A Place in the Country (30 page)

Caroline came
and picked up Issy, who hitched herself into the front seat of the Land Rover and leaned across to kiss her cheek.

“Sixteen! Imagine!” Caroline said, shoving the car into gear and driving back down the high street, automatically checking to see if Issy had fastened her seat belt.

“Did
you
ever imagine that? I mean when I was born, when I was just a little kid like Asia?”

“Of course not, nobody can ever picture their baby at sixteen. It seems light-years away, all those schools, the travels, the travails in between.
And
all those birthday parties.”

She felt Issy's hand on her arm, and turned to smile at her.

“Thanks Mom, for the party,” Issy said.

“It was Jim's idea. Well, Grandpa's really, but Jim was the one who sorted it out, said we could use his studio—which I know you haven't seen but it's a gorgeous space for a party, just big enough.”

“Big enough for how many?” It was a Saturday night in summer and Issy knew everybody would be looking for some place to go.

“Oh, I thought maybe … forty?”

“
Mo … om!
”

“Forty's a lot. And let me tell you now, just in case you were thinking about it, a hundred is too many.”

“Okay, around fifty.” Issy compromised but anyhow she knew there'd be gate-crashers; they'd hear it from someone who'd heard it from someone else. “Anyway, where are we going?”

“Just for a walk,” Caroline said. She drove out of the village and stopped beside a copse of beeches, where a trail led into the woods. They got out and strolled companionably for a while, not speaking. Finally, Issy said, “I know it's something about Dad again, I can just feel it when you're thinking about him.”

Caroline stopped and faced her. “You're right. I'm going to take Asia back to her mother and I want you to come with me.”

“
Mom!
” Issy glared, bug-eyed with anguish at her. “How can I go back there? And anyway, how can
you
?”

“Because Asia is your father's child, that's why, and we have a responsibility. This is your half sister we're talking about. Think about
her.
She has no one else and neither does her mother now that James, who really must have loved them, is gone.”

“How do you know he loved her?” Issy had come to terms with she and Asia having the same dad, but going to Singapore—
her home
—and meeting some woman he had left her mother for … it didn't seem right.

“I know what you're thinking,” Caroline said. “I've thought about it too. Issy, tell me what else we should do?”

Issy's shoulders drooped. “When will this ever go away?”

“It won't,” Caroline said. “We leave the day after tomorrow. Grandpa's already booked flights.

“Anyway,” she said, “I have something for you. Your sixteenth birthday present.”

She took a folded paisley silk handkerchief out of her pocket and handed it to her.

Issy recognized it as one of her father's. She wondered where Caroline had gotten it, then remembered Mark had sent a box of James's personal things, which as far as she knew, her mother had never opened. Apparently she had been wrong. She unfolded the handkerchief and saw her father's gold signet ring.

He had always worn it.
As long as she remembered, he'd never taken it off …
until he was dead … memories flooded back, it was as though he were here with her now …

“I thought Daddy would have wanted you to have it,” Caroline said, as Issy began to cry.

She took her in her arms. “He'd want you to keep it for him. I know he would.”

“Oh I will,
I will,
” Issy said. “I'm only crying because it makes me remember him.” She tried the ring on her pinkie, but it was too large, so she tried the second finger of her right hand. It was still a bit big but it would do.

“We can have it sized,” Caroline told her, still anxious about doing the right thing.

“Later,” Issy agreed. “And then I'll never take it off. It's as though Dad's wishing me happy sixteenth birthday. Thank you, thank you,” she said, hugging Caroline, grateful because she knew her mother must be reliving the same memories.

 

chapter 71

The party
was to start at seven that evening and Maggie and Jesus pulled up in their truck at the Thompson Manor stableyard at exactly the same moment as Caroline and her parents. Jim was waiting for them at the door to his studio. He'd pushed back all the furniture, even removed some of it, so now there was a big bare room with rental tables and chairs round the edge of the wooden floor, which had been waxed to a dancer's dream.

Then Georgki arrived with Sarah and Lily and the two girls immediately got to work spreading red-and-white paper cloths over the tables. The deejay came and began fixing up his speakers while Jim took care of some fancy lighting which flickered and half-blinded Jesus.

“Strobes,” Jim told him. “Heard they like 'em in clubs.”

Maggie and Caroline were arranging the buffet on the trestle tables along the far wall with piles of paper plates (the sturdier kind that didn't bend when you put food on them) and plastic glasses. Cassandra stirring the cauldron of punch, floated slices of lime on it. She had also brought a bowl of olives which she told them would make the drinks look more grown-up, along with sprigs of mint. “They'll think they are drinking mint juleps,” she told Caroline, who didn't believe for a minute they would, but smiled anyway.

Lily had decided to put nasturtiums picked from Jim's garden into tiny white bud vases on each table, a nice touch but unfortunately some of the nasturtiums still had their green caterpillars attached. She hadn't known they were notoriously fond of nasturtium leaves and now they were crawling across the tables.

Huge bags of ice cubes were at the ready, the lights were working, the deejay all set, and the food ready to go.

There was just enough time for them all to change.

*   *   *

Issy was wearing
her grandmother's birthday present black dress that hugged her body as though it loved her, and the black “Lysander party” heels, with her dark hair swept up and skewered with a fake-tortoiseshell comb of Caroline's. She wore Maggie and Jesus's gold hoops and of course, her father's gold signet ring. Caroline thought she looked about twenty-two.

Sam was in a red cami, tight of course, like every other girl's would be that night, with skinny jeans and red platform heels that Maggie didn't even know she had and now wondered where they had come from, and which anyway made her about five inches taller. Her blond hair was brushed smooth around her shoulders. Both girls had on a lot of eye shadow and pink lip gloss.

Asia had on another “royal family” party frock, this time white with red polka dots. God knows where Melanie had expected to take the child, Caroline marveled, but anyhow it had turned out for the best because now here she was at a real party. Asia had drawn the line at the Mary Janes and ankle socks, though, and insisted on wearing her flip-flops.

The adults played it down in their usual casual attire, though Caroline did think Jim looked devastatingly attractive in jeans slung low on his narrow and very sexy hips, with a cowboy shirt and a leather belt with a silver horse buckle. He hadn't gone the whole cowboy hog though and wore brown suede loafers rather than boots.

Little Billy had been left with a friend and Sarah was wearing what she always wore, jeans and a white tee, because she had nothing else, and anyhow she was here to work; while Lily dazzled in a white mini (that reached, Cassandra told Caroline, just up to her bum but thank God still covered the important bits) with staggeringly high heels and a black top. Her hair was back-combed and sprayed into a cloud and she wore dark glasses.

“Jesus,” Jesus looked at her, amazed. “It's a vision from
Transformers.
”

They were ready to roll when the first loaded rented minivan arrived. Music was already blasting, the lights were strobing, and the food smelled great. The young guests looked wonderful and Asia was perched up on the platform with the deejay.

In an hour the place was happening. Maggie and Jesus left and so did Cassandra and Henry leaving Caroline and Jim in charge.

“Come dance.” Jim offered her his hand but she smiled and shook her head.

“No, oh, no, I can't … not now…”

“Yes you can,” he said. And before she knew it she was, and she forgot for a while that Jim was only twenty-seven and she was thirty-eight. For once, she was living for the moment.

Issy spotted her out of the corner of her eye and nudged Sammy. “Look at Mom,” she said. “She looks quite young.”

There was a roar outside as a motorcycle ground to a halt. “That's a Harley,” Issy said. “I
know
that sound.”

“How?” Sam asked, but Issy was already heading for the door, to check it out.

The young man on the chopper wore a black leather jacket, shades, and jeans. He swung his leg over and took off his helmet. His hair stuck straight up in gelled spikes.

Issy and Sam stared at him, thrilled; he was so grown-up, so different, so sexy!

“But who
is
he?” Sam asked.

Issy said, “I don't know, but whoever he is, he's wonderful. Where did he come from anyway?”

*   *   *

The Harley rider,
who'd heard there was a party and decided to crash, took a quick look at them, put his helmet back on, got back on his bike and roared off. Despite the heels and the eyeliner, they were too young.

“He was
really
cute,” Issy sighed, disappointed.

But Sammy grabbed her hand and headed back inside. “Better hurry,” she said. “We might have missed something.”

 

chapter 72

A few hours later,
lights dimmed, club music blaring, Issy decided she was definitely a flirt and she definitely liked the guy she was dancing with. What's not to like? she asked herself: he was tall, and so skinny his jeans drooped over what looked to be a very nice rounded bum. And he was blond with it. His straight golden hair hung over brown eyes that were holding hers even while they danced. In fact he never took them off her.

She had never met him before but she knew his name was Alex because she'd asked somebody, and been told he was hot and that every girl was after him. Well, not her. She was not going there. He
was
awfully cute, though he'd never smiled, not even once and they had been dancing for ten minutes.

As if on cue, he stopped dancing and looked at her.
Really
looked at her. Issy thought his eyes were somehow full of meaning, and of course she knew what that meaning was. She was not a total innocent, she knew when a guy was coming on to her. And what's more, she knew when she wanted him to.

He took her hand and led the way through the dancers, past the bar with the now-empty punch bowl, past the table where Sarah was in charge of the buffet. There was a door next to it. He opened it, Issy went in.

Watching the door shut behind them, Sarah debated whether to go after them but thought oh well, it was a party and they were young and only having fun. After all, you didn't turn sixteen every day. Sometimes, though, she wished she could turn back the clock herself and be sixteen all over again. Have a fresh start. But that would mean no Little Billy and her life simply would not be complete without him.

She went over and replenished the punch bowl, rescuing the lime slices from the bottom and attempting to re-float them, but they refused and merged in a green heap on the bottom.

Good thing these kids were not drinking, she thought, checking round anyway. She was sure some of the boys had smuggled in some beers. She'd heard the rattle of cans and knew it wasn't Diet Coke.

Back at the buffet she checked the crowd for young Lily, saw her at the center of the dancers, light flashing off her short white skirt and long brown legs. At least she wasn't off in a corner with some hot guy, giving too much of what she shouldn't be giving, Sarah thought. Not yet, anyway.

That made her remember Issy. The door was still closed. They must have been in there all of ten minutes. She sighed, undecided, but then decided it
was
a party and went back to dishing out spicy chicken tacos with the hot tomato and onion and cilantro
pico de gallo
sauce. She ate one herself. It was good.

Issy trembled at the merest flicker of Alex's hand across her breast, she loved it when he did that … The top of her dress was elasticized and he pulled it down. She almost fainted as he cupped her breast …
oh God, oh God, she would do anything for him, anything …

His lips were on her breast, her knees shook … she was a woman in the middle of an earthquake … and then his hand was under her skirt. It wasn't like with Lysander, this was some kind of heaven … she loved it when he did that … Or did she?

She pushed his hand away, tried to get her knees to stop shaking, told herself to take control, she was behaving like a slut and really what she wanted was for this guy to
like
her, not just have the hots for her … Still, she wanted more and yet she didn't because she didn't know how to deal with her feelings, and how to stop.

She had kissed boys before, been felt up a bit before, but the guys were always the ones begging her for it and she was always the one saying no. This was different. What did you do when you felt one way and then the other? What did you do when you were in a situation over which you had no real control?

In the back of her mind she remembered Cassandra telling her that one day she would find out about sex, and knew this was it. It was up to her to deal with it, not the guy groping her because he would go all the way if she let him.