Acts of God

by Mary Morris

  * * *

  Of course they wanted her. All the boys. How they wanted her. It didn’t matter who they were or what side of the tracks they came from. They whistled when she walked by, they called to her. They touched that long black hair. They dreamed of touching her milky white skin. And the breasts. They didn’t dare dream of those, but they did.

  When she walked by, there was the smell of lilacs and cigarettes, of something moist and sweaty. They sang after her, “There she was justa walking down the street…”

  We watched them want her. We watched and pretended we didn’t see what it was all about. She was just the new girl, wasn’t she? Even though she’d already been living in our midst for four years. She would never make it here. She’d never fit in.

  I pretended not to notice the smooth curve of her hips, the shape of her arms. The way she walked, dressed like me. How was it that she was always dressed like me? And then in the summers stripped down, in two-pieces in the backyard. Margaret always called to see who was coming over. Who’d be there. One day we were all sunbathing in the backyard, all of us in our two-pieces, Cokes in our hands, and when I went inside for a pitcher of something, Jeb came up to me and said, “Squirrel, which one is that one?”

  He pointed out back and I squinted in the sun to see. I couldn’t quite follow his finger as it pressed itself against the glass. “Who?”

  “That one. I’ve never seen her before.”

  “Yes, you have. You know who that is.”

  But my brother looked at me dumbfounded and then I saw a look I’d never seen in his face before, one I couldn’t quite place, but I said to him more gently now, “You’ve seen her a million times. That’s just Margaret. That’s Margaret Blair.”

  * * *

  One day on my way to tell my brother to come home from the Idiot’s Circle, I ran into Margaret. “I have to tell my brother to come home.”

  Margaret laughed. “Oh, I’ll come with you. Let me tag along.”

  It was summer and we were in shorts. I was wearing powder-blue shorts and Margaret wore black and pink stripes that showed off her long, bronzed legs, her black hair pulled back. We were thirteen years old. Jeb was fifteen. As I approached, all the boys in leather started hooting, calling out names. I said to Jeb, “Mom says you have to come home.” I didn’t have to describe for him Lily at home, tearing out her hair, slamming doors, muttering to herself about her kids running wild, her kids having gotten away from her.

  He gave us a wink. “Sure, Tess,” he said, docile as a lamb, “I’ll come home.” With a great flourish like I once saw Gene Kelly do before he was about to dance, Jeb took Margaret by the arm. “I’ll come if you’ll come too.”

  We all went home and down into the rec room, where Jeb put on a Sam Cooke record. I stood against the bar, clapping, tapping out a beat, watching Jeb and Margaret. They danced close during the slow dances. Only when the music was fast would they dance with me.

  31

  Nick wanted to see where I lived. He called to say he had some time. A meeting he’d been waiting for had been postponed and he could drive down. “I don’t think it’s a good idea,” I said.

  “I want to see the objects you have around you.”

  “Well, it’s mostly feathers and shells. Stuff I find on the beach.”

  “Well, then, I want to see that. The beach, those vistas you told me about,” he said. “Tessie, I want to see you.” For some reason I imagined he would come out here and we’d still be friends. But there was something inevitable about all this. I couldn’t stop it anymore than the driver of a runaway truck on a downhill grade could. We seemed to have been heading here for a long while. I knew it even as I told him, “Yes, I want to see you too.”

  I planned to have everything ready—table set, house cleaned—before I had to do my volunteer work at the aquarium. I was just finishing cleaning up the kitchen when there was a knock at the door. I was afraid it might be John Martelli. He had taken to stopping by. Once or twice he’d even dropped in. From time to time I thought I’d seen his car driving past my house.

  I opened the door hesitantly, and instead I found Bruno Mercedes standing there. He’d come over to interview me about the house and to ask questions once or twice. But this was the first time he’d stopped by uninvited. He stood there, rocking on his heels in his navy slacks and tweed jacket. He had on glasses, which I didn’t remember him wearing before. “Mrs. Winterstone…”

  I gave him a little glare.

  “Tess, I was wondering if we could talk.”

  “I’d love to talk, Bruno. But it’s not such a good time.” He stood there, looking so sad, almost begging. “Why don’t you come in?”

  He breathed a sigh of relief as I led him into the kitchen, where I poured both of us a cup of coffee. He took his light and sweet. “Lots of milk and sugar,” he said.

  I sat down across from him and we both gazed out the breakfast nook window through the grove of pines, the cliffs, to where the earth dropped away. “I’ve written something,” he said. “I was going to mail it to you, but I decided to bring it myself.”

  He pushed across the table the envelope he carried, and the moisture of his fingers left an imprint. Slowly I opened it. It was a tattered manila envelope with coffee stains and assorted other stains on it, unspeakable things, I imagined. There was a neat title page and perhaps another thirty pages. The title page read: Water and Rage: The Dark Vision of a Metaphysical Poet—Francis Cantwell Eagger.

  Bruno looked across at me, his eyes filled with anticipation. I turned to the next page, where I saw “This dissertation is for TW, who let me inside” and then the epigraph, which was a quote I remembered from one of the Eagger poems, “Dark winds batter all that I know. A tree crashes down the dunes, leaving a hole with which to view the sky.”

  “Bruno, is this for me?”

  “Just read the preface,” he said, his eyes never leaving my face. I felt awkward, as if something was expected of me that I did not have to give. Opening the manuscript, I read,

  For many years I have tried to penetrate the dark vision of Francis Cantwell Eagger. I have tried to understand his work from what I could piece together of his life. Eagger left no journals, no unfinished poems, and only a few letters, several of which were exchanged with my father.

  The focal point of his work seemed to be the house where he lived, the one he built with his own two hands. After many months of waiting I was finally granted access to that house and it was only once I was inside that I felt I had found the way into the poet’s spirit. Poetry does not arise from nowhere. We all know that the writer draws from what he or she knows. In building those dark, narrow walls of stone, Francis Cantwell Eagger perfected the dark poetic vision for which he is known.

  I turned the page, but that was all he had written. The rest was a bibliography and a list of poems. “Well, it is a very good start, Bruno. Very exciting for you.”

  “It’s as far as I’ve gotten, but I found this fragment of a poem in a letter. It’s a big discovery. I think it’s from ‘Desire Paths,’ a poem he worked on for a long time, but it was never published and is believed lost.” Bruno held the page in his hand, his fingers shaking. “‘Along the wind-racked bluffs/we have made our way/to the edge and back again/so many times/That we have made a path, worn down weeds and shrubs.’ That’s all that was in the letter.”

  “Well, you’ve got a good start. I think you should keep going.”

  “I want to,” he said, “I really do, but I just need more.…”

  I looked at his boyish face, his sandy hair that was already starting to thin, his tweed jacket. I wondered what my life would have been if I’d met a boy like this when I was a girl. “Is there something you want?”

  He sat still, gazing off to the rooms of my house. “I was thinking you should turn this place into a museum.”

  I paused, wondering if I should say what I planned to say next. “Actually, I was thinking of turning it into a bed-and-breakfast.”


  His eyes widened in disbelief. His face turned pale.

  “I need some income. Quite frankly, I’m broke and my alimony and support payments are running out. My plan is to turn the kids’ rooms into guest rooms. It will give me a good tax break and provide a little income.”

  He looked at me, almost angry now. “You aren’t serious, are you?”

  “I’m very serious.”

  “The man who lived here was a holy man, almost a saint.…”

  “Who drank himself to death and whose own son couldn’t wait to get rid of this place because it reminded him of his terrible childhood.”

  “He drank to fill the void.”

  “We all have a void to fill.”

  Just then the back door opened and Jade walked in. Or dragged herself in. It had been days since I’d seen her and she looked dejected, miserable. As she ran her fingers through her cropped, purple-streaked hair, my arms ached to take her in. “Jade, darling,” I said, my voice trembling, “how are you?”

  “I’m okay,” she said, though she didn’t look or sound okay. She gave me a wave, Bruno a nod, went to the fridge, got out a Diet Coke, and flipped it open. “This is Bruno Mercedes,” I said. “He’s writing his doctoral dissertation on Francis Eagger.”

  Leaning on the wooden counter, Jade took a sip of her Coke. “Really?” She looked at him closely. “You used to stand in front of our house.”

  Bruno blushed a little, gazing down. “Yes, I’ve been working on his poems for a long time now. But I’ve just begun—”

  “‘Where the sea falls, I fall. Where it rises, I rise…’” my daughter said, looking out the window.

  Bruno kept his gaze on her. “‘It is the place I come back to, the one I cannot leave, nor can I dwell in another land.…’”

  She looked up at him now, smiling. I hadn’t seen a smile on my daughter’s face in weeks, maybe months. “‘Coastal Views,’” she said. “That’s my favorite poem.”

  “One of mine too,” Bruno said. “It’s about finding God.”

  “Oh.” Jade gave him a funny look. “I didn’t see it that way. I thought it was about love. But that makes sense. Well.” She hit her hand on the Formica counter. “I’ve got a job.” She gave me a look. “Back at the fish and chips. It was nice meeting you.”

  “It was nice meeting you too.” Bruno got up and extended his hand. Jade looked at it as if she didn’t know what she was supposed to do. Then she shook it and headed toward her room.

  Bruno watched her leave. “Interesting girl.”

  “Yes, you could say that.”

  As I walked Bruno to the door, he said to me, “This is what I’d like to ask you. I’d like to come back here every now and then. I’d like to think in this house.”

  “Of course, Bruno,” I told him. “Come back whenever you like.”

  That afternoon I sat at the edge of the tidal pool at the aquarium, where I volunteer from time to time. I was showing a starfish to a group of schoolchildren from Santa Cruz. They squealed as the starfish writhed, its tentacles sucking against their hands.

  32

  I wasn’t sure whose car it was or where she got it, but in the spring of our junior year, Margaret showed up at my house in a red convertible with a stereo radio. I had no car. Or rather I had no use of a car. My father had taken that privilege away the week after I got my license. I had managed to have two minor accidents in a very short time span, including backing out of the garage into the car of a friend of my father’s who’d stopped by to ask my father if he wanted to hit some balls. I knew that the car was there. I mean, I saw it as I backed out, but for some reason I drove smack into its front fender. My father apologized profusely to his friend, paid for the Prairie Vista Automotive job, and told me I could drive when I could see. He also made it clear to me that he did not anticipate this being in the near future.

  The unspoken agreement between me and the gang was that on spring nights when the weather was warm and our homework was more or less done we’d show up at the bottom of Lake Road on the beach where the bonfire pit was. I could have walked. It wasn’t that far and I knew how to slide down the drainpipe and how to sneak back in through the screened-in porch, which was never locked. But it just wasn’t considered cool to walk. I may as well have come on a bicycle. You had to come in a car, preferably your own. But if not, anyone’s would do.

  One night I was hoping that Patrick would show or maybe Vicky or Samantha Crawford or the Dworkin twins. Anybody who had their license and wheels. I was as good as grounded without permission to drive and I had no idea when it would be granted. Miserable in my room, I went down to watch the stop sign on our corner for headlights. I told myself five cars and it would be for me. I got pretty good at seeing even the faintest glimmer of light in the stop sign and then I’d start my count. Sometimes there’d be a burst of them. Other times they would be few and far between. I could sit there in the dining room, looking down the driveway, and nobody knew what I was doing there. Nobody noticed, really.

  One night nobody came for a long time and so I gave myself a few extra turns and then Margaret drove up. She had this neat red convertible with the hood down and her long black hair flapping in the breeze. I couldn’t believe it when she drove up. I didn’t particularly want to go with her, but on the other hand I wanted to get out of there. I dashed out the front door.

  It was a warm spring night when the air felt fresh and green and everything was about ready to burst with buds and flowers. As I ran into the driveway, Margaret was waving at me. “Let’s go,” she said.

  “Where’d you get this car?” I touched its shiny chrome, its red paint. The white leather inside smelled new. “Nice,” I muttered, leaping in over the door without opening it.

  “Oh, my dad,” she said as she backed up quietly, then gunned it at the corner. “He promised me one when I got my license.” She turned on the radio to a Beatles medley. They were very popular then and we turned it up high and sang, “I wanta hold your hand” and “Close your eyes and I’ll kiss you.” As we cruised toward the beach, Dion came on with “Runaway” and we shouted at the top of our lungs as we drove.

  “Boy,” I said, “you are so lucky.” I thought about the family station wagon that sat idle in our garage. Even when my father gave me his permission, I’d never drive it again. I’d probably had those accidents because it was such a big lug of a car. “Your dad really gave you this?”

  “Yes,” she said with a strong voice of indignation. “He drove right down from Wisconsin and handed me the keys. Boy, did that piss my mom off.” Then Margaret burned a little rubber as we zoomed into the beach parking lot, where big signs were posted everywhere that read NO PARKING AFTER DARK and BEACH PARKING ONLY DURING SEASON so that the police had some grounds for arresting us when we were going hot and heavy with our boyfriends in the middle of January. Several cars were already assembled and I recognized most of them. Butch, Hawkeye, and JJ. The guys from Prairie Vista. They were there. Vicky’s car was there and so were Lori’s and Samantha’s. I was a little pissed that no one but Margaret had picked me up. A bonfire was going and somebody had thought to bring beer. The cop cruiser usually came by every hour on the hour so we had a little while.

  Patrick was lying in the sand, propped up on his elbow, a beer in hand. I was mad at him for not coming by for me so I played cool and ignored him. We’d already been going out for about a year or so. We’d gone to the sophomore hop the year before, which was the biggy, and we usually went to the movies on a weekend. Whenever there was something, it was just assumed we’d go together, though I’m not sure how it ever happened that we did. He never called me and I don’t know that I called him. Now that we had cars we just showed up and then we’d go off together and neck in his car.

  He saw me all right because I saw him perk up and laugh at something somebody said that wasn’t so funny. He used to do that, laugh this big laugh when I was around so I’d notice him, but not really pay attention to me himself. I always had t
o go to him, it seemed, but I didn’t care because it made him happy when I did. But tonight I didn’t go.

  “Hey,” I said to Vicky, “what’s the idea? Nobody came for me.”

  “We just figured Patrick would.”

  “Yeah, well, he didn’t.”

  I turned to say something to him when I saw that Margaret had sidled up to where he was sitting. She stretched out beside him like a cat and Patrick grinned in the glow of the fire. When I went over to get a beer, he gave me a look like he couldn’t help himself.

  I stayed around for as long as I thought I could without all hell breaking loose when I got home. Margaret never moved but just stayed, joking with Patrick, and he kept sipping his beer, laughing at her jokes. Occasionally she tugged on his pants leg or tossed her ponytail back as if she were swatting flies.

  I sat down not far from them and Patrick kept giving me this dopey, hopeless look and I kept watching Margaret, who acted as if she didn’t know who I was or that Patrick and I had been a thing for the better part of the past year. She just lay next to him as if this were her living room and she was stretched out on the sofa.

  After about an hour I said I was going home. Patrick offered to drive me, but he made no move to get up. “Forget it,” I said. Vicky said she’d take me, but she wasn’t ready to go. I told them it was okay. I could walk. They’d all had a lot of beer, but they knew it was a fairly ridiculous thing I was suggesting I’d do, at that hour. They all told me to wait and someone would drive me home, but I was already heading toward the bluff.

  They probably figured I’d take the road, which was the long way. I heard Patrick shout at me as I headed straight for the bluff. There seemed to be some discussion about whether or not to let me go because I heard an engine start, but I was already clawing my way up the bluff.

  It was a steep incline of mud and rocks. I’d climbed up it before, but never at midnight, when I couldn’t see. Still, it was the most direct route to my house and would shave half an hour off my walking time if I didn’t kill myself. I reached for branches, found my footing in stones. Slowly I pulled myself up. Once I lost my footing and started a small landslide of pebbles, but in a few moments I was scaling the top without incident.