That Camden Summer (11 page)

Obviously, Elfred still had the wool pulled over Myra's eyes as well.

Ten minutes after Farley's truck rolled away, Roberta was standing on a chair pulling some rotting curtains off a kitchen window when Elfred gripped her waist with both hands and said, "My, my, my, this is too tempting to resist. "

She let out a screech as he doubled his arms around her belly.

"Elfred, let me go!"

"What if I don't? What'll you do?" "Elfred, damn you!"

"What if I do? What'll you do?"

She shoved at his arms, but he was surprisingly strong.

"Elfred Spear, I'm warning you! I'll tell Grace what a philandering goat you are!"

Elfred only laughed. "I don't think so. You wouldn't do that to your only sister."

"I will! So help me, I will! Elf5o., stop that! "

"Ooo, Birdy, you are packed nicely. How long's it been since you tussled with a man? I'm volunteering. "

"Get your hands off me, Elfred!" She kicked backward. He grunted but hung on.

"I'll tell you something, Birdy. That's more fire than your sister's put out in nineteen years. A man spends all those years with a fencepost like Grace, he deserves a few diversions. Now come on, Birdy, why don't you and me just slide up those stairs and make a few bedsprings twang?"

"Elfred, you're the most despicable heathen God ever put on this earth. Now, let me go!" Elfred laughed once more and slid his hand up her calf.

From behind him, Gabe Farley said quietly, "Hello, Elfred."

Elfred craned around, startled. "Oh, Gabe, it's just you! Whoo, you scared me.

"Did P"

"Didn't know who it was." Elfred let his hands trail off Roberta. Gabe stood foursquare in the kitchen doorway feigning nonchalance when, in truth, he was feeling a faint twinge of revulsion.

"What brings you over here, Elfred?"

"Just came to see how the work was progressing and tell Birdy I'm footing the bill the way she asked."

"Work's progressing just fine. Got the whole porch roof torn off already this morning.

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Probably start rebuilding it tomorrow." Gabe sauntered into the kitchen.

"So I see." Elfred tugged at the waist of his trousers.

"Thought I should start with it so people could get to the front door safely. Mrs. Jewett, you need help with that curtain rod?"

Roberta scrambled down off the chair. "No thank you." Her face was burning scarlet. "Something I'd like to show you out here,

Elfred. You mind coming outside with me?" He turned and Elfred followed.

There was nothing he wanted to show Elfred, but they stood in the yard pointing at the house and talking about what color to paint it. Eventually Elfred explained, "I was just having a little fun with her, Gabe. You know how it is."

"Ayup, I know how it is. You probably ought to watch your step though, Elfred. She's your wife's sister, and that's not going to look so good."

"But that's half the fun!"

"You know, Elfred, I don't think she was having quite as much fun as you were." Elfred's eyebrows arched. "Oh, what's this? A

different song than you were singing yesterday, isn't it, Gabe?"

"Well, maybe it is, but I happen to know she just had a row with her mother no more than half an hour ago, and the old woman was pretty hard on her. "

"Why, Gabriel Farley, what's going on here? You wouldn't be wanting her for yourself now, would you?"

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"Oh, come on, Elfred, use your head. You can't manhandle a woman that way. Why, I could hear her objecting clear across the yard. Supposing it had been Grace coming toward the house instead of me."

"You staking your claim on her, Gabe?" Gabe dropped his chin and wobbled his head while Elfred continued with a wily grin, leaning close. "Here you are up here at her house, working every day. It'd be pretty easy, wouldn't it, Gabe?"

"That's not why I got you out of her kitchen. "

"Oh no? Then explain it to me again." Gabe raised his palms and let them drop. "What's there to explain? When a woman puts up a fight, you back off, Elfred. I shouldn't have to explain that to you."

"I told you, Gabe, I was just having a little fun with her."

"Fine, Elfred! Fine." Gabe presented his palms and let them drop. "Whatever you say. It just struck me that maybe we were both a little hasty to be making salty remarks behind her back when we didn't even know the woman. But if you want to make advances toward her, I won't interfere again. Now I've got work to do. "

He turned his back on Elfred and bent to pick up his tool belt. When it was strapped on he attacked the porch floor, leaving Elfred to puzzle on his own. Finally Elfred swaggered up behind Gabe and stood like a sea captain watching his decks being swabbed.

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"Well, Gabe, I tell you what. I won't horn in on your territory, but I'm going to keep an eye on you. After all, she's my sister-in-law, and I have to look out for her welfare." Giving a wicked chuckle, Elfred finally departed without bothering Roberta again.

Gabe eyed his touring car as it pulled away and thought what a real hors& ass Elfred was. Was it only yesterday he himself had been abetting the man?

In the kitchen, Roberta found herself grinding a stiff-bristled brush into Sebastian Dougal's filthy kitchen floor as if it were her brotherin-law's liver.

Though Roberta and Gabe kept out of each other's way as the day wore on, the scene in the kitchen remained in their minds. They might have put it aside, but sounds filtered into and out of the house reminding each of them that the other was working nearby, pretending the incident with Elfred had never happened.

Finally, at three-thirty, Roberta wiped her brow with the back of a wrist and listened. Nothing but silence. She glanced down at her dirty dishtowel, untied it and whacked at her skirt a time or two - wet at the belly and dirty at the hem. She was too tired to care. What a day. Lord, she hated housework. She hated Elfred. She came close to hating her mother. She wasn't sure about Gabriel Farley anymore., but it was damned uncomfortable having him working around here thinking who-knew-what about her run-in with Elfred.

What was he doing out there anyway?

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She stood in the kitchen archway looking across the living room. The entire porch was gone, leaving the room bright and the front doorway hanging four feet above the ground. She tossed the dishtowel onto a kitchen chair and went to the living room door. Farley was standing in the littered yard with his back to her, drinking water from a fruit jar. He had removed one leather glove and held it against his hip while tipping back his head. She watched him for some time, trying to figure him out. He drank again, backhanded his mouth and capped the jar. After tossing it onto the grass he took his time pulling the soiled glove back on before bending to start collecting the discarded shingles. He loaded a bunch of them on his arm, turned and saw her standing in the doorway.

And stalled as if encountering a bear in the woods.

She did the same.

For several seconds they faced off, distrustful and staring. Finally, she spoke.

"I suppose you think I encouraged him." "No, I don't." He carried the shingles a few paces and dropped them.

"But isn't that what divorced women do?" "Elfred is notorious around this town for chasing women. Everybody knows it but his wife. "

"He is pathetic."

Still stinging from Elfred's taunts, Gabe felt obliged to put up some argument. "That may be, but when a man runs around, there's usually some pretty good reason at home."

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"Oh, that's a typical reaction ... from a man!" she said disdainfully. "Naturally, you'd blame my sister for Elfred's peccadilloes."

"I'm not blaming your sister. I don't even know her well enough. I was just making a generalization. "

"Well, make your generalizations somewhere else because I don't care to hear them! He's a family man with three daughters to consider. How do you think they'll feel if they find out their father is indiscriminately bedding any woman he takes a fancy to?"

He flashed the palms of two dirty gloves. "Look, I'm sorry I said what I did, all right?" "Well, you should be because you men live

by a double standard without considering what wives and children suffer when you have your innocent affairs. I know, because I had a husband exactly like Elfred!"

She spun and disappeared into the house, leaving Gabe to stare at the vacant doorway. Like many men in town, he'd often laughed about Elfred's adulteries and disparaged his wife for her ignorance. That fat, bossy Grace Spear, everybody called her. No wonder Elfred stepped out on her. Elfred liked to flirt with women while Grace was in the room, and Gabe, like many others, had found it amusing. But watching him use his wiles on Birdy Jewett left Gabe questioning how funny it actually was.

Stacking shingles for a bonfire, he wondered about Roberta's husband. How many other women? Did her children know? Obviously, they did. Seemed a pitiful situation for youngsters to

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know their father was stepping out with a whole bunch of women besides their mother.

Intent on his thoughts, he was unaware of the children's return from school until one of them spoke - the little one he'd enjoyed so much yesterday.

"Hi, Mr. Farley! Look who's here!" "Hi, Daddy!"

"Isobel! Well, for heaven's sake!"

"Susan and I met at recess," Isobel explained, "and I told her you were working for her mother so she asked me if I wanted to come home and see where they're going to live."

Rebecca exclaimed, "Our porch is gone!" "I'm just about to burn it up."

"Oh. can we help you?" "Oh. yes, can we, please?l

Susan took Isobel's hand. "Come on, let's climb in the front door and I'll show you our room! We can see the mountain from our window! Mother! We're home!"

The four girls went clattering over the shingles and started to boost each other over the doorjamb while Roberta came to stand above them.

"How was school? And who is this?"

"This is Isobel!" they chorused, while Lydia balanced on her belly at her mother's feet. Gabe picked up a plank and strode across

the yard. "Girls, wait!" He angled it like a gangway and they climbed it like sailors, bounced on it, babbling about school, Isobel, their teachers, the bonfire. He, with only one child, was accustomed to quiet and calm. This ill

was mayhem as the girls bombarded the house, teetered on the plank and gabbled about four things at once. Somehow amidst the chatter Isobel's full name got through to Birdy.

"Isobel Farley?" she repeated. "He's my dad," Isobel confirmed.

She met Gabe's glance from her high vantage point. In the midst of the frenetic scene the two of them exchanged a moment out of context, prompted by four exuberant adolescents who had no idea of the undercurrents between their parents. "Oh ... yes, of course. Well, hello, Isobel."

Lydia said, "He's going to build a bonfire to burn the shingles. Can we help him, Mother?" "Yes, please! Can we?"

"We're hungry! Is there any cake or anything?" "Ah ... oh, cake?" She prized her attention from Gabe to answer the girls. "No, I haven't had time. "

"But we're starving!" "I've got crackers."

They all trooped upstairs to see the girls' room, then back down to collect soda crackers before descending the plank and finding Gabe had ignited the stack of shingles. They headed straight for the fire, though none of them had changed out of their school dresses, which Gabe had carefully trained Isobel to do. Instead, they collected shingles and fed the fire while Gabe stood back and tended it with a rake.

Without preamble, Rebecca began reciting, "By the shore of Gitche Gumee, By the shining Big-Sea-Water

"What's that?" Isobel said.

"That's Hiawatha ... don't you know Hiawatha?" She paused and struck a dramatic pose. "I am Hiawatha, courageous Indian brave, fasting in the forest in the blithe and pleasant Springtime . . . " Without the slightest compunction she began to chant and dance as if she were wearing buckskin and eagle feathers. Her sisters picked up the cue and danced, too ... around and around the fire, arms extended and bodies undulating while Isobel, as inhibited as her father, stared.

He watched her struggle to balance her fascination with a natural reluctance to join in. Once she glanced at him, wide-eyed, and he saw even clearer her wish to be like these girls. But she had been born an only child, had spent too many years alone to feel free amidst these irrepressible thespians of Mrs. Jewett's. He knew immediately they were not showing off for him: They were merely spontaneous.

Abruptly Rebecca broke off her chant. "I know!" she exclaimed. "Lobsters!" Her sisters stopped as well. "We could collect some if the tide is right and cook them in our bonfire!" She bounded toward the gangplank. "I'll ask Mother! Mother! What time does the tide turn?"

Roberta returned to the door above her. "About an hour ago."

"Then we've got to hurry! Can we go get some lobsters and cook them on the bonfire?" "The bushel basket's in my bedroom full of

towels." She turned away and her three girls scampered after her. Up the gangplank! Inside,

with skirts bouncing! Momentarily they returned with Lydia in the lead, carrying the basket.

"Come on, Isobel!" she cried. "You have to show us where Sherman's Cove is! That's where Mother says the lobsters are!"

Isobel stood rooted and dazed. "May I?" She looked up at Gabe.

"Lobsters?" Nobody ate lobsters. They washed up on the rocks at high tide and made nuisances of themselves. Those who bothered to pick them up buried them for fertilizer.

Isobel shrugged.

He murmured at her ear, "Are you sure you want to eat lobsters?"

"I want to go along, please, Daddy."

He had his doubts about this wild trio, but Isobel had an eagerness in her eye that had been absent for a long time. Certainly she'd have more fun running off to Sherman's Cove than going home with him to share their lonely supper for two.

"Go ahead," he said, "but you should change your dress first."

"But, Daddy, if I do that it'll be too late!" Their house was the opposite direction from Sherman's Cove, and lobsters didn't stay in the rocks long once the air hit their backs.