My First Love and Other Disasters (7 page)

He's really making me nervous now.

“I can't think of anyone but you. You've become the most important person in my life.”

And when I get nervous . . .

“We have to be together.”

 . . . I laugh.

And of course I crack up. I know it seems like the meanest thing in the world, but I swear I'm not laughing at him, I'm just laughing because I'm nervous and I can't handle the situation. It's horrible but he naturally thinks I'm laughing at him. Now he grabs me by the shoulders, and his face is two inches from mine, and he looks crushed, and I feel terrible, and I want to cry but I can't stop laughing. I try to tell him that I'm not laughing at him, but every time I open my mouth to get the words out I become so hysterical I can't talk. All I can manage is half of “I'm sorry,” which he probably can't even make out.

Now he turns away from me, and I'm afraid he's going to cry. Just like that, the laughing jag disappears and I'm back in control. First thing I tell him is that I'm sorry and that I wasn't laughing at him, I just wasn't expecting anything like that and he threw me, and more “I'm sorry”s and “please forgive me”s and “I feel horrible,” but it's like he didn't hear anything, because when he turns back to me he's really angry.

“Forget it. It's my problem.” And he starts to walk away.

“No, wait,” I grab his arm. “I really am sorry. Please . . .”

“I told you, forget it. It was a mistake. I shouldn't have told you. What a jerk I was.” And I can see he's really hurt. If I can love Jim without even knowing him, why can't Barry love me? Then I think, suppose I told Jim and he laughed in my face . . . I think I'd just die. Oh, God, I feel horrible. He shakes my hand off his arm. I keep apologizing, but it's too late.

“Don't tell me how you're so sorry, just don't tell me anything. I suppose you think it's funny . . . well, it isn't. It hurts. . . . It hurts a lot.” And while he's still talking, he starts to walk away.

“Please, wait . . .”

“Good-bye.”

And he's gone.

I feel like a monster. I absolutely hate myself, and now I'm the one who feels like crying. I'm so ashamed.

“I'm sorry . . .” DeeDee puts her arms around my leg and kisses my kneecaps, “I didn't mean it. I'll never do it again.”

I bend down to ask her what she did, but all she does is shake her head and look as if she's going to cry. Boy, we're a great group today.

I ask her again and this time she says she doesn't know.

“Then why are you sorry?” I ask.

“Because,” she says, “I don't want you to cry.”

Oh, God, she thinks I'm upset because of her. Naturally I hug her and tell her she had nothing to do with it and besides everything is fine now and I feel great. Funny, isn't it? When you're little like that you think everything that happens has to do with you. I can remember when I was really young, if I heard my parents arguing in their room I was always certain it was about me.

We pick up the things from Cynthia's list at the grocery and the drugstore and start back to the house.

All the way home I can't help but feel miserable about what happened with Barry. I swear I'm going to make it up to him somehow. I can't love him, you know. If you don't love someone you just
can't make yourself. But at least I'll show him that I appreciate the way he feels about me and that I understand and that it makes him really special to me . . . always. I'm absolutely going to spend the whole summer making it up to him. Not that I expect it to take the whole summer.

Still, you have to realize that it's only partly my fault that it worked out so bad. After all, that was a heavy thing to lay on someone, especially when they didn't expect it at all. It's not my fault he fell in love with me. I certainly didn't make him do it. I didn't even know he was doing it. Sure, I shouldn't have laughed, but you take your chances when you spring something like that on someone you hardly know. And then the part about letting Jim think I was his girlfriend—that really bugs me. That was really gross of him—not that I'm saying what I did was right—still, he wasn't so right himself.

Even so, he's really a pretty nice guy, and it would be nice to be his friend. Not only because of Jim, but because he's definitely a nice person with a good sense of humor and cute and . . . I don't know, he's just a good type to have for a friend.

On the way home David sees one of his friends and wants to go back to his house, but I have to say no because I don't know if I have the authority to let the kids go off on their own like that. David gets a little aggravated and starts crying, and then
DeeDee says something, and he kind of kicks her, not a bad one, only on her shoe, but she gets hysterical. It's sort of embarrassing because I think everyone thinks I probably hit them, and of course I would never touch them, ever.

I try to explain to David that it's my first day and I don't really know the rules but he's going to be there for the whole summer and there'll be other times and so on, and I almost feel like a mother. I know I sound like one. What's really funny is that I think someone said something just like that to me a couple of years ago at camp. I don't remember what the situation was, but I know it didn't help then and it doesn't help now. All the way home David won't even talk to me.

Turns out he could have gone with his friend, which makes him even angrier, but I was afraid to take the chance. But everything gets better anyway because I play a couple of games of War with David, and Sorry with DeeDee, and then the three of us play Monopoly, and then DeeDee gets upset about losing and throws the board in the air and all the pieces go flying. David runs off to tell his mother, who says it's time for DeeDee's bath any-way, and to me, “Victoria, see that they put that game away properly, please.” Suddenly David gets a bad stomach ache and has to go to the bathroom, and DeeDee goes up to get ready for her bath. It
doesn't take me that long to pick up the pieces, and by the time DeeDee is ready for me to shampoo her hair I've finished. The game will never be the same. When the kids are in their pj's, Cynthia says they can watch TV until eight and then to bed.

I figure that later on, after they're in bed, if Cynthia isn't going out I'll take a walk down to the dock and see what's doing. It probably takes a while longer for my room to cool off because it gets the afternoon sun, so it's still a little warmish up there, but that's okay because by the time I'm ready for bed it will probably be perfect. I throw myself together a little bit and go downstairs. Cynthia is on the phone so I just sit down and grab a magazine and wait.

“That's out of the question,” she's saying. “No!” She sounds furious. I hope it isn't about me. Whoops, I sound just like DeeDee. “Absolutely not, Henry. I won't permit you to see them and I don't want you to call anymore . . . . I certainly can, they're my children. . . . . He's your son, you see what you can do with him.”

Of course it has to be about her ex-husband, Jed. Maybe she doesn't want the kids to see him.

“Well,” she snaps, “until he does there's nothing more to say. Please don't call here anymore.” And she hangs up.

“Damn that man!” she says, and I hear her
throw something like a pencil against the wall. Well, at least it wasn't about me. I figure now's not the time to ask to go out, so I just sit there pretending to be reading. Finally she sits down next to me. She's still angry.

“If Henry Landry—that's the children's grandfather—calls, I don't want you to let him talk to them.”

“You mean you don't want me to let the kids talk to their grandfather?” It's not like I mean to question her, it's just that I want to be absolutely sure what she wants me to do. Because, after all, it is their grandfather.

“That's right. You just tell him they're not home and that I said not to call anymore.”

“Even if they are home?”

“Yes, Victoria, the whole point is that I don't want him to be in touch with them at all. At least not until his son pays some of his bills.”

“Oh, I see.” But I really don't. I can't believe she's not going to let the kids speak to their own grandfather. That's horrendous.

“I suppose as long as you're going to be involved in this mess you should understand it a little better.” And then she tells me how Jed took off for California (of course, she doesn't say anything about how he was playing around) and how he never even calls the kids and now he's even
stopped sending money. She does design displays for stores, but it doesn't pay all that much money, and now they're going to have to sell the house on Fire Island and the kids really love this place. Worse than that, she thinks she'll have to move out of the city because it's too expensive, and then it means she'll have to do more traveling to her job and she won't be able to spend as much time with the kids, and now that they don't have a father they need her even more than ever.

“I suppose we really shouldn't have even come out this summer,” she says, “but I knew it would be the last time for the children on Fire Island, and they suffered so much this past year I wanted to give them the best summer I could.” She looks so sad.

“That's really terrible,” I say. “I mean him not helping out at all. It's like he doesn't care.”

“He's impossible, and the truth is he really doesn't care.”

“Can't you make him pay? Take him to court or something?”

“It's very hard because he's way out in California. If he were in New York I could haul him into court and they would make him pay. They have ways of taking part of his salary. I've talked to him, pleaded with him, everything, but all he does is hang up on me. I know his father has some influence over him, so I thought if I refuse to let
Henry—that's his father—see the kids, even if Jed wouldn't do anything for his children, at least he would do something for his father. I'm hoping Henry will be able to do something with Jed. Henry is very fond of the children, but I feel he's also somewhat responsible for his son's behavior. I don't know . . .” She puts her head in her hands, and I know she's trying hard not to cry in front of me. “Maybe it's not the best way, but I've tried everything else . . . Anyway”—now she sort of pulls herself together—“that's what I want you to do. If Henry calls, tell him no and not to call anymore. If he gives you any trouble just hang right up.”

It blows my mind just thinking about hanging up on somebody's grandfather. I could never in the whole world hang up on my grandfather, and I would hate anyone else who did. Maybe if I just let the kids answer the phone . . .

“What if David or DeeDee picks up the phone?” I better straighten this out right away.

“I'm going to tell them not to answer the phone.”

“But won't they want to know how come?”

“I'll deal with that. In the meantime I don't want them to know anything about what I told you. Victoria, I'm sure you understand how important it is that they don't know even one thing about the situation. They're much too young—they'd never understand.”

“I won't say anything, I swear.”

“I'm counting on you.”

I just know I'll lose it if he calls. What a drag. I guess she sees it on my face because she says, “Don't worry about it, Victoria—he's probably not going to call anymore. After all, I asked him not to, and he's a pretty decent man. A lot better than his son, I might add.”

“I guess he probably won't,” I say, but I know I'm going to die every time the phone rings.

“Listen, honey, I'm going out for a while. After a day like today I need a little relaxation . . . moving day is always a nightmare. But you were a great help. You did a terrific job.”

“Thanks.”

“No, thank
you
.”

I told you she was a terrific person. We really get along sensationally. “By the way,” I ask, “do you know where The Dunes is?”

“Sure, it's just past Ocean Beach toward Cherry Grove. That's where I'm going tonight.”

“You are?” I ask, a little surprised.

“Yes, it's a bar and a restaurant, and sometimes they turn it into a disco. Everybody goes there. But I think the crowd is a little old for you.”

“Oh, no, I wasn't planning to go, I just know someone who's working there. He's a waiter.”

But Cynthia won't let go of the subject. “Well,
where do you know him from?” she asks.

“From the city,” I answer. I really wish she'd drop it.

“The city. I see. Victoria, please sit down for a minute. There's something I want to discuss with you.”

I know a lecture's coming. God knows why, but I know it in my bones. Naturally I sit right down. I hope I have a tissue in my pocket in case she makes me cry.

“Don't look so scared. There's nothing wrong.”

It's worse than I thought.

“I only wanted to give you a little advice. I know this is your first time on your own and problems are bound to come up, so I want you to know that you can come to me anytime about anything. Kind of look on me as your summer mother, okay?”

“Sure, that'd be great.” I told you she's really very nice.

“Another thing. While you're living with us you're my responsibility and I take that very seriously. So remember, if I'm your summer mother that makes you my summer daughter, and I think I'd better warn you about something. There are two discos out here, The Dunes and The Monkey, and they're both really a couple of years too old for you. Especially The Monkey. I know a lot of teenagers
go there. But it's a pretty raunchy place, if you want the truth. Anybody who goes in there is expected to know the score—if you follow me. So be careful about that place. Be careful about where you go and who you see and everything like that, okay? And one last thing—your curfew. It's pretty safe out here as far as crime goes, this being an island and all, so I think your curfew can be a little later. How's one o'clock on the weekends?”