Then the guests started to arrive, tripping down the wide expanse of grass to the sand. The ladies left their shoes on the ground. Their toenails were painted bright red or pink, and they wore sundresses. They all wore perfume. They all carried glasses of champagne. For the men: darker cocktails in what Eliza didn’t know then were highball glasses.
“She wanted me to call her Dottie,” said Eliza now. “But I wouldn’t.”
“This is Charlie Sargent,” said Mrs. McPherson to her guests. “If you haven’t met him other years. My own personal lobsterman.” Eliza waited for Charlie to look to Eliza, to roll his eyes in her direction, so they could exchange a look that said, Can you believe this woman? But his smile got bigger and he didn’t roll his eyes, and he said, “And this is my assistant, Eliza.” She could hear the way he was dialing up his accent.
“Awww,” said the women, looking at Eliza, who scratched a mosquito bite and looked back at the women. “Isn’t she sweet.” And one of them said, “I’d kill for that hair.”
When it was time to put the food on the pit Charlie made a big show of picking through the tub of lobsters he’d brought.
“I got some quarters, I got some halfs,” he said. “This one, Mrs. Wheeler, I caught special for you. This one’s a chicken, smaller than the others. I know you have a tiny appetite.” He winked at Mrs. Wheeler, who giggled. He was laying it on thick, Eliza could see that, and they were eating it up like a square of blueberry cake.
When it came time to crack the lobsters everybody sat on big plaid blankets in the sand. They wore bibs, like overgrown children, and had hand wipes set up beside them. Charlie perched on a little stool he used for tending the fire, and held up a lobster as an example. He twisted off the tail, broke it open, pushed out the meat. “All in one piece, that’s how you want it—that’s it, Mr. Frank.” Then the claws. “Bend backwards on the claw, Mrs. Carrington, backwards, that’s it. Always backwards.” He showed them how to use the crackers, how to get the claw meat out all in one piece. When someone struggled he walked around and kneeled beside him or her, taking the claw or the tail out of the person’s hands. They dipped the lobster in the bowls of butter, ate the corn, ate the potatoes, devoured the blueberry crisp. Eliza moved closer to her father, and though she was offered food she ate none. Instead she watched the women, the way they tipped their heads back when they laughed, the way they had of putting a hand on the forearm of the person they were talking to.
When Eliza needed the bathroom, Mrs. McPherson (“Really, sweetheart, it’s Dottie, I insist, Mrs. McPherson is my mother-in-law!”) directed her to the half bath off the kitchen, but when Eliza got there she tried the knob and discovered that the door was locked. She was about to knock when she heard odd noises coming from under the door—groans, gasps. Sex noises. Carrie Simmons had told her about sex noises, but because Eliza was a young thirteen without the benefit of the internet or frequent trips to the movies she hadn’t heard those noises before. She found a different bathroom, an upstairs one, and returned to the party.
Then the sun set and darkness fell, and, in the sky, a full moon rose.
“I arranged that for you too, Mrs. McPherson,” Charlie said, nodding. “I brought you the moon and all.” And the party guests, to a person, laughed. They loved Charlie Sargent, they loved Dottie McPherson’s own personal lobsterman! They loved summer in Maine.
At the end of the night, Mrs. McPherson handed Charlie an envelope. She was flushed now, chortling and warm. She hugged Eliza. She hugged Charlie, holding him too close for too long. She said, “You, Charlie Sargent, are a treasure. It simply wouldn’t be summer in Maine without you.”
During the drive home Eliza was silent until Charlie pressed her. When she couldn’t hold it in any longer, she spat out, “Why do you let them do that?”
“Do what?”
“Put you onstage like that. Aren’t you embarrassed?”
“Embarrassed? What do I have to be embarrassed about?”
“It’s all so fake.” She thought about the sex noises. “They’re so fake. Like rich people don’t know how to crack a lobster by now, they’ve been doing it every summer for years. And you—”
“And I what?”
“You play along, play up your accent. For them.”
There was a quick flicker of hurt in his eyes; she caught it when they passed one of the main street’s only streetlights. “Doesn’t bother me, Eliza,” Charlie said. “If it doesn’t bother me I don’t see any reason why it should bother you.”
The next morning, while her father was still asleep—it was a rare morning for him to sleep in, a Sunday in summer, when you couldn’t haul anyway—Eliza opened the envelope: ten one-hundred-dollar bills, crisp in their envelope. The envelope said Ellsworth Savings and Loan on it in red. The bills were all facing the same way. Ben Franklin with his odd hairstyle, his hooded eyes, over and over again she looked at him, all ten of him. How many days of hauling did that equal, a few hours on the beach at the McPhersons’, the big show with the lobster crackers?
Later that afternoon there was a shopping trip, all the way to the mall in Bangor: a new dress for Eliza, a new pair of shoes, a shirt, and a new lunch box for Charlie because he said his old one was falling right about to pieces. A stop on the way home for burgers and root beer floats at Jordan’s, which Eliza and Charlie ate sitting side by side on the rickety picnic bench, watching the summer traffic go by, not saying much.
“Dottie McPherson had a stroke a year or two back,” Charlie said now, bringing Eliza back to the present. “Not sure she makes it up every year, but her kids do.” Eliza still remembered Mrs. McPherson’s bosom, her perfume, the half bathroom, the noises.
She took a bite of cutlet. They were delicious, if she did say so herself. She might have to bring these into her Barton repertoire after all, no matter the concerns Evie had about the chickens. Surely she could find cutlets from free-range chickens if she looked hard enough.
Her father had eaten only a couple of bites. “Dad. They checked you out for a concussion, didn’t they?” She closed her eyes and tried to recall everything she’d learned about concussions in med school. All that came to her was the irrelevant and nonmedical instruction to feed a fever and starve a cold.
He shrugged. “I think so.”
“Does your head hurt now?”
“Little bit. Not much.”
She squinted at him. Charlie never admitted to being in any kind of pain. She nodded at the sling. “When do you think they’ll let you get back to it?”
Charlie cleared his throat. “Don’t know. Soon, I hope. My traps must be full to bursting.”
“Well, when’s your next appointment?”
“Don’t have one,” he said. He smiled his famous crooked smile.
“That smile made my heart stop the first time I saw it,” her mother told her once. Eliza knew the story, of course: her mother sitting on the wharf with Val, watching the boats come in, love at first sight, etc., etc. She herself knew what it was like to sit there, waiting, heart slamming against her ribs, the heat rising from her skin like it had a life of its own. Eliza was not sure she believed in love at first sight, though she did, of course, believe in love. She believed in love so deeply that she felt her heart do a double twist now, thinking about Rob, her girls.
But, boy, love got complicated. She thought about Phineas Tarbox; she thought about sitting at The Cup with Russell, and about all the things that were still unsaid, so many years later. What she had felt the night before with Russell, she didn’t know if it was desire or simply the memory of desire. Or maybe the distinction was unimportant: maybe the two were one and the same, interchangeable.
“Dad, you have to go back, get the stitches out, get the arm looked at.”
“Can’t you take out the stitches? It’d be cheaper.”
“I’m not a doctor. I’m not a nurse. I’m not supposed to be doing that stuff!”
“You’re nicer, though. Than the ones that are. You come close
enough for me.” He grinned.
Charlie Sargent could charm the shell off a lobster, Eliza’s mother used to say. Joanie was very proud of that description: she’d made it up herself.
“A follow-up visit should be covered,” she told her father. Last she knew her father was paying monthly for basic insurance with a sizable deductible.
He stopped grinning.
“What? Dad? What is it?”
“I’m not insured now.”
“What?”
“The premiums were so frickin’ expensive, and then with the deductible it wasn’t worth it…”
“Dad. You can’t do that, you can’t be uninsured.” A little globule of panic bubbled up inside Eliza’s throat. The year before she’d wanted to buy him more and better insurance but he wouldn’t let her.
“I never get sick,” he said. “Healthy as a horse.” He returned the fork, still full, to his plate and placed the flat of his hand over his chest as if to indicate the robustness of what lay beneath.
“I know, but. Dad. You can’t not have health insurance. Rob and I can help you with that, you know we want to.”
Charlie set his mouth in a thin straight line. As if for show he cut a large piece of meat and brought it in one valiant motion to his lips. “Don’t need help, Eliza.”
“But.”
He chewed and swallowed slowly and deliberately and then he said, “You know you’re always welcome here, Eliza, but I’m sure your family needs you more than I do, so you can go on back home when you’re ready.”
“Are you kicking me out?”
He laughed. “Course not. I’m just giving you permission to kick yourself out.”
“No,” she said stubbornly. “I’m not leaving until we make you a follow-up appointment.”
“Eliza, I’m fine. It was a knock on the head and a bump on the arm. Never should have called the Coast Guard, that made it seem worse than it was. Soon enough I’ll be out on the boat and you won’t have to worry about me.” But there was something behind Charlie’s eyes, something fleeting and dodging, and his gaze didn’t meet hers.
Her phone dinged again. The Barnes family had a strict no-screens-at-dinner rule but since she was far away she allowed herself a peek, in case she was missing a fire or an earthquake or a playdate invitation that required immediate response. Evie, again. HOW ABOUT THIS ONE. This time she’d included a photo directly in the text, a skinny, semi-bearded, vexed-looking terrier mix who looked like he’d left some of his hair at whatever home had given him up. Exactly Evie’s style. HE’S 9 AND HIS NAME IS COLUMBO, said the next text. HE’S AT A SHELTER IN CONNECTICUT.
Eliza, who was in no mood for sugarcoating, texted back 9 IS TOO OLD HE WOULDN’T BE WITH US LONG ENOUGH and returned her attention to her father. There was a spiderlike blood vessel on the side of his face that she didn’t remember from his last visit to Barton in March. All that time in the outdoors, years and years and years of it, of course it could do a number on your skin. A bruise bloomed around the stitches, and the skin around his neck was sagging. Her father, who had always been the strongest, most invincible man she knew, looked suddenly weak and ravaged.
“You go on back home, Eliza, I’ll be right as anything this time tomorrow.”
She chewed on that for a minute. Something didn’t feel right. “When you look me in the eyes, Dad, and tell me that you are one hundred percent fine if I go back home, I’ll go. And not until then.”
Her father’s gaze slid away from her. She took in the unadorned sink, the dish rack with the single sad little coffee cup in it, and she felt her heart cracking.
“That settles it,” said Eliza. She recalculated the rest of her week. She could ask Deirdre (read: Deirdre’s summer nanny) to help out with the girls if necessary. Rob just had the one project, and his hours were more flexible now that he wasn’t commuting into Boston for work. “I’m staying, Dad, just for a few days, until you’re all the way back on your feet. Right after dinner, I’ll call Rob.”
6
LITTLE HARBOR, MAINE
Mary
Josh was beery and cheery, two empties on the table, one in his hand, lying on the old plaid couch.
Mary could blame part of her tardiness on Andi, who decided to take the espresso machine all the way apart for its weekly cleaning right before closing time. But then Mary also had to blame herself, for offering to lend a hand. She helped pour a mix of water and vinegar into the machine and let it run. She helped disassemble the frothing wand and clean that. She helped remove the brew head and clean that. She did all of these things despite the fact that Andi kept telling her she could clock out, and despite the fact that she knew Josh was waiting for her.
“I’m okay,” she told Andi. “I’m good.” While the wand soaked in warm water, she wiped the entire machine down, rubbing away any spots or streaks until she could see her reflection (which looked tired, and worried). Every so often she glanced at the clock over the espresso machine. The clock hands kept moving forward, the way clock hands do, and every time another minute went by she felt a small sickening burst in her stomach. Still, she cleaned on. She ran the vinegar water through the machine once, twice, three times. When her cell phone buzzed in her apron pocket she ignored it.
Andi and Daphne used to call Josh Mary’s “young man,” like they were elderly grandparents unaccustomed to the ways of today’s youth, though Mary knew for a fact that Daphne was thirty-six, the same age as Vivienne, and Andi was forty-one. Sometimes to tease her Daphne called Andi “old lady”; these were the only times Mary saw Andi get irritated with Daphne. Once Mary had heard her say under her breath, “Jesus Christ, Daph, it’s five goddamn years, let it go.”
Then once Josh had lingered too long in the café at closing, waiting for Mary, and Andi had talked to him for a couple of minutes, and after that something had shifted: they stopped the jokiness, and every now and then Mary caught one or the other of them giving her a look that lived between parental and something more.
Mary put her phone down on the table and bent and kissed Josh. She’d stopped at home to put on the yellow dress that she loved and that Vivienne hated: “Makes you look like a prairie girl.” She felt feminine and pretty; she even added a Hunger Games–style wraparound braid that Vivienne had taught her to do. Vivienne was always threatening to have Mary come in so the girls could “do something” with Mary’s hair.
Josh tasted like Miller Lite. He gestured toward the full cans on the table and said, “Have one, babe.” She touched her belly and said, “No thanks, maybe later.”
On the screen was Fast N’ Loud, Josh’s favorite car-restoring show. He had to pay extra for the Discovery channel on cable to watch it. There were months when that was a stretch, the extra twelve dollars on the cable bill, but he never considered giving it up. Sometimes Mary paid for part of the bill from the envelope of cash she got from The Cup. She half hoped that Josh would turn the money down but he never did. Maybe she was just as much to blame, for offering. Also, it seemed only fair to help foot the bill, she reasoned, since she and Josh watched a lot of television together.
Mary’s math teacher, Ms. Berry, had by April of senior year noticed that Mary was slipping in her grades and forgetting to turn in homework. She asked Mary to stay late one day to talk about it; she even suggested that she might want to call in Mary’s mother for a conference—she smiled and used air quotes and called it a “one-on-one,” like that made it more fun, intimate and girly, like a slumber party. But Mary, who knew Vivienne would rather pull off her own eyelash extensions than come in to talk to a math teacher, mumbled something about a really bad cold that had dragged on through the spring. And then she slipped even further under the radar until school came to a close.
It was easy, in a school like theirs, in a life like hers, to disappear. People did it all the time. In fact, it was the people who didn’t slip who stood out.
It was funny, because Mary knew almost nothing about Ms. Berry, except for the fact that she haile
d from New Hampshire, lived in nearby Franklin, and owned a German shepherd named William, but sometimes when she thought about disappointing her Mary got a rocky feeling deep in her belly.
It was the same feeling that she remembered having as a nine-year-old when she’d lost one of her brand-new birthstone earrings at the state fair in Presque Isle. “Well, that’s that,” Vivienne had said. “Guess you didn’t have them screwed in tight enough.” The stomach-dropping permanence of the loss: Mary would recognize it for the rest of her life.
“Aw, come on, darling,” Josh wheedled, pointing to the Miller Lite.
He liked it when she drank with him; he liked that it loosened her up. Mary liked it too, if she was being honest. Sober, she was like a balloon tethered to the ground with a series of durable ropes, trying but unable to wrench herself free. After a beer or two, it was as though an invisible hand reached out from nowhere and cut the ropes, and off she floated, into the sky, darting among the clouds, away from herself.
“Maybe later,” she said, though she was not going to have a beer, not today.
His expression became a little less cheery. So she pretended great interest in the television: “What are they working on today?” Actually, though, she had no interest in cars.
“Check this out, babe,” Josh said, nodding at the television screen.
Josh’s dream was to own a ’69 Chevy Camaro in blue with two white stripes down the front that he could cruise around town in. He wanted to enter it in the Down East Auto Show in Ellsworth, lined up with the others, hood popped, engine on display. “You can practically eat off those engines, they’re so clean!” he had said once.
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