“Welcome to another evening of fun and games with the Robinsons,” Charles said, appearing out of nowhere. He opened the freezer and pulled out an ice-cream sandwich.
“Just shut up!” Jessica shouted.
Charles smiled and went out the kitchen screen door, letting it slam behind him.
“I wish I lived at Rowena’s!” Jess said to me.
“You sound like Tarren,” I told her. “And you know how much you love it when she gets going over Mom.”
“This has nothing to do with Tarren!” Jess said.
“Why are you angry at me?” I asked. “What’d I do?”
“I’m not angry at you. I’m angry at them,” she said, with a nod in the direction of the living room, “for not taking me to someone else when Dr. Lucas said I should wait before I take Accutane. And now I find out I’ve been suffering for more than a year just because Mom has some warped idea that bad skin makes you a stronger person.”
“Mom never said that.”
“She doesn’t have to say it, Rachel. You’ve heard it often enough, haven’t you? Looking back,” Jess said, in a perfect imitation of Mom, “I realize I am where I am today because I had very little social life during my teens due to bad skin. Bad skin has …”
She stopped when she saw Mom standing in the doorway, listening. Then she ran from the room.
“How can she possibly believe that?” Mom asked. “Doesn’t she know that I, of all people, sympathize and identify?”
I wasn’t sure if Mom was talking to me or to herself.
On Monday afternoon, while I was sitting on our front steps waiting for Paul to give Charles his break, Tarren drove up. She looked very pretty in a summer dress and sandals, her dark hair pulled back, her cheeks flushed. “I have to leave Roddy for a few hours. Can you watch him? Please, Rachel, it’s urgent.”
“An obstacle?” I asked, looking into her car, where Roddy was napping with his pacifier in his mouth.
Tarren thought that over. “Not exactly,” she said. “More of a …”
“A what?” I asked.
“Well, I guess you could call it an obstacle. A romantic obstacle.” She looked down and fluttered her eyelashes.
“Really?” I said, hoping for more information.
“Rachel, this isn’t something I can discuss with you or your mother or anyone else.”
Now I was even more curious.
“He’s married,” Tarren whispered.
“Who is?” I asked.
“My obstacle,” she said.
“Oh.” Suddenly I felt very uncomfortable.
“He’s my professor, at school. We’re … involved.”
Did that mean what I thought it meant?
“I know what your mother would say and I’m not prepared to take her advice,” Tarren said. “Because he’s wonderful. Even if he is married. Even if it doesn’t make any sense. Do you see what I’m saying?”
“I think so.”
“Do I have your word, Rachel … that you won’t say anything about this?”
I nodded.
She hugged me. “Thanks.” Then she opened the car door and reached in for Roddy. “Someday I’ll cover for you. That’s a promise.”
“Do you by any chance know Paul Medeiros?” I asked, as she lifted out Roddy.
“No, should I?”
“He’s Charles’s tutor … he’s graduating this month.”
She handed Roddy to me. “I don’t think I know him.” She opened the trunk of her car and pulled out Roddy’s stroller.
“What time will you be back?” I said.
“Around six, okay? If anyone asks, just say I’m at the library.”
As soon as she pulled away, Roddy woke up and started screaming. “It’s okay … it’s okay …” I said, patting him. I tried to get his pacifier back into his mouth but he wouldn’t take it. Then I offered him a bottle of apple juice, which he knocked out of my hand. Finally I strapped him into his stroller and wheeled him, at top speed, down to the pond. But he still didn’t let up.
“Want to see the ducks?” I asked, lifting him out of his stroller. He thrashed around in my arms and screamed even louder.
Stephanie saw us from across the pond and waved. “Ra … chel,” she called, “what are you doing?”
I didn’t answer. It was obvious what I was doing.
In a minute Steph joined us and took Roddy from me. As soon as she did, he grew quiet and looked around. He seemed surprised to see me. Steph talked softly to him. Then she set him down on the ground and he began to crawl toward the pond, stopping along the way to pull up blades of grass that he stuffed into his mouth. We followed, also on hands and knees, making sure he didn’t actually swallow anything.
Later, Steph said, “Can I stay over on Saturday night … because my mother has a date with the StairMaster and I’m not about to hang around the house waiting to meet him.”
“Sure,” I said. “Should we ask Alison, too?”
“Yeah, that’d be fun … like the old days.”
I wanted to ask what she meant by the old days but I stopped myself, afraid I might spoil the moment.
Dad is a Gemini. His birthday is June 3. According to my book on horoscopes, you can’t ever really know a Gemini. They have two sides. One you see, one you don’t. I guess the side you don’t see with Dad is the side that sent him to bed for six weeks after Grandpa died.
Mom left Jess and me a list of things to do for Dad’s birthday dinner on Wednesday night. Jess doesn’t work at Going Places on Wednesdays. The menu was honey-glazed chicken, wild rice and sugar snaps. Jess and I baked the cake—chocolate with buttercream frosting—while Paul was tutoring Charles. We decorated it with forty-seven candles plus one for good measure.
“Well … doesn’t this look festive!” Mom said when she got home from work. She admired the table we’d set with our best linens and dishes. We’d even used Gram’s silver, which was passed down from her mother. It’s ornate and very beautiful, but we hardly ever use it because you can’t put it in the dishwasher. It goes to the first daughter in the family, so Jess will inherit it someday. Maybe she’ll let me borrow it on special occasions.
“What would I do without the two of you?” Mom asked, shaking two Tylenol out of a bottle, then washing them down with a glass of water.
Jessica didn’t answer. She’s still angry at Mom for listening to Dr. Lucas about not taking Accutane. Her skin looks angry, too—red and broken out, with swellings on her chin and forehead. Tomorrow she’s got an appointment to see the dermatologist Rowena recommended.
Mom headed upstairs to get changed, and when she came down a few minutes later, she said, “Rachel … get Charles, would you? Dad will be home any minute.”
“Charles doesn’t eat with us … remember?”
“Tonight is a special occasion.”
“We’d have a better time without him,” I told her.
“Rachel, please! We have to make an effort.”
“I don’t see why,” I muttered under my breath.
“Because that’s the way I want it,” Mom said, setting another place at the table.
“Okay … okay …” I said.
Charles’s room is painted lipstick red, which was his favorite color when he was thirteen, the year he persuaded Mom and Dad to let him move downstairs. Last year, before he went away to school, he taped an embarrassing poster to the wall behind his bed. It shows a woman wearing only red boots. I WANT YOU! she’s saying.
Mom was offended by it but Dad convinced her Charles was entitled to his privacy. So his room was declared off-limits to the rest of us, as long as he kept it reasonably clean. But keeping his room clean has never been a problem for Charles. Jessica is the one who lives in a mess. Charles likes things in order. Once, when I was in fourth grade, I made the mistake of letting Stephanie borrow one of his Batman comics, and he almost killed me for taking it out of its plastic wrapper.
Now I knocked on his door and when he called, “Come in ??
?” I opened it slowly, not sure of what I might find. The shades were pulled, making it very dark except for a single bulb inside the slide projector. Charles lay on his bed, a black baseball hat on his head. He was munching chips dipped in salsa and swigging Coke from a can as he flipped through a tray of slides with his remote control.
“Look at this picture, Rachel …” he said, as if he were expecting me. “Remember when this was taken?”
I turned to look at the screen and saw a picture of the two of us at the lake in New Hampshire, where we go every summer to visit Aunt Joan. I’m about six and Charles is eight. We have a huge fish between us. We’re both laughing and pointing to it. We look happy. Were we? I don’t remember.
“Mom says your presence is requested at the dinner table,” I told him. “We’re celebrating Dad’s birthday.”
He cut off the projector, jumped off the bed, smoothed out his shirt and gave me a smile. “Do I look … acceptable?”
I nodded.
When Dad came home, he feigned surprise. “What’s this?” he asked, eyeing the festive table.
“Happy birthday!” the rest of us shouted.
We go through this with each of our birthdays. Even though we’re never surprised, we always pretend we are. We sit down to dinner before we open presents. Mom started that rule when we were little. Otherwise we’d get too involved in our gifts and forget about the food.
All through dinner Charles didn’t make one rude remark. Not one. He ate heartily, complimenting us on the food, telling Dad he didn’t look a day older than forty-five. He told charming stories about birthday parties he remembered. But I couldn’t help noticing there were just three wrapped gifts on the table, not four. And I wondered how Charles would feel when Dad opened something from each of us, but not from him.
After the main course Charles insisted on helping Jess and me clear the dishes. He even scraped the bread crumbs off the table like a waiter in an elegant restaurant. He asked if there was anything else he could do.
Jessica almost fainted. “I think that’s about it,” she said, lighting the candles on the cake.
“Wait!” Charles called, as we were about to carry it in. “This is the stuff family memories are made of.” While he ran out of the room, trying to find the camera, Jess and I looked at each other. We didn’t know what to think.
Charles snapped away on our Polaroid as we sang “Happy Birthday.” It took three tries for Dad to get all forty-eight candles out. Then Jess moved the cake to the center of the table and we took our seats to watch Dad open his presents.
Jess gave him a book. She’d showed it to me earlier.
“What do you think?” she’d asked.
“The Pencil?” I said, leafing through it, amazed that anyone had written such a book. It was four hundred pages long.
“Look at the subtitle,” she said. “A History of Design and Circumstance. You know Dad loves anything having to do with history.”
And now, as Dad opened it, he seemed really pleased. “I’ve been meaning to check this out of the library,” he told Jess. “Thank you, honey.”
I gave Dad a snow globe. Inside is a tiny skier perched on a hill. Dad loves to ski. The second it snows, he straps on his cross-country skis and off he goes, around Palfrey’s Pond, through the woods, even on the roads before they’re plowed. One winter he got a pair of snowshoes and tried walking to school in them.
Dad turned the snow globe upside down and shook, then watched as snow fell on the little skier. “Thank you, Rachel,” Dad said quietly. “I love it. It’ll keep me going till next winter.”
I knew he really meant it. With Mom it’s a lot harder. She doesn’t like most things that other people choose for her. That’s why Jess and I always decide on something from the two of us. Like the Mother’s Day subscription to that magazine. The sample copy is still on her bedside table. I wonder if she’s ever actually looked at the pictures inside.
Then Dad opened the final box, from Mom, which held an envelope with two tickets to a concert at Carnegie Hall this coming Saturday night. Music is Dad’s thing, not Mom’s, but she tries for him. They smiled across the table at each other.
“Well,” Mom said, “shall we cut the cake?”
“Wait!” Charles pushed back his chair. “I haven’t given Dad my gift yet.” He stood up and cleared his throat. “Dad …” he began, then paused to clear his throat again. “Dad … on this night, on the anniversary of your forty-seventh birthday, I give to you the gift of living history.” He paused and looked at each of us. “I give you back your roots.” He paused again. “From this night and forevermore …”
What was he up to this time?
“From this night,” he continued, “I will proudly carry forth the name of our ancestors … from this night I will be known as Charles Stefan Rybczynski.”
There was a deadly silence at the table. And then Jessica blurted out exactly what I was thinking. “You mean you’re changing your last name from Robinson to Ryb-something?”
“I’m not changing it, Jess,” Charles explained. “I’m reclaiming my true name … our true name.”
Dad had a false smile on his face. “Well …” he began.
But Mom interrupted. “Are you contemplating a legal name change?” she asked Charles.
“Mom … Mom …” Charles shook his head. “Ever the lawyer. Does it really matter whether or not I go through the formalities of changing my name?”
“Yes,” Mom said, “it does.”
Charles pulled a document out of his back pocket and unfolded it carefully. He spread it out in front of Dad. “I’ll need your signature,” he said, “since I’m under eighteen. But I told my lawyer that wouldn’t be a problem.”
“Your lawyer?” Mom asked.
“Yes,” Charles said. “My lawyer … Henry Simon.”
“You went to see Henry without discussing it with us?” Henry Simon is an old family friend. He went to law school with Mom and Dad. He practices in town.
“Don’t worry,” Charles said. “I set up an appointment. I wore a nice shirt.”
“You had no—” Mom began.
“I explained it was a surprise,” Charles said. “And Henry … Mr. Simon, that is … promised he wouldn’t say anything. He didn’t, did he?”
“No,” Mom said. “I wish he had.”
“Poor Mom,” Charles said. “You’re feeling left out, aren’t you? But you can do it, too. You can become Judge Rybczynski. It’s easy.” He looked around the table. “You can all become Rybczynskis.”
“No thanks!” Jess said. “Can you imagine your children trying to print that name in first grade?”
I laughed. I couldn’t help myself.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Charles said, which made Dad laugh, too.
“Well, Charles …” Dad finally said, “it’s a mouthful to say and a bitch to spell ….”
Charles handed him a pen, but before Dad could sign his name Mom said, “Victor … don’t you think you should sleep on it?”
“What for?” Dad asked. “If Charles wants the family name, it’s his.” Dad signed his name to the documents, then sat back in his seat. “You know … I remember my grandfather telling me a story about the day he got to Ellis Island. The officials couldn’t say his name, let alone spell it. My grandparents didn’t speak a word of English but they understood what was happening. And they were all for it. A new country. A new life. A new name. I wonder what they’d think if they were here tonight?”
“I think they’d be honored,” Charles said.
“You could be right,” Dad told him.
Mom picked up the cake knife. “I guess it’s time for dessert,” she said, cutting into the cake as if she were trying to kill it.
Later I overheard Mom and Dad in the kitchen. “We’re talking about a name that’s going to follow him the rest of his life,” Mom said.
“Maybe … maybe not,” Dad told her. “And either way I still think it was better to sign, with
out making it into a production.”
“You actually like the idea, don’t you?”
“There’s a certain strength to a name like that,” Dad admitted.
“Well, I hate the whole thing! It’s just one more way for him to separate himself from the rest of the family.”
“He’s testing us … you know that.”
“I’m tired of being tested!” Mom said. “I’m tired of him manipulating us. And I hate what this is doing to the girls.”
I stood with my back against the wall right outside the kitchen. My heart was thumping so loud I was sure they could hear it.
“Sometimes I feel …” Mom continued. “Sometimes I feel such anger toward him I scare myself. Then I remember what a sweet, clever baby he was.” Her voice broke. “If I didn’t have those memories to fall back on, I don’t think I could tolerate another day of his mischief.”
“Nell … honey …”
I sneaked a look into the kitchen. Dad was holding Mom in his arms. I backed away as quietly as possible, right into Charles, who jabbed me in the sides with his fingers, making me cry out.
“What?” Dad asked, rushing into the hall.
“Nothing,” I said.
Charles laughed. “Rachel’s very edgy,” he said. “She’s worried she won’t be able to spell my last name.”
“How do you spell that name?” Stephanie said. She and Alison had come over to spend Saturday night.
“R-y-b-c-z-y-n-s-k-i.”
“How do you pronounce it again?” Alison asked, unrolling her sleeping bag and placing it next to Steph’s.
“Rib-jin-ski,” I told her.
“That’s an incredible name,” Alison said.
“Why would anyone want such a long last name?” Steph said. She pulled a stuffed coyote out of her overnight bag. She’s slept with that coyote since her father won it for her at a carnival. She says she plans to take it to college with her. She says she plans to take it on her honeymoon if and when she decides to get married.
“You’d have to ask Charles,” I told her.
“Where is he?”
“Stephanie!” I said. “Don’t you dare ask him!”
“But you said …”