The Unwelcomed Child (22 page)

“Your only specialty,” Claudine told him.

“Her grandparents are taking her out to eat tonight,” Mason told him.

“Ah. Well, maybe there’ll be another chance for me to impress you with my culinary skills.”

“What culinary skills?” Claudine said.

Doug Spenser pretended he was getting heart failure because of her remark. He put both hands on his chest and moaned. “What an unkind cut.”

Then he walked up to Claudine and slapped her playfully on the rear.

“C’mon, Elle,” he said. “Meet the woman who gave birth to these creatures.”

He walked into the house.

I looked at Mason. He was smiling, and so was Claudine. The informality, the loose way they treated and spoke to each other, was shocking. I couldn’t imagine ever talking like this with my grandparents. Doug Spenser was behaving more the way I imagined one of their high school friends behaved, not their father. Was that what Mason meant by “cool”?

He smiled. “We’ll get all this over with and have another great afternoon at the island.”

“Am I included?” Claudine asked.

“Does it snow in Norway?”

“You need to do something with your hair,” she told me, ignoring him. “Would your grandmother permit you to have it done? Mom is a big deal at the local salon. She can get you in anytime.”

I shook my head, hoping I didn’t look as terrified as I felt at the very suggestion.

“We’ll figure it out,” Claudine told me, and we all went into the house.

Their mother was lying in a chaise longue in the center of the living room, her face covered in white cream, with two slices of cucumber over her eyes. She had her hair pinned up and was wearing a terry-cloth robe. It was a sight I had never seen, not even on television when I was permitted to watch.

“Someone here?” she asked.

“Just us mere mortals,” Doug Spenser said. “And the forest princess.”

Mona Spenser slowly lifted the slices of cucumber off her eyes and looked at me. She didn’t speak for a moment. Then she put the slices back over her eyes.

“I hate youth,” she said.

Doug Spenser laughed. “Don’t worry. She doesn’t mean anything personal by it, Elle. She saw some new wrinkles today when she looked in the mirror. It’s upset her.”

“Very funny,” Mona Spenser said. “Men don’t suffer with wrinkles. Everyone thinks that’s distinguished.” She took the slices off her eyes again. “Aren’t you a pretty young thing,” she said. “What grade are you in?”

“I will go into the eleventh grade this fall,” I said.

“Don’t be in a rush to get older. It’s nowhere near what it’s cracked up to be. Tweedledee and Tweedledum here can’t wait to be twenty-one. Youth is truly wasted on the young.”

“Nice one, Mom,” Mason said.

“Please, spare us,” Claudine said.

“Whatever,” their mother replied. She smiled at me and put her cucumber slices on again. “It’s very nice to meet you, Elle.”

Doug Spenser put his finger to his lips and very quietly walked behind his wife. Then he leaned over and quickly drew an X through the cream on her forehead.

She sat up instantly, catching the slices of cucumber that popped off her eyes.

“You beast!” she cried, and threw the cucumber slices at him. He laughed.

“Children,” Claudine said. “Ignore them. C’mon up to my room for a few minutes, Elle. I’ll take out my curlers and brush out my hair.”

“We’d like to get to the island, Claudine,” Mason said. “I want to set her up.”

“I bet,” she replied. She seized my hand and pulled me along. I heard Doug Spenser’s laugh.

We hurried up the stairs to Claudine’s room, and she flopped onto the chair by her vanity mirror.

“I wish you knew some boys here,” she said. “I haven’t had any luck finding any worth a second look when we’ve gone to the mall or into the village. Didn’t you ever think about that? You don’t look like you matured overnight. I bet you’ve had your period since you were eleven or something.”

“Not long after,” I said.

“So?”

“I thought about it.”

“And?”

“What could I do about it?”

“You never went into town on your own or spent any time at the mall?”

“No.”

“Why not?” She thought a moment while I pondered how to answer. “Maybe it wasn’t so much of a joke when I kidded you about living in a nunnery.”

“My grandmother was very upset about my mother and tries hard to make sure I won’t be like her,” I offered as she worked on her hair.

“Tell me more about her, your mother, besides her becoming pregnant and running off after you were born, I mean.”

“I don’t know a lot about her. My grandmother doesn’t like to talk about her.”

“She’s the unmentionable. They say nothing about her? Really?”

“Not anything nice. They don’t even have pictures of her displayed anymore.”

“That’s radical. She never called to see about you all these years, never came back once?”

I started to shake my head and stopped, my gaze dropping to the floor. She spun around on her chair.

“What? Tell me, for God’s sake.”

“You shouldn’t use the name of God in vain,” I told her.

“What?” She shook her head. “Forget that. Tell me what you’re not telling me. I’m trying to be your best friend, Elle. Your only friend, apparently.”

“My mother surprised us all yesterday. She showed up with a new husband.”

“And how long was she away?”

“Since I was born.”

“Christ!”

“You shouldn’t . . .”

“What happened? Don’t leave out a detail.”

“Hey!” we heard Mason scream from the bottom of the stairway. “We’re losing the best part of the afternoon.”

“Hold that thought,” Claudine said, fluffing her hair a little and then getting up quickly to grab a small bag. “We’ll talk on the island.”

I went downstairs with her. Doug Spenser was sprawled on the sofa, eating an apple and reading some typed pages that I imagined were a lawyer’s brief. Mona Spenser was still in her chaise longue, a new pair of cucumber slices over her eyes.

“You looked better with the curlers on,” Mason joked.

“You look better with a bag over your head.”

“Children,” Doug Spenser said, not shifting his eyes from his pages. “You have a guest. Pretend you’re civilized, otherwise we’ll get a reputation and be driven out of town by the chamber of commerce.”

“Right, let’s let you get to your art,” Mason said.

Mona lifted the cucumber slices from her eyes and looked at us. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

Doug laughed. “That leaves them far too much.”

She started to throw another slice at him, and he put up his hands. “We’ll run out of cucumbers!” he cried.

Mason and Claudine laughed. It made me smile. Were my grandparents ever that playful with each other? Were they ever that young? In my mind, they were born old.

“See what I mean about them?” Mason said as we walked out to the dock. “Cool.”

“Embarrassing,” Claudine added. “Imagine bringing a boy home to meet them and have that sort of thing go on, and you’ll appreciate what I have to go through.”

“Usually, she doesn’t bother bringing them home,” Mason said.

“Why waste time sightseeing?” she told me. I had no idea what she meant, but Mason laughed.

“One thing about Claudine. She’s turned foreplay into one play.”

“Look who’s talking. Mr. Wham Bam, Thank You, Ma’am.”

“What?” I asked, and they laughed.

“Some guys,” Claudine explained as we reached the end of the dock, “have only one thing in mind. When they satisfy that, they couldn’t care less about you. That’s the challenge.”

“I’m not that kind,” Mason said. “But I have met girls who were like that.”

“You mean you’ve looked for girls who were like that.”

“Will you stop?” he said, his voice a little testy. She winked at me, and we all got into the rowboat.

“You want to row?” Mason asked Claudine.

“No. I’m not in the mood.”

“I’ll row,” I said. I never had. “You’ll have to show me how, though.”

“No problem.” He patted the seat he was on and went back behind it on his knees.

I sat and took the oars.

“Don’t dip them too deeply, and it won’t be so hard,” he told me, putting his hands over mine and pressing himself against my back. His lips were caressing my neck.

“It’s all right to do it with Mason,” Claudine advised, “but don’t let any other boy get so close to you so quickly. Before you know it, they’ll make you aware they have a pencil in their pocket.”

“What?”

“An erection. I told you about that, and you know who’s had one recently,” she said. Then she laughed. “You look sunburned already.”

“Don’t pick on her,” Mason warned.

“I’m not doing the picking.”

“Can you shut up for a few minutes? Okay, dip and pull evenly when you’re going straight out. When you want to turn left, pull only with the right oar, and vice versa for turning right, okay?”

I nodded and began to row. A few times, the oar came up out of the water, and Claudine screamed because she was splashed.

“Sorry.”

“She’s wearing a bathing suit,” Mason said. “No ‘sorry’ necessary.”

“I’ll decide when and where I get wet, thank you,” Claudine said. “I don’t want to get my hair wet. I just washed and set it.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“It’s all right,” she told me. She reached into her bag and pulled out a bathing cap. As she put it on, she said, “What if we cut your hair a little bit each day? I can style it, and one day, you’ll look great.”

“She looks great now.”

“My grandmother doesn’t want me to cut my hair any shorter,” I said.

“We could buy you a wig or inserts. What do you think, Mason?”

“If it’s not broke, don’t fix it. She’s not broke,” he said.

“What a bore he can be.”

“Let me land us,” Mason said as we drew closer to their little island.

I shifted back to my seat, and he rowed us onto the beach. He got out quickly and pulled the boat farther up on the sand.

“Hand it all to me, and I’ll set you up wherever you want,” he said.

Claudine simply rolled herself over the side of the boat and fell into the water, holding on to the boat to keep herself up. Then she reached over for her bag and walked to the place on the shore where we had last been.

“I left a blanket in the boat,” she called to me as Mason began unloading my easel and my art supplies. I handed it to her.

I got out carefully and walked to shore. She spread out the blanket.

“Here good?” Mason asked, unfolding my easel. I looked out at the lake. It was the view I had drawn.

“Yes, thank you,” I said. I began to set things up. Mason watched me, smiling. He looked at Claudine. She was putting on sunscreen. She threw it to him, and he offered it to me.

“For your face.”

I nodded, but he opened the jar and began to smear it over my forehead, cheeks, and nose.

“You have a perfect little nose,” he said. “And perfect lips.”

“And perfect arms and legs and stomach and ass, not to mention boobs,” Claudine added. She was lying back, her eyes closed.

“‘O, beware, my lord, of jealousy; it is the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on,’” Mason told her.

“Ha, ha. I’m not jealous,” she said. “I don’t think I have to be jealous.”

“Ah, the blush of modesty.”

“Stop showing off,” she said. “He thinks he’s a big deal because he got a few As in English literature. Shakespeare.”

“I read
Julius Caesar,
” I said.

“Whoop-dee-do.”

“Hey. She’s technically only in the tenth grade, Claudine. You aren’t exactly a scholar yet.”

“Neither are you.”

He glared at her with a face of anger I hadn’t seen. Was I causing them to have a real fight?

“I’m sorry,” I said, because I didn’t know what else to say.

They looked at me.

“It’s not your fault,” Mason said.

“Oh, please, you’re oozing,” Claudine said. I looked at her again. Why was she getting so upset with how nice he was being to me? She lay back again.

“You need a little water,” Mason said, and he put some in the place for it on my tin of watercolors. I spread out my drawing of the lake on the easel. “I’ll let you do some work,” he told me, and went to lie down beside Claudine. He smeared some of the sunblock on his face, and they were both very quiet while I mixed colors and began to paint on my drawing.

After about five minutes, Claudine sat up, unfastened the top of her bikini, and lay back again. I tried not to look. Mason glanced at her, then sat up and looked out at the lake. He caught my gaze.

“Women go topless all the time in France,” he said. “When we were in southern France last year, my mother went topless.”

I didn’t say anything, but just the thought of being with your mother when she was topless shocked me.

“You’re shocking her, Mason,” Claudine said, seeing the look on my face. “I don’t think Mason fully appreciates how cloistered you’ve been and still are.”

I kept painting, but it felt as if bees were buzzing just behind my ears.

“Stop trying to make her out to be someone weird, Claudine.”

“She is weird. She’ll tell you that herself, won’t you, Elle?”

I turned to look at her. She was still on her back, her eyes closed. “Weird?”

She opened her eyes. “How else would you describe someone who’s lived like you have up to now? I was just joking about her being under lock and key before, Mason, but she’ll tell you. That’s exactly how she’s been treated. We have a lot of work to do to prepare her for the real world. Your taking advantage of her is not going to help.”

“I’m not taking advantage of her.”

“Please. Every boy welcomes every opportunity to take advantage of you, Elle,” she said. “Mason is very nice, but he’s still the opposite sex.”

“You make it sound like a war, Claudine.”

“Well, isn’t it? There are victories, and there are defeats, and usually, it’s the females who suffer the defeats, because we get pregnant. If men could get pregnant, they wouldn’t take advantage so easily and so quickly. Remember that, Elle.”

“My God, you’ll have her terrified of being in a classroom with boys.”