Tigers in Red Weather

by Liza Klaussmann

  Then he sat down on the warm wooden planks, watching schools of minnows flitting in and out of the seaweed beneath, and waited.

  He saw her as she made her way down the sloping lawn, tripping slightly against the incline. From that distance, she could be twenty, wearing a pair of poppy-colored shorts over a white strapless bathing suit, her short hair brushed from her forehead. She carried the picnic basket against her hip, tilting from the weight. When she reached him, she was a little breathless.

  Hughes rose and took the hamper from her.

  “Thanks,” she said. “Phew, it’s already hot.”

  “I think the heat’s breaking a little,” Hughes said.

  “I don’t know about that,” Nick said.

  They made their way to the beach, where Star lay shining like a large, green seashell. Hughes pushed the boat into the water, and Nick held her while he put in the daggerboard and rudder, and then handed him the hamper, cushions and the towels. He raised the sail and tied off the halyard; then, extending his hand, he pulled Nick in. Her calves, slippery from the water, slid against the siding and she used her palms to steady herself.

  The day was bright and clear and as they sailed through the harbor the sun made little stars on the peaks of water. Hughes could feel the bridge of his nose crisping and he found himself squinting behind his sunglasses, already sticky with salt. His hand rested lightly on the tiller. It was a good day for sailing; calm, but not still.

  Several midmorning swimmers were already walking the shoreline of the Chappy bathing beach, with its red-and-blue-striped bathhouses, and behind him Hughes could hear the bell on the dock ringing for the skipper of the On Time, calling him to make his way across.

  “It’s a perfect day,” Nick said. “At least, here on the boat with the breeze. I packed deviled eggs. Do you want one now?”

  “Not yet,” Hughes said. “I’m going to delay my pleasure.”

  Nick laughed. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?” She leaned back slightly and trailed her hand in the water. “I think it’s in the genes, salt water. Whether you like it or not.”

  “Is that so?” Hughes smiled.

  “Helena tells me that no one in California goes in the ocean. They only go in their swimming pools. Can you imagine? All that beautiful ocean and everyone in their pools.”

  Hughes didn’t say anything. He was just enjoying listening to his wife talk. She had a way of making old ideas sound fresh, off-kilter, as if she looked at things from a different angle than everyone else.

  Nick reached out and removed his sunglasses. She blew on the lenses and then cleaned them off on the edge of her bright red shorts.

  “That’s better,” she said, placing them carefully back on his face. “Now you can see where we’re going.” She tilted her head to one side and looked at him. “Wayfarers. You look like William Holden, so glamorous, darling.”

  He steered the boat through the gut into Cape Poge Bay and made for the elbow.

  When they neared shore, Nick jumped out and Hughes followed her into the water. Together, they pulled Star up onto the beach. Whenever they came here, they chose the same spot, where the water was deep right from the shore, making the swimming better, but not so close to the gut that the current would pull you away. Nick’s shorts were soaked through and she kicked them off before lying down on one of the towels.

  “Do you want one of the cushions as a pillow?”

  “No,” Hughes said, “I’ll use my shirt.”

  They lay side by side, the picnic basket above their heads. Hughes propped his cheek on his hand and looked at Nick, who had her eyes closed. Her skin was a kind of golden color against the white of her bathing suit. After a bit, she raised her head.

  “Do you want a deviled egg now?” she asked.

  “What else do you have in there?”

  “White wine?”

  “That’s the ticket,” Hughes said.

  Nick reached in and pulled out the bottle, which she had packed with a tea towel and ice. “You open it and I’ll stick it in the water afterward,” she said, handing him a corkscrew.

  Hughes poured two glasses and gave Nick the bottle. He watched as she stood and tied a piece of string around the neck, with a small anchor attached. She dug the anchor into the sand and plopped the bottle into the water, where it quickly bobbed up with the current. Then she took out a little container of olives stuffed with pimento and offered one to Hughes.

  The brine exploded into his mouth and he washed it down with a sip of the cold white wine.

  “White wine and olives always taste like the beach,” Nick said.

  “The salt,” Hughes said, closing his eyes.

  “Yes. But also because they’re both so clean.”

  Hughes could hear the beetles singing in the heat, and the gulls behind him in the dunes, where they made their nests. It was only eleven in the morning and he realized he’d missed breakfast. The wine was making him sleepy. Then he was dreaming about a race between a white horse and black horse, and the black one was winning, which pleased him. It had large nostrils and a braided tail that it held high as it ran. He was cheering for it. He felt Nick shifting next to him and he jogged himself awake.

  She was sitting up, looking out at the ocean.

  Hughes followed her gaze and they sat for a while, not saying anything. Then he knew: This was his moment. He took a deep breath and jumped.

  “I wrote you a letter once,” he said. “I think the biggest mistake of my life might be that I never sent it.”

  Nick didn’t look at him. “What did it say?”

  “It said a lot of things.” Hughes shook his head. Across the gut, a fisherman was baiting his hook. “Things I probably should have told you a long time ago.”

  Nick was silent.

  “I don’t know how things got so … muddled. How it all passed.”

  “Oh, Hughes.” Nick looked up at the sky and exhaled. “Because, things do pass. Anyone who’s lived just a little while knows that. Things just … go.” She sounded so sad.

  “That letter. It said that I loved you. Since … Jesus, I don’t know how long. Since I first saw you, maybe.”

  “I can’t … I don’t know why you’re bringing all this up.”

  “Nick, listen …”

  “God, you’re such a child.” Nick stared at him, her eyes like flint. “You think you can snap your fingers and tell me you love me and conjure up some happy ending for us?”

  “I don’t know,” Hughes said. “I don’t know any other way. Do you know one? I mean, you tell me, how do people get their happy ending?”

  She looked at him awhile. “All this time …” She shook her head and looked away.

  “Say it.”

  When she turned back her eyes were wet. “All this time, you’ve been sleepwalking through our life. Do you think I’m stupid? You talk about letters. What about ‘The world’s not on fire anymore, Hughes’; ‘Come back to me, Hughes’? What about Claridge’s, room 201?” She was shaking. “You were supposed to love me. Instead, you made everything, I don’t know, blank. You turned my life gray.”

  Somehow, he wasn’t surprised that she knew. It could have been Ed or she could have found the letters herself. Although he didn’t know how she could have known about the room. It didn’t matter now.

  “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I did all of that. And you have every reason to hate me. And if you do, if you really can’t love me anymore, I’ll go. Or I’ll stay. Whatever you want.” He stopped.

  She was searching his face. The tears had stripped her own of its usual hard beauty, and now he detected something else there, some mixture of hesitation and longing.

  “Nick. Don’t leave me alone.”

  She was quiet and then she said: “Goddamn you to hell, Hughes,” but she said it softly.

  Then her hand was cupping the back of his head, running down the nape of his neck. She was close to him. He could smell the wine on her breath and feel the heat coming off her bare should
ers where he touched her. Then there was the sand against them, and the glare of the sun and the flash of their skin together.

  “Tell me you love me,” he said into her. “And I can make it right. I swear to God I’ll make it right.”

  “I love you,” she whispered. “You’ll never know how much. But I don’t know if you can make it right.”

  Then she said something else, but he couldn’t hear her. He couldn’t hear anything except the rush of blood in his ears. He could feel the pulse in her neck quickening beneath his hand, like the harsh sound of his own breath. And she was moving underneath him, her face turned away. And then he wasn’t looking anymore. He was blind, and could only feel it moving through him, through her.

  Afterward, Nick rose and dove into the ocean. Hughes followed, reaching for her beneath the surface, but she was swimming a little too far out. She turned and faced the shore, treading water. He swam toward her, slowly this time, and when he got to her she put her arm around his neck and kissed him. She tasted like olives.

  “I like the color of the hull,” Nick said, nodding her head toward the dinghy.

  “I did it for these,” Hughes said, gently brushing his thumb over her eyelid. “The color of a garden snake.”

  Nick laughed and ducked under the waves, resurfacing with her head dark and sleek and round. “I think that’s the first time anyone’s called me a garden snake. That’s a fine description.” She began swimming back and then called over her shoulder, “Do you want those goddamn eggs now, Hughes Derringer? Or do I have to eat them all by myself?”

  It was the kind of day that you didn’t need to remember from a distance to know it was a good one. The bay was calm and the only things to see were the dunes rising on the far shore and the gulls coming out of the beach grass every once in a while to give warning to stay away from their chicks.

  Later, after lunch and a nap, Nick pulled out a book and began reading. He saw her diamond wedding band sparkling against her finger as she held it open.

  “What are you reading?”

  “Poems. Wallace Stevens.”

  “Read me some.”

  “Didn’t you bring your own book?” She looked at him with a moue of disapproval.

  “I was too busy.”

  “Tough luck, darling.”

  “Be a sport.”

  She flipped the pages. “Do you remember this one? It’s called ‘Depression Before Spring.’ ‘The cock crows / But no queen rises. / The hair of my blonde / Is dazzling, / As the spittle of cows / Threading the wind.’ ”

  “Cow’s spittle?”

  “You think garden snake is better?”

  “I don’t know, but a snake is a … sexier creature, I think. A cow, well.”

  “You’re not a poet, are you, darling? Think about all that translucent spit coming out of its pink mouth. Like a web or something.”

  “OK, OK. Mercy.”

  “ ‘Ho! Ho!’ ”

  “Ho, ho indeed.”

  Nick laughed. “All right, that’s it. No more for you.”

  “I’ll manage. Somehow.”

  “Pour more wine and shut up.”

  Hughes got up and retrieved the bottle, emptying what was left into Nick’s glass. He looked at the horizon. “We should probably go soon.”

  “Yes, the children will be home. And Helena … Hughes, I keep forgetting to ask you: Have you gone to see the sheriff, about Ed, I mean?”

  “No.”

  “Will you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Today? When we get back?”

  “All right, if that’s what you want.”

  He watched Nick carefully replace the picnic items and her book in the hamper and he felt a need to protect her, from everything and everyone. He reached out and brushed a patch of sand sticking to the back of her knee. She smiled at him.

  “Come on,” she said, reaching her hand out.

  He took it and together they left their beach.

  Hughes made his way down Main Street to the sheriff’s office, trying to figure out what he was going to say once he got there. It seemed a little silly, going to the sheriff about Ed, and it also made him nervous, although he wasn’t exactly sure why.

  He pushed open the heavy door and went up to the messy wooden desk in the entryway. A policeman who couldn’t have been more than eighteen was doodling on the blotter in front of him, looking supremely bored.

  “Hello,” Hughes said.

  “Hello, sir,” the young man said, unperturbed that he’d been caught drawing seashells on duty. “Can I help you?”

  “Yes, I’m here to see Sheriff Mello, if he’s around.”

  “Your name, sir?”

  “Hughes Derringer.”

  “I’ll go see if he’s available.”

  Through the glass, Hughes could see Sheriff Mello sitting at his desk, flipping through some paperwork. “Fine,” Hughes said. “Thanks.”

  The policeman trundled into the sheriff’s office and closed the door behind him. He could see the young man’s lips moving and Sheriff Mello looking up at Hughes. The sheriff raised his hand to Hughes and rose from his chair, following the policeman back through the door.

  “Mr. Derringer,” he said.

  “Sheriff Mello.”

  “What can I do for you?”

  Hughes looked from Mello to the young recruit. He had a small white piece of tissue stuck to his chin where he had cut himself shaving that morning. “Could we talk in your office?”

  “Of course,” Sheriff Mello said. “After you.”

  The windows at the back of the office looked out onto a scorched, unkempt lawn. “Have a seat, Mr. Derringer,” the sheriff said, indicating a wooden chair in front of his desk.

  The seat was slightly tight and Hughes had to adjust himself to find a comfortable position. “Look, I’m sorry to bother you about this. I was a little loath to come here, I’m sure you have more important things to do …”

  The sheriff just looked at him, his blue eyes unblinking. He had sweat marks staining the underarms of his blue uniform, a fact that made Hughes feel vaguely disquieted.

  “Well, it’s about my cousin’s son, Ed Lewis. His mother is a little concerned about the whole incident with that maid.”

  “I see,” the sheriff said. “How are the kids holding up?”

  “They’re fine. Actually, it’s almost like the whole thing never happened.”

  “Kids,” the sheriff said. “Harder than coconuts.”

  “Yes,” Hughes said, shifting again. “The thing is, I think what Mrs. Lewis would like to know about her son … well, it seems Ed said he helped you, and Mrs. Lewis is wondering, is worried, actually, about what he may have seen.”

  “Is she?”

  Hughes felt like he was fourteen, sitting in front of the headmaster again. “Yes. So if, well, if you could set her at ease on that score, I suppose …”

  “I understand Mrs. Lewis’s concern for her son,” Sheriff Mello said evenly. “But I am, how did you put it? Loath? Yes, that was it. Loath to discuss certain things, especially if it’s unfounded gossip.”

  “Of course,” Hughes said, wondering if that meant he was going to tell him or not.

  “However, seeing as you’re family.” The sheriff leaned back. “It’s funny, I’ve lived here all my life. But I’ve realized that expression seems to mean a whole lot of different things to different people.”

  Hughes had no idea what the sheriff was talking about, but he found himself gripping the arms of the chair. “Is that so?”

  “That is so.” The sheriff didn’t move a muscle. “Anyway,” he said finally, “the thing is, Mr. Derringer, when I asked Ed if he’d ever seen anyone else there, where the girl was found, he told me the two of you often took walks there.”

  “I see.” Hughes felt his heart hammering in his chest.

  “So, actually, I’m glad you came in. Saves me a trip to the house.”

  “Oh.”

  “Do you want to tell me about i
t?”

  “The walks?” Hughes looked up at the ceiling, as if trying to remember. “I wouldn’t say that’s entirely true. We did walk through Sheriff’s Meadow once, earlier this summer. Man-to-man kind of chat. The boy’s father is … well, not all there. You know.”

  “Is that right? Something wrong with the boy’s father?”

  “He’s just, I don’t know, not very good at it, I suppose.”

  Sheriff Mello looked at him awhile and, evidently deciding something, nodded his head. “Right.” He sat back in his chair. “Well, Ed also told us that maybe—he wasn’t sure, mind you—that he might have seen Frank Wilcox there once. But he couldn’t remember.”

  Hughes held his breath, waiting for the sheriff to elaborate. When he didn’t say anything else, Hughes blurted out: “And?”

  “And what?” The sheriff smiled.

  “What did Frank say? I mean, if you can tell me. It’s none of my business …”

  “Well, Mr. Derringer, it seems that Mr. Wilcox was home all night with Mrs. Wilcox. That is, of course, according to Mrs. Wilcox …” His last statement hung in the air like a question.

  “Right.”

  “So, that’s the long and short of it. Ed’s information didn’t really come to much, if you see what I mean.” The sheriff tilted his head. “That is, unless you know anything that could help us?”

  “Um, no. I wish I could help. But no.”

  “For example, you might know something about Mr. Wilcox’s private life that we don’t. Something small, even. Or, perhaps, there’s something you’d like to tell us about your nephew.”

  Hughes was silent. He sure as hell wasn’t going to get any more involved in this mess than he had to.

  “You see, Mr. Derringer, a community’s like family. As I said before, everyone has their own definition of that. But my feeling is, when someone in your family does something really wrong, there’s no point hiding it. Just makes it worse for everyone else.”

  “I really do wish I could help you.”