Songs of the Humpback Whale: A Novel in Five Voices

by Jodie Picoult

  Hadley and me and Rebecca are all watching this and getting kind of uncomfortable. It’s not just like we’re intruding; it’s as if everything-the orchard, the lake, the sky, God Himself-should be giving these two a little privacy. “Why don’t you take the rest of the afternoon off, Joley,” I say softly, “on account of you never see your sister.”

  I start to walk back in the direction of the barn, figuring I can clean up after the shearing. I need to separate that last ewe’s wool, and tie the bags and get them into town sometime this week. I leave Hadley in charge of Rebecca, figuring the two of them are getting along all right. And then with the sun burning against the back of my neck, I make my way across my orchard.

  I have never disliked someone so much so quickly. I’d say I wasn’t being fair to her, with the shearing accident and all, but I certainly gave her plenty of chances to see that I didn’t mean it on purpose. Ten acres back to the barn is a long ways, and the whole time I’m thinking of Jane Jones, and her face flushed to the same color as Ma’s dress, and the way one minute she could act so self-righteous, but the next minute she needed to cling to Joley for support.

  I try to do a few things back at the greenhouse, but Im not concentrating well. I keep remembering stupid things from high school-dumb incidents with city girls who, most likely, Jane used to hang around with. I seemed to always go for that type: the ones who looked like they’d just scrubbed their faces so hard they’d turned pink at the cheeks; the girls who had straight shiny hair that, if you came close, gave off the scent of raspberries. I went crazy over them at first sight, my heart going a mile a minute and my throat getting all hollow until I got up the nerve to go over and try one more time. You never know, I used to tell myself. Maybe this girl won’t know where you’re from. Maybe she won’t be the kind who cares. Eventually I knew better. They didn’t have to say it outright; their message came through loud and clear: stick to your own kind.

  So that was my first mistake with Jane Jones. I should have just let her go her own way. I should have pointed her in Joley’s direction and I shouldn’t have asked her to help out with the shearing in any way, shape or form. I started out just doing it for a laugh but that wasn’t right. She’s not like us. She wouldn’t get the joke.

  I realize then that I have left the greenhouse without noticing, and I’m standing in front of a dead apple tree, staring at Joley and his sister. Joley notices me and waves me over. From the other direction, Hadley and Rebecca approach. “Where have you guys been?” Joley says. “We were getting ready to have lunch.”

  I open my mouth but nothing comes out. “We were down by the lake,” Hadley says. “Rebecca was telling me all the stupid things you did at family Christmas parties.” He’s got a gift for situations like this. He can take knots and unravel them, smooth the kinks, put everyone at ease.

  “Sam,” she says. She’s talking to me. “Joley says you have a hundred acres.” She looks directly at me, bright and friendly.

  “You know anything about apples?” I say, too gruff. She shakes her head, so that her ponytail bounces on her shoulders. A ponytail. You don’t see many grown women with one; that’s what it is about her. “It really wouldn’t interest you.”

  Hadley looks at me, as if to say, What the hell’s gotten into you?

  “Sure it would. What varieties do you grow here?”

  When I don’t say anything, Hadley and Joley go through the rigamaroleof reciting all the stocks and varieties at the orchard. I walk up to the dead tree, within inches of her, and pick at the bark of a branch. I pretend that I’m doing something important.

  Jane walks to a nearby tree. “And what are these?”

  She picks a Puritan, holds it up to the warm noon sun, and then presses it up against her lips, getting ready to bite. I see this from behind, and I know what she is about to do. I also know that this section was sprayed with pesticides this morning. I move quickly on instinct, throwing my arm over her shoulder so that her back presses against me, sharp and warm. I manage to swat that apple out of her arm so it rolls out of her tight hold, settling heavy, like an overturned stone.

  She whirls around, her lips inches from my face. “What in God’s name is your problem? ”

  I am thinking: Get in your car; go back where you belong. Or else leave your big ideas behind and let me run my place the way I know it should be run. I am thinking: Here, I am the big fish in the pond. Finally I point to the tree where she picked the fruit. “They were sprayed today,” I say. “You eat it, you die.” I push past her, past the catch of perfume that hangs about her and the warm outline of air that hovers inches from her skin. I brush her shoulder as I pass, and I step on the goddamned apple with the heel of my boot. I fix my eyes on the Big House; I keep walking. I don’t look back. Out of sight, I tell myself, is out of mind.

  51 JANE

  Because the Big House was built in the 1800s, all the plumbing’s been restored. Naturally, they have bathrooms but not many. Everyone upstairs has to share one master bathroom, one claw-footed tub with a pull-around shower curtain, one ancient toilet with an overhead chain-pull tank.

  Today, I get up so late I’m sure that everyone else has already gone down to the fields. There’s no one in the bathroom, so I just walk in and turn on the shower. I let the room fill up with steam and then I’m singing the melodies of doo-wop songs, so I don’t hear the door open. But when I peek my head out to reach for a towel so I can wipe soap out of my eyes, I see Sam Hansen standing in front of the mirror.

  He’s rubbed a little part clear, and he’s got shaving cream all over his face. I’m so shocked that I just stand there, stark naked, with my mouth hanging open. There’s no lock on the bathroom door, so I could understand him walking in. But actually staying? Shaving?

  “Excuse me,” I say, “I’m taking a shower.”

  Sam turns to me. “I can see that.”

  “Don’t you think you should leave?”

  Sam clicks his razor three times against the porcelain of the sink. “Look, I’ve got an appointment in Boston this afternoon, and a meeting in Stow in three-quarters of an hour. I don’t have time to wait for you to finish your three-hour stint in the bathroom. I needed to get in here to shave. It’s not my fault you picked such a goddamned inconvenient time to take your shower-practically afternoon, now.”

  “Wait just a minute.” I turn off the water and pull the towel into the bathtub. I wrap it around myself and then I throw back the curtain. “You’re intruding on my privacy. Do you always walk in on people who are in the bathroom if you’re running late? Or is it just me?”

  “Give me a break,” he says, running the razor down his cheek. “I told you I was coming in.”

  “Well, I didn’t hear you.”

  “I knocked, and then I told you I had to get in there. And you said ‘Mmm-hmm.’ I heard it with my own two ears. Mmm-hmm.”

  “For God’s sake, I was humming. I wasn’t inviting you in here; I was singing in the shower.”

  He turns to me and holds up the razor, making a point. “And how was I supposed to know that?” He stares at me, his mouth surrounded with white foam, a perverse version of Santa Claus. Almost imperceptibly, his eyes flicker, just quick enough to take in my body, shrouded in its towel, from head to toe.

  “I don’t believe this,” I say, and I open the door to the bathroom. A cool blast of air rushes in and makes the skin on the back of my neck prickle. “I’m going into the bedroom. Please let me know when you’re through.” I stomp away, leaving wet pressed footprints on the Oriental runner in the hall.

  I go to my bedroom and lie down on the bed, unwrapping the towel and spreading it out underneath me. On second thought, I rewrap it. With my luck, he’ll just walk in here. There’s a loud thud on the heavy wood door. “It’s all yours,” Sam says, his voice muffled.

  Shaking my head I go back into the bathroom and this time I push the barrel used as a clothes hamper in front of the door. It isn’t heavy enough to keep someone from gettin
g in, but I’d be sure to hear it fall over. I step into the shower and wash the shampoo out of my hair. I finish my song.

  When I shut off the water and go to pull the shower curtain away, I notice for the first time how thin and white it is. I hold my hand up in front of it and I can see straight through. It’s practically transparent, which means he probably saw everything. Everything.

  I rub a corner of the mirror dry so that I can check my face for new or deepening wrinkles. I stare at myself a little longer than usual, paying attention to the look in my eyes. I start to wonder what exactly Sam saw. I wonder if he liked it.

  “Wait!” I call down from the bedroom window. “Don’t leave without me!” Joley, who’s standing outside with Hadley and Rebecca, waves-he’s heard. I run past the mirror, tucking a stray hair behind my ear, and head for the stairs.

  As I am going down I pass Sam going up. He grunts at me. I don’t make much of an attempt to acknowledge him, either. I can feel my whole face turning red.

  “Where are we going today?” I say, stepping onto the bright brick patio that overlooks the orchard.

  Joley smiles when he sees me. “Not too far. I’ve got to go into Boston with Sam this afternoon to meet a produce buyer.” He’s wearing a shirt I sent him last year for Christmas-Polo, with wide rugby stripes in plum and orange. It’s faded, which makes me happy: he must have liked it. “How’d you sleep?”

  “Fabulously,” I say, and I’m not lying. This is the second night we’ve stayed in the Big House, and for the second night I’ve been fast asleep by the time I hit the pillow. Part of it might be all the time we’ve been spending in the sun, letting summer catch us off guard. But part of it also has to do with the bed itself: a double fourposter with a feather mattress and an eiderdown quilt.

  Hadley is showing Rebecca how to twist the stem of a cattail around its furry head, and then pop the head off, a projectile. He hits me on the leg. Rebecca thinks this is just delightful. “Oh, show me again,” she says. I walk towards them, a moving target.

  “She made me do it, I swear,” Hadley shields his eyes from the sun.

  I like him. I did right off the bat, but part of that was due to the contrast between Hadley and Sam. Hadley’s simple: what you see is what you get. And he’s been awfully nice to Rebecca. Since we’ve come to the orchard, he’s adopted her. She follows him like a puppy, watching him prune trees or do bud grafting things or even chop wood. Every time I’ve seen Hadley recently, I’ve seen Rebecca.

  Rebecca wraps the stem of the cattail, with Hadley’s help. “Now just put your fingers in the loop,” he says, gently moving her hand, “and pull.” She bites down on her lower lip as she does it. The head of the reed shoots over my head and lands on Joley.

  Joley moves towards us, his hands buried in the pockets of his shorts. “So where are we headed today, crew?”

  “We could take them into town,” Hadley suggests. “We could take them to the supermarket so they can see where our apples end up.”

  “That sounds like a thrill a minute,” Joley says.

  “Don’t feel you have to entertain me,” I say. “I’m happy just hanging around here. If you two have things to do we can occupy ourselves.” I spent all of yesterday with Joley, trailing him from tree to tree as he worked. He said there was no reason he couldn’t graft and talk at the same time. We talked about the places I’d seen en route to Massachusetts. We talked about Mama and Daddy. I told him what Rebecca’s grades were last spring; what Oliver had been planning to do off the coast of South America. And in return he taught me the names of the apples grown at Hansen’s. He showed me how you can take a young budding branch and make it become part of a tree that has been dying. He showed me trees that have survived this process and trees that haven’t.

  It is so good to be with him. Just standing at his side reminds me how empty it is when he isn’t around. I really believe that we can think directly into each other’s minds. Many times when we are together, we don’t bother to talk at all, and then when one of us does begin to speak, we realize we have both been wallowing in the same sharp memory.

  Joley and Hadley are talking about what’s going on this afternoon at the orchard. It turns out Hadley will be busy too, as acting supervisor when Sam’s gone. I assume, though, like Joley, he’ll offer to take Rebecca along with him while he works. They both look at each other, and then they say simultaneously, “Ice cream.”

  “Ice cream?” Rebecca says. “What about it?”

  “We should definitely take them to Buttrick’s,” Hadley says, “no question about it. They have Holsteins penned up in the field, the ones whose milk they use for the ice cream.”

  “It’s only eleven.” I haven’t even had breakfast.

  “That’s all right,” Joley says. “They open at ten.”

  “I don’t know.”

  Joley grabs my hand and starts pulling me towards the blue pickup truck in the driveway. “Stop being such a mother. Live a little.”

  Hadley offers me the passenger seat in the cab, saying he can ride in the flatbed with Rebecca. Joley turns over the ignition and just as he shifts into reverse, Hadley leaps off the truck. “Wait a second,” he yells, and he runs into the garage. He comes back with two bright striped folding beach chairs, and tosses them to Rebecca.

  I peer through the tiny window in the cab and watch Hadley set up the chair for Rebecca. With a grand sweeping stately gesture, he helps her into it. She’s laughing; I haven’t seen her so happy in a long time. “He’s a nice guy.”

  “Hadley?” Joley says, backing up the hill and turning the truck around. He looks in the rear view mirror, presumably to check what’s going on in the back of the truck. Rebecca’s chair, which is sliding, crashes her into Hadley’s chair, and she lands awkwardly, splayed across his lap. “He is nice. I just hope for everyone’s sake he isn’t being too nice.”

  I check through that dusty little window, but it all seems innocent. Hadley, laughing, helps Rebecca back in her chair, and shows her how to anchor herself by holding on to the sides of the truck. “She’s just a kid.”

  “Speaking of kids,” he says, “or for that matter, their parents- you never did tell me what your game plan is here.”

  I fiddle with the glove compartment, opening it and then lockingit and then opening it again. There’s nothing in there but a map of Maine and a bottle opener. “What game plan? I thought we were on vacation.”

  Joley looks at me out of the corner of his eye. “Sure, Jane. Whatever you say.”

  I find myself slouching down in the passenger seat and putting my feet up on the dashboard, the very thing I tell Rebecca not to do. We pull up to a stop light, and I can hear Hadley’s and Rebecca’s voices carrying. “Eighty-two bottles of beer on the wall,” they sing.

  Joley glances at me. “I won’t bring it up anymore. But sooner or later-probably sooner-Oliver is going to show up at the orchard and demand an explanation. I’m not sure you’ve really got one, yet, either. And I’m positive you won’t know what to say when he orders you to get back in the car and go home with him.”

  “I know exactly what I’m going to say,” I announce, to my own surprise. “I’m going to tell him no.”

  Joley slams on the brakes and I hear the thump of two chairs against the back wall of the cab. Rebecca says, Ow. “You’ve got a little girl back there who doesn’t know what’s going on in your head. Do you think it’s fair to waltz her out of her home and then spring on her the surprise that she’s not going back? Or that she’s not going to live with her father? Have you asked her what she thinks about all this?”

  “In not so many words,” I say. “What would you do?”

  Joley looks at me. “That’s not the issue. I know what you should do. Don’t get me wrong: I love having you here, and I can be all selfish about that, but you don’t belong in Massachusetts now. You should be back in San Diego, sitting at your kitchen table with Oliver, talking about what went wrong.”

  “My brother the roma
ntic,” I say dryly.

  “The pragmatist,” Joley corrects. “I think fifteen years is a lot of time to chalk up to a mistake.”

  Hadley informs Joley he’s just missed the turn. Joley backs up into a dirt driveway and turns the truck around. “Promise me you’ll think about it. Even if good ol’ Oliver is standing on the porch when we get back, you won’t open your mouth until you hear what he has to say.”

  “Hear what he has to say. Jesus, Joley, I’ve been doing that for a lifetime. When do I get to talk? When is it my turn?”

  Joley smiles. “Let me tell you something I’ve learned from Sam.”

  “Do you have to?”

  “He’s a hell of a businessman. He’s not a man of many words, and just because of that he creates a presence for himself. He forces whomever he’s up against to do the speaking, to talk in circles. And the whole time he just sits there and listens. It gives the appearance of absolute knowledge, of total control. I mean, I know Sam pretty well, so I can see that sometimes he’s scared shitless. But that’s not the point. The point is, he knows how to turn that to his advantage. He waits, and he absorbs the whole situation, and he’s so quiet that when he does open his mouth, you can be damn sure the whole world is listening.”

  I loll my head against the side of the seat belt. “Thank you for sharing that tidbit of advice with me.”

  “Pretend it has nothing to do with Sam,” Joley says, grinning. “It’s valuable, in spite of what you think of him.”

  Before I know it we are speeding across a gravel area, kicking up a storm of dust. BUTTRICK’S, the hand-painted sign reads. The building is shaped like a T. A line of girls in yellow checked dairy outfits are waiting, pen and pad in hand, to take orders. On the roof, above the sign, is a big plastic cow.