Trouble in Paradise

Chapter 5

As Susan sat across the dinner table from Barbara, she was rather startlingly aware of how different the fourteen-year-old was from her gregarious younger brother. A week had passed since Tiger’s brief visit. Susan and Griff had packed up the whole brood and taken them out to dinner on Wednesday; his ex-wife had raised no objection, even though it wasn’t their “assigned time.” Barbara had been distinctly cool that evening, though no one else seemed to notice. Susan had scolded herself that she was just looking to make mountains out of molehills as a result of her fear that the girl wouldn’t accept her, but she wasn’t making any mountains now as she and Barbara ate dinner alone together. Passing the plate of ham, she felt the tense silence between them. Someone at the table was sending out distinctly hostile messages. It wasn’t Susan.

Tall and slim, Barbara had rich sable hair, worn long with a heavy fringe of bangs. Most teenagers would have killed for that porcelain complexion. Barbara was a beauty, give or take the adolescent garb. Newly budding breasts were concealed under a voluminous old sweatshirt; the jeans, by contrast, undoubtedly took her a half hour to get out of; she had probably put them on wet and let them dry. The only feature of Griff’s that Barbara had inherited was a pair of beautiful dark eyes, accented-five minutes after her father had left the house-with four coats of mascara.

Those eyes kept darting over to Susan, slipping past her favorite dinner, dancing past Susan’s utterly innocuous gray wool pants and bright red sweater, glancing into Susan’s compassionate gray eyes, flitting around the dining room, taking in the deacon’s bench and long oak table and crystal chandelier…and apparently disdaining all of it.

Susan made every effort to send over her own share of silent messages: Honey, I’m sorry Griff isn’t here; you know how much he values time with you. Yes, I know the last thing you want is to be stuck here alone with me. I’ve seen all those intimidating looks you keep giving me, but I’m not raising any white flags yet. And, yes, you little vixen, I’ve noticed the eye shadow and mascara, but you’re going to have to wait until hell freezes over before I make any comments about the appropriate age at which to wear makeup. First of all, I have no interest in playing Wicked Stepmother, and second, if I’d had an asset like those big, beautiful eyes I would probably have worn mascara when I was five. Perhaps not quite that thick, but…

“Want some chocolate cake?” Susan stood up with her plate in her hand.

“No, thank you,” Barbara said stiffly.

Susan juggled a few more dishes in her arms before heading toward the kitchen, ignoring Barbara’s glacial voice. “Your dad said he’d call around eight. Barbara, you know he had no idea until four this afternoon that he was going to be anywhere but right here with you. It wasn’t his fault that-”

“You told me.”

“He’s still hoping to be here by noon tomorrow.”

“Sure.” Barbara unfolded her long legs from under the table, a very odd mixture of feminine grace and early teenage clumsiness. She followed Susan, taking no dishes, and stood in the doorway while her stepmother started storing the leftovers. “Dad’s probably just as happy anyway. Like I was expecting something like this. A setup, you know?”

Susan turned startled eyes to her. “What are you talking about?”

“Oh, come on, Susan. Here we are, getting to know each other. I mean, like, you’re supposed to be part of my family now, too, right? So you’re taking us on, one at a time. First Tiger, now me. Then Tom.”

Susan closed the refrigerator with a little thump, well aware what the girl thought of that particular program. An elephant couldn’t have missed the sarcasm. She ran the sink full of hot water and added enough soap to wash the dishes forty times over. “It’s rough for you, isn’t it?” She briskly put the dishes into the sink. “You were used to having a lot of private time with your dad. Naturally, you’re afraid I’m going to cut into that and interfere in your relationship with him in other ways, too. On top of that, of course, you have a mother already, you don’t need two. I think if I were in your shoes, I’d feel just as uptight as you do.” She added casually, “I don’t mind washing, but I hate drying.”

Barbara’s stricken look might or might not have resulted from her resentment at being expected to dry the dishes, but she took up the towel anyway. Silence returned like an unwanted friend. Susan thought with wry desperation that she must have scored at least a minor hit; what fun is it to attack an enemy who won’t fight back? The silence was no fun, either, though.

For Susan, the worst part of being stared at was that she couldn’t dry her hands and finish off the single fingernail she’d started unobtrusively biting five minutes after Barbara walked in. Having beaten the horrible habit when she was fifteen, Susan suddenly clearly remembered what it felt like to have a half-gnawed nail that craved to be evened up.

Griff called a few minutes later from Duluth, only to tell them he couldn’t possibly be home until late Sunday morning. He talked to his daughter for more than twenty minutes, while Susan finished the dishes, desperately missed her husband and sweated out how on earth she was going to entertain Barbara for two evenings and an entire day.

“Darling, is it going all right?” he asked Susan when his daughter finally handed her the phone.

“Just fine,” she told him blithely.

As they walked out of the kitchen a few minutes later, Barbara complained, “I don’t understand what’s so important to Dad about that stupid land, anyway. It’s not like it’s worth anything. Mom told me ages ago that all the real money comes from the plants in St. Paul. There’s no reason why Dad still has to go up there all the time.”

“It’s the land your great-grandfather homesteaded,” Susan answered. And that he destroyed, Griff had told her. He and the others of his generation pillaged the forests, and no one had thought to replant them until thirty years ago. Griff’s father had planted jack pine, a tree that grew fast enough to provide a regular income, yet Griff had different dreams for the land. He was meeting forestry people over the weekend. Busy people, like him. There was no other time.

“So what does that have to do with anything?” Barbara insisted petulantly. “If it doesn’t make money, what’s the point of it?”

Susan sighed. It wasn’t the first time she’d felt like giving Griff’s ex-wife a good kick in the chops for engraining in her offspring such a materialistic attitude. “The love of the forest is the point,” she said patiently.

Barbara seemed momentarily diverted as she started roaming from room to room. Susan followed, hoping the girl would find some of the spirit of “home” that she and Griff saw in the house. Not everything was finished, of course. They’d hurried through the big jobs, the repairing and painting and tearing up that were needed to make the house livable. Tiger’s and then Barbara’s room had been Susan’s top priorities, and the downstairs was still skimpily furnished. But there was enough, surely, so that Barbara could see that the goal was comfort and space? A place she might want to come home to…

The girl paused at the threshold to the library. Russet carpet led up to the small fire Susan had laid in the hearth. The bookshelves were filled now, and Griff’s antique maps hung on the walls. The silver sconces above the fireplace had been polished, and they gleamed in the firelight. Nubby cream-colored couches faced each other, their cushions begging to be sunk into. Where Griff had uncovered the treasure, Susan didn’t know, but he’d converted a small semicircular gaming table into a writing desk; its dark patina shone in contrast to the original oak paneling and the rich russet of the new carpet.

“Mom likes blue,” Barbara remarked.

“I’m sure she does.”

Barbara subjected the living room to the same intense scrutiny. “You are going to get some furniture sooner or later, aren’t you? I mean, not just this old stuff?”

Susan stuffed her hands in her pockets. The living room was rather empty still. The two Oriental rugs were her pride and joy. Her six-legged French desk, an exquisite eighteenth-century corner chair, a Sak sideboard and, yes, a rather dilapidated old couch, because they really hadn’t had the time to shop for what they wanted. Still, Susan loved this room, from its high ceiling to the old-fashioned transoms to the circular, leaded-glass windows with the built-in seats beneath. Obviously, Sheila favored more contemporary styles and had passed her tastes on to her daughter. “Would you like to see your room?” Susan asked helplessly.

Barbara hesitated momentarily at the foot of the stairs, staring back into the living room and then inscrutably at Susan. “It is kind of an interesting old house,” she admitted.

“Thank you. We think so, too,” Susan said dryly.

Barbara flashed her a look. No, Susan told herself, don’t risk any more ironic comments.

Susan held her breath while Barbara climbed the stairs ahead of her and found the way to her room. She’d worried about that room more than any other. At fourteen, Susan had been miserable or insecure herself…probably no more miserable or insecure than any other adolescent, but she hadn’t found that out until later. Rebellion, anxiety, ambivalence, parents-everything had seemed dreadful at that age. Susan remembered, and had hoped to say so much to Barbara with this room…

The bed was a Jenny Lind, its graceful lines accented by a pale blue comforter. The corner under the window had begged for a little dressing table; Susan had sewed the skirt herself, light blue with mauve, to match the curtains. The desk was blue with gold trim, the carpeting more expensive per yard than the russet in the library. The closet was ample, but Susan had fallen in love with an old wardrobe and antiqued it in white, with just a hint of blue at the edges.

This room was pretty enough to make up for having to go through adolescence. Susan had done the best she could…

Barbara turned to her, suddenly all dark eyes like her father’s. “I never asked you to do anything like this.”

“I know.”

“I…” Barbara turned back to the room that had been so lovingly prepared for her. “It’s a pretty special bedroom,” she said grudgingly.

Susan felt as if she’d just finished a snifter of champagne. Champagne was not served in snifters. Which was completely irrelevant.

Twenty-four hours later, the doorbell rang for the umpteenth time. Running a hand distractedly through her dark hair, Susan ran to answer it. She blinked hard at the three grinning boys on the porch steps, her brilliant smile unwavering as she let them in. Finding the president standing on the doorstep would not have surprised her at this point.

Barbara had talked her into giving an impromptu party. A few friends, though, seemed to have snowballed into a multitude. All girls, Susan had so naively assumed. Clearly not the case, although given the hairstyles and unisex clothing, it was sometimes hard to tell.

Sheila evidently didn’t allow parties, simply because she was rarely at home to chaperone them. Susan had known damn well that Barbara was testing her, but there didn’t seem to be a valid reason not to let the girl have her way. They’d been doing so well since Barbara had seen her room. How much trouble could a few girl friends be? Griff wasn’t there to be annoyed by the noise or debris. And all day she and Barbara had had a good time together, fixing snacks, going to the store to buy soft drinks and potato chips. Barbara had unpacked Griff’s stereo, looked through the CDs… They had made another trip to buy more suitable music. Griff relaxed to Tchaikovsky; his daughter relaxed to Katy Perry and Rihanna. Or a variation thereof.

That was fine, but Susan had clearly not anticipated the rest of the evening. At fourteen, Susan had been into pajama parties, potato chips and rereading the love scenes from Gone with the Wind.

Barbara was doing a wild dance in the living room that made Susan blush. So were a dozen others. Some of them were old enough to drive cars…and had rather sophisticated ideas about entertainment. The music was mind-blowing, a phrase Susan suddenly understood very well. Since there was only one lamp in the living room, the light was rather muted. There was a couple on the couch who hadn’t let up… in an hour.

After ushering in the three newcomers, Susan hurried back to the kitchen, poured potato chips into yet another bowl, hurriedly whipped up some fresh dip and frantically tried to gather her thoughts. She could hardly have missed the belligerent looks Barbara had flashed at her over the past two hours, looks that said, Go ahead, Susan, come on like the Green Berets. It’s just what I expect from you…

So there were two youngsters necking on the couch. And the rest were dancing as if it were some primitive mating ritual. So there were three dozen instead of a nice, manageable six…

At fourteen, even after having been handed all the appropriate books, Susan had really not been absolutely positive that babies didn’t come from belly buttons. She realized that she was now looking into the depths of a massive generation gap. A shy, demure bookworm had no comprehension of “letting it all hang out.”

She was trying. Maybe not hard enough, though, because the sight of two teenagers petting on the couch shocked her. When she was fourteen, she would never have allowed a boy to touch those very new, very sensitive, very small breasts she’d waited so long for nature to develop. Dammit. To touch like that in front of three dozen other people…

What exactly was she supposed to do? Not fail Griff, she told herself. He was so worried about Barbara, so convinced she needed a mature yet feminine woman to talk to her…and Barbara was not going to listen to anyone who came on like a police patrol.

Pushing the kitchen door open with her hip, Susan carried the tray of chips and dip into the dining room, a smile fixed on her face that made the muscles in her cheeks ache. The two boys perched on the window seat looked startled when she came in, then smiled just as brilliantly back at her. Fortunately, her eyes were quicker than the boys’ hands. She saw the brown paper bag they tried to hide, and she smelled the beer. “I have Coke,” she told them brightly.

“That’s okay. We’re not thirsty, Mrs. Anderson.”

“Oh, I’m sure you are.” She whipped the tray onto the table and delivered two Cokes from the kitchen. Hastily, she popped the tops and forced the cold cans into the boys’ hands. Susan perched on the seat next to them, prepared to chat. When the two boys fled to join the others, in predictable horror at having to talk to an adult, she claimed the brown-bagged booty and buried it in the trash, almost before her stomach had developed an ulcer.

The victory was minor; her nose led her to other trouble. Barbara’s eyes were riveted to hers yet again as Susan passed through the living room. Anxious, troubled eyes? But by now Susan doubted her own perceptions where Barbara was concerned. At any rate, there was the strangest smell…

She paused in the doorway to the library, watching a boy light up a joint and pass it to a girl, who took a drag and then handed it to another boy. Plain cigarettes would have been bad enough; the kind those three kids were smoking knotted another ball of panic in Susan’s stomach. She saw the flicker of ash on her brand-new carpet and had had enough. She would have to win over Griff’s daughter another time. Striding over to the troublemakers with a brilliant smile, she snatched the marijuana cigarette away from the third smoker, watched three mouths drop in shock at her sudden appearance, and tossed the offending reefer into the fire. “Do you have a ride home?” she asked them pleasantly.

That seemed to start a roller coaster in her brain that refused to slow down. She sped back to the living room, avoiding Barbara’s eyes and swooped down on the boy and girl who were necking. “Would you like some potato chips and dip?” she suggested brightly.

The girl flushed crimson; the boy just stared at her as if she were out of her mind.

“You would like some potato chips and dip,” Susan said firmly. “Now.”

Outside there was a noise. The sprawling old elm was climbable, unfortunately. At least the swinging monkeys more closely resembled what Susan remembered fourteen-year-olds to be. She shooed them down, went back inside to serve one last round of hot dogs and took two aspirin. Then, acting on a sudden hunch, she raced upstairs to find another adolescent couple looking for a place to fool around.

Over and over during the melee she caught Barbara’s eyes on hers, still belligerent yet somehow pleading and desperately unhappy. Barbara had never left the dance floor; in fact, Griff’s daughter had never been part of the disasters that had been going on. Barbara hadn’t been smoking or necking or drinking…but as for the friends her mother evidently allowed her to socialize with…

“Look, Susan,” Barbara said miserably some hours after the party had ended, “I’ll clean everything up.”

Susan was on her knees, as was Barbara, both of them trying to remove a stain of unknown origin from the expensive Oriental rug. It was past midnight, and the house was suddenly quiet. Her lovely, lovely house, Susan lamented. Soda cans were everywhere, chips were deeply embedded in the carpet, snacks were strewn about haphazardly and water stains marked the newly varnished sideboards. Susan lifted her head and stared at Barbara, then picked up the soaked towels and stood up, snatching up assorted soda cans on her way back to the kitchen.

Susan was hurt, and close to tears. Barbara trailed silently after her, carrying so many cans that a few tumbled to the floor, making a terrible racket. Barbara’s head jerked up, her eyes still guiltily expecting a tongue-lashing from her new stepmother.

It didn’t happen. Susan simply picked up the last of the debris and then hauled out the vacuum cleaner. She was certainly not going to let Griff come home to this mess; she didn’t care what time it was. Barbara stayed in the kitchen, having filled the sink with soapy water without even being asked to do so.

Susan pushed the noisy vacuum cleaner over every inch of the new carpets, ignoring wet spots, not particularly caring if she got electrocuted. Her head ached; her back was feeling the strain of the long day…but it was her heart that felt torn to pieces. The hurt came from knowing that she’d been so naive as to be set up by one fourteen-year-old child. It came from the hours she’d spent painting and furnishing Barbara’s room, anticipating that a slow but sure course of honest affection and gentleness would win the girl over, a naive belief that if she went ninety percent of the way, Barbara would surely come the other ten percent.

Yes, Barbara was unhappy, guilty and miserable now. Maybe she hadn’t expected things to get quite so out of hand, but Susan was almost certain that Barbara was panicking with fear that Susan would tell Griff about the party. Barbara’s remorse was not really regret for what she’d put Susan through. She couldn’t have gone more out of her way to totally reject her father’s wife…

Finally, after going over the carpet four times, Susan turned off the vacuum cleaner. As she was winding the cord, she glimpsed Barbara from the corner of her eye, hugging the wall by the door, her face pasty-white and her eyes stricken.

In spite of herself, and in spite of every rational instinct she’d ever possessed, Susan felt an unwelcome surge of compassion. “Barbara, it’s all right. Just go to bed,” she said quietly. “It’s all over.”

“Like, I didn’t know some of those guys. They were older. The thing was, the kids I invited needed someone older to drive them to this side of town, but I didn’t-”

However true that was, Susan knew the party had been planned to convey to her exactly what Barbara thought of her stepmother. Pushing a strand of hair back from her cheek, Susan straightened up from winding the vacuum cord. “The two boys you seemed to spend most of your time dancing with,” Susan said casually. “They looked like nice kids…”

“Steve is.” Barbara hesitated. “Those guys that pushed their way in were creeps. Crashers. None of the girls I go around with have anything to do with Barry…”

Barbara was so busy covering her tracks, yet Susan heard the grain of truth. It mattered, because she needed to hear that Barbara didn’t normally associate with certain of those teenagers before she could promise silence, something she knew Barbara was desperate to hear.

She pushed the vacuum cleaner into the closet and closed the door. “I don’t think we need to tell your father,” she said quietly.

Barbara’s face promptly took on a little color.

“It was between you and me, anyway, wasn’t it?” Susan said sadly. “Go to bed, Barbara. It’s late.”

The girl lost no time racing up the stairs. Susan couldn’t possibly have told her that she had no desire to inform Griff for her own sake; that she couldn’t bear to let him know how badly she had bungled her attempt to establish a relationship with the child he loved so dearly. She almost felt like laughing. She’d thought she had so much to share with his only daughter; she could remember so well how tough it was to be that age, that blend of grace and clumsiness, that special insecure person a fourteen-year-old girl was. Her total lack of experience with children had troubled her, but she had thought that at least with Barbara, despite the tough exterior…

First, bugs with Tiger, and now rebellion from Barbara… Susan mounted the stairs with a feeling of despair. She’d known before she married Griff that his kids were part of the package; with so much love inside her, she’d welcomed the challenges she’d known were coming.

It had just never occurred to her before that she could totally fail.