Riggs Park Part 6

"At home I sleep in the bas.e.m.e.nt." In the subterranean warren of rooms in Penny's house, it was always chilly.

"When we have the overnighter at Locust Point, we get to sleep right on the beach. They say there's always a breeze," Marilyn said.

"We'll like the overnighter," I said.

"What I'd really like," Penny told me, "is to go home."

Danny had been kissing Darlene for a long time outside the rec hall while the three of us had spied on them. Now and then Eli walked around the building to check who was there. Danny let go of her then and they talked. Another week had pa.s.sed. Darlene had been meeting Danny every chance she could. It was a true romance. Inside, the Friday-night movie was Ma and Pa Kettle Go to Town.

Danny pressed Darlene against the side of the building and kissed her again. We put our hands over our mouths to stifle giggles. It was a testimony to their absorption that they didn't hear us. We were only four feet away.

Danny's hand wandered to Darlene's breast. This had happened several times before and she'd pushed it away, but this time she let it linger on her white T-shirt. He squeezed exactly the way my mother sometimes squeezed a grapefruit to see if it was ripe. Danny groaned with pleasure.

"Gross," Marilyn whispered. We were thrilled.

Out of nowhere, a heavy hand dropped onto my shoulder. Penny gasped. Danny and Darlene flew apart as if shocked by a cattle prod.

"You're supposed to be watching the movie," Eli said.

The next day a rumor circulated that Darlene and Danny were being fired. They would finish working through this session of camp and then be sent home. For the month of August, the twelve-year-old and eleven-year-old bunks would be combined.

On Sunday, visiting day, my father had ridden down with the Ginsburgs since my mother had still been on tour. The Ginsburgs had cut their vacation short so they could be here. Steve and Marilyn and I stood with our parents around the refreshment table in the dining hall, sipping lemonade that had been set out for the social hour. Penny kept going outside to look for her own family, who were late.

"Are your sisters coming, or just your folks?" my father asked politely.

"I'm not sure. Maybe just my parents or maybe my parents and Diane. Either way there will be room in the car. I'm going to make them take me home."

Just as the campers were about to escort their parents through a demonstration of the daily schedule, Helen and Sid Weinberg finally sauntered in. Helen wore a pair of baggy slacks. She made a great show of kissing Penny without touching her formerly sunburned shoulders.

"So how is it?" Helen asked. "Not as bad as you thought, is it? You don't look nearly as fried as you told me."

"Those pants make you look fat, mother," Penny said.

"What?" Helen put her hands to her hips.

"Now, Penny-" Sid began, but no one paid any attention. Sid was a pale and ineffectual presence in his daughters' lives. Playing trumpet in the navy band meant he was gone nearly half the year.

The Weinbergs joined us at the activities demonstration. We went to arts and crafts, and then down to the beach. The only people who actually swam that day were the boys on the swim team, headed by Wish and Seth, who demonstrated each of the skills the campers had learned.

"I guess we'll take off," Penny's mother said as we climbed the stairs from the beach to the top of the bluff.

"What about seeing drama club? What about the basketball game?" Penny asked.

"I think we have the general idea," Helen said. "We want to stop for crabs on the way back."

"I'm coming with you," Penny announced.

"You'll be home in two weeks." Helen laughed and turned to her husband.

Sid offered a lame smile. Penny crossed her arms over her chest. "Excuse us," Helen said, planting both hands on Penny's shoulders and guiding her away. My family and Marilyn's proceeded to drama club. We didn't see Penny again until visiting hours were over.

Penny was sitting on her cot. Her face was swollen from crying, but she was not crying now. "They couldn't even be bothered to stay for the whole show," she said bitterly. "They had to get crabs."

"Think of it this way: camp's half over," Marilyn told her.

"Think of it this way. Don't have kids if you don't have time for them. Don't have kids if you've got better things to do." An imperturbable calm descended over her face such as I had seen only after she had thrown a hand of jacks and was studying how they had landed. "I'm never going to have children," she said. "I wouldn't do that to anyone."

"It's not like you have to make that decision this minute," I told her, hoping to lighten the mood.

"I'll never have children," she repeated somberly. She fixed her gaze first on me and then on Marilyn, as if to reinforce her point. This was not the helpless, falling-apart Penny we knew. It was a determined, confident one we hadn't heard before, full of steely resolve. In her tone was something absolute and scary. Something unstoppable. And that was why, more than forty years later, I still did not believe that Penny had had either an "accident" or a baby.

Locust Point was actually only a post office and a gas station next to the bay-no houses. Our cabin had hiked forty minutes up the beach from camp after dinner, singing "Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer." The stretch of sand along the bay was wide, with stands of trees almost down to the water. Our sleeping bags arrived in Eli's pickup truck, driven by one of the boys' counselors. There was also a picnic basket full of marshmallows, graham crackers, and Hershey's bars for s'mores. In the morning, the truck would come for the sleeping bags, while the girls hiked back to camp for breakfast.

Except for Penny, all of us spread into the trees to gather firewood. Penny hung back and rubbed her right leg, which was more red and swollen than usual from jellyfish stings. The walk up the beach had aggravated it.

"Come on, the stings'll clear up soon, they always do," Darlene said, motioning for her to gather kindling. Darlene brushed sand from her bright red shorts. She had painted her nails to match and curled her hair. We figured Danny would show up sooner or later.

We lit the fire, which made the beach seem darker than before, the wind louder in the trees, the lapping of the bay more ominous. "Let's tell ghost stories," one of the girls said when the s'mores were gone. "Darlene first."

Darlene positioned herself so her hair wouldn't blow. "Did you ever hear the one about the ghost with the b.l.o.o.d.y finger?" We shook our heads. She had just opened her mouth to speak when a moaning came from the trees. An eerie light appeared in the upper branches.

Everyone screamed.

"It's nothing," Marilyn said. "It's a flashlight shining through the leaves."

We hugged ourselves, hugged each other, pulled our sleeping bags close.

"I bet it's boys!" someone said.

More moans from the trees. Boys! Giggles.

A dark wind blew across the beach, making the fire flutter. Then the camp was silent.

Minutes pa.s.sed. We held our breath. Nothing happened.

"I think the boys just wanted to scare us, and now they're on their way back to camp," Darlene said.

We were disappointed. Each of us was poised for something more. But weary from exercise and sugar-dazed from s'mores, instead of keeping a breathless watch we all soon fell asleep. I opened my eyes maybe an hour later, maybe more. The fire on the beach was almost out. Above me the Big Dipper hung in a bowl of black sky. A warm wind made the water lap at the sand. When my eyes adjusted, I spotted Darlene and Danny half-hidden at the edge of the trees. They were lying on a blanket, stretched out against each other, moving in a kind of rhythm that had echoed not the rhythm of the bay but some other cadence I did not yet understand or want to.

In the morning Penny's leg was purple. The rest of us rolled up our sleeping bags, but Penny said she couldn't move.

Marilyn and I touched Penny's calf, which felt hard and slightly hot. Penny sat on the sand, about to cry. Then Eli's pickup truck pulled up to get the sleeping bags. Danny was at the wheel.

"They let you drive?" Darlene teased.

"Of course. Their primo counselor. Who else?"

"Maybe someone who wasn't getting fired," Darlene giggled. "Okay, girls, load your gear into the truck."

"I can't," Penny whined.

Marilyn and I rolled Penny's sleeping bag and handed it to Danny. "You're going to have to take Penny back to camp in the truck," Marilyn instructed. "She's not going to be able to hike all the way up that beach."

Darlene pondered this, a cheerful flush creeping across her face. "I better ride back to camp with her," she said. "Becky can be in charge." Becky, the inept counselor-in-training, had come along to help supervise the hike.

"If you really want to do me a favor," Penny told Danny and Darlene after the rest of us marched off down the beach, "don't take me back to camp, take me home."

"Let's take her home," Darlene said. Penny thought she sounded a little giddy.

"Yeah, sure," Danny said.

"Let's. Otherwise they'll put her in the infirmary. She might as well be home."

"If they think she's really sick they'll call her parents."

"They won't. The swelling will go down. It always does. Her parents won't come."

"If we take her home, they'll have to let her stay there." Darlene's eyes were bright and her voice a little crazy. Penny felt hopeful.

"You want them to arrest us for stealing the truck?" Danny asked.

"They won't. We'll call. We'll say she was inconsolable."

"We'll get fired."

"We're already fired," Darlene laughed. Penny saw how she was daring him. It was something she would remember. They ended up going down the highway at sixty-five, sleeping bags flopping around in the back, hot wind coming in the windows, rock music blasting from the radio. When Marilyn and I returned from camp two weeks later, Penny came to my house. We'd eaten Popsicles and giggled over her story, and I'd believed all of us were finished with Camp Chesapeake forever, and Penny would never have a baby no matter what.

CHAPTER 7.

Seduction Back at Marilyn's house, I didn't go to the cemetery, didn't call Steve, didn't even indulge in the guilty pleasure of poring over the Style section of the Washington Post. The minute Marilyn excused herself for a nap, I collapsed onto my own inviting, rumpled covers and fell into one of those deep, dreamless, black holes of sleep that for me had always been the only cure for tension.

Dragged back into consciousness hours later by Bernie's persistent knocking, I had no idea where I was. Patches of gloomy, twilit sky filled the s.p.a.ces between the open wooden blinds. Clouds? Dusk? I remembered I was in Maryland. I'd gone to Riggs Park. My head was filled with fog.

"Phone for you," Bernie called from outside the door. I hadn't heard it ring.

"I know it's only been a day, but I already miss you," Jon murmured when I picked up. The hum of background noise almost drowned him out.

"Where are you?"

"The Indianapolis airport. On my way to West Lafayette, a couple of hours drive. Tomorrow I interview that ex-basketball player who coaches at Purdue. Remember I told you about him? How's Marilyn?"

"Physically, pretty good. Mentally, I'm not so sure. Tomorrow she's going to have a face-lift."

"They're doing face-lifts for breast cancer now?"

"It's a long story." Realizing how urgently I wanted to tell it, in full detail and at leisure, in the style of our old, comfortable companionship, I resented the airport commotion that made it impossible.

"If you need me, say the word," Jon told me. "I can get out of here late tomorrow. I was going to Kansas City, but I don't have to. If you want some company, I'm always a good shoulder to cry on."

"Thanks, but I think I'm way beyond crying. You know me, Jon. Tough." I didn't want to have to ask. I wanted him just to show up.

A loudspeaker blared information about a gate change. "When will you be home?" he shouted. I could picture him holding a hand over his free ear, blocking out the noise.

"Probably Wednesday or Thursday. A few days after Marilyn's surgery. You?"

"About the same." He dropped his voice. "Don't stay away too long. I love you, Barbara."

"I love you, too." It was always so easy to say the words.

Outside, the sky had drained of light, a time of day I'd come to know all too well, when loss and longing seemed to live in the mournful air itself, in the aching, endless length of the hour before dark.

I didn't know why I was so upset.

From downstairs, Marilyn's voice drifted up. Then Bernie's voice. Alto. Tenor. I couldn't hear what they were saying. Quickly, surrept.i.tiously, I dialed Steve's number in California. By the time the answering machine picked up, I had framed a quick, cheery, nonthreatening message to leave, then decided any message would alarm him and hung up. I washed my face and went down to the kitchen.

Marilyn stood at the counter chopping vegetables for a stir-fry, cheeks flushed with exertion, looking rested and healthy. She pointed me toward the makings of a salad laid out on the counter.

"I told Bernie about Penny. He thinks you're right. We ought to leave it alone."

"Absolutely," came Bernie's voice from the den.

"So you're going to drop it?"

"Not a chance."

Masking my disappointment, I peeled a clove of garlic and rubbed it around the inside of a wooden salad bowl, not looking at her.

"I know you don't quite believe there was a baby, and I forgive you for thinking I'm so pathetic that Steve would lie to me," she said. "And don't think I didn't take into account your worries about this Pandora's box."

"Well, it's nice to hear you sounding like your annoying logical self."

"You're worried that a baby would have turned out to be someone Steve wouldn't want to know. Some insecure dyslexic who might want to rob him of his fortune." She raised her eyebrows at me.

"Yes." I discarded the garlic and picked up a head of lettuce. I wasn't going to laugh.

"But I still think Steve must be curious. And I think you need to get over thinking everything you did for Steve you really did for yourself, so now you have to protect him."

"That's ridiculous," I said, though it was perfectly true. For the first years of my friendship with Marilyn, I had hardly noticed Steve except as Marilyn's generic, pesky older brother. Then one June day he announced he'd failed third grade, and he suddenly materialized for me like some fascinating alien who'd dropped into the Ginsburg living room from the sky-a goofy boy in plaid shorts, scratching flakes that looked like dandruff off a sunburned, peeling nose-and above all, a boy who could play the guitar almost as well as my mother played clarinet. A boy who, despite his great musical gift (the one thing my mother most desired for me) would have to repeat the year.

"If you can't pa.s.s school by yourself, then we'll help you," Marilyn told him, gleefully taking charge of her year-older brother. "From now on you'll be in the same cla.s.s with me and Barbara. Don't worry, we'll get you through."

But although we attacked the task with gusto as soon as school started the next fall, in the first months we seemed doomed to fail.