Diana Peterfreund - Rites of Spring (Break)

“Hey,” I called as the boys took the stairs to the lawn. Poe turned and squinted up at me through the sunlight.

“Yes?”

“What are you doing?” Poe waved Malcolm on and returned to me. I leaned over the railing and lowered my voice. “You’re leaving?”

Recognition dawned. “You have a better offer?”

Than hanging out on a boat with people like the Myers? I damn well hope so. “I thought we could…” Oh, dear, did I sound clingy, or what? “Go swimming. Again.”

“Tempting,” he said. “But, uh…I really think I need to do some damage control today. We can’t burn every bridge around here, Amy, much as you’d like to.”

“Only the ones that lead to bad places,” I replied. “Don’t try to sell me the ‘for the good of Rose & Grave’ party line if your sacrifice involves spending the day on a yacht.”

“Apparently, that’s not the only sacrifice I’m making.” He smiled at me, but I wasn’t in the mood.

“And what about Malcolm? How can he bring himself to—”

“Unlike some of us, he doesn’t believe in throwing the baby out with the bathwater,” Poe said. “Besides, he’s old hat at dealing with people like that, remember? No one is perfectly good or perfectly evil.”

“That’s a concept with which I’m becoming increasingly familiar.” I rocked back on my heels in dismay. Great, I played my hand and Poe trumped it with society duty .

He glanced over his shoulder at Malcolm’s retreating form. “Tell you what, come with us.”

I blinked at him. Had he lost IQ points during the night?

REASONS THAT’S A DEFINITIVE “ NO.”

1)Go with him. On a boat. Yeah, right.

2)Go with him on a boat that happened to belong to Kadie Myer, for whom I had no warm feelings whatsoever, and toward whom several of my closest friends held nothing but contempt.

3)Kadie Myer, whose fingernails were probably still a tad orange from her last painting project.

4)Ditch my club and go off very publicly with Poe? Was I asking for it?

Poe must have at least guessed the gist of number four, because he added, “Think of it this way: Malcolm’s coming. You’ve hardly spent any time with him.”

“Does Malcolm—”

“No.” Poe hesitated. “Do any of yours?”

“No.” Except for George, but I hadn’t been the one to tell him.

“Good.” Poe checked over his shoulder again. “So, want to come?”

I shook my head. “On a boat? No way.”

“You were on a boat the other night.”

“Yeah, docked and not moving. Besides,” I added, “three’s a crowd. You never get to spend time with Malcolm, either.”

“True. But I want…” He trailed off. “Fine. Go make costumes with the kids, Amy. You’ll have more fun.”

“‘With the kids’? Don’t be mean.”

“I was aiming for cute.”

“It doesn’t become you.”

“Not half so much as mean,” he agreed, and when I didn’t deny it, he added, “So it’s either I leave Malcolm alone in the company of a bigot and her husband, or I stand you up. Neither choice sounds palatable.”

“At least you admit she’s a bigot.”

“Frank’s a nice guy. Pity about the wife. I didn’t like her at Eli, and I don’t like her now. My only hope is that they’ll be divorced before they hit that fifty-year mark, when we have to make her an associate patriarch.”

“A what?” I cried.

“You didn’t know? When they hit their golden anniversary, we give the spouse a guest pass. We even have a little ceremony.” He grinned. “There’s one argument for keeping it in Rose & Grave, huh?”

I wasn’t rising to his bait. “Or killing her off before she’s seventy-five.”

“Amy!” Odile called from inside the building. “Will you be the back end of the sea monster? It’s not a speaking part.”

“Obviously,” Poe said with a smirk.

“Sea monster seems to denote sea, doesn’t it?” I whispered to him. “Over my dead body,” I replied loud enough for Odile to hear. Turning back to Poe, I said, “Go ahead. I’ve got an activity director to deal with now.”

“Slave driver, more like.” Poe’s smile didn’t dim, and I felt another pang of jealousy. “By the time I get back she’ll probably have Industrial Light & Magic on its way.”

“Salt would never allow such a thing,” I argued.

“True.” He stood there for a second or so longer—not moving toward me, not touching me, and certainly not kissing me, but possibly thinking about all three—then took off.

I headed back into the library, where I was promptly conscripted into a debate about whether or not Clarissa should play Andromeda. Odile’s argument was that, in a white dress, her blond hair and pale skin would sell “virgin sacrifice” across the channel like nothing else. Demetria’s stance was that the whole idea of femininity being tied to “whiteness” was a racist position, and that Jenny was not only the most virginal member of the group, but also had the most authentic coloring when it came to portraying a Greek princess. Clarissa said whatever the club decided was okay with her, and Jenny said like hell were they chaining her to a rock, even if it was a fake chain on a fake rock.

“At the risk of having my balls torn off by Demetria,” George said, “I vote for Clarissa, white chick or no.”

“Yeah,” Harun said. “Just because she will be easier to see across the water. Her hair practically glows.”

Clarissa glared. Jenny beamed.

“I actually vote for Demetria, ” said Ben. “Sorry, Clarissa. But I see her point, and I think it would be awesome to have a black Andromeda. Very in-your-face, pre-Raphaelites.”

Demetria shook her head. “Hell no. I’m playing the sea monster. I don’t do damsels.”

“Yeah, you do,” said George.

Around this time, Kevin suggested he play Andromeda, because he was the smallest member of the club, except for Odile, who had already claimed the part of Queen Cassiopeia, and I decided that, lest I found my ass chained to a rock, I’d volunteer to play the back end of the sea monster after all.

The rest of the morning was spent in scripting and rehearsals. Under protest, Clarissa took the part of the princess, with Ben (the tallest) as Poseidon, Kevin as Perseus, George as the king, and Harun and Jenny as courtiers. Demetria deigned to point out that, with the exception of Kevin, all knights of color were given non-speaking parts, and wasn’t that interesting. Odile deigned to respond that the lack of speaking made Demetria’s part no smaller in scope, and besides, the intended audience would never be able to hear them from across the water anyway. [10] At this point, the confessor feels obliged to point out that though Miss Dumas might be passing as white bread in the realm of Hollywood, it should not be assumed that her own heritage was purely European. The confessor almost said as much at the time, but wondered if, perhaps, this was the undercurrent to Demetria and Odile’s entire argument. Slow on the uptake, that’s our girl.

By noon, I’d found myself employed with basting together a scaly tail from the box of vaguely mildewed costumes we’d found in the attic of the main house. The entire sea monster looked, at first glance, like a miniature version of the kind of dragons they have in Chinese New Year parades. Pretty cool, actually. Why don’t we have one of these in the tomb at Eli?

A shadow fell over my work. “What are you doing?”

I glanced up. Darren Gehry, holding a box of Popsicles, was staring down at us.

“Begone, barbarian,” Demetria muttered into her headdress.