The Beresfords

by Christina Dudley

  When I nodded, all eyes slid back to the victim. She was regaining consciousness, her left hand patting around on the dirt and pine needles until Jonathan grasped it. I couldn’t help myself—seeing that Caroline Grant was standing a few feet apart from my cousin, I squeezed between them, hunkering down next to him.

  His gaze met mine, rueful and searching. I knew what he meant: the weekend’s off to a great start, isn’t it?

  “Will you call Aunt Marie?” I asked.

  He sighed. “I’ll have to. I’ll have to go to the hospital with the paramedics, too.”

  “Shut up already,” Tom barked at the sniffling Julie. “Or go inside. It’s not like your crying is going to make a difference.”

  “Quit being such a jerk,” Julie retorted in a voice thick with tears. “Can’t a person feel bad?”

  “Why don’t you give me the tour?” Caroline Grant suggested, putting an arm around Julie. “Jonathan’s got it covered, so there’s nothing more you can do here.” Jonathan threw her a look both grateful and flattered as she led Julie away.

  I tugged on the hem of his sleeve. “Can I come with you to the hospital?”

  He shook his head. “But stay by the phone for my call, okay?”

  “Yes.” I shifted to my knees. “What else should I do?”

  “Oh, Frannie.” He smiled his golden smile on me. “Just having you here makes it better. But you could pray for Aunt Terri.”

  “Yes.” I said again, his praise of me filling me up like warm butterscotch. “Yes. I will.”

  He returned his gaze to our unfortunate aunt, applying an index finger to her wrist. She was blinking now and uttered a low “ow-w-w-w.”

  “Thank God,” said Jonathan. “Hang in there, Aunt Terri. You’ve been in a bit of an accident, but the ambulance is on its way.”

  “Dear Lord,” she grunted, raising her free hand to the towel Rachel still pressed to her forehead. “Ugh.” Her hand fell back.

  In the distance we heard the faint whoo-a-whoo-a-whoo-a of the ambulance.

  “About time,” said Tom.

  As the siren grew louder and heads turned, I scooched another inch closer to my cousin. Our knees touched. He looked back at me.

  “You think she’ll be okay, don’t you, Jonathan?” I asked, wanting something—anything—I didn’t know—just something more from him.

  His gentle smile beamed at me again, all the reward I could ask.

  “With you praying, Frannie, I know it.”

  Chapter 15

  As soon as the ambulance pulled away with Aunt Terri loaded on the gurney and Jonathan in the passenger seat, the rest of us went inside. Tom thwarted me in my first command to wait by the phone, making off with the cordless handset. The light continued to blink on the answering machine—I suppose the content of Dave’s message was less important than the fact that he left one.

  Eric Grant tried a few feeble jokes with Julie as she slid open the living room windows, to which she responded by going in the back bedroom and slamming the door. He then turned to Rachel who was combing out her damp hair. “Hey, gorgeous. Wanna show me the lake? I might get lost if I go by myself.”

  “If you get lost looking for a lake that big and that close, there’s no hope for you,” Rachel retorted. Her quick fingers wove a thick French braid. She was still bitter about Julie getting to ride shotgun with him for hours and hours.

  “There isn’t any hope for me,” Eric said in a lower voice while his sister made a show of curling up on the loveseat and reaching for one of Aunt Marie’s old magazines. “Not if you’re upset with me.”

  “Whatever,” said Rachel, not appeased.

  “What could I do?” he went on, trying to catch her averted eyes. “It would’ve been rude to say I didn’t want her to ride with me. And now that that’s gotten it over with, it’ll be me and you on the way home.”

  Rachel made a face, but she didn’t move away when he leaned against the back of the sectional with her, their arms touching. “Know what I was thinking of, the whole way up?” he murmured. “What do you say—” the rest of his suggestion was lost to me as he whispered it in her ear, but, from what I witnessed at the Carnival, I had my guesses. Rachel colored, debating within herself, but then shrugged and said a shade too loudly, “Well, fine. If you want to really want to see it now.”

  I bit my lip. Should I do something? What could I do? This was all going so very, very wrong! If only Jonathan were there, or Julie hadn’t run over our overbearing aunt. I cast a troubled glance at Caroline Grant, but she continued to flip the pages of her magazine, oblivious. Or not caring. Sprinting to the doorway, I called to the couple at the edge of the path where they were hand in hand now. “Rachel! Shouldn’t we—shouldn’t we unload the car first? Aunt Terri would say we should unload the car. All that food—”

  Rachel merely tugged on Eric and called back over her shoulder, “If it needs to go in the fridge, you do it, Frannie. The rest can wait.”

  Caroline Grant finally looked up from pictures of Margaret Thatcher hanging wallpaper when I rolled and wrestled the cooler into the kitchen. “Surely that can wait,” she echoed Rachel. “Couldn’t Tom do it?”

  How many months had she known Tom, and she could say that with a straight face? I only shook my head and flung the thing open, trying not to imagine Rachel and Eric having another woodland tryst. I’d made as much noise as I could outside with the trunk lid and shifting contents around, for all the good it would do. Eric Grant and Rachel didn’t care about anyone but themselves—doing what they were doing with Aunt Terri in the emergency room! I wished they would lie down right where I peed an hour ago.

  Aunt Terri’s cooler-packing job was masterful: every nook and cranny filled with perishables, from sliced cheese to cold cuts to grapes to French Onion dip. Her legacy, such as it was. I heard the scrape of a barstool as I transferred the items to the fridge. Caroline perched herself at the counter, face propped on her hands, black curls spilling about her shoulders. “I wonder how long Jonathan will be.” I didn’t answer, but she didn’t expect me to. “And where has Tom gone? I have a sneaky suspicion he’s taking advantage of your aunt’s absence and planning something naughty.” I had the same suspicion, which, considering the message Dave left, amounted to a certainty.

  “I would try to comfort Julie,” Caroline went on, “but when a girl has a heartache, sometimes it’s more pleasant to nurse it.”

  This provoked a response from me. “You think Julie doesn’t genuinely feel bad.”

  Caroline’s lashes fluttered at me. It might have been my surly tone. “Oh, no! I think she genuinely feels bad—but not about your aunt, sadly. I’m afraid we all don’t feel as bad about your aunt as we probably should.”

  It was my turn to go all red. Poor Aunt Terri! How true it was that, once we knew she was going to survive, the thought of her being laid up for a few days lifted a weight from our shoulders. But that was for family to think, not outsiders like Caroline Grant.

  “Your cousin Julie’s ailment, however,” she continued, pretending not to notice my embarrassment, “seems entirely traceable to my terrible, terrible brother. Eric can’t help himself. He’s a charmer and girls just fall for him left and right. Whenever he turns his attentions on a girl she hasn’t got a chance. And when he withdraws those attentions”—she snapped her fingers—“it’s like the light going out.”

  “I don’t think he’s that charming,” I muttered. It was stubborn of me to say, and rude, but there it was.

  She only gave me a pitying smile. “We’ll say that’s because you’re so young. Going into eighth grade, right? Because in every other case I know, if a girl says such a thing, it’s actually because she’s mad Eric doesn’t notice her.”

  Fury overcame my embarrassment, and I whipped away to hide my burning face in the open refrigerator, stalling there by arranging and rearranging the six-packs of soda and gallons of milk. I hated Caroline Grant! With her stupid implication that I wanted her brother’s atte
ntions! Attentions so cheaply given they became worthless. If she could think such a thing, she would never be worthy of the kind of love Jonathan could give. He, who would never in a million years flirt with every girl he saw just to lap up her adoration and watch her suffer.

  Caroline’s thoughts, strangely enough, must have gone the same direction because when she spoke again, her voice was softer, meditative. “I must say, your Beresford cousins have far more natural charm than my brother. Or they could, if they put the slightest bit of effort into it, like Eric does. It’s like a latent gift they have. The Beresford charm. If they ever chose to use it—to wield it—it could be deadly. Even so, there are these flashes. Irresistible, almost, because they’re unconscious.”

  I saw Jonathan’s smile again, as I crouched beside him before the ambulance came. When he looked at me that way—fond, encouraging, trusting—yes, I would do anything for him. Jump over the moon. Beg, steal, or borrow. If Caroline Grant felt that same pull, who was I to blame her?

  We fell silent then, both of our minds elsewhere, the only sounds being the opening and closing doors and drawers and cabinets until the food was unloaded and put away. “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable,” the apostle Paul writes the church in Philippi, “whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” He meant, of course, that the Philippians were to think of Christ, but in my idolatrous heart, I thought the words almost equally applicable to my cousin. Caroline Grant wouldn’t have put it that way of course, not knowing a Bible book from a backhoe, but in our different ways we both considered Jonathan Beresford as the very best the world could offer.

  Julie was the first to reappear. She emerged some time later, eyes puffy and face drawn but otherwise herself. With relief, Caroline leapt from her barstool. “There you are! At last. It’s stuffy in here—why don’t we go swimming at this famous Waterhole of yours? What’s the point of all those lessons Jonathan gave me if I can’t put them to use?”

  “They aren’t back yet?” Julie asked listlessly.

  I saw the gears ticking behind Caroline’s eyes. She decided not to misunderstand her. “I bet Rachel and Eric are already there,” she answered. “C’mon. Does this place have towels, or do I dig mine out?”

  When they were on the point of leaving, Julie paused. “You coming, Frannie?”

  I shook my head. Whenever Tom brought the phone back, I planned on sitting by it. And just as the girls’ voices and footsteps grew fainter, my cousin threw open the back bedroom door. He was whistling, swinging the handset by its antenna. In his other hand was a bottle which I thought was empty but then realized held a clear liquid. Glancing around, he tossed the phone on the counter. “Where’d everyone go?”

  “Swimming.” I replaced the handset in the cradle to charge. “Are you going?”

  “Already went, remember?” He frowned at the cabinet open before him. “Could’ve sworn they had some.”

  “Some what? I know where everything is now because I just put stuff away.”

  “Nothing. Oh—there it is.” Before I could see what he was referring to, he pushed his bottle onto the shelf and shut the cabinet. “Why don’t you go swimming, Frannie?”

  “Because Jonathan told me to wait until he calls.”

  “Whatever. I’ll wait for his call. You go swimming.”

  “I don’t want to swim.”

  My cousin grimaced at me, more surprised than irritated. I usually did whatever I was told, no questions asked. “God—why’s everyone such a pain in the ass today? Beat it, Frannie—and put down the phone. I said I’d get the phone.”

  Seeing no alternative, I went outside on the porch, sitting on the lowest step so that Tom wouldn’t see my head if he looked out the front window. At least I would hear when the phone did ring.

  More time passed. Through the trees I watched the rippling surface of Lake Tahoe, traversed by the occasional boat. More boats than usual because of the weekend races. The Beresfords were more of a powerboat family but we all learned the rudiments of sailing at a Yacht Club day camp—another skill for which I showed little aptitude and which my cousins were relieved to let me drop.

  I wondered if Aunt Terri were in more danger than we thought—what else could be taking Jonathan so long to call? Or maybe Aunt Marie told him to call Uncle Roger, or even Uncle Paul in China, and Jonathan was having to explain the whole sorry business over and over. Shutting my eyes tight, I clasped my hands together. “Dear Father in heaven. I’m sorry I forgot to pray earlier, after I told Jonathan I would. Please, please, please help Aunt Terri to be okay. Help the doctors fix her head. Forgive me that I don’t love her more. Please don’t let Jonathan get in trouble with Uncle Paul—”

  The spray of gravel interrupted me as a car skidded to a halt at the entrance to our drive. It couldn’t come further, with the 280ZX and the BMW and Jonathan’s Civic already there, but it halted within inches of their bumpers. The doors kicked open, unleashing the thrashing metal of Metallica, and through the gaps between the doors and the frame I saw fragments of Steve and Dave, heads and fists pumping like machine pistons. Before I could move, Tom shot out the front door, nearly stumbling over me. “What the—? Sheez, Frannie—watch it! He-e-e-ey!” Steve cut the engine and lots of back-slapping and high-fiving ensued. Steve and Dave made a classic comic pair, Steve being Guiness-Book tall and rail-thin, while Dave was shorter than me and stocky. To compensate for their differences in frame, they sported identical shaggy blond mullets.

  “Got ’em,” said Dave. “Check these out.” He dug a tattered wallet from his even-more-tattered Bermuda shorts and fanned some cards in front of Tom. Tom’s shoulder twitched. He gave me a nervous glance and muttered, “Inside.”

  I swallowed a sigh. Frankly, I didn’t care what Tom was up to. His shenanigans were old news. But as they strode past me, Steve ruffling my hair like I was eight and saying, “Hey there, Francine,” Dave fumbled the contraband, and a shower of plasticky cards ricocheted off the steps: fake IDs. Rachel’s landed face-up at my feet. It looked convincing enough, except that Tom supplied his cronies with what I imagine was the only photo he could get his hands on—her senior portrait, complete with fake fur neckline. Hers would certainly be the most elegant driver’s license at the casinos.

  Deciding the game was up, Tom rolled his eyes at Dave’s clumsiness and gathered the scattered cards, inspecting each one. “God, what happened here?”

  “The laminator wasn’t hot enough,” said Dave.

  “Well, I can’t use that,” Tom said. “Good thing I still have my other one, but now I have to be the only guy from New Jersey, and you all are from California.”

  “So work on your accent,” said Steve.

  “But why would there be three Beresfords from California and one from New Jersey?”

  “What is with you?” grumbled Dave. “No one’s gonna look that hard, and just don’t stand around next to stupid Jon and your sisters, if you can even get Jon to take this thing. Say you’re the visiting cousin.”

  “Speaking of cousins,” Steve said, pointing at me, “I don’t think the fake ID is gonna fool anyone into thinking Francine’s twenty-one. They’ll probably take one look and throw the whole lot of us out.” He was the only one who ever called me Francine, and he was consistent in it. It didn’t add to his charms.

  Tom considered the ID and me in turn, holding the card out of reach when I tried to grab it. “You’ve got a point there. Frannie, you’re staying.”

  “I don’t want to go anyhow,” I bridled, “wherever you’re going.”

  “Good. Then everyone’s happy.” His arm relaxed and I snatched the card.

  “Hey! This is my ASB picture. You cut up my ASB card?”

  “Don’t look at me,” said Dave. “I just worked with what I was given.”

  All Tom said was, “Who needs an ASB card in junior high?”

  “How long wer
e you planning this?” I demanded. “You were going to drag everyone to the casinos? What were you going to tell Aunt Terri, if Julie didn’t hit her with the car?”

  “Whoa, feisty,” Steve grinned. “What’s gotten into you?”

  “Puberty,” mouthed my cousin. And to me, “Look, Fran. Quit acting like an idiot. Of course I didn’t want to take you anywhere. I had Dave make you an ID, though, just in case there was no alternative. We were gonna tell Aunt Terror we were going to the movies. As it is, what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her, and you can stay behind.”

  My mouth clamped shut. I didn’t want to go—of course I didn’t want to go—but contrarily it hurt to be told no one wanted me along in any case. But Jonathan— “What about Jonathan?” I blurted. “He doesn’t know about this, I bet. And I bet he won’t want to go either.”

  Tom shrugged, bored of discussing the subject with me. Steve and Dave were already headed inside in search of beers. “I don’t care who goes and who doesn’t. I was just covering my bases. Saint Jonathan can do whatever he wants. But he’ll go if the others do. Wait and see.”

  If I had hopes no one would be interested in Tom’s half-baked plan, I was disappointed. Eric Grant and Rachel leaped at the idea when they reappeared, and Julie, while she seemed bent on ignoring those two, was at least eager to escape being lumped with me. “We might as well,” she said more than once. “I mean, it’ll take our mind off Aunt Terri. And we don’t have to gamble just because we’re there.”

  “Speak for yourself,” said Rachel, running her finger over her fake ID with delight. “If we have these, we might as well pull a few slots. What’s the harm?”

  “The harm is in this hideous picture,” Caroline Grant laughed, examining hers. “Tom—wherever did you get this? My eyes aren’t even all the way open. I’ll stick with my fake Tennessee ID, thank you very much. That is,” she hesitated, “if I end up going.” I interpreted that to mean she would wait and see what Jonathan decided.