Lila Blue (15 page)

Then he grinned and I grinned, and
he spun around and cannonballed into the pool, splashing us with water.

Lila and I left our clothes and
towels in a lounge chair away from the cannonball splash, and we got in the
warm pool. Mark had watched us from the diving board side. He'd waved when he
first saw Lila, but he was clearly not as demonstrative as Jamie.

I tried to ignore him, and it was
easy to focus on Jamie, at least after I got over the shock of how big Mark
was. Mark looked like a grown man, a big man at that. I wondered if David looked
like him at fifteen.

Mark got on the diving board, and
Jamie yelled at him, "Do your back flip for Grandma."

Mark smiled at Jamie, turned about,
balanced, and did a nice flip into the water. I couldn't help but be impressed,
because he looked so much more like a football player than a diver. Still, my
back flip was better.

Mark did several more dives. Jamie
and I stayed in another part of the pool and took turns holding our breath
under water while the top one counted. Lila kept her head out of the water,
protecting her braided crown from the chlorine, and did lazy breaststrokes not
far from where Jamie and I were playing. It was fun to be in the warm pool
knowing that several yards away was the cold Pacific Ocean.

Next Jamie and I played the old
game where you both put your heads under water and say words to each other and
try to guess what the other person said. Jamie called the game Dolphinese. We
loved the silliness of it, coming up sputtering and laughing each time. I'd
practically forgotten about Mark by then.

Jamie and I had gone down for
another round when Mark swam between us, forcing us apart. It was a pretty rude
way to get attention, but I tried to be tolerant. I moved over to the edge of
the pool and hung on, looking at Mark.

He treaded water nearby and studied
me for too long, but I wasn't going to let him win the silence game so easily.
Somehow being around Lila for a month had given me more confidence and
patience. I was willing to let Mark have the first word, even if it took all
day. He seemed to make the same decision after staring at me, and he ducked
down and pushed off from the pool wall, swimming easily underwater.

If he wanted a contest, I knew I
could win in the underwater swimming category. I let him show off a while, and
then I challenged Jamie to swim underwater with me. He was a wise little kid
and he knew what I was up to, but he went along with it anyway.

I felt an immediate connection to
Jamie, as if we'd played together for years. I'd never wanted a sibling, but if
I had to have one, I'd choose Jamie. Anyone would be glad to have him on her
side.

Lila was giving us plenty of time
and space to work things out on our own. I was grateful she wasn't one of those
adults who think they have to introduce children to each other and force them
to pretend to enjoy something together.

My third grade teacher was one of
those. When two kids were slugging it out over who was going to take the kick
ball out for recess, she’d make them stand in front of the class and apologize
to each other before she would let anyone leave the room. Then she'd make the
offenders carry the ball outside together as if they were best friends. It was
torture and humiliation for everyone. She actually thought she was solving the
problem in a peaceful way rather than ensuring the two kids would hate each
other for life.

Lila was much smarter. She visited
with the family at the shallow end for a while, and I could hear them all
laughing. After the family gathered up their towels and left, Lila resumed her
lazy laps around the pool, smiling at us as she passed by.

Jamie and I were having so much fun
swimming underwater, I forgot about trying to outdo Mark. It was a good thing,
too, because later I learned Mark would push himself too far without being
challenged.

When Jamie and I had worn ourselves
out, I noticed Mark and Lila standing in the shallows talking. At first I
couldn't figure out why Mark wasn't six inches taller than Lila. Then I
realized he was standing in the deeper end of the pool, so their heights matched.
I was glad he wasn't towering over her. I didn't trust him.

Then I realized how silly I was
being. Lila and Mark and Jamie had been spending holidays together all along.
I
was the interloper.

After we'd all dried off and
dressed, they decided to go up to the rooftop restaurant for early dinner. Mark
still wasn't talking to me, which was fine, but he was talking to Lila in a
relaxed way as though I were invisible. Jamie was sticking by my side, and he
was talking to me and including me in everything, and so was Lila, so it was
actually kind of funny that Mark was making such a point of ignoring me.

Of course, I was ignoring him too.
Why should I be the first to break the silence barrier? I was a girl, and
younger, so he should be the one, right? I wished I could talk to Shelly or my
mom. They'd agree with me.

Jamie got tired of the silence game
first, and before we went in to dinner, he took my hand and pulled me over to
stand in front of Mark. "Say hello to Mark," he told me.

"Hello, Mark," I said,
looking Mark straight in the eyes.

"Hello, Cassandra," he
said, matching my tone of voice perfectly.

We nodded to each other, each
standing our ground. Lila laughed, patted Jamie on the back, kissed the top of
his head, and led us inside.

Two days later Mark and Jamie moved
in with us. The first thing Mark did was go upstairs to check the Crow's Nest.
In a few minutes he returned and plunked my suitcase down in the middle of the
kitchen where Lila and I were preparing snacks. "She can't stay with
us," he said.

Lila glanced at him as if he were a
seagull squawking outside the window and then went back to slicing up apples and
pears for the fruit platter.

"I mean she can't stay in the
Crow's Nest," he said, slightly less the tough guy.

When Lila continued to ignore him,
he said, "That's what I meant."

"Cassandra, get a couple of
those world cheeses out of the fridge,” Lila said. "Those will go well
with the fruit." She liked to try cheese from all over the planet, so we
had some Irish cheese and some from France. We called them world cheeses.

I did what she asked of me, even
though I had to edge around Mark and the suitcase to reach the refrigerator. It
took all my willpower to pretend that Mark wasn't hovering over us like a
disgruntled bear.

After everything was prepared and
arranged on two large serving trays, Lila said to Mark, "Sweetheart?
Please help Cassandra take the food upstairs. We'll have our snack on the big
table up there."

I picked up my tray and followed
Lila out of the kitchen first, giving Mark time to collect himself or break
things or whatever he decided to do. Instead of going up the stairs ahead of
me, Lila went in her room and closed the door.

Up in the Crow's Nest the afternoon
sun was warming one end of the big wooden table. Lila and I had finished the
tulip jigsaw, and sunshine made the bright colors of the flowers practically
leap off the puzzle. I spread a tablecloth on the shady end of the table and
arranged the things that were on my tray, fruit platter, cheese and nut dishes,
soft pretzels, and giant chocolate chip cookies from The Bakery Boys.

Jamie and Chloe and Zoe were taking
sunbaths in the window seat. While we waited for Mark and Lila, Jamie chirped
at the cats and they chirped back at him, and then he'd smile and pet them and
they'd purr and rub themselves on him. Then he'd make a different chirp, which
they again seemed to imitate.

No wonder those cats had such a
large vocabulary! Jamie had been teaching them Dolphinese all these years.

Mark came up then, carefully
balancing the heavy tea tray. He arranged the giant blue and white teapot and
four mugs on the tablecloth, and then set up water glasses for all of us and
milk for Jamie. We didn't make eye contact.

There was nothing for us to do but
wait for Lila. Mark went back downstairs and returned a minute later with my
suitcase, which he put back on the middle bunk. Then he browsed the
bookshelves, turning on the spotlights so he could read all the titles easily.

I went to join Jamie and the cats
on the window seat, which was almost too hot for comfort. Diamonds of light
danced on the blue ocean. The waves were small and tame, and lots of people
were walking on the beach. Several had their jeans rolled up and were splashing
ankle deep in the sea.

It was a rare day because the wind
was mild, almost balmy. Usually the afternoon wind was so fierce it kicked up
whitecaps and blew sand down the beach. But today, the beach was calm, bright,
and peaceful.

Lila came upstairs, and we all
turned to greet her, including the cats. There's a lot to be said for a
well-timed entrance.

She was carrying a three ring
binder, some lined school paper, a kitchen timer, and a cup full of pens and
pencils. Writing tools. Something in me squirmed around a bit. This seemed to
portend something more than a light afternoon snack. Mark and Jamie and the
cats watched silently as she placed her supplies in the middle of the big table
between the completed puzzle and the picnic setting.

She looked around at all of us as
though she was a preacher and we were the expectant congregation, and she said,
"Shall we eat, my dears?"

We sighed, relieved we got to eat
before whatever came next. Lila directed us as to who sat where.

Jamie wanted to give a blessing, so
we joined hands, luckily Mark and I didn't have to touch each other, and Jamie
said, "Thank you, apples and pears, for giving your lives for us, and
thank you, cheese and nuts and cookies, for making us healthy and sweet.
Namaste."

Like good disciples, we murmured
Namaste in response.

After the prayer, Chloe and Zoe
jumped up on the puzzle where they sat grooming themselves expectantly. Jamie
fixed a special picnic for them, two pinches of each variety of cheese, along
with four little chunks of cookie, which he arranged on a napkin between them
on the puzzle. They each picked up a pinch of cheese with the claws of their
left paws, like dancers mirroring one another. Watching them and the sea while
we ate made conversation unnecessary. I found myself lingering over the tea,
taking a bite of apple and putting the slice back down on my plate, prolonging
the moments that nothing besides breathing and eating would be required of me.

Mark was doing the same thing, I
know, but instead of making one cookie last a long time, he spent a long time
eating every cookie left on the plate. When he realized what he's done, I think
he was embarrassed to notice that I noticed. Lila and Jamie seemed fine with
it, though, so maybe Mark always cleaned up whatever plates were in front of
him. He probably had to eat a lot to stay that big.

Finally, we could extend the meal
no longer. Mark and I tidied up the area and took the trays back down to the
kitchen. We washed and dried everything without saying a word, and then he went
upstairs while I detoured to the bathroom.

Finally I went back up the stairs,
and all their eyes were on me while I sat back in my place. Now all of us had
lined paper in front of us. We waited for Lila to instruct us, all good
grandchildren who were at her mercy. We couldn't even run to our parents for
help or invent chores that needed doing. Lila was the boss.

She set the timer for five minutes.
"Okay," she said. "Everyone write as fast as they can for five
minutes. Go."

Mark and Jamie grabbed pencils and
started in. I'd never had an assignment quite that unstructured, but Lila and
the boys were writing furiously, so I did my best. What I wrote was just
gibberish, like, "I wonder why she's giving us assignments and why are the
boys acting so comfortable when I know they were nervous before and the lunch
was good and what do the cats think about us" and nonsense like that. In
what seemed like no time, the timer dinged and we all stopped and looked at
Lila.

"Now," she said.
"Read what you wrote silently to yourself."

We did. I was surprised, because
besides the nonsense, I wrote about hoping I was doing it right. How could
anything be wrong or right with such a simple exercise?

"If you want to share any
piece of what you wrote with us," Lila said, "read it out loud. I'll
go first." She read, "Having David's three children together with me
here is a dream come true."

I thought that was sweet and
predictable, but the next part wasn't. She took a deep breath, smiled at each
of us, then wadded up the paper and tossed it at the wastebasket over by the
stairs. It barely missed the basket. I didn't know a person could throw away
words they wrote so soon and so easily, especially nice words.

She looked around the table
expectantly, but didn't say anything. I read mine again searching for one
sentence I could read out loud, but nothing seemed good enough or relevant so I
looked at Mark, and he was looking at what he'd written but not volunteering.

Jamie was the one who was brave
enough to go next. He read, "Chloe and Zoe missed me." Then he smiled
at everyone and tore that sentence out of his paper by carefully folding all
around it then licking the fold then tearing on the soggy edges. He kept his
sentence and wadded up the rest of the paper and tossed it. It too missed.

Mark wadded up his paper and tossed
it, making the first basket. Jamie cheered for his brother.

Now they all looked at me, and I
ripped my paper in strips and took them over to drop in the trash. Jamie
cheered for me.

From the stack of paper on the
table, I didn't think that would be the end of things. It wasn't. Lila set the
timer again, this time for ten minutes, and said, "Write all the things
you don't want to say right now. Go."