Dream House (15 page)

Her mother was on the phone in the living room. “I know, Annie, but things don't just disappear,” she was saying, “. . . at Lily House. Fran? Who told you that? I haven't any idea; we're not speaking. But I s'pose I'll invite her to dinner; it's Christmas.
Sid?
This weekend?”

“Honey?” Ginny's father yelled from the piano room. “Bruce Ruby's headed up the driveway!”

Eleanor put down the phone and streaked past Ginny up the stairs. “Quick! Help me get this laundry out of here!”

Ginny and her mother grabbed the laundry she'd hung over the hall railing. A pair of underpants floated down the stairwell; she scooped it up and sat on it just as Mr. Ruby let the brass fist knocker hit the door. Her father went to the door, put his hand on the doorknob, and waited for the all-clear signal from her mother.

“Okay, Ron!” Her mother kicked shut the bathroom door and disappeared into her room.

A few minutes later, she emerged dressed. She brushed past Ginny, who was still sitting in the middle of the stairs watching her father and Mr. Ruby bring boxes and boxes of baked goods into the piano room.

“Hello, Bruce!” Her mother smiled and held the door as Mr. Ruby, looking dwarfish in his big brown overcoat, brought in the last box. “And how is everything with you?” She showed no hint of her earlier resentment.

Mr. Ruby set the box down on the piano room floor as Ron began opening each one and pulling out bread, cakes, cookies, and éclairs and placing them on the white linen tablecloth he'd spread over a platform on the floor. The house filled with an intoxicating sweetness. The
two men crawled on their hands and knees to arrange flowers and plates and bread, sitting back on their heels to consider the composition, then rearranging. They joked and laughed, and Ginny thought: everyone likes Daddy.

Now and then, her father stood behind his camera to look through the viewfinder and directed Mr. Ruby with his hands. “No, we can't do that; it'll slide out of the frame,” he'd say, or “a few too many éclairs on the platter.” Mr. Ruby would shuffle around the bakery goods. “How about this?”

“Better. Hold on a minute. Nope, I think there's too much bread here for one shot.”

“You're the boss, Ron.”

You're the boss.
Ginny loved to watch her father at work in this room where he could be the boss. When he pulled the family station wagon over to the side of the road to photograph something scenic, Ginny's mother would be there, directing where to put his tripod. But when the piano room became his studio, he was in charge. He seemed to stand taller, to speak more loudly and move more decisively. Only he knew the secrets of the camera, with all its crazy tricks.

Mr. Ruby and his confections created a holiday sensation in the house: convivial chatter in the piano room, the scent of sugar and vanilla, treats that showed up on the kitchen table. The next day, Wednesday, he brought apple muffins, scones, and donuts. On Thursday, éclairs and butter cookies. Ginny was hopeful that all the sweetness might keep out the sad spirits that sometimes haunted the house at Christmas time.

But, with the piano room tied up with the photo shoot, Ginny and her mother had to cram their activities into the living room and kitchen, behind closed doors. Drop-in friends were out of the question.
Mr. Ruby stayed late, so Ginny and her mother ate dinner most nights in front of the TV.

By Friday, Mr. Ruby's fourth day, Ginny noticed her mother didn't even greet him when he arrived, and she was barely speaking to her father. Cassie, who was on a ski trip with a friend's family, called at lunchtime. Eleanor held the telephone while she stirred soup on the stove. “Well, honey, the snow does sound perfect, but I'd still like you to come home Sunday as planned. Everyone's coming for dinner Monday, and we need to decorate the tree before then, and we can't do that without you . . . I know it's only one more day . . . what? Because I'm your mother; that's why.”

On the kitchen table, Ginny was signing Christmas cards. She and Cassie smiled up from this year's Christmas picture bundled in stocking hats and wool coats, bearing hastily wrapped empty boxes. As usual, they were standing in front of Lily House's front door. When Ginny had asked her mother this time why they didn't take the Christmas photographs in front of their own house, her mother had said, “Well, because it's not really
our
house,” which had made her sad.

Eleanor moved away from the stove, stretching the phone cord into the living room. “Cassie? Oh, hi, Judy. Yes. I know, the snow sounds . . . Right, I know she was, but . . . Uh-huh. Well . . .”

Ginny knew her mother was backing down; as tough as she was with Cassie, she wouldn't dare press Cassie's friend's mother. Ginny's spirits sank. She wanted—
needed
—Cassie home for the tree decorating, a reliably festive family tradition in an otherwise unpredictable season.

“Okay, well, she can do what she wants, then. You bet, Judy. Bye.”

Eleanor put down the phone and stood over it with a defeated hunch. It rang again, and she picked it up. “Hello? Why should I be mad? Obviously, your friends are more important than I am.
You
feel
bad? What do
you
feel bad about? Sure, I know. Well, have a good time.”

“Have a good time” was one of those things her mother sometimes said in a way that made having a good time impossible.

Mr. Ruby and Ron worked through the weekend. Late on Sunday afternoon, restless and lonely, Ginny went outside to her snow fort to escape her mother's bad mood. Under the biggest pile left by the plow she had dug a room wide enough to spread out her arms, with a skylight and a window that looked out on the driveway. It was clean and quiet inside. She lay on her back with her knees up, watching clouds slipping across her rectangular piece of sky. The black fringe of the elm tree, stirred by an occasional gust of wind, floated in and out of the frame.

“You in there?”

Kit peered at her through the fort's window, all braces and red cheeks. He found the fort's opening, crawled through, and stretched out beside her in his camouflage jacket. “Nice fort . . . for a girl,” he teased. Ginny swatted him, and he caught her hand in midair. “What're you gettin' for Christmas?”

“I dunno. Mom's been in such a bad mood I doubt she's even gone shopping yet. What're you getting?”

“My dad's gettin' me a guitar. I'm gonna learn all the songs on
Abbey Road.
”

“What's
Abbey Road?
”

“You know, the Beatles.”

Ginny knew the Beatles. Kit had taught Ginny how to play some Beatles songs on the harmonica. “Then will you teach me to play?” she said. “During vacation?”

“We're drivin' to Pennsylvania for Christmas. Tomorrow. We don't get back 'til the day before school.”

Ginny took this news like a kick to the head; she felt lonelier by the minute. “Why didn't my mom tell me?”

“She wouldn't know. She doesn't exactly talk to my mom.”

It was true. In fact her parents didn't socialize with any of Ginny's school or neighborhood friends' parents. “Why is that?”

“My mom says your mom is snobby.”

The front door slammed. Ginny sat up and spied her mother through the fort's window, trudging down the front steps.

“Ginny, you in there?”

For a fleeting moment, she thought not to answer. She wished she could stay in the fort with Kit for the rest of the day, staring up at the clouds. But she stuck her hand through the window and waved.

“I should go,” Kit said. “See you.” He left, his boots crunching sadly away on the packed snow. Ginny crawled out of the fort and joined her mother in the driveway.

“What're you two up to in there?”

“Just talking.”

Her mother looked her over with disapproval in her eyes. It seemed like she didn't like Kit as much as she used to.

“C'mon. Let's drop in on Fran!” she said.

Ginny was stunned. As far as she knew, her mother hadn't seen Aunt Fran in almost a year, since Grandpa's funeral. Since then, her mother's phone conversations with Fran had sounded like an angry chained-up dog.
She's just plain avaricious
! her mother always said when she hung up; Ginny had never seen or heard the word
avaricious
used anywhere, except to describe Fran. But every year, her mother insisted that Christmas was for family, avaricious or not.

Ginny crawled out of the fort and shuffled behind her mother to the car.

“I brought your game bag so you'll have something to do,” Eleanor said, handing her the cloth shoulder bag Ginny had made at Brownies.

When they were on Pickering Road, her mother said, “Fran's in really bad shape. Her neighbor doesn't think she's left the house
all week. Family is family,” she added as they were passing Tobey's Market. When they passed the church she said, “You don't just ignore your family during Christmas, though your father and Cassie are doing their best to.”

Ginny slumped in her seat. Her mother's pinched voice betrayed that she was dreading the visit as much as Ginny.

But her mother's eyes swept over the big yellow house as they pulled slowly into the lane. In the snow, Lily House did appear especially elegant and inviting, Ginny observed; its windows, with all their little panes, already glowed with a warm light. For the first time, it seemed obvious to her why Lily House had a name and their house didn't.

“Sid's car. He's up from New York,” her mother said, pulling in next to a Chevy Malibu. The news cheered Ginny; Sid's presence could take the edge off the sisters' feud, and perhaps he'd have something interesting to talk to Ginny about, like the ruins at the museum last year.

Eleanor shifted into park and stared out the windshield for a few moments. Then she said, “Sid's eighteen.” She opened her door. “C'mon,” she said, almost smiling. “It'll be fine.”

Ginny followed her up Lily House's front steps. At the top, her mother grazed the porch railing with her fingertips. “
Look
at this porch,” she said, her face brightening like the moms' in TV commercials. “It's hard to imagine in the snow, but in the summer . . . when I was working in Boston, I came up here every weekend. Fran was already living in the house, and she and Bill Holloway and I played bridge out here every Saturday afternoon . . . I hated bridge, but it was the only thing Fran liked to do . . . Bill and I would always want to go sailing, but Fran was so jealous . . .” Her mother turned to her suddenly, as if she'd forgotten she was there. “Well anyway, we had a big hammock,” she went on, “and after Sid was born . . . Oh, what a
sweet child he was. Cassie was all prickers, but Sid was the cuddliest little boy. He just
adored
me!”

Though it was about Cassie, Ginny noticed her own feelings were hurt. Her mother once again threw her gaze over the porch and said, “Isn't it beautiful, Gin?”

“I like our house better,” Ginny said. She waited for her mother to agree.

“Well, there are houses, and then there are
houses,
” she said.

Her mother gently pushed Ginny's hair out of her eyes and knocked on the door. When no one answered, she knocked again.

After another long minute, the door opened, and Sid, his face swollen and unshaven, stepped toward them holding a glass of something. He was not the stylish and enigmatic young man Ginny remembered from the museum, just a sloppy teenager, his cowboy-style shirt spilling over the wide leather belt that seemed to be barely holding up his hip-huggers.

“Oh, gracious me,” he said. “Mother, look who's here.”

Fran appeared in the hallway, dressed in a maroon cardigan that was buttoned wrong. She was taller than Ginny's mother and more delicate. And though she was only two years her senior, she looked older; her face was lined and puffy. “Well hello, Ginny,” she said. She attempted a smile that teetered and then fell, as if it had lost its balance.

“Hi,” Ginny said. Something was wrong; there were not enough lights on in the house, and the air felt heavy.

Her mother said, “Merry Christmas,” took a big step forward, and embraced Sid—with one arm, because she was holding a bag with two presents for Fran and Sid in the other. “How are you, dear?”

Confusion flickered in Sid's face—a startled smile, then a furtive frown. Fran's big dark eyebrows seemed locked at the top of her face. Sid backed away from Ginny's mother. “Just groovy, Ellie . . . Eleanor,”
he said. “After all, it's Chrizmiz. Want a drink?”

Her mother said, “Oh, no. We just wanted to say hi.”

“Well, I know I want one,” Sid said.

Ginny's mother didn't take her eyes off Sid until he'd left the hall. As Fran led them past the living room into the piano room, Ginny noted there was no Christmas tree. Her mother's hand flitted across the furniture as she walked by.

Fran sat in the George Washington chair. Eleanor set the bag with the presents on the piano and sat down opposite her sister, her eyes caressing the portraits on the wall. Ginny settled at the card table in the corner where she could track the conversation but wouldn't have to participate. She slung her bag over the back of the chair. On the table next to her was a carved wooden frame with a photograph of two little curly-haired girls dressed in sacklike dresses and what looked like neckties, and black booties. She was surprised she could tell from their features that they were her mother and Fran; they were turned to each other, giggling.