RAZZLE DAZZLE

by Lisa Hendrix

  Sixteen

  « ^ »

  “What on earth is the matter with Samantha?” asked Tish as she sat down at lunch on Tuesday. “I told her we were having salade Niçoise and she said she’d rather starve.”

  “I thought that was her favorite,” said Miranda.

  “It was, last year.” Tish unfolded her napkin and pulled it across her lap. “She must be turning into a teenager. Fickle creatures. You were abominable. Actually, you still are, on occasion.”

  “Oh, good. It’s part of my plan to stay youthful.”

  “For example, now,” said Tish.

  Lawrence came in with the tray and began serving. He came to the third plate and hesitated.

  “Shall I call Miss Samantha?”

  “No. She’s made up her mind not to come down,” said Tish. “Tell Cook if she tries to cadge food later, she’s not to have any. If she can’t join the rest of us, she’ll do without until dinner.”

  “Yes, madam.”

  He poured the iced tea, then withdrew.

  “She didn’t seem very happy this morning, either,” said Miranda. “I asked if she’d like to play tennis or swim and she said she’d rather read.”

  “I wonder if she isn’t getting homesick,” mused Tish.

  “That’s not like Samantha.”

  “I know, but she’s not usually packed off so suddenly, either. She probably had plans with friends or some such and is feeling put out that we’re not eleven.”

  “It would be helpful if Elizabeth would call her.” Miranda cut a wedge of hard-boiled egg and stabbed it, visualizing her former sister-in-law in the rubbery white.

  “Yes, it would, but I hope I don’t have to speak with her again. I’m not sure I could be civil after the way she handled this.” Tish took a sip of tea. “I’ll call up Kate McMullen and see if Adeline can find a break between all those music lessons. Samantha was asking about her yesterday. Having a playmate might snap her out of this funk.”

  “I thought they were planning to go to France for the summer.”

  “Only for August. And it’s Switzerland.”

  They traded opinions about the McMullens’ trip and ate their salads, then Paul came with the car and Tish headed off for a massage.

  “If you hear any good news about Mason and Miss Hobart, let me know right away.”

  Miranda nodded, but she doubted it would happen, considering the broken bit of bottle currently residing in the back of her jewelry case. Combined with the fact that she hadn’t stayed focused in the circle, the implications for the previous night’s work were significant. The counterspell was incomplete. It would probably never take.

  They’d be redoing the work tonight, of course—though with variations in the incantation and with different and less charged tokens—but in the meantime Mason would likely stay in love with Raine. Somehow, that didn’t seem so bad to Miranda, which was the real reason she hadn’t told her mother about the bottle.

  She had some correspondence to take care of for the family office, so she settled in at the desk in the conservatory and went about her business. At about three o’clock, she tried again to get her niece to come down for a bike ride or a swim. The effort got a resounding “No,” which made it very clear that whatever was bothering Samantha, it was somehow Miranda’s fault.

  Miranda went back to her letters.

  Samantha stayed in her room all afternoon.

  *

  “Hey, battah, battah, battah.”

  The razzing from the outfield picked up as Mason took his stance for his second pitch.

  The ball whizzed by, high and inside. “Strike two.”

  Mason stepped back while the catcher returned the ball, then went through the ritual of pounding the plate and settling back in. He may not have played much softball in his life, but he knew how he was supposed to look doing it.

  And appearance counted for everything at the Dayton Street Independence Day Invitational Softball Game.

  That’s what the crudely painted banner on the backstop called it, even though Independence Day was a week away. According to Raine, the game had fallen victim to scheduling problems during its first year, and now the early date was part of the tradition.

  So was creative interpretation of the rules, if the last ten minutes had been any indication. A base runner in a tight purple T-shirt cut halfway down to her navel had led off by strolling from first to second while the pitcher was talking to the umpire. The umpire called it a steal and gave the pitcher a drubbing for trying to throw out a lady. Shortly after that, the catcher and the umpire had traded positions out of boredom, and called an out in the process, just on principle.

  Of course, the rest of the neighbors might be perfectly nice, quiet, rule-abiding folks, but Mason couldn’t tell over the noise from Raine and Sam, center-and right-field, respectively, and the source of the catcalls. He knew which one was worse this time, and he was embarrassed to admit she shared his last name.

  The pitcher wound up and threw hard. Mason got nothing but air.

  “Strike three. You’re out.”

  The right-fielder hooted. “Daddy’s out. Daddy’s out.” She danced around the baseline.

  The worst of it was, Sam got a good clean single when she came up at the bottom of the inning, thanks to a giveaway pitch.

  Her partner in crime managed to pull a double out of a fielder error in the second. Could he help it if the sun got in his eye?

  “Daddy, you dropped the ball.”

  “Shut up, squirt.”

  But he who laughed last, laughed most obnoxiously. In the fifth inning Mason connected with a ground-rule double, and in the ninth, he popped a two-run homer. The west side of the street beat the east side by three, and Mason got to lord it over the women, which he did with much delight.

  “But we played better,” said Raine. “You all just got lucky because Evie had that shirt on. Every call went in her favor. Shoot, all she had to do was bend over a little and somebody handed her home plate.”

  “You sound jealous.”

  “Me? Jealous? Hah!” She laughed, then lowered her voice. “But only because it’s all plastic. Two years ago she was as flat as Sam.”

  “What happens next?” asked Sam. “Is there food or something?”

  “Well, when the game falls on weekends, there’s a potluck picnic and we hang out for hours. But for the weeknight games, we usually do pizza. Are you up for it?”

  “I’m starved,” said Sam. “I didn’t get lunch.”

  Frowning, Mason calculated the diameter of his daughter’s bony arms. He’d have to have a talk with Mother and Miranda. They needed to ensure that Sam ate.

  She made up for the skipped meal at the pizza parlor, a noisy place with enough pinball machines and video games for a standalone arcade. When Sam had inhaled four pieces of Luau Special, double pineapple, and finally looked happy, Raine snagged Petey Matthiesen as he went by.

  “Hey, bucko, Samantha here hasn’t had a chance to play many video games. I think they don’t have them where she lives. Show her the ropes, okay?” She handed Sam a ten-dollar bill. “Get yourselves a roll of quarters and make sure you blow it all.”

  “Wow. Really? Can I, Daddy?” Sam disappeared without waiting for an answer.

  “Oh, hush,” Raine said, flapping a hand in Mason’s face as he started to call her back. “Don’t think of it as slumming, think of it as class cross-pollination. Cultural enrichment.”

  “It’s not that and you know it.” Mason said. “It’s the content of the games. I don’t want my daughter kicking holes in people’s chests, even electronically.”

  “This place doesn’t have that kind of stuff. It’s too gross to encourage eating, even in fourteen-year-old boys. She might blast a few starships, but there will be very little blood and she’ll be saving Earth or the Federation or something.”

  “How uplifting,” he said dryly. “However, my other objection is that they’re such a mindless waste of time.”

&
nbsp; “So is golf.” Raine shifted and leaned forward on her elbows. “Actually, I think video games are pretty cool that way. Not only are they fun, but to do well, you have to be truly in the moment, doing what you’re doing, with no ego in the way. It’s very Zen. Mindlessness. No Mind.”

  “No Mind. Now that would explain a lot about my sister and mother. Zen was what, six years ago? No, seven. It’s been downhill ever since.”

  “So Zen’s on your list of flaky philosophies, too? Boy, are you limiting the possibilities.”

  “No, I’m not. Rational thought opens up the whole world to possibilities. Rational thought brought us everything our lives depend on, from telephones to, I don’t know, earthquake-resistant buildings. Even those video games are a result of rational thought.”

  “But combined with wild creativity.” Raine’s eyes were bright, and she was obviously warming to the debate. “I know a guy who develops computer games and, by your standards, he’s the biggest flake in town. He meditates and he wears crystals and sorcerer’s runes, and most of the time he wanders around with his face painted half blue, like Braveheart, because that’s how he comes up with most of the outrageous images for his games. See, he writes warrior-quest games, and he claims dressing the part gives him the ideas.”

  “But it doesn’t,” said Mason. “The ideas, or the potential for them, are already in his head. He’s just convinced himself that he needs certain crutches to get to them. People do not have to immerse themselves in weirdness or turn their lives into a parade in order to be happy and successful. Your friend could do the same thing without making a spectacle of himself.”

  Raine drew back and looked him up and down. “Oh, I get it. It’s the spectacle, isn’t it? You’re afraid your mom and Miranda are going to make spectacles of themselves and embarrass you in public.”

  “They already have, thank you, and yes, I resent it. I resent having to explain to people that, no, they’re not insane, they’re just witches. I resent not knowing who or what’s going to turn up at dinner—or in my iced tea—from night to night. And I particularly resent having to spend the time cleaning up their messes.”

  “Life is messy sometimes.” She stared at the table, spinning a napkin under her finger. “I may be out of line here, but can I assume that Samantha’s mother made a spectacle of herself in some way?”

  “You can. However, she made the biggest spectacle out of me, with the lovers she needed to ‘find her bliss.’” He wasn’t sure why he was telling her this, but there it was. “You were wondering why I don’t like searchers. I guess Elizabeth’s at least part of your answer.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Somewhere in the background, Samantha squealed with delight.

  “I’d better go check on her,” Mason said. He started to get up, but Raine put her hand over his.

  “Elizabeth was wrong. You can’t ever find your bliss by hurting someone else.”

  “I’ve seen no evidence you can ever find it at all. You just get through life doing the best you can.” He turned his hand to curl his fingers into hers. “Let’s go see what Sam’s up to.”

  They found her chasing aliens, and thrilled about it because she had gotten onto the high scores list on her second try.

  “Beginner’s luck,” grumbled Petey, who was hanging on the edge of her machine.

  “Hey, she had the best teacher,” said Raine. “Now, if I’d been showing her how, she’d probably still be on level one.”

  “Yeah,” said Petey, visibly cheering. “You suck at this one.”

  “Big time.”

  They watched Sam for a few minutes, until she accused them of ruining her concentration.

  “Come on, big guy,” said Raine. “It’s time you tried one of these yourself.”

  She led Mason over to the counter, where he bought a roll of quarters and handed her half.

  “Here, this one’s beginner speed.” She fed a couple of quarters into a game where the goal was to guide a bouncy little character in armor through several levels of adventure, then stood back and let Mason take the controls.

  He was a total loss. The buttons seemed to have little to do with the character’s motion. When he’d blown a couple of dollars without even getting the little guy past the first level, Raine finally stepped in front of him and put her hands over his on the controls.

  “Your money won’t last long that way. Let me show you until you get the feel. See, here you go. Through the portal, past the dragon—you have to whack him a couple of times, but no blood, see?—and over this bridge to grab the magic sword.”

  Raine made it seem easy, bouncing the little guy on the screen through his life.

  And why not? She appeared to move through her own life in much the same way, taking what came, rolling with the punches, enjoying the adventure. He, on the other hand, was more like the dragon guarding the bridge, hackles up, just waiting for someone to come along and try to steal his sword.

  Life lessons in video games.

  Not to mention in front of video games. Raine was right there in his arms, backed against his chest, not noticing what it was doing to him. He tightened his arms just a fraction to pull her closer.

  She stilled, and the little guy fell off the bridge with a resounding electronic splash.

  “We have at least forty chaperones,” he murmured against her hair. “Nothing’s going to happen. Let’s enjoy it while we can.”

  “That’s not very rational.”

  “I know. But it’s Zen. Being in the moment. And I promise, I’ll keep learning.”

  He did, too, especially once she snuggled back against him and relaxed. He learned he really hadn’t enjoyed the past couple of days, not smelling lemons and mint.

  Over at her machine, where it was Petey’s turn, Samantha watched her father and Raine cuddle and added one more fact to her list. She didn’t even need to write it down. On top of what she’d seen last night in the garden, she was starting to get a pretty good idea of what was going on.

  Now she just needed to figure out what it meant.

  *

  “Daddy, why didn’t you kiss Raine good night?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Why didn’t you kiss her good night?” Sam repeated. “You both looked like you wanted to smooch.”

  “Samantha…”

  “I would have closed my eyes. You could have even stuck your tongue in her mouth, like they do in the movies.”

  “Samantha!” In his shock, Mason almost put the Explorer into the back of a little green Subaru.

  In the interest of safety, he hit the right turn indicator and pulled into the first drive he came to, the parking lot of some restaurant on Aurora Avenue

  . He shut off the engine and set the brake, then swiveled to get a better look at his daughter in the backseat. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Try again.”

  She twisted the hem of her T-shirt. “I’m trying to figure something out.”

  Oh, please, not yet. He hesitated, then asked, “About men and women?”

  She looked confused, then amused. “You mean sex?”

  He nodded.

  “No. Mom already talked to me about that and bought me some books. Plus we do it in school.”

  “You what?”

  “Study about sex in school. How babies get made and, you know, menstrual periods and all that.”

  “Oh. Um, good.” He wondered if puberty was any easier to deal with for fathers who were around their girls all the time. “So, what exactly are you trying to figure out?”

  “About you and Raine and Caroline.”

  “I thought we cleared that up.”

  She shook her head. “Not really. You just blew me off.”

  Mason turned his laugh into a cough. “I’m sorry.”

  “Apology accepted,” she said primly, and he coughed again.

  “Why are you so curious about my girlfriends?” asked Mason.

  She looked at her knees.
“I figure one of them is going to be my stepmom soon.”

  “We’re quite a ways from that.”

  “We who?” she asked. “You and Raine, or you and Caroline?”

  Mason knew he was treading a thin line. His mother had been right in one regard: it wasn’t fair to let Sam form an attachment to Raine and then announce it was really Caro who would be her stepmother. On the other hand, his lovely little eleven-year-old had the tenacity of her aunt and the volubility of a talk show host, a deadly combination for any secret. He really didn’t want her blurting out that Daddy really intended to marry Caro after all, not when he was so close to getting Mother and Miranda where he wanted them.

  So to buy time, instead of telling her, he asked her, “What do you think?”

  “I think you’re in love with Raine but there’s some reason that you and Gran and Aunt Randi think you should be in love with Caro.”

  Maybe she understood more than he thought. “What makes you say that?”

  “Because first off, you kept trying to call Raine on Sunday, and you were really upset when she didn’t answer.”

  “How do you know I was trying to call Raine and not Caroline? Or someone totally different?”

  She looked at him as if he were an idiot and didn’t even bother to dignify the question with an answer.

  “Okay,” he admitted. “I’ll give you that one. So why else?”

  “Because you two look like you want to touch each other all the time, but you don’t. But it’s not like you and Caroline don’t touch each other, because you two look like you don’t want to anyway, and it’s okay.”

  “I’m trying to keep up, kiddo, but you lost me there someplace.”

  “You and Caroline look like you don’t touch because you don’t especially want to. Or maybe like it’s okay if you do, but it’s just as okay if you don’t.” She talked slowly and clearly for the benefit of the dense adult in the front seat. “You and Raine look like you do want to touch, but it’s like there’s this big piece of glass and you’re on one side and she’s on the other, so you can’t.”

  “Samantha, people don’t have to touch simply because the urge strikes.” Considering his reaction to Raine, his personal hypocrisy astounded him, but it was important Sam hear this. She sure wasn’t going to get it from Elizabeth. “Sometimes it’s just not appropriate for two people to be physically affectionate, even if they like each other.”