Cassie Binegar (2 page)

Cassie, furious, couldn't help laughing as John Thomas deposited her in her mother's lap.

“Lovely child,” announced James, smiling and peering at her. “But bald, I'm sad to tell. She looks like a soccer ball.”

“Don't all babies?” asked John Thomas.

Alone on the dune staring at the house, Cassie touched her cheek. She could almost feel her mother's coarse curly hair against her face, John Thomas's rough hand holding hers, see the look of her father's face, softened by the glow of the oil lamp, and James' wide smile, his eyes crinkled by early crow's-feet. A sudden breaking of the gulls overhead made Cassie look up. The gulls were like her family, noisy and raucous. There was always laughing and kissing and bumping and touching. Cassie winced, hunching her shoulders in protection against the thoughts of their loud love. She thought enviously of Margaret Mary's mother, who looked serene. Cassie had practiced looking serene each morning before breakfast.

“What's the trouble, Cass?” her mother had asked. “A headache?” She had brushed Cassie's hair off her forehead and put her lips there. “A fever?”

Cassie shook her head, thinking of it. A great cloud—where had it come from?—slid over the sun, and Cassie shivered. Her mother came out of the house and called to her.

“Cass, time to set the table!”

Cassie stood up, watching the wind lift her mother's long hair and push it in front of her face.

Sudden anger pushed at the back of Cassie's throat.

“No,” she shouted suddenly. “I'm upset and angry. I don't want to set the table. I don't like it here. And I don't like you much, either!”

But the wind, as Cassie had known it would, tossed the words back into her mouth. Her mother, not hearing, held out her arms and beckoned her home.

Cassie took out her lined-white-paper list, and while her mother waited she wrote one more complaint:

23. TOO MUCH INFINITY.

Then she sighed and slowly walked up the hill.

T
HE OLD MEMORY
began again, even before dinner was over. Usually it came to Cassie as a dream, most often at night. But lately it came during the day, invading the safety of daylight. Cassie had made the dream go away before by pressing her fingers against her eyelids, tightly, so that waves and flashes came instead. But it didn't work anymore. And today it was her mother's fault. Right in the middle of dinner, in the midst of her brothers' teasing, her father's laughter, Cassie's mother made the announcement.

“Gran's coming for a while.”

Suddenly, for Cassie, all the noises stopped. She pushed her plate away and watched her father's lips move.

“That's good,” he said, looking up, his fork poised. “It will be good for her. She can help get the cottages ready.”

“The others would like to come, too,” added her mother. “They can all help. All right?” She bent her head to include the family in the decision.

“You mean Uncle Hat?” asked John Thomas, smiling broadly. “And Cousin Coralinda?”

“And Baby Binnie?” James began laughing. They all laughed. All but Cassie. The picture of her grandfather, Papa, lying in the big oak bed in the old house inland, came between Cassie and her family. And the memory came, washing over her like a sea wave.

“Come, come, Cassie,” Papa was saying as if it were yesterday. “Moving to the sea will be an adventure. There will be sand, miles of it, and the ocean and birds! And in the summers there will be people to rent the cottages. New people for you to know. Maybe new people each summer.” He held out his thin arms to hug her, but Cassie, as in every memory, as in every dream, shrugged him away. “No!” she said, stamping her foot stubbornly. “I don't want to leave here. Something terrible will happen if we move. You'll see. You'll see!”

And soon after, something terrible
had
happened. Papa had died.

“Say you're sorry for yelling,” Papa had called after her. “Say you're sorry.”

But Cassie had run off.

“We can put them all up in the cottages,” came her mother's voice. “As long as it stays this warm.”

I'm sorry, I'm sorry
, thought Cassie. But as often as she tried to change the words, she had not said she was sorry. Would things have been different if she had? She had not gone to Papa's funeral. She had stayed with a friend and watched out the window as the long line of cars passed by on their way to bury her grandfather. Seventeen. She had counted them as her friend played solitaire in the room.

“Twenty-five, thirty-five, forty,” said her friend, counting points to a game.

“Seventeen cars,” Cassie had answered her, her nose pressed against the window.

“Seventeen what?” asked James, nudging Cassie from her dream. And it was now again. Her Gran coming. Coming to stay. She would see, and Cassie would not be able to hide anymore.

“Seventeen nothing,” said Cassie, trying to smile at James.

Dinner was over, and Cassie's mother was taking out her flute to play.

“Mom?” pleaded Cassie suddenly.

“Mom what?” asked her mother. She played a quick scale, a fluid sound like water calling down the side of a hill.

“Nothing,” said Cassie, the words she wanted to say gone the way of the music. “Nothing.”

She slipped out of her chair, taking her plate and her mother's, and went to lean against the kitchen sink. The sweet sad sound of her mother's flute made her throat tighten.

She had not seen Gran alone since the funeral, afraid that Gran, so good at seeing the truths behind Cassie's words, might see the truth about Cassie. She had yelled at Papa. She was ashamed of her family. She wished for things to be different. No, she wished for things to be the same, the way they had been. Gran was coming, and she would see.

Cassie looked up and stared at the dark window over the sink.

“What do you see?” asked James, putting his arm around Cassie's shoulders.

Cassie saw herself looking back, large eyed and wavery, like a ghost.

“Me,” said Cassie.

“Only you?” asked James. “There's a moon on the water, can't you see? And a boat out there. Look, she's got her running lights on.” He bent down, his head next to Cassie's, and pointed. Cassie closed her eyes and opened them again. She shook her head and tried to look beyond the staring face in the window glass. Behind them, Cassie's mother began playing a quick piece, and Cassie could see her reflection get up and begin to dance and weave around the room in time to the music. Cassie could see her wiggle and hear John Thomas and her father laugh.

Cassie sighed.

“Why can't we be like everyone else?” she asked.

James looked down at her.

“And what is everyone else like, Cass?” he asked softly. He folded his arms, waiting. But there was no answer.

“You don't understand,” said Cassie, angrily.

You don't understand
. Cassie thought of Margaret Mary and her family who wore shoes most times and had matching silverware. Margaret Mary liked Cassie. But now it would be ruined. Cassie's relatives, Cassie thought, were even worse than her family. They would spoil everything. Uncle Hat, who often talked in numbers and rhymes. His daughter, Cousin Coralinda, who wore too many feathers, with her baby, Binnie. And worst of all, Gran, with her sharp eyes, quick, darting, like the sandpipers, and her blunt words.

Sighing, Cassie tried once more to look beyond the face in the glass. There was the sea out there, now black in the darkness, and a moon, and the every-so-often sweep of the Coast Guard light. But Cassie couldn't see them. James was right. Her own face was in the way.

I
N THE BEGINNING,
Margaret Mary and Cassie had been careful friends, circling each other, making uneasy, measured reachings of friendship like dogs meeting for the first time.
I know you're a dog. I am, too. Sniff a bit. Will I like you? More important, will you like me?
In school, where Cassie had come during the mid-year, there were others her age, all accepting, none unfriendly. But there was something about Margaret Mary, newly arrived from England. Something special in the mysterious prim set of her mouth that twitched up in a smile at odd times, the clipped way of speaking. Something special like a secret signal or a whisper or a flower suddenly blooming between two rocks. Margaret Mary was a comfortable mystery to Cassie. She listened to Cassie complain about her family, her house, her need for a space, her wish to go back. She listened and said little. And as Cassie drew comfort from Margaret Mary's accepting silence, she basked in the order of Margaret Mary's house. The tables were not cluttered with books and magazines. They were bare and shiny and you could not write messages in the dust. Margaret Mary's mother and father discussed the morning newspaper and the evening news in soft voices that did not rise or fall with annoying enthusiasm. The conversation wafted above Cassie and Margaret Mary's heads like steam from hot tea. Margaret Mary's mother and father did not ask Cassie any embarrassing questions about what she thought and how she felt about things. They only asked her where she lived and if she had brothers and sisters and what her parents did for a living. Then she was left to think, and eat off the matching white plates with gold rims, dishes that were whisked away and put in a dishwasher. Cassie saw that the kitchen counters were shiny and unstained. The faucet did not drip. And there were no ants.

In Margaret Mary's bedroom there was a place for everything and the bed was so neat that Cassie wondered if Margaret Mary actually slept in it.

“Your parents are nice,” said Cassie, suddenly shy.

Margaret Mary looked up, one eyebrow raised.

“Yes,” she said thoughtfully. “They are nice.”

“Your house is nice, too,” said Cassie, sitting on the bed. “And your room,” she added. Cassie stood up. “Where's the bathroom?”

Margaret Mary smiled and pointed.

“It's there,” she said, grinning. “It's nice, too.”

Cassie grinned back at Margaret Mary. Then they both laughed. Cassie had not yet heard Margaret Mary laugh. It was very loud and noisy, and it seemed to bounce off the clean painted walls and tumble around the neat room. The idea of Margaret Mary, proper and prim, laughing like someone's uncle made Cassie laugh even harder. They rolled around on the bed, their arms clasped over their stomachs, gasping, sitting up to look at each other, then collapsing again.

“What are we laughing about?” asked Margaret Mary, trying to look serious. This made them laugh more.

After a while, Cassie sat up, drying her eyes. Margaret Mary sat up next to her, both of them quiet, shy again, looking at their feet. Cassie stared at her sneakers, one taped over a toe, white shoelaces in one, brown in the other. Then she looked at Margaret Mary's feet: pink socks with lace edgings, brown shoes with straps hooked over pearl buttons.

Cassie sighed.

“You have matching clothes,” she announced.

Margaret Mary nodded.

“And ribbons and dresses,” Cassie added. She got up and walked over to the closet where Margaret Mary's dresses hung in neat rows, one to a hanger. Matching ribbons hung on a hook just inside the closet.

“Maybe I should try matching ribbons,” she said thoughtfully.

Margaret Mary reached over Cassie's shoulder, picking out two green ribbons. Together, they stood in front of the mirror, Margaret Mary trying to gather the wild wisps of Cassie's hair into a pigtail on one side, Cassie the other. Her arm up, Cassie could see that there was a hole in the underarm of her shirt. They stood, side by side, looking at their reflections. Margaret Mary tipped her head, studying Cassie. Cassie tried to smile at herself, but she couldn't.

“I look,” she said sadly, “like a package.”

“Cassie,” said Margaret Mary, “your hair is splendid and free. It shouldn't be tied up in ribbons.” Then, seeing Cassie's sad look, she added, “They're only ribbons, Cass.” She bent her head toward the closet. “They're only dresses. They're
only
socks.”

Slowly, Cassie reached up and untied the green ribbons. She handed them to Margaret Mary.

“But everything here is so neat and uncluttered,” she said, watching Margaret Mary hang the ribbons back on the hook.

“And safe,” she added softly, surprising herself.

Margaret Mary put her hand on Cassie's shoulder and they looked at each other in the mirror, Margaret Mary so slim and fair-haired, Cassie, her hair so wild, her eyes sad.

“Only safe and uncluttered on the outside, Cass,” said Margaret Mary softly. She gestured. “This is all the outside. It doesn't matter. It only matters if you're safe and uncluttered on the inside.”

Inside, outside
, thought Cassie as she went to Margaret Mary's bathroom. Closing the door behind her, she saw that Margaret Mary was right about the bathroom. It was nice. There were no hairs in the sink, no remnants of soap bars to be scratched off. The lid of the clothes hamper was closed tightly, not like in Cassie's house where the clothes tumbled out and around and behind. Cassie sat on the edge of the bathtub and leaned over to open the hamper with one finger. At the bottom, very neatly folded, was one blouse. Cassie picked it up. It was not dirty.

Inside, outside
, Cassie repeated silently as she and Margaret Mary walked beside the evening sea toward Cassie's house. She didn't understand. It didn't have anything to do with her insides. If Cassie's family would only move back where they lived before, things would be all right again, wouldn't they? Things would be uncluttered. Things would be safe, the way they had been. Cassie thought about Papa. Or would they? The gentle waves along the inlet reached for their bare feet. The stars were scattered across the sky. Cassie watched Margaret Mary, walking beside her. Cassie straightened up and practiced walking delicately, one foot carefully in front of the other, like Margaret Mary. “
Inside, outside, inside, outside, inside, outside
,” she whispered to the rhythm of her steps as she walked home, trying to understand the meaning of Margaret Mary's message.