by Luanne Rice
He found Sam at the reef. Away from the wreck, unimpressed by the gold, Sam was after his own treasure. Fish. A biologist, his interest lay in pelagic species, just as Joe’s lay in sea mud. A thought went through Joe’s mind: What if we did both end up at Yale? What if we found a way to live near each other instead of two oceans away? What if we both did what we were trained to do and taught at a good university?
Not forever, Joe thought, because that was too much to consider all at once. But for a while?
Sam was speaking. Two hundred feet beneath the surface, his brother was swimming among the fish of Moonstone Reef, forming words with his lips. He had taken the regulator from his mouth, and he was enunciating in an exaggerated way. His mouth moved, saying the same words over and over. Watching him form the syllables, Joe read his brother’s lips.
“Black Hall,” Sam was saying, the bubbles exploding toward the surface. “Black Hall.”
March 14, 1979
Dear Joe,
Okay, so I got a little carried away in my last letter. I think it’s bizarre, the way I can’t wait to see you and I don’t even know you yet. Ever since you mentioned sailing here, I keep watching the horizon for sails.
I think something’s happening to me.
Love,
Caroline
April 20, 1979
Dear Caroline,
Something’s happening to me too. Keep watching—I’ll come as soon as I get my mainsail repaired. It blew out in a gale last week. I shouldn’t have been on the water, but I thought I’d take advantage of the wind to sail to Connecticut (i.e., you).
Love,
Joe
SKYE SAT IN HER STUDIO, TRYING TO FEEL LIKE SCULPTING. Facing north, the room was cool. Her clay was ready. She sat in her regular place, on a tall metal stool pulled close to a smooth stone table. Her roughened fingertips trailed across the slippery surfaces. Her tongue felt thick. Her head pounded. She felt a constant, dull pain in her left temple; unconsciously, she kept touching it, prodding it, seeing if it hurt more when she pressed it with her finger.
She had fallen last night. Walking from the garden to the house, she had stumbled and gone down. She had skinned her knees and struck her head on a rock. The heels of both her hands were scraped raw. She had been covered with bits of grass; sand and tiny pebbles were pressed into her skin. When she came to, Homer was licking her face.
It scared her. She didn’t feel dizzy, and a look in the mirror had revealed no new bruises. But the side of her head felt different, almost as if she had cracked her skull. It ached. Her mother and Simon had been in the house, and she had gone off…for what? She hardly remembered now. She had been in some sort of huff, and she had stormed out to stare at the sea. Homer had just happened along, returning from one of his journeys.
Looking at her clay, Skye felt unmoved, uninspired. The connections she needed to sculpt were missing today. They had been harder and harder to find lately. Skye needed her passions to come through, from her brain to her fingertips, to give shape and emotions to the clay she held in her hand. Drinking blocked them. Liquor dulled the pain, but it also numbed the love.
Every morning she would wake up with a hangover and promise herself she would not drink that day. Even before her fall, her head had hurt. Skye had thought of the liquor crushing her head from the inside out. But at some point every day, she would get the craving. The emptiness inside was bigger than the ache in her head, and she would know a drink would take the worst feelings away. At least for a while.
She wanted one now. She looked at the clock on her table: three P.M. She made a bargain with herself. Just two more hours. Work till five, and then reward yourself with a glass of wine. You can do that. It won’t kill you.
Simon walked into the room. He smelled of cigarettes and turpentine, and his bleary eyes told their own drinking story. He stood over Skye’s clay, staring at it without speaking. What was he thinking? Skye wondered. Did he know she was in trouble? The word surprised her, and she wondered where it came from. Trouble.
“How’s it going?” Simon asked, pouring a tall glass of water and guzzling it down fast.
“Fine,” Skye said.
“Your mother’s downstairs, chirping about her costume.” Skye smiled at the image, and Simon continued. “She wants to know what we’re wearing to Caroline’s ball. Are we even invited?”
“Of course we are,” Skye said. “Why wouldn’t we be?”
“Because she hates me. And she’s jealous of you.”
Skye shook her head. It made her unhappy when Simon criticized her sisters, and today it made her feel particularly bad. What would Caroline have to be jealous of? A hung-over, bloated sculptor who couldn’t sculpt? Skye reached past her clay for one of the objects she kept on her desk. There was a flat gray stone, a pure white feather, the skeleton of a snake, a shotgun shell, and a pale and faded blue grosgrain ribbon.
“Why do you keep these things?” Simon asked, taking the stone out of her hand. “We’ve been married five years, and I don’t know half the story. These little mysterious things—your Renwick family fetishes—you never talk about them.”
“They’re just objects,” Skye said. “Things to look at.”
Simon regarded her with bloodshot eyes. He seemed so weary. Life—drinking, art, trying to love Skye—had taken a toll on him, and it showed. His dark hair was long and stringy. He seemed to be making up his mind about something. He was letting her see his thought process: Should I stay or should I go? Simon liked to play with her mind. The worst part was, Skye felt too weak to fight him.
“This, then,” Simon said, putting down the stone and picking up the shotgun shell. “Why do you keep it?”
“To remind me of the deer it killed,” Skye said, picturing the moonlit night on the mountain, the doe thrashing against the tall rocks, the black blood pouring out of her throat, the sound of the dying deer’s hooves spasmodically clicking against the boulder. The first creature she had ever shot. For a long time, just looking at the shell could bring tears to her eyes.
“This,” he said, touching the white feather.
“It came from a swan,” Skye said. “My father gave one to each of us the night he took us to Swan Lake.”
“He gave you swan feathers,” Simon said, pursing his lips, fascinated by any story about Hugh Renwick, no matter how obscure.
“To remind us of nature. That nature was the great inspiration, love and nature—even for Tchaikovsky.”
“Took you to the ballet and gave you swan feathers. Awesome,” Simon said, shaking his head. “The snake.”
“The snake reminds me of danger,” Skye said. “To be careful.”
She stared at the snake’s skeleton. It was long and sinuous, the largest object on her table. Its skull was flat and triangular. From a different angle, if you could look into its mouth, you would see its fangs.
“Is that the one that bit you?”
“No,” Skye said. “One like it.”
Simon touched Skye’s head. She felt his fingers running through her hair, pushing it behind her ears. She closed her eyes and tried to prevent the shiver that shook her entire body. She remembered sleeping in her tent, feeling the snakes writhing under the polythene sheet beneath her.
“When the poison took hold,” he said, “did it feel warm and sleepy, like scotch? Like smoking a joint?”
“No,” Skye said. “It felt black, and it hurt. I felt the air being squeezed out of me, and I thought I was going to die. But Caroline sucked it out.”
Simon made his fingers feel soft and boneless against the back of her neck, as if he wanted her to think of snakes. Skye flinched uncontrollably.
“Your father left you all alone. With no one but Caroline to look after you. And Clea, only I’ll bet she never even left her tent. He should have dropped her off in the suburbs. Talk about the blind leading the stupid.”
“Stop, Simon.”
She stared at the sculpture she had started days earlier. The three si
sters. Caroline, Clea, and Skye. Huddled together, three lumps of clay, protecting each other on the mountain.
“Caroline was older. She should have known that you were going to pitch your tent right over a fissure like that. Didn’t she see it?” he asked.
“It was covered with grass,” Skye said. “Soft mountain grass. She thought it would feel good under my tent, like a mattress. There wasn’t much grass on the mountain.”
“A rattlesnake den,” Simon said, beginning to touch her neck again. “You must have freaked when they came up through the hole. After dark, all alone in your tent, your sisters in theirs. Poor Skye. You must have gone crazy, feeling those things wriggling around under your sleeping bag. Hey, maybe Caroline got a kick out of it. She might have known, told you to put your tent there on purpose. Sick of being your mother.”
“She never would.”
“That’s right. Saint Caroline. What’s the blue ribbon?”
“Oh, the ribbon,” she said, not wanting to remember. “I wore it one day.”
“With another man?” Simon asked. “One you liked more than me?”
Skye shook her head.
“Where’d you wear it?”
Skye paused. “To Redhawk,” she said.
“The mountain,” Simon said. “The weekend you shot the guy?”
“Yes.”
“I’m married to a killer,” he whispered in her ear.
Skye felt the tears in her eyes. She stared at the ribbon. She had worn her hair long then, tied back in a ponytail to keep it out of her eyes. So her aim would be better.
“Do you ever feel powerful?” Simon whispered. “Knowing that you took a life?”
“No, I feel horrible,” she whispered back.
“I know you do. I know how much you’ve suffered for it. But deep inside, under all the conscience, isn’t there a little part of you that feels like God? The part that craves experience…wants to feel everything intensely?”
“No, Simon,” Skye said. She stared at the blue ribbon. The dark spot on one end, the patch of faded rust, was Andrew Lockwood’s blood. While Caroline sat beside him, holding his hand as he died, Skye had bent down to catch Homer, and her ribbon had trailed through the blood.
“The hell you don’t.”
“You’re my husband, you should know me by now,” Skye said, her voice now shaking. She couldn’t go on talking about this; she needed a drink. She wanted to feel the warm relief spreading through her head, taking the excruciating thoughts away.
“Show me you love me,” he said, pressing down on her shoulders. “Come on, show me.”
She climbed off her stool, falling to her knees.
Kneeling before Simon, she wrapped her arms around his waist. She placed her cheek against his thigh. She felt tired and sick. More than anything, she wanted to disappear, and she thought: How did I ever let this happen? How did I ever turn into a woman who feels this way, does these things?
“Do you want to?” he asked.
“Yes,” she whispered, the lie easier than the truth.
He tangled his fingers in her hair and pulled her head back. She felt tears on her lashes. She tasted salt in her throat. He’s my husband, she thought. Is this love? I’m just doing this so we won’t have to talk anymore. She reached for his zipper. She tugged it down, reached inside.
Homer nuzzled her face, his big brown eyes so friendly, gazing at her with unconditional love.
“Hey, boy,” she said.
“Jesus Christ,” Simon snapped. “Get him out of here.”
Skye tried to push Homer away, but he wouldn’t go. Skye noticed that his ears were nearly bald, like a stuffed animal who had been loved so hard, his fur had worn off. Homer sidled between Skye and Simon. He pushed against Skye, edging her away from Simon.
“What the fuck,” Simon said, giving Homer a swat.
The old dog just stood there, looking up at Simon with dignity in his cloudy brown eyes. Simon raised his hand again. Homer didn’t flinch. He didn’t bare his teeth, and he didn’t wag his tail. He just stared at Simon as if he expected the worst from such a man.
“Don’t hit him,” Skye said.
“He ruined it,” Simon snapped, zipping up his pants. “Her fucking dog ruined it. Jesus. Caroline couldn’t have done better if she was here herself.”
Skye felt like laughing. She kept her head down, feeling the laughter exploding in her chest, and she wondered if she was losing her mind. She was a hung-over drunk who wanted to get drunker, who’d rather do what her husband told her than face the fact she didn’t like him, and she was under the protection of her sister’s sweet golden retriever.
Simon stormed out of the studio. Skye heard the door slamming behind him, his footsteps on the stairs, heard him start the car and drive away. Homer lay on the floor beside her. He had long since forgiven her for the accident that had brought them together. Lying down beside him, her cheek on the cool stone floor and her hand on Homer’s paw, Skye closed her eyes and wished she could forgive herself.
Caroline surveyed the inn grounds. The Firefly Ball would start at dusk, and she wanted to make sure everything was ready. A white film of heat clung to the trees, the lanterns, the inn itself. Long white linen tablecloths wafted desultorily in the slight breeze. The band had set up. The bass player stood alone onstage, shirtless in the hot sun, testing the sound system.
Bars were set up at either side of the dance floor. Champagne was chilling in the barn, waiting to be wheeled out after dark. Caroline approached Michele, who was running around with a clipboard.
“Tell the bartenders I don’t want them to serve Skye,” Caroline said.
“What?” Michele asked.
“She’s been sick. She’s not supposed to drink alcohol with her medication,” Caroline said.
Michele saw through the lie. But she was loyal to Caroline, and she knew how worried she had been. “I’ll tell them,” she said. “Will your mother be here?”
“Of course,” Caroline said, a smile breaking through the stress. “Augusta wouldn’t miss it for anything.”
“The guys from the boat said you invited them—” Michele said, “—the treasure hunters. They’re all excited.”
“Really?” Caroline asked.
“Yes, and, Caroline?”
Caroline turned to look at Michele. Michele held her clipboard to her breast. She was smiling like a proud parent.
“You look beautiful.”
“Thank you,” Caroline said, blushing. Knowing how much she had to do, she had dressed for the ball early. Her dark hair was swept up in a French twist. She wore a long white dress with a rustling sweep to the skirt, and no jewelry except pearl earrings.
“Are you supposed to be any painting in particular? Your father’s Girl in a White Dress?”
“I hadn’t planned it that way,” Caroline said. But she knew it was true. She knew that she had dressed as herself in the famous picture painted by her father.
“That’s the same dress you wore, isn’t it?” Michele asked.
“No,” Caroline said. The white dress she had worn while her father painted that portrait had been given away long ago, donated to the Wadsworth Atheneum for an exhibition of garments worn in famous paintings. But looking down, she realized this dress was very similar.
“So many people will recognize the picture,” Michele said. “I think it’s your father’s best-known.”
“You’re probably right,” Caroline agreed, adjusting a bouquet of flowers on one of the tables. But she knew she hadn’t chosen her father’s painting because it was well known, because a great number of guests would recognize it. She had chosen to wear the white dress because one person would recognize it.
Caroline knew Joe Connor had seen her portrait at the Met. She knew because he had told her so. It was a small thing, but it was a connection. And connections were sometimes all that counted.
September 8, 1979
Dear Joe,
I have something to tell you. It has
to be in person. Why is Newport so far from Black Hall? Hurry! But make sure you’re safe.
Love,
Caroline
September 30, 1979
Dear C,
Actually, Newport isn’t at all far from Black Hall. The problem is, you’re there and I’m here. Until we’re both here or both there; well, you get the idea. A new mainsail costs more than I have at the moment.
What do you have to tell me? I think I might know, because I want to tell you the same thing. Sometimes I feel as if I don’t have anyone but you, C. My mother has her new family—Sam and his father. I live here, but I don’t belong the same way as Sam.
It’s different with you. You make me smile like no one else. Every time I see your handwriting, I know everything’s going to be okay. There’s one person in the world I trust, and it’s you. I know this is a long letter, but it’s late and I can’t sleep. I’m thinking of you, Caroline. I wish you were here. I might as well say it.
I love you.
Joe
ALL DAY THE TEMPERATURE HAD HOVERED IN THE nineties, and at dusk the sky was pearl white, the sun a shimmering red ball. As the sun set, the moon rose. It climbed high and white in the hazy dark sky, and beneath it the paper lanterns illuminated the Firefly Ball as music filled the night.
The raw bar glistened with fresh clams and oysters on ice. Caroline and Michele had arranged some of the shellfish like a painting by Degas. The guests had created haystacks after Monet, erected beach umbrellas and white tents after Boudin. Candles twinkled, and the band played “Every Time We Say Good-bye.”
Guests milled about, dressed as their favorite paintings. Many of the costumes were old-fashioned, The Luncheon of the Boating Party by Renoir and Madame X by Sargent, the graceful long dresses, providing the most inspiration for the women. May Taylor came as the Hugh Renwick portrait of her grandmother Emily Dunne, founder of the Bridal Barn. Her russet hair piled high, she looked sweet and elegant at once. Clea and Peter came dressed as an Irish couple from Hugh Renwick’s Galway Dance, and Skye and Simon came in black, as themselves. Having made another of their unstable, uneasy truces, they came together, with Augusta, and they took a table between the river and the dance floor.