Diann Ducharme (11 page)

The hotel was in full swing for its Independence Day party. The band squeaked out crowd favorites one after another, and the warm ballroom smelled powerfully of fried seafood, smoke, and liquor.

Exhausted from the long day, I stood in the doorway for the fresh air, watching the vacationers dance the “Balance All.”

The circle of connected young men and women spun left and right around the ballroom. The dance was more of a country one, but Maddie Adams was enjoying herself even so. Her face was flushed pink from the exertion in the tight bones of her corset, and the tops of her breasts bobbled like two dead jellyfish.

I was giggling quietly to myself when I heard Daddy’s voice behind me, carried through the night. “Buxton’s likely listening to that bastard this very minute. I can’t for the life of me feature giving ear to that man’s inauguration speech. It’s likely a stream of the most radical bullshit anyone’s ever heard.”

A voice that I didn’t recognize said, “Do tell. An evening in Nags Head is time better spent, in my opinion. I’m sure we’ll get the report from Buxton in due time.”

I had read in a newspaper from home that the newly elected Republican governor of North Carolina, William Holden, was giving his inauguration speech in Raleigh today. Mr. Adams must have attended the ceremony for political purposes, but I guess he didn’t think it all that politically necessary to bring his wife and daughter.

Two days before, Holden had ratified the Fourteenth Amendment, which gave citizen status and voting rights to blacks. Our newly elected senators, whom Daddy called a bunch of “scalawag” white men, Yankee carpetbaggers, and inexperienced Negroes, were set to take their seats in Congress.

Daddy seemed to take a bite of something, then said with a full
mouth, “Buxton’s a bootlicker, to be sure. But he’ll be good for us in a couple years, once all this shecoonery shakes down.” In a lower voice, he said, “He’s got some ideas about those newfangled smoking cigarettes.”

“If you can hold on to your land,” mused the man, “you might be in business.”

Cigar-ettes.
Little cigars?
An unexpected feeling of hope sparked in my chest.

With my heart pounding against my corset, I slowly turned to face Daddy, but it was hard to see anything in the darkness. I strained to keep listening to their conversation, but the owner of the hotel began to holler for everyone to walk out toward the pier for the coming fireworks.

The crowd roared with anticipation and began to stream for the soundside exits. Charlie and Martha led the crowd past me, hollering about sparklers. I had no choice but to walk along, and give up, at least for now, hearing more about the cigarettes.

Daddy was swaying a bit when I walked up to him through the sand. He still held a stubby glass from home. He held his elbow out to me for me to hold, but I think he wanted
me
to steady
him
. “Here she is, my daughter Abigail,” he said. “Bought her a horse today, a little red Banker pony. Don’t know which one’s got more spirit, the horse or the girl.”

The middle-aged man he was standing with briefly smiled and bowed, top hat in hand. “Mr. Hugh Bondfield, Abigail. Pleased to meet you.”

“Mr. Bondfield is taking a gander at the Outer Banks this weekend,” said Daddy quietly.

“A vacation like no other,” said Mr. Bondfield, a peculiar smile on his face. “Just a dream come true.”

The two men snickered, but then quieted when a loud popping and
sizzling broke the night in two. We all gasped at the white sparks soaring through the sky, leaving trails of light that were still there when our eyes blinked.

At almost the same time we heard a boom, then faraway cheers, and I saw the sky over the ocean light up. Ben’s party had started, too.

I grinned at the outright competition between the Bankers and the vacation folks, and everyone along the sound shores cheered madly. Then a group of liquored men started singing “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and soon the entire mass of people was crowing along—even Daddy, who outright butchered over half the words to the song.

Charlie and Martha and dozens of other children just ran up and down the little sand hills, oblivious to everything but the sparklers that they whizzed through the night.

But sometime during the war of brother against brother, I’d started finding it much harder to get excited about Independence Day. And I thought it was curious how we all still believed it necessary to carry on the tradition of marking the birth of our mixed-up nation. In truth, I think most folks just enjoyed the fireworks and called it a day. Yet as the crowd sang the anthem over and over again, I found that there was still something stirring me.
“… O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave …”

Yes, in spite of it all, that stubborn flag still waves
, I thought.
That has to count for something
.

Over and over, the sizzling colors lit up the dark glass of sky like shooting stars that arched and fell slowly down, melting into the black Roanoke Sound. Such dazzle, gone forever. And then I was filled with such a longing for life, like a fist punched through my chest.

Against my better judgment, I decided to tell Daddy that I was going back to Maddie’s cottage for her private party. And Daddy, soused as a sailor on a spending spree, said good night to Mr. Bondfield
and took the tired children on the cart back home. I then walked the wooden planks down to the ocean side, to see how Ben’s evening had gone.

Some torches driven into the sand were still lit, and the smell of cooked pig lingered in the air. A few men and women sat on blankets, facing the moonlit ocean, and several others were standing around the embers of the cook fire, laughing along as a young man told a story. He was throwing his whole body into the telling, wringing his arms and back in imaginary net pulls.

I was glad of the darkness, for I suddenly felt like an intruder. I’d never paid such an informal social call, and I turned to go back the way I had come before anyone saw me. But there was Ben in front of me, rolling a big barrel of beer along the sand. I gasped, and my hand flew to my chest.

“Have you got a name for her yet?” he asked casually.

I was so disoriented, it took me a moment to figure out who he was talking about.

“No, not yet,” I choked, my heart pounding. “I’ve never named a horse before. Usually my uncle did that—he had a real knack for it. But I can’t seem to think of anything grand.”

He sat down on the squat barrel and rocked back and forth. “I suppose you rich folks have your ways when it comes to naming animals. Have yourselves a big christening ceremony and whatnot. But around these parts we just come up with something simple, like Salty or Moonbeam, and that’s that. Maybe you’d fancy naming her after a character in one of your books! I’ve taken a fancy to Robinson, myself!”

“You’re making sport of me, Benjamin Whimble!”

He laughed good-naturedly. “Naw, Abby, I wouldn’t reckon you’d do it any differently.”

Just as I was about to ask about the fireworks, a young woman in a tattered homespun shirtwaist and skirt came striding up to us through the sand.

Ben said, “Hey now, Eliza? This here is Abigail Sinclair, my teacher. And Abby, this is Eliza Dickens. She’s my girl.”

“Evening, Eliza, how do you do?” I said evenly.

She snickered at me. “‘I do’ just awful, Abigail. And how do
you
do, cutting up with my feller?”

Ben made a choking noise. “Aw, now, Eliza, whatever is puckering you, you don’t need to take it out on Abigail here. You act nice, you hear?”

“Well, it looks to me like she came out here ’specially to see you, Benjamin Whimble, and I just want her to know that you’re spoken for. I’m not blind, like my ol’ granny. I can see why she’s here tonight.”

“She already knew I had a gal, I told her from the get-go! Eliza, you’re beside yourself tonight! I’m cutting you off.”

Her rough face looked gutted in the light of the fire. “Playing teacher is one thing, but coming out here to parade yourself around like the queen of Nags Head, looking for my feller, just won’t do. You keep to your teaching, whatever that may be, and that’s that.” She stalked back over to the quiet group of young men and women. I heard one of them give a low whistle.

“I do apologize about her. She has a temper on her sometimes, ’specially when she’s had a couple drafts of beer.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “And you don’t have to worry none, Abby. I know you’d never have nothing to do with the likes of me.”

Mortification set in, suddenly. “Of course I wouldn’t! That would be … wrong.”

We had somehow crossed the line of friendship, and I wanted to go back, safe behind the teacher-student line again.

My eyes took in his old button-down shirt, its sleeves long ago dismembered from the body. His cutoff trousers with the strings dancing along the edges were as frayed as Winnie’s dust rags.

“I think you should know that I’m being seriously courted by Hector Newman. He’s a doctor’s son from Edenton, attends a prestigious medical college in the Northeast. He’s coming to visit me next weekend, as a matter of fact! And he’s very handsome!” I rambled loudly. I felt several sets of eyes turned toward us in the darkness, the fish-haul story not nearly as captivating as our conversation. “Make sure you tell Eliza that I’m only interested in teaching you how to read and write, nothing more!”

And I walked quickly down the beach toward the cottage, hoping the darkness would swallow me up in one gulp. Mercy, I wasn’t thinking clearly tonight. The long day in the sun and the horse and the fireworks had mixed me up somehow.

Benjamin was a friend, a student. I shouldn’t have let my anxieties propel me into this unfamiliar terrain.

I groaned, thinking of myself, a young unmarried woman, sitting alone with a young unmarried man, on the porch of an isolated house in Nags Head. It was highly unusual, from anybody’s perspective.

And it was hard to believe my own parents had encouraged me in it. The noble excuse of education went only so far in explaining the social stumbling. Folks were likely discussing the issue this very minute, curled up in their beds.

But as strange as the situation was, I enjoyed teaching. It made me feel useful, and good.

Even so, I was teaching someone in particular. I was teaching Ben. And there it was, an understanding like light trailing after a firecracker. I was glad that it was
me
teaching
him
.

The morning arrived hot and overcast, and I was plagued by such an awful feeling of humiliation that I wrote a letter to Hector in my best penmanship, sealed it with wax, and instructed Hannah to walk it to the hotel for immediate sending. I wanted to do something that felt
normal today, and writing a letter to a beau felt like something I should be doing.

But Ben was as good-natured as ever, and every thought of Hector evaporated into the thick air. All grins and dirt, he was carrying a long, clinking shell contraption of some kind, which he unfurled and held out at arm’s length.

He stood erectly and said, as if giving a practiced speech, “I just wanted to tell you that I’m sorry about my girl acting up yesterday night. She’s been surly like that since infancy. Takes a while for her to warm up. So, to make amends, I made this here wind chime. You all can dangle it from the porch roof in the wind and it’ll bring the most pleasing ocean sound to your ears.”

The chime was an old basket turned upside down, with long strings of shells attached to its edges. My heart squeezed as I thought how long it must have taken him to collect all those shells, each a different shade, size, and kind, and to thread and knot the string through the shells one by one.

In spite of its rough quality, it was hands down the most beautiful present I have ever received. “Apology accepted. I like it very much,” I said, fingering the shells gently. “But you don’t have to apologize for her. It was my fault, for coming down there.”