Bill nodded, but seemed crestfallen. "Ah, Jimmy… between you and me and the man in the moon, as you and I've grown to be pals… it's gonna be no easy task pleasin' that girl. I been working here many years. I seen her since she was a little girl. But what I'm sayin' is you're just makin' a short-term decision. How is Maureen Henretty…"
Bill dropped his voice to a whisper and glanced about, as if poised to release a long-guarded secret. "How is this girl ever gonna be satisfied with anything? She's spoiled rotten to the core. Ruined. Over the years she hasn't gotten any better. You really haven't wrapped ya head around who she truly is. When you first fall in love with someone, you see only what that person wants you to see. Mixed with what you want to see. As the days go by, the mist lifts and you start to see the real person. She is a looker, but she's gonna put you through hell. As if you ain't been through enough o' that with that damn storm."
"I see what you're saying, Bill," Jim paused, hands in his pockets, his eyes boring a hole into the roof. "And I can tell you care. You're a true friend."
"I did bust ya chops a lot. Some of us do that 'cause we're high and mighty smart asses. But others do it 'cause they like ya."
"I have to move back to the city. Eventually, though, I'll need to keep my eyes peeled for an opening out of the phone-brokering thing. It ain't for me. I know it in my heart, despite my skill at it."
"And if you can't put that princess in her place, you gotta get out. She'll run you ragged."
Jim couldn't help but give a shaky hum at his friend's last line. "I hear you." He put a hand on Bill's shoulder. "Some of my buddies back in Boston tell me the same."
"You should tell the men here about your move now. But they're gonna be blindsided."
Jim turned and walked toward the boat. The hole in the hull was mere hours from being completely closed. Then the priming and painting would commence.
As he stepped toward the boat, he spotted Chief and DaSilva working on the deck. Jim hoped apprehension and embarrassment didn't appear on his face. He came upon the stereo on the table and switched it off.
Jim stopped perhaps fifteen feet from the hull. Bill stood just behind. Donovan stood at a worktable nearby, measuring a board he was about to feed into the table saw.
"Gents, your attention please!" Jim called. "Guys, I've got some news. Y'all will take it as good or bad."
"Lemme guess," Donovan shouted. "Mohegan Sun and every casino in Connecticut has barred Chief for life. And DaSilva has five different women calling the shop, waiting outside ta kill him!"
"That all may be true," Jim said, unable to stifle a smile. "But I've got something that's actually unexpected."
"Then shoot, Jim," Chief said.
Jim glanced back at Bill. The old hippie stood with his forearms crossed across his chest, their scars of skin cancer surgery clearly visible. Bill's sweaty hair was swept back from his forehead. On his sunburned face was a look of hurt, mixed with a trace of pity.
"I have to give up my position here at Melville to move back to Boston. I'm getting my old job back. Not because I want to leave. Frankly, I like where I am just fine. But if I don't move closer to Maureen, and spend a lot more time with her, we're finished."
"Wait! What?" Chief said, placing his palms against the sides of his head. "Oh, brother."
"You just got here, Jim. You're finishing your first project!" DaSilva threw his hands apart above his head in a wild gesture.
"Ah, Princess Maureen. That explains it." Donovan said. "Been puttin' the heat on ya ta move back, huh?"
"I've… I've got to," Jim said.
"Ahhhhhhhh jeesh!" Donovan buried his face in his hands. "That girl."
Jim sucked in his lower lip and looked away.
"You'll have completed one great project," Bill pointed up at the schooner. "You should be proud. The John Paul Jones. We're almost there, man. Maybe one day more and we can get her in the water where she belongs."
"If you decide to come back," Chief said, his words dribbling out, "Walter probably will give you back your position."
"Yeah, Jimmy," Bill said. "Even if you and Maureen ever went kaput, I wager the old man would let you work here again. He loves you."
"You just moved here, though," DaSilva said. "You're gonna haul your stuff all the way back to Boston?"
"I'm really gonna miss all y'all. Maybe my best time in New England yet. Anyway, I won't serve as any more of a distraction. I'm going back up to the office. Then I'll help with the deck."
"Looks like we finish later today, early tomorrow," Chief said.
"Two days early. Sweet," Jim said. He traversed the shop and ascended the stairwell, feeling cut to his very marrow. As he opened the door, he looked back. The men had not moved from where they had stood. They stared back at him in silence, each with a serious mien befitting a funeral, the eyes of Bill and Donovan drooping with gloom.
"We're gonna miss ya, ya swamp-dwellin' Rebel bastahd!" Bill shouted, then cackled.
As the office door swung closed, Jim laughed so hard he could feel his face crimsoning over. Then tears blurred his vision.
He punched in the code and entered his apartment, then shut the door behind him. In the bathroom, astride each side of the faucet, stood empty longnecks, pointing upward like rifle barrels. He turned on the cold water. Cupping his hands as he leaned over, he scooped water onto his face, as if he struggled to further awaken into a life increasingly, after that morning last August, as strange and unpredictable and illusory as a dream.
Could he be the very person who survived days on a roof of a flooded house? Who nearly expired from exhaustion while swimming for insulin and water for his dying friend?
He was living and flourishing in many ways based on abundant, newfound luck. He had chanced to meet Walter, and thus Maureen, and both brokerages. His life had shot off on a completely new trajectory since that late August day. It was surely no nightmare, just almost… not real… and apparently something over which he had little control. As if he were on a well-provisioned pleasure yacht, yet without any navigation tools. He was cruising along, though by his own use of dead reckoning…
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Jim slowed Betty Sue to a roll as he squinted through the dying light at Farragut Drive's mansions, fences, and gates. "Twenty-four… twenty-four…twenty-four Farrugut Drive." He spotted a massive black wrought-iron gate between two large brick pillars. One displayed a faded bronze plaque bearing the number "24."
Jim turned onto the black cobblestone drive and stopped beside the metal box. He punched in the key code. "Ten twenty seven zero four." The wrought iron fence slid open. He eased onto the accelerator. "Ten twenty-seven zero four," he repeated.
Then he had it. October twenty seventh, two thousand and four, the day the Boston Red Sox clinched the World Series after an almost nine-decade drought. He knew Jack Spaulding to be a die-hard fan.
He caught his first glimpse of the house. Jack Spaulding's estate was truly an impressive monument to the magnitude of his forebears' fortune and culture. Its majestic gray Corinthian columns, stucco façade, three stories, and granite rocks sprawled across a well-groomed lawn resembled some Gothic Revival cliffside mansion on Newport's Bellevue Avenue. Several of the Spauldings lived together in this palace. By the sheer size of it, he now understood why.
A young valet approached him with a smile. "Hey, sir, nice ride!"
"Thanks, my man. My grandpa's ol' wheels. I guess you'd take it from here?"
"Yes, sir. Or you can park it yourself."
"No offense, but I'll take you up on the self-park thing. I prize this ol' girl more than all my possessions. If I let you have her, I won't be able to relax inside."
"Okay sir, if you could park behind that gray Porsche…"
Jim eased the truck farther up the drive. Several guests had spilled out onto the front lawn. They sipped drinks, smoked, chatted, and laughed away. One of them, a leggy young brunette with a jaw-length bob and a black cocktail dress, studied him as she sipped her mart
ini.
Jim veered halfway off the drive onto the grass, stopping a few feet behind the Porsche. He rolled up his driver's window and alighted from the truck, pulling his freshly laundered seersucker blazer with him. Jim donned the sportscoat, shut and locked the door, then walked toward the main house.
The woman in black appeared with six other guests, all elegantly dressed. Two looked to be in their twenties or thirties, four of them middle-aged or older. They chatted and gestured his way, a few drinking and puffing their cigarettes.
Jim caught one of his favorite scents: burning charcoal. Then there arose a certain melody—a clarinet, a trumpet. Jazz. Just a few feet before the front porch, the seven guests moved their stare from him to his truck far behind him.
"Now that truck brings me back in time, young man!" said a tall, white-haired man of perhaps sixty. Dressed in a pressed yellow dress shirt and white slacks, he held a cigarette in debonair fashion a few inches before his face. He pulled his eyebrows upwards in an exaggerated gesture. "Those are hard to come by these days!"
"That thing was pulled right from the set of American Graffiti," said a twenty-something man next to the older man. "Better yet, maybe Sounder or Forrest Gump."
The young man, holding his cigarette down by his hip, flicked the ash onto the grass. His wavy brown bangs hung into his eyes. The face seemed pinched into a sort of sardonic, tart expression, the mouth turned slightly downward in a grimace, the nostrils stretching with contempt, the narrowed eyes hinting at the ivory-white and hazel within. "And the suit's from Gump, too!"
"Hey, nice threads, Rhett Butler," said the young woman in black. The woman ran him up and down with a leering smile, her face slightly tilted. Her sly, lynx-like quality increased and her green eyes sparkled as she said, "We know who you are, Jim Scoresby. We've heard about you."
"Good things? Bad things?" Jim held his hands out at his sides, palms up, in expectation, as he climbed the steps to the porch.
"Only good things. So far," the older man chuckled.
A fifty-something redhead, clad in a knee-length green dress, flanked him. Next to her stood two men, their necks and faces and shins deeply tanned, their hair half-bleached golden by the sun. A slightly ruffled, windswept look characterized them, these men with dress shorts and slightly wrinkled, untucked polo shirts, their Oakley sunglasses bound around their necks with elastic cords.
"You dashing young man, come and let us meet you." The dapper white-haired gentleman brought his arm around the shoulder of the red-haired woman. With his other arm, he motioned with his cigarette for Jim to approach. "Don't worry," the man added, "we won't beat you up too badly."
Jim flashed a smile, cast a quick glance at the young woman, and finished with a nod to the old man. "How are y'all today?" he said. "I'm Jim Scoresby. I work for Walter Henretty."
"You work for Maureen Henretty, too, if you date her," the girl deadpanned, a faint tinge of disgust evident in her face.
The older gentleman put out his hand. "Ryland Spaulding. Nice to meet you. My son and Walter both sing your praises. Now welcome to my abode. This is my wife, Susan."
Jim nodded and shook their hands. "Senator. Mrs. Spaulding."
Susan Spaulding gave a faint smile and watched her guest with her large brown eyes.
"You know, I was really just in the state legislature. So, Jim," Senator Spaulding said, "on the other side of me here is Brianna Bradford."
"Great-great great-great great-great great-great great-great great-great great-granddaughter of Governor Bradford," Susan Spaulding added with a slight edge.
"Governor Bradford of the Massachusetts Bay Colony," Jim said. "That's quite a lineage."
"Something like that," Brianna smiled slyly, almost deviously, emitting a purely feline aura. Holding a lit cigar, she extended her free hand, slender and smallish. "If you ask me, Rhett, he was just another chauvinistic, homophobic Christian Crusader."
Jim laughed.
"So you're up here from New Orleans?" Brianna said.
"Yes, indeed," Jim said, a bit vacantly. His eyes drifted down to her dress, slit up the side. "I relocated to New England last September fifteenth."
"Wow. You got washed out?"
"Somethin' like that." Jim snapped his fingers and pointed down at her hand. "How's the cigar?"
"And Jim," Senator Spaulding said, "these two rogues next to me: this is Bob Kimball and Rich Boylan, friends of mine. We do a lot of sailing, fishing. A little golfing, too. We're out there so often, these guys could impersonate steamed lobsters for Halloween."
"Well, they wear their sunburns proudly," Jim shook their hands. "They earned 'em."
"Would you like a drink or something to munch on?" Susan Spaulding said. "There is a load of food out behind the house. Jack and Natasha are inside watching the Sox game. Or you can hang out with us here."
"I'll start by saying hello to Jack and Natasha, maybe grab me a drink," Jim said. He nodded and waved at the group as he walked toward the French doors. Partygoers stood just inside the windows, chatting and cradling their drinks.
"I hope you've caught that Red Sox fever," Bob Kimball said. "If you haven't, you should watch an inning or two in there."
"I haven't got the fever yet, but I'm getting into all the old traditions," Jim said. "And I love Fenway Park. A storied, fascinating ol' place."
"Good to hear!" said Rich Boylan, the other horribly sunburned, disheveled sailor standing next to Senator Spaulding. "Just whatever you do, don't become a Yankees fan!"
"Yes, twenty-first century Rhett Butler," Brianna said. "Would you really want to become a Yankee?"
Jim threw his head back and laughed. He took the remaining few steps and opened the French door.
The rather spacious sitting room contained a group of adults of all ages. Several turned to watch him. Some sat, some stood, some spoke with half-inebriated voices but all conversed, holding their beers, martinis, glasses of wine, and mixed drinks. In the center of the room was a rectangular cloth-covered table, heavily laden with cheese, dips, baskets of chips, and other appetizers.
Jim threaded his way between the sitting and standing guests. He caught a few expected words, "seersucker," "Louisiana," "Katrina," "Maureen" and "Walter."
The next room turned out to be a considerably larger living room of high ceilings, dark wooden walls of bookshelves, and a deep brown oak floor. A vast crowd stood in this room, filling it with their din.
Even louder sounds emanated from the titanic flat-screen television. The Red Sox were embroiled in a fifth inning skirmish with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in Fenway Park. As the Red Sox pitcher neared the mound, the few guests on the Victorian couches, and the crowd assembled in a semicircle around them, erupted into a burst of whistles, cheers, clapping, and shouts, a fierce audio volley of passion and pride. In Louisiana, Jim had only seen such a display at LSU football games.
A group had amassed against the rear of the couches. As this group whistled and shouted, its crescendo built ahead of Beckett's pitch. Jim snickered upon spotting Natasha in the crowd. Jack's typically composed face contorted with passion as he screamed at the television.
At the opposite side of the room, a cluster of guests had congregated around a long, rectangular table. When Jim reached this group, he recognized no one. Where were Walter and Kathleen? Walter had phoned hours ago to say they were about to depart, and Jim told him he was still waylaid at work.
Jim veered around a young couple and stepped up to the table, laden with caviar-smothered crostini, jumbo shrimp, remoulade sauce, crabcakes, escargot, chips and various dips, olives, and other hors d'oeuvres. Standing behind the table was a man with thinning white hair combed back on his head and attired in a white button down shirt, black bow tie and black trousers. His eyes were large and solemn. A tiny American flag pin hung on his shirt's right chest pocket, and the left chest pocket held a small nameplate that read "Joseph." He opened an Amstel Light longneck for a young blond-haired man and attempted to uncork a bottle
of white wine.
"Yeees, gooood. Almooost there. I know it's really hard for you but it's not that hard, know what I mean?" said the young man, still clad in his corporate pinstripes.
The old man's cheeks flushed a mottled, unhealthy red. His gaze fell tableward and he scrambled to pierce the cork and push down the arms of the corkscrew. The harder he tried, the more apparent his anxiety. The wet, chilled bottle slipped in his half-gnarled hands.
"Damn, man. Wow. Here, let… let me do it," the young man motioned with his fingers to hand over the bottle.
Jim's eyes bulged and his heart surged as the bartender surrendered the bottle and corkscrew to the young man. Just for a moment, the man's bloodshot, slightly watering eyes rolled to meet Jim's fierce stare. Then the wounded eyes, with the wounded spirit behind them, fixed back onto the table. His hand started to shake, and he tried to hide it by folding his black handcloth.
The young man's face evinced physical exertion and disgust as he finally worked the cork from the bottle. He sighed as he poured the wine into a glass. "See… not too hard… in actuality." His tone turned nasty as he poured the wine to within three inches of the rim of the tall clear glass.
"You forgot somethin', bud," Jim said in a soft voice. He seized the wineglass from the table, and without spilling it, brought it close to his chest. Jim forced his face into a tender expression as he politely nodded his head.
"See… you corked it," Jim looked at the glass for a second. "And you left a piece floatin' in there."
"Here, give us that glass, son," the old bartender's cheeks flushed. "I got a clean spoon heeyah."
The young man's eyes widened, his skin turned ghost-white as if drained of all blood. He seemed like a half-felled tree, wavering before a pausing lumberjack.
"Allow me." Jim took the spoon from the bartender, his eyes fixed on the perpetrator. Jim brought the spoon nearer to the top of the glass. At the last second, Jim laughed as he transferred the spoon to his other hand and instead stuck an index finger two inches into the wine. He pulled his finger from the glass and brought it dripping into his mouth.
Water Lessons Page 21