The Beresfords (6 page)

As the evening wound down I began to catch Tammy’s hints that she would like to be alone with her ex. She noted how late I was up but could hardly recommend I go to bed since it was summer and I was fourteen. She asked if Rachel and Julie wouldn’t be wondering where I was, thought it was amazing that Aunt Terri wasn’t busting in to check on me, and so on. Reluctantly, I went upstairs. The girls were watching
Sixteen Candles
on HBO—it had to be the third time that month.

“Has she left yet?” asked Julie. “The downstairs TV is bigger.”

When I shook my head, Rachel nudged her. “Let’s just go turn the TV on in the living room. She’ll get the hint.”

“No way! First she’ll tell us how we shouldn’t be watching this movie because there’s too much drinking and sex talk in it.”

“Well, that means she saw it, so it’s not like she’s better than us. C’mon, Julie.”

Down they went. My bedroom was stuffy, so I opened the window and leaned out, letting the cool night air prickle the hairs on my forearms. My eyes traced Tom’s old escape route: across the lip of roof, past the playroom to the corner of the house, where, with a modest leap he could make an outstretched branch and drop to the grass. He must have been about my age when he started his daredevil activities. About my age and size.

The metal window frame scraped me as I hoisted myself through, and I whacked my kneecap hard on my chin when my sandal caught on the sill and I had to jerk it free, but I made it out. Even though I didn’t want to go anywhere, it was kind of exciting just to be perched there. And even though I wasn’t doing anything wrong, my heart beat faster. Maybe it was a little bit wrong after all, since I bet Aunt Terri would let me have it if she caught me. I
scooched
along the roof to where it ended, intersecting another wall at a right angle, and squatted on my haunches. If Aunt Terri came out of her house now and stood on her front step, I would be out of sight.

Below me, the front door open and shut.

“Drive safely,” Jonathan said.

“Wait a second,” came Tammy’s voice, lower. “I just want to say something.”

“Haven’t you been saying something all night?” His voice was teasing.

“Not like that, Jon. I couldn’t say this earlier—not with Frannie there—”

I gulped, my foot slipping on its tile shingle.

Tammy paused. I could picture her cocking her head, but when silence fell again, she went on. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since Thanksgiving, Jon. I mean, it was good to take time off from each other…”

Oh, no! I thought.
Oh, no!

“I think it was the right decision,” said Jonathan cautiously.

“To take time off?”

“To break up, Tammy.”

“The right decision at the time, you mean.”

“At the time and—and still for now.” His voice was gentle. He didn’t want to hurt her feelings.

She, on the other hand, sounded more determined. “I thought
I
was the one who initiated breaking up, Jon.”

“You did. I’m saying it was the right thing to do. You’re a great person, Tammy. I really like you—”

“But you don’t think you like me
that way
anymore, is that it?”

“Tammy—”

“You think you like somebody else now?”

“No. It’s not that. But I think we’re headed different directions. You said yourself that we were. We’ve gone over this so many times!”

“But even if I said now that I decided not to be a missionary nurse and I was okay with you not being a doctor, that wouldn’t change your mind?”

“You don’t want to be a nurse anymore?”

“I didn’t say that exactly. I was posing a hypothetical.”

There was a longer pause. “Tammy, it wouldn’t change my mind. We’re friends now. I see you as a friend.”

“Jonathan!” she was breathing harder now. I pictured her hands clenched in fists by her side, the way she looked when she really got going. “Aren’t you going to ask me why
I
changed my mind?”

Because you still like him, I thought. It’s obvious. Something similar must have crossed my cousin’s mind because he didn’t respond.

“I changed my mind,” Tammy barreled ahead, “because God told me that you’re going to be my husband.”

He did
what
?! Both feet came out from under me then, and I thumped onto my backside, sending pine needles skittering down the tiles. The game would’ve been up for sure, except, in all the noise below me, no one noticed. There was a muffled exclamation. Something ran into something. Aunt Marie’s watering can fell over with a clunk. Chains creaked. Jonathan must have collapsed into the porch swing. “Tammy, what are you saying?”

“I’m saying, a couple weeks ago I was having my quiet time, not even thinking about you. I was praying for Guatemala. I remember. I wanted to look up this one verse but my regular Bible was downstairs, so I just grabbed my New Testament off my bookshelf—you know, the one with the cover that snaps shut?—and I unsnapped it and this picture of us fell out. The one from the prom. When I went to stick it back in, my Bible fell open to the Wedding at Cana, and all of a sudden I just
knew
. It was like God spelled it out for me: He Will Be Your Husband.”

Jonathan whistled. “I guess I should be relieved your Bible didn’t open to
Jael
hammering a tent peg through
Sisera’s
forehead.” His laughing tone sounded forced.

“You think I’m kidding.”

“The wedding at Cana could also mean God wants to release you from your vow to abstain from alcohol in college.”

“Now you’re being a jerk.”

“Tammy.” Jonathan dropped his attempts to joke. His voice was gentle again. “I’m not saying I doubt you, but I have to say this is news to me. If I’m the one you’re supposed to marry, don’t you think God would’ve mentioned it to me, too?”

“Jon—I’m not making this up—”

“I didn’t say you were.”

“But you think I’m saying it so you’ll get back together with me.”

“I didn’t say that either.”

“But you don’t believe me.”

“I do believe you. I believe you think you heard that. I’m just not sure you heard right.”

“Are you so sure I heard wrong?”

“I’m going to say that, in such a huge decision, it at least makes sense that I should be involved. That God wouldn’t tell you about it without also telling me.”

“How do you know he’s not trying to tell you about it?” Tammy insisted. “You’re not even asking the question. You’re not even saying you’ll pray about it.”

“I shouldn’t have to pray about it!” Jonathan protested. “If he knocked you over the head with it, why not me? It’s not a question I’m asking; therefore I shouldn’t have to pray about it.”

“It’s not a question you’re asking, and you don’t even want to ask it. You won’t pray about it because you’re afraid I might be right.”

“Oh, come on, Tammy!”

“Look—it’s not like I was totally thrilled to hear this either. You’re a great guy, but I’d moved on too. But if there’s something in it, I don’t want to miss what God has for me. Just promise me you’ll pray about it. Promise me and I won’t bring it up for a while. We’ll just go on being friends this summer.”

He said nothing.

“What are you afraid of? If I’m wrong, I’m wrong.”

“Fine.” He gave an exasperated laugh. “If it’ll shut you up for now, I promise I’ll pray about it. Okay?”

“Deal. I’ll shut up now and leave. See you again, though, later? I’m volunteering in Children’s, so I’ll be busy with VBS this week, but I’ll call you, okay?”

“Sure.”

“Okay. Bye then, hubby.”

“Tammy!”

“Just kidding!”

“Get out of here!”

“I’m going, I’m going.
ʼ
Night
.”

To my infinite relief, she left.

I was totally confused. Despite being jealous of Tammy, I’d always admired her. She was faithful, bold, fun—but this was too much! I didn’t think she’d make something like that up to manipulate Jonathan, but that meant it was all either (a) True, or (b) a sure sign that she had gone
off the Religious Deep-End. Neither possibility comforted me, although, given the choice, I would pick (b) in a heartbeat.

It was a long time before Jonathan went back in the house. He sat in the porch swing, rocking and rocking, while I crouched overhead. I was cramped and getting cold, but not for the world would I let him know I’d heard everything.

If Jonathan lost any sleep over Tammy’s revelation, he showed no sign of it the next day. I wish I could say the same for myself. I had been up and down several times, at one point waking from a nightmare where I was Jonathan and Tammy’s flower girl and couldn’t trail rose petals artfully down the aisle as requested because they welded together like an artichoke.

“You look wiped out, Frannie,” Jonathan said. I found him out in the garage where he had his Civic jacked up to investigate a slow fluid leak.

“You don’t look so hot yourself,” I said. “You have black stuff all over your face.”

He laughed, sitting up on the wheeled creeper he made in junior-high shop class. It was barely long enough to support his frame anymore. “That’s no good. Think I should run by Aunt Terri’s and rub it clean on her little embroidered hand towels?”

“Rub what clean?” demanded Aunt Terri herself. She came marching up with her straw hat and gardening gloves on. “There you are, Frannie. No one’s answering the phone inside, so I had to stop in the middle of everything and come over here. I need you to help me cut roses.”

“Kind of a hot day to be out working in the garden, isn’t it?” Jonathan suggested.

“Nonsense. Now is perfect. It’s only going to get hotter. And Frannie certainly can’t spend the day hanging around doing nothing. Come on, Frannie—another day and the roses will be past their prime. It won’t take long, with two of us.”

That’s what she thought. Apart from mothering her nieces and nephews, Aunt Terri’s rose garden consumed the balance of her time and energy. She collected varieties the way other women collected designer shoes: fat, double-bloomed
Fantin-Latours
, like bowls crammed with pink petals; milk-white Margaret
Merrills
; ready-made bouquets of clustering crimson Chevy Chase; richly-scented Alohas, around which bees buzzed; elegant Golden Jubilees, thorny as the Alohas but more reserved in their display; shapely, pink-white Swan Lakes, climbing through partial shade. There were more—far more—whose names I’ve forgotten. On days like that hot summer one they all blended in my mind in prickly, blowsy, overpoweringly-fragrant profusion. We were probably only at it an hour, cutting roses and de-
thorning
stems, pruning and propping, watering and arranging. Long enough for my arms to look like I’d been attacked by a pack of wildcats and my head to pound and face to turn bright red.

When Aunt Terri finally released me from my torture, a vase of blooms for Aunt Marie thrust in my hands, I stumbled back across the street, longing to guzzle a gallon of ice water and throw myself in the pool.

“Oh, how lovely,” said Aunt Marie. She lifted one hand toward the vase I held out and then let it drop. “Paola,” she called to the housekeeper, “where should we put these?”

Paola left off unloading the dishwasher to take charge of the roses. She shook her head, clicking her tongue as she watched me drink too fast and choke. “You got the headache? You want the aspirin?”

As the child of a drug addict, I tended to avoid pills. I shook my head.

“You sunburned, too, you know, Francisca.”

“I know.” I refilled my glass. “Where’s Jonathan?”

“I think they’re all in the backyard,” said Aunt Marie. “Tom’s friends came over. Very nice young people. What were their names, Paola?”

“Grant. Eric and Caroline.”

My shoulders slumped, but Paola gave me a little push. “You don’t be shy. Go. I put the sandwiches out there.”

No one saw me come out. They were gathered around Tom, who had fetched the volleyball net from the pool shed and was unwinding it with Jonathan’s help. Eric Grant was reaching behind the swimsuit-clad bodies to poke Julie in the side, putting on an innocent face when her head whipped around. She caught his eye and smiled. Caroline Grant must have noticed the unspoken dress code at the Beresfords and decided to follow the letter, if not the spirit, of the law, because today she wore a one-piece with giant diamond cutouts that left her midriff and the small of her back bare. A bathing suit definitely not made for swimming or diving. Even pool volleyball might be pushing it.

“It won’t be fair at all,” she was saying. “Volleyball is all about height, and you Beresfords are so tall.”

“That’s where strategy comes into play,” her brother Eric replied. He faked throwing the ball at Rachel to see her jump.

“My team will take Eric,” said Tom. “One midget per side. It’s all fair.”