Family Secrets (29 page)

“I’m stuck.”

“Oh, Jack’s a pretty nice fellow. My family knows his. You could go out with a lot worse.”

“At least the gypsy was wrong,” Rosemary said, and laughed.

Jack Nature came for her at ten minutes after eight, which was lucky because Rosemary wasn’t ready herself either. She had decided to wash her hair, and then it didn’t dry fast enough, and when it did she hated the way it looked. Oh well, they wouldn’t see anybody she knew so it didn’t matter. He had a tan car—what else?—and to her surprise he drove right to New York to a very lively night club where there was dancing to a Spanish band.

Rosemary ordered a daiquiri, which she’d first heard about in Havana with Basil, and Jack had one too. The drink made both of them feel much more at ease with each other.

“I didn’t picture you in this kind of a place,” Rosemary said.

“You ought to see me dance. Want to try?”

They danced, all the dances she’d learned in Havana, and Jack was as good as she was. “Have you been to Havana?” she asked him.

“No, but I’ve been coming to this club ever since it opened. I like Spanish music.”

“So do I. I used to go to Havana for the weekend with my brother when we were staying in Florida. Havana’s more fun.”

“Yeah,” he said. “There are all those Jews in Florida.”

They both smiled.

During the course of the evening and three more daiquiris Rosemary learned that Jack Nature was the youngest in a family of seven girls, smothered, coddled, protected, ignored, and had grown up to feel just as cheated as she had. His mistrust of the world and people was as great as hers, but while she covered up her fears and hate with sharp remarks, he covered up his by his corny jokes. She felt a great kinship with him. Both of them were mistrustful, wary. The world was out to get you if you didn’t get it first. It was a warm, relaxing feeling to be able to talk about this with someone who felt exactly the same way she did. He was nice, and she really felt that she liked him. He was starting to look not so beige, more a clean-cut type now, a type you wouldn’t mind being seen with. She even liked his corny jokes. She’d never had a sense of humor, not even a corny one, and she admired him. It was better to be the clown at the party than the wet blanket.

“Did you ever want to be a musician?” she asked him.

“Oh, no. I never liked performing in public. My mother used to make me practice the violin every day because she thought it was important to be artistic, but I can’t imagine playing in an orchestra. I don’t mind being in business with my father, and we’re expanding. Eventually I suppose I’ll be stuck with the whole thing.”

Rosemary knew that was his way of telling her that he would some day inherit a good business. She was amazed at how easily she understood him, and at how he seemed to know she would. “What do you dislike most about the cleaning business?”

“The stink in the plant.”

“And what do you like the best?”

“The money.”

They both smiled.

“It’s funny how we got successful,” he said. “When my father came to America he changed his name from Natelson to Nature because his best friend changed his name from Sinowitz to Simmons. So when my father started in the cleaning business he decided to put on his sign: ‘Clothes Cleaned the Nature Way,’ and what happened was that people started thinking it was some kind of new, natural way that was better than the old way. They thought we were using fresh air or something. So now we have four places instead of one.”

“What happened to Simmons?”

“He’s a chiropodist.”

“Do you like to play tennis?”

“Yes, do you?”

“Yes, that’s why I asked.”

“I’ve got a friend whose family has a tennis court,” Jack said. “They live on Long Island. I could ask him if we could go there next Saturday and play. He always has people over.”

“I’d like that,” Rosemary said.

“I’ll have to polish up my game. I bet you’re pretty good.”

“Yes, I’m pretty good.”

It was such a pleasant evening she was hardly aware that it was one o’clock in the morning until the band stopped playing. Jack drove her home in his car and promised to call as soon as he got hold of his friend with the tennis court. In the meantime, of course, they would be seeing each other at the next meeting of the music society, and he suggested they go out for coffee or a drink afterward. Rosemary agreed right away. He was so easy to be with she felt as if she’d known him all her life. He didn’t try to kiss her goodnight because it was their first real date, but she had the distinct feeling he wanted to, and if he had she wouldn’t have minded.

She tiptoed up the stairs so as not to wake anybody, but Basil’s door was still open and she supposed he would either come creeping in at five in the morning or else, more probably, not bother to come home at all. He was so brazen about it. You could never get him to go out with any nice girl, any girl whom he might fall in love with and marry. All he wanted was those women who’d had a man and now couldn’t get along without one. He was so immature. He was perfectly happy just going along like this. When he got old he’d be sorry. Then he’d be lonely, and who would want him? Who am I kidding, Rosemary thought. A man is always wanted, no matter how old he gets, especially if he has money. It’s we girls who have all the bad luck. If you’re not pretty, nobody wants you. If you don’t have a dazzling personality, nobody wants you. If you’re not young, nobody wants you. She wondered why a nice young man like Jack Nature hadn’t been snapped up long before this. It was probably because he was shy. Or maybe he’d been taking his time, like Basil, having fun. She was sure Jack Nature liked her. He made her feel liked, admired.

It was funny about being out with someone who was a lot like you. She felt so comfortable. They were two against the world. She was sure he had confided in her that night things he hadn’t told to other girls. The odd thing was that instead of making her feel insecure, it made her feel secure that Jack was like her. It might be a lot better than being with her opposite. This way there was two of them. Strength in numbers.

At the next meeting of the music society Jessie kept trying to get Rosemary’s attention, and Rosemary ignored her. She knew Jessie was dying to ask her about her date with Jack Nature. It was none of her business! Rosemary was so annoyed that she missed her place in the piece they were playing and had to apologize to everyone and start over again. Darn Jessie, the pest!

As soon as the evening was over Rosemary dashed right out of there and Jack had to run to catch up with her.

“Where are you going?”

“Oh, I just wanted to get away from Jessie,” Rosemary said.

“Well, I don’t want to take her too, so let’s run,” he said, taking her arm, and they ran together to his car, which was parked at the corner.

They had coffee at a little restaurant where no one they knew ever went, and Jack made the arrangements about their tennis date on Saturday. He would pick her up at ten-thirty because neither of them liked to get up early. There was a nice, conspiratorial feeling about being in that little restaurant together, with none of their friends knowing. Rosemary felt the comfortable warmth again of just being with him. Was this what falling in love was like? No pounding of the heart, no blushes, no cold hands? Just warmth and comfort and feeling happy for perhaps the first time in her life? Well, if this was falling in love, then she liked it.

That night when he took her to her front door he kissed her. She liked that too. She was beginning to find him very attractive.

The next morning, too early for her taste, Jessie called her. “Well?”

“Well, what?”

“I saw you go out with Jack Nature. I saw the way he looked at you. How was your date? Was that your second date or have you been seeing him even more and keeping it from me? Tell all, Rosemary, do!”

“There’s nothing to tell.”

“Oh, come on, Rosemary! Is Jack Nature your astral twin?”

“Do you really believe that garbage?”

“Why not? It’s fun. Is he?”

“Is he what”

“Is he Mr. Right?”

“No, he’s Mr. Nature,” Rosemary said, and chuckled, very pleased with herself because this was the first joke she had ever made. Jack would have liked it.

On Saturday they played doubles with Jack’s friend and a date of his, on Long Island, and then they went to a seafood place and had fresh boiled lobster. Rosemary wondered what would happen that summer. The family was taking a beach house again and she wasn’t anxious to leave the city if Jack was going to be there. Well, she could invite him for weekends. He had a car.

SIX

At ten years of age Paris was proud to be able to say that she had been going to camp for five years and was a veteran of five different camps. Lots of kids didn’t even
start
going until they were ten! The only difference was that her parents were always with her all summer at the camp. At first, when they had no money, her father would get the job of head counselor so that she could go free, and her parents would live right at the camp and she would see them every day. Because her father was the head counselor the other kids never picked on her, and the counselors were nice to her even when she was bad. Everyone knew that every year you had to pick one girl in the bunk who was going to be the one you would torment all summer, but Paris was always secure in the knowledge that with her parents right at hand the victim would never be her.

Later on, when her parents could afford to send her to camp and pay, somehow her parents always managed to make an arrangement with the owners so that they could live right at the camp in a guest house. Her parents had a good time, riding their bicycles on the bike path, taking walks in the woods, playing Ping-Pong, and her mother managed to be around all the time to see what Paris was up to. Paris didn’t have to dive or put her head into the water because she had sinus. Paris didn’t have to sweep the bunk because she was allergic to dust. But it wasn’t all good things. Paris wasn’t allowed to eat afternoon cookies and chocolate milk because she was too fat. Her mother was always there, with her proffered paper cup of orange juice, while the other kids were gorging themselves on chocolate-iced cupcakes. Paris had to have weekly hay-fever shots at the infirmary. Paris had to have some smelly medicine put into her scalp every week by the camp nurse because her allergies made it scabby otherwise.

She had been to all sorts of camps with her parents. The first, when she was only five, had been a baby camp, and she didn’t remember it very well. The next one was less of a baby camp, but boring, and the one after that was very interesting because the kids lived in tents and went on hikes where they caught fish in a stream and cleaned them and cooked them over fires they made, in pans they had brought along, and then washed the pans in the stream. They were supposed to sleep outdoors all night in sleeping bags when they went on the overnight hike, but Paris was afraid to go to the bathroom in the woods, so she got her mother to make them let her come back to the bunk to sleep so she could use the regular toilet. After that, her mother made them let her out of all the overnight hikes because it was bad for her flat feet. Paris sat in the bunk with the other girls who had something wrong with them, and read.

The next camp was the one Paris thought of as the eating camp. This time instead of tents there was sheer luxury. Each girl had her own closet, next to her bed, and in the back room of the bunk there were shelves where you had to put your clothes that folded. The ones that hung up went into the closet, and all the trunks had to be completely unpacked and then the camp handyman put them into a big loft sort of thing in back of the bunk. Paris missed her trunk because a trunk was fun, and part of camp. You could hide secret things in your trunk, like letters from friends, and forbidden candy, and just stuff you had collected that was personal to you and therefore important. You could sit on top of your trunk instead of always on the lumpy cot. At the eating camp there was a shower in each bunk, for just the six girls, instead of a wash house a long walk away, the kind they had in other camps, which was used by everyone only once a week. At the eating camp you had to take a shower every day.

After reveille there would be breakfast, then cleaning the bunk and a sport like baseball or basketball, and then there would be the midmorning snack, which consisted of huge onion rolls slathered with butter and strawberry jam, and milk or chocolate milk. The snack was served in a little gazebo in the center of the lawn, which was just for snacks, and Paris’ mother was always around with the cup of orange juice, making sure she didn’t cheat. Then there would be swimming, and then lunch, which was a long, big meal of several courses, served in the dining room. After lunch there would be rest and letter-writing time, and then the afternoon sport, or arts and crafts. Paris always chose arts and crafts, which she was good at. You could also work on the camp newspaper, if you were older. The girls mimeographed it themselves. Then there was the afternoon snack: chocolate-iced chocolate cupcakes or brownies, milk and chocolate milk. Paris’ mother appeared again with the orange juice, although this time Paris was allowed to have white milk if she preferred. Then there was another sport, and then dinner.

Dinner was a phenomenon. It went on and on, with course after course, just like a grown-up restaurant, and if you didn’t like what they gave you, you could always ask for a steak or lamb chops or anything you wanted grilled to order. One day Paris asked for six lamb chops, got them, and ate them. There were always two desserts. The kids were bloated and bored with food, and by the time the desserts came they usually occupied themselves with making balls of the cake and throwing them at each other, or otherwise making a mess. The night of the great angel food cake fight, when gummy balls of cake the kids had rolled between their palms until they had the consistency of putty were hurled around the room for half an hour, despite all the counselors’ efforts to put a stop to it, was the first time the camp directors suspected that possibly they were feeding the kids too much. But it was an expensive camp, and the parents expected it. The camp was famous for its food. Better wretched excess than a smaller camper list next year because parents complained their children were losing weight from all the physical activity.