Fishermen's Court

by Andrew Wolfendon

  “So what exactly have you been doing for him ‘as a friend’?” Beth inquires.

  “Just talking, you know, processing, helping him sort out a few things.”

  The recorded voices pause as I hear papers being shuffled around. The printout of Angie’s write-up. Our research notes. Shit. There’s a long pause as Beth, presumably, reads some of the notes. “Jesus, Miles, what is this stuff? What the hell have you guys been doing?” I’m surprised by the heat of her concern. “What the hell is this stuff?!”

  “Just, like I said, some online research I was helping him with. He can’t get any Internet over at Harbor House, so I—”

  “But what’s all this junk about some old car accident?”

  “I don’t know. He thinks he might have played some role in it. He thinks some people might be after him because of that.”

  “And you’re helping him with this idea? Seriously, Miles? Is that wise? The man is having paranoid delusions. And you’re feeding into them? Helping him cook up some ancient... what? Conspiracy theory? Revenge plot?”

  “For the record, I don’t believe he’s actually being followed. I think it’s his own guilt that’s chasing him. Guilt he’s been carrying around for years. Over something he thinks he did. And now some... circumstance has reawakened it. And he’s feeling extremely vulnerable. Anyway, I thought if we could put to rest whatever was triggering his fears—”

  “Oh really, Dr. Jung? And you’ve had this treatment plan approved by the American Psychiatric Association?”

  “He’s not my patient, Beth, he’s my friend.”

  “Well, sometimes I wish you would choose better friends.”

  “Meaning what?”

  Three-second pause.

  “I talked to Mom today.”

  “And...?”

  “They’re coming to the island.”

  “Who? Your parents? When?”

  “Sunday or Monday. As soon as weather permits, she said.”

  “Jesus. Why?”

  “Why do you think? They want to see the kids. And us. For the holiday. Daddy has some work stuff he wants to go over with you too. As usual.”

  “Jesus. I come out to the island to get away from all that.”

  “Well, I couldn’t just say no. So they’re coming. Deal with it. I think it’s important right now—don’t you?—that we make a good impression on them. The right impression.”

  Both Beth and Miles, going back to their college days, have always been anxious about the image they cultivate for their parents. I remember when Miles’ parents would be coming to campus, he’d spend two days cleaning, as if preparing for a papal visit. He and Beth are the same way as a married couple. They worry a lot about what their parents think, especially Beth’s.

  My parents, conversely, were happy with me if I didn’t torture dogs.

  “Which means you can’t be doing any of this stuff,” continues Beth. I hear the papers being rustled. “No Finn and his freakish delusions, for God’s sake. No Finn sitting around here talking banana salad. No... Finn.”

  “Your folks have met Finn before. At our graduation, at Dylan’s—”

  “Yes! Which is exactly why he can’t be around! At all. They don’t get the Finn thing, Miles. They never have. Especially Daddy. Why don’t we invite the Shapiros over on Labor Day? They’re on the island now. And maybe the Pillsburys. They’ll create the right… ambience.”

  “Whatever, Beth. Whatever you decide. But... despite what you’ve always insisted on believing, Finn is not the devil. Daft as fuck, maybe, but not the devil.”

  “Ditch him. Okay?”

  With that, she leaves the room. I fast-forward through the rest of the recording. There’s nothing more.

  Wow. Daft as fuck. Ditch him. Super.

  At least I know where I stand with the Sutcliffes. I also know why Miles was so agitated when I came back from wine-shopping. Beth’s dad is coming. Simon Fischer. Miles doesn’t like to talk to me about the guy because I always razz him for being Fischer’s lapdog.

  A blanket of sadness settles over me. I had thought perhaps Miles had changed his mind about me and believed I was on to something real. Turns out he’s only been humoring me; he still thinks I’m nuts. I’d better be mighty careful about what I say to him from now on and how I interact with him and Beth.

  I try to dig into my liquor store inquiry, but my heart and mind are no longer in it. My progress is further hampered by the fact that it’s the Friday afternoon before Labor Day. People are just getting out of work for the long weekend, and the liquor stores are hopping. Employees have no time for nosy phone conversations about ancient history.

  . . . . .

  I stand on Fishermen’s Court in the whipping wind and rain, steeling myself to knock on Jeannie’s door. I’m holding a bottle of wine and a pizza box wrapped in a plastic bag, and feeling dreadfully self-conscious. I don’t want her to think I see this as a date.

  Even though I kinda do, a little bit.

  I’m also a tad embarrassed by the wine. She texted me to go ahead and bring some, insisting she hates it when people think they have to abstain around her. So I cheerfully obliged, but now I’m feeling selfish about that choice.

  I suck it up and knock.

  Jeannie answers the door, wearing an apron. I notice it’s covering a burgundy-red top that permits a glimpse of cleavage. I must be mindful to do no more than glimpse. Which is going to be a monumental challenge. Did I mention Jeannie is the most beautiful woman on Earth? At least to my eyes. Her beauty comes perilously close to proving the existence of God.

  Like garlic.

  Allow me to explain. Just as it’s impossible for me to conceive of the existence of the garlic plant without the simultaneous existence of human taste buds, so perfectly designed to exalt its flavor, it is impossible for me to conceive of the existence of Jeannie’s face without my eyes, so perfectly designed to exalt her beauty. Chaos theory withers with one look into her face, and cosmic purpose reigns.

  So, yeah, what could possibly go wrong tonight?

  Jeannie takes a sweeping look up and down the street and backs away from the door.

  “That pizza better not be soggy,” she says, her eyes sparkling like a distant galaxy.

  Oy.

  . . . . .

  We already covered the life basics at Pete’s, so we have to dig a little more deeply to come up with our evening’s warm-up banter. We talk about our mutual friends on the island—who’s still here, who moved, who’s boinking whom. The conversation flow isn’t exactly effortless, as it once was, but it carries us through dinner. I, of course, want to know more about her daughter, and, of course, that’s an easy subject for her. She asks me about my work as a computer artist, a good way to get me bloviating. She also asks me about my sister Angie; the two of them became friends through me but haven’t talked much since Jeannie and I split up.

  Jeannie has made a nice salad to go with the pizza and baked something deliciously gooey-looking for dessert. I’m impressed. She could not boil eggs when I lived with her. There’s something off about her mood, though. She seems stressed, distracted. And I don’t believe it’s because she’s uncomfortable with me. A couple of times I think I catch her glancing out the window watchfully. I am daft as fuck, though, as you will recall.

  After dinner, she says, “Why don’t you get a fire going while I clean up in here a bit?”

  Tasks completed, we settle in with our drinks, I with my wine on the loveseat, she with her tea on the sofa. We face each other in front of the fire. No place left to hide.

  “I was a coward to leave the way I did,�
� I say, when the timing feels ripe. “I was hurt, but that’s no excuse. We had a lot to talk about. I owed you that.”

  “You didn’t owe me much, Finn. I sucked. I was a shitty mate and a shitty friend. I’m ashamed of how I acted. But yeah, I do wish we could have talked about it.”

  “Why him?” I say, not accusingly but out of genuine curiosity. She knows exactly what I’m asking. Jeannie, as I mentioned, carried on a handful of discreet dalliances with some rather exotic seafaring men during our time together. She kept these encounters infrequent and segregated from our home life, and she always stayed away from island men. Until Cliff.

  Cliff was a native Musqasset fisherman whom I discovered she’d been seeing steadily—and not very discreetly—for months. Screwing in our house, to put it bluntly. Cliff was rugged, muscular, macho. Good-looking, yes, but about as bright and contemplative as a bucket of chum. So why pick him to change her pattern with men and steer our relationship into the rocks?

  “He was the next logical step, I guess,” she says. I know what she means too, without her needing to explain: I allowed her other indiscretions to go on unchecked until they had poisoned our union, so it was time to up the stakes. Force us to confront the issue, win or lose.

  “I get that. A strange choice in men, though.”

  “Not really, when you think about what was going on at the time. All that Fish Pier business. The infighting, the anger, the suspicion. And quite a bit of it was aimed at me.”

  “At you? I don’t remember it that way.”

  “People questioned my loyalty. I brought you to the island, after all, and you brought Miles to the island. Miles, the great destroyer of Fish Pier. That’s how some people saw it.”

  “How could anyone lay the Fish Pier thing on you?”

  “Come on, Finn, you know the rules here. If you weren’t born on this island, you’ll always be an outsider in some people’s minds. I came here fourteen years ago. That’s yesterday in island time. On the surface, most people here have adopted me, but underneath it all it’s not so simple. People weren’t sure where I stood—with the fishermen or with the moneymen.”

  “And so when you slept with Cliff, you were...”

  “Declaring my loyalties, I guess.”

  “Choosing the island. Over me. Over us.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, it didn’t last. Cliff was a drunken asshole. A week after you left, I was already wondering what I ever saw in him.”

  “But your thing with him got the job done.”

  Jeannie shrugs and tosses her hands up.

  “Is Cliff...?”

  “Bree’s father? God no.”

  “You mentioned there was someone else after him.”

  “Let’s not talk about that right now, okay?”

  “Sure, sorry.”

  Jeannie gives me a long, appraising look. “Why didn’t you ever say anything, Finn?”

  Again, I know what she means without her explaining. Why didn’t I confront her about her sexual “detours”?

  “I didn’t think it was my right. You made it clear, from the start, that you had some ‘arrangements’ in your life that were your private business, and I wasn’t to think I owned you in that way. I thought that was a condition of our relationship.”

  “At the beginning, maybe. When we were still in ‘trial run’ mode. At that point, I was keeping my options open, playing it by ear. I had a few good things going for myself and, yeah, I didn’t want to give them up for... ‘light and transient causes.’ But for the most part I was just, you know, testing you.”

  “Testing me? No, I didn’t know. I always assumed if I forced the issue into the open and made you choose, you would have chosen your... ‘independence’ over me.”

  “Oh, Finn, you frigging idiot.” She gets up and tops off her teacup, flicks her eyes warily out the window again, then returns to her seat. “I always assumed that because you didn’t say anything, you were basically okay with the situation. I figured you wanted a relationship that was more ‘roommates with benefits’ than couple. I thought it gave you an easy out.”

  “God no. Fuck no. I didn’t want that.”

  “Then why didn’t you fight for what you did want? Why didn’t you fight for me?”

  The trillion-dollar question.

  Chapter 19

  “Do you remember the day we first talked?” Jeannie says.

  “Back in college?”

  “We were in that Historical Perspectives on Abnormal Psych course. You were staring out the window and the professor, that McCluskey byotch, tried to trap you with a question. You not only had a hilarious answer but you ripped her a new brain stem. I remember thinking, ‘Who is this guy?’ I went up to you after class and invited you to a party that weekend.”

  “At some dot-com clown’s house in Ipswich.”

  “Right. You showed up, and I was flirting with you. Everything was going great, and do you remember what happened next?”

  “I’m sure you’re going to exhume those blissfully buried memories.”

  “Miles came along and started flirting with me, and then I turned around and you were gone. You’d left. Without saying a word. Sound familiar?”

  “I already knew, when it came to women, never to compete with Miles. Miles always got the girl. Always.”

  “But I wasn’t ‘the girl,’ I was me. And I wasn’t interested in Miles, I was interested in you, thicko. I had to pursue you for the next three weeks, which was not something I was used to, believe me. Then, when we graduated, you just let me go. To Quebec. I would have changed my plans if you’d asked me to, but you didn’t ask.”

  Her words, if true, are breaking news to me. “I never for a moment thought I had a serious chance with you, Jeannie. I mean, you were this wild, brilliant, tough, gorgeous rebel-goddess who every guy at Godwin wanted to go to bed with, and I figured I was just a case of...”

  “What? Romantic slumming?”

  “Well, yeah.” To me, this is a fact as obvious as barn-red acrylic paint.

  “I ought to slap you in the face for that.”

  “Jeannie. Reality is reality. You’ve always been out of my league. You are literally the most beautiful woman I have ever laid eyes on. You know that, right? Not to mention the smartest, the funniest, the bravest, the most talented...”

  Jeannie’s eyes suddenly well with tears. “Oh, Finn,” she says. “That’s your whole problem right there. You don’t believe you deserve good things, so you don’t claim what’s yours. ...And I don’t think you ever will.”

  She gets up and starts moving dishes that don’t need moving.

  I take the cue. I stand and prepare to say my goodnights and goodbyes. But she surprises me by grabbing the bottle of wine and marching into the living room with it. She pours me another glass, looks me in the eye, places her hand on my chest, and pushes me back down onto the loveseat. It is a gesture she used to employ when she was fixing to have her sexual way with me, and it thrilled me to no end, but this time I know her intent is not amorous.

  Instead, she flops down beside me on the loveseat and takes my hand. Again, this is not a romantic gesture but rather one that says I require nothing less of you than consummate honesty.

  “You’re going to tell me why you’re here on Musqasset,” she says.

  . . . . .

  I spill the beans. I tell her everything that went down in my house the night the bad men showed up. I tell her about my stay in the hospital and the “suicide” note. I realize that in order for her to appreciate the significance of these things, I must place them in their proper context. So I also explain my p
revious real suicide attempt (halfhearted though it might have been), my years of hiding out at my mother’s house, my precarious mental state prior to the incident, and the fly-below-the-radar lifestyle I have adopted for the last four years. I do this even though I know it will destroy whatever vestiges of respect, if any, she still harbors for me.

  Worst of all, I tell her about that doomed night after our college graduation party.

  She takes it all in, betraying no judgment, seemingly accepting every detail. Except one. When I’m done telling the whole story, she gathers her brow and bites her lip.

  “So Miles threw the bottle?” she says.

  “Yeah.”

  She faces forward on the loveseat, arms folded in contemplation.

  “Why?” I ask. She doesn’t respond. “Jeannie? Why do you ask?”

  “Can we stop there for tonight, Finn? That’s a lot for one evening. I think I need to sleep. On all of this. Is that okay?”

  “Sure,” I reply. Her reaction to that one detail of my story puzzles me, but I’m keen to make my getaway. Now that I’ve stripped myself naked before her, I don’t want to be in her presence any longer. I don’t want to see the diminished regard in her eyes.

  I am eager to find a horizontal surface and go unconscious for as long as my brain will stay on power-down. It’s nearly eleven anyway. The electricity will be shutting off on the island any minute. The unwritten code of lovers on the island is that if you don’t leave by lights-out, you’re staying the night. The minutes before eleven can be an awkward time.

  I stand and say goodbye. Jeannie takes my face in her hands and shakes her head, then collapses against me in a tired hug. I bury my face in her hair, inhaling its exotic mix of fragrances—even though I don’t feel entitled to—then silently pluck my rain jacket from a chair and schlep to the door.