The Unwelcomed Child (12 page)

“Her grandparents aren’t spring chickens,” Mason said, and winked at me.

“It’s not fair to her,” she replied. “What do you do all day? Act like a nursemaid in an old-age home or something?”

“I have my schoolwork, but I do help with the housework.”

“I bet you do most of it,” she said.

“Probably,” I admitted.

“Then what? You just watch television?”

“Not that much.”

“Not that much? What do you do?”

“Stop asking her that, Claudine. She does what she does. Now she’s doing this,” Mason said sternly.

She cupped some water and threw it at him. He ducked, and she threw some again. He dropped the oars and leaned over to sweep some water at her, which also hit me. When she squealed, I did, too.

“Get him,” she told me, and then we both started to splash him. We all went at it so hard and so long that we were all quite wet when we stopped.

“Don’t worry about it,” Claudine said. “You’ll dry fast in this sun.”

Mason picked up the oars again. “Try that again, and I’ll use the oars on you,” he threatened.

“He would,” she told me. “You got your grandfather’s watch wet,” she added, nodding at it.

“What? Oh.”

I quickly rubbed it off with my dress. She leaned over to look at it and said it was fine.

“Unless some water got in and gets to the mechanisms later,” she added. “Just put it on a rock in the sun when we land and let it bake for a while.”

“Okay,” I said.

“They’d be angry if they knew you were at the lake in a rowboat with us, right?” she asked, her eyes narrowing with suspicion.

“Yes,” I confessed.

“What, you’re not allowed to meet people?”

“Not unless they know them first.”

She looked at Mason, who shook his head.

“This is getting interesting,” she told him, and he rowed harder, aiming the boat at a little bit of beach so that the boat hit it hard and stopped.

“We’ve arrived,” he said. “Our own private island in the sun.”

He stood up and helped me out first and then Claudine, who handed him the blanket and their bag of lunch. After that, he pulled the boat up a little more and sat back on the sand.

“I’m exhausted,” he declared, and fell back completely on the sand. Claudine took the blanket from him and snapped it out and then over him.

“Hey!” he screamed, crawling out from under. “That’s no way to treat your male slave.”

“I just didn’t want you to get a bad sunburn.”

“Right.”

He helped her straighten out the blanket. I took off my grandfather’s watch and put it on a large rock to the left as she had told me. Claudine sat next to Mason and nodded at the space on the other side of him. He remained lying there between the two of us, his eyes closed, his face relaxed and full of contentment as the sun began to warm us all.

“I brought some of this,” Claudine said, taking a tube of sunscreen out of their bag. She squeezed out some and then, instead of putting it on her face first, leaned over and began to smear it carefully over Mason’s. He didn’t open his eyes, but he smiled as she gently worked the cream over and into his skin with what I thought was loving care. Then she looked up at me.

“Get his other side, will you?”

“What?”

“The cream . . . smear it on the other side of his face.”

She handed me the tube. I looked down at him. He hadn’t changed expression. Carefully, I squeezed out some and began to apply it the way she had. He smiled even wider.
He is very handsome,
I thought, and his skin was so smooth, even where his beard and mustache would grow.

“She’s more gentle,” Mason said.

“She’s more frightened,” Claudine told him.

I was.

“Put some on yourself, or you’ll get a good burn and have to explain it to Grandma and Grandpa Paranoia.”

“Who?”

“Don’t,” Mason said.

“Just put it on. Trust me,” Claudine said, and I did. Then she did the same to her face. She leaned over to fix some on mine around my nose. “Ten minutes of pure solar bliss first,” she declared, and sprawled out beside Mason. I sat for a few moments, undecided. “Relax, Elle. No one can see us out here unless they come by in a boat, and the motorboats don’t because the water is too low and there are too many rocks on this side.”

“She’s right,” Mason said. “We know the lake like the back of our . . .”

“Rear ends,” she finished, and they laughed.

I laughed, too, finding some relief in that, and then lay back as she did. The three of us were very quiet. Did I ever feel more content? I could fall asleep in a heartbeat, I thought. My arm grazed Mason’s. He moved his hand closer to mine and then put his fingers over it. I felt myself tighten all over and then relax.

“So tell us how it is you’re living with just your grandparents. Are they your mother’s or father’s parents? Or are they foster parents?” Claudine asked, her eyes closed. She had unbuttoned her blouse and lowered it to get the sun on her neck and the top of her chest, right to the crests of her breasts. I realized she wasn’t wearing a bra. Her breasts were so firm it wasn’t easy to tell.

“Mother’s,” I said.

“So? Tell us more about yourself. Why are you living with grandparents? We’re not going to call a newspaper or anything. Friends can ask each other questions, you know. You’re free to ask us anything.”

“You can believe that. She loves talking about herself,” Mason said, and she poked him.

“Mr. Modesty. My mother said he cried harder than I did when we were born because he wanted everyone to know he had arrived.”

“She nearly smothered me in the womb.”

“Did not. Don’t believe him. So? What about you?”

I didn’t know how to begin. The very thought of it was terrifying, but I also realized I was going to be put in this position often at school. I had to have a way of explaining.

“My mother wasn’t married when she got pregnant,” I began.

“Thought so,” Claudine said. “Didn’t I, Mason?”

“She thought so,” he said, sounding as if he was giving her credit reluctantly.

“So?” she asked.

“She was very young and didn’t want to care for a child.”

“What happened to her?”

“She ran off.”

“Ran off? Really? Wow. Where is she?”

“I don’t know. My grandparents don’t like talking about her now. They took down all the pictures of her and put them in boxes.”

Neither of them spoke for a moment. Had I said too much? Would they want to stop being friends?

“What about your father?” Claudine asked.

“I never met him, nor do I know his name,” I said.

“Wow. This is good,” she said.

I looked at her. Good? How could she say it was good? She saw the expression on my face.

“I mean, a good story, not a good thing,” she clarified. Then her eyes narrowed. “Your grandparents were left with you, but they weren’t happy campers, right?”

“Campers?”

“They weren’t happy about it, Elle. Jeez.”

“Now, now,” Mason said. “A little understanding goes a long way.”

“Thanks, Dad,” she told him, and punched his shoulder again. He just laughed.

“No, they weren’t happy about it.”

She thought a moment. “I don’t know how I would feel if I were you. I mean, you’re unwanted.”

“Damn it, Claudine. Can you be a little more subtle?”

“She doesn’t mind, do you, Elle? You don’t seem to me to be someone who needs to be lied to or made to pretend things are not what they are.”

“I don’t like lies, no,” I said.

“Well, neither Mason nor I will ever lie to you. We don’t lie to each other, either, right, Mason?”

“Yes. I mean no. Wait, was that a lie?”

She punched him again.

“You see how she abuses me all the time?” he asked. “Usually, I just take it, but right now . . .”

Suddenly, he spun around on her and laid himself over her. She tried to push him off, but he grabbed her wrists and pinned them back on the blanket. She kicked and squirmed, and then he really shocked me by bending over her and licking her cheeks. She cried out.

“Help me, Elle! Please. We have to stick together!” she cried.

I wasn’t sure what to do, but I rose and pushed him. He cried out, seized my wrist, and fell onto his back, pulling me over onto him at the same time. Claudine sat up instantly and joined me, pushing down on his right arm. Then she took a handful of sand and sprinkled it over his face and into his hair. He cried out for mercy and let go of me. The three of us fell back on the blanket.

“Ganging up,” he said, shaking the sand out of his hair. “Just like women.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Claudine said. “We showed him,” she told me.

I sat for a moment, stunned at what I had just done. I hardly knew them, and I was rolling around on a little beach with them. Was this a sign of a real friendship, or was it very odd? How do you know when you’ve gone too far with someone you’ve just met? They didn’t seem to think so.

“Let’s eat,” he said. “I’ve worked up an appetite.”

Claudine opened her bag and handed me a chocolate milk. For a few minutes, we all just ate and looked out at the water. I was still feeling quite exhilarated. Everything happened so quickly, but it was all great fun.

“So, from what you’re telling us, you’re really insulated. I mean, you don’t have any close friends, do you?”

“No, but I think that might all change soon.”

“Oh. Why?” Mason asked before she could.

“My grandparents are thinking about sending me to the public school in the fall. They’re visiting with the school principal today, and if all goes well, they’ll take me for some new clothes tomorrow.”

“That’s good. I was going to ask you if that was one of your grandmother’s old dresses.”

“Claudine.”

“What? Is it?” she asked.

“No, but I don’t have anything that looks much better.”

“I have to show you my closet,” she said. “If there’s time later. That way, you’ll have an idea of what to look for, at least.”

“Maybe she has different taste from you, Claudine.”

“At this point, I don’t think she has any. She hasn’t been given a chance to develop any,” she added quickly, before he could criticize her for saying so.

“You’re right,” I admitted. “I mean, I’ve seen clothing on television, and when I am shopping with my grandparents, I see what other girls are wearing, but—”

“Your grandparents don’t approve? I can imagine,” she added before I could respond. She stared at me a moment and then asked, “Are they very religious?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Bible thumpers,” she said, nodding. “I thought so.”

“Bible thumpers?”

“Let’s talk about something else,” Mason said. “What’s your favorite subject?”

“It’s not boys,” Claudine commented. “My mother accuses me of that.”

“Justifiably so.”

“Shut up. Look who’s talking. He’s like a spider dangling every girl he can on a thread of hope.”

“Yeah, right.”

“You had five of them thinking you were going to take them to the prom last year. He had some very nice girls to choose from and ended up taking Marsha Scrotum.”

“That’s not her name,” he said quickly. “Her name’s Marsha Scroman. She happens to be the probable class valedictorian.”

“Why did you call her Marsha Scrotum?” I asked Claudine.

They both just looked at me.

“You didn’t get a chance to answer my question,” Mason said. “What is your favorite subject?”

“Art. I saw a television show on Renoir the other night, and I saw the painting you mentioned.”

“Terrific.”

“Would you like to paint me?” Claudine asked. “In the nude?”

“Claudine, jeez.”

“Artists always paint nudes. It’s very important to their development,” she explained. “Anytime you want me to pose for you, just say. Even Mason would, right, Mason?”

He shrugged. “Anything to help the cause,” he said.

“Speaking of the cause, I need a dip,” Claudine said. She started to undress. “I wouldn’t do this if you weren’t an artist,” she told me.

Mason and I watched her walk into the water.

“It’s wonderful,” she cried after fully submerging herself. “Come on in.”

Mason looked at me. “You don’t have to do it,” he said. “She’s just being Claudine.”

“Since when are you so modest, Mason?” she asked.

“We have a guest,” he said. “But I’ll go down to my briefs.” He rose and took off his shirt and pants. Then he ran into the water, dived, and came up beside her. “It’s terrific.”

“C’mon in,” Claudine urged.

“I can’t,” I said.

“Mason will cover his eyes.”

“That’s not it,” I said. “I can’t swim.”

They were both quiet.

“Of course she can’t,” he said. “She’s never been in the lake.”

“She could have gone into someone’s pool.”

“No,” I said. “Never.”

“Well, it’s shallow here. You can stand and get cool,” Claudine said. “We’ll give you swimming lessons. I’m sure Mason will be glad to do it.”

“You should know how to swim. It’s important,” he said.

“What about towels?” I called to them.

“We’ll dry in the sun,” Claudine said. “You don’t have to strip all the way.”

I thought for a moment. My heart was pounding so fast and hard I wasn’t sure I could stand, but the excitement was wonderful. I undid the buttons of my dress and slipped out of it and was in my bra and panties. To keep my hair from getting totally wet, I retied the ribbon, bringing it up more tightly. I paused. Was I really going to do this?

“What is that around your neck?” Claudine shouted. I had forgotten about my birthday present.

“Just a cross,” I said.

“A cross? That looks like part of a building. It’ll weigh you down and drown you for sure.”

“Shut up,” Mason said. “C’mon,” he called, and beckoned.

I walked slowly into the water. They both stared with the same expression on their faces. I didn’t know whether they were surprised, happy, or laughing beneath it all. Then Mason smiled. He looked at Claudine.

“She’s got a body as nice as yours,” he told her.

She said nothing. She just nodded and kept bobbing in the water. I fully submerged myself, the water coming up to my chin.