“This is impossible,” Nan said out loud to herself. What on earth had she been thinking? She walked down the stairs in a daze wondering what to do. She had no way to get a hold of Charlie to cancel, but she was sort of glad about that. Even if she decided to back out of the picnic, she’d have to do it in person, and would at least still have a chance to see him.
CJ sat at the long dining room table, patiently waiting for Nan. She poured his cereal and fetched him a glass of apple juice. Joining him, she asked what he’d thought of the wedding.
“It was fun,” he said, dribbling a little milk down his chin. “Can we keep the tent?”
“No,” Nan told him. “The men who set it up will come and get it Monday.”
She smiled at the thought of the clumsy movers. It had only been two days since they’d set the tent up for Arthur’s wedding, but to Nan it seemed like decades had passed.
“What would you think about going on a picnic today?” Nan asked nervously.
“Okay,” he said cocking his head. “Where’re we going?”
“I’m not sure. Do you remember the man I was talking with last night? Charlie?”
“The one you danced with?”
“Yup, that’s him,” Nan said, pondering what CJ might have thought of that. He was only days old when his father abandoned them, and hadn’t even reached his first birthday when she married and left town with Heath. CJ had never really seen Nan interact with any man before, other than Joe and her brothers. She didn’t want to venture too far into that on this morning, especially with her four-year-old son, so just moved on to the invitation.
“Well, he asked if we’d like to go with him today,” she said. “Would you like to?”
“I guess,” CJ replied and stuffed another spoonful of cereal in his mouth. When he was done chewing, he surprised her with a question.
“Is Charlie my dad?”
All CJ really knew was that his father had been a sailor who went away. But Charlie was most certainly not CJ’s father. Eddie was. Nan knew that someday she’d need to tell her son the truth, despite how badly it might make him feel, but it didn’t have to be today.
“No honey. He’s not,” Nan said reaching out gingerly to brush his hair from his forehead. It came so easy to do it and CJ didn’t seem to mind. He didn’t even seem to notice though it was momentous to her.
“Was my dad nice?” he asked, searching her face. Nan thought about how her childhood images of her own father had been defined by her mother’s anger and animosity toward him. It had been jarring to hear people describe a man so different than the father she’d known and she didn’t want CJ to go through the same thing.
“Of course, CJ,” she lied, hoping he’d feel proud and never resent her for disparaging his father. “Now how about we go get you dressed?” she asked, ready to close the subject.
Nan followed CJ up the stairs, watching his tiny cowlick bounce with every step he took. She wondered if she was really willing to gamble with his trust again, but found it hard to think about anything beyond the picnic ahead of them. It might be, no, it was opening a door into part of Nan’s life that she’d been protecting dearly for more than two years, but she felt compelled in some indefinable way. And besides, this was Charlie.
Nan dressed CJ and then helped him set up a bunch of little green army men on his dresser to occupy him while she got ready. Once in her room, she proceeded to put on and then take off four different outfits before deciding on a pair of black pedal pushers and a bright pink t-shirt. She wove a matching pink scarf through her ponytail and surveyed herself in the mirror. Other than the slight tremor in her upper lip, Nan thought she looked more or less okay. As she applied a touch of coral pink lipstick, she noticed the same tremor in her lip was affecting her hand.
It was ten minutes to twelve when Charlie arrived. She took a deep breath before opening the door and took another when she saw him. He stood on the porch holding a bouquet of sunflowers. They were her favorite and she wracked her brain trying to remember when she might have told him so, but couldn’t recall. He was dressed far less formally than the night before, wearing faded blue jeans and a maroon golf shirt. His smile, bright and honest, lit up his face. Any thoughts of cancelling fled from her mind.
They stood grinning at one another until CJ broke the silence from behind Nan.
“Hi Charlie,” he said timidly.
“Hey CJ,” Charlie replied, kneeling down on one knee to look him in the eye. “Are you ready to have some fun big guy?”
Nan found Charlie’s gentle enthusiasm sweet. Anticipation spread across CJ’s face.
“Oh yes,” CJ said, grabbing his jacket and favorite Red Sox baseball hat off the hook by the door.
“Okay, let’s go then,” Charlie said, tugging at the brim of CJ’s cap.
“Are you sure there’s nothing I should bring?” Nan asked.
“I’m sure. Not a thing,” Charlie said with a mischievous smile.
The ride was a short one and Charlie’s sleek black sedan seemed to float on the road as they drove toward town. He invited Nan to choose a radio station, and after twisting the dial up and down the band twice, she settled on ‘Come Softly’ by the Fleetwoods. As the words ‘I’ve waited, waited so long, for your kisses and your love’ played, Nan shifted in her seat.
CJ’s head popped up between them.
“Where we going Charlie?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Nan added, smiling. “Where we going Charlie?”
“You’ll see,” he replied, obviously enjoying their curiosity. Whatever he had planned, it was clear that much thought had been put into it and Nan was touched by his effort. She couldn’t think of any other man in her life, other than Buddy, who’d had the impetus to think of her first. Not even her father had been able to put her before the bottle. But somehow Charlie always seemed to be standing in the shadows, ready to comfort her, to help her, to explore and understand things with her. Although he’d been away for ten years, it felt to Nan as if no time had passed between them.
As they pulled into the small parking lot adjacent to the town common at the riverfront, Nan was still confused about where they were going. She assumed at first that they’d eat on the lawn of the green, and it wasn’t until they descended the boat ramp and were standing in front of a majestic blue and white sailboat that she understood.
“Are we going sailing?” Nan asked excitedly. She hadn’t been out on a boat since she’d gone fishing with her father as a child, and never on one so luxurious. The ropes clanged lazily against the mast sounding like a nautical wind chime and Nan could hear water lapping steadily at the sides as the yacht bobbed gently in the waves.
CJ clapped his hands and jumped around. He’d never been sailing before and Nan remembered him saying so to Charlie the evening before. Nan was elated that she could be part of something Elsie and Joe hadn’t already introduced him to. She’d missed out on so many of her little boy’s firsts and was humbled by the opportunity. Not to mention so grateful to Charlie for giving it to her.
“Oh Charlie. I can’t believe you did this. Is it yours?” she asked.
“No, not mine, but we sea dogs, we’ve got connections.”
Charlie seemed delighted by Nan’s reaction.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Ready,” Nan replied beaming.
Charlie helped them up the plank and onto the boat. CJ took a seat on the long blue and white padded bench at the back. On the floor between where CJ sat and the two captain’s chairs in front was a hatch that opened up to a galley below. Nan looked around the deck at the shiny chrome fixtures and the large wooden wheel. Everything about the vessel resonated with her as she breathed in the salty air.
The plan was to ride out into open water and drop anchor for fishing and lunch. If the wind was right, they’d put up the sails and meander between the coast of Portsmouth and the Isles of Shoals. Nan couldn’t believe the magnitude of Charlie’s gesture. He told her the fridge in the galley was st
ocked with lunchmeat, bread, cheese and olives. He’d brought along two boxes of animal crackers and bottles of RC Cola for CJ. There was also a bottle of wine chilling in a bucket of ice under the galley stairs.
Nan took a seat in the passenger chair and spun around to CJ.
“What do you think?” she asked him breathlessly. “Isn’t this great?”
“The greatest,” CJ replied, eyes wide.
Charlie started the boat and backed it up expertly. He moved the liner slowly until they were safely away from the others moored around it. As he navigated into the channel, he began to pick up speed. They sailed under the Memorial Bridge, its rust spotted legs cradling the span high above their heads. The cars that traveled across it looked no bigger than CJ’s matchbox cars and as the bridge shrunk in the distance, Charlie opened the throttle and they entered the mouth of the river.
It was a spectacular afternoon, neither too warm nor too cold. Trees with their brightly colored leaves on the shoreline bordering both sides of the river contrasted beautifully against the cobalt sky. Water sprayed up slightly as Nan hung her arm over the side to feel it with her hand.
She turned around to look at CJ again and was amused by his attempt to see everything in the passing scenery all at once.
“This is cool,” CJ said to her with a trace of a smile.
“Very cool,” Nan replied as she settled in for the ride.
Once Charlie thought they’d found the perfect spot, he invited CJ to help him drop the anchor. When they were done, Charlie lifted the seat CJ had been sitting on, which doubled as a storage bin, and pulled out three fishing poles and a bait-box.
“What do you think of flounder?” he asked them. “I can show you how to cook it,” he told Nan.
“I know how to cook flounder,” she exclaimed, pretending to be offended.
“Oh…no…you know what I mean. I bet you cook it just fine!”
“Relax Charlie,” Nan said with a trace of a grin. “I’m just teasing.”
“I know,” Charlie replied, sounding a little flustered.
He helped them bait their lines and added the heavy lure that would drop their hook to the bottom where the fish lay flat against the floor of the cove. It didn’t take long for CJ to get the first bite, and as Nan cheered excitedly, Charlie set down his own line and ran to assist her little boy reel it in. She squealed as the fish came up and over the side of the boat, spastically flipping and flopping. She hopped up onto her seat to get away from it, drawing her knees to her chest. The boys laughed and when CJ held the wiggling thing up in front of her looking so proud and happy, she smiled in spite of her disgust.
After CJ’s successful catch, Nan and Charlie brought the food up onto the deck and together they made sandwiches. Easy conversation flowed between them and they reminisced about growing up in the neighborhood. Nan ate so much she thought she would bust by the time they were finished. She realized it was the first decent meal she’d had in days and it tasted absolutely delicious to her.
Waves rocked the boat gently in the warm afternoon sunshine and it wasn’t long before CJ began to doze off on the seat. As his eyes grew heavy, Nan walked over to him and stroked his cheek before kissing him lightly on the forehead. He smiled at her briefly before falling fully asleep and she couldn’t remember ever feeling so close to him.
“How about a glass of wine,” Charlie whispered from behind.
“Sure, that sounds good,” she replied and followed him down the narrow stairs to the galley.
It took a minute for her eyes to adjust to the darker light below deck. Padded benches lined the wall on one side and the fridge, a small propane stove and a sink on the other. Nan took a seat while Charlie opened the bottle.
“Sorry about the stemware,” Charlie apologized, pulling two plastic cups out of a small cupboard over the refrigerator. “It seems that my seafaring friend is more the beer drinking type.”
“No worries. I still drink milk straight from the carton when I think no one is looking,” she joked.
Charlie smiled at her and poured them each a cup, handing one to Nan as he took a seat next to her.
“To the perfect picnic,” Nan said, raising her glass to him.
“To the perfect picnic,” Charlie repeated.
Looking up the stairs where CJ slept, he said:
“He’s an amazing kid, Nan.”
“Thank you. He is an amazing kid,” she replied emphatically.
“I hope this doesn’t feel weird,” Charlie started, “I mean, you can tell me to shut up if you want, but what happened with CJ’s father?”
Nan wasn’t surprised at Charlie’s question. She knew the topic would come up eventually and had been wracking her brain trying to figure out how to talk about it with him since the night before. Although the conversation was bound to be difficult, Nan wanted Charlie to know about Eddie and the circumstances around CJ’s paternity. And besides, there was a part of the story Nan was actually looking forward to sharing with him.
Chapter 8
Nan first laid eyes on Eddie Sullivan just before Christmas, 1954. She was working a temporary job cashiering at JJ Newberry’s department store for the holiday season. It was hopping most of the time, sometimes preventing Nan from taking her break, but she never tired of working the register. She loved the feeling of the small round keys under the pads of her fingers and marveled at how a pull of the lever could calculate the total and change in a fraction of the time it would take her to in her head.
Her mother and Joe had been against the job, but she’d long since stopped caring about what they thought. She was nineteen and old enough to make her own decisions. She was tired of her mother advising her that she’d never find a decent husband if she didn’t put herself in the right places. Like the stuffy country club in Newcastle where Elsie and her new rich husband hung out? The one that didn’t let women on the golf course or black people on the property? Thanks, but no thanks Nan thought as she accepted her first meager paycheck.
It had only been a few months after Sam’s accident when Nan’s mother took the one and only job she’d ever have as a secretary at a law firm in town. Joe was a junior partner at the time and Nan remembered the utter shock she felt when her mother came home from work one afternoon a couple weeks after starting saying she had a date that evening. John, the last of her siblings still living at home, was working full time at the docks with Buddy and would be moving out of the house very soon. Arthur was enrolled in college full time and stayed on campus, so Nan was struggling to come to terms with the fact that only she and Elsie would be left living in the little house. What a joke on her that turned out to be.
Joe came to the door to fetch Elsie for their date that evening and Nan tried to keep the look of dismay off her face when the portly, well-dressed man with slicked back hair introduced himself. He gave Nan what she would come to dub his ‘grip ‘n grin’ handshake, a single pump and a flash of teeth, telling her she looked like her mother. Elsie sashayed down the stairs and out the door, returning home long after Nan had gone to bed. Less than a month later, Elsie invited Joe to dinner, along with Nan and her brothers. In the midst of stilted and stuttering conversation, their mother blew the lid off. She and Joe would be getting married in early November. Nan came to understand over the subsequent weeks that Joe’s firm was very successful and that money was about to have a profound impact on her world.
Despite looming winter, the renovations to the house began immediately upon Elsie and Joe’s return from their honeymoon. Before that year was out, the run down two-bedroom cape had been magically transformed into a four-bedroom, three bath expanded cape with a kitchen, dining room, den, sewing room and sunken living room on the first floor. Nan slept in her old room while the addition was being built on the back, and when it was finished she’d moved everything into the one facing the river.
Even the backyard had been reborn with dirt brought in to level it out and a new blanket of thick, Kentucky bluegrass. Flowerbeds replace
d the large vegetable garden Elsie had always maintained and all kinds of granite and marble things were made part of the landscape. Every change to the house and the yard seemed to be part of a chain reaction leading from one to another, until Nan completely lost her sense of place.
In the midst of it all, Elsie had stepped into a new social circle that kept her busy each day with luncheons and her Pinochle club. Nan never knew what gaggle of her mother’s snotty friends she’d find sitting around the foreign living room when she got home from school each day. Most nights Joe and Elsie preferred to have dinner out, and though they usually invited Nan to go with them, she repeatedly cycled through a series of excuses for declining until they stopped asking.
Rebelling against the things she could not control, Nan began to change. Despite her anguish, still fresh after Sam’s death and her mother’s metamorphosis, Nan developed a quick sense of humor and dry, sharp wit. After a few drinks, Nan was the life of the party and gained a reputation as such. Although she was still pretty careful with boys, she had begun drinking with abandon. And despite Elsie and Joe’s insistence she not smoke in the house, she did in her room whenever she felt like it.
By the time Nan took her job at JJ Newberry more than three years later, most of her friends had already married and gone on to have children of their own. Nan felt removed from that life and she hadn’t really enjoyed the few times she’d visited some of her high school chums. It seemed they were far too busy pulling children out of harm’s way to have a decent conversation over a cup of coffee before it got cold. As offensive as it was to Elsie and Joe, Nan’s job provided her with a chance to escape the changing world around her.
On one particular day at work, Nan returned from break and a line quickly formed at her register. ‘Jingle Bell Rock’ blared over the store’s speakers as she punched in numbers and pulled the slot machine like handle to tally purchases. She made change quickly, pleasantly wished shoppers a Merry Christmas as she bagged their wares and then sent them on their way.
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