Rowing in Eden by Elizabeth Evans Page A

Mrs. Wahl?”
    Peg laughed, and told Tim Gleason if he wanted to see something cute he should see Do Not Disturb at the Lake—Franny noted the way in which Peg paused before she pronounced “theater,” no doubt wondering if the pronunciation that sounded best to her mental ear were correct. Long a . The way her farming parents had said it. Franny hoped Tim Gleason did not hold such things against Peg.
    On the blackboard that hung between the kitchen and the back hall, Franny drew a small asterisk. “Creamettes,” Peg had written on the board. “Peas.” Did an asterisk have a connection with asters, those flowers the flower lady brought around in autumn, tiny bundles of sky blue that went straight to your heart? Franny studied the tips of her fingers, now dusted in yellow chalk. Whorls. Even when she merely mouthed the word, she felt as if a marble pressed down on the middle of her tongue.
    â€œDon’t mess up my shopping list, there, Fran!”
    Franny edged away from the blackboard to lean on the sill of a window so old its rusty screen gave the countryside below a sepia tone that made the view appear antique—until a shiny white convertible came over the rise past the Nearys’ barn: Peg’s Wildcat, top down, Martie behind the wheel.
    â€œYou don’t suppose one of your friends picked up my checkbook, do you, Fran?”
    â€œMother,” Rosamund chided while Franny turned from the window to ask, “You mean, stole it? My friends wouldn’t steal your checkbook!”
    In the driveway, Martie gave the horn the toot that she and her high school friends had shared: a set of three longs, followed by two sets of two shorts. Then the front door of the house opened, and Martie leapt into the kitchen, one sandalled foot and tanned calf preceding the rest of her. “We’re ho-me!” Martie sang, and did a spin that twirled the ends of the bandanna print blouse tied up in rabbit ears above her belly.
    Tim and Rosamund did not look up from the movie ads they studied, but Franny said hello to Martie and the girl behind her, a high school pal named Deedee Pierce. Peg waved at the girls. “Twenty-three sixty-seven,” she repeated, then, again, turned to dig about in the purse on the counter.
    â€œUh, Roz? Tim?” Martie cocked her head to one side. “Hellooooo, you guys!”
    Deedee Pierce—a large girl given to leaning against walls and talking out of the side of her mouth like a cowpoke—Deedee Pierce said with a drawl, “They’re probably hiding their happiness at seeing you, Martie. They’re probably the bashful type.”
    Rosamund gave Deedee Pierce a glance that Franny thought was too cool. Rosamund could not abide Deedee (“She’s a vulgar cow! Of course she can’t get a date!”) but, really, Deedee sometimes could be nice, and funny, too—
    â€œWell!” Sandals snapping, Martie did a bit of a tap dance across the kitchen floor. Swung her arms this way and that. Stopped with a flourish, hands high. “Bashful or not, here we are! And we picked up a birthday cake for Roz!”
    Franny sneaked a peek at Rosamund, who had made it clear that, this year, she had decided to stop celebrating her birthdays, and would appreciate it if everyone else would comply.
    â€œRozzie?” Martie cupped a hand to her ear. “Do I hear a thankyou?”
    Rosamund stood up from the kitchen table and raised her hands before her face, palms outward, suggesting Martie was a gale that blew twigs and trash into Rosamund’s eyes and nose. “Thank you, Martie,” she said—her voice now slightly choked by all thatdebris—“but I think I made it clear a birthday celebration wasn’t necessary this year.”
    The crestfallen Martie asked, “So you don’t want a cake?”
    â€œYou may have your cake, Martie.” Rosamund smoothed her hands across the pages of the Gazette.