by Regina Doman
It used to be so much easier to please her dad, she thought. Back when Mom was alive, back when she was the oldest of a smaller family. She remembered her dad boasting to his friends about how capable she was, just because she had learned to set the table when she was five. She used to run to him when he came home, eager to tell him what she had accomplished, and he had always seemed interested and happy. And even after Mom had died when she was a young teenager, he used to be so grateful to come home and find the table set and dinner made. But now, he was always preoccupied and distant, and coldly judgmental when she failed—
Why bother pleasing someone like that? she told herself angrily. I’m not even going to try.
That night Taren wore her brown suede dress, to the envy of all the girls. However, as Prisca admitted, not all of them could have fit into a dress like that. And now that Taren and Rachel had their own dresses, there were two more dresses to go around.
Rachel, in her navy blue skimmer, took it upon herself that night to find something to suit Melanie. She had noticed that Melanie, alone, always wore the print cotton bridesmaid’s dress from Sallie and Dad’s wedding. “Let’s try something more grown-up,” she suggested, and gave Melanie the white sheath dress to put on, and her younger sister obeyed.
“I really like wearing dresses with sleeves,” Melanie objected. “I’m always cold.”
“Oh, come on. Try this one once. Just for me,” Rachel coaxed. When Melanie stood awkwardly in front of her in the slim white dress, Rachel adjusted her shoulders and said, “We’ve got to do something with your hair.”
“Do we?” Melanie asked, fingering her tousled long honey-blond hair. “I like it down.”
“Yes, but you look so young!” Rachel explained.
“Well, I am young.”
“Let’s just try it this way, for once,” Rachel begged. She longed to see her younger stepsister sparkling and vibrant and attractive, and Melanie reluctantly agreed to the makeover.
Rachel piled Melanie’s hair on top of her head and skewered it with bobby pins. Then she wound a scarf around it. “That’s just for the boat,” she informed Melanie, “so that it won’t blow all over the place. There! I wish you could see yourself. How do you feel?”
“Cold,” Melanie confessed, hugging her bare arms and trying to smile.
“Oh, get her a sweater and stop fussing with her,” Tammy said, irritably. “She’s always complaining about being cold.”
“I’ll choose a sweater,” Rachel said, and found a white one with lacy knit sleeves. “Maybe not the best match in the sunlight, but in the moonlight—perfect!”
Melanie put on the sweater, but she still shivered. Rachel shepherded her down to the beach. “The boys will be here soon.”
The boats arrived, and Rachel was impatient to get going immediately. But not all the girls were ready, and the guys liked to stand on the beach and chat, so she indulged them while the boats bobbed up and down in the water beneath the willows.
As soon as she could politely do so, she suggested they leave. All the girls were agreed that tonight they would all go to the island.
“Just so long as no one’s home,” Taylor said dubiously.
“We can check,” Rachel said lightly. “No one seemed to mind us being there last night.”
“But that was only one boat. If someone was there, they might not care about that. But what are they going to think when they see three boats?” Taylor objected.
Rachel was glad she had left him to Cheryl—he was being a stick-in-the-mud. “Taylor,” Rachel said playfully, “can’t you live it up a little every once in a while?”
He grumbled, but when the other guys started teasing him, he relented, and the party got into the boats.
In the sloshing of the boarding, Alan’s boat bumped against Keith’s, splashing Prisca, who exclaimed. “There goes my mascara!”
“I just stepped on someone’s foot,” Debbie informed them in the darkness of the boat beneath the trees.
“Do you hear anyone complaining?” Rachel said, a little sharply.
“No. That’s why I said something. And I can’t find any place to sit. There’s no room back here.”
“Just move a bit of that canvas and sit squished next to me,” Rachel said, situating herself.
Alan turned on the engine and the boat slowly motored out into the bay.
The moon was at a half. Rachel breathed a deep sigh. Perhaps by the next full moon, she would have made the midnight butterfly dress, as she thought of it fondly. She looked over at her sister Melanie. The transformation she had hoped for had not occurred. Melanie wasn’t sparkling—in fact, she looked deadened in the pale light, gray and colorless, shivering in the thin short dress, somehow less than her buoyant self. She actually would have looked better in the print bridesmaid’s dress she usually wore.
Rachel felt a twinge of disappointment. Perhaps Melanie was too much a child of the sunshine, she decided. She wasn’t at home in the night.
Like I am, she thought to herself. The night is almost my real self.
Prisca also seemed to be more herself at nighttime. The strong colors of night makeup highlighted Prisca’s already dark coloring, and made her eyes darker, her lips redder. Right now, she was wearing a red knit tank dress, which looked good on her, accentuated her full figure. But there was something about Prisca that bothered Rachel. She was almost too jumpy and eager, too unsubtle. Rich seemed to be able to tell. Like most of the church guys, Rachel noted, he seemed to hang around Prisca but seemed uncomfortable being close to her. There was an air of volatility about her that seemed to make him nervous.
Debbie was wearing a purple striped dress that Rachel had scouted out for her at Goodwill. She still seemed like a child let out to be with the grownups. Even now, she was swinging her thin brown legs carelessly.
“I wonder whose foot I stepped on,” she said. “No one said ‘ouch.’”
Rachel rolled her eyes. “Are you still going on about that?” she said.
Debbie ignored her. “Was it yours, Rich?”
Rich started and said, “No, I don’t think so.”
“I was waiting to apologize,” Debbie said. “But no one said anything. I thought I really hurt someone because it was when I jumped onto the boat.”
“Maybe it was my foot, but since you’re such a weenie I didn’t feel it,” Prisca said with some irritation.
“No,” said Debbie decidedly, “It wasn’t you. It was a big foot.”
“Then it must have been mine,” Rachel said.
“You do not have big feet,” Prisca interjected.
Rachel held up one of her size nine feet and pointed the toes. “Does that look big enough for you, Debbie?”
“No, it wasn’t yours. I stepped on the toes. I thought it was a guy’s foot,” Debbie said. “It was very strange.”
“Shut up,” Prisca said abruptly. “Alan, why are you stopping?”
Alan had cut the engine. He looked at the island. “Is there someone there?” he asked uncertainly.
“Ohh—” Rachel got up, along with the others. The boat rocked, and Rich and Prisca sat back down. “No, I don’t think so,” she said, after scrutinizing the heliport in the shadows.
“Were all those boats there last night?” he asked, pointing to the docks.
Worried, they all looked at the docks.
“Yes,” Prisca said suddenly. “There’s five boats there, just like last night. I counted.”
“Okay, just checking,” Alan said, and the engine roared to life. They soared towards the quay and soon they were docked beside it. Once again, Rachel got out first and tied up the boat. Rich jumped onto the quay and helped the other girls out.
“This is going to be perfect,” Prisca said, taking Rich’s hand and swinging onto the quay, leaning against him. “Oh my gosh! I almost fell! Sorry!”
Prisca had a small CD player with her, along with a few of her “contraband,” as she called them—CDs of pop music—that she listened
to turned down low, underneath her pillow at home.
Now she cranked the CD player as loud as it would go. “What shall I put on first?” She pulled out a CD of dance songs and slid it into the dinky machine and pushed ‘play.’
“That’s like, a state of the art sound system you’ve got there,” Alan cracked, getting out of the boat.
“Do you have something better?” Prisca asked anxiously.
“Not here.”
“Are you having a dance here or something?” Rich asked, getting the prize for the most clueless remark of the evening, so far.
“Duh! Of course!” And Prisca grabbed his arms. “Come on, dance with me.” She and Debbie started to bop around, and Rich, at first embarrassed, fell in step.
“You want to?” Alan cast a glance at Rachel, who grinned.
“Of course!”
And he took her hand, and they started dancing. Despite the tinny sound and low volume, it was just enough music to dance by.
The roar of the other boats coming to join them temporarily superseded the music. Tammy and Liddy leapt from their boat, convulsed with laughter, and jumped right into the dance. Cheryl came a bit more gingerly, but consented to dance when Taylor took her hand. Brittany struck her usual poker face and started doing the monster mash, which the young girls quickly picked up. Soon everyone was dancing.
It was glorious. The guys broke out some bottles of beer and bags of potato chips. Taren had managed to snag two six packs of soda from the family pantry, so the girls passed out sodas. They were careful to put all the bottles back on board the boat, Rachel reminding the guys that even a single smashed beer bottle would give them away. They played through all the songs on one CD and then restarted it to dance some more.
Rachel drank in the music as much as the beverages, throwing herself into the dance. As she swayed to the beat, she felt her own beauty like a barely-visible shadow, growing, blooming.
She and Prisca were dancing together when Prisca suddenly stopped, staring. “Who’s that guy?” she said.
As if by some scent in the air, everyone on the portico froze in place, while the music from the CD played on and on. All of them were staring at the figure of a young man coming slowly down the steps from the big house.
eight
Rachel’s heart was thumping against her chest. All she could think was, shoot. She didn’t want to look at Alan, because she was sure his face was as white as chalk. Something had to be done, and done quickly.
She tried to size up the young man as he came slowly down the steps. He had blond hair, gently chiseled features, eyes shadowed by the moonlight. He wore a white shirt and khaki pants with a casually studied flair.
He reached the bottom step, and stood still, watching them. Prisca sidled to the CD player, hunted for the off button, and pushed it. The music vanished, and the air was filled only with the moaning duet of wind and waves.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, and his voice came across the portico clearly, a low, resonant voice. Rachel felt a prickle in her spine.
She stepped forward, her legs trembling. “I’m sorry—” she faltered. “We didn’t think anyone was—we’re sorry for disturbing you.”
The young man studied her with shaded eyes. She could feel herself being looked at, and flushed.
“We just wanted to go someplace private to dance,” she said, “and we didn’t think anyone was here. Are you—are you—the caretaker?”
“I’m one of the owners,” he said, his voice felicitous with amusement. “This is my parents’ place.”
“Oh,” said Rachel, and felt more blood rush to her face. “We’re sorry. This is only the second time we’ve come here. We can leave right away if you want.”
Unexpectedly, he sat down on the steps and put his hands on his knees. “No, no, not at all. Go on with your dancing. I wasn’t expecting to find anyone here, but I don’t mind.”
He waved his hands. “Go on, go on.”
Prisca hesitantly turned on the music, but no one seemed to feel like dancing any more. Rachel took a long, slow look around at her fellows, and approached the figure sitting on the steps. She walked up three steps and across a length of pavement to reach the foot of the stairs, where the young man sat.
She said. “That’s very nice of you to let us stay.”
He looked up at her, his eyes tilting out of the shadow. They were blue, sharp blue. “Thank you. I like to be nice.”
“I’m Rachel Durham,” she said, since there was not much else she could think of saying.
“I’m Michael Comus,” he said, and extended his hand to her. She took it gingerly, unused to shaking hands with men, and found her hand enveloped in a warm, firm squeeze, then released. There were blond hairs on the back of his hands, and the fingers were quite long.
“Where are you from, Rachel?” he asked, stretching back and moving over to make room for her. She gingerly sat down beside him, tucking her skirt under her knees.
“My sisters and I live across the bay, on the other side of this island.”
“Sisters?” his gaze traveled over the crowded portico. “Are all these girls your sisters?”
“Yes,” she said. “I have five natural sisters, and my father married a woman with six girls, so they’re all my sisters.”
“Twelve girls,” he marveled, and looked at her. “You must be Catholics.”
“Oh! No, we’re Christians.”
A slight smile came over his face. “Your father isn’t the Colonel Durham who’s on the board of Bayside Christian Church?”
“He is,” Rachel said, nodding and pushing back her hair.
“My father knows him,” Michael said. “How old are you?”
“Eighteen. How old are you?”
“Twenty-four.”
“Oh,” she was surprised.
“Do I look younger?” he asked, amused.
“I can’t tell ages very well,” she said. He looked neither old nor young, almost timeless. She noticed his forehead was fairly high, and his eyes were set deeply in his face, giving him an aristocratic, intense look.
“Do you—spend a lot of time here?” she asked.
He smiled. “Actually, not very much at all, not any more. When I was a kid, I came here more often. Now, there’s not much to do.”
“Did you just come back tonight?”
“Today, actually. I needed some down time, and I was bored, so I came here, expecting to be even more bored. I was watching a movie with the lights off when I heard the motorboats, so I came down to investigate.”
“I’m sorry we were trespassing,” she said, after a pause.
He raised his eyebrows at her. “Why did you?”
“Well—” she flushed, and explained, “every time I went down to the bay, I would see this island and wonder what was on it. Then when we were out boating with our guy friends, I persuaded them to stop on the quay, just to see what it was like. My younger sisters wanted to have a dance party, which is why we came back here tonight.”
“I see,” he said meditatively. “So this island was a temptation for you?”
“Yes,” she admitted. “An extremely persistent temptation.”
He raised his blond brows. “Far be it from me to discourage you from giving in to temptation, Miss Durham.”
A smile touched her lips, unsure as to whether he was joking or not. He smiled at her.
“How do you know my father?” she asked.
He stretched. “My father is on the chamber of commerce, and they’ve had some run-ins with that church, and with your father. He’s one of those fundamentalist types, isn’t he?”
“Yes,” she said, with a bit of a sigh.
He pursued, “Your family must be quite strict.”
“You could say that.”
“But yet they let you girls—even the young ones—go boating on the Bay after midnight?” Michael looked at her with knitted brows and an ironic grin on his face.
Rachel had to smile. “Well, now,
they don’t exactly—”
He finished for her, “—they don’t exactly know you’re out here? Are they away?”
“No. We’ve just—we just have a way of getting out of the house that they don’t know about.”
She told him about the discovery of the secret staircase, and their expeditions out in the night. He listened attentively.
After she finished, he shook his head. “You girls have a lot of courage, going out on your own like this. Shows more spirit than I’d have expected, the way you were raised.”
“Thanks,” she said, unsure of what to say, but her face felt warm.
He looked at her. “You’re welcome to come to this quay any time you like and dance at night.”
“Really?” she asked.
“Really,” he said, smiling. “I‘m all for encouraging your spirit of adventure.”
“That’s very nice of you,” she said.
“Rachel,” he said, looking at her keenly. “I am a very nice man.”
He looked up, and Rachel saw Prisca and Tammy hovering on the edge of the landing, looking at them uncertainly.
“Please, introduce me,” he said, rising.
“Oh—certainly—” she got up, realizing how much time had gone by. She quickly said, “Michael, these are my sisters, Prisca and Tammy.”
“One from each parent, I can tell,” Michael said, shaking their hands. The younger girls were also unused to handshakes, and Rachel saw Prisca clutching her hand nervously after Michael had released it.
Michael was apparently well brought up, and used to small talk. He chatted in a friendly way with the two sisters, found out their ages and interests, and charmed them. Rachel introduced Debbie and Linette, who had come up next, their curiosity overcoming any residual shyness. It took the next thirty minutes for Michael to meet them all, the guys included.
“Is he mad at us?” Alan asked Rachel in a low voice while Michael talked with Miriam and Brittany.
