Best Kept Secret

  The girls heaved themselves up from the ground and ran to the picnic tables. “Hey, there are a lot of people here now,” Francie observed, looking around at laden tables and laughing families. She sat down at the table on which Kaycee’s mother was setting out napkins and paper cups while Dana unwrapped a platter of sandwiches. Kaycee slid onto the bench next to Francie, and soon everyone was talking and laughing and filling their plates.

  “Yum! Pickles!” said Francie, reaching for one.

  George was setting three entire sandwiches on his plate and Kaycee was asking her mother if she could have dessert first when Francie noticed an older couple who had sat down at the table next to theirs. They were watching the Nobles — and the man was shaking his head in disgust.

  “Let’s move,” the woman said. “We don’t have to eat here.”

  Francie set her sandwich down and looked at Dana. “Why are they leaving?” she whispered. “What’s wrong?”

  “We’re wrong,” Kaycee’s father said loudly.

  “Richie,” said Mrs. Noble, putting her hand on his arm.

  He shook it off. “They’re upset,” he continued, just as loudly, “because I’m white and Denise is black, and we had the audacity to get married and have kids.” He turned to the couple, who were now no longer looking at the Nobles.

  Francie turned to her parents, frowning.

  “That’s bad?” she asked. “It’s bad when one parent is one thing and the other is something else?”

  “No, of course it isn’t bad,” said Matthew.

  “Huh,” said Francie. She stood up and glared at the couple. “Maybe you should get all mad at my family, too. My father is Jewish and my mother is Presbyterian. Is that a problem for you?”

  “Francie,” said Dana warningly.

  Francie ignored her mother. “I hope you two are exactly the same,” she said to the couple, who were now stuffing things into their picnic basket in a big hurry. “Oh no, wait, you’re not. You’d better be careful. Someone might hate you because you have gray hair,” she said to the man, “and you have …” She hesitated as she studied the woman. “… blue hair.”

  The woman shot Francie a furious look as they struggled off the benches and stalked away.

  “Francie!” exclaimed Matthew. “Where did that come from?”

  “Am I in trouble?” she asked.

  There was a long pause. Then Kaycee’s father began to laugh. “You certainly put them in their place,” he said.

  “That was great!” cried George.

  “A little over the top,” said Dana, who didn’t look mad at all. “But no worse than something I once said to a grown-up who was rude to your uncle Peter.”

  “My uncle Peter has Down syndrome,” Francie informed the Nobles.

  “Can we eat now?” asked George.

  “Watch how much he eats,” Kaycee whispered to Francie.

  The incident largely forgotten, Francie watched, awestruck, as George Noble ate the three sandwiches and one and a half more, plus two apples and three helpings of macaroni salad, washed down with a quart of milk.

  Later, when the picnic was finished and the Goldbergs and Nobles were walking back to their cars, Francie took her mother’s hand. “We have to stick up for ourselves, don’t we?” she said. “We have to say what we believe in.”

  “Absolutely,” replied Dana.

  Francie sat up in her bed at the beach cottage in Maine. She leaned back against her pillow and looked across the room at the mirror over the dresser. Reflected in it, she could see her bed-rumpled head — a tangle of hair falling over pale cheeks. She had inherited her father’s eyes and her mother’s fair complexion. Francie and Dana never ventured onto the beach across the street without first slathering themselves with sunblock.

  A second head was reflected in the mirror, and it belonged to Kaycee. Her hair, as wild as Francie’s but longer and cocoa brown, was fanned across her pillow. Her eyes, which were still closed, were an interesting shade of hazel, a shade Kaycee detested. “They aren’t brown, they aren’t black, they aren’t green, they aren’t anything!” she’d once wailed.

  “Of course they’re something,” Francie had replied. “Everything is some color.”

  “You don’t have to be so practical.”

  “Let’s come up with a nice name for the color of your eyes. How about caramel?”

  “Hmm,” Kaycee had said. “They are sort of caramelish.”

  “And you do like caramel,” Francie pointed out.

  So the girls had decided that Kaycee had caramel eyes.

  Francie turned now to look at Kaycee, who was sleeping soundly, even though sunlight was filtering into the room. Then she sat up on her knees and peered out the window. Below her was Blue Harbor Lane, across from that was a narrow strip of beach, and beyond the beach stretched the great green Atlantic Ocean, which was an icy temperature, even at this time of summer.

  Francie thought of other mornings she had woken up in this bed. She thought of all the mornings her Grandma Abby had woken up in this bed. This bedroom, this teensy room in this teensy house, had once belonged to Grandma Abby and her sister, Francie’s great-aunt Rose. They had grown up here in Lewisport, Maine, at least until they were young girls. Then they had moved to a grand house in Barnegat Point.

  Francie turned back to Kaycee and nudged her shoulder.

  Kaycee didn’t move.

  “Kaycee?” Francie whispered.

  “Mmphh.”

  “Come on, wake up.”

  “Okay.”

  “I mean, now.”

  “No. I have to wake up slowly.” Kaycee absolutely could not be rushed in the morning.

  “Don’t you want to go to the beach? I want to show you the beach and the places Dana talks about —”

  “First, tell me about your family — all the people I’m going to meet at the party this afternoon. I promise I’ll open my eyes while you’re talking.”

  Francie heaved a great sigh. “Okay. But I’ll start with the people you aren’t going to meet. You aren’t going to meet my mom’s grandfather. He’s the one everyone calls Papa Luther, and he’s sort of like the head of the family. Dana says the idea of a family having a head, especially a male head, is too old-fashioned, but whatever. And you aren’t going to meet his wife, Helen.”

  Kaycee, whose eyes were still closed, asked, “You just call her Helen? Not Mama Helen or Great-Grandma Helen?”

  “Yup, just Helen. She’s his second wife.”

  “So she’s, what? Your mom’s step-grandmother?”

  “I guess so. And you won’t meet Luther and Helen’s son, Miles, or any of Miles’s family.”

  “And why won’t I meet all these people?”

  “Because Papa Luther and Helen don’t like Matthew, so none of them are coming to the party.”

  Kaycee opened her eyes. “Why don’t they like Matthew?”

  “Because he’s Jewish.”

  “So are you. Half Jewish anyway, and half … what’s the other half again?”

  “Presbyterian. But Papa Luther considers me Jewish like Matthew.”

  “So he doesn’t like you either?”

  Francie wove the fringe of the bedspread through her fingers. “Well, he kind of has to like me, at least a little, since I’m his great-granddaughter. But I guess he doesn’t … approve of me.”

  “Huh. Since when do family members get to approve of other family members?”

  Francie was trying to come up with an answer for this when Kaycee suddenly sat up, fully awake, and said, “Hey, what would this Papa Luther think of me?”

  Francie flushed. “I guess he wouldn’t approve of you either. But you don’t have to worry about that because you and Matthew aren’t coming with Dana and Adele and me when we visit him this afternoon.”

  “Good. I wouldn’t want to visit him.”

  Francie made a face. “I don’t want to visit him either. You know who he reminds me of? Remember those people we met at Marquand Park last
year? The ones who were sitting at the picnic table next to ours?”

  “Yeah,” said Kaycee. And then, “Oh.”

  Francie nodded. “Adele says Papa Luther only likes people who are just like him — white and Christian. Not black or Asian. Not Catholic or Jewish. Not foreign.”

  “Do they have to be old and ugly, too?” asked Kaycee.

  Francie snorted. Then she flopped back on her pillow. “It’s not fair that I have to visit him this afternoon!” she moaned. “He makes me feel like I don’t fit into my own family. Like there’s something wrong with me.”

  “I’ll bet it’ll be a short visit. Don’t think about it too much. Tell me about the rest of your relatives.”

  Francie brightened. “Okay. Well, Grandma Abby’s middle sister is coming to the party. She’s Dana’s aunt and everyone calls her Aunt Rose. Her husband and kids and their kids are coming, too. Then there’s Dana’s twin sister, Julia, and her husband; Dana’s sister Nell; and her brother, Peter. Uncle Peter’s the one with Down syndrome. He lives with Grandma Abby and Orrin, who’s Dana’s stepfather, but they aren’t coming to the party, so Aunt Rose is going to bring him.”

  “Why isn’t your grandmother coming? Don’t tell me she disapproves of you and Matthew, too.”

  Francie shook her head. “Nope, it’s something to do with my mom. The two of them try to avoid seeing each other. They don’t even speak to each other very much. I’m not sure why.”

  “Wow, there sure are a lot of people in your family who don’t get along.”

  “I know,” replied Francie. She was not proud of this fact. “But there are even more who do, so the party is going to be great. Tons of aunts and uncles and cousins. Lots of kids. Everyone here for a big picnic on the beach. I just have to get through the visit with Papa Luther and Helen first.”

  “You’ll get through it. Come on,” said Kaycee suddenly. “Let’s go outside. Show me the beach. What are you waiting for, lazybones?”

  Francie grinned. “You’re the one who didn’t want to be rushed.”

  She reached for the bottle of sunblock, and the girls threw on their bathing suits and ran downstairs. They found Dana, Matthew, and Adele sitting side by side on the front stoop, drinking coffee.

  “Where are you two off to?” asked Matthew.

  “The beach,” Francie replied. “Can we go in the water?”

  “At seven a.m.?” said Dana. Then she shrugged. “Sure. Why not? What’s a vacation for? Don’t go past your ankles, though. Not until one of us can come with you.”

  Francie turned her face to the morning sun. She breathed in the salty air and the scents of seaweed and wet sand. She could almost feel her hair becoming wavier in the damp morning. “Race you to the water!” she said to Kaycee. The girls dashed across Blue Harbor Lane to the rocks and sand beyond. “Isn’t this the most perfect place?” she asked, arms flung wide. “I wish I lived here. You know, Dana lived here once.”

  “Really? I thought she grew up in New York.” Kaycee scuffed through the chilly sand to the water’s edge and let the ocean lap her toes.

  “She did mostly, but after Dana’s father died, Grandma Abby moved the family around a lot, and one of the towns they lived in was Lewisport, right here in the beach cottage.”

  “Would you really want to live here?” asked Kaycee. “Would you want to move here?”

  Francie considered this. “Well, no. I just love visiting. Wait until we go into town. There’s a bakery that sells the best donuts. Dana will probably get some for breakfast tomorrow. And I’ll show you the school that Grandma Abby and Adele and Aunt Rose went to. And the mini–golf course and the place where we buy lobsters.” She paused, frowning. “But first, I have to visit Papa Luther.”

  * * *

  Shortly after lunchtime, Francie, Dana, and Adele climbed into the Goldbergs’ Ford station wagon and made the short drive to Barnegat Point. Francie chattered all the way out of Lewisport, but when Dana turned the car onto Haddon Road, she fell silent. Papa Luther’s grand home loomed before them.

  “I don’t want to go in,” Francie whispered. At her mother’s insistence, she was wearing a sundress and had pulled her hair back with a pink ribbon.

  “Neither do I,” said Adele.

  “Neither do I,” said Dana. “But it’s our duty. Besides, Papa Luther is your great-grandfather.”

  Francie was about to say, “So?” but she stopped herself.

  Dana parked the car in the street. Francie took her mother’s hand and the three of them walked along the white-pebbled driveway to the front porch.

  “Maybe they won’t be home,” whispered Francie, but the door was opened by a housekeeper before Adele could even ring the bell.

  The woman, who was short and stout, smiled warmly at them. “Come in, please,” she said, and showed them to the living room.

  Papa Luther and Helen were standing in front of the fireplace. Papa Luther was wearing a suit (with a jacket and tie in the middle of July, Francie noted with amazement) and Helen was wearing a rose-print dress. She smelled of powder and peppermint.

  Francie looked first at her mother and then at Adele, who hesitated, then crossed the room and kissed Helen on the cheek. “It’s good to see you,” she said. She turned to her father. “Hi, Pop.”

  Francie let her mouth fall open. If she hadn’t seen her father in a year, she would have wrapped her arms around him and not let go. She would have clung to him like an octopus.

  “Adele,” said Papa Luther.

  Dana stepped forward. “Hello, everyone,” she said nervously. She turned to Francie. “You remember Francie.”

  Francie hung back. The last time she had stood in this room, Papa Luther had studied her gravely, announced that she looked exactly like her father, and turned his attention back to Dana.

  Francie waved a hand through the air. “Hi.”

  “Well, you’ve certainly grown,” Helen said after a moment.

  “What grade are you in now?” asked Papa Luther.

  “I’ll be in fourth. Um, and I like to write, just like —”

  “So how’s the book business?” Papa Luther asked Dana.

  “Fine. I’ll have a new book out this fall. Another picture book.”

  “Wonderful, wonderful. And the … costume business?” he asked Adele.

  The awkward questioning continued for half an hour as the housekeeper brought tea (hot tea) to the living room and everyone sat on the very edges of their seats, balancing teacups, trying not to spill, and waiting for Papa Luther to get to his feet and end the visit.

  * * *

  An hour later, Francie burst through the door of the beach cottage to find Matthew and Kaycee in the kitchen, making deviled eggs for the party.

  “It was awful!” Francie exclaimed. “Just awful! You guys are so lucky that you didn’t have to go!”

  “But now it’s over,” said Kaycee.

  “And the party will start very soon. Come on, everyone,” said Matthew. “Let’s get things rolling.”

  The sun hung low over the ocean by the time Francie’s relatives had arrived. She matched faces to names for Kaycee’s sake. She gave Aunt Rose a long hug and she squealed as she greeted each kid who arrived. She had long since given up trying to figure out whether the kids were second or third cousins, or cousins once removed. They were simply family.

  Aunt Julia arrived with her husband, Keith, and Francie squealed (again) when she saw that Julia was going to have a baby. “Another cousin!” she exclaimed.

  Suddenly, she noticed Peter standing quietly behind Aunt Rose. Francie wasn’t sure it was all right to hug him. She did, though, and found herself locked in a bear hug as Peter said, “Hi, Francie. Hi, Francie, my niece.”

  Aunt Nell, who wasn’t yet twenty and was a student at a college in Maine, arrived with her boyfriend. Then a pile of younger cousins arrived in a van. Before Francie knew it, a volleyball net had been set up on the beach, platters of food were being carried across the street, and the par
ty was officially underway.

  “Wow,” said Kaycee under her breath. “This is amazing. You have an enormous family.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Francie, who sometimes felt removed from these relatives she saw only once or twice a year.

  The highlight of the evening was not the clambake, not the volleyball tournament (which Francie’s team won), and not even the moment the sun set over the horizon. It was what happened shortly after Dana said, “Francie, go inside and get the story you wrote last week. I want you to read it to everyone.”

  Francie retrieved the story, read it aloud, her heart pounding, and then looked nervously at her relatives.

  “Well, my goodness,” Aunt Rose said at last. “Francie inherited Zander’s talent. We have another writer in the family!”

  Francie sat at her desk in the second row of Mr. Apwell’s fourth-grade class, wishing mightily that Kaycee were sitting next to her. This was the first year the girls had not wound up in the same classroom, and Francie missed her friend. On this day, her thoughts — which should have been on Mr. Apwell’s lesson about amphibians — were on Halloween, and in particular on the costumes she and Kaycee had been creating. Francie was to be Elvis Presley and Kaycee was to be Donna Summer. They planned to go trick-or-treating with Amy Fox, who would be dressed as a fox. Francie had tried to convince her to dress as Michael Jackson, but Amy liked her fox suit.

  Francie and her parents had worked hard on her costume. They had studied photos of Elvis, purchased an Elvis wig, and all three had spent hours making a blue-and-white rhinestone-studded Elvis suit. Francie was wiggly with excitement. How would she possibly wait until the next night?

  At the front of the classroom, Mr. Apwell was saying, “Among the properties of amphibians are …”

  What Francie heard instead was Kaycee’s voice, saying, “Maybe we’ll get so much candy that we’ll have to go home, dump out our bags, and start over.” Francie thought longingly of her orange trick-or-treat bag and imagined it filled to the brim. Then she imagined herself dumping the candy on her bed and running gleefully outside with an empty bag, ready to continue trick-or-treating.