At the Water's Edge (13 page)

W
hen the sun began to sink behind us, Hank declared it a day. They tried to hide it, but I could tell they were both out of patience with me and my false alarms, and I felt terrible for disappointing them. We barely spoke as Ellis rowed back.

I was also anxious about facing everyone at the inn, but there was no avoiding it. I couldn't even slip in unobtrusively because of my Rosie the Riveter getup, never mind my bright red gloves and gas mask case.

It turns out I needn't have worried. I smelled perfume and heard giggling as soon as we cracked the door open, and when we stepped inside, no one gave us a second glance. A crowd had gathered, and this time it included young women.

“Well now, what have we here?” said Hank, casting his eyes around the room.

A dance was about to start at the Public Hall, and the excitement was palpable. Meg and the other girls had pulled chairs over so they could sit together, and were sipping drinks, praising each other's shoes, hair, and outfits, and surreptitiously posing for the lumberjacks, who colluded by pretending they weren't looking.

One girl told how she'd dismantled an old dress her mother had “grown out of” and transformed it into the latest style using a pattern from the most recent “Make-Do and Mend” booklet. Another girl was wearing real stockings, which were the object of much admiration. She extended her leg for the other girls to examine, although there was a great deal of examination from the lumberjacks as well.

“They're lovely,” Meg said enviously. “Look at the sheen on them. Are they silk or nylon?”

“Nylon,” said the other girl, pointing her toe in various directions.

“Where on earth did you find them?”

“My George sent three pairs from London. He says the girls are stealing them right and left, in plain daylight. Shopkeepers have to store them under the counter.”

Meg sighed. “And here we are without a single pair to steal.” She turned to a large and ruddy-faced lumberjack sitting at the next table. I realized he was the man I'd seen slipping out of her room. “Rory, next time you're on leave, do you think you can get me some real stockings?”

“And risk being ripped limb from limb by roaming packs of thieving girls?” He flashed a grin. “For you, anything.”

Meg turned her leg so she could examine the line she'd drawn. “I suppose I've done well enough with gravy browning and a pencil. But if it rains, I'll have the dogs chasing me again, licking my legs.”

“I'll keep the hounds away, canine or otherwise,” said Rory, winking. “Go on, girls, have one more drink. My treat.”

“Och, but you're an awful one!” said Meg, wagging her finger. “Don't think I'm not onto you. We're all onto the lot of you!”

There were giggles all around as the girls blushed, each casting a shy glance at a different lumberjack. They cleared out together a few minutes later, laughing and excited, leaving only three older locals perched on stools at the bar.

One twisted around to watch the young men file out after the girls. When the door closed behind them, he turned back.

“Well, I suppose if there's a good time to be a sheep it's when you're a lamb,” he said with a sigh.

“Aye,” said the others, nodding sagely.

“Say, I don't suppose you want to go,” said Ellis, giving me a playful jab.

I tried to smile but couldn't. He'd meant it as a joke, but I would have given anything to be part of that pack of girls making their way to the Public Hall.

I'd never had female friends. My single best opportunity—boarding school—was a complete wash. What happened with my mother ensured I was a pariah before I ever set foot in the place. My next opportunity, the summer I graduated, was no better. It was clear the other girls were simply enduring me in order to gain access to Hank, Ellis, and Freddie, and when I apparently took two of them off the market at once—breaking one's heart and marrying the other—most of the girls dissipated. Hank's sweethearts continued to tolerate me until they realized he wasn't going to marry them, but not one of them had tried to stay in touch after. Violet was the first one I'd felt at all optimistic about, especially since I thought Hank was finally going to let himself be caught.

I felt guilty again about how we'd left her behind.

There was a knock on my door shortly after I'd gone to bed and blown out my candle.

“Who is it?” I asked.

“It's me,” said Ellis.

It didn't happen often, but from the tone of his voice I knew what he wanted.

“Just a minute.”

I groped my way to the dresser, found the hand towel, and wiped the cold cream off my face. Then I began fumbling with the rollers.

“What are you doing in there?” he said.

“Nothing,” I replied. “Just making myself presentable.”

“I don't care if you're presentable.”

There was no way I was going to get the rollers out in the dark, so I gave up and opened the door.

Ellis stepped in and took my face in his hands, pressing his mouth against mine.

He had shaved and applied cologne, a custom concoction he'd been wearing as long as I'd known him, and although his lips remained closed, I could taste toothpaste. His pajamas were silk.

“Oh!” I said, pulling back in surprise. There was usually no preamble at all.

“What on earth?” he said, patting the sides and back of my head.

Because Lana had always taken care of the serious business of maintaining my hair, all Ellis had previously encountered on my head were bobby pins and a delicately beaded hairnet.

“Rollers,” I explained. “I've been setting my own hair. If you give me ten minutes, I'll light a candle and get them out.”

“In the middle of nowhere, with no electricity, my intrepid wife still finds a way to be gorgeous,” he said. “Hank's right, you know—they did break the mold when they made you.”

He pushed the door shut and slipped his arms around my waist.

“After our little misunderstanding, I thought we should make up properly,” he said in a low growl. “Also, I was reminded today of just what a good sport you are. You have no idea what it means to me.”

He backed me against the dresser and pressed his hips into mine. There was no mistaking his intentions.

“Do you mean for going monster hunting?” I said.

“Yes…”

“False alarms and all?”

“Just proves what wonderful eyes you have…”

“What about for tolerating Hank?” I asked. “Am I a good sport for that?”

“Positively saintly,” he said in a hoarse whisper. He put his hands on my hips and began grinding against me. I leaned my head back, boldly offering my throat. I had never before done such a thing, and when he didn't kiss it, I wondered if he couldn't see it in the dark.

“What about my overactive imagination?” I continued. “And my unseemly appetite?”

“There is absolutely nothing unseemly about you,” he said. “Should we light a candle, or just try to find the bed? Is your luggage in the way?”

“No, the way is clear…”

“Are you just neater than me or did they put your things away?”

“I think I'm just neater…”

“Neater, prettier, quick as a whip…”

He guided me backward. When we bumped into the side of the bed, I climbed under the covers and lay against the pillows.

He crawled in beside me, lifted my nightgown, and arranged himself above me. Then he nudged my legs apart with a knee, balanced on one arm long enough to pull down his pajama bottoms, and entered me. After a few pushes, he collapsed, gasping in my ear. A minute later he rolled off.

“Oh, Maddie, my sweet, sweet Maddie,” he said, caressing my shoulder.

I wanted to tell him that we couldn't be finished yet, that it wasn't my shoulder that needed attention, but I couldn't find the words. I never had, and I probably never would, because I wasn't entirely sure what it was that I needed him to do.

I lay wide-eyed in the dark long after he'd crept from my bed and gone back to his own.

During my teen years, when my mind turned to such things, I imagined the physical side of marriage would be very different than it turned out to be. Perhaps it was the forbidden novels passed around the dorms at Miss Porter's that set my expectations so high. Perhaps it was the whisperings about girls who had
actually done it
(and anyone who didn't return after a holiday was suspect). Perhaps it was the sight of dreamy film heroes turning their leading ladies into willing puddles of mush with a single, authoritative kiss.

I had high hopes for our wedding night, but it was a complete disaster, with Ellis cursing and thrusting limply while his mother wept theatrically in a room down the hall. I was too innocent to realize it at the time, but I don't think we even managed to consummate the marriage.

Our wedding night may have had extenuating circumstances, but in the months after, when there were none, I remained baffled and disappointed. Either it was over as soon as it began, or else he couldn't finish, which left him extremely ill-tempered. I kept hoping it would develop into something more, something that involved
me
, but it never did.

I thought he must be disappointed too, because the frequency had fallen off the edge of the earth as soon as he had the excuse of my diagnosis, and I never tried to start anything. It was no wonder we didn't have a baby.

T
he second day of monster hunting was much the same as the first, except that it was snowing.

I was desperate to get to the post office, but couldn't think of an excuse to slip away. For all I knew a plane was already on its way to collect me.

I continued to see disturbances in the water, but grew reluctant to say anything. Hank could not hide his displeasure at wasting film, and I couldn't stand the look of disappointment on Ellis's face.

The third day was gloomy and dark, and the air was heavy with the threat of rain. Everyone was cranky and cold, and I was even more distressed about not having sent the second telegram.

A few hours after we set up, Ellis realized I wasn't pointing anything out and accused me of not pulling my weight.

Shortly thereafter, I saw a large disturbance very close to the opposite bank and raised the alarm. It turned out to be a swimming stag, which climbed out of the water and shook itself off, right on the landmark I'd found with the compass.

“Wonderful! Fantastic!” Hank cried, throwing his hands in the air.
“I've got twenty seconds of crystal-clear footage of a fucking deer. And that's the end of this reel.”

He wrestled the camera off the tripod, pulled out the film, and chucked it into the water.

“What the hell are you doing?” Ellis said. “What if we accidentally filmed the monster?”

Hank dug around inside the duffel bag. He pulled out another reel and another flask. “We've filmed plenty of monsters. Maddie's ‘monsters,' to be precise,” he said, making quotation marks with his fingers before shredding the film's yellow box in his haste to get it open.

“For God's sake, control yourself,” said Ellis. “We need the original boxes to send to Eastman Kodak.”

“I wouldn't worry. Apparently we're going to have all kinds of empty boxes,” said Hank, thrusting the new reel into the camera and then struggling to put the side panel back on. He slapped it twice with the heel of his hand.

“We're not going to have anything if you break the goddamned camera,” Ellis barked. “Stop acting like an idiot, and give me the fucking thing. It's not lined up properly.”

Hank swung his head around to face Ellis. His eyes were wide, his expression murderous. I thought he was going to throw the camera to the ground, or maybe even at Ellis. Either way, I was absolutely sure they were going to fight.

They stayed that way for a long time, their eyes burning and chests heaving. Then, for no apparent reason, Hank seemed to snap out of it. He reattached the side of the camera, screwed it back on the tripod, and sat down.

Ellis picked up the flask and took a long swallow. He held it out to Hank, pulled it away when Hank reached for it, and took several more gulps himself. When he once again held it out, Hank glared at him for a few seconds before snatching it from his hands.

I was dumbfounded. In four and a half years, I'd never seen Hank and Ellis turn on each other. There had been plenty of bickering and sniping, especially if one of them came up with a quip that hit too
close to home, but this was entirely different. They'd nearly come to blows, and probably would have if I hadn't been there.

I was too shaken to keep scanning the surface for disturbances, particularly since my sighting of the stag had caused the explosion. Even so, I ended up keeping my binoculars glued to my face, because Ellis noticed that I'd stopped looking. After that, he spent more time making sure my binoculars were moving than looking through his own.

I couldn't believe that sitting on the bank with a camera at the ready was their whole plan, but despite the scientific trappings and meticulous measuring of conditions, that did seem to be what they had in mind. That, and drinking, and blaming me for doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing.

Finally, I set my binoculars down and said, “Why don't we try something different?”

“What's that?” Ellis muttered with a complete and total lack of interest.

“Why don't we bait it?”

He and Hank lowered their binoculars and turned to face each other. After a moment of silence, they said incredulously, and at exactly the same time,
“Bait it?”

They burst into peals of hysterical laughter. Hank reached out and grabbed Ellis's thigh, giving it a hearty shake before falling backward and bicycling his legs in the air. Ellis also fell onto his back, hugging himself and stamping his foot.

“Sure,” Ellis finally said, wiping tears from his eyes. He looked demented. “We'll string a few sheep up over the water, shall we? Or do you think it prefers children? I'm pretty sure I saw a school in the village.”

“Better yet, why don't I just whistle for it?” Hank said, giggling maniacally. “Maybe it will do tricks for us if we offer it a treat?”

“Whistle for it!” cried Ellis. “Of course! Why didn't we think of that before?”

They began howling again, purple-faced, thumping the blanket with their fists.

I clamped my mouth shut and turned away. I'd finally realized what was going on. Although it was barely noon, they were completely sloshed.

An hour later, when the drizzle turned into bullets of water and Ellis and Hank's hysteria had turned back into deadly, drunken purpose, I couldn't stand it anymore.

“I'm going back,” I said.

“We can't pack up now,” Hank snapped. “There are several hours of daylight left.”

“I'll walk,” I said, climbing to my feet. My legs were achy and stiff from being folded beneath me. “Where's the road?”

“Right up there,” Hank said, pointing over his shoulder. “Turn right. It's only a mile and a bit.”

I leaned over to pick up my gas mask. Ellis was watching me.

“Hank, we have to take her.”

“Why?”

“Because it's raining.”

“It'll be raining on the boat, too,” Hank pointed out.

“What if she can't find the inn?”

“Of course she can find the inn. She's a clever girl.”

“It's all right,” I said. “I'll find the inn.”

“Well then,” Hank said. “If you're sure.”

Ellis was still looking at me.

“It's okay. Really. It's not that far,” I said.

Relief washed over his face. “Atta girl, Maddie. You're the best. They broke the mold when they made you.”

“So everyone keeps saying.” I started up the hill, barely able to bend my knees.

“She's terrific, you know,” said Hank. “Best coin toss you ever won. And now I suppose I'm going to be stuck with Violet…”

“You shouldn't complain. She's miles better than the mewling, needle-nosed sheep my mother had lined up for me,” said Ellis.

I stopped and turned slowly around. They were perched side by side on the blanket, searching the loch through binoculars, unaware that I was still there.

I trudged back to the village with my hat pulled down, my collar turned up, and my hands stuck deep in my pockets. I kept my eyes on the road in front of me, watching the raindrops hit and join others before running off the pavement in rivulets.

I tried various ways of analyzing what I'd just heard, twisting the phrasing in the hope that I might have misinterpreted, and finally concluded that I understood perfectly. I'd been won in a coin toss.

As outrageous as it seemed, when I thought back over our history, there was nothing to contradict it.

We'd all met the summer I left Miss Porter's, when I still hoped to go to college myself. Many of my former classmates were headed for Sarah Lawrence or Bryn Mawr, and while I wanted to be among them, I didn't have a clue how to go about it. I knew better than to expect help from my father, who hadn't even tried to get me into the Assembly Ball, and who had apparently forgotten I was coming home for the summer. A few days after I returned, he left for Cuba, where he spent the summer deep-sea fishing.

Left to my own devices, I packed up and went to Bar Harbor, slipping into the tide of Philadelphians going to their summer houses. My father hadn't opened ours since my mother's
grand scandale
, and going, especially on my own, made me excited and nervous in equal parts. I'd essentially been kept in purdah since I was twelve, and this was my first chance to connect with my hometown peers. I hoped they would accept me, regardless of what their parents might whisper. The girls at Miss Porter's certainly hadn't.

I needn't have worried, because Hank, Ellis, and Freddie took me under their collective wings immediately. They didn't give a hoot about my family's checkered history—indeed, Ellis and Hank had somewhat checkered histories themselves. While they all referred to
themselves as Harvard men, Freddie was the only one who'd left with a degree. Ellis was what was euphemistically referred to as a “Christmas graduate”—he flunked out in the middle of his freshman year—and Hank was expelled shortly thereafter for trying to pass off as his own a paper written by John Maynard Keynes. And then, of course, there was Hank's kitchen maid.

Hank was the clear ringleader, a virtual doppelgänger of Clark Gable with a dangerous streak girls found irresistible. Neither the rumors about the kitchen maid nor the plagiarism deterred hopeful debutantes or their parents, because Hank was the sole heir of his bachelor uncle, a Wanamaker who was the current president of the Pot and Kettle Club.

If Hank was Clark Gable, then Ellis was a towheaded, clean-shaven Errol Flynn. He had been on the rowing team during his time at Harvard, and his physique reflected this. His chest was like chiseled marble. He also had a quirky sense of humor I found hilarious—a trait that he, in turn, found adorable.

And Freddie—poor Freddie. Although the men in his lineage had married exclusively beautiful women for generations, he was proof that such planning couldn't guarantee an outcome. His features were asymmetrical enough to be off-putting, and the hair on his crown was already thin. He sported frightful sunburns, and, because of his asthma, was constantly sucking on his Rybar inhaler. I was never quite sure how he ended up being so thick with Hank and Ellis, but he was very kind and he doted on me.

I quickly became their confidante, little sister, and partner in crime, although I was aware that a large part of my appeal was novelty. I was the only girl around who hadn't been paraded under their noses at cotillions, tea parties, and clubs for the last decade, and they agreed unanimously that I was refreshing and modern precisely because my natural spirit hadn't been ruined by grooming for presentation. They toasted my father for neglecting to have me finished, as well as for having the good manners to be otherwise occupied in Cuba.

We spent our days playing tennis, sailing, and dreaming up increasingly outrageous practical jokes. At night we went to parties, built bonfires, and drank ourselves silly.

It was at a beach party, while we were lying on our backs in the sand watching fireworks, that Freddie suddenly popped the question. I was caught completely off guard—I had never even considered him as a romantic possibility—and thought he was joking. When I laughed, his face crumbled and I realized what I'd done. I tried to apologize, but it was too late.

Not a week later, Ellis asked me to marry him. He said that Freddie's proposal had made him realize how much he loved me, and while he didn't want to seem hasty, he couldn't risk another close call. I hadn't realized we were in love, but it made sense. I'd never felt more comfortable with anyone in my entire life—we could talk about anything—and it certainly explained his indifference toward other girls.

The instant I said yes, Hank spirited us away to Elkton, Maryland, the quickie wedding capital of the East Coast, but because of a newly instated waiting period, Ellis's mother managed to track us down. She turned up at the chapel wearing a purple mourning dress, crying hysterically. When she finally realized she couldn't prevent the ceremony from happening, she inexplicably pulled the diamond comb from her own hair and pressed it into my hand, curling my fingers around it.

While this drama was playing out, Hank snickered and Ellis rolled his eyes. They were dressed identically in tuxedos—even the roses in their lapels were indistinguishable—and I remember thinking that either one of them could have been the groom. How right I was.

I'd been won in a coin toss. There had been no duel, no joust. No ships had been launched, no gauntlets thrown. There were no passionate declarations, challenges, or displays about winning my hand—just the toss of a coin.

No wonder the physical side of my marriage was virtually nonexistent, and no wonder Hank was always around. When they'd realized there were Freddies in the world who might actually be serious about
me, they'd decided one of them had to marry me just to keep things as they were.

A coin toss, for Christ's sake.

I was soaked through and shaking violently by the time I reached the Fraser Arms.

Anna was sitting at a table with a row of lamps in front of her, cleaning the glass globes with a rag.

“Back so soon?” she said, glancing up.

“Yes,” I said.

I closed the door and went straight to the fire. My teeth were chattering, my very bones chilled.

Anna's brow furrowed. “On your own?”

“Yes.”

I was aware of Anna watching and girded myself. It was the first time I'd been alone with her since Ellis and Hank returned from Inverness, and I thought I might be in for another tongue-lashing. Instead, she came over and threw another of the mysterious logs onto the fire.

“Get yourself closer,” she said. “Your knees are knocking. I'll fetch a cup of tea.”

I hadn't realized how cold my fingers were until I held them toward the flame and the feeling began to come back. It was like being jabbed with a thousand needles.

Anna brought a cup of strong, milky tea. I took it, but realized immediately that I was shaking too hard to hold it and put it down. She watched me a few moments longer, then went behind the bar and returned with a small glass of whiskey.