Family of Liars

At night, when we are all “watching the hell out of Bedknobs and Broomsticks” (as Pfeff puts it) for the second time, I touch his leg. My fingers tingle on the fabric of his jeans. We sit there for ages, like that. Eventually, he slides his arm around my shoulder, in front of everyone. I feel so warm, so accepted. We snuggle, we spoon.

Another day, when everyone is packing to leave the Big Beach, heading to take showers and dress for supper, Pfeff hangs back. “Stay here with me,” he whispers as I’m picking up a tote bag. “Stay here with me a while longer.”

We watch the others disappear and then get back in the water. He takes off my bikini top gently, and presses his chest up against me underwater. We kiss in the gentle rise and fall of the salty waves. It is slippery. Disorienting. I wrap my legs around him.

I want to tell Penny about Pfeff. I mean, she does know—everyone knows. Bess asked if he was my boyfriend, and Yardley said, “I’m not surprised.”

But Penny hasn’t said anything. I want to talk to her, tell her how he kissed me at the tire swing, what it’s like to be with him, all the details. She wants to know, I’m sure.

But she is always with Erin.

Of course I could talk to Bess. She would be eager to hear. But I have been growing apart from my sisters over these weeks I’ve been with Pfeff.

My father is not my father.

I am forbidden to tell this secret, but I am sure Penny and Bess can feel it wedged between us.

I miss them, but I do not know how to go back to jelly beans and sparkler parades.

On Tipper’s annual Picnic Night, we eat fried chicken and mustardy potato salad down on the beach, sitting at card tables draped with blue cotton cloths. Candles flicker in cloudy white glasses. There are cold slices of watermelon and ears of corn wrapped in foil, oozing with butter and fresh-ground pepper. Harris builds a bonfire and we toast marshmallows on long sticks, smashing their blackened bodies into sandwiches with dark chocolate and graham crackers.

Bess, Penny, and Erin get in the water, floating together on the rubber raft the boys bought in Edgartown. I sit by the fire with Yardley and George, Pfeff and Major. I lean against Pfeff and gaze into the flames. His arm curls around me.

George and Major are telling about the summer camp they went to for years. They had bunk cheers.

You gotta get in the car

You gotta step on the gas

You gotta get out the way

And let Thunder Bunk pass!

We say,

Ooh, ah, look at that booty

Ooh, ah, ain’t it fine

Ooh, ah, look at that booty

Ooh, ah, ain’t it fine.



“Sounds sexist to me,” says Yardley. “The counselors taught you that?” She is leaning back with her hands in the sand, her legs stretched in front of her.

“It wasn’t about girl booties,” says Major, his hand on his chest in mock offense. “It was about our own booties.”

George nods very seriously. “Definitely our own booties.”

Yardley shakes her head. “Yah, right.”

“We slapped them,” says Major. “We slapped our own eleven-year-old booties.”

“That’s how we know it was our own booties,” says George.

At that, Yardley demands they do the cheer for her with the motions. “I want all accompanying gestures,” she insists. “Dance moves, whatever. I need to see this.”

“Not with your dad down here,” says George, tilting his head at Uncle Dean.

“And not with Harris,” says Major. “That man is not sure about me, I’m telling you.”

“Aw, who cares about Harris?” says Yardley.

“I do,” says Major. “That guy scares me.”





42.


LATE THAT NIGHT, there is a tap on my door. I have just finished reading a story to Rosemary.

I go to the door, and when I turn to look over my shoulder before opening it, Rosemary is gone.

Pfeff leans against the doorframe, wearing an ancient blue cable-knit sweater and jeans, panting slightly. “Can I come in?” he asks.

“What are you doing here?”

“Quick. God, you look so pretty. Someone’s going to find me in the hall and kill me.”

I let him in.

“I was thinking about coming up here, the whole time at the bonfire,” Pfeff whispers. “I couldn’t think about anything but touching you.”

I feel like Rosemary is still here.

Pfeff presses me gently up against the wall and leans in. His lips touch mine and heat spreads through me. He puts his hand on my lower back and pulls my body against his. As always, I am overwhelmed by being close to him. I want to touch him and make sure he’s real and feel the strength of his arms around me, run my hands over his chest.

But Rosemary is here. Or not.

She might be.

I have had that feeling a lot lately. That she might be in my room, watching me, when I can’t see her.

“No,” I tell him. “Not here.”

“I just risked getting murdered by your dad,” he whispers.

“I know,” I say.

“It was very heroic.”

“Yah-huh.”

“Has a guy ever risked his life for you? No, don’t answer that. I’m sure lots of them have. But I made it to the top of this fortress tower thing where you live. You have to let me stay.”

“I can’t. Not now, not here.”

“Please. No one will know. I’m extremely stealthy.”

The Halcion I took earlier begins to release into my system. I can feel it, like honey in my blood.

I don’t want to be with him like this. I could fall over. Or fall asleep. “You have to go,” I whisper.

He kisses my neck. “Please. I don’t want to go home.”

I am too sleepy. Too drugged. And there’s Rosemary.

“I love that you risked getting murdered,” I say. “That is a truly romantic gesture. But go.”

I open the door.

“Please, Carrie. Please.”

“No, I took a sleeping pill. I can’t.”

“Please?”

“Bye.” I push him out.

He goes. But then he stands on the other side of the door and whispers, “Can you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“Are you mad?”

“No.”

“Are you a tiny bit mad?”

“No.”

“Then why did you kick me out?”

“Go to bed, you big goof,” I tell him. “We can go boating in the morning. Alone, just you and me. Okay?”

“Okay. I’ll set an alarm,” he says. “For six. Will you set an alarm?”

I am dizzy with sleep. My veins feel heavy, my thoughts thick. “Yes,” I tell him. “I will.”





43.


ROSEMARY DOESN’T SHOW up again that night. She is absent for several days, in fact, but one morning she wakes me at seven o’clock by bouncing one of her stuffed lions next to my face.

We play Scrabble. I let her win.

She is still hungry after her potato chips, so I go downstairs and bring up a bowl of sliced watermelon and some warm banana bread.

Then we thread brightly colored plastic beads onto jewelry string to make bracelets. The colors used to be organized, but the set is old and they’re pretty much jumbled together.

Rosemary sorts them. She is a slob, but she does love color coding, like Bess and Tipper. While she works, I read her another story.

I want to tell that story to you now, because—well, like the other fairy tales, it may help you understand this difficult thing I am trying to say, the part of my life that I cannot yet put into my own words.





Mr. Fox


ONCE UPON A time, Lady Mary longed for love.

She lived with her two brave brothers in a house of their own, but she believed in love and wished for a husband.

When Mr. Fox came along, Lady Mary felt the days had grown brighter. Mr. Fox was clever and amusing, handsome and adoring. If he sometimes seemed careless, that was no matter. He told her she was beautiful, clever, and impressive. He wanted her to be his wife. Lady Mary loved him and she accepted his proposal.

No one knew where Mr. Fox came from, but that was no matter, either.

“Where shall we live when we are married?” Lady Mary asked Mr. Fox.

“In my castle,” he said.

A castle sounded good to Lady Mary.

But Mr. Fox did not invite Lady Mary, or Lady Mary’s two brave brothers, to visit his castle, even as weeks went by.

That was a little strange.

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