The Deep Blue Sea for Beginners

by Luanne Rice

  “Tyler Cooper?” Travis asked.

  “Yes,” I said. Maybe I was using Rafe’s technique of dropping the familiar name, Travis’s football teammate, hoping to defuse his suspicions.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, my strategy going right over his head, obviously not working.

  “I miss you,” I said.

  “Pell, I can hardly take how much I miss you. Even on the boat, when I knew you’d called. I listened to your message in my bunk, and it helped me stand the way I was feeling.”

  “What way?”

  “Just aching,” he said. “It seems that you’ve been gone forever, and there’s still so much summer left.”

  “Maybe I should come home early,” I said.

  “I should say no,” he said. “I should encourage you to stay. You’re there for a good reason. But, Pell, I want to see you so badly.”

  “I feel the same way about you,” I said. “You have no idea.”

  “This is hard,” he said.

  “It is,” I said.

  “We’d better say goodbye now. Or I’ll take back the part about you staying. I want you near, Pell.”

  “I want to be near you,” I said. “I will be, before long.”

  When I hung up the phone, all seemed to be set right. But I made the mistake of walking over to the window of my room. Early-evening light turned the air golden. My gaze swept from Monte Solaro out to sea, then down to the rock-strewn shore.

  There was Rafe. Instead of scouring the tide line as usual, he was just sitting at the end of the dock, staring up the hill. Not gazing toward the villa, but at my mother’s house. At my window.

  It felt as if he was looking into my eyes.

  Travis glanced at his watch. It was noon, which meant it was six p.m. in Italy. He’d just hung up from Pell, and wished he hadn’t been so noble. There were night flights from JFK to Rome; he should know, he’d put her on one. His mouth was dry; he felt tense, as if he could explode, and he had to fight the urge to jump into his car and drive to the Alitalia terminal, put down all his savings for a ticket. If she couldn’t come home yet, he could go to her.

  Walking into the kitchen, he wondered why he felt so uneasy. Pell had said good things, reassured him that she was still there, still wanted him. But there was a lost feeling in her voice—and it wasn’t like her to be so desperate about needing him to call right back. Part of what made them special was how confident they were in each other. Travis knew he was behaving; he had the worst sense that the person Pell was doubting was herself. He wondered how much Rafe had to do with it.

  Who had a name like “Rafe” anyway?

  He stood by the refrigerator, looking for something to eat. His appetite was gone—partly from missing Pell, and also from the fact that he couldn’t get the smell of fish off him. No matter how long he stood in the shower, he still reeked of cod. Even now, he lifted his wrist and smelled it.

  Laughter behind him; he turned, and saw Lucy sitting at the table, legs drawn up as she bent over her notebook.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked.

  “You,” she said.

  “Why, because I smell like a haddock?”

  “Kind of,” she said.

  “Don’t tell your sister,” he said. “She might not want to come home to me.”

  “Ha,” Lucy said. “That’ll be the day.”

  “My mother said you talked to Pell the other day,” he said.

  “Every few days,” Lucy said. “But yeah. She and my mother called.”

  “And you think her visit is going well?”

  “Yes, except for the fact you’re not there.”

  That made Travis grin. “Beck has good taste in best friends,” he said.

  “Thank you,” Lucy said, bowing from the waist even as she sat scrunched at the table.

  Beck entered the kitchen, carrying a stack of library books. Travis spied the titles, all having to do with Japanese and Chinese gardens.

  “Okay that’s weird even for you, Beckster,” he said. “Chinese gardens?”

  “Lucy’s mother needed specifications for a moon gate,” Beck said. “We figured that the formula wasn’t enough, and we should design the most spectacular moon gate ever seen.”

  “Moon gate?” Travis asked.

  “Yeah,” Lucy said. “When Pell called the other day, I gave her the quick answer. But did you know that moon gates are the most romantic structures ever built? They are perfectly round, reflecting the shape of the full moon. If two people walk through holding hands, they will have everlasting happiness.”

  “My kind of structure,” Beck said. “Mathematical perfection, and scientifically guaranteed good fortune.”

  “You two are crazy,” Travis said. “Brilliant, but nuts.”

  “Thank you,” Beck and Lucy said, laughing as they returned to their books and drawings. Travis stared at the pages, thinking of Pell asking Lucy for the formula. Why hadn’t she mentioned it to him? It probably wasn’t a big deal. But as he stood there in his family’s small kitchen, he found himself thinking of Pell and Rafe, really hoping that she stayed as far away from the moon gate and Max’s grandson as possible.

  Thirteen

  Over the next few weeks, Lyra was surprised to notice Pell sticking close to her. They went to the flower market together, walking along the tented rows, finding white flowers for the moon garden: artemisia, geraniums, impatiens, silver thyme, sage, white lavender, clematis, phlox, astilbe, and Echinacea “White Swan.” After work they’d stop for coffee at the Gran Caffé degli Artisti, sitting under red umbrellas and passing late afternoons in the Piazzetta.

  They checked on Lucy. Ever since the night Lyra had “tucked her in” over the phone, Lucy’s sleep had improved. But insomnia seemed to have crossed the Atlantic, settled on Capri. At night neither Lyra nor Pell seemed able to sleep. Lyra would walk onto the terrace, find her daughter staring at the stars through the telescope.

  “What are you doing?” Lyra had asked the night before.

  “Plotting a course for home,” Pell had answered.

  “You want to leave?” Lyra had asked.

  “There are people I love at home,” Pell had replied. Lyra had felt her words like a slap across the face, then Pell continued, “But there’s someone I love here too. And we’re not done yet.”

  “No, we’re not,” Lyra had said, her heart splitting open and breaking, both at the same time. She’d wanted to deepen the moment, sit down on the settees and draw up their feet, talk through the night. She’d wanted to right the hurt she’d caused the other day, expand on what she had said, and heal the divide between them. But Pell stared at her for another long minute, then drifted down the loggia toward her room without another word, almost like a sleepwalker.

  Today they strolled through the crumbling ruins of the Villa Jovis, along paths lined with oleanders and fig trees. The feeling that Pell was preoccupied stuck with Lyra. Her daughter seemed lost in thought as they meandered through antiquated remains of stone walls, vast rooms, baths, kitchens, temple, spread across terraces on the precipitous hillside.

  Lyra watched Pell examine the floor’s herringbone pattern, still intact after two thousand years. They stood near the cliff edge, looking into the blue water where some said Tiberius had thrown his enemies over.

  “Tiberius’s Leap,” Pell said, watching a falcon glide past. “John Harriman talked about it that night we all had dinner at Max’s.”

  “I remember,” Lyra said. They stood well behind the row of people inching as close as possible to the edge. On this island of cliffs and drops, Lyra always kept a safe distance, remembering how close she once came. She saw Pell doing the same.

  “Rafe said John was wrong. That Tiberius never did what they said—he never sacrificed people here.”

  “There are different views on that,” Lyra said as they turned away. “I haven’t seen you with Rafe lately, or heard you mention him.”

  “I’ve wanted to be with you,” Pell said. But Lyra se
nsed it was more than that. Had Rafe offended her, scared her, done something to push her away? Lyra wouldn’t be surprised and, in fact, hoped that it was true.

  “He’s done a lot of damage,” Lyra said. “Has he upset you?”

  “I don’t know him well enough for him to upset me,” Pell said, with chilly elegance that reminded Lyra of her mother. At the same time, she saw Pell trying to contain emotion that Edith Nicholson would never have, much less show.

  “What’s wrong?” Lyra asked. “You’ve seemed so distant. It started the day I tried to tell you about why I …” She’d been about to say “left.”

  “I don’t know,” Pell said, interrupting her. Bees buzzed in jasmine cascading from a crumbling wall. “I came here for a reason. This is a huge thing for me, seeing you. But we’re acting as if it’s a vacation. Going to cafés, visiting tourist sites.”

  “Pell, what should we do? You’ve helped me with work—I’m so appreciative. You have a great eye, and you’ve picked out wonderful flowers for Renata and Amanda’s garden. You got Lucy and her friend Beck to draw such beautiful plans for the moon gate. I’m blown away, and once the project is finished, I’m going to frame the drawings. Even Gregorio said—”

  “Gregorio,” Pell blurted out. “Who cares about him? Why are you even giving him the time of day?”

  Lyra turned to her, shocked. They’d wandered away from the main ruins, standing near the old vaulted walls said to be the remnants of an ancient Specularium—observatory—overgrown with vines and wildflowers. Lyra had been saving this part for last, wanting to share with her daughter a memory of their own private observatory. Now she could only stare at her daughter, speechless.

  Pell started to walk away, and Lyra grabbed her shoulder.

  “What are you talking about?” she asked. “What about Gregorio?”

  “The way you flirt with him. Those comments about your ‘beautiful daughters’ up at the house the other night. It makes me sick! To even think of you hanging out with a guy like him, when Max is around. And when you left someone like Dad!”

  “Pell, I’m not ‘hanging out’ with him. I hired him to do a job. That’s it. There’s no comparison between him and your dad. I loved Taylor.”

  “No, you didn’t,” Pell said.

  “You don’t know,” Lyra said. She felt hot and dizzy. Old feelings she’d been suppressing for years came close to the surface, and she forced them down again. If she got started on this, how would it end?

  “What I know is that you were never happy. He tried so hard, and you threw it in his face. The Midwest wasn’t good enough for you, our house wasn’t big enough, Lucy and I were messy, boring, dumb little children, and Dad couldn’t keep you. You said it yourself, you didn’t like being a mother!”

  “Pell, why are you doing this?” Lyra said. “None of those things is true. Not one. I was troubled, depressed, so confused. It had nothing to do with you and Lucy, except that I worried I couldn’t take good enough care of you.”

  “Good enough,” Pell said. “Do you know how little it would have taken for you to be that? All we needed was you. You at home with us. We needed you to love us, hug us. Color with us, like you always did. How hard was that?”

  The words ripped out of Pell with such anger, as if she was unable to hold it inside, almost as if she was a child again, without the defenses of adulthood. Lyra stepped toward her, saw her shaking. She hesitated, not knowing whether Pell would push her away. But her maternal instincts took over, and she slowly put her arms around her daughter.

  “Pell,” she said.

  “He was so good,” Pell said.

  “I know he was,” Lyra said. “He loved you both more than anything. And he did everything for you….”

  “He did a lot,” Pell said. “But so did you.”

  Did Pell really feel that way, or was this a revisionist memory? Lyra remembered some days when she couldn’t get out of bed. Sleep would hold her down, just like a stone on a grave. Or if it let her go enough to slog out from under the covers, make a showing downstairs for the kids, she’d still be in her nightgown, hair messy and dirty, unable to smile or bring light into her eyes.

  Taylor would work from morning till night at the law firm. Sometimes he’d come home during the day, to check on Lyra. Once, when Miss Miller had taken the girls to the park, he’d walked in on Lyra in her flannel nightshirt sitting on the couch, eating ice cream out of the container, watching Days of Our Lives. The look of confusion and disgust on his face came back to her now.

  Then, later, their last winter together, Lyra had stopped sleeping altogether. The days were stitched together, sleepless nights, thoughts racing. She’d wander the house, standing by her children’s beds, staring at them, wondering about their dreams.

  “What did I do for you?” Lyra asked. “One good thing that helped you?”

  “You loved us,” Pell said.

  “But your father …” Lyra began.

  “No one hugged better than you,” Pell said, nestling into Lyra’s embrace now. “No one.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. And no one else made up a country with me. You were the only person I wanted to do that with.”

  “Dorset was ours,” Lyra said. She pictured the map she and Pell had drawn, decorated with Lucy’s foil stars. Pell seemed so raw, as if thrown back in time, emotions and flashes of the past sparking up. How long would it be before she remembered the river?

  “Did you mean what you said last night?” Lyra asked. “About wanting to go home?”

  “I don’t know,” Pell said. “I miss Lucy and Travis.”

  “Your boyfriend?”

  Pell nodded. Lyra wasn’t sure what she felt. She was glad Pell had someone else, so she wouldn’t get taken in by Rafe. But she also wanted to warn her daughter against falling in love too completely, too soon. There were so many ways a young woman could block herself from reaching her full potential, keep from understanding the complexities of her own heart.

  “There’s so much I want to say to you,” Lyra said. “Be careful.”

  Pell laughed softly.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You said that about Rafe. Now you’re saying it about Travis. Do you want me to stay away from all men?”

  “When I was your age, my mother was planning my wedding. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t yet told her about your father. She had generic, all-purpose ideas about me that involved nothing more than my being a debutante, then a bride.”

  “That won’t happen to me or Lucy,” Pell said. “Trust me.”

  “You say that now,” Lyra said. “But love can take over very fast.”

  “With Dad?”

  “Yes, but I was too young, and it was too soon. I needed to work things out first—to see what I could have become on my own. There are lines I think about: ‘If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.’”

  “What didn’t you bring forth?”

  “I needed to find out who I was,” Lyra said.

  “And have you?” Pell asked, wheeling around, her eyes flashing.

  “I think maybe I have.”

  “You couldn’t have done that at home, with us?”

  “This is very hard to say, Pell,” Lyra began. “I was trying to escape my mother’s plans for me, and I did that, partly, by marrying your father. I didn’t give us a chance to find out if we were real, because I wasn’t sure that I was real. I was a wreck, don’t you remember?”

  Pell didn’t reply. Her blue eyes blazing, she took a step closer to Lyra. “Would you come back with me?”

  Lyra had been waiting for the question to be asked again. Now it had, and she couldn’t bear to answer.

  Pell grabbed her wrist. “To Newport. Since you’ve done your soul-searching, would you come back and be a mother to me and Lucy?”

  “I’ve made a life here,” Lyra said, softly and sl
owly. “It includes you. You’re here now, and I hope you’ll come back to Capri over and over. You and Lucy, whenever you want.”

  Pell stared down the cliff, anguish in her eyes, as if Lyra had just rejected her all over again. Lyra wanted to hold her again, but Pell’s posture warned her off.

  “That’s not the same as living with us,” Pell said. “Is it? That nice warm glow you gave Lucy over the telephone. Do you think it’s enough? And how about when I go to college? Am I supposed to give that up, to stay in Newport and take care of my sister? We need you, we always have. But you left us once, so how can I think it would ever be different?”

  They stood on the high rocks of Tiberius’s ruined observatory. Lyra’s sentimental desire to tell Pell the sweet story of the engraving on the brass telescope dissolved.

  “Do you really think I just walked away from you?” Lyra asked. She felt the truth surging up. “That it was that easy?”

  “You did walk away. It’s a fact. I don’t have to think it.”

  “Pell,” Lyra said, “I was sick. I told you, the winter before I left home, I tried to kill myself.”

  Pell stared, flushing red. “That’s one thing Dad never talked about. But part of me always knew.”

  “The roads were icy,” Lyra said. “I drove at night to the Detroit River. I brought the telescope so we could look at the stars. It’s a miracle I didn’t drive the car off the road, even before getting to the river. But I didn’t. I parked right in the middle of the bridge, left the car running, set up the telescope. I wanted us to have one last look at the stars.”

  “Us?”

  “I took you with me,” Lyra said.

  It was too hard to take, hearing it head-on. It shocks me to realize how life and memory work. A word here, a flash there, and suddenly the layer of grass is peeled back, a mound of earth is removed, and you’re staring into the grave at the skull of what you loved. The bones had always been there; you just hadn’t known where to look. Or perhaps you hadn’t been brave enough.

  I shivered that hot summer day; how spectacular the symbolism, standing on ancient ruins, an observatory no less. Because suddenly my memory spoke from exactly where I’d buried it. It showed me a little girl, arms around her trembling mother’s neck, thinking they were about to look at the stars, feeling, instead, all attention drawn below, to the wicked frozen river. I couldn’t actually remember this, but it was there, down in the depths. All I had to do was go in after it.