Summer of the War Page 4

  Emily was awestruck. “Olivier is gorgeous. Tell us the rest of the plot, Carrie. Mom and Dad wouldn’t let us see the picture. They said it wasn’t suitable for kids.”

  “Well, it turns out his wife wanted him to kill her. Then when they got back to Manderlay, the house was on fire.” Carrie went on to describe the fire. She made it so real, she might have actually been there. I thought she was as believable as any actress. It scared me to think you would never be sure if it was Carrie or a part she was playing.

  Grandma came in to collect Emily and to kiss me good night. She kissed Carrie, too. “It was so nice of you to take time with Emily. We’re very glad to have you here, dear,” she said. Grandma ushered Emily out the door.

  Carrie asked, “Is there a town around here with stores and a movie theater?” She made it sound like someone dying of thirst in a desert asking if there was a waterhole nearby.

  I took a grim pleasure in telling her. “There’s a grocery and a hardware and a boat shop on the mainland,” I said, “but not the kind of stores you mean. The nearest movie theater is miles and miles away.”

  Carrie looked shocked. “What do you do all summer?”

  “Swim, explore the island, read a lot, play cards.” I couldn’t resist. “Practice the recorder.”

  “I might just as well be in prison. Aren’t there any boys?”

  “There are some boys on the other islands. We see them at the Lodge when we go there for dinner.”

  “What about that boy who brought me over?”

  “Ned?” I kept my voice light. “He’s around.”

  Carrie took a lot of bottles and lotions with her to the bathroom. I was in bed when she returned, her hair in curlers and wearing a pair of white cotton gloves. When she saw me staring, she said, “I’ve got this fabulous French cream that keeps my hands soft.”

  She picked up one of her magazines to read, and I read another chapter of David Copperfield. I couldn’t concentrate. I kept wondering what Carrie’s life had been like. I asked, “Who stayed with you while your father was gone all day?”

  “Louise. I could twist her around my little finger.”

  “I can’t twist my grandparents around my little finger, and you won’t be able to either.”

  “Why is our grandfather such a bear?”

  “He isn’t,” I said. “He just likes things done a certain way.”

  “His way,” Carrie said. “Well, he’s not going to tell me what to do.” She flung her pillow on the floor. “Pillows give you a double chin.”

  It was after our lights were out that Carrie asked, “Do you miss your parents?”

  “Yes,” I answered. I did. I missed the way Dad liked to show me how things worked. Last summer he had let me drive on the back roads near Birch Bay. He had even taught me how to change a tire.

  “If you’re going to drive, you need to know how to handle a car in an emergency,” he said.

  I saw things on my walks with Dad that I never noticed on my own, like the scrapes on boulders made by glaciers millions of years ago. He made me feel that anything could be explained if you thought hard enough about it.

  I missed Mom just as much. I was proud that she had been one of only two women in her medical school class. Though she didn’t practice after we came along, she always said she was on full-time duty at home, painting skinned knees with iodine and giving us chest rubs when we had colds. “The best thing when you’re sick,” she said, “is a big dose of TLC, tender loving care.” That’s what she gave us. Although I hated myself for it, I couldn’t help but resent the fact that she was now giving all that TLC to other people.

  So when Carrie asked if I missed my parents, I said I did. “Do you miss your father?” I asked Carrie.

  In the moonlight I could see her suddenly sit up in bed and look over at me. “I miss both my parents,” she said.

  I felt stupid and started to apologize. “I didn’t mean…” I began, and didn’t know where to go after that, but Carrie just flopped down in bed and turned on her side away from me.

  I lay awake thinking about the day, going over everything that had happened. Grandpa said it was foolish to try to dig everything up and do it over. I couldn’t help myself. I don’t think I ever believed our island was a paradise, but it was close. We lived in a small world of our own making, like a kindergarten drawing with a big sun and friendly beasts and everyone in the drawing with wide smiles on their faces. Part of the island’s pleasure was the way it let us escape from our everyday life in the city, from snow and school and worrying about what to wear and how your friends felt about you.

  On the island there was no one to worry about except ourselves. Often we didn’t even see a newspaper, so the war was no more than announcements on the radio. I had thought Carrie would come and just be like us. I never imagined she might not want to be a part of our life on the island. I thought the island was perfect. I never dreamed that Carrie might hate it.

  The next morning I tried to get Carrie up to go for our early-morning dip.

  “Go away. It’s the middle of the night!”

  “It’s eight o’clock. We do it every morning. It’s not bad once you jump in.”

  Carrie turned over and opened one eye. “I can’t come. I’m indisposée.”

  I stared at her for a few seconds trying to translate the word. “You mean you have the curse?”

  “That’s a vulgar word,” Carrie said. She turned over and closed her eyes.

  Downstairs I explained in a whisper to Grandma. Grandpa was looking at the stairway. “Where’s Emily?”

  Grandma said, “She doesn’t want to get her hair wet.”

  Grandpa ordered, “Mirabelle, tell Emily to get down here.”

  Emily dragged herself down the stairway, curlers still in her hair. “I’m only going in up to my neck,” she announced.

  Nancy was giggling at the curlers. Tommy said, “You look like you’ve got snakes in your hair, like that Greek lady Medusa.”

  We straggled toward the channel, Polo tagging along behind us. Overhead the gulls shrieked like they did when rain was coming. Clouds covered the sun. The air was so thick with moisture, you could have eaten it with a spoon. Nancy, Tommy, and I jumped off the dock. Emily waded in carefully. A second later Tommy was swimming toward her, kicking as hard as he could.

  “Tommy,” Emily screamed, “you’re splashing me on purpose. Stop it!” She reached out and hit him.

  Tommy stood up in the water staring at her, not believing what had happened. Hitting was unthinkable. Tommy and Emily both broke into tears at the same time. Emily ran for the house. Tommy stomped along behind her. Polo was barking. Nancy grabbed at my hand and hung on. A light drizzle started, the drops warmer on us than the channel water had been.

  Carrie was downstairs wearing a blue-flowered sundress, her long blond hair in a perfect pageboy. I ignored her and hurried up the stairs to our room. After I changed out of my bathing suit, I stood for a minute at the window looking out at the rain dimpling the lake and putting a shine on the trunk of the maple tree. Usually I liked the rain. It made the cottage cozy. This morning, after what had happened, the rain was depressing, making me feel shut in. I wouldn’t be able to escape Carrie.

  The sky darkened, and wisps of fog played hide and seek with the channel. The porch was gray and gloomy, so Grandma set the table in the dining room. Emily, her eyes red, had combed out a straggly pageboy. Tommy kept his chin tucked in and his eyes on his plate. Instead of the usual chatter no one said much more than “pass the butter” and “can I have the syrup,” until Carrie, looking out at the rain, asked, “Do you have storms on the island?”

  Grandpa said, “Well, we get a couple of good ones each summer.”

  Carrie echoed, “Good ones?” She looked as if she wished she were a thousand miles away.

  Grandma sensed something was wrong and tried to cheer us up. She hated to see anyone unhappy. She was like a polite hostess, always watching to see that everyone was having a g
ood time. “This is just the kind of day to accomplish something I’ve been putting off,” she said. “I’m thinking about tackling the attic. Who wants to help?”

  The attic got cleaned once a summer. Usually we all volunteered. The attic was full of boxes of books and magazines and collections someone had put together of stones and dried flowers. There were trunks of old clothes that Grandma let us try on. It seemed no one had ever thrown anything away. That gave me a good feeling, as if it were possible to hang on forever to all the things you loved. Today the attic just seemed full of ancient junk. The others must have felt the same way, for none of us volunteered.

  Grandma tried again to interest us in something, “How about a little card game?”

  Grandpa said, “A good idea.” He loved cards. The only thing he liked more than winning was having one of us beat him. “What’ll it be? Hearts? Five hundred rummy?”

  “Can you play poker?” Carrie asked.

  “Well, of course I can,” Grandpa said, “but your cousins don’t know how.” After a moment he added, “No reason why they can’t learn. Why don’t you teach them, Caroline. I’ll help you if you don’t remember everything.”

  “Oh, I’ll remember.” Carrie smiled up at Grandpa. “My father taught me, and I used to play with Louise all the time. Once I won her whole week’s wages.”

  Grandpa’s face reddened. “Well, we don’t play card games for money here, just for the pleasure of the game.”

  Carrie was a quick teacher. We were soon calling out, “Hit me with two cards,” or “I’m folding.” For the first time since she had arrived, Carrie came alive. She shuffled the cards like a professional and insisted on cutting the deck when someone else dealt.

  The game went quickly. Grandma was pleased because everyone seemed to be having a good time. When the game was over, Carrie was the winner. “If we had been playing for money,” she said, “I would have cleaned up.”

  Grandpa laughed. “You certainly know how to slap those cards down, young lady.”

  We had been playing for two hours and we were all in a good mood. I began to think that if we just met Carrie halfway, the summer would be saved.

  I happened to look at Tommy. His face was white and his eyes huge. He threw down his cards and marched out of the room. We all looked surprised.

  “Well,” Grandpa said, “I’ve never known Tommy to be a sore loser. Just let him sulk.”

  Emily and Nancy went to set the table for lunch, Polo, hoping for something from the kitchen, at their heels. Carrie settled beside Grandpa, who was getting the news on the radio. I followed Tommy upstairs. I didn’t believe for a minute he was a sore loser. I thought he was still unhappy about his quarrel with Emily. I wanted to tell him to forget what had happened that morning. He was huddled on his bed, his arms around his teddy bear, which he dropped as soon as he saw me, embarrassed to be caught with it.

  “Go away.” His lower lip was sticking out like it did when he was upset.

  “Hey, it’s me. I know Emily is really sorry about what she did. She feels miserable.”

  “It’s not about that.”

  “Then what?”

  Tommy gave me a long look. “She cheated.”

  “Emily?”

  “Carrie.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I was sitting next to her,” Tommy said. “I saw. She took cards from the bottom of the deck.”

  “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “What was I supposed to say? ‘I saw you cheat’?”

  “That’s exactly what you ought to have said. I’m going to talk to her.”

  He shrugged.

  I waited until after lunch, when Carrie was alone. She had gone up to our room and was sitting on her bed putting on nail polish.

  I came in and closed the door behind me. “Tommy says he saw you deal cards from the bottom of the deck.”

  Carrie waved her hand to dry the polish. “No big deal.” She grinned. “No pun intended.”

  “It is a big deal. We don’t cheat here.”

  “I know. You’re all perfect, the perfect family. Then I turn up like a rotten apple.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean you think I’m some kind of leper because I don’t want to jump into the ice-cold water before it’s even daylight or play that stupid recorder or read all those boring books you piled up next to my bed. And it’s not just me. I know Grandpa doesn’t like my dad. I overheard Dad say that your family blames him because he took my mother to France when she was sick. Well, Dad said she wanted to go and the doctors there took good care of her. Now I’m locked up on this island like a prisoner for weeks, and you all think I’m some sort of idiot. So what if I cheated at cards? It just proves you’re all not as smart as you pretend to be. Papa says people are just waiting to be fooled.”

  I had come barging into the room eager to accuse Carrie, and all the time she was thinking we hated her. “Look, you’re all wrong about us,” I said. “We don’t think we’re perfect. It’s just that we’ve always done things a certain way, and I guess we thought you’d want to do them that way, too.”

  “You’re not interested in what I like or what I want to do. It’s your way or nothing. Anyhow, I don’t belong here. I should be with my papa. I’d rather have bombs dropping on me than everybody trying to make me into one of you.”

  “I’m sorry if we made you feel like an outsider. When you get to know us, you’ll see we’re all different.”

  She was blinking her eyes to keep back tears. “Are you going to tell Grandpa I cheated?”

  I shook my head. “You won’t cheat again?”

  She wiped away the tears with the back of her hand and grinned at me. “I don’t have to. I can beat all of you without cheating.”

  Four

  The next morning Emily positively refused to go in the water. “Where everyone is splashing around,” she said, giving Tommy a sharp look.

  When Grandpa called us to help him build up the cribs, Carrie said, “Moving stones around is the kind of work prisoners do. This might as well be Alcatraz Island. Besides, it would ruin my nails.”

  “So what are we supposed to do,” Tommy asked, “let the lake wash away the whole island?”

  Under her breath so that only Tommy and I heard her, Carrie said, “That would be fine with me.”

  Tommy gave her an angry look. He hadn’t forgiven her cheating. I had promised him that she wouldn’t do it again, but he didn’t believe me.

  In the past I had enjoyed the half hour we spent filling in the cribs, bragging about the size of the stones we were lifting, finding the stone that fit a certain place, winning the battle with the water and the currents. Just seeing Grandpa’s pleasure in what we accomplished made it fun. With Carrie standing there watching us, a superior look on her face, I did feel like a prisoner on Alcatraz. Carrie had spoiled all the pleasure. Grandpa and Tommy were the only ones who worked as hard as usual. If Grandpa noticed how little we were doing, he didn’t say anything.

  Since talking with Carrie, I kept seeing us not the way we had always been, but as Carrie saw us. I honestly wanted to be friends with her. I think I even hoped that in the weeks she was with us, some of her sophistication would rub off onto me. Once I had held a butterfly lightly, and when I let it go, a little of the bright dust of its wings remained on my hands. I hoped that if I could just learn a little of Carrie’s sophistication, Ned might look at me like he looked at Carrie.

  I tried to think of something that would please her. Grandma had given me the weekly list of groceries to get on the mainland. Now I asked, “You want to come with me?”

  She headed for the closet. “Never mind changing your clothes,” I said. “It’s only Birch Bay. And don’t wear heels on the boat.” Grandpa had two boats, the runabout and his Chris-Craft. He was fanatic about both of them, keeping their wood lacquered like fine pieces of furniture and their brightwork polished to a gleaming shine. The proudest day of my life was when Grandpa a
llowed me to take the runabout out on my own. That was only after I had crossed the channel a million times under his watchful eye, memorizing all the shoals and boulders that lay just beneath the surface of the water ready to tear open the boat’s hull.

  Carrie didn’t wear heels, but she did change her clothes, and I wondered what the people in Birch Bay would think of a girl who dressed as if Birch Bay were New York City and she were going for a stroll on Fifth Avenue. She was wearing a white eyelet blouse and pleated pink skirt.

  It was Mrs. Norkin’s day to help Grandma with the cooking and cleaning. As we left, Mrs. Norkin called out, “See that Ned doesn’t give you any green potatoes, Belle, and bring back some rhubarb. I’ll make a pie.”

  Birch Bay was a fishing town. The boats went out each morning and came back with a load of whitefish and perch thrashing about on the bottom of the boat. The fish were cleaned and iced and sent all over the state. The town had a large hotel for summer people, but once the war started, the big steamers no longer brought people up the lakes from Detroit and Chicago, so the hotel had closed.

  On the outskirts of the town there were a few small farms, but the sandy soil and the long winters kept anyone from making much of a living farming. The main business, apart from logging, was taking care of people like us who summered on the islands. Along with the post office, the boat repair shop, the hardware store, and a small grocery, there were carpenters and a plumber and electrician. I loved the town. On a summer’s day there was a slowness to everything you never found in a city. You said hello to anyone you met because you knew them and they knew you or about you.

  Carrie must have seen the town when she came to the island, so I thought she would know what to expect, but she kept looking behind the small string of buildings on the main street as if they were just a stage set for some movie, and lurking behind them must be a real town.

  “What do these people do?” she kept asking, as if it were impossible for human beings to live normal lives in a town like Birch Bay.