Home Schooling by Carol Windley Page B

It’s too hot to eat, anyway, isn’t it?”

    Marni reached for Nadia’s book. She said she’d read
Rebecca
when she was about twelve. She preferred
Jane Eyre.
Weren’t they kind of the same book?
    â€œâ€˜Reader, I married him,’” she said, scornfully. “That was in
Jane Eyre,
wasn’t it? The fire, the maimed hero. It was all kind of the same.” She handed the book back. She put her elbows on the table and leaned her face close to Gavin’s, their foreheads touching. Nadia saw her tender, complicit smile and looked away. The window was open, but no air came in. The back of her neck prickled. Each day was hotter than the previous one. She thought of how Gavin had appeared to her at the wedding, like a kind of merman: he was in the sea and then he walked out of the sea and became mortal. She liked Gavin. She wished she’d talked to him instead of to Maurice. She could have pretended she’d lost her coat, too.
    The summer after she finished school, Nadia worked at her grandparents’ bakery. She hoarded the money she earned. She got her driver’s licence and sometimes drove Jonah’s beloved car over to Sherry’s, where she’d stay for a day or two at a time, rarely longer. On the island she got to witness Jonah and Laurel’s on-again-off-again romance, while at Sherry’s house she had the drama of Marni and Gavin, which had eclipsed the drama of Sherry and Nolan.
    One day she arrived at Sherry’s just in time for a crisis. Sherry met her at the door and told her Marni had just informed her father she was going with Gavin to Belize, where his ecology class was going to study the environmental effects of logging in protected forest preserves. “Can you imagine how impressed Nolan is?” Sherry said. “Anyway, go ahead. Go on in and join the fray.”
    In the living room Nolan was sunk into his chair, his hands resting on the arms. He glowered at Nadia and Sherry like a large disgruntled baby. Sherry went over and patted his arm. Gavin was sitting on a hassock, his legs stretched out in front of him, his handsin the pockets of his shorts. Marni sat in a chair behind him, her hand draped over his shoulder. Sherry said she was going to make coffee. Nadia said she’d help. She took a step toward the door. “Stay,” Nolan said, snapping his fingers at her. Nadia sat down.
    â€œWe can’t stay Daddy,” Marni said. “Gavin and I have to leave. We’re going to a movie.”
    Nolan thumped his fist on the arm of the chair. He said Marni wasn’t going anywhere. She couldn’t just walk in here and make a pronouncement like that and then take off. Nor could she go to some foreign country without his permission, for God’s sake. There were things to discuss. For one thing, she had her education to think of.
    â€œOh, Daddy,” Marni said. “This will be an education.”
    â€œActually, Mr. Ganz, it’s going to be really cool work,” Gavin said. “We’ll be right up there, in the rainforest, on these canopy walkways strung between the trees, up with the bats and the birds, taking samples.”
    â€œSamples of what?” Nolan said.
    â€œI don’t know yet. Samples. Leaves and bird droppings and stuff, I guess. Insects.” Gavin sat up. He looked uneasily in Nadia’s direction, as if for assistance.
    â€œWe’re going to miss this movie,” Marni said. “I have one day in which I can see this movie and I’m going to miss it.”
    â€œShut up,” Nolan said. “You’re acting like a spoiled brat.”
    â€œYou made me into one,” Marni said.
    â€œThat can be changed,” Nolan said. “You can try living without my help if you like. You can go and be a hippie with Gavin in the jungle, if that’s what you want.”
    â€œA hippie?” Marni said. “Oh, Daddy. That’s so cute.”
    â€œLook at