Mary laughed, and it brought some color back to her cheeks, but at the same time she began to sag with fatigue. She finally leaned over toward Elsie, who put an arm around her.
Elsie said, “Spend the night, Mary. There’s a bed on the porch. We’ll have a good sleep and a good breakfast, and then we’ll go down to see them launch Dick’s boat.”
Elsie took Mary’s glass from her hand, and walked her to the sleeping porch. She sent Dick out to get Mary’s suitcase. Elsie took it in to Mary. Dick sat and listened to the two women talking softly. Then Mary passed through in her nightgown, her red hair straight down her back, her toothbrush in her hand. When she came back out, she gave him a kiss that smelled of toothpaste and whiskey.
Mary went to bed. Elsie came out. She sat beside Dick on the sofa, one leg curled under her. She finished Mary’s whiskey and blew out a long breath. She said, “I can’t tell if she’s okay or not. I don’t know what it’s like.”
“He was eighty-four,” Dick said. “She seems pretty clear about that. And she’s here with you.”
Elsie nodded. “Is the way she was the way people are at wakes? All those jokes? Was that a wake?”
Dick laughed. He said, “I’m sorry—I’m not Catholic.”
“Don’t tease me,” Elsie said. “I feel very odd.”
Dick was touched by Elsie. He took her hand. “Maybe you’re being too good again, feeling like you’re becoming Miss Perry.”
“Not as good as all that,” Elsie said. “I was about to screw your brains out when Mary came in.”
Dick shook his head. He still wasn’t used to her talking like that.
“It wasn’t just jokes,” Dick said. “You can tell she liked her old man.”
“That was nice, the story about Mabel O’Brien,” Elsie said. “I think I’d rather be as nice as Mabel O’Brien than as good as Miss Perry.”
Dick laughed at Elsie’s getting herself in the story somehow. Then he felt bad for her again. He said, “Maybe you are.”
“Why’d you laugh?”
“Here you are all grown up and you’re like a kid worrying about whether people think you’re nice.”
Elsie looked suspicious.
Dick said, “You’re nice—you don’t have to worry.”
“What I’d like is for you to like me even if I’m not nice,” Elsie said. “That’s one of the things I like about Mary. She just likes me whether I’m nice or not.”
“Well, sure,” Dick said. “That’s not so hard.”
Now Elsie laughed at him.
“I made you a little boat-warming present.” She got up and gave him a package. He opened it. It was a thermos bottle done up to look like a White Rock soda-water bottle.
“Thank you. I can use a thermos.”
“Look at the White Rock girl.”
Dick held the thermos out under the lamplight: the White Rock girl—kneeling on her rock, bare except for a little wisp of a skirt, and little dragonfly wings on her back.
“You don’t see?” Elsie said. “Look. That’s the pond. That’s the rock. And that’s me.”
“Jesus, Elsie.”
Elsie laughed. “I made this myself. Used an old label, put in my picture and used photo offset. It looks like the real thing, doesn’t it?”
“I guess it does. Where in hell am I going to keep this?”
“On your boat.”
“Jesus, Elsie—I don’t know.”
“Look—if you didn’t recognize me, who will?”
“Who took the picture?”
“Oh, for God’s sakes, Dick. Just tell me I look gorgeous.”
“You do. I don’t know though. I’m going to have Charlie and Tom on board sometimes.”
“They won’t be able to tell.”
Dick looked again. “I guess that’s right.”
“But you’ll know it’s me,” Elsie said. “Oh. Do you mind if I shoot some film tomorrow? I’ve still got Schuyler’s camera here.”
Dick was struck by how agile she’d suddenly become again. It was as though she was making herself the way she was with him before. It had crossed his mind that she might want to go outside with him, find a nice spot in the grass, damn the mosquitoes, full speed ahead. The idea had struck him, but he was relieved it somehow didn’t seem likely now.
He didn’t know whether he should speak plainly. He wasn’t sure she understood their sleeping together was over with. He didn’t dare ask what she thought. He was still bothered by the thermos—he looked at it again, a nice thermos, glossy with thin, even coats of varnish, the picture label set in nicely. The whole thing had taken some work.
“I really like this,” he said, “even though I don’t see where I’m going to fit it in. Do you see what I mean?” He put the thermos down and took her hand. “Jesus, Elsie, I don’t know what to do about all this. I could give up the going-to-bed part, but then what? There’s something I’m going to miss. I don’t want this to be like the one time I went to the West Indies. But my life is going to be on pretty regular courses. If I come up here to see you, there’s a chance I’d just float right up to you again. That day I picked you up in the rain I wasn’t planning on anything. I don’t say I hadn’t taken notice of you. But suddenly there I was.”
Elsie laughed. “Yes,” she said. “You’re a sweet man sometimes.”
Dick shook his head. “There’s two things I swore I’d never do. One is be caretaker for a summer house, the other is mess up my family.”
“You haven’t done either one. You went along with what May wanted when you borrowed money from Miss Perry and me. You know, even if May found out about you and me, I’ll bet her chief complaint about you would still be that you’ve been bitter, jumpy, pigheaded, and generally impossible. As marriages go, that’s about par for the course. And as men go, you’re not so bad. If you get a little nicer and more cheerful now that things are picking up for you, May’ll be okay.”
“You’re pretty damn free and easy.”
“I know,” Elsie said. “And that’s not even the worst thing about me.”
Dick laughed.
“Don’t worry,” Elsie said. “No one’s going to know. I’m going to be the soul of discretion.”
“But what are we—”
“We’ll see,” Elsie said. “Whatever it is, it won’t be bad.” She got up and walked him to the door. She came out to his truck. He put the thermos in the glove compartment and sat, hanging on the steering wheel. Elsie leaned in the open window.
She said, “Maybe we’ll be like Miss Perry and Captain Texeira.” She stuck her head in and kissed him briefly. She said, “We’ll see. We’ll both be around for a while. You go on home and dream about launching your boat. I’ll come and take pictures. Around noon, right? It’ll be okay, I’ll bring Mary.”
As he drove down the narrow driveway he saw she’d whirled him around another way. He’d as much as said it was over. He especially felt the weight of his remark about Elsie and him having wired into each other when his father died, a remark that had slipped out but that he’d considered so light as to be secret to himself. He now heard it as so heavy and doltish that he jammed the brake on with disgust. No way Elsie hadn’t finished the thought for herself: And here’s Mary fresh from her father’s funeral to snip us apart. Elsie at first had protested, she’d said no, her schoolgirl crush started before that, before he knew anything about it. And yet she’d gone on to agree with him in some way, had gone on to send him home. And now he could feel himself turning, felt a pull that whirled him as neat as a wrestler’s trick.
He switched the engine off. It didn’t matter whether he was making it up. When he said she was good, she’d said no, she was about to screw his brains out.
If he’d been paying attention when he drove off, he might have seen her stop at the front door, her hand slow on the knob, just touching it. If he’d turned the motor off then, she would have turned.
Now she’d be brushing her teeth. Or finishing off her glass of wine. Maybe paci
ng the room. Maybe stepping outside once more, going down to the pond in her bare feet.
Dick walked back up the driveway, staying on the grassy crown so he wouldn’t make the gravel crunch. When he got to Mary’s little pickup he carefully skirted it, stepping along the edge of lawn, moving slowly so as not to rattle the forsythia tendrils that just touched the side of Mary’s truck. When he turned to face the house, he saw the lamp on the sleeping porch was on. Just turned on? He couldn’t see very clearly. The waist-high planking cut the lamp from direct view. The overhead moon shone down bright enough to dazzle the screen mesh. He moved beyond the forsythia, stopped behind a new-planted hemlock, still shorter than him. Mary was awake, he heard her voice. He saw Elsie leave the sleeping porch. He could wait until Mary went back to sleep. No. Elsie came back. She sat down beside Mary’s bed. He heard a scrape of chair legs. He could make out Elsie’s head through the screen. He started to leave, decided to wait until Elsie left. At this point all she had to do was turn her head to see him scuttling away.
His ear became accustomed to the insect drone, and he could make out Mary and Elsie talking about some friend of Elsie’s, a woman who’d been married to Jack Aldrich before Jack married Elsie’s sister.
The mosquitoes began to find Dick. Served him right.
Elsie’s voice. “… Lucy had an IUD all along. Jack’s an asshole in some ways, but he didn’t deserve that. The poor man was probably worried about his sperm count.”
Mary’s voice. He couldn’t hear what she said.
Elsie said, “Oh no. He wouldn’t do that. They make the man beat off in a Dixie cup. Anyway Lucy told me, after their divorce. But she still wouldn’t tell Jack. Lucy and I had a big fight. I told her she was a really hideous liar. She said it wasn’t a lie, she just hadn’t told him anything, and apparently he never asked, at least not directly. I haven’t ever had a fight like that with anyone else. I’ve quarreled with my sister, but that’s nothing. I have fights with Jack, I’ve told you about some of those, fun really. But I still feel terrible about Lucy Potter. So of course now, irony of ironies, now I get a letter from her. She’s getting married again. Wants me to be a bridesmaid.”
Mary’s voice.
Elsie said, “Well, sure. But the irony is that it’s the mirror image. If it’s true.”
Mary’s voice.
Elsie said, “I’ll tell him sooner or later, sure. That’s not the issue. Or, rather, it is the issue. Sooner still leaves a choice.”
Mary’s voice, loud enough for Dick to hear the words—“Oh, Elsie! Absolutely not! Don’t even think—”
Elsie said, “Don’t get mad at me. I’m not the one to convince. If … I mean, it’s all if. If I am. If I tell him right away.”
Dick understood that Elsie was pregnant. No if.
Her talk of adopting, her plan with Mary Scanlon. Her brightening up at the Mabel O’Brien story. And what was this about Elsie’s friend Lucy Potter? He didn’t figure that, but he didn’t need to.
From his crouch behind the hemlock he sank to his knees. Jesus H. Christ. He wasn’t as angry as he thought he might be. Elsie hadn’t lied to him yet—maybe that was it. He hoped it was a girl. There was that thought, quick as a shooting star.
But right away he felt the punishment of that: they wouldn’t be father and daughter.
He sank back on his heels and felt the envelope crinkle against his thigh. So what was that? A fee, a goddamn stud fee. Sly Elsie Buttrick. So the Buttricks could buy that too.
For a moment he was on the edge of tearing up the check. Or walking up to the porch.
He heard Mary Scanlon laugh.
He crushed a mosquito with his forefinger under his earlobe.
Trust Mary Scanlon to see the joke.
Mary was sitting up in bed now.
Elsie said, “I could apply for maternity leave, but then they might be able to fire me for moral turpitude. I’ll talk to a lawyer. But I think that the best thing is to pretend it’s adopted. That takes care of my career, and it would make things easier for Dick. I could go stay with my mother in Boston for the last five months. I’ll apply for educational leave, enroll in some courses. You could have this place to yourself for a bit. And you could look after building the wing for yourself.”
“Sounds nice—a few months in Boston,” Mary said. “Suppose you meet someone in Boston and suddenly decide to get married.”
Elsie laughed. “I don’t think so.”
Mary said, “Have you ever thought of getting married just to give the kid a name? Then you could be a divorcee.”
“I don’t see any likely candidates. Besides, I want the baby to have my name.”
“What if Dick wanted to marry you? I mean get divorced and—”
“Oh no,” Elsie said. “He wouldn’t do it, I wouldn’t want him to. I don’t want that, I don’t want this child to start out by ruining someone else’s life. As it is now, I don’t think anyone’s going to get hurt.”
“Maybe not,” Mary said. “The kid will be a bastard. Maybe that’s not being hurt. If Dick doesn’t find out, that seems hard, but I guess you could argue he’s not hurt. You could tell him it’s adopted, but he’s not a dummy, you know.… Or suppose you tell him. What then? Suppose he says get an abortion?”
“No,” Elsie said. “I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t. But I’ll have to see. I can’t imagine what he’ll feel like. What do men feel like? Suppose I tell him I picked him—won’t he be flattered? Isn’t it a good deal for a man? No diapers, no grocery bills. His genes getting a free ride.”
“Elsie. I don’t think it’s that easy, Elsie.”
Elsie’s head sank below the screen, then came up again slowly.
Elsie said, “But you’re still game? You’ll still be the godmother? Move in here with us?”
“Sure,” Mary said. “We’ll give the kid a nice home.” She laughed. “You know what some guys are going to think, just the two of us living out here in the woods? A couple of middle-aged dykes.”
“Let ’em. It’ll keep the riffraff out.”
Mary said, “My social life isn’t so good I can afford to keep the riffraff out.”
“Oh, Mary,” Elsie said. “Don’t be absurd. You’re gorgeous, you’re smart, you’re funny, you’re a great cook. And when you’re managing Jack’s restaurant, you’ll be meeting all sorts of people. And you’ll have this nice house to bring them home to.”
“Yeah, sure. Life begins at forty. Look, I’m not complaining. We’ll have a good time. But before you go adding a wing to your house, maybe you should make sure the rabbit died.”
“I’ve got a doctor’s appointment next week. But I’d like you to move in anyway.”
“We’ll figure all that out,” Mary said. “Right now I’m really bushed.”
“But you’ll come with me to the launching?”
“Oh yeah. Dick’s boat. Sure, if it’s not too early.”
“Noon.” Elsie’s tone still hovered and soared, as if it was all a breeze. “It’s a beautiful boat. Dick’s his usual grumpy self about it, but it really is amazing. I know it’s presumptuous, but I’m terribly proud of it. Of him.”
Mary’s voice was muffled again, but it sounded like she’d had enough, didn’t want Elsie to get wound up again. The light went out.
Dick got up on one knee. For a second he was confused, lost in the dark, thought he was still hiding in the salt marsh. He could barely feel his body except as dull weight.
He hadn’t figured there were so many ways to get in trouble. He made his way back to his pickup and let it roll down the driveway, almost to Miss Perry’s, before he started the engine.
When he slipped into bed he thought he’d have a hard time getting to sleep.
May woke him up once to stop him snoring. May had to shake him awake again in the morning when the boat-moving rig pulled off Route 1 into his yard.
It took longer to load up than he’d figured, but it went okay. Backing in, the tractor’s front wheels swung round and
tore up half of May’s garden. The trailer moved back into the shed a yard at a time, taking the weight of the boat frame by frame, as Eddie and he dismantled the cradle.
The wheels of the trailer sank in a half-foot, leaving a double trench from inside the shed, out across the garden, through the backyard, and around the side, slowly coming back to grade as the wheels ran up onto the packed grit and shells of the driveway. The boys ran out onto Route 1 waving red handkerchiefs tied to sticks to warn off traffic. Dick’s truck didn’t have flashers, so Eddie tailed the boat in his pickup. Dick pulled out and swept past, leaving May to bring the boys along in her car.
By the time they got the two miles to the boatyard and rolled the boat onto the marine railway, it was close to noon.
The manager let his men off for a half-hour lunch. Dick raised his eyebrows. He took a deep breath and took the manager aside to ask, as calmly as he could manage, if the half-hour for lunch was going on the bill. The manager pinched the bridge of his nose, closed his eyes, and said, “No.” He opened his eyes and said, “Look, Dick. It’s all going fine. The boat’s in the yard. She’s on the railway. It’s time for my boys to have their lunch. It’s when you hurry that things slip. You know that.” He nodded toward the harbor. “The tide’s still coming in, another half-hour there’ll be even more water. You don’t want her to bounce when she slides in.” The manager added, “All you boat owners are alike—expect everything to fall into place just ’cause you show up.” Dick was stung. The manager shook his head. “Hey, Dick. I’m kidding you. That’s what you used to say when you worked here.”
Dick sent Charlie and Tom off in May’s car to get their skiff off Mamzelle, Tom to bring the skiff back up the harbor from Galilee, Charlie to drive the car back. Dick wanted the skiff to tend his boat once she was at a mooring. May offered to go back and get him a sandwich. He was in too much of a fuss to eat. He got an oar from the yard’s store, got in a dinghy, and floated over the rails, poking down with the oar around where his boat’s stern would splash in. His hands were so fluttery, he almost dropped the oar.
Plenty of water down there. What was he fussing about? He splashed a handful of water on his face.
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