Forgive Me (5 page)

Nine

S
un shone on the water as the ferry moved out of Hyannis Harbor and past expensive gray homes. Next to Nadine and Hank, an old woman petted her dog. The dog’s collar was printed with tiny lobsters.

“Look,” said Nadine, “a yacht.” She pointed. It was a lovely boat, its sails bound in blue cloth. “Or I guess you’d call that a sailboat.”

“Definitely a sailboat,” said Hank. “Didn’t you grow up here?”

“Sort of,” said Nadine.

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t remember it much,” said Nadine. “My life started after I left.”

“Coffee?” said Hank.

“Great.”

Nadine watched his red T-shirt as he walked away. The shirt had an ice cream cone on the back. His jeans were faded, and his hiking boots looked well worn. Hank’s thick black curls needed a trim.

The ferry rocked slowly. Hank returned a few minutes later, balancing a cardboard tray of coffees in one hand. “Cream and sugar?” he said.

“Neither,” said Nadine.

“I figured,” said Hank, handing her a paper cup.

“At what point does a sailboat become a yacht?” said Nadine.

“Hm,” said Hank. “Fifteen feet? Twenty?”

“Oh,” said Nadine. “Well, you learn something every day.”

“Do you?”

Nadine sipped her coffee. “You know,” she said, “I do.”

“I envy you, then.”

“I love my job,” said Nadine.

“Yes,” said Hank, “you’ve said that.”

“Why do you sound as if you don’t believe me?”

“I used to work in an emergency room in Boston,” said Hank. “At first, it was great. You know, it was what I was trained to do. Someone ODs, or comes in with a broken leg, I know how to handle it. At work, I was happy. I guess it was somewhat like you said. I felt alive. But I couldn’t…I couldn’t switch it off. I mean, you walk out the door, you know, you walk outside, but those patients are still…you’re supposed to go on home, have a beer, relax. I’d take the T, twenty minutes, and then my wife would be opening the door, wanting to go see a movie or talk about new paint for the living room…it was strange. It got to me. I felt as if I couldn’t stop, not for a minute. I didn’t like who I turned into. I didn’t like who I was, outside the ER.”

“I could stop,” said Nadine.

“Okay,” said Hank.

A man began to spray bright yellow cleanser on the ferry window, wiping it afterward with a thin blade. He wore a jacket that read
STEAMSHIP AUTHORITY
. There were two patches on his jacket: an American flag, and his name,
JEFF
. Jeff was sweaty and had a pimple in the center of his forehead. He sprayed the cleanser and wiped it away.

“Gwen told me your wife, um,” said Nadine.

The old woman began patting her dog and talking to it. “We had a wonderful morning, didn’t we?” she said. “You saw your friend Austin, didn’t you?” The dog, like Hank, did not respond.

“Gwen told me your wife, well, went on a Carnival Cruise ship…this can’t be true…”

“No,” said Hank, “it is true. We went on the cruise together. It was a theme cruise.”

“I don’t want to ask,” said Nadine.

“‘Bring Back the Zing,’” said Hank, staring at Jeff, who sprayed and wiped.

“Pardon?” said Nadine. “The zing?”

“You heard me,” said Hank. “It was for couples. ‘Bring Back the Zing.’ It was my idea.”

“Oh, Hank,” said Nadine.

“I’d been working around the clock. I knew Maryjane was unhappy. I thought that maybe if I got far enough away, I could shut off. I could…talk about her, pay attention to her.” He rubbed his forehead with his fingers. “I got us tickets on ‘Bring Back the Zing.’ We were supposed to make love from Miami to Bermuda.”

“But Gwen said…and again, this cannot be true—”

“Oh it’s true,” said Hank. “Hercules Kalapoulou.”

“Hercules?”

“You might ask yourself, as I did, why a divorced Greek businessman booked a room on ‘Bring Back the Zing.’ But Maryjane didn’t ask any questions. When the cruise was over, so was our marriage.”

“I don’t know what to say,” said Nadine.

“I went back to the ER for a year, and then decided I wanted a quieter life. A small community. I guess I wanted a home. Falmouth needed a generalist. And that’s the story.”

Nadine shook her head. “Wow.”

Hank nodded. “I suppose I can see the humor in it now,” he said, one side of his mouth turning up. He continued to look out the window. Nadine couldn’t tell if he was seeing Jeff or the water beyond Jeff. The glass did not look any clearer.

“I’ve never been on a cruise,” said Nadine.

“So I sold my place in Falmouth after a year,” Hank said, forging ahead. “I rent a condo now. And I bought the house on Nantucket. It has a fireplace. I love it out here.”

“You love Nantucket, too, Marlo,” said the woman next to them. She was talking to her dog again. “Don’t you, Marlo? Don’t you love Nantucket?”

A man with red hair walked by. There was a comb in his back pocket. “Aren’t you a good boy?” said the woman, scratching her dog’s belly. “Aren’t you a good, good boy?”

“So that’s my saga,” said Hank. “What’s yours?”

“Oh, you know,” said Nadine.

“No,” said Hank. “I don’t.”

“Well,” said Nadine, “what have you heard?”

“Jim Morgan’s daughter,” said Hank, sitting back in his seat. “Difficult as a kid. Crazy in high school. Always looking for trouble. Ran away with a guy who came through town on a Harley-Davidson. Called her dad from Sturgis, wanting money to come home.”

Nadine smiled. She had met Sammy after the Senior Dinner Dance, which had been held on a spring Saturday night under a tent overlooking Old Silver Beach. Tiny white lights twinkled along the edge of the canvas fabric, and the temperature was a perfect seventy-five degrees. The strains of “Wonderful Tonight” played as Nadine’s date, Liam Baker, spun her too fast. Over his shoulder, Nadine saw a girl she barely knew crying by the punch bowl. She saw Lily dancing with Dennis, trying to look happy as Dennis, too drunk, staggered around the parquet floor.

“This is perfect,” whispered Liam in Nadine’s ear. Poor Liam, who thought they would get married and stay on Cape Cod forever. Suddenly Nadine couldn’t bear it: Liam’s overpowering cologne, the crying girl, Lily pretending so fiercely. The sun set, an orange orb, and the gap between the reality of imminent heartbreak all around her and the cheery illusion of a perfect summer night was too wide for Nadine to straddle. She twisted free of Liam’s embrace and ran. She ran until her legs wore out, and then she sat on the back porch of someone’s empty summer house and watched the stars. She fell asleep on a teak lounge chair.

In the morning, walking home, she saw Sammy parked by the side of the road, smoking a cigarette. He was short and ugly. He was real. When he offered to take her for a ride, she accepted. As they sped around the Sagamore Rotary and then over the bridge toward freedom, Nadine pressed her cheek to his leather jacket and held on tight.

“O
h my God,” said Nadine. “Hank, who have you been talking to?”

“Wrote about the biker underworld for the school newspaper. Wins some contest—”

“The Young Writers’ Fellowship,” murmured Nadine.

“Heads to Cambridge, never looks back. Turns out she’s not just crazy, but brilliant.”

Nadine smiled and looked at Hank. “I hang out at The Captain Kidd,” said Hank. “Jan the bartender went to school with you.”

“Jan Hallnet.”

“Yes.”

Nadine looked down. “Did he tell you about my mother?”

Hank didn’t answer. An older man wandered by, leading a sheepdog on a leather leash. The sheepdog stopped next to Marlo. “Who’s this?” said the man.

“This is Marlo,” said the woman.

“This is Roady,” said the man. The dogs sniffed each other.

“So,” said the man, “how old is Marlo?”

“We don’t know,” said the woman. “My daughter rescued him from a farm. They were going to shoot him. He ate the eggs and scared the chickens. Maybe around eleven. But he acts like a little puppy.”

“Roady here is five,” said the man. “I got him from a breeder in Wellesley.”

“Don’t you?” said the woman. “Don’t you act just like a little puppy?”

Hank moved close to Nadine. She could smell him, and it was a comforting smell, like butter, like gingerbread. “No,” said Hank finally. “Jan didn’t tell me about your mother.”

“Oh,” said Nadine. A woman made her way to the bathroom, sipping from a bottle of beer. Jeff moved to another window. The sun broke through a bank of clouds and spilled across the waves. Nadine leaned over and kissed Hank. He kissed her back.

“Hey, hey,” said the man with the dog. “What have we here? Somebody falling in love right here on the slow ferry?”

Ten

I
t was dark by the time they pulled into Nantucket Harbor. From the outdoor deck, Nadine and Hank watched the island come into view: the row of neat houses with windows lit, cargo trucks lining up, readying for the shipments of food and fuel. The wind was fierce, and when Hank put his hands in his pockets Nadine slid her right hand inside the warm wool of his coat, entwining her fingers with his. Hank looked at her and smiled.

“We can grab a burger in town,” he said, “and then take a cab to the house. I’ve got an old Volvo there. Hope it starts.”

“Great,” said Nadine.

“Or there’s the Straight Wharf. A little snazzier. Candlelight, et cetera.”

“No,” said Nadine, “a burger’s fine.”

They lined up above the metal staircase leading off the ferry. Pink-faced passengers wrapped in mink and North Face parkas stood elbow-to-elbow with heavyset women gossiping in Jamaican patois. At the ferry dock, construction workers waited for the last ship out, empty lunchboxes in hand. Nadine and Hank strolled across the gangway, then past a lively taco stand and a bicycle rental shop, closed for the day.

“Come,” said Hank, leading her by a basket museum and a whaling museum, then into town, where the streets were made of cobbled stone and holiday lights twinkled from every lamppost. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m okay,” said Nadine, though she felt completely dislocated, even anxious. “This is beautiful. Really. I guess I thought the streets were paved with gold.”

Hank laughed. “Quaint isn’t cheap,” he said.

On Broad Street, after a store specializing in French cookware, Hank stopped. “Here we are,” he said. “The Brotherhood of Thieves.” He opened the door to a warm underground restaurant. “This was a hangout for whalers back in 1840.” In the dim space, a fire blazed and people sat around wooden tables. “Two for dinner,” Hank said to the teenager in a polo sweater and cargo pants who stood behind a wooden reservation stand. The boy’s overgrown hair and burgeoning beard testified to his decision to stay on-island for the winter.

“Forty-five minitos,” said the boy. “Maybe an hour.”

“How about a drink?” said Hank, inclining his head toward a bar where men in knit hats and baseball caps watched television intently.

“Sure,” said Nadine. She took a few steps, then said, “You know, I’m going to go get some fresh air, actually.”

“What?” said Hank. “Are you okay?”

“Just some air,” said Nadine, as she rushed past the host and to the door. Awkwardly, she yanked it open and the cold wind hit her. She started to walk. Something about the dark space, the rumble of voices, the tinny sound of the television. She turned a corner and saw a church, sat down on the steps. Underneath her jeans, the stone was cold. Nadine felt her temples throb. It was something about the fire, the smell of meat. Memories rushed forward, vivid and painful.

During her summer in Cape Town, Nadine often drove from her manicured neighborhood to Sunshine township. With her housemates and fellow reporters, she drank beer at a bar called the Waterfront, listening to the Moonlights and JC Cool on the jukebox. Some nights, the tinny sound of soccer games won out over the music.

Nadine was working on a piece about the parents of boys who had run away from home to join the Mandela United Football Club. The “club” was really a gang that roamed the township streets, using fear and brutality to stamp out resistance to the antiapartheid cause. Rumors had begun to spread about Winnie Mandela, the wife of jailed leader Nelson Mandela who would later be released and elected president of South Africa. Winnie, it was said, was housing young men in her mansion. The men called her “Mommy” and carried out any orders she gave, no matter how illogical or violent. Nadine was having a hard time finding people willing to speak out against the Football Club, and finding proof of Winnie’s involvement was simply impossible.

Still, Nadine loved talking to her subjects for hours, drinking tea and picking the locks of their minds. She was always amazed at how much people would tell her, a stranger, even as she held a pen in her hand. They seemed so eager to be seen, to be recognized. But Nadine had to listen carefully for the narrative beneath the façades they constructed for themselves.

Sometimes Nadine felt interviewees pulling back from her, as if they thought she could not understand their reality, or might judge them. She used her own secrets then, handing over personal tidbits like bargaining chips, creating a sense of intimacy that almost always led subjects to reveal deeper truths about themselves.

Nadine relished the drive home with pages of scrawled notes. She would pour a glass of wine, play some jazz, and type on her antique Olivetti—she had bought it in a Station Street pawnshop—finding the arc of the story in the process. The hiss of the fax machine, the thrill of snapping open a paper to see her name, the way people lit up when they realized she had written an article they had read and thought about: Nadine loved it all.

But then there was the night they heard gunfire outside the Waterfront. A large bottle of Castle beer in front of her, the lights in the bar going dark, the music stopping abruptly. There were shots, and then screams. Around her, the murmur of voices speaking in Xhosa.

Nadine didn’t have to go outside. Her work was slow and cunning. But the photographers stood in the dark, wrapped their cameras around their necks, and raced toward the action. Nadine sat in the warm
shebeen,
her hands pressed to her eyes. The gunfire stopped, and there was an eerie silence from the garbage-strewn streets. Something made her stand up, leave the bar. Notebook tucked in the pocket of her shorts, she ran outside, cutting through dirt alleys. And then the gunfire started again.

It hadn’t been a premonition that had made her run outside. It had been the silence. Now, on an island far from war, she was enveloped by terror.

“Nadine?” Hank sat next to her on the church step. He looked concerned as he bent down to see her face.

“My head,” said Nadine. Her hands were shaking. “I don’t know,” she said. “I’m sorry, I’m just feeling…”

“Continuing headaches are completely normal after head trauma,” said Hank. “Maybe this trip was too much for you.”

“No,” said Nadine. “I’m fine. Just some air, you know?” She looked into Hank’s eyes, and watched him decide whether or not to believe her.

“How about a burger?” she said, her voice controlled.

“There’s soup at my house,” said Hank.

“Really,” said Nadine. “I’m fine. Maybe I just need some food.” He nodded warily. She smiled, and took his arm as they walked back to the restaurant, wrapping around him tightly. She did not think of Maxim, the way his lips had felt on her skin. She did not think about returning to Nutthall Road the next day, staring at Maxim’s clothes abandoned on the floor.