What I Saw and How I Lied

Chapter 16

Our routine changed. Joe and Mr. Grayson took off in the late mornings and would be gone until cocktail time. Mrs. Grayson cycled off and went away for hours. Mom and I took our time dressing and sat in the lobby or out by the pool, pretend­ing to be surprised when Peter would come by in his blue convertible and ask us if we felt like going for a spin. We knew that Joe didn't want us spending too much time with him, but neither Mom nor I really cared. Joe was so caught up in Mr. Grayson's world that he didn't have time to keep tabs on us.

It was a dreamy feeling, to drive along the ocean. The perfect blue of the sky meeting the blue of the sea, and every time I saw a palm tree it was a little shock, like life was yelling in my ear that this was me, and it was really happening.

Mom and I shared the front seat, which meant I got to sit in the middle, right next to Peter. We'd listen to the radio, talking about the songs we liked, "Almost Like Being in Love" and "Put Yourself in My Place, Baby." Sometimes I forgot to be embarrassed and I sang along, really sang like I did when I was alone.

"You have a nice voice," Peter said. "Like Doris Day."

I sang "Sentimental Journey," just a little of it, and then I swung into "Winter Wonderland."

"What are you, crazy?" Peter asked, laughing. "It's a hundred degrees out."

"Evie has the prettiest voice," Mom said. "But she's too shy to solo in glee club."

"Gloria Pillson is the soloist," I said.

"She has no shame, that girl," Mom commented.

"I say, come October, Gloria Pillson is going to have new competition," Peter said.

But I didn't want to think about going back. I didn't want to think about anything but here. Joe was right. Florida could be a whole new beginning for all of us.

We drove to the docks and waited for the fishing boats to come in. Peter told us the names of Florida fish, oddball names like pompano and sailfish and tarpon. We sat on the beach and watched the surf casters and their long, looping lines snaking out over the breakers. We stopped at deserted beaches to swim.

One afternoon Mom put her hand on my arm as I started toward the water. "No, Evie. You just had a sand­wich. You have to wait an hour."

Peter shook his head at Mom. "You believe all that stuff? Come on, Beverly. Evie's not a kid. I've been swim­ming in the ocean all my life. I can tell you, she's not going to drown if she just ate three bites of chicken."

"She's all I've got," Mom said. "I've got to watch out for my baby."

"Watch this, then." Suddenly Peter reached out and grabbed me by the waist. He flipped me over his shoul­der. I felt the skin of his back against my cheek, warm from the sun, softness over tight muscle. I whooped as he walked to the ocean and tossed me in like I was a handful of nothing.

I surfaced, blinking the water from my eyelashes. Mom was yelling and running down the sand, but she was laughing. She looked like a teenager as she pretended to pound Peter on his bare chest. He scooped her up in his arms and swung her around. Then he threw her in, too.

"I think it's time Evie got a driving lesson," Peter said a few days later. It was a hot, muggy day, and we were all sleepy. Peter had driven west, past the city and into the country, with fields and farms.

Mom opened her mouth, but Peter reached past me and put a finger on her lips. "And don't say she's too young. You game, Evie?"

So with bumps and starts and with the car weaving all over the road and Mom laughing in the backseat, not minding at all, I learned to drive. Peter never looked scared, even when I'd head for a ditch. He'd just reach over, grinning, and put one hand on the wheel.

Afterward we stopped at a filling station for icy cold Cokes. They had two water fountains, one for Whites and one for Coloreds. I'd seen a few of them on the drive south. A Negro girl was taking a drink while her mother looked on. When the mother met my eyes, she quickly looked away.

Peter was watching, too. "You don't like seeing it, do you, pussycat?"

"I never thought about it before. But after you fight a war, you figure the world is going to get a little more fair, don't you?"

Peter waved his Coke bottle. "You take the whole world, it's all segregated. Between the haves and the have-nots. Down here the coloreds are lucky, in a way. They have signs. They can't make a mistake. The rest of us get it wrong all the time. We have to figure out how to break the rules."

I didn't believe Peter meant what he said. I didn't wonder why a rich man's son would be so mean and feel so bitter.

I watched his throat as he took a long sip from the bottle. "But you can break the rules," I said. "They can't."

"Sure they can. Look at Jackie Robinson."

"Yeah, that's what people say when they want to stop an argument about the coloreds," I said. "It makes me feel sorry for Jackie Robinson. That's a lot for one man to do, on top of covering second base."

Peter shook his head. "You're good, you know that?"

"I'm not so good," I said.

"Don't shrug it off," Peter said. "It's better than mink, what you have."

"Nothing's better than mink," Mom said. She slung her arm around me. She kissed me on the temple, a cer­tain place that only she knows. "Except Evie."

Then she put her hand out, her palm toward me. I put my palm against hers. We locked fingers.

"You and me," she said.

"Stick like glue."

"Just like Fred and Ginger do," we said together. Peter smiled at us. "What's that?”

“We've been saying it forever," I said. "Through all the bad times.”

“Bad times?"

"What, you think we haven't had any?" Mom chal­lenged him, smiling, but her look was tough, like he'd gotten her all wrong and she didn't like it.

"Oh, I guess when Joe was away .. ."

"Well, sure, but before that," Mom said. "Late on rent day, getting kicked out of our apartment, no money for anything but a can of beans —"

"When I got scarlet fever —"

"And the doctor bills —"

"And then the worst time. When Aunt Vivian wanted to take me away from Mom and adopt me — Mom fought her like crazy. She even risked her job, and there were no jobs around back then."

"Nobody takes my baby away," Mom said.

"So what happened?" Peter asked.

"I prayed in church," I said.

"And God heard," Mom said. "He sent a miracle.”

“Clue me in," Peter said.

"Aunt Vivian got pregnant," I said. "And she didn't want me anymore.”

“That was a miracle?"

"You never saw Aunt Viv," Mom said pointedly.

Mom and I never said anything to each other, but we didn't have to. She knew and I knew that it was bet­ter not to mention our drives with Peter. We struck a

bargain, but we didn't have to talk about it. After he dropped us off, I would at least pretend to do homework in the room. I did a lot of writing Mrs. Peter Coleridge in my notebook, which is exactly the kind of stupid behavior I used to roll my eyes at when Margie used to do it.

Mom took golf lessons, which proved to me how much a place can change you, because Mom's old idea of exercise was crossing her legs. "Who knew I'd take to golf?" she said. She grew tan and slimmer and blonder as the days went on. She'd come home laughing about her lousy score, her car plastered with orange petals. I'd watch from the window as she tossed her keys to Wally and ran up the stairs. I watched him soap the car down, washing it in slow circles, then stream water from buckets down it until it shone again. Sometimes if no one was around he'd take off his shirt and work bare-chested in the sun, and I was surprised at his tight, ropy muscles.

I don't know when it happened, but things started to turn, just a little bit, like when you smell the bottle of milk, and you know it's going to be sour tomorrow, but you pour it on your cereal anyway.

Joe was drinking more. Before dinner he'd have a drink or two before we went downstairs for cocktails. He didn't want to get the fish-eye from Grayson, he said, because Mr. Grayson only had one gin and tonic at night. He said that Mr. Grayson was dragging his feet and he didn't know why he put up with it. He asked Mom to spend more time with Mrs. Grayson, because he was sure she was putting the kibosh on the deal. He put off our return to New York again, and even had a shouting match long distance with Grandma Glad about it. Grandma Glad wasn't happy about Joe maybe starting a business in Florida.

"This is my chance, Ma!" I heard him yell. "Maybe this is my lucky day, did you ever think of that?"

Lucky days. That's what I thought. I had fistfuls of luck, and life was candy. I walked pretty, and I threaded a scarf through my belt loops and tied it tight to show off my waist. I didn't pay attention to Joe, or the Graysons. I counted each day as another day to spend with Peter.

Except that now I was tired of our drives, of Mom next to me on the seat. I wanted to see him alone.

Margie and I had memorized a poem in Every Young Girl's Guide to Popularity:

Squandered virtue was a sin, Margie told me. But she had eight kids in her family. It seemed to me that her mother squandered her virtue all over the place.

Your reputation. What did that mean? Back home, it meant you couldn't go past first base with a boy. But here ... I knew no one. No one could see. What was stopping me from finding out what lay behind Peter's kiss? He had kissed me that one time, a real kiss, right on the mouth. Sure, he'd regretted it, but he'd done it. He'd called me irresistible, so why was he resisting?

Then one night as I was falling asleep, I guessed it.

He was waiting for me to let him know I was ready.