for bigger bras. Boys gave me more attention now, and it made me nervous. My breasts seemed to say something about me that I didn't want said. My Achilles' heel, they put me in constant danger of humiliation.
My theory was that if you had breasts, boys wanted to have sex with you, which wasn't exactly a big compliment, since they wanted to have sex anyway. Whereas if you had a beautiful face, like Julia, boys fell in love with you, which seemed to happen almost against their will. Then the sex that you had would be about love.
I'd told my theory to my friend Linda, who wanted to be a social scientist and was always coming up with theories herself. I'd concluded that breasts were to sex what pillows were to sleep. "Guys might think they want a pillow, but they'll sleep just as well without one."
She'd said, "Guys will sleep anywhere if they're really tired."
—•—
That night, when Julia got into her bunk, I told her that she could go into Henry's now if she wanted; she didn't have to wait for me to fall asleep. I said, "I think I might be older than you think I am."
She stopped, and seemed to be choosing her words. I wanted her to know she didn't have to do this either, but I couldn't think how to say it without insulti
ng her.
She admitted that she didn't really know anyone my age. "I keep trying to remember what I was like at fourteen," she said. "Other than books, I think all I cared about was my horse, Cinders."
I pictured her in one of those black velvet hats with the little bows on top. I said, "What happened to Cinders?"
"Boys?" She smiled at me. Then we said good night and she went to my brother's room.
In the middle of the night, on my way to the bathroom, I noticed that his door had blown open. Before I closed it, I saw them in his single bed, sleeping in a loose hug, his arms holding her bare back.
—•—
A few weekends later, the sky was white and the air moist; the forecast was rain, but my mother kept looking up at the sky and saying it was sure to clear up.
In the afternoon, Julia sat at the table, marking up a manuscript from work. As she finished a page, she passed it to Henry to read. "Come join us, Jane," she said.
I was a little afraid to; I thought I might reveal that I wasn't as smart as Julia might think. But I took the seat next to Henry, and read his discard pile.
I liked the pages I read, about a girl whose parents were getting divorced; it was more real than I would've expected.
When I looked up, my parents were watching the three of us and smiling.
I told Julia how much I liked the book and it made her really excited. Mostly she edited children's books, but she was starting to publish ones for my age group, which she called YA, or young adult.
Once my parents were out of earshot, I admitted that I hardly went to the library, and when I did I asked the librarian for books that she felt would be inappropriate for my age.
I told Julia that novels for my age group always seemed to be about what your life was supposed to be like, instead of what it was. Same with magazines. "Even the ads are false," I said. "Like they'll show a boy picking up a girl for a date with a handful of daisies behind his back. Nobody my age goes on dates. The word 'date' is not even in my vocabulary."
Julia was so interested that I was tempted to tell her about The House, the abandoned shack by the railroad tracks where kids went to get high and make out. I'd only gone there once, when a boy I liked casually mentioned that he'd be there.
When I walked in, he said, "Hey." I smoked a cigarette and tried to act like I belonged there. He came over and sat with me on the ripped sofa. He passed me the bong. I shook my head, and smiled as though I was already really high. Then he leaned over, just as I'd wanted him to. But he whispered, "Are you horny?"—the opposite of a sweet nothing.
—•—
They had other places to go—Julia had friends in Ama-gansett and Fire Island—and the weekend they went up to Marthas Vineyard, I brought Linda to the shore. We slept in the lower bunks. When I told her about Julia sneaking into Henry's room, she asked if I thought they had sex in there.
I heard my father's voice coming from my parents' bedroom and wondered if they could hear me. I whispered, "Can you have sex without making any noise?"
"Who knows?" she said.
I thought of the words Julia used, and imitated her breathing heavily and saying, "Exquisite. Extraordinary. You're no octogenarian, Hank." We laughed, but right afterward, trying to fall asleep, I felt terrible.
—•—
On the beach, Linda became her social-scientist self and said, "At the top of the social hierarchy is the blond man on the elevated white chair. The symbolic throne."
"I believe the common term 'lifeguard' signifies his desire to copulate," I said, "i.e., to guard the perpetuation of the species."
"Note that he paints his nose white," she said. "Not unlike the chiefs of many sub-Saharan tribes."
The lifeguard stood up and blew his whistle.
I said, "Mating call."
—•—
My parents loved Linda. That night, when we said we were going to see the moon on the ocean, they said, "Fine," in unison, even though it was late. Once we were out the door, I imitated myself saying, "We're going to rob a liquor store!" and my parents saying, "Fine!"
On the beach, there was a big crowd sitting around a bonfire, and my fearless friend walked right up and sat down in the circle. I sort of followed her.
There was a keg, but when someone asked if we'd like a beer, Linda said, "I wish we could." I didn't find out what she'd meant until a joint was passed to her and she handed it right off to me, saying, "Remember the three Ds from detox: don't, don't, don't."
I passed the joint, as though exerting heroic self-control.
She said, "You still get flashbacks?"
"I think I always will," I said.
"Remember," she said, "never say 'always.' "
"I really appreciate your support," I said.
She said, "It helps me stay strong."
I said, "Every day is a gift."
—•—
Linda's parents were taking her to Disney World, against her wishes, but she came to the shore one last time. That was the weekend we saw the house going up across the lagoon, in the vacant lot that had given us our bay view. I woke up to hammering and rock music. Linda was still sleeping.
I went out to the porch, where my father was standing in his tennis clothes, white shorts and a white polo shirt but no socks, as though the sight of the workmen had upset him too much to continue getting dressed.
The frame for the house was already up—brand-new orange wood beams obscuring the view they'd soon completely block. I put my arm around his back, which was what he did with me when I was upset. "We'll be able to look right in their windows," I said brightly. "It'll be great."
He kissed the top of my head.
My mother said, "Julie and Henry should be here when you get back from tennis."
"Julia," he said. My mother's trouble with names was a standard joke between them, like an old song, and he said the refrain: "What's the plumber's name, Lou?"
"Pete McDaniel?" she said, smiling.
"Dan McGavin," he said, shaking his head. I was relieved to hear my dad laugh, though I thought they were past due for new jokes.
—•—
Julia and Henry showed up at the beach after lunch. When I introduced Linda, my brother's expression reminded me how pretty she was, and for a second I wished that I hadn't brought her.
She was as good at riding waves as Henry, and they stayed in the ocean a long time.
I went in the water and out. Julia sat under the umbrella, knitting a sweater. It was beautiful—a creamy turtleneck—and other times when I'd seen her work on it, I wondered if we'd ever be close enough for her to knit one for me. But now I worried that knitting might make her look older to Henry. My grandmothers knitted.
She and Henry left to see if my father had bought the boat he'd been considering. After they'd gone, Linda put on her social-scientist voice and said, "A form of nest-building, knitting signals readiness to mate." "Please don't say that," I said. "I like her."
—•—
My father had bought the sailboat, and back at the house, Henry asked if Linda and I wanted to try it out.
He'd sailed before, on Nantucket, but Julia was a better sailor by a million knots. She moved around the boat as though she'd sailed all her life, and she probably had.
We had to tack out of the lagoon. She told us to come about, and then when she said, "Hard a-lee," Henry imitated her and laughed. It reminded me of my father kidding my mother, except Julia didn't seem to like it and that didn't make Henry stop.
It almost hurt not to laugh along with my brother, but I didn't, and neither did Linda.
—•—
Before dinner, while Linda showered outside and Julia inside, Henry and I sat on the porch, waiting for our turns. The house across the lagoon had walls now, and we couldn't see the sunset on the bay. Still, it was the end of the day, the only time here that reminded me of Nan-tucket. The light was warm and pink, and made the trees and water look soft—it was like seeing everything through a fond memory.
I asked Henry if they'd had a good time on Martha's Vineyard.
He said, "It was okay." He told me they'd stayed at the youth hostel, as though this explained something, and I waited to hear what.
Then he told me he'd decided to start Columbia in the fall. He said it importantly, and I wondered if he thought starting school meant breaking up with Julia. Maybe he was already seeing himself on campus, and thinking she wouldn't fit in.
I said, "You'll still be in New York."
He nodded.
My father was glad, of course. He probably wouldn't relax about it for a while, though, maybe not until he actually saw Henry in a gown and mortarboard.
—•—
Labor Day weekend, Henry and Julia went to Southampton for her mother's big party. My parents had one to go to, too, and that night, walking Atlas, I heard parties on both sides of the lagoon. I thought that Oliver Biddle and I were probably the only ones who hadn't been invited to any. To cheer myself up, I said to Atlas, "It's just you and me, Pepper."
My grandmother came down on Sunday. It was raining, which affected her arthritis and made her even crankier than usual. She asked questions like, Louise, why are you wearing those shorts?
My father retreated to the bedroom for a nap.
When she said her standard, "Remember the haircut you got in Paris that spring?" referring to my mother's junior year abroad, twenty-five springs ago, my mother faked a yawn and said she was going to take a nap.
Once my grandmother and I were alone, I said, "I think my mom likes her hair now."
"It looked better then," my grandmother said.
I said, "How would you feel if you liked your hair short, and your mother kept telling you it looked better long?"
"I'd wear it long if I could," she said. Then she turned on me. "You should brush your hair, Jane," she said. "You might be pretty if you tried."
I didn't even fake a yawn, just went into my parents' room. They were reading in bed, and I got in the middle.
"She's obsessed with that Paris haircut," I said. "What did it look like, anyway?"
"I have no idea," my mother said.
"She's obsessed with hair, period," I said, though my parents seemed to be reading instead of listening. I told them my grandmother seemed to believe that the window of the soul was hair, instead of eyes.