Second Child (21 page)

Phyllis reached out and patted Teri’s hand affectionately. “Well, don’t worry about it,” she said. “Apparently she stayed in bed last night, so no damage was done.” Her smile faded and she stood up. “I suppose I’d better go talk to Cora. I accused her of doing it, and if I don’t make some show of apologizing, she’ll probably ruin dinner.”

Taking her coffee with her, Phyllis started toward the kitchen.

Alone in the breakfast room, Teri poured herself a cup
of coffee and looked happily out through the glass at the perfect morning outside.

The sun was shining out of a cloudless sky, and there was no longer even a trace of the fog that had come in so late last night.

Teri smiled to herself, and wondered if it was too early to call Cyndi Miller or Ellen Stevens. She could hardly wait to hear what had happened after she’d left the bonfire last night.

Thwack!

Melissa’s tennis racket connected with the ball, and for the first time that morning she heard the nice solid sound that meant she’d finally hit the sweet spot. The ball arced over the net, and she held her breath as her father backed away from the net, swung at it …

 … and missed!

The ball sailed over his head, and suddenly Melissa was afraid it was going to go too far, but then it started falling, dropping onto the court just an inch inside the baseline.

“Good shot,” Charles called to her.

Flushing with pleasure, Melissa trotted back to her own baseline, took a bead on her father’s forecourt, and tossed a ball into the air. Her swing was a fraction of a second too late, and the ball drove into the net. She saw her father move forward, preparing himself for the easy lob she always used for her second serve. She waited for him to get into position, already knowing what she was going to do.

She was ahead 40-15, and even though she was certain
her father was deliberately missing a lot of easy shots, he did it so well that so far this morning she hadn’t been able to catch him at it. But this time, if she were lucky, she’d get a point by really earning it.

She tossed the second ball into the air, but instead of lobbing it slowly—and reasonably accurately—across the net to drop right into the middle of his court, she put all the force she could muster into her swing.

Thwack!

Once again she hit the sweet spot, and the ball shot over the net, straight and low, speeding past her father to strike the forecourt just inside the line. He stared at her in surprise for a moment, then a grin spread across his face. “I figured you’d take that risk sooner or later,” he called. “I just wasn’t expecting it right now.”

Flushed with her victory, Melissa moved to her back-court, spread her legs and waited for her father’s first serve. A moment later the ball came over the net, but too late she realized he’d pulled the same trick on her she’d just worked on him. Instead of his usual fast and low first serve, the ball was arcing high, and Melissa started running forward. But she misjudged the distance, and when she finally got close enough to the ball to swing at it, she missed completely.

“For heaven’s sake, Melissa,” her mother’s voice called from the next court. “How could you miss a simple shot like that?”

Melissa froze, flushing scarlet with embarrassment. Why couldn’t they have stayed home like they usually did, she wondered, and played on their own court? Then at least everyone wouldn’t have to hear her mother criticizing her.

But of course she knew the answer—her mother had decided she wanted to play today, too, and had insisted the whole family come to the club. “But you can’t get courts on Sunday,” Melissa had protested.

Phyllis had shaken her head. “I called early in the week and reserved two for us this morning. You and your father can play, and Teri and I can play. Then we can switch. It’ll be fun.”

So far, to Melissa’s surprise, it hadn’t been nearly as bad as she’d anticipated. At first she’d felt self-consciously
certain that everyone was staring at her. But when she hadn’t heard any laughter as she muffed her first four serves, she finally looked around.

No one was even watching her.

In fact, the few people who were watching the activity on the tennis courts at all had their eyes on Teri, and after sneaking a few glances at the next court herself, Melissa knew why,

Teri, looking gorgeous in her whites, had obviously played tennis before.

And Melissa had had a sneaking suspicion that Teri was giving her mother almost as many points as their father was giving her.

But now, the match with Teri over, her mother was watching her.

All her insecurities flooding back, Melissa took up her position for her father’s second serve.

And missed again.

Six serves later, the game, and the set, were over. Though Melissa had at least managed to connect with two of her father’s serves, her mother’s scrutiny had made her so nervous that she’d blown both the shots, firing one of them into the net and the other one right over the fence, where it went bounding around among the breakfast tables that were set up on the wide terrace between the tennis courts and the swimming pool.

“What happened?” her father asked as he came around the end of the net. “You were doing so well.”

Melissa shrugged. “I just fell apart,” she said, unwilling to admit that it had been her mother’s critical gaze that had made what few skills she had crumble.

Her father smiled at her. “It’s harder when people are watching,” he said, his voice dropping. “But don’t worry about it—nobody plays tennis well all the time.”

Melissa grinned. “I bet Teri does,” she said. “In fact, I bet she could beat you in straight sets.”

Charles glared at his daughter with exaggerated outrage. “You’d bet against your own father? That’s treason!”

Melissa giggled. “Then go on,” she urged. “Try to beat her.”

“And you,” Phyllis chimed in, “can try to beat
me!”

Melissa’s breath caught in her throat. Though her first
instinct was to plead that she was too tired, she instantly changed her mind. For the last week—ever since the bonfire, in fact—things had been going better. Her mother hadn’t seemed as angry at her as usual, and Melissa was certain she knew why.

Teri had been protecting her.

The day after the bonfire had been the worst, for early that morning Cyndi Miller had called Teri to tell her about seeing the ghost the night before. And when Teri had told her about it, Melissa had had a horrible moment of panic, certain that she’d been sleepwalking again.

But Teri had insisted she didn’t have anything to worry about. “Even if it
was
you, nobody believes Cyndi and Ellen really saw anything. And we’ll tell Phyllis it happened before I got home, so she’ll think you were still tied to the bed.”

Melissa had impulsively thrown her arms around Teri. “Would you do that for me?” she asked. “Really?”

“Of course,” Teri replied. “I’m your sister, aren’t I? You’d do the same for me, wouldn’t you?”

Melissa had nodded, but still hadn’t been certain it would work. But when her mother finally heard the story, Teri had been as good as her word.

“But it
couldn’t
have been Melissa,” she’d insisted. “Cyndi and Ellen left at the same time I did, so it must have happened while you and I were talking. Besides, I was reading for at least an hour after I went to bed, and if Melissa had gone out, I’d have heard her. She’d have had to go right past my door, and there’s a squeaky board.”

To Melissa’s relief, her mother had accepted the story. Since then, with her mother convinced that she hadn’t walked in her sleep, she’d even been allowed to sleep without her restraints. But if her mother got mad at her now, with her father going back to the city tonight …

She came out of her reverie and forced herself to smile. “Okay,” she said. “Do you want to serve?”

“Don’t be silly,” Phyllis replied. “We’ll volley.”

Her mother lobbed the ball directly to her, and she managed to return it. It came back right in front of her, and once more she hit it back over the net. But when she’d returned it a third time, her mother suddenly stepped to
one side, chopped hard at the ball, and it shot past Melissa almost before she realized it was coming.

“My serve,” Phyllis announced.

Twenty minutes later, with the first set over and the second set at 3-0, Melissa felt tears of frustration welling up in her eyes. So far she hadn’t scored a single point against her mother, and the longer the torture went on, the worse things got.

On the second court, Teri and her father were hard at it, and her father, completely occupied with trying to keep up with Teri’s game, hadn’t even noticed what was happening to Melissa.

Now, as her mother prepared to serve, Melissa’s eyes wandered once more to the second court. Teri, playing close to the net, was firing the ball back at her father, whose shirt was showing splotches of sweat as he darted back and forth across the court, doing his best to return his elder daughter’s shots. Suddenly Melissa heard the sharp snap of her mother’s racket hitting the ball, and jerked her eyes away from the other court. But it was too late, for just as she turned, the ball ricocheted off the court a couple of feet in front of her, smashing into her chest with enough force to make her yelp with pain. Before she could say anything, her mother’s voice, harsh and grating, followed the ball toward her.

“Really, Melissa! If you’re not going to concentrate on the game, I don’t see why you want to play it at all. It hardly makes it any fun for your opponent, you know!”

Melissa’s emotions, held in check for so long, suddenly boiled over. “You knew I wasn’t ready,” she cried. Tears, caused more by outrage than by pain, streamed down her cheeks. “And it’s not any fun for me, either! All I’m doing is chasing balls for you!”

On the other court, Charles let Teri’s last shot slip past him, turning toward the sound of his younger daughter’s voice just in time to see her drop her racket on a bench by the gate and rush off the court, her head down, her shoulders hunched over.

“Melissa?” he called, starting after her.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Charles!” Phyllis snapped, her voice cutting sharply through the morning air. “Just let her go! The only way she’s going to learn to be a good sport is
by taking her losses with good grace. And she can’t learn to do that as long as you throw every game to her and make up to her every time she bursts into tears.”

Charles’s jaw set, he started off the court, ignoring his wife’s words. But then Teri spoke.

“Daddy? Aren’t we going to finish our game?”

He hesitated, turning to look back at Teri, who was standing on the other side of the net, disappointment in her eyes. He vacillated for a moment, then stifled a sigh, knowing that if he abandoned the game with Teri to go after Melissa, it would only mean a fight with Phyllis later.

For once Melissa would have to take care of herself.

His hand tightening on his racket, he went back to his game, while Phyllis settled down on one of the benches to watch.

Tag grasped the machete with both hands, raised it over his right shoulder like a baseball bat, then swung. The blade flashed brightly in the sunlight, then struck the main trunk of the ivy that clung to the east face of the house, slicing almost through it before it lost its momentum and stuck fast. He grunted, twisted at the blade, then pulled it loose, letting it drop to the ground as he paused for a moment to catch his breath. He’d been working steadily for nearly two hours, but it seemed as if there was still almost as much ivy on the wall as when he’d started. Still, when his eyes shifted to the pile of vines that already lay on the lawn at the base of the wall, he knew he must be making
some
progress. But was it really possible for the ivy to double its mass as he pulled it off the house? He wiped the sweat and grime from his forehead with the right sleeve of his shirt, then picked up the machete once more. A moment later, with another swipe of the big blade, he finished cutting through the vine’s thick stem. Then began the fun part.

Grasping the stem with both hands, he began pulling it away from the face of the wall, feeling the tendrils reluctantly give up their grip on the stones with which this side of the house was faced. The game he played with himself was simple—the whole idea was to see how much of the
plant he could work loose before the main stem itself broke and the whole thing collapsed down on him.

Half an hour ago, working carefully, he’d managed to get everything loose except a few tendrils that had stubbornly clung to the crevices around the attic dormer, and when the mass of vine had finally fallen, it completely covered him. Blackie, surprised at his master’s sudden disappearance, began barking madly, then started digging at the tangle, burrowing in as if trying to save Tag. In the end he had spent more time freeing the wriggling dog from the snarl than in getting himself loose.

He gave the main stem another exploratory pull. Near the second floor the stem split, the larger half of it snaking off to the right. If he could work that part free, the weight of the vine itself would pull the rest of it loose. Just as he was about to start working at it, Blackie began barking, then dashed off across the lawn, his tail wagging furiously. Cocking his head, Tag abandoned the ivy for a moment, turning to watch the dog.

A moment later Melissa, her head down, her hands stuffed in the pockets of her shorts, appeared at the head of the path that wound through the woods toward the club. As Blackie bounded up to her, her hands came out of her pockets to fend off his leap. “Stop that!” Tag heard her say, her voice trembling.

“Melissa?” he called out. “Hey, Melissa!” She glanced over at him, then turned away. Frowning, Tag trotted across the lawn, catching up to her as she was about to duck around a curve in the trail. “Hey! What’s wrong?”

Melissa was still for a moment, but finally turned around. Tag could see she’d been crying—her cheeks were still stained with tears and her eyes were circled in red.

“You okay?”

Melissa snuffled, then reached down to pet Blackie, who was pressed against her legs. “I guess,” she sighed.