What I Thought Was True (24 page)

in the foyer would amount to about eight hundred dollars.

So would the Walnut Burr table here in the dining room. The

china cabinet Meissen vase on the fireplace mantel would be

about three hundred. The most valuable asset I’ve seen is the

Beechwood Fauteuil armchair in the sunroom. That would be

just under two thousand.”

Henry says, “Gavin,” in a hoarse voice, then clears his throat.

“None of that adds up to anything of significance, not to men-

tion the fact that Mother would notice if the dining room table

and her favorite chair disappeared. I’m sure you understand

my position.”

They’re standing just on the other side of the kitchen door.

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My heart is jack-hammering in my chest. I feel like I’m about

to be caught, fired in disgrace, as though I
have
stolen all the valuable things in the house. I bend over carefully, pick up

the three grocery bags I’ve already carried in and inch back

out the kitchen screen door, so grateful it doesn’t squeak like

ours at home.

Then I stomp up the stairs, slam it open loudly, walk thun-

derously into the kitchen and call, “I’m finally back! Sorry, Mr.

Ellington! There was—traffic on the causeway and um, Gar-

rett’s was out of the cedar plank, so I had to look around. Mrs.

E. isn’t up yet, is she?”

Tops of his cheekbones flushed, Henry swings open the

kitchen door. “No, not at all, Gwen. Haven’t heard a peep from

her. She usually sleeps over two hours, doesn’t she?”

I’m sure I too am totally red in the face. As I pile up the

grocery bags, I knock over the cut glass vase of hydrangeas.

It scatters across the table, nearly tumbling off, and the water

drips onto the floor. I grab the roll of paper towels and clean

up as Henry turns to the wet bar, asking Mr. Gage if he wants

a refill. He doesn’t, but Henry sure does. While he’s rattling

ice on the counter and breaking it into little pieces with this

weird hammer thing, Mr. Gage says, “If I may look around a bit

more? The upstairs?”

“The view
is
lovely from there,” Henry says in a slightly too-loud, overcompensating voice, similar to the one I probably

used a second ago. “But Mother is sleeping. Perhaps you can

wait until she wakes up.”

I’m stuffing the groceries into the refrigerator like the

efficient, upright, honest servant I should be, rather than the

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shifty, eavesdropping one I’ve apparently become. My hands

are shaking.

Then someone else’s hand falls on my shoulder.

“Er. Guinevere.”

I turn to meet Henry Ellington’s eyes.

“Mother’s told me what a hard worker you are. I appreciate

your—” He clears his throat. “Tireless efforts on her behalf.”

He reaches into his pocket, pulls something out, then flips it

open on the kitchen table, bending over it to write.

A check.

“Rose Ellington is not easy,” he says. “Used to certain stan-

dards. You meet them. I think you deserve this . . . a little extra.”

He folds the check, extends it to me.

I’m frozen for a second, staring at it as if he’s handing me

something far more deadly than a piece of paper.

After a moment, as though that’s what he had intended all

along, Henry sets the check down on the kitchen table, on the

dry, clear spot between where I spilled the water and where I

put the groceries. As though it belongs there, as much as they

do, as natural, as accidental, as those.

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“He’s robbing her blind,” Vivie says. She hangs a hard left in the Almeida’s van, throwing both Nic and me against the passenger doors. “He’s divorced, right? He cheated with the underage

babysitter and now her family’s asking for hush money, his

ex took him to the cleaners even though she was having it on

with the doorman, he’s broke because he’s embezzling from

his boss, and he’s counting on Mommy to bail him out. With-

out her knowing.”

“Wow. You got all that from what I just told you?”

“Drama Queen,” Nic says.

“I’m not.” Viv jerks the wheel, tires squealing, to turn onto

Main Road. I land hard against the door.

“Why wouldn’t he just ask her for the money?” I say, right-

ing myself, kicking upright the bag of quahogs at my feet—

we’re doing a clam boil for St. John de Brito Church tonight.

“Those guys never
talk
to each other,” Nic says. “I swear, we were painting the dining room at the Beinekes’ today.

Place was draped in sheets and stuff, and Hoop and I are

doing the edging, but Mr. and Mrs. Beineke and their poor

granddaughter are still eating in there. It’s all ‘Sophie, can

you ask your grandmother to pass the butter’ and ‘Sophie,

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please tell your grandmother we are running low on salt,’

even though the table’s four feet by four feet and Grandma

and Gramps can hear each other perfectly. They just let every-

thing important stay unsaid.”

“The question is, do
I
say anything?” I ask. “Or should I—”

“Left up here!” Nic interrupts, pointing right.

Viv turns left.

“No—that way!” Nic points right again.

Viv swears under her breath, making a U-turn that tosses

Nic and me against the doors again.

“Do you think this is a handicap, Vee?” Nic asks. Do you

think the academy won’t take me because I always have to

make that little
L
thing with my hand?”

“Maybe you’ll get a special scholarship,” Vivien says, patting

his shoulder, squinting at me in the rearview. “Gwenners, the

thing is, you don’t really know anything. You’ve worked for

them for a few weeks. They’ve had a lifetime to complicate and

screw up their relationship. Don’t get involved.”

Don’t get involved. Don’t think about it.
Nas histórias de outras pessoas.

Thinking those thoughts is starting to seem like the snooze

button on an old alarm clock, one I’ve hit so often, it just

doesn’t work anymore.

“Gracious, Gwen, where are you today?” Mrs. E. waves her

hand in front of my face, calling me back to the here and now.

On her porch, nearly at the end of the day. A day I’ve spent

daydreaming about Cass and preoccupied about Henry, going

through the motions with Mrs. E., who deserves better.

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“Clarissa Cole tells me the yard boy, dear Cassidy, is teaching

your brother to swim.”

The island grapevine is evidently faster than a speeding bul-

let. Mrs. E. rests a hand, light as a leaf, on my arm. “Oh, uh,

yeah—yes. He’s got a lesson tomorrow.”

“Would it be too much to ask if an old Beach Bat could

come along?”

“To swim?”

“Merely to observe. I spend too much time in the company

of the elderly, or”—she lowers her voice, although Joy-less the

nurse has not yet arrived, having called to say she’ll be late, and somehow making that sound like my fault—“the cranky. I’ve

missed several days with the ladies on the beach—just feeling

lazy, I’m afraid. It would be a pleasure to see how your dear

boy handles this.”

“He’s not my dear boy, Mrs. E. We just go to school together.”

She looks down, turning the thin gold bracelet on her wrist,

but not before I catch the flash of girlish amusement. “So you

say. Well, I was a young woman a very long time ago. I cannot,

however, pretend that I haven’t noticed that while the neigh-

bors on either side have grass that is growing rather long and

paths that are a bit overdue for weeding, my own yard has

never been so assiduously tended.”

Have to admit, I’ve noticed that too. And when he called to

figure out a time for Em’s next swim lesson, there was a certain

amount of lingering on the phone.

Cass: “So I should go . . .” (Not hanging up) “Uh . . .”

Me: “Okay. I’ll let you go.” (Not hanging up) “Another fam-

ily thing?”

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Cass: (Sighing) “Yeah. Photo shoot.”

Me: (Incredulous) “Your family thing is a photo shoot?”

Cass: “Stop laughing. Yes. We do the annual photo for my

dad’s company website, you know . . . It’s a tradition . . . sort

of an embarrassing one, but . . .”

Then all at once, I remembered that. Mr. Somers and the

three boys. I couldn’t see her, but Cass’s mom must have been

there too. Standing on the deck of their big sailboat tied off the Abenaki pier, white shirts, khaki pants, tan faces. Cass bending

his knees to rock the boat, his brothers laughing, me starting

to climb down the ladder to clamber aboard. Dad catching me

and saying, “No, pal, you aren’t family.”

“You still do that?”

“Every year,” he said. “I may be the black sheep, but appar-

ently I photograph well.”

His tone was light, but I heard something darker in it.

Silence.

I could hear him breathing. He could probably hear me

swallow.

Me: “Cass . . .”

Cass: “I’m here.”

Me: “Are you going to do it? What your family wants? Say it

was all Spence, go back to Hodges?”

Cass: (Long sigh. I pictured him clenching his fist, unclench-

ing.) “This should be easier than it is.” (Pause) “Black and

white. He’s my best friend. But I’m . . . My brothers are . . . I

mean . . .”

It’s not like him to stammer. I pressed the phone closer to

my cheek. “Yeah?”

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Cass: “I’m not Bill, the financial whiz kid. I’m not Jake, the

scholar/athlete.”

Me: “Why should you be?”

Cass: “They want the best for me. My parents. My family.”

At that point, Mom came into the room, sighing loudly as

she took off her sneakers, flipping on the noisy fan. I told Cass

to wait, took the phone outside, to the backyard, lay down in

the grass on my back, staring at the deep blue sky. We had never

talked like that to each other. His voice was so close, it was as

though he was whispering in my ear.

Me: “I’m back. And the best thing for you is?”

Cass: “The whole deal. An Ivy. A good job. All that. I may

not be as smart as my brothers, but I know that it . . . looks

better . . . to graduate from Hodges.”

Here’s where I should have said that it didn’t matter how

it looked. But I couldn’t lie to him. I knew what he meant.

Instead, I asked, “Is that what matters? Looks? To you.”

Another sigh. Then silence. Long silence.

I remember Cass’s brother talking to him outside Castle’s

that day. Saying Spence would always land on his feet.

Me: “Wouldn’t Spence be able to bounce back? He’s pretty

sturdy. And didn’t his dad get the expulsion off his record?”

Cass: “Well, yeah. But if I sold him out, that would be on

my
record. In his head. In mine. Who would—I mean, who the hell would that make me?”

My next thought was unavoidable.
That you ask? That you

worry?
Not who I thought you were.

Finally, Cass: “Okay, I really do need to go.”

Me: “Yeah, me too. I’ll hang up now.”

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(No hanging up)

Cass: “Maybe if we do it on the count of three.”

“One. Two. Three.”

I don’t hang up. Neither does Cass.

Cass: (Laughing) “See you tomorrow, Gwen.” (Pause)

“Three.”

Me: (Also laughing) “Right. Three.”

Both phones:
Click
.

Mrs. E. insists that we drive her Cadillac to pick up Emory and

then head to the beach for his lesson. Emory is clearly aston-

ished being in a car that doesn’t make loud squealing noises,

like Mom’s, and where the seats are overstuffed and comfort-

able, not torn up like Dad’s truck. “Riding. A bubble,” he says,

mesmerized, stroking the smooth puffy white leather. “Like

Glinda.” His eyes are wide.

This time Cass has yet more Superman figures for Emory to

rescue, and a fist-sized blue-and-green marble. He places that

one pretty far out in the deepening water, and tells Em he has

to put his entire face under to get it. Em hesitates. Cass waits.

I squeeze Mrs. E.’s hand. I’ve set up a beach chair for her and

am sitting in the sand beside it.

“My Henry was afraid of the water as a little boy,” she tells

me quietly. “The captain was most impatient. He tried every-

thing, saying he was a descendant of William Wallace and Wal-

laces were not afraid of anything—although I must say I doubt

William Wallace could swim—and promising him treats and

giving him spankings—that was an acceptable practice back

then. But Henry would not go near the water.”

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Cass is lying down on his stomach next to Em, tan mus-

cled back alongside small, pale, bony one. I can’t see Emory’s

expression. I have to grip on to the armrest of the beach chair

to stop myself from going to the water, pulling Emory out,

saying this was a bad idea. Mom’s words echo, that he’s my

responsibility, that he can’t care for himself, that it will always be my job. I start to rise, but Mrs. E. presses down on my shoulder lightly. “No, dear heart. Give him a little time. I have faith.

You must too.”

I sit back. “So, how did Henry ever learn to swim?”

“Well, one day the captain took him to the end of the dock

and dropped him in.”

I’m completely horrified. “What did you do?”

“I wasn’t there. I heard about it later. You must understand

that some people were much tougher with children in those

days. I would never have allowed it, but this sort of thing hap-

pened.”

Cass has rolled over on his side in the water, propping

himself on an elbow. He ducks his head sideways, completely

under, then pops it back up, says something I can’t hear to

Emory. I hear the husky sound of Emory laughing, but he still

doesn’t lower his head.

“So what happened? Did he sink? Did someone dive in and

save him?”

“No, he doggy-paddled his way to the pier. He was too ter-

rified not to. But he didn’t speak to his father for two weeks.”

Can’t say that I blame him. The captain sounds like a jerk

Slowly, slowly, Em ducks his head. I catch my breath, as if I

could hold it for him. His hand reaches out, out, out and then

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his head splashes up at the same time his hand does, trium-

phantly holding the marble.

“Way to go, Superboy. You saved the planet!” Cass calls, and

Em’s grin stretches nearly from ear to ear.

“He’s not your young man?” Mrs. E. leans over to ask, her

lavender perfume scenting the salty air.

“No. Not mine.” Cass is talking to Em, folding his fingers

around the marble, pointing out to the end of the pier. Emory

nods, seriously.

“Then I may ask him to be mine.”

“Gwen, wait up!” Cass calls as I’m pulling out of the park-

ing lot at the beach, Mrs. E. and Emory equally worn out and

drowsy.

He’s got his backpack slung over his shoulder and his hair is

still dripping wet, scattering droplets onto his shirt. “I thought maybe I’d come by tonight.”

Grandpa informed me this morning that he was the bingo

host tonight, so no way. If things were awkward with my fam-

ily, they would be even worse with Grandpa’s friends raising

and lowering their eyebrows and nudging one another over

the fact that Ben Cruz’s granddaughter is finally being seen

with
um joven
. Even if she’s just helping him with English.

“Not a good night for tutoring.” I look down at his feet,

rather than at his face. Man, he even has nice feet. Big, neatly

clipped toenails, high arch. I’m checking out his
feet
? Jesus. He edges the sandy gravel of the parking lot with his toe.

“Yeah, well, not tutoring,” Cass says. “I thought . . .

maybe . . . I’d just come by.”

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I don’t look over at Mrs. Ellington. Nor do I have to. Her
I

told you so
is loud and clear.

“Like for another sail?” I squint dubiously at the sky, where

thunderhead clouds are moving in.

“Or . . . a walk . . . or whatever?” Cass slides his hand to the

back of his neck, pinching the muscles there, shakes his hair

out of his eyes. “Maybe kayaking?”

I could point to the gathering clouds in their deepening