Authors: Stephanie Greene
“And I guess you found it.” Sheba gave a deep sigh of contentment as she sat down and stretched out her legs in front of her, kicking off her shoes. “Judging from the look on your face,” she added.
“My face?” Cecile said. What did Sheba see? How could she possibly know? And what a horrible time for Jenny to arrive! Cecile furiously wiggled her eyebrows at Jenny as if sending a message in code. Say nothing! her eyebrows ordered. “We haven’t been doing anything,
have
we, Jenny?” she said.
“Us?” the willing accomplice replied innocently. “We’ve been sitting around.”
It was a perfect lie because it wasn’t really a lie—it just wasn’t the whole truth. Sneaky Jenny. But oh,
my. The way Sheba was looking at her. It was as if she could see right through Cecile’s skin.
“Come on!” Cecile shouted as she jumped up.
“Where’re you going now?” Sheba asked.
“Nowhere!” Cecile cried, dragging Jenny across the sand in her frenzy to get away.
“Mmm, mmm, mmm.” Sheba shook her head, watching them go. Then, “You going to get over here any time today with that umbrella, Jack?” she called.
Jimmy drove Granddad and their father into the city after golf. They wouldn’t be back until Thursday night. The children and Mrs. Thompson stood on the front steps while Jimmy loaded suitcases into the trunk, waving good-bye until the car disappeared down the drive. Then they turned, in one motion, and went back into the house. Opening the screen door, they discovered it had become a household of women.
Even the walls seemed to have let go of their upright posture to breathe more easily—the air in all the rooms was relaxed and quiet. For four days,
there would be no male voices calling for coffee or announcing their arrival. The smell of cigarettes would be gone from the terrace. There was a relaxed, carefree feeling in the air that the presence of one small boy would do nothing to disturb.
“Poor old Jack,” Mrs. Thompson said laughingly.
But Jack burst out from the kitchen shouting, “Hot dogs and hamburgers for dinner! And Sheba made ice cream!” and they all filed after him onto the terrace to eat with their fingers, lounging on chaise lounges, bare feet and all, their mother too. If fireworks had suddenly exploded in the sky over the inlet as they sat there with night falling, it wouldn’t have struck any of them as odd; it felt like a celebration.
Cecile had thought they’d all watch television with their mother, but after they’d taken their dishes into the kitchen, and Natalie said, “I’m going to the dock for a while,” Cecile announced she was too. She looked at her mother, reading to Lucy and Jack, when she reached the door and asked, “Will you be here when we get back?”
“If I’m not, I’ll only be at the Pump House.”
“Oh.”
“Does that meet with your approval?” her mother asked coolly, looking up from the book held open in her lap.
“Sure. I mean…sure,” Cecile said, and hurried to catch up with Natalie in the front hall.
“What are you going to do, spy on me again?” Natalie said.
“I can go to the dock whenever I want, Natalie.”
“Well, don’t follow me,” Natalie said, pushing through the screen door. She let it go behind her. Cecile caught it before it slammed.
“There’s only one way to get to the dock, you know,” she yelled, but she took her time, letting Natalie get farther ahead. By the time Cecile arrived, Natalie and William were sitting on the rocks. Music played on a radio on the
Rammer
; the boy was swabbing the deck.
Cecile lay on the dock with her head hanging over the edge so that anyone watching her would think she’d spotted something fascinating in the water.
Like what? she thought, feeling more and more like an idiot as the night got darker and she went on lying there. Where would she go if she stood up? She could hardly see the water now, much less anything fascinating in it. She must look as if she was dead.
Then feet pounded on the dock and Jenny cried, “What are you doing?” so Cecile rose quickly to her feet. Good old Jenny, she thought, meeting her halfway.
“My parents had people in for drinks, so I snuck out,” Jenny said proudly.
“Did you stuff pillows under your blanket to make it look like you?” Cecile asked.
“I probably should have.”
The night felt suddenly exotic. The sun had sunk; the air was cool. Cecile was deathly aware of the boat and the boy; they pulled at her like a magnet. She didn’t know in which direction to walk.
“Let’s go to the float so we have to walk past the boat and that boy will notice us,” Jenny said.
“No way!”
“Who’s Chicken Little now?” Jenny said, flicking her hair. “Come on.”
A quick, bold feeling surged up in Cecile. Terrified to follow, she couldn’t stay behind. “Don’t say a word,” she whispered furiously when she caught up. She gripped Jenny’s arm above the elbow. “I’m warning you….”
Jenny laughed and pulled her arm away. “Why, Cecile Thompson!” she cried in an exaggerated voice, hoping to be heard as she skipped on ahead. “If you aren’t the funniest thing!”
Two could play at this. “What about you, Jenny Cahoon?” Cecile cried, running up behind. She grabbed Jenny’s hand, they pushed and pulled, giggled and shrieked.
“I know,” Jenny said when they stopped to catch their breaths. She paused dramatically. “Let’s go skinny dipping.”
Skinny dipping! Cecile felt the cold water on her naked body. “You’re crazy!” she said, amazed.
“I will if you will,” Jenny said, making as if to unbutton her blouse.
“Don’t you dare!”
They darted after each other and stopped, swung their hips, prancing like tarts, or how they imagined tarts might prance. Exhilarated one second, Cecile was appalled the next. She wanted to be seen; she dreaded being noticed.
Were people looking? Let them look; they were giddy with their own daring. Cecile didn’t dare even glance at the
Rammer
as they staggered past.
“Looks like someone’s having a walloping good time,” said a voice.
The girls shrieked and clutched each other’s hands to see the man, standing on the
Rammer,
smiling indulgently at them. When she saw who it was, Cecile was instantly mortified.
“Hi, Captain Stone,” she said in a meek voice. She yanked her hand out of Jenny’s and slunk down the ramp to the float. Sitting on the edge, she plunged her feet into the water and knew the shock served her right. How could she have been so immature?
Jenny padded down the ramp behind her and sat down, too. “That boy didn’t even look,” she
said, disappointed. “He went downstairs.”
“Good,” Cecile said, looking straight ahead. She didn’t even have the heart to correct her and say “below.”
Cecile introduced Jenny to the silent game the next day. According to the Thompson rules, they weren’t allowed to talk to anyone: not the grown-ups or any of the other children. They couldn’t let themselves be seen either. If they heard anyone coming, or saw anyone, they had to run away and hide.
Her mother had wanted Cecile to go to the club. She was playing in a tennis tournament. Lucy and Jack were taking swimming and tennis lessons. When Natalie came downstairs, looking very pleased in her yellow golf skirt and sleeveless blouse, with her hair pulled back with a ribbon to match, Cecile was more determined than ever not to go.
It felt as if they took forever, finding all of their equipment and getting organized. Cecile stood, champing at the bit, as they finally piled into the car. “You can stay today,” her mother said as Lucy and Jack climbed into the backseat, “but one of
these days you need to play some tennis. And Dad wants you to take golf lessons.” She held up her hand to ward off Cecile’s objections. “You don’t have to play well, but you do need to be able to carry on an intelligent conversation about the game.”
“Yes, and look interested when boys talk about it,” Natalie said. She finished inspecting her face in the mirror on the back of the visor and flipped it up. “Unless you want them to think you’re a total bore,” she said, flashing a superior smile.
Any boy who wants to talk about golf would be a total bore, Cecile longed to say. Instead, she said to her mother, “After Jenny leaves.”
“All right.” Her mother shut her car door and turned the key in the ignition. “But no swimming at the dock and don’t bother Sheba.”
“What about lunch?” Cecile called as the car rolled slowly away.
“She’ll fix you a picnic!” Her mother gave her a flutter of her hand out the window and called, “Have fun!”
Then the driveway was empty. Cecile headed for the dock.
First, she led the way along the path behind King’s house. She and Jenny crouched in the tall grass and stared up at the Pump House’s terrace, hoping something would happen. The only person who came out was Mrs. Harris. She shook out her mop and then snipped the dead flowers off the plant in one of the planters and threw them into the grass before she went back inside.
After, they walked to the bridge, but no one was around. “This is no good,” Cecile said. “Everyone’s at the club. Let’s go eat lunch.”
Jenny stood off to one side as Cecile pressed her face against the screen door to the kitchen. She put on a woeful, hungry look so she wouldn’t have to talk, and scratched. Sheba looked up at her from the pile of silverware she was polishing at the kitchen table and smiled. “I was wondering when you two would turn up,” she said. She put both hands on the table and pushed herself up. “It’s been awful quiet around here.”
She took two sandwiches wrapped in white paper
napkins from the refrigerator and handed them out the door to Cecile along with a thermos and two paper cups. “Think that’ll hold you?” she asked.
Cecile nodded vigorously.
“You still playing that game?” Sheba said.
Extremely vigorous nodding.
“Like night and day, you and your sister, I swear.” Sheba shook her head as she turned to go back to her task. “Leave the thermos on the steps,” she said. “You can knock two times if you want more. Wouldn’t want you to break any rules.”
Her lazy laughter floated after them as Cecile and Jenny went across the lawn and into the still, hot air inside the lilac bush. Dappled sunlight filled the space the children had so carefully cleared over the years. Stumps of branches pruned long ago ringed the dirt floor. Cecile put her sandwich on one and sat on another. Unscrewing the top, she poured pink lemonade from the thermos into the two cups and unwrapped her sandwich. Ahhh…soft white bread with a layer of mayonnaise and crisp slices of lightly salted cucumber. They were
still cold, too, and crunchy. She knew they’d be crunchy.
“Are you going to the dance at the club?” Jenny asked as she pulled the two pieces of bread apart to see what was inside and wiped off the salt with a finger.
“Salt’s the most important part,” Cecile said.
“I don’t like it,” Jenny said, biting into her saltless sandwich. “I’m
dying
to go,” she said, “but my mother said I have to be thirteen. Two more years.”
“My mother’s making me go,” Cecile said.
“Lucky you.”
“Dances aren’t such a big deal.” Cecile started on her second half. “I’ve been going to them at my dancing school for years. They’re boring.”
“Those aren’t the same,” Jenny said. “You have to wear gloves at dancing school so your sweaty hands won’t leave stains on your partner’s clothing. Your skin’s actually going to touch a boy’s skin at the club.” She leaned closer, her eyes huge. “Two naked, sweaty hands, touching,” she said slowly.
There it was again—that avid, greedy look on Jenny’s face. “You’re crazy,” Cecile said. “I’m not
holding anyone’s sweaty hand. I’ll make them wipe their hands on their pants.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Of course I would,” Cecile said in a voice made superior by how much Jenny longed to go. “I have to get a new dress and everything,” she said carelessly.
“You’d better buy one with back shields, that’s all I can say,” Jenny said.
“How about a sponge? Boys could wipe their hands on it.”
They said more silly things, loose and careless. When they’d eaten every crumb and drunk every drop, Jenny jumped up. “We played the silent game all morning. It’s my turn to come up with something.”
Cecile wadded up the napkins inside the cups and put them on the grass outside the lilac with the thermos. When she came back, Jenny was standing on one of the low stumps. She’d taken off her hair clips; she lifted her face and shook her pale, short hair out, as if she had long tresses of gold. “We’re
princesses,” she said in a dreamy voice, “locked in a tower, waiting for our princes to come save us. Mine is called Jean Pierre.”
“Jean Pierre?” Cecile said, laughing, but Jenny was into her role: She pressed her face into the branches and gripped them tightly, as if they were iron bars. “Jean Pierre! Jean Pierre!” she cried. “Save me!”
“Save you from what?” Cecile said.
But Jenny was in a frenzy and wouldn’t be stopped. Shaking her hair, she cried about her mean stepmother, her cruel imprisonment. Only Jean Pierre, her handsome prince, could save her! There was emotion in it, and passion. Jenny’s sobs sounded almost real; she was nearly hysterical.
Waiting for a dumb prince, indeed! Cecile was determined to be the person in charge of the castle’s stables and ran to get a horse. She galloped around on the grass in wider and wider circles; she whinnied and reared.
“Jean Pierre!” Jenny called from inside the tower. “Kiss me! Kiss me!”
The horse stopped, bored. It was embarrassing, the way Jenny’s face had become bright pink and she
kept rattling the branches like that. “I don’t want to do this anymore,” Cecile said, dropping onto the grass in the deep shadow of the elm.
Jenny came out of her tower and sat next to her, radiating heat. “The girls in my school play that all the time,” she said, panting. “We do it in the girl’s bathroom, where there really are bars on the windows. When people on the street look up, we duck.”
“The girls in your school are weird,” Cecile said.
“We don’t have boys,” Jenny said, shrugging. “If we did, you’d probably hear this all the time in the halls.” She held the back of her hand up to her lips and made loud smacking noises.