This Side of Water

by Maureen Pilkington

  “Yeah, but Mom should know that someone knows and might tell Dad. Then she’ll be scared.”

  “Your Mom seems nice, Nan. I mean, she’s always nice to me.”

  “You’re the one with the nice mother. You have a real mother. She even takes you to the movies. Trust me, OK? It’s almost nine thirty.”

  In the dark, from under the tree, it was hard to see. The cabanas were little huts in the center of the beach; all of them were painted white because it was a club rule. Inside, you could do anything to them. The interior of the Fieldings’ cabana was painted in a glossy orange that shimmered when they left their door propped open with a rock. Mary Beth’s mother said all the orange all over the place was to draw attention to themselves. Of course, they had that Koi fish attached to a pole on top of their roof like no one else.

  “You go to your lookout point by the pool fence. If you see anyone coming, bang on the corner pole with this oar—two times. At exactly nine forty on the pool clock, I will be done with my surprise attack. Everything will be over. Then go swim out to the float, and I’ll meet you there.”

  “Why do we have to meet there? The water’s so black now.”

  “Because no one can see us there. Just swim straight—not crooked. Depending on the way things go, I might be right behind you.”

  Mary Beth looked relieved. I could tell she was scared but I didn’t know if she was scared about Mom, who she believed in, or about the swim out. Sometimes, in some weird way, I think she felt bad for me, when it was really I, who felt bad for her.

  Just as it turned nine thirty, as if we had made the appointment ourselves for the couple meeting on the sly in the Fieldings’ cabana, we could see a faint glow through the curtain. It was the only light on the beach we saw. Maybe there was a burning candle inside.

  “Run to your post,” I said.

  I let a few moments pass and snuck up behind the row of huts. When I was sure they were in the cabana, I would bang on the door, yell “fire” with my disguised voice, and then run as fast as possible down to the water, dive in, and swim out to meet Mary Beth. They’d never know it was me. As I walked behind the huts, I noticed that the back window of the Fieldings’ cabana was open. I saw the light and the faded orange curtain blowing through. It was funny how you could plan so carefully, and then something like this open window turned up like a gift.

  My heart was pounding. I was going to catch Mom once and for all. The one good thing about sneaking around on the sand is that you don’t make a sound. I was so intent on my mission, I forgot completely about Mary Beth.

  It was almost nine forty. I wondered how so much time had passed already. I moved like a cat burglar and plastered myself between the Fieldings’ cabana and the one next to it. I heard voices but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. Then a silence. I moved against the wooden sides that felt cold now. I stood on my toes and looked through the corner of the window. The candle flickered wildly inside, making the walls jump with shapes and shadows. I heard an unfamiliar moan in a familiar voice. I looked around inside, distracted by the moving shadows on the wall, and finally found the heap of bodies on the floor. A man’s broad, brown back, moving like gentle waves, with an anchor tattoo stamped above his white butt. Long, long legs of a woman tied around Dad’s waist, and I recognized the next moan as the voice of Mrs. Fieldings.

  I turned quickly, away from that view, and hit the sharp corner of the window frame. I ran away from them, listening to the wind of my breath. My chest pounded, and I found myself at the other end of the beach at the snack bar, all boarded up, the counter dirty with dried ketchup. Warm liquid dripped down my back, and slapping at my neck, I saw bright red blood on my hands. I carefully felt the back of my head, just now remembering the quick, sharp jab of the window frame. I pressed my head with my hand, afraid I would bleed to death from everything that was happening.

  I went to the side door the servers used and, hiding behind the wall, smelled garbage, old chopped meat, and onion. A burning vomit rose in my throat and came out of my mouth in one wave. I kicked sand over it and realized that no one had a clue where I was, no one had followed me. I could die here. Even my father—my father!—and Mrs. Fieldings, who would never know I had been watching them.

  I started back toward the beach. My head throbbed. I could see the clump of cabanas, the Fieldings’ in the center, with that square of a window like one in a warm colonial house, slightly lit, the same as when I had left it.

  I felt thick roots pushing into the soles of my feet. I concentrated, walking as quickly as I could to the pool fence. The clock said ten past ten. Mary Beth was not at her post. Of course not. Her job was done and she must have swum out to the float.

  I moved my feet by lifting them with a sure but shaky strength, and made it down to the shoreline. I could hear the live band really rocking now, trying to sound like Eddie Kendricks. I put my feet in the water. How could the water have gotten so cold so fast? The freezing water on my bad ankle felt as if someone had hit it with a baseball bat. I waded in slowly, as I had so many times, happy times, when the water was just too cold to dive into. My bottom went numb when the water line got to my hips. I heard the loud and eerie sound of nothing.

  The full moon cast a spotlight on the bare float. The only thing I saw was the black form of Fort Slocum, and I waved my hands wildly as if one of the tubular poles that jutted out would respond by reaching over to skim Mary Beth off the top of the water, wherever she might be.

  I looked toward the area where she usually rested. Sometimes she played “dead man’s float,” where you lay in the water, face down, arms and legs slack. “M.B.,” I called. “You are not going to believe this.” I was crying. “M.B., I’m coming, can you hear me? Do me a favor and answer me!” I waded in further, searching, and the ice water hit my chest and stopped my breath.

  I imagined the rats coming to get me, hundreds of sneaky, quiet rats swimming just under the surface, their heads like so many bumps, coming straight at me. Then I felt rats around me, slick fatty rodents in the water with long tails whipping my skin, wiry tails wrapping around my stomach, pin teeth nibbling up and down my legs. They could smell my blood from the gash on my head. I could feel their teeth puncturing my skin for another drink and the cold water flushing into my body through the wounds they made.

  I screamed and screamed, sobbing in-between. I heard a man yelling, “Nan, Nan is that you? What are you doing out there? Get out of there now.” It was Dad, and he sounded angry. I also heard the distinctive voice of Mrs. Fieldings, yelling, “Sweetheart—you OK?” with the same baby doll voice she spoke to me at Bergdorf’s, with the same voice she used with Dad. I turned around to see if they had clothes on. Dad was in his swimming trunks, and Mrs. Fieldings wore a short terry cloth robe, the belt dragging in the sand.

  I met up with Dad on the shore and managed to tell him that Mary Beth was going to meet me out on the float. Now she wasn’t there, at least I didn’t think so.

  “Oh my God,” he said, pushing me out of the way as he dove in, swimming freestyle, his powerful kicks as loud as the entire swim team in a race. Every few feet he stopped and swam underwater. I guess he was looking for Mary Beth.

  When he got to the float he climbed on top and stood, yelling to us through cupped hands. “Go for help—my God, she’s not here. Run for help. Call 911!” I could see the silhouette of Dad’s body, so much like the figure of Fort Slocum behind him.

  Mrs. Fieldings dragged me by the arm, talking to herself. “This is terrible. Nanny—M.B. must be up in the clubhouse, right? What did she tell you? Did she tell you where she was going?”

  We ran up the beach, past the pool, up the hill. I never would have made it without Mrs. Fieldings pulling me by the arm, although I really didn’t want her to touch me. Mrs. Fieldings was panting, locks of hair falling stylishly from her French twist.

  We entered the clubhouse through the
side door, so we stepped right into the party. No one even noticed us at first. Mr. and Mrs. Patella were dancing alongside the teenagers. On the last day of summer everyone partied together. There was a buffet table set up against the entire wall for the Labor Day “Neptune Feast” with cold cooked lobsters, in halves, piled high. The desserts followed, and, at the very end of the table, were deep tubs of ice cream.

  Mrs. Fieldings ran to the front desk phone and left me standing there in my bathing suit. I saw Mom at a cocktail table near the window, her hair shining, sitting with another couple. I walked through the smoky crowd in my Speedo; maybe there was blood matted in my hair. When Mom caught sight of me, she looked a little bewildered—you weren’t allowed to enter the clubhouse in bathing suits.

  I approached Mom’s table and expected her to be angry with me, the way I was dressed. Instead she looked happy to see me. She waved at me to come sit with her, patted her own lap to show me there was a seat. Mom was sitting with Mary Beth’s parents, who looked happy, too, looking beyond me, expecting to see their daughter. Their two kind faces were so familiar to me; their expressions would stay with me forever.

  I was still wet and sat down in the chair next to Mom. Fortunately, the band was so loud no one bothered to try to talk, so we all sat there and looked at each other, except Mom, her eyes on the dance floor, her shoulders going with the music. I wished she would throw her arms around me and press my face into her clean smell. But, I could see she was mesmerized by the rhythms she loved so much. Even at home she was always dancing around. I closed my eyes, and with all my concentration, tried to transform into a man. Then I would have asked Mom to dance. I imagined how happy she would be to finally have a partner. But as I looked down at my bare feet I knew it was impossible.

  I used the next few moments to brace myself for what was to come and kept my eye on the doorway to the lobby. Mrs. Fieldings would burst through any second. I avoided looking at Mary Beth’s parents and studied the room. The waitresses stood around with the vigilance of guards waiting to be called into action. The ceiling fans, now on their highest speed, looked wobbly, like they were about to fall and slice us all up. I would rather have been sliced than face my future. As I sat there, I noticed Mary Beth at the very end of the buffet table, in a sundress, the backs of her chunky arms bright pink, waiting patiently, as she was next in line to receive a cone.

  BLUE TIP SHORE CLUB

  New Year’s Eve 1969

  Dan-Dan the Shoe Man, as he was affectionately called, and his wife, Marie, had been members of the Blue Tip Shore Club for thirty-two years. Every New Year’s Eve, Dan and Marie Cowley drove up the circular drive to the immense cherry doors of Blue Tip in their long swinging camel hair coats, and rang in the New Year with the midnight dance.

  That New Year’s of ’69, Dan was melancholy. After all, another decade of his life was over. He was sixty now. And, Marie, well, she only made use of her personality after several Manhattans.

  Dan sat alone with his gimlet, his noisemaker and the small dishes of half-eaten stuffed clams and bacon-wrapped shrimp, bitten and left behind. The picture windows around the room were sheets of black now. It was hard to believe there was a clear and peaceful view of the Long Island Sound beyond the icy night.

  It was fifteen minutes till midnight, and a glaze had already formed on every car in the parking lot. Dan sat at his usual corner table, observing all the Versanis with high-high heels that Marie couldn’t tolerate anymore. It was second nature to Dan, studying the familiar legs of all the female members, legs he had gently guided into so many shoes with the reverent touch of a holy man.

  The women who came into Dan’s store thought of nothing else but shoes for those few moments. It was as if they checked their identities at the door before entering Dan’s Shin Dig, free to slip in and out of one pair or another, as if it were a secret opportunity to try on fresh human skins. All it took was thirty steps around the perimeter of the store to become a different woman.

  Dan was the man they offered themselves to at that moment. He was there to rid them of their doubts, to remind them they deserved to feel beautiful. More importantly, and this was apparent to Dan from the beginning, it gave them the freedom to feel whatever they wanted. He considered himself a doctor of sorts, administering care with a Gandhi-like generosity.

  Years ago, when Dan first opened the store, he made a rule for himself: never date the customers. But, when Marie walked into Dan’s Shin Dig for the first time, as slim as an extra-long cigarette, he was defenseless against his own rule. She headed straight for the sling-backs, scooped one up with her pinky and let the shoe dangle while she looked for a seat. Then, taking her sweet time, she sat down, shook off her alligator pumps, and summoned Dan by raising her toe.

  Dan watched Marie as she left the leather-coated bar. She wore a gold cardboard hat splashed with glitter that had been handed out at the door when they arrived. She made her way to Dan, weaving relentlessly through the crowd even though her friends groped for her. She did not stop for Fay, whose laughter forced itself out of too much phlegm. Marie skimmed the edges of the dance floor with a drink held like a candle in front of her. Dan noticed Marie’s legs were getting spindly, similar to the legs of Mr. Peanut, the figurine left behind by a toddler in his store that now sat rigidly on the cash register.

  Dan wondered if his babying through the years contributed to her deterioration. Or, the booze. She was slipping away. The instinct to spoil his wife came from the warmest place inside of him. He wanted to take care of her, see pleasure on her delicate face.

  It was Dan who cooked dinner every night when he arrived home from work, hoping Marie’s appetite would pick up. Though Marie stopped at the market during the day, Dan mixed the drinks, set the table and grilled the steaks on their Weber, even in winter. He loved to barbeque on their fifteenth-floor patio—those were his moments—with a highball and tongs, infusing the air with the unmistakable smell of grilled beef as he kept an eye on his wife through the sliding-glass doors.

  Dan moved further into the corner without leaving the table, listening to the ice hitting the windows in whip-lashing rhythms. He was constantly waving back to the other members who loved to be here on New Year’s Eve—the most depressing of all holidays in his opinion—and they loved to chitchat, as if this were what life was all about. Worst of all were the cheerful resolutions. They were just bold reminders of things he would never do.

  When Marie arrived at the table, her eyes resembled the two cherries at the bottom of her Manhattan. She plopped down across from her husband, kicked off one shoe, and wiggled her toes in his crotch. “Happy New Year’s, Danny. It’s almost time.”

  Dan felt himself harden. This was vintage Marie. The poke of affection was a throwback of Marie’s surprises in the old days. She use to hide nude in the stacks of shoe boxes so he could treat her (that was the way she put it) when he searched the stock room. He would find those long white legs sticking out of the stacks like falling signs, always dressed in knee-high suede boots, or spikes, depending on the season. When he returned to his customers his face was heated.

  The waitress with the Irish brogue, whom Dan tipped generously at all the club events, traded his empty glass for a full one. Dan was eager for the burn of his drink.

  Marie flung her hat on the table, her foot bouncing to the music. Her toes were a bit swollen. She had a corn that he sporadically cut off for her with his straight-edged razor, but it kept replacing itself. She stuffed her shoe back on, getting ready, and fooled with her freshly permed curls. For years, Marie had worn her bright blonde hair in a loose twist revealing the back of her neck that matched the color of buttermilk.

  The lights were dimming and the Shane Fox Orchestra was getting silly, hamming it up and unbuttoning their vests that were too tight anyway. Shane’s groggy voice smothered the mike. “Oooh baby, it’s cold outside.” He reminded the members that the roads were slick, so the
y might as well stay for a few rounds of coffee. No one was listening.

  Dan said, “Looks like you’re really at it tonight, hon. All that cheer.”

  He raised his glass to his wife, and, for a moment, saw her the way she used to be. He resented his memory for replacing this Marie with the younger one. When they first started dating she reminded Dan of the old cheesecake posters, with those legs and the cashmere sweaters. Her shoulders were almost broad and her posture erect which displayed her breasts in such a way that Dan viewed them as an extra bonus, a contribution to a relationship that was already a thing to admire.

  “Oh,” she waved her hand, dismissing Dan’s suggestion that she was drinking too much. In fact, she was always whacking away his observations. “It is New Year’s, for Christ’s sake. Can’t stand to be home when the ball hits at midnight, watching it drop on the tube. Everyone dancin’ but me.”

  “Wait a minute.” Dan corralled all previous holidays into a blurry picture. “Since when did we ever spend this night at home? We’ve been right here every year.”

  He studied the crystal chandeliers topped with serious seagulls, the gold-leaf chairs. A tremendous oil painting over the bar portrayed suspended ocean waves that might start rolling out of their frame any minute.

  “Can’t I enjoy myself tonight? Look—look at Fay and Chick,” Marie said enviously, but not without admiration. “The Lindy is their forte.”

  “Fay’s an ankle strap girl.” Dan loved the new style with colored rhinestones that formed a T on the foot.

  “Believe me, I’d be wearing them, if I could.”

  There was one problem. When Marie wore open shoes like those, it was difficult for Dan to pick up his wife’s scent.

  The drum roll got everybody up in a cult-like obedience, including Dan and Marie. A few old faithfuls still loitered at the bar. He ignored the wobbly feeling in his legs, took his wife’s hand, and escorted her to the dance floor.