Picture Perfect

by D. Anne Love

  “Houston’s not that far from Eden,” Nick said. “We’ll still see each other.”

  “Sure.” I smiled like I believed him, but I’d seen too many of Shyla’s boyfriends come and go to expect anything lasting with a fourteen-year-old boy. Still, Nick’s news was a big shock, and I cried for three days knowing I would never forget him, the boy who had given me my first kiss.

  Our dinners came, and after we had polished off salads, pasta, and rosemary chicken, the waiter took away our plates and came back with a huge Italian cream cake.

  He placed it on the table in front of me and ignited a sparkler. “Buon compleano, signorina!”

  Two couples at the table next to ours turned around and clapped. Mama, Daddy, Zane, and Shyla joined the waiter in singing the happy-birthday song, which was totally embarrassing and corny as all getout, but also unbelievably sweet. I was growing up, but there was still enough kid in me to be thrilled at the sound of the familiar tune. Even though I tried not to show it.

  Zane leaned across the table and handed me a flat package. “This is for you.”

  “But you already gave me the CDs.”

  “Yeah, but this is better.”

  I opened the package, which contained a single sheet of paper decorated with a red ribbon. “‘The bearer of this certificate,’” I read, “‘is entitled to unlimited driving lessons from world-famous instructor, Zane Trask.’”

  “Wow, Zane! Thanks.”

  My adorable big brother ducked his head and grinned, happy to have trumped all the other gifts.

  “The blind leading the blind,” Shyla teased. “I didn’t think they allowed minors to be driving instructors.”

  “I’ll be almost eighteen by the time she’s sixteen,” Zane pointed out.

  “You’re both growing up too fast,” Mama said, smiling at me across the table. “It’s time you started thinking of your future, Phoebe. What do you intend to do with your life?”

  “I don’t want to think about that now. It’s my birthday!”

  “Well, you’d better think about it, missy. It’s later than you think.”

  “Beth,” Daddy said quietly. “Let her enjoy her birthday. We can talk about this at home.”

  “Don’t you dare shush me, Sumner!” Mama flapped her hand at him, and her glass tipped over, spilling water and ice in my lap and all over the starched white tablecloth.

  Shyla grabbed her napkin and blotted the water off my skirt. “Mama, please don’t make a scene.”

  Mama started to cry. “All I did was ask a simple question, and all of a sudden I’m the bad guy!”

  Several people in the restaurant turned around to stare at the birthday party that had suddenly turned into a disaster.

  “Daddy, can we just go?” I jumped up and shoved my presents into the boxes they’d come in.

  Daddy paid the check. Zane came around the table to help me. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “Don’t let her get to you.”

  We left the restaurant and went out to the car, Zane and I carrying my presents, Daddy with his arm around Mama’s waist, and Shyla bringing up the rear.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Daddy said as we exited the parking lot. “Spring break is coming up in a couple of weeks. I say we chuck everything and head for the beach.”

  “We’re in,” Zane said. “Right, Phoebe?”

  “What about Lucky?”

  “We’ll take him, too,” Daddy said, making his voice super cheerful.

  Shyla unwrapped a stick of gum and popped it into her mouth. “Jazz-n-Java owes me a million hours of vacation time. I could fly out after my last class and meet you guys there.”

  Daddy said, “Beth, honey? Do you feel like making the trip?”

  “Oh, do I get a vote?” Mama asked, her voice brittle with tears.

  Zane edged forward and spoke so softly I had to strain my ears to hear him. “Hey, Mama? We’re all sorry you’ve been sick. But do you think for one night you could think about somebody besides yourself and let your baby girl enjoy her birthday?”

  Daddy pulled into the driveway and cut the engine. “The beach it is!” he said. “I’ll make all the arrangements.”

  School let out on the second Wednesday in April, and the next morning we piled into Mama’s van with our luggage, Lucky’s crate, and enough junk food to feed an army. Daddy and Zane took turns behind the wheel. When Mama got tired, we stopped for the night. We arrived at our beach house around noon the next day. Daddy unlocked the door, and we hauled everything inside. The house looked just the way we’d left it. Mama’s shell collection was lined up on the mantel over the fireplace. An old white vase sat on the breakfast table, waiting for fresh flowers from the flower stand on the Kerrison Parkway. A pair of Shyla’s hot pink flip-flops were parked by the back door, which led across the dunes and down to the beach. While Lucky raced from one room to the other checking everything out, Mama opened the windows, and soon the house smelled of the ocean, a mixture of wet sand, seaweed, and salt.

  Zane and I swept the floors and washed the beach towels arid the sheets so our beds wouldn’t smell musty. Zane leaned on his broom and inhaled deeply. “I love this place,” he said dreamily. “When I’m on my own, I’m going to live here all the time.”

  “Better bring a boatload of money,” Daddy said. “The insurance and upkeep will kill you.”

  Zane put the broom away and picked up his duffel bag. “Dibs on the sleeping porch.”

  “No fair!” I said. “You had it last year. Besides, I need the extra room for Lucky.”

  Zane fished a quarter out of his pocket. “I’ll Hip you for it.”

  “I shouldn’t have to flip you for it. It’s my turn.”

  Daddy went into judge mode. “It is her turn, Zane,” he said. “And the room upstairs is really too small for two teenage girls. When Shyla gets here with all her things, we’ll be stuffed to the gills.”

  In the past Zane would have argued about it, but now he just shrugged. “Okay, kid. You get the porch, I get the Boogie board first.”

  “Deal.”

  We changed into our swimsuits and took our beach towels out of the dryer.

  Zane said, “Mama, come with us.”

  “I can’t. We need groceries, and Shyla’s plane gets here in a couple of hours. But I’m looking forward to our walk on the beach after dinner.”

  Mama and Daddy left, and Zane and I headed to the beach with Lucky. We jogged past knots of kids on spring break, old couples walking hand in hand, a few little kids building sand castles. When we got to one of our favorite spots, a wide curve of sand sheltered by dunes and oat grass, Zane plopped himself down and turned his face to the sun. “Man, this is great. This is what was missing from last summer.”

  “No kidding. It didn’t seem like summer without coming here. I’m glad Daddy thought of it.”

  “After Mama’s meltdown on your birthday he had to do something to keep us from coming totally unhinged.”

  “She seems happy to be here.”

  “Who knows what she’s thinking?” He jumped up and grabbed the Boogie board. “I’m going in.”

  He ran into the waves, screaming as he hit the cold water. “Woo-hooo! It’s freezing!”

  I threw a ball for Lucky and scanned the water. It was calm near the shore, but farther out were a few rolling waves big enough for a good board ride. Zane paddled out and rode the wave in, yelling and pumping his fist in the air. He caught a few more waves, venturing farther out each time, until he was just a tiny speck on the water. Finally he came in, shivering a little, and handed me the board.

  I slipped the rope over my wrist and paddled out. The water was chilly, but the afternoon sun warmed my bare back. I treaded water for a minute, just watching the pelicans diving for fish and the play of sunlight on the waves. I picked a wave and held on for the ride. Lucky raced up and down the beach barking at me. Just as the board touched bottom, a familiar figure emerged from across the dunes.

  “Shyla!” I yelled.

>   Zane and Lucky reached her first. I heard Zane’s excited voice and Shyla’s bright laugh as she dropped to her knees to greet Lucky. I left the Boogie board on the sand and hugged her. She had slathered on a layer of Bee Beautiful tanning lotion, which smelled like summer at the beach, a mixture of honey and coconut.

  “Hey, kiddo, how’s it going?” Shyla brushed a blob of wet sand off my face.

  “Okay.” Everything seemed better now that my sister was home. Shyla kicked off her flip-flops and tugged her white tank suit into place. “Come on, race you to the water.”

  We all took off running. Lucky raced ahead, then doubled back, yipping. Shyla dived into the ocean, swimming out to the deep water with easy, powerful strokes, Zane right beside her. I was never as good a swimmer as they were. I hung back, paddling around with Lucky, tossing his ball, enjoying the sun and the water, listening to the shouts of other people up and down the beach.

  An hour or so later Daddy came down to the beach and waved us in. Zane propped the Boogie board on the back porch. I dried Lucky off and gave him a bowl of fresh water. While Mama rested, Shyla helped Daddy fix our traditional first-night-at-the-beach supper of corn on the cob, grilled shrimp, and sliced tomatoes, and I set the table with the mismatched china Mama had bought at a garage sale.

  When everything was ready, I went upstairs to wake Mama.

  She was already up and sitting at the window looking out at the ocean.

  “Dinner’s ready, Mama.”

  She nodded and held out her hand. I took it, and she pulled me clown beside her. “Look. There’s a young pelican learning to fish.”

  I watched the pelican glide above the surface and flop awkwardly into the sea.

  Mama laughed softly. “He doesn’t quite have the hang of it yet. Even though he thinks he knows what he’s doing. But the adults won’t leave him until he can make it on his own.”

  I’d been around Beth Trask for fifteen years, long enough to know it wasn’t really the pelican she was talking about.

  “I know I’ve got a lot to learn, Mama,” I said. “But don’t worry about me. I’ll get it together one of these days and figure out my life.”

  Just then Daddy stuck his head into the room. “Beth? Feebs? Dinner’s getting cold.”

  After supper Shyla said, “Mama, did you bring your camera?”

  Every summer we took a bazillion beach pictures, which Mama saved in leather albums with the year embossed on the cover. If you wanted to know what Shyla looked like at age six with her front tooth missing, or wrhat Zane looked like when he went through his punk-rocker stage a couple of years back, all you had to do was look in the albums.

  Mama got the camera and tripod from the bag, set the timer, and took a couple of shots of us gathered around the dinner table. Then I took a few of Lucky and one of Daddy as he washed up the supper dishes.

  Later we took our traditional first-night-at-the-beach walk and watched the sun set. Listening to the waves, watching the sky go pink and gold, gave me an easy, peaceful feeling inside. Shorebirds and sand crabs darted along the beach in front of us. Lucky ran ahead, snuffling at clumps of seaweed and the remains of a horseshoe crab lying half buried in the sand. He ran back to me with a stick in his mouth. I threw it and he took off again. Out on the horizon lights on shrimp boats winked on, and a few minutes later Daddy said, “It’s getting dark. We’d better start back.”

  Zane whistled for Lucky, and we trooped back to the beach house. After we’d taken turns in the shower, we watched TV for a while, even though we could get only five channels and the picture was so wavy it was hard to see anything. Shyla grabbed a book from the pile of paperbacks we kept for rainy days. Mama fell asleep in her rocking chair. After the ten o’clock news Daddy woke her, and they went upstairs to bed.

  Shyla and I left Zane watching some wiggly ninja movie on TV and headed for the sleeping porch, which was my favorite part of the beach house. It faced the ocean and ran the whole length of the house. Mama had furnished it with twin beds with white iron headboards and blue coverlets that matched the colors of the sea. Lying in bed at night, you could hear the breathing of the ocean as the tides ebbed and flowed, and in the morning you woke to ribbons of sunlight poking through the cracks in the old boards, the cries of the shorebirds, and the thrum of engines as the shrimp boats headed out for the day.

  One summer my sister and I painted the ceiling pale blue and added a bunch of puffy white clouds. Now the paint was faded, and some of the clouds were stained brown from a water leak that had happened one year during a hurricane, but I still looked forward to sleeping under the same roof my daddy had loved when he lived here with his aunt Reba.

  Shyla fell onto her bed and laced her fingers behind her head. “Man, it feels great to be here.”

  “Yeah. I missed coming here last summer.”

  “I think Mama missed it too.”

  I climbed into my own bed just as Zane opened the door and stuck his head in. “Are you two awake?”

  “Barely,” I said. “What’s up?”

  “I took Lucky out to do his thing. He’s good to go till morning.”

  “Thanks, Zane.”

  “No problem.” He patted Lucky’s head. “Good night, dude.”

  “Zane?” Shyla said. “You want to run with me on the beach in the morning?”

  “I’m going fishing with Dad. Thanks, though. G’night.”

  He shut the door, and a minute later I heard his footsteps on the stairs.

  “Shyla?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “Tell me something.”

  We were lying half asleep on the sand under an umbrella, a cooler full of diet soda between us. Farther down the beach Zane and a couple of guys were playing keep-away with Lucky. Daddy was still at the house talking on his cell phone to his court clerk back in Eden. Mama had taken her camera and gone off on her own right after breakfast.

  “Did you know that Mama used to write poems?” I asked.

  “Sure. She used to make up rhymes for me when I was little.” Shyla poured more tanning lotion onto her legs and rubbed it in. A couple of girls in skimpy bikinis ran by.

  “How come you know all this stuff about her and I don’t?”

  “I don’t know, Phoebe. It’s not a big conspiracy or anything.” She handed me the lotion and turned her back so I could smooth some on. “It doesn’t matter anyway.”

  “Yes, it does.” I finished oiling my sister up and handed her back the lotion. “I want to know everything about her. Mama never tells me anything about herself.”

  Shyla propped herself up on her elbows and pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head. “Some of it is pretty sad.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, once she told me about the year she was eight. She changed schools right before Valentine’s Day, and she was the only kid in the class who went home without a valentine.”

  “That stinks. The teacher should have done something.”

  “No kidding. But that wasn’t the worst. Remember my freshman year, when Mama and I drove all the way to Dallas to buy my dress for the Snow Ball?”

  “I remember. Zane and I were jealous because we had to stay home.”

  “On the way back Mama told me how happy she was that I was going to the dance, because in all her high school years she’d never once been asked out. The night of her senior prom, while the other girls were posing for pictures in their formal dresses, Mama was home alone, watching TV in her sweatpants.”

  “Wow. I didn’t know that.” I remembered how happy Mama had been the day we shopped for my Snow Ball dress, and I realized that when my mother looked at me, she saw a chance to do over the parts of her life that had turned out all wrong.

  Shyla flopped onto her stomach. “Mama can be difficult, but she loves us more than anything. Try to be patient with her.”

  “I do try, but she’s always pushing me to make decisions I’m not ready to make. I’m only fifteen and I’m supposed to have my entire life planned
out. What’s the big hurry?”

  “I think she’s afraid of dying before you grow up, and she wants to know you’re going to be okay.”

  “That’s not a bad analysis, Shyla,” Mama said from behind us. She dropped to her knees and peered inside our umbrella. “If law school doesn’t work out, you can switch to psychology.”

  Shyla rolled over and sat up. “Mama, I’m sorry. I was just—”

  “It’s all right,” Mama said, motioning with her camera. “Can I come in?”

  “Sure.” I scooted over to make room for her on my towel.

  Shyla said, “You want a soda or something?”

  “Not right now.” Mama drew her sweater around her shoulders. “I’m a bit chilly.”

  She took my face in her hands. “Your sister is right, Phoebe. I do worry that if I go too soon, if I’m not here to guide you, you’ll make the wrong choices and spend your life regretting it. That’s the thing I fear, more than I fear dying.”

  “But you’re getting better,” I said. “You aren’t going anywhere for a long time.”

  “No guarantees,” Mama said.

  “Nobody gets a guarantee,” Shyla said. “I’ve got everything all planned out, but I could fail the law school entrance exam or get run over by a bus. But I promise you, Mama, if anything happened to you, I’d help Dad look after Phoebe. Zane, too. Don’t worry about us.”

  “Yeah, Mama,” I said. “Don’t worry about us. We’re Trasks.”

  Mama nodded like she didn’t trust herself to speak. Then she looked at her watch and said, “My goodness, look at the time. Your daddy will be wondering where we are.”

  We shook the sand off our beach towels, packed up our stuff, and went back to the house.

  Daddy and Zane were outside on the deck, grilling burgers on the old hibachi we’d had since I was a baby. Lucky was lying as close to the grill as he dared, hoping a burger would fall his way.

  “Hey, girls,” Daddy called as we crossed the dunes, Mama in the lead. “How’s the beach today?”

  “Great,” Shyla said. “I like coming here in April. It’s less crowded.”