What I Saw and How I Lied

Chapter 18

It was time to wear the moonlight dress.

I wanted to make an entrance. Mrs. Grayson would say, I was sure, that the dress deserved an entrance.

I got dressed the way I'd seen Mom do it. Not just throwing on clothes, but walking back and forth between the mirror and the closet, brushing my hair, studying my face, sitting in my slip, smoothing the tiniest wrin­kles from the skirt of the dress. Carefully, slowly, putting on lipstick. Watching myself in the mirror as I put pow­der on my nose and my bare shoulders. Perfume in my cleavage, the way I'd seen Mom do.

I'd mostly been just a kid during the war, and now that it was over, the only thing I wanted to remember was the romance of it. I didn't want to think of it like Mrs. Grayson, that it gave the small-minded among us something to do. It made me think of Grandma Glad, pursing her lips over the success of her Victory Garden, refusing to give away her cabbages.

I wanted to think of music, of dances, of falling in love and getting married before he got shipped overseas. And the songs — I'll be seeing you in all the old familiar places — all that longing, all that waiting. It made sense to me now. Every lyric. It wasn't about just hearing it on the radio. The strings were stretched and quivering and going crazy inside me.

If Peter and I had met during the war, would we have gotten engaged? Would things have moved faster? I knew girls who were pre-engaged at school. I used to laugh at their smugness. Now I wanted it. Time rushed at me like a subway, all air and heat. I was afraid one day we'd all pack up our cars and drive away, and I'd lose him.

"You ready in there?" Joe bellowed.

"I'll meet you downstairs! I'm not ready!"

"Aw, criminy, Evie. Do me a favor. Don't turn into your mother."

I could see it in his face. Peter saw me, really saw me, and so did Mrs. Grayson and so did Mom and so did Joe.

"You look like a dream," Peter said.

"Where did you get that dress?" Joe bellowed the words, and the lobby went silent.

Mrs. Grayson moved forward and took my arm. "I bought it for her. Doesn't she look stunning?"

"Beautiful," Peter said. "She's all grown up."

"No, she's not!" The sharpness in Mom's voice made everyone freeze.

Joe came forward. He took my other arm. "Go upstairs and put something decent on."

"Joe, she's perfectly decent —" Mrs. Grayson started.

"I'm her father!”

Joe tugged me toward the elevator.

"She's almost sixteen," Mrs. Grayson said. But Mr. Grayson looked at her and she stopped talking.

Joe went on one side, Mom on the other. They steered me into the elevator and we went up to the room. I wanted to cry in great heaving gulps, in a way I hadn't cried in forever. But I didn't.

Mom went to my closet and got out my old best dress, the pink one with the lace on the collar. She unbuttoned the gown and got me out of it. She pulled the pink dress over my head.

"That's it," Joe said from the other room. "That's it, Evie. If you're sneaking around behind my back, it stops now."

Mom's fingers fumbled as she tried to zip up the dress.

"I won't have that man sniffing after my daugh­ter!" Joe shouted. "Did you see the way he looked at her? Like a boy scout going for his merit badge in hound dog!"

Mom got the zipper up. She turned me around. She leaned forward and wiped my face with a wadded-up tissue. Which didn't make sense, because I wasn't crying. She was.

"It has to stop," she whispered. "Baby, it has to stop."

Joe's mood improved after three cocktails. At the restau­rant he pounded Tom on the back and called him "buddy." His face was flushed red, and Mom started to stub out cigarette after cigarette. I had Shirley Temples and a big bowl of spaghetti. It was not a good combo.

It was supposed to be a celebration, but nobody was celebrating. They were just making noise, like Joe, or drinking, like Mom. Mrs. Grayson and Mom weren't talking. I thought it was maybe because of the dress. Mrs. Grayson ordered a gin and tonic and didn't drink it. Mom didn't eat.

Joe kept saying, "It's a night to remember!" but you knew everyone else would want to forget it the very next morning. Even Mr. Grayson didn't look happy. He ate his steak in big bites and tucked a napkin into his collar to eat his spaghetti. It made him look like a ten-year-old.

Peter gave me a wry smile when we sat down, but he didn't try to talk to me. Every bite of dinner, every moment, I wanted to grab his hand and run out the door. The dinner felt like the longest night, like the night the world would end.

"You know, we never went fishing," Joe said. "We should do that tomorrow. Hire a boat down at the dock, make a day of it."

Nobody looked too excited about that.

"What do you say, Tom?" Joe asked. "We'll pack a thermos of drinks, get Rudy in the kitchen to pack a hamper."

"I heard there's a bad storm out in the ocean," Mr. Grayson said.

"We won't be in the ocean. We'll stay in the lake."

"I get seasick on motorboats," Mrs. Grayson said. "Sailboats, I like."

"You just have to know how to handle them easy," Peter said. "I grew up on the water. Got my sea legs early."

"Aw," Joe said, "did your rich daddy buy you a widdle boat? Did he let you toot the horn?"

"Sure," Peter said. "I like to blow horns. Nice and loud, so everyone can hear."

This seemed to make Joe even madder. "Nobody invited you, Coleridge."

"I did," Tom said. "If we're going, we should all go."

"You see that, Joe?" Peter said. "Nobody likes being left behind. It makes you feel kind of itchy."

"So scratch."

Everyone looked at Joe and Peter. The wave of fury crashed and rolled back between them.

"Isn't the moon pretty?" Mrs. Grayson said.

Everyone smoked a cigarette with coffee after dinner, and then it was time to go at last. We all stood outside, waiting for the valets to get our cars. The dark palms whispered in a quickening breeze. I looked at Peter. He had his hands in his pockets and was looking at Mom and Joe.

Look at me look at me look at me look at me

The valet brought Mr. Grayson's car, and as everyone

started to move toward it Peter was suddenly next to me.

"What we need is a hurricane hole.”

“A hurricane hole?"

"It's a place to leave your boat in a hurricane. You find a little cove and tie her up, let her ride out the storm. You and me should get ourselves a hurricane hole."

"Time to get rolling, Coleridge." Joe was right next to us now.

"I'm not good enough for your daughter, Joe?" Peter asked. "Is that it? I'm not good enough to even talk to her? What else aren't I good enough for?"

Joe looked like he wanted to throw a punch.

And then Peter spoke so softly that only Joe and I could hear it. "Who's the dirty rat here, Joe? From where I'm standing?"

The two of them faced each other. Joe's face was closed up. His soft brown eyes had gone black and dull. I real­ized something for the first time: I'd gotten it all wrong. Peter wasn't afraid of Joe. Joe was scared of Peter.

Joe threw a punch. Peter stepped back and the fist didn't connect with a jaw or a nose, just Peter's ear, and not that hard. Joe staggered and almost fell, and this made him more angry. He looked like he was wind­ing up for another one, but Peter stepped back, both hands up, palms out.

"I think it's time we called it a night, don't you, Sarge? Good night, Evie."

Peter quickly turned and walked across the parking lot. The Graysons and Mom had their backs to us while they got into the car. The valet was hurrying to get Peter's car, and Peter caught up to him and clapped him on the shoulder.

It had happened so fast that nobody had seen it but me.