Like everyone else, Penelope looked around as each name was called, connecting names with faces in her mind, and Dion grew increasingly nervous as the alphabetical roll call drew closer to S.
“Semele,” the teacher called. “Dion?”
“Here,” Dion said. He stared down at his desk, too timid to look up at her, too embarrassed to meet her eyes. When Mr. Holbrook called the next name and Dion finally did look up, her attention was elsewhere, on the new student.
Smooth move, he thought.
As the period dragged on, he found himself tuning out the monotonic drone of the teacher to focus on the back of Penelope’s head.
Maybe tomorrow he would contrive to sit closer to her.
The hour was as long as he’d expected, but finally the bell rang. Dion moved slowly from his seat, watching through jostling bodies as Penelope rose and picked up her books. The pants she was wearing were not tight, but she had been sitting in such a way that when she stood up they unintentionally rode up the crack of her buttocks.
Kevin noticed the object of his attention and shook his head. “Rapidly approaching the Isle of Lesbos, bud.”
Dion looked at him, surprised. “What?”
“She likes ‘em fileted.”
“Fileted?”
“You know, de-boned. No dick.”
“You’re lying.”
Kevin shrugged. “I call ‘em the way I see ‘em.”
“She’s not a lesbian.”
Kevin casually grabbed the sleeve of a student pushing past them toward the door, a heavyset guy carrying only a Pee Chee folder. “Hank?” he said. “Penelope Daneam.”
The big guy grinned. “Cat lapper.”
Kevin let go of Hank’s sleeve, turning back toward Dion. “See?”
Lesbian. He wasn’t sure he believed it, but he didn’t disbelieve it either. He watched her exit the room and disappear into the crowded hall. A lesbian. He had to admit that the idea was rather exciting. He knew he probably didn’t have a chance in hell with a girl that beautiful, particularly with his lame opposite-sex conversational skills, but at least he’d been provided with additional fuel for his fantasies, provided with not only the image of her naked but with the image of her in bed with another girl, doing exotic, forbidden, only partially imaginable things.
“Stuff a sock down your pants,” Hank suggested as he stepped past them.
“Works every time. When she sees that bulging bohannon, she’ll be yours.”
“Yeah,” Kevin added. “Of course, when you whip down your pants and she sees the Vienna wiener you really have, she’ll dump you faster’n you can say ‘tough titty kitty.’”
Dion laughed. Fileted. Cat lapper. Bohannon. He liked the creative obscenities, the idiosyncratic descriptions used by the students here.
In Mesa, guys were either “fags” or “dicks,” girls “bitches,” and the primary adjective used to describe everything else was “shit.” The weather was either hot as shit or cold as shit, a person was dumb as shit or smart as shit, a job was hard as shit or easy as shit. In Mesa, shit possessed a number of contrary properties.
But the language here seemed to be more colorful, more interesting, more intelligent As did the people.
He might like living in California.
“Come on,” Kevin said. “Let’s get something to eat.”
Dion nodded. “All right,” he said. “Lead on.”
*
The bus dropped her off at the foot of the drive, and Penelope shifted her books to her left hand, taking out her key, opening the black box, and punching the security combination with her right. The winery gates swung slowly and automatically open. The warm afternoon air was permeated with the rich scent of the harvest, a heady, organic fragrance that overhung the grounds like grape perfume, thick and redolent, undisturbed by any breeze. She breathed deeply as she walked up the winding asphalt road toward the house. She loved the smell of the harvest more than anything, more than the deeper, stronger scent of the pressing, much more than the tart odor of the fermenting processes to come. She had heard it said that olfactory memory was the strongest, that olfactory associations carried the most emotional weight, and she believed it. To her the fresh natural fragrance of the newly picked grapes always conjured up feelings she connected with childhood, joyous, happy emotions not linked to any specific event, and it was at this time that she was most grateful that her mothers owned the winery.
She walked slowly. Ahead, she could see sunlight glinting off the glass and metal of the cars in the parking lot. In the vineyard to her right, several groups of day laborers were cutting bunches of grapes from the vine, gathering the first pick of this year’s crop. In the next few weeks, she knew, the ranks of workers would swell until, in early October, the vineyard aisles would be full of crowded, stooped laborers.
One of the women working closest to the drive stopped picking for a moment to look up at her, and Penelope smiled, waving. The woman returned to her work with out so much as a nod. Penelope hurried forward, embarrassed. Most of the laborers, she knew, were illegal aliens, many of them unable to speak English, their work overseen by exploitative day-contracted foremen whose only talent was that they could translate orders and requests. It was against the law to hire illegals, of course, but then Mother Margeaux had never been one to be deterred by such trifles as legality. She remembered once asking Mother Margeaux how much the laborers were paid per day. Her mother had replied curtly, “Enough.”
She doubted that. And she assumed that that was why many of the day workers seemed to dislike her so. She had never personally done anything to engender any ill will among the grape pickers, but no doubt they viewed her as a follower in her mothers’ footsteps.
The salaried employees, on the other hand, the winery workers, always treated her as though she were royalty, taking her much too seriously, behaving very deferentially toward her.
No one treated her like a normal person.
A gull swooped low over her head, a branch of half dried grapes in its mouth, and she followed its progress as it flew over the cars, over the buildings, toward the hills beyond, nesting finally in an anonymous tree in the heart of the woods.
The woods.
She felt a chill wash over her as she looked at the line of trees demarcating the rear boundary of their land, and she glanced quickly away, quickening her step toward the house.
She had always been allowed to go anywhere she wanted on their property, to roam the grounds, wander the vineyards, but ever since she’d been a small child she had been expressly forbidden to enter the woods. She had been told and retold, warned and rewarned, that the woods were dangerous, home to wild animals such as cougars and wolves, although she had never heard of a single animal attack occurring anywhere near the area. Up by Clear Lake a few years back, a hungry mountain lion had attacked and maimed a three-year-old girl, and near Lake Berryessa there had been isolated incidents of bears frightening away campers. But though she often saw weekend hikers trekking up one of several paths which led through the trees into the woods, she had never read or heard of a single attack on a human being in that area.
Her mothers had obviously instituted the rule because of her father.
Such a stern and seemingly arbitrary prohibition should have caused her to sneak into the woods at the first opportunity, and she knew that most of her friends would have done exactly that. But there was something about the woods which awakened within her a feeling of instinctive dread, a feeling that would have been there even if her mothers had said nothing at all to her about the area. Each time she looked through the barbed-wire fence at the back of the property toward the line of trees across the meadow, she felt the hairs tingle on the back of her neck, felt goosebumps rise on her arms.
The goosebumps were there now, and she pushed the thought out of her mind, running up the last stretch of drive, taking the porch steps two at a time, hurrying between the tall Doric columns which fronted the house. Pulling open the heavy doub
le doors, she walked through the high-ceilinged foyer and past the stairway into the kitchen. “I’m home!”
she announced. She dropped her books on the chopping block and opened the refrigerator, taking out a can of V8.
Mother Felice, looking tired and wan, the dark circles around her eyes more prominent than usual, emerged from the pantry, wiping her hands on her apron. “How was it?” she asked. “How was your first day?”
Penelope smiled. “It was fine, Mother.”
“Just fine? Not wonderfully spectacularly amazingly stupendous?”
“What did you expect? It was only the first day.”
“How are your teachers?”
“I don’t know yet. It’s hard to tell until the end of the first week.”
She looked out the window of the kitchen toward the twin buildings of the winery. “Where’s everyone else?”
Mother Felice shrugged. “Pressing time. You know. It’s a busy day.”
Penelope nodded, grateful that her other mothers had not been there to greet her. She had told her mothers she was a senior this year, almost an adult, had asked them not to make a big deal over school for once, and apparently they had gotten her hint.
“Did you make any new friends yet?” her mother asked, washing her hands in the sink.
“I saw Vella and Lianne and Jennifer.”
“I said any new friends.”
Penelope reddened. She finished her V8 and tossed the empty can into the garbage sack next to the stove. “I know what you’re hinting about, and, no, I have not met any guys yet. I will probably not have a date this week, okay? God, it’s only the first day. What do you expect?”
“I don’t mean to—”
Penelope sighed. “I know,” she said. “But don’t worry. Prom is eight months away,” “It’s not that, it’s—”
“It’s what?”
Her mother tried to laugh lightly, but the effect seemed hollow and artificial. “Never mind. We’ll talk about it some other time.”
“Okay.” She looked again out the window, was glad to see no sign of other mothers. “If you need me,” she said, “I’ll be in the Garden.”
“Don’t you have any homework?”
“Mother, it’s the first day. How many times do I have to tell you? No one ever has homework the first day. Or even the first week.”
“We did.”
“Times have changed.” Penelope grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl on the counter and picked up her books. She was about to head upstairs to drop the books off in her bedroom when she was stopped by her mother’s voice. “Aren’t you even going to stop by and see your other mothers?”
Penelope turned around. She licked her lips. “I’d rather do it later,”
she admitted.
“It’s your first day of school. They’ll be interested in what happened.”
She put a hand on Penelope’s shoulder. “They care. We all care.”
“Yeah,” Penelope said.
Her mother punched her playfully on the shoulder. “Knock that off.” She smiled at her daughter. “Come on.”
Mother Margeaux, dressed entirely in black as usual, was seated behind the massive desk in her office, talking on the phone, berating the person on the other end of the line. She nodded curtly af Penelope, at Mother Felice, then continued unabated with her diatribe. “What I
expect,” she said in a hard, even voice, “is that you correctly perform the function for which you were contracted. If that is too difficult, our company will find a more effective and efficient means of delivering our product Do I make myself clear?”
Mother Felice sat down in the dark leather couch against the wall and motioned for Penelope to do the same. Penelope shook her head and remained standing.
Mother Margeaux hung up the phone, coolly and carefully replacing the receiver in its cradle, then glanced up at Penelope, smiling tightly.
Light was reflected in her deep brown eyes and in the smoothness of her slick black hair. “I trust your first day of school was satisfactory?”
Penelope nodded, not meeting her mother’s eyes. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Are you satisfied with your classes? With your teachers?”
“I guess …”
“If not, I can arrange to have you transferred. This is your senior year, and it’s important that you maintain your grade-point average.”
“My classes are fine.”
“That’s good.” Mother Margeaux nodded. “That’s good.”
Penelope said nothing. The three of them sat silently for a moment.
“Is there anything else you wish to tell me?” Mother Margeaux asked.
Penelope shook her head. “No, ma’am.”
“I’d better get back to work, then. Thank you for coming in, Penelope.”
She was dismissed. The conversation was over. Mother Felice stood up. “I
guess we’ll see your other mothers,”
“You’ll do well this year,”
Mother Margeaux said to her daughter.
“You’ll make us proud.”
Penelope nodded, following Mother Felice out of the office. She did not notice that she was sweating until they stepped into the hall.
Although Mother Sheila was out somewhere in the fields, overseeing the collection of representative samples of today’s harvest, her other mothers were in the testing area of the main building, supervising the analysis of grapes which had been picked this morning. A team of analysts sat at a long counter in front of the window, testing the balance of the must in order to make a preliminary determination of this year’s product potential while her mothers looked on.
“Penelope’s home!” Mother Felice announced, closing the white door behind her.
Mother Margaret was quietly conferring with two of the analysts. They both looked up at the announcement, smiled absently, nodded, waved, and continued talking. Mother Janine, however, immediately stopped what she was doing and hurried over, her spiked heels sounding loudly on the tile. Penelope felt herself tense up. Mother Janine reached her, threw her arms around her, and hugged tightly. The hug was a little too long, a little too unmotherly, and Penelope anxiously held her breath. As always, she tried telling herself that Mother Janine really loved her and cared about her, but what she told herself and what she felt were two different things. There was something disturbing about her youngest mother, something she could not quite put her finger on, and as soon as Mother Janine let go, Penelope stepped back and away.
“I missed you,” her mother said in that cloying little girl voice she used when talking to Penelope. “I always hate it when summer ends and you have to leave us and go back to school.”
Penelope nodded, said nothing. The truth was that for the past two weeks she had not seen Mother Janine except at breakfast and dinner. She didn’t know how her mother could miss her.
“Did you meet anyone yet? Any cute guys?”
Penelope frowned. “It’s only the first day.”
Mother Janine laughed, a strange sound that segued from the high falsetto of a child’s giggle to the low chuckle of a deep-throated woman. “Never too early to start.”
“Yeah.” Penelope nodded and turned toward Mother Felice. “Well, we’d better go, let them get back to work.”
“Okay,” her mother agreed.
“We’ll talk at dinner,” Mother Janine said. “I want you to tell me all about your day, everything^ that happened.” She gave Penelope’s shoulder a small squeeze.
“See?” Mother Felice said as they walked across the small lawn to the house. “That wasn’t so bad.”
Penelope grimaced and said nothing.
Her mother laughed.
The two of them parted at the kitchen. “Now I’m going to the Garden,”
Penelope said. She grabbed her books from the kitchen table and went upstairs to her bedroom. Her feet were silent on the heavy carpet as she walked down the long hallway. She glanced into the open doorways as she passed and noted as alwa
ys how the tastes and personalities of her mothers were reflected in their bedrooms-Mother Margeaux’s sleeping quarters were simultaneously imperial and practical, the warring values represented by a huge bed with an intricately carved oak headboard and a large, simple desk topped with neatly stacked piles of paperwork. The off-white walls were decorated with framed original prototypes of Daneam labels. Next door, Mother Sheila’s room was the most mundane, filled with bland contemporary furnishings that looked as though they could have come straight out of a catalog photograph, and a single framed print on the wall that always reminded Penelope of hotel art. Mother Margaret’s room decor was the boldest and probably most interesting, with its ultra-modern bed, non-dresser, and startling juxtaposition of Old World folk art and original paintings by young Native American artists, but it was in Mother Felice’s bedroom that she was most comfortable. Cluttered with lace and flowers, antiques and needlework, a shiny brass bed in its center, the room was crowded and at the same time light, airy. It was a friendly room, and it suited her favorite mother perfectly.
Mother Janine’s bedroom had no furniture at all, only a bare mattress centered on the red tile floor. The undecorated walls were painted a deep, unreflective black.
She had never liked going into Mother Janine’s room.
She reached her own bedroom and threw her books on the bed. Grabbing her journal and pen from the dresser, she went back downstairs, walking through the library and opening the sliding glass door to the Garden. Or what her mothers called the Garden. To her it had always been much more than a garden. To her it was a sanctuary, a refuge, a place where she could come to relax and to think and to be alone. Her mothers seemed to recognize her feelings and to appreciate her kinship with the location.
The Garden had originally been the place where in the summer they read or sunbathed or just lounged around, but over the years their involvement with the area had become less, their visits more infrequent.
It was as though they had tacitly agreed that the Garden was her domain and not theirs, and gradually they relinquished their control to her.
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