by John Casey
She found herself wondering whether she’d prepared him for the marriage he was bound to have—in fact, needed for his career—or if the habit of secret trysts might have spoiled him for it.
In the long run, she was glad that the truth about her not wanting another child had come out, because it precluded her having to say anything further—for example, that the idea of being a politician’s wife set off an attack of claustrophobia in her.
All of this was a diffuse and intermittent part of her life. In fact, the drifting apart, which she’d thought would take a few months, went on for more than a year.
Mary Scanlon, Elsie’s only confidante about Johnny, said, “The pair of you are making more farewell appearances than Nellie Melba.”
Elsie said, “Nellie Melba?”
“An old opera singer. You can substitute Cher.”
What Elsie didn’t tell Mary was that it was precisely because these were farewell performances that they were (a) so sentimentally as well as erotically charged that it would be a shame not to have another, or (b) not quite the right note to end on, so it would still be a shame.
There was some artifice on Elsie’s part. She often said, “Let’s just have a nice lunch and take a walk.” Sometimes it was just that, but it was pretty much up to Elsie. She genuinely liked talking with him about his problem cases, whether they presented perplexities of law or politics, but she also knew she had the geisha-like ability to convert his pleasure at being listened to into physical desire. One time she squeezed his wide paw of a hand and said, “Wait. Sorry. My brain just reached overload.” She laughed. She looked at him two seconds longer than called for. She turned her head and lowered her eyes. She waited while the air between them grew thicker. She put her fingertips to her forehead and, mixing the words with a soft breath, said, “Do you have to get back to work right away?”
She told herself that it wasn’t so much artifice as method acting. She wasn’t just indicating a feeling, she was experiencing the feeling, or at least using a remembered feeling to set off a present feeling. Because she saw Johnny infrequently, it took her a long time to see that she was splitting him into two people: One, a guy she really liked, who liked her, who in his turn listened to her, understood and sympathized with her, but, compared to her, was wholehearted and innocent. Two, a smart, powerful man whom she could seduce as if he were someone from her red-dress days, with that extra whiff of pleasure she got from turning an upstanding citizen into a bad boy.
One Sunday before Johnny showed up for a picnic, she saw in the style section of the Providence Journal that he was one of Rhode Island’s ten most eligible bachelors. She felt a succession of pangs—what? How dare they? He should be ashamed. She read it to be sure her name wasn’t there. When he showed up she said, “Seen the paper yet?”
“No.”
A bright Sunday morning, Mary doing brunch at Sawtooth, Rose helping May in her garden. She drove them to near where she’d seen him catch the trout. She walked in toward the stream. When he saw where she was taking him, he laughed. She set the picnic basket down and spread a blanket. She took out the Sunday ProJo and began to read it, lying on her stomach.
She said, “Slow news day,” and offered him the first section.
He said, “It’s our day off.” He sat down beside her. “I’m going to be away for a while; I have to go to a conference. Do you happen to know if New Orleans is on the other side of the Mississippi? I’ve never been across the Mississippi. In fact, I’ve never—”
She rattled the paper and said, “You’re on the same page as a basketball player and a TV weatherman. And someone designing a yacht for the America’s Cup. Did you go to church today? It says you went to Our Lady of Mercy in Woonsocket, where you were an altar boy. I didn’t know you were an altar boy.”
After he read the piece, he said, “Oh, shit.” After a moment he said, “Maybe it’ll die down while I’m away.”
“Oh, no,” she said. “Ex–hockey player, ex–altar boy at Our Lady of Mercy. Cute picture. When you start looking for the perfect wife this’ll be a big help. You probably shouldn’t marry a French-Canadian, you’ve got that covered, but there’s Italian and Irish and Portuguese. Maybe not Portuguese, I can’t think of any Portuguese political families. Of course, Captain Teixeira does have a lot of very pretty nieces and grand-nieces. But he’s not political. Italian or Irish makes more sense. Mr. Salviatti has two daughters; one of them’s attractive. Rhode Island has had some very patrician Wasp senators—Pell and Chafee—but then you’d lose the Catholic vote. Unless you could get a beautiful Wasp to convert. Now, that would be a feather in your cap.”
“You about through? You’re not that funny.”
“I’m not being funny. This is serious. And why was I thinking inside the box? Rhode Island is pretty closed in, but a nice Kennedy cousin from Massachusetts …” Elsie felt herself slipping from teasing into a more reckless urge. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to provoke. Perhaps that he’d say he thought of her but that she was impossible—unwed mother, non-Catholic, and likely to say anything that came into her head.
She said, “I may have spoiled you. You may have developed a taste for bad girls. Suppose you end up with a politically alert Sunday-school teacher who’s willing to be your broodmare but honest to God thinks sex is just for procreation. Never crossed her mind to undo your belt with her teeth. Of course, speaking of Kennedys, you might have an arrangement on the side. But these days they end up blabbing. Used to be a mistress kept her lip buttoned. So here’s what we hope for … political family, Italian soccer mom, you have three kids, she stands by your side the whole campaign, gives great talks to women’s groups, Red Cross volunteers. But she has a secret dark side, an inner bad girl. That only you know. That only you know how to set off. Like if she hides in the bushes and watches you catch a trout.” Elsie’s mouth opened with surprise at what she’d just said. And just as unexpectedly as she’d said “catch a trout” she said, “You fuckhead eligible bachelor!” She tore the page in half. Her mouth opened again. “You fucking altar-boy attorney general! Go make some baby altar boys with your dumb altar-girl wife.” She got up and walked into the stream. She sat down. The current piled up on her back as if she were a rock. It spilled over her shoulders.
He waded out to her, stood her up, and walked her back to dry ground. As she was wringing out her clothes she felt how neutral her nakedness was. Good old naked Elsie. She went about the business of spreading her clothes on branches.
He said, “I could build a fire.”
“No. We’d have to arrest each other.”
He laughed. She wrapped herself in the blanket. He said, “You don’t really want me, not for a life.” She didn’t say anything. “And you’re right. You’re a wonderful woman, but most of my life would bore you or make you angry.” He picked her pants off the branch and wrung them out more thoroughly. Then her shirt. He sat down by the picnic basket. He lit his pipe. He took off his shoes and socks, wrung out the socks. He squeezed some water out of the cuffs of his pants, then rolled them up to his knees.
She said, “They won’t dry like that.”
“I am not seeking the remedy of dryness. I am merely reducing the sensation of wetness.”
She liked his making fun of his lawyerishness. She’d telephoned him at his office one afternoon, heard rustling and crackling. “What’re you doing?”
“I am eating steamed shrimp seriatim.”
She’d been charmed then. Now she dried her hair with a corner of the blanket and wondered if she was going to fuck him for one puff of charm.
Or because her own tantrum had stirred her up.
Or because it had been two—no, three—weeks.
Or because she was Nellie Melba.
Her nakedness was of more interest to both of them now that she was wrapped in the blanket.
chapter twenty-nine
One day Elsie was cutting Miss Perry’s toenails. Miss Perry began to cry. Elsie had never seen Miss Pe
rry cry. Elsie felt the hunch of Miss Perry’s shoulder as the motion ran down her body and made her foot jump. Elsie looked up and saw Miss Perry’s face squeeze tight. Then Miss Perry held still and a tear came out from under one lens of her eyeglasses.
Elsie didn’t know what to do. She lowered her eyes. She dropped the clippers and held Miss Perry’s bare foot in both hands. She laid her forehead on the top of Miss Perry’s foot.
Miss Perry cleared her throat and said, “What on earth are you doing? I am not an Oriental potentate.” Elsie picked up the clippers and finished cutting the last two toenails. She gathered up the clippings and put Miss Perry’s slipper back on.
Later in the day Miss Perry said, “I have known two or three men who became more courteous, even sweet, after they had their strokes. While I admired their transformations, at the same time I had the unkind thought that they had a lifetime of bad temper for which to atone.”
Elsie was setting the table for supper. She laid a fork down and straightened it with her fingertips. She said, “Are you saying that you, conversely, have a lifetime of sweetness that you intend to make up for?”
Miss Perry laughed. She stopped when her rib hurt. “Elsie, dear, I was making my way toward an apology, but you have trumped me.”
chapter thirty
May’s life was immeasurably richer once she became one of the three crucial women in Rose’s life. May couldn’t bring herself to have another conversation with Elsie, but she’d always liked Mary Scanlon. She felt grateful for the part Mary had played in handling Dick—bullying him with hugs that were part strong-arm tactic, part bosomy squeezes. That first time Mary had done it, Dick had given in to a combination of Mary’s physical strength and her flood of argument. True, she’d added some hugs and kisses then, and May had counted them small payment for having baby Rose in her own kitchen.
As Rose grew to middling size, she would run from Mary’s pickup into May’s arms. If Dick was at home, Mary hugged Dick and jollied Rose along. “And here’s your father, Rose, home from the sea.” If Rose needed more jollying, Mary would add, “Not every girl has a handsome sailor for her da,” and hug him. “He’s a bit shy now, Rose, but he’s dying to see you.”
If any other woman were to cling to Dick like that … If May had come on Mary alone with Dick carrying on like that … When May was alone and thought of Mary Scanlon’s long arms and flying red hair whirling around Dick, May had to cut the thought off. Sometimes. Other times they wrapped their arms around each other and floated toward a vanishing point in May’s mind. And then it was gone. Easy as that.
For a while Rose called Dick “da.” She said to May, “Have you been on my da’s boat? All the way out to sea? When I’m bigger, can I go on da’s boat?”
May thought Rose’s saying “da” was a good idea. She wondered if Mary had chosen it as a smart compromise between Rose’s saying “dad” or saying “Dick.” Perhaps it was just part of Mary’s Irishness, or perhaps Mary’s way of putting another mark on Rose. It didn’t matter—it kept things in place.
When Tom found out, he was in college at URI, still popping into the house when it suited him. The first time he actually saw Rose he’d sat and watched May and Rose make tea for the teddy bear and two dolls. When Mary Scanlon came to take Rose away, Mary didn’t bat an eye. She gave Tom a hug and said, “Give Tom a kiss, Rose, and then we’re off. Good Lord, Tom, are you raising a beard? Never mind, Rose, there’s a nice bit of cheek right there.” Rose hid her face in Mary’s skirt, then turned around.
Tom held out his hand and said, “Can you shake hands, Rose? I’m Tom.” Rose stood on one foot and held out her hand. Mary laughed. May held her breath.
After Mary and Rose left, May sat down. She said, “Your father told me he told you.”
“How old is she now? Six? He took his time. And he didn’t say much. He sure didn’t say you got down on the floor and played dolls with her.”
May said, “Don’t poke fun.”
“I’m not. I’m just … I’m just catching up; I’m just taking it in. So you’re doing okay, then.” He hit his palm on his forehead. “Well, duh.” He looked at her. “I’m sorry. I’m goofing around. I think it’s great, the way you’re … doing it this way.”
May wished she had Mary Scanlon’s quick hugs and kisses in her. She said, “You were good. The way you asked her to shake hands.”
Charlie was another matter.
After Dick told him, he didn’t speak to his father for years. He graduated from URI and then from the URI graduate school of oceanography. He stayed on as a research fellow and spent a lot of time at sea on the R.V. Trident. May missed him terribly. He only phoned home if he knew Dick was at sea. When Charlie was in port he would ask May to lunch over in Saunderstown, a dozen miles away.
It pained May that Charlie seemed to have become as grim and stubborn as Dick—as Dick had been when he was building Spartina. It pained her that her family had flown apart. Every so often she blamed herself. If she hadn’t taken to Rose the way she had …
May’s life had been Dick and the two boys. Now it was Rose, with Mary Scanlon as a bonus, and Phoebe. It was for Rose and Mary and Phoebe that May made her garden bigger after Rose became old enough to help. Mary accepted some fresh corn and squash as a gift, and then asked if she could buy a basket for Sawtooth, whatever was ripe any given week. Mary said, “There’s one or two who eat there who can tell the difference.”
Phoebe liked the way the garden looked. She said, “Someone should paint a picture. Call it Abbondanza.” Phoebe had taken to throwing in an Italian word or two, about the time she started referring to Mr. Salviatti as Piero. May didn’t think much about it—Phoebe called Mr. Aldrich Jack—until Phoebe brought her a dozen figs. “Piero sent these. He remembers you admiring his fig trees in winter.”
May said, “Well, be sure to thank him next time you see him. I didn’t think he comes down off his hill all that often. But I guess he looks in at Sawtooth.”
“I see him at his house,” Phoebe said. “In a way, it’s you who gave him the idea. You said that you thought one of his angels, the big one, should be looking out to sea. So he asked us up to see if our company could build a base for it down by the town dock. And then he thought he might commission a new one. We went to Westerly to look at the work one of the younger sculptors is doing. It’s all still in the planning stages, but he said, right in front of all those men, would I consider posing as the model? Of course, I laughed. I play a lot of tennis but I’m not a young girl. And then I had to blush. He made me stand on a block of stone, and they all talked in Italian. So just for now the sculptor is coming up to make a few sketches at Piero’s house. Oh, May, you look horrified. Really, it’s just … I mean, I’m not posing nude.”
That possibility hadn’t occurred to May. May wasn’t sure what it was that bothered her. It wasn’t just that she suspected that Phoebe had liked standing up on a block of stone while a bunch of men looked at her and talked Italian. And it wasn’t Phoebe pretending to be a Catholic angel. Not just that, either.
May said, “Mr. Salviatti means to put this up by the town dock?”
“Yes. He wants to do something for the community, something that shows he cares for the fishermen. We’ll call it The Angel of the Harbor of Refuge. Of course, all the people taking the ferry to Block Island will see it, too, and Piero likes the idea that a larger public will see what sort of art Westerly does.”
May remembered when the Perryville School started. Some of the people wanted to call it Miss Perry’s School or Miss Perry’s Academy. Miss Perry said no. She’d told Dick there was no helping the fact that the village of Perryville was named for a distant relative who’d been a hero of the War of 1812. She herself felt constrained by the old New England rhyme, “Fools’ names and fools’ faces / Often appear in public places.” May imagined the unveiling of the angel. There would be Phoebe’s statue in the middle of a crowd of lobstermen, fishermen, and dockworkers. The real Phoebe in one of her
fluttery dresses next to rich old Mr. Salviatti. May couldn’t think how to explain just how jagged a joke it could turn into. May said, “Maybe you should talk to Captain Teixeira. He’s been around forever. He’s practically the chief of the town dock. And he’d know something about angels, him being Catholic.”
“Funny you should mention him. I said to Piero it would make more sense to ask Sylvia Teixeira to be the model. She’s very pretty in a Portuguese sort of way. Maybe a little too sexy for an angel.” Phoebe popped her eyes open. “Weren’t she and Tom …?”
“No,” May said. “That was Charlie.”
“Really? I seem to remember seeing Tom and Sylvia walking up to Miss Perry’s.”
“Tom? When was that?”
“Right after Sylvia graduated from URI. Just before she went to Portugal—she finally did have to go, after all—but this was when she was still helping Miss Perry. I remember when she came back, the Teixeiras had a family party for her down on the town dock and she seemed to have a new beau, someone much older this time. But you’re right, we should talk with Captain Teixeira.”
For a moment May thought that Phoebe had mistaken Charlie for Tom. May had been picturing Miss Perry’s front steps and a boy and a girl, blurred by Phoebe’s saying “I seem to remember …” But when Phoebe said, “a new beau, someone older this time,” it was like turning the focusing knob on a pair of binoculars, and May saw clearly. Not the Teixeiras’ party on the town dock but Tom and that pretty Portuguese girl.
Tom wouldn’t have … not if Charlie was still … But then Charlie held on to things, took a long time before he gave up. Tom thought each day was new. It’s what let him take to Rose without tying himself in a knot about where she came from. Charlie put out to sea. What would ever bring him back?
