The Summer Cottage (12 page)

Charlotte set her chair next to Pammy and gently lowered herself into it. She stretched her thin, muscular legs out in front of her and crossed her ankles. Closing her eyes, she tilted her head toward the sun. Its intense heat relaxed her instantly, bound her caustic tongue. Inhaling deeply through her nose, she then exhaled slowly through her mouth. Minutes later she was asleep.

Daniel arrived at their chairs soon afterward. Sweaty and glistening in the sun, he bent down to kiss Charlotte. “She’s asleep,” said Helen.

“Like an angel,” Daniel said.

“Sort of,” said Pammy.

“Anybody want to go for a swim?” Daniel asked.

Pammy jumped out of her chair. “I’m about ready,” she said. “Let’s go to the raft.”

Daniel and Pammy walked slowly toward the water. Pammy stuck her foot in and, coquettishly, pulled it out quickly. She looked back at Helen, who was shaking her head. Pammy shrugged her shoulders and walked in, up to her knees, up to her hips, then dove underneath the surface. Daniel, who had plunged in the second his toes left the dry sand, was treading water several yards out, waiting for Pammy. She swam to him; they laughed about something Helen couldn’t hear, then headed for the ancient gray raft in the distance. Helen watched them swim, side by side, until they reached their destination. Pammy climbed the ladder, then sat down next to the diving board. Daniel sat down beside her.

Losing interest in her sister’s antics, Helen returned to her magazine. After finishing an article, Helen closed last week’s
Time,
lifted herself out of her chair, and ascended the steps. She crossed the road to the house and walked into the porch. “Mother?” Hearing no response, Helen walked through the living room and dining room into the kitchen, which was vacant. She crossed back through the former maid’s quarters, on the opposite side of the house from the dining room, which had decades before been transformed into a sitting room that no one used. That weekend, Charles would sleep there on the pullout couch, which Helen had already made up with fresh sheets. Todd and Ned would sleep on the porch in sleeping bags on air mattresses. Even when there were free beds, the boys chose the porch. From the den, Helen walked back into the living room and then up the stairs. “Mother?”

“Here I am,” answered Claire, from her room.

Helen poked her head in. “Hi,” she said. “How’s everything?”

“Things would be just great if I could just get my arm into this sleeve.” She was breathing hard from her failed efforts.

“It’s tangled,” said Helen, untwisting the fabric. “Try putting it in now.”

“Wonderful.” Claire slipped her left arm into the cotton blouse.

“I should have come sooner,” said Helen. “I was reading. I thought you were doing the same on the porch.”

“I was, but I needed this long-sleeved blouse and my hat up here. Daniel helped me up the stairs before his run.”

“Well, I’ll help you down the stairs.”

“I’m glad you came along.”

Helen kissed her mother on the cheek, a reward for her pleasantness, and then helped her off the bed. Together they made their way slowly down the stairs and onto the porch. “Shall we go to the beach?” asked Helen.

“Let’s.”

 

On the raft, Pammy turned her body to face Daniel’s. “So,” she said, “tell me about you.”

“There’s not a lot to tell,” Daniel answered. “I’m in transition now.”

“Transition?”

“Well, yes, I’m a student.”

“What are you studying?”

“Philosophy. I’m working on my master’s degree.”

“And how does someone working on his master’s degree afford living in San Francisco?”

“I work part-time at a gym. I used to have a second job, in retail, but Charlotte doesn’t want me out every evening or on Saturdays,” he said. “I don’t make much at the gym, but it seems to pay for what I need. Plus, I get to work out.”

“Do you have an apartment?”

Daniel blushed. “I did have an apartment,” he said, “with three roommates. Charlotte made me give it up when we began spending a lot of time together. She told me to use the money for something useful, like taking her out to dinner.”

“And do you?”

“Take her out to dinner?”

“Do useful things.”

“All the time,” he said, smiling.

“You obviously work out a lot.”

“Every day. Charlotte sometimes works out when I’m there working.”

“Really? She didn’t lift a finger if she didn’t have to when she was younger.”

Daniel laughed. “She told me that. It’s hard to believe she never exercised and still looks the way she does. She’s in great shape.”

“For an older woman, right?”

“I wasn’t going to say that.”

“But you were thinking it, weren’t you?”

“Why is everyone so fixated on our age difference?”

“Aren’t you? I mean, if Charlotte looks this good at forty-seven, think about what a twenty-five-year-old would look like?”

“Those women are all so immature. They just want to get married.”

“Is that so bad?”

“No,” Daniel said. “I want to get married too. I just don’t want to get married now.”

“Charlotte doesn’t want to get married?”

“She thinks twice is enough.”

“You want children, I take it.”

“I love kids. That’s the real reason to get married.”

“Not for love?”

“You can find love anywhere.”

“If you’re young and good-looking, yes, you can. If you’re middle-aged and average, it’s not so easy.”

“So, find somebody young and good-looking,” said Daniel.

“You’re taken.” Pammy reached over and removed a small piece of eel grass from Daniel’s shoulder.

Daniel laughed and put his hand on Pammy’s knee. Pammy put her hand on top of his, spreading his fingers with hers. She held his hand for several seconds before releasing him, and then stood up. She walked to the edge of the raft and quickly dove in, letting the cool water refresh her, dispel her fantasies. Daniel dove in after her, surfacing next to her. He spit water over her head. Pammy filled her mouth with water to reciprocate. As she puckered her lips, Daniel covered her mouth with his.

C
HAPTER
14

 

H
elen sat at the dinner table and used her fork to play with her peas. She divided them into groups of five, of which she had six, with three extra. Then she put them into groups of eleven so it would come out even. She formed the three groups into circles, making a green snowman on her plate, using a bit of black olive from her salad for a hat and some rice grains for the arms. “Eat your peas,” said Claire. “Honestly, Helen.”

“After all,” said Thomas, forking the last of his peas into his mouth, “there are starving children in Africa.”

“That’s enough out of you,” John Thompson said.

“I propose we pack up Helen’s plate, just like it is, and
send
it to Africa. They might get a kick out of that snowman.”

“You just earned solo dish duty,” John said to Thomas. “As soon as Helen’s done.”

Charlotte looked at her watch. “Let’s go, Helen. Some of us have plans tonight.”

“What are your plans?” asked Claire, finishing the final row on her ear of corn. Charlotte glanced at her mother. “Driving to Hall’s Homemade for an ice cream float?”

“Something like that,” said Charlotte. “And when we’re bored to death with that activity, we can do something fun.”

“Like what?” asked Claire. “What is your definition of fun?”

“It’s hard to say.” Charlotte sipped her water. “What I do know is that it’s different than yours.”

“Different from mine,” said Claire. “When the word different is used in comparisons, it’s always followed by the word
from
.”

Helen took advantage of her mother’s shifted attention by spooning a third of her peas into her shorts pocket. Her father routinely checked her balled-up napkin, but he had not yet asked her to empty her pockets. Helen was always the last child to finish her dinner, mostly because she had no appetite for vegetables. She adored mashed potatoes and corn on the cob—she had eaten two ears that very meal—but abhorred string beans, cooked carrots, broccoli, salad with French dressing, and, especially, peas. They not only made her gag, but they also seemed to grow in her mouth as she chewed them. When she was younger and spit them out of her mouth, her mother had made her scoop them back up and try again. And when she protested eating what she called barf, her mother calmly told her that many animals routinely ate regurgitated food. Helen scattered half the remaining peas on her plate and shoved the others in her mouth. “Done,” she said through the peas.

“Lift that lettuce, young lady,” her father said.

Hesitantly, Helen picked up the large leaf on her plate and revealed a piece of swordfish the size of a small brownie. Before Helen could open her mouth full of peas to bargain with her father, Thomas, who was sitting next to her, speared the fish and put it into his mouth. Everyone watched him as he chewed. “Now you see it,” he said, still chewing. “Now you don’t.”

“She’s never going to learn with you around,” said Claire.

“Oh, she learns plenty,” Thomas said. “She’s going to learn all about dish washing tonight, right, Helen?”

“You don’t have to help, Helen,” said their father. “Only if you choose to.”

“I choose to,” said Helen, getting up from the table to bring dishes to the kitchen.

Everyone cleared their own dishes from the table except for Claire and John. John earned exemption from most household chores because he, Claire said, made the money that paid for the food on the plates to be cleared; that bought the clothes that needed to be washed, dried, folded, and put away; that secured the car loans for the vehicles that Thomas and Charlotte drove. And John often reminded his children that their mother planned, shopped for, and prepared their meals, so the least the children could do was tidy up. He knew that if Claire washed dishes with the children, she would certainly take control of it, quickly declaring their efforts substandard. The other reason John wanted his children to do the dishes, the primary reason, was that he thought it was good for them. Hard workers, he often told them, are happier people.

Thomas filled the sink with sudsy water, while Helen grabbed a clean dishtowel from the drawer in the pantry. She stood next to him at the sink and watched as he sunk the water glasses into the white foam. Washing them quickly, yet carefully, Thomas placed the dripping glasses upside down in the drying rack, where Helen retrieved them, one at a time, then dried them, and placed them, right side up, on the proper shelf in the pantry. “You are a terrific assistant,” said Thomas. “Would you always help me?”

Helen beamed at her older brother. With his wavy brown hair, green eyes and thin, muscular build, Thomas had his pick of girls, especially at the cottage where everyone Pammy’s age and older wanted a summer boyfriend. He liked Catherine, the banker’s daughter who lived down the street, but she was snotty and superior and would only talk to Thomas when her beau—her word, Thomas said—from college wasn’t visiting for the weekend. Thomas had little time for dating, however, because most of the time he worked. He liked girls, but he liked money more. He worked two, sometimes three jobs every summer and banked most of his paychecks. On his occasional days off, he went to the beach, where a number of girls often offered to put tanning lotion on his broad brown back. Pammy, often observing from a nearby towel, would comment to Helen in disgust. Tramps, she would call them, Thomas’s little harem. Helen routinely pointed out that Thomas didn’t seem to mind.

When Thomas wasn’t working or out with a few guy friends, he sometimes played Monopoly with Helen. He was always the banker and he always won, which made Helen wonder whether one could exist without the other. She usually owned the prestigious Boardwalk and Park Place, but Thomas never landed on them. He always bought the less expensive but better situated St. Charles trio, as well as their orange New York neighbors. Helen couldn’t seem to get down that strip without hitting at least one of them. And when he put up houses, the game was almost over. He always owned the railroads as well.

Helen’s favorite times with her older brother were not spent lying on the living room rug beside a game board or running around the yard during a post-dinner game of family kickball. What she liked best was swimming to the raft with him after dark, through the black waters of Long Island Sound, terrified of the seaweed and creatures below, but exhilarated by the daring and secret nature of their missions. He favored the hot, thick nights, when the air, full of moisture, refused to move. On appointed nights like this, Helen would wait until her parents were asleep and Thomas was home from delivering pizza. She would lie still, listening for his car, his cutoff engine, the thud of his car door shutting, and the drawn-out squeak from the back screen door being opened slowly. She would listen to him climb the stairs and stop in his room to change into his suit. And then he would walk quietly down the hallway to her open door and tap on the jamb four times. That was their special knock, which occasionally had to be changed so that international spies wouldn’t crack their code. Within seconds, Helen would be out of bed. She’d hurry out of her pajamas, revealing her bathing suit underneath. Without a word, she would follow him back down the hall, down the stairs, and out the front door into the night.
Nice night for a swim,
he would say. And it always was.

“Hey,” Thomas said that night as they descended the beach steps, “what are the chances we see Charlotte down here making out with one of her bozo boyfriends?”

“Not very good,” Helen replied. “She’s already in bed.”

“Don’t tell me she’s dumped Steve Johanson already.”

“I don’t think so,” said Helen, hanging the beach towel she had retrieved from the clothesline over the stairway’s steel railing. “She’s getting her friend.”

“Her what?”

“You know.”

“Her period, Helen? Is she getting her period?”

“I hate that word.”

“Don’t you hate calling it a friend more?”

“Good point,” said Helen, jumping down onto the cool sand. “From what Charlotte’s told me, that name makes no sense anyway.”

“Agreed.”

They walked down to the water’s edge and waded in up to their ankle bones. “It’s cold,” said Helen, hugging her torso.

“It’s delightful,” said Thomas, as he strode out into the water until it encircled his waist. He leaped out of the water like a porpoise and then disappeared under the surface. Helen followed him much like a dog obeys a master, without protest, without thought. The dark, dense water surrounded and held her, cooling her instantly. She swam to Thomas, who was treading water several yards away. “You,” he said as she drew nearer, “are Secret Agent Ten.” Thomas always made up a game on the way to the raft. “And I am Secret Agent Twenty. Our mission tonight is to swim swiftly and silently to our island base camp, which has been infiltrated by Russian scuba divers. We will bomb them using heavy artillery, trying our best to avoid our own structures, until they surrender. We will destroy their encampment.”

A good swimmer, like all the Thompsons, Thomas led with his flawless crawl stroke. Arm over arm and face in the water, he moved efficiently and consistently like a machine. Swimming in his wake, Helen chose the breaststroke. Occasionally she dipped her mouth and nose below the surface, but her eyes, alert and ever vigilant, remained above water. Creatures in the murkiness below could strike without warning. If she stayed close to Thomas, she felt safe. She was so busy looking around that she didn’t notice Thomas had stopped and ran right into him.

“Hey!” Thomas said. “Watch it, Agent Ten. Do you want to blow our cover?”

“Sorry,” said Helen, breathless.

He grinned at her. “You are a little chicken, Helen Thompson.”

“Am not.”

“Are too.”

“Am . . .”

“Shhh! Listen. Did you hear something?”

“No,” Helen said, looking around them.

“I could have sworn I heard a kind of whooshing sound, kind of like a shark fin cutting through the water.”

“Drop dead, Thomas,” said Helen, trying to sound nonchalant even though her heart was pounding.

“Or maybe it was one of those huge eels racing through the grass below. Helen help! He’s got my toe! I’m going under!”

“Some spy you make,” said Helen, breathing heavily from fear. “The Russians have already seen us and are breaking up camp.”

“No, they aren’t,” said Thomas, backing off. “That’s just the night guards ending their shift. This is our only opportunity. Silence, Agent Ten, is the key to our success.”

Helen followed him the rest of the way to the raft, another twenty-five yards or so, where she treaded water while he climbed the ladder. On the third rung, he leaned down and whispered. “What are we?”

“Swift and lethal,” Helen dutifully replied.

Thomas jumped up onto the raft’s surface and launched into an elaborate exercise of karate kicks and punches. “Hi yah!” he yelled. “Eat eel grass, peasant!”

Emulating her brother’s actions, Helen threw her feet and hands into the air, striking imaginary adversaries with gusto. Within minutes, all the Russians were dead or close enough. Helen and Thomas met in the middle of the raft and solemnly shook hands before moving on to the bombing phase of their mission. She stepped onto the diving board and walked out to the end over the water. She jumped once, then twice, testing the spring before returning to the raft. A moment later, Helen turned and jogged four steps along the board. Jumping up, she forced all her weight onto the very end of the plank, which sent her flying through the thick air. She pulled her knees up to her chest and held them there. One, two, three, four, five—her body hit the water with a violent boom, sending water up and out in all directions. “The cannonball,” said Thomas, already clapping when she rose to the surface, “by Helen Thompson.”

“Good?” Helen asked.

“Stupendous,” Thomas answered. “The entire Russian infantry has retreated. Come, feast on potatoes and vodka!”

Helen climbed up the ladder and sat opposite her brother. The moon shone down upon them, lighting the surface of the raft as if it were a small stage. Thomas, using the exaggerated motions of a mime actor, handed her imaginary food and beverage, followed by treasure chests of Russian coin, currency, and valuable artifacts. They counted their booty, which amounted to three billion American dollars, stuffed it into their suits, then dove into the water for the swim back to headquarters on the mainland. Again Thomas led and Helen swam close to him. Bravely putting her face down, she rotated her arms in a crawl stroke and pulled herself gracefully through the water. On the way back to the beach, she was not as fearful of the marine life below. The sharks and eels and giant squid, she reasoned, had fallen back to sleep.

When she could touch the bottom, Helen stopped swimming and walked to the beach. Thomas, wrapped in his blue and green-striped towel, handed Helen hers. She bundled up, and stood, shivering, next to her brother. “You cold?” he asked.

“Not really,” Helen said, through chattering teeth.

“Let’s go up,” he said, putting his arm around her shoulders and giving her a side hug. “We’ll run a warm shower for just a minute. Nice work, Agent Ten.”