“Who would do that? Who’s going to be my personal bouncer?”
“Beck would,” I answer without a moment’s thought. “He knows the history already, right? I bet with his family being so prominent he probably knows half the cops in town. He could intervene, keep Dad busy and then call the cops. In fact just with the threat of cops and Dad would hightail it. I bet he’s got warrants for this and that.”
My mother smiles sadly at her feet again. “Robert Geneva always did keep things interesting. Even by postcard.”
I watch a wistful look cross her face, with a ghost of a smile that could almost be fond nostalgia. She shakes her head a little, then scowls at her feet. “I need to get my nails done. A summer beach wedding and here I am with gnarly toes and nasty chipped polish.”
Once I’d have argued, dragged her back to the point at hand. Today I allow her the privilege of changing the subject. “Well, we can’t have that. Let’s wash the sand off and go get our toes prettied up.”
After I send my mom off to the shower, I pull out my phone so I can reach out to Beck. Once upon a time, I’d have swiped open the window with our running text conversation, but that was five years and a few phones ago, and anyway, I deleted that contact information long before.
There’s one number I do remember, though, one number that I always know will work.
I put on my best professional lawyer voice as I dial up Becker Development. “May I speak to Will Becker, please? Yes, the younger. I’ll hold.” While on hold, I reread the card. Finally found someone to take care of you. The gall of that statement is breathtaking. My mother has never needed a man to “take care” of her. She took care of herself, and me, and eventually Aunt Sally too, for all those lonely years.
Chapter Eight
Beck
Saturday, July 6, 2013
The morning sun warms the back of my neck as I stroll along the pier. The beach is nearly empty, except for a man throwing a stick for his dog and a woman jogging the stretch just above the surf line, weaving with the crash of the waves, staying on the firm wet sand. Soon enough the beach will be jammed with families on the tail end of their holiday weeks, and the man would be scolded to leash his dog. But this early, the lifeguards are still asleep and it’s every man for himself.
The pier walk has become my summer Saturday ritual on my weekends without the kids. Harry is so young and absent-minded, Madeline’s near-drowning so stark in my memory, that I don’t dare take them out to this concrete slab with no railing, treacherous rocks, and roiling water all around. So this is what I do, part pleasure, part penance.
I didn’t have a choice, really, but to agree to let the kids stay with Sam and their grandparents. I should have guessed this would be the outcome, what with July 4 being on a Thursday, and their planned long drive home on Friday. It only seemed natural that Sam would ask to swap weekends so she could extend their grandparent time. And what was I supposed to say? What would my children have said if I insisted they leave Grandma and Grandpa Chapman’s house just to come sit in my duplex? Sure I’d take them to the beach, but they are Haven kids and have been to the beach a million times. Grandma and Grandpa Chapman were primed to spoil them silly for three more days and no kid would swap that for boring old Dad who doesn’t have a big enough yard for a swing set.
When my kids heard of the change in plans, they roared a great cheer and I flinched.
I reach the end of the pier and lower myself to sitting. The waves over the breakwater are hypnotic, the water at this distance looks nearly jade green.
I’d just hung up from that call with Samantha when the secretary put Anna’s call through. Katie is new enough to think nothing of it, and for that I was grateful, though I bet if someone overheard, they soon filled her in.
I laughed at first, thinking Anna was kidding. Me, acting as security of a sort at her mother’s wedding? I realized then from the tone of her voice that this was no joke.
“I don’t want Mom to have to worry about it, and I don’t know who else I can ask. I don’t want to put a wedding guest on guard duty, I don’t want to, like, hire a goon or something. I just need someone there to keep an eye out. Someone who isn’t a stranger so I don’t have to tell this whole stupid story again.”
“Of course I will.”
“I mean, hopefully you won’t have to do anything but stand there and smile and then come eat cake with us. Heck, bring that Mandy girl as your date.”
“Oh, well, a certain someone’s lipstick all over my face put an end to that.” I’d meant to say it playfully, but my tone turned dark before I could censor myself.
The silence rang loud on Anna’s end. Her voice, only moments before friendly and entreating, grew cold. “I appreciate your help, Will. The wedding is at seven at Crescent Beach.”
I tried to keep her on the line but she clicked off too fast. It was stupid of me to say that, as if Mandy dumping me was somehow Anna’s fault; as if I even minded it. I was the one who first reached for Anna in the grass, I was the one who tried to get her into the house for sex.
“Well done, jackass,” I mutter. A gull lands near me, cocking its tiny bird head in hopes I brought some food. “Sorry, this jackass didn’t bring any food. Go away.” The gull just stands there and shits on the pier. Some security I am. I can’t even scare away an ugly bird.
*
On my own initiative, I show up about five p.m. to the wedding venue. This hidden sliver of beach is known mostly to locals. Havenites have been known to vandalize new, bolder signs advertising this gem, and town planning regulations were eventually written almost specifically to eliminate any possibility for signs that would be actually helpful.
Eventually, despite the unwillingness to share Crescent Beach with the outside world, the town did erect a gazebo and a covered picnic area near one end, and it’s proven popular for a certain type of wedding: small affairs, often second marriages, with brides who have enough daring to risk the elements.
As Anna had explained when I called back to confirm details—her tone never wavering from cool professionalism—it seemed unlikely her father would even know where to show up, if he really did make it to Haven. He’d more likely try the Presbyterian church where they had the funeral for his sister Sally four years ago, or any other of the local churches around. “But even with that, just knowing you’re coming has made Mom feel better. For that I’ll always be grateful,” she’d said, her phrasing bearing an odd finality, as if she never intended to see me again after today.
I tried to tell her about the seagull on the pier but she didn’t laugh. She said only “cute”, in the same way Samantha used to say “right” when I told a story about work and she wasn’t really listening.
She’d described her father to me, and it seemed safe that I’d be able to pick him out of the crowd, even though I had never met him. Early sixties, graying hair, distinct limp, probably shabbily dressed.
As I got ready in my townhouse, I did entertain a fantasy of somehow dramatically saving the day and Anna throwing her arms around me in gratitude. I guess even evolved, progressive men can have a knight in shining armor daydream.
I decide to seat myself in one of the folding chairs toward the back, and I angle the chair slightly so that I can see the whole venue, including gazebo and parking lot. After I’ve done so, I realize I have a view of the bride getting her picture taken at the water’s edge. A breeze ruffles the petals of a flower wound somehow into Maeve’s hair, which is piled behind her head. The same wind lifts a filmy train and it drifts like a following spirit. From this distance it doesn’t take much imagination to think that’s Anna standing there.
Weddings and funerals have a way of throwing one’s memory back to other weddings and funerals, and today is no different. I slam the drawer hard on thoughts of my wedding to Sam. But then my mind leaps to another memory, only somewhat less awful. Amy’s wedding to Paul, in which Anna got drafted to fill in for an injured bridesmaid, thrusting us together in the midst
of our affair.
The way I treated her that day, having just confessed the affair to my wife, is probably the second worst thing I’ve ever done. The first being the affair itself.
Anna seemed optimistic that day, despite the deep awkwardness. I will never forget the way her face shifted at the moment I told her that Sam knew. She’d worn a kind of secret smile during a dance we were sharing, because she no doubt thought we could revel in that moment together with no one the wiser. Dancing at a wedding was perfectly harmless, after all. Or it would have been, if I hadn’t confessed already to Sam, and lost my nerve for warning Anna.
So when I told her, that closely held pleasure melted away and her features hardened into a type of mask I’d seen before: anytime she talked of her father and wished not to lose her composure. Only that time it had been my doing. I had caused her to put on the mask.
I’d entreated her later to give me some time, but considering I was about to go back home to my wife and child, I could hardly blame her for heading back to Chicago and leaving me in my crumbling marriage.
I spot Anna as she walks to the shoreline to join her mother. She’s wearing a silky knee-length dress in light green, her own red hair pulled back, with a few loose curls bouncing in the wind. She fusses with the flower in her mom’s hair, then she reaches over and pulls Maeve in for a sideways embrace. They both carry simple bunches of daisies that might have been picked from someone’s garden. Maybe they were, at that. Maeve does love her flowers.
Anna looks so relaxed and happy, even joyous, and this sight is all the more wondrous and poignant for being so rare. I feel buoyed by the pleasure of seeing it, then crash down again because she’s going to get on a train tomorrow and be gone. For as long as Maeve is still alive and well in Haven, Anna will continue to pop back into my circumscribed orbit, shine for a few days and then vanish again. Someday, hopefully many years from now, Maeve will pass on, and Anna will never return, I feel sure of it.
The thought comes to me, almost as if someone else has spoken it into my head: I want to make her smile like that.
I shake my head at my own idiocy. How many chances does a man expect? My family is right, Anna is right. I should stop mooning over her and get on with my life.
I can’t stop looking at her, though. Anna is so unaware of anyone and anything but the lake, her mother, and the wedding, that she has begun to twirl a piece of hair, a habit of her youth that I always loved, and she tried to break.
It’s only when she happens to turn in my direction, and her face falls, that I remember my mission here. I look over my shoulder and see a man standing where a path in the woods opens up onto the sand. He’s gray haired and wearing beat-up jean shorts and a faded button-down shirt so old I can’t tell what the pattern might have been. But it’s the expression on his face that identifies him for me. I can’t think of anyone who would stare so fixedly at those two women other than Robert Geneva. I nod back toward Anna—I got this—and stride as quickly as the sand allows over to him.
“You’re not wanted here,” I tell him.
“I don’t expect I am.”
“Then what do you say we go for a walk? Right back to your car.”
He leans against a tree, folds his arms, and makes as if to stay for a while. “I’m not going to cause any ruckus. I just want to see, is all. I just want to watch her have a real wedding for once.”
I tighten my fists as indignation rises in my chest.
I can hear Anna’s voice in my head as if she’s beside me. Bullshit! she’d shout. And she’d be right. A man doesn’t cross several states to just stand on the sidelines and not even try to talk to his ex.
I step closer. My voice comes out low and gravelly, and it sounds strange to my own ears. “Your being here is ruckus enough. They’ve spotted you and now they’re upset. You don’t belong here and you will not ruin their day.”
It’s my father’s voice I’m hearing. The patriarch in charge.
Robert Geneva makes no move to leave. The brazenness of his presence is outrageous. But that’s very much in character, as Anna explained. He never let a little thing like reality interrupt a scheme of his.
He cackles, coughs, and spits a wad of phlegm onto the sandy trail. “You gonna punch a rickety old man with a bad hip?”
“You think anyone would care if I did?” His arrogance plucks a string in me. As a father, and one-time husband, I know well the enormity of the agony he’s caused. I’ve seen it play out in the pain that flashes across Anna’s face before she puts on her mask. I’ve seen the defensive crouch in which Anna has spent most of her life expecting everyone to hurt her, leave her. And here he stands, the maestro of all that pain, wiping his nails on his shirt like a smarmy B-grade actor.
I could almost smack my fist right into that curling smirk, but that same smirk catches my attention. Sonofabitch, he’s hoping I’ll hit him, shove him, knock him down. He can get me hauled off for assault and ruin the wedding with the spectacle of it.
I unclench my hands and take one step back.
“You bet I’ll call the cops, though. I figure you’ve got a warrant or two. In any case you’re an unwanted person.” Anna had coached me on this phrasing. I find myself hoping he’ll try to push past, even hit me. Give me a reason, jackass.
Unexpectedly, he turns to retreat down the trail. I follow him, because for all I know he could loop through the woods and come back out on a different spot of beach. It occurs to me I may end up babysitting this joker until the vows are accomplished.
“Maybe I’ll just give you a note for Anna. You her boyfriend?”
“No.”
“No? Why the hell not?”
He’s leading back toward a trailhead at a parking lot further down the road. Thank God Anna asked me to help: I shudder to think of her walking down this isolated trail with this guy, father or not. “What do you mean ‘why the hell not’?”
“You were staring at her like she’s the goddamn love of your life.”
“You don’t know anything.”
“I was standing there watching before any of y’all took notice. Maeve kept waving at her man. Least, I assume that was him in the gray suit. And Anna was looking so pretty in green, she always did, too. Matches her eyes, like that poem her mom used to quote all the time. By whatshisnose. ‘Nature’s first green is gold…’”
“Robert Frost. ‘Nothing Gold Can Stay’.”
“Heh. Damn right old Frosty. Nothing gold. Ah, don’t bother with women anyway, young man. Nothing gold can stay and nothing silver, or copper, or even goddamn tin.” He stops in the path, where it’s by now packed dirt strewn with pine needles. He turns to me. “Maeve isn’t the only one who moved on. I got a new lady, had more kids. We were together for twenty years if you can believe it and she ran off with somebody else. Some asshole with a big stupid house. And people that stay together don’t stay in their gold, either. They’re just too lazy to do anything about it and just get more and more ornery, side by side. If Maeve and this new guy make it, it’ll be because one of them kicks off before they get tired of each other.”
“Keep walking,” I tell him. “To hell with you.”
“Suit yourself. What’s your game plan, Boy Wonder? It’s a free country and I can breathe in Haven if I damn well want.”
“I don’t care where you breathe as long as it’s not here. Stay away or I’m calling the cops.”
We emerge from the trailhead into a small parking area covered with bark chips. He leans back against a rusty Ford Escort. “Seems to me the bride and groom wouldn’t appreciate the sirens and fuss.”
“No, they wouldn’t.”
“So what if I go back there anyhow? You going to wrestle me to the ground? Punch me in the nose?”
It occurs to me he’s angling for something. “What do you want, Mr. Geneva?” I reach for my wallet. I’ve got cash in here, it might be as simple as that.
He rears back a little and actually looks wounded. “You think I’m extorting yo
u?”
“I’m just trying to get you the hell out of here. You’ve seen it for yourself now. She’s really getting married. She doesn’t want to see you. I won’t let you make this any worse than it is already.”
He turns back to the car. “Just give them a note from me, then. Promise me that and I’ll go away forever.” Without waiting for a response he settles into the driver’s seat, legs sticking out the door, and uses his lap for a table to scribble a note on a writing tablet he produced from somewhere inside the car.
He folds the paper so roughly it’s more of a wadded-up ball than a note, and I jam it into my pocket. I don’t know if I can trust his word; he might circle back the minute he’s out of my sight. I will call the police as a preemptive measure. I bet a sheriff’s deputy would casually drop by Crescent Beach right around seven, just to keep an eye on things. It’s a small town and everyone shopped at Maeve’s Nee Nance Store, got their mail delivered by Al. It’s the kind of thing Havenites will do for one another. As Robert Geneva slams the door and the car coughs to life and sputters away, I use my cell phone to take a picture of the license plate.
On my long trudge on the dark path back toward the wedding, I shake my head anew at the balls of this guy to show up at his discarded wife’s new wedding day, adding yet another stupid stunt to his long list of catastrophic mistakes.
“Some people never learn,” I mutter, my only audience being the cool piney woods. Then I laugh darkly. I ought to know.
Chapter Nine
Anna
Saturday, July 6, 2013
The Wedding
The aisle, if it could be called that, is rather short, seeing as we have only about twenty-five chairs. So, to give the high school quartet enough time to get through some bars of Pachelbel’s Canon in D, Mom and I are starting almost back in the woods for our long trip across the sand, up the gazebo steps, to stand next to Al.
Hope Out Loud Page 6