Portion of the Sea

by Christine Lemmon

  “The first nicest thing you said to me,” I told Josh. “was that you thought it was great that I wanted to be a journalist.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said. “It meant that much to you?”

  “Yeah,” I laughed. “I’ve never heard any guy say anything supportive like that before. My father and the men he introduces me to, the ones we have dinner with occasionally, certainly don’t think my career aspirations are a good thing.”

  “Sorry to hear that.”

  “Yeah, me too. It’s screwed up, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah, but if you don’t mind my asking, what is it that you’re after? Because I’m guessing it’s not the money. I may be wrong.”

  “You’re right about that. I don’t care about money.”

  “Then you’ve probably never gone without, right? Because anyone who has ever gone without money does care.”

  I thought good and hard about what he said, and maybe, to an extent, there was accuracy in it. My father was just turning into a man and entering the workforce when the Great Depression hit, and he witnessed firsthand how the loss of fortunes, big or small, devastated everyone he knew and didn’t know. It was nearly impossible for him at that time to land any job at any bank because thousands of banks were failing and closing back then. He watched his own father lose his job and with it the house when he could no longer pay the mortgage.

  “I guess you’re right,” I said. “I’ve never gone without money. Maybe that’s why I’m not at all concerned with making it. But my father, he’s gone without, and maybe that’s why he works so hard at his career. He’s gone without a job and a house before, but you should see now the way he stores up his money and works all the time. I don’t know. For me, it’s not at all about money. It’s all about having choices in life and maybe one day women won’t think about this because they won’t have ever gone without choices. Everyone should be able to have choices in life, don’t you think?”

  “Absolutely,” he said. “Isn’t that what freedom is?”

  I nodded. “Do you believe women should be free to work in whatever field they choose?”

  “Why not?”

  “You’re the only one who thinks so. You, and my friend, Ava.” I stopped there. I didn’t want to tell him that Ava was just some girl whose diary I had been snooping through. And I also stopped talking too deeply about my career aspirations, for the more I talked with Josh, the more I liked him and the less I wanted to spook him away like I did all the other men, although he didn’t appear to be the type to be spooked away by a woman like me.

  After that first morning of not catching a single fish, I stopped thinking about career aspirations and started having fun, pure and simple fun that continued for the next fourteen mornings in a row. Every morning on that pier was fun with Josh, despite my not catching any fish. Josh said it was because they tasted my cookies and were scared about what my bait might taste like, but I didn’t care. To me, fishing was no longer a competition with the men. Somewhere into our second week together, fishing became all about standing alongside Josh, talking or not talking. I liked both, for even when we were quiet, I felt like I was getting to know him by the way he moved, patiently and relaxed, never in a hurry, nor angry even when I dropped a pole in the water.

  My father didn’t know about my early mornings out. But if Ava could sneak out at night to meet up with Jaden, I told myself, then I could sneak out at sunrise to meet up with Josh. A woman does what she must to see her man, and with all the cooking and domestic responsibilities I was attempting for my father, there was no time for me to get together with Josh during the day. Besides, I had a gut feeling that my father wouldn’t like the idea of me spending so much time with him.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” I asked Josh one morning as I stepped onto the pier carrying our two cups of coffee.

  “Like what?” He had an unusually large smile on his face, like that of a dolphin, and I didn’t know why for sure, but I suspected it was because he had fallen in love with me as I had with him.

  “That grin,” I said. “You’re grinning more than you usually do.”

  I handed him his coffee and turned down the pole he handed me. I didn’t feel like fishing. I just felt like standing there beside him, and there were other things I wanted to do with my hands this early morning and holding a fishing pole would only get in the way. I had been up all night thinking about Ava kissing her guy, and it bothered me that a girl living nearly seventy years before me was getting more action than me, a modern-fifties chick. Maybe it was because she and Jaden were getting together in the darkness of night while Josh and I had that morning sun and the other fishermen all around us. But, still, it was early summer and even the dolphins had just gotten done with their spring courting and copulating. It wasn’t fair, and I decided to do something about my craving to kiss him.

  “Josh,” I started. “The world is so large.”

  “Sure is,” he said.

  “Sometimes I want to experience everything it has to offer. Do you ever feel that way?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Kiss me, Josh.”

  He turned and looked at me, and still holding his fishing pole in one hand, he softly touched my chin with his other hand and pulled me close. I closed my eyes, and as we kissed I swear I saw multitudes of dolphins bursting forth from the water and lightning bolting across the sky and a thousand hawks circling above in an aerial performance before moving on.

  But that was all impossible. I had only spotted two dolphins that morning when my eyes were open, and it couldn’t have been lightning, for that usually comes in the late afternoon, and the hawks, well, they aren’t scheduled to arrive in these skies until fall. But I swear I saw all of this when my eyes were closed and my lips were kissing Josh. I guess anything is possible when you love someone.

  “I like your world,” I told Josh after our kiss. “It’s a nice world you live in.”

  “The best,” he answered, and I wondered if that might be true.

  That kiss and the ones following filled me with joy, and I wanted to tell Ava that now I knew exactly what she was talking about. It was as if there was a summer breeze fueling my footsteps each morning after my time on the pier with him and whatever it was, it made my burned casseroles smell like apple pies and my eyes brighten as if Thomas Edison himself had been conducting experiments on them. And maybe it was my newfound sense of joy that made me serve my father dinner with pleasure and then dance the jitterbug with him.

  “Looks like you’re starting to enjoy being a woman,” Lloyd said over dinner.

  “I sure am, sir,” I said. “Would you like more tea?” I didn’t wait for his answer but sprung up from my chair and got him more.

  “Is there a boy, Lydia?” he asked when I returned with the kettle and started to pour.

  I made a face, one that if frozen, would be the world’s most shocked and insulted-looking ice sculpture. “A boy? Why do you ask?”

  “I’m observant. And when I suspect things, I’m usually never wrong.”

  I wanted to be strong, like Ava had been when she confessed to her mother that there was indeed a boy. “There is,” I said. “And you met him.”

  “The one at the pier? The one who wants to spend his life fishing?”

  “Yes. Josh. It’s a great way to spend one’s life, don’t you think?”

  Lloyd cleared his voice. “A boy who wants to spend his entire life fishing is not the right man for my daughter.”

  “We all have choices. Not every man wants to live his life inside the walls of a bank, like you. Everyone is different, you know.” And just as I said it I over-poured the tea, and it flowed out of his cup and onto the floor.

  “Watch how you talk to me,” he snapped as I headed for a towel in the kitchen. “I think it’s best you stay away from him.”

  Impossible, I thought. Can a river otter stay away from water and an archeologist keep from an Indian mound and pelic
ans not go near Florida and the waves stop reaching the shore and a person spot a rare Junonia shell on the beach and pick up an olive shell instead? Can lovebugs separate?

  “Impossible,” I said when I returned with the towel and began wiping the table. A girl can’t stay away from the boy she loves.

  “You will do as I say.”

  “I won’t. Why should I? My mother never cared about her parents’ wishes.”

  And the second I said it I regretted it, for I had never spoken back to my father so badly, and I saw a look on his face I had never seen before, one that told me he didn’t know what else to say and was actually frightened of me. If only in the silent moments that followed I had a name to pull out, someone to blame for my outspokenness, an aunt, a great, great grandmother maybe but I knew of no one with a history of sharp nasty tongue.

  I only knew of my mother, and she married my father against her parents’ wishes. She was Irish, and he was not, and there were consequences long after my mother’s death. Her family never let us in, and I hardly know of them today. I knew all about their history, and I knew my father was trying to make it so that history might not repeat itself. He wanted so badly for me to marry a man he approved of. But he didn’t have the power to change history. I was the one who had that. It was my choice who I loved and who I would one day, if ever, end up with.

  Neither Lloyd nor I spoke the rest of that night, and in the next morning’s silence I awoke to the sound of my beating heart. There may have been an alligator or two bellowing outside my window like Ava had heard, but I wouldn’t know. My heartbeat was louder than any alligators. I quickly and quietly got dressed, percolated some coffee, and started tiptoeing toward the front door so I wouldn’t wake Lloyd.

  “I guess you don’t need this.” His voice startled me as did the music on the radio. He was in the armchair in his robe, smoking a cigar and waving an envelope in the air.

  “You shouldn’t be smoking that cigar,” I told him. “What would the doctor say?”

  “I’m celebrating,” he said.

  “There’s healthier ways to celebrate. But what’s going on? Another pay raise at the bank?”

  “No, but give me another seven or eight months and the answer to that will be ‘yes.’ This time, it’s about you,” he said taking the cup of coffee meant for Josh, and then handing me the envelope. “Read it for yourself.”

  I set the other on the coffee table and opened the envelope. “Northwestern University,” I announced a second later. “I’ve been accepted.”

  I tried keeping a straight face as I quickly folded it and stuffed it back into the envelope, but I couldn’t keep my emotions inside. “It’s a dream come true,” I said, and then ran into Lloyd’s arms like a child. “I’ve done it,” I said. “I’m going to the college of my choice and I can hardly wait!”

  He was laughing and got up from his chair and started to dance. “Your mother and I once danced to this song,” he said. “She loved it. It’s a good one, isn’t it?” I smiled as he spun me around and then dipped me. I pulled him close and hugged him, fearful that celebrating might be a shock to his typically intense nature and dangerous for a recovering man like himself.

  “College is expensive, dear,” he said into my ear. “I’ll pay quarterly. I’ll support you fully. Just don’t do anything to disappoint me. You are my only child. Don’t get mixed up with the wrong man. I don’t think you could afford the cost of that school on your own, let alone on a fisherman’s salary.”

  I stiffened. Lloyd was living up to his reputation. I had seen him threaten associates like this throughout the years, but this was the first time I was personally on that side of it.

  I didn’t want to dance anymore, so I broke free from his dip and stood there breathing in the smell of his cigar, feeling queasy. This was no longer about choosing between family and boy. He had added a twist, and it was more like the dreams a girl has for her life versus boy. History was repeating itself, but in a different way.

  I didn’t know what to do. My dreams had been with me longer, yet my feelings for Josh had become more intense. I needed a friend, someone I could turn to for insight with this matter. I thought of Ava and wondered what she might do and what she did do with regard to Jaden. Did she stay away from him forever like her parents advised? And I thought of Marlena. Two weeks had gone by. Maybe she was back from Hollywood. I was eager to hear if she landed a big role and more anxious to hear from Ava.

  Then I remembered Ava saying she feared there was only a small window in a woman’s life in which her wisdom is taken seriously. And it bothered her that her young voice wasn’t heard and that soon senility might set in; so, there was only that brief period of her life during which anyone would listen to anything she had to say.

  Well, I couldn’t let that happen to my friend. To me, she was chock full of wisdom she collected, gathered, and inherited, and I was ready to hear anything that might help with regard to my own situation. And I trusted her words now more than ever. After all, it was she who suggested in a round-about way that joy can be found in a boy, and thanks to her I found it and my jar of joy was filled to the rim. But now, this dilemma had me stumped.

  XIX

  BREAKING A HABIT IS never an easy thing to do, and it was difficult for me not to meet up with Josh on the pier at sunrise the next morning. Instead, I skimmed through the pages of a local wildlife book, then made breakfast for my father, swept and mopped the kitchen floor, washed windows, did laundry, and, finally, walked to Bougainvillea.

  Marlena opened the door and gave me an enormous hug. “I just got home last night,” she said, pulling me inside. “And I bought an amazing assortment of pastries. Sit down while I make some coffee, and I’ll be right back.”

  “Need some help?”

  “Not at all. Make yourself at home.” She disappeared into the kitchen and returned moments later with a tray full of a breakfast goodies fit for a celebrity.

  “How was your trip?” I asked, taking a golden pastry with raisins.

  “Hollywood is marvelous, but there’s no place like Sanibel.”

  “Did you meet Marilyn Monroe?”

  “No, but tell me the truth—I’m not thinner than her, am I?” She stood up, licking icing off her fingers and spun slowly around in a circle.

  “You’re about the same size, maybe a bit bigger in the rear.”

  “What about Elizabeth Taylor?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  She plopped back down in her chair and reached for another cinnamon roll. “I don’t want to look thin. Thin is not sexy. My agent has been telling me to gain weight, and so I have and I’ve had fun doing it.” She picked the raisins off and tossed them aside, making a face. “But maybe I need a bit more sensuality added to my hips.”

  “You don’t look thin,” I said and meant it.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I’m expecting big things to come from this latest trip. But we’ve talked enough about me. I don’t ever want to become one of those egocentrics. What’s your tale, nightingale? Tell me your story.” She crossed her legs Indian-style and made herself comfortable.

  “It’s sad,” I said setting my coffee down. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “A male?”

  “How’d you know?”

  “Every role I’ve ever auditioned for involves a man and a woman, and there’s always a problem between the two. So what’s your problem?”

  “I like him, but my father doesn’t.”

  “Parents. They always want the best for their daughters. Maybe your father is right.”

  “Not mine. To Lloyd, the right boy would be rich, rude, and powerful.”

  “I see. And this boy is none of that?”

  “He’s the opposite. He’s laid-back, simple.”

  “Oh,” she moaned. “This is the good old classic story, isn’t it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you’re certainly not the first woman on earth to be put into this sort of
plot. In fact, there’s one gal in particular that comes to mind.”

  “Who?”

  “Ava.”

  It was the first time I had cracked a smile all morning. “I already feel like we’re friends, like I know her. I do relate.”

  “Then you might want to go read more of her journal.”

  “Does she meet up again with Jaden despite her parent’s wishes?”

  “That’s not for me to tell. I’ll let her tell you all about it. Go ahead. You’ll find it in the drawer.”

  I walked down the hall into the yellow room. There I looked out the window and spotted an owl perched on the tiniest branch of the banyan tree. We stared eye-to-eye, but then once I tried opening the window, it flew off. I sat down at the desk and pulled out the next set of pages. I was eager to read. To me, Ava was a girl with the world’s largest collection of wisdom that she sought and chased after, gathered and caught, as well as inherited, and I wondered if maybe somewhere in her writing she might instruct me as to how I might go about finding some for myself. And wherever wisdom sits, whether perched on the branch of some special tree, or in the mind of some older woman I might meet, I needed a bit of it right now, at this very age, and not when I’m ninety.

  “I can’t wait that long,” I muttered and then started to read. “I need wisdom now.”

  1892

  Ava

  If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.

  —James 1:5

  Orange-crowned warblers and orioles were frequenting the island, and it was fall. I was walking through the mudflats to get to school, appreciating the migrating songbirds, when all of a sudden what I thought was a wild creature came running up behind me, sending me splashing down with fright. It was Jaden.

  “Look what you made me do,” I said. “This isn’t what a lady is supposed to look like on her first day of school.”