Despite his constant Bible-thumping and hell and damnation speeches, Grandad Forman was not a churchgoing man. In fact, he was highly critical of organized religion, calling it just another exploitation and therefore another playground for the devil. Mommy chastised him for this, especially on Sunday when she, Daddy, and I would get dressed up and go to church. Uncle Simon was too shy about meeting people and being out in public, and Mommy never pressured him, but she and Grandad often argued about his refusal to attend the Lord’s house of worship.
“I don’t need no preacher to tell me what God wants of me and what He don’t,” Grandad insisted.
“You need to bow your head in the house of the Lord more than any of us,” Mommy threw back at him.
Their eyes locked and Grandad left the room or walked away, mumbling to himself. He did spend his early Sunday time alone, reading his Bible, the pages of which were worn so thin, the edges were torn and yellow. From the time I was a little girl on, I was always fascinated by the way he gripped it in his hand, holding it tightly between his thumb and fingers as he would the handle of a hatchet or a hammer, sometimes waving it at one of us, especially Uncle Simon. When he did, Grandad’s eyes were always brightened, luminous and shiny, resembling stones in a brook. After seeing Star Wars, I had a dream in which I saw a ray of light come out of Grandad’s Bible, which he wielded like a sword over us all, even Uncle Simon.
Every Sunday, after I returned from church and changed into my jeans, I would hurry out to help Uncle Simon weed his garden and tend to his plants. This Sunday I was very excited because I was going to give him his birthday present. Mommy had already told him about our special dinner, after which we would have his birthday cake. I found him on his knees, working around a patch of ginger lilies. Everything I knew about flowers, I knew because of Uncle Simon.
It was a particularly beautiful late spring day with a breeze as gentle as a soft kiss caressing my face. Against the western sky, I saw a string of clouds so thin they looked like strips of gauze. A flock of geese in their perfect V-formation were making their way farther north. What a wonderful day for a birthday, I thought.
As I approached Uncle Simon, I could hear him muttering lovingly to his flowers. It brought a smile to my face. As if he had known where my uncle Simon was this morning, the minister had preached about a respect for life and how that gave us a deeper appreciation of ourselves, our own souls, and God’s precious gifts.
“Happy birthday, Uncle Simon,” I said, and he turned quickly and looked up at me, his bushy eyebrows lifting like two sleeping caterpillars. He looked from me to the gift box in my hands, and then wiped his hands on the sides of his jeans and stood up.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“Your birthday present.” I thrust it toward him. “From me, Mommy, and Daddy,” I said. I wasn’t going to include Grandad, not only because he didn’t contribute to it, but because he ridiculed birthdays.
Uncle Simon took the box so gently in his large hands, I smiled.
“It’s nothing breakable,” I said.
He stood there, gazing down at it, looking overwhelmed by the fancy wrap.
“Open it,” I urged, anxious to see his reaction to the gift.
He looked at me and nodded. He tried taking the paper off carefully, but it tore and he looked disappointed in himself. Then he opened the box and gazed at the new garden tools.
“Ooooh,” he said, stretching his expression of pleasure as if he was peering down at some of the world’s most precious jewels. “Good. Thank you, Honey.”
I smiled and stepped forward, lifting myself on my toes to kiss him on the cheek.
“Happy birthday, Uncle Simon.”
He nodded and took out the tools, turning them around and inspecting each more closely.
“They’re almost too pretty to use,” he said. He gazed at his old, rusted, crudely made ones as if he was about to say a final good-bye to an old, dear friend.
“It’ll make your flowers happier,” I said.
He smiled.
“Yes, it might,” he agreed and turned to scrape away some weeds.
I got down beside him and we worked in silence for a while. His garden was growing so well and was so large now, people came around to see it and offer to buy flowers from him. He cherished every plant so much, he was at first reluctant to give any up, but Mommy convinced him by telling him he was giving the flowers added life through the pleasure and enjoyment others took in them. He would have done most anything Mommy asked him to do anyway, I thought.
When Grandad Forman saw that he was beginning to make some significant money with his flowers, he told Uncle Simon he had to give him a percentage for the use of the land. Uncle Simon would have given him all of it, but Mommy stood between them like a broker and negotiated Grandad down to ten percent. She found out what a fair price was for each of the flowers, too. Recently, Daddy had brought up the idea of making a regular nursery, investing in a greenhouse.
“It would be a profitable side business,” he declared.
“I can’t see putting any real money behind him,” Grandad said.
“Why not?” Mommy challenged. “Has he ever failed to do something you asked him to do? Has he ever neglected his chores?”
“He’s got the brain of a child,” Grandad insisted.
Mommy straightened her shoulders and gazed down at him with eyes so full of fire and strength, both Daddy and I were mesmerized.
“The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them,” she recited.
“You don’t have to quote Scripture to me,” Grandad cried, the lines in his face deepening as he stretched his lips in anger. His leather-tan skin looked as stiff as the crust of stale bread.
“Seems I do from the things you say. And,” she added softly, “things you do.”
He looked at her and then looked away.
“Do what you want,” he muttered, “but not with any money of mine.”
It was still a secret, but Daddy was seriously looking into the greenhouse idea.
“Who taught you how to grow flowers so well, Uncle Simon?” I asked him as I worked with him.
He paused and looked toward the house as if he actually saw someone standing there.
“Your grandma,” he said. “I worked with her in her garden. It was the only place and time she had any peace,” he added, a shaft of embittered light passing through his dark eyes. He dug a little more aggressively for a moment, and then his body relaxed and he went back to his calm manner.
I watched him, admiring how he drifted into a rhythm, how he and his work seemed to flow together, his face full of pleasure and contentment, and I thought about what Uncle Peter had said about me and my violin.
The flowers play Uncle Simon, I thought. They nurture him. They rip the weeds away from him. They turn his face to the sunlight and the rain.
That evening, looking as clean and well-dressed as he could, he came to the house. Daddy gave him another present: his favorite aftershave lotion, which had a flowery scent. Mommy had prepared a turkey dinner with all the trimmings. It was as good as our Thanksgiving. Grandad Forman muttered about the cost of such a meal just for a grown man’s birthday, but ate vigorously nevertheless. Then Mommy brought out the cake.
“I couldn’t put all the candles on the cake, Simon,” Mommy explained, “so I just lit the one to represent them all.”
He laughed and blew it out. We all sang “Happy Birthday.” Grandad almost moved his lips, but shook his head as if to deny his own inclinations. Afterward, we sat in the living room and I played my violin for Uncle Simon. As usual, I became lost in my melodies, feeling as though the violin was a part of me, as if my very being flowed into it and out in the form of music.
Toward the end of my little concert, I opened my eyes and looked at them all. What surprised and even put a titter of anxiety in my heart was the way Grandad Forman was looking at me. Gone from his face was any expression of disdain or disapproval. For a moment he looked like any warm and loving grandparent might, sitting there and listening to his grandchild perform. It confused me, but I was sure I saw something deeper in him. I wanted to call it love, but I was afraid to think that. Toward the end, I caught the way he glanced at Mommy and how that changed his expression, restoring his cold, impersonal manner.
“Time to go to sleep,” he declared after Mommy, Daddy, and Uncle Simon gave me their applause. He rose and walked out of the room.
“Thank you,” Uncle Simon said.
“Many more birthdays, Simon,” Mommy told him and gave him a hug and a kiss.
Daddy patted him on the shoulder.
I walked out with him and stood on the front porch, watching him cross the yard toward the barn. Daddy came out and stood beside me.
“How can this be enough for him, Daddy?” I asked. “How can he really be happy?”
“I guess it’s a matter of finding your own way, making peace with that part of yourself that’s usually demanding more, that lusts after things others have and makes you discontented with what you have,” Daddy said.
“You make it sound bad to want more, Daddy. Isn’t it good to be ambitious?”
“Sure, but when it keeps you looking over at the next field, you never enjoy what you’ve accomplished, what you’ve grown on your own. That’s too much ambition, I guess.”
“How do you know when it’s too much, when you should stop?” I asked.
He shook his head.
“It’s different for everyone, Honey. Something inside you has to cry out, enough!”
“Has that happened to you?”
He smiled at me and put his arm around my shoulders.
“Yes,” he said, “and now, I can watch you go for it.”
“Like Uncle Simon watches his flowers emerge from the seeds he planted?”
“Yes.”
“And like Grandad watched you and Uncle Peter?”
“Something like that,” Daddy said, but his arm lost its tightness and his eyes shifted away. It was as if he was suddenly searching the shadows for signs of one of Grandad’s demons.
“I better get to bed,” he told me. “We’ve got work to do tomorrow.”
He left me on the porch, looking into the darkness and then up at Uncle Simon’s room. The light went out there, too, and I suddenly felt a chill. I don’t know where it came from. There was barely a breeze and the night was warm.
It came from inside me, I concluded.
It came from the sense of some terrible secret still looming above me, masked, disguised, hidden behind the eyes of those who loved me and those who knew and were stirred by the same wintry feeling creeping in and over all our smiles and all our laughter, and even into our dreams.
The following week, Chandler and I officially became an item at our school. We were together everywhere we could be together. The joy we were taking in each other’s company quickly became apparent, and soon I detected the looks of envy in the eyes of girls who were still searching for someone. I also noticed that Chandler was far less defensive with and suspicious of other students. The relaxation that was evident in his face took form in the way he dressed as well. He started coming to school in far less formal clothing; his hair wasn’t as plastered and stiff, and he was joking and laughing with other students more often than before.
“We took a vote,” Susie Weaver told me after lunch on Friday, “and decided you’ve been a good influence on Chandler Maxwell. He’s almost a human being now.”
“Thank you so much for your compliments,” I said with a cold smile. “It is a coincidence.”
“What? Why?”
“Chandler and I were wondering when you were going to become a human being,” I replied, and left her with her mouth open wide enough to attract a whole hive of bees.
That afternoon Chandler asked me to go to a movie with him. He thought we should go have something to eat first, too, but said it wouldn’t be any fancy restaurant.
“Let’s just have a pizza or something,” he suggested. “To celebrate our continued musical success.”
We had pleased Mr. Wengrow at our duet lessons on Wednesday night. Chandler had come to the house to pick me up and take me there. I saw the look of both pleasure and surprise in Mr. Wengrow’s face.
All he said about it was, “I’m happy you’re both getting along so well. It shows in your work.”
We exchanged conspiratorial smiles and worked with new enthusiasm.
“I know that Chandler is all set as far as his continuing education goes,” Mr. Wengrow said at the end of our session, while I was putting my violin in its case, “but you’re still not decided, is that correct?”
“No,” I said. “My parents and I talked about my attending the community college and living at home.”
“There’s no music program there that will add to your ability and talent in any significant way,” he said quickly. “I don’t mean to interfere, but I think you’ve got what it takes to get into a prestigious school for the performing arts. I’ll speak with your parents, of course, but I wanted to talk to you about it first.”
I looked at Chandler, who shrugged and smiled.
“What school? Where?”
“I have a good friend who is actually the accountant for a theatrical agent. I would like to contact him to see if he would do me a favor and get an audition arranged for you.”
“Oh,” I said. “Where?”
“New York City,” Mr. Wengrow said.
“New York City!”
All I could think of was Grandad Forman’s ravings about the twin cities of iniquity being Los Angeles and New York. He called them both cities built by Satan, and loved to point his finger at the television screen whenever some horrible crime or event was reported occurring in either of them.
“There!” he would cry. “See what I mean?”
“If you’re going to do anything significant in the arts, you should be in New York City,” Mr. Wengrow said.
I shook my head.
“I don’t think my parents would like that, Mr. Wengrow.”
“I’ll have a word with them,” he said. “Don’t worry. I’ll get them to understand.”
Chandler was going to the Boston University School of Arts. His father was an alumnus of BU and a heavy contributor, not that Chandler couldn’t get in on his own ability.
“Mr. Wengrow’s right,” he told me afterward. “You’ll smother to death here. You’ve got to get out and into the big wide world.”
It made me very nervous to think about it, so I didn’t, and up until the following weekend, Mr. Wengrow had not spoken about it with my parents. If he had, he might have been very discouraged and not mentioned the discussion to me at all, I thought.
On Friday, Chandler drove up to take me to the movies. I had put on a mustard-colored light sweater and a pair of jeans with a pair of high-heel sneakers I had managed to get Mommy to buy me, despite how silly she thought they looked. She couldn’t understand why they were the rage. I had my hair tied in a ponytail.
“You look like Debbie Reynolds in one of those old movies,” Chandler declared as soon as he saw me come bounding down the front steps. “I love it.”
“Thank you.”
He was wearing a black mock turtleneck shirt, which brought out the dark color in his eyes. I thought he looked very sexy, and practically leaped into the car to sit beside him. I couldn’t remember when I had been happier.
As we started away, Grandad came out of nowhere onto the driveway and stood in the wash of Chandler’s car headlights. His gray hair looked like it was on fire, his eyes blazing at us. Chandler hit the brake pedal and I gasped.
“Who’s that?” he cried.
“My grandad,” I said.
“Well, what’s he doing?”
Grandad simply stood there in our way, staring at us. Suddenly he raised his right hand, and I saw he was holding his sacred old Bible. He held it up like some potential victim of a vampire would hold up a cross in a horror movie, and then he stepped to the side and disappeared into the shadows.
Chandler turned to me, amazed.
“What was that all about?”
“Just drive,” I said, choking back my tears. Chandler stared at me. “Drive, Chandler, please.”
“Sure,” he said and accelerated, taking the bump too hard.
I curled up into a ball. I was filled with a mixture of anger and fear. No matter how Mommy stood up to him, I couldn’t help but be intimidated by his accusing eyes. Memories of him coming into my room when I was a little girl abounded. I saw him standing over my bed, chanting his prayers, reciting his biblical quotes, giving me warnings about hell, sin, and damnation that I was still too young to understand. What I did understand was there was some sort of danger awaiting me should I do anything defiant.
“What was that in his hand?” Chandler finally asked. “Honey?”
I took a deep breath and emerged slowly, like a clam opening its shell.
“His Bible,” I said.
“Bible? Why was he holding it up?”
“To remind me that the wages of sin is death,” I said in a tired, defeated voice.
“Sin? What sin?”
“The sin he thinks I’m about to commit,” I said.
Chandler was very quiet. Then he looked at me, shook his head and smiled.
“The movie is only rated PG-13.”
I looked at him, and then we both laughed. It felt like balm on a wound. He reached out to touch my hand, and I slid closer to him.
“I’ve got to admit, he scared me,” Chandler said. “I couldn’t imagine who or what he was, jumping out into the drive like that.”
“Let’s not talk about it anymore,” I begged.
“Okay,” he said, eagerly agreeing.
At the pizza restaurant, we talked about some of the other students at school, our classes, and Mr. Wengrow. Chandler’s theory was that because he had no children, he put fatherly concern into us and saw himself as a surrogate father, giving us guidance.
“Sometimes, I feel like he cares more about me than my own father,” Chandler admitted. “I mean, my dad wants me to succeed and all, but he doesn’t have the same interest in my music or faith in what I can do with it. He’s always talking to me about becoming a lawyer or going to medical school, as if nothing else has any reason to be. I get the distinct feeling he’s paying for my lessons just to humor me, almost like putting up with a nuisance.”
“What about your mother?” I asked.
“She usually goes along with anything he says. She’s busy at being busy.”
“What’s that mean?” I asked, smiling.
“She makes work for herself. No one appreciates the fax machine as much as my mother. She lives off the papers that all the organizations, volunteers, and people send her, and then she spends hours filing, organizing meaningless things. She’s content as long as her name is on every possible list of patrons and committee lists, whether she actually does anything for the cause or not.
“It’s like she lives in a castle built out of cards, or invitations to charity functions, I should say. She’s turned it into her own cottage industry.”
He sounded so bitter about it.
“You’re upset about all that?”
He stared at his piece of pizza for a moment and then shook his head.
“Sometimes, I wish I was a charity instead of a son. I’d get more attention. What about your parents? Do they care about your music?”
I told him about Uncle Peter and how Daddy had become more and more committed to my playing.
“They should let you go to a good school then,” he said. “I hope Mr. Wengrow can convince them. You have something, Honey. You can be someone.”
“So can you,” I said quickly.
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Why maybe?”
“I don’t have as much passion as you do. I’m good, technically very good, I know, but there’s one other thing that makes the difference, and you have it,” he said, his eyes fixed on my face. “I envy you for that.”
“You’ve got it, too,” I insisted.
He smiled.
“Maybe if I keep hanging around with you, it will rub off or I’ll catch it, like a cold,” he said. “Of course, we have to get closer and closer before that might happen.”
“That’s okay with me.”
We stared at each other. I felt my heart begin to pound, the warm glow rise from just under my breasts, up my neck, and into my face.
“We can go to a different movie tonight,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“My parents are out for the evening. I have a great DVD collection. You ever see a DVD movie?”
“I don’t even know what it is.”
“You’ve got to see it,” he said excitedly. “I have about fifty movies. You can choose any one you want. You’ll think you’re in the movie theater. Okay?”
He waved to the waitress for our check.
I felt as though I had stepped into the ocean and was being pulled out to sea with the outgoing tide. There was no way to resist. It was best to simply relax and go along.
* * *
Chandler’s house was a large, stone-wall-clad Tudor with a circular driveway set on a grand track of prime land just outside our small city. From the well-trimmed hedges and bushes to the immaculate sidewalk and rich dark oak front doors, his house looked elegant enough to be the home of a governor. I was awed by the size of the entryway, the marble floors, and elaborate chandeliers. All of the furniture looked brand-new and expensive.
“C’mon,” he said eagerly after we had entered. He took my hand and rushed me along past the large dining room, in which I glimpsed the longest table I had ever seen, dressed with place settings and silver dishes as if a gala evening was about to commence.
He brought me to what he called their media room. There was a television set so big it nearly rivaled some of the smaller-screen movie theaters.
“Dad’s always competing with his friends when it comes to state-of-the-art equipment,” he explained. “Wait until you hear the sound system.”
He opened a dark mahogany wood closet to reveal a collection of movies that looked like it contained anything and everything ever made.
“Choose,” he commanded.
I shook my head.
“I don’t know where to begin.”
“Whatever you want,” he said. “Don’t worry about the ratings either,” he said, winking.
I glanced at him and then at the titles. I really didn’t know which one to pick.
“You choose,” I said.
“Okay. This is one of my favorites,” he said. “Sit on the settee,” he added, nodding toward it.
I sat and waited for him to get it started. Everything was on a remote, even the room’s lights. He dimmed them and sat beside me. The movie began, and it was everything he had described. I did feel as if we were in a theater.
“Incredible, huh?”
“Yes,” I said.
“We can even have popcorn, if you want.”
“I’m still stuffed with pizza.”
“Me, too. Want to drink something? Anything?” he said impishly.
“I’m fine,” I said.
He nodded and we sat back to watch the movie. I felt his arm move around my shoulders and then his hand against my side, pulling me closer to him. His lips were on my cheek, soon moving up to kiss my hair.
“We’re not going to see much of this movie if you do that,” I said. When I turned to him, he was only an inch or so from me.
His response was to kiss me on the lips and hold me tighter.
“Pretend we’re in an old drive-in movie,” he whispered.
“I’ve never been in one,” I said.
“Me neither, but we can pretend, can’t we?”
“I don’t know.”
“I do,” he said. He kissed me again, moving his lips down to my neck. “I really like you, Honey. No one makes me feel as comfortable and happy as you do.”
I said nothing. His words, his warm touch, the power of his eyes were quickly sweeping away any tenseness I had. I felt myself soften in his arms and wanted to kiss him as hard and as passionately as he was kissing me. When his hand grazed my breast, I tightened.
“It’s all right,” he said. “If you like me as much as I like you, it’s all right.”
My heart was pounding. The tingle that traveled up and down my spine and swirled in around my heart was delightful, warm, welcome. His fingers went under my sweater and moved quickly up to my breast. When he touched me, he brought his lips down on mine harder. His tongue moved between my lips. We were sliding down on the leather settee and he was moving over me. He had lifted the edge of my bra cup and touched my naked breast. It seemed like thunder in my head, my blood was rushing so fast around my body.
“I think I love you, Honey. I can’t imagine liking someone as much as I like you without it being love,” he continued, whispering in my ear.
“Like the serpent whispered into Eve’s ear,” I heard Grandad say.
Chandler’s right hand moved down behind my shoulder and under my sweater. His fingers and palm traveled like a hungry spider up to my bra clip, which he squeezed and undid so quickly, I barely had a chance to shake my head. My bra lifted and a moment later, his left hand was over my breast. I was breathing so hard and fast, I thought I would faint.
There were feelings being born everywhere along my legs and in the pit of my stomach, feelings I had tempted and taunted in dreams. My own rush of pleasure was sweeping over me like the wave I imagined myself caught in earlier. I could feel the great struggle going on inside me, the battle between the forces that wanted me to push him away and jump up and the forces that wanted me to soften, relax, fall back, and invite him to go further and further.
“You do love me, too, don’t you, Honey? Don’t you?” he pleaded, lifting my sweater so he could bring his lips to my breasts.
I opened my eyes. I wanted to say yes. I wanted to speak, but I suddenly imagined Grandad standing there looking down at us, nodding. He extended his arm to put his Bible on Chandler’s back, and I screamed.
Frightened by my cry, Chandler pulled himself away. The image of Grandad evaporated instantly, popping like a bubble.
“What’s wrong?” Chandler asked.
I caught my breath and sat up.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I couldn’t…”
Chandler slumped against the settee.
“Don’t you like me enough, Honey?”
“Yes, I just…couldn’t, Chandler.”
“Why not?”
“I couldn’t,” I repeated and fixed my bra. “I’m sorry,” I said.
“Me, too,” he said, looking petulant and crabby. “We probably should have just gone to the movie theater.”
“I said I was sorry, Chandler.”
“When you wanted to come here, I thought you wanted to be with me.”
“I do,” I insisted.
“Right.”
“I’ve never done this before,” I confessed. He looked at me, and then at the floor. “I thought you knew that, too.”
“I’m not exactly Don Juan myself,” he said. “What I felt, what I hoped, was that when the right girl came along, a girl who thought I was the right guy,” he added, turning back to me, “we’d trust each other enough to…to love each other.”
I felt tears coming to my eyes.
“I trust you and I want to love you,” I said. “But…”
“But?”
“You didn’t just sit at your piano and start playing Mozart’s Concerto in A Major, did you?”
He stared at me a moment.
“It’s not something you need to practice to get right. At least, I don’t think of it that way,” he said.
“But it’s not something to rush into, either. It’s not practice. It’s building a relationship, learning to care and care for each other until you both feel ready for all of it,” I said. “Too many girls I know don’t think it’s anything special anymore. Am I wrong?”
“No,” he said. He smiled. “Okay,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
I sat back, and we both turned to the movie once again.
But out of the corner of my eye, I looked to the doorway. I searched every shadow.
I was looking for Grandad.