Summer Harbor (7 page)

From across the dimly lit room, Grainger Egan had seen Kiley Harris come into the tavern, already murky as the hard cores came in after work and filled it with the sour smell of spilt beer and cigar smoke. He was in his usual corner, behind the fake timbers that looked like they held the place up. Grainger liked the little two-person table because he could sit there alone and be invisible. Too many of his customers believed he wanted nothing more than to talk shop with them, when all he wanted was Mattie Lou Silva’s meat loaf and a beer. The Nest was a good place for a man smelling of creosote and oakum, too tired to go home and shower before eating. Pilot was welcome and waited underneath Grainger’s table for the accidental spill that might make his day. Grainger could feel the dog’s chin resting on his boots, a weight that some days he thought kept him held to the earth.

Kiley Harris made the bells on the tavern door ring with an arrhythmic chaos, matched by the beating of Grainger’s heart as his eyes adjusted to the recognition his brain had already made. She looked uncertain as to whether she should stay or bolt. She scanned the room quickly right to left, looking for someone. For one shocked moment, Grainger thought she was looking for him.

From his vantage point behind the timber, he could see that she didn’t look a lot different. No taller, no thicker, no thinner. She wore a sleeveless black top, nicely showing off her square shoulders; her hair, once very long, just touched them. In the dim light of the tavern, it looked as blond as ever. The same dimness betrayed no hardening around her mouth, or lines of undue wear. She was as recognizable to him as if the time between them had been a month, not a lifetime.

No, there was a difference. As she walked to a table, he could see that her way of moving had slowed. She was deliberate in picking up the menu, didn’t slap it down as she used to as a girl. She sipped her water, didn’t gulp it as once she did, as though every glass of water was sweet and her thirst was desperate. Kiley moved without the girlish blitheness that had informed their concept of her.

She said something to Mattie Lou, and he realized she was expecting someone; no doubt the boy. In a moment, Will would come in and see him sitting there. The boy clearly knew
something
or had guessed that there was some connection between them, and had made up the ploy of wanting a sailing lesson from him to cover his curiosity. Would Will, either with calculation or innocence, introduce his mother to his sailing instructor? What sort of awkward hell would that be?

Kiley sat at the middle table in the center of the room with her profile to Grainger, and he thought he might just be able to slip out of the tavern unnoticed when Will clanged open the door and came in with that lope of tall young men. He threw himself into the chair next to his mother, his back to Grainger; facing the door and closing off escape. Instinctively Grainger leaned back against the wall so that the timber was even more obscuring: He didn’t want to face Kiley Harris here, in a reunion neither one of them was prepared for. Not yet.

So he was trapped, then. Trapped by circumstance and by stubbornness. Pilot sighed at his feet, and when Mattie Lou came to clear his plate, Grainer ordered another beer.

Sitting in the Osprey’s Nest, drinking a lukewarm beer, he couldn’t keep his eyes off the woman sitting twenty feet away, sipping a glass of wine in a place where no one drank wine. Kiley and Will spoke to each other in between long pauses, short bursts of conversation spiced with a little laughter. Now that she had her son beside her, Kiley was more animated, her gestures and mannerisms striking him hard with their familiarity. He couldn’t keep his eyes off her.

There was no intensive dialogue as he imagined might take place between mother and son. Despite his own rough upbringing, he knew that parents and children did speak to one another. Mack’s parents spoke to him and sometimes their voices were the only kind adult words he heard in a week. Mrs. MacKenzie would scold, then joke. Even with him, her half-fostered son, she’d tease and then ask about homework.

Grainger bought her Mother’s Day cards. The first time he did that, she wept, so sorry for the boy with the absent mother, never believing that he had wanted to do it for
her,
rather than out of some misplaced wish he could give it to his own mother. Grainger was never able to successfully express that, in her dependable kindness, Mrs. MacKenzie was more important to him than his deserting parent. He found those Hallmark cards addressed to “someone who has been like a mother to me.” Saccharine, perhaps, but genuine. Grainger wished she’d invite him to call her Mom, but some delicacy prevented her from making that suggestion. Grainger couldn’t remember ever calling her by name.

His mother’s desertion had corrupted his love for her, and he never sentimentalized his memories of her. Where he had previously seen her as his father’s victim, afterward he saw his mother as free. She had abandoned her son to Rollie Egan, freed herself and left Grainger as hostage. Once Grainger had given up childish hope, he’d never deluded himself that she had some plan to come to his rescue. He never expected an apology or an excuse. She had saved herself and that was clear, even to a boy of ten. Later Grainger told himself that if he’d had the wherewithal, he would have done the same thing. So he shut her away, forbidding her betrayal to hurt. Grainger did not fault her, neither did he defend her.

In the same way, Grainger had come to look at Kiley with different eyes. There could be no return to their old friendship. She had cost him the only happiness he had ever known as a boy, his safe haven. She had trampled on his feelings, and Mack’s. Even now, a lifetime away from all that happened, the sight of Kiley Harris pained Grainger to the point of physical hurt. His chest felt tight and he realized he was breathing very shallowly as he hid from this woman who had wrecked his life, the same way wreckers had once lured ships onto the rocks to plunder them.

As Grainger nursed his unwanted second beer, he recalled the last summer Kiley had come to Hawke’s Cove. He and Mack had walked to her house to greet her return, excited that their pal was back. On this sweet-smelling late June night, walking along the bluff with a gibbous moon glimmering a path on the calm ocean, Grainger had an odd, almost physical, sense of knowing peace. He was perfectly happy in that moment, and grateful to have recognized it, however transient it might be. Life would never be better. In the fall, Mack and Kiley would head to college and he would be in the Army. But right now he had his best friend by his side, and his other best friend a few moments away.

Sometimes he was glad he’d had that one pure moment of clarity, that he’d recognized it for what it was: an incipient nostalgia that graced every movement that night. This was the last summer of their youth and they knew it. Sometimes he wished it had never happened, that he had never known what such peace felt like; and therefore, would never have longed after it.

Grainger and Mack had paused before going up the steps to the front door of Kiley’s house. They looked up at the light coming from Kiley’s bedroom window. Music spilled out, too faint to identify more than its relentless disco beat. A shadow crossed the window, and that shadow quickly transformed itself into Kiley, golden in the soft bedroom light, dancing to that barely audible music. Silently, they watched Kiley’s private dance. Her arms rose over her head and then fell in graceful arcs as she turned, her dance half ballet and half
Flashdance
. As she passed in front of the lamp, its light shone through her thin nightdress and her silhouette betrayed the marvelous changes the winter had brought to her.

Grainger was grateful for the darkness, which hid the amazement in his eyes. He heard Mack’s breath released in a soft whistle. And just like that, everything changed.

Pilot was getting restless at Grainger’s feet. He stood up and shook, then came out from under the table—a forbidden maneuver until beckoned—and looked up at his master as if to say, “Time’s up buddy, it’s walk time.” When Grainger didn’t react, he returned to his former position with his chin on Grainger’s boots, but not without first heaving a great sigh of disappointment.

Mattie Lou kept coming over and offering Grainger more to drink, a little more dessert? Normally Grainger ate, paid, and left, thirty minutes top to bottom. By now, an hour and a half had gone by. Grainger knew his out-of-character behavior was driving Mattie Lou nuts. She’d had a crush on him since high school. Even though she’d been married twice and had three or four kids, she still loved nothing better than to make flirty remarks that she seemed to reserve just for him.

“Another beer, or are you waiting for something else?” Mattie twitched an eyebrow at him.

“No, thanks. I’m okay.” He kept his voice low.

Grainger was waiting out his opponents. It was like a game Mack and he had played as kids: who can stay underwater longest? He felt a little underwater now, watching Kiley and Will. He knew he could go over to their table, perhaps even should. But a simple, “Hi, how’ve you been in the last eighteen years, and whose kid is this?” wasn’t possible. There was too much that would be forever unsaid if they reduced their reunion to a chance encounter in the Osprey’s Nest. Any conversation Kiley and he might have would be operatic in proportion.

The waitress coyly asked if they wanted change of the two twenties Kiley laid down on a thirty-two-dollar tab.

“No, we’re fine.”

“That’s a twenty percent tip, Mom.”

“I’m feeling generous.”

“Great, can I buy a car?”

“Not that generous. Besides, you won’t need one at school.”

“I could drive to school, save you having to take me.”

“In your dreams, pal.” Kiley shuddered at the idea of her child driving alone along the interstate. Falling prey to nut cases lurking in the rest stops who would steal his car, or do worse. She was going to have to get past wanting to protect him. On the other hand, Kiley refused to give in prematurely to the empty-nest syndrome which threatened. She would not think of the inevitable conclusion to this summer, imagine that very soon she’d be coming home to an empty house that would not fill as night drew in, and soccer or baseball or basketball practice was over. She would not give over to the thought that she would end up wandering from room to room in their small home in Southton, wondering where eighteen years had gone. No sports equipment carelessly tossed on the floor in the hallway, no dirty socks hanging improbably from the bedposts. No clutter of abandoned homework.

It was all so temporary—something a young girl couldn’t know. Young, unmarried, completely at sea, Kiley had thought that she would always be tired, always be wiping noses and diapering bottoms. What once seemed to take forever was now speeding to its conclusion; one minute Will was a baby, the next standing tall over her and chiding her for leaving too large a tip.

Kiley waited for Will to shrug on his backpack. The tavern door clanged open and a stout man came in, nodding greetings right and left.

“Mattie Lou, my love, how’s it goin’?” He dropped into a seat and scanned the room. “Hey, Grainger, you got a boat yet for the August Races?”

Did she imagine that the whole tavern grew quiet, or had the sound of her own breathing suddenly become deafening? Kiley looked to where the stout man’s question had been flung. Looking back at her, a stunned and somewhat guilty look on his face, was Grainger Egan. She knew immediately that he’d known all along that she and Will had been in the Osprey’s Nest.

“No, Pete. I don’t have a boat.”

“You’ll find one. No problem.”

“Doesn’t matter.” His eyes remained on Kiley, glancing to Will, then back to her. He stood up suddenly, stepping on the dog at his feet. He bent in apology, then straightened.

Kiley felt Will’s touch on her bare arm. “Mom?”

“Will, I’d like to introduce someone to you.” As if Will were a little boy, Kiley took his hand and strode over to where Grainger remained motionless, one hand on his dog’s collar.

“Will, this is Grainger Egan. We knew each other as children.” Kiley gripped Will’s fingers as if afraid he’d bolt.

“Grainger, this is Will Harris. My son.”

Will shook Grainger’s hand, but didn’t speak.

Grainger held Will’s hand longer than Kiley thought necessary. “Pleased to meet you, Will.”

Did she imagine Grainger’s voice was vaguely stagy, or was he as emotionally flummoxed as she was at this unexpected meeting? She swallowed hard, absolutely no words coming to mind that she could speak to this man who had lived forever in her mind as a boy. Then, she remembered. “
Random
is in your yard. My father wants to sell her.”

“The house and the boat. I’m sorry to hear that.” Grainger smiled a little, as if surprised he could speak so easily. “Call me, we’ll talk about it.”

Kiley took a little comfort with finding a safe topic. “All right. I will. Good night, then.” Kiley turned away from Grainger, Will on her heels, loping to catch up with her.

There had been long stretches when Kiley hadn’t given her past much thought. There was Will to nurture, school, then work. Friends, new memories of Christmases and vacations. She had packed her life full, wanting never to succumb to living in the past.

She’d even almost gotten married. A nice man, Ronald, who’d been smitten with her. He was quite a bit older, divorced with two teenagers, while she had a toddler, yet more than willing to be a father to Will. Ultimately she’d gently turned him down, for she just hadn’t loved him.

Maybe if Ronald had come into her life in her thirties instead of her twenties, she might have accepted him. She had been young enough still to want passion. She needed to believe that she had refused Ronald against his own merits, not because of some adolescent belief that marriage needed to be built on passion; not because of some ill-founded hope that someday she would be able to resolve the anger and grief of her past. Not once had she ever hoped that she and Grainger would meet and forgive.

Tonight she had seen the man Grainger had become, and, just for a moment, tasted of that impossible hope.

Their walk along the waterfront to the car was in complete silence. Will behaved as if the chance meeting was of no consequence, barely of interest. Kiley’s breath was still hollow in her ears, her heart still beating its excited tattoo.
What else could she have said? What else should she have said?
Her circling thoughts taunted her, and Kiley was glad Will had said nothing, except to ask if Grainger was the boy in the photo.

“Yeah, he is.”

Will hadn’t said another word, just slipped the earphones up over his ears and listened to one of his new CDs. Kiley was grateful for the reprieve, at the same time wondering why he was so little interested.

The warm evening air felt good after the air-conditioning, and the fresh breeze off the water helped clean the scent of cigarette smoke off their clothes and out of their hair. The fading sky was starless as yet, the air damp. Kiley could hear the raspy sound of music leaking from Will’s earphones. Music filling his head, sometimes with words and opinions she was uncomfortable with. Her music had offended her parents too, especially Michael Jackson, with his crotch-palming dancing. Every Saturday afternoon she’d watched a disco contest television show, later attempting the choreographed gymnastics in her bedroom. For years she’d taken ballet, but disco had seduced her for a time. All artfully ripped sweatshirts and leg warmers.

Walking down the street with her son plugged into a hiphop CD, Kiley wondered if anything ever really changed. Every generation had its style: jive, swing, acid rock, disco, break dancing, hip-hop. Generations of parents appalled, crying out,
What will become of these kids!

Of course, the boys had mocked her passion for disco. Mack would strike the famous John Travolta pose from
Saturday Night Fever
. “How’s this, Kiley?”

“You’re an idiot.” She’d laugh, and do a few moves she’d learned from that television show.
Flashdance
remained her favorite movie, and she secretly imagined herself leaping effortlessly through the air into a roll, and then spinning, just to show the boys up. Just to amaze them.

Then Grainger or Mack would go after her carefully arranged hair. Boy, how they hated that stiff fringe look. They’d take every opportunity to get her wet, either by tossing her into the harbor, or spraying her with a hose. By the end of the first week, she’d given it up, letting her hair relax into its natural straight curtain, held back by a barrette or french braided.

Little flashes of memory like that had sustained her for years, forever young, forever happy. Kiley shivered in the fresh breeze redolent of low water. Why was it that every memory came with a shadow memory? Like overlays on an overhead projector, every slide adding more to the whole picture. The sea air against her chilled skin felt exactly as it had long ago. In the harbor, boats bobbed at their moorings, halyards chiming against aluminum masts. Offshore, the running lights of a sailboat drew closer to the harbor, and the picture that began to build was that of their last summer. The summer of the boat, of
Blithe Spirit
. The summer they were eighteen.

•   •   •

Mack bought the boat. A thirteen-foot Beetle Cat, mastless, missing her centerboard, coated in barnacles and algae, and, most disheartening of all, with a six-inch round hole punched in her starboard side. The hole was above the waterline, but was still a complicated addition to the list of tasks to get her seaworthy.

“Okay, so she’s a project. No big deal, we have all summer.” Mack was mildly defensive as Grainger and Kiley stood speechless, looking at the “surprise” he had promised them. The small sailboat was on blocks in Mack’s backyard. “I want to get her in the water in time for the August Races.”

“You’ll be lucky to get her in in time for Labor Day.” Kiley shoved her hands into the pockets of her shorts. “Not to rain on your parade or anything.”

Grainger walked all around the boat, touching the rough surface of her barnacle-encrusted hull, sticking his fingers into the hole. “No, I think we can do it. It won’t be easy, but it’ll be fun.”

“Good thing it’s going to be fun, because this is going to cost a fortune to rehab.” Mack leaned against the hull. “Lucky I got her for almost nothing.”

“Oh, I thought the guy paid you to take her.” Kiley poked a teasing finger into Mack’s side.

“Funny, Blithe.” Mack took her poking finger and made her poke herself.

“Well, it’s worth a try. After all, there are money prizes for the August Races.” Kiley saw the look of delight on Mack’s face as his best friends validated his dream. “She might pay for herself.”

“Hey, we’ll scrounge. I know people at the boatyard.” Grainger’s job as youth sailing instructor often involved errand running for the Yacht Club members.

“Yeah, and my dad has lots of stuff. I’ll bet he has a hundred gallons of leftover marine paint in the cellar.” Released from Mack’s grip, Kiley did a back flip on the spikey grass of Mack’s backyard. “So, what are you going to name her?”

Mack reached over and plucked a blade of grass out of Kiley’s hair. “I’m naming her for you.”

“Me?”

“Blithe Spirit.”

Kiley blushed with pleasure at the odd compliment. She laughed, then landed another perfect flip. Could life get any sweeter?

She had never heard the adage it was bad luck to change a boat’s name.