by Deb Caletti
Maybe he felt that, too. Maybe that was the seed. My power, his sudden powerlessness. This, too, is the ugly little heart of my guilt. I was the one who led, I was the one who stepped into that power and owned it and liked it. But then again, I was maybe only drunk from that kiss; my dark places were meeting his dark places, and I could only see his words as awestruck. I didn’t see the accusation there. It was already right there, wasn’t it, from the very beginning? Did that mean it would have been there no matter what I had done or said or felt? Could it be that there was never actually an escalation that I had caused, but instead only the ways he increasingly revealed himself?
I wouldn’t see the accusation in those words until I had played that scene so many times in my mind. And many more times still, the way you do when you are trying and trying to understand the senseless logic of tragic things.
Chapter 4
When I woke, my new bedroom in the rented house was white with hazy morning sun still hid by clouds. I had left the window open, and the breeze coming through smelled damp and salty. I put on my robe, looked out to the long stretch of sand, twice as deep as the night before now that the tide was out. My heart did a little leap, that heart swoop that meant there were still things to look forward to. We were right to come here, if only because the ocean reminded you that impossible things were possible. Miles and miles of the deepest waters that moved like clockwork were possible. Creatures like jellyfish and sea urchins were, too. Millions and jillions of the tiniest grains of sand to form one long, soft beach—yep, even that was possible.
Or maybe it was just the smell of bacon cooking that made me feel so good. Dad had the radio on, too—NPR, by the sound of it. At home, he drove me crazy with the sound of that NPR, but I liked it right then. It was familiar but new in this new place. Pans were clattering, which meant French toast, too, and I could hear him whistling. I hurried, and for the first time in a while I was hurrying because of something good in front of me instead of something bad behind me.
“The great day waits, Sweet Pea,” my father said happily. He was wearing drawstring striped pajama bottoms and a white undershirt and was wielding a spatula. He had his scuffers on, which is what he called those old slippers of his with the open backs. His black-gray hair was longer than usual, though his beard and mustache were kept trim, and he had on the rectangular black glasses he wore in the mornings or when his contacts were bothering him. His nose was big, and he looked a bit rough, but women thought he was Italian because of his olive skin. They liked his edge, and he often got letters from them based only on that black-and-white jacket cover photo.*
“That looks so good,” I said. “I’m starving.”
“I’m glad. You’re looking too thin. It makes me think of your mother.”
My mother. Rachel Fournier Oates. It was true, she had been thin, I could see that in the pictures. I resembled her, not Dad, with her light brown hair, angled face, and serious eyes. She wore her hair long and straight, though, or in a ponytail down her back, whereas mine stops right at my shoulders.
“They’re all thin on that side of the family,” I said.
“Nerves,” he said. He didn’t elaborate, and I didn’t want him to. My mother’s family hated him, and it seemed like the feeling was mutual. Still, they were our relatives, hers and mine.
I snitched a piece of bacon right off the plate. “Bacon makes you believe in God.”
“A pig would disagree. See if he’s got any hot sauce around here,” Dad said, which meant he would be making eggs, too. “You’ll never believe what I found on the shelf above my dresser.” He gestured toward the table, where a thin leather photo album sat at what I guessed was now my place.
“Jackpot,” I said. “We know what he looks like now.”
“Not so fast,” Dad said. “Hey, take a look at these knives. The guy likes only the best.”
I grinned at Dad brandishing the silver knife with the black handle, looked down at the album. I opened the cover, expecting to see our mystery host in full color, but instead there were only dim, square photos from the 1970s—blond boys with shaggy, feathered hair, flannel shirts tucked in to flared jeans with wide belts. I turned the page. The same blond boys with groovy, 1970s parents in front of a Christmas tree flocked white. Some family trip to some unidentified state capital. “All we know is that he’s blond,” I said.
“And a little younger than me. You think?” Dad said. “He’s probably in high school there?”
My father was loving this. Maybe he liked not knowing, or maybe he liked finding out. We once followed a searchlight for miles until we ended up at a Fred Meyer opening in Lynnwood. Dad wasn’t even disappointed. “I guess. Ooh. Looking hot here.” I held up the album so he could see a teenage couple in front of a purple backdrop with a gold moon. School dance. “Three-piece suit in high school? He’s wearing a vest.”
“He’s not hot. He’s a stud. And she’s a fox. They’re about to leave that idiotic dance to get it on in a Chevy van. Have you noticed that no one gets it on anymore? No one is funky? No one gets down?” My father was on a roll. He cracked eggs into a pan, and they started to sizzle in the melted butter. He picked a bit of shell out with the edge of his finger. “We could feed the fire department.”
“No one boogies . . .” I added. I remembered my friend Danisha’s mother, listening to the oldies station every morning when we carpooled to middle school.
“No pretty mamas no more,” Dad said. You could tell he liked how the words sounded. I did too.
We ate that enormous breakfast. Dad slapped more French toast on my plate because we needed to eat up for a big day. I groaned when Dad said this. It was the kind of heavy meal that makes you feel in need of a nap. Food coma. I didn’t see how truck drivers did it. I’d pictured lying around on my white bed in the white room, reading books off of the mystery man’s shelf. “Don’t you need to work today?” I asked.
“Explore the town,” he said through a mouthful of eggs. “Find the library. Bank. Grocery store. A job for you.”
I pushed my plate away. “God, no. Dad—”
“If you think you’re going to laze around pondering the miserable state of your life all summer, it’s not going to happen. Job, and maybe those waylaid college applications, right? It’s for your own good. Note that this is often what parents say when it is also for our own good. I can’t work with a human weather system in the next room.”
“There’s miles of beach,” I tried.
“Forget it.”
“Did you see how big that town was? What are the chances of even finding a job?”
“Zero, if we don’t look. You’re not the depressed type, C.P. When have you ever been the depressed type? We Oateses are sturdy folks. There is an after you have to plan for, here. Bus is leaving, ten minutes.” He shoved his chair back and stood. For a minute I thought he might pound his chest like an alpha male gorilla. It was puffed out like that, anyway. “God, the ocean is energizing,” he said.
The library was the first stop, as it always was when my father was in a new place. He visited libraries like other people did museums or historic churches. The Bishop Rock Library was so tiny, it could have fit into the children’s room of the Seattle branch. He bullshitted with the librarian who followed him out with her eyes, I noticed. I told you, women looked at him like that. He checked out a large, hefty book on the history of revolvers (that thing weighed fifteen pounds, I swear) as well as several novels, and I did the same.
“She said to check the taffy shop for jobs,” my father said when we emerged and found ourselves back on the main street. “Did you know Bishop Rock taffy is world renowned?” He smirked with a bit of superiority, but I could tell he liked this small town. We walked down the sidewalk, past a tiny grocery and a store selling souvenir T-shirts, and finally arrived at the candy shop, which had a yellow striped awning and a sweet, buttery smell oozing like sugar lava from the doorway. Dad stopped, but only for a second. “Come on,” he said, and we wal
ked past that place. It was one of the good things about him—my father understood the fine shadings of feeling, the sense you had in your gut but didn’t have words for. The yellow awning and the bins of sunny pastels and the matching yellow aprons and the optimism of taffy were impossibly surreal and strange against the backdrop of what had happened—think pop music in a funeral home, or a brand new baby dressed all in black. I could never work there, not then. Cheer and despair don’t like to sit that close together.
Across the street there was a small marina, a dock of parked fishing boats, and a small, dilapidated tug. There was a second dock filled with sailboats and cruisers and motorboats. A huge sailboat was moored at the very end, with a mast straight to the sky, and you could see a guy on the deck, shading his eyes to look at another guy, who was hanging way up in a harness on that mast.
“Look,” my father said.
“Beautiful,” I said.
“Let’s go see it.”
“Dad . . .” I hated when he did this. He wasn’t just going to go see it—he would talk to those guys. He had to talk to people. All people, anywhere, people in movie lines and airports, chefs and taxi drivers. He learned things, great, but it always felt a bit embarrassing. Did they even want to tell him their life stories, or how a propeller worked, or how many miles they guessed they’d driven that taxi over the years? “I’ve got to find a job, remember?” I said. But he had already tossed our bag of books in the car and was crossing the street, heading toward the marina and that gorgeous sailboat.
I followed him. I could feel the dock moving under my feet. The water sloshed below, and you could smell its salty green depths and the deadness of seaweed washed ashore. There was a small hut at the end of the dock, a ticket booth. The boat was a tour boat. A majestic blue hull, with the name in script on the side. Obsession.
“Obsession, eh?” my father shouted to the guy on deck.
The guy turned. I was surprised to see he was not much older than me. Eighteen, nineteen. He had cargo shorts on, no shirt. Tousled black hair, the scruffy start of a beard, the kind of eyes you’d call sweet. “It was named before the perfume,” he said. “You folks want a ride?”
“I won’t step one foot on a boat,” my father said. He didn’t mind looking at the water, he just wouldn’t get in it or on it. No way in hell. I had no idea why. Childhood trauma, general fear, who knew.
“We’d make sure you didn’t fall in more than once,” the other guy said from above, his legs dangling down. They had to be brothers. They looked just alike, with that same dark hair and scruff, though the one above us was older, leaner. Longer hair. Sunglasses that hung from a leather lanyard around his neck, a pair of keys on it, too.
“She’s beautiful,” my father said. “Is she your obsession?”
“I guess you could say that,” the guy on deck said. “Tours are an hour, hour and a half if we like you.” He looked at me when he said that. My stomach did a little flip, and I cursed it. So what if he looked like that. “We go out past Possession Point. Got good wind.”
“Possession Point?” I said.
“Out there. That bit of beach that juts out?”
I nodded. Sure we knew it. It’s right where our house was.
“How fast does she go?” My father was still stuck on that boat.
“Oh, she’s gone twenty-five knots downwind with the spinnaker up. Ten to twelve on a usual day.”
“Fast for a boat that big.”
“We race her in the off-season. Crew of eight, ten guys.”
Dad shook his head. “How big? What, maybe fifty feet?”
“Seventy.”
Dad whistled. He was loving this, the short clip of guy talk. He could edge right in and make it work. You’d never guess he was the same person who could speak in loops and swirls that were basically poetic. “The mast?”
“Ninety.”
Dad shook his head with appropriate appreciation. I did the same, though numbers were as hazy and hard to grasp for me as ideas were for other people. Ninety, okay. It was tall. Really tall. And that guy was hanging up there like it was nothing.
“If you change your mind . . .” the guy above shouted. He took out his wallet from his back pocket as he dangled there. A business card fluttered down and landed in the water. A seagull paddled over to see if it was something he could eat.
“Moron,” the guy on the deck shouted up. He took out his own wallet, handed my father a card, and then another to me. Finn Bishop , it said. Sailor .
“Bishop?” my father said.
“The old dead captain was some sort of relation, though my mother always gets the story screwed up.”
“Pleasure meeting you guys,” Dad said.
“You too.” He paused for a second. Grinned. “Hope you’ll come for a sail sometime,” he said to me.
My stomach flipped again, making its point. I looked down, smiled in spite of myself, and then we waved and crossed back over the dock. I was blushing, but I hoped Dad didn’t see. Oh, Jesus. I didn’t need to worry about Dad, though—he was in his own world, as usual. He turned back around and shouted. “You guys know where someone could get work?” He crooked his thumb my way.
“Dad, for God’s sake,” I hissed. Shit, he could be so embarrassing. I know parental embarrassment usually stops somewhere at fifteen, but he just kept on giving me good reason. I tugged at his arm, waved my hand at the guy to indicate he should just ignore him. Too late; the guy was already shouting back.
“Try the lighthouse. Sylvie Genovese. She’s always firing someone.”
“Thanks.” Dad waved his arm again.
We had a humiliating and lengthy wait at a DONT WALK sign, with not a car in sight for miles. Dad was a priss about jaywalking.* Finally, we were back on the other side of the street, and then at our car. “Great. Always firing someone. Makes the taffy place sound like a haven,” I said.
“Come on, you could charm the skin off a snake,” he said.
We got back into Dad’s Saab. I may have slammed my door. My good mood was shriveling right up. Some combination of shame and humiliation in front of really cute guys mixed with the oddness of where we were and why and the caffeine from the morning’s coffee wearing off.
But maybe it was something else. “Possession Point, Dad? Jesus.”
“I didn’t know,” he said. “How was I supposed to know?”
“Obsession? Possession? Deception Point? You’re telling me it’s all an accident? How many places could we have gone?”
“Swear to God, Pea,” he held up his hand. “I’d have to be a sick bastard to knowingly put us in a house on Possession Point.” He started up the car. I couldn’t believe it; he started to laugh.
“Dad!”
“You gotta admit, it’s kind of funny.” His shoulders were moving up and down. Having himself a good old moment of hilarity.
“It’s not funny at all.”
Which of course made him laugh harder.
I was mad. I tried not to smile. “Okay, it’s a little funny,” I said.
“Holy Christ, fate’s got a fucking sick sense of humor,” he chuckled.
We headed out to the lighthouse, a drive that took us across a windswept road out to a high, rocky cliff that dropped down to the beach. The lighthouse was pure white, and the way its column stood against the sky made it seem proud and lonely and important. The keeper’s house was white, too—two stories with red trim and a steep sloping red roof and narrow rectangular windows. A big old sip-lemonade porch sprawled a welcome in front. There was a small garden around its perimeter, with bright green grass and flower baskets. I had gotten twisted around as to where we were after that winding drive, but when we stepped out of the car, I realized we weren’t that far from our house—I could see the jut of land that was Possession Point not far from the cliff where we stood. From that height, I could see that we weren’t entirely alone out there either, at that lighthouse. A few gray shingled houses dotted the beach, as did a small single shack that look
ed like it could be done in by a strong wind.
“Clara!” Dad called from where he stood in front of a large white sign. “Clara Bell, come and see this.”
I jogged over, because it was a place that made you feel like running. It was like one of those adventure places—an old military fort or a red barn in a pasture, where you felt eight years old again. You wanted to climb and make discoveries and play pirates of the Caribbean.
He was grinning wide. He pointed at the sign. “Another meaningful word! Honey!”
“Don’t even joke,” I said. I looked. PIGEON HEAD POINT LIGHTHOUSE. “Very funny,” I said.
“Very sca-ry . . .” He was so pleased with himself. “Pi-geons! Oooh-eee!”
I ignored him. “They’ve sure got a lot of ‘Points’ here,” I said.
He started to read aloud. “‘Pigeon Head Point is an elevated area on the western edge of Bishop Rock, with eighty-foot bluffs that drop into the inlet. The first Pigeon Point Head Lighthouse (also known as the Red Bluff Lighthouse), was built in 1860, and . . .’”
I walked to the keeper’s house. Dad was the kind of person who read every word on every plaque in every museum, zoo, or historical site. He couldn’t be like us regular people, who only read the first line or two. This meant that going with him to those places was a lengthy and painful process. In fact, he was still reading aloud right then for my benefit, but I pretended I couldn’t hear.