Nancy and Nick (16 page)

“You tell us, Nick,” somebody said, and Nick chewed his lip and didn’t respond to the quip.

“The relationship to our branch of Nearings,” said his father, “seems to be with this common grandfather, here.” He tapped a name on his own charts and flipped pages in Elsie’s notebooks to show where it came up again. “Samson Nearing, born 1799, died 1881. I’d have to sit down and figure out what you two should call each other, but you’re about eight generations removed, counting from Samson down to Nick.”

I looked at Nick and my eyes blurred, wondering about that other young man, Bob, son of Mary Elise, who left Scotland Neck for wider worlds.

Elsie Chipley took a pencil from her voluminous purse and very carefully, in a squat but pretty hand, added two names to her little section on Nearings.

Robert Nearing (?)

is what it said. She erased the (?) and wrote in

m. Eleanor Bruce—one dau.—N. C. Nearing

There was something ceremonial about it, there in the kitchen’, crowded around a Sears table with a room full of Nearings. My mother looked at the wedding picture of herself and Robert Nearing. I thought it was sad to have to look at a photograph to remember the man you loved enough to marry. The man who died too young to have found many of the wider worlds he wanted.

“Hey, don’t cry,” whispered Nick in my ear. He pulled me out of the kitchen. I resisted for a moment, thinking maybe Mother needed me, but she caught my eye and smiled a little and nodded. I was glad Mother and I were sharing a bedroom that night. We’d certainly have a lot to talk about.

But I was just as glad to talk about it with Nick first.

T
HAT NIGHT NICK AND
I skipped the get-together at the Barbecue House. His father said not to worry; he’d keep an eye on Mother, see she had a good time. Mr. Nearing’s interest in us had doubled since he had found the right slot for us on his genealogy tables.

Since hordes of relatives had commandeered all the other cars, we took the “new” station wagon and I drove. “Where are we going?” I said. “Let’s not get lost again. Give me very explicit directions. I need to know at least a mile ahead if we’re going to turn.”

“Actually,” said Nick, “I sort of had getting lost in mind. Drive anywhere.”

I wondered if I were reading all sorts of unintentional things into that remark. “I’d prefer to get lost someplace picturesque.”

“There’s a real dearth of pretty spots around here,” Nick told me. “Boy, do I understand your father wanting to run out! About all we can go to look at is the sunset.”

“Sunsets are the same everywhere, Nick.”

“Exactly. So why not watch them from San Francisco or London?”

I turned right on a gravel-surfaced road that looked interesting.

“It isn’t,” said Nick. “It won’t get interesting unless we follow it for five or six hundred miles.”

I laughed. “Well, they’re not expecting us till midnight.”

“Let me drive. Then I won’t have to give directions.”

“Okay.” I stopped the car on the shoulder, put it in park, and slid over to the passenger side. I never drive without a seat belt. It makes me feel unzipped or unbuttoned not to have that strap over me. Nick got in, fixed his belt, and started driving. Now I could see a real drawback to our big wide station wagon. Nick and I were fastened down at least two feet from each other. I should have thought of this, I told myself, and insisted that Mother buy a compact car. Oh, well.

I wondered what Nick was thinking and what he thought of the space between us.

“If I get accepted at William and Mary,” said Nick, “I wouldn’t be all that far from you.”

“No, you could come over weekends if you felt like it.”

“That’s a nice idea.”

He turned left onto a paved road. The sun glared in our eyes.

“Eight generations apart,” said Nick. “That’s a pretty thin relationship.”

I wanted to suggest another possible relationship, but somehow we had gotten awkward again and I lacked the words.

Nick swung onto yet another dirt road and went up a slight hill.

The sun was setting in front of us, beyond the road and the wide fields. The sky was streaked with golden pinks and two jet trails sliced mistily through the colors. It was beautiful.

Nick stopped the car right in the middle of the road and unsnapped his seat belt. He looked at me for a minute. I said, “Are we lost?”

“No.”

I unsnapped my seat belt. I had been right about Nick’s cheeks. They were raspy.

“The thing is,” said Nick between kisses, “you make me nervous.”

“Likewise,” I said.

“I make you nervous? You always seem perfectly calm to me.”

“It’s strictly a front. I can tell when you’re nervous by your voice. You’d have to take my pulse to tell when I’m nervous.”

“What a good idea.”

The sun had almost disappeared. The road was apparently never used. Nobody passed us. It got darker and darker. When he paused (“Intermission,” said Nick, grinning.) I looked at my watch. “Nick, we’ve been here for ages.”

“Did you have something else you wanted to do?”

But I couldn’t think of anything else.

The following morning we left for the airport at nine-thirty, because, as Nick said, “If I’m not there on time, she’ll freak out completely.”

Nick’s father said, “Drive carefully,” in the tone of voice that indicates it wouldn’t bother him if you drove carefully in the wrong direction.

“Are you sure your mother won’t be upset to have me there, too?” I asked Nick. “Maybe she’d rather have a reunion with you on a one-to-one basis.”

“Mom isn’t kissy-huggy like all the relatives you’ve been meeting. That’s kind of a Southern phenomenon. She’ll look me over and sort of nod approvingly and kind of lean her cheek my direction so I can press my cheek against hers. Then she’ll tell me I look quite decent with my hair this way and who is my charming companion? She’s very Bostonian.”

“I thought she lived in Pennsylvania.”

“She does. That’s just an adjective Dad used to use for her. She’s rather formal and proper and she detests everything Southern. She’ll die at the pig-pickin’. Nothing, but nothing, would make her use her fingers to scrape a meal out of a roasted pig.”

“I’m not too keen on the idea myself,” I admitted.

“Really? Terrific. Mom will approve of you right away. Be sure to tell her you eat only with a fork.”

We drove through some heavy traffic then and I didn’t talk to him, knowing how I hate it when somebody babbles in my ear while I have to be thinking about tractor-trailers trying to merge into my lane when I’m still in it.

“Actually,” said Nick, “I’m sort of worried about your mother.”

“My
mother?”

“Yes.”

“Nick, my mother is always a complete and total model of good behavior. What can possibly worry you about her? You’re the one who figured her for a buffer, remember.”

“Yes, but that was before I realized how much my father likes her. Mom is going to see that right away.”

I was struck dumb. I stared at Nick, to see if he thought that was some sort of joke, but he looked perfectly serious. Even worried.

“Dad asked me,” said Nick very casually—too casually, “to ask you if your mother has said anything about him to you.”

My jaw practically broke my collarbone, falling. “You mean your father likes my mother enough to want inside information about her attitude toward him?”

“You got it.” Nick pulled into the airport parking lot and took a parking ticket from the little entry robot. The orange arm lifted and we drove under it. Nick found a space far from the pedestrian exit. “Mom approves of exercise,” he explained. “If I park right next to the walkway, she’ll think it’s because I’ve gotten slovenly and lazy.”

I said, “My head is still reeling about your father liking my mother.”

“He’s shy. He’s afraid to ask her for a date, so he asked her to a reunion instead.”

I wanted to ask if this sort of problem ran in the family—asking people to reunions instead of on dates—but I couldn’t quite nerve myself up to say it. We sat there. Nick turned off the engine (he’d borrowed a relative’s Cadillac so his mother wouldn’t have to ride in the jeep or his father’s beat-up antique-hauling old van), and with the air conditioning off we were in a beautifully upholstered furnace.

Nick said, “Actually, Nancy, I… I … kind of identify with how my father feels.”

Breathing became hard again, and not just because the car was so hot and stuffy.

“Mother thinks he’s very nice,” I said. “I know she loved having him come up and work on the antiques with her. They had a good time over that. She … she said he was like a teddy bear.”

“A teddy bear!” said Nick, insulted.

“You know, huggable. Short and plump and squeezy.”

Nick chuckled helplessly. “I don’t think that’s the description of himself that Dad was looking for. Short, plump, and squeezy. I can kind of see how it applies, though.”

“What’s
your
mother like?”

“Tall and elegant and untouchable. I think that was one of their problems.”

I was stumbling all over those dumb words again. Talking madly away about our mothers and his father when what I wanted to do was talk about
us.
“And you think your mother is going to be bothered by this? After being divorced all these years?”

“My mother is easily bothered.”

“Oh, Nick! You look so nervous. I’m sure everything will go all right. I’ll be sure and eat neatly and act properly and I’ll even chaperone my mother when your father’s around. How’s that?”

We got out of the car laughing and walked up to the terminal holding hands.

“It’s peculiar to think of my father as having a crush on someone,” said Nick. “You think of adults as finished with that kind of thing.”

“Mother and I talk about how I feel about boys,” I admitted, “but she’s never said how she feels about men. The subject has never come up. I guess it never occurred to me that she had feelings.”

“My father says you can still feel adolescent when you’re forty-seven.”

We stood on the electric door openers and huge glass walls parted for us. Why couldn’t I say, “How interesting! Your father loves my mother and I love you. Now how do
you
feel, Nick?” Instead I had to say, “Look at the board. Her flight’s on time. Fifteen minutes to wait.”

“Let’s go up on the observation deck till it lands.”

We dropped our dimes in the turnstile and ran up the stairs to the deck. It was very windy and very hot and there were about twenty other people up there. We sat on the back bench.

“I can’t stay with you this afternoon because I have to go straight to Nearing River House to get dressed for the battle,” said Nick.

“Don’t worry. I’ll stick with your mother, maybe, if we hit it off. Your mother and I are only going to the battle to look at you anyway.”

Nick picked up my hand, which I had placed in an easily accessible position, and held it. I held his tighter and we ended up in a squeezing contest. “Actually,” said Nick, “if I get accepted at William and Mary, you’d be close enough to come stay with me weekends, instead of me going to stay with you. Would you like to do that?”

Words. Honestly. Would I like that? As if I might reply, Nah, forget it, I have better things to do. “Yes,” I said, “I’d like that.”

We kissed each other and not one of the other observers on the deck observed it, either.

When Nick’s mother’s plane came in and the passengers began getting off I recognized her right away. The only one who didn’t look rumpled from the heat. The one who was, indeed, tall, slim, elegant, and as handsome as Nick. She greeted him just the way he’d said she would. Coolly. Not at all as if it had been eight months since they’d seen each other. I stood back a little, waiting, trying to look like the sort of girl who would only use a fork.

Nick was looking at her with affection and I realized for the first time that one reason he was nervous was that he really wanted her to have a good time. He was just as worried about his mother as he was about his father. That’s nice, I thought, I like that.

“And who is your charming companion, Nicholas?” she said, extending her hand to me. She was actually wearing gloves in that ninety-five-degree sunshine. I took her hand and smiled.

“This is Nancy Nearing,” said Nick.

“Another Nearing? Another cousin?” Her eyebrows lifted. They weren’t cute like Nick’s, but very disapproving. I was with her there. I didn’t want to be referred to as a cousin either.

Nick shepherded us toward the luggage turntable. He looked at me and I looked at him and we gave each other little half smiles. Nick said, “No, Mom, she’s my girlfriend.”

My half smile spread quite a lot, and so did Nick’s.

“How nice,” said his mother warmly, handing Nick her luggage tickets. “Brown leather, dear, with red straps. Three of them. Nancy, I’m delighted to meet Nick’s girlfriend. How good of you to come along.”

While Nick retrieved the bags we stood to one side and talked about the day’s plan and which parts of it both of us planned to go to. My mouth curved in a wide grin I thought might stay there permanently. Because nobody could be happier to hear that Nicholas Nearing had a girlfriend than I was!

Caroline B. Cooney is the author of ninety books for teen readers, including the bestselling thriller
The Face on the Milk Carton
. Her books have won awards and nominations for more than one hundred state reading prizes. They are also on recommended-reading lists from the American Library Association, the New York Public Library, and more. Cooney is best known for her distinctive suspense novels and romances.

Born in 1947, in Geneva, New York, Cooney grew up in Old Greenwich, Connecticut, where she was a library page at the Perrot Memorial Library and became a church organist before she could drive. Music and books have remained staples in her life.

Cooney has attended lots of colleges, picking up classes wherever she lives. Several years ago, she went to college to relearn her high school Latin and begin ancient Greek, and went to a total of four universities for those subjects alone!