Read Online A Most Uncommon Degree of Popularity by Kathleen Gilles Seidel - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Kathleen Gilles Seidel
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was time for her afternoon soccer game. Thomas got more phone calls than she did.
Faith Caudwell came to the soccer game even though her mother had not been able to get her on the team. She talked with whatever girls weren’t on the field. Erin is one of the better players on the team so, as always, she played most of the game, but at halftime it looked as if all the conversation was about the ensemble. Erin stood at the edge of the group without a lot to say.
And the conversation among us mothers was about the ensemble as well. Mimi was outraged that Grace Barton was picking on Rachel. “Chloe asked Rachel what page they were on, Rachel answered, and Rachel got yelled at.”
What did you expect?
I wanted to say.
We knew that Mrs. Barton was petty. We knew she played favorites. We could have predicted this. And can’t any of you see what Erin is going through? Don’t you think her suffering is worse?
The lighthouse was dark indeed.
Back home after the game I carried Thomas’s clean laundry upstairs. As I put it away, I found a pair of Jamie’s socks mixed in with Thomas’s so I headed toward the front of the house where our bedroom is. Erin’s door was shut. I paused, listening. She was crying.
I moved close to the door, pulling my shoulders in as if trying to wedge myself into the angle created by the door and the casing trim.
I knocked lightly. “Erin, sweetie …”
“Go away, Mom.” Her voice was thick and muffled. “Just go away.”
My hand dropped to the doorknob. I could go in. The keys necessary for locking the bedroom doors had been lost years ago. I could go in and scoop her up in my arms and hold her and let her cry until everything was all right again.
But her crying in my arms wasn’t going to fix this. It would make me feel better, not her.
I was not going to barge in. I knocked once more.
“Leave me alone. Please leave me alone.”
So I did. I put Jamie’s socks away and went down the front stairs.
Our front hall is painted a pale, cool sage green, and descending the stairway wall is a series of pictures I had taken of Erin and her friends. I had started taking them when the girls were six—the first year I had taken a class at the Corcoran—and have taken one a year since then. Identically framed in silver-toned wood, the pictures were black-and-whites of four barefoot girls in white against a white background. One time they were all dancing. Another time they were perched on a series of black stools. Sometimes they were laughing, sometimes they were sweetly serious. Last year they had rejected the idea of four matching white dresses, so they had worn faded denim jeans and white T-shirts, and they were playing leapfrog. Brittany and Rachel were crouched while the two smaller girls, Erin and Elise, were in midair, their arms down, their legs spread, their hair flying. I had used a wide-angle lens with a two point eight f-stop and a shutter speed of 1/500 seconds on that one. To my eye the early pictures, taken with my old Nikon, were amateurish, but whenever I went to take those first ones down, I would stop seeing them as a photographer, and I would get weepy at how exquisitely textured very young children were, and I would leave the pictures hanging.
Every year these pictures were my holiday gift to my friends, and we all have them hanging in prominent places in our houses.
What kind of picture was I going to be able to take this year?
• • •
Later in the week I asked Erin if she wanted to have everyone over that Friday evening. “You could certainly have Faith, too. We could pick them all up from the ensemble.”
I drive what my son, with his expensive private-school vocabulary, calls “a big-ass station wagon” so I can transport more kids than anyone else.
“No,” she said. “They won’t want to come.”
“Erin! These are your friends. They have been your friends since you were four. Why wouldn’t they want to come?”
“They just won’t. I
Faith Caudwell came to the soccer game even though her mother had not been able to get her on the team. She talked with whatever girls weren’t on the field. Erin is one of the better players on the team so, as always, she played most of the game, but at halftime it looked as if all the conversation was about the ensemble. Erin stood at the edge of the group without a lot to say.
And the conversation among us mothers was about the ensemble as well. Mimi was outraged that Grace Barton was picking on Rachel. “Chloe asked Rachel what page they were on, Rachel answered, and Rachel got yelled at.”
What did you expect?
I wanted to say.
We knew that Mrs. Barton was petty. We knew she played favorites. We could have predicted this. And can’t any of you see what Erin is going through? Don’t you think her suffering is worse?
The lighthouse was dark indeed.
Back home after the game I carried Thomas’s clean laundry upstairs. As I put it away, I found a pair of Jamie’s socks mixed in with Thomas’s so I headed toward the front of the house where our bedroom is. Erin’s door was shut. I paused, listening. She was crying.
I moved close to the door, pulling my shoulders in as if trying to wedge myself into the angle created by the door and the casing trim.
I knocked lightly. “Erin, sweetie …”
“Go away, Mom.” Her voice was thick and muffled. “Just go away.”
My hand dropped to the doorknob. I could go in. The keys necessary for locking the bedroom doors had been lost years ago. I could go in and scoop her up in my arms and hold her and let her cry until everything was all right again.
But her crying in my arms wasn’t going to fix this. It would make me feel better, not her.
I was not going to barge in. I knocked once more.
“Leave me alone. Please leave me alone.”
So I did. I put Jamie’s socks away and went down the front stairs.
Our front hall is painted a pale, cool sage green, and descending the stairway wall is a series of pictures I had taken of Erin and her friends. I had started taking them when the girls were six—the first year I had taken a class at the Corcoran—and have taken one a year since then. Identically framed in silver-toned wood, the pictures were black-and-whites of four barefoot girls in white against a white background. One time they were all dancing. Another time they were perched on a series of black stools. Sometimes they were laughing, sometimes they were sweetly serious. Last year they had rejected the idea of four matching white dresses, so they had worn faded denim jeans and white T-shirts, and they were playing leapfrog. Brittany and Rachel were crouched while the two smaller girls, Erin and Elise, were in midair, their arms down, their legs spread, their hair flying. I had used a wide-angle lens with a two point eight f-stop and a shutter speed of 1/500 seconds on that one. To my eye the early pictures, taken with my old Nikon, were amateurish, but whenever I went to take those first ones down, I would stop seeing them as a photographer, and I would get weepy at how exquisitely textured very young children were, and I would leave the pictures hanging.
Every year these pictures were my holiday gift to my friends, and we all have them hanging in prominent places in our houses.
What kind of picture was I going to be able to take this year?
• • •
Later in the week I asked Erin if she wanted to have everyone over that Friday evening. “You could certainly have Faith, too. We could pick them all up from the ensemble.”
I drive what my son, with his expensive private-school vocabulary, calls “a big-ass station wagon” so I can transport more kids than anyone else.
“No,” she said. “They won’t want to come.”
“Erin! These are your friends. They have been your friends since you were four. Why wouldn’t they want to come?”
“They just won’t. I
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