The Time Keepers

Chapter 61

CHAPTER 61

O N THE KITCHEN TABLE OF THE G OLDENS ’ HOUSE, A SINGLE sheet of yellow paper announced the annual fundraising dance at the high school.

Katie lifted the paper and smiled. Last year, she’d gone on her mother’s insistence and found herself standing alone awkwardly with her friend Millie, who was nice enough but wasn’t much of a spark plug of fun. But just yesterday, Linda Atkinson, the most popular girl in her grade—who she’d managed to become friendly with at the beach club due to their overlapping lifeguard shifts—asked her if she was planning to go.

“I’m not sure,” Katie answered, trying to sound cool. “Last year, it was a bit of a drag.”

Linda rolled her eyes and blew a small pink bubble with her chewing gum, before snapping it back like a salamander catching a fly. “I know, right? But my mom’s making me go and help her sell cupcakes as part of my punishment for coming back late from my curfew last week.”

“That sucks.”

“Yeah, tell me about it.” Linda glanced at her wrist. “We have to be back on our shift in ten minutes. But think about coming, we could sell the cupcakes together then maybe go out for ice cream or whatever afterward.” She stood up and stretched her long tan arms above her head and adjusted her blond ponytail. “Please try to come, Katie. It’d be so much better if I had a friend there.”

Friend. Just the sound of being called Linda’s friend was thrilling to her. She took the yellow paper and tacked it to the family’s bulletin board before writing the word Dance on the wall calendar just as Grace came into the kitchen.

“What’s that, honey?”

Katie swung around and smiled at her mother. “The PTA dance. Linda Atkinson asked if I wanted to sell cupcakes with her there. Her mother’s baking them for the fundraiser.”

“Shelby Atkinson’s daughter? I didn’t know you’ve become friendly with her.” Grace was honestly a bit surprised, considering the girl had always rebuffed Kate’s birthday invitations back when they were in elementary school. And Grace recalled how once Linda said no, an avalanche of other girls suddenly responded saying they couldn’t attend either.

“Well, since we started lifeguarding, we’ve become friends,” Katie said.

“Oh, that’s a new development.…” Grace responded, trying to contain her suspicions. She had an old-world sensibility bred into her which made her believe Linda’s true nature had showed at a young age.

“It’s just she wasn’t that kind to you when you were back in—”

“Mom!” Katie cut her mother off. “That was ages ago, and why can’t you just be happy she asked me to go with her?”

Grace’s head ached. No one had told her parenting a teenager could be this relentless. She bit her tongue, trying to stop herself from saying things that she knew would only spiral into another fight with her eldest daughter. Didn’t Katie understand she only wanted what was best for her? That she didn’t want her to have her feelings hurt. She could almost anticipate the scene at the dance with Linda asking Katie to hang out with her until someone better and more socially advantageous came along.

What was it about American motherhood that seemed so paradoxically different from her own experience of being a daughter back home in Ireland? She would never have dared to speak back to her mother, even though there were times—many times—she had wanted to say something about a particular unfairness or frustration but held her tongue out of respect. Her childhood was filled with swallowed words and buried emotion. But here in America, children filled the air with their every thought and feeling. The space between her and Katie often felt so thick, she could barely breathe.

But before she could explain herself to her daughter, Katie had stormed out of the kitchen. Grace heard her daughter’s feet stomping loudly on the stairwell as she headed toward her room. The door slammed and Grace looked at the clock. It wasn’t even 10:00 a.m. yet, but she already felt weary.

As much as she longed for the laziness of summer break, she now craved school starting and the structure it brought with it.

Minutes later, when Molly stumbled into the kitchen in her pajamas, her face still drowsy with sleep, Grace tried to think of something that would make both of them happy.

“How about we go down to the drugstore for some new notebooks and pencils for school?” she suggested while pouring milk into a bowl of cornflakes.

“I need a new backpack too.”

“Well, we can take a drive down to the Foxton Mall for that, and maybe some new shoes too …”

Molly perked up. “No saddle shoes this year, Mom, okay? I want penny loafers.”

These were requests that were easy to fulfill. Grace stood in the kitchen and poured herself a mug of coffee, while upstairs she could still hear Katie’s angry footsteps and the slamming of her bedroom drawers.

Bellegrove High School, with its brick facade and flat roof, was a testament to 1960s functional architecture. Gone were the neoclassical pillars that flanked many of the neighboring towns’ schools that were built in the 1930s or ’40s. Through the heavy doors, past the rows of metal lockers, and down the long corridor was the school gymnasium, where the PTA dance would be held. Even after the long summer break, the scent of school lunches and teammate perspiration still clung to walls. Katie sprayed a little perfume on her wrist, hoping to fill her nostrils with something more delicate than the scent of hamburger and gym socks, before she headed out to the dance.

Grace had volunteered to help with decorations earlier that afternoon and had come home happy to report that the gym had been transformed into a Hawaiian oasis, replete with huge paper flowers made of colorful streamers and fake tiki torches that someone had made from old wrapping paper tubing.

Katie was just relieved her mother’s volunteer work had ended earlier that afternoon. There was nothing she wanted less than having her mother hover around her while she and Linda sold the cupcakes.

She happily slid into the front seat of the family’s Pontiac, her father perched at the steering wheel listening to John Denver on the radio.

“You look so grown-up, sweetheart.” It was hard to see her walk toward the car in her pink top and denim skirt. If he blinked, he could have imagined Grace, twenty years earlier, though perhaps wearing a longer hemline. He could smell she was wearing perfume too.

“Thanks,” she answered matter-of-factly. She pulled the sun visor down, glanced at herself in the mirror and reapplied her lip gloss.

“We should go, Dad. We don’t want to be late.”

Several blocks away, Clayton grabbed a clean T-shirt from his drawers and pulled it over his chest. His father’s breath, heavy with the scent of Marlboro cigarettes and Jack Daniels, was still in his nostrils. He couldn’t believe he had actually agreed to go with Buddy to this ridiculous dance at the school. But he realized it wasn’t the actual dance his friend wanted to attend, it was the opportunity to get closer to Katie Golden.

Clayton, however, had no interest in spending one minute longer than he needed to in that dumbass high school. He hated every part of it. The dented lockers, the glass cases with the decades’ old trophies, and the cafeteria with its pathetic long metal tables and benches.

But if he had to choose between spending the night at home with his old man and his whiskey breath and his insults, or the evening hanging out with Buddy to see if he could get to second base with that girl, he’d choose the latter.

After all, Buddy had promised him they’d leave after an hour and just head over to the fort.

“We should definitely have a few beers before we go,” Buddy puffed, trying to sound cool.

Underneath his bed, in his utility bag, Clayton had already stashed four cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. Buddy promised he’d bring four more.

He swiveled around, hoisted the bag onto his shoulders and headed out the door, his father cursing at him as he slammed the screen door shut.