Osprey Island

by Thisbe Nissen

  The eastern side of the hill was scrubbier, sparser, as though it were at a higher altitude or got more wind or sun or something. The road narrowed to one cratered lane, forcing cars to pull practically into the woods if another car came from the opposite direction. There were more visible houses over here too, lower-slung ranch houses set incongruously in tall meadows of cattails. Coming round a bend, Gavin caught an incredible view of the water below, a patch of cliff-bound rocky shore, a decrepit stone pier crumbling out into the bay, an abandoned bridge to nowhere. He walked in the middle of the road, ready to leap to the side at the sound of car wheels approaching from either direction. A rumbling behind him sent Gavin nearly diving into a honeysuckle bush as a dirty white truck passed him, then slowed, slowed further, and pulled right. The driver leaned out his window and craned back around toward Gavin. It was Roddy.

  “You work at the Lodge, right?” Roddy called. “You going to the Vaughns’? Want a lift?”

  Gavin jogged up to the truck. “Hey,” he said. He peered around Roddy and smiled tentatively into the cab at Suzy, Squee, and Mia. He couldn’t think of an appropriate greeting. He said, “Hello.”

  “Welcome to hop in the back,” Roddy said, gesturing to the bed. An empty gas can lolled on its side amid a tangle of bailer’s twine and seaweed.

  “Is it a lot farther?” Gavin asked. “I’m kind of . . . I like the walk, you know?”

  Suzy leaned over Mia. “Another mile or so, but it’s all downhill.”

  “Thanks,” Gavin said. “I guess I’ll just see you there. Thanks again anyway.”

  “No problem,” Roddy was saying. He was already shifting out of park.

  “Enjoy the walk,” Suzy called. The truck kicked up a cloud of dust that followed them down the road.

  The Vaughns’ kitchen looked like the site of a suburban Tupperware party circa 1957, platters and containers overflowing with three-bean salad and fluffy green ambrosia. Mourners spilled out the open front and back doors and onto the lawns, so Gavin was able to approach and slip in without making a distinct entrance. He was glad to have run into Suzy and Roddy, as he knew people to look for now, and he was palpably relieved to spot the kids out back in the shade of a willow tree. Standing by them was a really pretty dark-haired woman holding a heavy-looking baby in her arms, and a older woman in a rose-colored dress, squatting down to talk to Squee and Mia at eye level, which was something Gavin sort of remembered his prof talking about in Psych 100, about putting yourself on the same level as being important for communication. He and Heather had crammed for that final together, up all night in the lounge of her dorm, drinking coffee from the vending machine in the basement. That world seemed a lot more than three thousand miles and a few months away.

  Gavin approached the party coolly and squatted down like the rose-dressed woman. “Hi again,” he said to the kids. He smiled shyly at the women.

  Squee said, “Hi,” then just stood there, looking at Gavin. No mention had been made at all of the fact that it was Gavin who’d pulled Squee from the Squires’ cabin the night of the fire. Not that mention should have been made; it wasn’t a big deal, really, and it wasn’t that Gavin wanted a spotlight. He just wasn’t sure if Squee remembered or recognized him or not, and it seemed weird to have that hanging out there somehow, to know, I was there when your mother died.

  Mia said, “What’s your name?”

  “Gavin,” said Gavin, but then couldn’t think of anything else, so he said, “What’s yours?” though he already knew.

  “That’s Mia,” Squee said, protective as an older brother, as if to feel out Gavin’s intentions before he’d allow Mia to talk with him.

  The squatting woman pushed herself creakily back to standing, unfurling a hand as she rose and extending it to Gavin. He stood as well. “Hi, Gavin,” she said. “I’m Eden Jacobs, and this is Reesa Delamico, and that big boy is Ryan Delamico. Can you say hello, Ryan?”

  “Huh-lo,” said Ryan dutifully.

  “Nice to meet you,” said Reesa. She smiled broadly. And though she’d just done Heather Beekin’s mother’s hair the afternoon before and therefore probably knew more about Gavin’s romance and breakup with Heather than Gavin knew himself, she didn’t say a word, just acted like anyone making a new acquaintance.

  Gavin wasn’t very good with people, and he stood dumbly, as if he didn’t know how he’d managed to get where he was without pausing for a panic attack, during which he’d have clearly realized he was heading for a place full of people he didn’t know, and ditched the whole plan entirely.

  And then, as if in response to his thoughts, suddenly there was the girl from the Luncheonette, sidling over to join their cluster, saying, “Hey, Reese, you got a light?” as she breezed in, cigarette poised at her lips. Reesa’s arms were full of Ryan, and she shrugged her apologies, but Gavin was already whipping a pack of matches out of his pocket and fumbling to light one for her. She paused as he got it lit, and then leaned in toward him like an old-time movie star. The cigarette caught, and Gavin fanned out the match while she inhaled deeply, blew the smoke out over her shoulder, and grinned. Eden, who heartily disapproved of all forms of smoking, gave a cough of distress and bowed out of the circle, saying, “Gavin, lovely to meet you,” and scuttled off toward the house.

  Reesa stood watching the cigarette lighting with distinct amusement, and as Janna took another drag and let the smoke escape slowly from the corner of her mouth, Reesa’s face broke in her famous smile, and she said, with the graciousness of a southern debutante, “Gavin, have you met Janna Winger? Janna works for me down at the salon.”

  Gavin shrank into himself defensively as he extended his hand, as though Janna might not shake it but grab hold and slap him to the ground in some exotic karate flip.

  “Janna,” Reesa said, her smirk only growing, “Gavin.”

  “We had breakfast together this morning,” Janna said.

  “Oh!” exclaimed Reesa. “Well, I guess you know each other a lot better than I thought!”

  Janna turned to Reesa and rolled her eyes dramatically. “Oh, please . . .”

  “We were both at the Luncheonette,” Gavin explained, “not together, just both there . . .”

  “So you working over at the Lodge this summer?” Janna asked.

  Gavin sucked his lower lip and nodded rocking on his heels. “Outfit give me away?” he said. “Did you have a chance to take a look at our specials this evening . . . ?” He was ridiculously nervous, trying desperately for the joke.

  Janna acted as if he hadn’t said anything at all. She spoke in a hush, as if imparting a piece of vital and delicate information. “If you ask me, Heather was really a bitch about the whole thing.”

  Gavin blanched. Reesa scolded, “Janna!”

  Gavin was looking back and forth between them, the truth of his situation dawning on him fully. “Oh, Jesus” was all he could say.

  “We graduated together,” Janna was saying. “In a class of thirteen kids,” she added. “Doesn’t take too long for word to spread.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” Gavin said again. He buried his head in his hands.

  Twelve

  ON THE INTERACTION OF SPECIES

  [A]t present the place is a grubby fishing port of dirt lanes strewn with sun-baked fish heads, eatery floors tramped with mud and blood and salt. A moss bunker refinery destroys the western shoreline—great smelting kettles and massive iron drums, the smell that emanates therefrom is enough to raise the dead. But where others less visionary will come away with only a visceral memory of the unrelenting stink, I see here a great hotel, stately, luxurious suites overlooking the majestic sunset shore. There will be tennis courts, a bathing pavilion, a restaurant and theater, and on a Sunday afternoon the ladies from Fishersburg and Menhadenport will stroll the whitewashed docks, parasols cocked overhead as they watch the schooners set sail into the bay.

  —SYLVESTER DANIEL, investor, from an 1869 letter to his wife, Amelia

  DEMOLITION FIRST. Then, cons
truction. Bud, needing all the manpower he had, even cycled his waiters into the crew. Besides, it was pretty much free labor: the arrangement for June had always been beachfront lodging and meals in exchange for help in readying the Lodge for the season. And fine, true, that “readying” usually involved work of a highly undemanding, nontaxing variety. That it had turned into full-time hard manual labor was not something to which Bud was planning to draw anyone’s attention.

  The police lines were down, and some progress had been made in the demolition. Off-island boys had worked the day of the funeral, guys who knew Lorna only as the someone who’d died in the fire. The grunt-work guys were there early, drinking coffee from Thermoses or Styrofoam cups, getting ready for another day. Roddy and the unlucky waiters joined the crew, pulled on heavy work gloves, and got down to it. A matter of throwing shit into the dumpster. Why they weren’t doing it with a bulldozer, no one had stopped to inquire. Probably because it was cheaper to pay a bunch of stupid thugs than it would have been to rent the necessary machinery. And Bud Chizek was nothing if not thrifty.

  They’d busted down the remaining walls and posts with sledgehammers—the fun work, no doubt, for a few guys with more muscle and spare energy than they had any constructive use for—so there was wet, charred timber splintered over everything. They started gathering and tossing, collecting and discarding. It was rhythmic, methodical, awful work. Roddy hefted awkward shovelfuls of soaked and blackened linens into a wheelbarrow, and a guy with the remains of a black eye and tattoo lines snaking out from the sleeves of his T-shirt wheeled the loads away, got help from another guy—who’d already removed his shirt in preparation for the morning emergence of the Irish girls from their dorm—in hefting the load to the dumpster’s mouth. How Bud planned to lift the monolithic old sheet presses was anyone’s guess. The sun shone down with macabre earnestness. A lone yellow butterfly flirted at the periphery of the wreckage, as though it knew not to come any closer.

  Suzy brought Mia over to Eden’s for the day to keep Squee company there, away from the Lodge. Then she got half the Irish girls out inspecting rooms—noting anything torn, broken, grotesquely or obscenely stained—and took the others with her to the maid’s room. Upon entrance, they looked crestfallen.

  “Look . . .” Suzy was already defensive. Did they think she wanted to be there any more than they did? They’d all signed on for this godforsaken summer job! Did they think this was the way Suzy had planned to spend her vacation? “I know it’s bad,” she conceded, “but the rest of the summer’ll be a fuck of a lot easier if we can turn this place into an organized base of operations.” The girls’ expressions seemed to lighten at the utterance of “fuck.” Suzy made a mental note: swear. Often. She took a box of Hefty bags off a shelf and began dispensing them, one per girl, like uniforms. “Let’s take advantage of the dumpster out there.” She flicked the garbage bag in her hand in the direction of the old laundry. “The more of this shit we can get rid of”—she swept the bag around the room—“the happier I’ll be. And right now, I’m not very fucking happy.” The girls cracked smiles. It was like teaching, Suzy thought. You just had to get down there in the dirt with them and hash through it.

  Brigid was probably no older than the other girls, but she comported herself with an air of some disdain, as though they were younger siblings she’d been forced to babysit. She gravitated toward Suzy, who seemed more of an equal. The other girls needed direction— Here: you take this closet, and why don’t you check the vacuum cleaners, see what works, what doesn’t, what just needs a new bag . . . Brigid had initiative, which was a relief to Suzy. She was able to assess a situation, see what needed doing, and get on it. She took over an old housekeeping cart that probably hadn’t been used as anything but a junk repository in more than a decade, checked the cleaning products to see if anything was still usable, chucked the rest, and pretty soon had flipped the cart over, found a screwdriver and some WD-40 in a toolbox, and was working on the wheels. She looked confident enough in what she was doing that Suzy went to work clearing another similar cart of debris so Brigid might have a go at its wheels as well.

  “So,” Suzy began, with an animation so contrived that she didn’t even want to finish the sentence, but there was nothing any better, nothing particularly less ironic to say. “So how are things going for you here at the Osprey Lodge?”

  Brigid snorted. “I’d rather be scrubbing shitters for the IRA at this juncture, I’d say.” She bugged her eyes, her mouth pursed in a psychotic grin.

  “Oh, that sounds fabulous,” Suzy cried. “You think they’d take on an American? Really, I could be packed, ready to go, in”—she looked at her watch—“five minutes.”

  They laughed halfheartedly.

  Awhile later Suzy said, “I feel really awful for all of you guys, coming all this way . . . it’s usually a little better around here than this.”

  “My sister was here a year ago.”

  “That’s right,” Suzy said. “I forgot. So you know . . .”

  “To be honest with you,” Brigid said, “I’m rather sure I’d still be something of a miserable article if Mrs. Squire . . . if there’d been no fire at all. I’d’ve managed to get myself messed with quite regardless, I expect.”

  Suzy looked at her in confusion.

  “Oh, it’s a damn boy,” Brigid said.

  Suzy winced in empathy. “Someone back home?”

  “Oh, no luck of the sort, no. Right here.” Brigid nodded resentfully.

  “On-island?” Suzy was surprised.

  “Oh, right here at the Lodge, if you’d believe.”

  “A waiter?” Suzy’s face was still pinched, as if expecting a blow.

  Brigid brightened then. “You wouldn’t happen to know him, would you?” Her eyes were expectant. “Gavin? He’s from California?”

  “Yeah,” Suzy said. “No, I mean, I know who he is, but . . . the one who came from Stanford, with Heather Beekin, right?”

  “Is that her name?” Brigid hardly concealed her disdain.

  “Did you meet her?” Suzy was confused again.

  “No, not me. Not exactly . . .” Brigid paused, as though figuring out how to explain. “After the funeral yesterday, a gang of us went for a bite at the Luncheonette.”

  “Heather went out to lunch with you?” Suzy was more confused than before.

  Brigid slowed, explaining as though Suzy were not very bright. “There were quite a lot of them I hadn’t met. From the town. Introductions weren’t properly made, you know. Then, last night, quite late—Gavin—he was out here on the deck with her, he was. Not that I know him well, you know,” she confessed. “I’d only just met him, but he’s acted . . . oh, bloody, I don’t know—”

  Suzy cut in. “I’d have a hard time . . . What’d she look like? The girl?”

  Brigid made a face to imply she wasn’t much to look at. “A bit tall,” she said, “fair skin, dark hair, a bit heavy in the hip . . .”

  Suzy was shaking her head.

  “Rather a gothic look . . .”

  “Janna,” Suzy said. “That’s not Heather Beekin. That’s Janna Winger.”

  Brigid’s face went blank. The name meant nothing to her.

  “Janna works for Reesa? At the salon?”

  Brigid was shaking her head. “I’d entirely assumed it was the girlfriend, the . . . Heather.”

  “Janna,” Suzy said again. “They were talking at the Vaughns’ yesterday, actually . . .” She caught herself. “The Vau . . . Lorna’s parents, they had a little gathering after the funeral at their—”

  “And Gavin was there, you say?”

  “Actually, we passed him on the way there—he walked over the hill.” Suzy was nodding.

  “He did head for a walk . . .”

  “No,” Suzy said, “no, but, he knew where he was heading. We stopped. We offered him a ride. That’s where he was going.”

  “What a shit.” Brigid’s tone was bitter; she cared a good deal more than she wanted to reveal.
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  “I’m so sorry.”

  Brigid slammed down her screwdriver. “The fucker,” she said.

  “Were you . . . ?” Suzy tried.

  “Oh, I don’t even know. We’d had a . . . We’d just begun to . . . Oh, bloody—how bloody stupid.”

  “Maybe they’re not . . . ?” Suzy began again.

  “Right.” Brigid snorted. She’d passed the fucker in the hall of the barracks that morning, and again at breakfast in the dining room, and he’d given her an absurd, sheepish, apologetic, nodding hello, then tucked his head down and barreled off as if he had savagely important business ahead. Brigid was so blindsided that she had yet to so much as acknowledge his greetings. She thought she might soon be able to muster a response of acutely conveyed distaste: nose wrinkled and lip curled as though repulsed by a horrid smell, hand slightly open, a breathy snort to say, What the fuck? It seemed as if it might be the only look she had left. As they worked in the maid’s room that afternoon, Brigid developed a private theory to explain Gavin. She told Suzy about how he sounded when he’d spoken a bit about Heather, and about his fantasies about moving to the island and living happily ever after. Brigid’s theory was that he had it in his head to take up with another island girl—it was the only way to make Heather adequately jealous, to make it really sting.

  When Brigid left the lodge that afternoon, her skin felt itchy and raw from the cleaning chemicals. She was walking up the hill, desperate for a shower, when she saw Gavin come out the north door of the barracks, freshly showered himself, and start down the path.

  “Hey, pretty girl . . .”

  But it wasn’t Gavin calling. The Squires’ cottage sat just south of the staff building, and from where she stood Brigid could see Lance sitting on his porch, beer in hand, waving her over. To her left, she shot Gavin her well-rehearsed What the fuck? look, though he was probably too far off—or too clueless—to appreciate it, and she veered right, to Lance Squire.