not for a moment delude herself into believing that she was. She gave up quickly on math problems, it was easier to pull the witchgrass from the front garden than it was to convince her to clean her room or put her dirty clothes in the hamper, and she spent more time in front of a mirror than Sara thought any ten-year-old should. But she was sweet and sensitive and Sara loved her madly—so much more, she feared on occasion, than she would ever learn to love her baby boy with his tendency to pee straight into the air like a geyser.
“Did we remember the nightlight?” John was asking her now.
“Darn it, we didn’t,” she said. She honestly didn’t know how much Patrick needed the nightlight, but his parents sure did. It was bad enough to be awake at one or two in the morning, but it was hell when you slammed your shin into the crib, or nearly poked out an eye on one of the airplane wings in the mobile that dangled just beyond the lad’s reach.
“Well, we can pick one up in Littleton.”
“That means getting off the highway,” she said, an issue in her mind only because getting off the highway would slow them down and thereby decrease their chances of getting to the club in time for lunch.
“Maybe I can get one this afternoon, then,” John said. “I’ll be happy to pick one up while Patrick’s napping. I’ll want to get a new can of tennis balls, anyway. You know the ones Mother has are going to be so old they’ll bounce like rocks.”
She nodded and glanced back at Patrick, resisting the urge to squeeze his toes in his socks. Then she closed her eyes, flexed her own toes once against the straps of her sandals, and started to make an inventory in her mind of everything she had packed and John had wedged into the backseat and the trunk of the Volvo. She was asleep before she had even finished with the items in the diaper bag resting now beside the baby behind her.
Four
W illow Seton curled her legs up against her chest, and wrapped her thin arms around her thin knees. She was sitting on the coralline cement that surrounded the club’s swimming pool, and she could feel the pebbly stone surface through the blue Lycra of her Speedo tank suit. It was late morning, and with the exception of the two cousins, the lifeguard, and a pair of older women in pastel tennis skirts chatting near the diving board, the pool area was empty. Overhead there were a few dolloplike scoops of cumulus clouds, phosphorescent in the high summer sky, and when they passed between the sun and the earth Willow would pull her body into an even tighter ball.
She found herself scrutinizing Charlotte as her cousin draped her body languidly in the water atop three long, Styrofoam floating noodles: a hot pink one in the hollow behind her knees, a banana yellow one beneath the small of her back, and a red one that looked like a long piece of licorice behind her neck. She was wearing the black string bikini that drove their grandmother crazy. But their grandmother was taking a golf lesson right now and so Charlotte had raced directly into the ladies’ cabana and changed from her tennis clothes into the bathing suit. Now she had the pool to herself, and she was acting as if she were completely unaware that her cousin and the lifeguard were watching her.
At least Willow presumed Charlotte thought the lifeguard was watching her: Charlotte seemed to believe that teenage boys always were watching her. In this case, however, Willow honestly didn’t believe that Gary was aware of her cousin as anything more than a girl who swam well enough that it was unlikely she would find a way to drown herself on his watch. The fact was, Charlotte was twelve, a child like herself. Sure, she’d turn thirteen in the last week in August, a month before Willow would reach eleven, but Charlotte hadn’t even started eighth grade yet. Gary, both cousins knew, had graduated from high school that June.
Still, Charlotte was a beautiful girl, and for the past two
“Did we remember the nightlight?” John was asking her now.
“Darn it, we didn’t,” she said. She honestly didn’t know how much Patrick needed the nightlight, but his parents sure did. It was bad enough to be awake at one or two in the morning, but it was hell when you slammed your shin into the crib, or nearly poked out an eye on one of the airplane wings in the mobile that dangled just beyond the lad’s reach.
“Well, we can pick one up in Littleton.”
“That means getting off the highway,” she said, an issue in her mind only because getting off the highway would slow them down and thereby decrease their chances of getting to the club in time for lunch.
“Maybe I can get one this afternoon, then,” John said. “I’ll be happy to pick one up while Patrick’s napping. I’ll want to get a new can of tennis balls, anyway. You know the ones Mother has are going to be so old they’ll bounce like rocks.”
She nodded and glanced back at Patrick, resisting the urge to squeeze his toes in his socks. Then she closed her eyes, flexed her own toes once against the straps of her sandals, and started to make an inventory in her mind of everything she had packed and John had wedged into the backseat and the trunk of the Volvo. She was asleep before she had even finished with the items in the diaper bag resting now beside the baby behind her.
Four
W illow Seton curled her legs up against her chest, and wrapped her thin arms around her thin knees. She was sitting on the coralline cement that surrounded the club’s swimming pool, and she could feel the pebbly stone surface through the blue Lycra of her Speedo tank suit. It was late morning, and with the exception of the two cousins, the lifeguard, and a pair of older women in pastel tennis skirts chatting near the diving board, the pool area was empty. Overhead there were a few dolloplike scoops of cumulus clouds, phosphorescent in the high summer sky, and when they passed between the sun and the earth Willow would pull her body into an even tighter ball.
She found herself scrutinizing Charlotte as her cousin draped her body languidly in the water atop three long, Styrofoam floating noodles: a hot pink one in the hollow behind her knees, a banana yellow one beneath the small of her back, and a red one that looked like a long piece of licorice behind her neck. She was wearing the black string bikini that drove their grandmother crazy. But their grandmother was taking a golf lesson right now and so Charlotte had raced directly into the ladies’ cabana and changed from her tennis clothes into the bathing suit. Now she had the pool to herself, and she was acting as if she were completely unaware that her cousin and the lifeguard were watching her.
At least Willow presumed Charlotte thought the lifeguard was watching her: Charlotte seemed to believe that teenage boys always were watching her. In this case, however, Willow honestly didn’t believe that Gary was aware of her cousin as anything more than a girl who swam well enough that it was unlikely she would find a way to drown herself on his watch. The fact was, Charlotte was twelve, a child like herself. Sure, she’d turn thirteen in the last week in August, a month before Willow would reach eleven, but Charlotte hadn’t even started eighth grade yet. Gary, both cousins knew, had graduated from high school that June.
Still, Charlotte was a beautiful girl, and for the past two
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