Authors: E. Lockhart
The littles’ rooms have some life. Taft has a Bakugan arena on the floor, a soccer ball, books about wizards and orphans. Liberty and Bonnie brought magazines and an MP3 player. They have stacks of Bonnie’s books on ghost hunters, psychics,
and dangerous angels. Their dresser is cluttered with makeup and perfume bottles. Tennis racquets in the corner.
Granddad’s bedroom is larger than the others and has the best view. He takes me in and shows me the bathroom, which has handles in the shower. Old-person handles, so he won’t fall down.
“Where are your
New Yorker
cartoons?” I ask.
“The decorator made decisions.”
“What about the pillows?”
“The what?”
“You had all those pillows. With embroidered dogs.”
He shakes his head. “Did you keep the fish?”
“What, the swordfish and all that?” We walk down the staircase to the ground floor. Granddad moves slowly and I am behind him. “I started over with this house,” he says simply. “That old life is gone.”
He opens the door to his study. It’s as severe as the rest of the house. A laptop sits in the center of a large desk. A large window looks out over the Japanese garden. A chair. A wall of shelves, completely empty.
It feels clean and open, but it isn’t spartan, because everything is opulent.
Granddad is more like Mummy than like me. He’s erased his old life by spending money on a replacement one.
“Where’s the young man?” asks Granddad suddenly. His face takes on a vacant look.
“Johnny?”
He shakes his head. “No, no.”
“Gat?”
“Yes, the young man.” He clutches the desk for a moment, as if feeling faint.
“Granddad, are you okay?”
“Oh, fine.”
“Gat is at Cuddledown with Mirren and Johnny,” I tell him.
“There was a book I promised him.”
“Most of your books aren’t here.”
“Stop telling me what’s not here!” Granddad yells, suddenly forceful.
“You okay?” It is Aunt Carrie, standing in the door of the study.
“I’m all right,” he says.
Carrie gives me a look and takes Granddad’s arm. “Come on. Lunch is ready.”
“Did you get back to sleep?” I ask my aunt as we head toward the kitchen. “Last night, was Johnny up?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says.
GRANDDAD’S COOK DOES
the shopping and preps the meals, but the aunties plan all the menus. Today we have cold roast chicken, tomato-basil salad, Camembert, baguettes, and strawberry lemonade in the dining room. Liberty shows me pictures of cute boys in a magazine. Then she shows me pictures of clothes in another magazine. Bonnie reads a book called
Collective Apparitions: Fact and Fiction
. Taft and Will want me
to take them tubing—drive the small motorboat while they float behind it in an inner tube.
Mummy says I’m not allowed to drive the boat on meds.
Aunt Carrie says that doesn’t matter, because no way is Will going tubing.
Aunt Bess says she agrees, so Taft better not even think about asking her.
Liberty and Bonnie ask if
they
can go tubing. “You always let Mirren go,” says Liberty. “You know it’s true.”
Will spills his lemonade and soaks a baguette.
Granddad’s lap gets wet.
Taft gets hold of the wet baguette and hits Will with it.
Mummy wipes the mess while Bess runs upstairs to bring Granddad clean trousers. Carrie scolds the boys.
When the meal is over, Taft and Will duck into the living room to avoid helping with the cleanup. They jump like lunatics on Granddad’s new leather couch. I follow.
Will is runty and pink, like Johnny. Hair almost white. Taft is taller and very thin, golden and freckled, with long dark lashes and a mouth full of braces. “So, you two,” I say. “How was last summer?”
“Do you know how to get an ash dragon in
DragonVale
?” asks Will.
“I know how to get a scorch dragon,” says Taft.
“You can use the scorch dragon to get the ash dragon,” says Will.
Ugh. Ten-year-olds. “Come on. Last summer,” I say. “Tell me. Did you play tennis?”
“Sure,” says Will.
“Did you go swimming?”
“Yeah,” says Taft.
“Did you go boating with Gat and Johnny?”
They both stop jumping. “No.”
“Did Gat say anything about me?”
“I’m not supposed to talk about you ending up in the water and everything,” says Will. “I promised Aunt Penny I wouldn’t.”
“Why not?” I ask.
“It’ll make your headaches worse and we have to leave the subject alone.”
Taft nods. “She said if we make your headaches worse she’ll string us up by our toenails and take away the iPads. We’re supposed to act cheerful and not be idiots.”
“This isn’t about my accident,” I say. “This is about the summer when I went to Europe.”
“Cady?” Taft touches my shoulder. “Bonnie saw pills in your bedroom.”
Will backs away and sits on the far arm of the sofa.
“Bonnie went through my stuff?”
“And Liberty.”
“God.”
“You told me you weren’t a drug addict, but you have pills on your dresser.” Taft is petulant.
“Tell them to stay out of my room,” I say.
“If you’re a drug addict,” says Taft, “there is something you need to know.”
“What?”
“Drugs are not your friend.” Taft looks serious. “Drugs are not your friend and also people should be your friends.”
“Oh, my God. Would you just tell me what you did last summer, pipsqueak?”
Will says, “Taft and I want to play
Angry Birds
. We don’t want to talk to you anymore.”
“Whatever,” I say. “Go and be free.”
I step onto the porch and watch the boys as they run down the path to Red Gate.
ALL THE WINDOWS
in Cuddledown are open when I come down after lunch. Gat is putting music on the ancient CD player. My old crayon art is on the refrigerator with magnets: Dad on top, Gran and the goldens on the bottom. My painting is taped to one of the kitchen cupboards. A ladder and a big box of gift wrap stand in the center of the great room.
Mirren pushes an armchair across the floor. “I never liked the way my mother kept this place,” she explains.
I help Gat and Johnny move the furniture around until Mirren is happy. We take down Bess’s landscape watercolors and roll up her rugs. We pillage the littles’ bedrooms for fun objects. When we are done, the great room is decorated with piggy banks and patchwork quilts, stacks of children’s books, a lamp shaped like an owl. Thick sparkling ribbons from the gift-wrap box crisscross the ceiling.
“Won’t Bess be mad you’re redecorating?” I ask.
“I promise you she’s not setting foot in Cuddledown for the rest of the summer. She’s been trying to get out of this place for years.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh,” says Mirren lightly, “you know. Natter natter, least favorite daughter, natter natter, the kitchen is such crap. Why won’t Granddad remodel it? Et cetera.”
“Did she ask him?”
Johnny stares at me oddly. “You don’t remember?”
“Her memory is messed up, Johnny!” yells Mirren. “She doesn’t remember like half our summer fifteen.”
“She doesn’t?” Johnny says. “I thought—”
“No, no, shut up right now,” Mirren barks. “Did you not listen to what I told you?”
“When?” He looks perplexed.
“The other night,” says Mirren. “I told you what Aunt Penny said.”
“Chill,” says Johnny, throwing a pillow at her.
“This is important! How can you not pay attention to this stuff?” Mirren looks like she might cry.
“I’m sorry, all right?” Johnny says. “Gat, did you know about Cadence not remembering, like, most of the summer fifteen?”
“I knew,” he says.
“See?” says Mirren. “Gat was listening.”
My face is hot. I am looking at the floor. No one speaks for a minute. “It’s normal to lose some memory when you hit your head really hard,” I say finally. “Did my mother explain?”
Johnny laughs nervously.
“I’m surprised Mummy told you,” I go on. “She hates talking about it.”
“She said you’re supposed to take it easy and remember things in your own time. All the aunties know,” says Mirren. “Granddad knows. The littles. The staff. Every single person on the island knows but Johnny, apparently.”
“I knew,” says Johnny. “I just didn’t know the whole picture.”
“Don’t be feeble,” says Mirren. “Now is really not the time.”
“It’s okay,” I say to Johnny. “You’re not feeble. You merely had a suboptimal moment. I’m sure you’ll be optimal from now on.”
“I’m always optimal,” says Johnny. “Just not the kind of optimal Mirren wants me to be.”
Gat smiles when I say the word suboptimal and pats my shoulder.
We have started over.
WE PLAY TENNIS
. Johnny and I win, but not because I’m any good anymore. He’s an excellent athlete, and Mirren is more inclined to hit the ball and then do happy dances, without caring whether it’s returning. Gat keeps laughing at her, which makes him miss.
“How was Europe?” asks Gat as we walk back to Cuddledown.
“My father ate squid ink.”
“What else?” We reach the yard and toss the racquets on the porch. Stretch ourselves out on the grass.
“Honestly, I can’t tell you that much,” I say. “Know what I did while my dad went to the Colosseum?”
“What?”
“I lay with my face pressed into the tile of the hotel bathroom. Stared at the base of the blue Italian toilet.”
“The toilet was blue?” Johnny asks, sitting up.
“Only
you
would get more excited over a blue toilet than the sights of Rome,” moans Gat.
“Cadence,” says Mirren.
“What?”
“Never mind.”
“What?”
“You say don’t feel sorry for you, but then you tell a story about the base of the toilet,” she blurts. “It’s seriously pitiful. What are we supposed to say?”
“Also, going to Rome makes us jealous,” says Gat. “None of us has been to Rome.”
“I want to go to Rome!” says Johnny, lying back down. “I want to see the blue Italian toilets so bad!”
“I want to see the Baths of Caracalla,” says Gat. “And eat every flavor of gelato they make.”
“So go,” I say.
“It’s hardly that simple.”
“Okay, but you will go,” I say. “In college or after college.”
Gat sighs. “I’m just saying, you went to Rome.”
“I wish you could have been there,” I tell him.
“WERE YOU ON
the tennis court?” Mummy asks me. “I heard balls.”
“Just messing around.”
“You haven’t played in so long. That’s wonderful.”
“My serve is off.”
“I’m so happy you’re taking it up again. If you want to hit with me tomorrow, say the word.”
She is delusional. I am not taking up tennis again just because I played one single afternoon, and in no capacity do I ever want to hit with Mummy. She will wear a tennis skirt and praise me and caution me and hover over me until I’m unkind to her. “We’ll see,” I say. “I probably strained my shoulder.”
Supper is outside in the Japanese garden. We watch the eight o’clock sunset, in groups around the small tables. Taft and Will grab pork chops off the platter and eat them with their hands.
“You two are animals,” says Liberty, wrinkling her nose.
“And your point is?” says Taft.
“There’s a thing called a fork,” says Liberty.
“There’s a thing called your face,” says Taft.
Johnny, Gat, and Mirren get to eat at Cuddledown because they aren’t invalids. And their mothers aren’t controlling. Mummy doesn’t even let me sit with the adults. She makes me sit at a separate table with my cousins.
They’re all laughing and sniping at each other, talking with their mouths full. I stop listening to what they are saying. Instead, I look across to Mummy, Carrie, and Bess, clustered around Granddad.
THERE’S A NIGHT I
remember now. It must have been about two weeks before my accident. Early July. We were all sitting at the long table on the Clairmont lawn. Citronella candles burned on the porch. The littles had finished their burgers and were doing cartwheels on the grass. The rest of us were eating grilled swordfish with basil sauce. There was a salad of yellow tomatoes and a casserole of zucchini with a crust of Parmesan
cheese. Gat pressed his leg against mine under the table. I felt light-headed with happiness.
The aunts toyed with their food, silent and formal with one another beneath the littles’ shouts. Granddad leaned back, folding his hands over his abdomen. “You think I should renovate the Boston house?” he asked.
A silence followed.
“No, Dad.” Bess was the first to speak. “We love that house.”
“You always complain about drafts in the living room,” said Granddad.
Bess looked around at her sisters. “I don’t.”
“You don’t like the décor,” said Granddad.
“That’s true.” Mummy’s voice was critical.
“I think it’s timeless,” said Carrie.
“I could use your advice, you know,” Granddad said to Bess. “Would you come over and look at it carefully? Tell me what you think?”
“I …”
He leaned in. “I could sell it, too, you know.”
We all knew Aunt Bess wanted the Boston house. All the aunts wanted the Boston house. It was a four-million-dollar house, and they grew up in it. But Bess was the only one who lived nearby, and the only one with enough kids to fill the bedrooms.
“Dad,” Carrie said sharply. “You can’t sell it.”
“I can do what I want,” said Granddad, spearing the last tomato on his plate and popping it in his mouth. “You like the house as it is, then, Bess? Or do you want to see it remodeled? No one likes a waffler.”
“I’d love to help with whatever you want to change, Dad.”
“Oh, please,” snapped Mummy. “Only yesterday you were
saying how busy you are and now you’re helping remodel the Boston house?”
“He asked for our help,” said Bess.
“He asked for
your
help. You cutting us out, Dad?” Mummy was drunk.
Granddad laughed. “Penny, relax.”
“I’ll relax when the estate is settled.”