Osprey Island

by Thisbe Nissen

  THE LODGE WAS OVERLY QUIET. You might have suspected hubbub, but there was none. It was quiet as a funeral, small groups of people huddled in corners, processing the events. Everyone had a version to tell: how they’d heard, where they’d been, what they’d thought at first, how that had changed. Sheriff Harty and Deputy Davey Mitchell spoke to the employees a few at a time. As some of the last people to hear, if not see, Lorna Squire alive the previous night, Peg and Jeremy were questioned together, their responses taken and recorded with great enthusiasm on the part of the deputy who didn’t often get to do much but look stern and holler at kids he caught climbing the yacht club fence for late-night swims.

  No foul play was suspected—what was foul about it? A very sad, very, very drunk woman who’s just had a fight with her husband passes out on the couch, a lit cigarette in her fingers . . . What more was there to say? She left no note. No intimation of suicide. But whose mind didn’t it cross? It wasn’t hard at all for anyone to picture Lorna Squire doing herself in. They’d watched her take her own life, day by day, for years. They wondered what would happen to Squee, what would happen to Lance, but people had wondered all of those things when Lorna was alive. She’d always been dying; now she was dead. In the wake of the fire Gavin found himself overcome by a sense of protectiveness that made him envy his roommate, Jeremy. He wanted someone in his arms the way gawky, pimpled Jeremy cradled Peg in his, and though Brigid wasn’t exactly what he wanted, she was also clearly not unwilling to have him nearby.

  None of this was what Gavin had expected. He’d been prepared for a summer of long walks with Heather, his Stanford girlfriend, on the beaches of her childhood, which she’d so languorously described to Gavin as they lay pinned to each other in his dorm bed back at school. It was meant to be a dream summer. She’d told him about the hotel, straight out of Dirty Dancing, she’d said. And he’d pictured the two of them, like Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey, only reversed, kind of, since he was the one from the upper-middle-class family in LA, she the island girl he loved. Gavin liked that about himself, that of all people to fall in love with, he’d tumbled not for a Palo Alto sorority girl or a politician’s daughter from D.C., but for a girl from the other side of the proverbial tracks. His parents had liked Heather, thought her, as he had, smart and sensible, someone who valued a good education but also held onto dreams of a family and a quiet life, dreams Gavin had felt himself latch on to, perhaps for lack of real, tangible dreams of his own. But his parents had certainly not understood their son’s desire to go off and serve prime rib dinners to the East Coast vacation set rather than lead wilderness trips in the Sierras or scramble for some prestigious summer internship in San Francisco. Gavin had been proud of his decision. Also, he liked the notion of following a woman, not a career, liked thinking of himself not as a doer but as a lover.

  When Heather had announced her intention to return home to Osprey Island for the summer, Gavin had felt gallant in offering to accompany her. She’d protested, albeit meekly, saying no, that was crazy, what was he going to do, wait tables at the Lodge? For real? And he liked the picture he’d painted himself into: he was the boy who loved her and wanted to get to know her family. There was even a part of him that wanted to fall in love with that island, to step off the clanking old ferry Heather’d described and into a place that would feel more like home than home had ever felt. Heather was to be his entrance into another world. They’d finish their degrees and move back to Osprey, have an island wedding at the old golf house on the hill. Maybe secretly Heather’d already be pregnant, and they’d move into an A-frame overlooking the sound and start their own family. They’d make their living restoring old houses and selling them to wealthy New Yorkers looking for vacation homes. Or they’d open a restaurant, work like hell from Memorial Day to Labor Day and have the rest of the year to themselves. Gavin had allowed himself these dreams.

  He felt now—given the circumstances which had arisen since his arrival—that Heather hadn’t protested his coming to Osprey quite as much as she should have. It was possible, he conceded, that she had protested vehemently and he’d merely taken it as her thoughtfulness for his other prospects, his welfare. Now all that thrummed through his mind were imagined conversations he invented between Heather and her high school boyfriend, Chandler—late-night phone calls in April and May between Heather’s dorm room and Chandler’s parents’ home on Osprey. Heather complaining about the boy from LA who wouldn’t take no for an answer, Chandler saying, You got to tell him no. And Heather whining, I tried. And Chandler saying, Not hard enough.

  From the Lodge deck Gavin could see a redhead sitting down on the beach. Beyond her, just offshore, the seagulls swooped and rose from the water like lazy yo-yos. To the right was Morey’s Dinghy, tucked where the sandy beach gave way to reedy swamp. To the left Sand Beach Road extended a good mile along the shore. Gavin crossed and made his way along the narrow, splintering boardwalk that ran between the asphalt and the sand. The whitewashed railing left a chalky residue on his hand, and he wiped it on his jeans as he tromped over the sand toward Brigid. She had on gym shorts and a striped bikini top. She was reading a fashion magazine.

  “Looking to catch a little skin cancer?” he called, approaching.

  She turned, shielded her eyes from the sun, and leveled her gaze at him soberly. “I think they’ve determined it’s not contagious.”

  He hovered. “Still, you’re pretty pale to be lounging out, aren’t you?”

  “Ah!” She clasped her hands at her heart. “Look at him! He cares!”

  Gavin sat down in the sand beside her towel, legs bent out in front of him, hands on his knees. He looked over the bay. “How you doing?”

  “Such attention! Hardly know what to do with myself.”

  “You want me to go?” Gavin offered.

  Brigid fixed him in her stare. “Now, what do you think?”

  Gavin gave her a conciliatory smile but said nothing. They looked out at the water. After a minute Brigid said, “Not so bad, considering.” Then she said, “How are you, then?”

  “OK,” he said. A pause. “You going out tonight?”

  Brigid shrugged noncommittally: Make me an offer.

  “You think it’s wrong to go out?” Gavin asked.

  “Fuck if I know.”

  “Yeah . . .”

  “I never so much as laid eyes on the woman,” Brigid said.

  “Yeah,” Gavin said, “but everyone who’s from here knew her.” He thought for a moment. “I wonder if they’ll even open the bar. I mean, it’s a pretty damn small town.”

  “Pub or not,” Brigid said, “I’ll be fucking gumming for a pint by evening.”

  “That worry you ever?” Gavin said, half-teasing. “That nationalistic need for beer?”

  “About as much as your nationalistic need for cheeseburgers worries you, I’d say.”

  “Touché.” Gavin smiled.

  Brigid faced him then and nodded once. She was taking note of his challenge, registering it; he’d set out the ante and she’d met it. She didn’t raise him. She was waiting. Exercising some caution, for once.

  “How are we on whiskey?” he asked.

  She looked startled for a moment. “Out entirely,” she said, regaining composure. “Polished it off last night, Mr. Squire and myself, in fact.”

  “Oh?” he said. “Oh, really?”

  “He’s not such a bleedin’ maggot as everyone thinks . . .”

  Gavin looked surprised. And skeptical.

  “I mean, he’s desperate sad . . .”

  “And losing your wife doesn’t make that any easier.” Gavin shook his head, as if he had a clue what Lance was going through.

  “He’s just full of wind and—”

  “Maybe . . .”

  “I just think he’s maybe not so up entirely brutal as all that.” It was hard to condemn a thirty-eight-year-old widower, especially one who, it seemed, had garnered nothing but condemnation for much of his life. It was even harder when
considering Squee, because you wanted to think that somehow Lance might be able to be a good father to the kid. You wanted to hope, however far-fetched that hope might be.

  “Getting sweet on old Lance, now?” Gavin teased.

  “Course I am,” Brigid growled. “I just love a man in mourning.”

  “Jesus!” he said.

  Brigid sighed. “I’ve not rapid endeared myself to you now, have I?”

  Gavin laughed a little. “You’re not exactly delicate,” he allowed. “I think you take some getting used to.” He thought for a second. “You’re not so easy to figure out.”

  “I’m not bloody easy!” she balked. “It’s not been me shoving people up against the wall and kissing them and then tearing off like a bleedin’—”

  “I’m sorry ...”

  “Oh, you are, are you? Sorry for kissing me, or sorry for tearing off—”

  “Wait a second,” he said, his voice silencing hers. “Wait. Look: I’m sorry. I just . . . Look, I’m just really confused these days. I’m not really sure what I want, OK? I’m just—”

  Brigid cut him off defiantly. “Well, put some manners on yourself then, but don’t be—”

  “I’m sorry,” he said again.

  “Shut your gob with ‘sorry’ already!”

  “Jesus—why are you so antagonistic with me? What did I ever do to you?”

  “You haven’t done a thing, aside from shoving your tongue down my throat, which I quite enjoyed, so I won’t go on about it . . . Only you’ve pissed me off—”

  “Look,” he interrupted her. “Look, can we just start over? Please? OK? Can we just start over from the beginning? Wipe the slate clean? Try this again?” His eyes entreated her; his hands were open in offering.

  She let out a breath, an ironic laugh. She shook her head and, rolling her eyes, brushed the sand from her hand and held it out to him. “Brigid,” she said.

  “Hi, Brigid, I’m Gavin,” he said, shaking her hand. “Really nice to meet you . . . So where’re you from, Brigid?”

  “Bloody Americans.” Brigid snorted. “So bleedin’ friendly, the lot of you!”

  WHEN IT WAS TIME to leave for Penny and Art’s, Squee ran and hid down in the ravine behind Eden’s house. Eden hollered his name into the twilight for half an hour, pleading, cajoling, begging, before she threatened to go get Roddy, who she was sure would be none too pleased with Squee for acting so irresponsibly at a time like this. Squee emerged, somber and reluctant, from the woods. “Don’t tell Roddy, OK?” he asked, and that was the last thing he said as Eden handed him a small old suitcase of Roderick’s packed with his washed and neatly folded clothes, and they drove down the hill to his grandparents’ house. Art had already gone to bed, but Penny greeted them at the door with a grandmotherly flourish and welcomed Squee inside like some sort of delicious prey. Eden stroked the boy’s hair as he stood beside her and paused a moment, her hand upon his head as though she were saying a prayer, before she bade them good night and made her way back to the car alone.

  Eight

  THE MECHANICS OF FLIGHT

  To fly

  Is to come toward

  And

  To go away from

  —WILLIAM MOSLEY LANDIS, self-appointed poet laureate of Osprey Island, “The Osprey”

  THERE WAS A KNOCK AT THE DOOR of Suzy and Mia’s room after dinner that evening, and Suzy leapt to answer it. If she was disappointed to discover that it was not Roddy, her surprise at seeing her father in the doorway certainly masked any other emotion. Suzy started, then regained herself and put up a hand to shush Bud as she slipped into the hall with him and took pains to close the door quietly behind her. “Mia’s finally asleep,” she explained.

  Bud nodded. His eyes were trained down. He looked almost humble, and humility was not something to which Suzy was even remotely accustomed in her father. “I’ve got to ask you . . .” he began, then fixed his eyes on her and spoke quickly, with urgent purpose. “I need you to take over for Lorna. I’ll try to find someone, but until then . . .” He stared, waiting for a one-word answer he might snatch from her like a relay baton.

  “You want—?” Suzy screwed up her face. This was something she sensed she didn’t want to hear.

  “You’re the only one who knows the Lodge. How things work. I’ll pay you, of course.”

  Suzy’s lips pursed defiantly. “This is your way of asking ?”

  Bud regarded his daughter blankly.

  “Would please be so difficult?”

  She exhausted him. Bud made a gesture as if to say, I concede to you, take anything you want from me, take everything, take it all! If “please” is what you require, then I give you “please.” He never said the word aloud.

  “Fine,” Suzy said. “Fine. Whatever. Until you find someone.”

  Bud sighed, eyes closed, shaking his head. “It’s going to be a hell of a time.”

  “Yeah, well, for all of us.”

  Bud nodded. He turned to go.

  “You’re welcome,” Suzy called after him, the way she did with her first-graders.

  He turned back around mid-stride, gave a cursory half nod, and continued down the hall.

  Bud called a staff meeting in the dining room that evening. Nancy was back up at the house, still sleeping off the tranquilizers Doc Zobeck had pumped her full of that morning. The Lodge felt as it had the day they’d gotten word of Chas’s death in Vietnam. It had been Doc Zobeck back then too who’d given Nancy her fill of Valium, just to get her past the screaming, past the part when they were afraid she’d truly lose her mind. Bud hadn’t known what to do with himself that terrible day. He was the owner of a large hotel, always a thousand things to do. Except that day, when he couldn’t think of one. He was of no comfort to his wife, who howled like a dully stabbed beast; he could not even conceive of going to his daughter, who was sixteen and terrified him for that reason alone. Bud’s memory had blurred and distorted that time just after Chas’s death. Nothing had felt real. And it was dangerous, Bud knew, what a person might do if what was real didn’t feel real. Some time down the road, what was real would come back, and when it did the chances were good that it’d slam him so hard he wouldn’t have a choice but to feel the pain.

  What Bud felt now wasn’t pain; it was more gnawing ache. There was fear, and along with it an uncomfortable lurking sense of being swindled. All these years finally culminating in Lorna’s greatest revenge. But revenge for what? Hadn’t he been good to Lorna and Lance? Hadn’t he kept them on at the hotel years after any normal person would have fired them for being drunks and freeloaders and not one ounce of help at all? Hadn’t he spent years defending that charity to his wife? Bud had long felt a certain responsibility for Lorna, and he’d taken care of them all those years, and what was her final thank-you? To load herself up and pass out and nearly burn the whole place down? It was a move that would surely hurt him, if not close the whole goddamn place down before the end of the season if he wasn’t careful. Bud had no choice but to be extraordinarily careful.

  The staff was gathering in the dining room, in chairs and on the floor. Already the alliances were forming, the summer romances, hands grazing the backs of necks, the ever-insistent touch: I am here. Bud had seen it so many times before, those summer loves, so few of which would last, so few of which would make it as far as Labor Day, most of which were nothing more than summer sex. But it kept the staff happy, their furtive trysting in the bushes, and that’s what Bud was about, wasn’t it? Keeping everybody happy? His life, his livelihood—ironic as it may have been—was about keeping people happy. And keeping people happy, Bud had learned, was about keeping them from seeing what they didn’t want to see. They came for a vacation: a dream, a refuge, an escape. And if it didn’t turn out quite exactly as edenic and impervious as they’d dreamed, they didn’t want to know. Death is everywhere, they might concede, but for god’s sake, don’t point it out on the sightseeing tour!

  Bud addressed his staff: “Thank you all for com
ing down this evening. ” Bloodshot eyes fixed him with spongy stares. “It’s been a difficult day,” he said, “a very, very difficult day for us all.

  “This hotel—this island—will not be the same without Lorna Squire, and we need to support each other and Lorna’s family during this time. We have a big season coming up, and it’ll probably do us more good than we know to put a face on and face the guests. Help us get through our own grief . . .” He looked around at his audience. The Irish girls all looked the same to him, every summer. In the far corner stood Roddy Jacobs. Leaning in an archway near Roddy, Suzy was staring Bud down, her face critical, waiting to hear what he would say, waiting, as usual, to hear what he would say wrong. And in her view, Bud knew, that would be everything.

  “I know,” Bud went on, “that no one here’s much in a holiday spirit right now. Lots of sadness.” He fumbled for a lead-in. “But our guests are going to be here on vacation, they’re coming to enjoy themselves. Fourth of July weekend we’re booked full. It’s important for our guests to enjoy themselves, and it’s also important that we set a tone for the rest of the season to come. Show our guests what kind of an establishment we run here, and send them home with great memories to tell their friends about the Lodge at Osprey Island.” This part of Bud’s speech was canned. He’d given it so many times. “Fourth of July weekend is important for us: we do well on opening weekend, we do well for the season.” Bud paused. He looked around. “Already . . .” He didn’t know how to go on. “Already this . . . accident . . . is going to make things difficult for us here, as a business. We’ve got a lot to overcome.” He spoke quickly now. He spoke to the floor. “In proper honor, of Mrs. Squire, we’ll cancel our Fourth of July celebration— bus the guests over to Wickham Beach for the fireworks there. For those of us who knew Lorna, this will not be a time for celebration. But our guests, they didn’t know Mrs. Squire. This is their vacation, and they don’t want our worries laid on top of what they already got. Not while they’re on vacation.”