Ann couldn’t see a stain on the boy’s polo shirt. It practically glowed white. Everything he wore looked like it was brand-new.
Brooks glared at Ann and ran back down the hallway. She heard his feet thud down the carpeted stairs to what must have been the lower level.
“I’m afraid we’re entering the throes of adolescence. You know how boys are.”
Ann smiled. “I do now. We just adopted a boy.”
“A baby!” Maureen clapped her hands together, and her bracelets jangled. “How wonderful.”
“No, we’re the same age.”
“You mean to tell me your family adopted a teenager?” She said it as if Ann had brought home a bird with a broken wing.
“It was my idea,” she said in her “Ann with a Plan” voice.
“Do you mind if I ask, and I certainly don’t mean to pry, but why?”
Ann went with the easy and honest answer: “He had no place else to go.”
Her parents were the kind of people who always tried to do the right thing, and they often accused Ann of being self-absorbed. Actually, “myopic” was the word her mother used. But she’d gone and done just the sort of thing they’d wanted her to do, even if, deep down, she knew her motives weren’t entirely selfless, and her benevolence gave her cover for the truth: she wanted to be around Michael. How could they refuse?
Maureen seemed stupefied by this. Her mouth hung open, and she leaned forward with her hands on her hips. “That’s incredible! Your family sounds very special. And you, Ann, sound very, very special indeed.”
Ann loved this kind of praise—the way her advocacy on behalf of Michael helped her parents, teachers, and friends see her as more than just a popular girl.
Maureen looked at her watch and frowned. “I want to hear all about this later. But Ann, I can already tell you’re a remarkable young woman. I’m sure you have a lot to teach my boys about generosity of spirit.”
She gave Ann a quick hug. Ann liked how Mrs. Shaw made her feel validated and special.
“I’m so pleased we found you!” We. “What a gift you are.”
Ann looked around the breezy home and wondered what it would be like to be a Shaw instead of a Gordon. Ever since Michael had moved in with them, she thought a lot about what it was like to enter other people’s families.
THREE
Poppy
Poppy woke to an unusually silent house. She didn’t need to look at a clock to know she’d slept in; she could tell by the dusty light streaming in through the old wood blinds. She’d always slept her hardest and best on the Cape, as if she were double-sealed in her dreams under the perfect weight of her great-grandmother’s handmade quilts. She loved to sleep, loved the heaviness of it, the ability to lose herself. She’d dreamt that her teeth were falling out, although she hadn’t realized it until a stranger, a nondescript nine-year-old boy in a hunting cap, opened his palm and showed them to her. They’d crumbled, and looked like piles of sand.
She saw Ann’s empty bed and wished she were around so she could ask her sister what she thought the dream meant. Poppy consulted the dream dictionary she kept under her pillow: it said teeth are used to bite, tear, gnaw. Losing your teeth in a dream represents a fear that you are losing power. If her teeth had dissolved to sand, she’d never get her power back.
She found her mother sitting in the living room with her twisted ankle propped on the hope chest. She’d tripped on a lobster trap on the pier a few days earlier, and seemed perfectly happy to have an excuse to take it easy for a while. On the table next to her were a stack of plastic-covered library books, a cup of tea, and the stationery she used to write to her friends and relatives back home. Her mother loved to stay in touch with everyone she knew. She had a million friends: other teachers, her former students, parishioners at the Unitarian church, the old lady down the street she made meals for, her book group, and the feminists who joined the potluck salon she hosted in their house once a month. Back home, everyone in town knew Poppy as Connie’s daughter. But here on the Cape, her mother retreated into a more private, less social life. Wellfleet was a place where she could nurture her introverted self, as if storing energy for the social whirlwind that waited for her upon their return.
“Where’s Ann?” Poppy asked. All her life, this was the first thing she needed to know each day. You set your clock to Ann, as her father said.
“She’s off babysitting for the haute bourgeoisie, as usual. Today she’s taking the boys all the way to Plimoth Plantation for an ancestor role-playing workshop or something.”
“God, that sounds totally horrible.”
“I know, doesn’t it? Those boys aren’t going to know what to do with themselves when they’re set loose in the real world.”
“What’s Dad doing?”
“He took Michael to the Historical Society.”
“He’s taking Michael to the Historical Society?”
“I guess the poor guy is getting dragged into your father’s ‘research.’”
He and Poppy used to visit the Wellfleet Historical Society with a pile of yellow legal pads, taking notes and stuffing them into the accordion files with folders labeled HOUSE, LAND, COVE, LORE, and RANDOM BULLSHIT in his distinctive block handwriting. Her father was always asking questions: Why did they stop farming on the land? Why’d they dredge the pond and turn it into a cove? Was it called Drummer Cove because that was the local name for a type of flounder, or was it named for the traveling salesmen who used to stay at the old inn on the property next door, who were called “drummers,” as in “to drum up business”? And what about the house? The Barnstable County Courthouse had burned down sometime in the 1800s, so there was no way for him to confirm the date it had been built. There must be documents to authenticate the age, he said. There must be.
Poppy wasn’t that interested in his research—or rather, she was, because she loved the house and the cove, but it was summer, and the last place she wanted to spend her morning was in that dark building filled with old ship captains’ relics, whaling gear, and dour black-and-white photographs in chipped mahogany frames. She preferred to practice tai chi with her mom in the yard. Before she messed up her ankle, they’d gotten better at memorizing the movements, and at moving gently—as if with the wind and the water, as Lu, her mother’s instructor, had taught them. Poppy had even gotten to the point where she could still her mind when she was deep in her practice, or find jing.
Poppy found the serenity amazing, the integration of the mind with the body. Ann thought it was all a joke. She made fun of them when they practiced. She’d sneak up behind Poppy and yank down her shorts, or spray water at her through the hose when she was most absorbed in their poses, laughing her infectious laugh.
Now her mom couldn’t do anything and Michael was monopolizing her dad, as usual. The other day she’d found them in the barn together, her father introducing him to all the old tools Poppy and Ann had never gotten excited about. Her father put his arm around Michael’s shoulder and said, “Makes me feel good that you’ll know how to use this stuff. After I kick the bucket, these tools will be yours, and trust me, they’ll come in handy. An old house like this doesn’t take care of itself.” It hadn’t occurred to Poppy until that moment that Michael’s adoption meant that the tools, and even the house, would also be his. Michael beamed from ear to ear.
She loved Michael, so why did she feel so selfish? She wanted to tell Michael that the house was theirs, and summer was her time with her father, because during the school year she had to share him with his beloved students. They all thought Mr. Gordon was the epitome of middle-age coolness. He swore and told inappropriate jokes. When students raised their hands to answer a question, he’d call on them and say, “Speak your piece.” He showed his students how history is complicated and biased. He taught in a game show format, had his students analyze the lyrics to Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie protest songs, arranged field trips to tour ethnic neighborhoods, and invited Holocaust survivors and former socialis
t mayors to speak to his classes. Until she started high school, she had no idea how much everyone loved him: jocks, preps, and geeks. They high-fived him when they passed him in the halls. “Yo Gord-O!”
Poppy stomped into the kitchen, angrier than she felt she had a right to be. Her niceness didn’t get her anywhere. It made her as invisible as her sister’s occasional bitchiness made Ann stand out. Ann, the queen bee, had the power to make everyone, including Poppy, feel both incredibly small and hugely important, depending on her mood. Ann was driven, hungry for a bigger life. Poppy, on the other hand, was usually agreeable and easy. She was the person teachers always paired with the new kids. She never got upset, never got angry, or at least she didn’t let her anger show unless it built up.
And it had been building up for a while now. She loved Michael. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that nobody had bothered to consult her. They figured she’d be fine.
Only she wasn’t, not lately.
Poppy threw the cabinet door open and slammed a mug on the counter. Michael was great, he was. He was! She poured the leftover, burnt coffee into her cup, and stirred in several tablespoons of sugar.
Poppy returned to the living room. Her mother was reading poetry—she always read poetry in the mornings, and recited it out loud in her annoying poetry-reading voice, like she expected whoever heard the lines to listen and gasp in wonder. Poppy couldn’t focus on the words—something about a house and Russia. “So what am I supposed to do today?”
“Anne Sexton. Isn’t it lovely?”
“I’m bored.”
“Only boring people get—”
“Just don’t,” Poppy said. She adored her mom. She’d memorized her, right down to the way her hair parted down the middle and the shape of her fingers. But sometimes her mother was too familiar, too predictable.
Poppy ran into her room, grabbed her tote bag, and did something she’d never done before: she went to the beach alone. The flame of her anger cooled into self-criticism. Who was she to complain about Michael? She was in the judge’s chambers when Michael signed his adoption papers, tears of happiness streaming down his face—they were all crying. She didn’t even want to go to the Historical Society. Her dad was great—why shouldn’t Michael want to hang out with him?
Poppy sat on the beach, alone, gazing at the families under their beach umbrellas and the kids playing together in the surf. The tide was going out. Everything felt like it was draining away.
A girl her own age walked up to where Poppy sat with her legs tucked under her. The girl’s hair was blond but dirty from the wads of seaweed that got stuck in it. The seaweed was all over her, clinging to her tanned skin and sticking out of her bra top. This was the summer of the red tide, when the usually clear, ice-cold water turned into a junky stew of slick ocean fauna, like boiled red cabbage.
The girl’s surfboard was twice as tall as she was. She held on to it loosely with one arm, like she was resting it around the shoulders of a dance partner. She had a long, lean torso and short, strong legs. “You surf?”
“No,” Poppy said, although she wished she had a different answer, because she’d always watched the surfers and wished she could join them. The closest she ever got to catching a wave was riding the Styrofoam boogie boards they bought at the junk souvenir stores that dotted Route 6. Real surfboards were expensive, and besides, she didn’t know anyone who could teach her. Surfing was out of the question, like charter fishing, regattas, and visits to Nantucket—all the stuff she’d heard Ann saying she wanted to do ever since she started babysitting for the Shaws.
The girl reached out her hand. Her fingers were short and stubby and covered in silver rings, even her thumbs. The rings looked like they were cutting off her circulation. “I’m Kit.”
“Poppy.”
“Like the flower. Gotcha.” Kit’s grin was crooked and revealed front teeth that were a shade yellower than the rest. Caps. Poppy figured she’d broken her front teeth on her board or a rock. Kit stared at Poppy with eyes that seemed to be in a perpetual squint. “Why are you alone?”
The way she said it implied that being alone was unnatural. “Everyone else in my family is busy.”
“Screw your family.”
Poppy smiled. That was exactly what she needed to hear.
Kit gestured at the orange dunes and the great big ocean. “You got good balance? You skateboard or ski?”
“Does cross-country skiing count?” She and her mom liked to ski on the trails through Riverside Park.
“Your name is Poppy and you fucking cross-country ski. God, you kill me. Where are you from?”
“Milwaukee.”
Kit let out a snort that made Poppy laugh. “That’s fucking rad. Of course you’re from Canada.”
“No, Wisconsin. Milwaukee is in Wisconsin.”
“Whatever. May as well be nowhere if there’s no ocean.”
“We have Lake Michigan.”
Kit snorted again. “A lake is no ocean.”
“You can’t see the other side when you look across it. It’s big.”
“You kill me, flower girl.”
Poppy liked Kit immediately.
“Not a lot of girls who surf out here,” Kit said.
“I’ve always wanted to try.”
“OK already, so I’ll teach you.”
“Seriously?”
“Sure.” She shrugged. “I brought my long board. It’s easier for beginners. The surf is ankle busters today. Waves are shit. They almost always are this time of year unless there’s a storm. But good for learning.”
Poppy looked out at the ocean. The waves were gentle bumps lumbering toward shore, nothing like the waves that scared Michael when they’d first taken him to this very beach last summer, when she found out her family was about to change forever.
“Follow me,” Kit said, walking toward the ocean. “Your gremlin days are over.”
FOUR
Ann
Brooks and Toby were easy. Too easy. Mostly they ignored Ann. She wasn’t of much interest to them, just the hired help, one of many in a long string of au pairs and nannies. Toby was right: he didn’t need a babysitter and neither did Brooks. What they needed was a chauffeur—one who could tolerate listening to their Backstreet Boys CD on constant repeat. She’d rather stuff tinfoil into her ears.
Ann was told to drive the boys in Maureen’s silver Jaguar to the Chequessett yacht club for sailing lessons, to Highland Links golf course in Truro, to the tutor’s house in Orleans, all the way to Plimoth Plantation for classes, and again and again to their friends’ fancy houses in Chatham on Fox Hill Road. She’d never spent so much time in a car and, after only a few days, was already tired of driving around rotaries, and getting stuck behind lost tourists, or cars slowing down to admire the occasional water view.
Once, Ann drove past the driveway that led to her house, and pointed it out to the boys. “That’s where I live,” she said.
Toby sounded surprised. “I thought you said you live in Wellfleet.”
“I do. This is South Wellfleet.”
“I thought there was only Wellfleet Wellfleet.” He sounded disapproving.
Brooks, who was awkward and sweet, and addicted to his Rubik’s Cube, looked away from his toy and out the window. He said, “You mean you live right on Route 6?”
He said it with such disdain that Ann was embarrassed she’d mentioned it in the first place. After that, every time she drove past her family’s home the rest of that summer—and she drove past it at least twice a day, it was unavoidable—she could hear his words in her head.
Ann’s parents had old-fashioned ideas of summer fun that involved walking across Uncle Tim’s Bridge, flying kites, making grave rubbings on the old tombstones with charcoal and tracing paper, catching frogs, picking wild blueberries, going for hikes, reading library books, and whittling the sticks they found in the yard with a Swiss Army knife. They’d introduced all these things to Michael the previous summer, and he’d loved every s
econd of it. Once, when they were standing in line for ice cream at P.J.’s, Michael had said, out of the blue, “I’m having the best time ever.”
These boys knew nothing of that sort of best time. They didn’t ride rusty, ill-fitting bikes or eat sandy peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on the beach. Maureen was so panicked about her sons’ schedules and fearful of their boredom, it was as if she feared that a single idle moment would cause them to grow listless and die.
It would be great to be rich, Ann thought, but also exhausting.
Maureen signed the boys up for an afternoon sailing camp the second week Ann worked for them. She didn’t really need Ann to hang around the house while they were gone, but Ann didn’t feel she could leave.
Alone and bored in the Shaws’ silent, sterile home, Ann missed the fun she’d had with Michael and Poppy the previous summer. If only Poppy and Michael had jobs, too, maybe she wouldn’t feel like she was missing out so much.
She tried to focus on The Pelican Brief, a book Maureen had told her she just loved. “I’m crazy for courtroom dramas,” she’d said. “I have a law degree, believe it or not. I used to have a brain before it got trash-compacted by my kids and the minutiae of everyday life.”
Ann didn’t know what those minutiae were, or why Maureen felt she had to put herself down. She was clearly bright. When she wasn’t reading the latest thriller, she completed crossword puzzles or had her nose in a book about natural selection or an article in The Boston Globe about the HIV epidemic. Then again, for someone so smart, Maureen could act like any stupid girl from Ann’s high school. Earlier that day, before she left for Marblehead, Maureen ran into the living room in a sleeveless pink Lilly Pulitzer dress that she said she planned to wear to dinner at the Wicked Oyster that weekend with her husband. She acted like she’d just gotten invited to the prom.
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