As always, I knew that when I was too excited about something, Grandmother Myra focused her suspicious eyes on me, but the following morning, it was very difficult to contain myself and not show excitement. She had announced when the stores would be opened, and I was constantly glancing at the clock.
“I want to go over the math you had to do this week before we go anywhere,” she said. “Don’t worry. The stores won’t close before we leave the house.”
I had done well with the math, but I was so nervous now because I knew she was scrutinizing me with microscopic lenses, pouncing on the smallest errors, as if she was hoping for some reason to abort my attending a public school. After all, she was going to have to surrender much of her control of me, and although the last thing I wanted to do was feel sorry for her, it was nearly impossible for me not to see how frightened she was. I didn’t have to be a trained psychologist to understand that she blamed herself for how my mother turned out. Maybe she blamed my grandfather more, but she couldn’t escape blaming herself, too. There was never any question that she was determined not to make the same mistakes with me.
Despite how well I was doing in their eyes now, I never sensed that they believed that whatever evil I had inherited from my biological father was completely destroyed. If I let down my guard and took on even a little of what they categorized as my mother’s disrespectful and immoral behavior, that inherited evil would be nurtured and blossom like a black rose with thorns inside me. I would prove to be fertile soil for that.
My grandfather was less concerned, but he was also sensitive to my grandmother’s blaming him for having that blind eye and, as she had said, burying his head in the sand, especially when it came to my mother’s behavior. I didn’t have to eavesdrop on their conversations to know that she was constantly warning him that I could very well be different once I was influenced by other girls and boys my age.
“And once that happens,” I did hear her tell him, “she could be an even bigger influence on them. I don’t want to be getting phone calls from parents and teachers warning me that she is spoiling other children.”
“You don’t have to worry about that. You’ve done too well with her, Myra.”
His reassurance did little to comfort her. “You don’t have to worry. I worry.”
Today, because we were taking a serious step toward what I saw as my entrance into the world, where I would be free to make my own decisions and succumb to temptations, she looked more concerned than ever. I imagined she was constantly asking herself if she was doing the right thing in permitting me to enter school. Had she prepared me enough? Even though I was sure nobody my age was as aware of her every move, her every facial expression, and every word uttered as I was, I was afraid that I would mess up when we went shopping. If I looked at some boy the wrong way or even looked with some admiration at a girl she thought a floozy while we were shopping, it could all be over in the snap of a finger.
She was happy with my math review and told me to get ready to go shopping “for appropriate school clothing.” Little did I know how difficult it was going to be. Once we entered a department store and began to look at what was on sale for girls my age, she nearly turned us around and marched us out. Skirts were too short, and material for blouses was too thin. The new bras were invitations in neon lights for promiscuity, and “who would approve of her daughter wearing thong panties?”
When I tried something on and stepped out, her eyes rolled and her lips curled into her mouth. It took hours to settle on two dresses, two skirts, and two blouses. To get her to agree to some of it, I had to accept sizes a little too large. What didn’t help was the other girls shopping on their own, buying and giggling over “sexually explicit” garments.
“And adults wonder why children have gone so wrong these days,” she told my grandfather.
He kept quiet most of the time, recognizing that if he offered an opinion, she might pounce on him and hurl memories at him, especially mistakes he had approved when it came to my mother. Ironically, the more she referred to her, the more fascinated I became with her. Someday, when I was older and more independent, I would seek her out, I thought. I was growing more determined about that.
We went to the shoe department, where she had an easier time approving two pairs and some running shoes for me to have for PE class. The principal had told her about the PE uniform. She told me that she had insisted on seeing one, and when he showed it to her, she wasn’t totally happy with it and told him that it was too abbreviated. He reassured her that the board of education had approved it with input from the parent-teacher organization. She contained her criticism, but she didn’t change her mind.
“We’ll shop for your school supplies toward the end of the summer,” she told me after we bought my new shoes. She sounded as if it was still undecided whether I would attend public school.
I didn’t contradict a thing she said or argue for anything that didn’t meet with her immediate approval. It was almost as if it didn’t matter whether or not I was present to shop for what I needed. I saw pained looks on my grandfather’s face but never attempted to get him to argue with her or disagree with her decisions.
Except for my blouses and dresses being a little too large, I didn’t think my clothing would draw too much ridicule. For me, despite her attitude, it was like Christmas. So much of what I possessed before was either hand-me-downs or bought at some thrift store where someone could find older fashions. As we were leaving the mall, Grandfather Prescott saw a French beret he thought would look cute on me. I loved the idea and held my breath as she considered.
“It’s the proper hat for a budding new artist, Myra,” he said softly.
She didn’t offer any resistance, which was as close to an approval as we could get, and he was able to buy me the beret.
“I’d like to learn French,” I said afterward. Claudine seemed to know so many French words and terms. I couldn’t help wanting to be more like her.
I anticipated hearing that my mother had wanted to learn a language, too, maybe even French, and how that came to naught, but Grandmother Myra said nothing. It was my grandfather who approved and made the point that I was ambitious.
“When it comes to learning, that’s very good,” he said, and looked at my grandmother to add, “and it’s all your doing, Myra. She’s been very lucky having you as her homeschool teacher.”
I wondered if my grandmother could sense whenever my grandfather contrived a compliment. Lately, it always sounded as if he was placating her the way an adult might placate a child. Whether or not she knew it, she usually looked pleased. It seemed to work this time, too, and I was grateful.
However, Grandfather Prescott almost ruined my morning by suggesting that they take me to lunch. She pounced on that, sneering at the garbage they called food served at high prices. When we arrived home and he helped carry in my boxes of clothes and shoes, he nearly spoiled things again. He looked at my small bedroom and said, “Maybe it’s time we moved her upstairs, Myra.”
It was as if he had lit a fire under her. Her eyes widened, and her mouth fell open for a moment. “What?”
“She doesn’t have proper closets, and the lighting is so poor. It’s a waste not utilizing that room.”
“Next thing you’ll be suggesting is we get her a telephone just for her.”
“Maybe. She’ll make friends, I hope, and it’s only natural for them to want to talk to each other. You won’t want our phone tied up, not that we get many calls.” It sounded clearly like a complaint. She ignored it.
“Out of the question,” she said, and practically fled.
Grandfather Prescott winked. “Give her a little time,” he said.
Give her a little time? I’m fifteen, I thought. I doubted that any amount of time would ever matter, but I didn’t say anything. I put my new things away as best I could and then went out to help make the chicken salad she had designated for our late lunch. Grandmother Myra’s critique of the way teenagers dressed and behaved in the mall dominated the conversation at the table. I didn’t think she had seen all that I had.
“Did you see how many girls have those rings in their noses and that girl who had her lips pierced?” she asked me.
Of course I had. I had been gaping at them a little too long, and they started glaring at me and talking about me, which sent a sharp electric fear through me. They looked so tough and mean, with their black lipstick and nail polish and short haircuts. I was afraid they might come over to complain and my grandmother would be enraged that I had given them any attention. Fortunately, they lost interest in me.
I shook my head. “No, Grandmother. I didn’t see them.”
“Good. That’s a good way to determine whom you should speak to and whom you shouldn’t when you’re in school,” she said. “Any girl who wears that disgusting makeup, has a tattoo, or wears rings in her face is poison, understand?”
I nodded. “The Bible forbids tattoos,” I said.
She liked that. “Of course. God doesn’t want us mutilating our bodies like savages and heathens.”
I was still very excited about attending public school, but every moment, it seemed she was laying down another rule, something else that was forbidden, and then describing dangers I had to understand. It was more like traversing a minefield than attending a public school. Nevertheless, I filed it all as far back in my mind as I could and kept my excitement alive, my future hopeful. A real part of why I could do that was my new friends, Mason and Claudine. Not that I had any way of judging, but I thought they must be the most sophisticated and knowledgeable people my age I could ever hope to meet.
As soon as I finished cleaning up after our lunch, I gathered my new art materials and made for the back door.
“You’re to be back here by four,” Grandmother Myra called from the living room.
“It’s almost two-thirty, Grandmother. Can’t I have until five?”
I heard my grandfather mumbling, and then she said, “Okay, five, and don’t get wet again.”
“I won’t,” I said, and hurried out before she could issue another warning or change her mind. I hadn’t taken the paints. I would do a sketch first and then begin mixing and painting tomorrow. There wasn’t time to do much more.
The weather had held up nicely, with a nearly cloudless cobalt-blue sky. The small clouds looked like lost children who had broken off from their parents. It was the way I felt most of the time, drifting alone. As usual, the birds began to flutter and grow noisier, as if they had been waiting for my appearance. A soft breeze lifted leaves, making it seem they were greeting me as I tracked through what was now my personal pathway. The easel was light, and I had no trouble carrying it with my new large pad and pencils.
When I arrived at the place on the lake that offered the view of Mason and Claudine’s home and dock, I put everything down and unfolded the easel. Mason appeared on the dock instantly. He had been waiting for any sign of me. I saw that he was in a bathing suit and barefoot. He waved, and I waved back, and then he got into his rowboat quickly and started toward me.
“Don’t you look professional now,” he said as he turned the boat in. “I love you in that beret. I guess this means your grandmother has approved of your attending public school.”
“Yes,” I said. “For now.”
“I think you should set up your easel on our lawn, where we have that full view of the lake. I’ll help you with it all,” he said, stepping into the water.
“I can’t get even a little wet today,” I told him.
“Don’t worry about it. You won’t.” He picked up my pad and pencils. “Okay?”
“I must be back home by five,” I said.
“What, do they eat early-bird specials even at home?”
“I’m afraid so,” I said.
“Okay, okay. I’ll make sure you’re back by five.”
He put my things in the boat and then took the easel carefully and set it down over the middle bench seat. After that, I took off my shoes and socks. He put them in, and then, when I started into the water, he scooped me into his arms.
“No sense taking any chances,” he said. He punctuated that with a kiss on the tip of my nose and gently set me in the boat.
Before we started out, I saw that Claudine had walked onto the dock, too. She was wearing a pair of very short shorts and a blue T-shirt with something written on it. When we were closer, I saw that it read, “Free love is too expensive.”
“What does her shirt mean?”
“Don’t ask me. She prints them herself. My father bought her a machine that does it.”
We docked, and he began to hand up my art materials to her.
“We’ll set her up just outside the basement patio doors,” he told her. “She has to be back by five.”
“Are you going to do me?” she asked.
“No, I thought . . . a lake scene.” I showed her what I had drawn quickly yesterday. “I want to make it bigger on my new pad and then begin painting it tomorrow.”
“Nice, but I’m more of a challenge,” she said.
“Later, Claudine,” he advised. “She’s definitely going to public school.”
“If my grandmother doesn’t change her mind,” I added.
“Why would she?”
“She won’t,” Mason insisted. “Stop worrying.”
“What sort of clothes did she buy you?” Claudine asked.
I described everything as we walked to the house.
“Ugh,” she said. “Tell you what. I’ll give you some of my things. We’re just about the same size. You can go to school in your Amish clothes and then go into the bathroom and change into what I give you.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Of course you can. I do it all the time. My mother forbids me to wear something, and I stuff it into my book bag and change at school. Lots of girls do it.”
“Lots of girls she knows, she means,” Mason said.
“Other girls aren’t worth knowing,” she countered, and he laughed.
He set up my easel, and I put the pad on it and opened my small pad again. The two of them sat at my feet, folding their legs and looking up at me.
“We don’t make you nervous, do we?” Mason asked.
“No. Well, maybe a little.”
“Good,” Claudine said. “You should always be a little nervous about anything you do. That way, you’ll be more cautious, especially when it comes to boys. Always begin with the belief that they can’t be trusted. That way, you won’t be disappointed, and if they are trustworthy, you’ll feel like you’ve struck gold.”
“She’s the cynical one in the family,” Mason said.
“And therefore the happiest, because I’m never disappointed.”
“Please, what about Willy Landers?”
“That was an anomaly. You know what that means, Elle?”
I nodded. If I was going to be truthful, I’d have to admit my grandmother had given me an education up to this point that was as good as, if not better than, the one girls and boys my age were getting at the public school. The intensity of my work and her high standards gave me the confidence.
“Something irregular, abnormal.”
“Check,” Mason said. “I told you, Claudine. You’re underestimating her.”
“Maybe with school subjects, but your life is about to begin, Elle. You’ll find yourself spending more of your attention and time on other things.”
I nodded and kept drawing. Claudine put her head on Mason’s lap and sprawled out.
“Our parents will be back tonight,” she said.
“Right. I’ll finally get some decent dinners.”
“You eat everything I make and then some,” Claudine told him.
He shrugged. “Beggars can’t be choosers.”
“Poor you. What about you, Elle? Can you cook?”
“I can make anything my grandmother makes. I’ve watched her prepare often enough. Nothing you would call gourmet, I’m sure,” I added.
“Our mother fancies herself a gourmet cook. She takes expensive lessons from very well-known chefs and then experiments on us.”
“No one complains,” Mason said.
“You’ll have to come to our house for dinner one night,” Claudine said.
I stopped drawing. Didn’t she understand that I was sneaking out to meet them?
I saw the expression change on her face.
“You still haven’t told your grandparents about meeting us, have you?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“Why not?”
I didn’t know what to say, how to put it. My grandmother would never approve of my knowing a girl who swam naked and especially not a boy who did.
“How are you going to make any friends when you go to school? She expects you’ll do that, right?”
I shrugged. She still didn’t understand how new all of this was for me.
“As I told you, she’d have to know who they were first,” I said.
“Inspect and examine them to be sure they were wholesome, huh?”
“Yes.”
“Are we wholesome, Mason?”
“Not if you can help it,” he said, and she laughed.
“Then we’d be forbidden,” she concluded, but then she brightened. “We’ll remain forbidden. I’ve never been considered forbidden. I think I like it.”
“I don’t think your mother would like it,” Mason said.
“Then let’s be sure not to say anything,” she warned him. “Don’t worry, Elle. We’ll handle it all. Why don’t you take five?”
“Take five?”
“A break. I want to see how some of my clothes fit you and get a little female talk in without you-know-who eavesdropping.”
“I’ll die of loneliness,” Mason said.
“Don’t worry. We’ll figure out how to resurrect you,” Claudine told him, and stood. “C’mon,” she urged, taking the pencil out of my hand and putting it on the easel. Then she took my hand and practically dragged me into the house.
She led me up the stairs to her room and immediately began sifting through the clothes in her closet, tossing one skirt and blouse after another onto her very comfortable-looking king-size bed. Even Grandmother Myra and Grandfather Prescott didn’t have a king-size bed. Theirs was a queen. I knew all about mattresses, thanks to him. I pressed down on Claudine’s to see how soft or hard it was.
“Try it,” she said. “It’s all right.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
I sprawled out on it and slowly laid my head back on her oversize marshmallow pillows. The delicious scent of lavender swirled around me.
“What sort of bed do you have?” she asked.
“Oh. It’s a single bed with a very firm mattress.” More like a board, I wanted to say, but didn’t.
“I have trouble sleeping on anything smaller when we go on trips and vacations. I have the same bed at home in New York. Do you have a nice room, at least?”
I couldn’t lie about it. “No. My room’s not very nice, Claudine. It’s about half the size of this.”
“I’d suffocate.”
Yes, you would, I thought. “Sometimes that is the way I feel,” I confessed.
She looked at me and nodded. “Start trying some of this on,” she said, indicating the clothing she had chosen.
“Really, I don’t know how I’m going to wear any of these things.”
“Stop worrying. Once you’re in school a while and you set your eyes on some boy, you’ll want to look more enticing, Elle. Once I’m finished with you, they’ll be fighting over you.”
“It won’t matter,” I said, and she turned around, a mixture of frustration and anger twisting her mouth and igniting her eyes.
“Why not?” She paused a moment, thinking. “You don’t think you’re gay, do you?”
“No, it’s not that. I won’t be able to go out on a date,” I said. “My grandmother won’t approve.”
The comment froze her. Then she nodded and sat on her bed. “Can you tell me why they treat you like this? Did you once do something? I mean, I’m no angel. I’ve been grounded lots of times, even for a month once, but they let me come up for air after I promised to behave, which I broke, of course. As Mason says,” she added, smiling, “promises are like balloons, full of air and easily punctured. So?” She continued when I didn’t say anything, “We’ll do it like a game. I’ve done this with other girlfriends who were a little shy.”
“What kind of game?”
“I’ll tell you a secret, and you’ll tell me one. Secrets are from one to ten, ten being the most secret. You want to start with number one or number ten or in between?”
“I don’t have that many secrets,” I said.
She looked at me askance with a half-smile, more of a smirk. “No young man has ever sneaked over to see you before Mason did, for example?”
“Oh, no. We don’t have close-by neighbors, and where would I meet him anyway?”
She looked disappointed. “You have to have something wrong with you, Elle. I’m not a complete idiot. Why have your grandparents kept you hooked to a ball and chain until now?”
“They’re afraid for me,” I said.
“You mean they really are just two nutty paranoids?”
“Yes, something like that.”
She stared, her eyes narrowing with her suspicions. “Talk about your parents. How old was your mother when she became pregnant with you?”
“I’m not sure.”
“What?”
“I mean, she was in college at the time, but I’m not sure if she was eighteen or nineteen.”
“Well, when is her birthday?” she asked. I didn’t answer. “You know your own mother’s birthday, don’t you?”
“I’m not . . .”
“Sure. I get it. So your grandparents were so angry at her that they threw her out and forbid any mention of her. Is that the truth?”
“Sorta.”
“Sorta? I think I’m getting my dental degree here,” she said.
“What?”
“It feels like I’m pulling teeth. You told us your mother gave birth to you and then deserted you. Did she desert you or run away from your grandparents or what?”
“No, she didn’t want to be a mother.”
“I can’t blame her for that. I’m not crazy about the idea. Maybe later. Much later,” she said.
I was hoping that would be the end of it and she would stop asking questions, but I could see she wasn’t satisfied yet.
“Your mother must have told them who made her pregnant. Was it a local guy?”
I shook my head.
“But you really do know who your father is, right? Your grandparents must have known and mentioned it. C’mon, do you really know?”
“No.”
“Bummer.” She thought a moment. “I think I understand. Your grandparents made your mother have you because they’re religious, right?”
“Yes.”
“But now they think you’ll be just like her or something?”
“It wasn’t all her fault,” I said.
“No, but you’ve got to memorize how to say no,” Claudine said. “The thing parents and teachers don’t get or don’t want to get is that we have to be educated.”
“What do you mean? That’s why we go to school.”
“There’s education, and there’s education. We have to know what can happen, and you can’t just get that out of books and lectures. You have to be in battle to know what war’s really like. Your grandparents are making a big mistake keeping you from experiencing things. Not everyone gets pregnant.”
She stood up and began to pace, like someone giving a lecture, not looking directly at me.
“I’m not saying they have to buy you birth-control pills or anything, but they’re making a mistake putting you out there unaware of the traps. I saw the way you reacted when Mason touched your breast yesterday. You didn’t know what to do. I’m not saying it was bad for him to do it. Far from that, but someone else, someone not as thoughtful as Mason, could easily take advantage of you, and whose fault would that be? I’ll tell you. Your uptight grandparents’. That’s whose,” she said angrily. Then she smiled again.
“What?”
“When you got undressed down to your bra and panties and went into the water, you looked like a little girl unaware of anything. I could see it in your face. You didn’t see how you affected Mason. He was dying.”
“Dying?”
“In actual pain. You couldn’t see because he was standing up to his waist.” She waited a moment. “You understand what I’m saying, don’t you?” She waited a moment. “It’s different when he looks at me. We were brought up practically in the same crib, took baths together, and got used to each other. There was never any mystery about what was different.”
She waited, but I didn’t know what to say or what she meant.
“I feel like I’m talking to some extraterrestrial!” she exclaimed. “Elle, the whole time Mason was teaching you to swim, he had an erection.”
I felt my heart stop and start. Grandmother Myra didn’t know how much about human reproduction I had learned from the science book I had to read, or if she did, she didn’t want to mention it. She never questioned me about any of it to see whether I understood it all.
“We’ve got a lot to talk about,” Claudine said after taking a deep breath. “Mason might teach you how to swim in the lake, but I’m going to teach you how to swim in the world. Try this on,” she said, throwing one of her skirts at me. “And stop looking so worried. You won’t end up like your mother.
“At least, not because of me.”