The Children (10 page)

“Oh, we used to have wonderful dances at the club. Don't you ever go and dance at the club?”

“That's just for old people.”

“We used to have dances at the club all summer long,” Nan liked to recall, peering up at us over her eyeglasses as she spoke. She always sat on one of the rockers while Sally and I sat wedged together on the old porch swing. Sally was taller and pushed against the floor with her bare foot to make the swing move. Aunt Nan was the eldest in Whit's family; she was at least sixty by the time Whit and Joan married. Her hair was white and cut into a sensible bob. Caked talcum powder was usually visible in the folds of her armpits. Her fingernails were short and neatly manicured and her thick index fingers were remarkably nimble as they tipped the tiny loops of yarn in and around the needle, in and around, then in and around again.

“Didn't you also dance at the Harwich Inn?” Sally would prompt, her elbow digging into my side.

“Oh yes, we'd have great fun dancing at the inn.”

The old Harwich Inn had burned down in the early 1970s, but it was once a very popular nightspot on the lake. There had been a restaurant and a dance hall at the inn once, and Sally and I loved to hear stories about it.

“What kind of music did you listen to?” I would ask, biting my lip to keep from laughing.

“Oh, we had wonderful music. A band would come up from New York every summer. The bandleader's name was Winslow Hobbs. Did you ever hear of him? Winslow was his first name. Isn't that a wonderful name? It was the Winslow Hobbs Quartet.”

Sally would start choking with suppressed giggles at this point, but she managed to squeak, “No, Auntie Nan, I don't think I've ever heard you talk about him.”

“No? Oh, he was very popular. He was a—well, you know, he was a—black man.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, the Winslow Hobbs Quartet, they were very popular. I'm sure Whit remembers Mr. Hobbs—he ended up moving to this area after he retired. But when I was a girl, they were only here in the summer. The Conways put them up in the rooms behind the inn for the entire summer. Winslow Hobbs was quite a good-looking man … a very handsome fellow. He was a black fellow, you know, but he had been educated at a conservatory in Louisiana, believe it or not, so he knew classical tunes in addition to the popular songs they played here at night. He was a very talented man, Mr. Hobbs.”

“And you say he was a dark-skinned man?” Sally would ask, ignoring my hysterical breathing.

“Yes, dear, but I never notice that kind of thing. I don't notice a person's race. You could be red, white, green, or striped and I wouldn't notice. I see what's
inside
a person.”

“I think Whit told me he learned the banjo from one of the guys in the band?” Sally or I would say, encouraging her to go on.

“Yes, yes, he did. We would go over to the inn sometimes, in the afternoon when the men in the band would be relaxing out next to the lake. One of the gentlemen, the bass player, also played the banjo, and he's the one who taught Whit. I would go there with Whit sometimes, though, of course, we never told Father.”

“Why not?”

“Oh,
you
know,” Nan would confide. Her white cheeks would turn pink and she would lower her voice, then glance around to see if anybody was in earshot, as if her father, long dead, might be lingering. “It was a very different time. It would have been very scandalous for a young lady to be seen chatting with members of a
band.
”

Sally and I spent hours fantasizing about Aunt Nan and Winslow Hobbs, the one black man she had apparently ever known. And we suspected that she had known him a lot better than she let on. We had seen photographs of Nan when she was a teen and we knew she hadn't always been plump and short of breath. Her hair hadn't always been white. She was once a raven-haired beauty. Aunt Nan was entirely different in the photos, almost the exact opposite of what she was now, so we imagined that her personality might also have been in stark contrast to the one she now possessed. In our minds, young Auntie Nan had once been a voluptuous, sex-crazed nymphomaniac.

Around the time we were in middle school, Sally and I discovered a treasure. It was a cardboard box filled with dirty paperback books—a thrilling collection of trashy, pornographic stories that we found in the woods behind old Mr. Finch's house. He was creepy, old Mr. Finch, from then on. We read the books over and over again, and for quite some time we imagined that all the grown-ups in our world, especially the women who appeared to be the most polite and wholesome, were constantly throwing themselves, lusty-eyed, shuddering, and heaving of bosom, at their Peeping Tom neighbors, traveling salesmen, or, in the case of Aunt Nan, bandleaders. We loved devising stories about young Auntie Nan sneaking out, late at night, when old Mr. and Mrs. Whitman were fast asleep. We imagined her running barefoot along the lakeshore in a sheer nightdress, her long hair streaming behind her, her eyes darting this way and that.

“He would be waiting for her,” Sally would say.

“And her panties would be moist,” I would chime in, giggling.

“GROSS,” Sally would say. Then: “His cock was so hard that it ached. He would tear off her nightgown, even though she begged him not to.”

“What? Why would she beg him not to?” I'd ask. I always got bogged down in the logistics, which annoyed Sally.

“The woman always begs the man to stop whatever he's doing, stupid. It's in all the books.”

“I guess it would have been hard to explain all the shredded nighties to her parents. Okay, she begged him not to, but he ripped it off her body anyway.”

“With his teeth. Then he'd turn her over so he could see her ripe buttocks,” Sally would offer, and we'd both carry on, constantly interrupting each other, crying with laughter as we spoke.

“He would
enter
her, he would
ram
her,” Sally said.

“From
behind
, he entered her from behind, and that's when Aunt Nan started bucking like a wild bronco—”

“She was screaming with pleasure and he had to put his hand over her mouth so the people at the inn couldn't hear them.”

“So she bit him, and then he gave her pert ass a spanking.”

“NO! Aunt Nan's breasts were pert. Her ass wasn't pert, it was—” Sally could barely say the words, she was breathless with laughter.

“It was ripe,” I would say.

You can see how it was impossible, some days, for us to look at Auntie Nan without collapsing in helpless giggles. But we adored her. Sally cried so hard at her funeral that our mother felt her forehead to see if she was coming down with a fever.

“Good Lord, dear,” Joan had whispered to her in the church pew. “People can hear you.”

Sally had wiped away her tears and took a few deep breaths to control her sobbing.

In the car, on the way home, Joan said, “Sally, you're so sensitive. Nan was old. She had a good life.”

Sally and I remained silent in the backseat.

“She's so emotional,” Joan said to Whit, who was driving. “I really worry about her.”

 

EIGHT

Riley's barking woke me up from a very deep sleep. He was racing around the hall, broadcasting a sound that was somewhere between a canine bark and a human scream—
a woof, woof WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOF, woof woof WOOOOOOOOOF.
I had never heard him go off like that. My heart was racing. I jumped from my bed and peered out into the hall.

Joan came running from her room and grabbed my arm.

“There's somebody outside,” she whispered.

“No, it's probably just a raccoon or something.”

“I'm telling you, there's somebody out there! I heard a car on the driveway. Wait. Shhhh. Listen. Somebody's on the porch.” She was squeezing my arm hard.

“I can't hear anything above the dog.”

“If it were a raccoon, Riley would be outside. Listen to the way he's barking; he's terrified.”

Joan was right. The dog often took off at night when he heard animals outside, but now he was racing from the door to the front windows and back to the door again, not daring to go out. His barking was shrill and hysterical.

“Should we call nine one one?” I asked, my heart pounding.

“Wait, wait right there,” Joan said. She tiptoed back into her room and then, when she returned, she clutched me by the wrist and said, “Stay behind me. I have the hornet spray.”

“WHAT?”

“SHHHHHH! Just do what I say. When we get downstairs, run into the kitchen and get the phone. I'll guard the door.”

But I was behind Joan, clutching her nightgown. “Joan, no, no, come with me,” I said. “Come in the kitchen with me.”

Together we descended the stairs until we stood at the very bottom, in the foyer. The dog was whining and circling our feet. I was clutching Joan's wrist.

“Riley is such a coward,” Joan whispered. “Why won't he go out and attack?”

“He's stupid,” I said. “Come on, let's go in the kitchen.”

“Wait, I don't hear anything now,” Joan said.

We both stopped breathing.

“It was nothing,” Joan whispered after a moment. “A raccoon, nothing.”

We started toward the kitchen, when suddenly the dog resumed his maniacal barking. The front door remained closed, but a cold gust of air burst from it. The dog door! Whatever it was had just pushed open the flap of the dog door.

“Stop!” Joan cried. “Stop, or my dog will attack!”

We heard the
thwap
of the dog door and then a thud as somebody tumbled onto the floor. Joan wrenched her arm from my grip. Then she stood, legs planted square like a navy SEAL, turned her face to the side and, yelling, “CLOSE YOUR EYES, LOTTIE!” sent a long jet stream of hornet spray in the general direction of the intruder.

After a brief silence came the scream.

“I've called the police!” Joan said. “Get out! Get out!” And she sprayed again, this time holding the nozzle down until she heard the words “MOM! MOMMY.”

It was Sally. It was my sister, Sally.

There followed then a minor hysteria. I switched on the hall light and we saw Sally kneeling, with both hands over her face. She was coughing and crying. “WHY? Why?” she cried. “Why the fuck did you do this to me, Joan?”

“Oh, honey, oh my God, sweetie, I thought you were a killer. I thought you were breaking in.”

“I can't breathe. I can't breathe!” Sally was rolling around on the floor now. She wore a black skirt and a white blouse—she must have come straight from a concert—and she was tugging the blouse from where it was tucked into the waistband of her skirt. She rubbed frantically at her eyes with the hem of her blouse.

“Oh God, oh, sweetie, I'm so sorry. I'm calling the ambulance,” said Joan.

“NO!” Sally appeared to be hyperventilating. She was panting. “I can't breathe.” I was kneeling next to her, trying to pull her hair back from her face, but she pushed me away.

“Honey, I think you're breathing too much,” Joan said.

“WHAT? You want me … to stop … breathing?” Sally barked. She was coughing between words.

“No, you just need to slow down your breathing. You're going to hyperventilate.”

“She's suffocating, Joan, not hyperventilating.” I was crying now, too. “She can't breathe!”

“I'm calling an ambulance,” Joan said, starting for the kitchen.

“JOAN! NO!” Sally staggered to her feet.

“Honey, what if you suffocate?”

“No, Joan, I'm not going to the hospital. Don't call.”

“Sweetie—”

Sally took a few shaky steps. She was holding my hand. “I just need water.”

“Let me call Everett,” Joan said.

“What? No! I just need to rinse out my eyes. OH, THEY'RE BURNING,” Sally cried.

“Okay, okay,” Joan said, “let's go rinse out your eyes.”

I led Sally to the kitchen sink. I tried to help her splash water on her eyes, but she pushed me away and stuck her entire face under the running water.

Joan was tapping out a number on the phone.

“Sally,” I said, but she wasn't listening.

“Sorry to wake you. Can you come over?” Joan was saying.

Sally pulled her face from under the water. “JOAN! Who is that? I told you not to call the hospital!”

“No, sweetie, it's Everett,” Joan said. Then into the phone: “Sally's having trouble breathing.”

“Fuck,” Sally said, and put her face back under the cool water.

“I know, but she doesn't want me to call the ambulance.”

“Because I'm fine,” Sally barked into the sink.

When Everett arrived a few minutes later, Joan and Sally and I were engaged in a sort of shoving match over the sink.

“Get AWAY!” Sally said.

“Let me just see your eyes,” said Joan.

“Let go of her, Joan. Just let her go,” I said.

“I just want to see if her eyes are red!”

“Hey, hey. What's going on?” Everett asked. We stopped what we were doing and stared up at him. I saw him wince when he looked at Sally, so I looked at her, too. My sister's eyes were swollen; her cheeks were striped with mascara. She was gasping and sobbing.

“What happened?” he asked.

Sally turned back to the sink and splashed more water on her face.

“I sprayed her with hornet spray,” Joan said.

“What? Why?” Everett asked, then added, “Did you call the ambulance?”

“No, no, no,” Sally said, turning to him now, wiping her face with her sleeve. “Don't call them.”

“Shhhh, Sally, let me see,” Everett said. He put her face between his hands and gently tilted it up. I could see that the skin around her eyes was scarlet, making the irises—what little we could see of them—seem even more vividly blue than they usually were.