Lexie

by Audrey Couloumbis

  That gave me a funny feeling in the bottom of my stomach.

  Because as much as I didn’t want them coming here either, it had been fun to set the shark free. Vicky was nice enough to care that the horseshoe crab was important to me. I even liked the little truck sounds Harris was making as he picked his hamburger apart.

  I didn’t like it that Ben didn’t feel the same way about Daddy and me.

  After dinner, Daddy cleared the table. “I’ll do the dishes,” he said.

  I couldn’t remember a time when Daddy had said he’d do the dishes. I looked out at the water instead of at him. A couple of bonfires had been started a little distance along the beach while we were eating.

  The sun was going down and I was glad. I tried to imagine the people making bonfires were the same people who made bonfires every year, but probably they weren’t. They might even be people who’d never come to the shore before. They didn’t even know the tide was coming in.

  Vicky put marshmallows on the ends of the barbecue forks and told Ben and me to roast them over the glowing coals in the grill. “Don’t get too close,” she said. “And don’t let them get too black. We’re having s’mores for dessert.”

  “S’mores?” Harris asked.

  Vicky said, “They’re called that because you always want some more.”

  “We’re going to hear about Mom’s Girl Scout days now,” Ben said with a smirk.

  Vicky quickly made an okay sign and flicked him on the head with her finger. Hard.

  “Ow!”

  “Don’t be obnoxious,” she said. “You won’t get any dessert.”

  “All right, all right,” he said. “Some people can’t take a joke.”

  “Keep in mind you aren’t the only one who can get funny,” Vicky said as she went back inside.

  “What we do,” Ben told Harris, as if he and his mom had not been arguing, “we make them into a sandwich with graham crackers and Hershey’s bars.” Ben could be mad one minute and act like he didn’t know it the next. It was a good thing about him.

  Vicky came back out with a handful of Hershey’s bars. “Mack, I’d like you to open up these chocolate bars for dessert.” She put them in front of him. “Put them on this plate.”

  He picked one up in his furry little hands and turned it over, looking for the glued-together place. I could feel my eyes go wide. I didn’t mind him touching my shells but I didn’t want him to touch my food.

  On her way back inside, Vicky looked over her shoulder and said, “No bites.” My breath got stuck in my throat.

  “Hey,” Ben said, nudging my elbow with his. “Don’t let your marshmallows get so close to the fire. They’ll get flamed.”

  “Aren’t they brown enough yet?” I asked. I wanted to be done. I wanted to get my Hershey’s bar away from Harris.

  “You want them to melt on the inside,” he said. Then he yelled, “Graham crackers needed out here.”

  I couldn’t keep my eyes off Harris. Daddy stepped out with the package of graham crackers and stepped back inside before I could signal him with a look.

  “Quit jiggling,” Ben said. “The marshmallows will fall off if they’re soft.” And right then one of his did. The smell of burnt sugar sweetened the air.

  Vicky checked our marshmallows and said, “Okay, those are ready.” She quickly spread the crackers out on the tablecloth. Then she took one of Ben’s forks and squished the marshmallow onto the graham crackers.

  I jiggled mine again. Not one marshmallow hung like it might fall off. Harris started on the third chocolate bar. When he got it out of the paper, he held it to his nose and sniffed it. He licked it a little bit. I wanted to scream. All that came out was a tiny squeak.

  Ben looked at me in this sharp way that reminded me of Vicky, and I jiggled my marshmallows. “I might like to have mine without chocolate,” I said.

  “Oh, no, you wouldn’t,” Vicky said, sounding very happy with herself. “Without the chocolate, it’s just crackers and marshmallow.”

  Vicky took Ben’s second fork. “I think mine are readier,” I said.

  Vicky said, “Hold still so they don’t fall off.”

  Ben strolled over to watch Harris put the next-to-last chocolate bar on the plate. Ben reached down and swept the last chocolate bar up, saying, “This one is Lexie’s.”

  Harris looked up like he thought there would be more instructions.

  Ben said, “I think she can open it herself.”

  I expected Harris to fuss but he didn’t. He nodded and motored away. He had a fire truck waiting for him at the end of the deck. I thought the trunk of their car must have been full of toy trucks. Vicky put out a different one every couple of hours.

  She took one of my forks so I had a hand free when Ben offered me the chocolate bar. “Thanks,” I said. I didn’t look at him. I made my s’more. Vicky put Ben in charge of making one for Harris, and Vicky made Daddy’s.

  Most cookies and crackers go all soft in a by-the-ocean way after a while but the graham cracker was still crisp. The marshmallows were sweet and sticky. The chocolate melted a little. Perfect.

  I moved to the edge of the deck to eat it.

  Ben came to sit on the top step with his s’more and we watched the water lap over the bottom steps. We watched the sky and the sea go black while we stretched out our dessert for as long as we could and licked our fingers. We did want some more.

  When I finished, I wrapped my arms around my legs and rested my chin on my knees. My skin felt tight and sore and, on my back, too hot. The tide had come in, so the water sloshed around under the house. I felt a little sleepy.

  Because Vicky had taken some more of the allergy medicine after dinner, she fell asleep in a deck chair in about five minutes. Nobody minded really, we were all so tired.

  Except Daddy, I suppose. He still cared. He sang a little song or two, pretending to strum a guitar. Vicky didn’t wake up to listen and it wasn’t very long before Harris crawled up in the deck chair beside her.

  “The ocean. It’s big, and it’s dark,” Ben said.

  The tide put out the bonfires on the beach. I guessed Ben was thinking about the shark, out there all alone. “It’s their home,” I said. “They like it there.”

  He didn’t say anything to that.

  “Thanks again for saving the chocolate,” I said, because I hadn’t really said it the right way before. Saying it in mostly darkness felt better.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I know how you feel.”

  I could see his face well enough in the moonlight. “Why didn’t you rescue your own chocolate?”

  “Oh, I don’t care,” he said. “You get used to it when he’s around all the time.”

  I doubted that. I asked, “What do you mean, then, that you know how I feel?”

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Ben said in a low voice. “Your dad’s a real nice guy and it’s great that he wants us to have fun and all.…”

  I had an idea I knew. “It’s that he can be so silly,” I said.

  “Huh?” Ben said. “No, see, that’s what I was afraid of, you think I’ve got a problem with Jim.”

  “You don’t mind when he acts like a kid?”

  “Of course not,” Ben said. “He’s just having fun.”

  “So what bothers you?”

  “Well, my mom,” he said in an annoyed way.

  “What’s Vicky done?”

  “It’s the way she’s acting,” he said. He lowered his voice again to say, “All girly. Because Jim’s around.”

  “Yep,” I said. “She’s acting silly.”

  Ben pounced on that. “See, you saw it too.”

  “I thought she was having fun,” I said. Ben looked at me like I’d said something mean. His mother called him to help Daddy in the kitchen. He didn’t move.

  I asked him, “How come it’s silly when your mom acts like that and it isn’t so silly when Daddy acts like that?”

  “I don’t know.” Ben looked away. “It’s just the way it
is.”

  I put my chin back on my knees. “I know what you mean.”

  I hadn’t called my mom. By then Vicky was awake and sitting with Harris in the kitchen. She was reading one of my beach books to him. He kept laughing his funny deep laugh.

  A few minutes later, she took him off to bed. I still couldn’t call. Daddy was hunting around for something in the kitchen and he might say something to Vicky. And Mom would wonder, “Who else is there?”

  I got this idea to give everyone time to fall asleep and then I could use the phone. It wouldn’t be all that late and I could say I didn’t want to interrupt her favorite show. Ha-ha.

  So I got ready for bed, like everybody else. And the next thing I knew, it was morning. Somebody was up, making kitchen noises. There was sand in my bed, I felt it when I moved my foot.

  I’d fallen asleep before I finished buttoning my pajama top, worrying I wasn’t going to be able to lie down on my sunburn. I spent the whole night at the wrong end of the bed.

  I woke up thinking Mom probably thought I was having such a good time that I didn’t think about her at all, when really I hadn’t even gone swimming yet. Worse, it made me sad to think of her waiting for me to call.

  I’d watch for everybody to go out and then I would call. And I would find something really special on the shore and take it home to her.

  At the table, Harris sat in the chair next to Vicky’s, although she was still in the bathroom. Daddy hadn’t come to the table yet either. He was making breakfast.

  “What would you like, Harris, me boy?” Daddy said in his leprechaun voice. “We have bacon or sausage, toast, and scrambled.”

  Harris looked confused.

  “He means we’re eating eggs,” I said to Harris. I tipped my plate so he could look at what I was eating. “This is scrambled, see? Do you want bacon or sausage?”

  Harris made the rumbling sound of a truck starting up.

  “Could you put that to me in English, please?” Daddy asked Harris.

  While Daddy tried to talk to Harris, Ben brought a computer magazine to the table and began to read. Just the sight of him with that magazine made my stomach go all tight. I couldn’t say why.

  Harris pretty much pretended he didn’t know Daddy was talking to him. He ran a little pink Volkswagen around the sugar bowl and between the salt and pepper shakers. “Harris?”

  “Harris wants you to call him Mack,” Ben said from behind his magazine.

  I waited to see what Daddy would say. When I was real little, like Harris, I tried to get Daddy to call me Simba and let me call him Pumbaa. Mom would do it. She called me Simba and I called her Timon all the time.

  When I called Daddy Pumbaa, he did what Harris was doing, he pretended not to hear me. Then he would say, “I think it’s really important for people to be themselves.”

  Mom would say, “She’s three. This is who she is at three.”

  Daddy said, “I wouldn’t mind if she was Simba for an afternoon. I mind that she’s Simba all the time. I want her to know it’s okay with me if she’s Lexie.”

  I did it for a year, I think Mom said. I nearly forgot what my name really was, that was how long I did it. Daddy would never play along, he always ruined it.

  “He won’t answer to anything but Mack,” Ben said. He still hadn’t come out from behind the magazine.

  Daddy said, “I’ve been calling him Harris.”

  “Yeah, you can call him anything you want to. I don’t mean this to be rude, but he only answers to Mack.” Ben folded the magazine down toward his face for a moment. “And right now, you want an answer.”

  “Mack,” Daddy said. “I need to know what you’re eating for breakfast.”

  Harris stood up on his chair and motored the pink Volkswagen over to my plate, backfired, and zipped away. Harris was almost as good as a cartoon. “Ben?” Daddy said.

  Ben sighed and put his magazine down. “French toast?” Ben asked Harris. Daddy probably didn’t know how to make french toast, but Harris’s motor muttered down.

  “Eggs Benedict,” Ben said in the same way he says, “Deal.”

  “Cereal, then,” Daddy said, ignoring Ben. “We have Corn Chex and Cheerios.”

  Harris appeared to brighten up. “Va vroom.”

  “Cold eggs,” Ben said, picking up the magazine again. “He wants cold eggs.”

  Daddy looked at me, probably because he couldn’t see Ben.

  I shrugged.

  “I brought hard-boiled eggs,” Vicky called from the bathroom.

  “I used them up for the egg salad yesterday,” Daddy said. “But it’s easy enough, I guess.”

  He reached for a pot and started to run water into it.

  I saw a look flicker over Ben’s face, but then he went back to reading his magazine. Harris’s motor made sounds like a truck stuck in the mud.

  Daddy put three eggs into the water. Harris’s motor got louder.

  When Daddy turned on the stove, Harris whined, “Don’t cook it.”

  “Ben?” Vicky called from the bathroom. “Are you helping?”

  From behind the magazine, Ben said, “He won’t eat a hot hard-boiled egg. And he doesn’t get it about cooking it.”

  Daddy lost his place for a moment, but then he had an idea. He put a bowl and another egg in front of Harris. “Feel how cold that egg is?”

  Harris put a hand on the egg reluctantly.

  “Open that egg into the bowl,” Daddy told him.

  Harris shook his head a little. Mainly it was the motor sound that said no. So Daddy reached over and broke the egg.

  He was quick, too quick for Harris, who saw what Daddy was about to do and reached to stop him. “No!” Harris yelled, but it was too late.

  The egg was broken into the bowl. And Harris started to wail.

  Ben said, “It’s ruined.”

  “It’s not ruined,” Daddy said loudly so Harris would hear him. “It’s not even cooked.”

  “He doesn’t get it,” Ben said without looking up.

  “What?” Daddy yelled, because Harris was really belting it out now.

  “He doesn’t get it!” Ben yelled back.

  Vicky came in then, saying, “My fault, my fault. Should have gotten up to shower before everybody else was up.”

  Seeing Vicky calmed Harris down. He cried more quietly. It was like now that his mother was here, he had hopes of getting some cold eggs to eat.

  “Don’t be silly,” Daddy said in his usual voice, since Harris had quieted down. “It’s your vacation too. Why should you have to get up at the crack of dawn?”

  “So breakfast will be peaceful, that’s why,” Vicky said. She sounded almost cheerful. Harris stopped crying. “Don’t we have a little of that egg salad left over from yesterday?”

  Ben got up from the table.

  “Have you had breakfast, Ben?” Vicky asked.

  “I’m going to the bathroom,” he said.

  Harris accepted an egg salad sandwich made with half a slice of bread. Daddy sat down to eat while Vicky made more toast to go around and sat down.

  Ben hadn’t come back to the table.

  We heard the door close when he went into the bathroom but we didn’t hear him sneak out.

  “Do you want to look for him?” Daddy asked Vicky.

  “No,” Vicky said in a voice that wasn’t cheerful anymore. “It’s not like he ran away or something. He’s gone off by himself. He’ll be back when he gets hungry.”

  “Well, it’s good he didn’t eat much, then,” Daddy said. He was being careful not to look at Harris, who had egg salad between his fingers and at the corners of his mouth. Harris was a mess.

  “I’m going out too,” I said.

  I wanted to call Mom. Except for when I didn’t want to. There was too much happening to talk to her. Besides, if Ben and Harris kept giving Daddy a hard time, maybe the weekends would be just Daddy and me.

  Daddy said to me, “Why don’t you stick around?”

  I stood half out
of my chair. He’d never said I couldn’t go beachcombing. Ever.

  Harris slid out of his chair, motor revving, and ran, heading for the bedrooms. Vicky chased after him, saying, “Harris. Mack. Don’t touch anything, okay?”

  “Maybe you could think of me as a sand shark,” Daddy said. “Stick around and help me out.”

  I shrugged. What was I supposed to do?

  In the bathroom, Vicky said, “Hold still, won’t you? The cloth isn’t even wet.” Mack rumbled at her.

  Daddy said, “Since we got here, you’re always on your way out to do something.”

  I sat back down. “You can come beachcombing,” I said, and probably I sounded a lot like Mary Tyler Moore.

  I wanted to be by myself after wanting to be with Daddy all weekend. It’s funny how that happens sometimes, that I need to be by myself for a few minutes or I get crabby. Mom always sees it coming, she says, and now sometimes I do too.

  “Not right now, I can’t,” he said, and I got this little sick feeling. Even though I wanted to go by myself.

  Harris raced through the kitchen to the back deck, vrrrrrrrrrmmm. Vicky went through at a walk, still carrying a washcloth. I felt a lot like Harris. I had to run around until I felt better.

  “Relationships are work,” Daddy said, leaning toward me. “I need a little help here.”

  “If somebody helps now, you could miss your big moment,” I said.

  I tried to say it nicely, because really I didn’t mean it any other way. It was the only thing I could think of to say.

  I felt sort of bad but mainly I wanted to go outside. “I’m sorry.”

  “No. No, I’m having another cup of coffee and doing the dishes,” he said.

  I helped him carry the dishes to the sink. “Go on,” he said. “Things will be okay here.”

  Because it made me nervous that we didn’t know where Ben had gone, I said, “I’m going the other way today.” I wanted Daddy to know where he could find me.

  “Whaddya think, Stanley?” Daddy asked.

  “Sunscreen,” I said. I went to the bathroom to put it on. My sunburn felt a lot better this morning. Ben’s toothbrush was in the sink. Horrible.

  Outside, it was already getting hot. There were kids running around, people sitting out on towels. And the water looked calm. People were going swimming.