The Pickle Boat House (7 page)

“Welcome to the home of the future Nevis Historical Society,” said Van, with a sweeping flourish of her hand. “Doesn’t it just
breathe
history? I adore this old building.”

“Right now it’s the only thing breathing,” Ryan said, inhaling through his mouth. “Where did all of this come from?”

“Collected, borrowed, salvaged. Some of it belonged to my grandparents. When I got old enough to appreciate Nevis I began collecting everything I could get my hands on. People bring me boxes of stuff. I’m not even sure what’s here, but at least I know it’s safe. Some people laugh at me, but I feel in my soul that one day things like this will matter. It’s too important to let slip away. We should never let our past slip away.” She turned and ran her hand lovingly along the top of a dusty box. “Boxes upon boxes I haven’t even opened yet. Some of these might actually be old courthouse records. There was a fire years ago. One day researchers will be dying to get at these. Mark my words.”

“Oh, I am,” Ryan replied, resting his hand on a box of papers. He noted with disappointment that they were all taped shut.

“Come over here, and I’ll show you a pickle boat,” Van said, taking Ryan’s hand and pulling him to the far end of the room. “Look,” she said, pointing to an old framed photograph of a fisherman pulling a net aboard a wooden boat. The boat was long and low, not beautiful by any stretch—a work boat. “That’s my great-granddad, and there’s your pickle boat.” She beamed with pride at the photo of the old man she obviously loved so well.

Ryan could see her becoming more animated with each piece of history she talked about. Clearly, this was her passion. Now she was pulling him in the opposite direction, to a display case with little cardboard buildings and miniature trees.

“Lovely,” he said. “What is all this?”

“It’s a model of Nevis in its heyday. I had someone I know build it from old descriptions, pictures, and drawings I’d found. To understand Nevis today, you have to understand what you
don’t
see. I called this a ‘nothing town,’ but actually, Nevis has a pretty impressive history. After George Washington got done sleeping here and the fishing industry collapsed, the railroad moved in and recreated the town. Without air-conditioning, people in Washington were eager to escape the city. Summer there was stifling, and rich Washingtonians built summer houses at the north end of the rail line. The middle class, common folk like us”—she laughed—“came south by train to places like Nevis, along the shore of the bay. Nothing like a soft bay breeze and a cool dip in the water. Nevis was a jewel on the shore, blessed by the added attraction of an amusement park. It was Shangri-La for the common man.

“Here, next to my finger, running along the shore, is the boardwalk. It was over a thousand feet long. See the tiny steamboat? They used to bring vacationers from Baltimore. And over here, this is the end of the railway line, the Chesapeake Rail Express, which brought people out from Washington. That little building right there—that’s where we are.

“These old postcards I collected,” Van said, pulling a notebook off a stack of boxes, “give you a better sense of what was here. Nevis really began to grow when the railroad decided to develop the area as a resort. They laid out new streets in grid fashion. Streets running parallel to the shore are numbered. Perpendicular ones are arranged alphabetically after types of trees in the area. If you look across the parking lot, you are looking at Carr Avenue, named after one of the main planners of the community. The planned street grid from a hundred years ago is pretty much in place. I think that’s pretty remarkable.” Van looked quizzically at Ryan, waiting for some sort of affirmation.

“Well, you certainly have bits and pieces of a lot of things here,” he said as he walked around the room peeking at this and picking up that. This was a side of Nevis that he had never stopped to consider in HYA’s planning sessions. There were roots here that he didn’t have, and he could almost feel them reaching out to him as if in response to an inner yearning that surprised him. And as he brushed against Van’s shoulder, he could feel himself pulled down another, more dangerous path. He began to see Van in a different light—one tinged by an undeniable sexual attraction. Her small frame, looking even more petite amid the tall stacks of boxes and paraphernalia, was his type. In fact, everything about her was his type. He tended to admire strong, educated women and the tug-of-war they presented. They were the most challenging, but this made the conquest that much sweeter. Attraction—no, make that lusty, raw sex—was something he had never been one to avoid when the opportunity presented itself. His mind flashed rapidly through the memories of several encounters in unusual settings. Never a train depot, though. And suddenly, the dim, dusty atmosphere of the place began to stir his fantasies.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see her looking at him. He turned and guided his hand up her back, leaning into her and taking her lip between his. She responded with a soft moan as her arms wound around him. Their tongues met as Ryan’s hands slid down to the curve of her bottom and pulled her tighter to him. What he couldn’t do to a woman like this! The thoughts were endlessly hypnotic …

“Ryan, are you with me? Earth to Ryan.”

Jolted back to reality, he realized he was staring at the wall. Van was no longer standing next to him but had moved away and was flipping a tarpaulin up to expose an old oak cabinet sitting in the corner.

“Sorry, just taking it all in,” Ryan said, thinking quickly and gesturing with his hand. Picking up an old newspaper, he moved toward her, the unexpected, always slightly alien emotion of guilt washed over him. “You were saying? Wow, this all original?” he asked, looking at the pressed-penny machine. “This must be worth a lot.”

“All original, used right here in Nevis. And yes,” she said, laughing, “it still makes very pretty pressed pennies showing a carousel. I think it dates from about 1900. Some of the postcards show a carousel from that era. If you have some change, I can press one for you.”

“Sorry to disappoint, Ms. Hardy. Like most men, change is not one of the things I carry around in my pockets.”

“Your loss, Mr. Man. Maybe you’ll be more intrigued by this one.” She pulled the tarp off another machine, much smaller than the first. “Care to guess?”

Ryan puzzled over it a moment, then said, “I have no idea … parking meter?”

“Penny arcade. This one’s a mutoscope, an early type of motion-picture machine. It’s like a flip book. Here, take a look. It works.”

Ryan came close and put his eye up to the eyepiece while Van inserted a penny into the box and slowly began turning the side crank. As the pictures began to flip, Ryan chuckled, watching the old movie unfold.

“Wow,” he said, straightening up with a twinkle in his eyes, and laughing. “Bathing suits have come a ways in the last hundred years. I’m assuming this would have been risqué for the era?”

“Oh, quite. No self-respecting woman would have even watched such frolicking on the beach. This was probably in a men’s smoking area.”

“These are terrific. Where on earth did you find them? They’re in great shape.”

“Oh, yeah, perfect running order. They were found in someone’s attic in town. Her grandfather worked the arcade. When everything shut down suddenly, everything kind of went up for grabs. The locals probably carted off quite a bit more. How much of that survived is anyone’s guess. Nevis is full of untapped potential just waiting to be discovered.”

Ryan watched as Van lovingly replaced the tarps over the two arcade machines. “Van,” he said gently, “what’s your story? Somehow you seem out of place here in this little town that lives in its past.”

“Do I? I was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in the Maryland suburbs. My father was born and raised here. I was happily married for quite a while. When my son died, my marriage tanked. I hung in there like a good little wife until my mother died. That was the final straw, my last emotional connection with anyone. Have you ever been in a room full of people and felt alone—totally, achingly alone? I’ve felt that way for so long …” Van closed her eyes and took a breath before continuing in a quieter voice, “After we separated I came to live here. If I can’t find peace here, then it isn’t to be found. End of story.” She looked at Ryan and shrugged.

Ryan looked at her with thoughtful eyes, and a little more guilt crept into his soul as he slammed the door on his momentary lapse into sexual fantasy. “I’m sorry about your son. I just can’t imagine …” He shook his head.

“No, you could never imagine. Even in your worst imaginings, you couldn’t. For months I cried every morning and every night in the car to and from work. Sometimes I just screamed. Friends would cheer me up, and as soon as I was out of sight the tears would flow once again. Have you ever suffered a deep loss?”

He shook his head. Unless, of course, he counted his entire life in general, but that wasn’t something he would discuss with a stranger, no matter how comfortable he felt.

“The grief came in rolling, burning physical waves. Nothing was important—or unimportant, for that matter. For months I existed in a deep pit, and from sunup to sundown, Richard and I never stopped moving, because to stop meant time to feel, and we couldn’t handle that. And all day and all night my mind just kept going, trying to rationalize the horror of it all. It consumed all my thoughts. I know what hell is like, and let me tell you, I never want to go back there.”

“I honestly can’t imagine. You know, when I first saw you daydreaming on the boardwalk I never would have thought you had such sadness in your life. I could tell you were a thoughtful person, but then later you were so happy.”

“After I cussed you out.”

“Right,” he said, laughing. “After the sailor mouth. I never would have guessed.”

“They tell me I look good for my age, but I’d gladly trade my smooth skin for a few laugh lines. Fate or happenstance—you never get over it. Some days you get through it, but you never get over it. Reminders come in the simplest ways: a song on the radio, a lookalike on the street, or, worst of all, a wedding invitation reminding you of what might have been. There are constant reminders of the wedding you will never see, the grandchild you will never hold, and the last hug you will never get. In the end, what it comes down to for me is faith and hope. I get through every day knowing that one day I will see him again. I know that without question. If I didn’t believe that, I would have lain down a long time ago and not gotten up again.”

Van reached up and clasped the small silver medal on the chain around her neck and closed her eyes, and still there were no tears.

“Religious medal?”

“James’s confirmation saint. Do you know the story of St. Christopher? He ferried travelers across a dangerous stretch of river. One of them was the Christ child in disguise.” She tucked her chin in and studied the figure on the medal. “I pray every night that St. Christopher recognized him and ferried him to safety on the other side.”

They both sat in silence, she with nothing more to say and he with nothing that he
could
say. The thought of drowning filled Ryan with undeniable terror, and he began to sweat.

Van looked across the room at everything she had collected. “I love this place. Nevis represents everything my family has ever been. I have roots here. I’m not ready to let go of my past. I don’t want it to be like names on a family tree, on a piece of paper, that have no story—just names, no longer real people.”

“You know, Van, it’s not always good to live in the past. Sometimes we have to let things go, and move on. That doesn’t mean we forget. Memories can be beautiful. Everything we experience becomes a part of us, shapes us. But we also have to embrace the here and now of life and let it lead us into joyful things—maybe kicking and screaming, but getting us there nonetheless.

He sat down on an old steamer trunk. “Did you ever wish some new type of commerce would move into the area and revitalize Nevis? Instead of just scraping along, maybe these people should sell their land and move somewhere their families would have more of a future. I’m sure someone would come in and make offers if they knew locals would sell. In fact, people wouldn’t even have to move away. Just imagine the jobs and employment a big project would bring into the area. It’d be like the railroad all over again—a renaissance.”

Van drew back from Ryan until they were eye to eye. “Whoa, don’t get carried away,” she said. “People here don’t want an influx of newcomers. They like their own ways, some of them handed down, father to son, since colonial times. They’re happy here. It’s slow and good. Opportunities here are different from those in cities like New York. Not everyone has to be a doctor or a lawyer or an investment banker to be somebody. When you grow up along the water you have an appreciation and respect for nature, and you see life a little differently. Only an outsider like you would see living in Nevis as a negative.”

“‘Whoa’ is right. I surrender,” Ryan said, backing away from her with his palms up. He laughed. “I didn’t mean to get you all worked up, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t say anything negative. Dang, you’re feisty. It was just a passing thought. Peace, okay? You’re probably right: locals know best.” Taken aback by Van’s hostility, he decided to listen more and talk a little less. He could feel the conversation sliding off the tracks. Her blessing wasn’t essential to getting his job done, but it would have made things a lot easier.

“You don’t understand, but that’s okay,” she said. “I can’t let go. It’s all I value and all I have. I don’t want my son to be just a memory. He existed and he still exists … somewhere.” Her head was down, and she played with her fingers as she blinked back the tears that she could feel threatening to tumble down her face.

Ryan moved closer but did not go to her. He never quite knew what to do when a woman cried. And this time especially, it threw him for a loss. If all went as planned, as he hoped, Nevis would soon cease to exist. But he had never had to put a face on those plans until now. He didn’t like what he was seeing or feeling, and that was a revelation. He didn’t know Van well enough to reach out, hold and comfort her, even though he wanted that. He could only stand here awkwardly and wait out her emotions, hoping she could get herself together. He shoved his hands into his pockets, then just as quickly pulled a hand back out and reached out to Van, putting a small coin in her hand. “Here. You’re religious.”