Sand Castles

by Antoinette Stockenberg

  Zina looked up at him. Her cheeks were rosy, the first color that Wendy had seen in her face. She looked astonishingly innocent, a picture of purity; she looked like one of the saints on the holy cards that her mother collected at funerals.

  But saint who? Teresa? Margaret Mary? Joan of Arc? Suddenly it seemed important for Wendy to place the face, although she had no idea why. Maybe it would help her to understand this pale enigma who had crashed her party. Maybe it was just easier to think about beautiful saints than to figure out who was telling the truth.

  Zina whispered again, "How could you do that to me, Jimmy?"

  "Do what? I've never seen you before in my life."

  A steadier stream of tears began rolling down her flushed cheek. Wendy knew—everyone knew—that there would be more. The woman was teetering on the verge of a breakdown.

  "Wendy? Wendy!" Her mother was alarmed. Wendy could see the question in her face: Do you have a plan?

  Wendy looked at her husband. He obviously had none. He was annoyed, embarrassed, even angry—but he did not have a plan.

  "I think we should call the police," Wendy announced.

  Her mother looked relieved. Jim frowned and then said sternly to Zina, "Is that what you want, miss? To be grilled by the police?"

  She shook her head quickly and said, "Jimmy, it's me—Zina! Don't you know me?"

  She sounded so plaintive, so anguished. Wendy was convinced that no one who actually knew her could have resisted comforting her. She glanced at her brother Dave, who was standing back a little way and making little noises of distress; stranger or no, Dave looked as if he was willing to take Zina in his arms on the spot.

  Jim said in a low, commanding voice that most of the company couldn't hear, "My wife is right, Zina or whoever you are. If you don't want to be held by the police, then I suggest you leave the premises right now—and quietly, please. Do not make a scene. We're in the middle of a celebration here. Now. Will you just go?"

  Jim had been reasonably polite, but Zina looked as if she'd been clubbed. Wendy knew that she would have reacted the same way. Whatever the woman's motivation had been, it was ending up in public humiliation. It couldn't be easy for her.

  Zina stood up and weaved so violently that Wendy reached out instinctively to steady her.

  Zina waved her away. "How could I have been so wrong?" she said in a low wail.

  Wendy felt a wave of relief. So the woman had been mistaken. Thank God, thank God, thank God for that. Wendy wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt—she seemed too deluded, too naive to be a con woman—so she said, "Can I walk you back to your car?"

  Zina shook her head. "No. I—oh, God," she moaned, and then she hurried away, leaving the company open-mouthed and staring.

  Chapter 15

  In front of the house and right next to the roses, some of Tyler's aunts and uncles were standing in a circle around the lady in the blue dress again, the same as after she fainted. This time Tyler was able to squeeze between the grown-ups for a closer look and no one even noticed. They were too busy asking the lady questions, all at the same time. Even standing up close, Tyler couldn't hear any of her answers, because her voice was so soft—and, of course, because his relatives were so loud.

  They were saying things like, "Why are you here?" and "What do you really want?" and "Who put you up to this?" They said, "You're high on something, aren't you? We will call the cops, and then we'll see how far you get. You're after his money," they said. "Just like everyone else."

  Tyler could not understand why everyone was so upset with her. She looked like an angel to him, or at least someone on the cover of a magazine. Her skin was so white compared to his mother's, and she was more slender, and her eyes were a deep, beautiful blue. They were shining, and Tyler knew that that meant she was holding back tears, just the way his mother did when his father said something mean.

  He felt sorry for the lady, standing alone in the middle of everyone; if a person wasn't used to his family and to their noisy ways, it could be pretty scary. Tyler could tell that she wanted to get to her car. But they just wouldn't let her. One thing he knew: she didn't do anything wrong. You could see it in her face, how nice she was. So why was everyone yelling at her? All she did was faint. Tyler was completely confused.

  Suddenly she shook her head, and the tears did fall then. "I never should have come here," she told Tyler's uncle Dave.

  Someone else said, "Well, it's a little late now, don't you think?"

  She nodded a bunch of times, jerky little nods, and then for some reason she looked straight at Tyler, and her eyes got big, even through her tears, and right after that she pushed past him and managed to break through the circle and reach her car. He rubbed his arm where she touched it as she squeezed past: it felt all tingly.

  She pulled out of the drive and then took off fast.

  "Take down her license number!" yelled Tyler's other Uncle David, but that was because he was a lawyer.

  No one had a pencil or a paper, so Tyler's aunt Lucille kept saying the number out loud over and over until somebody said, "Drop it, would you already? No one's planning to sue."

  They all went back through the arch in the hedge and joined the rest of the family, who seemed to be split up into quiet ones and blabby ones. Tyler's grandmother was doing the most talking; his grandfather, the least. Tyler went over and sat by his grandfather so that he wouldn't have to talk and possibly miss something important.

  He saw that his mother and his father were speaking not very loud, just to one another. His mother said something louder that sounded annoyed, and then his father said the f-word—in front of company, which he never did! Then his mother got mad and turned around and said to his uncle Frank—who looked exactly like the new star tackle for the New England Patriots—"Thanks for abandoning the grill, Frank; I suppose I can serve the cardboard and shoe leather now."

  "That's it!" said his uncle Frank, untying his apron. "I can't work in these conditions. I'm shutting down the grill."

  "Big loss," said his uncle Dave.

  His aunt Sharon, who was holding Tyler's baby cousin in her arms, kind of laughed and said to Tyler's uncle Frank, "Well, this was one of your more memorable gatherings." Then she sighed and said, "I'll see if I can move up our flight."

  Right after that, Tyler's Uncle Dave walked up to Tyler's dad and said, "You'd better be telling the truth, man, or you're dead; I don't care if you are my best friend."

  Then his other uncle David said, "You're probably going to need a lawyer, Jim. Call me at the office."

  But his great-aunt Genevieve turned right around and said, "If he needs representation, you are not going to be the one to do it. Can you imagine the scandal? I would never speak to you again."

  And Uncle David was her own son.

  After that, everyone started talking at the same time again, and Tyler couldn't make out much of anything.

  He tapped his grandfather's forearm, trying to get through to him over the chatter of his too big, too noisy, too everywhere family. "Grampa, what did Aunt Lucy mean just now when she said Mom and Dad might not be married?"

  His grandfather said, "It's nothing, Ty, just a big misunderstanding," but he hardly noticed that Tyler was even there. He was watching everyone else, just like Ty.

  Tyler's uncle Frank moved out of the way and Tyler was able to see his mother and father again. He could tell that they were getting ready to fight; he recognized the tone of their voices.

  "How did she know where to find you, anyway?" his mother said. "We've only just moved."

  "Good question," his father said. He sounded like he might know the answer but wasn't sure.

  "How was she possibly going to back up a claim like that? She would need papers, proof, that kind of thing..."

  "Anyone can forge a document," his father said.

  "Jim's right," said Aunt Lucille. "David says that you can buy any certificate you want on the Internet."

  "That doesn't make sense," his m
other said to his dad and not to Aunt Lucille. "If she was going to wave it around to blackmail you for money—okay, then I could see it. Maybe. But no one tries a stunt like that in front of a crowd. It defeats the whole purpose."

  "So maybe she's just unstable," said Tyler's Aunt Marianne. "She had a really odd look in her eye."

  Tyler didn't think so!

  His mother nodded slowly. "She did, didn't she?"

  "Yeah—like that fan of David Letterman's," his dad said. "Wasn't she basically harmless but fixated?"

  Again his mother nodded, but Tyler could see that something was bothering her. She said, "I mean, it was such a goofy ploy to try to pull off. To be married! The woman would need witnesses, friends, relatives ...."

  No one said anything. Tyler wondered whether they were thinking the same thing he was: that his own dad had no relatives. Which was so weird. Tyler had a million aunts and uncles that were related to his mom—and no one at all, not one single person, that was related to his dad. He used to ask his dad about that a lot, just to see what kind of funny answer his dad would give him. One time he said that aliens took them all in a spaceship. Another time he said, "They were all convicted as American spies; they're doing time in a Russian gulag."

  But the last time Tyler had asked, just a week ago, his dad got really mad; so from now on he was letting it drop. Some people just didn't have relatives. Anyway, his mom had enough of them for two people.

  Tyler's dad looked around and suddenly slapped his hands together, which was surprising; he never did stuff like that. He said, "Hey, let's get this shindig back on track! We're not gonna let some mental case ruin our fun. Frank! Fire that grill back up and scrape it clean. I've still got half a side of beef in the fridge; we'll start over. I'll take the orders. Okay, who's having what?"

  About that time, Tyler's mother noticed where he was sitting—with the grown-ups—and she shooed him away to the picnic tables where his cousins were stuck. He knew they'd been told they couldn't leave their places until they got permission; it was like they were all being made to sit in the corner at the same time.

  Tyler's cousin Emmy could hardly wait for him to get back. She was as far from the table as she could be and still be touching it: her toe was on the bench, and she was reaching out to Tyler, hurrying him up.

  "Is she your mother—that lady who just left?" Emmy asked, making big, dumb google eyes at him.

  "What a stupid question," Tyler said. The thought had never occurred to him, but now it did, and he hated it. "My mother is my mother."

  Tyler's oldest cousin, Justin, who was twelve, smiled evilly and said, "Maybe she is, but your dad's not her husband."

  "Yes he is!" Tyler argued.

  "No he's not, weren't you listening?" Justin said, shaking his head from side to side. He looked exactly like one of those dashboard dogs, like his head was on a spring or something.

  "I suppose I couldn't hear as good as you," Tyler told him in a quavering voice. "My ears are only half as big as yours."

  "Four eyes!"

  "Fat ears!"

  "Hey! Knock it off!" his Uncle David told them, but he was looking at Tyler, not Justin, when he said it. "Justin, come on; we're going home. Your mother feels one of her migraines coming on."

  "What about the cake?" Justin demanded.

  "Don't worry about the cake. You get plenty of cake."

  Justin's mouth turned down. He got up from the table and, dragging his hands along the top, said, "We didn't even get to go sailing, hardly. This is the crummiest birthday I've ever been to."

  "Yeah, well, you're not the only one who feels that way," said his father. "Lots of people are leaving. Let's go"

  Tyler couldn't resist saying to his cousin, "Don't worry, Justy; I'll eat your piece for you." He gave his older cousin his best, most evil smile, but inside, he felt pretty scared, even though he didn't know why.

  ****

  Zack was on the next block when he saw Zina's yellow Civic roaring away from Wendy's rented beach house and headed in his direction. Almost immediately he saw her slam on the brakes: a Siamese cat had wandered out in the street directly in her way.

  A woman rushed out into the lane from the nearest house and scooped up the cat. Even from where he was, Zack could hear her shriek at his sister, "That could have been a child, you fool!"

  Zack parked his truck on the side of the lane—fully aware that it was going to end up towed—and ran to the driver's side of Zina's car. Zina took one look at him and started rolling up the window in a pathetically insufficient attempt to shut him out of her life.

  Ignoring the neighbor still cradling her cat, Zack said, "Zee, Zee, I'm sorry. How could I tell you?"

  He was in agony at her pain. The scene was playing out so much worse than anything he'd been able to dream up on his own—and the show still wasn't over.

  Zina wouldn't look at him, wouldn't talk to him, couldn't do either if she tried: she was distraught. She tried to start her Civic, which had stalled when she braked, but she let the clutch out too fast and it stalled again.

  He stuck his arm through the half-closed window and grabbed the wheel. "Wait, I said!"

  "Go to hell!" she cried, and she burst into sobs.

  "I'll drive you home," he said wearily.

  Other neighbors had come out to gawk. One of them had his cell phone out, ready no doubt to punch 911. Zack turned to them and snarled, "Don't you have anything better to do?"

  Gently shooing his sister over to the passenger side of the Civic, he adjusted the driver's seat all the way back for the long trek home. He had spent so much time and energy worrying about Zina finding out the truth that, now that the deed was done, his thoughts and emotions began racing on to the next innocent victim in the tragedy.

  Wendy. What must she be going through now? It was almost too brutal for Zack to imagine. For her to be shocked that way in front of everyone she held dear ... but maybe there was a good side to it. He wanted to believe it. She had a big family, people she loved, after all. They would support her.

  Still, as Zack could personally, bitterly attest just then, family could be completely useless when the chips were down.

  He ripped his thoughts away from Wendy and turned back to his sister, who had stopped sobbing and was resigned to being driven home. Her head was leaning back on the headrest; her eyes were closed. Zack saw trickles of tears crossing her cheekbones and getting lost in her hair. She was absolutely silent.

  Zack would so much rather she raged.

  Odd, how Zack was able to see himself in a whole new light. Forget Machiavellian schemer; he had been giving himself too much credit for having a brilliant blackmail strategy. In retrospect, he was more like a cartoon character, wandering around holding a grenade with the pin pulled out—except that, unlike in a cartoon, there was nothing very funny about the emotional carnage he'd caused when the thing went off.

  "I'm sorry, Zee," he said, glancing back at her again. "More than you'll ever know."

  She didn't bother responding. She didn't even bother to open her eyes.

  ****

  They had the cake but skipped the candles.

  Gracie Ferro went into the pantry and personally pulled out all sixty-five of them, leaving them in a heap on a saucer. The kids who remained at the party were devastated; what good was a cake with sixty-five holes in the frosting?

  Wendy was having a hard time figuring out who was responsible for the total failure of her first big family gathering; there were so many worthy contenders. The mysterious Zina? Even now, Wendy couldn't believe she hadn't been hired by someone as a joke; it would be just like one of her idiot brothers—or all of them, working together—to do something like that.

  Her mother? Gracie Ferro had treated the day from first to last more as a wake than a celebration. Anyone would think that she had just dipped one toe into the grave. Why had she wanted the damn birthday party in the first place, if she hadn't wanted to celebrate? That was Wendy's exact question to her as t
hey argued in the kitchen.

  'To keep some control over the event," was her mother's not-so-surprising answer. "I didn't want you kids renting a hall and inviting every Tom, Dick, and Harry I've ever known."

  "Baloney," Wendy had said to that. "You just didn't want us inviting all the women from church because you've lied about your age to them, haven't you?"

  "I haven't lied about anything. But I don't see why I have to broadcast my old age to the entire congregation," her mother conceded angrily, so obviously Wendy had touched a nerve. Right after that, her mother had left.

  And then there was Jim. Always Jim. Jim with the checkered history of easy lies and convenient evasions. Jim, who could never stand to hurt anyone and got around it by telling the person whatever the person wanted to hear. Jim, who had never yet simply stepped up to the plate and said, "Yup. I did it and I'm sorry."

  Jim.

  "I don't know why you're taking this out on me," he muttered as he dumped the last of the paper plates into a black lawn bag and began compressing the air out of it. "I'm minding my own business, getting our guests—your family—some beer, and suddenly I'm face to face with some looney tune who claims to have been my wife in some parallel universe. And immediately you get this I-knew-it look on your face! God, you're a piece of work. You have the most suspicious, paranoid, jealous mind of anyone I've ever known."

  "Will you keep your voice down?" Wendy said. "We still have company, in case you haven't noticed."

  "So why the hell didn't you take them up on their offer to sleep at some of the others' houses?"

  "Because I promised them a good time, and they're going to have a good time if it kills me," she said in a low hiss, looking at the beach where the out-of-towners were keeping a polite distance from them.

  "Bullshit. You just want to show them all up because we've never had squat and now we do."

  "I'm not the show-off in this marriage! I was perfectly happy to stay in the old house. You're the one who can't spend it fast enough. You have every toy conceivable, and you're not done yet!"

  "Oh, yeah, every toy. One boat. Big deal. I guess I should have come crawling to you first for permission. Sorr-ree. Oh, yeah, I'm a big spender, all right."