* * *
At eleven, Larry held the door open and summoned me outside. “Listen,” he said, pointing down the road. I stood there in front of the Galley to listen. The crowd cheered when they saw me and yelled their support. I waved, but I really wanted to throw up.
“So you hear them coming?” Larry asked.
I didn’t hear anything.
And then I did. A soft roar from somewhere that seemed to float from the road that led to P-town. A roar? It had a rhythm to it. I didn’t get it at first.
Then the marchers appeared as they came toward the Galley and I heard the chanting. “Oh God,” I murmured, and felt my muscles tighten, thinking it might be the last day my beautiful new Galley would be standing.
Suddenly the chanting became clearer. “Bigotry! Spot it and stop it!” over and over.
They were coming down the road in a ragtag fashion. Not really marching, more like strolling. And chatting. And laughing. They couldn’t possibly be the MARCHERS.
They weren’t.
Apparently, P-town was emptying out and heading for Fleetbourne in support. They filled the road, not in the least bit organized. There was a painted school bus somewhere behind them, driving about six miles an hour, filled with the drag queens from the theaters on Commercial Street waving from the windows and hooting and hanging on to their wigs. There was the P-town Ukelele Finger-Pluckers, a marching band of no real renown but overflowing with goodwill, playing a ragged version of “Here Comes the Sun”: there was the tuba player who often gave spontaneous one-man concerts in Portuguese Square: playing something unidentifiable. There were demonstrators from every business, every local home, every building, every vacation home, swelling through the streets and totally blocking the road. Some were dressed in shark costumes, some dressed as mermaids, while some wore humpback whale hats, pinwheel hats, baseball caps, and live parrots on their shoulders. They carried fishing poles over their shoulders, poop scoopers, rainbow-colored flags and posters with pictures of pandas that read: “Black, white, and Asian, what difference does it make?”
“I told them to bring whatever they have,” Larry whispered into my ear, sounding pleased.
Next came the contingent of dogs. P-town is famous for being dog friendly, and strolling through its streets with your dog has become a rite of passage and a beloved tradition. The dogs were now here, marching, being carried, some of them sitting in baby strollers, some wearing signs proclaiming that DOGS LOVE EVERYONE and SO WHERE ARE THE CATS?
When the bus reached the front of the Galley, its doors opened and twenty drag queens gingerly stepped out in their sparkling stilettos and joined the marchers. I recognized my friends Lynne Guini and Ella Vator and Cherie Danish among them. They brought signs that read: FREE WILLY and FREE MY WILLY and carried bags of sparkles that they liberally distributed at the crowds in an airborne manner.
One of the last to arrive was a bus from the Veterans Administration. It also pulled in front of the Galley and stopped. The doors opened and Sam was lowered to the ground on a hydraulic step. He was in his old uniform and he looked striking. I ran to his side and we kissed. Behind him were thirty or forty veterans being helped from the bus, men and women who received their rehab from the VA outpost in P-town. Wheelchairs were snapped together; men with arms missing, legs missing, all veterans, all heroes, had come to protest hate and declare their support for all Americans.
It was a demonstration of love, a block party, a street festival that ran the length of Fleetbourne and overflowed back to P-town, that went on for hours. They sang and they cheered and they hugged one another and they gave spontaneous speeches about nothing and everything that mattered.
By ten at night, they started dispersing. The hate marchers couldn’t make their way to Fleetbourne since all the streets had been totally blocked off. They had been stuffed back into the holes they had crawled out from and no one missed them and no one cared.
“I heard that they’re going to try Boston tomorrow,” Larry said. “We’ll see how that goes.”
He informed me the next day that Boston had totally blocked off the hate marchers with hundreds of peaceful demonstrators. Apparently our little town of Fleetbourne, with some help, found itself ahead of the curve.
* * *
But I had no illusions, not anymore. There are good people and there are morally undeveloped people who skid off on the wrong path. The Galley remained standing, proud and unmolested. It had been tested and it had prevailed.
Chapter 43
The summer ended with a full moon. A perigean super moon, in fact, extra big and extra bright, with high tides and a spectacular cosmic show. And it was well deserved by us below.
It took two days to clean the streets of Fleetbourne. The Fleetbourne Highway Department, which was a misnomer since we didn’t really have any highways, swept through the town and then pumped water from the bay, an illegal act, to wash it all away. The Galley received the bill for it, and I filed a protest with Lorna Hummings, the town clerk.
“You wanna play, you gotta pay,” she told me when I visited her at Town Hall. I sighed. It seemed back to business as usual for my town, so I paid it. It totaled only 102 dollars and 49 cents, the 49 cents being used to cover the cost of the letter sent to the Galley to inform us of the charges. I did receive a discount, though, of 15 dollars, since I had never gotten money back from Vincent’s license when he got his dangles cut off.
* * *
The Galley became a popular hangout spot. The little bell that tinkled over the door never stopped ringing and Mrs. A finally pulled it down. “It is not music to my ears,” she declared. “I will find something else.” She brought in an electronic chime that went off every time the door opened and closed. It sounded like the chime on the new microwave and sent her galloping to check on phantom food. After a week she complained that her feet hurt and we reinstalled the bell.
The super moon was affecting everyone. People seemed politer, calmer, kinder. Of course, it could have been fatigue from partying for twelve straight hours that Friday, but it seemed we all learned something about one another. We weren’t perfect, some of us were just wonderful and some of us were far from perfect, but we had learned we could live together and respect one another and help one another out as most of us had always done. The rest were learning a thing or two about compassion and inclusion and acceptance, and as long as they were willing to change, we would be willing to associate with them and guide them further.
Shay informed me that she had raised several thousand dollars while sitting in her wheelchair with a collection box on her lap and a large sign asking for donations for a dog rescue. “Everyone just looked at me and was just so kind!” she marveled more than once. She had been moved to the parking lot during the street festival and I suppose that the sight of a beautiful pregnant woman sitting in a wheelchair with a donation box just might have stimulated public sympathy and generosity.
Mrs. Huggins agreed to put the issue before the town board and hinted that she had enough information on every board member to get the proposal for a dog shelter ratified. It was to be built next to the Galley and called Vincent’s House, which gave me a sneaking feeling that the Galley was going to foot a large part of the bill for it.
I also had been thinking about The Skipper and Mrs. Skipper and her remarks about my grandmother. A few days later, when I just accidentally happened to be taking Vincent for a stroll down their street, I felt emboldened to pay them a visit. Their house was a small cape with pale green shutters, the name Healey on the mailbox with a gold anchor painted underneath, and a large crab apple tree that draped over most of the front lawn. Their old green Ford was in the driveway and The Skipper himself was asleep, stretched out in a lawn chair, sunning himself on the porch. I tied Vincent to the mailbox and walked right past the snoring Skipper and rang the bell. Mrs. Skipper answered the door in good time, frail and bent. She didn’t seem surprised to see me.
“Aila!” she said, opening the door
wider. “Come in. I thought you might be paying me a visit.”
“I hope you don’t mind,” I said. “I wanted to talk to both of you. Should we waken The Skipper?”
“No, let the old fart sleep,” she said, and gestured for me to follow her inside.
She walked bent over, weighted down by her years. We passed through a sea blue living room with old photos of fishing boats on every wall; I followed her into the kitchen. “Would you like some tea?”
“Thank you,” I said, then realized my mistake. She was in her nineties, as far as I knew, and moved very slowly. Ten minutes later, she had the teacups on the table. Ten minutes after that, the tea bags were in the cups.
“So you came to talk about your grandmother,” she said, shakily holding a pot of boiling water over my lap. I nodded. “Well, she once was my best friend, you know.”
I didn’t know.
She filled our cups, more or less, then returned the pot and tugged at a cabinet drawer.
“Trying to get us spoons,” she said. I opened the drawer for her. She took out two spoons and set them by the cups. “Do you take sugar? Cream?”
Realizing that each ingredient was going to add half an hour of extra time, I lied. “Thank you, no. I take it plain.”
“Well, I take both,” she said, and proceeded to the refrigerator, where she stood, tugging on the handle.
I got to my feet again, opened the refrigerator for her, and took out a small container of cream.
“Not that one,” she said. “That’s Donald’s. I like the skim.”
Another several minutes more we were finally settled. She carefully put sugar and skim milk into her coffee, offered me half a cherry Danish left over from her breakfast, and then leaned back in her chair.
“So, Lorna told me that you were around asking her questions,” she said.
“Is what she told me true?”
“What did she tell you?” Mrs. Skipper asked in a patient voice. “Tell me everything.” I realized, suddenly, that Mrs. Skipper was lonely. Donald was sleeping like a dead man on the front porch and very likely would continue on to dinner like that. The phone hadn’t rung once; no one was rapping on the door to visit. She wanted my visit to last. I quickly shared the information I had gotten from the town clerk. Mrs. Skipper showed no surprise.
“Your grandmother and I were the dearest of friends,” she said again. “And I was keeping company with Donald. She hurt me very badly because she flirted with him behind my back.”
“She was wrong to do that,” I agreed.
“Yes, she was.” She took a sip of tea. “And he was a fool,” she added. Her eyes were fading into the distance. I know that look. “She was always very pretty, much prettier than me, and he had a fling with her and she got—you know—in the family way.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“And they didn’t know what to do when she was ready to have her baby,” she continued. “So my mother found a place in Boston who would take the baby. They left on the boat when your grandmother was very close to delivering.”
I could picture my grandmother bundled up, sitting in the boat, worried and scared.
“I know everyone thinks that I told Donald to throw the baby overboard! What kind of person do people think I am. I helped Ida. She had her baby in Boston, a boy, and then they came back.” Her voice shook with emotion, I couldn’t tell if she was angry or close to tears.
I felt a thrill of relief, though. The child had lived! “I’m so sorry,” I said again, reaching over to put my hand on hers.
“The crew was sworn to secrecy, but you know men. After a few drinks, their lips just started flapping,” she said. “We were trying to protect your grandmother. She could have had her baby in the street, for all I cared. Her mother didn’t want her in the house with a baby! Donald begged me to help.”
I felt awful for Mrs. Skipper, betrayed by two important people in her life and gossiped about forever. “Do you know whatever happened to the baby?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Adopted. A nice family. Owned apartment houses. The Winstons or something. That’s all I ever found out. It wasn’t my baby.”
We both stood up. I thanked her for the tea and moved to hug her. She grabbed me around the waist and held me tight for a moment, then let me go. “Donald married me after that,” she said. “He married me for my money. I knew that. But I didn’t care—I just loved him so. Still, I couldn’t get over it, I was so hurt—I never gave him the opportunity to sleep in my bed, if you know what I mean. He got his boats, but he never got me.”
I hugged her again and she sniffled onto my shoulder.
“Thank you for sharing that with me,” I said. She slowly led me to the front of the house.
“She didn’t deserve a pretty little girl like you,” she said, opening the front door.
I sighed. What could I say about my own grandmother? “She was crazy,” I said. “She was just crazy.” And heartbroken.
“I always said that,” she agreed.
The Skipper was up from his nap and had untied Vincent from the mailbox and was back in his chair, petting him.
“I was right, Florence,” he said to Mrs. Skipper as we stepped out to the porch. “I told you we had a dog named Katy. Look! She’s finally come back!”
* * *
The super moon hung over the nights like a revelation, its light so strong that I couldn’t sleep. It was my pleasure now and my nightly custom to sit on the pier with Vincent and sometimes Sam by my side and look straight up, at such an exceptional moon, an optimistic moon, as it bathed us in its radiance.
Sam had moved from his aunt’s house and broken his mother’s heart, all on the same day. Mrs. A was mostly forgiving, and just to show how much, vowed to bring him his favorite foods every single night.
He was very proud of the little house he had bought in Fleetbourne, and was painting it with his buddies and doing a few repairs before he wanted me to see it. That meant he was making friends at the Veterans Service outpost where he had started therapy, and I was happy for him. He also had a few people who wanted their boats customized and he was excited about that.
Occasionally he would make an appearance at my house with dinner, grinning at the back door with a bag of food and a bouquet of flowers.
But something was bothering me. Of course I had to talk to Shay about it, which meant a trip to her house, since she swore she couldn’t even pull on a pair of Terrell’s fishing waders over her swollen feet.
The first thing she did, when she met me at the door of her house, was grab my left hand and scrutinize my ring finger. “EH?” she asked.
“That’s what we need to talk about,” I said, watching her waddle into the kitchen in front of me.
“So what’s going on?” she asked over coffee and cakes.
I couldn’t put my finger on it, I told her. I always thought that when you fell in love, you were excited and thrilled and wanted to be with your love all the time. It had been that way with me and Dan, and Shay agreed, she and Terrell had spent every moment together. Sam was a wonderful man, I told her, and I loved being with him. Sometimes he brought dinner, sometimes he suggested a movie, or a night out driving somewhere and it was always fun.
“But it’s like he’s holding something in reserve,” I said. “I want to be the most important thing in his life. I want him to break down my door if he can’t reach me. Call me all day long until he becomes a pest and I have to tell him to give me space. I want us to talk all night making wonderful plans for the future. I want him to feel ecstatic to be with me. I want him to shower me with silly little gifts—and occasionally a really nice one.”
“Hmmm,” was all she said as she rested her hand on her chin, her eyes scrunched together as she listened.
I raised my left hand. “Do you see a ring?” I asked. “Do you see something sparkly that I could show off at the Galley while I’m slicing bologna?”
“First thing I looked for when you came in and I did not
see a ring,” she agreed.
“I want him to tell me why he bought himself a little house in Fleetbourne without talking to me, since he told me he was making plans for us,” I said.
“Hmmm,” she said. “Maybe he meant plans for a new boat.”
“I want him to be crazy in love with me,” I added. “I want passion.”
We sat together for a long time, sipping coffee and eating our way through a chocolate cake and a strawberry shortcake.
“Okay,” I finally said. “I’m going home.”
She gave me a hug and waddled next to me as we made our way to the front door.
“By the way, does Larry ever call you?” she asked, just as I was ready to step outside.
“Almost every night,” I replied. “He’s always got something to tell me, something he read somewhere or heard in his office or recipes he found for the Galley.”
“Hmmmm,” she said. “Hmmmm.”
Chapter 44
The super moon, full of ostentation, was gone and the skies were dark again. Most nights, I sat on the pier, always with Vincent, but less and less with Sam. He was busy, he was working late into the nights on his customers’ boats. He was tired, he was fixing his house—I had seen it by now and it was actually a very nice little cape. He had adapted the stairs and put up railings and changed the bathrooms so that he was able to get around comfortably and safely and I knew all of that took a lot of time.
I went boating with him sometimes, enjoying it more and more, and he was finding the freedom to relax and heal. Though we hadn’t gotten any closer to following the plan, it didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would. We had been good for each other. There are all kinds of moons and all kinds of love and maybe we were just going to remain like a moon in its first quarter.
* * *
And All the Phases of the Moon Page 27