A pot clanking against the stove meant Sheba was in the kitchen, making breakfast. Any minute now, she’d push through the swinging door with a tray laden with a pot of coffee and glasses of freshly squeezed orange juice. Cecile had to fly if she was going to get out of the house without anyone seeing her.
She slipped out the screen door and ran toward the dock, her heart racing triumphantly for having so narrowly escaped capture. It was wonderful, not having to sit down to breakfast the way they did at home. Eggs, cereal, milk, toast, use your napkin, please…it was enough to make her scream. On the Island, Harry and she and Natalie used to pretend they were prisoners escaping from jail when they snuck out of the house every morning. Yet another game Natalie now called babyish.
Who gives a care? Cecile’s heart sang. The crushed shells mixed with the gravel on the drive were sharp beneath her feet.
The smell of salt and marsh hung heavy in the air: The tide was out. Hermit crabs by the dozens, so densely packed they looked like a magic carpet, would be moving around the pilings. That is, until Cecile set one foot on the sand and then they’d be gone—whoosh!—scuttling sideways with a speed that never failed to amaze her, each crab disappearing down a hole. Then the beach would be empty except for the squiggly piles of wet sand, evidence of their hard labor.
Cecile ran down the wooden stairs to the wide deck that separated the dock from the drive. The changing cabanas stood empty and expectant on one side. The boathouse on the other smelled of salt and creosote. Someone was standing on the float at the far end of the dock. Cecile halted, disappointed not to be the first.
But wait. It was only Jack, with a green life vest over his pajamas, fishing; he didn’t count. She ran past the empty berths, past Mr. Peabody’s dinghy tied to a ladder with its rope hanging slack, until she came to the top of the short ramp to the swimming float, where she asked, “Does Mom know you’re down here?” in a big-sister voice.
Children weren’t allowed on the dock by themselves until they were ten and had passed Granddad’s rigid swimming test. It was the one Island rule no one was allowed to break. Disobedience meant being banned from the dock area for a week, a punishment worse than death.
“It’s all right. He’s with me!” Cecile twirled around to see King coming out of the boathouse with an armload of life jackets and start toward them. “Good morning, Miss Thompson,” he said when he reached her. He gave a courtly bow.
“Morning.”
King dumped the jackets on a bench and took off his cap. Smoothing his dark hair back from his forehead, he turned slowly in a circle without speaking, gazing at the scene around them as if he were alone. Cecile took it in, too: the tall wall of marsh grass that hid the complex maze of winding channels that boats took in and out on their way from the bay to the dock. The long roofline of the clubhouse etched cleanly on the horizon on the point to the right.
Behind them, the flag on the shiny white pole that would flap and strain, clinking its metal rope against the wood when the wind picked up later in the day, hung limp, as if still asleep. Cecile squinted up at King from time to time, patient. He never bothered with them much when the other adults weren’t around. He was the relaxing kind of grownup who’d never had children of his own, so he didn’t have the annoying habit parents had of warning their children against actions they’d never dream of taking, or telling them what to do when they already had plans of their own.
“Why would I tell her not to fall in the water?” King asked her mother one day when Mrs. Thompson came down to the dock and found Cecile, then six, standing with her toes hanging over the edge of the dock at the deep end, watching King ready his boat. “The child’s got a brain. She knows she shouldn’t fall in.”
Cecile had swelled with pride, hearing him say she had a brain. “I have a brain, you know,” she’d say after that whenever anyone in her family told her what to do. She stood beside him now, biding her time until he was through with his inspection so she could ask him a question. King finally put his hat back on, squaring it on his forehead, just so. “As I told Jack,” he said to her as if their conversation hadn’t been interrupted, “I’ll only be down here for another ten minutes. I’m playing golf with your father.”
“He’s eating breakfast,” Cecile said.
“Is he? I’d better hurry then.” King started back up the dock.
“Where’s the Rammer?” Cecile called.
“I don’t expect her until tomorrow evening,” King answered. “Ten minutes, heathens.” He disappeared inside the boathouse.
Cecile walked down the ramp and sat on the edge of the float at a safe distance from Jack’s fishing line. She adored King’s boat. He took the whole family, including Granddad, out on it for a whole day every summer. If it wasn’t at the dock, it meant King had rented it again. People were willing to pay him huge sums of money, he said, to travel in it up and down the coast from Maine to Florida.
“Did he say anything about taking us out for a ride?” she asked Jack.
Jack shook his head.
“Did you ask him?”
“No.”
“He’ll take us.” Cecile swung her feet back and forth in the water. The tide was sweeping the night’s refuse from the inlet out to the bay. Clumps of seaweed, patches of dirty foam, broken reeds; the swift, dark water swirled around the pilings, momentarily thwarted, and then moved on again, its glossy surface broken now and then by a fish coming up for food.
“Look, Jack!” Cecile cried. She pointed to a small circle on the water’s surface halfway between the dock and the edge of the marsh grass. It grew larger and larger as she watched.
“I saw it,” said Jack. “They’re all over the place.”
Seagulls landed on pilings and laughed their mocking, human laughs; boats started up their engines in the distance; water lapped against the dock. The only way you could tell the passing of time was by the sun. Cecile felt it on her back now, warmer than before. The kind of warm that would soon be hot.
After a while, she heard a high, excited voice and the light patter of feet on the dock as Lucy ran toward them. “Be careful,” their mother called. Cecile looked up to see her stop at the door to the boathouse, leaving Lucy to run the rest of the way by herself. Lucy stopped when she came to the top of the ramp and, clutching her bucket and shovel tightly in one hand, grasped the railing with the other. She walked carefully down to the float, keeping her eyes on her feet, the way she’d been taught.
Lucy’s yellow bathing suit was covered with pink flamingos and had bows on either hip; her white cotton hat with the frilly rim was already sliding off the back of her head. “I had blueberry pancakes,” she announced as she squatted down next to Jack’s pail to watch three small minnows that hung, suspended, at the bottom. When Lucy stuck in her shovel, they darted frantically around the edges, as if swimming for their lives.
“Lucy, don’t,” said Jack.
Lucy pulled her shovel out but remained squatting. Their mother had worked her way lazily toward them and stopped at the top of the ramp. She leaned against a piling.
“It’s going to be hot,” she said as she lifted a hand to shield her eyes. In her pale blue linen shorts and matching sleeveless blouse, with her dark hair held back by a blue ribbon, it really could have been Natalie standing there; she looked that young.
“Did King say which day we’re going on the Rammer?” Cecile asked.
“We didn’t talk about it.” Her mother smiled absently down at her. “Have you had breakfast yet?”
“I’m not hungry,” Jack said.
“I haven’t.” The minute she said it, Cecile was starving.
“Come on, you three.” Their mother turned and started back. “Bring Lucy, would you, Cecile?”
“I want to stay!” Lucy wailed, but Cecile scooped her up around the stomach, cutting her off in midcry, and carried her up the ramp, oblivious to her indignant yells and kicking feet. Lucy struck out with her shovel when Cecile finally dumped her on the dock, but
Cecile was too quick.
“Last one up is a rotten egg!” she cried. She took the stairs two at a time and ran onto the drive. Only when she could no longer hear Lucy’s wails did she slow to a walk. The air was heavy with privet. The Pump House turret rose behind the tall hedge on her left like something out of a fairy tale. Cecile plucked a blade of grass from the side of the drive and held the palms of her hands tightly together, stretching the blade taut between her thumbs. She blew a sharp blast of air on it; the sound was high and shrill, like a demented seagull.
At the sound of tires on gravel, she looked up. Their car was pulling out of Granddad’s driveway. Her father and Granddad were in the front, King was in the back.
They didn’t look her way. Cecile didn’t call out. She was thinking about the terrace; how cool and quiet it would be now with no one on it. The newspaper would be flung down in restless sections on a chaise, the glass-top table littered with empty cups and plates, the stubs of her father’s cigarettes sending up their last futile drifts of smoke from an ashtray.
And Granddad’s chaise lounge—the one in its special spot in the shade under the awning in the far corner of the terrace that the children knew to leap up and out of whenever he appeared—would be empty. She could stop in the kitchen and get something to eat, and then lie in wait for Natalie to appear in her nightgown, and see her, Cecile, on the throne. Anticipating that moment, and the expression on Natalie’s face, Cecile ran.
Chapter Four
All the long drive back from the ocean the next day, the crotch of Cecile’s bathing suit was heavy against her, filled with the sand she had collected while riding the waves. The skin on her face felt scratchy and dry.
Lucy had insisted on keeping her beach ball clutched to her chest as she got into the backseat. It had dropped small clumps of wet sand that scratched Cecile’s thighs. Cecile wiped it off but more sand appeared. She had given up.
“It hurts to breathe,” Cecile said. She rested her head against the back of the seat and closed her eyes. She took quick, shallow breaths to avoid feeling the tightness in her chest.
“You’re waterlogged,” her mother said from behind the steering wheel. “I told you to come out earlier.”
“I’m waterlogged, too,” said Lucy. She had dug holes on the shore all day and run back up the beach, shrieking, as the rising tide filled them in. No water had touched her body higher than her knobby knees. Her suit was dry.
“You didn’t even swim,” Natalie said.
“I did too,” said Lucy. “Didn’t I, Jack?”
“I saw her,” Jack said to keep the peace. Jack was always the one to keep the peace.
“Then why is your suit dry?” Natalie said, and reached quickly over Cecile’s lap to run her finger meanly under the rim of Lucy’s suit where it circled her thigh.
“Natalie, please.” Their mother sighed when Lucy started to cry.
“Oh, all right, you baby,” said Natalie. “You swam.”
Lucy stuck her thumb in her mouth and quieted down. It was an aimless kind of bickering. They were all used to it. They rode in exhausted silence until they reached the bridge. When Cecile finally heard the familiar sound of the tires on wood, she took a deep breath. The tightness was gone.
“Everyone in the shower,” their mother ordered when the car stopped in front of the house. “Don’t go into the house empty-handed!” she cried as the doors flew open. “Towel on the line, Jack!”
The first touch of the shower’s cool water on her hot skin made Cecile flinch. She looked down at the bathing suit imprinted on her body. Her first sunburn of the summer reminded her of the outfits she put on her paper dolls with tabs. The imprint of her bathing suit was startling against her red arms and legs, the lines between red and white as straight and clean as if drawn with a ruler. Turning slightly, she saw the straps running up over her shoulders, the scoop of its neck tracing a graceful curve on her chest. Oh, but it was going to sting in the middle of the night. She could already feel it.
She held her face under the stream of water. She washed her hair. Stepping out of the tub, she wrapped a thick towel around her body and tiptoed down the hall to her parents’ room. Lucy’s high-pitched voice rose above the running water in the master bathroom. Her mother was giving Lucy a bath in her huge tub with lots of bubbles. The air smelled of strawberries.
If she’d been nine, or even ten, she would have gone into the bathroom to show Lucy and her mother the red paper doll wearing a white bathing suit. Instead, Cecile stood in front of the full-length mirror and let her towel slip to the floor. She turned around and craned her head to look at her back. The suit was perfect there, as well.
Walking across the soft carpet to her mother’s makeup table, she gazed at the array of pale green boxes, dark red lipstick tubes, and exotic jars in different shapes and sizes. Her mother’s moisturizer was in the dark pink jar. Cecile picked it up. Their mother had laughingly dabbed tiny drops of it on their noses and cheeks when Cecile and Natalie were little and wanted to know what it felt like. It even smelled expensive.
Cecile checked guiltily over her shoulder and then quickly poured a bit of the cool liquid into the palm of her hand. Slowly she spread it over her face and neck. How luxurious and smooth it was! She poured more and recklessly slathered it over her chest and down her stomach. Her hand sliding across her skin felt sophisticated and daring.
The front door banged; deep male voices sounded in the front hall. Feeling as exposed as if she were standing naked on an empty stage when the curtain unexpectantly rose, Cecile dashed back across the room and wrapped the towel tightly around her. She rubbed her face vigorously with both hands. When the door opened, she turned toward it, innocent and welcoming.
“Oh. I thought it was your mother.” Her father strode across the room to his dresser. His tanned forearms looked muscular and strong; his dark hair was firmly slicked back, there wasn’t a strand out of place. “Did you have fun at the beach?” he asked as he took a fistful of change out of his pants pocket and dropped it into a silver dish.
“It was great.” Cecile inched her way toward the door. “Did you and Granddad win your game?”
“We did, no thanks to me. I had a rotten day. Four over par.” Her father undid the clasp on his heavy watch and dropped it on the dresser next to the dish. “Where’s your mother?” he said.
“In the bathroom with Lucy.”
He gave Cecile a quick, appraising glance. “Looks like someone got a lot of sun.”
“I did.”
“Andrew! Is that Cecile I hear with you?”
When her father opened the bathroom door, Cecile reluctantly went and stood beside him. The air in the bathroom was steamy and thick. Mrs. Thompson was kneeling by the side of the tub with Lucy in front of her. Lucy had a paper-doll bathing suit, too, but her arms and legs were brown. She had both hands on her mother’s shoulders to steady herself as she stepped carefully into the white under-pants her mother was holding open.
“I thought I heard you two,” Mrs. Thompson said. “How was your game?”
“Your father saved my hide.”
“You’ve saved his often enough.”
Their formal voices were almost as bad as their silence. How dare they keep this up? Cecile was in an agony to get away.
“You’re just the person I wanted to see, Cecile,” her mother said.
“She was admiring herself in front of the mirror,” said Mr. Thompson.
“I was not!” Cecile wrapped her towel more tightly around her. Why hadn’t she worn her robe? “I was looking for Mom,” she said. “I don’t do silly things like that.”
“Methinks the lady doth protest too much.” Her father reached out to ruffle her hair, but Cecile stepped skittishly back. “Don’t,” she said in a low voice. She felt she would cry if he touched her. She hated him.
“Leave her alone, Andrew,” her mother said.
“I was teasing her, for God’s sake. Am I not allowed to tease my daughter, either
? Is that part of my sentence?”
“I guess it is.” Her mother flashed him a brittle smile.
They looked at each other the way only the two of them could—it felt almost like hate. Cecile’s stomach churned. Their silence bore down on her shoulders; her neck ached.
Her father abruptly spun on his heels and walked toward the closet. “Then I guess you’re not interested in the message King asked me to give you,” he said to Cecile as he opened the door.
Why punish her? It was so unfair. “What?” Cecile cried. “What did he say?”
“The Rammer’s coming in. King said you’d been asking.”
Cecile could have melted onto the carpet with relief. Escape!
“Great! Thanks!” she said, and headed for the door.
“Cecile, wait!” her mother called. “Take Lucy with you.”
“But it’s coming in now,” Cecile wailed. “Lucy’s too slow!”
“Take me! Take me!” Lucy cried from the bathroom.
“Mom…”
“You heard your mother.” Her father sat on the edge of their bed and crossed one leg over his knee. He leaned down to untie his shoe. “What’s the big rush? You’ve seen it come in a million times.”
I just want to go, Cecile wanted to cry. I don’t want to wait.
But Lucy was keeping up her lament in the bathroom. Cecile never should have come in here in the first place. “Oh, all right,” she said ungraciously, “but make her hurry.”
The Rammer was berthed by the time she reached the dock. Cecile trailed behind as Lucy ran eagerly down the steps. The Rammer sat massive and important, its hosed decks gleaming in the late afternoon sun. Ropes had been neatly coiled, fishing poles put away.
Her mother had told Cecile to keep Lucy out of the water. She walked along the edge of the sand behind Lucy now, watching the cabin cruiser as it rocked rhythmically against the pilings. She felt empty and clean; she thought she’d drift up into the sky like a balloon if it weren’t for the heavy, contented tiredness in her arms and legs to hold her down. Her footprints shimmered with life for a second before they melted back into the sand. Tiny waves lapped soothingly at the sunburned tops of her feet.
The Lucky Ones Page 3
