This Side of Water

by Maureen Pilkington

  The paper doll he’d tossed earlier floated toward the boat. Would the beauty reach out and rescue it? He read the destination on the return trip tickets out loud, as if the woman were sitting next to him on the bench, listening, her hand on his arm, attentive and focused only on Lawrence as he spoke. “En route to New York City from Southampton, England on the White Star Liner, Titanic.”

  TIDE POOL

  NUDES IN A GREEN POND

  “Come look at the nudes, Carla.” My uncle started heading toward his studio with his Chihuahua slung over his shoulder, the dog’s ass snug in his fat hand. I skipped behind him, happy, cracking spearmint gum. Uncle Samson breathed with a chronic stuffy nose and dragged the heels of his feet as he walked, because he didn’t have the energy or interest for either function.

  “Wow,” I said. I was in a sunny jungle of nudes dipped in oily color. Naked women with big brown nipples were coming at me from all directions. The unframed canvases hung in horizontal rows in a semicircle around the room like double rows of uneven teeth in a shark’s mouth. Some sat very high on the walls, some low. One painting sat on an easel with a cream-colored shroud over it.

  “How do you like them, Carla?” Uncle Sam shifted Teddy to the other shoulder.

  “I like that one, Uncle Sam.” The fumes made me careless, but I made it over to the wet canvas of the brunette nude in turquoise water up to her thighs without tripping on cans of turpentine or slipping on plastic wrappers that coated Uncle Sam’s fresh Cuban cigars. “This water—it’s not the same color as out back.”

  Uncle Samson and Aunt Henrietta lived on the harbor. At night the water looked black, and occasionally I could see a water rat’s glistening back skimming the surface. There was always a slight smell of salt and fish, but the only fish I ever saw close to their house were the small minnows I caught with glass milk bottles and string right off the dock. You had to use Uncle Samson’s boat, Gone Wild, to get to the striped bass and flounder out near Scotch Caps, the rocky area seven miles out into the Long Island Sound.

  Uncle Samson rested his gooey cigar stub on the windowsill and sat down on the bench splattered with all the stunning colors that surrounded his women. Teddy got bored if he wasn’t being rubbed and left the studio looking for Aunt Hen’s poodle. The toy-sized dog could always be found licking her own genitalia at the foot of Aunt Hen’s bed.

  “Curla.” Uncle Sam looked serious, the way he looked when we fished off the boat. He’d pick up the slack from his rod by instinct and just stare out on the water’s surface. Waiting. I figured he shared my hopes of seeing a sleek gray fin there.

  He said it again. “Curla.” I never corrected his pronunciation, as I would have if he were another ten-year-old. Besides, he put a spin on all his words.

  Uncle Sam lowered the music on the stereo with the most gentle fingering. He had a soft touch so it was hard for me to picture him as a boxer, but that was a long time ago, like he said. The song was familiar to me since he played it over and over while he painted with the door closed, “Bella Maria de mi Alma” (“Beautiful Maria of My Soul”). Then he leaned over his belly as far as he could and said without breath, “Curla…the nudes…they love to dance.”

  My parents were smooth dancers so I was familiar with all the actions this secret implied. Mom and Dad were elegantly romantic when they danced. They exchanged looks while they glided around, looks inspired by each other. I glanced at the nudes with thick feet.

  “You mean they rumba—in there?” I wondered if they had enough room. I imagined them tumbling out of their square of canvas.

  Uncle Sam got up slowly, eyeing the room for his cigar stub. He was wearing his cherry-colored bathing trunks with a terry-cloth robe draped over his shoulders. The ends of his belt dragged on the floor. He never tied anything.

  “Where’s Mother?” Mother was a name he called Aunt Hen. Uncle Sam was forever adjusting the windows so his studio could be filled with that southeast breeze off the harbor.

  “She’s on the patio with Mom and Dad. They’re waiting for the fireworks. You can see ’em perfect from there.”

  Uncle Sam left me alone with the nudes. Most canvases held three or four women doing water ballet in a lime-green pond, or stepping out of the water, linking arms with other nudes. Two black-haired ladies faced each other in a cha-cha. Some were lounging by the grassy areas near the tropical water. A few held hands in a circle under a tree. The women looked up in a cobalt blue sky or shyly down. Their mouths were full and shocking pink. They were satisfied from the easy rhythms of their day. I could smell the flowers and mossy waters that were love seats for their bodies. One lady sat on a rock, her legs crossed, and stared at me. I knocked down a small tower of beer cans as I left the studio.

  A burst of fireworks started falling slowly over the black harbor. You had to walk through Aunt Hen’s living room to get to just about anywhere in the sprawling house. The picture window acted like a frame for the harbor and the patio where Aunt Hen, Uncle Sam, and my parents sat with multicolored Japanese lights strung over their heads. I could hear Aunt Hen’s muffled voice from my hiding place in the living room, “Jesus Christ, Sammy!” The white poodle was in her lap, busy licking herself while Aunt Hen quickly drank her highball.

  From my spot behind a massive jardinière I felt well protected from the powers in my aunt’s home. Buddhas and stiff geishas proved to me you can’t trust everyone in this world. All the beings here had glass eyes that followed me, even when I wasn’t paying attention to them. Two Asian cats the size of German shepherds sat on each side of the china cabinet—Tom Shue’s cats. Once while I played possum in the back of our car, my mom whispered to my dad, “Those Asian cats—aren’t they stunning?—were a gift to Hen from that shady character, Tom Shue.”

  Aunt Hen kept a drawer for good girls in my favorite table, an end table standing on bird-claw legs. Inside was a copy of The Story of Little Black Sambo, who tried to escape the mouths of tigers by giving them his beautiful clothes. There were several trinkets from Singapore and two porcelain mockingbirds. There was an old postcard from Fiji stuck in the back of the drawer. I yanked it out and read Tom Shue’s faded signature. The note smelled spicy, and I laughed when I read the closing. “Of course, my sweet and angelic Hen, I will be forever yours.”

  Over this end table was a rather small painting of a nude. She was different than the others in the studio. Shy maybe. A teenager? She was wet, her shiny hair dripping into a V in the middle of her back. I could see her profile, a flat nose, a full face. She was wrapping a towel around her buttocks with one leg propped up on the edge of something. I never noticed her before because a handsome Great White sat on the end table beneath her, his muscular tail bent upwards.

  The screen door slapped shut, and I heard my father’s footsteps. I was relieved to hear his voice. “Carla—you wanna miss the finale?” I could see the top of the dripping colors from my spot but agreed to go outside with the adults. “Dad, I’ll be out in a minute. I have to get my fishing bottles ready for the morning”—cementing the fact that I would be spending the night there without my parents. I left my musty corner behind the jardinière and joined the others on the patio.

  Uncle Samson explained to Teddy why the finale was “a Jackson Pollock splash.” The smell of sulphur and gin was a little too much. After my father urged me outside, he wasn’t even looking at the display. I climbed on my father’s lap, even though I was just about too big for this sort of thing, and whispered, “Dad! The noise—it will scare the fish!” My heart broke thinking of all the plump silvery bass swimming away to other waters.

  Uncle Sam said, “Curla, how do you like the fireworks?”

  Aunt Hen’s poodle kept yapping and quieted down only to kiss Aunt Hen under the chin with about ten licks in a row. “Sammy, get Johnny another drink here!”

  I followed Uncle Sam back into the house to assist him in making a cocktail for my father. Grab
bing the mermaid ice thong, I filled the glasses with ice. “Uncle Sam, the nudes, they like fishing?” I had to make sure he was planning to take me out on the boat in the morning. I could take one of the smaller portraits—the shy one—and tie her to the seat in the cabin. He could have a sandwich with her, if he wanted to. The ladies were my insurance.

  “No, Curla.” He dropped the cherries in the highballs. He was still wearing his trunks and robe, while everyone else was dressed. “No, the girls must be home. And, they need me first thing in the morning.”

  “For what?”

  “Who would hold their towels for them after they bathe?”

  I couldn’t think of one other person who could do this job for the nudes. I started to panic thinking of our schedule for the morning—I prayed that their bathtime would be over before the tide started to go out.

  We served the drinks on the patio, and my mother was giving my father a “that’s enough” look. My father was egging on his cousin, as usual, getting her worked up about the stock market and real estate values where Aunt Hen made most of her money. She owned several buildings in town, one of which served as a showroom for Chryslers. Uncle Sam’s job was to schmooze with customers, a job that Aunt Hen said was one that he was good for. Once, he hung a blonde nude with a pink lei around her head like a crown in the showroom over a salesman’s desk, but Aunt Hen ordered it off the wall.

  Uncle Sam was serving my mother with his best manners, and I was trying to prevent my mother from thinking about me going out on the boat in the morning. Mom never learned to swim or bait a hook.

  “Sammy!” Aunt Hen bounced up a bit from her seat.

  “Yes, Mother!” Uncle Sam bit the start of his cigar whenever Aunt Hen was about to reprimand him.

  “There’s no gas in the tanks, for God’s sake. You’re not even going to make it to the fuel dock!”

  Uncle Sam watched the last explosion in the sky. “Don’t worry, Mother, I’ll make it.”

  “Jesus Christ. You should spend less time with those goddamn paint brushes and pay more attention to what needs to be done around here.” Aunt Hen shooed the poodle off her lap.

  My mother butted in. “There are plenty of fish right here for Carla to catch, Sam. Don’t worry about getting gas. Plenty for her to do right here.”

  “Mom, did you bring the Wonder bread for the milk bottles?”

  Fishing for minnows was depressing compared to being out on the open Sound. While I sat on the dock and stuffed bits of bread down the neck of the bottle, I always had one eye on the rocky wall that separated the harbor from the grounds of the house. Sporadically, rats ran in and out of familiar routes. Every time I ran up or down the wooden stairway that leaned against this rocky maze, I feared that one of them would nip my feet with its pin teeth. When Tom Shue visited, wearing a white suit, he made cooing noises to the rats the way Uncle Sam coaxed Teddy on his lap, but the rats never came to him.

  The fireworks were over, and the sky was quiet. The audience of boats and dinghies revved up their motors and left their spots in a disorderly parade. Mom and Dad said their goodbyes. I was relieved to see my mother go before she jeopardized my early morning trip on Gone Wild. She pushed brown strings from my face and said, “You be good. I left the bread on the kitchen counter.” I hugged my father’s waist goodnight.

  As I tried to fall asleep that night in the guest bedroom, I was thinking about being out on the water. It was the best feeling I had ever had. I easily jumped from the boat’s upper deck to the dock and pushed us off before jumping right back on again. Uncle Sam would steer until we got out of the harbor. The best feeling started every time we left the dock as I watched the house get smaller and smaller and smaller. When the cold spray of the wake hit my face, I knew I was free.

  On the way out to Scotch Caps, after Uncle Sam passed the five-mile-per-hour markers, he would hold up his hand as a sign and yell back to me, “Hold on, Curla, I’m gonna pick her up!” Usually, we passed the regulars—Innisfree, Old Suzanne, and, if Uncle Sam was having a lucky day, Little Women. Uncle Sam never reprimanded me, he never even tried to tell me what to do. Our jobs were cut out for us, and we worked silently alongside each other. We’d anchor and bait, fix the lures if necessary and, once in a while, exchange a dream.

  “Uncle Sam? How far do you think she can go?” I asked him one day. I rubbed the teak inlays near the steering wheel as if the boat were a horse.

  “As long as she can sniff her way between the rocks and keep her tail out of the mud, she can go anywhere her heart desires.”

  “And, as long as she has plenty of juice in the engine.”

  His tan face wrinkled into a frown, and then he smiled without turning in my direction. You couldn’t hang around Aunt Hen without being influenced by her one way or the other.

  “How about Montauk?” I unsnapped a beer for him.

  “What are you dancin’ around, Curla?”

  “Tigers, makos…I’d even pull in a nurse. I’m not fussy.”

  Uncle Sam never budged. He just stared out. I didn’t even push him, and he asked, “Got the stomach for chum?”

  “Me?” I was game. He knew I was game. I could make a hook look like a bulky Christmas stocking the way I inserted the thing perfectly through the center of a sandworm’s entire body.

  When we drove back from Scotch Caps that day, Uncle Sam was thinking. He must have been charting out a route to the tip of Long Island where the ocean warmed up by the end of August. He was probably thinking of the best way to avoid those clumps of rock beneath the water that could rip your boat apart if you didn’t know enough to avoid them. We’d pass Port Washington and Greenport and by the time we reached Shelter Island, we’d probably stop at one of those Dock ’n’ Dine places. Finally, he’d get me to the ocean with real fish, the kind that circled their prey.

  I was lost in my thoughts, too. I wanted to run through my future to the day when I would be standing on the bloody fishing docks in Montauk next to a heap of dead sharks.

  The next morning I was the first one to get up and sat in the kitchen dressed for fishing. There was a naked girl hanging on the wall over the pine table. She was sitting on a bench with her back facing me, but she managed to look over her shoulder. A basket of odd shaped apples sat next to her.

  Uncle Sam joined me for breakfast. He still wore his terry-

  cloth robe, and his hair was wet. His face flushed as he searched for fruit in the refrigerator and found a mango that was already peeled.

  “Everyone have their bath, Uncle Sam?” I was hopeful that his services for the nudes were over and done with and that we could get on with our day’s activities.

  I recognized the sounds of Aunt Hen’s Italian bracelets so I was prepared for her entrance. She came rushing into the kitchen wearing her full-length satin robe. A Japanese maple tree sprang from the bottom of the robe and fanned out across her broad shoulders.

  “Sammy, Carla will wait here with me while you go to the fuel dock—and have them check that motor again!”

  Uncle Sam left the kitchen without any comment, and I was hoping he wasn’t going to close himself in his studio. If he did we’d never make it out to Scotch Caps before the tide went out. I suggested to Aunt Hen that I was going to remind him about getting to Rosie’s Bait and Tackle Shop for the sandworms. Rosie always had just one box of sandworms left in her fridge every time we went to buy them.

  Aunt Hen drank her tea standing up and said, “Honey, I think his boxing days have taken their toll on Uncle Sammy. He can’t breathe right from taking punches, but it’s his brain that’s stuffed up.”

  It sounded like she added, “That chooch.”

  After I knocked on the studio door several times, Uncle Sam and Teddy let me in.

  “Quiereme mucho” (“How Much Do You Want Me?”) was playing too loud for my ears. He had Teddy on his left shoulder while he rubbed
some finishing touches on the nude that had been under a shroud last night.

  Teddy squirmed down to the floor and tested me for a rub, but I was concerned about the tide. I could feel a nice strong wind even in the studio. “Uncle Sam?”

  His thumb and forefinger were coated in pinks and flesh tones. He didn’t have his painting clothes on, but he wiped his hands on his sides anyway.

  I picked up an old rag with turps and dark paint on it and offered it to him. “Don’t you think we better get going? I mean, it’s getting late and the last time we got out to Scotch Caps I said we were lucky with all the bites and you said that timing was everything.”

  “Bullseye, little Curla.” He didn’t take his eyes off his work-in-progress. “See her? She’s just about to show me her charms.” He stood back and admired that one. “Let me finish up, Curla, then I’ll change for the trip.”

  I walked back through the living room to the kitchen and stopped to look at Tom Shue’s cats since the morning light gave me a different outlook on things. I heard Aunt Hen’s teacup hit the saucer every once in a while, and I figured I might as well get her going about Tom Shue to get her mind off lazy Uncle Sam—but she wasn’t the type of lady to forget anything.

  “Tommy Shue?” She put her teacup in the sink like she was fed up with it. She lowered her voice, and it startled me as much as if she had screamed. “Honey, all men are the same—with the exception of my Tommy.”

  Just the sight of me in my fishing gear must have reminded her about the gas, and I could see her pale cheeks come to life with anger. Uncle Sam told me repeatedly while teaching me to troll that his wife was full of piss and vinegar.