“I’m glad it wasn’t all for nothing, then,” I murmur and pull her to me. I finally get to throw her onto the bed. Luckily, there’s some strength left in my arms to peel off that bathing suit (hot, even though it is the more conservative one she brought to wear around my family). We come together in in a mixture of passion and muffled laughter. Through the open windows, I can hear people unpacking in the cabin closest to ours. No matter how old you get, you don’t want to think your siblings can hear you having sex. The strange furtiveness is cracking us up, to have sneaky sex as an adult is funny…and really hot.
I wake with a start to the sound of a dog barking and see that the sun is low in the sky. We’ve both dozed off after our shower.
“We’ve got to hurry, babe,” I say to Vanessa. “If we get to dinner late, we’ll have to sit at the kids’ table.”
“Is that a promise?” she asks groggily, sitting up.
“It’s not as fun as it sounds. And they won’t let you have wine.”
“I’m up, I’m up!”
“There they are!” Geoff says as we climb the porch steps. I can see through the screen that the gang’s all here now. The great room is full of light and chatter. The table is pulled out to its full length and at least one table has been added on so that there is no separate kids’ table. There seem to be children everywhere as the seating is sorted out.
Finally, like a very cooperative game of musical chairs everyone is seated.
“Who’s that?” asks Carrington, pointing at Vanessa like she wasn’t a person.
“This is my friend, Vanessa,” I say. “Vanessa, that is Carrington.” I hope she can read you know, one of Laura’s monsters in my gaze. I go around the table, introducing everyone. She’s clearly overwhelmed, but smiles genuinely and laughs when my father says, “There’ll be a quiz later,” like he does every time.
“So, Carrington,” asks Vanessa, “What grade are you going into?”
He looks at his mom for help and Laura says, “He goes to a school without grades, the children learn at the pace that best suits them. If he were in a traditional school, he’d be going into third grade.” She looks insufferably smug.
Vanessa just smiles at my nephew and says “I thought so. I teach third graders.”
“Do they have to sit at desks?” he asks.
“Sometimes, but not always,” she says. “Where do you like to sit at school?”
“Under the willow in the peace garden.”
“That sounds really nice.”
“I like to chop down the willow tree!” Dobson cuts in with near-rabid excitement. Only he still has that little-kid speech and it sounds like “I yike to chop down the wiwwow twee!” making it decidedly less violent than he’d hoped.
“Chop it DOWN!” shouts Pierce.
“Boys,” says Laura mildly, “Perhaps we can chop down a tree tomorrow.”
My mother is shooting daggers at her youngest daughter.
My father turns to Geoff and mutters something I can’t hear. Geoff shrugs.
Carrington, of course, is now furious at his little brothers and leaps into his chair so that he can loom over them. “You are a fuck!” he shouts, red in the face, “A stinky fuck!”’
“Oh for heaven’s sake, Laura, take them outside if they can’t be civilized at the table.” Mother is more annoyed than scandalized.
“It’s just a word, Mother. It only has the power you give it.”
“Perhaps he could say his word without putting his muddy shoes on the upholstery, then. I told Marita that they were still too young to join the big table. ‘Everyone is happier when there is a children’s table,’ I told her, but she said she’d promised you she’d talk me out of it. And so she did.”
Sarah’s kids are nudging one another and looking at their young cousins in disdain. Emily’s twins are happily munching on carrot sticks and watching the show like it was dinner theater.
“Hey Carrington,” says Vanessa, just loud enough for him to hear her over the tussle. He turns to see what she wants, his long sandy hair fallen over one eye. “Carrington, I’ve taken one thing off the table and hidden it. Bet you can’t figure out what it was.”
“I will!” shouts Dobson.
“No me!” chimes Pierce.
“Was it the salt dish?” Carrington asks studying the table.
“Nope.”
“You water glass!” says Pierce.
“Nope, that’s right here.”
“Your napkin!” exclaims Carrington, triumphantly.
“Yep!” she holds it up.
“My turn! Close your eyes!”
And suddenly, like magic, the feral Barker boys have become distracted and the game gradually includes their older Reynolds cousins and Vanessa is able to rejoin the adult conversation. I can see she’s impressed my parents and, to a lesser degree, my sisters. I want to hold her up like a sports trophy. See? I picked this one! And she’s great.
“I’m sure you love your work,” says my mother. “Have you been teaching long?”
“No, only two years. I hadn’t planned to become a teacher, I was just doing it to pay off loans, but I fell in love. Both with the job and the kids. And my strange little school. I hope it can survive.”
“What do you mean?” asks Sarah.
“It’s a charter school, so the funding is different. It was mismanaged at first, the founders meant well but didn’t have good business sense. There’s a meeting of the Board of Directors on Tuesday, actually. I’d planned to go, but I sent along a letter. A teacher friend of mine will read it out.”
I look at her, surprised. I’d forgotten that she had asked for Tuesday off to go to the meeting, I’d just sprung this trip on her without asking first.
“It’s okay,” she murmurs, patting my leg. But I don’t think it is, really.
She continues to talk about the school, and she’s lit up with her passion for it. She’s beautiful even when she’s grumpy, but when she’s excited about something like this, she’s magnetic. My noisy, prickly family is listening with rapt attention.
The cooks keep bringing food and the wine keeps flowing until the children have long since gone to sleep in their cabins and the babies are asleep in the middle of my parents’ big bed. Vanessa pats my leg and says “I know that in California, it’s only ten, but I’m exhausted. I’m going to bed. I’ll take Maeve as I go.”
“You’re so good with her, Vanessa,” says my mother. “Are you sure you haven’t been a nanny before?”
Vanessa laughs, “Oh believe me, I’m sure. I had to call my grandma for help a dozen times that first day. I tell you, I’m glad Maeve can’t talk because she’d tell you what a big faker I am.”
I’m surprised and touched to hear that she feels like a
fraud, too. “I’ll get Maeve when I come to bed, I’ll join you soon. Good night.” I know she was going to just leave, but I stand and give her a chaste kiss anyway. Just in case anyone still thought she was just the nanny.
When she’s had time to go, my father says, “Vanessa seems like a lovely girl. You seem happy.”
“I am. And she is. Maeve loves her, it’s going to be hard when she goes back to teaching.” I pause. “I had an idea…”
By the time I pick up Maeve, heavy with sleep, and head back to our cabin, I’ve arranged a nice surprise for Vanessa. But I say nothing, and I’ve sworn my family to secrecy. At least until Tuesday.
“I contacted the Board of Directors and had them set up Skype so that you can participate in the meeting, too,” I tell Vanessa over breakfast on Tuesday morning. “My father has a nice fast connection in the main house. We’ll just go over a bit before three to get it all set up in time.”
“Wow, thanks, Corbin! That was thoughtful. It was eating at me, a little. I know I should have just reminded you about it, but you were so excited about coming here–and I wanted to come too, I swear! And I figured it wouldn’t really matter if I was at the meeting, but still…”
“If it’s important to you, it’s important to me. I thought we might put Maeve in the bike trailer and ride in to the petting zoo this morning.”
We spend a pleasant morning patting goats and trying to convince alpacas to let us come near them. Maeve is most delighted by the chickens. I’ll have to see about getting some for the kitchen garden.
The meeting time matches up well with Maeve’s still-on-West Coast-nap-time, so we get her settled down and go into my dad’s office. I manage to get everything working just as the video feed comes on. I angle my chair so that I can watch Vanessa’s face.
“We’d called this meeting to brainstorm ways to get enough money to reopen the Excellence Academy in the fall,” a woman in a business suit is saying. “In truth, by Friday evening, I really thought we’d be using this meeting to announce that the school would not be able to open.” There is a murmur in the audience. Vanessa is twisting the bracelet around on her wrist. “But through the generosity of a benefactor that wishes to remain anonymous, we are fully funded and will open on schedule!”