Family Reunion (13 page)

I was grinning all over my entire body. Especially my nice bare midriff. I wished DeWitt could see me in my wonderful yellow dress. “How was the hike?”

“It was good. I held up best. I was strongest. We didn't
meet anything scary, though. No bears. And guess what. The Lake Association hired me to paint docks for the rest of the summer, so I'll be here when you get back after all.”

“That's wonderful! And my cousin Carolyn is coming back with us. And then I think for a week I'll go to France to visit my mother. I can't wait to see you. My whole life has changed in this visit. I'll tell you everything when I get back.”

“Great,” said DeWitt hesitantly, as if he had something else to say.

I waited, but he didn't say it. “Bye,” I said, and the syllable was lame and pitiful, and it needed other things on both sides of it.

“Bye,” said DeWitt, and there was another pause full of things we meant to say, and then we both hung up. I stared at the phone in my hand as if it were as special as the necklace Grandma had given me.

Carolyn flung herself back into the room. Only Beth had gone downstairs.

“Was that your boyfriend?” Carolyn burst out. “You didn't tell me you have a boyfriend. I can't believe you've been here all this time and you didn't tell me about your boyfriend.”

Ail this time.

I had been in Barrington two days.

“Why didn't you tell me?” demanded Carolyn.

I didn't want to say that I had not mentioned my boyfriend because I had not known that he was one. “I guess we hadn't gotten to that yet,” I said. “You know. We would have. Later.”

Carolyn sighed happily. “It was too intimate to talk about until you knew me better and trusted me completely. Will you tell me absolutely everything later on?” She leaned forward and stared into my eyes in a meaningful way. “I want to know how, Shelley.”

I kind of wanted to know how myself. I didn't think a description of DeWitt's hands on my knees was what Carolyn had in mind.

We floated back into the party. DeWitt had gone to the trouble of getting my phone number from the Frankels, all because he wanted to make sure I knew he was going to be at the lake after all. I would have two more reunions, one with DeWitt and one with my mother.

Carolyn was floating along for other reasons. She thought I was going to tell her all about sex. I had a good book to recommend to her, but it was back in New York.

The party was over.

The guests had gone home.

It was three in the morning.

Angus had fallen asleep on the grass, and Daddy maneuvered him to bed. Grandma had hardly stayed up at all after Daddy arrived. I couldn't imagine being tired just when the
party really took off, but Grandma said when you were eighty, you could even be too tired for parties. Carolyn and I dragged huge black plastic garbage bags around the yard, stuffing them full of used paper napkins, paper cups, paper plates and plastic spoons. Annette covered miles of uneaten spareribs in plastic wrap while Daddy was having an argument with Aunt Maggie.

“Why are you mad at me?” he said. “I thought it was funny. I swore Annette to secrecy, and I didn't even let Angus and Shelley in on the joke.”

Aunt Maggie was crying. This had been a very tear-filled reunion so far, and we were only at the top of day two.

“It was the best party ever,” protested my father.

Aunt Maggie continued to cry.

“Okay, I'm sorry,” said my father. “It was juvenile. It was dumb. I admit it. But that's the kind of family we always were, Maggie. I was always getting into trouble, and you were always having to handle it, and I figured it would be like old times, and you'd laugh about it, and—”

“You are such a conceited person, Charlie Wollcott. If you think I have time to worry about your inconsiderate stupid pranks, you are wrong. I am worried about my son. The Camerons told him to leave and he did. But he didn't come home. He's not here. He could be anywhere. Hitchhiking, getting picked up by mass murderers or rapists of young boys. And you're playing silly games.”

Uncle Todd sighed. “Maggie, you're getting melodramatic.
I'm sure Brett just moved on to another friend's house. He's popular, you know. After he wears out his welcome at one place, he can just move on to another.”

“That's even worse,” cried Aunt Maggie. “There won't be a street in town where I can drive without wondering if my own son is living there.”

“In the morning we'll find him,” said Uncle Todd.

“You're not even worried!” she accused him.

“I'm worried about us,” said Uncle Todd. “I'm worried about putting this family back together. But I'm not worried about Brett. He's not going to do anything foolish like vanish across the horizon, Maggie. He has another ball game to coach and he has to be at work. I'll just go down to the warehouse in the morning and have a talk with him.”

Aunt Maggie stared at a vast tray of leftover foods Annette was preparing to squeeze into the refrigerator. “This was supposed to be such a wonderful week. All spring I planned a celebration of our anniversary and Charlie's welcome home and a family reunion. But it's my family that isn't together.”

I turned quickly to help Annette shift things in the refrigerator.

I couldn't look at my aunt.

I had wanted something like this to happen to them, so they wouldn't be Perfect anymore.

I began my e-mail to Joanna shortly after breakfast. It was the longest e-mail in the history of the Wollcott family. It was more like an encyclopedia entry.

I stopped writing.

What would Grandma give Joanna that could possibly be the equal of my necklace? Joanna is the oldest grandchild. Grandma couldn't have left Joanna out, could she? Was there a family rule that if you skipped the reunion, you didn't get a good present? Would Grandma send Joanna a pair of socks from the discount mall?

“Who are you writing to, sugar?” asked my father, coming up behind me and kissing my hair eleven times.

“Joanna. I'm telling her about the necklace and the party and DeWitt and how I'm going to France now too, which reminds me, Daddy. Telephone Mother right now and let her know the dates I'm visiting.”

“Your mother would be a lot more thrilled if you made the call.”

“If I call now, I've wasted my entire e-mail.”

Daddy laughed. “Finish the e-mail. Send it. Then we'll both call. I knew when you finally took off, it would be like a volcano, Shell, but I didn't think it would happen in only two days while I wasn't here to see it.”

“I haven't told you about the real explosion.”

He hit his head in mock horror. “Are you going to take over Angus's slot in life now? You're going to be the one to start things?”

I nodded.

“Well, whatever it is, you look pretty happy about it. Tell me.”

“I have a date for a drive this afternoon.”

“A date! Who on earth have you met and gotten that close to in forty-eight hours?”

“Toby. He's wonderful. We got talking because I hadn't understood the gossip about him. In fact, Daddy, you omitted to tell me that he even existed to start with, which, I have to tell you, hurt his feelings very much. I comforted
him. Angus and I had thought maybe Toby was actually your son, and therefore our brother, and—”

“Toby?” said my father, thunderstruck. “You have a date with Toby? Celeste's son? That Toby?”

“Of course that Toby.”

“No!” shouted my father. “No, you can't do that. You certainly can't go around in a car with him offering him comfort.”

“Daddy! He wants to meet you. You'll like him a lot.”

“I'm not ready for this.”

“Sixteen years and you're not ready?”

“You can't go for a drive with him. Now or ever. Shelley, I know better than anybody what happens when—” He was too appalled to finish his sentence. “Well… when Celeste and I went for drives—and this is her son—and you're my daughter—no. Never. Forget it. I'm putting you on a plane for Paris right now.”

“Daddy, I hardly know Toby, and really and truly, all we're going to do is go for a drive.”

“One thing leads to another.”

“Not that fast. Don't look so sick. He is a great person.”

My father really did look sick. “I don't want you making every mistake that I made. This is too close to home. My daughter dating the son of my first wife? Shelley—no.” He looked at Annette for backup. She gestured with hands, face, eyes and elbows that this was his problem, not hers.

“All my life,” said my father, “I've coped with Joanna and with Angus, and before them I coped with your mother, and before her I coped with Celeste. But Shelley, you're my easy one. You're my stable one.”

“I hate that word stable.”

“I know a person gets tired of the concept, but still—” “I hate being counted on! I want to be the one who does stuff you don't expect. Grandma explained the chemistry to us. A stabilizer keeps a mixture from being changed by new additions. I'm sick of being the stabilizer.”

My father said gloomily, “I don't see anything good coming of this.”

“Daddy, you were the one who was so nice to Toby. You paid to take care of him when he was little and Celeste was going to law school, and you were totally wonderful, and I'm proud of that, and Toby turned out to be a wonderful person too. And he asked me to go out with him. So there.”

Actually he had not asked me to go out with him. He had asked to continue our conversation, except in a car with him driving. I thought that Toby probably just wanted to discuss family history in detail, and I really thought Toby was just hoping my father would be standing in the driveway, and they could meet at last.

“You don't like Barrington?” I said to him. I wished he could see Barrington the way I used to, with front porches and lemonade and hugs, a time of summer and happiness.

“I'm starting to like Barrington again,” he said. “I went through a long, heavy-duty rebellion. It lasted for years. I didn't actually want this reunion. Not that I wasn't glad to
get together with my family again, but I didn't much want to remember the details of my teenage years again.”

“But everybody was so glad to see you, Daddy! You were the star of the show!”

“It's tough growing up, Shell. Or haven't you noticed?”

“I noticed.”

“It takes most people a couple of years. Took me a couple of decades. Nobody really wants to go back and stand where he was jeered at and mocked when he was a kid.”

I could not believe this. “What did they jeer at you for?”

“Getting married at sixteen. Dropping out of school. Being a failure. Bringing embarrassment and rage to our families. Going on welfare.”

“Daddy! You were on welfare?”

“Just for a little while. Celeste and I had absolutely no idea how to be grown-ups. So we quit trying. She went to live with her aunt in Chicago, and I went to New York and lived with a bunch of young guys as worthless as I was and didn't make the slightest attempt to be adult again until I met your mother.”