Текст книги "What I Thought Was True"
Автор книги: Huntley Fitzpatrick
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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 23 страниц)
Chapter Eleven
“I was hoping it would just be us,” Viv mutters, after Grandpa Ben has squeezed between the front seats for a second time to adjust the radio to FBAC, “Your Station for the Best in Nostalgia.”
Grandpa’s drumming his fingers on the window, singing loudly to “The Way You Look Tonight,” with Emory gamely echoing him, “The way your smile just BEAMS . . . The way you haunt my DREAMS.” Both of them are beaming themselves, identical big-toothed grins. I try to shake off guilty resentment that they’re tagging along.
Yesterday was the longest day in history. I need girl-time with Viv. So I baked brownies early this morning with that sole purpose. My plan was to ply her with sweets at Abenaki Beach and get to the bottom of the ring thing. Viv will spill—I just need to get her alone.
But just as she was about to gun her mom’s car, Grandpa bounded down the steps with Emory, a large cooler (which I knew from bitter experience would hold a variety of highly idiosyncratic Grandpa Ben items), and a new(ish) metal detector slung jauntily over his shoulder.
“I feel lucky!” he announces now as we rocket down the hill to Abenaki, seemingly unperturbed by Vivien’s violent swerve to avoid an abandoned Razor scooter lying in the middle of the road, as though it had been tossed there by the tide. “Today, we make our fortune.” He brandishes the detector out the window.
* * *
Vivie and I sit on the short, silvery wooden pier, looking out at the ocean. It’s scattered with sailboats, spinnakers billowing. Grandpa Ben hunts for treasure on the wide sandy beach. Em sits cross-legged, totally preoccupied with a bucket of water and a shovel. I love this about him—that when he concentrates on one thing, the rest of the world fades away.
He’s wearing, as always, a Coast Guard–approved life jacket. Despite that, I keep clutching at the back of his T-shirt, or the elastic of his shorts when he bends over too far or tries to peer over the rim of the pier. I’ve had so many nightmares involving the top of his head disappearing beneath the whirling waves.
Particularly ominous today, the sky is gun-metal gray and the water correspondingly dark. Not the best for sunbathing, which is why we’re on the warm wood of the pier rather than the chilly sand. The occasional sun shooting out around the clouds is heated, but there’s a breeze whipping straight off the water and right into us.
Emory upends his shovel full of icy water onto my leg, making me gasp. “Em, no!”
He smiles at me, scoops, pours out another chilly trickle.
Viv stretches drowsily, her skin already lightly golden against the graying wood of the pier, her small spattering of freckles looking as though someone flicked a paintbrush over her nose. Nic calls it her “constellation” and is always pretending to discover new shapes in it, tracing them with a finger.
“Nic was so tense after catering. I had to drive him out to the bird sanctuary to . . . calm him down.” She points her toes, stretching further, then scoops her fingers around her instep, lengthening the stretch with a balletic grace.
“Uh-huh. My cousin, the ornithologist. I’m sure the binoculars got a lot of use.”
“Well . . . it is secluded there.” Her slightly wicked private smile overtakes the sweet and innocent one she uses in public. “Just Nic, me, and that crime-scene tape they use to keep us from disturbing the piping plovers’ mating season.”
“You, Nic, and the plovers doing the dance as old as time.” I start giggling. She lets go of her foot and gives my hip a gentle shove.
“It’s not like we can snuggle up in the bedroom Nic shares with Grandpa Ben and Emory.” She looks down at the tossing gray-green water, worrying her bottom lip, waxy with cherry ChapStick. The only thing Nic ever complains about with Viv is her addiction to that and sticky, flavored lip gloss. “I was probably more stressed than Nic, anyway.”
“Any reason why?” Without looking at her, I dip my finger in Em’s bucket, trace a circular shape on a wood slat, press my thumb down in a diamond shape, a subliminal suggestion.
She takes a deep breath, opens her mouth as though she’s going to say something, then closes it again. “Nothing big,” she says finally. “Just . . . you know . . . Al . . . being all up in my face about forgetting to make sure everybody’s water glasses were full and so on.”
That makes me think of Spence’s dickish “team tradition” comment. “Did Nic tell you—”
“Nic always tells me to just blow him off,” Viv says. “And he’s right. So my stepfather is the poster child for Type A. Doesn’t mean I have to be the same. Even if I am taking over the biz when Al and Mom retire.”
“Yeah, about that,” I say. “You’re not an indentured servant in medieval times. You don’t have to be the heir to the throne at Almeida’s.” Dipping my finger into the bucket again, I write my name in cursive. Emory watches me, then writes curves and loops himself, but they don’t spell anything.
Viv shakes her head, her brow smoothing out again. “Aah, Gwenners, you know me. Not a brainiac like you. I couldn’t care less about college. Seems like a waste of time, considering the grades I get. It’s good to know where I’m going to be instead of flailing around looking for my place in the world. I’m lucky.” She sounds so cheerful at the prospect of spending the rest of her life putting together Dockside Delight picnic baskets and clam boils. That’s the thing about Viv—whenever Nic and I tip into glass half-empty, she can nudge us back to half-full—and the waiter will be along any minute to fill it to the brim. “Plus, I rock at management. Look at me with Nic.”
“Yeah, you’ve totally whipped that guy into shape. At least ten percent of the time he’s on time. Sometimes even wearing a clean shirt.”
“I like him without the shirt,” Viv says.
“Keep your twisted perversions to yourself.”
She laughs, sits up, and pulls the cooler closer, flipping open the lid. “Don’t try to pretend you don’t share that one, babe. I’ve watched you at meets, and whatever else you might say about Cassidy Somers, you can’t deny his assets there. That? The boy does well.”
I flush. Viv’s instantly contrite. “Sorry. I know you don’t want to talk about him. Think about him. Or whatever.”
“Just because you and my cousin have mated for life doesn’t mean I have to,” I say.
Viv raises her eyebrows. “I was just talking about noticing when someone was cute. You’re the one going straight from shirtlessness to mating. Interesting.”
“Stop it. Don’t go making me and Cass into you and Nic. Clearly, that’s not what’s going on here.”
“And that would be . . . ?” she asks, burrowing into the cooler, then making a face. “Goat cheese? Not in the mood. Is there a mood for goat cheese?”
I take the cooler from her, rustle around to find the foil-wrapped brownies, pass them to her. She puts her hand on her heart, mock sighing with relief.
“Maybe I’m just not the kind of girl who—”
Viv shakes her head at me. “Shit. Stop. I hate it when you do that. It’s not like you’re Spencer Channing with his five girls in the hot tub at once.”
“Is that story even true? Because when you think about it, it sounds like a ton of work. You’d have to feed them and talk to them and find a way to entertain the girls who’re waiting while you’re busy with one or two—”
“Right—so they don’t leave or . . . or molest the pool boy out of sheer boredom,” Vivie continues, smiling.
“Yeah, you’re getting tired . . .” I add.
“It’s more work than you expected,” she sighs, brushing chocolate off her fingers.
“Makes a great rumor . . .” I say. “Not much fun in action.”
She looks down at her hands, her face going serious. “Speaking of action . . . Gwen . . . do you think Nic really wants the Coast Guard? Or it’s just . . . an escape fantasy? Like touring around the state painting houses this summer, when he’s really better off working steady right here. Have you seen the things those Coasties do? They’re freaking Navy Seals. If he gets into the academy, that’ll be Nicky . . . all that stuff with helicopters and tow ropes. Why not just take a sensible job, like at Almeida’s?”
I try to imagine Nic going into the flower-arranging and food service business, for real. It’s so much easier to picture him dangling fifty feet above the churning ocean during a hurricane.
I’m distracted by something far out to sea. Moving. Bobbing. A seal?
We don’t see them often around here. The water’s too choppy—cold and unpredictable even at the height of summer, and there aren’t enough rocks. Straightening up and squinting harder, I follow the motion. Whatever it is disappears under the water with a flick of surf. A cormorant? No, no long neck.
I nudge Vivien, who has rested her cheek on her knees and closed her eyes. “What’s that?”
“Oh God, not a shark!”
Three summers ago, a great white was seen off the coast of Seashell and Vivie, traumatized by Shark Week on Discovery Channel when she was little, has lived in terror of becoming the star of the next episode of Mauled! ever since.
Whatever it is bobs back up again.
“No fin,” I report. “Besides, it’s moving up and down, not gliding menacingly forward, ready to leap onto the dock and have you for dinner.”
“Don’t even joke about that.” Vivien shields her eyes with her fingers. “Not a shark. Just some crazy person who doesn’t mind being shark bait.”
We watch in silence as the head rounds the breakwater, coming our way. Now I can see brown shoulders glisten in the sun, arms pumping rhythmically. A man. Or a boy.
“Today’s Nic’s and my four-month anniversary,” Vivien says absently, still staring at the water.
“Five months? Try twelve years. I was the one who married the two of you when you were five.”
One glimpse of Vivien’s downcast eyes and the slight smile playing at her lips and I get it. Right. Five months since they’ve been doing it.
“Nic’s taking me to the White House restaurant. What do you think I should wear?” Vivien answers herself: “My navy sundress. I know Nic likes it. He couldn’t keep his hands off me last time I wore it.”
The swimmer has reached the dock and as I watch, he disappears while climbing the ladder, then, at the top, plants his hands flat on the slats, and swings his legs to the side, the way Olympic gymnasts vault over the horse. Then he stands up, shaking his hair out of his eyes.
“Hey—yet again—Gwen. Hi, Vivien. What’s up, Emory?” Cass peers down at Em, then over at me.
Emory smiles at him before returning his attention to his bucket of water, now mostly empty. He leans over toward the ocean and I snatch at his life jacket.
Vivien straightens, hugging her knees to her chest, scanning Cass’s face, then mine.
“Need a refill?” He reaches for the bucket but holds his hand away from it slightly, waiting for Emory to decide.
Em tilts his head and then scrapes the bucket across the dock toward Cass. I gaze at the horizon, at a band of cormorants drying their wings on the breakwater. After ducking the bucket full again, Cass stands over me, little drops of water glinting in the sun across his chest, then dripping from his hair and the bottom of his suit onto me. He points to Emory’s life jacket. “He’s still learning to swim?”
“He doesn’t know how. At all,” I say shortly.
“Never had lessons?”
“He had some water therapy when he was really little—at the Y—it freaked him out. Nic and I have both tried doing it here but it never took. I—” I cut off before I can tell him Emory’s entire life story.
“I bet I can do it. Teach him,” Cass says casually. “I worked at this camp, Lend a Hand, as an assistant counselor last year. That was my job, helping the”—he makes air quotes—“‘reluctant swimmers.’”
I squint at his face. “Think you’ll have time for that? They keep the yard boy hopping around here. Old Mrs. Partridge alone is a full-time job.”
Cass grins, dimples grooving deep. I suppress a strange urge to dip my fingers into them. “She called me over at the end of the day Friday to tell me I’d done her yard all wrong. Again. That I was supposed to do it ‘vertically.’ But you were there, right? That isn’t what she said.”
“She’ll switch directions on you every time. That’s what Mrs. Partridge does with whoever’s the current Jose. You’ll get used to it.”
“The current Jose.” Cass turns the phrase over. “I’m not sure I’m down with being ‘the current Jose.’ Sounds like the flavor of the month.” He flips his wet hair out of his eyes again, scattering drops on me, then lowers his voice. “I’ve only put in two days, still getting my rhythm going here, learning the ropes . . . you know. But this place has gotten . . . a little crazy, hasn’t it?”
“It always was, Cass.” I shield my eyes and peek up at him through the fence of my fingers.
“That’s not the way I remember it. I mean, sure, there were always people like Mrs. Partridge, I guess. Yelling at us to get off their lawn and not pop wheelies on the speed bumps.”
“Not people like her. Her. She’s a Seashell trad—” I stop, swallow. “She’s been here forever.”
“Really? I don’t remember her at all. She doesn’t seem to know me either.”
Clear as day, I can see Cass, age eight, leaping off this same pier on so many summer afternoons with the sky dark like the one today—skinny shoulder blades, gangly legs, fluffy flyaway hair, skinned elbows, barnacle-scraped knees. Not exactly what’s standing here now. All that tan skin.
“You’ve changed a bit.”
Emory chooses this moment to dump more cold water down my swimsuit.
Cass’s lips twitch, he ducks his head like he wants to say something but rules it out. “For real, though . . . Part of my job is to rake the beach. Every other day,” he continues. “Get the rocks and seaweed off during low tide. Nuts, since it all rolls back in with high tide.”
“Oh, I know!” I say. “Crazy, right? I wonder what it’s like to be so rich you expect nature to cooperate with you. That you can just hire someone to fix it.”
As soon as I say this I feel stupid. Remember who you’re talking to, Gwen. The crown prince of Somers Sails.
“Look, why don’t we just try a starter lesson? See if it plays at all?”
Emory dumps some water on Cass’s leg. It slides smoothly down the muscles of his calf. I close my eyes, open them to see Cass watching my face intently.
“You mean in exchange for the tutoring?” I hurry to ask.
“No,” he says. “That would be a whole separate deal.”
“What tutoring?” Vivien intercedes, firing me a “you didn’t tell me this!” look. Which I return in spades. In my case, we’re talking a few summer evenings. In hers, a lifetime commitment.
“Gwen agreed to help me get back on track in English.” He reaches for Em’s again-empty bucket, heading down the steps for a refill. Which means his voice is muffled as he adds, “You can’t put it off forever, Gwen. We need to figure out logistics.”
He comes back up, hands the bucket to my brother, then stands there for a second, looking at me. “As in your place or mine?”
A horn blasts from the parking lot. Vivien’s eyebrows shoot up.
“Gotta go. Let me know where, okay?” He slides by me, pulls a red towel I hadn’t noticed before off the slats of the pier. He cracks the towel into the wind, wraps it around his waist, then tosses over his shoulder: “Decide about the swim lessons. I may be no genius in Lit 2, but that I can do.”
Okay, I watch him go. The whole length of the pier and then into the beach parking lot, where Spence Channing’s convertible is idling like a big silver shark. How long has he been there?
A long low whistle and Vivien is fanning her face, then mine. “Whew. Is it hot here or is it just me?”
“There’s going to be a whole season of this.” I open the cooler, peer into it and finally fish out a granola bar for Emory, rather than . . . a can of sardines or a cantaloupe. “What the hell will I do?”
“That Avoid Him At All Costs plan of yours? I’m not sure he signed off on it.” Vivien tilts her head, staring into the parking lot as the car backs up and surges forward, too fast, of course, because it’s Spence and rules don’t apply to him. “Maybe you should give him another chance?”
“You were the one who told me to watch out!”
“I know.” She hunches her shoulders, shivering a little as another chilly breeze comes off the water. “It’s just maybe . . . maybe you’re watching out for the wrong things.”
Chapter Twelve
Mom catches Nic and me before we head out the door Monday morning. “Did Mrs. E. talk about how often she’s going to pay, Gwen? It would help a lot if I knew if it was every week or every two. And what about you, Nico? Marco and Tony still pay by the job? And did Almeida’s give you some at the end of the night, or . . .”
Nic and I look at each other. A barrage of money questions first thing in the morning can’t be a good thing.
“Like always, Aunt Luce. They bill the houses and then the owners send the checks. But Almeida’s paid.” He heads back into his room, returning with a roll of bills neatly wrapped in an elastic band. “Yours is in here too, Gwenners.”
I reach out my hand, but Mom’s faster. She takes the bills and begins leafing through them, her lips moving as she silently adds the denominations. Finally, she gives a satisfied nod, divides the money carefully in thirds, returning some to Nic, some to me, slipping the rest into her purse.
“Anything wrong, Mom?”
She blinks rapidly, which, if she were a poker player, would be her tell. “Nothing,” she says finally.
“Sure, Aunt Luce?” Nic asks, tapping each of his shoulders in turn. “Broad shoulders. Ready to listen. Man of the house and all that.”
Mom ruffles his hair. “No worries, Nico.”
Once she leaves, Nic and I have only to exchange a glance. “Damn, what now?” he says.
I shake my head. “If she starts taking in laundry, we’ll know something’s up.”
Taking in extra is what happened last winter when the hot water heater melted down, the Bronco needed brake work, and Emory needed an orthotic lift in one of his shoes because one leg is slightly shorter than the other. Grandpa Ben also began spending a lot more time at bingo nights, honing his card shark skills.
“Shit.” Nic rubs his forehead. “I don’t want to think about this. I just want to think about food and sex and swimming and sex and lifting and sex.”
“You’re so well-rounded.” I whack him on the shoulder with a box of Cheerios.
“I’m not supposed to be well-rounded,” he says, through a mouthful of last night’s leftover pasta. “Neither are you. And cuz . . . you can’t tell me you don’t think about it.”
“I don’t think about it,” I answer resolutely, concentrating very hard on pouring milk into my cereal.
Nic snorts.
We look up as the screen door squeaks open to see Dad standing there. He looks pissed off and for a second I’m afraid he overheard our conversation. Not a story he needs to know.
But then he drops his aged khaki laundry duffel inside the door, kicking it to the side wall with one foot. “Screen door’s still broken,” he mutters, scowling.
Nic fixes Dad with a stare, then returns his attention to the steady movement of his fork.
“Top step to the porch is rotting out too,” Dad says. “Fix it, Nicolas. Like I told you last time. Ben could put a foot through that. Or Emory, the state it’s in. A man takes care of his family.”
“Or he just bails on everyone,” Nic mumbles without looking up from texting on his cell. Grandpa Ben, coming in, fresh from the outdoor shower, sprig of lavender in hand to put under Vovó’s picture, gives Nic a warning glance, shakes his head. Dad is slightly deaf in one ear, but not immune to tone.
“What was that?” he asks, plunging his index finger into his ear. “What did you just say to me?”
“I said I’ll get to it, Uncle Mike.” Nic forks up the last of the pasta.
“Told you about it last month, Nico.” Dad grabs his bag again, dumps his laundry out on the kitchen floor near the washing machine in the closet. “A man tends to his own.”
My cousin scrapes back his chair, rolls his shoulders back, stretching, then clangs the plate into the sink. “Going to work. Then Vee’s. I’ll be back late.” He directs his eyes only to me and Grandpa.
“Too hard on the boy, Mike,” Grandpa says in the silence that follows the clap of the screen door.
“He’s not a boy anymore. He should be thinking first about pulling his weight, not lifting those.” Dad points to Nic’s dumbbells. “Where’s Luce?”
“Where is she always?” Managing to look dignified despite the towel wrap, Grandpa heads for the refrigerator. He takes out a grapefruit, setting it on the cutting board. “Working.”
Brows lowering, Dad looks at him sharply, but Ben’s face is innocent as the cherubs painted on the ceiling at St. Anthony’s.
Dad says, “You get a hammer and some wood glue, I can fix that door right now.”
“Why aren’t you after me to fix it, Dad? The ability to hammer a nail isn’t just for Y chromosomes.”
“Like I said, it’s the job of the man of the house.”
Grandpa draws himself up straighter, clears his throat.
“The young man of the house. You’ve fixed your fair share of doors, Ben. No one’s taking that away from you.” Dad reaches for the hammer I’ve pulled from the tool kit in the kitchen closet.
He gets the door fixed in about twenty seconds, all the better to slam it slightly when he leaves a few minutes later.
What was that about? I’m not even sure who provoked who more. Grandpa Ben reaches over and pats me on the shoulder. “Seja gentil, Guinevere. By Nico’s age, Mike owned a business, was about to be a father, pai.”
His dark brown eyes look old, watery, full of too much sorrow. “Then with two little babies. He didn’t have much chance for horsing around.”
I know every child of divorced parents is supposed to secretly hope their parents fall back in love and reunite. But I never have. Dad’s leaving removed a buzzing tension from the house, like a downed wire that might be harmless but could suddenly shock you senseless if you tripped over it. Grandpa Ben, Mom, Nic, me, Em . . . we’re peaceful together. É fácil ser gentil. Easy to be kind.
* * *
The Ellington house is eerily quiet when I arrive. I knock on the door, tentatively call “Hello!” but am met by nothing but silence. Do I just march in?
After several minutes of knocking, I kick off my shoes, head into the kitchen. The teakettle’s whistling on the stove, there are breakfast dishes on the table, a chair pushed back. But no sign of Mrs. E.
She’s not on the porch. Not in the living room or any of the downstairs rooms. Now I’m starting to panic. It’s my first day and I’ve already lost my employer. Did she go off to the beach alone? I’m right on time . . . wouldn’t she be expecting me?
Then I hear a crash from upstairs, along with a groan.
I take the steps two at a time, panic rushing up as fast as I do, calling Mrs. E.’s name.
“In here, dear,” she calls from a room at the back corner of the house, following that up with what sounds like a muffled curse.
I dash into the room to find her sprawled on the floor in front of a huge open closet door, covered with dresses and skirts and shirts. Seeing me, she lifts a hand in greeting and gives an embarrassed shrug.
“Guinevere, I must say, I am not enjoying being incapacitated! I was reaching for my beach hat with my cane, overbalanced, and took half the closet down with me. Just trying to get a hat. How I shall contrive to change into my bathing suit, I cannot imagine. And the ladies will be here any minute.”
I take her hand and try to pull her to her feet, but she’s too wobbly for that to work. Finally, I have to put a hand under each arm, haul her upright.
“Dear me,” she mutters, swaying, “this is pure bother. I’m so sorry, dear Gwen. How undignified!”
I assure her it’s fine and, limping, she makes her way slowly to a green-and-white sofa in the corner of the room. I walk behind her, which is awkward because she keeps stopping, so I bump into her back three times in the short distance. Luckily, she gives a low chuckle instead of getting angry or falling over again and breaking her hip. Reaching the couch, she sits down heavily, grimacing and rotating her ankle, shoving aside a big green leather case. It’s flipped open to reveal what looks like our junk drawer at home crossed with Pirates of the Caribbean—a crazy tumble of diamond rings, pearl necklaces, gold chains, silver bracelets, coral pins, an emerald necklace. I can’t help noticing this enormous diamond, so large, square, gleamingly clear that it reminds me of an ice cube. That thing could choke a pony. I would be afraid even to touch it. What would it be like to be so used to priceless things that you don’t set them carefully against the velvet, just toss them in like we do to the jumble of pens that don’t work, takeout flyers, flashlights, Grandpa Ben’s old pipes, discarded plastic action figures of Emory’s?
Mrs. E. gives another little groan, rubbing her ankle with a grimace.
“Should I get some ice—for your ankle? Or something to rest it on? Are you okay?”
She reaches out to pat my cheek. “My dignity is slightly sprained, but I shall recover. My wardrobe is in far more need of assistance than I—” She jabs her cane in the direction of the spill of clothing. “If you would be so kind?”
Rehanging the closet is like traveling through time—there are sequined dresses and wild seventies prints, sheaths Audrey Hepburn could have worn to Tiffany’s, full-skirted, tight-waisted outfits, bell-bottomed pants. Mrs. E. has evidently never parted with a single outfit. I have a flash of an image of her trying them on in front of the mirror like an aging little girl playing dress-up. When I finally rehang the last of them, I turn around to find her completely nude.
Before I can stop myself, I let out a little screech. Mrs. E., who was bending over, picking something up off the floor, sways and nearly falls. I rush over to steady her, and then don’t know where to grab hold. Luckily, she catches herself on the arm of the couch as I wave my hands ineffectually behind her.
“Gwen, dear,” she says serenely, stretching out her wrist, from which a black bathing suit is dangling. “I fear I am going to require your assistance here.”
This is not how I imagined my first day at work. Flipping burgers, sprinkling jimmies, and frying shrimp is looking really good. Or weed-whacking. Or simply hijacking one of the lawn mowers and getting the hell off island.
“Close your eyes, dear,” Mrs. E. says briskly, possibly seeing me visibly brace myself. Her own eyes look sad.
I squeeze them shut, then immediately realize I actually have to see what I’m doing in order to pull black spandex onto an octogenarian with a broken foot and a cane.
So, okay, I’m not that comfortable with my own body. Who would be when their best friend is Vivie the Cheerleader? When their school job is timing for a bunch of buff boys in Speedos? When your mom marks time by saying things like, “That was before I was such a blimp”?
But this takes body consciousness to a whole new level.
I’m bending over, yanking the suit over her soft, blue-veined calves, when she makes a little sound.
“Am I hurting you?” Oh God. I should have stayed at Castle’s, should have scrubbed toilets with Mom, should have. . . .
“No, no, dear girl, it’s just that after a certain age, one barely recognizes oneself. Especially in a state of undress. It’s rather like the portrait of Dorian Gray, if he were female and wore a swimming suit.”
“Yoo-hoo!” calls a voice from downstairs.
“That will be the ladies,” Mrs. Ellington says, a bit breathlessly, as I tug the swimsuit over her hips. “Go let them in. I believe I can manage from here.”
I open the door to find Big Mrs. McCloud, as she’s always called on Seashell (her daughter-in-law is Little Mrs. McCloud), Avis King, Mrs. Cole, as always clutching her tiny terrier Phelps like a purse, and, surprisingly, Beth McHenry, who used to work with Mom cleaning houses until she retired. They’re all wearing straw hats, sunglasses, and bathing suits. Among the ladies, there are no cover-ups, no sarongs, just brightly flowered suits with skirts, freckled skin that’s seen a lot of sun, wrinkles, and what Mom would call “jiggly bits.” I didn’t imagine my day would involve so many octogenarians in swimwear, but it’s kind of nice to see it all displayed so proudly. I usually wrap a towel around my waist when I’m in my suit in public. Avis King, who is built like an iceberg—small head, ever widening body—marches in first.
“Where’s Rose?” she growls, sounding like Harvey Fierstein with bronchitis. “Don’t tell me she’s still asleep! It’s high tide and perfect weather.” She looks me up and down critically. “Lucia’s gal, am I right? You’re the one hired to be her keeper this summer. Ridiculous waste of money, I say.”
Keeper?
“Hello, Gwen!” Beth McHenry says, smiling at me, then furrowing her brows at Avis King. “Lordy, Avis. Rose did get a concussion just a week ago. Henry’s only being careful.”
“Pish. Just because Rose has a few memory lapses and a bum foot!” Mrs. McCloud pronounces. “Twice last week I hunted for my reading glasses when they were on my head, and put my car keys away in a box of saltines. No one’s hiring me a watchdog.”
“I’d like to see them try,” Mrs. Cole murmurs in her sweet voice.
“Typical of Henry Ellington, though. Just like his father. Won’t come take care of the situation himself, hires other people to do it.” Avis King shakes her head. “How can you possibly know you’ve got good help unless you look them straight in the eye and interview them yourself? Any fool knows that.”
Help? My shorts and gray T-shirt suddenly morph into one of those black dresses with the ruffly white aprons servants wear in Grandpa Ben’s movies. I resist the urge to bob a curtsy.
Then I hear the slow thump and drag of Mrs. Ellington descending the stairs and hurry to reach her, but before I can, she appears in the doorway, smiling at her friends. “Shall we move on, girls, before the tide turns? Come, Gwen!”
* * *
After the beach, the ladies scatter, Mrs. E. lunches and naps. Then asks me to read her a book, and hands me—I swear to God—something called The Shameless Sultan.
Yup. Whatever else it may be, calm, quiet, well-ordered, lucrative . . . apparently the Ellington house is not going to be a refuge from the overdeveloped muscles and half-naked torsos that decorate most of the books at home.
