by Lynne Hugo
I’d worn a low-cut green top, a hand-me-down from Susan she said would be too beautiful on me for her to wear in good conscience anymore, and a navy and green print skirt I’d gotten for three dollars at Wellfleet’s secondhand shop. I’d washed my hair and let it wave down loose, the way Evan loved. Gold earrings. My mother would have said I looked like a tramp.
“Ruthie, Ruthie. My God, I’ve missed you so much. How are you? You look so good, so beautiful.” His hands swallowed mine. “Let’s get out of here,” he said, shaking his head, and I knew he felt his emotions were on a billboard for strangers to read.
In the parking lot, the Cape’s washed air made me expansive and I slid my arm around his waist. “I’m so glad you’re here. I have so much to show you. And I want to hear all about Mark and Sandy and your job and your family…just everything.” This was what I wanted: to be back at the beginning, without a history—without my history—in the exuberance of discovery. As if that were possible. As if I weren’t who I was.
“They’re your family, too,” he said. “They’ve been almost as worried about you as I have,” he said, snapping me back to reality.
“I didn’t want to worry anyone,” I said quickly, unlocking the car. Evan looked at the car, almost wary of it, I thought. My mother’s car. He’d told her what he believed and what he didn’t, like a fair warning, and the great standoff had begun. A standoff she’d won, I guessed, however she’d done it. Still, he got in.
“They know that,” he said. “But they love you, and they’d do anything to help.”
I had no response. I didn’t want to be pulled back into the life Evan had made and brought me into. “Evan, about that…”
“No. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said it. Not that it isn’t true, but I wasn’t trying to make you feel bad.”
I pulled into a traffic circle. It was Friday afternoon and weekenders were pouring onto the Cape, though once we got down past Wellfleet, it would thin out until Provincetown, which would be hopping all weekend. I thought like a native now, craving the midweek peace. “That’s not it. It’s just that I have to…I’m finding my own way.”
“I’m not sure I get what you mean.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” I took one hand from the Rambler’s steering wheel and put it on top of his as I headed the car for Route 6, toward home.
WE STOPPED IN WELLFLEET to eat, so it was early evening when we arrived at Landings. Although I knew Bonnie and Susan were home, I brought Evan past their house and my cottage to the little path onto the beach. The October sunset, which had begun even before we reached Truro, was peaking, its intensity and range of color across most of the western sky over the harbor and reflected in the bay, a serene gray tonight.
“Oy vey,” Evan said quietly. “I see what you mean.” His words gave me great satisfaction, and I squeezed his hand.
“You stay here and watch,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”
“I’d rather stay with you,” he said.
“No, wait here. I get to see this all the time. I’ve got something for us.” I knew he watched me instead of the sunset as I hurried to the cottage. And he was still watching the path, his back to the sunset when I came back with blankets, a bottle of wine and two glasses.
I spread one of the blankets for us to sit on and we draped the other across our backs and around us. The day had been warm, Indian summer lingering so long that Bonnie was still picking green tomatoes to fry from the garden, but the evenings lately had had some teeth. “Let me help with that,” he said, reaching for the wine.
“I’ve got it,” I said, working in the corkscrew and deftly popping the cork out. “It’s my specialty at work.”
“You don’t need to be doing that, waitressing,” Evan said.
“Yes. I do.”
“But what about finishing your degree? You have an actual career. You can’t let that go. Aren’t you going to finish?”
“Yes, I am.”
“When?”
“When I’m ready.” A small sharp edge underlined the words, but I felt myself weaken a little. Evan didn’t respond right away.
“Okay. I won’t argue with you.” He kept his eyes on the sky and suppressed a sigh.
“Good. Thank you. Now look, watch how it’s like the whole sky starts melting into the water.” That sliver of tension remained in the skin we still shared. Evan wanting something from me I wasn’t willing to give again, not recognizing there was something else. The sand was picking up the evening chill on the surface, and I burrowed my feet down and in where the day’s warmth was still captive.
Later, though, back in my cottage, what had always been was again. Though my bed was a castle of unsettled air, I swayed over Evan, naked as spartina bending before approaching weather. Such greed for each other’s bodies, such a rush of passion, even as I had no idea how much to trust the demand of my body. I tried to remind myself that not everything gives way to love, not everything can be taken up again.
“I need you to need me,” he whispered afterward, as I lay spent, with my head on his shoulder and one leg bent across his resting thighs.
“I know. But I can’t let that happen again.”
“Don’t you trust me? I wouldn’t hurt you for the world.”
“Ev, Ev. It’s not that. That’s not the point. I can’t have you carry me. There’s something poisonous about it. Please. If you can’t understand, just you try trusting me this time.”
“Will you put your rings back on? I need something, some indication of which way this is going.”
“Oh, Ev. I don’t know. Let’s just see, okay?” I knew he was fighting with himself not to pressure me.
A long hesitation. “Okay,” he sighed.
THE NEXT DAY, SATURDAY, I didn’t have studio time, but I knew Marcy would likely be working by herself, so I took Evan to Castle Hill. Her ancient gray Subaru was there. The day was autumn Cape, all russets and beach plums in shining air. The dunes turned silver as the breeze turned up the undersides of their long grasses, and the bay was almost navy-blue, peaked with little whitecaps all the way to the horizon.
“Marcy? Hi, it’s me, Ruth. Can we come in?” I called from the entrance into her studio, a ramshackle wooden structure that might have been a converted outbuilding with a sprawling addition.
“Hi, Ruth. Who’s ‘we’?”
I took Evan’s hand and led him inside where Marcy sat at the wheel, her graying hair pulled back into a hasty barrette, wearing jeans and an old blue smock. “This is my husband, Evan Mairson.” Evan looked out of place, too neatly dressed in khakis, polished loafers and open-neck but tailored shirt.
Marcy looked startled, then used the back of a wrist to push her glasses into place and pulled up a polite smile. “Well hi, Evan,” she said. “It’s nice to meet you. I’d shake hands but…” She held them up to show the wet clay caked on them. “Are you…visiting, or…”
“Visiting,” I inserted quickly. I should have told Marcy I was married if I was going to bring Evan here; he was hurt that I hadn’t.
“Did you want to show him your work?”
“Oh, well, there’s not much to see on that score yet, but at least the studio.”
“Don’t underestimate yourself,” Marcy said. Then, to Evan, “She’s getting quite competent.”
“Nothing special yet, though.”
“It’ll come.”
“Look, I worked on this for two days.” I unwrapped a graceless vase I’d thrown over and over. “Definitely nothing special.”
“You’ve got to wait for the feel of it to come, let it tell you…” Then Marcy stopped, but I knew what she had started to say from what Susan had told me. I smiled to myself. It meant she thought I was serious.
“What else have you made?” Evan asked. I showed him some of the finished work I’d fired and glazed and refired.
“This is amazing,” he said quietly. “I had no idea you could do this. I like the colors you use, the way they blend.”
“Well, to be honest, this really isn’t very good. But I’m getting the hang of it.”
He was silent, inspecting each piece, turning it over to where my RK initials were etched into the unglazed bottom.
“Thanks, Marcy. I don’t want to interrupt you. I just wanted Evan to see this place, because I love it so much.”
“I’m glad you did, Ruth. Nice to meet you, Evan. Come back anytime.”
“I’d like that,” he answered her, but looked at me as he spoke.
As we drove, I pointed out the library, stores I particularly liked and who owned them, where the best beaches were for walking and swimming. Bonnie and Susan were home when we returned to Landings, so I brought Evan up their porch steps. Susan was at the door before I could knock, which I was going to do even though I’d grown accustomed to just opening the door to poke my head in and call for them.
“Susan, this is Evan.” Evan murmured polite greetings, but Susan clasped his outstretched hand with both of hers.
“We’re so delighted to meet you,” she said. “Bonnie! Come down! Ruth’s here with Evan. Come in, come visit for a while. When did you get here?”
Evan’s answer was interrupted by Bonnie’s appearance. More warmly than was characteristic of her with strangers, she urged him to sit down while she made tea for us. I knew what she was thinking: go on, Ruth. Do it. You do not need forgiveness for living.
There’s more to it, I thought, as silent as she in the wordless communication. I don’t know what it all is, but there’s more to it. It’s Mother, but it’s something else, too.
We visited, the four of us talking lightly until I glanced at my watch. “Oops. I’m going to be late for work. I got tomorrow off, Ev, but Saturday night is the biggie. Of course, an off-season ‘biggie’ would be the slowest imaginable night in August. Do you want to go with me or stay home and read or something?”
“I’ll go,” he said. “If it gets too busy, I’ll come on back and pick you up when you’re off.”
“It’s a plan, then. Bye you two. Thanks so much.” I gave each a quick embrace as Evan shook hands with the other in turn.
IT WAS A SLOW SATURDAY. EVAN sat at the bar and, much of the time, I could stand behind it with Sam, the bartender, and the three of us talked. Front Street is casually elegant, dark wood-paneled walls beneath a low, exposed beam ceiling, with stained-glass Tiffany lamps hung over the tables and classical music playing; people come in jeans, people come in suits, ties and cocktail dresses—those more rarely—but inside, it all merges into an eclectic aura of taste and a certain, expensive flair. Original paintings are well hung on the close-in walls; it is not a large restaurant, just a very, very good one with a coterie of “regulars,” residents who are devotees of the chef’s seafood specialties and the cozy familiarity of a place they’ve made their own.
“Hey, Red,” Sam said each night when I arrived. “Wow, you’re looking good!” He flirted shamelessly and harmlessly; we’d become friends. A graduate school dropout, ponytailed and earringed, Sam lived the simplest of desires in his wire-rimmed glasses and goatee: to be what he was, a leather-crafter by day, a bartender by night, and take each day for what it brought him without asking or wanting for anything beyond. “If it doesn’t make you happy, why do it? You’d best have an awfully good reason, because things rarely turn out much different in the future than the present. I say, don’t count on change.” He’d repeated his motto, and I found the notion mysterious and disturbing as I tried to decide if it was true. At first, Evan was ill-at-ease, seeing customers hail me, the chef complain to me about the owner, the other two waiters working that night tease me about a regular customer none of us wanted to serve because he regularly “forgot” a tip. As the evening progressed, though, he removed his jacket, loosened his tie and I could see him let go of discomfort and begin to enjoy himself. He sat at the bar, talking with Sam when I was busy, or just comfortably taking in the ambience.
A busty blonde made up like Marilyn Monroe sat her sky-eyed, white-toothed smile on the stool next to Evan. Her nails were bright red elongated ovals, and her earrings might or might not have been diamonds. She leaned over to say something to him and to give him a better look at her chest. Overkill for Front Street to be sure, her short, tight cocktail dress was sequined in a pattern that swirled around her chest. I knew her, so her flirting with Evan was to play with me as much as with him. “Pour them a couple,” I whispered to Sam. He shot me a grin.
“You got it, Red.” He gave a little salute and pretended to look at me admiringly. “You’re bad. You’re really bad.”
Sam went over to them. “What may I get for you?”
The blonde immediately purred, “A Manhattan would be delish.”
“I’m good for now,” Evan said, but Sam brought him another beer when he brought the Manhattan.
“The gentleman is running a tab,” Sam said to her.
“Thank you, sweetie,” said the blonde to Evan.
“Oh, I didn’t—” he began to explain.
“I just l-o-v-e a good Man…hattan,” she cut him off and strung out the word love and the man syllable of Manhattan. It was all-out flirting of the kind most discomforting and most flattering to any man. She lifted the drink to her lips, pinky out, and looked at Evan suggestively through long, fake eyelashes.
I had an order up, so I couldn’t hear if or how Evan managed an explanation. I could see him talking to her as I carried trays. Sam winked at me, and I winked back. Evan was laughing at something Marilyn had said, though he looked a little fidgety. She had a second Manhattan while they sat talking for the better part of an hour, the blonde doing most of it. I didn’t go behind the bar again.
At quarter to nine, the blonde checked her tiny gold watch. “God, I’ve got to get to work,” she said.
She took powder and lipstick out of her purse and did a touch-up right there at the bar before she sprayed herself with cologne. Teasing, she sprayed some cologne around Evan’s head and said, “This is to make you think of me,” just as I was passing behind the two of them on my way to a table. I heard Evan say, “Oh, I don’t think I’ll forget,” as his neck reddened in one of his rare blushes. He glanced my direction, checking to see if I’d overheard.
“Maybe I’ll see you here again, honey,” Marilyn said, and swung her hips as she sashayed out on spike heels.
“They all sure like you,” Evan said later after we closed and he and I were in the car on the way to the cottage.
“Well, somebody sure seemed to like you,” I said.
“Listen, Ruthie, I’m sorry about that. She parked herself there, and Sam let her think I was buying her drinks…but then after she left, he said ‘no charge.’ I don’t know what that was about, but I don’t want you to think I was encouraging her.”
“Didn’t look like you were exactly holding her off with a gun,” I said. “I’m not usually a jealous type, but…”
“Honey, I swear….”
I’m almost ashamed to say how long I tormented him: all the way back to the cottage.
Once we were inside, when he was still stuttering explanations, I started to unbutton his shirt. “Well,” I said. “It’s okay. I know her, she’s a friend of mine. You’re not her type.”
“What?” he said. He couldn’t quite decide between being mildly insulted and relieved that I’d said it was okay.
“You’re not her type,” I repeated.
“What’s her type?” he asked, unbuttoning the simple white blouse the waitstaff at Front Street wore.
“Oh…someone more like me, maybe,” I said, sitting on the bed and taking off my black slacks slowly, one suggestive leg at a time.
“Huh?”
“Well, honey, that was Mike you were talking to. He’s a cross-dresser from the show at the Pilgrim House.”
I watched it register, and when I knew he got it, I broke up laughing. Evan’s chuckle grew in his chest until there were mirth-tears on his cheeks. “You’ll pay for that one,” he said. “Prepar
e yourself…” he shouted, and the chase began.
“P-town has what we like to call an eclectic population. This town isn’t only famous for art. I really like them,” I said later, turning serious as I lay in his arms, warmed so well by sex and laughter that we had only the sheet over us. “It’s completely different from when I waitressed in high school, not that I’m thinking of spending my life at this. But it does let me see how much I’ve changed. I was afraid of people, everything, really.”
“Hmm. So this capacity for duplicity you demonstrated tonight, setting me up with Miss Mike—it’s new, huh?” He twirled a piece of my hair then pulled it playfully.
He was kidding, I knew, but I gave him a serious answer. “There’s too much you don’t know about me, Ev. No, it’s not new.”
“I can’t imagine why,” Evan muttered, an oblique reference to Mother, the first he’d made. “Of course, it looks like she’s won after all. You haven’t buried her yet, I take it?”
“I know we have to talk about it,” I said, ignoring the question. “Just not now, not yet.” He didn’t answer, but, rather, looked out the bedroom window at the three-quarter moon.
“Have you talked to Roger?” he asked.
“Twice. How much are you paying him to be president of your fan club?”
I felt rather than saw Evan smile in the dim light, but then he said, “Roger’s a good man, but he wants things to work to get himself off the meat hook. He knows he didn’t do his part, and he knows I know it.”
“Harvest moon week after next,” I said after a long moment of difficult silence. “Some nights when I come home, I go down onto the beach to look at the moon. When the bay is quiet, sometimes the reflection looks like a path you could walk on all the way to…wherever you want, I guess.”
“I’d like to see it with you.”
“Would you want to come back that soon?”