true: Jessie had launched a conscious, carefully thought-out campaign which would allow her to spend the day of the eclipse with her father. Much later Jessie would think that this was yet another reason to keep her mouth shut about what had happened on that day; there might be those-her mother, for instance-who would say that she had no right to complain; that she had in fact gotten about what she deserved.
On the day before the eclipse, Jessie had found her father sitting on the deck outside his den and reading a paperback copy of Profilesin Courage while his wife, son, and elder daughter laughed and swam in the lake below. He smiled at her when she took the seat next to him, and Jessie smiled back. She had brightened her mouth with lipstick for this interview-Peppermint Yum-Yum, in fact, a birthday present from Maddy. Jessie hadn't liked it when she first tried it on-she thought it a baby shade, and that it tasted like Pepsodent-but Daddy had said he thought it was pretty, and that had transformed it into the most valuable of her few cosmetic resources, something to be treasured and used only on special occasions like this one.
He listened carefully and respectfully as she spoke, but he made no particular attempt to disguise the glint of amused skepticism in his eyes. Do you really mean to tell me you're still afraid of AdrienneGilette? he asked when she had finished rehashing the oft-told tale of how Mrs Gilette had slapped her hand when she had reached for the last cookie on the plate. That must have been back in...Idon't know, but I was still working for Dunninger, so it must have beenbefore 1959. And you're still spooked all these years later? How absolutelyFreudian, my dear!
Well-Ill...you know...just a little. She widened her eyes, trying to communicate the idea that she was saying a little but meaning a lot. In truth she didn't know if she was still scared of old Pooh-pooh Breath or not, but she did know she considered Mrs Gilette a boring old blue-haired booger, and she had no intention of spending the only total eclipse of the sun she'd probably ever see in her company if she could possibly work things around so she could watch it with her Daddy, whom she adored beyond the power of words to tell.
She evaluated his skepticism and concluded with relief that it was friendly, perhaps even conspiratorial. She smiled and added: But I also want to stay with you.
He raised her hand to his mouth and kissed her fingers like a French monsieur. He hadn't shaved that day -he often didn't when he was at camp-and the rough scrape of his whiskers sent a pleasurable shiver of goosebumps up her arms and back.
Comme tu es douce, he said. Ma j'olie mademoiselle. Je t'aime.
She giggled, not understanding his clumsy French but suddenly sure it was all going to work out just the way she had hoped it would.
It would be fun, she said happily. Just the two of us. I could makean early supper and we could eat it right here, on the deck.
He grinned. Eclipse Burgers a deux?
She laughed, nodding and clapping her hands with delight.
Then he had said something that struck her as a little odd even at the time, because he was not a man who cared much about clothes and fashions. You could wear your pretty new sundress.
Sure, if you want, she said, although she had already made a mental note to ask her mother to try and exchange the sundress. It was pretty enough-if you weren't offended by red and yellow stripes almost bright enough to shout, that was-but it was also too small and too tight. Her mother had ordered it from Sears, going mostly by guess and by gosh, filling in a single size larger than that which had fit Jessie the year before. As it happened, she had grown a little faster than that, in a number of ways. Still, if Daddy liked it... and if he would come over to her side of this eclipse business and help her push...
He did come over to her side, and pushed like Hercules himself. He began that night, suggesting to his wife after dinner (and two or three mellowing glasses of vin rouge) that Jessie be excused from tomorrow's "eclipse-watch" outing to the top of Mount Washington. Most of their summer neighbors were going; just after Memorial Day they'd begun having informal meetings on