“Hello, Amy. Where's Pip?” Ophélie asked, with tired eyes. You almost could not hear her French origins at all, her English was not only fluent, her accent was nearly perfect. It was only when she was extremely tired, or vastly upset, that a word or two sneaked through that betrayed her.
“I don't know.” Amy looked suddenly blank, as Ophélie observed her. They'd had this conversation before. Amy never seemed to know where Pip was. And Ophélie instantly suspected that, as usual, she'd been talking to her boyfriend on her cell phone. It was the one thing Ophélie complained about nearly each time Amy sat for her. She expected her to know where Pip was, particularly as the house was so close to the ocean. It always panicked Ophélie to think that something could happen to her. “I think she's in her room, reading. That's where she was the last time I saw her,” Amy offered. In truth, Pip hadn't been in her room since she'd left it that morning. Her mother went to take a look, and of course saw no one. At that exact moment, Pip was in fact running down the beach toward home, with Mousse gamboling along beside her.
“Did she go down to the beach?” Ophélie asked, looking nervous as she came back to the kitchen. Her nerves had been raw since October, which previously would have been unlike her. But now everything was different. Amy had just turned on the dishwasher and was preparing to leave, with little or no concern where her charge was. She had the confidence and trust of youth. Ophélie knew better, and had learned the agonizing lesson that life could not be trusted.
“I don't think so. If she did, she didn't tell me.” The sixteen-year-old looked relaxed and unworried. And Ophélie looked anxious, despite the fact that the community was supposed to be safe, and appeared to be, but it still infuriated and terrified her that Amy allowed Pip to wander off with no supervision whatsoever. If she got hurt, or had a problem, or was hit by a car on the road, no one would know it. She had told Pip to report to Amy before she went anywhere, but neither the child nor the teenager heeded her instructions. “See you on Thursday!” Amy called as she breezed out the door, as Ophélie kicked off her sandals, walked out onto the deck, looked down the beach with a worried frown, and saw her. Pip was coming home at a dead run, and holding something in her hand that was flapping in the wind. It looked like a piece of paper, as Ophélie walked out to the dune, feeling relief sweep over her, and then down onto the beach to meet her. The worst possible scenarios always jumped into her mind now, instead of the simpler explanations. It was nearly five by then, and getting colder.
Ophélie waved at her daughter, who came to a breathless stop beside her, with a grin, and Mousse ran around them in circles, barking. Pip could see that her mother looked worried.
“Where've you been?” Ophélie asked quickly with a frown, she was still annoyed at Amy. The girl was hopeless. But Ophélie hadn't found anyone else to sit for her. And she needed someone with Pip whenever she went into the city.
“I went for a walk with Moussy. We went all the way down there,” she pointed in the direction of the public beach, “and it took longer to get back than I thought. He was chasing seagulls.” Ophélie smiled at her and relaxed finally, she was such a sweet child. Just seeing her sometimes reminded Ophélie of her own youth in Paris, and summers in Brittany. The climate had not been so different from this one. She had loved her summers there, and she had taken Pip there when she was little, just so she could see it.
“What's that?” She glanced at the piece of paper and could see it was a drawing of something.
“I did a picture of Mousse. I know how to do the back legs now.” But she did not say how she had learned it. She knew her mother would have disapproved of her wandering off alone on the beach, and talking to a strange man, even if he had improved her drawing, and it was harmless. Her mother was very strict about Pip not talking to strangers. She was well aware of how pretty the child was, even if Pip was entirely unaware of it herself for the moment.
“I can't imagine he sat still for his portrait,” Ophélie said with a smile and a look of amusement. And when she smiled, one could see easily how pretty she was when she was happy. She was beautiful, with exquisitely sculpted fine features, perfect teeth, a lovely smile, and eyes that danced when she was laughing. But since October, she laughed seldom, nearly never. And at night, lost in their separate private worlds, they hardly talked to each other. Despite how much she loved her child, Ophélie could no longer think of topics of conversation. It was too much effort, more than she could cope with. Everything was too much now, sometimes even breathing, and especially talking. She just retreated to her bedroom night after night, and lay on the bed in the dark. Pip went to her own room and closed the door, and if she wanted company, she took the dog with her. He was her constant companion.
“I found some shells for you,” Pip said, pulling two pretty ones out of the pocket of her sweatshirt and handing them to her mother. “I found a sand dollar too, but it was broken.”
“They nearly always are,” Ophélie said as she held the shells in her hand, and they walked back to the house together. She hadn't kissed Pip hello, she had forgotten. But Pip was used to it now. It was as though any form of human touch or contact was too painful for her mother. She had retreated behind her walls, and the mother Pip had known for the past eleven years had vanished. The woman who had taken her place, though outwardly the same, was in fact frail and broken. Someone had taken Ophélie away in the dark of night and replaced her with a robot. She sounded, felt, smelled, and looked the same, nothing about her was visibly different, but everything about her had altered. All the inner workings and mechanisms were irreparably different, and they both knew it. Pip had no choice but to accept it. And she had been gracious about it.
For a child her age, Pip had grown wise in the past nine months, wiser than most girls her age. And she had developed an intuitive sense about people, particularly her mother.
“Are you hungry?” Ophélie asked, looking worried. Cooking dinner had become an agony she hated, a ritual she detested. And eating it was even more distressing. She was never hungry, hadn't been in months. They had both grown thinner from nine months of dinners they couldn't swallow.
“Not yet. Do you want me to make pizza tonight?” Pip offered. It was one of the meals they both enjoyed not eating, although Ophélie seemed not to notice how Pip picked at her food now.
“Maybe,” Ophélie said vaguely. “I can make something if you want.” They had had pizza four nights in a row. There were stacks of them in the freezer. But everything else seemed like too much effort for too little return. If they weren't going to eat anyway, at least the pizzas were easy.
“I'm not really hungry,” Pip said vaguely. They had the same conversation every night. And sometimes in spite of it, Ophélie roasted a chicken and made a salad, but they didn't eat that either, it was too much trouble. Pip was existing on peanut butter and pizza. And Ophélie ate almost nothing, and looked it.
Ophélie went to her room then and lay down, and Pip went to her room and stood the portrait of Mousse against the lamp on her nightstand. The paper from the sketch pad was stiff enough to hold it, and as Pip looked at it, she thought of Matthew. She was anxious to see him again on Thursday. She liked him. And the drawing looked a lot better with the changes he'd made to the back legs. Mousse looked like a real dog in the drawing, and not half-dog half-rabbit, like the earlier portraits she'd done of him. Matthew was clearly a skilled artist.