2
PAUL GABRIEL WASN’T just physically awkward, walking as if one of his legs was shorter than the other; he was socially awkward as well. Shy wasn’t the right word for it. Ryder had searched for a euphemism for crude, unsophisticated, and as far from romantic and graceful as the planet Mars was from Earth. I knew shy boys who had a sweetness about them. Shy fit them as well as a perfectly sized shoe. They were cute. Paul wasn’t ugly, but he certainly wasn’t cute. I couldn’t imagine that Ryder was that close to him, either, or at least any closer than he was with other boys in the senior class. Truthfully, I hadn’t seen them together that much.
Ryder was correct in saying that few, if any, other girls from my class would be asked to the prom, but what he didn’t understand was that I would go not just to be one who was invited but because I would be with him and Alison. I was confident that Paul Gabriel took it the way he thought any girl might, that I was excited enough to go on a date with him because he was one of the school’s sports heroes.
The following day, Ryder invited me to sit with him and Alison in the cafeteria. I was surprised. Ryder and Alison were always surrounded by friends who were either seniors or juniors. A seat at their table was cherished as if it was a seat with royalty. This particular day, no one was walking toward a table with them. I saw Ryder nudge Alison when I entered the cafeteria. My eyes always went to Ryder when I was in the same room with him in school, whether that was the gym, the auditorium, or the cafeteria. She rolled her eyes.
I was keenly aware of how much closer his relationship with Alison had become, practically counting how many times he pressed his shoulder against hers or snuck in a peck on her cheek like someone stealing a grape off a vine. I realized their affection for each other was maturing into love. They were behaving more and more as if there was no one else in the room. I think there were times when my eyes were soaked in jealous tears that I couldn’t stop. I was watching a star grow dimmer and dimmer in the night sky, a star certainly out of my reach.
Maybe my jealousy colored how I viewed Alison. Did she sense that, and was that why she deliberately treated me as if I was still in grade school? I never wanted to dislike someone Ryder liked. I was terrified of his being disappointed in me if I even hinted at something unpleasant about her.
Instead, if anything, I tried to emulate Alison, even to walk like she walked or keep that Madonna smile on my face, too. I was hoping that someday Ryder would say, “You’re just like Alison.” He would give me a longer second look and maybe think, I have someone very precious right under my eyes.
Timidly, I approached them. Now that they were drawing me into their circle, even if only for a short time, the possibility that Alison would take one good look at my face and know how jealous I was worried me. She wouldn’t want anything to do with me then. No girl would want someone too close who was competing with her for her boyfriend’s attention.
“Hey,” Ryder said. “Grab your lunch and join us.”
“Really?”
“No. Pretend,” he said. He smiled. “Of course. C’mon. Just join us, Fern.”
I watched him discourage other boys from sitting at their table. Whatever he had said to them didn’t upset them. Naturally, I rushed to get my food and nearly tripped carrying my tray over to their table.
“Hi,” I said stupidly, as if I was just meeting them. I was that nervous. I knew all my girlfriends were watching and wondering.
Just as I sat, Paul Gabriel approached and sat beside me. Alison still didn’t look terribly happy about my joining them, but Ryder was smiling in anticipation. So that was why he invited me, I realized. The prom invitation was to come here and now. I held my breath, wondering if, when it came right down to it, I would back out and maybe make Alison happy.
“Hey,” Paul said. I turned to him. Hey? Great way to start a conversation, I thought. On the other hand, my mother had told me that hey in Swedish meant hello. Not that Paul Gabriel was Swedish.
The awkwardness in his movements, however, seemed to have invaded his face. When he smiled, it influenced only the right side of his mouth, his lips parting enough just at the corner. I had never noticed the color of his eyes, having hardly given him a second glance, but now I noted how they were a dull, faded blue. He had a thin nose and slim cheeks that flowed down to his angular jaw. He wore his long light-brown hair unruly, looking like someone who brushed it quickly in the morning with his fingers.
Ryder said Paul had the perfect baseball pitcher’s body, tall with good shoulders and long arms and hands. He had already broken the school’s record for strikeouts when he was only a sophomore, and there was real talk that a major-league team was scouting him. Right now, he wore a Hillsborough T-shirt and jeans. He had an expensive-looking watch that I would learn was given to him on his sixteenth birthday, more as a celebration of his athletic achievements than for his special year.
“Hey,” I replied, and looked at Ryder, who gave me a slight nod of encouragement. Should I want this more than I was demonstrating?
I turned back to Paul and smiled. For a moment, I thought he had used his entire vocabulary. I saw him glance at Ryder, maybe for help. Now that I gave him more thought, I realized Paul had no special girlfriends, no one special cheering for him at games. When it wasn’t baseball season, he was practically lost in the woodwork, as my mother would say. Maybe going to the prom with him was so far from an achievement in the eyes of my girlfriends that no one would be jealous. Of course, I wasn’t doing it to draw their envy. I liked to think I was doing it for Ryder.
“So what’s up with you, Paul?” Ryder asked. He tilted his head toward me.
“Huh? Oh,” he said. He turned back to me. “So, Fern, anyone ask you to the prom yet?”
“Not yet,” I said.
Ryder’s smile widened. “You’d better move quickly, then,” he told Paul.
“Yeah, so I was thinking that maybe you’d go with me,” Paul said.
Like Ryder, there was a part of me that enjoyed teasing sometimes. “Go where?” I asked, and put on a face of confusion that even I had trouble not laughing at.
“The prom,” he said, as if there was absolutely nowhere else in the world to go.
“Oh, the prom. No,” I said. “No one’s asked me to that.”
“Well, do you think you would go with me?”
“Yeah, I think so,” I said. “When you ask, I’ll know for sure if I would.”
Alison couldn’t hold back a laugh this time.
Ryder threw a piece of carrot at Paul. “Ask her, already. I’ve got to finish lunch.”
“Would you go with me to the prom?” Paul asked, like a line he had been practicing all night.
“I will go with you,” I said, as if I had memorized the next line.
Maybe imagining we were in a play together wasn’t such a fantastic idea. I felt like I was taking on a role just so I could be on the same stage as Ryder and Alison after all. Most of the time, we were all performing for each other around here anyway, I thought, and it did make this easier.
Paul smiled. “That’s great. We’ll double-date with Ryder and Alison. Okay?”
“Ryder?” I said, looking at him. “You’re going to the prom?”
“Smart-ass,” Ryder said.
Paul laughed. He did look very pleased, like he had just saved the ball game. Maybe it would be a fun time after all. Ryder would help me find the dress up in the attic. Perhaps my mother would let me have my hair done at a beauty salon. It would be exciting to try a new style, one that would reduce the frizziness. My mother had some earrings and necklaces that might work. She never told me how she had gotten them and never wore them herself, but when I was little, I’d put them on and pretend I was going to a charity ball like Bea Davenport, who was always so bedecked in jewelry that I thought she would sink if she fell into a pool. I started to realize that the glamour of the prom, staying out late, and going to an after-party had the potential to make this the most exciting night of my life up to now.
Ryder winked at me. Then he and Paul began talking baseball. Ryder was the starting third baseman.
“Boys can be so boring,” Alison said. “And some are too spoiled,” she added, throwing a look back at Ryder.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I think it would be cool to go to the prom in a chauffeur-driven limousine, but just because he comes and goes to school in it, Ryder thinks it’s no big deal. Instead, he hatched this plot to double-date with Paul just to have him drive us.”
“Oh,” I said.
“I mean, he could have had Paul take you anyway if that was important to Paul, and we wouldn’t have to ride in his old car.”
I didn’t know what to say. Did she think I had put Ryder up to it? “You saw I didn’t try to arrange this, right?”
“Whatever,” she said. “I hope you have something good to wear. I’m getting a new dress just for the prom.”
“Oh. What’s it like?”
“I’ll let you know,” she said. “Ryder told me about getting you one of his mother’s gowns. I don’t know why he’s so excited about that. It could be very wrong, too old-fashioned.”
“Is he very excited about it?”
She paused and pursed her lips. “I’ve never seen him so excited about a woman’s dress. He never gets that excited about what I wear.”
“But it is his real mother’s dress, after all,” I said. “I’m excited about it, too.”
All my girlfriends looked surprised at how intense my conversation with Alison was getting. Most looked a little jealous. I wasn’t thinking of her as much as I was thinking about the actual prom date. I felt as though I had made a leap for myself, a giant leap for womankind. This would be the first time I would be out with Ryder at night, and for me, even though I wasn’t his actual date, that was like reaching the moon.
“Yes, well, maybe I’ll have to help. If you look stupid and we’re together, I’ll look stupid,” she said, and walked off to class.
At the end of the day, I couldn’t wait to get home to tell my mother. She was having a cup of coffee with Mr. Stark in our small kitchen. The moment I entered, I paused, checking my excitement. I believed that some of us were born with sharper instincts than others or at least developed those instincts sooner. One thing I had grown up being alert to in Wyndemere was when someone was talking about me. Even when I was only seven or eight, I could sense when I had been the topic of discussion. I knew Mrs. Marlene was always concerned about me, as concerned as a mother or a grandmother might be, and when I walked into the kitchen and everyone would grow silent and busy, I knew my name had been on everyone’s lips.
It seemed to me that this attention was directed at me because I didn’t have a father. For most of my time living in Wyndemere, because of the demands that were made on my mother, I was left alone to fend for myself far more than most girls my age. I was the object of some concern, even some pity. At a much younger age than any of my classmates, I had to start preparations for our dinner or help to look after our small section of the great house, vacuuming and washing down the kitchen floor and counters as well as the windows. None of the maids was permitted to do any cleaning for us, but my mother was keen on us keeping the old and worn furnishings immaculate. She wanted to take another possible criticism out of Bea Davenport’s bag of complaints for sure. While my mother was off supervising their care of the grand mansion, the washing and drying of clothes and the preparation and serving of meals, I was left with much more responsibility than any other girl my age.
I didn’t mind it. I was never lazy or neglectful. I think some of my determination to do well came from my reaction to Bea Davenport’s obvious condescension, the way she looked down on us and especially me, making me feel as if I might contaminate Sam. I never felt the doctor was looking at us that way, but he wasn’t home as much as Bea was, of course, and when he was home, he rarely came to our section of the house or had much to do with the servants. I knew that he usually retreated to his office-library. Ryder told me it was very rare for his father to relax with him and his stepmother in the living room to read or watch television. The truth was, both he and his father went to their respective private places, which was why Sam wandered down to my room so often, especially when Bea was out at one of her social events.
I was sure that Mrs. Marlene and my mother, and even Mr. Stark, were worried that I wouldn’t grow up normally in this environment. Not being permitted to have friends over and being caged in the way I was, I would surely develop all sorts of complexes. I was already heavily weighted down with the stigma of being what Bea Davenport had no trouble calling “an illegitimate child.”
It made me wonder what a legitimate child really was. There were religious people who believed I had been born without a soul. Some of Bea Davenport’s posh friends looked at me as if I were no better than some wild animal born in the forest. I knew they were expecting me to be uncouth and ill mannered and have the poorest hygiene. When I was five years old and my mother had bought me a new dress for my birthday, I overheard a woman named Clair Edison, who saw me playing out front in my new clothes, say, “You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.”
When I told my mother what I had heard Clair Edison say, her eyes turned into knives for a moment. She looked like she was going to charge out to confront both Mrs. Edison and Bea Davenport, who were sitting on the veranda having afternoon tea. She even went to the door, opened it, and took a step out before pausing. I was too young to understand why, but whatever had changed her mind saddened me. From that day on, I tried to avoid doing anything in Bea Davenport’s presence. I embraced my mother’s warning to stay out of her shadow.
Right now, when I stepped into our kitchen and saw my mother’s and Mr. Stark’s faces, I felt my heart skip a beat. I closed the door behind me softly.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. I borrowed one of Mr. Stark’s favorite expressions. “You both look like you’ve been nursing the same beer for the past three hours.”
Mr. Stark smiled, but it was just a flash. He turned to my mother, the look of concern returning.
“Mrs. Davenport was here about an hour ago,” my mother began. “Why didn’t you tell me you were going to go on a double date with Ryder to the prom?”
“I wasn’t sure until today. Why?”
“Dr. Davenport informed her this morning, and she’s upset.”
“Ryder must have told his father a friend of his was going to ask me, and he must have told her,” I said, putting my books on the counter. “Why would that matter to her, anyway?”
“Dr. Davenport told her Ryder asked permission to let you use one of his first wife’s dresses. I don’t think that went over very well with her.”
“More like a lead balloon,” Mr. Stark said.
“She accused me of putting you up to asking, since I would know there were dresses in the attic.”
“So?” I leaned back against the counter and folded my arms across my breasts. Defiance stiffened my whole body. “I still don’t get it. What put a hot poker up her—”
“Fern!”
“Why is she upset?” I asked.
“She says I should have first asked her permission. She’s the mistress of Wyndemere. I told her all of this was news to me, but she doesn’t believe me, of course. She thinks I deliberately went around her. She’s someone who stands on ceremony. She’ll never eat salad with anything but a salad fork. She’d rather starve.”
“It was Ryder’s idea,” I said. “Why doesn’t she ask him?”
“I imagine she will,” my mother said. “But she probably won’t believe him. She won’t want to believe him.”
“So what does this mean? I shouldn’t go to the prom?”
“When were you going to tell me about it?”
“Right now. I was only asked at lunch. Bugger!” I added, mimicking one of her favorite British exclamations.
Mr. Stark started to smile but stopped when he glanced at my mother.
“I didn’t say you can’t go. I’ll just get you your own dress, Fern. Mr. Stark will be glad to drive you and the boy who asked you.”
“My pleasure,” Mr. Stark said. “I’ve never been to a prom.”
“The boy’s name is Paul Gabriel. He’s a senior, and he has his own car and can drive at night. Ryder wanted us to go together so he wouldn’t have to be driven by Parker.”
“That’s his battle to fight, Fern,” my mother said. “You just stay clear of that woman until Dr. Davenport decides what’s what.”
“Ryder wanted me to wear one of his real mother’s dresses,” I said, the tears starting to burn my eyes. “That’s important to him, and that’s what I’d like to do, too. I don’t think there are many alterations to do.”
My mother shook her head. “Don’t push, Fern. A branch that bends in the wind lasts longer.”
“I’m not a branch. I’m a human being with blood as red as hers,” I said sharply, then scooped up my books and went to my room, shutting the door behind me before falling onto my bed and embracing my pillow. Hours ago, I felt I was flying like an eagle. Now I felt I was crawling like a worm, a worm under Bea Davenport’s foot. I was hot with rage. My mother should find a job somewhere else. We should get out of this house, I thought. Why didn’t she ever try? She’s not appreciated and I’m certainly not.
I turned on my back, folded my arms under my breasts, and sulked. What gave some people the right to believe they walked with angels? Was it simply a matter of money? This was America. We were all supposed to be equal, even me, an “illegitimate child.” Maybe that was only something taught to grade-school children so they would recite the Pledge of Allegiance enthusiastically.
My mother knocked on my door and then peeked in. “Don’t get so upset over this,” she said. “You’ll have many more dates, dates without Bea Davenport putting her nose where it doesn’t belong.”
She sat at the foot of my bed and put her hand on my leg. One thing my mother had taught me without formally doing so was that when you wanted to reach someone, really reach them, it helped to take their hand while you spoke or gently touch their arm. The physical contact reinforced your sincerity. I always wanted to do that whenever I spoke with Ryder, but I was afraid he would shake me off, and that would nearly bring me to tears. Something always kept us from getting too close, even when we were little. Would that always be true?
And why were we both like that, anyway? Did we realize that if we opened up just a little to each other, a flood of emotion and affection would follow and be so strong it would overwhelm us both? I couldn’t even begin to imagine Bea Davenport’s reaction to that. Might as well try to imagine a hydrogen-bomb explosion.
“As long as we’re under this roof, she’ll sneer down at us,” I said. “And Dr. Davenport doesn’t do enough to stop her. I don’t care how busy he is.”
I realized there were many more words and feelings of rage bottled up inside me. I was always afraid to be too bold about my complaints or, as my mother might say, cheeky. The very thought of drawing Dr. Davenport into my tantrums was terrifying, not that he was any sort of ogre. He was more like some sort of king who shouldn’t be bothered with the day-to-day problems of his lesser subjects.
“The best way to handle snobs is to pretend they don’t exist,” my mother said. “Nothing infuriates them more than being ignored. If I tried to convince her about the dress, she’d enjoy lording it over us, Fern. Believe me, it will bother her more to see you buy your own beautiful gown.”
I looked away. How could I explain my feelings about it without revealing how much it meant to me to be wearing Ryder’s mother’s dress? If I looked beautiful in it, he would look at me so differently. The dress had a special meaning for him. The very idea that he would think of this, would want me to wear it, had filled me with such excitement. And here was Bea Davenport ruining it.
“Tell me about your date,” my mother said.
I’d better not say Ryder had arranged it, I thought. It wasn’t easy, but I dressed Paul Gabriel in what we had learned was hyperbole. “He’s the star of our baseball team, a senior, Paul Gabriel, and will probably become a major-league player and have his face on boxes of cereal someday. He’s polite, a little shy, but very popular at school because of his achievements on the baseball field. We might look funny dancing together, because he’s six foot four. In heels, I might reach five foot five, so maybe we’ll look all right, maybe even cute together. His father owns Gabriel Insurance.”
“He sounds like the bee’s knees,” my mother said. She slapped my knee lovingly and stood up. “We’ll go dress hunting this weekend. Oh, when is the prom?”
“Weekend after next,” I said. “It’s at the school. The senior class has to design it. Ryder’s president of the class, you know.”
“Yes. He’s definitely the bee’s knees. Well, I’m sure it will be a special night for you. Forget about the rest of this.”
“There’s an after-party, too.” I thought it best to reveal this while she was trying to cheer me up.
“Oh? Why is that?”
“The prom always ends early, and rather than drive around looking for something else to do, there’s this party.”
“Where?”
“At someone’s house, Shane Cisco. He’s one of Ryder’s best friends in school.”
She thought a moment. “Well, if Dr. Davenport approves of Ryder going, I suppose I can approve of your going. What time is all this over?”
“It could go all night,” I said. “It’s a tradition.”
She stood there staring at me in a funny way and then shook her head.
“What?” I asked.
“My father loved that word. He used it to stifle any and every new thought my sister and I had or explain away anything he wanted us to do without really justifying it. His answer was always because it was traditional. Just be wary of anyone who wants you to do something because it’s traditional. But,” she said, changing her dour expression and tone instantly, “I’m sure it will be a wonderful night for you. I wish I’d had a prom.”
“Didn’t you have any nights like that back in England?”
She looked thoughtful again. Was she about to reveal that part of her past that she had kept so long under lock and key? She shook her head. “Sometimes remembering the past makes the present unbearable. That’s not unusual, Fern. Your childhood, these years, are meant to be golden. Then you become an adult, and suddenly you can no longer be oblivious and carefree. Don’t rush to get there. I’ll start on dinner,” she said, and left me feeling so twisted up inside that I wished I had no feelings for anything, anything at all.
Later that night, after my mother had gone to bed and I had just slipped under my covers and was about to turn off my night-table lamp, I heard my bedroom door being opened. I sat up as quickly as I would if I believed one of Mrs. Marlene’s famous ghosts had arrived.
It was Ryder.
His face looked flushed with excitement. He was in his robe and pajamas.
“What’s happening?” I whispered. With all the commotion Bea Davenport had stirred up, I knew my mother would not be happy about his sneaking down and over to our side and giving her another reason to complain.
“My father just had a big fight with my stepmother. First time I’ve heard him like that. And it was all about the dress for you to wear to the prom.”
“Really? You know she came over here to complain to my mother?”
“No,” he said. “Why?”
“She thought my mother had come up with the idea and told your father. From what she said, my mother thought he was the one who might have complained to your stepmother and sent her here to bawl out my mother.”
“He only told her about it. He didn’t complain. Tonight she started to rant and rave about it, and they had the fight. Believe me, he thought it was okay for you to wear my mother’s dress.”
“Oh. So what do I do? My mother wants to take me shopping for a dress this weekend, and she thinks you won’t be able to double-date with Paul and me now.”
“Forget that. I discussed it with my father, and he’s approved. Tomorrow you’re coming home from school in the limousine with Sam and me and Alison.”
“Alison?”
“Yes. As soon as we’re home, the three of us are going up to the attic to choose the best gown. And if my stepmother doesn’t like it, she can . . . go to another charity luncheon,” he said, and smiled.
“Alison wants to do that?” I asked. I tried to hide my disappointment. I was dreaming of Ryder and me alone in the attic, rifling through clothes and in a unique way being more intimate than we had ever been. I was sure he would share his feelings about never knowing his real mother. He would tell me things that he had never told anyone, maybe even his father.
“Sure. She wants to be in on the decision, and besides, what do I know about women’s clothes? We’ll talk more about it at lunch tomorrow,” he said.
“I hate to have been the reason for a fight between your parents.”
“She’s not my mother, so I don’t think of her as a parent. Forget about it. I’m glad my father finally spoke up.”
“I suppose,” I said.
He stepped a little closer and looked at me so softly that my heart began to race. Then he touched my hand and smiled. I wanted him to kiss me, and I think he wanted to do that, too, but he pulled his hand back.
“See you in the morning,” he said, and left as quietly as he had come.
I lay back on my pillow and thought about what he had told me. It was all making me nervous now. Dr. Davenport had never interceded to take my side or, as far as I knew, my mother’s side in any dispute that involved Bea Davenport. Was this his way of revealing how much he really missed his first wife? Maybe my mother was wrong about all that; maybe he was pointed in Samantha’s direction, but he had honestly fallen in love with her. I decided I would ask my mother more about it. She was certainly going to be surprised at the outcome about the dress.
On the other hand, she’d remind me that a poked snake never forgets. You could win a battle but lose the war, and in this house, there seemed to be continuous hostilities going on, with constant skirmishes about how things were cleaned, how dinners were served, and how the servants behaved in general. Whenever it was to her advantage to do so, Bea Davenport would remind my mother she was supposedly the house manager or something. Therefore, any problem, no matter how small, had to be her fault. It was as if from day one, Bea Davenport was out to build a case to justify dismissing my mother and evicting us from Wyndemere. Perhaps my mother’s compromise, at least regarding the dress, was the best way to go for now.
How had something that had loomed so wonderful become the cause of so much turmoil? I knew Bea Davenport well enough to believe she would not accept defeat when it came to ruling what she surely believed was her kingdom, Wyndemere. I had seen my mother verbally abused by her, and I had seen how my mother did not fight back. Perhaps she knew that was exactly what Bea Davenport hoped for, a defiant, disobedient house manager who would not work well with her. She always looked more frustrated by my mother’s retreat, at least whenever I had witnessed one. This had the makings of being different. It wasn’t over, not by a long shot, and it made me very nervous.
Maybe it would even ruin our special night.
At breakfast the following morning, I told my mother about Ryder’s visit and what he had said. As I anticipated, she did not look happy about it.
“What do I do?” I asked.
She sat with her cup of coffee silently for a few moments.
“Ryder never accepted Bea Davenport,” she began. “Even as an infant, he seemed repulsed by her. In those days, when I was caring for Ryder and you, I expected she would assume some of a mother’s role, do things like shop for him, look after his eating and hygiene, and perhaps even play with him, show him some attention. She didn’t have Samantha until nearly a year after she and Dr. Davenport had married, and when she did give birth, she repulsed Ryder even more.”
“You were more like a mother to him once his real mother died. I’m sure Dr. Davenport realizes that, too.”
“Yes.” She looked up at me, her eyes narrowing. “I have great fondness for Ryder. He’s a wonderful young man, but you have to be wary of one thing, Fern.”
“What?” I asked, feeling like my heart had paused in anticipation and fear.
“Be wary of him using you to strike at his stepmother,” she said.
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m sure he would like nothing more than his father driving her out of their lives. This dress could be a way of building a wedge between them. And I’m sure he’ll be on the lookout for other ways.”
“He’s not that conniving, Mother,” I said, a little outraged at the suggestion.
She shrugged at my indignation. “It’s not necessarily a weakness to be good at conniving in this world, Fern. Perhaps I know Ryder better than anyone.”
“He’s not a mean person,” I insisted.
“I didn’t say he was. What he wants to do doesn’t come from meanness. It comes from wanting more love.”
“His father loves him, doesn’t he? Even though he’s not the most emotional man. I guess he’s like that because of what he does, right? I mean, a doctor who has patients who might die and do die can’t be emotional. Am I right?”
She rose and went to the sink. “You don’t want to miss the bus,” she said.
“Well, what do I do about the dress? Ryder wants to have me and Alison Reuben choose one today.”
She turned and looked at me, obviously deciding.
“If it’s what Dr. Davenport wants or approves, then damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead,” she said.
I started to laugh and then stopped, wondering just what those torpedoes would be like.