I feel a swell of confidence in my deductive powers and picture a book cover featuring me in front of Aunt Sarah’s house with a lantern in my hand, under the words The Encino Slave Mystery.
Carmen comes back in two seconds with a pitcher. Aunt Sarah says apologetically, “I don’t know where to start, Stephanie. First, I’m sorry no one is home. Annie is at her tennis lesson, the boys are probably swimming, and Megan is still at a sleepover.”
Whoa! I’m on overload. Annie, Megan, the boys? Dear God, let there not be brothers here. I look out at the pool shimmering in the yard. “Swimming?” I ask stupidly.
“Kills you, doesn’t it?” She nods. “They barely touch it all summer. Apparently everyone swims at the tennis club down the street.”
The way she says “everyone” makes me even more nervous. My plan was to find a library and hide when I wasn’t in school. I hope they don’t think I’m going to go swimming. I don’t know how to swim. I don’t even have a bathing suit.
I had pictured being housed in a garret and forced to eat disgusting food and wear rags. I figured I would suffer and later write about my experiences, but socializing and all of its horrible implications wasn’t even considered.
I find my voice. “I thought you guys had only one child. One girl.”
Her light green eyes open wide. “One? Oh my gracious. Michael Junior’s the oldest; he’s twenty and home for the summer from Stanford. Then there’s Patrick and Danny, the twins, fraternal, not identical, they’re nineteen and home from Berkeley. Then Annie, she was fourteen in March, she’s—a couple years older than you?”
My cheeks burn. “I was fourteen last February.”
She laughs totally unaware of my humiliation and makes it worse. “You’re such a little thing I just thought—”
She’s distracted by a loud noise in the kitchen like a chair turning over. I hear low voices and loud laughter and what sounds like shoving. Dread stuns me. Older boys.
I want a quick earthquake to crash the house so I’m spared meeting them. I never talk to older boys. I even keep my distance from those who are my cousins, staying out of their way as they go by in a herd of sweatshirts, footballs, big feet and grunts.
“Boys,” Aunt Sarah calls out gaily. “Come out here, there’s someone I want you to meet.”
More noise. It sounds like fighting. Three blond heads of hair flashing over tanned faces and torsos come spilling out of the sliding patio doors. I’m mortified to be sitting here with a piece of fruit in my mouth as if I just sit and eat fruit all day long.
“This is Stephanie. She’s going to be staying with us for a while.”
“Hey,” one of them calls out and they start to troop back into the house.
I feel a spark of relief at their departure, which Aunt Sarah ruins by snapping, “Gentlemen.”
They stop.
“Now, how about some introductions,” she says.
I’m double-dying now as they all walk right up to me. The tallest one sticks out his hand and says, “Enchanted to meet you. I’m Michael.”
I hate Aunt Sarah for doing this to me. I look at his face and he’s really, really cute with green eyes and wavy hair. I don’t know if he’s kidding with the “enchanted” or if he’s saying that because he’s rich and that’s how rich people talk. I’m so embarrassed I’m almost choking. I put my hand in his and focus on doing a solid shake. “Stephanie O’Hagen,” I say solemnly.
He gives me a slightly surprised look, and then one of his brothers knocks him across the back of the head and says to me, “I’m the smart twin, Daniel. The dunce next to me is Patrick.”
I realize that Daniel is almost as cute as Michael but with a skinnier nose and a slightly longer chin. Patrick looks like both of his brothers but is somehow not really cute at all, so I’m the least afraid of him. I figure he stares in the mirror while he’s shaving with a sad face, thinking he got the short end of the genetic stick.
“All right, you can go back to being savages,” Aunt Sarah says.
They fall back into the kitchen, leaving me breathless. Then, a little girl of about seven comes out onto the patio and cries, “Mommy!” as she falls into Aunt Sarah’s arms.
For a second, I’m ignored as Aunt Sarah pulls her on her lap and asks her questions about some sleepover. After some hugging, tickling and kissing she introduces her to me as “Megan.” I swallow the metallic taste of jealousy in my mouth before I can fake a nice “Hi.”
I’m unpacking in a beautiful apricot bedroom when there’s a quick knock followed by the door flying open. I’m so happy it’s not one of the older boys that it takes me a minute to absorb the girl who walks in and sits on the edge of the bed.
“Hi,” she says before I say a word. “I’m Annie. I’m so sorry I wasn’t in when you got here. Tennis. I want to hear everything about Boston.”
She speaks in a rush of enthusiasm and makes me almost as nervous as her brothers do. She’s the perfect daughter to the commercial mom. About a head taller than I am, she is blond with big blue eyes, long tanned limbs and perky, brasheltered breasts.
My first thought is one of utter relief that I don’t have to share a bedroom with her so that she won’t see my barely raised nipples in my training bra. I have no doubt she’s been having her period for years.
“Hi.” I manage a smile. “I’m Stephanie.”
“And, you’re from Boston.” She flips her long tresses out of her eyes. “Okay, say, ‘Park the car.’ ”
I speak normally. “Paak the caa.”
She squeals. “God, I love that! Do it again.”
We spend the next ten minutes with me doing words on command. I don’t care that I’m the trained monkey. I feel a sudden violent urge of wanting her to like me. That I want to be part of her life even if it’s only as a moon to her shining, golden sun.
Annie whispers to me on the way down to dinner. “Just be glad today’s not Carmen’s day off. My mom is, like, the worst cook in the world. You’d probably turn around and fly home.”
I feel a tug in my stomach, a glimmer of the familiar ache. I see our tiny house with the ungroomed lawn, the dark green couch with stains from the time she threw up. Curtains kept shut all day because the light gives her a headache. The scarred Formica table. Burnt popcorn I’ve made myself, sprinkled with parmesan cheese because I read that cheese is protein and protein makes you grow. A book in front of me so that I’m anywhere but there. “My mom’s not a great cook either,” I say in the same tone she uses, thinking as I say it, This is how girls talk.
We walk into their enormous kitchen. The boys are already sitting down. Michael looks at me as we walk in and I have to turn away. On the table, chicken steams from a platter next to bowls of corn, noodles and salad. Carmen is running back and forth with rolls and salt and pepper shakers. Aunt Sarah is asking who wants iced tea.
Annie nudges me and says, “Welcome to the madhouse. My mom said you’re an only child. You’re probably not used to this kind of craziness.”
I slide thankfully into a chair next to Annie. I feel less exposed than when I was standing up. What if Michael noticed my training bra?
There’s an empty seat at the head of the table. Annie notices my glance. “Dad’s probably with a client.”
Client? Did she say “client”? Delight surges forward like a baseball someone just slugged into the outfield. “A client, then he’s a lawy—”
I don’t get to finish my question. A tall man in a dark blue suit with hair graying slightly at the temples walks in and looks straight at me. “Welcome, Sean O’Hagen’s niece.”
I know I’m supposed to say, “Thank you, it’s good to be here,” but I’m starstruck. I’m looking straight into the face of Carson Drew.
I’m torn between wanting everyone to get up and leave so that I can sit alone and question him, and having them stay and keep him talking, just so I can stare at him. I finally smile and say, “Hi, Mr. Sullivan.”
He says, “Call me Uncle Michael
,” then kisses his wife and says, “Queen Anne” with a little bow to Annie, who rolls her eyes at me. He walks down the table and tickles Megan under the chin before kissing her and saying, “Princess Megan.”
He makes his way all the way around the table, gently cuffing his sons on the head as he goes. When he gets to me, he kisses me on the top of my head and I feel pleasure zinging from my hair follicles into my toes. I glance across at Annie, who’s rolling her eyes again, so I immediately hide my happiness.
While Uncle Michael settles into his seat and puts his napkin on his lap, Annie leans across the table and whispers to me, “My dad is such a spaz.”
I feel a lightning flash of rage at her and I pray he didn’t hear her say that and think on any level that I invited it. He seems fine as he says, “So tell me, how is your uncle Sean?”
I say, “Fine,” then watch spellbound as he goes around the table asking about everyone’s day and then telling a funny story about court. Annie doesn’t even know, as we get up from the table to go upstairs, that I’ve decided to steal her father.
CHAPTER FIVE
Lights sparkle from houses on either side of the dark road. I listen to the excited rise and fall of Annie’s voice as we walk down the hilly streets of her neighborhood. I study everything she does. The thought of walking with a friend is as heady as a dream. I nod when she nods. I laugh when she laughs. I think, I’m doing it, I’m doing it.
She walks fast but not too fast. Her hips swing out. A mom from one of the houses calls for her son, Ronnie, and Annie giggles wildly so I join in and wonder who or what we’re laughing at. She speaks almost nonstop, filling me in on “the gang,” her cluster of girlfriends whom she sees at the club every day and speaks to, texts or IM’s until almost midnight every night.
I force myself not to express surprise at her wealth of friends, comforts and freedoms. I nod when she pauses at various points, to suggest that I, too, live in a world of endless gossip and Internet fashion consultations.
While she speaks, I feel a wide flicker of emptiness ride up my legs and settle in my stomach. Hazy images of desires I’ve felt all my life come into sharp focus. I want her friends, her pool, her breasts and her parents. I want to be so secure in knowing my father cares about me that I could roll my eyes when he says something and warn a friend that he’s a spaz.
As we climb up the hill, I look down at the glittering lights in the valley below. The wind brings more new fragrances that twirl up my nose and burst into wildly colored flowers in my brain. I watch Annie out of the corner of my eye as she speaks, trying to memorize how she opens her eyes bigger to emphasize a point and how she flips her hair over her shoulder with an impatient flick of her wrist at the end of a statement.
We stop at the end of Annie’s street, which, she tells me, turns into “Mulholland.” I roll the word around my tongue and see it in my head in big strong letters followed by hardmuscled twenty-year-old boys in bathing suits with dark tans and flashing green eyes.
We walk down Mulholland. The houses stop and dirt and woods rise to our right. Annie grabs my elbow and jerks her head toward the woods. A light flickers ahead of us, off to the right. Annie does a lousy imitation of an owl. Another lousy owl hoots back. Annie giggles and says, “Leslie is hilarious.”
We start down the dirt path splashed with pebbles. Annie pulls out a tiny flashlight from her pocket and snaps it on, letting the thin ray of light bounce over her pink-painted toes in supple brown sandals.
I’m ashamed of my blue tennis shoes that are slightly curled at the toes because I had to put them in the dryer after I got caught in the rain. I hope she doesn’t shine the light on them. I point ahead to distract her. “That way?” I ask.
“Righto, Watson,” she says and I wonder if she meant to say, “Righto, Livingston.”
She walks quickly and I follow, although it’s hard because I can’t see any of the light from the flashlight on the ground in front of me. I can only follow the dim shadows of her legs.
The wind is strong. A bug flies into my eye. I blink furiously, following Annie’s legs up to her blue jean shorts and gleaming white T-shirt. I suddenly hate the shorts and shirt I have on and find it unbearable to be seen in them when I meet her gang. With new clarity I see my outfit as something her little sister, Megan, would wear, red shorts with a matching red-and-white-striped shirt, except it’s so faded that the white stripes look gray. It was a hand-me-down from one of my older cousins. Even though my mom always had fancy new clothes, there was no point in wasting money on me. I once heard her tell my aunt Clare that she could dress me in boys’ clothes for all the difference it would make.
We’re twisting and turning up the path when there’s a rustling in the bushes ahead of us. Annie turns around and whispers, “Coyotes.”
I’m shocked but excited. I anticipate a circle around us with cruel fangs and yellow eyes. Annie picks up a branch and lunges low at the bush. Scurrying feet scratch. I look around for another branch to defend myself and she says, “They’re gone. Total wimps.”
She laughs a throaty woman’s laugh, and I see her perfect teeth shimmer against the soft outline of her tan face. Without seeing her eyes clearly I know they widen when she says, “Let’s tell everyone we’re real cousins.”
For a moment I’m stunned by her generosity, and then the moon flickers and I see my short shadow next to her tall one and realize the fun she’ll have at her friends’ outbursts of disbelief because of our contrast. The “no ways!” because of her aura of gold and my immigrant-looking darkness. There’s another owl hoot and Annie suddenly turns off the path and presses through a lattice of branches, one of which slaps back at me, landing a stinging blow on my cheek.
“Ow,” I cry out, tears springing into my eyes.
She turns quickly to me. “Omigod, did that get you?” She shines the flashlight on my cheek. “I’m such an idiot,” she says, running her finger over what I imagine to be a ferocious welt.
Under her examination, my hostility fades. She’s very attentive with her mouth pressed into a line of concentration. She takes her finger from my face, grabs me around the shoulder in a hard hug and says, “Sorry, cuz, can you ever forgive me?”
I’m embarrassed but delighted to be the source of so much concern. I’m thinking of the perfect graceful word to let her know I’m okay when she grabs me by both shoulders, gets two inches from my face and yells, “Maaaaaw,” making her mouth into a long O shape.
I don’t even know how to compute this when three other “Maaaaaw”s spring up beside us. I see her grab other shoulders of shadowy figures and one at a time say “Maaaaaw” back to them. Then she puts her arm around my shoulder and says, “Ladies, this is my cousin Stephanie.” She pauses, does the big eyes and adds, “She’s from Boston.” She ends on a hair flip.
The figures crowd closer. Flashlight beams hit me. People talk at once. Somebody says, “I love Boston. My cousin goes to Harvard.” Someone else asks if I know someone named Cathy Gerby, who’s from Vermont.
Before I can answer anyone, Annie says, “Girls, girls, girls, let’s sit down and be civilized” in a voice that I think must be one of their teachers because they all laugh. Everyone sits down in the spot where they’re standing and throws their flashlights into the middle so it’s a flashlight bonfire.
Annie points to a girl with auburn hair and big blue eyes. “This is Leslie.”
I make eye contact with Leslie, the one who’s supposed to be hilarious. Leslie bows her head and says, “Pleased to meet you, ma’am” in a guy’s southern accent and the other girls laugh, so I do too.
I note with enormous relief that Leslie doesn’t seem to be that much taller than I am. She is, however, well into puberty. Big round breasts jut from beneath her green tank top. I sigh, and then notice she’s plump with fleshy arms and thick thighs. It occurs to me, as I process the totality of her physique, that maybe I could eat my way into boobs, just making sure that I stop after I get them so I don’t gain extra
weight anywhere else.
I feel such a warmth toward Leslie for this revelation that I say, “Pleased to meet you too” in her same southern gentleman voice. I get the same laughs Leslie did, and I’m heady with the flicker of pride that flashes across Annie’s face, like, “Hey, my cousin’s cool.”
I want to hold on to the moment of my first spontaneous social remark, but it’s already forgotten as Annie tosses a pebble at the legs of the girl sitting across from her and says, “ . . . and in this corner, our math and science genius of the year, Eva Bennett.”
Eva purses her lips and stares at me fiercely while she says to Annie in a friendly voice, “Enough about that stupid award.”
Something about her chills the warmth blazing through me from my Leslie triumph. Her eyes are almost as black as mine but small and tight, glittery as a snake’s. Her nose is sharp, her cheekbones slashing. Her hair is pulled back into a large black ponytail, and she’s pale and fashion model thin. I can tell she’s very tall by the long legs she has crossed in a casual Indian style.
I say, “Hi, Eva.”
She nods and says, “My uncle’s a physician in Boston. He lives on Beacon Street. Dr. Dennis Bennett? Maybe you know him? Where in Boston do you live?”
Her eyes bore into me as if she can see my mother passed out on the couch and the pile of laundry that heaves over the hamper like vomit.
Supercilious in wiry letters spikes up into my brain and then turns into a red arrow and stabs me with hate. I feel nauseated from the threat of exposure when I give the address that will tell her that I am everything she is not.
Annie flips her hair and I’m filled with a flash of genius. I adopt Annie’s excited wide eyes. “Omigod,” I say. “My aunt Rose went to your uncle! I remember hearing that name. She said he was fantastic. She loved him!”
Invisible Girl Page 3