The Hazards of Good Breeding

by Jessica Shattuck

“Via Bee Bee’s, sure!” Adam says brightly.

  “You need a ride?” comes a voice from over Caroline’s shoulder. And there is Stephan at the table behind her, packing up his camera and mike. He has taken his hair out of its slicked-back ponytail—a style Caroline found not so appealing—and it hangs into his face as he bends over. Through it, she can see his grin.

  “Oh, that would be great,” Caroline says, and Adam’s face falls.

  “No problem.” Stephan straightens up and swings his camera bag over his shoulder.

  Out in the parking lot Caroline feels suddenly jittery and dumb. Stephan is at least a full head taller than her, which she is not used to, and he is really very sexy, and here she is, drunk and tired and all talked out. There must be other things, besides this place, they could discuss. It occurs to her he has not asked her much of anything about herself, really, and has given witty, evasive answers to anything vaguely personal she has asked him. What do he and Denise talk about? She really can’t imagine. Maybe, if Rock’s theory is right, they don’t talk. Maybe they just have sex.

  “So Denise was your lawyer?” she asks, and then blushes, afraid she has somehow given away her train of thought. It is dark, though, thankfully. She looks down at the asphalt, which is slightly glittery, full of tiny bits of mica.

  “Yeah.” He shrugs. “There was this whole thing about my last movie—the studio was freaking out about the content and liability, blah blah blah. I get a kick out of her—she’s such a powerhouse, take-no-prisoners kind of gal.”

  Caroline has never thought of Denise as a “gal” before. “She’s nice,” she finds herself offering inanely.

  Stephan laughs. “It’s not the first word that comes to mind.” He unlocks the door for her. The front seat is one long vinyl bench, roomy enough to be where he and Denise have their rendezvous. She settles herself against the cool, slightly sticky vinyl and watches the aces suspended from the rearview mirror bounce gently as Stephan backs the car out of its spot and onto the driveway.

  “Was it—did you get good footage in there?”

  “Eh.” Stephan shrugs. “All right. Nothing spectacular.”

  “What would be spectacular?”

  Caroline can see Adam Lowell and Bee Bee Menders coming out on the porch of the Ponkatawset Club. Adam is still doing the cha-cha.

  “I don’t know—the usual—anything surprising, or unexpected, or, you know”—he glances at her evaluatively—“ugly.” There is a pause. “I mean, I’m looking for some kind of a story.”

  Caroline rests her head against the seat back. “Oh.”

  “How did you come up with—here? I mean, the whole Old Boston idea or whatever?” she asks after a pause.

  “In a fit of insanity.” Stephan laughs. “No, I don’t know—I guess it was actually Denise who got me excited about it, all her stories about living here and stuff. She’s got a natural sense for what plays well on camera, what people will want to see.”

  “Hunh.” Caroline shifts and the bare skin of her back makes a peeling sound against the vinyl. “And what if you don’t find it?”

  “Find what?”

  “What people will want to see.”

  “Why?” Stephan looks over at her sharply. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “I don’t know—no reason. Just what if it wasn’t how you pictured it or whatever?”

  Stephan shrugs. There is a pause and Adam Lowell’s black BMW passes them, trailing “Sweet Home Alabama.” “I guess that’s never happened to me. If I see it some way, then that’s what comes out in the picture. You just have to be careful not to overcomplicate, you know? You have to have a distinct vision of the thing and it comes through.”

  “Mmm.” Caroline nods, although she is not sure she agrees with his answer. What if it isn’t really distinct? What if, once you’re in the middle of your subject, you can see it in more ways than one? What if, for instance, you can find Adam Lowell’s nicknames as stupid and annoying and full of small-minded reverence of all things insular, but also as pitiable attempts to stand in for an intimacy he has no idea how to create? Or what if you can decry your father’s insistence on raising aggressive, overbred jackal-dogs, but be moved nearly to tears watching him throw a stick for them across the grass? Outside, trees toss gently in the wind like obscure, restless creatures. She leans her head back again. When she closes her eyes, she is surprised to find the window, the dashboard, the world outside are spinning against her eyelids.

  “Caroline,” Stephan is saying. “Hey, Caroline.” There is a warm pressure of his hand on her knee.

  She has been sleeping. When she opens her eyes, she can see Stephan’s face in front of hers. For a moment she thinks they are in bed together—has the slight skip of panic that she doesn’t remember what has happened, but then, of course, they are in her father’s driveway, in the front seat of his car.

  “Sorry,” she says, straightening her neck. “I don’t know how I got so sleepy.”

  “No problem,” he says, keeping his eyes on her.

  “Thank you so much for the ride home—I don’t know what I would have done.”

  “I have a feeling you had some other willing drivers.” Outside, there is the sound of tree limbs creaking in the wind and the gentle hiss of blowing leaves. Caroline wonders suddenly if they are about to kiss. Is this how it happens? After two years of going out with Dan, she has forgotten.

  “So listen,” Stephan says, his tone changing. “I’d love to meet your grandmother—or aunt or whatever—the one you were telling me about in the . . . what did you call it? The Monte Carlo of the North Shore? Think she’d let me interview her?”

  “Oh,” Caroline says. She sits up straighter against the slippery vinyl. “I don’t know. I mean, I can ask her.” This is what she gets for blabbering on about Lilo. “She’s difficult, though,” she adds lamely.

  “Why don’t I give you a call tomorrow? If she’d let me, I’d love to go over there with you. And anyway”—Stephan fixes his eyes on her again—“maybe we could go out for coffee or something.”

  Caroline is glad it’s dark out. She feels a blush rising to her cheeks. “Okay.” Her father is probably awake up in his bedroom wondering what the hell is going on in his driveway. She opens the door and puts one foot out on the gravel. “Thanks again for the ride.”

  “Hey,” Stephan says, and leans across to give her a kiss on the cheek. Just a light brush of lips, no different from that an uncle or cousin would give, but he holds his hand on her shoulder for a second longer than usual, flat of thumb pressing against the smooth round of her bone. It feels hot and dry and pressureful and intensely foreign to her. “Good night.”

  Crossing in front of the headlights, Caroline tries to walk gracefully despite the fact that it is very dark and she feels unsteady with her high heels catching on the loose stones. She can feel Stephan’s thumbprint on her skin. Did she get out of the car too quickly? Behind her the car is shifted into gear and there is the crackle of gravel under the wheels.

  Inside the house, it is dark and silent. Not even the porch light is on.

  In the mudroom, Caesar is up on his hind legs barking, front paws rattling the metal gate in the doorway. “Shush,” Caroline says, and, surprisingly, he stops. “Here.” She thrusts her hand into the box of milk bones Jack keeps on the counter and walks over to the gate. The dogs are sitting at attention now, a shaggy, panting mass in the darkness. Caroline has not turned on any lights. She pauses for a moment, holding the milk bones up in front of them, on her side of the gate. Their eyes glitter in the darkness. “Fucking morons,” she says finally, and throws in her handful. There is a thudding of weight and scrabbling of nails on the floor as they grapple silently for the bones.

  Caroline is kicking her shoes off when the telephone rings—a sharp, startling sound in the dark house. It is nearly three A.M. She rushes across the kitchen, banging her hip into the corner of the table—Rock, probably, she thinks in a panic, or Adam. And her father will pick up the ph
one and make a scene.

  “Hello?” she pants, pressing her bruised hip.

  A stream of angry-sounding Spanish accosts her from the other end of the line.

  “Rock?” Caroline says stupidly.

  There is a click and then the buzz of a dial tone in her ear.

  Why is some angry Spanish man calling in the middle of the night? A prank call. Or a wrong number.

  Carefully, Caroline replaces the receiver. There is a cold, heavy feeling in her gut that makes her sit down. She feels hungover already—a great sloshy sea of gin and white wine churns dangerously in her stomach.

  Without thinking, she puts one hand to her shoulder—the shoulder Stephan’s fingers touched—and lets her fingertips rest on her collarbone. It is quite thin, considering. Nothing a falling branch or a thrown stone wouldn’t break. She can see it in the hands of an archaeologist, some tall, terrifyingly evolved version of a human, a thousand years from now. A female, he would say, running his hand along it, about five-eight, a hundred and sixteen pounds, Bostonus erectus.

  Caroline drops her hand to her lap and stares at the telephone, which slips upward again and again like an image at the end of a loosened roll of film.

  11

  FAITH DOES NOT WANT to be sitting around all morning waiting for Jean Pierre to ask her to go bird-watching. It is not that she wants to bird-watch, or that she doesn’t want to bird-watch, just that she doesn’t want to be waiting all morning to find out if she is going to go bird-watching or not. He didn’t say he was definitely going, after all, did he? And of course it doesn’t really matter. Pete and Lucy and the Eintopfs would all think it was very funny (Oh, poor Faith, Lucy would say, don’t let him bully you), and anyway Faith would have nothing to say to him. He is so silly, with his pith helmet or whatever it is and gold necklace and questions about why she taps her foot so much and how she can stand the Eintopfs. She is, in retrospect, embarrassed that she answered all these with such earnestness yesterday evening. It was a cocktail party, for God’s sake. He was probably expecting sly, witty responses; a Frenchwoman would certainly have been sarcastic and smart, not hopelessly, drunkenly sincere.

  Pushing at the eggs on her plate and pretending to read the paper, Faith decides she will go back up to her room after breakfast so that she doesn’t have to wait. She will read and write letters; she will write to Eliot. The egg stops in its greasy, crumb-absorbing track. Should she call him and ask him about the map? Faith puts down her fork. What would she say? Eliot, I found your map. But then he would know she opened it despite his dire warning labels on the cover. And anyway it sounds so sinister. What about, Eliot, I found this paper in my pocket, is it yours? This is ridiculous because it says Property of Eliot Dunlap on the cover. Picturing it gives Faith a gray, sorrowful feeling. She imagines his little freckled hand holding the pencil, drawing the skull and crossbones on the cover. His writing still has that rounded childishness—he is, after all, still really a baby. And she has left him all alone—he doesn’t even have that sweet girl Rosita to take care of him any longer! What does he do all day? How does he fall asleep at night? These are things a mother should know. She can feel the quiet, familiar panic begin to engulf her.

  Outside the windows, the sky is overcast and the water reflects back a cold pale gray. A ring of seagulls rises, squawking, from the marshy grass below. Well, Faith will go up to her room anyway. That was the point, even if she no longer feels like writing letters.

  Walking across the porch to the stairway, Faith nearly trips over Jean Pierre, who is sitting, still as a cat, among the pillows of the wicker sofa.

  “You have breakfasted,” he says, looking up at her.

  “Yes,” Faith says uncertainly, lifting a hand to her mouth to check for crumbs or a remnant of egg.

  “Then we can go.”

  “Go?” Faith asks, as blankly as possible.

  “To see the yellow-belly,” Jean Pierre says, unruffled, standing and holding his binoculars aloft. It is possible he is shorter than she is.

  “Oh.” Faith feels herself blushing. The yellow-bellied sapsucker, whose name she offered up in some National Geographic story she was retelling last night. She should remember not to drink gin and tonics.

  “We will portage?” Jean Pierre says.

  “Oh—I’m not sure—isn’t it too gray out?” Faith begins.

  “Too gray for canoeing?” He pronounces it exotically, as if there is an umlaut over the o.

  “Well, I have some letters I have to write, too, and I thought since it isn’t—”

  Jean Pierre raises his eyebrows. “It is your holiday,” he says, looking hurt. Out on the water, the ferry’s horn blows.

  “Oh, all right,” Faith says. “But I’ll have to put on different shoes.”

  As they lower the canoe off the dock, Faith’s despondence has been replaced by a feeling of jittery recklessness. What is she doing, going out on the water with this man? Such an intimate thing, really, to be snugged up in a canoe. She will have to steer because Jean Pierre has never even been in a canoe before. And when was the last time she steered? Camp Kyoda for Girls, 1967? Jack would have died before putting her in charge of anything that floated.

  On the other side of the dock, Emmett is making a science out of selecting the right-sized life vest for a bouncy sixteen-year-old cousin who is going out on the catamaran with him. (“Can’t be too careful—you get hit on the head, you’ll want something that floats you,” he is saying in a brisk, official-sounding voice.) Just watching him hold life vests up and measure them, squint-eyed, against the girl’s breasts makes Faith’s skin crawl.

  “Where will you like to sit?” Jean Pierre asks over Emmett’s voice. In contrast, he seems suddenly kind and sophisticated and reasonable.

  Once they are in position, Faith takes a few tentative strokes, which zigzag the canoe out into the cove unevenly. It is one of those noisy aluminum boats, which clang and pop when you shift weight or knock the oars into it, which Faith has done three times already, once splashing Jean Pierre’s right side.

  “I’m sorry—I don’t know—I haven’t steered a canoe in forever,” Faith apologizes, giggling nervously.

  “It is wonderful,” Jean Pierre says, ignoring her. “Like sitting directly on the water.”

  It is, actually, quite nice, now that Faith thinks about it. The water makes gentle lapping sounds at the helm as they glide toward the marshy far side of the cove. Beach grass sprouts up, a startling yellow-green color against the gray of the water, sky, and pebbly sand, like a reminder of Christmas, or vacation, or the possibility of God. The steering is coming back to Faith when she doesn’t think too hard about it. A J-stroke here on the left and then a straight stroke on the right. The terms present themselves in working order, along with a whole list of names of girls, women now (so strange! even little Kibby McCormac must be at least thirty-nine) who went to camp with her. Along with the image of herself, at fifteen, racing down the Saco River trying to get to the campsite first. It is like remembering another person, another girl, with a familiar name.

  “Your children are in Boston?” Jean Pierre says. They have not spoken for a while.

  “Yes—well, not right now. I mean, two of them are not right now, but the younger two . . .” Faith says, feeling again the twinge of, what is it—remorse? Or worry? The canoe is rounding the uninhabited part of the island, where low scrub pines and rose-hip bushes grow along the headland and large peach-colored boulders rise out of the water like knees from a bathtub.

  “But you do not get to see them so often.” It is more of a statement than a question.

  “Well,” Faith begins, “actually I just . . .” but then, of course, it is true. The girl racing down the Saco River, excited to get back to the campsite, to grow up and get married, to have babies and a husband and host big Thanksgiving dinners, has become a mother who does not see her children often—a mother who scares her children, even. A mother who lives carefully contained in a small apartment in a
big city 230 miles away from her ten-year-old son. But the other, anticipated life of motherhood exists in her mind with such vivid specificity it seems almost more real than this. She has, after all, imagined it so carefully, so often, with such attention to the details, it is as if it actually is. As if, at this moment, separated not by time or space, but by half a million small decisions and indecisions, inadequacies and mistakes, she is unpacking a homemade beach picnic for her family, rubbing sunblock on Eliot’s freckled back, giving Caroline advice on her love life, watching Tom and Jack Jr. throw a football in the low-breaking waves.

  But right here, in this canoe, Faith does not actually want to fight her way back through the thicket of her failings to this other life. The realization hits her like a plunge into cold water. For a moment she forgets to paddle.

  “Aha!” Jean Pierre says softly, his back tensing in front of her. “You see?” he whispers. Faith lifts her paddle out of the water. On the far side of one of the larger boulders there is a blue heron, standing absolutely still, staring at them. Silently, Jean Pierre reaches back to hand Faith the binoculars. As Faith lifts them to her eyes, the heron begins to flap its wings; it is close enough for them to hear its bones. There is something frighteningly unstable about its slow, effortful transition into flight. But the precarious breach of gravity is over in a moment—the bird airborne, soaring smoothly heavenward. Pressed against Faith’s eye sockets, the binoculars feel warm from Jean Pierre’s face.

  It is almost an hour before they are docked again at Pea Island. Faith’s arms are tired and stiff—this is more exercise than they have gotten in months. Even years, maybe. She and Jean Pierre have seen three cormorants, four egrets, a blue jay, and three drab little birds with elegant French names that seemed much too grand for their dowdy New England plumage. Climbing out of the canoe, Faith realizes her legs are pale and covered with goose bumps, and her hair—yes, it feels frizzy when she reaches up to touch it—must look like a pom-pom. It has started to rain.

  A collection of snug-looking Eintopfs struggle to top each other’s aggressive salutations from the porch. “Happy canoeing?” “Catch anything?” “Louis and Clark ahoy!” She and Jean Pierre have become a spectacle. Faith’s Keds squish water out onto the dock.