We sat beneath a yellow awning, gazing at the towering oaks around us while a single fluffy cloud nicely punctuated a blue sky. The poolside furniture was sleek and sophisticated. The house itself had central air now, so the hummy sound of window units and ceiling fans was just another memory, soft and vibrating in my past. “No swings?” I said sadly. “No hammock and sandbox?”
Carolyn and Aunt Maggie laughed. “We got rid of those years ago,” said my aunt. “Children of divorce, I notice,” she informed Annette, “always yearn for the safer, more controlled parts of their childhood.”
Annette squeezed a little acid from her lemon into her iced tea.
Grandma said, “I think I'll lie down for a while. I nap every day now. It was such a long drive from the airport. But wake me up the minute Charlie arrives.”
I laughed. “It'll be a long nap, Grandma,” I told her. “He's not coming till Wednesday.”
“What?” shrieked Aunt Maggie. “What do you mean, he's not coming till Wednesday? The party is tomorrow night! Saturday night!” She was so upset that she leaped right out of her chair. The chairs had beautiful cushions, the kind you take inside every night, because they'd be ruined by rain. In our family, we would just use them ruined, but no doubt the Perfects never forgot the task of cushion retrieval.
Annette said nervously, “I know. I'm so sorry. Your twentieth anniversary is such a milestone. It's such an important date. He's so sorry he's missing it. But he doesn't think you'll notice he's not here. He picked out a gift for you and Todd. I have it in my bag, and when he gets here on Wednesday, he's planning of course to take you out to dinner to celebrate, and of course—”
“He said he would be here for the weekend!” Aunt Maggie screamed.
Annette and I looked at each other.
My aunt flopped back down into her chair. She looked even more limp than Annette. She began to cry. “It isn't our twentieth anniversary,” she said. “I mean, it is, but that's not the party. The party is for Charlie. I put together a huge surprise party for him. People are flying in from all over the country. I have all our old high school friends coming. I have a caterer and a band and a million rented chairs and tablecloths.”
“Oh, dear,” said Grandma. “Well, that's the problem with surprise parties, isn't it? The main character doesn't know that he should schedule it.”
“You get on the phone, Annette,” cried Aunt Maggie, “and explain to him that he is coming. He's to cancel everything and get here in a timely fashion!”
Annette had rarely looked so incompetent. It was unimaginable that Granger Elliott would want this woman back. It seemed more likely that he had thrown a party when she left. She spilled her tea on her dress and stared hopelessly at the stain it would certainly leave. “Actually, I don't actually have a way to reach him right now,” she said, which was a meaningless remark, because he was never without his cell phone.
“He's on a company retreat,” said Annette. “They're bonding. He has to be there. It's the new chairman of the board and the new chief financial officer, and he's experiencing the wilderness together with them, and it's crucial to his career.”
This sounded so unlike my father that I started giggling. He would probably bond by helping the others escape their wilderness duties, and he'd find a wide-screen television on which to watch a really good baseball game while surrounded by really good food.
“A wilderness retreat,” Aunt Maggie repeated, in the same tone of voice she no doubt had used behind our backs to say, “That boy brought a leg.” Still crying, she said, “It's just like Charlie to do this to me. I invited his favorite teachers! His coaches! Our old neighbors who used to say Charlie was going to meet some terrible doom! And he isn't going to show up?” Aunt Maggie looked surprisingly like Joanna. She pouted in the same way, lips puffed out on the bottom and tucked in at the top. “I should have known Charlie would vanish when I need him. Charlie is never there when you count on him.”
I stopped trying to be polite about her nasty cold tea and poured it out into the grass. “Daddy's always there when we count on him,” I said.
“Shelley, you don't have to defend him to me. I understand your father all too well.”
Now Carolyn took up the slack, listing the effort that had gone into making this a special occasion. Locating friends not heard from in twenty years. Finding overnight housing for all these friends. Ninety-seven friends, to be exact.
“Ninety-seven friends?” said Annette, dumbfounded. “I thought his whole high school graduating class had only fifty-five in it.”
“I'm including spouses, of course,” said Aunt Maggie. “Plenty of our guests are strangers to me, married to our dear old friends. They'll have been listening to Charlie stories for years. And now he won't be here!”
Ninety-seven people with gifts and expectations, and I would have to make excuses for my father.
I imagined a reunion of Angus's friends twenty or thirty years from now. There would most certainly be ninety-seven of those, and they too would have been telling Angus stories for years. But if there were any Shelley stories worth remembering for two decades, I couldn't think of them.
Grandma kissed Aunt Maggie. “You'll have to make the best of it, dear. You've always been able to make the best of things. I know you can triumph over this.” She went off for her nap, and I thought she might possibly sleep for several days, skipping Wednesday, so as to avoid being there when Aunt Maggie had a chance to tell Daddy what she thought of him.
“Where's Brett?” I said brightly, because we were in need of a subject change, and no doubt Brett was off doing something impressive that needed bragging about.
“He'll be around later,” said Carolyn. “Let's swim. Who wants to swim?”
There seemed to be very little interest in swimming. If Aunt Maggie acts like Joanna as well as looks like Joanna, I thought, then I know what will happen now. She'll forget what she's mad about and get stranded inside her frown and stare about in a confused sort of way. This was one of Joanna's nicest traits. Angus was always capitalizing upon it. “Swimming,” said Aunt Maggie, looking confused. “Yes, of course. Carolyn, tell Shelley all about your swimming awards.”
“Mom, she's not interested in that,” said Carolyn uncomfortably. “Let's talk about Joanna's summer in Paris instead.”
It might not be the right time to mention that Joanna was bailing on Paris and would be in Barrington on Sunday. The Perfects were looking at another very long drive to the airport the day after their failed party, and then a third drive when Daddy finally landed. Maybe Daddy would have the sense to rent a car. It was only fair to let the Perfects know that Joanna was coming, but on the other hand, Annette didn't know either, and there was only so much evidence of sloppy stepmothering I wanted on hand.
“Oh, Joanna hasn't done anything except visit cathedrals and castles,” I said. “Whereas Angus sold time-shares in a bomb shelter and almost became a millionaire.”
Aunt Maggie was not amused. “Surely this sort of sick prank could have been prevented. Is it wise, do you think, for Charlie to be away so much?”
Annette said she thought it was wise for him to earn a living.
Aunt Maggie said she was worried about how the children were turning out, scattered around the world before we were even out of our teens.
I knew the next sentence would include the word stability, so once again I changed the subject. “Annette is thinking of going back to work.”
Aunt Maggie was appalled. Not only did we have to have a stepmother, the woman had hardly arrived before she was running off.
Carolyn said, “I'm going to take Shelley to the pool, Mom. See you later. Bye, Annette.” She stood up. I did too, although since we weren't two feet away from the pool, I wasn't sure why we needed to say good-bye.
“We put in this beautiful pool,” said Aunt Maggie, jiggling her glass to make the ice cubes dance, “but you know how contrary the young are. Still hanging out at the town pool instead of using this one
.” She tried to laugh, but her heart wasn't in it.
Proving her desperation, Annette said, “And what's happening these days on the school board, Maggie?”
“We're debating whether to add another wing to the middle school or send the eighth grade over to the high school, where there's space. I'm very, very, very opposed to having the eighth grade in the same building as the high school students.”
“Oh,” said Annette sympathetically. “Are the teenagers here in Barrington all on drugs or something? You have to shelter the little ones from their older brothers and sisters? What a shame.”
I decided Annette was going to be fine.
Carolyn and I went into the house to change into bathing suits. I was to sleep in her room, and Angus in Brett's, while Grandma had the guest room. Annette was sleeping on the sofa bed in the huge family room, where Daddy would join her on Wednesday. “Where is Brett anyway?” I asked Carolyn.
“We'll see him tonight at a Little League game. He's a coach.”
Her room was extremely neat. Everything was folded or rolled or stacked. All colors matched. All photos were in frames. “Do you like your stepmother?” she said.
I don't like that word. She's not my mother. As for step, it sounds as if we're walking on her. “You mean Annette?” I said.
Carolyn giggled. “You have more stepmothers I don't know about? That sounds like Uncle Charlie.”
My throat got hot and tight, and my contact lenses scraped my eyes. I wiggled into my bathing suit and pulled my jeans up over it. I considered heading back to Annette and pulling the plug on this whole family reunion nightmare. If I said, “Annette, we're out of here,” she'd rent a car and throw Angus in the back, and we'd head for Disney World instead.
Carolyn wanted to know if I knew how to ride a bike, since she realized that I had grown up in New York City, where it was impossible to have a bike. Actually bikes are everywhere in New York, but I skipped this and reminded Carolyn that her own father had taught me how to ride a bike in her own driveway. “Didn't your parents have time?” said Carolyn kindly.
We cycled past lawns green from sprinklers and under trees so tall and leafy they made tunnels over the street. We turned right at the old brick elementary school, which had the shuttered look of schools over summer: hot and dusty, books waiting, chairs stacked. In the distance spread farms. Past the reach of sprinklers, the color of Barrington in August was not green. The color was sunburn, everything toasted. A field far off was like melted butter. Dust rose from highways.
At the pool, Carolyn bought us hot dogs and fries from the concession. She slathered hers with ketchup, and I whitened mine with salt, and we joined her friends. I got that sick, tight feeling that happens when strangers inspect you. It was clear that none of her friends swam. They decorated the pool rim, they tanned and they wore bathing suits, but they didn't swim.
Carolyn surprised me. “This,” she said proudly, as if I were a fashion model on the runway, spotlights casting mysterious shadows over my high cheekbones, “is my cousin Shelley.”
“Oh, yes,” said one of the friends, tapping her teeth with the earpiece of her sunglasses, “you're the one whose father had to leave Barrington, didn't he?”
She smiled. She had small pointy teeth, like a baby's. Her hair was extremely thin and straight. Her eyes were bright and gloating. She knew something I didn't know.
“Give it a rest, Miranda,” said Carolyn. “Want to play tennis, Shelley?”
I don't know how to play tennis. I'm not a great swimmer either, but I needed distance, so I said, “I think I'll swim while you play tennis.”
The water was warm from the sun, and it helped me keep my temper. It did nothing to calm my fear. My father had to leave Barrington? What did that mean?
I swam slowly to the far end of the pool and got out on the opposite side and sat on the edge, my feet in the water. Travel is so strange. We'd left Vermont before breakfast and arrived in Barrington in midafternoon, yet my life did not feel hundreds of miles away. It felt hundreds of years away. My father seemed so distant, he might actually be the person Aunt Maggie said he was, never there when you counted on him.
A bunch of boys charged out of the dressing rooms. I graded them according to Joanna's system. A definite ten, a nine and the rest eights. Barrington knew how to do boys. Joanna would have a great visit. The boys drew closer, and instead of taking advantage of this fine perspective, I glanced down at my knees. Last year we had to take health class. The teacher skipped quickly over tough health subjects (sex, AIDS, pregnancy) and went straight to an easy health subject: relationships.
The whole curriculum was designed to ruin me. “Children of divorce,” the teacher told us frequently, “especially if it is the mother who has abandoned them, have a poor self-image. They fear affection. They shrink from love.”
Mother abandoned Daddy, that's true. But she didn't abandon us. The first two years, she and Jean-Paul lived two blocks away and we saw her all the time, and she did homework with Angus and shopping with Joanna and giggling with me. Then, when Jean-Paul had to go back to France— even then she wasn't abandoning us. It was just that she couldn't have Jean-Paul and us too.
I didn't explain this to the health teacher. In fact I got a low grade in that class. “Not participating,” wrote the teacher, for whom silence was not a virtue. But the truth is, I remember everything she said better than Shakespeare or the Preamble to the Constitution. Sometimes when I am very sad and the blankets on my bed aren't heavy enough or warm enough or cozy enough, I think, She did abandon us.
One of the boys sat down next to me. The nine. Very tan, the hairs on his chest sun-bleached gold. His face was slathered with sun protection he hadn't rubbed in enough, and his sunglasses had slid down to the tip of his slippery nose, and I looked straight into his eyes. My hair was drying fast in the heat, and its damp corkscrews brushed against his arm, he was sitting so close.
“Hi there,” he said. “You must be Carolyn's cousin.” His voice was deep and scratchy, as if he needed to clear his throat. Had Carolyn pointed me out? Or did everyone in Barrington really and truly know everyone else, and I was the only stranger in town?
I nodded. “My brother's here too.”
“Hey, great. I'm, um, coming to the party tomorrow night. For your, um, dad. Looking forward to meeting everybody.” He pushed his sunglasses up and hid his eyes.
“He won't be there,” I said. “Aunt Maggie planned the party without consulting us, and my father isn't coming till next week.”
“Oh, no!” The boy burst into laughter. “That sounds just like Mrs. Preffyn. I've tangled with her. So it's just you and your brother?”
“And my father's wife. Annette.”
He took the sunglasses off and looked intently at me.
I was abruptly, wildly, crazily, intensely attracted to him. I was aware of my new parrot-colored bathing suit and how it fit. I was aware of his baggy trunks and how they fit. I was breathless and happy and scared.
Like Joanna, would I now see each boy the way a grocery shopper sees peaches? This one isn't ripe; this one has a bruise; this one is perfect—I'll take it!
“You have stepbrothers or stepsisters?” he asked.
“No. Thank goodness. It's hard enough taking on a stepmother.” I told him about Angus—bomb shelter, leg, rain dance and all.
“He sounds terrific,” said the boy. “I can't wait to meet him. I don't have the kind of personality that can take on stuff like that.”
“Few do,” I said. “For which we can all be grateful.”
We laughed together. I was resting part of my weight on my hand, which was spread open on the wet pool tiles. His hand was doing the same, and there was perhaps half an inch of space between our fingertips. I considered crossing the distance and touching his hand. Maybe this was love at first sight. If so, every sacrifice made was going to be worth it.
Carolyn trotted up. She knelt down between us. “Hi, Toby,” she said. “Thanks for baby-si
tting the cousin for me.”
The cousin.
Sometimes you hear men refer to their wives like that. The wife. I hate that.
What I needed to know was, was this the Toby?
Who knew the answer? Who wouldn't smirk when I asked? Who wouldn't give me a list of things my father had done wrong? Who would give me the answer I wanted, which was that Angus had made up his Toby, and this Toby—another Toby entirely—sat beside me because he thought I looked interesting, and possibly pretty. He was not related to me.
But Toby, whoever he was, vanished with his friends while Carolyn and I pedaled home to change clothes and help with dinner, although Aunt Maggie was so organized there was nothing to help with. Annette and I sat by the pool while Carolyn prepared for our picnic.
First she covered the large redwood table with a scarlet cotton cloth that had weights sewn in the corners so it wouldn't blow away. Then she took four white runners, which she thumbtacked right down into the table, making eight place mats. Horizontally down the center, creating a plaid, she tacked a narrow, brilliant blue ribbon. The table setting was pretty and patriotic, but more like something a kindergartner would design than Carolyn, who seemed eager to be sophisticated.
The words of my sophisticated sister, Joanna, ran through my mind. I always used to think that Daddy and Celeste had a son they never told us about, and somehow I would meet him, all unaware…
The person with whom I could have shared my thoughts right now was DeWitt, the only one who possessed all the background information. But I couldn't even e-mail him, with that safe, enclosed feeling e-mail has, because e-mail isn't safe or enclosed, and anyway, he was off hiking and almost certainly was not backpacking e-mail access.
At that moment, as Carolyn patted the picnic table, the loss of DeWitt, whom I scarcely knew, was as dreadful and piercing as the loss of my mother.
“I thought of this color scheme,” said Carolyn proudly, as if she personally had invented red, white and blue. “When I was really little. Ever since, we've done every single picnic just the same way. I used to color in the white paper napkins with my own designs, but I don't anymore.” She held up large white cloth napkins, on which a child's lopsided, madly grinning crayon figures had been embroidered. “Mother immortalized some of my masterpieces,” said Carolyn, laughing.
Family Reunion Page 6