The Invited(88)

“Sylvia also said something about a club Mama might have been a part of. Do you know anything about that?”

She considered mentioning Dicky Barns but decided that was a lousy idea—she already knew what her daddy thought of Dicky, and she thought that might just send him off on a rant and that wasn’t the way she wanted this to go.

    “She was probably talking about a dance club or something,” he said, sounding kind of disgusted. “Loud music, cheap well drinks. Your mama loves places like that.” There went his jaw again, tightening, like he was clamping something between his teeth, holding it tight.

Olive remembered how sometimes Mama and Daddy would go out for a date night: dinner at the steak place in Barre, sometimes a movie after. Sometimes they’d go out to Rosy’s to watch a Red Sox game on the big screen or meet up with some of Daddy’s friends from the town team after a softball game. Daddy used to play on the team but didn’t anymore because of his bad knee. But she couldn’t think of a single time they ever went out dancing or to a place that called itself a club. Those trips were reserved for Mama and Riley’s nights out. Or Mama on her own, meeting up with other friends. Other boyfriends maybe even, if you believed the rumors.

Olive shook her head. “I don’t think that’s what Sylvia meant.”

“Well, your mama never said anything to me about any club. She’s not exactly a joiner kind of person, know what I mean?” He turned back to her, looked her in the eye.

Olive nodded. She knew exactly what he meant. Her mom had never volunteered to help on field trips or to make brownies for the school bake sale. When Olive had begged to join the Girl Scouts in third grade because her best friend, Jenna, was in it, her mom had said no. “What do you want to go and do that for, Ollie? Sitting around making macaroni necklaces and selling cookies with a bunch of girls in identical uniforms, competing for badges. Groups like that, they’re just training kids to lose their individuality, to be like everyone else. That’s not what you want, is it?”

Olive had shaken her head then. But it was a lie. Secretly, part of her did want to be like those other girls, to blend in, to feel like she belonged.

Mama was her own person. Her own unique individual who spun and glittered and shone when she walked into any room. But Olive just wanted to blend in, to disappear in the scenery.

“Do you have any idea how special you are, Ollie?” Mama had asked her one night, not long before she went away.

Olive had shrugged, thought, Not me. I’m not special at all, but she didn’t want to contradict her. Mama was sitting on the edge of her bed, tucking her in even though Olive was too old to be tucked in, really.

    “Some people, they have magic in their veins. You’re one of them. You and me both. Can’t you feel it?” Then she reached down and touched the necklace, the I see all necklace, and smiled real big.



* * *



. . .

Now Olive stared at her dust-covered father, knew she had to keep going, that he might know something, might be carrying some crucial piece of the puzzle around without even realizing it. “Do you remember the necklace Mama wore all the time then? The silver one?”

“I think so, yeah. Why?”

“Did you give it to her?”

He sighed. “No, I didn’t.”

“Do you know where it came from?” she asked.

“I don’t know, Ollie. It was probably a gift, I guess. Maybe he gave it to her.”

Olive swallowed hard. She didn’t need to ask which “he” Daddy was talking about. It was the mystery man, the other man, the man Mama supposedly left them both for.

But what if it wasn’t true?

“I think it would be best,” Daddy said, “for you to forget all about that necklace.”

Olive could feel the silver pendant against her chest. She wanted to reach up and touch it but didn’t want to give Daddy any clues.

“I think you’ve got other things you need to be concentrating on right now.” He looked at her, his brow furrowed like he had a bad headache coming on. “School starts next week,” he said at last.

“I know,” she said, her mouth suddenly dry. She’d been trying hard not to think about it.

“Things are going to change around here this school year.” He was breathing harder now, his face red. He looked like a man ready to stroke out. “You think you’ve been fooling your old man here, but you haven’t. I’ve gotten the calls. The letters. Your report card. I know how much school you missed last year. How many assignments you missed. You passed ninth grade by the skin of your teeth, Ollie. I even went up and had a meeting with the principal and your guidance counselor.”

    “What?” she gasped.

“They understand that last year was tough for you. That there were extenuating circumstances. But things have to change, Ollie. This year they won’t be so easy on you. They know you can do better. I know you can do better.”

“Daddy, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”

He shook his head slowly, like his neck was sore and his head was so, so heavy. “I don’t want apologies. I just want to see that this year it’ll be different. That you’ll go in there and bust your ass. Make up for last year. You’ll go in there and make your mama and me proud.”