The Story of Beautiful Girl (31 page)

Then the night calls began. Miranda’s mother, asking if Martha was aware that Julia had snuck out one night after they’d gone to bed, walked an hour from their modest Cape Cod cottage in Chatham to Miranda’s grand mansion on Sears Point, and, with Miranda’s mother seeing patients late, woken the neighbors with loud music. The manager of the movie theater, who’d caught Julia and her friends sneaking in the back door. The basketball coach, who’d found out she’d attended beer parties on Hardings Beach.

“I see,” Pete said. “We appreciate this, Officer.”

Officer.
Martha’s insides flashed as if struck by lightning.

“We’ll be there right away.”

He hung up the phone and looked at Martha. “Shoplifting while drunk,” he said.

Julia did not utter a word when Officer Williamson and the store’s head of security opened the door to the back room. She was bent over in a plastic chair at a metal table, arms around her waist, and when Martha stood in the doorway, Julia looked up through her brown curly hair, eyes dark with regret and anger. Martha felt sick, seeing lovely Julia beneath fluorescent lights, consumed by desires Martha could not understand, and maybe Julia could not, either. Her students had told Martha that teenage children were a test of one’s soul, though she’d believed she and Julia were too close for such troubles. Julia was also unusually earnest, as Pete pointed out soon after they’d gone to the justice of the peace and moved to his house in Chatham. She was seven then, and Martha had said that maybe with a stable home and the security of two adults, Julia would grow sunnier. Yet it was a sullen girl who rose to Officer Williamson’s request. She tottered on her feet, not saying a word, just reeking of alcohol.

The silence persisted as Martha and Julia followed Officer Williamson down the bright corridor, passing employee lockers. Julia walked unsteadily, and Martha wrestled with what to do, wondering, as she had these last months, if parents who’d given birth to their child, or whose own adolescence had been only a decade or two earlier, were more skilled at handling bad behavior. Pete had laughed, saying he and Ann had improvised all the time. “Raising kids isn’t carpentry,” he’d said. “Forget measuring twice and cutting once. You measure over and over every day.”

Officer Williamson opened the door to the loading dock. His car sat on one side of the lot, Pete’s Jeep idled on the other. Officer Williamson turned and said to Julia, “Like I said, no second chances.”

When Julia made no reply, Martha chimed in, “She won’t need any.”

Julia slid into the backseat while Martha let herself in the front. The car, though warm, did not instill a sense of comfort. Their two doors slammed at the same moment, and then Pete, nodding to Julia in the rearview mirror, put the car into gear.

Martha wished Pete would speak up with a reprimand, a question, anything. But the precedent had been set long ago: Pete never took over or insisted Martha raise Julia
his
way.

At last Martha said the one thing she could. “Why, Julia?”

More silence. Another quarter mile.

Martha added, “Where did you get the liquor?”

“Miranda.”

“She brought it to the mall?”

“She had it in her house. We went to the mall later.”

“And shoplifted.”

Silence.

“Why are you lowering yourself like this?”

“You never shop at the mall,” Julia said. “You say it’s too expensive.”

“That is no justification.”

“I needed a pair of Jordaches!”

Pete merged onto Route 6, heading toward Chatham.

“You’re lucky Officer Williamson let you off. He could have arrested you.”

“He probably would have if he’d known who I really am.”

“And who is that?”

“I just want to be like everyone else!” Her voice was slurred, yet her point was clear. “Everyone else wears Jordaches. Everyone else has color TVs, and pool tables, and big sailboats. Everyone else gets off Cape in the winter. Miranda goes to Florida!”

“You can’t expect—”

“And everyone else has parents.”

The word echoed in the warm Jeep, which suddenly seemed smothering.

“Maybe it’s time to say something,” Pete said.

They were lying on their backs in bed, their books untouched, reading lamps still on.

“I can’t.”

“I won’t say she’s acting up because she doesn’t know. But it can’t be helping.”

“She has us.” Martha looked over at him. “She has the aunties and uncles we used to visit. They come to see us every summer.”

“She knows they’re your old students.”

“She’s out of control already. What would she do if she knew? I can’t even imagine.”

“She wants to know more.”

“She’s too young.”

“When will she be old enough?”

“I don’t know.”

“Martha.” He looked at her tenderly. “Martha, Martha, Martha. I was so relieved when you told me you weren’t Matilda.” He rolled to his side and set his hand on her hip. “It explained all that coming and going. All the moments you’d turn away and get quiet.”

“You’ve said that before.”

“Yes. But I’m not sure I’ve told you this.” He nudged her with his hand, and she rolled to her side to face him. “When you told me the truth, I realized you trusted me.”

She let herself smile. “You’ve said that before, too.”

“Yes, but I didn’t tell you it also made me trust you.” He set his hand on her face. She felt, as she so often did in his arms, like a girl of twenty. He said, “Once I knew what you’d done—how you’d chucked everything on a moment’s notice because you gave your
word to a desperate young woman—I thought you were the most incredible person I’d ever met.”

“Anyone would have done it.”

“No, they wouldn’t have.”

“Maybe
I
shouldn’t have.”

“You don’t really think that.”

“I just thought it was the right thing to do. Now I’m not so sure. I’m not very good at being a parent.”

“Most parents feel that way. I pretty much think that’s what parenthood is.”

She said nothing.

“What’s going on now is temporary. Gary did it, too. Drank beer with his friends. Remember how he totaled my car in Falmouth? If you hadn’t done what you’d done, think of what Julia’s life would be like.”

“I can’t.”

“Think of what your life would be like. Or mine. We wouldn’t be here right now.”

She draped her arm around his back. He was stockier than Earl, and he was warm and open and able to provide comfort. Lynnie hadn’t only given Martha a child. She’d given Martha a second chance.

And Martha, calling on a former student to bring a story to the public, had given Lynnie a second chance, too.

“You could tell Julia the basics. If she really wants to know more and you still don’t want to tell her, you could just give her the keepsake box. There are enough letters to her in there, and clippings, and whatnot. She’d come to understand.”

“I don’t know.”

“Sleep on it.”

“I’ve been sleeping on it for fourteen years.”

“This could be your last night,” he said.

*    *    *

She lay beside Pete, looking out the window as clouds passed over the moon. Last fall she had taken away Julia’s allowance until her grades improved. After Miranda’s party, Martha announced that Julia had a curfew of nine o’clock every night. Yet she’d gotten in trouble again, and with alcohol, no less. Now Martha would insist that Julia was grounded at any time aside from school. Should Martha add a complicated truth, too?

Maybe she should. The truth might show Julia there were people in the world less fortunate than she—and, had the storm been less turbulent that night, or her parents not hidden her before the police arrived, Julia would have been one of them. Though it might seem as if Martha were so angry about the shoplifting and drinking that she wanted to put Julia in her place. Julia might even accuse Martha of lying or, if Martha went so far as to open the keepsake box, seeking praise. And she wouldn’t be wrong; Martha dearly wanted Julia to look at her response to Lynnie’s request and feel, like Pete, admiration. Yet such a self-serving impulse seemed reason enough to stay silent.

After these thoughts had swirled for hours, Martha got up. If she couldn’t sleep, she might as well go downstairs and return to reading her book.

She made her way out of the bedroom and closed the door. With the moon behind clouds, no light shone through the dormer of her sewing room or the bathroom, so she moved her palm along the dark corridor, feeling her way toward the stairs. Pete always told her to put on the lights to avoid falling, and she knew she should, having fractured a wrist last summer simply by breaking an egg against a bowl. They even planned to move their bed to the first floor. But for now Martha wanted to remain on this floor, risking a broken hip so Julia would mind the rules.

So it was a surprise when Martha’s hand passed over Julia’s door only to find it ajar.

Had Julia snuck away again? Was she out in the night right now, thinking herself so much worse than her friends that she would do anything to feel she belonged?

With fear stoking her chest, Martha peered around the open door.

Julia was propped up in bed with headphones on, listening to her stereo. The only light in the room came from the amplifier, but it was enough for Martha to see their dog, Reuben, on the bed, too, his furry head in Julia’s lap. She was petting him.

Martha crossed the room and sat on the bed. Julia, apparently feeling the mattress move, opened her eyes. At first she started. Then she removed the headphones.

“I’m sorry, Grammy,” she said.

Martha took in Julia’s face in the blue amplifier light and thought how grown up she was looking. “Are you apologizing for what you did tonight?”

“It was stupid.”

“I’m glad you see that.”

“I don’t even like the taste of wine. But when they passed it to me, I would have been a real loser if I’d said no.”

“Julia, you know you’re not a loser.”

“And then we went to the mall and everyone was joking about my stupid old slacks and Miranda bet I wouldn’t have the guts to steal a nice pair of jeans. So I just went into Filene’s and…” Julia blew out air, and her curls fluffed away from her forehead.

“Oh, Julia. You used to have such nice friends.”

“But Miranda and her friends, they’re the school princesses. When they think someone’s cool, everyone does. And when they started letting me hang around, it… it just felt
good
.”

“I didn’t know you felt bad before.”

“You don’t understand, Grammy. These are the cool girls. Everyone wants to be like them. So one day”—she gazed away, as if to remember—“I bought this four-pack of lip gloss with the greatest colors and brought it to school. And after basketball practice I went to the bathroom where they all met every morning, and just as I expected, Miranda came in. I started putting one of the lip glosses on and I was afraid she’d ignore me like always, but she”—Julia sighed with pleasure—“she asked to try one. She’d never even talked to me before. And then Diane and Patti came in, and said how pretty my lips looked, and I just felt like, Wow, and passed the rest around to them. And when we walked out of the bathroom, we were all together, and I felt everyone look at me in a new way. It was so great. Don’t you see, Grammy? I never felt that way before. I always felt clumsy and ugly and poor. Like I… like I was
retarded
or something.”

Martha caught her breath. She wanted to seize Julia and shake her, make her realize what she’d just said.

Instead, she breathed through her seething and exasperation, and on the fifth exhalation she heard herself say, “I’m disappointed in you. Friends who make you feel you don’t measure up are not friends.”

Julia said nothing, but tears had begun rolling down her cheeks.

“Your future is too precious to throw away for anyone.”

Again, Julia remained silent, eyes toward the ceiling as if trying to muster strength.

“We’re going to bring you to and from school every day, and you need to get your grades back up. No more basketball team or drama club. You are grounded except for school. Any extracurriculars will be in the form of a job. Do you understand?”

Julia drew her gaze down and looked directly at Martha. “How
come you don’t ever talk about my parents? Was there something bad about them or something?”

Martha sat back. She felt her chest heaving, and in the silence that followed, she looked into Julia’s eyes and saw, past the challenging stance, the self-loathing, the effects of the wine, Lynnie. And Martha knew, as she hadn’t until now, why she couldn’t tell Julia the whole story. It wasn’t only because Martha wanted to restrain herself from teaching Julia a harsh lesson or because she wanted Julia to be grateful for her sacrifices. It was because Julia’s low regard for herself had taken her into misguided friendships, petty crime, and, now, bigoted words. Maybe someday she’d be ready for the truth, but not when she thought so disparagingly, so dismissively, about people like her very own parents.