Dive From Clausen's Pier

by Ann Packer

  But in fact we were getting along well. Something about being in a car together, the hum of the road when we weren’t talking, of our voices when we were. I’d been in bed with Kilroy, in restaurants, movie theaters, bars—but this was something new, something nice.

  At dusk we parked on an empty stretch of road and walked down to the beach. The wind was sharp against our faces, the sand gray and swept with seaweed, the water dark. As we made our way along the shoreline, a bank of steel-colored clouds hovered at the horizon and grew. Kilroy’s arms were tight across his chest to keep out the cold, and as I looked at him, his collar-length tangled hair and his pale, stubbly face, I felt happiness invade me like a kind of calm.

  “Your first view of the ocean?” he said.

  I shook my head. When I was four or five my mother’d taken me to visit a cousin of hers on the New Jersey shore—her cousin Brian, on whose shoulders I’d eaten a black cherry ice cream cone, only to think, years later, that the shoulders had been my father’s. I could no longer remember sitting on Brian’s shoulders, I could only remember remembering it, when I was nine or so and determined to resurrect what I could of John Bell. On and off for nearly a year, I fell asleep trying to retrieve my father from the void he’d left me for. It was a kind of boardless Ouija game, the fingertips of one hand meeting the fingertips of the other so that my hands formed a loose clamshell: a kind of prayerless prayer. Where are you, where are you? Finally, hearing me muttering to myself one night, my mother came into my room and asked if I’d called her, and I decided then and there to stop. It was the next day that I tossed the pencil sharpener he’d left me into the Dumpster at school, with a nine-year-old’s righteous vehemence.

  Where was he, though? Where? Who had he been, and who had he become?

  Kilroy touched my face. “Where’d you go?”

  I shook my head. I’d told him the whole story—what more was there to say? “New Jersey,” I said. “Where I first saw the ocean.”

  We checked into a little roadside motel, where Kilroy insisted on paying. Our room was the last in a line, creaking slightly in the wind. Brown-and-orange plaid curtains, a lumpy double bed. We took showers and then went out for dinner, to a drafty barn of a restaurant where we ate lobster with a view of the black beach, shadowy clouds obscuring and then revealing the dim half-moon.

  Back in the motel room we stretched out on the bed. My legs were tired from the walk on the beach, and I closed my eyes, thinking I’d rest for a few minutes. I woke in the dark some time later and realized that Kilroy was easing off my shoes. At first I couldn’t see him—I just felt his hands on my ankle, felt him peel my sock down over my foot. After a while there was wet warmth: his tongue flicking over my toes and between them, tickling almost to agony, kisses on the top of my foot, the sole, the heel. Gradually I made out his silhouette. I knew he knew I was awake, but I didn’t speak. He moved up and unsnapped my jeans, then unzipped them. I stayed limp, didn’t give him any help as he tugged them off. He slipped his palm into my underwear and slid a finger into me, then pulled it out and traced a wet circle around my belly button. I held my hands away from my sides, palms up, an exercise in anguished restraint. Our eyes met but we continued like this. Inert, I felt my sweater come off, then my bra. The room was cool. He sucked at my nipples, his head and chest covering my upper body with a light warmth. He moved away and I was instantly chilled, goosebumpy. The bedsprings squealed as he stood, and he stared at me through the dark while he undressed. I was very cold, but he lay next to me without pulling back the covers, and his cold hand spread itself out on my abdomen. Now it was harder not to move. I felt his erection against my leg, his hand moving up and down my belly. I was dying to touch him, but also dying not to, to continue this story of no feeling until the final moment when I burst, and proved it wrong.

  We woke late the next morning, heavy with sleep in the curtain-dark room. We dressed and got back into the rental car, then drove around the end of Long Island, through some of the charming small towns out there, empty in March though Kilroy said they made up for it in summer, when all of Manhattan arrived with their cell phones. In a poorly lit café with a little junk store at the rear, we finally had breakfast, dark, steaming mugs of coffee and huge, craggy pastries, a full half inch of oatmealy crumb baked onto their surfaces.

  Afterward, we looked through the stuff on display in the back. Stained old quilts, tarnished copper pots, rough little pine side tables.

  “I want a souvenir,” I said, fingering a long-handled wood dipper.

  Kilroy grinned. “I saw a saltwater taffy place down the street.”

  “A real souvenir,” I said. “It’s so nice being out here. Don’t you sort of wish we could stay and hide out for a while?”

  Hide out. I didn’t like the sound of that, and I pretended to be absorbed by a chipped ceramic rooster. Why had I said “hide out”? “I mean,” I said, “spend longer than just a weekend,” but that wasn’t right either: I’d miss Patternmaking if we didn’t go back tomorrow, and I knew I didn’t want to miss a class. What did I want? To be outside of life with Kilroy, and inside it by myself? I hoped not. I didn’t want to want that.

  I took his hand, then stretched it around me and placed it against my back. I reached for the other hand and drew it around my other side. We were inches apart now, embracing in an empty junk shop on Long Island. I lifted my face to kiss him, and he hesitated. He glanced up front, to where our waitress was standing looking out the café window onto the sidewalk. “I dare you,” I said, and he turned back and pressed his lips to mine: once lightly and then again, for real.

  Going back to the city the next afternoon, we talked a bit but mostly rode along silently, tired from a long walk on the beach that morning. My legs ached pleasantly, and my thoughts drifted from the vastness of the ocean to Kilroy’s quiet presence near me to the things I’d do during the upcoming week.

  The rental car place was on 17th Street, east of Third. We glanced around for a taxi before starting back toward his place, the city blocks stretching endlessly ahead of us now that we’d walked on sand. “One more block,” he said with a rueful smile as we crossed Sixth, and then nothing more till we’d reached his building and he’d unlocked the outer door and pushed the button for the elevator. “Home, sweet home,” he said, and then he smiled and kissed me on the jaw.

  Upstairs, he dropped his shoulder bag in front of his apartment door and fished in his pocket for his keys. He unlocked the door and pushed it open, and there, lying on the hall floor, was a thick, cream-colored envelope.

  “What’s that?” I said.

  He groaned softly, then bent and picked it up. On the back flap a flourish of initials eluded me, but on the front it was easy to read the single word written there: Paul.

  “Fuck,” he said under his breath. He shoved the envelope into his coat pocket and held the door open for me. I went into the bedroom and dropped my bag, then watched as he carried his in, unzipped it, and held it open over the bed, letting loose a freefall of dirty clothes. “Excuse me,” he said, and he vanished into the bathroom, latching the door behind him.

  Paul. It had to be from his parents.

  I stared out the window at the graying light, people in twos and threes walking down the avenue. A taxi came to a stop at the opposite corner, and a man in an overcoat got out and then leaned in the front window to pay the fare.

  The toilet flushed and Kilroy came out and stopped on the far side of the room, still wearing his coat. “Listen,” he said. “I’ve got to, um, do an errand. Do you want to take a hot bath or—I don’t know—go back to the brownstone?”

  I pulled my lower teeth across the bottom of my upper lip, chapped from the windy weekend. “What errand?” I said. “Where are you going?”

  He shook his head. “I’ve got to run uptown for something.” He put his hands on his hips and looked at his shoes. “To see my parents, actually.”

  He looked dirty and tired, his hair a wind-blown mess, stubble spr
outed from his cheeks. He just wanted to go, get whatever it was done with, but I couldn’t stop myself: “Can I go with you?”

  His eyes bugged out for a second. He recovered and said, “You don’t want to do that, believe me.”

  “But I do.” My palms were damp and I wiped them on my jeans. “I love you,” I said. “I want to meet your parents even if—” I’d been about to say even if you don’t want me to but I stopped myself “—even if you hate them.”

  “I don’t hate them,” he said. “It’s just complicated.” He licked his lips. “I’m glad you said that, though.”

  He meant “I love you.” I’d said it in the dark, in bed, but this was the first time I’d said it when he could see my face. It made me feel a little seasick, having the words out there. Not because I didn’t mean them but because they felt so frail.

  “You know what?” he said. “Come. I actually think—” He stopped and shook his head ruefully, then skirted the bed and came to stand in front of me. He held out his hand and said, “Please. I’d like you to meet my parents.”

  We rode an A train to 42nd Street, then took the R to the Lexington Avenue line. They lived on 77th between Park and Madison, in an enormous house that was as wide as two brownstones put together, but made of a paler stone and fronted by two curving flights of steps that joined in front of a gleaming dark-wood door. A maid let us in.

  I followed Kilroy through a living room full of antiques and lavish Persian rugs, into what I thought must be the library, a smaller, cozier room with dark green walls and several pieces of leather furniture. All the books seemed to be in sets, with gold tooling. On a lustrous mahogany table there was an enormous flower arrangement that must have taken hours to compose, each perfect out-of-season blossom in its place. There was a fire burning in the fireplace, a tray of decanters on a table. The whole thing made me think of Masterpiece Theater.

  “Drink?” Kilroy said. He’d grown edgier on the subway, and now his voice was tight and uneven.

  “Sure.”

  He put ice in heavy crystal glasses and poured from one of the decanters. I tasted mine, not sure I liked the strong, smooth smokiness of it.

  We sat side by side on a deep couch. “Pleasant li’l place,” he said drily. “Course I’d fancy sumpin’ a bit nicer meself.”

  A small, compact man of about seventy appeared in the doorway, gray-haired and wearing a muted plaid sportcoat, and looking so much like Kilroy that I saw instantly how Kilroy would age, how his narrow mouth and intense eyes would come to be surrounded by lines, how his body would slacken at the waist. The man’s smooth, unworried countenance, though: Kilroy would probably never have that.

  At my side Kilroy stood up. “Dad.”

  The man came forward and offered Kilroy his hand. He was followed by an exquisite woman of about sixty-five, slender, elegant, dressed in what I knew was a weekend outfit, of brown-and-cream checked trousers and a brown cashmere sweater set. Her face was made up lightly, for day—for a day at home when your estranged son might stop by. She hadn’t had a face-lift, and the softness at her chin and under her eyes contributed to her beauty—she was one of those women who would always be beautiful.

  Kilroy stepped around the coffee table and kissed her pale pink cheek. “Morton Fraser, Barbara Fraser, this is Carrie Bell.”

  I stood up, and Mr. Fraser and I shook, then Mrs. Fraser offered me her slim, cool hand. “How lovely to meet you,” she said, smiling and tipping her head to the side so that her soft, gray-gold hair brushed her shoulder. “It’s not often that we get to meet any of Paul’s”—she hesitated—“friends.”

  “So,” Mr. Fraser said. “Glad you could stop by.” He shot his wife a look, and she shook her head almost imperceptibly. I wondered what the note had said, some kind of summons. We all stood there without quite looking at each other until a man in a dark suit came in and poured drinks, Mrs. Fraser’s mouth tightening a little when she saw we already had ours. I wished I weren’t wearing jeans.

  “How’ve you been?” Kilroy’s father said to him. “It’s been some time.”

  Kilroy nodded. “OK.” One corner of his mouth rose into a cockeyed half smile. “Same old, same old.” Then he glanced at me and added, quietly, “Well, almost.”

  Mrs. Fraser leaned forward, her hands clasped together. “Tell us what you do,” she said to me. “Do you work or are you a student?”

  “I’m a part-time student,” I said. “I’m taking courses at Parsons.”

  “Is that right?” she said. “And what are you studying?”

  “Fashion design.”

  “Right up your alley, Mom,” Kilroy said, not unkindly.

  His mother smiled. “Do you have wonderful fabrics to work with?”

  “We pretty much just use muslin,” I said. “At this level the emphasis is on learning how to fit and drape.”

  “I see,” she said, nodding. “How interesting.”

  There was another long silence. Kilroy and I were together on the couch, his parents in separate leather chairs opposite us. Behind them, yet another servant walked past the open doorway, carrying a tall silver vase full of slightly spent roses.

  “Well,” Mr. Fraser said. “How did you, um—what did you do this weekend?”

  Before he’d really stopped talking, Kilroy broke in to answer, his voice a half notch higher and louder than usual, as if he wanted to drown his father out. “Actually, Carrie and I went out to Montauk—rented a car and drove out Friday afternoon. She’d never been there. Traffic wasn’t bad at all on the way out, though it got a little nasty coming back in this afternoon.”

  “And what did you think of Montauk?” Mr. Fraser asked me.

  “It was great.”

  He smiled broadly. “It’s one of the best places on earth. How was the weather?”

  “Freezing and windy. The sky was so dramatic I kept kind of hoping it would rain.”

  He beamed. “One of my favorite things is to come inside after getting soaked in a storm on the beach.”

  “The consummate outdoorsman,” Kilroy said, and the two of them chuckled a little.

  Mrs. Fraser lifted her glass to her mouth, barely opening her lips enough to admit any of the drink. “Jane called yesterday,” she said. She hesitated, and I wondered who Jane was. What was going on? There was something in the atmosphere that the three of them were aware of, and I couldn’t tell if it was just their discomfort with each other or something more.

  “How is she?” Kilroy said.

  “They’re just back from diving off the Caymans. Mac came face to face with a shark.”

  “How ironic,” Kilroy said, and his parents each suppressed a smile.

  “She asked about you,” Mr. Fraser said.

  “I’m sure she did.” Kilroy turned to me. “My older sister,” he explained, and a look of faint surprise passed between his parents at his having to tell me.

  “Lucia wants a pony,” Mrs. Fraser went on. “Jane said she drew a picture of herself on horseback and left it on Jane and Mac’s bed. She wrote, ‘Lucia at age seven wanted to be an equestrienne.’ ” Mrs. Fraser smiled. “ ‘Equestrienne.’ She got the gender right.”

  Mr. Fraser leaned forward. “She’s quite the wit these days, Paul. Sweet, too, although boy, can you get her dander up. Then she’s off to her room and there’s no reaching her.”

  Kilroy snickered. “Must be genetic,” he said, and his parents hesitated and then both smiled awkward smiles.

  I’d barely touched my drink, but Kilroy’s was nearly empty. He put it on the coffee table, carefully centering it on a coaster that was either made of malachite or painted to look as if it were made of malachite—it matched the green walls perfectly. He stood up and said to me, “We’d better go if we’re going to make that reservation.”

  His mother looked up at him. “Reservation?” She glanced at me, a quick look that took in my jeans, my straggly hair. “Where are you going?”

  “A place downtown.”

  “Pau
l thinks we never go below Fiftieth Street,” she said to me, “but in fact one of our favorite places is in SoHo. Do you know Clos de la Violette?”

  I shook my head.

  “It’s lovely,” she said.

  We were all still for a moment until, abruptly, Kilroy’s father stood, too. “Well,” he said. “Glad you could come by. Very nice.”

  Kilroy shrugged. “I’m a sucker for your Scotch.”

  His father brightened. “Really? Can I send a bottle home with you?” He turned to Mrs. Fraser. “Would you ring?”

  “I was kidding,” Kilroy said.

  Out in the hall a clock chimed seven times, and after a moment Mr. Fraser shook Kilroy’s hand again, and he and Mrs. Fraser walked us to the door. The entryway had a black-and-white marble floor and, running up the center, a staircase made of wood that had been stained a glossy black. I looked up to see what I could of the second floor, an open, yellow-walled space with two wide doorways leading deeper into the house.

  Mrs. Fraser was waiting to say goodbye. She shook my hand, then put her palm on Kilroy’s arm, her thin fingers against his tweedy coat. “Don’t be such a stranger,” she said lightly, and he flushed and looked down, then reached for the shiny brass doorknob.

  CHAPTER 29

  Kilroy was edgy and remote that evening, not wanting to talk about the visit—not wanting to talk, period. In the middle of the night I woke to find his place in the bed empty. I crept out to the living room and found him asleep on the couch, huddled under his coat, the reading light on and his book lying near him on the floor. From the bedroom I got his pillow and wedged it between his head and the hard frame of the futon, then went back and lay awake for a long time. I rolled from side to side, wondering at what I’d seen and heard at his parents’ house, how it added up to such a breach. They’d seemed so watchful of him, so careful. And their surprise that he’d never mentioned his sister to me. Jane. They’re just back from diving off the Caymans. Jane and Mac and Lucia. I flipped onto my back. I hated to be awake in the middle of the night, fearful I’d be exhausted all the next day. Morton Fraser, Barbara Fraser, this is Carrie Bell. That house, sumptuous and full of servants. His mother had been so pretty. Her cool, slim hand in mine. I turned and turned again. I was still awake at dawn, shapes clarifying in the gathering light.