Cassie Binegar (5 page)

Cassie smiled. Even in sand, she noticed, Cousin Coralinda could roll.

“Twelve and two/Good to see you,” said Uncle Hat, smiling at Cassie. Cassie couldn't think of a rhyme quickly, but Margaret Mary, prepared for Hat, did.

“One and three/You're good to see,” she said, and Hat smiled and shook her hand solemnly. He handed Cassie and Margaret Mary the smaller pieces of luggage, and they began carrying them to the cottage on the bluff.

“Why does he wear hats?” whispered Margaret Mary.

“Don't know,” said Cassie, putting Hat's telescope over her shoulder. “It's a mystery. He even wears a hat to bed.”

“Did anyone ever ask him?” asked Margaret Mary.

Cassie stopped suddenly to stare at Margaret Mary. No one ever had that Cassie knew of. But it was like Margaret Mary to think of it. “The fastest way between two points,” Margaret Mary once said, “is a straight line.” And a direct question was a straight line.

“I'm sure it is something drastic and complicated, dark and drear,” said Cassie. “Too horrible to be mentioned.”

“Dark and drear?” asked Margaret Mary.

“Maybe he's embarrassed about his head,” said Cassie, thoughtfully.

“Or,” said Margaret Mary, “he was denied hats as a child by his mother, now departed.”

They both laughed. Then Cassie sighed.

“I wish they were normal,” she said fervently.

“More wishes?” Margaret Mary lifted her eyebrows.

“Well, you know”—Cassie waved a hand—“you've seen them. They're . . . they're . . . different.”

It was Margaret Mary's turn to sigh. “I know,” she said enviously. “It's wonderful. Splendid.” That word again. “I wish . . .” Her voice stopped. “I do wish that I had some abnormal family.”

“You do?”

Margaret Mary nodded. “All I've got is an aunt in Sussex who sweeps the floor constantly and wears a tea cozy on her head.”

Cassie and Margaret Mary looked at each other and burst out laughing.

“Wishes,” said Margaret Mary, giggling.

“Wishes,” echoed Cassie, smiling broadly.

And they went off to deliver all the luggage while Bumble Bee loped and sniffed and rolled about the sea roses, and Bitsy jumped at their shoelaces and furiously attacked Cousin Coralinda's feathered cape.

Cousin Coralinda, unaware, had provided Cassie with a wonderful new hiding place. She had brought a huge and horrible tablecloth as a gift for Cassie's mother—white with windy swirls of green and birds in every color. It was close to the ugliest thing Cassie had seen or imagined, but Cassie's mother loved it.

“It's different and unique,” she insisted admiringly, throwing the bright cloth out and letting it settle like a parachute over the oak table in the dining room.

It was different all right, thought Cassie. Just like everything and everyone here. Feathers and rhymes and too much of both. But as soon as Cassie had seen that the tablecloth touched the floor all around, she knew at once that it was for her. A space of her own. She could hardly wait for dinner to be over and done with so she could creep in and hide under the tablecloth to listen and watch.

Dinner was striped bass on a large platter with parsley and lemon slices.

“I would wish/for lots more fish,” rhymed Hat.

“Oogmits,” said Baby Binnie from her high chair, her face serious and serene.

“That's ‘milk'!” exclaimed Cousin Coralinda happily. “Didn't you hear?” The feather boa that she wore around her neck rippled with the drafts from the open window. One feather flew loose as James and John Thomas smiled into their glasses of milk.

Bumble Bee snored, stretched out on the kitchen floor, and Bitsy lurked ominously beneath the table, alternately rubbing against their legs and pouncing painfully on their feet.

“Oh,” exclaimed Cousin Coralinda, “dessert is ice cream! Say ice cream, Baby Binnie.”

“Ribbish,” said Baby Binnie, happily allowing mashed potatoes to ooze out of the corners of her mouth.

“That's wonderful!” cried Cousin Coralinda.

“Glanx?” asked Baby Binnie, lovingly winding her fingers with Gran's.

It was not until the next day that Cassie found a time to be under the tablecloth, for dinner was too long and Cassie too weary to explore. As it turned out, Cassie would always remember her first time in her new space, the early morning light making it a cave of color. For it was on August 12, at 8:22, that Cassie Binegar (whose name rhymes with vinegar) fell in love.

A
CTUALLY, IT WAS NOT
the writer himself but his feet that Cassie loved first. During the next month, she was to become quite familiar with many pairs of feet from her space under the tablecloth. She recognized all the voices, but it was the feet she came to know, almost as if each person was turned upside down for her. And what the voice said was not always what the feet said to Cassie. Uncle Hat's, planted firmly with a once-in-a-while covering of one with the other; Gran's, long and blue veined and restless; her mother's, brown and relaxed; Coralinda's, prim and parked neatly; her brothers', up and down and never there for long; her father's, happily stretching, small tufts of black hair on each toe. Baby Binnie's didn't reach, of course, the only evidence of her the soggy bits of food dropped from her high chair. Feet told Cassie more than mouths or minds or words, and from time to time, Cassie would take off her socks and shoes and try to read her own feet.

It was the morning of August 12, early, that Cassie came to know the writer's feet. Sitting silently beneath the tablecloth, listening to the comings and goings and murmurings of her mother and Gran, daydreaming happily, she was not even aware of the knock at the door. Suddenly the writer's feet were there, booted, one foot thrust back under his chair as he sat, the other thrown out, just missing Cassie.

“I'd appreciate it if you could rent me a cottage,” his soft voice said, and in accompaniment, his feet moved. “I write for the newspaper, but I'm taking off a month or two to write for myself. I need a space.”

A space
. Her word, thought Cassie as she sat up straighter.

He sighed and his feet curled a bit, sighing with him. “I'm tired of writing about births, deaths, trips to nowhere, and hardware sales,” he said.

“You may find,” said Gran crisply, “that those are the things you will write about anyway.”

Cassie frowned, but the writer laughed.

“I wonder,” said Cassie's mother thoughtfully. “We could rent you the smallest cottage. Only for a month or two, though, or through October. There isn't heat, you know.”

“That would be splendid,” he said happily, his feet agreeing.

Splendid
. Margaret Mary's word.

“I cook for myself,” he went on, “and I could do some work for you in my spare time.”

Beneath the tablecloth, Cassie longed to see his face. A writer, think of it! Right here. Her face felt warm. She remembered feeling this way only once, in the fourth grade, and then it had only lasted for a day and a half. She had loved Mr. Bagg, her teacher, on sight. Loved him until his sharp-faced wife came to school, dragging along two horrible children, one who stuck his tongue out behind poor Mr. Bagg's back, the other with a suspicious smell about his pants.

All of a sudden the feet disappeared; Gran's, her mother's, and the writer's.

“I'll bring my things in a day or two,” he said, standing close to the table. Cassie could see the outline of his leg leaning into the cloth.

“I'll have the cottage ready,” Cassie's mother said. “You'll have to bring sheets and towels.”

That's wonderful
, thought Cassie. A writer actually bringing his sheets and towels to our cottage.

“Say,” Cousin Coralinda's voice called in the front door. “I've lost Bitsy. Is she in here?”

“Bitsy?” asked the writer.

“A cat,” said Gran. There was a flurry of activity as they called and searched for Bitsy.

“I'll keep looking outside,” called Cousin Coralinda, and the door banged shut.

“Does she come when she's called?” asked the writer. “Perhaps under the tablecloth,” he added.

Underneath, Cassie sat very still. She could feel the pounding of her heart. And then the tablecloth was pulled up and Cassie was staring into the writer's face.
He has no beard
, thought Cassie wildly.
I thought all writers have beards
. For a moment there was a silence as Cassie stared at the writer and he stared back, his dark eyes steady, a slight smile on his face. And then the tablecloth dropped again.

“No cat,” said the writer, matter-of-factly. And then more softly he repeated, “No cat.”

Sudden tears came to Cassie's eyes. Shame at being discovered, at being caught. But then, as they all walked out the door to look for Bitsy and Cassie was left alone, another thought overwhelmed her. She had loved his feet first. But now, thought Cassie happily, I love his face as well. And she sat, her arms around her knees, for a long time in her new space.

Fast as the wind, Cassie ran down the dunes and over the hard-packed edges of the inlet to Margaret Mary's house. Margaret Mary and her mother were outside, weeding around the neat privet hedge. Margaret Mary's mother had a headful of shocking-pink rollers, and she looked like a huge bloom. Cassie stared at her for a moment before she remembered the news.

“Margaret Mary, there's a writer going to live in the small cottage!”

Breathless, Cassie fell to the grass.

“What sort of rider?” asked Margaret Mary, shading her eyes. “Horse? Or motorcycle?”

“Writer!” exclaimed Cassie. “Not rider. He's written for the newspaper but he's tired of writing about births, deaths, trips to nowhere, and hardware sales. Now he's going to write something for himself.”

“A pity, actually,” said Margaret Mary's mother, looking up. “I am most fond of reading about hardware sales.”

“Does he have a beard?” asked Margaret Mary, warming to the subject.

“No beard,” said Cassie. “But he'll be bringing his sheets and towels to the cottage. In a day or two.”

“That's jolly,” proclaimed Margaret Mary. “His own sheets and towels.”

Cassie began to laugh.

“It is that,” she said, imitating Margaret Mary. “It is jolly.”

“Well, dirt and weeds are not jolly,” complained Margaret Mary's mother, holding up some wild honeysuckle by her thumb and first finger as if she held a rotten fish. “This weed is not jolly.”

This made Margaret Mary and Cassie tumble around and peal with laughter. They ran down to the inlet and pranced in the water, sending up the shore birds and getting the bottoms of their pants wet.

“Jolly!” shouted Cassie to the wind, thinking she'd never felt so happy.

And like an echo, Margaret Mary's voice repeated, “Jolly, jolly, jolly.”

I
N THE COOL AND DARK
and private place beneath the tablecloth Cassie became ears, hearing information and thoughts that she would not have if she hadn't hidden there. Only once did the idea of hiding make her uncomfortable, and that was when she told Margaret Mary about being there when the writer had come.

“Hidden!” Margaret Mary was shocked. “That's not good, Cassie. Not good. There are some things not meant to be heard by hidden ears. How would
you
feel if someone spied on you?”

Cassie had dropped the subject. It was, of course, absurd to think that anyone else would ever hide under the table. Or that any grown-up would hide at all, and listen. And it wasn't really spying, thought Cassie. It was only listening. And learning. In order to be a better writer. Yes, that was it, Cassie reasoned. It made good sense. But she had never talked about it again with Margaret Mary. She cared what Margaret Mary thought of her. And what Gran thought. Strangely alike, the two of them. And now the writer, thought Cassie with some fear. He was to come in two days. What would
he
think of her, hiding beneath the tablecloth? He knew. He had seen. But neither Margaret Mary's warnings or her own fears stopped Cassie. She sat and hid. And listened.

“Poor Cousin Cor,” her Gran's voice came to her from above. “Her husband flew the coop.”

Flew the coop? Cassie knew that meant he left. But the way Gran said it brought to mind a picture of Cor's husband, whoever he was, spreading his wings and flying off, winging over hills and dunes and rivers to a faraway place. Migrating, perhaps.

“Coralinda worries too much,” said Cassie's mother, shifting a bit in her chair, her toes fanning out beneath the table.

“Or tries too hard,” answered Gran. “Binnie will talk when she wants. She needs to get her mind off Baby Binnie, and off herself.”

There was a pause, then the sound of the two of them laughing.

“What were they? Coralinda's first words?” asked Cassie's mother.

“I believe, at age two,” said Gran, “her words were ‘The picture is slightly tilted on the wall!'”

“No,” said Cassie's mother, her voice filled with laughter. “I believe she looked out the window, turned to Uncle Hat, and said ‘The road crew has just passed the house.'”

Her voice ended on a high whoop of a note, and she and Gran leaned toward each other, laughing helplessly. They got up, their feet disappearing from under the table, and Cassie lifted the tablecloth and watched them, their arms around each other like small children.

I wish they would stay like this forever, thought Cassie as she dropped the tablecloth and sat and waited, feeling for the first time a bit of a captive beneath the table.

“Who's the man?” asked Cousin Coralinda. “Moving things into the small cottage?” Her feet, in brocade slippers with feathered trim, slipped silently under the table. “Baby Binnie likes him.”