I Cannot Get You Close Enough (23 page)

“It's not your summer,” Andria said. “And it's not your life. Don't start bossing me around, Auntee Traceleen, or I'll quit and hitchhike home.” She thought she had me where she wanted me. They know just how to do that at that age. They get you in a position where you can be embarrassed if you make a fuss and then they go and do whatever they want to do. Most grown people fall for that, but I do not. I have spent too many years counseling young people at the church to be fooled by anything they say.

“You will not have to hitchhike,” I told her. Just as cold as I could be. “I will put you on a bus myself.”

The next day I insisted that Miss Crystal change the personnel in the cars around and let Andria drive in the station wagon part of the time with Miss Lydia. Not that Miss Lydia is a perfect influence on the young but at least I didn't have King and Andria in the front seat of the Peugeot day after day looking at each other's legs.

2

TRACELEEN Five days later we arrived in Maine. It was not a disappointment although it was not as beautiful as I had expected it to be either. Here is how it looked as we crossed the New Hampshire state line at Dover and began to drive along the coast. Huge pine trees everywhere, and, as the afternoon wore on, the beginning of these funny-looking cloud formations. Mackerel clouds, I found out later they are called, like the scales on a fish. When you see those clouds in the daytime you know there will be a beautiful sunset later on. There was one that day. We had to stop the cars several times to get out and look, sunlight reflecting off all sides of these little scales of clouds. I couldn't help thinking this was fisherman's country, although the seafood up here was all going to be new to me.

Besides the giant pine trees and the sunset, there was also this very clean smell to the air and along the way small white houses with no decoration or porches to speak of. No flowers growing and the cars were very plain. The only bumper sticker I saw was one that said
DO
NOT
CUT
THE
PINES
. It was on a Volvo driven by an old man.

“I thought it would be prettier,” Crystal Anne said. “Miss Noel said it would be pretty.”

“It will be better when we get there, I guess,” Andria chimed in. Then we came around a curve and began to drive along the sea. It must have been six or seven o'clock by then. The sea was not much better. No surf at all and the beaches were small and gray. To tell the truth the ocean looked mean up here in Maine, gray and uninviting. Of course we are used to Gulf Shores, Alabama, with its big wide beaches full of people in the summer and everyone having a party.

Then it was night and Andria spelled King at the wheel and the rest of us took a nap while we waited to get to our destination. I woke up once and saw a sign that said, “Cranberries for Sale.” Aside from that, it was mostly white houses and pine trees. Welcome to Maine, I was thinking. How on earth did we decide to come all the way up here? We must have lost our heads or been under some sort of spell.

It was cold by the time we arrived at the house. Miss Noel had warned us that the nights were cold but I don't think we took her seriously enough. The little skimpy sweaters I had brought for myself and Andria were not going to be any protection against this wind.

The night watchman was standing on the porch of the house waiting for us when we got there. He had only one light on in the house and hadn't even bothered to start a fire, although we had called to tell him we were coming. He shuffled down the stairs and let us in and showed us where the bedrooms were. We collected all the blankets we could find and divided them up and then fell out on the beds. We were just completely worn out. Seven days and six nights it had taken us to travel the United States. Along the way we had seen a Shakespearean play and driven a thousand seven hundred and sixty-four miles and been to the Smithsonian Museum and the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Memorial and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, where I cried my heart out over my cousin, Taylor Brown, and for all the mothers and wives and fatherless children. We had seen Philadelphia, PA, and New York City, New York, and the Plymouth Rock Plantation and been to Boston Harbor. Just to name a few of the sights we took in, not to mention sleeping in five different motel and hotel rooms and eating at twenty or thirty different restaurants. We were worn out and full of enough educational sights to last several years. I decided I had made the right decision to bring Andria along no matter what happened next. We had seen half the United States already and here we were, having our first night's sleep in Miss Noel's mansion on the ocean near Tennant's Harbor, Maine.

In the morning Miss Crystal and I got up and made some oatmeal and coffee and scrambled eggs. We were scurrying around the kitchen in our bathrobes and socks trying to decide what to do to get warm. The night watchman was nowhere to be found and we didn't know how to start a fire in the old-timey kitchen stove so we just turned on the electric oven and let it help out while we cooked.

The family started to filter in. King came in and took over building a fire. “Don't burn us down,” Miss Crystal said, so I took her arm and frowned. We have made a pact that whenever she starts saying things to King that might start a fight or make him feel he is not a man I am to stop her. “The wood is right here,” he said. “It wouldn't be here if it didn't go in the stove.”

“Watch out for spiders,” I warned. “They hide in the wood pile.”

Then Andria came to stand in the door. “I'm freezing to death,” she said. “I can't believe it's this cold in June.”

“Eat some of this oatmeal,” Miss Crystal advised. “We will have a meeting as soon as everyone gets up. It's clear there is more to living in Noel's house than we imagined. I guess it's like learning to ski.”

After everyone was up and fed we got together around the kitchen table and decided to go into town and buy some long underwear. Then come home and have each person learn to use all the stoves and the fireplaces. Then we would tour the house and decide who would sleep where. The house had turned out to be much larger than we imagined, although we had seen pictures. It was three stories counting the attic and there was also an apartment over an old garage. Three living rooms and a dining room and the kitchen. Porches all around and woods going out in all directions and the ocean not half a mile away. We had been there since nine o'clock the night before and none of us had seen the ocean.

“The ocean,” King said. “I just remembered we are on the ocean.” Then we all got up and banked the fire in the kitchen stove and went out to look at the sea. We bundled up in whatever we could find, there were jackets and old coats in a closet under the stairs, that Crystal Anne, bless her heart, had found. She had been running all over the place finding everything while the rest of us were eating oatmeal.

We walked in a line toward the sea. King and Andria and Crystal Anne, then Miss Lydia and Miss Crystal and me.

King began to do little jumps. Then Andria would push him. Then Crystal Anne would run ahead and King would catch her and tickle her.

“I hope the young people find plenty to do,” I said. “I hope we can keep them busy.” I took Miss Crystal's arm as I said it. She is so sensitive about King. She is sensitive about everything, especially since she quit drinking. You can say the slightest thing to her and she will worry about it for days.

“They need to meet other young people,” Miss Lydia said. “Noel said there was a place in town called The Hangout where they can go and meet people their age. We'll take them there. I want us to have an open house where they can bring people that they meet. A salon.”

“I would like for Andria to meet some young people of her own race if any are up here,” I said. “You must understand I am very old-fashioned about that.”

“I've got a whole list of things for them to do,” Miss Lydia went on. “There's a boat to take them deep-sea fishing and a sailing boat with a captain we can charter. Also, there are people who can take them back into the woods to see the old logging camps. Don't start worrying about the kids, Traceleen. We're going to keep them busy.”

“As long as we keep them from drinking or having bad companions,” I added. “What are Mr. Hand's daughters like that are coming from North Carolina?”

“They're just normal teenagers,” Miss Crystal said. “Jessie's a sweetheart, the prettiest girl you've ever seen. But Olivia is the smart one. She came in third in some big essay or debate contest in Washington this year. She's a brain. She's part Cherokee Indian, Traceleen. That ought to be good for Andria.”

“Normal teenagers,” Miss Lydia said. “Full of sadness and perfection. I wish I could remember what it was like to be that age. It had a smell to it, there was something about those summers. Do you remember, Crystal, what it was like to be that age?”

“We used to get drunk,” Crystal said. “Don't remind me of it, Lydia.”

“Well, I think we came to the right place,” I put in. “This seems like a very healthy environment.”

“Oh, God, smell that,” Miss Lydia added, getting a whiff of the pine trees.

Then the ocean opened up before us. So dark and cold and far out in all directions. The waves seemed stronger than they do at home, as if they were coming from far away across a cold long sea. In Gulf Shores I always think of the water going down to South America or over to the British Virgin Islands where Miss Crystal took me one Christmas to live on a boat. This water seemed to come from a darker place, although it is all the same ocean really. It had a nice smell, however. The air was so clean you might have to get used to breathing it. We quieted down when we saw the sea. The young people ran ahead and began to wade along the edge. Miss Crystal and Miss Lydia and I held back, standing at the very edge of the sand, trying to take it in.

“It's magnificent,” Miss Lydia said. “We need to see this, ladies. The world is wide and full of mystery.”

“Thy winds, thy wide gray skies, thy mists that roll and rise,” Miss Crystal added. “I think Millay lived up here somewhere. Maybe in New Hampshire. I'll look it up.”

We walked for a while, then made a place to sit and watch the children and Miss Lydia said now she understood why Miss Noel had insisted we come there and that Miss Noel was right as always, because she is a genius.

Later in the morning we all drove into town in the station wagon and bought groceries and long underwear and four inexpensive blankets. One for Andria and me. One for Miss Crystal and Crystal Anne. One for Miss Lydia. One for King.

If only things could have stayed the way they were that first morning. By the time we got back to the house and put the groceries away the phone had begun to ring. First it was Mrs. Helen Abadie from North Carolina, the sister of Daniel Hand, and her boyfriend she is not supposed to have because she is married, calling to say they may come up and spend a weekend soon. They were in Boston working on the papers of Miss Anna Hand, who was Miss Crystal's cousin that was a novel writer. Then Mr. Alan called from Virginia and said he and his tennis partner were on their way. Mr. Alan is Miss Crystal's Achilles' heel. He is this very shallow type of man who thinks he is God's gift to women. He doesn't do a thing for a living that I can see except get his name in the paper for going to all the right parties. He also gives parties, although Miss Crystal doesn't go to them. She helps him plan the menu and makes shrimp Creole for him to feed his friends and runs down to the French Quarter to buy lemon ice and Italian cookies for his desserts but only his friends his own age go to the parties.

I do not know what Miss Crystal could possibly see in him or why this thing has dragged out between them all these years. Last winter she decided to give him up for good and try to mend her marriage to Mr. Manny, but it did not work. There is something wrong between Mr. Manny and Miss Crystal, some old scar or bad chemistry. No matter how hard they try to make their marriage work it never sticks. So here we were, up in Maine, and Mr. Alan calls. Crystal Anne and King hate the sight of him, so of course he calls and says he's coming up to ruin the summer. We hadn't even assigned the rooms yet or put the groceries away.

Only a fool would think they understand the smallest thing about why people do the things they do. Only the world's biggest fool would think they know why something happens or can ever guess what will happen next. I had had such big hopes for this summer, a quiet time to teach the children about a state almost into Canada, with bear and deer and giant pine trees and swamps of cranberries growing wild. (Some of the things I found out about Maine in the
Encyclopaedia Britannica
I bought for Andria last year.) Maine is as far north as you can go and still be in the United States. Still, it wasn't far enough to keep Mr. Alan away from a free meal and a free you-know-what-else.

“Alan's coming?” King asked, when his mother got off the phone. “He's coming up here?”

“Go into town and get some more blankets,” Miss Crystal said. “Here's some money. He won't stay long. He's only coming for a visit on his way to teach tennis up in Canada. He'll be gone when Jessie gets here.” She looked down, pretending to be poking around in her purse for her money. King just stood there, getting his old devil-may-care attitude. “Well, I'll take Andria and we might stop by that Hangout place,” he said. “Don't look like that, Mother. It's your vacation. You can have anybody up here that you want. I just came along to earn my pay.” He started for the door, Andria lined up behind him. I guess she knew what was going on. She's been around the Weisses since she was a little girl. And the Weisses don't keep anything they do a secret. “You don't care if we spend some time in town, do you?” King added, in this bitter tone.

“Of course not,” Miss Crystal says. “Do you want some money? Do you need some money?”