Ursula, coming in with iced tea, heard her. "Don"t turn the child"s head."
Max paused, paintbrush in hand, a dab of paint on her nose. "It can do with a little turning. She still underestimates herself."
Ursula put the tea down and came to stand behind Max, looking over her shoulder at the painting, nodding approval.
Max said, "Enough for today, or I"ll start overpainting." Playing Celia and having my portrait painted were definitely doing something for my ego.
It was a beautiful painting when she finished. Even if I didn"t recognize the Polly Max saw in the seash.e.l.l, I knew that the painting was beautiful. Max brought it to my parents.
"It"s a superb painting," Daddy said, "but we can"t possibly accept something that valuable. It"s much too great a gift."
Max smiled calmly at his protestation. "It"s little enough. You O"Keefes have made a winter which could well have been the winter of my discontent into a stimulating and pleasant one."
Daddy looked at her, a brief, diagnostic glance. "It"s a 107.
beautiful picture, Maxa. We"re more than grateful.
Where shall we hang it?"
Well, it ended up in the living room, on the wall over the piano. We keep a light on by the piano because of the beach humidity, to keep it dry enough to stay in tune, so the portrait was well lit, and it dominated the room. The little kids said, "Polly"s eyes keep following us wherever we go."
Xan and Den made rude remarks, which I did not take personally. Kate said, "I don"t know why n.o.body"s ever painted a portrait of me." She said it several times, once in front of Max, but Max simply smiled and said nothing.
About a week after the portrait was hung, we had the first really hot weather of the season, so that as soon as we came home from school we put on shorts and sandals. At dinner the little kids were wriggly, and the moment they"d finished eating, Mother said they could go out and play and she"d call them in for dessert.
As soon as they had gone outdoors, Xan asked, as though he had been waiting, "Do you think it"s good for Polly to spend so much time with those d.y.k.es?"
What?
Daddy paused with his fork halfway to his mouth, looking at Xan. "Who"re you talking about?"
Xan looked at Kate, and Kate looked at Xan.
Kate said, "Well, some of the girls were talking to me at recess, and I didn"t like what they said about Polly."
"Kate, what are you talking about?" Daddy demanded.
Again Kate and Xan looked at each other. Xan said, as though sorry he"d started whatever it was he was 108.
starting, "Some of the guys said Polly looked really pretty as Celia, with makeup on."
"I don"t wear makeup," I said.
"Well, that"s part of it," Kate said. Kate didn"t wear much makeup, but she wore some. I had no idea what she and Xan were looking at each other for. I asked, "Why do you two keep looking at each other as though you had some secret?"
"It"s no secret," Xan said.
"What, then?"
Xan looked down at his plate. "You do spend a lot of time over at Beau Allaire."
"Why not?" I demanded. "I"m welcome there. I"m happy there."
Again Xan and Kate exchanged glances. "Of course we know Polly isn"t," Kate said.
"Isn"t what?" I demanded. "I don"t know what you"re getting at." "Don"t you?" Xan asked.
Daddy said, "Xan, is this something you really want to talk about?"
Xan flushed a little. "I"m sorry, but if Polly doesn"t know people are talking, I think she ought to know."
"Who"s talking? About what?" And suddenly I didn"t want to know.
"Some of the girls from Mulletville," Kate said.
Xan went on, "Mulletville"s right near Beau Allaire and you"re always there with Max and Ursula and everybody knows they"re-"
"Shut up!"
Mother tried to calm things down. "Xan and Kate, I"m surprised at you. What "everybody knows" is usually gossip, vicious gossip."
"I know it"s vicious," Kate said. "I hate it."
109 /.
"I don"t like hearing glop about my sister," Xan said.
"You punched that guy," Kate said.
Den got into the fray. "All you and your friends think about is s.e.x and who has it with who, and who does what. It"s sick."
Daddy banged a knife against the table. "This conversation has already gone too far. Xan, you know what we think about gossip, either listening to it or spreading it."
"But, Dad, I thought you ought to know. Polly-"
"Stop him," I said. "How can you let him say vile things about our friends?
They"re your friends, too, aren"t they?"
Daddy replied quietly, "They are indeed our friends. Ursula Heschel is one of the finest people and one of the most brilliant surgeons I"ve known. You"ve always been interested in the brain, Xan. And your father"s a neuro-surgeon, Kate, and Ursula"s friend."
"And Max is one of Sandy"s closest, friends," I cried. "Sandy introduced us to them."
"Sandy makes mistakes, like everybody else," Xan snapped.
Den pushed away from the table. "May I be excused? This conversation is gross."
"Yes, go, Den, by all means," Daddy said. When Den had left, he turned back to Xan and Kate. "Do you think your Uncle Sandy would introduce Polly, or any of us, you two included, to people he didn"t trust and respect?"
Kate and Xan looked down at their plates.
"Do you think Mother and I would have them here so often if they weren"t our friends?"
"I"m really sorry," Kate said. "Xan and I talked about it, a lot, and we thought you ought to know what people-"
110.
I interrupted. "It"s a good thing the little kids are outside.
I"m glad they aren"t hearing this garbage. Den was right to leave."
Mother absentmindedly pa.s.sed the salad to Daddy, who tossed it. "Sandy knew we had a lot in common with Max and Ursula. That"s what makes friendship. Like interests. Your father and Ursula have nourished each other this winter."
"And Max has nourished me," I said. "She"s made me believe in myself."
"Sure, she flatters you," Xan said, "paints your portrait, swells your head-"
Daddy cut him off. "Xan, are you feeling well?"
"I have a sore throat. What"s that got to do with it?"
"After we finish eating, I"m going to take your temperature. And I wouldremind you that a morbid interest in people"s s.e.xual activities is as perverse as anything else."
"We"re sorry," Kate said.
Mother added, perhaps trying to bring this ugly conversation back to normal dinner-table talk, "Possibly the high divorce rate has something to do with a tendency to equate marriage with s.e.x alone, instead of adding companionship and laughter."
"Ursula and Max aren"t married."
"Alexander!" Daddy was getting really angry.
When Xan gets hold of a subject, he can"t let go. "Lesbianism does exist. I should think you"d be worried about Polly."
We all spoke simultaneously. I said, "Leave me out of it."
Mother said, "Xan, I think you"re feverish."
Kate said, "We"re just trying to protect Polly."
Daddy said, his voice so quiet we had to stop talking in order to hear, "Don"t you have any faith in Polly? Or 111 /.
our ability to understand and to care? Of course lesbianism exists, and has since the beginning of history, and we have not always been compa.s.sionate. I thought it was now agreed that consenting adults were not to be persecuted, particularly if they keep their private lives private.
We human beings are all in the enterprise of life together, and the journey isn"t easy for any of us. Xan, come with me. I want to take your temperature. Polly, you can bring in dessert and call the others."
Xan had a fever of 102. He was coming down with a strep throat. He went to bed with penicillin instead of dessert.
"That explains it," Daddy said. I"d better keep a close watch on the rest of you. Polly, will you come out to the lab with me, please?"
I followed him. He gazed into one of the starfish tanks, jotted something down on a chart, then sat on one of the high stools. "I don"t want you to be upset by what Xan and Kate said."
I perched on the other stool, hooking my feet around the rungs. "I am upset."
"In this world, when two people of the same s.e.x live together, a.s.sumptions are made, valid or not."
"I hate the Mulletville girls. They think they"re better than anybody else, and they love to put people down. They didn"t like it that I got Celia in the play-, and they didn"t like it that I was good. None of them got anything but walk-ons."
"You think they"re getting back at you for succeeding?" Daddy asked.
"Sure. I"ve been the bottom of the pecking order. They don"t want me to move up."
"Polly, I don"t want this to affect your friendship with Max and Ursula."
"Don"t worry. It won"t. It hardly affects my feeling 112.
for the Mulletville girls, either. It was already rock- bottom."
Daddy hugged me and I burst into tears. "It"s your first encounter with this kind of nasty-mindedness, isn"t it, Pol? Island living has kept all you kids more isolated than you should have been." "That"s fine with me." I reached for the box of tissues behind the Bunsen burner.
"No, Polly, you live in a world full of people of all kinds, and you"re going to have to learn to get along with them."
"I suppose."
"And, Polly, I don"t want you to worry about any gossip about you. You"re a very normal sixteen-year-old."
"Am I?"
"You are. You"re brighter than a lot of your peers, you"re physically a slow developer and intellectually a quick one."
I said, "I"m not a lesbian, Daddy, if you"re worried that I"m worried about that."
"Sure?"
"Sure." I pressed my face against his firm, comfortable chest. "But I wish we were back in Portugal."
"We aren"t. And even in Portugal, time would have pa.s.sed; you"d still be in the difficult process of growing up."
"I"ve got some history reading to finish," I said. "I"d better go do it."
"All right, love. But don"t let all of this get out of proportion. Put at least some of it down to strep throat."
"Sure. Thanks, Daddy."
113.
Xan did not give me his strep throat, but he had planted an ugly seed, uglier than strep. Talking about Max and Ursula the way he had was a far cry from the remark Xan had made weeks ago, that it was a good thing Ursula was older than Daddy. That, at least, made a certain amount of sense.
But the seed was planted.