Chasing endless summer, p.18
Chasing Endless Summer, page 18
When I came out in my nightgown and slipped into bed, she put down her mobile phone.
“Did you see them naked together?” she asked.
“Who?”
“Your mother and her lover? I’m sure you saw them kissing, but what about the other stuff?”
“Parker told me you and Boston wouldn’t ask about those things. It would upset my father, and he warned me again not to talk about it.”
“You think I would tell what you told?”
“No,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure. She might have a best friend just waiting to hear the details.
“Well?”
“If I talk about it, I can’t help thinking about it, and I’m so tired. Let me sleep. We have lots of time to tell each other things we wouldn’t tell other people, especially my father and Parker,” I added, hoping that would make her back away for now.
“Okay. I’ll wait, but maybe you’ll talk in your sleep and your secrets will leak out anyway,” she said, and turned off the light.
Would I?
Despite my fatigue, going to sleep with that on my mind wasn’t easy. I didn’t remember when I had fallen asleep, but when I woke, Dina was already up and dressed and had gone downstairs. I could hear talking. I rose quickly. Would Daddy be upset I was getting up so late? I washed and dressed as quickly as I could, choosing one of the shorts-and-blouse outfits Aunt Holly had gotten for me. But when I went downstairs, Daddy and Boston were already gone.
“Your father has an earlier shift today, so he’ll be home in time for us to go to a restaurant,” Parker said. “I have a number of things to do, so I’ll be leaving shortly.”
Dina was still at the table, texting someone on her mobile.
“I’m sorry I slept so late,” I said.
“We expected it,” Parker said. “What surprised us was how early Dina rose.”
“What?” she said, hearing her name.
“Where’s your mobile?” Parker asked me.
“Upstairs in my purse. I haven’t even turned it on.”
Who was I going to call or text except Aunt Holly?
“I’m sure before long it will be attached to you,” Parker said. “Dina sleeps with it. I think she even showers with it.”
“Very funny, Parker.”
I looked at Parker. Did she really want her children to call her by her first name even if they meant it to be funny? I couldn’t imagine calling my father Morgan or my mother Linsey.
“There’s cereal and bananas, berries, or do you know how to make yourself eggs?”
“Yes, I used to help… yes,” I said. “But I’ll have cereal.”
She nodded at the cabinet on her right.
“Just make yourself at home now, Caroline. When I go shopping for groceries, you can come along and get some things you like.”
I looked at Dina, who was gazing up at the ceiling and shaking her head.
“The excitement might be too much,” she said.
I poured myself a glass of juice and chose a cereal. I tried not to look at either of them as I cut the banana as carefully and as perfectly as Mommy used to and then spooned in some berries.
“We’ll hang out at the pool today. I have the perfect spot for you to pose.”
“Be careful with the sun,” Parker warned me. “You have very fair skin, and you haven’t been in the sun very much. I don’t expect her to have a burn,” she added for Dina, who scoffed and got up. “Did you hear me about going to a restaurant for dinner tonight?”
“No. I mean, we can’t. We’re going to a beach party. Beans told Morgan last night.”
“He didn’t approve of it.”
“He said he’d think about it,” she whined.
Parker sighed. “Well, maybe Morgan and I will have a night to ourselves, then. We can regain our sanity.”
“I’m changing into my bathing suit and setting up at the pool,” Dina told me, ignoring her mother.
When she left, Parker turned to me.
“Your father appears pleased with you so far, Caroline. Just remember to be careful among Dina and her friends. It looks like we live apart from people here, but it’s a remarkably small community. All people really know is your mother was killed in a horrible car accident. They know, of course, about your parents’ divorce, but that’s basically it.
“I’ll be gone most of the day. I have a few other errands to run,” Parker said, and left to go upstairs.
Sitting there alone in a house I hadn’t yet gotten used to, but that seemed filled with warnings, gave me such an empty, lost feeling that for a moment I wondered if I was better off living in a darker mansion where the memories of my mother were never gone.
As if on cue, Dina came halfway down the stairs and brought me back to Sutherland.
“Your phone was ringing,” she said. “Who’s Holly Sutherland?”
I rose quickly and took the mobile from her.
“My aunt,” I said. I stared at her name on the small screen.
“So call her back. You know how to do it, don’t you?”
“Thank you,” I said.
I went out on the patio and did just that—far enough, I hoped, for Dina not to hear.
“How are you, sweetheart?” Aunt Holly said as soon as I called. “How was your trip?”
“It was good.”
“And?”
“Daddy’s new wife told me he was pleased with me. So far.”
“Okay. Is it nice?”
“Very,” I said, and described the house and the pool and my new bike.
She laughed at how fast I was talking. “Well, I’m glad,” she said when I paused for a breath.
“And how’s Simon?”
I looked back first to be sure Dina wasn’t listening from the doorway.
“He wants to return to Sutherland.”
“He does? Does he know I’m gone?”
“Yes, but I think he wants to be sure your grandfather doesn’t dislike him. His doctor thinks it’s okay.”
“He’d rather be there than home with you and Uncle Martin?”
“He always did,” she said.
Something that I feared but didn’t even voice to myself stepped up.
“Isn’t he afraid of the memory of the accident?”
Would I ever get Mrs. Lawson’s twisted, dead body out of my mind?
“His doctor thinks it might be better for him to confront it. I don’t doubt he can. He’s a true Sutherland,” she said.
It was hard to tell from the tone of her voice whether she was happy or sad about that. She promised to call frequently and tell me how everything was and repeated that I should call her whenever I needed someone.
I’ll call you right back, I wanted to say.
I need someone now.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
After I ate my breakfast and cleaned up, I went upstairs, put on my bathing suit, and then joined Dina at the pool. She was wearing a very revealing two-piece coral-colored bathing suit. The bottom cut sharply between her legs. It wasn’t so much that it left little to the imagination but more that it lit up the imagination. My floral one-piece felt more like a little girl’s, unflattering and hardly as sexy. She laughed at what I was sure was an expression of shock on my face.
I should be better at hiding my feelings, I thought. It was practically the most important thing for me to do, especially here. For the first time, I wished I could be more like my grandfather. Behind his steely look lay either satisfaction or dissatisfaction, happiness or sadness, calmness or rage, but you couldn’t tell until he told you.
Simon thought that was the root of our grandfather’s power: being inscrutable. “How do you play checkers with someone invisible? When he wants to, he can turn his eyes into glass. All you see is your own reflection, your own thoughts and fears, not his.”
“You look so surprised, Caroline. Didn’t you ever see a plunge triangle bikini?” Dina asked, proudly turning to show me how it fit so snugly.
“No.”
Not in real life, I thought. Dr. Kirkwell had shown me pictures of women in even more revealing bathing suits. She had asked me if my mother owned one like it. I remember being shocked at even the idea. She didn’t like my answer and basically forced me to admit that I didn’t know everything about my mother, especially when she was younger, in high school and college.
“Parker hates this suit,” Dina said. “She says I could just wear two Band-Aids and panties and it would be the same. Like I would take her fashion advice. You should see the suit she wears. It looks like it was made in 1930. Your father looks great in a suit, almost as sexy as Beans in his lifeguard suit.”
The idea of my father being sexy brought a fresh flush to my face. She interpreted my silence as my feeling sorry for myself.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “We’ll find a better bathing suit for you. I know some great shops at the beach. Maybe we can get one tonight.”
“We’d better ask my father first.”
Especially if it’s anything like yours, I thought.
“Oh, give me a break. You don’t have to wear it around here. Only when we go to the beach. He’ll never know. It’s not lying if you don’t say or show anything. You never said you didn’t, and you never said you did. That’s the way I think about it. Am I right?”
“We’ll see,” I said.
I didn’t want to tell her I thought that was still dishonest and deceitful. Nattie used to tell me that most of her job in diplomacy was learning how to walk a tightrope. She’d laugh and say, “It’s not lying; it’s balancing.”
“You just described my life,” Mommy had said. Was that becoming mine?
“Whatever. I have your lounge chair positioned over there,” she said, pointing to the other side of the pool. “You’ll have enough shade. Just turn toward me and keep your arms on the side. Don’t cross your legs. Unpin your hair. I’d like it over your shoulders. It all matters!” she emphasized before I could even think of questioning her orders. “It’s my vision.”
“I don’t know why it’s so important to paint a picture of me as soon as I arrive. I’m still half asleep.”
“Freshness. Once you’re here a week or so, you won’t look as innocent. I talk from experience,” she said, smiling proudly, as if she had climbed Mount Everest or something. “The sun and warm nights kind of make you grow up faster.”
“What does that mean?”
“Use your imagination. Think of yourself wearing a bathing suit like this on the beach with some good-looking boys around you. You think they’ll want to play video games with you? You’ll be swatting them away like flies. Don’t dare choose any of them without first checking with me.”
“Oh.”
The soft tropical breeze played in my hair as soon as I loosened it. It felt like soft tips of fingers exploring my face. My imagination seemed to naturally envision the eyes and smiles of good-looking teenage boys, boys I had seen in dreams when I was conceiving of my own romances. Weren’t Hawaiian beaches the most natural place to find them, all of us in clothing as skimpy as could be, sexual innuendos swirling around me? Deep down, a part of me had begun longing for the flirtatious affairs Dina was suggesting. Although I never said it to Dr. Kirkwell or to Simon, I needed to affirm who I was to myself as much as to my grandfather and anyone at Sutherland, and especially to my father, affirm that I wanted to fall in love with a boy, a man, marry and have my own children. I wanted my own Robot Family, but one so entangled with love that we could never deny each other or even think of being apart.
And I wanted this without feeling guilty, feeling like I in any way condemned my mother. Her love for Nattie and Nattie’s love for her was something that I felt was real. It was right for them; it gave them happiness.
“Yeah, oh,” Dina said.
I had been in such a daydream for a few moments that I lost track of what she was saying.
“What?”
“Forget it, Caroline. Go on to the lounge chair. Let’s get the best of the late morning. I promised Morgan I’d ride around here with you in the afternoon and give you some hints about riding in traffic. Don’t think I want to do it. I’m being selfish. If he’s happy, he’ll loosen up the dog collars.”
“Dog collars?”
“He won’t be so uptight about everything we do. Jeez, Caroline, were you brought up in a nunnery or something?” She paused, staring at me. “Okay, I think I get it,” she said.
“Get what?”
She sighed deeply. “The forbidden,” she moaned. “You should have seen and heard the reminders both Beans and I were getting a few days before you arrived. We’re all tiptoeing around hot coals on the beach. We’ll figure it all out later. If you listen to me, we’ll be fine.
“Go on. Lie on the lounge chair. I have to get started while I have the artistic energy. It comes and goes in waves. Like sex,” she tittered.
Of course, after my experiences at school and in the neighborhood after Mommy and Daddy separated and Mommy and Nattie began living together, and after my incarceration and the terrible aversion therapy treatment, I was terrified to the bone when it came to being brought into a new world of teenage boys and girls. What would they see? What mistakes would I make? How would Daddy react? Even after only hours of being with Dina, I wasn’t confident that she was my best guide to help me navigate into a new life. But if I rejected her too strongly, things could go sour anyway.
I crossed to the other side of the pool. There was a towel rolled at the bottom of the lounge chair. She stood by her easel, her drawing pencil in hand, impatiently waiting for me to prepare myself as she had described.
“So who’s Simon?” she asked as soon as I was ready. “You were talking about him right under the lanai,” she said, seeing the surprise on my face. “Don’t worry. I didn’t hear everything. You were practically whispering. I’m surprised your aunt could hear you.”
“He’s my cousin,” I said. “Uncle Martin and Aunt Holly’s son.”
“How old?”
“He’s sixteen, almost seventeen, but he’s always been years ahead mentally.”
“Is he good-looking?”
“Yes.”
“Lots of girlfriends?”
“No,” I said, maybe too quickly.
She paused and stared at me a moment. “No? He likes girls, doesn’t he? Or what?”
“He doesn’t go to a regular school. He’s too far ahead. His teachers couldn’t keep up with him.”
“Sounds pretty boring. Look this way, please. So what was that about a memory he might have?”
“I don’t think I should talk about him anymore. Daddy wouldn’t like it.”
“Daddy wouldn’t like it,” she mimicked. Then she paused and lost her smile. “So many secrets you’re going to have to give up to become my sister,” she warned. “You want that, right? You want to have a best friend, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I said, but cautiously.
“Forget about it for now. You’re acting nervous, and you’re ruining my vision for the painting. I have to concentrate anyway. As my art teacher told me, I have to find my vision and concentrate on it and nothing else.”
For a while she worked without talking. When the sun hit my feet, I brought up my legs.
“Oh, stop worrying about getting sunburned. Parker sees trouble everywhere. It’s part of her work. Come to think of it, your father’s, too.” She smiled. “I think they have a traffic light on the ceiling above their bed. You know, caution, coming in too fast?” She laughed.
“What’s that mean?”
She paused. “What does that mean? What does this mean? You do know how people make babies, don’t you?”
“We’re still trying to figure out how you were made,” we heard, and saw Boston in his bathing suit, a towel over his shoulder, come out of the house. He did look quite sexy, just as Dina had said.
“Why are you home?” Dina asked, clearly sounding annoyed.
“They had to close the pool for some repair on the equipment. Hi, Caroline.”
He put his towel on a lounge chair and slipped out of his sandals. Then he walked up to the edge of the pool and dove in, hardly making a splash.
“He’s such a show-off,” Dina said. She threw down her pencil. When he popped up, she moaned. “How am I supposed to concentrate on my work?”
Boston ignored her and turned to me. “Water’s perfect. It feels like liquid silk. Come on. Dive in.”
I looked at Dina. She flopped onto a chair. The pool did look inviting.
“I can’t dive,” I said.
“Sure you can. I’ll show you how.”
He pulled himself up and swung out of the pool in one motion. All his muscles seemed to flex. In his swimsuit he looked like he didn’t have an ounce of fat. He held out his hand, beckoning.
“C’mon, don’t be afraid.”
“Maybe she doesn’t care to learn to dive, Beans.”
“Sure she does.”
He looked at me, smiling. I stood trembling, uncertain, wondering what to do that wouldn’t make me seem more like a little girl. It suddenly became very important to me that Boston see me as a young teenage woman. Should I rush to take his hand, or be coy? Which was more grown-up?
He didn’t wait. He seized my hand and pulled me gently to him. Then he stepped behind me and, with his hands on my waist, guided me to the side of the pool.
“We’ll start from scratch. Sit here on the edge of the pool with your feet in the water. You can touch the bottom here. The pool has a fast drop-off to the left, but here we’re only about three and a half feet.”
I did what he asked and then looked at Dina. She turned away, folding her arms, pouting.
“Okay,” he said, sitting beside me. “You line up your body, arms out, and tuck your head in like this. It’s really important to line your head up. So you’re just going to slide your body into the water, but it’s necessary that you keep your head tucked in, otherwise your body will just smack on the water. You just fall into the water, leaning in with your head. Watch.”
He did it, and then I did.
“That was good,” he said. He looked toward Dina. “You could learn, too. You never did, and you belly-flop all the time. Care to join diving class?”
