Spartina (25 page)

He reached under her back to smooth out broken stems. For an instant he felt her feel his body, felt her register him, his inner sounds, the outer wave of them pressing toward her. And then they both fell into their own urgencies, overlapping disturbances, like waves from separate storms, at first damping, then amplifying each other.

They lay still in their pit of gray light. Her cheek moved against his. He had no idea what her expression was now—maybe smiling, maybe recovering herself the way she laughed at herself after she cried.

She moved her head and kissed his mouth. It didn’t make her clear to him. Pretty soon she’d start talking.

She stayed quiet, though. She wasn’t coming back so easily. He caught one more feeling from the heavy stillness of their bodies. Both of them this time—no matter what silly game she’d started—they’d
both been caught and tumbled hard and carried this far. They were both stunned by sadness.

And then they had to get up and find their clothes, foolish people again. The blue canoe was still caught sideways across the creek. Elsie’s sweatshirt was on the bank. Dick’s paddle was in the canoe, but Elsie’s had floated away, along with her jeans and the key to the boathouse. And the key to her car.

They left the canoe on the grass above the boathouse and walked back to Elsie’s house. Elsie pulled the hem of her sweatshirt down to miniskirt length when a car drove by them on the point. And again when they scampered across the four lanes of Route 1.

Dick got into the shower with his clothes, got the mud cleaned off inside and out. The solar-heated water began to run out. Elsie didn’t have a dryer, so she put his clothes in the oven. Dick picked up his unfinished glass of beer from the arm of the sofa. He felt dull about everything now. Dull but unfamiliar again. He felt a sliver of hope that everything here was so askew, so unfamiliar, that it wouldn’t show noticeably in his general life.

A
t last Dick got hold of Keith college-boy. Dick spoke to him agreeably and reasonably. Keith hadn’t heard from Parker either, and agreed they shouldn’t just hang around doing nothing, the boat doing nothing. They’d leave that night.

Charlie was pleased about going. Tom wanted to go too. May said no. Dick said to May that he’d gone out on a lobster boat when he was Tom’s age. May said, “Not on one of Parker’s boats. And not all three of you on one boat. No.”

Dick told Tom, “When I get my boat in, we’ll get you some sea duty.”

Dick took the pickup to go get some more replacement pots. He was only half surprised to find himself jouncing up the dirt road to Elsie’s, running in low so as not to jar loose the lashed stacks of pots.

Elsie was getting ready to go out to a garden party at her sister’s. He told her he’d be at sea for a few days, going out this evening.

“Oh no,” Elsie said. “I wish you’d told me.”

Dick said, “I didn’t know for sure until just now.”

Elsie looked at her watch. She went to her curtained cubicle and got a red wool sash which she wound around the waist of her white skirt. She put on a pair of sandals, took them off, and put on a pair of high-heeled shoes. She looked at them, looked up, and asked Dick what he thought. Dick said, “Fine.” Elsie took them off and said, “I wish you’d told me. I’m still on leave—I could have gone with you.”

Jesus, Dick thought. But why did that surprise him?

Elsie put the sandals back on. She said, “I found out about a preventive for seasickness, but you have to start it the day before you go out. I’d love to go out again.”

“That’s up to Parker.”

Elsie looked at the sandals. She said, “I know—I’ll wear the sandals and borrow some decent shoes from Sally. You know, what I can’t wait for is when you get
your
boat in. Maybe I’ll quit Natural Resources and crew for you. I hope your bunk room’s going to be nicer than Parker’s.”

Dick didn’t know whether Elsie was serious. He said, “Parker’s boat is the worst you’re likely to see. Around here at least.”

Elsie said, “Who
are
you going to get for crew? I mean for
your
boat.”

“One thing at a time. It’s not certain I’ll get her in the water.”

“I wish I’d known you were going,” Elsie said. She tied a silk bandana over her head, pirate fashion. “What about this? Does it make my face look funny?”

“No,” Dick said.

Elsie put on dangling earrings. She said, “And these? Don’t just say fine.”

“You look like a gypsy fortune-teller.”

Elsie changed them for little pearl studs, straightened the collar of her blouse. “You’re right, this is better. Do you wish you didn’t have to leave? Why don’t you tell Parker to wait a day?”

“The sooner I go, the sooner I get back. And you’ve got your party to go to.” He held back from Elsie that Parker was up in New York. There was a crazy lurch to his life, there were people running loose all up and down the coast with secrets that could undo him.

Elsie said, “What time are you going out tonight? I could get back.… ”

“I’m taking Charlie this trip,” Dick said. “I got to get him squared away. It’s his first time offshore.”

“Well, then, I might as well spend the weekend at Sally and Jack’s.”

Elsie packed a tote bag, crammed in her tennis gear. She slipped a wristband over the handle of her tennis racket and zipped the racket head into its pouch. She looked at herself in the mirror. She said, “This is dull.” She took off the bandana, ran her hand through her hair. She got a lavender chiffon dress from behind the curtain and held it up in front of her. “What about this?” Before Dick said anything, she ducked back behind the curtain. She came out wearing the dress, holding the front up by its strings. “The only problem is it’s backless and I’ll stick to the carseat. I can always hang a towel over.… What do you think? Here, could you tie these things, they go behind the neck.… Not so tight.” She
stepped away from him. “Any strap marks? Or is it all tan?” Elsie turned her back to the mirror and craned her head around. “I guess that’s okay. You’re not much help, are you?”

She slipped on a bracelet, held up the long earrings to her ears. “What do you think? The dangling ones, right?”

“Yes.”

The phone rang. Elsie picked it up.

“Oh, hi. No, I haven’t left yet.… Well, sure, I could, but how will she get back? I mean, I thought I’d spend the night, if that’s okay with you. If the problem is she can’t find your house, she can follow me.… Oh. Well, then, she can drive my car back and I’ll get home somehow. Doesn’t Jack have to come look at the construction site or something? Or maybe she can stay over too.… Look. We’ll just play it by ear. Do I have to call her, or …? Tell me the number.… Okay. We’ll be there. Bye.” Elsie put the phone down and said, “Damn. Now I have to pick up that ditz who lives in Miss Perry’s cottage. Do you know her? Phoebe Fitzgerald.” Elsie laughed. “Her one claim to fame is that she got lost in the woods last year.”

Dick said, “I know who she is. It was Eddie Wormsley found her.”

Elsie laughed again. “Is that right? Is
that
right? Did Eddie say anything about her?”

“He liked her. He said she was kind of shaky at the time. I think he asked her out but she said no.”

“Aha,” Elsie said, “I can’t wait to get her talking. Maybe I can put a good word in for Eddie.” Elsie dialed the number. “Phoebe Fitzgerald? This is Elsie Buttrick, Sally’s sister. Yes, that’s right. I wasn’t sure you’d remember. Sally tells me you need a ride.… Sure, no trouble at all … I know the house. Are you all set? Well, I’m not dressed yet, but I’ll be along in, oh, just a little while.”

Elsie hung up.

Dick said, “What do you mean, you’re not dressed? You going to change all over again?”

“Maybe I will. Maybe this dress is too gauzy, just too helpless.”
Elsie struck a pose, her body leaning to the right, her arms flung back to the left, palms up. Dick laughed. Elsie said, “A little too much fleeing nymph, know what I mean?”

Dick said, “You could strap your gun belt on, that might even things up.”

Elsie laughed. Then she said, “I don’t know, I guess it’s okay.” She took Dick’s hands. “I was feeling a little bit wanton a minute ago. Now I just feel tender. And that makes me feel sad and weak. Know what I mean? I was getting ready to be ravished on the floor. Now I just want to be sure you’ll come see me when you get back. Monday night? It doesn’t matter how late. Or even Tuesday morning, just come wake me up.”

Elsie leaned on his chest, her arms around his waist. Dick felt awkward and uneasy, his hands miles away from him, the thick pads of his fingers still farther away on the soft sliding of her back. Little Elsie Buttrick, fresh as paint. Great big Elsie Buttrick, on top of it all. But now there was a tinge of pain to her.

There wasn’t a bit of satisfaction in seeing how all her dresses, her big black tennis racket, her Volvo, her solar house didn’t weigh in for much. She was a little bit spoiled was all. The two of them were exactly the same kind of damn fool. But for some reason she was going to get more of the pain. He felt terrible about that.

She was going to get more of the pain, but he was going to sustain more damage. He wasn’t going to stop just yet.

It was on his way out along the dirt road that he knew he’d got a fresh jolt from Elsie. All that about the clothes was silly. Maybe she’d done it to annoy him, but she’d done it just to be silly too. She wasn’t careful with him. She wasn’t careful with herself. He admired that—it wasn’t as easy as it looked. Whoever she was at the moment, she came right ahead, swarmed right into him. Good for her.

He’d been about to blame her for his not working this last week. Wrong. And he’d been trying to work up a notion that he deserved this fooling around as recompense for all his bad luck. Wrong.

He didn’t understand it all, but it was pretty clear that he’d been stuck for several years. He’d blasted himself loose. That’s what he’d been doing all summer. Even that half-assed clam poaching. Going out with Parker, going along with Parker.

He’d been thinking all his thoughts as though he was still stuck—lodged in tight among the impossible banks, Sawtooth Point, everyone else floating free and easy, just him stuck. Wrong again. He was on his own. He used to think that bitterly, that he was on his own in the worst way, imprisoned up Pierce Creek by his father’s failure, by the way everyone turned away.

He’d blown himself out of all that, without knowing what he was doing. Or maybe he’d known. But he’d damn well done it, and he’d better look out where he was going now. Adrift or under way, he was afloat on his own.

For years, the way he’d been good, the way he’d been an ill-tempered son of a bitch—both had been bound by habits or inheritances. He’d gone along set ways. He wasn’t done with them yet, he wasn’t sure he wanted to be done with them. Even wanting his own boat, wanting to be skipper of his own boat, was a set way. What was odd as odd could be was that now he’d put parts of his life into other people’s hands—Parker’s and Elsie’s—outside of rules in either case, nothing but their fluid wills, he was on his own.

O
n the way out through the swordfish grounds Dick noticed that the water temperature was too high in some places, about right in others. He started checking the thermometer frequently. They didn’t see any swordfish. They pulled and reset the pots and headed back in toward the swordfish grounds. The conventional wisdom has it that you don’t see swordfish finning when the tide’s running hard. No one’s completely sure why, but it was handed down that way, like the optimum water temperature for finning, sixty-four degrees to sixty-eight degrees, though you hear some people swear by the lower and others by the upper end.

What Dick found was that there were narrow tongues of water the right temperature, strung along drift lines. These could have been upwellings of cooler water, and maybe some mixing as the set of the tide stretched them out. He figured if the swordfish hadn’t left the grounds they had to come up to get rid of their worms, so they’d concentrate in the right-temperature water, the tide running or not. Worth a try.