Nell (22 page)

It was almost nine o’clock when she reentered the house. Elizabeth and Colin were having coffee in the dining room and going over accounts. Nell joined them for coffee and a croissant, then went back upstairs to shower and dress. She would work by herself in the boutique all day, helping customers and unpacking merchandise. She dressed in her own skirt and shirt, but when they got to the boutique, Elizabeth told her to wear one of the summer dresses they were selling. It was gray-and-pink striped, with a blouson top that came to the hips and then flared out in huge pleats. The stripes were horizontal. The dress cost around two hundred dollars and would make the wrong person look like an elephant. As Nell stood in the dressing room, looking at the pink-and-gray stripes going around and around her body, she thought of Jeremy’s most recent joke: What is green and red and green and red and green and red? A frog in a blender.

God, Nell thought, what a thing to think. She clipped huge pink plastic earrings in her ears and brushed her hair again so that it flew out all over, and came out of the dressing room to open up the store.

Elizabeth hung around until she was sure Nell knew what to do, then left for the day. She had told Nell that it wouldn’t be very busy. May was when the season began, but things were still pretty slow. Nell spent the morning arranging jewelry and
accessories in a glass case, stopping now and then when someone drifted into the store and back out again. Elizabeth had said she might not be back to relieve her for lunch, and when she wasn’t back by one-thirty, Nell closed the store and went upstairs. A small refrigerator was in the back of the office, and she found some new cherry yogurt and a plastic spoon. She spent thirty minutes sitting at the desk eating and reading a paperback novel she had brought with her. Then she put on fresh lipstick and opened the store again.

About three in the afternoon, Nell saw a tall thin man pause in front of the shop, study the clothes in the window, walk away, come back, stand around. At last the man sort of bumbled in the door. He looked helpless, completely lost; he looked just as Nell would have looked in a store that sold computers. He doesn’t look like Anthony Perkins, Nell thought; much more like Abe Lincoln. Without the beard. His clothes were all right; his clothes were actually quite nice—khaki pants, a blue cotton button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, old loafers without socks—and he had lots of thick brown hair. He looked modern enough. But he carried himself with an air of such bewilderment, such preoccupation, as if he had to work a bit to bring himself down to this plane of reality.

“May I help you?” Nell said, standing up from behind the glass case, where she’d been fanning out a display of scarves.

“Oh,” the man said. He looked at Nell. He blinked. She could not tell if he recognized her from their morning encounter at the beach or not. “Yes,” he said. “I’d like to buy something for my daughter. For her birthday.”

“Oh good,” Nell said. “How nice. How old is she?” The man was probably in his forties; the daughter could be any age.

“Sixteen.”

“Sweet sixteen,” Nell said. She came out from behind the counter and walked toward the dresses. “What size does she wear?” Nell asked. “What’s her favorite color?”

“I don’t know,” the man said, and his face took on an even more gentle cast of melancholy so that he did resemble Abe Lincoln quite a bit. When he spoke he didn’t seem uncomfortable or apologetic, merely resigned. “I haven’t seen her for a while,” he said.

“Oh,” Nell said. God, she thought. “Oh well. I’m sorry.” Then she bit her lip, thinking she might have said the wrong thing, an intrusive thing.

“I am too,” Abe said.

Nell gave her head a little shake as if to clear it of inappropriate thoughts. She was thinking, Does this mean he’s divorced? Lives alone? She forced her mind to the task at hand. She looked around the store, thinking. “Well,” she said. “Let’s see.” She walked over to a pile of bulky cotton pullovers that had been hand-knit in Mexico and were shipped to the O’Learys at a ridiculously low price. “How about this sweater?” Nell said. “If you get a small, it will probably fit, and these sweaters are supposed to be baggy. I mean, that’s the style. Loose-fitting, even sort of sloppy. That’s the look. She could wear it over anything, and this cream color goes with everything. She could wear it by itself if it’s hot and over a turtleneck when it’s cold.” She held it up for Abe Lincoln to look at.

“How much is it?” he asked.

“Sixty-five dollars,” Nell said. “It’s a good buy, really.”

The man stood looking at Nell and the sweater, considering. Then he said, “Why did you show me that?”

“What?” Nell said, startled. “Excuse me?”

The man slowly moved one long arm out into the air, indicating with a slight turn all the clothes in the store around him. “Why didn’t you suggest any of these? Why not
this
?” And he stalked over to a dress on display, a marvelous dress of crimson and melon silk.

“Well,” Nell said, puzzled, slightly defensive. “Well, that dress is over three hundred dollars. Not that I’m implying you don’t want to spend that on your daughter,” she hastened to add. “But teenagers don’t usually need such expensive clothes … and then the style of that dress is so sophisticated. It’s too dramatic. Too what we call architected. I don’t think a teenager would like it. But of course if you want to look at dresses …”

“No,” the man said. “No. Thank you. I like the sweater. I was just wondering why you didn’t push something more expensive.”

“Push?” Nell said. She felt herself flush. “I don’t—I’m not in the habit of
pushing
things here,” she said. She stood staring at the man, the cotton sweater still in her hands. The customer is always right, don’t offend the customer, some of these customers are jerks, but humor them … all of Elizabeth and Colin’s admonitions rang in Nell’s mind.
But in spite of herself, she spoke, keeping her voice even. “That was actually a nasty thing to say to me.”

“Was it?” Abe Lincoln said. He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I apologize.”

“Well,” Nell said, now even more nonplussed. “Well. Well, do you want the sweater?”

“Yes,” Abe said. “Please. And could you gift-wrap it?”

Nell wrote up the sale. He gave her cash; she did not learn his name. She carefully took the price tag off the sweater, wrapped it in fuchsia tissue, then boxed it in the gray and fuchsia gift-box that said
ELIZABETH’S
. As she worked, she felt the man’s eyes on her. When she handed him the box, she met his eyes and said what she had been trained to say to customers, “Here you are. Thank you so much. Please come in again.” But her voice was cool.

Abe Lincoln looked at her for a long moment. “I really meant that as a compliment, you see,” he said. “I mean so many people try to encourage you to buy the most expensive thing, whether it’s suitable or not. I always feel rather helpless when I go into a women’s clothing store. I don’t know a thing about any of it and so it’s easy for a salesperson to take advantage of my great stupidity, and I guess that makes me cranky. But I meant to give you a compliment. You showed me something that you thought my daughter really would like.”

Jesus, Nell thought, what rock did you crawl out from under? Listen, Abe, go back to your farm, she thought. Can he be for real? she thought. He made her slightly uneasy, because he seemed so unbelievably honest and helpless. Honest Abe, she thought. At the same time she became aware that he was a man not completely without charm. In fact as she looked at his face, she was reminded of the dogs she had loved most in her life, dogs with the same kind brown eyes and slightly puzzled expression. Those dogs had consistently shown loyalty, an easy if bewildered compassion, and a mute physical generosity. They were the big lanky dogs who had ridden next to her in the car, walked close to her on the street, lain at her feet when she read, and sometimes curled up next to her in bed. She thought this man had the same sort of loping, unstudied appeal.

“Well,” Nell said at last. “I’m glad you weren’t insulting me. And I do hope your daughter likes her sweater. I really do think she will.”

“Thank you,” the man said. He left the shop but came back a few minutes later. He stood in the doorway. “I’ll probably see you tomorrow morning,” he said, and went away.

Nell stood, just staring. Could he possibly have meant that he’d see her again on the beach, that he was looking forward to seeing her again on the beach? Surely not, she thought. But
maybe
, she thought, and grinned.

The rest of the day was uneventful. Some New York tourists came in and bought a lot of stuff but left the dressing rooms in a shambles. Nell rehung everything, straightened up, and realized she was tired when the shop closed at five.

She locked the shop and walked back to the cottage, hoping the walk would refresh her, and it did, but the drink she had with the O’Learys made her sleepy again. Tonight the O’Learys were short-tempered and absorbed in some new legal problem that had arisen with the lease on the New York store, and dinner conversation that night was given over to business. Elizabeth and Colin had cooked the meal of Cornish game hens and rice and fresh vegetables, and Nell insisted on doing the dishes and cleaning up the kitchen.

It was a clever little kitchen, full of the newest appliances, all of which worked, and the can opener was not thick with gunk like the one Nell had on her wall at home, and the knives were sharp and the pots and pans not blackened by use. It would be fun to cook elegant meals here sometime for someone, Nell thought as she worked. She thought of her lover, Stellios. He liked things the children liked—tacos, pizza, cheeseburgers—and for a moment she stood in the kitchen dreaming of a man who might like a soufflé or even, simply, a steak. The children didn’t like steaks—they thought they were “too chewy.” Which actually was fine with Nell, because she couldn’t afford steak anyway.

After she finished the dishes, she sat down with the O’Learys and politely drank a Drambuie with them, but she felt her eyes closing in spite of herself and at ten she managed to excuse herself to go upstairs to bed.

“You can sleep late tomorrow,” Elizabeth said. “The shop’s closed. Of course we’ll have to go in to unpack and price the rest of the merchandise, but we don’t have to be there early. We’ll have a lovely lazy morning.”

“Wonderful,” Nell called back.

But when she got to her room, she decided not to pull down the shades. She stood in the middle of the room, making a deal with herself: She would
not
set the alarm, but she would also
not
pull down the shades. So if she woke up early, well then, she would just wake up early and go down for a walk on the beach. And if she slept late, well then, she’d sleep late and love it, for she never got the chance to really sleep late on Sundays, not with the children around.

Sunday morning she woke up at five forty-five. She sat up in bed, grinned, and thought to herself: why not? She felt rather silly as she dressed and—this time—combed her hair and put enough makeup on her eyes to make them look as if they were open. But she was glad to feel silly this way.

Today there was more than a sea breeze, there was a real wind, so that it felt much cooler than the bright sun indicated. Nell strode down the street, hoping the exercise would warm her. The branches of the trees, now opening with their spring-green leaves, looked very pretty dancing in the wind, but Nell thought they would have looked much better if she were seeing them from inside a house while sipping a cup of hot coffee.

What am I doing? she thought, zipping up her old windbreaker and turning up the collar. What do I think I’m up to? But she kept on going. She was warm by the time she got to the water, and she was rewarded by the sight. Today it was as deeply blue as a blue jay’s wing, with white caps frothing to the beach. Gulls flew overhead screaming at one another, dipping down into the water, setting back off into the air again. I’ll have to bring bread crumbs sometime, Nell thought, watching one gull pick in the sand. I’ll have to have the children bring bread crumbs; they’ll like the gulls.

She looked to her right, toward the harbor side of the beach, and saw an old couple slowly coming through the sand, stopping to pick up shells. She looked to her left and saw the lone lean figure of Abe/Anthony far down the beach, walking her way. She didn’t know what to do. Should she walk toward him? Maybe that would be too forward. Too eager. Should she walk away? Then he might think she didn’t want to talk to him. She didn’t know what to do, so she sat down in the sand and wrapped her arms around her legs and tried to lose herself in studying the ocean.

After a while the older couple came even with her. “Good morning,” they said.

“Good morning,” Nell replied, smiling.

The old couple toddled on past in the sand, and Nell turned to watch them and saw that Abe/Anthony was nearly to her. He walked with his head shoved forward a bit, as if he were leading his body, and he had the stilted and very stiff gait of a long-legged, soon-to-be-extinct bird. He seemed at once very serious and very silly—gawky. Nell was aware of her unkind thoughts and chastised herself: what do you think he’ll think of you? she asked herself. She knew her nose would be pinched and red from the cold.

“Good morning,” she said when he had drawn near her.

“Good morning,” he replied. “Is this space reserved?” He indicated with his hands the space of sand next to her.

She smiled. “No.”

“May I join you?” he asked.

“Of course,” she said, still smiling.

He settled himself down next to her and then just sat there a while companionably, looking out at the water.

“I’m Nell St. John,” Nell said finally, smiling at him again. The sun was in her eyes and she had to squint to see him.

“I’m Andy Martindale,” the man said, and held his hand out to her.

Andy—Abe/Anthony, Nell thought, I wasn’t that far off! She felt her smile broaden. She shook his hand. “Do you live here on Nantucket?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I do. I’m what they call a year-round summer person. That means I’ve lived here for nine years but I wasn’t born here and my family wasn’t born here so I’m not a native. I came here every summer as a child and I have lived here full time for nine years and this is my only residence, but I’m still considered a year-round summer person, and I guess I always will be. Not a
real
Nantucketer, you know.”