“Time to move,” she said.
“Hey, it's been fun.” He was letting go after the long weekend and was sorry to see her leave. She smiled slightly.
“How about a nightcap, Joe?”
“Sure.” She reached into a small bag and handed him a key card. “I really have to go back to my room now. Why don't you come over in about twenty minutes? There's some Chardonnay in the convenience bar.”
“How are you going to get in?” he asked.
“I have another one of these cards—keys—whatever you call them. Room 336.”
“O.K.” She wheeled away and Joe leaned back in his chair. It was dark outside. Rain trickled down the windows softening the harbor lights. He was tired of being alone. He stared at the harbor and savored the feeling of companionship, a circle of two in league against a rainy night. Was it Marx who said that the smallest indivisible human unit was two? He couldn't remember.
He knocked and entered when Isabelle answered. The wheelchair was empty at the end of the bed. He walked past the bathroom and stopped by the bed. Isabelle was under the covers, propped up against several pillows. She had changed into a white nightgown and brushed out her hair. “Good timing, Joe. I'm ready for a glass of wine.”
“Coming up,” he said, embarrassed. He opened the bottle, poured two glasses, and brought one over to her. There was a small table and chair in a dark corner of the room.
“Oh, Joe! Come here so we can talk.” She patted the bed beside her as though he were a cat or a little boy. “Take off your shoes. You might as well be comfortable.” He obeyed slowly. There was a dream like quality in the room, a scent of honeysuckle. She pointed a remote control and skipped through radio stations until she found jazz.
“Adult music,” he said, balancing his wine and sliding next to her.
“All music is adult,” she said, “with the possible exception of disco.”
“Even country,” he added.
“Especially country. `Take this job and shove it.”'
“Ha. You're all right, Isabelle.” They touched glasses. “Is this Coltrane?”
“Yes,” Isabelle said.
“Strange,” Joe said, “most sax players sound the same. Then one grabs you. What is it about Coltrane?”
“Deep stuff,” she said. “So where's Mrs. Joe?”
“Ex-Mrs. Joe. On her way back to Maine, I guess. She was at the wedding. They both were, the ex-Mrs. Joes.”
“Two of them? And you survived?”
“Yep,” Joe said.
“Marriage . . . “ Isabelle said sadly.
“The marriages weren't bad,” Joe said, “just not enough. The kids are grown up, anyway, one of mine—the one that just got married—and one of Ingrid's, Maxie. He lives in Vermont.”
“What does he do?”
“He's working as a carpenter. I think he might be heading into the artist's life.”
“Poor baby.”
“I'm proud of him.”
“Good, Joe.”
“And you? No Mr. Isabelle?”
“Not any more. He died in the wreck that messed me up. He was a bad boy,” she said, smiling sadly.
“I'm sorry.”
“If it hadn't happened there, it would have been somewhere else.” She seemed to say the words more bravely than she felt them. “Let's have some more wine, then.”
He hunched himself off the bed and refilled their glasses. “You're a handsome guy, Joe. Good manners. Tougher than you look. Episcopal, I bet.”
“Right about the Episcopal, anyway. Not that I pay much attention.”
“Is it true that Episcopalians are baptized in Harvey's Bristol Cream?”
“It's true.”
“Lucky Joe.” She took another drink of wine. “I know something about you tough guys.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“You're really just bad boys—and you need to be read to.” She reached for a book on the bedside table. “I am revisiting Anne of Green Gables, by Lucie Maude Montgomerie.”
“Good grief,” Joe said. Isabelle opened to the first page and began reading calmly. Joe stretched his legs and looked at the ceiling. It had been a long few days. Despite himself, he was drawn into the story. Her voice was low and soothing. He nearly fell asleep and spilled the last of his wine. Isabelle took the glass from his hand and turned out the light.
“Your hands are cold,” she said, “get under the covers.” With one arm she pushed him sideways and held up the blanket and sheet. He rolled under and next to her. She took his hand and rested it on her stomach. “That's better,” she said. He registered distantly that he was in bed with a woman he didn't know, but her warm body and the soft cotton nightgown under his hand made that unimportant. It was a good place to be. He snuggled closer and she sighed. He began to caress her stomach slowly. She sighed again and moved her hips closer. His fingertips brushed lightly across her breasts. She tipped her head back. “Careful,” she warned in a constricted voice.
He continued slowly, turning on his side and pushing his face against her upper arm. He brought his hand down and stroked lightly along the curves of her stomach. Isabelle placed her hand on his and pushed it lower, down over her pelvis. He moved closer and rubbed where she guided. Her body tensed. He stretched out, fully aroused against her hip. Her breath came harder. It was important, now, what was happening. He urged her on. She made a loud animal sound through clenched teeth, and then arched and let out a series of sweet whispered collapses. “Bella,” he said into her arm, “Bella . . . “
“Oh—you are such—a bad boy, Joe. Such a bad boy.” She lay still a few moments, regaining her breath, and then reached down and began pulling at his belt. “Oh, take this off.” He slid out of his clothes. “There,” she said. “There.” He was lying on his back as she began to stroke him. “Bella, you called me. I like that,” she said, stroking.
“Bella,” he said, now short of breath himself. “Bella.” She stopped.
“You like your Bella, don't you?”
“Yes.” She started again. She stopped.
“You're a bad boy, aren't you?”
“Yes.” He strained towards her hand.
“A very bad boy.” She gave him another stroke. “But you like your Bella.”
“Yes.”
“You want your Bella?”
“Yes.” She began again slowly. She leaned over him and stopped.
“Say `please' to Bella.”
“Please, Bella.” She started again, bringing him half off the bed straining towards her. Then she stopped. He fell back and began to crack. “Please, Bella.”
“Yes, yes?” She brought him up again and slowed.
“Please, Bella.” The thick glass inside him shattered. He began to beg. “Please. Please, Bella.” He couldn't breathe. His heart was pounding. She stopped. He fell back, groaning. “Please, Bella.” She started again.
“You're a bad boy, Joe.”
“Oh, God,” he said.
“There,” she said. “Now, Joe. Now. Now. Now.” He cried out and spurted over his chest and neck. “Ahhh,” she said as he fell back. She took his hand and pushed it over the warm sperm. She lifted her nightgown and pulled his hand to her stomach. “Make me beautiful,” she said, writhing and slippery. She pushed his hand to his chest and pulled it back again. “Make me beautiful,” she said in a smaller voice, “all over.” Joe tried. He passed out.
In the morning, he awoke to the sounds of animated conversation. He lay with his eyes closed waiting for his brain to unscramble. His head was pounding. Gradually, he realized that he was in bed next to Isabelle and that she was watching TV. He was in bad shape physically, but he felt freer than he had in a long time. “Top of the mornin',” he said lifting his head and opening his eyes.
“I was just going to wake you up,” Isabelle said. He had to blink and focus. She was pale and looked upset. Her arms were folded in front of her, shielding her breasts. “I've ordered breakfast. Room service will be here soon, so I'm afra
id you'll have to go now. I eat breakfast and then I do my work.”
“Oh, O.K., throw me out. All I have to do is—find my room. Are you all right?”
“I'm fine, Joe.”
“O.K.” He staggered up and figured out how to put on his pants. Socks and shoes took a little doing. “Picking up speed . . . “ She kept watching the TV. “Isabelle?” She turned her head and shushed him with one finger to her lips.
“Just go, Joe,” she said tightly. She meant it.
“But . . . “ he didn't even know her last name. “Isabelle, I'm in the book. Give me a call.” She smiled. Joe couldn't tell whether she was glad that he wanted her to call or whether she was forgiving him for things he didn't understand. He wanted to hug her, but he knew that he shouldn't. She changed channels. He blew her a slow kiss and left.
The room waiter pushed a stainless steel cart past him in the hall as he tried to remember his room number. He thought it was 437. He didn't want to go down to the lobby and admit to the desk clerk that he was too messed up to remember his room number. He took the elevator up one floor. Go for it, he told himself, and slid the card into the lock. A green light flashed. Yes! He entered his room and considered the bed, still made. What the hell, might as well keep going, he thought. He showered and lugged the Filson bag down to the restaurant where he ate a waffle with strawberries, drank coffee and two glasses of water. He assessed the situation.
You're in Seattle, Joe.
Airport.
Take bus?
Save money.
It was a smiley morning. The waitress and the desk clerk were in good moods. The trolley driver was singing. The sun was shining; that must have had something to do with it. He got off the trolley at the end of the line and caught a city bus to SeaTac. He was hours early and had saved thirty bucks by not taking a taxi. He snoozed and spaced out all the way to Hawaii and home.
“Hi, Batman. Where's the party?” Batman maintained a tolerant silence. Joe took two aspirin and slept for fourteen hours.
14
Friday morning Joe walked to the farmer's market and bought onions, bok choy, lettuce, and carrots. The prices were good; the locals were cheerful; it was a good deal for everyone. It was late September, and there were fewer tourists around. A lone conga beat tumbled and surged across Kapiolani Park. The smell of grilling teriyaki drifted across the grass. Small cumulus clouds blew out to sea.
Joe sat on the last beach before Diamond Head, a place where he and Sally and Kate had often come on weekends. An older man—the age Joe was now—used to park his car and carry a rubber raft to the water. His dog would jump into the raft, and the man would push it out, swimming slowly, until they were a hundred yards offshore. He would climb into the raft and write in a notebook while his dog rested and kept watch. The deeply tanned man and the black raft floated up and down, a dark silhouette on the glinty ocean. Occasionally the man paddled to keep from drifting too far down the beach. Probably 80 now, if he's still alive, Joe thought.
“Time to get serious.” The words appeared like a banner in Joe's mind. To his surprise, he had told the woman at the San Juan Yacht Club that he was a poet. The words were true as he spoke them. He had defined himself, for better or worse. Whether he wrote stories or poems didn't matter—he could do both. What mattered was to get to work.
Isabelle was on to something with the patchwork quilt. The faces and feelings that he described were important, but—as patches. He needed to carry his writing further and work on the quilt. Isabelle? He shook his head feeling a slight flush. She was a sharpie, no doubt about it. She got right to him. But she was well down the alcoholic road. She didn't have to work. She didn't have children. Joe couldn't see what would bring her back. It wasn't the drinking, so much, that put him off. It was the lack of pride or purpose or will power that the drinking implied. Just as well, he thought, that there was an ocean between them.
“You could define adult life as the struggle not to drink too much,” he said to Mo at Hee Hing's the following week. He was telling her about Isabelle, leaving out the sex.
“There's too much to do to feel awful all the time,” she said.
“Quite right. But some people don't get hangovers; they're just a little fuzzy in the morning. Ingrid was like that. I can't take it. Tea, that's the stuff,” he said, drinking from a small round cup. “So, what have you been doing?”
“Oh, the usual,” she said. “I've been over to Kauai a few times. I got a decent shot of the cook at Tops.”
“Jade Willow Lady,” Joe said.
“Yes. I'm framing a large one for my next show—whenever that is.”
“I'm anxious to see it. I forgot to tell you: after we talked last, I checked out graduate schools and applied to Montpelier. They accepted me for the semester that starts right after Christmas.”
“Congratulations!”
“Yeah, pretty good, huh? Joe Burke, software bum, goes for an MFA. But I'm not sure I should.”
“Why not?”
“Pretty expensive,” Joe said.
“What would it cost?”
“$3800 a semester, times four.” He frowned. “I've got enough to get started, but I'd run out before the second semester.”
“There's loan money for graduate school,” Mo said.
“I guess. It doesn't make sense from a financial point of view; I'll never get a teaching job. But I think I could learn something.”
“You have to make a commitment,” Mo said firmly.
“The winter residency is in Florida. For `housemates preference,' I requested older women of independent means.”
“They can be difficult,” Mo said. “How come Florida? I thought the school was in Vermont.”
“The summer session is in Vermont. I think it was a faculty decision. They leased a hotel in the panhandle.” Joe scratched his head. “I don't know. One way of looking at it is that part of the money would pay for a vacation in Florida. It's way over near Alabama. I've never been in that part of the state.”
Mo placed her chopsticks neatly across her plate and wiped her mouth with a napkin. She began to fidget.
“Well, onward,” Joe said. “You want to go exploring sometime? Look at things?”
“Mmm.” She looked out the window. “I'm awfully busy for the next while . . . “
He sighed dramatically. “I'll just have to go myself. Maybe when I get back from Florida?”
“Give me a call,” she said. They left, as usual, in opposite directions on Kapahulu Avenue. She was like a figure on a Japanese fan, slowly unfolding, then snapped shut. Let it be, he thought.
He spent the next few days working on a story about the time he and Morgan found a cache of dynamite hidden by the Weathermen, a radical group in the late 60's. He described the lost note that led them to a deserted house at the end of a road, the cold cloudy December afternoon, the shock of discovering a duffel bag in the crawl space under the house, the cardboard tubes of explosive, the tangle of blasting caps, and the ominous silence. But, as he went on to write about the FBI, the local lawyer, and the lawyer's wife, he began to lose focus. One thing led to another. Was he writing a story or a novel? Again he realized that he had a lot to learn.
He was worried about money, but he put off looking for a job. He couldn't decide whether or not to go to Florida? How many hours could he work if he became a full time student? One evening, he swung through his door, stood by the blinking red light on his answering machine, and heard Ann say in a sad voice, “Joe, I'm sorry to have to shock you like this. Your father died—yesterday. Please call me if you get in by eleven or so, our time.”
“Damn!” he said. “Damn.”
It was seven-thirty—past midnight, Maine time. He got a reduced fare to Boston for the following afternoon on an emergency basis and began putting things into his Filson bag and then taking them out. He couldn't feel anything. He gave up packing, lowered himself to his mattress, and waited a long time for sleep.
In the morning, he called Ann
to tell her that he would be there the next day in the afternoon. She said that she'd give him the details when he got there. His father had died of a heart attack. He told her to keep her chin up and said that he'd call Kate.
“Kate?”
“Hi, Dad.”
“Honey, I've got bad news. Your grandfather died—the day before yesterday.” She let out a small cry and was silent. “I just found out. Ann called. I'm going out there for a couple of days.”
“Oh, poor Grandpa. I had a dream about him last week. He was standing by the painting he gave me—the one of the woman in the barn door—and he was smiling at me, very loving and kind. Oh . . . “ She sobbed, and her voice got farther away as though she had dropped her arms.
“I'm sorry, Honey. He had a good life,” Joe said helplessly.
“He pau hana, now,” she said.
“Yeah,” Joe said. “I call you when I get back, huh?”
“O.K., Dad.”
“O.K. Bye, Honey.”
“Bye, Dad.”
He packed two changes of clothes, a sweater, and a jacket. It was nearly November, practically winter in Maine. “So long, Batman. Hold the fort.” It was a relief to trot down the stairs and get moving.
At midnight, Boston time, he emerged stiffly from the plane and walked into Logan terminal. He rented a small car and stopped for the night at the first motel he came to on Route 1.
15
Joe opened his eyes, blinked, and realized that he was in a motel in Massachusetts. He drove to Portland and stopped at Becky's on the waterfront. Several regulars were in their usual seats. One of the waitresses had gained a few pounds. Joe ate breakfast and sat over a second cup of coffee, enjoying the voices and feeling that he'd changed since he left Maine. He felt better—tougher and more himself. But he was sad for his father, and he had a sense of loss for things left behind, his Maine life, no longer quite remembered.
He left a big tip and hit the road. Deer Isle is out between Penobscot Bay and Jericho Bay. It's a romantic place, softer than the rest of Maine. The light is warmer. Probably that was what attracted his father, Joe thought. He took the fast route through Augusta and Belfast. Three and a half hours later, the Deer Isle Bridge came suddenly into view, high, too thin, an arrow shot gracefully over Eggemoggin Reach. Joe could not drive over it without remembering that its sister bridge in Tacoma shook itself to pieces.
Joe Burke's Last Stand Page 10