Summer People

by Marge Piercy

  She sang one rhythm beating another on the wheel. The two were dodging in and out, they were dancing like stately marsh birds round and round each other, they were flirting and teasing and closing together as once she and Susan and Willie had danced about each other in joy and fruition. Then she swerved off the highway into the maze of roads. Nobody ever found her by accident, for they would have to know just which unmarked sand roads to turn left on and where to turn right and which fork to take, most marked only with a scattering of the names of summer people.

  She passed Bracken Pond and came over the crest when she could first see her own pond and the rhythms were intersecting, interweaving. At once she had to slam on the brakes hard and twist half off the road narrowly missing a pine because a big truck was coming at her, driving much too fast through the woods, bouncing with bone crushing thunks off the big exposed roots and the deep puddles and gulches that made driving these roads so interesting. She saw it was Joey Ellis, the lecherous electrician, rushing hell bent from some pond house. He always drove that way. He was a famous menace. He had wrecked three trucks since she had known him.

  She went on more cautiously, nothing but a wary silence in her head now. She rolled down the window the rest of the way to give her more chance to hear whatever might be coming at her. What she heard was the sound of machinery.

  She turned into the drive she shared with the new house and slammed on her brakes again. Where the drive had been was a large pit. It had a huge septic tank lowered into it and a ditch leading from it toward the new house that an army could have occupied for a month of trench warfare. It occurred to her that she had no idea whether the driveway was on her property or Willie and Susan’s; nor until this moment had that ever mattered. The two lots had been arbitrarily separated in the past when real estate matters were much vaguer than the Registry of Deeds like nowadays.

  What was she supposed to do with her car? How was she supposed to get anything, including her luggage and her groceries, up to her house? The pit was big enough to contain her old Volvo with room to spare. A hedge of quince ran down one side of the driveway, so she pulled off onto the mangy semilawn that formed the other side, the open side toward Willie and Susan’s house, and parked there under the big white oak. Just a few feet away was devastation, where an old arbour had stood with climbing roses in pink and white arching over it. The arbour had been pulled down and lay on its side. The roses had been hacked off at the roots. The entire area had been bulldozed, dug out with a front-end loader and then hastily filled in. A hundred square feet of pleasant garden had been stripped to raw sand.

  Carrying groceries, she picked her way through piles of gravel and little stones, heaps of sand, jumping across ditches to a clear place where she could duck through the hedge. Tyre tracks scored her lawn and cut right through her iris and daylily bed and across the corner of her cutting garden where broken dahlias sprawled. Beyond her house was a similar pile of sand, of gravel and a pit as big as the other. Into this pit a large concrete structure was just being lowered. That was what she had heard. It landed on the bottom with a great reverberating sound. Tommy Rindge’s dog was barking madly. Jimmy and Tommy’s brother were supervising or kibitsing. They did not notice her.

  She came into her kitchen, where the remains of several take-out lunches lay on the table in their torn wrappings. Butts were heaped in saucers and china cups. She stepped on a crushed beer can. No cats greeted her. Leaving her groceries on the table, she ran through the house with a growing sense of desolation. Finally a soft mew answered her and she located Tosca under her bed, pretending to be a dust fluff against the wall. She could not find Figaro at all. She went in search of Jimmy.

  She had to drag him away from the pit to ask him, ‘Where’s Figaro?’

  Jimmy looked vague. He was watching the work over her shoulder. ‘He’s around somewhere. Isn’t he?’

  ‘When was the last time you saw him?’

  Jimmy caught the rising tone in her voice and looked at her. He tried to remember. ‘I guess it was a couple of mornings ago.’

  ‘He didn’t come back for the last two days?’

  ‘He’s a big old cat, Dinah. He can take care of himself.’

  ‘In a pig’s eye. If he was injured by any of these bozos, I will kill the person responsible. And you!’

  She fed Tosca in the bedroom, brought the litter box in and shut the door, so that the cat would feel safe. Then she changed into jeans and went into the woods calling Figaro. She was overwound with agitation. Figaro might have decided she was gone forever, chaos had come and run away to try his luck among the foxes, racoons, great horned owls and hawks as a predator. His would be a short violent life, and she wanted him back.

  She was badly shaken by all the devastation that had occurred in the few days of her absence. She had expected a neat little excavation in the dead centre of her lawn, a narrow trench from there to the old septic system or straight to the house. Whatever had been working in her on the journey was gone. She felt guilty for having stayed the two extra days with Itzak; she felt sorry to be back at all. She felt invaded. She felt like an idiot. She had invited these men with their machines and their carelessness into her house from some weird greed, that since Jimmy offered to enlarge her house, she ought to take him up on it. Something for almost nothing. That wasn’t true, as everybody except Jimmy had to be paid and materials were expensive. She had failed to imagine what it would be like to live and work here during the expansion.

  She went on calling and calling Figaro, past the MacIvors, where she had screwed Willie about twenty times, along the path toward the dunes. ‘Figaro,’ she called.

  ‘Figaro,’ a voice repeated sarcastically about five feet to her right. ‘What do you think you are, some half-assed opera?’ The Captain was sitting on a log smoking a joint. He had been fishing and had two largemouthed bass on a line.

  ‘I’m calling my cat,’ she said between clenched teeth and went on, walking a few feet to bellow stubbornly in her coarsening voice, ‘Figaro! Figaro!’

  ‘Orange cat, isn’t he?’

  She swung back around. ‘That’s him.’

  ‘Good sized? Sort of a belly on him.’

  She was instantly afraid Figaro was dead. Perhaps Toby had shot him. ‘Have you seen him?’

  ‘I don’t think much of cats. But that one, he runs down rabbits. He takes rabbits all the time.’

  ‘Have you seen him?’

  ‘How come you lost him? A cat like that, he doesn’t get lost.’

  ‘I was away working for a week. In the meantime they started putting a new septic system in my house. Figaro ran away then.’

  Toby nodded. ‘I see him now and again. He covers a lot of distance. He visited me last night and we had supper together. I was eating at a picnic table under my tree, and he sat down on the other bench and stared at me till I gave him some fish. But he won’t eat clams.’

  ‘Thank you for feeding him. Would you mind if I looked for him around your house?’

  ‘I’d rather you didn’t. I’ll keep an eye out for him. But I don’t like people coming to me unless I ask them special.’

  She would bet he had a garden of weed in. Good cash crop. It was awkward, because she desperately wanted Figaro back and if he was hanging around the Captain’s, that was where she longed to go. However, there was no way of quietly looking for a cat. She continued her circuit of the pond until she was hoarse. No Figaro. At least he had still been alive the night before.

  She went home and holed up with Tosca in her bedroom. Tosca crawled into her lap and for ten minutes made complaining noises while standing on her back paws with her forepaws against Dinah’s face. When Dinah tried to rise to do something about supper, Tosca dug into her shoulder and held on. No way, she said, no way you’re leaving me for two minutes again. Dinah went downstairs with Tosca on her shoulder and made her supper preparations in the same state. Even when she was sautéing chopped onions, Tosca rode her shoulder clutching tightly. F
inally the Rindge boys were gone and Jimmy came in, ebullient. ‘Aren’t you astonished how much we got done? Now all we have to do is wait for Charley to come and okay the septic system. Then it can be closed up and we can get going.’

  Dinah served them a late supper – late for people who got up at six every morning. ‘Jimmy, I can’t believe what a mess they made. Half my garden’s destroyed.’

  ‘You can plant it back. It’s just sand, Dinah.’

  She could barely speak to him. ‘Jimmy, okay, they’ve dug it all up for the septic system, so I’ll go ahead with it. But I don’t want anything after that. No addition, no more building!’

  ‘Dinah, you’re being silly because your cat’s missing. I’m sorry about that. I bet he’ll come back tonight or tomorrow. I have everybody lined up for the addition. They’re doing it fast as a favour because this is a damned busy season. Besides, if you think it’s noisy, it’s going to be noisy anyhow, with Willie and Susan having that studio built right outside.’

  He was right, unfortunately, he was right.

  About eight a pickup truck squealed to an abrupt stop outside, while trying to pull into the drive. Only the long July twilight, the mauve light with the birds still hopping around the sand traps looking for the lawn that used to be, kept the battered truck from landing in the pit. Toby hopped out and pulled a box from the back. ‘Hi, Dinah. Here’s your rabbit-killer.’

  ‘Toby! Thank you. Is it him?’ She took the box and ran into the kitchen. Something heavy and angry was inside. She made sure the screen door was shut before she opened it and Figaro hunched there glowering. He hissed as a general warning. Then he focused on her and gave a loud howl. He sprang from the box and glared around, turned around twice, then ran for his food dish. Tosca climbed down Dinah and ran to sniff his ass and then his nose. They circled each other sniffing and sniffing. Tosca tried to wash his face but he lowered it into his food.

  ‘Look at him put it away,’ Toby said.

  Dinah opened the screen door and pulled him inside. ‘Toby, I can’t tell you how happy I am to have him back. You see what I came home to find.’

  ‘A fucking mess,’ Toby said, snorting. ‘Is that chicken?’

  She drew out a chair, put a plate down. ‘Have some. I cooked a whole one. Would you like a beer with it? How about some salad?’ She was used to cooking for three and had the tendency to make that much. Jimmy ate enough for two anyhow. It was she who had lacked an appetite tonight.

  The Captain ate heartily. He finished the entire rest of the chicken, the salad, the rice, the loaf of baker’s rye she had brought back. Watching him put it away, she took half a frozen rhubarb pie out of the freezer and heated it in the oven. He and Jimmy competed to finish that. Toby was a slow but methodical eater who simply did not falter until his plate was empty and then all other plates on the table were empty.

  Toby thanked her in an almost courtly way, complimenting her on her cooking. Then he took his leave. Figaro did not pay him any attention. He was sitting in Dinah’s lap with Tosca intertwined with him. Dinah did not mind that together they weighed twenty-four pounds and cut off the circulation to her right leg. At least something was right. She had to fight the impulse to pack both cats up in the carrier she used to take them to the vet’s and drive at more than legal speeds back to Tanglcwood. She wanted to flee with them not so much toward Itzak, although he seemed in her mind far more civilized and compatible than any other man alive and with no desire to build anything, as away from all this – her usually cherished home and life.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  SUSAN

  Tyrone never did call Susan from Japan. Only infrequently did he call from other countries, but she had been sure he would this time, and had tried to avoid being out of the house during the hours she judged likeliest. She had looked up Tokyo time and figured that out, not saying a word to Willie or anyone else. Then she heard from Laurie that he was in New York, and began more strongly than ever to expect to hear from him.

  Laurie had not told him. Every afternoon they worked on the curtains together, Susan found that out, approaching obliquely so that she would not make matters worse. Laurie was acting like a teenager with a crush. Every other word out of her mouth was Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy. It wasn’t a stable or mature relationship but one based mostly on the fact that, as she herself had warned Tyrone, there were no suitable men around for Laurie and she was lonely. Jimmy was on the rebound. Now he was going to get hurt very badly when Tyrone persuaded Laurie to break it off. She wondered if Tyrone would proceed with his plans for the gallery, or if he would simply drop that cold and take Laurie back to New York.

  She was the only person who saw the situation clearly, and no one would listen to her. Jimmy was over his head. Like herself, he was intensely emotional under his cool slick surface, and he cared too much for Laurie already. Oh, it wasn’t real, but it would hurt just as much. After all, his wife had just had a baby, and she knew perfectly well that Jimmy would go back to Lisa without a moment’s hesitation if she would have him. Foolish Lisa, trying to raise a child alone. Too much pride and not enough sense. Susan still expected that Lisa would appear on their doorstep in six months to a year. With Jimmy still married to her and involved with Laurie, that would create a mess that made Susan shudder. Jimmy had agreed to give Lisa a divorce, but after that initial meeting with lawyers, nothing whatsoever had happened. He was still married, and everybody seemed to have decided to ignore that fact as inconvenient. It was simply a situation simmering toward disaster.

  When she had visited them last, the restaurant had been a going concern, always crowded. Basta Pasta had been a young people’s place, a salad bar and a pasta bar: they had put out ten kinds of hot and cold pasta with many sauces, from meat and clam to pesto di basilico and primavera, additives like cheese and hot peppers. It had been an instant success. In fact Lisa and Jimmy had been talking about franchizing the idea. Jimmy simply hadn’t a head for business, any more than she had. Jimmy was just too much like her for his own good. They both were tremendously creative, but they couldn’t keep books or cost things appropriately. Now he was going to be badly hurt, for he had the arrogance of the young who imagine they can have whatever they want simply because they want it strongly.

  She did not think Jimmy was truly in love with Laurie; it was too soon after his loss. He was simply falling in love to feel loved, to make up for his estranged family. Willie as usual refused to understand. At moments, she missed Dinah. Dinah was not as tone deaf as Willie to emotions; if Susan trapped her attention, Dinah could sometimes offer an insight. She would have something to say about the Laurie-Jimmy affair. Susan would have found it a great relief to grab Dinah and pour out everything. Dinah had a way of listening, once her attention was fixed, that soothed Susan, stroking and easing her. Talking with Laurie made her tense. Laurie reminded her of Siobhan, she was being so wilful and blind and self-destructive. Susan knew it was a phase Laurie was going through, but it was disappointing to face the same orneriness she had to endure from her own daughter.

  She was actually glad when they finished the curtains. Laurie had gone and bought a bland Marimekko fabric. Really, one of her own designs would have been far more appropriate to a house on the pond, perhaps the water lily chintz or that marvellously grassy cotton. Or the dragon-flies. Laurie was supposed to be an artist, but she lacked Tyrone’s gift for perfect taste. How could Laurie not have realized that one of the fabrics Susan designed would be much more attractive and fitting? If Laurie didn’t know where to look, Susan could easily have ordered the fabric for her at wholesale. It was a slap in the face, yet Laurie seemed oblivious. All she wanted to talk about was Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy, as if flinging in her teeth that neither of them considered her opinion worth taking into consideration.

  Willie had finally started a studio for her, after all these years, but she knew it was because she had asked a friendly realtor, Mary Lou, to appraise their house and land. She kept thinking how much money they were sitt
ing on tied up in this one piece of property. Mary Lou casually estimated they could get four hundred thousand for their little spread. Even Willie had been impressed, although he pretended to think it was fictional money. All real estate values here are inflated, Willie emoted. Then he started the studio, a bribe to her not to think of how they might change their life into something more stimulating. She would see. She wasn’t in a panic. The summer was upon them and everybody was arriving for the season.

  Every morning when she rose, she swam almost to the middle and back, or at any rate out to the point where she was level with a particular big oak she remembered Dinah scaling to bring down Figaro when he was a kitten. When she had begun her morning swims to get into condition for the summer, she used to hear Dinah’s flute or piano or sometimes her tape recorder going. Dinah had the habit of recording one line and then writing another line against it. At the time Susan had felt imposed upon by the music, but now with nothing but the roar of front-end loaders in her ears, she rather missed that pleasant rhythmic tinkle she could use to pace her stroke.

  It was more satisfying to feel separate from an ex-lover one could locate in a particular room and a particular activity. Since Jimmy had moved next door, she could not even guess who was boiling water in the whistling kettle or slamming the door. Several times she had artfully arranged to be outside cutting a few roses from the surviving bushes only to have Jimmy emerge to get the mail. What was the use of having spent ten minutes arranging her hair and practising a superior smile, when her son came charging out, ‘Hi, Mom, I’ll get your mail too,’ jumped in the Ford and tore off to town in a dust cloud. Instead she would face Tommy Rindge waiting, waiting for the health agent to come and okay their holes. His dog would leap upon her with great dusty paws and thrust his muzzle into her crotch. Tommy would try to get her into conversation so he could peek down her dress.