"I'm just happy you and Cary are getting along, Robert. I just hope you two will stay that way."
"We will," he promised. "You're really a good cook," he said. "I enjoyed the picnic."
"Thank you."
He paused and I saw he was thinking of something that was taking a great deal of courage to say, so I helped. "What is it, Robert?"
"I was just wondering. My parents are going to Boston next Saturday to buy some things for our place. I'm not going," he explained. "How would you like to come over to the hotel and maybe we could make dinner together? We could pretend we were the owners and we had a hotel full of guests and--"
"I don't know," I said, looking back at the house and wondering what I would say to Daddy. Robert looked very disappointed.
"Oh, well, it was just an idea," he said, opening the car door.
"I guess there's nothing wrong with my going to dinner at your house," I said. "I'll tell the truth: You invited me." "That is the truth," he said, encouraged.
"It's not lying if I don't mention that your parents are away."
"No, it's not lying."
"I'll work it out," I promised.
"Great. What should I make?"
"I'll think about it and let you know during the week," I said.
"It'll be like we're married," he said and leaned out to kiss me. "I love you, Laura," he whispered.
"I love you, too," I said and he started the engine, backed out, waved, and drove away over a road dappled with sunlight and shadows.
Perhaps some day we would be married, I daydreamed, and then I thought about Grandma Olivia. She probably wouldn't attend the wedding. She might even excommunicate me from the family as she did her own son, Chester, but like Uncle Chester, that was a chance I was willing to take and a price I was willing to pay for the one I loved.
However, I had no idea just how powerful Grandma Olivia was and how much she could raise the costs.
6
Hopelessly Devoted
.
Despite their wrestling match on the beach,
Cary and Robert remained friends, and Cary even went over to the Sea Marina in the middle of the week and helped Robert and his father with some of the refurbishing of the dock. On Thursday, we had a bad storm. The rain fell so hard the drops were bouncing on the streets, pounding the windows and roofs, making the walls of our house beat like the outside of a drum. Daddy couldn't go out on his lobster boat, so he drove us to and from school just to have something to do. It was dark and dreary and unusually cold for this time of year. It didn't begin to clear up until late Friday afternoon.
"At least we know we did a good job on the dock," Robert told me in the cafeteria, "thanks to Cary. The storm didn't have any effect on it at all."
Cary blushed at the compliment. The three of us had been inseparable over the past week. I could see we were becoming the subject of idle chatter, some of the more jealous girls dipping into their dark wells of innuendo and nastiness to bring up new vicious rumors. Someone left a note stuck in the door of my hall locker. It read, Does Grandpa sit and watch while you and Robert kiss?"
I ripped it into a dozen pieces, afraid of what Cary would do if he saw it. He didn't mention anything, but I sensed that he was getting ugly notes as well. If anyone bothered Robert, he didn't tell me either. However, on Friday morning, just before lunch, Cary got into a fight with Peter Thomas in the boys' locker room. Whatever Peter said put Cary into a wild rage. He bloodied Peter's nose and gave him a welt on his forehead.
I asked Cary what had happened, but he wouldn't talk about it. He wouldn't say anything in the principal's office, and once again, he was suspended for fighting. The school called Mommy and Daddy, and when they came to pick us up, Mommy cried in front of Cary, which was punishment enough. During the drive home, he sat with his head lowered and listened while Daddy spoke softly, almost like a man pronouncing a death sentence on a convict.
"You're not a boy anymore, Cary. You do a man's work. You've been doing it for some time now. When you're a boy, your parents are judge and jury. They're your government, your court judges, and they pass sentence on your bad deeds. But now, you have to live with yourself and what you do. You have to be responsible for your actions and answer to a higher voice than mine. You hurt all of us and you have to live with that. If they decide to throw you out of school, that will be that."
"It wasn't my fault, Dad," Cary protested. "Why wasn't it? You beat that boy good," "He had it coming to him."
"Why?" Daddy pursued, Cary just shook his
head. "He had it coming to him."