Dream House (9 page)

Ron pulled into Lily House's driveway, and Eleanor got out. Ginny couldn't remember the last time she'd seen Sid. She took in his bell-bottom corduroys and jean jacket, the dark hair that reached jaggedly for his shoulders, and the cigarette clamped in his mouth and decided he looked like a musician on the cover of a record album, lanky and loose. He appeared to be fiddling with the windshield wiper on Fran's car.

Sid looked up at them, plucked the cigarette from his mouth and ground it into the dirt with his boot. He didn't move toward them when Eleanor got out of the car.

“Oh, boy,” Ron said.

Sid and her mother exchanged a few words, and Sid disappeared into the house. Eleanor marched back to the car. “Fran will come up with some reason he can't go with us, of course. Even on my birthday.”

Ginny hoped she was right. Ron started the engine, and Eleanor said, “Turn it off. We'll just wait. I haven't seen him in three years, for God's sake. She's just jealous! She's been jealous since the day I
was born!”

Lily House's door opened. Sid stood on the porch with his knapsack for a few moments, as if still deciding.

Eleanor said, “Oh!” and her face lit up the way it did when she'd see a Jack-in-the-Pulpit in the woods. She got out of the car and climbed into the backseat with Ginny.

“Why does he get the front?” Ginny asked.

“Because he has long legs.”

Sid's knapsack landed on the floor in the front seat. “Thanks for the rescue, gang,” he said when he got in. “Nice Pontiac, Ron.” The car filled with a smoky smell.

“Sid's coming to the museum with us!” Eleanor announced gaily. “Then we're going to drop him at the bus station to go back to Chapin. Ginny, say hello.”

“Hello,” Ginny said.

“So how's school, dear?” Eleanor asked Sid. “Are you still painting?”

“Still painting. Senior year. A lot of work. Not much sleep. On top of it, I was up half the night with Fran, so if you don't mind, I'm going to take a little snooze.”

Sid slumped against the car door. Eleanor looked out the window. Ginny stewed; her mother would never have allowed Cassie to get away with such rudeness.

No one said a word. Halfway between home and Boston, they stopped to pick up Cassie at Andrews Academy, the all-girls boarding school that Eleanor's “summer person” friends had recommended when Eleanor complained that her older daughter had gone boy crazy and her teachers didn't challenge her. Andrews had given Cassie a scholarship, and her wealthy godmother had provided the balance of the tuition. To Ginny's astonishment, Cassie had been fine with going away to school and didn't even tear up when they dropped her off in September. Ginny had cried hard that night, in bed.

When the station wagon pulled up in front of the dormitory, two girls wearing carpenter's overalls walked by, and Ron chuckled, “Would you look at the outfits?” Cassie bounced down the steps smiling, her long blonde hair shimmering against her navy loden coat. She hadn't gone for the “hippie” look yet, Ginny noted with some relief.

When Cassie spotted the sleeping Sid, her mouth dropped open.

“Oof,” she said, sliding onto the seat next to Ginny. “What's Sid doing here?”

“He's coming to the museum with us!” Eleanor said. She put her finger to her lips to keep Cassie from saying more.

Cassie pinched Ginny's arm lightly, signaling her annoyance. “Happy birthday, Mom,” she said. “Pretty jacket, Gin.”

Ginny looked down at the red-and-purple plaid that had caught her mother's eye in the bin at Filene's Basement on their semiannual shopping trip. Now, she floated in Cassie's sweet smell—Prell, she knew; their mother had taught them to wash their hair with soap, but Cassie had graduated to shampoo.

Eleanor opened the cooler and passed the girls the cucumber sandwiches she'd made.

“Our chorus sang at chapel this morning,” Cassie said.

“Oh, how nice, dear. Something classical? Hymns?”

“We sang ‘Blowin' in the Wind.' It's a Peter, Paul, and Mary song.”

Eleanor clucked her tongue and shook her head, dispersing her disapproval over the backseat.

Cassie said, “It smells like pot in here.”

Sid woke up as they were parking the car in the museum lot. “Whoa, where'd we get Cassie from?” he said, twisting to peer at them.

“I'm their firstborn, remember?” Cassie said. Eleanor shot Cassie a frown.

“So,” Sid said, grinning at Cassie. “You going to that Woodstock
concert next weekend? Going to be good.”

Eleanor's head cranked hard to look at Cassie. “I'm only kidding, Ellie,” Sid said. “She's way too young for that.”

Cassie got out of the car and motored toward the museum entrance. Ginny trailed behind, wondering why Sid rankled her older sister so and feeling fairly certain that one of them was going to ruin the birthday.

But something came over her mother, Ginny noticed, whenever she stepped inside a museum or concert hall; here, at the Museum of Fine Arts, her mood and even her height seemed to elevate in proportion to the majestic domed lobby.

And now, Sid cocked his head and said to Eleanor, “Your coat, Madame?”

“Well, certainly sir,” Eleanor beamed as Sid lifted her coat from her shoulders.

Cassie looked at Ginny and frowned. As the family followed the crowd toward the grand staircase, an older woman with a large emerald dragonfly pinned to her blazer lapel bent down to say to Eleanor, “Your daughters are just lovely!”

“Well, aren't you nice to say so,” her mother said. She looked her girls over proudly, and Ginny stood up straighter. “And this is my nephew,” she said, turning with a sweep of her arm, only to realize Sid had drifted away.

Experienced museumgoers, the Gilberts spent a respectable amount of time on each painting, careful not to block the views of others. Today, Ginny had a hard time concentrating on the art because she was busy monitoring Cassie and Sid, who seemed to be steering clear of each other and the rest of them. At least Ginny's father—balding but handsome, she thought, in his tweed sport coat—had
placed his hand protectively at the center of her mother's back and for once, Eleanor didn't pull away.

Now, her father lowered his head to catch her mother's murmured remarks to Ginny.

“Isn't it interesting how quiet his colors are compared to the others? Just exquisite!” Ginny and her father leaned their faces closer to Eleanor's; the rapture emanating from her felt almost like love. “You can see the way he made the shadow with different shades of blue and purple.”

Her mother touched Ginny's arm, and the three shifted to the next painting. “And look at the simple, soft shapes in this one,” she said. “Don't they remind you of your paintings?”

They did, Ginny thought, but only because they seemed inaccurate, like hers.

“Psst!”

Ginny swiveled to see Sid, her mother's coat hooked on his thumb over his shoulder, peeking at her from around the door frame of an adjacent gallery. Behind him hung an intriguing and enormous black-and-white image. Keeping an eye on her family, she moved toward Sid into the room where a sign announced, “The Pleasure of Ruins.”

Sid poked her in the back. “Hey, don't look so sad.”

“I'm not sad,” she said.

Sid laughed. “Look over there at your sis.”

Ginny turned; Cassie looked like she always did: pretty, serious.

“She'd rather be anywhere but here. But it's your mum's birthday. Your mum and mine, they're sensitive and get their feelings hurt easily. So we have to try to be extra nice to them.”

Now, Ginny
did
feel sad. “I know,” she said.

“Cheer up, kid! We're in the presence of greatness.” Sid gestured to the artwork. “This is the really
great
stuff,” he said. He was standing so close to her that she could
feel
his excitement, as if bugs were
jumping from him to her. She circled the room, trancelike, astonished by the photographs covering the walls: columns rising from rubble and huge blocks of stone standing upright in a field, heavy crumbling walls and windows with only sky behind. Their labels read: “Stonehenge,” “The Parthenon,” “The Forum,” “The Baths of Caracalla.” The images filled her with a wonder she felt in her bones.

She'd nearly forgotten Sid was there until he said, “These places are more alive in death than most places are at birth. They're cool, huh?” Ginny almost understood what he meant; mostly, she jittered with the idea that he'd speak to her in this grown-up way. “What do you think?” he asked.

Ginny looked at him, wondering what in the world he expected her, his nine-year-old cousin, to say. His dark eyes danced. “I like that they're mysterious,” she said.

“Ginny?” She almost didn't hear her father, who'd come up behind them. “Great shots, aren't they?” he said. But it wasn't the ruins that captivated her now. Still under Sid's spell, she slid her hand inside her father's, and they left the gallery to once more traipse through the halls of Degas and Van Gogh and Bonnard and the three M's: Monet, Matisse, and Morandi.

At dinnertime, the Vietnam War silently flickered on the TV as it did every night.

The kitchen was cramped and brightly lit, with uncurtained black windows that steamed up from a single boiling pot. A birdcage hung in one corner, but their liberally supervised finch, Pepe, was not inside, having found a warmer place to perch somewhere in the house. While her father peeled potatoes and opened cans of corned beef hash—a favorite quick dinner of their mother's—Ginny put candles on a small cake in her father's darkroom. The birthday had gone smoothly enough; all the way to the bus station to drop
off Sid, Eleanor had plied him with questions about which colleges he was interested in (“No idea”), whether he had a girlfriend (he didn't), and if he'd be in Whit's Point for the summer (“I hope not.”). When he got out of the car, Eleanor said, “He's so handsome. I can't believe he doesn't have a girlfriend.” Cassie had said, “Maybe because he smokes pot. Or, maybe he likes boys.” Ginny had braced for her mother's reaction, but all she'd said was, “Poor thing. He's awfully good to his mother.” Then she'd said to Cassie, “Too bad school's so important you couldn't come home for my birthday weekend.” Gina had squirmed while Cassie explained in a tight voice that she'd had a long play rehearsal on Saturday.

Now, Ginny was already missing Cassie, but she excitedly eyed the wrapped presents on the worktable. The biggest one, she knew, was a white Singer sewing machine that would replace her mother's ancient black one.

After dinner, her father lit the candles on the cake, and Ginny carried it into the kitchen singing “Happy Birthday.” Her father set the presents on the floor next to her mother's chair.

“Well,” Eleanor said, looking down at the sewing machine box, wrapped in Christmas paper. “What a surprise—poinsettias in October!”

“Oops,” Ron said, shifting his weight awkwardly. “Guess I was just reaching for the biggest piece in the box.”

Ron helped Eleanor pull the paper off the sewing machine and stepped back, as if it might explode.

“Wowie!” she exclaimed. “A sewing machine! Now let's see . . . are you going to learn how to sew, Ron?”

Her father's nervous laugh. “Oh . . . well, sure, why not?” They'd been warming the kitchen with the open oven, and it had grown too hot; perspiration beaded on his forehead.

Eleanor unwrapped Cassie's present—a knit hat—and said, “Ooooh.”

Ginny waited, excited about her present—a pair of pajamas. They were her idea, even though she knew her parents usually slept without anything on, which she surmised was because pajamas were a luxury. Her father had taken her to Riversport to buy them. She picked out a cotton pair with green and white stripes; her mother was practical and wouldn't like frilly, silky ones.

As Eleanor unwrapped the pajamas, Ginny stood at her elbow and held her breath. Her mother picked up the starched, long-sleeved shirt-style top, inspected it, then looked up at Ron. She carefully laid it back in the box.

“Why, Ginny!” she exclaimed, pulling Ginny toward her. “Thank you, sweetie.” Ginny looked into her mother's face. Her lips were smiling, but her eyes were not.

Late at night Ginny was awakened by her mother's shout, “This goddamn pigsty!” Silence. Her father, mumbling. She looked at the door that connected her room to her parents'. In the past few years, it had become dangerous, like the door she'd been told never to open if she smelled smoke and the wood felt hot to the touch.

“You don't know anything! She'll turn that boy against me . . . Oh, how I loved him. He could have been mine . . .” Her mother wept, steadily and quietly enough that it nearly lulled Ginny back to sleep. But then a mournful tune filled the darkness: “Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me . . .” Her mother's singing was so creepy Ginny wished she'd go back to crying. Her father mumbled. Her mother: “You really have no idea; do you!” Then, a tearing sound:
zripp
—
zripp
—
zripp!