The Beresfords (19 page)

My voice went up an octave. I couldn’t help it. “But he wouldn’t need to keep an eye on things if everyone just stayed here and we had a barbecue like we talked about. You told him that, didn’t you? Aunt Terri packed all that food—”

“Give it a rest, Frannie,” came my cousin’s reply, muffled by the t-shirt he was shedding. He flung it in the trunk and gave his pin-striped Oxford shirt two sharp shakes to get the wrinkles out. “You eat the food.”

“I’m not staying here if you all are going! I’ll go, too, then.”

“Right,” said Tom. “Fat chance. Steve wasn’t kidding: if you came along, you’d blow everything. No one’s gonna let a twelve-year-old pull slots, no matter what her ID says.”

“I’m not twelve—I’m fourteen—almost fifteen!”

“Same difference.”

“—And I wouldn’t pull any slots. I wouldn’t give you away. I’d just eat with you and then wait by the door or in the hotel lobby or something.”

“You’re not coming.”

“You can’t leave me here!” I was almost crying with anger. “What about—what about the burglars breaking in all over the place? Aunt Marie and Uncle Paul wouldn’t want you to leave me by myself when someone might break in.”

“Jeez—Frannie! Now look! I’ve done the buttons all wrong.” He began undoing them. “What is wrong with you? You said you didn’t want to go and now you want to go? Don’t tell me you’re worried about the stupid burglars. Tell them to help themselves to whatever they want and they’ll leave you alone. Okay, okay—don’t cry—Jeez! Here comes everyone. Don’t cry! What’s gotten into you?
C’mere
.” He grabbed my elbow hard and marched me around the house. “You’re not coming, okay? But here’s what you do: when you go to bed, take one of the kitchen knives—the biggest one—and put it under your pillow. If you hear anything, make a big racket, and if you see anyone, just flash that knife at them.”

I gawked at him, forgetting my tears. The burglar excuse had been exactly that—an excuse—but my supposed fear rapidly took shape with Tom’s talk of knives and noises. “Let me come with you,” I squeaked.

He buttoned his cuffs. We heard Eric Grant shouting for him. “Be right there!” he yelled. Then he pressed my shoulder bracingly. “You’ll be fine, Frannie. Remember: the biggest knife. Under your pillow. And leave the porch light on.”

And then he was gone.

The sun set around 8:30. I was sitting on the wooden bench Jonathan made for Father’s Day when he was in ninth grade, which, both for its unevenness and rough finish had been relegated to this spot under the trees. It originally faced due north toward Kings Beach, but Tom long ago lugged it around the Jeffrey pines until it afforded a prime, unbroken vista of South Lake Tahoe and the lights of Stateline. I wondered which lights belonged to what. Harrah’s. Harvey’s. Caesar’s. Names I knew only from hearing Tom talk. Although we sometimes skied at Heavenly Valley growing up, the closest we got to Nevada was the gondola ride and an occasional venture to that side of the mountain if it was snowing on the California face.

I stood up, brushing the dinner crumbs from the bench and stacking my cup and fork on my plate. It felt too lonely to eat in the cabin. With the drag boat races set to begin the next day, there were far more people to be found on the water. They might be half-drunk but they were friendly, waving and hallooing at me. My presence also forestalled impromptu picnics along our patch of shoreline, though I supposed the beer cans and cigarette butts would pile up after I went away.

The cabin stood still and quiet in the dusk. Letting myself in, I made a systematic circuit of the rooms, flipping on every light. I rooted through Uncle Paul’s ancient record collection and put Percy Faith on. I moved everyone’s bags to the appropriate bedroom. I turned on the television and forced myself to watch. The
Dukes of
Hazzard
re-run gave way to
Dallas
. For all the buzz about Bobby dying after saving Pam’s life, I had never seen the series and found my eyelids growing heavier. Burglars! Marauders! My eyes snapped open. It was ridiculous what Tom said about going to bed with a knife under my pillow. What if I rolled over in my sleep and cut myself with it? Still—

I went to the kitchen and slid the butcher knife out of the block. Then I got a Coke out of the fridge. I would just stay awake until they returned, is all. How late could that be? Midnight? One o’clock? Above me, one of the canister lights fizzed out. Aunt Terri would kill me if she knew all the electricity I was wasting. I couldn’t ever remember anyone changing a light bulb at the cabin—who knew if there were even any spares? Regretfully, I shut off the rest of the kitchen lights and those in the bedrooms, leaving the back porch and living room on. The important thing was to let the burglars know someone was home—if the whole house were lit up, maybe that screamed
Young girl all alone! Come and get this one!

Ten o’clock came and went. Ten-thirty. Eleven. Twice more I caught myself dozing off. Each time I came to, I got up and flipped Percy Faith over to start it again.
Theme from
“A Summer Place”
became the soundtrack of my dreams.

The third time I woke, a new sound intruded, over the murmuring television and the turntable needle tapping on the innermost ring of the LP.

It was the rattle of a doorknob.

The front door.

Mouth dry, I watched it jiggle. The door was locked, of course, I had made sure of that. The caller could not be my cousins—they had taken the spare key from the mud room. Maybe the group had split up, and those returning early figured I would still be awake? Then why didn’t they knock? Maybe they were all drunk and no one could manage the key. No. Not Jonathan, surely. He wouldn’t be drunk.

My palm closed on the handle of the butcher knife. I rolled off the couch as quietly as I could, dropping to the area rug. Then I crawled across the floor to avoid casting a shadow against the curtains. Where was the phone? Where had I left the phone? I heard a heavy tread on the porch followed by a pause, during which my heart hammered so violently it drowned the television out.

Make noise. Tom said to make noise.

I screwed my eyelids shut.
Father in heaven, please make this person go away!
Then I took hold of the barstool by its leg, lifted it and flung it from me with all my strength. It fell with a smash and a clatter against the wood floor. The person outside took two quick steps and then hesitated again. Go! Go!
Leave
! I kicked at the next barstool until it, too, went over. My hand scrabbled for the issue of
LIFE
Caroline Grant perused that afternoon. Rolling it up, I launched it at the front door where it hit with a loud
thwok
!

Now the footsteps were determined, but instead of fleeing the scene, they marched back to the door. A fist hammered then, and a voice called hoarsely, “Tom?”

I sat up. Well, that could hardly be a burglar, since Tom neglected to mention being on a first-name basis with them. “Who is it?” I hollered, more steadily than I would have imagined.

“Who’s that?” the erstwhile prowler responded. He shook the doorknob again. “Open the door. I didn’t know if anyone was awake.”

“We’re all still awake.” I clambered to my feet, my limbs clumsy with relief, even while my mind kept spinning ahead. Was this another friend Tom invited to Tahoe? Someone even more objectionable than Steve and Dave? Whoever he was, I decided better safe than sorry. I hung on to the butcher knife.

Putting my mouth to the door, I tried again. “Who is it? We’re not letting you in until you say.”

When the voice came again, the last of my dread and fear drained away. I had the door open before he even finished speaking.

There, fatigued and bedraggled, thinner than the last time I saw him and halfway around the world from where he was supposed to be, he stood. My uncle Paul.

“Frannie?”

His eyes took in my disheveled hair, my solitary state, the barstool wreckage behind me, the gleaming knife gripped in my right hand.

Turning scarlet, I put the weapon behind my leg guiltily and stepped back to let him in. “Hello, Uncle Paul.”

“Where is everyone else? Did I interrupt a game of cowboys and Indians?”

“Oh-h-h.” I hadn’t thought about this part.

“They can’t have gone to bed, and you’re still up!”

“Uh-h-h—”

“Frannie.” His gaze sharpened. “What is going on?”

I swallowed. He steered me to the couch, directing me to sit down while he shut off the turntable and television. Gently, he pried the butcher’s knife from my clutches and returned it to the kitchen. Through his eyes I saw the bottles of
Kahlua
and vodka still on the counter, the beer can in the greenhouse window. I should have put them away when I cleaned up the glasses!

“How are you here?” I asked, when he finally sank into the armchair. “Why aren’t you in China?”

“I wanted to surprise you all. Looks like I have. I certainly surprised your aunt when I showed up at home after dinner. I was beat, but when she told me about you all up here and Terri’s accident, I went right over to Roger’s and borrowed the Malibu. Your aunt Marie is asleep in the car—that’s why I was being so quiet. I didn’t want to wake her until I got inside.”

“Didn’t Uncle Roger come too?”

“He couldn’t. His gout flared up again.”

Uncle Paul took my hand in his—alarming in itself, since he’d never done such a thing before. “Frannie, tell me why you’re here alone and why you had a knife.”

“Shouldn’t we wake Aunt Marie up now?”

“Frannie.”

There was no way around it. I fidgeted. Crossed one leg under me on the couch. “Tom and…the rest of them…went into town. I…stayed behind. There—there have been some break-ins lately, so Tom thought it was a good idea if I—uh—armed myself if I felt nervous.”

Uncle Paul considered this, patting my hand absently. “Why didn’t you just go with them?”

“Tom—he said he would rather I didn’t.”

“And Jonathan? What did he say about all this?”

“He wasn’t home,” I said eagerly. “He was at the hospital with Aunt Terri. They were going to pick him up on the way.”

“On the way where?”

Surely he could feel the sweat break out on my palm under this Inquisition. “I think—I think they said something about H-Harrah’s.”

Apart from going very still, Uncle Paul said nothing for a minute. It was quiet enough that I could hear the little Bavarian clock in the kitchen. Tom long ago strangled the little cuckoo that emerged, but the doors continued to click open on the hour. It must be midnight. Two hours past Rachel and Julie’s school year curfew.

“It’s late,” said my uncle, reading my thoughts. “You’d better go to bed, Frannie. I’ll wait up for them. And if there are any burglary attempts, I’ll take care of them.” He released my hand and gave me a wink.

“But, Uncle Paul, I was going to share the little bedroom with Aunt Terri.”

“Take it anyway. Marie and I will figure something out. Good-night, Frannie.”

I had no choice but to go, but I paused before closing the bedroom door. “Uncle Paul? I—I’m glad you’re back.” Had Rachel heard me, she might have accused me of hypocrisy again, but I meant it truly, truly.

I was glad he was home.

We finally did see the drag boat races. Though not exactly as we had planned.

By the time they began on Saturday afternoon, all was changed. The Grants drove away in their stepfather’s sports car after breakfast, a woebegone Rachel seeing herself cheated out of the promised drive home with only the cold comfort that at least Julie was too. It was Caroline Grant who suggested to Uncle Paul that she and her brother leave, “to give your family time together,” and when Uncle Paul made no objection, the Grants could only pack up and go.

Tom woke barely in time to see them off and then snuck the phone out to wake Steve and Dave. “
Don’t
come over,” he warned them. “And don’t call.
Naw
, man, it’s cancelled. My dad’s here. Yes.
Here.
”

Yes.
Here.

There had not been many words the night before when my cousins and the Grants returned after one o’clock. I caught exclamations, belated introductions, awkward silences, shushing of Tom, who was inclined to be loud and musical when he had too much to drink. Then footsteps in the hall, the sink running, toilets flushing, doors closing, silence.

I don’t think anyone slept particularly well, apart from Tom, and he paid for it with the worst headache the next morning. Uncle Paul drank his coffee, smiling grimly upon his children and their guests while Jonathan engaged him in dogged conversation about China. Rachel and Julie kept their heads down and spoke not a word. Caroline Grant made a few attempts at being her bubbly self, but the Beresfords were too subdued to respond. There was a stirring when Eric joined us at the table. He was whistling David Bowie’s
China Girl
and nodded genially at Uncle Paul, who bobbed his head once in return. Rachel looked up hopefully, a tentative smile inviting him to sit beside her. Either he didn’t see it or he chose to ignore it, plopping down instead next to me. “Butter, please, Frannie.”