The Summer Wives

by Beatriz Williams

  “Come on.” Isobel snatched my hand and tugged it.

  I resisted, turning to the Countess, who flipped her cigarette on the sidewalk and settled her hands on her knees to rise from the bench.

  “No, go with her,” she said. “I’m going to find the Monks. I’m sure they’ll be here any minute.”

  So I rose, stuffing the rest of the ice cream and the cone into my mouth, licking my fingers. Isobel dragged me across the crumbled street as the trumpets struck up, something triumphant, and I craned my neck to see the white-robed priest emerge from the church doorway, flanked by acolytes, carrying a large silver jug. A rush of organ music followed him down the steps to merge with the trumpets. The mood changed so swiftly from anticipation to reverence, I stopped on the edge of the dock and pulled my hand away from Isobel’s.

  “What’s the matter?” she hissed.

  I didn’t answer. I knotted my sticky fingers behind my back and stood, perspiring, to watch the solemn procession down Hemlock Road toward the docks. The sun burned through the crown of my hat. A woman stood just ahead of me, rolling a perambulator back and forth, humming faintly. She had beautiful golden skin, unlined, and dark hair beneath her scarlet headdress, and her fingers gripped the handle of the perambulator with great strength as she observed the approach of the priest and his men in their embroidered robes. In her other hand she held a rosary, which she slid carefully between her fingers, and I realized she wasn’t humming. She was praying.

  I lost track of Isobel. The priest reached the dock and the crowd parted. The trumpets made a final, reverent flourish and fell silent, so that you could hear the click of the priest’s shoes on the wooden dock, the shuffle of the acolytes’ robes, the water slapping against the pilings.

  The priest lifted the pitcher and tilted it above the prow of the first boat, which was painted white and hung with flowers. I could have sworn that the drops hung in the air for an instant, refracting all that hot, white sunshine into something glittering and holy. But maybe that was just my imagination. The water fell and scattered on the new-painted wood, and the priest said, “Bless this ship and all who sail in her, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, amen.” He turned to the young man standing next to the boat, cap in hand, and he laid his palm on the dark curls atop the fellow’s head and blessed him, too.

  Next to me, the woman with the rosary let out a deep sigh, and the baby started to fuss because she’d stopped rocking the perambulator while the priest was speaking. She bent over the nest of blankets and lifted him out to hold him against her shoulder, and I felt her relief, the release of her tension in soft waves from her skin. The baby must have felt it, too. He nestled into the curve of her breast and went quiet, as if he were listening for the beat of his mother’s heart.

  The priest moved on, blessing the next boat and the next. There were no women on the dock, just the fishermen in their costumes of black and white and scarlet, and the gold embroidery that glittered in the sun. With tremendous discipline, I kept my eyes aimed strictly at the priest. I thought of Popeye, and all the blood, the gallons of salt water in his lungs, and how I never even noticed when he fell into the water. Never knew by what vicious, instantaneous accident he’d nearly met his end. I watched the sway of the priest’s white robes and began to feel dizzy, began to feel as if it were Joseph’s face on Popeye’s body in my memory, Joseph who had fallen instead of Joseph who had saved. I curled my fingernails into my palms and made a bargain with God, this same God in whom I had placed so little trust before. I pledged that if I didn’t carry any more messages, if I played no more part in the clandestine correspondence between Joseph and Isobel, if I made no more journeys to a certain lobster boat in the harbor, then God would allow Joseph to survive whole and intact by the end of summer, and send him safely off to college. Surely that was fair? For an all-powerful God, who giveth and taketh away at a whim, who had already taken away my father seven years before, that was surely a fair bargain, wasn’t it? Lord, hear our prayer.

  The priest reached Joseph’s boat. From this distance, I couldn’t hear the words, but the ritual was the same. The fall of glittering water from the pitcher, the ripple of the priest’s white robes. When he lifted his hand to bless Joseph’s head, Joseph closed his eyes and bent his neck, because the priest was a few inches shorter and somewhat stout. The priest then turned to the thick-shouldered, gray-haired fellow standing next to Joseph—Mr. Vargas, I assumed—and repeated the blessing. And I released a lungful of warm, salt air I hadn’t realized I’d been holding, a sigh that sounded very much like the sigh of the young mother standing next to me with her perambulator.

  3.

  The priest made his way up one side of the dock and came down the other side, and when he stepped back to shore and traveled up the street to disappear through the open doorway of St. Mary’s Church, surrounded by his acolytes, the friends and relatives of the fishermen streamed into a giddy mass. The women tore the flowers from the boats and pinned them in their headdresses, and the men took out beer and wine and began to drink. I saw Isobel making straight for the Vargases, and instead of following her I turned away. There was no sign anywhere of the Countess, no bright floral dress, no Monks either. I was alone.

  I walked up Hemlock Street, without any kind of aim, and when I came to St. Mary’s Church I paused. I felt a rush of cool air on my burnt skin, pouring forth from the shaded interior, and I thought about Mrs. Vargas in her black clothes.

  I turned and went up the steps and into the church.

  4.

  The interior of St. Mary’s Church was cool and empty. Priest and acolytes must have gone into the vestry or something, changing out of their ceremonial robes. I slid into the pew in the rear corner on the right-hand side of the nave, and sat there without moving, without thinking. I was just there to cool off, after all. Just to have a minute to myself.

  I don’t know exactly how long I stayed. You know how it is, when you slip into a trance of some kind, a form of Eastern meditation. You lose track of the passing of minutes. Time escapes its neat structure, its clock rhythm, and just sort of breathes along with you. I do know that I only noticed the small, dark-clad woman in the front pew when, moved by an unknown impulse, an inner timepiece I suppose, I at last prepared my stiffened legs to rise.

  She knelt at the end of the pew, in the shadows, half-hidden by the back of the next pew and by a wooden pillar, which was probably why I hadn’t seen her at first. Though her hands were clasped, she didn’t bow her head. Instead she stared, without moving, at the altar, until the rustle of my clothes seemed to stir her. She turned her head a little and called out softly, “Joseph?”

  I gripped the pew before me. My throat was dry with thirst, and I couldn’t seem to speak. The woman rose and turned her body, and I saw that it was Mrs. Vargas, which I guess I already knew. Our gazes fastened upon each other, and I squeaked out, “No, it’s just me,” as if she should somehow know who I was.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “I—I was hot. It’s hot outside, so I came in to rest.”

  She glanced at the door. “And the rest of your family?”

  “Still out there, I guess.”

  Her eyes returned to my face. She seemed to think she had the right to study me. She stared without embarrassment, like she was cataloging my features, like she was trying to decipher a code I’d hidden there. I had the idea that her muscles were tense, that her nerves lay taut and fine under her skin, but maybe that was only me. Maybe I was the tense one. After a minute or two, she nodded at the door.

  “If you’re waiting for my son, he’ll be here any minute.”

  “Oh!” I turned reflexively and then back, ashamed. “No, I wasn’t, actually. I didn’t realize—I didn’t know you were here.”

  She made a noise that sounded like a good, old-fashioned hmph and sat back down in the pew, staring forward, from which I concluded that the conversation was over. I glanced down and saw that someb
ody had left a hymnal on the bench. I picked it up and put it in the pocket on the back of the pew, and I edged sideways down the row until I reached the aisle and turned to the open doors, just as a man hurried up the last step and rushed through the doorway, like he was late for a meeting. Joseph Vargas.

  He saw me and stopped. “Good Lord. There you are.”

  “Joseph!” came his mother’s sharp voice from the direction of the altar.

  Joseph glanced over my shoulder and crossed himself. “Sorry, Mama. Are you all right?” (This to me.)

  “Of course.”

  “Everyone’s looking for you. It’s a bit—there’s been a—” He looked again over my shoulder, grabbed my elbow, and leaned to my ear. “Can you come to the dock later?”

  “I—I don’t know.”

  He straightened away, and an instant later Mrs. Vargas appeared at my side, holding out her hand.

  “Joseph,” she said again.

  “Mama, we can’t just leave her here. They’re worried sick up at Greyfriars.”

  “Then telephone them.”

  I stepped back. “It’s all right. I can telephone them. Go on ahead, I’ll walk back.”

  “Not in this heat,” he said firmly. “Not this time. We’re taking you back in the boat.”

  “But—” I began.

  “Joseph, don’t be ridiculous,” said Mrs. Vargas. “You know they won’t like it.”

  “I don’t give a—” He bit off the word and glanced at the altar. “I don’t honestly care if they like it or not. Not after that circus this afternoon. I’ll use the telephone in the vestry. Wait here, the two of you.”

  He hurried up the aisle and to the left, disappearing through a plain wooden door. I looked at Mrs. Vargas’s round, frowning face as she watched him go. “Tell him I walked home after all,” I said, and I turned away.

  Like the head of a snake, her hand came out to snatch my arm. I stared in shock at her white fingers upon my skin.

  “My son said to wait,” she told me. “So we will wait.”

  5.

  Outside, the sun had fallen deep in the sky, and the street was empty of people. Just trodden flowers and beer bottles and candy wrappers, the detritus of human happiness. The air was warm and drowsy, the tide had gone out. For an instant, I panicked and wondered if I’d lost track of days altogether, if I’d fallen asleep and this was tomorrow, or next week, or another life. But it couldn’t be; the boats still bobbed at their moorings, strewn with petals, and when I looked down the street I saw a man in a blue mechanic’s jumpsuit picking up the trash in slow, resigned movements.

  We walked all the way down Hemlock Street to the last dock in the harbor, where Joseph’s little sailboat was moored away from all the lobster boats, the working boats, newly blessed. Mrs. Vargas walked between us, silent and rigid, her arm inside the crook of Joseph’s elbow. When we reached the boat, he helped her inside and then turned to me, but I was already climbing over the edge and settled myself near the bow while he raised the sail and threw off the mooring rope.

  Now there is something about sailing, isn’t there? They say all living creatures evolved from the sea, and maybe that’s why my heart thrilled at the way the sail, freed at last, billowed out and filled with air, the way the boat surged beneath my bones and carried us around the harbor point. Joseph kept the tiller in one hand and the jib sheet in the other, and the direction of the wind was so sweet he didn’t need to tack as we skimmed along the cliffs toward Fleet Rock. I leaned back on my hands and turned my face to the dropping sun.

  “Tide’s starting to come in,” said Joseph. “I’ll take us into the Rock and row you across the channel to Greyfriars.”

  I glanced at him in surprise, but his expression contained nothing but concentration on the job at hand. His mother sat by his side, carefully avoiding the swing of the boom, looking not at me but at the cliffs, which ranged high and rugged before they tumbled down toward Greyfriars, presently hidden behind the outcropping.

  The tide might have been going in, but we avoided the force of the current in the channel and swung into the Fleet Rock landing from the south. Joseph secured the boat and handed his mother to shore, and without a word to either of us Mrs. Vargas made straight for the door of the lighthouse. Joseph jumped out and offered his hand to me, and this time I took it. “The dinghy’s on the other side,” he said, and we climbed in, first him and then me. He shipped the oars and turned his head to judge the shore.

  “The current’s not too strong, is it?” I asked.

  “It’s fine. The moon’s past full.”

  I glanced up at the sky, as if I could actually see this phenomenon for myself, but of course the whole of the universe above me contained nothing but hazy blue, and a sun growing white and heavy to the west. I turned back to Joseph and said, “What do you mean, circus?”

  He shook his head. “They’re crazy, you know that? The Families.”

  “I’m one of them, remember?”

  “No you’re not. You know you’re not.”

  “What am I, then?”

  “You’re Miranda,” he said. He looked over his shoulder, judging distance and direction, and pulled on the left oar. “You know what the problem is? They’re bored, that’s it. Their daddies and granddaddies did all the work, building some business or another, and they’ve got all the money they need. The war’s over and won. They’ve got no purpose left. Just watch the world race on while they turn to stone.”

  “Well, what about you? What’s your purpose?”

  He looked at me. “You know the answer to that.”

  “Me? How should I know?”

  “Think about it.”

  I shrugged.

  “Aw, come on. I’ll give you a hint. Remember that book I was reading, that first day you came down to the harbor?”

  I frowned. “You want to build ships?”

  “Not just ships. Yachts, the way they used to. Some for racing, some for pleasure. One by one, designed and made by hand.”

  “That sounds wonderful.”

  He was staring out to sea, even though his arms continued the same steady rhythm on the oars. “It’s the most beautiful thing in the world, a good, sweet ship skimming her way along the water. I mean it gets in your soul.”

  “Then do it,” I said. “Build yourself a sailboat.”

  “I already have, Miranda. You just sailed in it.”

  I twisted to look back at Fleet Rock, at the boat moored on its dock. “That? You built that yourself?”

  “Me and Pops. But I designed it.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Oh.” I turned back to face him, and I didn’t know what to say. He had taken on a whole new dimension; he had acquired a skill and a capability that made me feel like a child. He stroked along in silence, staring at some point above my shoulder, frowning. Eventually he spoke.

  “It’s got to stop, you know.”

  “What’s got to stop?”

  He nodded over his shoulder. “That’s got to stop.”

  I curled my fingers around the edge of my seat and said, “You and Isobel?”

  “What? Me and Isobel? I mean Isobel and Clay. She’s got to figure out what she wants. You know what I mean.”

  “You mean break off the engagement?”

  “Maybe I do. She can’t marry him the way things are. For one thing, she’s too young. But you know that, right?”

  I fixed my gaze on Greyfriars, bobbing above his shoulder. “I guess I do.”

  “I don’t know what she was thinking, saying yes to that starched shirt, at her age. I guess she thought it would make her father happy. You have to talk to her, Miranda. You have to make her see sense. Miranda? Are you listening?”

  I returned to his face, which was now thunderous, deeply creased with some intent, violent emotion. “Yes, I’m listening.”

  “Don’t you agree?”

  The boat crossed a wake or something, pitching hard. I threw out my hand and gripped the edge; Joseph didn’t seem to notice
. We were in mid-channel now, and I could feel the strength of the current, even though the tide was still low. The muscles of Joseph’s arms popped and strained, plowing the water with the oars.

  “What’s the other thing?” I asked.

  “What other thing?”

  “You said, For one thing. For one thing, she’s too young. What’s the other thing?”

  “She’d make him miserable,” Joseph said. “She is making him miserable, poor fellow. She’s not right for him, and he’s not right for her. She needs a fellow with a little more guts to him, guts to match hers. Fellow who can handle her moods and not try to keep her in some kind of glass box. Fellow who appreciates what he’s got with her.”

  “A fellow like you, then?”

  His head shot up. For an instant, he looked amazed, and then his teeth appeared. “Yeah, as a matter of fact. Now that you mention it. Maybe that’s just the kind of fellow I had in mind. Say, what’s going on with you? What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing. I’ll speak to her.”

  “What’s that?”

  I lifted one hand and cupped my mouth. “I’ll speak to her!”

  “Good!”

  Joseph focused his attention on navigating us across the rest of the channel, and I gripped the boat and tried not to be seasick. When we swung at last against the Greyfriars dock, I was glad to take Joseph’s hand, glad for the support of his arm as I stepped from the shifting hull onto dry, immovable land.

  “So what happened today?” I asked. “The circus, I mean.”

  He dropped my hand and grabbed the rope. “Isobel came over to chat, after the blessing, and the Monks turned up. I guess they don’t like to see her spending time with a bunch of bum locals.”

  “Was there a scene?”

  “I’ll say.” He dragged a hand through his hair, which was damp and curling from the spray and the salt air. “To be square, it wasn’t Monk who started the argument. Isobel laid into him first. He’s a gentleman, I’ll give him that. He didn’t yell or anything. But Izzy could yell for two.”