Diary (7 page)

July 9

THIS EVENING,
Misty is tucking your daughter into bed when Tabbi says, “Granmy Wilmot and I have a secret.”

Just for the record, Granmy Wilmot knows everybody's secrets.

Grace sits through church service and elbows Misty, telling her how the rose window the Burtons donated for their poor, sad daughter-in-law—well, the truth is Constance Burton gave up painting and drank herself to death.

Here's two centuries of Waytansea shame and misery, and your mother can repeat every detail. The cast-iron benches on Merchant Street, the ones made in England, they're in memory of Maura Kincaid, who drowned trying to swim the six miles to the mainland. The Italian fountain on Parson Street—it's in honor of Maura's husband.

The murdered husband, according to Peter.

According to you.

The whole village of Waytansea, this is their shared coma.

Just for the record, Mother Wilmot sends her love.

Not that she ever wants to visit you.

Tucked in bed, Tabbi rolls her head to look out the window and says, “Can we go on a picnic?”

We can't afford it, but the minute you die, Mother Wilmot's got a drinking fountain picked out, brass and bronze, sculpted like a naked Venus riding a conch shell sidesaddle.

Tabbi brought her pillow when Misty moved them into the Waytansea Hotel. They all brought something. Your wife brought your pillow, because it smells like you.

In Tabbi's room, Misty sits on the edge of the bed, combing her kid's hair through her fingers. Tabbi has her father's long black hair and his green eyes.

Your green eyes.

She has a little room she shares with her grandmother, next to Misty's room in the attic hallway of the hotel.

Almost every old family has rented out their house and moved into the hotel attic. The rooms papered with faded roses. The wallpaper peeling along every seam. There's a rusty sink and a little mirror bolted to the wall in each room. Two or three iron beds in every room, their paint chipped, their mattresses soft and sagging in the middle. These are the cramped rooms, under the sloping ceilings, behind their little windows, dormers like rows of little doghouses in the hotel's steep roof. The attic is a barracks, a refugee camp for nice white gentry. People to-the-manor-born now share a bathroom down the hall.

These people who've never held a job, this summer, they're waiting tables. As if everyone's money ran out at the same time, this summer every blue-blood islander is carrying luggage at the hotel. Cleaning hotel rooms. Shining shoes. Washing dishes. A service industry of blue-eyed blonds with shining hair and long legs. Polite and cheerful and eager to run fetch a fresh ashtray or decline a tip.

Your family—your wife and child and mother—they all sleep in sagging, chipped iron beds, under sloping walls with the hoarded silver and crystal relics of their former genteel life.

Go figure, but all the island families, they're smiling and whistling. As if this were some adventure. A zany lark. As if they're just slumming in the service industry. As if this tedious kind of bowing and scraping isn't going to be the rest of their lives. Their lives and their children's lives. As if the novelty won't wear off after another month. They're not stupid. It's just that none of them have ever been poor. Not like your wife, she knows about having pancakes for dinner. Eating government-surplus cheese. Powdered milk. Wearing steel-toed shoes and punching a goddamn time clock.

Sitting there with Tabbi, Misty says, “So, what's your secret?”

And Tabbi says, “I can't tell.”

Misty tucks the covers in around the girl's shoulders, old hotel sheets and blankets washed until they're nothing but gray lint and the smell of bleach. The lamp beside Tabbi's bed is her pink china lamp painted with flowers. They brought it from the house. Most of her books are here, the ones that would fit. They brought her clown paintings and hung them above her bed.

Her grandmother's bed is close enough Tabbi could reach out and touch the quilt that covers it with velvet scraps from Easter dresses and Christmas clothes going a hundred years back. On the pillow, there's her diary bound in red leather with “Diary” across the cover in scrolling gold letters. All Grace Wilmot's secrets locked inside.

Misty says, “Hold still, honey,” and she picks a stray eyelash off Tabbi's cheek. Misty rubs the lash between two fingers. It's long like her father's eyelashes.

Your eyelashes.

With Tabbi's bed and her grandmother's, two twin beds, there's not much room left. Mother Wilmot brought her diary. That, and her sewing basket full of embroidery thread. Her knitting needles and crochet hooks and embroidery hoops. It's something she can do while she sits in the lobby with her old lady friends or outside on the boardwalk above the beach in good weather.

Your mother's just like all the other fine old Mayflower families, getting their wagons into a circle at the Waytansea Hotel, waiting out the siege of awful strangers.

Stupid as it sounds, Misty brought her drawing tools. Her pale wood box of paints and watercolors, her paper and brushes, it's all piled in a corner of her room.

And Misty says, “Tabbi honey?” She says, “You want to maybe go live with your Grandma Kleinman over by Tecumseh Lake?”

And Tabbi rolls her head back and forth, no, against her pillow until she stops and says, “Granmy Wilmot told me why Dad was so pissed off all the time.”

Misty tells her, “Don't say ‘pissed off,' please.”

Just for the record, Granmy Wilmot is downstairs playing bridge with her cronies in front of the big clock in the wood-paneled room off the lobby. The loudest sound in the room will be the big pendulum ticktocking back and forth. Either that or she's sitting in a big red leather wing chair next to the lobby fireplace, reading with her thick magnifying glass hovering over each page of a book in her lap.

Tabbi tucks her chin down against the satin edge of the blanket, and she says, “Granmy told me why Dad doesn't love you.”

And Misty says, “Of course your daddy loves me.”

And of course she's lying.

Outside the room's little dormer window, the breaking waves shimmer under the lights of the hotel. Far down the coast is the dark line of Waytansea Point, a peninsula of nothing but forest and rock jutting out into the shimmering ocean.

Misty goes to the window and puts her fingertips on the sill, saying, “You want it open or shut?” The white paint on the windowsill is blistered and peeling, and she picks at it, wedging paint chips under her fingernail.

Rolling her head back and forth on her pillow, Tabbi says, “No, Mom.” She says, “Granmy Wilmot says Dad never loved you for real. He only pretended love to bring you here and make you stay.”

“To bring me here?” Misty says. “To Waytansea Island?” With two fingers, she scratches off the loose flecks of white paint. The sill underneath is brown varnished wood. Misty says, “What else did your grandmother tell you?”

And Tabbi says, “Granmy says you're going to be a famous artist.”

What you don't learn in art theory is how too big a compliment can hurt more than a slap in the face. Misty, a famous artist. Big fat Misty Wilmot, queen of the fucking slaves.

The white paint is flaking off in a pattern, in words. A wax candle or a finger of grease, maybe gum arabic, it makes a negative message underneath. Somebody a long time ago wrote something invisible here that new paint can't stick to.

Tabbi lifts some strands of her hair and looks at the ends, so close-up her eyes go crossed. She looks at her fingernails and says, “Granmy says we should go on a picnic out on the point.”

The ocean shimmers, bright as the bad costume jewelry Peter wore in art school. Waytansea Point is nothing but black. A void. A hole in everything.

The jewelry you wore in art school.

Misty makes sure the window's locked, and she brushes the loose paint chips into the palm of one hand. In art school, you learn the symptoms of adult lead poisoning include tiredness, sadness, weakness, stupidity—symptoms Misty has had most of her adult life.

And Tabbi says, “Granmy Wilmot says everyone will want your pictures. She says you'll do pictures the summer people will fight over.”

Misty says, “Good night, honey.”

And Tabbi says, “Granmy Wilmot says you'll make us a rich family again.” Nodding her head, she says, “Dad brought you here to make the whole island rich again.”

The paint chips cupped in one hand, Misty turns out the light.

The message on the windowsill, where the paint flaked off, underneath it said, “You'll die when they're done with you.” It's signed
Constance Burton
.

Flaking off more paint, the message says, “We all do.”

As she bends to turn off the pink china lamp, Misty says, “What do you want for your birthday next week?”

And a little voice in the dark, Tabbi says, “I want a picnic on the point, and I want you to start painting again.”

And Misty tells the voice, “Sleep tight,” and kisses it good night.

July 10

ON THEIR TENTH DATE,
Misty asked Peter if he'd messed with her birth control pills.

They were in Misty's apartment. She was working on another painting. The television was on, tuned to a Spanish soap opera. Her new painting was a tall church fitted together out of cut stone. The steeple was roofed with copper tarnished dark green. The stained-glass windows were complicated as spiderwebs.

Painting the shiny blue of the church doors, Misty said, “I'm not stupid.” She said, “A lot of women would notice the difference between a real birth control pill and the little pink cinnamon candies you switched them with.”

Peter had her last painting, the house with the white picket fence, the picture he'd framed, and he'd stuffed it up under his baggy old sweater. Like he was pregnant with a very square baby, he waddled around Misty's apartment. His arms straight down at his sides, he was holding the picture in place with his elbows.

Then fast, he moved his arms a little and the painting dropped out. A heartbeat from the floor, from the glass breaking into a mess, Peter caught it between his hands.

You caught it. Misty's painting.

She said, “What the fuck are you doing?”

And Peter said, “I have a plan.”

And Misty said, “I'm not having kids. I'm going to be an artist.”

On television, a man slapped a woman to the ground and she lay there, licking her lips, her breasts heaving inside a tight sweater. She was supposed to be a police officer. Peter couldn't speak a word of Spanish. What he loved about Spanish soap operas is you could make what people say mean anything.

And stuffing the painting up under his sweater, Peter said, “When?”

And Misty said, “When what?”

The painting dropped out, and he caught it.

“When are you going to be an artist?” he said.

Another reason to love Spanish soap operas was how fast they could resolve a crisis. One day, a man and woman were hacking at each other with butcher knives. The next day, they were kneeling in church with their new baby. Their hands folded in prayer. People accepted the worst from each other, screaming and slapping. Divorce and abortion were just never a plot option.

If this was love or just inertia, Misty couldn't tell.

After she graduated, she said, then she'd be an artist. When she'd put together a body of work and found a gallery to show her. When she'd sold a few pieces. Misty wanted to be realistic. Maybe she'd teach art at the high school level. Or she'd be a technical draftsman or an illustrator. Something practical. Not everybody could be a famous painter.

Stuffing the painting inside his sweater, Peter said, “You could be famous.”

And Misty told him to stop. Just stop.

“Why?” he said. “It's the truth.”

Still watching the television, pregnant with the painting, Peter said, “You have such talent. You could be the most famous artist of your generation.”

Watching some Spanish commercial for a plastic toy, Peter said, “With your gift, you're
doomed
to be a great artist. School for you is a waste of time.”

What you don't understand, you can make mean anything.

The painting dropped out, and he caught it. He said, “All you have to do is paint.”

Maybe this is why Misty loved him.

Loved you.

Because you believed in her so much more than she did. You expected more from her than she did from herself.

Painting the tiny gold of the church doorknobs, Misty said, “Maybe.” She said, “But that's why I don't want kids . . .”

Just for the record, it was kind of cute. All of her birth control pills being replaced with little heart-shaped candies.

“Just marry me,” Peter said. “And you'll be the next great painter of the Waytansea school.”

Maura Kincaid and Constance Burton.

Misty said how only two painters didn't count as a “school.”

And Peter said, “It's three, counting you.”

Maura Kincaid, Constance Burton, and Misty Kleinman.

“Misty
Wilmot,
” Peter said, and he stuffed the painting inside his sweater.

You said.

On television, a man shouted
“Te amo . . . Te amo . . .”
again and again to a dark-haired girl with brown eyes and feathery long eyelashes while he kicked her down a flight of stairs.

The painting dropped out of his sweater, and Peter caught it again. He stepped up beside Misty, where she was working on the details of the tall stone church, the flecks of green moss on the roof, the red of rust on the gutters. And he said, “In that church, right there, we'll get married.”

And duh-duh-dumb little Misty, she said how she was making the church up. It didn't really exist.

“That's what you think,” Peter said. He kissed the side of her neck and whispered, “Just marry me, the island will give you the biggest wedding anybody's seen in a hundred years.”

July 11

DOWNSTAIRS,
it's past midnight, and the lobby is empty except for Paulette Hyland behind the desk. Grace Wilmot would tell you how Paulette's a Hyland by marriage, but before that she was a Petersen, although her mother's a Nieman descended from the Tupper branch. That used to mean a lot of old money on both sides of her family. Now Paulette's a desk clerk.

Far across the lobby, sunk in the cushion of a red leather wing chair, is Grace, reading beside the fireplace.

The Waytansea lobby is decades of stuff, all of it layered together. A garden. A park. The wool carpet is moss green over granite tile quarried nearby. The blue carpet coming down the stairs is a waterfall flowing around landings, cascading down each step. Walnut trees, planed and polished and put back together, they make a forest of perfect square columns, straight rows of dark shining trees that hold up a forest canopy of plaster leaves and cupids.

A crystal chandelier hangs down, a solid beam of sunlight that breaks into this forest glade. The crystal doohickeys, they look tiny and twinkly so high up, but when you're on a tall ladder cleaning them, each crystal is the size of your fist.

Swags and falls of green silk almost cover the windows. Daytime, they turn the sunlight into soft green shade. The sofas and chairs are overstuffed, upholstered into flowering bushes, shaggy with long fringe along the bottom. The fireplace could be a campfire. The whole lobby, it's the island in miniature. Indoors. An Eden.

Just for the record, this is the landscape where Grace Wilmot feels most at home. Even more than her own home. Her house.

Your house.

Halfway across the lobby, Misty's edging between sofas and little tables, and Grace looks up.

She says, “Misty, come sit by the fire.” She looks back into her open book and says, “How is your headache?”

Misty doesn't have a headache.

Open in Grace's lap is her diary, the red leather cover of it, and she peers at the pages and says, “What is today's date?”

Misty tells her.

The fireplace is burned down to a bed of orange coals under the grate. Grace's feet hang down in brown buckle shoes, her toes pointed, not reaching the floor. Her head of long white curls hangs forward over the book in her lap. Next to her chair, a floor lamp shines down, and the light bounces bright off the silver edge of the magnifying glass she holds over each page.

Misty says, “Mother Wilmot, we need to talk.”

And Grace turns back a couple pages and says, “Oh dear. My mistake. You won't have that terrible headache until the day after tomorrow.”

And Misty leans into her face and says, “How dare you set my child up to have her heart broken?”

Grace looks up from her book, her face loose and hanging with surprise. Her chin is tucked down so hard her neck is squashed into folds from ear to ear. Her superficial musculo-aponeurotic system. Her submental fat. The wrinkled platysmal bands around her neck.

Misty says, “Where do you get off telling Tabbi that I'm going to be a famous artist?” She looks around, and they're still alone, and Misty says, “I'm a waitress, and I'm keeping a roof over our heads, and that's good enough. I don't want you filling my kid with expectations that I can't fulfill.” The last of her breath tight in her chest, Misty says, “Do you see how this will make me look?”

And a smooth, wide smile flows across Grace's mouth, and she says, “But Misty, the truth is you
will
be famous.”

Grace's smile, it's a curtain parting. An opening night. It's Grace unveiling herself.

And Misty says, “I won't.” She says, “I can't.” She's just a regular person who's going to live and die ignored, obscure. Ordinary. That's not such a tragedy.

Grace shuts her eyes. Still smiling, she says, “Oh, you'll be so famous the moment—”

And Misty says, “Stop. Just stop.” Misty cuts her off, saying, “It's so easy for you to build up other people's hope. Don't you see how you're ruining them?” Misty says, “I'm a darn good waitress. In case you haven't noticed, we're not the ruling class anymore. We're not the top of the heap.”

Peter, your mother's problem is she's never lived in a trailer. Never stood in a grocery line with food stamps. She doesn't know how to be poor, and she's not willing to learn.

Misty says, there's worse things they can do than raise Tabbi to fit into this economy, to be able to find a job in the world she'll inherit. There's nothing wrong with waiting tables. Cleaning rooms.

And Grace lays a strip of lacy ribbon to mark her place in the diary. She looks up and says, “Then why do you drink?”

“Because I like wine,” Misty says.

Grace says, “You drink and run around with men because you're afraid.”

By men she must mean Angel Delaporte. The man with the leather pants who's renting the Wilmot house. Angel Delaporte with his graphology and his flask of good gin.

And Grace says, “I know
exactly
how you feel.” She folds her hands on the diary in her lap and says, “You drink because you want to express yourself and you're afraid.”

“No,” Misty says. She rolls her head to one shoulder and looks at Grace sideways. Misty says, “No, you
do not
know how I feel.”

The fire next to them, it pops and sends a spiral of sparks up the chimney. The smell of smoke drifts out past the fireplace mantel. Their campfire.

“Yesterday,” Grace says, reading from the diary, “you started saving money so you could move back to your hometown. You're saving it in an envelope, and you tuck the envelope under the edge of the carpet, near the window in your room.”

Grace looks up, her eyebrows lifted, the corrugator muscle pleating the spotted skin across her forehead.

And Misty says, “You've been spying on me?”

And Grace smiles. She taps her magnifying glass against the open page and says, “It's in your diary.”

Misty tells her, “That's
your
diary.” She says, “You can't write someone else's diary.”

Just so you know, the witch is spying on Misty and writing everything down in her evil red leather record book.

And Grace smiles. She says, “I'm not
writing
it. I'm
reading
it.” She turns the page and looks through her magnifying glass and says, “Oh, tomorrow looks exciting. It says you'll most likely meet a nice policeman.”

Just for the record, tomorrow Misty is getting the lock on her door changed. Pronto.

Misty says, “Stop. One more time, just stop.” Misty says, “The issue here is Tabbi, and the sooner she learns to live a regular life with a normal everyday job and a steady, secure, ordinary future, the happier she'll be.”

“Like doing office work?” Grace says. “Grooming dogs? A nice weekly paycheck? Is that why you drink?”

Your mother.

Just for the record, she deserved this:

You deserve this:

And Misty says, “No, Grace.” She says, “I drink because I married a silly, lazy, unrealistic dreamer who was raised to think he'd marry a famous artist someday and couldn't deal with his disappointment.” Misty says, “You, Grace, you fucked up your own child, and I'm not letting you fuck up mine.”

Leaning in so close she can see the face powder in Grace's wrinkles, her rhytides, and the red spidery lines where Grace's lipstick bleeds into the wrinkles around her mouth, Misty says, “Just stop lying to her or I swear I'll pack my bags and take Tabbi off the island tomorrow.”

And Grace looks past Misty, looking at something behind her.

Not looking at Misty, Grace sighs. She says, “Oh, Misty. It's too late for
that
.”

Misty turns and behind her is Paulette, the desk clerk, standing there in her white blouse and dark pleated skirt, and Paulette says, “Excuse me, Mrs. Wilmot?”

Together—both Grace and Misty—they say, Yes?

And Paulette says, “I don't want to interupt you.” She says, “I just need to put another log on the fire.”

And Grace shuts the book in her lap and says, “Paulette, we need you to settle a disagreement for us.” Lifting her frontalis muscle to raise just one eyebrow, Grace says, “Don't you wish Misty would hurry up and paint her masterpiece?”

The weather today is partly angry, leading to resignation and ultimatums.

And Misty turns to leave. She turns a little and stops.

The waves outside hiss and burst.

“Thank you, Paulette,” Misty says, “but it's time everybody on the island just accepted the fact that I'm going to die a big fat nobody.”