Chapter Eight
Eight
Marly had been upstairs reading and missed Freddie de Marche bringing Cilla back from Saint-Cyr in his elegant gray Chevy Bel Air, but she heard plenty about it when she came down for supper.
Even her brothers were interested—in the car at least—and Mom and Sylvie wouldn’t shut up about the stupid boy.
Cilla, who did look sweet in her apricot dress, was blushing and coy.
Although she refused to answer Marly’s questions about dessert carts.
Cilla looked a lot older this year. Maybe college did that to a person, Marly thought.
A girl anyway, since Marly’s brother Paul sure didn’t look or act any older.
He was just as puerile as he’d ever been.
Cilla, however, had cut her hair in the poodle style everyone was crazing over, even though it suited hardly anyone.
Cilla, however, could carry it off. Her wavy hair made it look effortless.
She was wearing lipstick too, and a touch of rouge, and reeking of those dead flowers.
“Are his folks nice?” Aunt Bet demanded. She’d had a bunch of the iced tea from the seashell jug and was more relaxed about the whole thing than she might otherwise have been. “Are they good people?”
“I only met his mother and his sisters,” said Cilla shyly. “His father is still in town working, of course. But his mother was perfectly lovely.”
“And where’s town?” Marly’s mom asked.
“Boston.”
There was relieved sighing at that.
“How lovely that you’ll be close to home.” Marly’s mother sounded pleased.
“Oh, Aunt Lorraine, you talk like I’m marrying him!” But Cilla smiled a secret smile as she said it. “He has asked me to the Saturday dance at Saint-Cyr, though,” she confessed, smiling a less secret smile as Sylvie almost fell over herself with envy.
“Oh, whatever will you wear?” Mom exclaimed. “You’ll need something new.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Lori.” Aunt Betty scoffed. “She brought her pale blue tulle, that will serve well enough. She can’t go buying a new dress every time a boy asks her to a dance.”
“But it’s Saint-Cyr, Betty.”
“That blue tulle took me an age to make, and she’s hardly worn it.”
“Do you get to go to Saint-Cyr whenever you want now?” Marly asked, leaning over the back of Priscilla’s chair. “Can I come too?”
“Stop bothering her, Marly.” Mom gestured for Marly to give Cilla some space.
“It’s fine, Aunt Lori. And no, you can’t come. It’s terribly exclusive.”
Marly was offended. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s not for children,” Priscilla told her, smooth as cream.
They ended up eating a late supper because everyone was so busy squirreling every detail out of Cilla, and when Mom and Bet finally remembered to feed everyone, they only managed cold cuts and a stupid green salad.
After supper, Mom and Sylvie went upstairs with Cilla to advise on accessories to match the blue tulle.
Marly sat on the porch watching the fireflies wink to life, listening to Aunt Betty boss the boys around as they did the dishes.
“Does anyone want to play Monopoly?” she asked hopefully when the dishes were done.
“Nah,” Paul said, looking shifty. “We thought we’d go play cards in our tent.”
Marly glared at him. She knew they were sneaking off to Rockport.
“We’ve already said goodnight to Mom,” Marly’s youngest brother Virge said, “so she doesn’t have to tramp out in the dark.”
“And don’t wake us up in the morning, you little pipsqueak. We want to sleep in.” Bobby gave her a dead arm as he passed.
Marly swore at him, but he only laughed.
“Goodnight, Marilyn.”
“Don’t call me that!” She hated her name.
Her brothers laughed as they disappeared into the firefly-speckled night, leaving her alone on the porch.
This was going to be the most boring summer ever.
She didn’t want to join in the fashion show upstairs, which Aunt Betty had now defected to, but she also didn’t want to sit around downstairs by herself.
It was empty and weird. Eventually she went up to her room, closing the door on the chatter about opera shoes versus pumps and climbed into bed with a book she’d taken from the shelf in the hallway.
Mom and Aunt Bet left their bodice-ripping summer reads on the shelf when they were done with them, but Marly was categorically forbidden from reading them.
Mom said they weren’t for kids because there was too much intimacy.
That was her stupid word for it. She said it in a prissy, giggly, blushing way that made Marly cringe.
But tonight Marly had taken the fattest one she could find, making sure it had a lurid cover.
The dust jacket showed a woman with her dress just about falling off, and a man with a fencing sword.
It was called Forever Amber. If no one was going to pay any attention to her, she might as well do something against the rules.
Marly stretched out on her new bed and sank into the seventeenth century.
It was actually a decent book. Even though there was intimacy, in the form of a romp in the hay, in one of the first chapters.
She took the dust jacket off and hid it under the pillows so her mom wouldn’t know what she was reading when she came to say goodnight.
Only, Mom didn’t come say goodnight.
Marly couldn’t believe the nerve of her.
She’d chattered away for hours with Cilla and Sylvie, and then the chatter migrated downstairs to the front porch.
Marly was lost in her book and so didn’t really register the running of water in the bathroom and the slow quietening of the house.
But then, around the time Bruce abandoned Amber in the book, pregnant and alone, Marly realized everyone had gone to sleep. And no one had said good night to her.
It was like she wasn’t even here.
The abandonment was a hot poison in her stomach. She could have been kidnapped for all they knew. She got up and dropped her book on the floor with a thud, hoping it would wake her mother up. But of course it didn’t. No one cared if she was thumping around in here. No one cared at all.
As Marly stood there, fuming, she heard rustling in the oak tree outside.
It was too much rustling for a squirrel.
But just the right amount for her damn brothers.
Of course they had come up with some plan to terrorize her, something they did all too regularly.
Her blood was up and so she snatched up the book, prepared to rip them to shreds. She stuck her head out the window.
“Quit it, you chuckleheads, or I’ll tell Mom you went to a bar!” she hissed.
The rustling stopped abruptly. And she saw it wasn’t her brothers in the tree. It was someone she’d never seen before in her life. A young guy, about Paul’s age. He was lit by the spill of light from Marly’s room but his face was mostly obscured by the leaves of the oak.
“I don’t know you,” Marly blurted. Was he a kidnapper?
“Hey, kid.” The guy in the tree sounded sheepish. “Sorry. I… uh… I might have the wrong house.”
“You might have the wrong house to break into? Why, because you got caught?” Marly wondered if she should throw the book at him—it was pretty heavy and would probably do some serious damage. But then she’d never find out what became of Amber.
“I’m not breaking in.” He was indignant.
And in his defense, he didn’t look like a burglar.
The guy was in shirtsleeves and a V-neck sweater vest. As he leaned forward into the light she saw he had an oval face and a high forehead, with close-cropped dark hair and thick eyebrows.
His lower lip was a lot fuller than his upper lip and Marly could see a silvery scar on his chin.
“I’m just visiting,” he insisted. His eyes were pale blue, like shoal water, and they were somehow impish and chagrined all at once.
“You’re visiting by sneaking up a tree?” He didn’t seem dangerous, but you never knew, so Marly kept the book handy.
“Yeah. You wouldn’t understand, you’re just a kid. But it’s meant to be romantic.”
Marly rolled her eyes. “You’re telling me it’s romantic to bust into a girl’s room in the middle of the night? Who did you think you were visiting?” But suddenly, Marly realized exactly who was in the tree outside her window. And Sylvie hadn’t been wrong—he did look a lot like Montgomery Clift.
“Look, sorry I woke you, kid. I think I need the house next door.” He started down.
“Stop! You go climbing into the Staffords’ window and you’re liable to get yourself shot. Mr. Stafford has hunting rifles, you know.”
Montgomery Clift paused.
“You’re here for Priscilla, I presume?” Marly drawled. “Freddie de Marche, right?”
“Well, sure. Who else would be visiting her like this?” His eyes narrowed.
“Priscilla’s in another room.” Marly rested her hands on the windowsill and considered him. “What were you planning to do when you got up here?”
He flushed. “Just say hi.”
“Wow, my aunt will love to hear about this. A grown man creeping into her daughter’s room to just say hi.”
“Now listen, half-pint, there’s no need—”
“I think there’s every need,” Marly disagreed, deciding on the spot she didn’t like him. “My cousin’s a nice girl.”
“She is a nice girl,” Montgomery Clift said, trying to hide his anger behind a placating smile. “She didn’t know I was coming, I promise. I just thought it would be romantic.”
“You think if I scream and everyone comes running, they’ll think it’s romantic?”
“Kid, how about you just get Priscilla, and we’ll clear this up. She’ll vouch for me.”
Marly wasn’t about to get Priscilla. This was the most fun she’d had all day.
Marly considered the guy in front of her. The squirming, the flushing. He was caught off guard. She wondered what she could get out of this.
“What are your intentions toward my cousin?” Marly asked sternly.
“My intentions?” He was close enough that she could see the frown line forming between his eyebrows.
“Yeah. This doesn’t look good for you, you know. It makes you seem like a molester.”
He was outraged at that. “Now, hold it right there!”
“I mean, you didn’t climb a tree to talk politics, did you?”
“I came to see her, not… molest her.”
“You came to see her in her bedroom, in her nightclothes. Seems like you were hoping to see a lot of her.”
“Your mind is in the gutter, kid. How do you even think like this at your age?”
Marly turned the book under her hand so he couldn’t read the spine. “I have brothers.”
“Listen… What’s your name?”
“Marly.”
“Listen, Marly. My intentions toward your cousin are only good. I like her. We have friends in common. I’m a decent guy—I’m not here to disgrace her.”
Marly had an abrupt realization. “You’re staying at Saint-Cyr, aren’t you?”
He frowned. “Why?”
“Are you allowed to have guests? Can you invite people to play tennis or to eat dessert or whatever?”
He blinked, frowning. “I don’t see what—”
“I’m open to bribery,” she said honestly.
“Bribery?” He seemed totally taken aback.
“Sure. You get me into the resort for the day and I won’t tell anyone I caught you coming to molest my cousin.”
“Stop staying the word molest.”
“Sure. If you let me into your resort.”
“It’s not my resort.”
“Fine. I’ll go get Aunt Bet and—”
“Stop!”
Marly stopped. In truth, she hadn’t really moved in the first place.
“How old are you?” he asked tightly.
“Almost fifteen.”
“Jesus. How did you become a hardened blackmailer at your age?”
“Natural talent.”
He shook his head. “I can’t let you loose at the resort unaccompanied; they’ve got a rule about kids under sixteen being under adult supervision.”
“Fine. You can supervise me.” Marly really wanted into that resort. It would sure beat sitting around here with a book.
Freddie de Marche didn’t seem to know whether to laugh or wring her neck. “All right, enough is enough. Go get your cousin.”
“No way. It would wake Sylvie too and she’d tell Aunt Bet on me for talking to you in my bedroom alone, even if it got Cilla into trouble too.
Sylvie’s a goody two-shoes.” She narrowed her eyes at him.
“I thought Cilla was one as well.” Marly plucked an oak leaf from the tree and twirled it between her fingers.
“And yet here she is, with a molester for a boyfriend.”
“Stop saying molest,” he warned her through gritted teeth.
“Have we got a deal, pretty boy?”
He glared.
Marly shrugged. “It’s no skin off my nose. I’ll just scream and everyone will come running. And they won’t get mad at me for screaming at a burglar, will they?”
He swore, but it was nothing she hadn’t heard before.
“I want a whole day at Saint-Cyr,” she told him firmly. “Breakfast through to supper. I want to play games on the lawn, maybe go out in a boat, and I want dessert.”
“Your aunt seemed like a reasonable woman. She might understand a little romance,” he mused. “Maybe I’ll just risk it…”
“She’s not reasonable at all. Not when it comes to her daughters. And did you know my uncle fought in the war? Marines. You think he’ll be happy about you creeping in to molest his baby girl?”
“Stop with that! Climbing a tree isn’t molesting anyone! Haven’t you ever seen Romeo and Juliet at the theater? It’s romantic.”
“No, but I’ve read it, and there’s plenty of molesting going on. That’s what all the lark and the nightingale guff is about—he’s in her bedroom when the sun comes up.”
Freddie de Marche didn’t appreciate her literary knowledge, she could tell. “That wasn’t molestation. It was love.”
“I won’t say anything if you let me spend one little day at your resort.” Marly pretended to examine her fingernails. “Seems like a solid deal to me.”
Freddie de Marche closed his eyes and sighed. “I must be insane. But sure. One day, in exchange for you never telling anyone about this.”
“Don’t you want Priscilla to know about your romantic plan to molest her?”
“Enough already. And no. I don’t want her to know that I got blackmailed by a grade schooler.”
Marly scowled. “I’m in high school.” She couldn’t understand what Cilla saw in this guy. Other than his looks. “And I want to come to the dance too, so let’s make my day at the resort this Saturday.”
“Absolutely not. Kids don’t attend dances.”
“This one will. Don’t worry, I can look older. I’ll smack some lipstick on and pass for eighteen.”
“I doubt that.” He rubbed his face tiredly. “And how are you going to explain this to Priscilla? The fact that you’re crashing our date at the dance? And why on earth would I choose to hang out with a little kid all day, anyway?”
“I’m not explaining this to Priscilla. You are. I’m sure you’ll think of something.” Marly gave him a jaunty grin. “Now excuse me while I lock my windows. You never know what kind of person might be lurking outside.” She gave him a sarcastic wave. “See you Saturday, Freddie de Marche.”
It didn’t occur to Marly that meeting Freddie de Marche might be a defining moment in her life. It just seemed like a bizarre little incident in an otherwise boring summer. But what do you know about destiny when you’re not even fifteen?