Esther came up on deck from the salon. Bonjour, bonjour, chérie! She nuzzled Lou-Lou’s hair with her cheek. Esther smelled like melted vanilla ice cream, and Lou-Lou’s face was tickled by the white taffeta roses of her bathing-suit top. Comment vas-tu ? What do you think of our French ami ?
Oh, merci beaucoup.
Ha! Esther laughed. Ha! She shook her head back and forth very fast. Très bien!
Roy dropped the dog. Okay. Let’s get out of here.
He gave a swooping wave to Captain Peeko. The engines roared, and a tall boy, not beautiful like Timmy, ran to toss the ropes and release the gangplank. The poodle shrieked like a tiny fire alarm.
It’s all right, Esther said. She lifted the poodle and cradled him in the fabric rosebuds like an infant. She smiled at Roy and rocked the dog. Pauvre chérie. Poor little boy.
Maybe you better put him downstairs, or we’ll get it from both ends.
Okay, mademoiselle. We’ll take this little guy where he can be comfortable.
In the salon, Esther scattered Roy’s fresh New York Times. The poodle combed the periphery of the room and finally leaped up into the leather ottoman, tucked his nose into his paws, and closed his eyes. Calm at last.
Well, he knows good furniture. Darling? A life jacket?
Back on deck, they all watched as the Wavemaker II pulled out of the basin and into the full channel of the Hudson River where the ocean liners sailed, then Uncle Roy introduced her to Dirk, the first mate. Excellent math skills, said Uncle Roy.
Lou-Lou shook Dirk’s hand.
Give her the tour, go ahead.
Lou-Lou had been on the Wavemaker II many times, but she took the tour. She followed Dirk below. He showed her the blue wavy satin bedspread in the stateroom that looked like a small oblong sea, he showed her the tiny shower with a curved ripple-glass door, and the galley where boxes of Florida red grapefruits stacked in the corner smelled like medicine. He showed her two pink shells mounded with caviar, and chopped eggs and white whipped sour cream under cellophane in the narrow metal fridge. Gross, said Dirk. I guess your father’s some guy.
Business, said Lou-Lou.
You’re lucky. Dirk sighed. My father’s a jackass. Then he took her up to the bow and let her hang off the front tip when Charlie Peeko wasn’t looking.
It was a fast trip to the Statue of Liberty and around the bottom of New York City, already they were coming up the East River. Charlie Peeko steered closer and closer to the highway, past the heliport, past the houses that almost leaned over, terraces dripping off them, past the tunnels like long caves, going faster toward a low square building right next to the water, with silver wires jutting out from the top and a tiny dock, like the dot on a question mark floating on the water.
On the dot she could see two people; the man held a bundle. The wind flapped Lou-Lou’s hair, and when she cleared it, they were that much closer and she could see her mother and her father and the sack that was Bo. Hey! Hey! she yelled.
They can’t hear you, said Dirk.
She could see them, though, her father was there, with short hair, and his face tipped into Bo’s cheek. And Bo was laughing.
What’s so funny?
Lou-Lou’s mother stood up now, shielded her eyes, the wind snapped at her pale skirt, it flicked like a flag, she held it down with the other hand. The Wavemaker II slowed and pulled in closer, engines grinding and reversing, but still they were a long way off.
Uncle Roy came racing up to the bow, Esther behind him. Dirk! Dirk, don’t just stand around gawking, get this thing in the water. He motioned for Charlie Peeko to do something, and the engines sputtered into a lower gear. Esther threw her arms around Lou-Lou’s life jacket and squeezed.
Dirk and Roy lowered the Boston Whaler off the winch and into the channel. Dirk climbed down and pulled the crank to start the motor. Roy swung both legs over the side and dropped into the Whaler. He held tight to the seat and looked ahead, his shoulders straight, deep brown from the sun. Lou-Lou could smell the coconut of his lotion in the air. She watched them skim fast across the channel, Dirk steering with one arm stretched behind him. The bow lifted up like a tipped plate.
Lou-Lou watched her father in the distance, as if watching a movie. He kissed the top of Bo’s head and Bo tilted away, then back for more, like normal. The Whaler sped toward the dock and rocked a little in the wake of a big barge chugging past. Seagulls whirled and screeched.
Dirk scrambled out of the Whaler onto the dock, and then, after Roy yelled something, lay down flat on his stomach, reached with both arms, and held the ropes tight to keep the boat steady. Lou-Lou’s father held Bo close to his chest and carefully, making a kind of basket of his whole body, lowered Bo down. Roy grabbed Bo around the middle and sat abruptly, put two life jackets on him, one in the normal spot and one around Bo’s legs like a blanket.
Her father backed down into the Whaler. Her father with a haircut just like his picture from the marines. Opened his arms to her mother, who went down backward too.
Champagne! Esther danced back toward the salon. Watch her, she hollered to Charlie Peeko on the bridge.
Dirk untied the ropes and made a big leap into the boat. Roy shouted something, but Lou-Lou couldn’t hear it. This time the Whaler didn’t fly along the water. Something slowed them down. The channel was smooth now, but they barely moved. Bo was at the front end in her father’s lap, her father’s hands made an umbrella over Bo’s face to block out the sun. Lou-Lou leaned as far as she could out over the bow and waved. But her mother scanned the water, looked back toward the Statue of Liberty as if she were watching for something. It’s okay, thought Lou-Lou. It’s okay. The Whaler hobbled a tiny bit closer. Roy held the tiller on the engine. And Dirk sat, hands folded, beside him. Not so far, thought Lou-Lou, it’s not so far, and by watching, she was helping. They moved a little closer. That’s good, she thought. She was bringing them to her, with all of her natural abilities and all of her hope. Her mother and her father and her brother, she was helping them, bringing them to her little by little, and now they were almost there.
Acknowledgments
My thanks to Rick Moody for his impeccable attention. Susan Cheever has my devotion. Donald Antrim gave kind-hearted, clear-eyed guidance. Melanie Jackson is a wonder woman.
Thanks to Elisabeth Schmitz for graceful and judicious editing. I am grateful for the fortifying wit of Molly Boren and for Andrea Schaefer’s gentle, wry lucidity.
Thanks to my family: Hugheses, Beesons, Shoemakers, Theeses, McKennas, McCranes, Wirstroms, Shaheens, Hetzlers, and McCarthys. Especially my sister, Paula V. and my friend, Catherine A.
Sara Beeson, Alex Busansky, Brent Spencer, and Judith Kuppersmith offered expertise and clarity. My lasting thanks to all.
Thanks to The Corporation of Yaddo and to the people who work the daily miracles there. Thanks to my friends at the Writing Seminars of Bennington College, and those at the July Program, too.
I am indebted to a number of authors and artists: Robert Neese’s Prison Exposures (his “prank” photo inspired Persephone’s cherries), Murray Kempton’s essay “Undertaking Roy Cohn;” Jonathan Demme’s film “Roy Cohn/Jack Smith,” performance by Ron Vawter; Fool for A Client, Roy M. Cohn; McCarthy by Cohn, Roy M. Cohn; Citizen Cohn by Nicholas Von Hoffman; Autobiography of Roy Cohn by Sydney Zion; and Point of Order!, the documentary by Emile de Antonio.
Most of all, for his infinite generosity, I thank Duke Beeson with all of my heart.
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