“He can read,” I said, feeling a wave of fierce loyalty. At this very moment, for instance, he was upstairs on the bed with Jilly, reading a Beverly Cleary book to her.
Regina just shook her head. “Forrest never feels like he really belongs here,” she confided. “He’s got to try harder than everyone else. You wouldn’t think it to look at my husband, but he has a massive inferiority complex.”
Partly I liked it when Regina talked to me this way—as if I were a girlfriend of hers, a confidante. But I felt guilty too, listening to Regina speak critically about Forrest. As if simply by listening, I was betraying him. Because there was no doubt in my mind on this: I was on Forrest’s team, not Regina’s.
17
A Made-Up Boyfriend
Down at the Clam Hut having lobster rolls, Jilly was telling a story about a boy in sailing class who picked his nose and ate what he found there. Regina said that wasn’t dinner table talk.
“We’re not at the dinner table,” Hayward pointed out. “We’re at the Clam Hut.”
It was Forrest’s poker night again, so he wasn’t with us, which always made things less interesting. We sat there chewing for a while.
“Why don’t you have a brother or sister?” Jilly asked me. Her question came from nowhere. Boredom, probably.
“I just don’t,” I said. “I’m an only child.”
“You’re lucky,” she said. “My brother’s a pain. I wish I had a sister instead. Or nobody.”
“Don’t talk with your mouth open,” Regina said. “Finish your dinner.”
“My mom’s an only child too,” Jilly said to me. “Sort of.”
A wave of tension came over us at the table then. I looked at Regina. I knew not to respond. I figured Regina would say something, but it was Hayward who spoke.
“Shut up, Jilly,” he told her. “You know what Mom told you.” Then he turned to me. Somebody needed to change the topic of conversation—this was clear.
“When’s your birthday anyway?” he asked me.
“September.”
“Mine’s October. I’ll be thirteen.” He reached for a fried clam. “So we’re practically the same age.”
Not exactly,I wanted to tell him. But he’d made his point. I could see why a boy barely two years younger than me would have a hard time taking me seriously as his babysitter. I had studied his face more closely by this point. Enough to confirm that he definitely had the beginnings of hair growing on his upper lip.
“My mom’s two years older than my dad,” he said.
“Woo-hoo,” Jilly shrieked, pointing at the two of us. “You and Frances could be boyfriend and girlfriend.” This may have been the first time she actually used my name.
I could feel my face turning hot. Hayward seemed to register no embarrassment. He just looked at me.
What I said next surprised nobody more than my own self. Maybe, like Hayward, I wanted to shift the conversation to a different topic from the one that appeared to have had such a strong effect on Regina, the part about her not always having been an only child. But also, the part about Hayward and me. The horrible image of the two of us as boyfriend and girlfriend.
“I’m going out with someone back home,” I announced to them. I hoped I’d made my voice sound cool and mysterious.
Where did that come from? Speaking the lie had been surprisingly easy, like shoplifting a lipstick and—more so—further proof of my future career as a writer of fiction. Only my announcement unleashed a torrent of follow-up questions, requiring me to embellish my story.
“What’s his name? Do you kiss him?” Jilly again.
“Open or closed mouth?” This was Hayward’s contribution.
Regina came to my rescue. “Some things are private, children,” she said. “Whatever Frances wants to do with her boyfriend is her own business. She’s allowed to do what she wants.”
“Even if they get naked together?” Hayward had that smile on his face again. “Even if they haveS-E-X?”
This would have been the moment for Regina to reiterate her warning about what constituted dinner table conversation, but she said nothing. This was Regina for you. There were times when the simple act of responding to Jilly’s or Hayward’s remarks appeared to be more than she had the energy for.
