“I don’t know. I mean, I think she’s having fun, but . . .”
“But what?”
“I don’t think she’s really that happy. She looked like she was still trying to find herself. With my problems, I don’t think I’d be so welcomed. What I mean is, my grandmother is probably right about her.”
“Wow.” He bounced in the water and looked at me. “Things will get better for you when you go to college and get out on your own. I’m sure.”
“I’ll tell you a secret,” I said.
“Another secret. Uh-oh.”
“No,” I said, smiling. “Nothing to do with my mother.”
“What?”
“I always wanted to go to school, be with people my age, but now that’s it going to happen . . .”
“You’re afraid?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t be. Between Claudine and me, you’ll be just fine.”
He kissed me again. I looked at Claudine. She was staring at us, but she didn’t look very happy. She looked angry again.
“Let’s go back,” I said. “I have to dry off and think about getting home.”
“Right.”
We waded in, and Claudine tossed her towel to me.
“My hair,” I said. “My grandmother saw it was wet last time.”
“We’ll stop at the house before Mason rows you back, and you’ll use my hair dryer if it’s not dry enough when we leave.”
“Thank you.”
“Come sit next to me,” she ordered, suddenly looking older. “Mason, you sit on the other side of her here. Go on.”
“What’s this?”
“Truth lessons,” she said.
“Huh?” He sat.
“Mason, since the seventh grade, have you ever looked at a girl with interest and just wanted to be friends with her like you might be with another boy?”
“What? C’mon, Claudine.”
“Answer truthfully, Mason,” she said. “You saw their little boobs, and you thought about their bodies naked, and those were the girls you really tried to get close to, right? Even back then. Well?”
I looked from her to him.
“You told me stuff, Mason, stuff I didn’t forget.”
“You’re making it sound too black-and-white,” he complained.
“For now, we have to do that for Elle, Mason.”
“She’s right,” he admitted. “The girls I was most interested in were the prettiest and the sexiest, and I wasn’t looking just to do homework with them.”
“Were you different from any other boy who reached your level of maturity, Mason?” she asked. Now she was the one sounding like a lawyer.
“No.”
“So first thing, Elle, as I have tried to tell you, is be suspicious. No boy just wants to borrow your pen or get the answer to number five on your math homework.”
“That’s not always bad, Claudine. You’re making it sound bad.”
“It’s not always bad when the boy you would like to be interested in you is the one. Just anticipate more than he will be, especially how you look,” she added.
“And why don’t you tell her how you get the boys you’re interested in to be interested in you, Claudine.”
“I will. First things first, Mason. Always beware of the boy who wants to give you something alcoholic to drink at a party or something else to, quote, make you feel good. Just tell him you already feel good.”
“Oh, like you do that,” Mason said.
“She has to be more careful, Mason. You know what we should do?”
“I can’t imagine,” he said.
“We should give her something, some X one afternoon, so she can see what it’s like.”
“C’mon, no.”
“It’s how I learned what to stay away from and what was all right,” she told me. “Mason, do you want to tell her about the first girl you had sex with and why you weren’t happy about it afterward?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Not fair. We’re supposed to be honest with her.”
He looked at me. “She’s making it sound like I’m having sex constantly. It’s not true.”
“More than most in your class. You told me.”
“Shut up.”
“Boys like to brag about what they’ve done with you, Elle, and even if they haven’t really done it, they’ll say they have if you give them the opportunity. Whether you like it or not, you’re very vulnerable, especially when other girls and other boys don’t know much about you. Whoever makes up the first story will be believed. Isn’t that right, Mason Spenser? Didn’t you get even with Pamela Thornton that way?”
“She deserved it.”
“Still, dirty pool,” Claudine said. “And you’ve shown her a little about pool.”
“The girl was making stuff up about me,” he told me. “I just got even and got her to shut up, that’s all.”
“Wasn’t that what happened with the other girl?” I asked. “The one who . . .”
“No, it wasn’t that bad. This was just silly stuff,” he said quickly.
I shook my head. “Going to school really sounds like walking through a minefield,” I said. My grandfather liked to use that expression when he talked about doing something particularly difficult.
They both looked at me and then laughed.
“Exactly,” Claudine said. “That’s exactly what it is. Especially for someone who doesn’t know anything about where to step and where not to.”
“Great, you’re frightening her again.”
“Just trying to do what I said, speed up her real education.”
“Yeah, well, why don’t we get into some of your truths, Claudine? What happened when you went out with Seth Gates last May?”
“We’re not ready for that story yet,” she said.
“Oh, sure.”
“I think I had better be getting on the way home,” I said, seeing the time on Mason’s watch and sensing that they might get into an argument.
Claudine felt my hair. “You might need my dryer. Let’s see how it is after we pack up. You know what? Keep the bathing suit on. It’s nearly dry. Put your clothes on over it.”
“Really?”
“Sure. Later, you can look at yourself in the mirror and see why Mason is having heart failure.”
“Will you shut—”
She laughed.
I smiled, but then I thought, how would I ever tell them that I wasn’t permitted to look at myself in a full-length mirror? The only one was upstairs in my grandmother’s closet.
“Please help me put my cross back on,” I asked her.
Mason grabbed it first. “I’ll do it.”
“Talk about having to bear a cross,” Claudine muttered.
She was right, of course. Someday I had to take it off and wear something more like what other people wore. Now that I thought about it and about some of what they had said, I felt a new emotion. It wasn’t fear, either.
It was anger, anger that I had to live the way I was living, that I had to be so careful, and that I had to learn the things that girls much younger than me already knew. It wasn’t fair. I wanted it to end.
Maybe I was feeling more like my mother.
14
By the time we reached their dock, I thought my hair was dry enough. I was cutting the time close anyway and couldn’t afford to take the chance of staying longer. There was always the possibility that my grandparents had come home earlier than they had anticipated, and my grandmother had begun wondering why I had stayed out in the forest or near the lake so long, despite what my grandfather had told her about artists losing their sense of time. She could even have told him to go out looking for me by now. He could walk through the forest calling my name, panic, or go to the lake and see me with the twins. That was always a fear.
When we rowed up to the place on the shore where I had boarded the rowboat, Mason insisted on helping me carry my things back to the house or close to it, even though I told him I could do it fine. I tried to contro
l my fear of walking into Grandfather Prescott searching for me so Mason wouldn’t agree with Claudine and report how I lived to their father. I sensed, however, that he wanted to take the opportunity to talk to me without Claudine present, and the time we had spent in the rowboat traveling from the dock to shore wasn’t enough.
He glanced back as if he thought Claudine could hear us or had followed us. I was pretty much convinced that neither of them wanted to speak ill of the other without the other present. From the stories they had already told me and the things they had suggested, I doubted there were many secrets between them.
“I know Claudine has good intentions and wants to help you,” he began as we walked slowly along the forest path, “but she can be a little abrupt sometimes. She ought to prepare you before she tells you intimate stuff about us.”
“Are all brothers and sisters as close as you two are, or is that just because you’re twins?” I asked.
I was afraid it would sound silly to ask, but the truth was, I didn’t know anyone around my age who had a brother or sister. All I knew about their relationships was what I saw on television or read in the books I had to read for my homeschooling exams.
“No, I’m sure not,” he said. “And it’s not only because we’re twins. Of course, being twins has a lot to do with it. We shared so much from the day of our birth until now. We grew up playing with each other, sharing each other’s toys, even more than just occasionally sleeping in the same bed together. Oh,” he added when I looked at him askance. “Not because we were too poor back then to have separate bedrooms. We’ve always had that, but my parents have always been active professionals, my father the lawyer and my mother with her decorating business.
“From the first moments I can remember,” he continued as we walked, “we had a nanny most of the day and often even at night. I should say nannies. My mother found fault with most of them and was always taking someone’s recommendation and seeking a new one.
“What I’m trying to say is, Claudine and I are probably more dependent on each other than most brothers and sisters are, maybe even other sets of twins. We always seemed to be able to tell when one or the other was not feeling well before anyone else could tell, or when one or the other was sad. I think, even from the age of three or four, we were both terrified of losing each other and hated to be separated, even for a few hours. She always had to go along when my father took me for a haircut. We never seemed to go shopping for clothes and shoes without each other when we were very young. We comforted each other better than our nannies could, and we were always there for each other when one of us was frightened by a nightmare or anything.”
“I think that’s very nice,” I said.
He smiled. “It was nice. It is nice. I’m her best friend, and she still is mine. Despite how she sounds now, teasing me, challenging me, she’s always been overly protective when it comes to me. If she blamed me for anything, she kept it to herself until we were alone, and I always did the same if I blamed her. We’ve always defended each other in front of our parents and covered for each other so neither would get into trouble. Again, despite the way she sounded, we don’t have what they call sibling rivalry. At least, I don’t think we do.”
“I’ve always wished I had a brother or a sister. I’m sure my life would have been easier if I had been one of a pair of twins.”
“I bet. Had to be very lonely for you living in a house with elderly grandparents, especially yours. I’m surprised you’re as normal as you are.”
“Am I?”
“Believe me, you are. I know a lot of nutty girls.”
“I don’t feel like I’m normal.”
“You just need more experiences, more contact with people your own age, that’s all.”
The house came into view, so I stopped. I breathed relief. Grandfather hadn’t come looking for me. However, another half-dozen yards or so, and my grandparents could see us. The back door was shut, and the house looked quiet. I took my easel from him.
“I really wanted to walk you home because I wanted to tell you how sorry I feel about your first ever meeting with your mother. I could see in your face how much of a disappointment that was for you. You were probably hoping she had come by to take you off with her.”
“I guess I was,” I said. “I mean, I wasn’t positive she didn’t know about me. I had only what my grandparents told me, but even when I saw she hadn’t known I was still here, I thought, hoped, that she would look at me and want to be with me or want me with her. I don’t know about the legal rights or anything.”
“A mother should have the most right to her child, but she did desert you. I’m sure she would have a difficult time gaining custody after all that, even though she’s married now.”
“Yes. She never threatened it. The truth is, she is still deserting me.”
“I understand.” He smiled. “For now, you can’t think about it. You have a great time tonight,” he said. “Try not to worry about entering public school and the stuff Claudine was describing. You’re going to be fine. You’re a natural.” He kissed me softly. “I hope that ribbon will be out tomorrow. Weather report still looks good. Maybe we’ll do something ourselves. Not with Claudine along.”
“Won’t she feel bad?”
He shrugged. “She might, but she’d understand. I’m not saying we’ll ignore her the whole time or anything. Don’t you want to spend some time with just me?”
I didn’t hesitate because I had doubt. I hesitated because I didn’t, and I was afraid to say it. He raised his eyebrows.
“Yes,” I said quickly.
He stepped closer to me. For a moment, I thought that was all he would do. He was looking at me so intently, but then he kissed me again.
“I can’t stand being this close to you without kissing you,” he whispered. He had his hands on my shoulders. I wondered if he could feel the surge of heat that had risen from my stomach and into my breasts. His lips grazed my neck. I closed my eyes, and he kissed me again, harder, longer.
“Elle,” he whispered. “Elle.”
Never did my name sound so soft and lovely to me. I used to hate it, thinking I was given it for one purpose only, to defeat the darkness inside me, to urge God to welcome me and forgive me for sins I had yet to commit.
Was this the beginning of one of them?
I stepped back quickly. He took his hands off my shoulders but held them in the air.
“I really like you, Elle,” he said. “A lot. Is that okay?”
I nodded, and the worry that had washed over his face quickly disappeared. He smiled.
“Tomorrow,” he said, “and tomorrow and tomorrow.” He laughed and then started back.
I just stood there watching him disappear into the woods until I heard some branches cracking, and my heart stopped and started. Had my grandfather come looking for me after all but gone in another direction first? Had he witnessed our good-bye? I looked slowly to my right.
Standing there so still that it was difficult at first to see her was the doe I had seen and drawn. I wondered if she was looking at me with the same sort of curiosity and admiration. Wasn’t she at a disadvantage, not being full of fear at how close we were to each other? When big-game hunting season began here in Lake Hurley, deer that didn’t have enough of an instinctive fear of humans were probably easy targets. They most certainly died with a look of surprise in their eyes.
I set my easel down and opened my pad to the drawing I had first made.
“Look, this is you,” I said. She flicked her ears and then slowly walked deeper into the forest. I laughed. “I hope that wasn’t criticism,” I called after her. I smiled to myself and continued on to the house.
The moment I opened the back door and stepped in, my grandmother pounced. “I was just about to send your grandfather out looking for you.”
“Why? I’m not late,” I said, holding up my new watch.
“You’re almost late. You should give yourself more time in case something delays you.
I’ve told you that promptness is a very good indication of seriousness and dedication. I won’t tolerate your being late for school once you begin. Your mother would get distracted easily by almost anything to avoid her responsibilities. Tardiness was her middle name.”
“I’m not going to be like her, Grandmother. Not in any way,” I said, with such determination that I even surprised myself.
I saw her eyes widen. “Well, I hope that’s true.”
“It’s true,” I said. “You can stop worrying about it.” It was the first time I had ever told her to do anything, especially with that tone of voice.
Her eyes widened even more. “I’ll be the best judge of what I should and shouldn’t worry about,” she replied. “Don’t think you’re in charge of yourself just yet, missy.”
“Now what?” Grandfather Prescott asked, coming up behind her.
“We were just talking about her mother.”
“I thought we agreed that Elle had the right attitude concerning Deborah. What did you say now, Elle?”
“All I said was that I wouldn’t be like her,” I told him.
“Well, that sounds good, Myra.”
She nodded, still looking at me with those penetrating eyes. “Maybe she won’t be like her, but that doesn’t mean that she won’t be like him.”
I felt a cold chill at the back of my neck. Was it impossible for her ever to see any good in me, no matter what I did or said?
“Myra,” my grandfather said softly. “She’s given you no reason to—”
“Go get washed up and dressed to go out to this . . . this dinner,” she said, turning away.
My grandfather watched her go and then flashed a smile at me before returning to the living room. I hurried to my room to put away the art supplies and then picked out one of the dresses they had bought me for school. I began to undress before realizing I was still wearing Claudine’s bathing suit. Panic brought blood to my face. If she had been looking in at me and saw this on top of what I had just said, the roof would come down on my head.
Quickly, I went into the bathroom, carrying my clothing with me. As with all doors in this house, there was no lock on the bathroom door, so as fast as I could, I got out of the bikini and rolled it into a ball. I put it in the small trash can and covered it with some crumpled tissues just in case she walked in on me while I took a shower. It was then that I went into my biggest panic, however.
The Unwelcomed Child Page 19
