Twillyweed (5 page)

My mother wasn't so quick to let it go. “At your age, you're better off making up. Plenty of lassies with their tongues hanging out just waiting to get a lick at a fine man like Enoch.”

“Mom,” I said, changing the subject, “Carmela told me Jenny Rose is out on Long Island.”

From the calculated look of self-satisfaction that crossed her face, I concluded it was she who'd sent Carmela's cell-phone number to the auld sod. She's cautious when it comes to her sister Deirdre in Ireland, though, and you have to watch what you say, Deirdre being a lesbian and an elderly one at that.
Artistic
, Mom safely dubs her. My mother is Catholic first and Christian second. I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the china cabinet. I was wearing Carmela's clothes from yesterday, the grown-up-find-a-job outfit that was meant to say I was reliable and Republican. But that wasn't me at all. I'm more of a used-to-be-pretty, dangling-earring, oriental-jacketed, befuddled-but-refuse-to-be-pigeonholed woman. So where had the real me gone? Was she ever coming back? I looked out the window.

“Take a chance.” Dad looked up from his crossword and instructed the president. “Try something new.”

I decided then. The days of running home to Mother were at last at an end. I got up to go and I told her, “Ma, save me the paper. I'll be looking for an apartment when I get back.”

Jenny Rose

Jenny Rose was taking her jog past the marina when she caught sight of a really cute guy on a black boat with red sails furled. He had dark, silky hair like her own, only longer. Crafty eyes. Cheeky. Skinny. Weird. You could tell. He made quite a sight, cool as a rock star up on his deck on the cell phone, but his full attention was on her, watching her move. She moved faster, letting him see what a fine, healthy specimen she was and she pushed her short hair behind her ear and laughed at herself when she got far away.
What a country
, she thought, smiling to herself, out of breath, looking up at last to an authentic American blue sky, great dark clouds in the distance looming in like bedroom comforters. Sea Cliff's wooden houses gripped the steep hills. She took each hill, spending an hour exploring the up-and-down terrain. Old branches heaved and toppled from the weight of all the recent rain. So many trees! The light was dappled and moving and she ran, intent, a good long while. She could hardly wait to paint it all. She was really in the country here, she realized, pleased, turning to head back. No one about. She came to a dense bit of forest, a shortcut from the look of it. The real path stuck to the outskirts, meandering off in the wrong direction, so she took the shortcut. The light was momentarily obliterated by green and dark and branches from the fury of trees. She slowed down. She could hear the birds bicker, the rude barking of some gulls, smell the pine and moss, but she was quite alone in the dark.

Suddenly all was silence. The shush of her sneakers on the pine carpet floor was the only remnant of sound. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck raise up and her heart quicken. She was being watched. Not the common watching of a strolling woodsman or an admiring pair of eyes. A hound, she thought first, feeling her body go cold. It was the calculated intention of some purposeful force. She kept her pace and never turned her head. Some deep sense of preservation kept her stalwartly moving forward; some instinct took over that knew if she hesitated, she would be the wounded gazelle and danger would strike. She'd be lost. She bent under low branches and passed into a gleam of sunshine, then almost laughed with relief. It had occurred within a minute's space of time. And yet she knew she'd perceived something distinctly malevolent, something … foul. She looked this way and that, breathed the fresh air hard, rubbed her arms, and trotted on beneath the lowering sky.

It wasn't difficult to find Twillyweed again. You could see it from anywhere. She made her way nervously across the cliff and found her way, glancing now and then over her shoulder, back across the vast property. There were green bent rods turning into day lilies and huge rectangles of screeching yellow forsythia. The feet of the stone wall borders were thick with rain-trodden daffodil and hyacinth, and the scent of their perfume lingered like darkening water. She felt, rather than heard, someone close by. Still jumpy, she cried out and turned.

There, on the other side of the yard, was Radiance wrapped in a heavy sweater, her voluminous hair now dragged back and knotted in place with a chopstick. Silver hoops reaching to the middle of her neck dangled from her ears and beside her was a folded turret of sheets and towels in a basket and a hardcover book opened up on her lap. She remained looking at Jenny Rose, poised and disdainful with a cigarette in one hand and a pack of matches in the other, her eyes limpid and unimpressed.

“Fuck,” Jenny Rose exclaimed with relief, “you scared the shit outta me!”

“Better not let the boss hear you using language like that, missy.” She closed the book and stuck it in the laundry like a secret. “He toss you right out.”

Jenny Rose nicked her head good-naturedly. “Ah, come on over and have one of mine.”

Radiance peered at her suspiciously, then, deciding it was cheaper to oblige, she tucked her own back in the pack and came across in a roundabout way, circling the hedge and perching herself delicately on the other side of Jenny Rose's bench.

Jenny Rose studied her. Radiance looked a few years older than she—and so somewhat interesting. Her fingernails were painted red and perfectly maintained while her feet, naked in flip-flops, revealed a mangled, calloused wear. Her neck and legs were long and pretty and she wore a lot of silver bracelets that sang when she moved. She was, by Jenny Rose's standards, spectacular. Also, she seemed like a tough girl, always a plus. Jenny Rose lit them up.

“That's drop-dead gorgeous, that nail color. What's it called?”

“Persimmon.” Radiance pulled her hand back and twiddled her nails in the air, admiring them. “I swiped it from Patsy Mooney.” She saw Jenny Rose's look. “
Phh
. She didn't need it. I found her painting things with it.”

“What's that you were reading?”

“I'm not reading anything,” Radiance's tone was inappropriately spiteful. “I just look at the pictures.” She sighed, looking somehow defeated, away. “And they tell me nothing.”

“Oh.” But she'd seen the gold letters peeking out upside down from the eyelet. It was the
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
. The wind moved the branches just above them and Jenny Rose leaned back, enjoying the sky through the shimmering canopy of leaves. “What's this, then, a beech?”

“
Phh
,” Radiance snorted derisively, “that's a box elder. Don't you know trees?” Softening a little, she added, “Just wait till the linden trees bloom. The smell is intoxicating.” A monstrous black-and-white cat strode across the garden, not bothering to give them a look.

“God, there are so many rosebushes! Like the grounds of a palace!”

“Noola and Annabel,” Radiance murmured dreamily, “they planted them.”

Jenny Rose gave her a blank look.

“Annabel is Mrs. Cupsand. Wife of Oliver.” She twisted the hem of her skirt, looked up quickly, and informed her, “And you don't have to bother learning about her, Miss Nosy, because she's gone. They're both gone.” She shook her head and looked out to the sea. “Hard to believe, but they are. Annabel took off and Noola's dead.”

“Dead?” Jenny Rose moved closer, alerted by the catch in Radiance's voice. “Oh, I'm sorry. Was she very old?”

“Not that old. …” Radiance looked off moodily. “The thing is, she was fine the day before …” She cleared her throat. “She lived up there, Noola. In a little cottage just on the edge of that cliff. You can't see it from here. Just from the beach. Only in winter you can see it from here. … She—” Suddenly she stopped, unable to go on.

Interested, Jenny Rose leaned forward, concerned, “You loved her, did you?”

Radiance turned her back. “You are
such
a busybody! Can't a person just enjoy her privacy?”

Jenny Rose didn't buy the routine, however, for she utilized cantankerousness herself as a cover for loneliness. Undeterred, she peered with Radiance into the distance.

But Radiance stood and turned her back, remarking dismissively, “Why am I talking to you anyway?”

“The cat can well look at the queen,” Jenny Rose shot back, hurt.

Misunderstanding, Radiance sputtered, “You make fun of me? Why? Because you think I'm a cleaning lady? I'm not just some cleaning lady. I'm a dancer,
comprende
?” She preened and lifted her long neck like a sassy crane.

Jenny Rose kicked her feet up and down like a child on a swing. “This is good,” she protested out loud, determined despite herself. “I can't believe it. Here I am outdoors in the US, making friends.”

Radiance said disdainfully, “Don't be so sure, Irish girl. Because as far as I'm concerned, you're just another white ass. Look how white you are. You're so white you're almost green!” She made a face and twisted it back and forth and imitated Jenny Rose's assertive tone the day before to Patsy Mooney: “‘
I'm Miss
Jenny Rose Cashin!
' Well, I'm
Radiance Marie-Claire Piet
.”

For a moment Jenny Rose was frightened for Radiance. There was some desperation in her voice that was not equal to this conversation. She seemed possibly unhinged.

Radiance took a last theatrical drag on her cigarette and flipped the butt to the dirt with spite. “Why would I let some little painter wannabe take up my valuable time, eh? Look. Women, I don't like. They don't like me and I don't like them. Okay? You got it now?” She saw the crushed look pass on Jenny Rose's face and justified in a rush, “You just gonna stay for a minute then pick up and leave like the rest of them anyway.” She gathered her things in her basket and got up to go.

The big cat Sam came around the ivy wall and sidled near. Jenny Rose wrapped one trembling arm around her knees and stroked the cat, then called after Radiance's back in a hurried afterthought, “That says more about you than it does about me, you know.”

She sat there in the sudden emptiness, blinking. She would certainly not let this girl upset her. Today was a special day. Lightheartedness returned to her as she scanned the cliff path toward town. A thrill of anticipation propelled her happily forward and she stood. Today was the day. She could feel it. She would see her mother at last. All the bitterness of years gone by would be forgotten. She was grown up now, and understanding. She took the well-worn picture from her pocket and scanned it for the millionth time. It was a high school graduation picture, cracked and rubbed almost to oblivion, but it was her image. Her mother, as young as Jenny Rose was now. She could see her own reflection in the crackled plastic and she hugged herself and laughed and hurried away.

… It was always pleasant here between the dogwoods, he mused, lingering, pressed secretly against the bluestone wall, having enjoyed listening to the two silly bitches prattle on while he'd had his brunch. For they were candidates, weren't they? Or they would be. He would have to groom them first. He'd have to be careful. Move slowly. He turned his face to the sun. A shame not everyone could enjoy it.

He took the hansome gray glove off carefully, so as not to get it dirty, and trailed his fingers across the gritty surface of the rocks, picking up the blobs of sap fallen from the maples. He liked sap. He'd cut the maples deep, in slivers, to get at it, then bring it, sticky, up to his nose.

But it was getting cold. Time to go. He picked his bag of takeout up and tucked it under his arm, then took the rock path carefully so he wouldn't slip. Couldn't slip. Oh, no. So much to do. And now with the old bitch gone, there was nothing more to stand in his way. …

Chapter Two

Claire

I drove into Sea Cliff with no trouble at all. It was so wildly pretty and old-fashioned, I couldn't understand how I'd never been to this place; but we were South Shore people, I supposed, my Irish mother drawn to the bleak, raging, free-to-the-public ocean. This was shady and remote, off the beaten path. Only one road in and out. It was almost another world, yet it was just a mile or so this way and that with hedges and mammoth rhododendron sufficing as borders instead of fences. I was transported by the light, the mood, the screened-in porches, the names of the lampposted streets: Winding Way, Dubois Avenue, Bathway, Littleworth Lane. Even the trees were preposterous: oversized and elderly. I thought of Enoch, who loved trees, and for a moment before I remembered, I missed him. But I did remember, and I would be jolted into heartbreak often in the near future, I knew, until I'd gotten used to the idea. But somehow, a broken heart never seems to hinder my appetite. I parked and looked around for a place to eat. The deli looked all right. There was a good, sturdy fellow in there and he hooked me up with an eggplant, mozzarella, and roasted red pepper on brick-oven olive bread. Coffee, you helped yourself. I took it outside and passed up the benches on the square of grass before the library, instead taking the short walk past the shops to the overlook. Benches were placed there, too, jutting out over the blue sound. The air was charged with particles of ozone and silt and though it was cold, it was just warm enough in the steady sunshine so you could sit and eat. But the sea! Oh, it was glorious and navy blue.

When I finished my sandwich and coffee, I just sat there for a while. You couldn't read the paper—it was too windy—so I decided I'd make my way down the breathtakingly steep steps to the beach. At the very bottom it was almost still, protected as it was in a cove. I took off Carmela's shoes and went out to the beach. There was no one in sight. It was cold and the wind blew fiercely, which I enjoyed. I didn't stay there long, but I could imagine what summers here would be like. Early morning walks. Picnics on the beach. I returned to my shoes and hunched over to put them on, leaning against a sizable boulder. The sound of someone playing piano drizzled from one of the far-off houses. You can always tell if it's a real piano rather than a tape or the radio. I don't know how but you can. I thought of Enoch, warmhearted and courtly. I tried to conjure up some melancholy again but, at the risk of sounding frigid—which my sister tells me I am—I didn't feel it in this early morning change of scene. I didn't feel anything. If I was honest with myself, I had to admit to a certain coldness on my part as well. For hadn't sex between Enoch and me been, if friendly, also somewhat utilitarian and singular, like two pals getting off? You can't be someone's back unless they are your front. And there's a safety to that. I wondered for how long I had been this numb. Since I'd seen the light for another woman in my husband's eyes? Yes, that could have done it. That had hurt. So much so that I'd closed myself off. I looked up at the bright sky with its promise of spring and I remembered that at that moment I felt almost glad. I don't know what it was—getting away from Queens, maybe just being in such a dramatically pretty place—but I felt free. I heard the tight, intense hum of bees. Bees indicated life, and I was struck by the heady, almost sickening fragrance of hibiscus. Out in the bay, a picturesque little orange boat, empty, bobbed up and down in the fast churning sea.

I took the steep footpath, stopping to catch my breath, and at the very top, edging over the side, a stab of red wobbling color caught my eye. A
For Sale
sign, meant to be seen from the beach, had come loose and was wriggling and about to fly off its hook. I leaned out and hitched the sign back up and looked at the tiny house. It was pale blue, no, gray, a pale gray but with a hue of blue and it had peeling white painted sills. An old-fashioned porch stole the show. The house wasn't in the least bit fancy or beautiful. Except for the porch, it was plain. Tiny. Solid. It had to be, clinging to the edge of the cliff like that. A small bird landed on the front gutter with a gathering of weed in its beak. Just beneath the porch light was a battered plaque, the way some houses announce and portray themselves. It was spelled in an antiquated hand:
the great white.
I smiled—someone had a sense of humor—and hoisted myself over the steps to the walkway and then something in me turned me back around and I thought what the heck. … I scribbled down the number.

A gray-haired woman next door on the inland side was hanging a rug over the hedge. She peered at me suspiciously.

“Just taking down the number,” I called.

She tipped her head in understanding and proceeded to swat her rug with an antiquated beater.

I ventured a little closer. “I don't suppose you know what they're asking?”

“Better not be much,” she said in a heavy Italian accent. “She was a clutter bug. Place is a mess.” She gave me the once-over, sizing me up. “Needs new gutters, too. And the boiler's all the time on the blink.” We both listened to the chirp of the nesting bird.

How cold could it get?
I asked myself. After all, spring was here. Why, it would soon be summer. I asked the woman if she thought they might rent. “I'd love to get a look inside.”

Swatting abated, she squared her stance and scrunched her face up. “Might have missed your chance. I think the son's fed up. Said he's looking to sell. Told me he gave the house to a realtor just the other day.”

“Oh.” Acquiring a house on the water, even a paltry one, would be way above my budget. Feeling oddly let down, I thanked her and started to walk away.

“Of course, if you want to go talk to him, he'll be down the marina. … Still might be there.”

I hesitated. My better judgment warned me,
Don't you go starting all over again with one of your harebrained schemes
.

“Hey!” The woman put one hand up to shade her eyes and another heavily on my shoulder and she gasped, “Look there! It's a blue heron!”

Just above our heads an impossibly heavy, prehistoric-looking bird flew low above us in a slow-motion, long-stroked way. It looked right at us. “Wow!” I said.

“
Madonna mia
,” the woman said as she grabbed hold of me. “You don't think it's a spirit of someone?”

“I've never heard that. I've never even seen one!” I cried. “And so close!”

“Did you see? She looked right at us!”

We stood watching the empty sky long after it had passed, both of us enthralled. I looked back at the little house. This whole place would be transformed by summer to a tourist town. Suppose I could think up some sort of business. … Well, what? Stranger things have happened. Let's face it—nothing wonderful was waiting for me back in Queens. I dug into my purse for a pen. “What's the man's name?”

“The man?” She was still frightened by what seemed to her a mythological apparition.

“Who owns the cottage?” I prompted.

“Oh. Donovan,” she said, returning to the real world. “Noola's son, Morgan Donovan. You ask anyone for Noola's son's—Morgan's—boat. He owns the house now. But I got to warn you. Noola's ghost”—she thought she'd help me out by adding—“she's come and go with the fog. Late at night, I hear …” She leaned in, close and garlicky. “… something bad!”

The first happy aspect of being on my own took shape. No sensible man to put an end to my dream just because of something so provincial as a ghost. After all, I harrumphed to myself, knowing more at that time than I realized, it's not of the dead we must fear, but the living.

In no time at all I sat in the Once Upon a Moose and waited for Jenny Rose. You've never seen a place like the Moose. There are antiques and white lattices and climbing ivy, glittering curiosities and collectibles, and ladies' old-fashioned hats along the walls. This afternoon it was practically empty; one elegant couple sat at a wrought-iron table at the other side of the room. The man, I noted, was prosperous looking, gleamingly Rolexed, a certain sort of handsome. Norwegian looking. A scant portly. I couldn't see his companion as she had her back to me, but she wore a green loden mantle and hat, the sort of thing you'd see in Germany. Very attractive, I thought idly, and then was amused to see him glance furtively to the side and pass her a short stack of bills. She took it without hesitation. At once I turned away discreetly. The young woman in the loden mantle stood, slipped out the door, and hurried up the street. I'd chosen the cozy bay-window seat at the far end that looked out at the town square, had ordered tea, and was thinking Jenny Rose was going to take one look at me and her face would fall. That's basically what happened.

The glass door sprung open, jingling with a rope of bells, and in she walked. Her eyes took several seconds to adjust to the dark, then swept the room and she caught sight of me. Her face didn't change, but her hazel eyes went sort of dead. She looked so young. Well, she is so young. I stood up, tripped over my own two feet, and made it across the room to give her a hug. She hugged me back all right. But on her way to my shoulder she let her guard down and I caught a clear glimpse of her disappointment. It didn't take her long to adjust her face into a pleasant expression. We sat down. I took my time explaining, giving her a chance to get herself together. Jenny Rose chewed her lip and listened as I rambled on. Finally she shrugged. “I didn't really expect her, you know.”

You knew the kid was lying and her nonchalance was put on. “Well, she didn't know,” I defended Carmela.

“Yeah, I just thought I'd take a chance.” She lit a cigarette and the owner—an interesting-looking lady with Veronica Lake hair and red lipstick—clicked her tongue and frowned pointedly.

“You can't smoke in restaurants,” I hissed.

“You're joking. How do you eat?”

I patted my hefty tummy. “We manage.”

Jenny Rose stomped out her cigarette and, still pulling herself together, stared out the window. I tried not to focus on the henna bracelet and the chipped blue nail polish, the black eyeliner and mascara. Actually, I was relieved there were no piercings other than the three in each earlobe. “I see you got a new tattoo.” I sighed, regarding the colorful rock star on her arm.

“Actually I painted it on, with makeup. Looks real, right?”

“Yes, it does,” I marveled. “Listen, Jenny Rose, Carmela's expected back in a couple of weeks,” I said hopefully. “My sister Zinnie got married to a fancy Italian, I must say. Carmela was having a difficult time finishing a book, and Zinnie invited her there to work on it. Do her good. You know.”

“Uh-huh.” She whittled away at a last strand of blue nail polish with her teeth.

Together our heads turned to the empty piazza across the way. We watched the flags and window-box petunias ripple in the high wind. “Doesn't feel much like spring yet, but Memorial Day's coming up,” I encouraged. “Everything changes.”

We both moved unfamiliarly in our chairs. Outside, the cold sun glared on the empty road. Here in the Moose it was dark and cozy and smelled of butternut soup. A young man brought the tea in a sweet pot with roses. The cups were delicate, thin lipped and roomy.

“Oh, at last.” Jenny Rose smiled gratefully. She drank it down scalding hot.

I sipped my tea. I'd had enough of polite discomfort. “Jenny Rose, I'm not glad this happened, that Carmela wasn't here, but I'm so incredibly pleased to see you. My children are both away at school and—well, your coming happens at a perfect time for me—”

Suddenly she took out her pad, knocking half the contents of her bag onto the floor in the process then scrambling to throw them back in untidily, and I thought she was going to write down my number, but instead she began sketching the interior of the restaurant. She did this with one foot up on the rung of a chair but otherwise inconspicuously and with an almost furious intent, reminding me of myself when I was just starting out, always photographing everything, no matter where I went. At last she said, “Wait until you see Twillyweed—the house where I'm working. There are onion-heads on turrets! It's a trip.”

“May I come? Are you settled in?”

“Not really. They've stuck me in the basement. Well. It's not as bad as it sounds. It's just—”

“My sister said that you've taken a job as an au pair.” I realized I'd said
my sister
instead of
your mother
, but no need to start things off on the wrong foot.

“Yeah. They hustled the little boy off to bed before we could have much of a gab.” She scratched her cheek. “Cute as a button. They have him in school all day, can you believe it? At four! Well, almost five. He's adopted. No sign of the mother. And no one about but the help. Where do people get off having kids if they're not going to stick around and bother with them?”

We both thought of Carmela, who'd done neither.

She frowned. “And it's kind of creepy. Like there's a
secret
up there or something.” She shrugged dismissively then glanced at her watch.

I cleared my throat. “Do you have to get back right away?”

“I must stop in and show my face to a Mrs. Lassiter at the rectory, Deirdre's old kick from back home. I ought to bring her flowers or a bottle of perfume, what do you think?”

“Oh, flowers are always nice.”

“Yeah, right. And I thought I'd look around for some drop cloths and turpentine and rags.”

“I passed a hardware store coming into town,” I said.

“That'll do for a start.”

The good thing about somebody else's troubles is that you quickly forget about your own. Watching her swift movements with the pencil, I mentioned, “When I met you, you were just a teenager, but even then you showed the promise of becoming a really talented artist.”