The Sisters from Hardscrabble Bay

by Beverly Jensen

  Mumma looked down at me. “He did,” she said. “He surely did.”

  Of course, Avis never saw Fred again after that. And his aunt stopped coming to the beauty salon.

  Aunt Avis had other boyfriends, lots. I met some, heard about others. Fred must have looked pretty good to her, in retrospect, if she ever thought about him. Avis didn’t have too good a track record.

  I got a new dress the next morning that was more expensive than anything I’d ever had. It was a beautiful dark blue material with a certain shine to it. Avis said it was the cat’s meow. I loved that dress. Daddy never noticed that I came home wearing a different dress from the one I’d left in. He never heard a word about our ride in the country.

  For years afterward, though, whenever Mumma and Aunt Avis and I were together, one of us might look up and say, “Oh, I do wish I had a nice glass of cherry cider. It would be so refreshing.” And we would all three start giggling. Daddy would look up from his newspaper or his supper plate and shake his head—or even leave the room—knowing that he was being kept out of another secret between the two of them, those sisters. But this time I knew what they were laughing about. I knew. So I stayed in the room and laughed with them.

  Part Four

  Edward on the Road

  Prescott Mills, Maine

  June 1956

  “Christ, I got to get back to the garage. It’s after two.” Edward was fastening his watch back onto his wrist. Iris had somehow gotten it off him with her teeth. There were tooth marks in the leather. How’d he explain that to Idella? He pulled on his pants, flicking off bits of twigs and pine needles. “I got a customer said he was coming by later. Lookin’ for a trade-in. I hope there’s no ants crawling around in these legs.”

  “Oh, Eddie, let’s not go yet. What’s the rush? People always say they’ll come back to the showroom, and you never see ’em again.” Iris was sitting cross-legged on the ground picking at a pinecone with those long nails of hers. She was wearing nothing but Edward’s sport jacket around her shoulders. Her clothes were scattered across the ground behind her.

  He and Iris never even made it into the camp today, onto one of the camp beds with the lumpy mattresses—like rolling around on cottage cheese, Iris’d said the first time he brought her up here. Today she wanted to “do it” outside, hidden by the trees, to celebrate spring. She’d made him lie down on the ground behind the picnic table, tree roots jabbing into his backside no matter where he got, and wait till she took everything off him. It drove him crazy, wanting to grab onto her bare behind and roll over on top of her and grind her into the leaves. He’d barely held on, till she finally lay down on top of him and started pushing her tits into his mouth. God. Nothing like Idella’s little sacks. Nothing.

  “Let’s get those bathing suits out of mothballs, Eddie, and go for a swim.” Iris had been through every drawer in the camp.

  “I’m not going to bother them things Idella’s got packed. We’ve moved things around in there enough.” Edward carried his shoes and socks over to the picnic table and sat on a bench. Iris had wild ideas. It was damn cold on that ground, and one of them little bush things had prickles. There were scratches all up and down him.

  “She’ll just think it’s kids breaking in, using the place in the winter. Let’s get the suits and take a swim.”

  Iris had laughed and laughed that first day, when Edward told her the walls of the camp were knotty pine. She’d thought he’d made the joke on purpose. “We’re sure being naughty,” she’d said laughingly, and that’s what she called the camp now, “Naughty Pine.” Edward smiled thinking of it.

  Iris gathered all the pieces of the pinecone she’d picked apart and threw them into the trees. “There. Scattering seeds, Eddie. Next year there’ll be a tree with my name on it.” She stood up.

  Edward saw that his jacket came down to her knees. She looked little, with just her legs sticking out, and the jacket covering all them soft curves and them big tits. Like lobster buoys, the way they bobbed around in her sweaters and stayed firm. Iris’s body had so many places you could squeeze and hold on to. Idella was all bones—bones and bird legs.

  “Come on, Eddie, let’s go into the water.”

  “Jesus, Iris, it’s barely June. You see anybody else swimming?”

  “Just a little dip? To say we did?”

  “Iris, I got a customer coming. That bastard Murphy’ll take him right out from under me if the guy shows up and I’m not there.” Iris sat down next to him on the bench, pulling his jacket open a little so her tits were showing. “He sold three cars last week, and two of ’em were mine. I spend a whole morning with some guy, give him the sell—”

  “Eddie, your hair’s all mussed.” Iris took his comb from his inside coat pocket. “Look straight ahead.”

  “I give them the sell. . . . They say they got to go think about it, check out another showroom. . . . What can I do?”

  “Keep your head still.”

  “And then when they come back to the showroom and I’m not there, that Murphy guy robs me. ‘Sure, Eddie,’ he says with that shit-eating grin, ‘take some time. Go for a test-drive in one of them new Plymouths. Can’t spend your whole life sitting in here.’ Mr. Friendly. The bastard.”

  “Eddie, we had such a nice time. Wasn’t it worth it, to spend some time with little ol’ me?” She was pulling bits of dried leaves out of his hair and running her fingers around the inside of his ear. “He’s right, you know. You can’t stay in that showroom every waking moment. You’ve got to have some fun.”

  “What’s this on my collar?” Edward was buttoning his shirt. “It’s on the sleeve, too. Pitch. Holy Christ, I’m covered in pitch. How am I gonna explain that to Idella?”

  “Oh, Eddie, don’t tell her anything. Tell her it’s none of her business.” Iris scraped at the streaks of pitch with her long fingernails. “You never go through her clothes and ask about spots and spills, do you? So why should she go through yours?”

  “She goes through ’em, all right. Goes through my pockets. She don’t miss a thing. So don’t be slipping any more notes in them. She could of found that last one.”

  “What if she did? Who cares?” Iris unbuttoned the top of his shirt.

  “Iris, don’t start that.” He brushed her hands away. “We’re done here. Get your clothes on. We got to get out of here.”

  “Here. I’ll scrape that sticky old pitch off with my teeth.” Iris pushed herself up against him and started biting at the smear of pitch on his shirt collar. She slowly moved her hands down his sides and between his legs. She rubbed them gently up and down along his inner thighs. “Mmmmm. It smells so woodsy. It tastes good.” He could feel his dick rising up to her hand and nodding hello. She stopped and smiled at him. “You want a taste? It’s in my mouth now.”

  Edward grinned and pulled her over onto his lap, up against him. “That’s not all that’s going to be in your mouth.” He stood up, stuck his knee between her legs, and rolled her down onto the cold, wet ground.

  “Oh, I love a swim after making love! You shouldn’t have gotten out so soon, Eddie.” Iris dropped Idella’s swimsuit down to her ankles and flicked it onto the ground with her foot. “I’m glad to get that off. I felt like a lamp shade with that little skirt going all around.” Iris liked making fun of Idella’s things. “And I’m so cold!” She laughed and hugged herself, rubbing her arms up and down her bare sides. “You never even got all the way in, Eddie. You never took your glasses off.”

  “I got in far enough.”

  “Uh-oh. You’ve got your hat on. I know what that means. Eddie’s ready.”

  Edward was all dressed. He leaned against his car and watched as Iris started to pull on all her layers of clothes. She was frisky, getting things on quick, hopping around. He took his cigarettes out of his shirt pocket. His hands were so stiff and prickly he could barely shake one out of the pack. His fingers were as white as his cigarettes. That damn water’d about killed him. His balls had shrunk up to the
size of them hardball candies Idella sold at the store—“hot balls,” the kids called them. He laughed. Nothing hot about his.

  “You ought to learn to swim, Eddie. It’s so refreshing.” Iris was bent sideways knocking water out of her ears.

  “You said I’m fresh enough already.”

  “And we could do it in the water.” Iris pulled her dress down over her wet head and smiled at him through the neck hole. “There’s ways to do it floating in the water.”

  “Yeah? How would you know that?” She bent her arms around her back and tugged up the zipper. He hated to think of her “doing it” with anyone else. Course she had. She’d been around. Was married to Dickie for years. Now she called herself a divorcée because it sounded French—like from France, she’d say, not Canada.

  “I bet you and Idella never did it in the water.” Edward watched as Iris carefully unrolled her nylons and slid them up her legs. It was like wearing a rubber, he thought, a rubber on each leg. She said she was too old for any buns in her oven, so he didn’t have to bother with wearing them damn things. Pain in the ass, them rubbers. Always leaking or coming off.

  Iris didn’t have any kids. She’d waited and waited to get pregnant with Dickie, but nothing happened. He and Idella kept getting babies when they weren’t looking. One goddamn girl after another, four of them, seven years between each. The seven-year itch, everyone said when they heard that, winking. Some Marilyn Monroe movie. If he’d a been married to Marilyn Monroe, it wouldn’t be no seven years between. And it wouldn’t be all girls.

  “I bet you and Idella never did it anywhere but in your lumpy old bed at home. I bet she keeps her nightgown on the whole time.”

  “Let’s get a move on.” How did Iris know that? Smart woman. He looked at his watch. Christ. He ground his cigarette out in the leaves and opened his car door. “Get in.”

  “What’ll I do with these, Eddie?” Iris picked the wet swimsuits from off the ground and dangled them in front of him. “Hang them on a tree?”

  “You better give ’em to me, or Idella’ll find them. She wants to come on Sunday to open the camp.” Edward took the cold suits from her. He opened his glove compartment and crammed them in, slamming the door shut.

  “You didn’t tell me that.” Iris slipped on her shoes.

  “What?”

  “That you were coming up here on Sunday with her to open up.”

  “I forgot.” Edward started the motor. “I was thinking of other things.” He smiled at her and patted the seat next to him. “Get in.” Iris got her pocketbook and pulled her sweater tight around her and got in. She pushed herself up next to him. Her thigh felt cold against his, even through her dress.

  He backed slowly down the bumpy driveway and swung carefully around onto the camp road. It was all full of potholes and oozing spring mud the color of shit. The car would sink into one of them suckers if he didn’t drive right, and they’d be in it past the hubcaps. “Don’t be talking to me on this road, Iris. I got to concentrate.”

  “You do the driving, Eddie. I’ll be good.” She gave his knee a pat.

  Edward leaned forward to see what was coming up ahead. He’d take it slow, try to be patient, one muck hole at a time. He had to get back to the showroom. He wouldn’t try to explain his long lunch. Let them bastards roll their eyes. What did he care? It was none of their business what he did.

  Murphy called him “the weasel”—Irish bastard. Worse than the French, them Irish. “That Eddie, he’s the weasel,” Murphy would say, in front of Jones and Battier, slapping him on the back like it was a great joke. “He can sniff out a customer from behind a rock.” Well, what were you supposed to do? Sit on your ass and wait for them to come running up to you? Edward Jensen was a real salesman. He’d sold more cars in his life than that Murphy had farts coming out of his ass. And that was saying something. Edward laughed, relieved, as he bumped to the end of the road and turned out onto Route 9.

  “What are you laughing at?” Iris smiled over at him. She didn’t like being left out of anything.

  “Nothing.”

  “Some kind of cute nothing.” She pulled at his ear as he came to a stop. They always parked her car at this rest area. It was a slate blue Plymouth Savoy with twenty-two thousand miles on it. A good car. Edward sold it to her last October. She’d sat so close to him on the test drive, and leaned over and asked about the lights, and then the radio, and then the turn signal, sidling up closer as she moved her fingers across the dashboard. Then she’d looked in the rearview mirror and said what beautiful blue eyes he had, and such nice dark eyebrows, and that was how it got started. And then him telling her he thought she had nice tits. Or that they must be nice, the way they poked at her blouse so nice, saying hello, and she said she’d be glad to show them to him sometime, and then he’d just kept on driving and they’d ended up having quite an afternoon. And he’d made a sale, too.

  Edward squeezed her knee. It was still cold. “Okay. I got to get on back.”

  Iris was looking at him, her hair wet and clumped around her head. “When we gonna see each other, Eddie, if Idella takes the camp away from us? Where we gonna meet if we can’t use Naughty Pine?”

  “I dunno.” Edward hadn’t thought beyond this afternoon. “Your place?”

  “You know we can’t meet there. My mother never goes out.”

  “I can’t think about this now, Iris. I got to get back.”

  “Okay, Eddie.” Iris got out and closed the door.

  “We’ll find someplace, Iris, don’t worry.”

  “It’s too good not to, isn’t it, Eddie?” She blew him a kiss.

  He pulled his car around, headed back toward Portland, and gave a little wave into the rearview mirror as he picked up speed.

  Edward was hungry. He thought he’d get a burger, maybe a cup of coffee, before going back. Idella’d made one of them cream-cheese-and-green-olive things for his lunch, but he’d eaten it at a red light on his way in. He hated red lights. Couldn’t stand sitting there feeling the engine throb, seeing other cars move. There was nothing worse than making a left across traffic. Those bastards coming in the other lane never let him in, never slowed up. He liked to be driving alone, no one to bother him—except dumb-assed drivers that got in front. Slow weavers were the worst. You start to pull out and pass ’em, and they weave over to the left. Nothing to do then but lay on the horn and push ’em over. Here was the A&W. He made a sharp right. A car horn blared behind him. Some old biddy, shouldn’t be on the road.

  Edward looked for a good post to park next to. He liked eating in the car. He was always hungry after being with Iris. She sapped the energy right out of him. Hell of a woman. He reached out his window to push the “talk” button on his speaker. The damn post was too far over. He had to open the door and lean way out to get his finger on it. A garbled voice blared back.

  “What?” he yelled at the gray box. “What?” Goddamn speaker! He pushed on both buttons. There was two of them on the damn thing. “You talking to me?” He leaned on his horn. That’ll wake them up. “I want a cheeseburger!” he yelled. He felt the hotness pour down his face. “I want a cheeseburger, and I want it now, goddamn it!”

  He looked around at the other cars. The people were all staring at him. Nothing better to do than stuff their faces and gawk.

  “Can I help you?” A young waitress approached with a pad and pen.

  “Yes, you can help me.” He smiled up at her and closed his door. “Them speaker poles are all cockeyed. Giving my order to you is nicer.”

  She was only about seventeen, Edward thought, about the same age as Donna. Her mouth was sort of pouty, smeared all over with pink lipstick. She had on one of them skimpy uniforms the color of the root beer. Those skirts on the uniforms came way up. He’d never let Donna wear one so short. He wouldn’t let her out of the house, by God. Showing over the knees like that. An invitation.

  The young waitress looked at him and held up her order pad. She was pushing her knees together and
pressing her arms up against her sides. It must be cold in them skimpy uniforms. “I guess I get special treatment, having you come all the way out here to help me.”

  “I guess so.” Her eyes kept flitting back to the restaurant. Maybe she had other orders she was taking care of in there, somebody’s burger getting cold. Edward smiled. His would be nice and hot.

  “I’ll have the afternoon special,” he said, pointing up at the billboard they had painted in big brown root-beer-colored letters. “A number two.” He always got the same thing.

  “That’s a cheeseburger, an eight-ounce mug of root beer, an apple turnover, and a cup of coffee?”

  “That’s right.” He smiled up at her. “I don’t suppose you come with it?” He couldn’t help himself. It seemed like the right thing to say.

  She shook her head and squinted her eyes at him. “No, sir, not in a pig’s eye.” She spit it out more than spoke it, the little tart, and tore the order from her pad like a goddamned queen. “Here’s your copy,” she said, and stuffed it through the window. “Someone will bring it out soon.”

  “I like my coffee black!” Edward shouted after her fat little behind as it trounced back into the restaurant.

  He didn’t know why he said that about the coffee. They always gave you them little packets of sugar and cream on the side. That was how he liked his coffee best, with lots of sugar and cream. One time cream squirted all over his glasses and the roof of the car when he was trying to open one of them goddamned little cups. Them little tabs they want you to pull on are no bigger than a flea’s ass. He’d had to stick his thumb through the foil just to get into it. Then cream flew all over hell and back. He couldn’t see clear till he got home that night and Idella cleaned his glasses with hot water. “Jesus, Edward, what did you do—pour the cream over your head? I’ve never seen the likes of it.” She always had a remark.

  Iris’d found little blobs in the car the next day and started asking about it, teasing him about the cream. He laughed. She had such a dirty mind. She was a smart one, that Iris.