When we swim, we do it together. We don’t speak about it, but none of us ever swims alone.
“Tipper has a secret photograph hidden in her jewelry drawer,” I tell my sisters as we flop onto the blankets, dripping and breathing hard. I didn’t intend to blurt what’s on my mind, but it pops out.
Bess’s eyes widen. “What of?”
“I didn’t see it,” I say. “Only the corner. She shoved it underneath so I wouldn’t see.”
“It’s probably Rosemary,” says Penny.
“She would let me see Rosemary. I asked if it was Rosemary.”
“Maybe not. If she thought it would make you sad.”
“Maybe it’s Uncle Chris,” says Bess. My mother’s brother, Christopher Taft, ran away to South America with a woman quite a bit older than he. That is all I know about him. None of us kids have ever met him, and as far as I know, Tipper never hears from him. Her parents “washed their hands of Chris”—that’s what our late Granny M used to say.
“Oh, yeah, Christopher,” says Penny. “Should we go peek at it?”
“Ooh, yes,” says Bess.
“We can’t go prying in her stuff.” I am suddenly worried they’ll run upstairs and dig out the photograph, leaving a trail of sand and making a mess of our mother’s jewelry drawer.
“She shouldn’t be keeping things from us,” says Bess, pouting. “We deserve to see all her pictures.”
“Come on,” Penny says to me. “You wouldn’t have told us if you weren’t curious.”
“We could sneak in when she’s busy in the garden,” adds Bess. “You could be the lookout while Penny and I steal the photo.”
“No,” I say sharply. I don’t want them upsetting our parents. “What if it’s her and Harris naked?”
“Oh, blech. No.” Penny sticks out her tongue.
“Gag me,” says Bess. “But it’s probably not.”
“You could never unsee it,” I tell them.
“Okay, fine, whatever,” says Penny. “You brought it up.”
11.
TONIGHT, TIPPER CUTS early summer flowers from the kitchen garden. She lays the picnic table with a runner down the center. She wears a clean white apron and grills salmon. There are round slices of lemon in our glasses. After we eat, since Luda isn’t here yet, my sisters and I help with the dishes.
Later, Penny steals a bottle of wine from the cellar. I get a corkscrew and we leave to go to sit on the porch of Pevensie, Uncle Dean’s house.
Pevensie is not as big as Clairmont. It looks out across the newly built tennis courts and the wooden walkways that go from place to place. In the distance, you can see the family dock. The small motorboat （Guzzler） is tied up there, and so is the sailboat. The big motorboat is usually at the back dock, which the staff members use.
We pour the wine into paper cups and talk, mostly about school, even though we’re finally free of it. Penny’s friend Erin Riegert arrives tomorrow for an indefinite stay. The two of them were inseparable at North Forest.
“I hope she doesn’t hate me when she gets here,” says Penny thoughtfully.
“Why would Erin hate you?” I ask.
“She would never,” says Bess.
“She lives in an apartment. With only her mom. She’s like, on scholarship, I think.”
“You don’t know if she’s on scholarship?”
“She is on scholarship. Okay? She is.”
“I wish I could have had a friend up,” says Bess.
“You could have someone,” says Penny.
“Mother told me no. She said there’d be too many people and it was your year.”
That sounds like Tipper. She has never tried to parcel things equally among her children, but instead decides that it’s someone’s turn, or someone is the queen today.
“You can come with us out in the kayaks,” Penny says to Bess, “and down to the beach, and all that. We can all make ice cream in the machine. But if me and Erin are playing tennis, or we want to be alone in my room, or if we’re going to Edgartown, you have to leave us and go do your own thing.”
“You’re mean,” says Bess, pouring more wine into her cup.
“No,” says Penny. That is her usual way—to categorically deny having hurt anyone’s feelings. “I just said a ton of things you can do with us. The rest of the time you can hang out with Carrie.”
“Carrie will have Yardley,” complains Bess. And that is true. Our cousin Yardley is a year older than I am, and when she is around, we fall in together.