Rowing in Eden (16 page)

From the screened porch, her mother and her mother's friend Bethie Coontz spied on Turner and Rosamund as they returned
from a trip to town in the boat. Bethie thought he looked like Rudolph Valentino. No, Rock Hudson, or maybe a dark Alan Ladd.

Franny joined the women on the porch just as Turner Haskin bent to give Rosamund a kiss. The women poked each other in the sides and laughed. “Woo-woo!”

That very afternoon, girls who somehow had heard of Turner Haskin's presence at the Wahl home—girls known and unknown—began to appear at the Wahls' front door. Hair and makeup perfect. Excuses ridiculously transparent.
Yes, they wondered if they could borrow a slalom ski? Make a call on the telephone?
Even Christy Strawberry, arriving for the afternoon, immediately asked, “So where's Adonis?”

“Skiing.” Franny pulled Christy Strawberry out to the screened porch where she had left her copy of
1984.
She would have liked to ask Susan Thomas what she thought of
1984
, but she had not spoken to Susan Thomas since that “unreliable” business.

“You've got to read this.” Franny pressed the book into Christy Strawberry's hands. “Just—try the first page.”

She smiled in anticipation of Christy's looking up from the book as soon as she read that the clock had struck thirteen. When Christy did not look up, Franny thought how, once the girl finished the first chapter, Franny might share with her the fact that yesterday, in imitation of the book's hero, she had found an old fountain pen of her father's and used it to copy one of the Dickinson poems into her journal.

“But, Franny”—tiny rosebud mouth half open, Christy looked up from the book—“you know he's already famous, right?”

“Sure. People study his books at college and stuff.”

A look of confusion passed over Christy's face. “Turner Haskin writes books?” she asked, before Franny erupted in laughter.

“So, Turner,” Franny said over dinner that evening, “did you ever read
1984
?”

He nodded, then, to her confusion, said, “I don't believe so, Franny.”

Rosamund smiled. “You'll never find anyone who writes as well as Hemingway.”

“But Orwell wrote
1984,
” said Martie.

Rosamund nodded. “But
I
like Hemingway.”

“Did you ever read it, Dad?” Martie asked.

“Hemingway?”

“
1984,
” Martie said.

“I bet you did.” Rosamund turned toward Turner Haskin to say, “Daddy's a great reader.”

Brick laughed. “I don't know about that, dear.”

“You almost became a writer though, right?” Rosamund said.

Brick waved a hand in the air. “Oh, well.” His voice was gruff. “I got drafted. By the time I got out, I had two kids to support. That'll make you give up on being a writer.”

Turner Haskin nodded sagely. “So, you decided on the law after you came home from the war?”

“I can't say I ever decided on the law,” Brick murmured, then raised his voice to add, “and I made
damn
sure I didn't go to war. They trained me as a pilot, and I wasn't too shabby, but I didn't see any point in getting shot up when they'd pretty much finished things over there.” He grinned at Turner Haskin. “I flunked my tests three times, if you get my drift.”

Peg and Rosamund and Martie all smiled reminiscent smiles that suggested they knew this story. Franny did not recall having heard it before, and she felt relieved that Christy Strawberry had been unable to stay for supper. Christy's father had been a prisoner of war in Japan.

“Anyway, about
1984
,” Franny said, and launched into details of Big Brother and O'Brien and Thoughtcrime.

“That's so silly, though!” Carefully, Peg picked open the hot foil wrapper in which she had baked a loaf of garlic-buttered Italian bread. Now and again, the steam inside the foil made her pull back her fingers and wait. “Anybody ever tried to torture me, I'd just tell them what they wanted to hear, right off, and then go about my business.”

Brick nodded. “Sure. In your heart, you'd know what you believed.”

“That's what the main character of
1984
thought,” Franny said, “but it wasn't as easy as that. They could get you confused.” She tried to explain how Big Brother's government had begun to ruin the language; then she found herself rushing on to describe the way in which they finally broke down the hero, Winston Smith: “With rats. Remember, Martie?”

As if cold, Martie rubbed at her arms. Nodded. “They put a cage on his head. They put rats in a chute that opened into the cage. That was what made him betray the girl he loved.”

Brick leaned toward Rosamund. Whispered something in her ear that made her smile. Rude, Franny thought, and when the others smiled and turned toward Brick and Rosamund—what was their secret?—Franny hurried to add, “I could see how that drove Winston nuts because I've had nightmares where I'm Snow White and the wicked stepmother puts a birdcage over my head and there's a woodpecker in it, pecking at me—”

“Honey”—Peg patted the back of Franny's hand where it lay on the table—“that's enough, now,” and Brick said, yes, he thought Roz ought to tell Turner the story of that gentleman on the airplane who thought she was just twelve years old—

“You think that's bad?” Martie shook her head at Franny, but smiled before continuing. “At our last party, a guy from Iowa State asked me to introduce him to Fran!”

Peg frowned. “Wasn't Franny upstairs during the party?”

“I probably went down for a glass of water or something,” Franny mumbled, and then Turner Haskin—quite diplomatically, Franny thought—broke into high praise of Peg's lamb chops:

There was a bit of rosemary in the glaze, yes? Rosemary and red wine?

Peg served lamb chops that evening and not the spaghetti with meat sauce she had meant to serve because, before leaving for Lindt's that morning, Rosamund had explained to Peg—delicately,
and with a hug—that Turner had “a hard time” with ground meat. Because he was used to fine dining. Because of having grown up eating food prepared by world-class chefs at his father's resort.

After that conversation, Turner had driven Rosamund to work. Certain rituals had been established in the first days of his visit. At noon, if Peg did not need the car, Turner drove to town again, and he and Rosamund ate lunch at the Top Hat Club, often with Brick, who declared Turner “good company.” In the evenings, after dinner, Turner and Rosamund usually went back to the Top Hat to listen to music. Turner liked world-weary jazz, and so the Wahl house was now filled with “Your Mind Is on Vacation” and “Meet Me at No Special Place,” and Brick did not object too much because Turner also professed to enjoy Duke Ellington and Art Tatum.

Turner took to calling Franny “Little Sister,” and for some reason—because they wanted to be like him?—other people began calling her this, too. Even Brick and Peg and Martie did it now and then—and Martie had even agreed to Rosamund's request that, in deference to Turner's visit, they continue to hold off on having parties for a while.

Turner showered twice a day and used a fresh towel and washcloth every time, and Peg seemed delighted to keep up his supplies, though the Wahl girls continued to receive their weekly allotments of single bath towel and washcloth (“Rosamund,” “Martie,” “Franny” read Peg's felt-tip markings above the assigned towel bars). Each morning, Turner drank a pitcher of orange juice for breakfast. His own pitcher. On the screened porch overlooking the lake. Alone. “I'm funny about it,” he said, and Peg and Rosamund fussed over the cans of concentrate in the freezer as if they were hatchlings in an incubator. When Turner found Sunshine Brand “a little funky,” Peg said, “Next time, we'll buy Minute Maid.”

And Rosamund, sounding proud, “It's because he's actually from Florida. He's used to just stepping outside and plucking oranges from a tree. He's a connoisseur.”

At the time, Franny had stood in the back hall, adding feed to Snoopy's cage, and thinking that Rosamund was not nearly as interesting
with Turner Haskin in town; and then Rosamund had lowered her voice and, with a knowing laugh, said, “Of course, Mom, he's a connoisseur of many things, as you might guess.”

Peg laughed. “Oh, I suppose so!”

Franny had stopped her chores, then, and stood stock-still—
not
because she wanted to hear more of that conversation in the kitchen. No. She was silent because if she had to overhear, she at least did not want her mother or Rosamund to know she overheard. Because she understood that they meant sex. They were laughing about the fact that Turner had had sex with many women—maybe he was one of those dates who went out for sex after he took Rosamund home?

In the kitchen, Rosamund had then explained to Peg how Mike Zanios's singer/girlfriend always sang a certain song to Turner when he and Rosamund visited the Top Hat—“You Better Love Me While You May”—and how Turner could tell the singer was no virgin.

“I swear, Mom! He knows, just by the way a girl walks!”

“Well.” Peg sounded dubious, if amused, but then she added, “If it's true, I wish you'd ask him about Martie!”

“Oh,
Mom
!” Rosamund loosed a peal of giddy laughter. “You are terrible!”

But, of course, Rosamund meant “terrible” as a kind of compliment. You could feel that way if someone's dark side amused you, or flattered you, somehow. Franny knew that. Indeed, a few days later, when she and Joan Harvett and Christy Strawberry went shopping, she found herself behaving as if nothing could have been more pleasant than to have Turner Haskin for a houseguest. As she and the girls made their way down Lakeside, she explained about the Top Hat singer's crush on Turner, and how, yesterday, Rosamund had gotten hold of an old recording of “You Better Love Me While You May” and played it on the stereo in order to tease Turner.

How outrageous that song was! A woman coming right out and proclaiming both her desires and her desirability! Really, it made Franny laugh in delight, but she did not know how to tell Christy
and Joan this, and then Joan changed the subject, asking,
Hey, isn't anybody else worried Allen's won't get our outfits in before the first football game?

Cheerleading. It seemed impossible to Franny, now, that she ever could have cared about cheerleading. Still, it was necessary for her to act as if she cared, and she said, “Sure,” and here came her mother's Wildcat up the street—unmistakable, the way the right headlight drooped like a weak eyelid ever since a mishap for which no one had taken the blame. At sight of the car, Franny felt a moment's panic, as if she were doing something wrong, but it was Turner Haskin who sat behind the wheel.

Now slowing. For a moment, Franny thought he meant to stop and say hello, and she felt a flutter of pride, but, no, he only waved and drove by.

“He is so cool!” said Joan and Christy.

Franny nodded, though lately, more and more, “cool” struck her as conjured, a thing that hurt the soul of both its practitioners and admirers. Franny wanted passion. Passion could hurt you, too, of course, but passion was not fake. Passion
arose.
Was not arrived at. Was not achieved. But she could not discuss that with Joan and Christy. With Susan Thomas, yes, she could have discussed it with Susan Thomas, she thought regretfully.

“But, really,” she said as the Wildcat disappeared from view, “I don't know that I trust Turner.”

Christy Strawberry laughed. “You don't trust anybody!”

The words gave Franny a shock, but maybe the girl was right. And look at Franny herself. The day before, out in her rowboat, she had pretended not to hear Bob Prohaski call to her from the shore. Seated on a cushion in the hull, reading, she had scooched farther down, let the unbailed water in the bottom of the boat soak her shorts and the back of her T-shirt.

“Go away,” she had whispered, “please.” A rusty Folger's coffee can bobbed in the unbailed water beside her head. Thumped against the hull.

“Hey, Franny!” Bob Prohaski called.

The ribs of the hull had bit into her spine. Penance, she had thought. To pass the time, she played word golf. “Love” to “hate.” She felt pretty sure that “lave” was a real word that meant something like “wash.” “Lave” to “late” to “hate.” Three moves. That was too easy. How about “yellow” to “orange”? Too hard? You could go to “fellow” and then “fallow,” or “mellow” and “mallow” but without paper and a pencil—

The sun left blue-green dots on her eyes. Was Bob Prohaski still on the dock? Suppose her boat drifted to shore?

Wait. The hull of the rowboat hummed with the approach of a trolling motor. Closer, closer now—

She scrambled up onto her knees in order not to be caught in the bottom of the boat, and there sat Bob Prohaski, grinning, while a little man in a striped engineer's cap—a farmer fishing the shallows in an outboard—drove up alongside the dinghy.

“How you doing, hon?” The fisherman flashed the mouthful of false teeth that perched in his skull-thin face. “You ain't hiding from this fellow, here, are you?”

The rowboat tilted dangerously as Bob Prohaski—arms held out like wings—stepped from the outboard and onto the middle seat of her rowboat. For a moment, he had swayed there, then crashed into Franny, and struck his knee, hard, against the hull.

The fisherman guffawed as he pushed off from the rowboat, “Attaboy! Cop a quick feel!”

Bob Prohaski moaned and rubbed at the knee while edging back onto the rowboat's middle seat. Bright pink gum had shown as his mouth contorted in pain.

“You okay, Bob?” she asked.

WHIRWOOooooo! WHIRWOOooooo!

“Jesus.” He shook his head and kept one eye closed while continuing to rub his leg. “Is that your old lady?”