Spindle City

by Jotham Burrello

  “Criminy!” He raced back inside. He’d forgotten that his father didn’t visit the boathouse after Labor Day, and Mr. Coggeshall, the local plumber the summer people called to fix everything, had shuttered the house and cut the water like the others. Will had come right from Middletown, stopping only to pick up a picnic basket Evelyn had prepared. He bathed in a shallow tide pool, using a coarse horse soap he’d found in the livery stable at the end of the lane, and changed into a wrinkled gabardine suit that hadn’t seen the light since a dance at the casino two years earlier. He’d only had time to uncover the first-floor furniture and make sure the outside privy was serviceable when he heard car tires crunching down the gravel lane. Quickly he set out the picnic on the sideboard and found a blue ceramic water pitcher for the Montauk daisies he’d picked from the roadside. Before opening the door, he poured a capful of water from the canteen into his hands and splashed it across his warm face and neck.

  He had seen Helen only once that summer: at Cousin Pete’s birthday weekend in late July. He’d come down from his job clerking in Boston, but Helen could only manage the Sunday of the actual birthday away from her job at the Hyannis boardinghouse. The divide between the Highlands and the Flint had finally caught them. Helen studying at normal school, managing the boardinghouse, and disappearing to the Cape, still hammering her socialist politics and endlessly pursuing equal rights—interests sown while he was at Yale.

  Late that afternoon, the two swam out to Elephant Rock, just offshore, and lay shoulder to shoulder, drying under the hot sun between the tiny crags of barnacled rock. They were hidden on a ledge the locals called the High Shoulder that looked out to sea. After ten minutes they heard Ray, Tommy, and the rest jostling in the water. Helen turned on her side, her hazel eyes unusually large. He raised his hand to block the glare; her lips curled, and she seemed to be summoning him, but he couldn’t make head or tails of what he should do, so he said nothing. In twenty-one years, he’d never had to read her expressions, because her mouth never stopped. When the boys clamored up the rock, Helen whispered something into his ear and then rolled away. He called to her, but she ran and jumped off the head of the Elephant, a peak so steep the boys only attempted it at high tide.

  Helen directed Ray’s old Model T between the dips in the gravel lane stopping beside the boathouse. She’d just started teaching in Westport and moved in with Ray—he’d finally married Fanny Boyle and left Snell Street. Teaching was one of the few professions in which she’d be independent and exercise her mind, not her back and hands. Ray had taken to defending his baby sister’s freedom at family gatherings.

  He stepped in front of the car and raised a hand. The headlamps shone on his chest.

  Helen pulled the handbrake and turned to Will with the same mischievous expression from the previous summer.

  “What’s it gonna be, Will Bartlett?”

  “Huh?”

  “How’s the water?” She stepped on the running board. “Don’t scratch it,” she smirked and kissed his cheek.

  “Nice to see you too.” He reached for her arm, but she slapped her driving gloves into his hand, hopped down, and skipped into the house. She sashayed over the clamshell walk as if she were the queen of Boathouse Row. He drove to the car park, gnawing at the inside of his cheek on the walk back. He feared the night getting away from him before it had even started. This had been his rendezvous, his date. He dabbed his forehead. He feared he wouldn’t say what needed saying.

  He found her on the porch overlooking the river. “When your father dies, my mother should come live here,” Helen said. She held a glass of João’s Portuguese wine.

  “Why would you say such a thing?”

  “Well, she can’t very well move into June Street.”

  Will walked inside and poured a glass for himself and made two plates from the sausage, cheese, and johnnycakes in the basket. Helen called after him, “You know, your father is a beastly man, and she’s no better.”

  “Does she know you’re here?” Will handed her a plate of food, and they settled in two weathered Adirondack chairs he’d wiped clean of seagull shit.

  “The less she knows of my life the better. Tommy and Cousin Pete will watch after her.”

  “Who will watch over you?” Will jumped up. “More wine?”

  “Always.”

  Helen stepped to the railing as the last bit of pinkish-brown light faded to black. Through the salt-sprayed window glass, he studied her. A small pressure pushed against Will’s chest, his temperature rising like the incoming tide. The playfulness of their banter made it difficult to know what was true. But this playfulness ebbed each time she caught him staring. He had reached the age where he was allowed to imagine her body without shame. In the past, he’d freeze when she’d nab him, then blabber something about a run in her stocking. Thankfully, Helen had also reached an age where she wasn’t embarrassed by his attention, and on the rare occasions when they were alone, encouraged it. Of course, their agreement to gawk had never been discussed, nothing much had, but Will considered her encouragement as a sort of commitment. And though his Yale friends would have read Helen’s teasing as an invitation, Will held back, afraid of many things. He had never crept behind the velvet curtain to meet the dancers at the Bowery clubs he visited with his school chums. Others had, and reeked for days, a few scratching rashes before the train even reached Union Station.

  He’d overheard his college dates call him big eared, good mannered, and well groomed—descriptions better suited to a dog than a man. Perhaps Helen saw something else, or perhaps he was the only dog she’d allow close after her father died. He dumped more wine into his glass, slammed it, and filled it again. When he looked up, she was staring at him. Her elbows perched on the railing, her head thrown back. Her strawberry hair reminded him of his mother. It was braided down the back, between her shoulder blades. A poor man’s French twist. High school boys had no doubt enjoyed staring at her full lips and quarter-sized hazel eyes and at that heart-shaped face dotted on either side of her long, ramped nose with inky freckles. John Singer Sargent would kill for such a model.

  He studied the crosshatched weave of her plain calico dress—hell, he even knew the pattern: gold trillium. Cleveland Mill hadn’t worked with calico in years. She probably owned a week’s worth in sweet pea and lavender, dated schoolmarm clothes she’d purchased off discount racks, too proud to allow her family to buy any velvet or linen for the country schoolteacher. Will was beginning to like the calico dress. It ran the length of her long athletic figure, but she’d rolled up the sleeves up past her elbows like her father had back on the shop floor, freeing arms shaped from years of tennis and her new sport, field hockey. Above the tapered waist was the squared front, his favorite part, revealing a wide swath of creamy skin and strong bones that ran from shoulder to shoulder above her smallish breasts—breasts that had shocked him in his father’s bathhouse six years ago and which, seemingly, had stopped growing after that summer.

  Helen took a deep breath and sat back down. Cutting a sausage she called, “Stop staring. I’m not for sale.” She shook her empty wine glass. “Bring the bottle.”

  “Some sunset,” he said, and began pouring.

  “So’s my dress, evidently—thank you—I’m on a budget.”

  “That never stopped you before.”

  “I discovered teenage girls are much braver than twenty-year-old women.”

  “Or more likely to get arrested.”

  “Friend, you were the only one who came close to that.” She tapped his arm with her fist. “No, I’m temporarily retired—that is until my big heist. I’m still searching for a good nickname.”

  “Right! We were supposed to make one up after that dance.”

  “Maybe I’ll knock over some Fall River banks before all the money moves south.”

  Will had hoped to avoid any Fall River bashing, but Helen always found a way to
tie it in to their banter. It was really a swipe at his father. Helen had made no secret of her suspicions about his charity to her family: Why so much? A lot of workers died in fires. What did he give the two Frenchy families who lost their breadwinners? Will shook his head, not wanting to engage Helen’s conspiracy theories. The Cleveland fire had been an accident. Everyone had put it behind them—everyone but Helen and her brother Tommy. He poured himself another glass and drank it fast. The sky was starless and growing dark. He could just make out the outline of a few boats, their mooring lines pulled taut by the incoming tide. Will set his hand on Helen’s arm; his forefinger traced a scab below her elbow.

  “Field hockey,” she said. “Some girls use that stick like a tomahawk.”

  “I’m glad you came.” He kissed the scar.

  “Ray thinks I’m headed all the way to Middletown to fetch some of João’s milk. Did you bring the jugs? He won’t expect me till late, as if he has a say in the matter. You know I’m managing his finances again. Just like when we were kids. Fanny is equally as dimwitted.” Helen turned in her chair to face Will. She started to laugh. “Oh, wait till Maria sees your brother.”

  “She won’t.”

  “Those Roses get around now.”

  “João won’t let her.”

  “But one day—”

  “Just don’t, please,” he said. “The parade is tomorrow.”

  “The walking wounded. A big mistake.”

  “They deserve it.”

  “They deserve a paycheck and medical care. You read the papers? These guys are going to be missing pieces.”

  “And Hollister’s going blind, so just drop it.”

  She raised her glass. “To the sons of Fall River.”

  “Little late for that.” Will gathered up the plates and went inside. The previous afternoon, while skimming cranberries with João, he’d broken the news of Hollister’s homecoming. João assured him all was forgiven—another lie. They’d agreed Maria shouldn’t be told.

  The screen door creaked, and he turned.

  “Sorry,” she said. “Pee outside?”

  Will nodded. “He’s still my brother.”

  “If it wasn’t for his bad eye, Tommy could have gone. I get it.”

  Will tossed their plates in the basket and opened another bottle of wine.

  The first floor of the boathouse was a large rectangle divided by the chimney and the stairwell to the second-story bedrooms. The kitchen and eating table took one half; a large sitting room occupied the other. The interior walls were unplastered, leaving the exposed beams and two-by-six planks. Framed photographs of beach picnics and Cleveland company outings hung on the walls. The air was damp and the room cool without the sunlight. He struck two table lamps with shades painted with a nautical map of the area. The light projected their fuzzy images against the walls.

  “My mother should definitely get this house,” Helen said, surveying the room.

  “This one is mine. She can have the rest,” Will said, and poured the wine. “So what did you do all summer? You haven’t been home since July.”

  “I worked. And some Saturdays I took the trolley to Provincetown.”

  “Never been.” He scratched his head. “You go with girls from school?”

  “No.”

  “Really?”

  “I have some friends there. Jesus, Will, I raised myself. I have great times with—”

  “With who?”

  “Are you jealous?”

  “You’ve never mentioned any of this in your letters.”

  “You really want to know?”

  “I know you’re a kleptomaniac. I know you skim Ray’s earnings. I know you dream of running away. I know you vandalized Sunny’s father’s Cadillac after she whipped you.”

  Helen flung a coaster at him. “That fight was a draw,” she said. “Anyway, I’ve met some artists.”

  “Artists? Who’s an artist?”

  “Writers, and playwrights, and actors, and theater directors.” She struck a haughty pose Will knew well from Yale. “They call themselves the Provincetown Players.”

  “I’ve been to the theater. Met actors.” He leaned forward in his chair.

  “No, silly, not like that. We’re friends. They come to the Cape from New York for the summer. They know everybody—Emma Goldman, for Christ sake.”

  “Come to New Haven, like you promised, and you’ll meet people like that.”

  “You’re not listening. This is not a lecture series. We discuss politics, the vote. It’s freer away from suffocating city society. Freer thinking. They allow a woman a cigar, brandy—to pour the brandy. We’re on the beach, not some stuffy sitting room.”

  “This past Labor Day in South Park, there was a concert—”

  “Jesus. Will you stop harping on about Fall River? Those lily-white men only write about themselves and their society wives, not the ninety thousand workers, mostly yellow and black and brown, whose backs drive their machines. But train those people to read, give them a wage so their kids can stay in school—”

  “Dad supports the Children’s Bureau.”

  “Ten-year-olds shouldn’t work.” Her hands gripped the armchair, flexing the tendons in her muscular arms.

  “They don’t in ours.”

  “May there be a place in heaven for you and your father.”

  Will poured another glass of wine. “Moving on,” he said. “Where do you meet such artists?”

  “They stayed at the boardinghouse one night after a gale forced them off the road near Hyannis two summers ago. This one fella had a trunk full of plays, and we read them through the night and into the morning.”

  “Fella? What fella?”

  “His name is Eugene. He’s good.”

  “You go alone . . .to visit men . . . in Provincetown.”

  “There are women too. Susan founded the theater, with her husband.”

  “But there’s single men?”

  “And once, in August after we painted some of the new theater, we went swimming at night.”

  “We’ve done that, right here on the river, two summers ago after Tommy won that money at the pavilion.”

  “But we were naked and drunk.”

  Will froze. The smirk on Helen’s face tightened and she widened her eyes to imitate Will’s shocked mug. “Pour me another glass,” she said, “and we might get there ourselves.”

  Will jumped to his feet. “Enjoying yourself ?”

  “Immensely.” She stood, facing him. “Say it.”

  “What?”

  “The reason you asked me here.” She jabbed a finger into his chest. “You still can’t. Little Willie Bartlett. He can pound Damian but can’t talk to girls. Sad.” She turned toward a tall hutch filled with Elizabeth’s old collection of cut-glass animals and picked up a unicorn. She ran her finger over the bumps of glue down its back and up to the horn, scratching off the nub of hardened glue at the base with her nail, and then placed it back in the hutch. “I asked you to the Rock last summer because Eugene said I should push the issue. But if you don’t love me—”

  Will stomped his foot. “You swam naked!”

  “You don’t get it, the men, most of them anyway, my friends, are fairies.”

  “They fly?”

  “Will, they like men. Not me. Don’t you get it? They’re homosexual.” She laughed, throwing her arms in the air. “It is very liberating.”

  He clutched her elbow. “What about Eugene?”

  “What?” She shook free.

  “Is he a fairy?”

  “No, he’s married to Agnes.”

  “Do you wish I were like them? These theater people ?”

  Helen set her fists on her hips. “I’m glad you’re not a homosexual, Will. Really I am.”

  “You know, one summer at camp,
I played Dogberry in Much Ado about Nothing.”

  “Poor, poor Will,” she said, her tone one of genuine pity. She touched his cheek. “Always the fool.”

  “Shut up,” he snapped, knocking her hand away.

  “Will Bartlett, don’t you understand me at all? After all these years?” Helen walked to the sideboard and poured herself a glass of sherry from a decanter. “My friends, those men—the flyers, as you call them—live these horrible, closed lives, so when I told them there was boy I loved, they asked why I wasn’t with him. They convinced me not to waste time with societal nonsense . . . but go get him. You don’t know the fear I have of being bossed about like just another girl in the weaving room. Every day, I wish my father were alive, though if he were, I know I’d have been sold off to some rich Highlands boy and locked in some granite prison on the hill washing his shirts. For the first time, I’ve met people who don’t care if I was raised on Corky Row or June Street. There’s a world out there besides textiles and that foolish city.” Helen stepped to the rolltop desk and picked out a pack of Helmars wedged in one of the cubbies. “This is why I didn’t tell you in the letters. I knew you’d never understand.” Helen tapped a cigarette against the desk and lit it. She paced the room. Her left arm folded under her right elbow to prop up her forearm. The cigarette smoke rose to the ceiling.

  “So better to be a hussy than to rely on a man who might get himself killed.”

  “You’re finally listening.”

  “But what if I was that man in the big house on the hill?”

  “I can’t imagine that.”