by Anne Fall
In light of the people who were still leaving, Sylvia and David walked away from the main pond and went to the one on the side. They moved slowly, feeling their way carefully in the dusky blue light. A sandy path made a trail for them to follow. Two discarded red and blue plastic pails tadpole- catching children had left behind glowed in their mismatched primary colors among the sages, indigos, and beiges of the landscape. Sylvia picked up a rock and straightened her back. The effort of throwing the medium sized, soft brown rock into the water felt herculean. When it hit the surface of the water, not quite in the middle of the pond, the ripples that raced out away from it seemed to be stirring something, raising a creature up from the bottom. She wondered briefly what would come out of those depths. The tall grasses and rushes bordering the pond sounded as if they were whispering, and Sylvia noticed there were white water lilies with pink edging floating above the dark surface of the pond.
"David, look at the lilies!" She paused, delighted. The almost still surface of the second pond fluttered slightly in a breeze, as if a gentle fingertip had touched the center and was sending small rippling waves out toward the edges.
"I know. You want one?" He eyed the expanse of the water, judging the distance between the flora and him.
"No, no. Don't be silly. That water isn't clean." It was not that the water did not look clean, but it did not look clear. The murky depths were opaque and black, rather than shaded in dark emeralds or blues.
"It's not dirty either." He had already begun stripping his clothes.
"No, David, don't." Sylvia's laughter rang out.
"You can't stop me, so don't try." He threw his clothes down to the ground, and she tugged on his arm, trying to pull him back.
"Don't, it's dirty, David! Who knows what is in that water."
"Just a few snapping turtles. Here, let go of my arm, or I'll take you in with me." He shook her away, and she stepped back when he dived in, droplets of water catching the last light of dusk. The water was deeper than she suspected, and she did not see him until she saw his head emerge, near the middle of the pond.
"Are you okay?" She shouted out across the water, but David did not respond. He swam effortlessly toward one of the lilies. It seemed to take him a minute to pry it free, and when he did, he swam back to her ungainly, holding the lily above the water. It looked like the moon, white and shimmering above the dark pool. Climbing out, David stood in his under shorts holding out the lily to her, out of breath and dashingly pleased with himself. She took the lily from his hands, amazed by the thickness of the petals, and the alcoholic scent of it. It reminded her of the lilac powder from their first night together, and Sylvia began to cry in front of him.
"No, no. Don't cry, that's not what I wanted. Here, come here." He took her in his wet arms, and she rested her hot face on his cool shoulder. He smelled like the pond: jade, musky, and deep. The lily was crushed between them.
Walking slowly together with their arms linked, they found a piece of driftwood that had been placed on the main shore to sit on. The surface of it was dry and opened in small chasms, the color washed-out to grey and dehydrated. They looked out over the pond and listened to the sound of it like a story being told.
"David," her voice cracked.
"Yes, Sylvia." He covered her knee with his hand, stroking with his fingertips.
"I have something I've got to tell you." He sat up straighter as she spoke, already seeing what was coming. "They're sending me home next Sunday." Sylvia waited for him to respond. He shook his head and rubbed his temples.
"I don't understand why it always has to be this way. I don't want you to go." David slipped down into the sand at her feet and laid his head in her lap. Instinctively, her fingers went to his hair, touching the rough sea-burned darkness.
"I don't want to go either, but David, what if I didn't go?" Sylvia felt his body stiffen, and it surprised her to feel him like that.
"What do you mean?" He remained perfectly still.
"I mean, what if I stayed? We could go out toward Provincetown, rent a little house. We could be together." Speaking from the dream in her mind, Sylvia saw the picture clearly. A damp cottage, covered in grey shingles, shutters they could repaint in cheery colors—there would be a fireplace for the fall and winter, a big bed heaped with blankets, hydrangeas in front of a freshly painted door.
"Sylvia…" He sat up then, his voice low and warning.
"I mean, we wouldn't even have to get married, not at first. We could just live, just be, the two of us. We could work. I would work, David. I could waitress, I was thinking. We could save up some money until you could get your own boat."
"Sylvia, don't do this. It's only going to hurt more. No good can come of thinking like that." She barely heard his voice.
"And, then, when you got your boat, we could get married. It would be happy. We could be happy, David." She finally turned and met his eyes. There was disbelief there and maybe a little fear.
"You know we can't do that." His voice was honest. He was trying to be kind. She could see that.
"Why not?" She felt like a child being shaken awake.
"You know why not. Sylvia, you're fourteen. Your parents would have me arrested." He stated it plainly, objectively.
"I could explain to them about us, I could, David."
"No, Sylvia. Sylvia, look at me, look at me." She shook his hands away from his.
"Please, David. Please. I love you."
"I love you, too. This isn't going to be easy, but we knew it was coming, didn't we?" He ran his thumbs over her cheeks, smoothing away tears. "We knew from the beginning this would have an end. It was special, wasn't it?"
"It was, and it still is. David, I don't want to give you up." She moved her hands to hold his face as well. "What if this is it, David? What if this is our one chance, and we're going to let it go?"
"We have to give it up. They'll take it from us. They'll pull it out of our hands and ruin it. I don't want you to have to go through that." David spoke from a distance above her, and she knew that he had gone through this before, maybe more than once. "Listen, we have a week. Let's just make it beautiful, right? We can just make the most of what we have left." It would always be this hard, she thought to herself, and there was no way back to where it had been easy.
The week they had left passed in a haze. Sylvia fought with him on several occasions, claiming he did not love her, that she was just another summer girl to him. He took the abuses without rebuking her, only explaining that it was not true. Becoming more and more fatherly with her during that time, David made her eat and drink as if he was bolstering her for what was to come. They often slept on the beach, the waves soothing them to sleep with a lullaby. The nights were theirs, and no one could see them there through the ocean's nighttime fog and darkness. During those nights, they lived in those clouds, hidden. The week passed quickly.
Saturday morning, Sylvia wandered back to the house around seven o'clock. She had come back to bathe, no more than that. She climbed the staircase to her room and went into the bathroom, pulled her hair out of its ponytail until it fell down her back. It was tangled, sandy, and damp from the nights on the beach and bathing in the seawater. The bath washed away the sea and the night before.
Afterwards Sylvia dressed hastily, pulling clothes out of her still packed suitcase. She felt weak after she dressed and went downstairs to the kitchen. Hanna stood there, rolling out dough for the morning rolls. It was a beautiful thing to watch, and Sylvia stood in the doorway regarding her for some time.
"Oh, Hanna. I'm going to miss your cooking." Hanna started and put her hand against her chest.
"You scared me! Good Lord, how you can move through this house quiet as a mouse." She continued her rolling, and the dough became thinner and wider. "I'm going to miss you, too. Can I make you some tea?"
"No, let me." Sylvia walked around her to the cabinet and found herself a cup. She poured the hot water from the copper tea kettle into the cup, and then slowly
selected a tea bag from Hanna's canister. The tea steeped, and Hanna rolled the dough endlessly. Finally, she kneaded it into a ball and put it into a metal bowl to rise. She put a snowy-white dishtowel over it and washed her hands.
"You're leaving tomorrow, then?" Factual, Hanna's voice appeared to be deliberately calm to Sylvia, as if it were a decision Hanna had made.
"Yes." Sylvia sighed softly, counting the hours in her mind.
"Don't look so sad. It was a good summer here, yes?"
"In a way." Sylvia refused to say more on the topic, and Hanna took in the expression on Sylvia's face without comment. Hanna always knew more about what went on in this house than anyone. She may have known exactly what had happened with Sylvia over the summer.
"I'll have to get your laundry, then, today. I won't be sending you home with a suitcase full of dirty clothes for your mother to manage."
"Oh, you don't have to do…"
"Of course, I do. They don't pay me for my looks, Sylvia." Hanna smiled to herself as she said this, readjusting the towel over the bread dough.
"Thank you, Hanna."
"You're welcome, Sylvia." The two of them regarded each other for a moment, and it was one of those times in life when more could have been said than was said, but they abstained The silence stretched until Hanna reached into a bowl on the counter and handed Sylvia a muffin.
"We'll save our goodbyes for tomorrow. Here, eat something. You look weak. I'm going to wash up. I don't want to spoil the surprise, but Catherine's ordered you a dress for the show tonight."
"Show?" Sylvia searched her mind for what Hanna meant.
"Eric's art show, of course." The breath left Sylvia's body in a swooshing, and she hung onto the counter for support. "They're leaving at two o'clock. You'll have to be ready by then. It's a long drive into Boston."
"Of course." Sylvia closed her eyes and opened them, pleading with the dazzling bits of light in front of her eyes to depart. Hanna left the room quickly, already planning her afternoon without them in the house.
Sylvia left the muffin on the counter and took her tea to the front room. She sat down on the sofa and gazed out the window. “My God, what will they think of me?” Her pulse played loudly in her ears. “Maybe he won't show it,” she thought. “Maybe he has hidden it somewhere. Oh, God. What will I do?”
Later that afternoon, Catherine came into her bedroom with Vivian behind her. They looked like a pair of thieves, dressed in dark colors and masked with their elegance and long gloves. Sylvia sat silently on the bed, regarding them.
"We have a surprise for you, Sylvia. You've grown up so much since you've been here. We wanted to get you something special. Vivian, go get it now." Catherine beamed at Sylvia. Both were pleased she was going and were compelled to show an expression of their love for her to dispel any contradiction to the fact. Vivian left the room, and Sylvia could hear her bedroom door opening, and then the soft sound of her footsteps returning. A rustle accompanied her footsteps. She walked into the room holding out a long gown in low-key shades of silver, blue, and green. It was the most beautiful thing Sylvia had ever seen. The length of it was full, and it was truly the color of the sea. It whispered and hummed with presence.
"It's beautiful." Despite her circumstances, the dress excited Sylvia. It looked alive.
"We have gloves, too." The gloves were a sheer white, so delicate and diaphanous that she could only see them clearly from the seams.
"Eric says you're featured in two paintings, Sylvia. Two! We could not have you going and looking like anything less than a beauty." Vivian smiled as she spoke, fingering the gown herself. "Well, hurry. You must get dressed. We're late already." Sylvia quickly shed her clothes, unconcerned with their gaze on her. They helped her slip the gown over her shoulders, and it fell down around her in a waterfall of shades. Disappointment covered her brow, because the bulky line of her brassiere showed along the flimsy strap line.
"Oh, no, Vivian. She'll have to go without." No longer teasing Vivian's respectability, Catherine was quite serious.
"She can't, Catherine. She's a child. Here, I may have something." Vivian disappeared into her bedroom again, and Catherine helped her straighten the endless rippling beauty of the gown.
"It's perfect, Sylvia. You are stunning." She swiveled her around to face her dressing mirror and pulled the clasp of the pearl pendant around to the back of her neck. "Make a wish, you know that's what they say." Sylvia closed her eyes and wished.
"Here, try this." Vivian reappeared in her dark gown with an undergarment in her hands. They helped her back out of the gown, and Vivian clasped the endless hooks on the back of the undergarment, and it did something remarkable. The gown, once on, fell over the lines perfectly.
The drive into Boston took longer than Sylvia expected, and her heart raced the entire time. She rode with Vivian and Adam, but Catherine and Eric had gone ahead in a separate car to make sure the arrangements were to their liking. Vivian and Adam spoke about the end of the summer. They planned some final bash she would not be attending, and it felt strange to her that life would continue after she left. It made her heart ache. She avoided looking at the scenery. The cityscape appeared shortly, and it felt harsh and rigid to her. The sea had become her landscape with its soft sensuous lines. The traffic blinded her too. There were too many cars, and they rushed around them faster than she was used to. It was all speeded up, the entire Bostonian scene. Brick was everywhere—the hard clear lines of it hurt her eyes.
They stopped for tea before the show at a restaurant inside a hotel. Mirrors and chandeliers hung everywhere in a sparkling baroque manner. They were seated at a table with a low arrangement of lilies. The lilies caught her eye, and she leaned forward to get closer to that scent, inhaling deeply, and thinking of David. She pleated her napkin in her lap.
"I suppose we should check in soon, too." Sylvia looked up in surprise at Adam. "Don't worry, dear, you'll have your own room." Vivian smiled graciously at her, with a touch of condescension.
"You mean, we're not going home tonight?" Oh, please God, no, her thoughts picked up in pace, suddenly seeing the beginning to the end.
"No, we're staying overnight, to help Eric and Catherine in the morning. Don't worry, Hanna packed you an overnight bag when she took your laundry."
"What about my flight?"
"It's not until four in the afternoon dear. You'll have plenty of time tomorrow to get ready." Sylvia stopped speaking then, begging her heart to be still. Her last night would be spent without David beside her. When would she tell Ella goodbye? How was it that she had not seen this coming? How could they continually surprise her? She regarded Adam and Vivian, calmly sipping their martinis.
They went to their respective rooms after the tea, which had appeared to Sylvia to be an excuse for cocktails. She was the only one who had tea. Standing in front of the strange stillness of the hotel room, Sylvia sat down on the bed and considered her circumstances. She still had the fifty dollars in her change purse, and it could be used to take a cab back to the Cape. The idea soothed her; there was an escape.
In panicked rush, Vivian entered her hotel room with an abrupt entrance unmarked by any knocking. There was a brief alarm about several wrinkles in Sylvia's dress, but it passed as Vivian smoothed them out with her hands.
"I can't imagine what possessed us to dress before that cab ride. Nerves, I suppose." Listening to Vivian speak, Sylvia kept her eyes focused on the extraordinary girl in the mirror. Her skin looked warmer where it had been pale at the beginning of the summer. There were no swimsuit lines on her shoulders, and Sylvia was surprised that no one noticed except her. She slipped the sheer length of the gloves over her arms.
They took a cab to the studio. Vivian's new diamond earrings sparkled like cold fire. In the backseat, there was some talk between the adults about how "something" had to be done about revitalizing the city. Apparently, they thought it was in a decline. It sounded condescending to Sylvia, and she tried not to listen. Rath
er, she focused on the people walking along the sidewalks and crossing the streets. They looked so normal, simply dressed, going about their day to day lives. It still affected her, the idea that the world could continue so placidly while her life was in upheaval.
"And, I don't know how much they expect us to spend, but I'm not supporting them for the rest of the year. Where the hell are we going to put more of his paintings?" It amused Sylvia, how Adam tried to play the part of Eric's patron in frustrated haughty tones.
"No one expects anything, Adam. We'll just pick out a couple we like." Vivian's voice was firm, and in the light of their recent upheaval, Adam became the generous husband.
"Anything you like is yours, Vivian, always will be." She could sense the movement of them behind her in the backseat. Searching for their reflection in the side mirror of the cab, Sylvia recognized with surprise that they were kissing. It was one of the first times she had seen them touch.
When they arrived, there was already a crowd outside the studio. Situated in the storefront of a tall historic building in the still well-kept downtown district of Boston, the studio materialized fresh and bright, almost modern by comparison. It looked like someone had stripped the architectural detail that made the building historic, all the cornices and trim gone. What remained had an industrialized edge. The cab driver let them out in front of the studio, and they emerged in the deepening evening air with a glitter. Somehow, Adam navigated through the crowd with the enormity of power in his presence parting them. People stared at them, and Sylvia felt the first hint of the blush that would remain with her the rest of the evening.
Inside, the lights were strategically placed and angled to highlight the paintings. They were everywhere. Some hung on the walls, others were displayed on elaborate easels. The people in the room stifled her, and Sylvia was aware of many gazes on them. They were overdressed for the informal atmosphere, although some obviously well to do people were being courted by two girls in simple black dresses speaking reverently about the paintings. ‘Salesgirls’, her aunt called them.
