Music in the Night (2 page)

I had chosen my brightest blue dress with the white collar and I wore my gold charm bracelet, the one Mommy and Daddy had recently given me on my sixteenth birthday. They had given Cary an expensive pocket watch on a gold chain that played "Onward Christian Soldiers" when he flipped open its lid.

Cary looked up from his bowl of oatmeal. "Aren't you afraid you'll swallow some of that lipstick?" he asked, sending a bolt of ominous lightning through my morning of warm sunshine.
I looked at Daddy, but he just snapped the newspaper and glanced at the headlines. Then I threw Cary my most angry look and he went back to his oatmeal.
When we stepped outside to start for school, I stopped in the doorway, felt the sunshine on my face, and closed my eyes. I embraced my books against my breasts, wishing that none of this was a dream.
"What are you doing?" Cary asked sharply. "You want May to be late for school?"
"I'm sorry," I said, skipping forward to join them. He held May's hand firmly in his own. My little sister, locked in her silence, gazed up at me with a twinkle in her eyes, as if she knew it all, as if she had poked her pretty little face into one of my dreams last night and saw my happiness. I took her other hand and we continued down the street. I felt like Alice in Wonderland.
"You're behaving just like all the other dumb girls in our school," Cary muttered, and threw me a look of reprimand. "Making a fool of yourself over some boy."
I only smiled back at him. Today, I thought, today, I am surrounded by protective sylphs, tiny fairy-like creatures who would deflect any arrows of unhappiness away from me.
There were clouds in the sky, but to me it was all blue. Although it was early May, there was a chill in the air, the residue of yesterday's nor'easter. The whitecaps sprouted on the surface of the sea like water lilies, and even this far away from the shore, we could hear the surf roaring in. In the sunlight, the sand was the color of autumn gold. The terns looked like they were tiptoeing over uncovered treasure as they searched for their morning meal.
My hair was pinned back, but some loose strands whipped gently at my forehead and cheeks. May wore a light blue hairband that kept her hair neatly in place.
Cary couldn't care less how his hair looked when he entered school. He would just run his fingers through it and not even go into the boys room like all the other young men to brush and comb in front of mirrors. Instead, he would accompany me to my locker and wait until I had my books before going on to his own. He would stand there even when Robert Royce joined me, and he would glare unhappily, suspiciously, hardly talking, lingering alongside or just behind us like an angry storm cloud. It was the only thing that put darkness in my heart these days.
"Stop daydreaming and watch where you're walking," Cary ordered as a car sped past us.
The invasion of tourists had begun in small ways. The entire Cape was busier now on weekends, but traffic during the week was still at a lazy crawl down Commercial Street. Our route in the morning took us down side streets to May's school. At the gate we each kissed her and signed our goodbyes, Cary putting on his best Daddy-like face to warn her to behave herself, as if she ever needed a warning. There was no one sweeter, no one more gentle and fragile and loving than our May. Although Doctor Nolan assured us her deafness had nothing to do with it, May's growth was impeded. She was bright and intelligent, always doing well in school, but she was so tiny for her age, her facial features as diminutive as a doll's, her hands so small they barely covered Cary's or my palms when we held them.
All of us protected and loved her dearly, but sometimes I would catch Daddy gazing at her, unaware that anyone was looking at him, and I would see the most terrible expression of sadness on his face, his eyes glazed with trapped tears, his lower lip trembling just enough to be noticed. Then he would become aware of what he was doing, and he would snap into a firm posture, wiping away any emotion from his face. I never saw Daddy really cry, and the only times I saw him with his head down was when he was praying or after a particularly hard day of fishing.
At her school, May turned back after she had started through the gate and smiled at me impishly as she signed: "Don't kiss Robert too much." She giggled and ran into the building with the other children. I glanced at Cary, but he pretended not to have seen her and started off, his steps so deliberate I thought he would leave footprints in the sidewalk.
It was Friday, and tonight was the school's spring dance. For the first time in my life, I would have a real date for a school party. Robert Royce had asked me. It was to be our first formal date. Up until now, we had just met in places by accident or after we had timidly suggested to each other we might be someplace at the given time.
Robert had enrolled in our school in late February. His parents had purchased the Sea Marina, a hotel with fifty rooms on the northwest end of town. As soon as spring came, they had begun the restoration of the old resort, repairing; painting, planting, and pruning the landscape. Robert was an only child, so there were no other children to help Charles and Jayne Royce. Robert explained that his family had put most of their money into the purchase of the property and had to do most of the work themselves. Because of that, he went home directly after school most days and was very busy on the weekends, especially now that the summer season was fast approaching.
I had hoped Cary would find Robert's devotion to his family and their business admirable. He and Robert really had a lot in common, but from the moment Robert had the courage to step up to me in the hallway and begin a conversation right in front of Cary, Cary's eyes grew small and dark whenever Robert was around me.
Robert always tried to include him in
conversation, but Cary's responses were short, sometimes not much more than a grunt or a shrug. I was afraid Robert would be either frightened away or bothered so much by Cary's behavior that he would stop speaking to me and walking with me, but instead he grew bolder and even took a break from working on the hotel and visited me at home one Saturday.
Cary had gone to the dock to work on the lobster boat engine with Daddy and Roy Patterson. I introduced Robert to Mommy and to May, and May fell in love with him faster than I had. Robert was good at picking up signing, too. Before he left that day, he had learned to say "hello," "good-bye," and "I'm very, very hungry."
Later, when Cary returned and Mommy told him and Daddy I had had company, Cary turned white and then bright red when he asked me why I hadn't brought him down to the dock.
"I didn't want to interrupt you," I explained. Actually, I was grateful for the privacy, for not having Cary hovering over us.
He looked hurt and then angry.
"Ashamed of what we do?" he asked.
"Of course not," I protested. "And besides, you've spoken to Robert. You know he's not like that. He doesn't come from a snobby family, Cary. If anyone's family is snobby, it's ours."
Cary grunted, reluctant to admit I was right.
"He probably knew I was down at the dock all day," he muttered.
"What? Why would that matter, Cary?"
"It matters," he said. "Believe me, all these guys take advantage, Laura. You're just too trusting. It's why I have to look out for you," he declared.
"No, you don't, not with Robert, and I am not too trusting, Cary Logan. You don't know everything there is to know about me, and you certainly know nothing about romance," I flared, and stomped up to my room, closing the door behind me.
After my heart stopped pounding and I grew calm, I lay back and thought about my wonderful afternoon with Robert, walking on the beach, holding his hand, just talking. We told each other about ourselves, our favorite foods and colors and books. He was surprised that we didn't have a television set, but he refused to criticize Daddy when he learned it was Daddy's decision.
"Your father's probably right," he said. "You do read more than anyone I know and you're a great student."
He smiled that sort of smile that embeds itself in your mind, prints itself on the surface of your memory, embossed behind your eyelids whenever you close them and think about him. He had azure-blue eyes that turned opaque whenever he spoke deeply or seriously to me, but when he smiled, his eyes brightened as if they had drawn sunshine into them. It was the sort of smile that warmed your heart, infectious, sweeping away any cobwebs of gloom.
Robert was about an inch taller than Cary and just as broad-shouldered. He had longer arms, but was not as muscular. He wore his light brown hair short and always neatly brushed at the sides with just a slight wave in front. Because he was a year older and a senior, we didn't have any classes together, but I knew he was a good student and his teachers liked him because he was polite and inquisitive.
Cary had never been a very good student. He wore school like a pair of pants two sizes too small, reluctant to get in, struggling to be comfortable, relieved when the end-of-the-day bell rang. He hated being shut up and regimented by the clock and the rules. He was truly a fish out of water.
Consequently, Robert Royce's success in school was another thing Cary resented. He hated whenever Robert and I got into discussions about history or a book we'd read for class. To Cary, it was as if we had begun to speak in a different language. On a few occasions, however, Robert did try to talk about his family's problems with the hotel, construction difficulties, the use of tools and paints, things Cary understood and appreciated. Almost as reluctant as someone sitting in a dentist's chair, Cary would settle into conversation, offering his suggestions as dryly and as quickly as he could.
Later, Cary would tell me Robert should stick to quizzes in history and leave the real work to men more qualified. That only brought a smile to my face and a look of confusion to Cary's.
"What?" he demanded. "What is so funny now, Laura? I swear, you walk around with a stupid grin on your face all the time these days. You just don't know how silly you look."
"You simply can't admit you like him, can you, Cary?" I said, and he reddened.
"I don't," he insisted. "There's nothing to admit."
Despite this gloomy prognosis, I hoped and prayed Cary would eventually become friends with Robert, especially after he had asked me to the school dance. Mommy really liked Robert, but Daddy hadn't met him yet and I knew he wouldn't give me permission to go to the dance with him until he had, so the Saturday after he had asked me, invited him to the house for lunch.
Robert charmed Mommy again by bringing her a box of candy. Cary called it a bribe, but I patiently explained it was only a polite gesture, something people invited to lunch or dinner often do. As usual, he grunted and turned away rather than admit I might be right.
At lunch, Robert sat beside me and across from Cary, who kept his eyes down and refused to talk. We began our meal as usual with a reading from the Bible. I had warned Robert that was something Daddy always did. Daddy paused when he opened the holy book and gazed at Robert.
"Perhaps our guest has a suggestion," he said. Cary started to smile. It was Daddy's little test. He was always lecturing us that young people were slipping into sin faster because they didn't know their Bible.
Robert thought a moment and said, "I like Matthew, Chapter Seven." Daddy raised his eyebrows. He glanced at Cary, who suddenly looked glum.
"You know that one, Cary?" Daddy asked.
Cary was silent and then Daddy handed Robert the Bible. Robert opened it, smiled at me, and glanced at Cary before beginning in a soft, silky voice.
"'Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged . "
He read on and then looked up. Daddy nodded. "Good," he said. "Good words to remember."
"Yes sir, they are," Robert said, and Daddy and he began a conversation about the tourist business, the old Sea Marina and how Daddy remembered it. I was afraid Daddy would take off on his and Grandma Olivia's favorite pet peeve--how the tourists were ruining the Cape--but he was civil and said nothing critical.
Cary sulked with his back against the chair, only speaking when he wanted someone to pass him a dish.
Robert confessed that he knew little about the lobster fishing business, and even less about the sea and boats.
"We've been so busy fixing up the place, I haven't had much time for anything else," he explained.
"That's all right. Your parents need you first. Maybe after lunch, you can come down to the dock and see our rig," Daddy said and looked at Cary. But after lunch Cary claimed he had work to do on one of his models and had spent enough time on the boat that week anyway.
I took May's hand and Robert took her other hand the way Cary always did. The three of us followed Daddy down to the dock. I turned and looked back at the house and thought I saw Cary looking out of an upstairs window. For a moment I felt like bursting into tears, but Robert's smile drove that feeling away quickly and we continued on.
Most important, Daddy approved of Robert that day and so tonight I would be attending the school dance with my very first boyfriend. The school was buzzing like a beehive all day long. Everyone was fidgety in their seat in class and the cafeteria sounded like a hundred more students had enrolled that morning. Only Cary moved like a somber mourner through the halls, his face gray, his eyes dark. He sat silently, eating mechanically in the cafeteria.
"Why don't you ask Millie Stargel to the dance tonight, Cary?" I suggested when Robert and I sat down with him. "I know no one has asked her yet."
Cary stopped chewing and looked at me with such pain in his eyes, I got a huge lump in my throat and couldn't swallow for a moment.
"Millie Stargel?" He laughed. It was a wild, loud, and frightening laugh. "Whose idea was that,
his?"
he said, nodding at Robert.
"No, I just thought--"
"She's a pretty girl," Robert said, "and I bet she'd love to go.
^"
"So why don't you ask her?" Cary retorted.
Robert smiled softly and gazed at me.
"I've already got a date," he said.
"Then why are you looking at other girls?" Cary shot back at him.
"I'm not. I was only saying--"
"See, I warned you," Cary said to me and got up. "These dances are stupid anyway," he said. "Hanging out in the school gym is not my idea of fun. If I go on a date, I'm not going to bring her back to this place."
"Cary," I called as he started away. He just glared back and continued out of the cafeteria.
"He'll be all right," Robert said, and put his hand over mine. "One day he'll meet someone and his heart will pound just like mine did when I first looked at you."
I nodded.
But I didn't have as much confidence in something like that happening to Cary anytime soon.