sleeping over at Debbie’s house in Mr. Malone’s army issue pup tent pitched in the backyard. All of these things suddenly seemed dull, but she did not know what else to do with herself. She sometimes went to the day camp at the park, weaving key rings out of strips of plastic and making mosaic ashtrays, but after five years of day camp she was sick to death of key rings and ash trays. At night she had taken to wandering in the fields, seeing an argument here, a kiss there. She liked the way the houses looked from the outside staring in. The air was fresher at night, even though the heat did not let up much; it felt as though the day was shaking itself out after the still stuffiness of the afternoon.
Through a side window of her own house she could see that her parents had moved into the living room. They were standing face to face, and as she drew nearer she could hear music playing. She recognized the song and the singer: Frank Sinatra, “Here’s that Rainy Day.” Tommy Scanlan loved music, and Maggie got a quarter from her father every time she could identify a song after only the opening notes, before anyone sang a word. “Here’s that Rainy Day” was her father’s second favorite song, after “A Foggy Day in London Town.”
Maggie realized her parents were dancing. Their heads turned slowly, and she could see their shoulders swaying in time to the music. Sometimes her father would pull Maggie off the floor to dance with him, but she would stumble and step on his feet and he would become impatient after only a few turns. “You’re leading,” he would say, and Maggie would say “Who cares?” and leave the room. But Tommy and Connie had met at a dance contest, and they were perfectly partnered. He led effortlessly, and she followed easily. It seemed hard to imagine that the man and woman gliding around the living room were the same two people who often stepped sullenly around each other in the kitchen, bickering over who had forgotten to buy breakfast cereal and whether the screens needed to be washed. Maggie wondered if everyone was really more than one person, like Jekyll and Hyde or the woman in The Three Faces of Eve, who changed from one personality into another. She thought that perhaps there was more to the Malones than met the eye, and to her aunt Margaret, and certainly to her cousin Monica, whose manners were flawless as long as anyone over the age of thirty was around. The only people she was sure were exactly what they seemed were her aunt Celeste and Helen Malone. She had often suspected that her parents were not entirely what she saw at the dinner table, particularly since she had learned what it had required for them to conceive four children. Two very different people from the ones she knew would have had to be involved in that. She watched carefully as they spun silently to the music. She suspected she was watching those two people now, and the blood rose up into her sweaty face, heat upon heat.
Behind her Damien and Terence were approaching, making much too much noise. “Shut up,” she whispered, all consonants, and they did, peering over her shoulder. “I think Mom is prettier than aunt Celeste,” said Damien, who still sometimes liked to climb into Connie’s lap and wordlessly touch her hair and face. “I do, too,” said Maggie, and the boys looked surprised, for Maggie was critical of everyone, particularly those she knew best.
“They’re kissing,” said Terence softly, his sss whistling in a quiet lull in the music.
“They’re not kissing, they’re dancing,” Maggie said.
“They’re allowed to kiss,” said Damien loudly, turning the flashlight on and shining it in Maggie’s face. “They’re married.”
Maggie knocked the light from his hands and both boys scrambled out into the backyard to grab it. “Maggie,” Damien whined, “it’s gone.” “Shut up,” Maggie said. The music stopped and suddenly the buzz of the crickets sounded very loud and harsh, as though they were somehow predatory. Maggie heard her father mumble something, and then Connie replied loudly, “Tell me, please, that I’m not hearing what I think I’m hearing.”
“Maggie,” Damien whined again, his voice faint, calling from the end of the yard. Maggie leaned closer to the screen. “Over my dead body,” Connie said, pulling away, but Maggie saw her father’s stringy forearms tighten and hold