Thea at Sixteen (12 page)

“What if she agrees?” Meg asked. “She just might call your bluff.”

“Then we'll roll out the red carpet,” Nick replied. “That's the appropriate color for Sam, too. If Aunt Grace actually deigns to enter my home, I'll treat her like royalty. I'll do better. I'll treat her almost as well as she expects to be treated.”

“It sounds wonderful,” Meg declared. “I'd love to have Clark come. And I've been so afraid Evvie would decide to spend Thanksgiving with Sam's family instead of coming home.”

“This Thanksgiving we'll have her here,” Nick promised. “Maybe we could make a tradition out of this. Open our family up a little bit. I've been selfish, wanting to keep you all close to me, not letting anyone else in. But there's no point, not with the girls growing up. They have worlds of their own now. Don't you, Thea?”

Thea nodded. She hadn't been sure her parents remembered she was in the room with them. Now that they'd reassured her, she took another bite of apple.

“How is Gina, dear?” Meg asked.

Thea swallowed. “Bad,” she said. “Kip is hoping she makes it until Christmas.”

“That poor kid,” Nick said. “Both of them.”

“I wish there was something more we could do for them,” Meg said. “For you, too, Thea. I know how hard it's been for you, becoming attached to a girl who's so ill.”

“It's okay,” Thea said. She realized she sounded like Kip. What was there about death that made you so defensive? “Kip's the one who's really suffering.”

“Let's invite him for Thanksgiving also,” Nick said. “What do you think, Daisy?”

“I think that's a lovely idea,” Meg replied. “Do you think Kip would come?”

“I don't know,” Thea said. “He does have a family.”

“I would have loved it if someone had invited me for Thanksgiving dinner,” Nick said. “After my mother died.”

“Didn't you have Thanksgiving dinner with Mr. Wilson?” Thea asked. “I thought you moved in with him right after.”

“Freshman year at Princeton,” Nick said. “I'd never felt so alone. Mr. Wilson had died by then also, and all the other guys had families to go home to, and none of them knew me well enough to extend an invitation. I don't know if I would have accepted, anyway. Thanksgiving that year, and Christmas. There were maybe a half dozen of us in the house, less than that at Christmas. There was a big dinner, of course, so we wouldn't mind what we were missing, but that only made things worse. It forced me to face what everyone else had, a loving family, a place to go home to.”

“By sophomore year, things were different,” Meg said.

“Oh, yeah,” Nick said. “By sophomore year, I had you, and holidays were spent freezing outside your bedroom window, tossing stones against the glass to catch a glimpse of you without Grace knowing it.”

Megs smiled. “You wanted us to elope that Christmas,” she said. “I never thought I'd be able to talk you out of it.”

“I was afraid I'd lose you, otherwise,” Nick said.

“You would have lost everything else if we'd done it,” Meg said. “And you should have known you would never lose me.”

“I still don't know it,” Nick said. “Every day with you is an astonishment.”

“Let's invite Kip,” Meg said. “And his mother and sister. Is that all right with you, Nicky?”

“It's fine with me,” Nick said. “Thea, would that make things all right for Kip?”

“I don't know,” Thea said, trying not to keel over from the shock. “I can ask him.”

“And maybe the hospital will let Gina join us,” Meg said. “Just for an hour or two. If I were her mother, it would make me so happy to see my daughter out of the hospital, surrounded by family and friends, if only for an hour.”

“Let's do it,” Nick said. “Thea, do you want to invite Kip's family, or would you rather we did it directly?”

“I'll do it,” Thea said. “Maybe on Thursday, when I see him at the hospital.”

“Great,” Nick said. “This is going to be a perfect Thanksgiving, the kind I used to dream of. A Thanksgiving where we have so much prosperity and love that there's enough left over to share with others.”

C
HAPTER
N
INE

“Well look at this,” Nick said, as he finished his last sip of coffee.

“What?” Meg asked.

“This column in the
Sentinel
,” Nick said. “It's all about Sybil.”

“Oh, no.” Thea groaned, but her parents didn't seem to hear her. Instead, they both bent over the newspaper and read Peter Grass's column.

“This is great,” Nick said, and much to Thea's surprise, he sounded as though he meant it. “Sybil's already left, hasn't she?”

“Five minutes ago,” Meg replied. “Thea, Claire, you should be leaving now, too.”

“I want to see the column,” Claire said, and she joined her parents at the table. “Thea, this is all about Sybil.”

“So I've heard,” Thea said. “I was there when she met Mr. Grass. Does he make her sound like a total idiot?”

“More like a Nobel Prize winner,” Claire replied. “In one sentence, he uses
ingenuity, dedication
, and
self-sacrifice
.”

“You're kidding,” Thea said, but she skimmed the column and discovered Claire was accurate. According to Mr. Grass, Sybil was a cross between Rachel Carson and Mother Teresa.

“I have to buy a copy for Aunt Grace,” Meg said. “And one for Clark as well. They'll get such a kick out of it.”

“We'll need one for Evvie, also,” Nick said. “I suppose you two would each like one of your own.”

“I couldn't live without it,” Claire said.

“I could,” Thea said, but she was ignored. Instead, Claire led her outside, and they began walking to the high school.

“She's such a hypocrite,” Thea complained. “She told that reporter she was earning the money for the poor, and she meant herself. How can she get away with that kind of thing?”

“Sybil gets away with everything,” Claire replied. “You've never noticed that?”

“No,” Thea said. “I thought you were the one who got away with things.”

Claire laughed. “I'm the one who tries to,” she said. “Sybil isn't as obvious about it, but she's a lot more successful. Evvie and Sybil. When they sneeze, Nicky thinks it's a major accomplishment.”

Thea thought about it for a moment. “We're all proud of Evvie,” she said. “Evvie does things to make you proud of her.”

“Evvie does it without really trying, though,” Claire said. “She gets great grades, but you never see her cramming. She makes friends easily, guys fall in love with her even though she isn't beautiful, like I am. Even you're prettier than she is, but guys don't fall in love with you. There's just something about Evvie. I think it's because she's firstborn. It gives you an aura.”

“Someday someone will fall in love with me,” Thea said. “Am I really prettier than Evvie?”

“Sure,” Claire said. “You're very pretty in a kind of wishy-washy, uninteresting way. Like Megs. So's Evvie, but you do a better job with it.”

“I still don't get it,” Thea said. “If Peter Grass had written a column about you or me, Nicky would have been hysterical. The only kind of publicity he likes is the kind he dictates. But someone writes an entire column about how Sybil goes begging for candy wrappers on the street, and Nicky starts making lists of people to show off to.”

“Sybil's his favorite,” Claire said.

“Nicky doesn't have favorites,” Thea replied automatically.

“Boy, are you blind,” Claire said. “Of course Nicky has favorites. So does Megs. She's always liked Evvie best, and Nicky likes Sybil. That doesn't mean they don't love you, or even me. It just means they let them get away with more.”

Thea decided she wasn't comfortable with the idea of her parents having favorites. Besides, it was exactly the sort of thing Claire would accuse them of because she was feeling left out. And if Claire felt left out, that was because she never made any effort to cooperate. “You're the one who's blind,” she declared, and she walked ahead to prevent Claire from continuing the conversation. She could hear Claire's laughter follow her down the street, but that was a sound Thea was used to ignoring. Claire was always laughing at her, or at Nicky, or at the things they held most dear. She could laugh her head off, as far as Thea was concerned. Claire would never understand how much Nicky and Megs loved their daughters, and how equal that love was. Even if it was true that Sybil got away with all kinds of things Thea knew would be a disaster for her to attempt.

Fortunately, no one at school had read the column, or if they had, they didn't connect Sybil's name with Thea's. Thea made it through the school day without having to talk about it, which was fine with her. She dreaded the thought that people would start handing her their candy wrappers to give to Sybil for her collection for the poor. Thea was accustomed to being Evvie Sebastian's sister, because everyone liked Evvie, and being Claire Sebastian's sister, because Claire was, unfortunately, as beautiful as she thought she was, but she wasn't ready to become Saint Sybil Sebastian's sister as well.

She found herself thinking of Gina all afternoon, and decided to go to the hospital after school, even though it was a Wednesday and she'd be a day off schedule. She might not stay long, but she needed right then to see someone who cared about her, and Gina certainly fit that description.

Thea went to the hospital as soon as the last bell rang. She didn't know what to expect. Somehow she thought the hospital might only exist on Mondays and Thursdays, or Gina might be unconscious except during those hours when Thea visited. Part of her was nervous about going on a Wednesday, as though that violated a religion. Would the nurses let her in? Would Kip be angry?

But the nurses didn't seem to care, and Kip wasn't around when Thea walked in. Gina was lying on her bed, looking better than she had on Monday.

“Thea!” she said. “Look at the flowers. Look at the teddy bear.”

Thea looked. There was a small bouquet of sweetheart roses by Gina's bed, and a midsized huggable bear resting on her pillow.

“They're wonderful,” Thea said, sitting down on the bed by Gina's side. “Where did they come from?”

“Your parents,” Gina replied. “They came to visit me this morning. Both of them. Your father brought me the flowers and your mother gave me the teddy bear.”

“You're kidding,” Thea said. “Did they say why they came?”

“Just to meet me,” Gina said. “They said you told them so much about me, and they'd met Kip, so they wanted to meet me, too. Your father is so handsome. I never saw such a handsome man except on TV. Why isn't he a star?”

“Because he never wanted to be one,” Thea replied. She wasn't sure how many more shocks she could take that day.

“And your mother looks like an angel,” Gina continued. “I think when I go to heaven that's what all the angels are going to look like.”

“Heaven?” Thea said. “What makes you think you're going to heaven?”

“Why should I go to hell?” Gina asked. “I've never done anything bad. I've never had the chance.”

“No,” Thea said. “That's not what I mean. Of course you aren't going to go to hell. I mean, why are you thinking about going to heaven?”

“That's where dead people go,” Gina declared. “Mom says so. She says in heaven I'll never be sick and lots of people there will love me. My grandparents are already in heaven, so they're waiting for me. I hope they'll recognize me, because I haven't seen them in a long time. And I had a dog when I was real little, and a car hit him, so he's in heaven waiting for me, too. It used to scare me that I'd go to heaven and no one I knew would be dead yet, except maybe my father. We don't know where he is, but he wouldn't be in heaven, anyway. Mom made a list of all the people in heaven who are waiting for me. My grandparents, and my dog, and my uncle Harvey. I never met him, but Mom says he'll know me. I guess my grandparents will introduce us. And there'll be angels there, and they'll all look blond and beautiful like your mother.”

Thea wished with all her might that she'd had the sense not to visit on a Wednesday. Wednesday was clearly Gina's day to deal with death, and Thea had no desire to deal with Gina's dealings.

“Let's talk about something else,” she said. “What a great bear. I used to have one just like it. Do you have a name for it?”

Gina shook her head. “What did you name yours?” she asked.

Thea knew the bear had had a name, but she could no longer remember it. “Montague,” she said. They were studying
Romeo and Juliet
in English, and Montague was the first name she could think of. At least it was better for a bear than Romeo.

“I don't think I want to call mine Montague,” Gina said. “Your mother said she knew I was probably a little too sophisticated for a teddy bear, but she thought it might get lonely sometimes here, and there's nothing better when you're lonely than to have a teddy bear. And your father said he brought me pink roses because that's the flower he always gave his daughters on their twelfth birthdays. Did he give you pink roses then?”

Thea nodded. Just then she had no idea what kind of flowers, if any, Nicky had given her, but pink roses sounded like him. “It isn't your birthday, is it?” she asked.

“No,” Gina replied. “My mom came in while they were here, and your parents talked to her, and I could see they made her smile. Mom doesn't smile a lot. Kip does, but he doesn't always mean it. He just smiles to make me feel better. And they brought me the newspaper with the article about Sybil. I was so proud. I know her, and she has an article all about how nice she is. I just wish Mr. Grass had called me. I would have told him about how Sybil came to the hospital just to visit me and he could have put that in the paper. I'm keeping the article. Your parents said I could. They said they bought lots of copies to give to everybody, and they wanted me to have one. My mom doesn't buy the newspaper, but she said she was going to go out and get a copy, too, because she feels like she knows Sybil already because I've told her so much about her. You're so lucky to have such beautiful parents.”