Thea at Sixteen

  “I was going to put it in the trash can,” the man protested. “See.” He pointed to the can, and made an elaborate gesture of disposing of the wrapper properly.

  “I need that wrapper,” Sybil said. “It’s an Mmm Mmm bar. That’ll be number twenty.”

  “Number twenty what?” the man asked.

  “For my refund offer,” Sybil said. “Now all I’ll need is eighty more and I can earn twenty dollars. Assuming you’ll give it to me. If you don’t, I’ll take it out of the trash can, but I’d really rather you just handed it over. Do you mind?”

  “I can live with it,” the man said, and handed the wrapper to Sybil. “Didn’t your mother teach you not to take candy from strangers.”

  “It isn’t candy,” Sybil said. “It’s a candy wrapper. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” the man said. “Are both of you collecting wrappers?” He looked pointedly at Thea, who turned bright red.

  “Only my sister,” Thea said. “She’s a collector.”

  “Every family needs one,” the man said. “My name is Peter Grass. “I’m a reporter for the Sentinel.”

  “We get the Sentinel,” Sybil told him. “It’s a good paper.”

  “Thank you,” Mr. Grass said. “You know, if you need the extra money, they’re always looking for paperboys. Or girls.”

  “We don’t need the money,” Thea said quickly. “Do we, Sybil?”

  “No, we’re rich,” Sybil said. “I just like doing refunding because it’s like getting something for nothing.”

  “That’s how the rich get richer,” Mr. Grass declared. “Do many of your friends refund also, Sybil?”

  “We don’t have any clubs, if that’s what you mean,” Sybil said. “I know one kid who collects bottles for the refunds on them, but I don’t think that’s fair.”

  “Why not?” Mr. Grass asked. Thea sighed. She wasn’t sure if it was safe to leave Sybil in the arms of the press, but on the other hand, she really wanted to get home before Sybil had a chance to philosophize.

  “Because poor people collect bottles,” Sybil said, not giving Thea the time to decide on a course of action. “And they really need the money. I figure I’m not hurting anybody by collecting candy wrappers, because most people just drop them on the sidewalks like litter. Not that you were going to. But poor people don’t know about the refund offer, and they probably wouldn’t have a place to keep the wrappers until they get the whole hundred. That’s a lot of candy wrappers to carry if you’re homeless. But bottles, they can just collect that day and turn in at night, so it’s quick money for them. It must be awful being homeless. What do you think?”

  “I think that’s an interesting attitude,” Mr. Grass said. “What’s your full name, Sybil?”

  “Sybil Ward Sebastian,” Sybil replied. “Ward’s a family name, like Julia Ward Howe. My mother’s from Boston.”

  “Have you been living in Briarton long?” Mr. Grass asked.

  “Just a couple of months,” Sybil said. “But I really like it. Only it’s too clean. Not enough people litter, and a lot of times when they do, they leave the wrong kind of candy wrappers. I’m collecting Mmm Mmms, and Mmm Mmms with Almonds, and Wattabars, and Sweet Somethings, and Yummie Juniors. I have twenty and only one of them is a Yummie Junior. Have you ever had one? They really stink.”

  “I don’t think Mr. Grass is interested anymore,” Thea said, hoping that was true. “We’d better get home now.”

  “Sybil Ward Sebastian,” Mr. Grass said. “It’s been a pleasure meeting you.”

  “Thank you,” Sybil said. “Hey, I have an idea. Do the other reporters eat candy bars? I could go to your office and collect the wrappers if they do.”

  “Sybil!” Thea screeched. “You’ll have to excuse her,” she said. “She’s a straight-A student in obsessive-compulsiveness.”

  Mr. Grass laughed. “Just one more thing,” he said. “What are you going to do with the money, once you get your hundred wrappers?”

  “I’m going to use it for the poor,” Sybil replied.

  “We really have to be going,” Thea said. She grabbed Sybil and pulled her away before she started ransacking the garbage can. When they were a safe distance from Mr. Grass, Thea turned to Sybil and said, “Use it for the poor?”

  “Sure,” Sybil said. “Me. When Nicky flops next time, I’ll be poor.”

  “You’re worse than Claire,” Thea said.

  “I just believe in being prepared,” Sybil replied. “I’m going to stay out and collect more wrappers. I want to have thirty by Friday.”

  “Be my guest,” Thea said. She walked home marveling at Sybil’s nerve. If Sybil was after a hundred wrappers, she’d be sure to get them, probably before nightfall.

  Thea walked in through the back door and found her parents kissing in front of the sink. They didn’t seem to notice that she’d come in, so she walked back to the door and slammed it loudly. They broke their embrace, but Nicky traced Megs’s face with his fingers, and Megs continued to stare into Nicky’s eyes.

  “I’m home,” Thea said.

  “So we heard,” Nick said. “How was your day?”

  “Hard,” Thea replied. She went to the refrigerator and got an apple. Gina is dying, she wanted to say, and I never know what to say to Kip, and Sybil just made a fool of herself in public. But Nicky didn’t want to hear any of those things, so she bit into the apple instead.

  “I had a great day,” Nick said. “The bank is very interested in financing the factory-conversion project, if I can swing just one more investor, and Ed Chambers has all but agreed to the plan.”

  “That’s great, Nicky,” Thea said, taking another bite. Ordinarily, she loved hearing about Nicky’s schemes, but ordinarily she didn’t spend an hour watching a little girl die.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Nick said, and he took Megs’s hand and entwined his fingers with hers. “About Thanksgiving. What is it, a month away?”

  “Give or take,” Meg said, smiling at him.

  “Why not have a really big Thanksgiving this year,” Nick said. “It seems to me we have more than enough to be thankful about. Briarton’s already a big success, and Evvie’s doing well at college, and this house is turning into a showcase, thanks to you, and I feel like telling the world how happy I am. What do you think?”

  Megs beamed. “A really big Thanksgiving dinner?” she asked. “Who could we invite?”

  “Let’s tell Evvie to bring Sam here,” Nick said. “She’ll like that. And we could invite Clark, too. He can have Thea’s room, and Thea and Evvie can move in with Claire and Sybil. Sam can sleep on the sofa bed in my office.”

  “Do you really want Clark?” Meg asked.

  “Sure,” Nick said. “It’d be good for him to see me prosperous. He’ll worry about you less.”

  “Could we invite Aunt Grace also?” Meg asked. “If we’re going to do a true family Thanksgiving, we ought to invite her, too.”

  Nick grimaced, but then he grinned. “Why not,” he said. “It’ll be a cold day in hell before she’s willing to come. Let’s invite her just to drive her crazy.”

  “What if she agrees?” Meg asked. “She just might call your bluff.”

  “Then we’ll roll out the red carpet,” Nick replied. “That’s the appropriate color for Sam, too. If Aunt Grace actually deigns to enter my home, I’ll treat her like royalty. I’ll do better. I’ll treat her almost as well as she expects to be treated.”

  “It sounds wonderful,” Meg declared. “I’d love to have Clark come. And I’ve been so afraid Evvie would decide to spend Thanksgiving with Sam’s family instead of coming home.”

  “This Thanksgiving we’ll have her here,” Nick promised. “Maybe we could make a tradition out of this. Open our family up a little bit. I’ve been selfish, wanting to keep you all close to me, not letting anyone else in. But there’s no point, not with the girls growing up. They have worlds of their own now. Don’t you, Thea?”

  Thea nodded. She hadn’t been su
re her parents remembered she was in the room with them. Now that they’d reassured her, she took another bite of apple.

  “How is Gina, dear?” Meg asked.

  Thea swallowed. “Bad,” she said. “Kip is hoping she makes it until Christmas.”

  “That poor kid,” Nick said. “Both of them.”

  “I wish there was something more we could do for them,” Meg said. “For you, too, Thea. I know how hard it’s been for you, becoming attached to a girl who’s so ill.”

  “It’s okay,” Thea said. She realized she sounded like Kip. What was there about death that made you so defensive? “Kip’s the one who’s really suffering.”

  “Let’s invite him for Thanksgiving also,” Nick said. “What do you think, Daisy?”

  “I think that’s a lovely idea,” Meg replied. “Do you think Kip would come?”

  “I don’t know,” Thea said. “He does have a family.”

  “I would have loved it if someone had invited me for Thanksgiving dinner,” Nick said. “After my mother died.”

  “Didn’t you have Thanksgiving dinner with Mr. Wilson?” Thea asked. “I thought you moved in with him right after.”

  “Freshman year at Princeton,” Nick said. “I’d never felt so alone. Mr. Wilson had died by then also, and all the other guys had families to go home to, and none of them knew me well enough to extend an invitation. I don’t know if I would have accepted, anyway. Thanksgiving that year, and Christmas. There were maybe a half dozen of us in the house, less than that at Christmas. There was a big dinner, of course, so we wouldn’t mind what we were missing, but that only made things worse. It forced me to face what everyone else had, a loving family, a place to go home to.”

  “By sophomore year, things were different,” Meg said.

  “Oh, yeah,” Nick said. “By sophomore year, I had you, and holidays were spent freezing outside your bedroom window, tossing stones against the glass to catch a glimpse of you without Grace knowing it.”

  Megs smiled. “You wanted us to elope that Christmas,” she said. “I never thought I’d be able to talk you out of it.”

  “I was afraid I’d lose you, otherwise,” Nick said.

  “You would have lost everything else if we’d done it,” Meg said. “And you should have known you would never lose me.”

  “I still don’t know it,” Nick said. “Every day with you is an astonishment.”

  “Let’s invite Kip,” Meg said. “And his mother and sister. Is that all right with you, Nicky?”

  “It’s fine with me,” Nick said. “Thea, would that make things all right for Kip?”

  “I don’t know,” Thea said, trying not to keel over from the shock. “I can ask him.”

  “And maybe the hospital will let Gina join us,” Meg said. “Just for an hour or two. If I were her mother, it would make me so happy to see my daughter out of the hospital, surrounded by family and friends, if only for an hour.”

  “Let’s do it,” Nick said. “Thea, do you want to invite Kip’s family, or would you rather we did it directly?”

  “I’ll do it,” Thea said. “Maybe on Thursday, when I see him at the hospital.”

  “Great,” Nick said. “This is going to be a perfect Thanksgiving, the kind I used to dream of. A Thanksgiving where we have so much prosperity and love that there’s enough left over to share with others.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  “Well look at this,” Nick said, as he finished his last sip of coffee.

  “What?” Meg asked.

  “This column in the Sentinel,” Nick said. “It’s all about Sybil.”

  “Oh, no.” Thea groaned, but her parents didn’t seem to hear her. Instead, they both bent over the newspaper and read Peter Grass’s column.

  “This is great,” Nick said, and much to Thea’s surprise, he sounded as though he meant it. “Sybil’s already left, hasn’t she?”

  “Five minutes ago,” Meg replied. “Thea, Claire, you should be leaving now, too.”

  “I want to see the column,” Claire said, and she joined her parents at the table. “Thea, this is all about Sybil.”

  “So I’ve heard,” Thea said. “I was there when she met Mr. Grass. Does he make her sound like a total idiot?”

  “More like a Nobel Prize winner,” Claire replied. “In one sentence, he uses ingenuity, dedication, and self-sacrifice.”

  “You’re kidding,” Thea said, but she skimmed the column and discovered Claire was accurate. According to Mr. Grass, Sybil was a cross between Rachel Carson and Mother Teresa.

  “I have to buy a copy for Aunt Grace,” Meg said. “And one for Clark as well. They’ll get such a kick out of it.”

  “We’ll need one for Evvie, also,” Nick said. “I suppose you two would each like one of your own.”

  “I couldn’t live without it,” Claire said.

  “I could,” Thea said, but she was ignored. Instead, Claire led her outside, and they began walking to the high school.

  “She’s such a hypocrite,” Thea complained. “She told that reporter she was earning the money for the poor, and she meant herself. How can she get away with that kind of thing?”

  “Sybil gets away with everything,” Claire replied. “You’ve never noticed that?”

  “No,” Thea said. “I thought you were the one who got away with things.”

  Claire laughed. “I’m the one who tries to,” she said. “Sybil isn’t as obvious about it, but she’s a lot more successful. Evvie and Sybil. When they sneeze, Nicky thinks it’s a major accomplishment.”

  Thea thought about it for a moment. “We’re all proud of Evvie,” she said. “Evvie does things to make you proud of her.”

  “Evvie does it without really trying, though,” Claire said. “She gets great grades, but you never see her cramming. She makes friends easily, guys fall in love with her even though she isn’t beautiful, like I am. Even you’re prettier than she is, but guys don’t fall in love with you. There’s just something about Evvie. I think it’s because she’s firstborn. It gives you an aura.”

  “Someday someone will fall in love with me,” Thea said. “Am I really prettier than Evvie?”

  “Sure,” Claire said. “You’re very pretty in a kind of wishy-washy, uninteresting way. Like Megs. So’s Evvie, but you do a better job with it.”

  “I still don’t get it,” Thea said. “If Peter Grass had written a column about you or me, Nicky would have been hysterical. The only kind of publicity he likes is the kind he dictates. But someone writes an entire column about how Sybil goes begging for candy wrappers on the street, and Nicky starts making lists of people to show off to.”

  “Sybil’s his favorite,” Claire said.

  “Nicky doesn’t have favorites,” Thea replied automatically.

  “Boy, are you blind,” Claire said. “Of course Nicky has favorites. So does Megs. She’s always liked Evvie best, and Nicky likes Sybil. That doesn’t mean they don’t love you, or even me. It just means they let them get away with more.”

  Thea decided she wasn’t comfortable with the idea of her parents having favorites. Besides, it was exactly the sort of thing Claire would accuse them of because she was feeling left out. And if Claire felt left out, that was because she never made any effort to cooperate. “You’re the one who’s blind,” she declared, and she walked ahead to prevent Claire from continuing the conversation. She could hear Claire’s laughter follow her down the street, but that was a sound Thea was used to ignoring. Claire was always laughing at her, or at Nicky, or at the things they held most dear. She could laugh her head off, as far as Thea was concerned. Claire would never understand how much Nicky and Megs loved their daughters, and how equal that love was. Even if it was true that Sybil got away with all kinds of things Thea knew would be a disaster for her to attempt.

  Fortunately, no one at school had read the column, or if they had, they didn’t connect Sybil’s name with Thea’s. Thea made it through the school day without having to talk about it, which was fine
with her. She dreaded the thought that people would start handing her their candy wrappers to give to Sybil for her collection for the poor. Thea was accustomed to being Evvie Sebastian’s sister, because everyone liked Evvie, and being Claire Sebastian’s sister, because Claire was, unfortunately, as beautiful as she thought she was, but she wasn’t ready to become Saint Sybil Sebastian’s sister as well.

  She found herself thinking of Gina all afternoon, and decided to go to the hospital after school, even though it was a Wednesday and she’d be a day off schedule. She might not stay long, but she needed right then to see someone who cared about her, and Gina certainly fit that description.

  Thea went to the hospital as soon as the last bell rang. She didn’t know what to expect. Somehow she thought the hospital might only exist on Mondays and Thursdays, or Gina might be unconscious except during those hours when Thea visited. Part of her was nervous about going on a Wednesday, as though that violated a religion. Would the nurses let her in? Would Kip be angry?

  But the nurses didn’t seem to care, and Kip wasn’t around when Thea walked in. Gina was lying on her bed, looking better than she had on Monday.

  “Thea!” she said. “Look at the flowers. Look at the teddy bear.”

  Thea looked. There was a small bouquet of sweetheart roses by Gina’s bed, and a midsized huggable bear resting on her pillow.

  “They’re wonderful,” Thea said, sitting down on the bed by Gina’s side. “Where did they come from?”

  “Your parents,” Gina replied. “They came to visit me this morning. Both of them. Your father brought me the flowers and your mother gave me the teddy bear.”

  “You’re kidding,” Thea said. “Did they say why they came?”

  “Just to meet me,” Gina said. “They said you told them so much about me, and they’d met Kip, so they wanted to meet me, too. Your father is so handsome. I never saw such a handsome man except on TV. Why isn’t he a star?”

  “Because he never wanted to be one,” Thea replied. She wasn’t sure how many more shocks she could take that day.

  “And your mother looks like an angel,” Gina continued. “I think when I go to heaven that’s what all the angels are going to look like.”