Jennifer Haigh (38 page)

"Billy?" Rico grinned broadly."Come on up, man. This is a marvelous surprise. Gwen's at the bathhouse taking a shower. She'll be thrilled."

Scott clambered up the ladder onto the deck. "Hi. Thanks. Except I'm not Billy. I'm the other brother, Scott."

"Scott," Rico repeated."I didn't know she had another brother."

The words hit him like a cold wind. "Oh. Well. I was away for a while," he said idiotically."We didn't see each other very often."

They stood there a long moment staring at each other. The words Scott had rehearsed—
What are your intentions regarding my sister?
—were too lame-brained to be spoken aloud. Rico's eyes bristled with alertness. He looked to be in his thirties and was built like a bantam weight boxer, lean and powerful; his muscles seemed to twitch beneath his skin. Scott thought, absurdly, of Dashiell Blodgett, the half-wit who'd lost a toe on K2 and now wrote books about it. Screw Blodgett. This was what a man of action looked like.

They stood staring at each other. Scott would tell the story later with some embellishment: the tension in the air, the fierce and possibly fatal contest of masculine will that would surely have ensued if Gwen hadn't, at that moment, come clanging down the ramp. She stopped short, shading her eyes."Scotty? Is that you?"

Immediately Rico relaxed; his bulging muscles ceased to twitch.

He broke into an affable grin."Scott," he said, offering his hand."Forgive me. Welcome to our home."

Gwen scrambled up the ladder. "Wow. God." She was flushed, a little breathless. A man's white T-shirt hung nearly to her knees. Her hair, slightly damp, hung in loose waves to her chin. She looks pretty, Scott thought. He couldn't have been more astonished if she'd walked on her hands.

"What are you doing here?" She sat on the plastic locker and ran a comb through her hair.

"I came to see you." He turned to Rico. "Buddy, can you give us a minute?"

Rico glanced uncertainly at Gwen.

"It's all right," said Gwen."He's my little brother."

Rico bent and kissed her, his hand lingering protectively on her shoulder."Call if you need me. I won't go far."

Scott waited until Rico had descended the ladder. He sat on a canvas deck chair across from Gwen.

"God, Scotty, what are you doing here?"

"What do you think? I wanted to make sure you're okay."

She gave an exasperated sigh."I'm okay, I'm okay! For God's sake, I've always been okay."

"Well, Mom's out of her mind. You had to expect that when you just disappeared."

"
I
disappeared?"

"Well, you didn't tell her where you were going."

"Spare me," said Gwen. "Aren't you the one who ran away to California and didn't call for two years?"

"That's not the same," he said."She doesn't worry about me like she does about you."

"Are you joking? She practically had a nervous breakdown," said Gwen. "Seriously. I thought she was going to end up in McLean. Dad and Billy were gone, and I was stuck in Concord for two years babysitting her." She stopped."You get the idea. My point is, I can still call her once a month like always. Whether I call from here or Pittsburgh isn't anybody's business. Honestly, I don't see the problem." She clamped her mouth shut, then, the familiar Gwen-like set of her jaw. Until that moment she had seemed a stranger. Here, finally, was a Gwen he recognized.

"Well, what about this guy?" he asked, changing tactics. "This Rico. You have to admit it's pretty sudden."

"Sudden? Scotty, I'm thirty-four years old." She cocked her head.

"Think about it. You get to run away and get married, and Billy goes to New York and falls in love. Why am I the only one who's not allowed to have a life?"

Billy's in love?
Scott thought, but there was no time to process this information. Gwen, silent for twenty years, wouldn't stop talking. It was as though she'd been saving up words her whole life.

Scott looked around him then, really looked. The boat wasn't new, but handsome and well maintained, the deck spanking clean. A small table had been unfolded, Murphy bed style, from the port side.

On it were a bottle of wine, half a loaf of French bread and a bowl of cut fruit.

"I interrupted your dinner," he said.

"Oh, no. That's left over from breakfast. There's a terrific bakery in town. Rico goes every morning. He eats bread all day long. He could live on bread." She smiled then, fondly, a little amused. She had a beautiful smile.

"So you live here," he said, checking his facts."On the boat?"

"For now. It's a little cramped for two. We're looking for a bigger boat."

"What do you do for money?" As he said it, he feared the question would offend her, but Gwen seemed not to mind.

"We run dive excursions. It's Rico's business. He's been doing it for years."

Scott pondered this. He knew plenty of successful people—too goddamn many, in fact. But none of them—his father, Billy, his Drew or Broussard cousins, not even Carter Rook—owned an actual business.

"What about your job?" he asked.

"I quit. I spent eight years of my life cataloging fossils. I was turning into one myself." Gwen paused. "I still have to go back there and deal with my apartment. Have a tag sale, maybe. I don't have much stuff."

"Are you going to get married?"

"We're talking about it," she said, suddenly shy."I don't care one way or the other, but Rico's old fashioned. He doesn't want to live in sin. And get this: he's Catholic! Mom would love that."

Scott smiled. He had run out of questions. He wanted only to sit awhile and look at her, his little big sister, happy at last.

"I should have done this a long time ago," she said."Like you did.

I'm sorry for what I said before, about you going to California. You were the brave one, Scotty. I was proud of you."

Jesus: Gwen, proud of him, when in all the years he was gone he'd scarcely given her a thought. When he remembered her at all, he thought of Gwen as Billy's sister, his lieutenant and disciple, whose outs and runs counted; as one more thing Billy had that he did not. All that time, she had also been his?

"What do I tell Mom?" he asked.

Gwen sighed."I don't know. Tell her I'm happy. Tell her I'm impossible and stubborn. Just tell her you tried."

That night, after Gwen had driven him back to his hotel, after he'd rested and showered and smoked a joint, he dialed his mother's number.

"Dear, where are you? Goodness, it's late. When the phone rang I nearly had a coronary."

"Sorry, Mom." He glanced at the clock: eleven thirty. What an endless fucking day.

"Well, did you find her? Is she all right?"

"Easy, Mom." He wanted to take his time telling her, to savor his victory. Against tall odds he had found his sister, really found her. Gwen, who'd been lost not for months, but—to Scott anyway—for many years.

"I saw her and she's fine. She's great, actually. She's living on a houseboat"—he forgave himself this slight exaggeration—"with a guy she met on vacation. He's—let me tell you, Mom. He's a pretty impressive guy."

Dead silence from the other end of the line. Scott pressed on.

"He grew up on the island—grew up pretty poor, from the sound of it. But he's done well for himself. He's got a decent boat—not like Uncle Roy's, but not bad. And he's got this business running scuba-diving trips for the big resorts down here—there's a lot of money in tourism, Mom, a
lot
of money to be made if you know what you're doing. And this Rico does. He's a smart guy, good looking, very"—he searched for the right word—"dynamic."

A long pause on the other end.

"On a boat," his mother said."Gwen is living on a boat."

"That part's a little unusual," he admitted, "but listen." And he described how it felt to sit on deck late in the afternoon, watching the sun drop into Candlewick Bay, a spectacle of such stirring beauty it made you believe in God. He talked about the sunset, the bread and wine and flowers on the table, the gentle rocking of the boat in its slip, waiting all the while for something from his mother's end, some murmur of interest or comprehension or hey, maybe a word of thanks. At some danger to himself he'd done what no one else in his family could do. He had found his sister. He'd gotten to the bottom of things.

"She's going to stay there?" his mother said.

"That's the plan, Mom. They run the business together. In fact, when I first saw her they'd just dropped off a bunch of people at this very
elegant
—his mother loved that word—resort.

Silence.

"Rico's Catholic," he added."Did I tell you he's Catholic?"

Finally his mother began to laugh."Oh, that's delightful."

"You're still there," said Scott.

"Yes, I'm here. I don't understand any of this."

"It's pretty simple, actually. Gwen loves this guy, and he loves her."

"For heaven's sake, I don't mean
that
," she said, her voice crackling with impatience."There's no mystery to
that.
What I don't understand, what I will never in my life understand, is what on earth is the matter with
you
." She paused. "I didn't send you all the way down there to watch the sunset with your sister. I sent you to bring her home."

"I know," said Scott. "But the thing is, she's happy. If you could just see her—she's like a different person."

His mother sighed. "I'm sure she is, dear. But what happens six months from now, a year from now, when he's gotten what he wants from her?"

Scott frowned. Sex? Was she talking about sex?

"Think, darling. They get married, he gets American citizenship—"

(Rico's old fashioned. He doesn't want to live in sin.)

"—takes all her money—"

"Gwen has money?"

She made an impatient noise. "I'm certain she has every penny Daddy left her, and then some. And for a person like this Rico, an ambitious person from a poor background, don't you think that would be enticing? Cash to put into his business. To buy—heavens, I don't know what. Equipment of some sort. Another boat."

(It's a little cramped for two. We're looking for a bigger one.)

Shit, Scott thought.

"If this Rico is so impressive, as you say, don't you think he's had a great many women to choose from?"

He thought of the two blondes in the lobby at Pleasures, spilling out of bikini tops.
Rico!
they'd shrieked, giggling like schoolgirls.

"So why would he choose to take up with your sister? I'll tell you why." His mother paused. "Many women might have a love affair with such a person, but very few would toss their lives into the air like a deck of cards and give him everything he wants. It takes a particular kind of woman to fall for a character like this. A lonely and vulnerable and inexperienced young woman. And your Rico found his mark."

Scott hugged a pillow to his chest. An iron fist squeezed his stomach. Had Rico conned him too? His earlier paranoia returned in a wave. He had shown up at the dock stoned and ready to weep over the magnificence of the sunset, and Rico had read the situation immediately. Every word he'd spoken had maximized his advantage
(I didn't know Gwen had another brother).
Had made Scott feel insignificant and small.

"Sooner or later this Rico will show his true colors," his mother said. "People always do. And it will be terrible for Gwen, just terrible.

I was hoping to spare her that."

Scott thought of Gwen on the boat, the sun setting behind her, turning her hair to fire.
You were the brave one, Scotty. I was proud of you.

His new love for his sister flamed alongside the old one—the dumb, ancient one that had always been there.

"I love her too, Mom," he said."I did my best."

His mother sighed."I suppose you did."

For long after they'd said their good-byes he sat with his back to the door. He had underestimated his opponent. His sister was in serious danger; he could not, would not, leave her at Rico's mercy.

His mother's plan had failed, but Scott had a few ideas of his own. His flight back to Connecticut could be changed. There was still time.

Scott rose early the next morning, shaved, and showered. When the bank opened he was waiting at the door. A pretty teller directed him to a cash machine, where his Quinnebaug Trust card worked as promptly as it did at home. He selected "Savings," an account he and Penny never touched, with good reason: until recently its balance had hovered around eighteen dollars. Scott waited, holding his breath. Seeing that his mother's check had cleared, he enjoyed a celebratory moment. Then came a harsh rebuke.
YOUR DAILY WITHDRAWAL LIMIT IS $500,
he was informed in stern capitals.

He approached the comely teller, who seemed moved by his plight.

"You go and talk to the manager," she crooned. Her voice was low and soothing, as though comforting a cranky child."He can do a wire transfer. Don' worry. This happen all the time."