by Nancy Star
As soon as she heard Mimi’s voice, she knew something was wrong. “She’s okay,” her sister assured her, and then she explained. Glory got ahold of a new kettle, put it on the burner, turned on the flame, and fell asleep.
“Didn’t the whistle wake her?”
“I guess not. The smoke alarm didn’t wake her, either. Neither did the doorbell. Maybe her hearing is gone. Thank god a neighbor heard the alarm and called 911. The firemen broke down her door with an ax. One of us has to go over and get her. I don’t know why they called me and not you.” Ginger saw her message light flashing but said nothing. “The fireman told me she seemed confused. He said she shouldn’t be on her own anymore. How can that be? She’s not that old.”
Ginger agreed. “But she’s not that young, either. It can happen. Anytime.” She sighed. “There’ve been signs. Which we’ve ignored. The question now is, what do we do about it?”
“Well, she can’t move in here. Neil’s already told me that would not be okay. Plus, we all know she’d be much happier living with you.”
“Maybe,” Ginger said. “It’s just not a good time. I’m having trouble with Julia.”
“Hello. Of course you are. She’s a teenager. Now imagine she’s a boy, multiply it by three, and welcome to my life.”
“I’m having problems with Richard too.”
“Oh.” This gave Mimi pause. Through the phone Ginger could hear voices. Mom? Uncle Eddy’s here. Mom, Uncle Eddy’s dog just pooped. Mom, I think Wallace broke my toe. “Okay. I’ll take her tonight. Just tonight. Can you bring her over? It’s chaos here.”
“Sure,” Ginger said and quickly got off the phone before her sister could change her mind.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Beach emissaries appeared on their second day, girls, some as young as Callie, shyly proffering peaches, plums, and soda. But other than that token politeness, no one seemed curious about the Tangle children. They’d already been quickly sized up as just passing through and not worth the time.
For Ginger, this was a relief. From her position next to Mimi, on straw mats at the periphery of the crowd, she could keep a distant eye on the movements of the beach children. Like a single organism, they darted in and out of the water and then circled back to the blankets and chairs with intermittent regularity, all dripping wet and then all streaked with sand, all of them always hungry.
At first Ginger thought they were all related, but after watching for a while she figured out this was only because they’d spent so much time together it no longer mattered whose towel they used to dry off or whose sweatshirt they put on if they were cold. When someone complained of being hungry, someone else would grab the nearest bag of chips, and no one bothered asking if that was okay. As for which kid belonged to which grown-up, that didn’t seem to make a difference either. Announcements were made to the crowd—I’m going to the dunes or to the cliffs or to the water—and answers came back in a chorus. Okay, sounds good, have fun.
The day the little girls came with their offering of peaches in a plastic bag, Ginger noticed Mr. Diggans watching and realized he was the one who’d sent them over. Later that day, Thomas stopped by—trailing a tail of boys—to invite them along on an expedition. “Gathering rocks. For the bonfire later. If you want to come.”
Ginger declined for both of them, and when Mimi complained that she wanted to go, Ginger had to explain: “He only asked because Mr. Diggans made him.”
On the third day when they met Mr. Diggans on South Road, he flicked a petal off the side of his Impala with his thumb and said, “Okay, Morning Glory. Your turn to lead the way.”
Glory seemed unsure. “You’ll be right behind me? You won’t let us get lost?”
“I’ll be close as your shadow.” And he did stay close, even when Glory’s pace quickened, her speed so brisk Callie had to run to keep up. At the tricky spot where the path split, Glory forged ahead without hesitation. And at the first plank of wood she hopped onto the board and balanced with her arms in the air, like a gymnast about to explode into a routine.
“No falling in the bog on my watch,” Mr. Diggans called out, and Glory laughed, pretending to teeter before quickly righting herself and continuing on, graceful and sure-footed, all the way to the sandy beach. Mission accomplished, she turned and curtsied.
Mr. Diggans applauded. “Morning Glory, you could pass as a washashore. My guide services are no longer needed.”
“A washashore? Me? What a darling thing to say.”
After that, they hiked in on their own, always scanning for Mr. Diggans’ brindle sandals at the shoe pile upon arrival. When the sandals were there, dark spots marking the indentations of his toes, Glory was giddy. When they weren’t, it felt as if the sun had withdrawn from the sky.
Ginger continued to study her mother, watching as her chair moved deeper, every day, in small increments, deeper into the core of the crowd. Glory had made adaptive alterations. Her red lipstick was replaced by something pale that made her lips look like they were always wet and her mauve nail polish was off, swapped for a pale pink called nude. She was using her acting voice all the time now, with her not real smile, and her extra-high laugh. But every now and then, Ginger saw, her mother would sit perfectly still and Ginger knew, she was watching too, curious about these people who seemed to let nothing bother them.
Glory pointed this out in the car on the way back from a long day at the beach. “No one fusses about anything. Did you see that boy who came today? The one with the floppy hat?”
Of course Ginger saw him. The boy—he looked about her age—had walked in from one of the houses back behind the cove with Minty, Mr. Diggans’ sister, and another woman Ginger assumed was his mom. His hat made him hard to miss. It was floppy and bright purple, with a giant green feather sprouting from the top like an antenna. It was big too, much too big for the boy’s small head. But what caught Ginger’s interest even more than his hat was what he did. The boy stood at the shoreline by himself all day, gathering seaweed. He’d pick up clumps from the sand or wade in and grab gobs from the water, and then very slowly he’d untangle the strands, carefully examining each one. He threw most of them back into the sea, but every once in a while, when he found a strand he liked, he let out a loud, “Whoop,” and added it to his collection.
“I asked Minty what was wrong with him,” Glory said. “Such an odd duck. Standing in one spot all day and letting out those whoops. But Minty said, No, he’s fine. A little different but fine. Collecting seaweed makes him happy. Entertains himself all day long. Nothing wrong with that. And she’s right. I watched him. Boy spent the whole day staring at seaweed, happy as a clam. And no one makes a fuss. Imagine.”
The people who never fussed didn’t even mind when the biting flies came the next morning. The insects arrived while Ginger was unrolling her mat and though the flies were practically invisible, together they made up a dark cloud that swarmed everywhere, up her nose, into her ears, and down the front of her shirt. But like her mother said, no one complained. It was just another excuse to have a good time. “Cover up,” someone called, and a chorus followed: “Who needs a towel?” “Who needs a refill?” “Who’s got the ice?”
Blankets were thrown and yanked over heads, and people made toasts with plastic cups beneath thin sheets. And when the winged invaders suddenly reconsidered their attack and left, disappearing in a gray cloud down the beach, the makeshift tents were tossed aside, more drinks were poured, and everyone went on as if the stinging midges had never been there at all.
When Glory, her golden hair an unlikely mess, noticed Ginger staring, she stretched out her legs, wiggled her toes, and said, “Is this the life or what?”
“Such good-natured people,” she said on the way home that night. “No complain-o-grams. Not a sourpuss in the bunch. Have you ever seen anything like it?”
The Tangle children tried to make themselves good-natured, but no matter how much Glory wished they would become part of the blur of the beach children, ra
cing in and out of the water, flushed and happy, bodies glistening with a dusting of damp sand, she was stuck being the mother of Charlie and Callie, who refused to do anything but dig a hole to China, and Mimi, who had come up with a rival project of her own, building a rock tower to the moon. Ginger irked her most of all, using her reflector not to improve her tan but as a shield in front of her face, so people would leave her alone.
The announcement came on the fourth day, in the car, on the drive to the beach. “Mr. Diggans is bringing us lunch today. Lobster. And don’t tell me you don’t like it, because you’ve never tried it.” Her eyes checked the rearview mirror. “He’ll have other things. It’ll be a buffet. By the cliffs. Just us.”
“Do we have to be naked?” Mimi asked. “Is Mr. Diggans going to be naked? I don’t like him.” She shrugged. “Can’t help who you don’t like.”
“Tell me.” Glory’s calm tone was not to be trusted. “While you’re building towers and you’re digging to China and you’re refusing to socialize, to whom do you imagine I am speaking?”
“Car!” Ginger yelled and closed her eyes.
The car coming toward them on Fisher’s Hollow swerved just in time, and Glory jammed on the brakes. She pulled over to catch her breath and glanced at Ginger. Her eyes took in the out-of-control hair and constricting swimsuit. The three safety pins keeping it closed were not enough to hide that her suit was two sizes too small. “Heavens to Murgatroyd. When did those things pop out?”
“I don’t know.” Ginger crossed her arms over her chest.
“We’ll have to do something about it. But not today. Today, Mr. Diggans is making us lunch.” She pulled back onto the road and they traveled in silence to the grassy shoulder where everyone noticed—but no one said—theirs was the only car.
Mimi, first one out, checked for traffic and raced across the street before her mother could stop her. She waited at the shoe corral to make her report. “His sandals aren’t here.”
Glory marched down the beach with a steely gait. When they passed the woman and the boy with the floppy hat, she waved but didn’t stop to say hello. Halfway to the cliffs she dropped her gear and brushed a loose strand of hair out of her eyes, leaving a dusting of fine sand on her forehead. With a sharp intake of breath, she lifted the umbrella pole high in the air and jammed it into the sand hard, as if she’d been practicing stabbing vampires in her sleep. She opened a chair and sat down with a sigh.
“Are you all right?” Ginger asked.
“For god sake. Do you want to worry both of us into an early grave?” She pulled her compact out of the beach bag, reapplied her pale lipstick, and stretched out her legs.
“I’m starving,” Mimi announced.
Glory kept her gaze steady on the horizon. “Starve where I can’t hear you. Gingie, take everyone to the water. You’re in charge. Don’t let anyone drown. We’ll eat when Mr. Diggans gets here.” She seemed to have no doubt he would arrive soon.
They marched in a sullen line to the shore and sat on the wet sand, kicking away clumps of seaweed as it washed onto their feet. Someone’s stomach grumbled, but they couldn’t figure out whose. Mimi stood up and turned toward their umbrella. “He’s here.”
When they got to the blanket, Mr. Diggans gave them each a small brown bag. “Martha’s Vineyard fudge. Best in the world.”
Mimi peered inside in case there was something else hiding. “Lunch is fudge?”
“Lunch. I forgot.” Mr. Diggans sank to his knees beside Glory. “Can you forgive me?” He shook his head and put his hands to his heart. “A fool. That’s what I am. A sorry fool.”
But Glory did not want Mr. Diggans to be sorry. “There is no reason on earth you should be worrying about my children’s lunch. Four of them, hungry all the time. They’re like beggars, really. You should have seen the meal we had before we came. I’m surprised we fit in the car.”
“Let me make it up to you. What about a picnic tomorrow. At sea? Do you like to sail?”
“That is absolutely not necessary,” Glory said. “Do you have a boat?”
“I have friends with boats. What do you say, Morning Glory. We’ll have a lunchtime sail past the grandest houses on the island. From a boat you can see everything.”
“You don’t by any chance know where Lillian Hellman’s house is, do you?”
“What kind of washashore would I be if I didn’t know that?”
“I can’t go on a boat,” Ginger told him. “I get seasick.”
“I get seasick too,” Mimi tried.
Glory laughed. “You do not. And I’ll bring crackers for you, Gingie. You’ll be fine.”
Mr. Diggans begged forgiveness one more time, and they packed up their stuff to move to the encampment so that he could see who was around who had a boat.
The full crowd had arrived and soon talk turned to dinner. “We already ate,” Glory said, to be a good sport. But when the fire got going, bowls and platters of food making the rounds, she relented. “Divine,” she said of the skewered shrimp. “To die for,” she said as she took another clam.
After dinner the crowd separated: adults in a sloppy circle on one side; kids gathering on the other. Ginger felt like she didn’t belong in either group, but Mimi pulled her along to where the beach children sat discussing tomorrow’s big event, the digging of the Cut.
“What’s that?” Mimi asked.
“That’s when they open the pond to the sea,” Thomas told her. “Here, I’ll show you.” He gathered rocks and shells to demonstrate. “Say this pile of rocks is the ocean.” He dropped a pile of rocks and then, a few inches away, made another pile of shells. “Say the shells are the pond.” He went on to explain how in the morning a big digger was going to make a trench through the sand between the pond and the ocean. At first it would be a small channel, just a trickle of water from the pond to the sea. But the ocean current was strong, and the water was like a drill. “By tomorrow night the trench will be wide as a river. A crazy river with pond water zooming into the ocean and ocean water zooming into the pond. Like a river roller coaster with current going both ways.”
“I want to go to the Cut.” Callie stood up. “I want to ride on the river roller coaster.”
“You can’t,” Thomas told her. The demonstration was over. “We’re not allowed. We’re not even supposed to know when they do it. They try to keep it secret. It’s dangerous.”
Callie grabbed Charlie’s arm. “Can you take me to the river roller coaster tomorrow?”
“No.” Charlie shook his head. “He just said it’s dangerous.”
Callie tried Ginger next. “Can you take me?” Callie was not normally a pest. Tagging along with her brother and sisters was usually all it took to make her happy. But now—was she finally growing up?—she seemed determined to get her way.
“Didn’t you hear what Charlie and Thomas said?” Ginger asked. “It’s not safe. We’re not allowed.”
When Callie moved on to try her luck with Mimi, Ginger asked Thomas why they made a cut in the pond if it wasn’t safe.
Thomas shrugged. “Not sure. But when they don’t, the water goes bad. If we went there now, before they open the pond, you could smell it. Smells like dead fish.”
Callie was back. “Can we go tomorrow to smell it?”
Charlie and Ginger said, “No,” and Mimi added, “You’re acting stupid.”
“Mom will say yes,” Callie insisted, and she stomped off to give her mother a try.
“Don’t worry,” Thomas said. “No one will let her. Last summer someone drowned.”
“Every summer someone drowns,” a girl corrected him.
While the beach children reminisced about drownings and other catastrophes, Ginger glanced over at the circle of adults and was relieved to see that Callie, having been turned down, had moved on to doing an interpretive dance of what she thought swimming in the Cut might look like. The crowd, faces illuminated around the bonfire, watched in delight. A fragment of her mother’s boasting—dancing’s i
n her genes—flitted through the wind. A woman started singing a sea shanty, and Callie began to twirl. More voices joined in. Beach children wandered over to listen and dance with her sister.
“There was an old man in the north country.” At first Ginger couldn’t find her mother in the crowd. “Bow down, bow down.” But then she picked out her voice. “He had daughters one, two, three.” Glory claimed to have perfect pitch, but since she didn’t know any of the lyrics, she sang half a beat behind, to blend in. “Love will be true, true to my love. Love will be true to you.” The song ended in laughter, and it was time to go.
At the house, Glory, still glowing from the day, announced they could stay up late. They sat on the steps of the deck, counting stars and swaying like a bunch of drunken sailors. Callie asked them to sing the sea shanty song so she could dance again, but none of them knew the words, so they made up nonsense words instead. Ginger wished there was a way to make time slow down. Glory stood up and beckoned her. They both stepped out onto the dark of the lawn.
“There’s going to be a bonfire at the beach tomorrow night. Adults only. How would you feel about babysitting for a few hours? For Thomas too. I’ll pay you, of course. You don’t mind, do you?” The phone rang before Ginger could respond. Glory ran in the house to answer it. Back on the deck, Ginger could hear through the open window the sharp edge of her mother’s question.
“Tomorrow? As in, tomorrow, tomorrow? What time? You’ll practically have to get up in the middle of the night to make that ferry. No, I’m just saying, why rush like it’s an emergency?” Her voice went steely. “Of course I’m happy you’re coming. Swear to god, I am being strangled by worrywarts.” There was silence, and then the flick-flick, flick-flick of the porch light switching on and off, a signal that Glory wanted them inside.
In the living room they stood and watched her empty a puzzle box onto the table. She looked up. “What am I? A TV program? Are you waiting for the commercial to come on?”
“Can we go back out?” Mimi asked. “To look for shooting stars?”