Nick watched him head for the screened-in porch, his long legs moving like a sleepwalker’s. The invisible imprint of his hand burning into her.
When she had finished with the shrimp and put them in the icebox to cool, Nick went into the bedroom and carefully removed her bathing suit. She showered in the small bathroom off the bedroom. When she opened the closet, a cockroach as big as a sparrow came flying out, ten times bigger than any she’d ever seen up north. Water bugs, one of the servicemen’s wives had called them. Nick didn’t scream; she wasn’t even surprised by them anymore.
Running her hand across her dresses, she stopped at a cotton sundress with cherries and a sweetheart neckline. Slipping it on and surveying herself in the mirror, she took out her sewing scissors and cut off the straps. Without them, her breasts sprang to attention, the heart-shaped top just clearing her nipples. She brushed back her dark hair, still glossy despite the sun. She looked strong and healthy, and a little less severe with her new nut-colored skin setting off the yellow flecks in her eyes. She felt proud of the effect. She dabbed her wrists and cleavage with perfume and went barefoot back into the kitchen.
She pulled a bottle of white wine out of the icebox and brought it out to Hughes, who was sitting on the porch, looking out over the canal.
“Would you open this for me, darling?”
Hughes looked up at her and took the bottle and the corkscrew out of her hands. He began peeling away the foil.
“That’s quite revealing,” he said to the bottle.
“You took me to the yacht club dance in this dress, don’t you remember?”
He looked up, a half smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “No, I’m sorry, Nicky, I don’t.”
“Oh, come on,” she said. “There was that funny, ugly little man leading the band who thought he was Lester Lanin. And he made some comment about the cherries and you almost hit him.”
“Did I?”
Nick sucked in her breath. “Well,” she said. “It is a bit different. I did cut off the straps. But I think it’s more sophisticated this way.”
Hughes pulled out the cork and began freeing it from the screw. “Won’t you be cold?”
Nick stared at him, her head pounding out a hot little rhythm, like the angry horns in Count Basie’s orchestra.
“Goddamn it, Hughes,” she said slowly. “It’s goddamn Florida. I will not be cold.”
Hughes didn’t look up, didn’t even flinch. He handed her the bottle. She took a swig, not bothering with the glass, and walked out to the lawn.
Nick wasn’t sure how long she’d been there when she heard voices coming from inside. Only that the bottle was almost half-empty and her dress was damp from the grass. With some difficulty, she roused herself and moved unsteadily toward the porch. Walking through the house, she saw Hughes was already shaking hands with the couple at the front door. Nick didn’t realize she was still barefoot until she reached them.
“Hello,” she said, laughing and looking down at her feet. “Well, you have a shoeless hostess. I do hope you won’t take it as a sign of indifference. I was out in the yard. It’s too damp for shoes.”
“I’ve always thought a barefoot hostess is a mark of the highest regard,” the man said, extending his hand. “Charlie Wells. And this is my wife, Elise.”
His eyes were round and black, like the jet beads her mother used to wear to the theater, but his brown hand was warm, if a bit rough to the touch. Nick knew it was from the ship, and that Hughes’s hands had also hardened from the chipping and painting, preparing the Jones to be docked. But Charlie’s calluses also reminded her that he’d been an enlisted man. He’d eventually gotten a battlefield commission, but he hadn’t started out that way. Not like her husband. A mustang, Hughes said they were called. “One of the brightest men I served with, though,” Hughes had told her. “They were smart to bring him up.”
While the man was dark and slender, his wife looked blond to the point of albino. And she was wearing a pale pink dress that, in Nick’s opinion, wasn’t doing her any favors. Still, she had a sort of soft femininity that gave Nick a small prick of envy.
“What can I get everyone to drink?” Hughes asked.
“Come out to the porch,” Nick said. “Our silly bar is outside, so Hughes won’t have to walk as far to bring you your scotch.” She led their guests through the house back to the porch. “Really, we live out here. That’s the lovely thing about Florida. Do you have a porch, Elise?”
“We do,” she said. “But I’m hardly ever out there. I’m not really … well, I’m not crazy about the outdoors.”
“That’s a shame,” Nick said, rolling her eyes, but only inwardly. “Do you like Count Basie? I’m on a sort of kick at the moment.”
“I don’t really know. Charlie’s the one who knows about music in our house.”
“Do you have ‘Honeysuckle Rose’?” Charlie asked.
“I do indeed,” Nick said, skipping off to the record player. “Are you a fan of the blues? Hughes always says it’s too melancholy.”
“Life is melancholy. Why dwell on it?” Hughes said, returning with the drinks. “Anyway, this stuff isn’t the blues, it’s swing.”
In the fading light, Nick saw he had removed her wine bottle from the lawn. “Oh, you think you’re so clever,” she said, laughing.
“You must think I’m clever, too. You married me, after all,” Hughes said, returning her smile, and offering her a martini.
“Have you ever heard Robert Johnson?” Charlie asked. “That’s real blues. Southern blues. Not for the club set.”
“What do you have against the club set?” Nick asked, turning to face him, happy to rise to the bait. Happy for something to happen around here.
“I have nothing against the club set, except maybe their musical taste,” he said, giving her a quiet smile.
Nick was about to reply, but thought better of it. Instead, she stared at him a moment, wondering just how drunk she really was. She could hear the beetles singing in the night. The rustle of the palm at the corner of the lawn. Her lily-of-the-valley perfume mingled with the soft, southern night air. She heard Hughes talking about Elise’s hometown, in Wisconsin, somewhere. And the sound of the horns.
Next to her, sitting in the rented chintz-covered chair, was this man giving her a smile full of cathouse jazz and motel rooms.
“Excuse me for a minute,” Nick said, rising, her hand on the arm of the chair to steady herself. “The kitchen calls.”
“I’ll help you,” Charlie said.
“It’s really not necessary,” Nick said, picking up her martini and holding it against her like armor.
“I’m a whiz in the kitchen. Ask Elise.”
Elise stared at her husband, impassive. But she didn’t, Nick noticed, offer to come in his stead.
Nick didn’t dare turn around as they walked back inside. She opened the icebox and pulled out the peeled cucumber.
“Could you slice this for me?” she asked, handing him the cucumber.
“Knife?”
“In the drawer under the sink,” she said, retrieving the shrimp.
“From the shrimp boat?” Charlie asked, eyeing the bowl.
“Yes,” Nick said, laughing.
“Which one?”
“What do you mean, which one?”
“The five o’clock?”
“Yes, what other one is there?”
“The morning shrimp boat,” Charlie said, slicing the cucumber, a little too thick for Nick’s taste. “Seven a.m. sharp. It’s the best one and you get more shrimp.”
“And how in the world would you know this?” Nick asked, giving him a mocking smile.
“I always buy the shrimp. Elise doesn’t like the canal.”
Nick busied herself making a lemon sauce, whisking a yolk into the pool of juice at the bottom of the bowl.
“I’ll show you one morning, if you like,” Charlie said. “Cucumber’s done.” He approached her with the cutting board and stood moti
onless behind her.
Nick stopped whisking.
“Do you have any Robert Johnson records?” Nick asked.
“I do,” Charlie said. “Would you like to hear them?”
“Yes,” Nick said. “And the shrimp boat, too. I’d like to know about that.”
“Fine,” he said.
Nick began whisking again, the sauce turning a thick pale yellow.
“Your cucumber,” he said.
“I liked them,” Nick said, clearing the plates.
“He’s a good worker,” Hughes said, staring into his scotch. “Some of the men don’t seem to care one bit whether the work on the boat gets finished. Mostly, those are the ones without families.”
“Nothing to go back to, I suppose.” Nick turned on the tap. She eyed Hughes. “But Charlie, I liked him. He said he’d show me the good shrimp boat.”
“Did he? Well, Elise doesn’t seem much for the outdoors, does she?”
“A bit milquetoast,” Nick said.
“She’s quite lovely, though.”
“Did you think so? I thought she might fade into the wall and we’d be searching for her all night.” Nick scrubbed at a plate. “But he’s pretty dashing.”
“Yes, well, you’re not alone. He has many admirers at the lunch canteen.”
“I imagine she must have a hard time with that.”
“Oh, I don’t know, he seems quite devoted to her.”
“Really?”
“You did seem to have a good time. I’m glad,” Hughes said, swirling the remnants of his drink around in his glass. “I don’t want this to be too dull for you.”
“This is our life. Why would it be dull?”
“Our life,” Hughes said slowly, an almost imperceptible sigh escaping his lips. “Yes, I suppose it is.”
“What do you mean, you ‘suppose it is’?”
“I don’t know what I mean, maybe I’ve had too much to drink.”
“Well, I’ve had too much to drink,” Nick said, turning to face him, “and I want to know what the goddamn hell you mean, you ‘suppose it is’?”
“Yes, you’re right.” Hughes stared straight back. “You have had too much to drink.”
“So I’ve had too much to drink. So what? I’ve had too much of everything, goddamn it.”
“I wish you wouldn’t swear so much.”
“I wish you were the man I married.” Nick was shaking. She knew she had said too much, but it was like cliff jumping.
When she was a girl, she and Helena and a couple of boys would go up to the old quarry to test their nerve. The granite had run out years before and the quarry had been abandoned to the groundwater, its depths unfathomable. They would take turns, starting from an old oak stump that served as their marker, and running without stopping until they were in the air, plummeting off the cliff. The boys who were really scared would skid like marbles at the edge. But Nick always jumped.
Then again, there, she had known the lay of the land.
Hughes finished his scotch in one quick swig and poured himself another. “I’m sorry if you feel disappointed.”
“I don’t want you to be sorry.”
“Go to bed, Nicky. We can talk when you’ve sobered up.”
“You’re the person who’s supposed to …” She stopped, unsure. “You’re my husband.”
“I’m well aware of that, Nick.” His voice seemed angry, spiteful even.
“Are you really? You don’t seem aware of much these days.”
“Maybe you’d be better off alone, maybe I’m not up to the job of being anyone’s husband.”
“At least I’m trying,” Nick said, suddenly afraid. “You …”
Hughes stood, and in an instant seemed to be towering. His palm pressed against the table, his knuckles white around the glass. “You don’t think I’m trying, Nick? What do you think I do every day, every second? That boat, this place, this house, this life: You think this is what I want?”
Nick looked at him. And then with one swift move, she yanked the radio cord out of the wall. One minute the radio was in her hand, and the next, it was hurtling through the air.
Hughes didn’t move a muscle, he just stood, his words hanging about him and an emptiness in his eyes.
The radio missed him and smashed into a corner of the wall.
“And what? You think that”—she pointed at the springs and plastic lying in a heap— “you think that’s what I want?”
“I’m going to bed,” Hughes said.
“What’s the point?” Nick ran her fingers through her hair. “You’re already asleep.”
* * *
Hughes left early the next morning. Nick pretended to be sleeping. The curtains were drawn and the room was stuffy. They both liked to sleep with the window open, but Nick had left it shut when she had finally come to bed, refusing to afford herself even the pleasure of the cooler air. It would be horrible and it was horrible, not least because it was stifling.
When she heard the engine turn over, she rose, not even bothering with her dressing gown. She sat at the kitchen table, staring into her black coffee. She toyed with the idea of throwing her things into a case, calling a taxi and fleeing back home. But when she mentally arrived in Cambridge, she was lost, the future yawning out in front of her. And he would still exist somewhere, somewhere else, and she wouldn’t have him. So she just stared at the coffee.
She tried to think of her parents’ marriage, but it was no use; she wasn’t aware of what went on behind closed doors, in dark stairwells, at parties when she was left at home, on midnight walks when the world slept. They had seemed happy. But her father had died when she was still so young, and what she could remember of the two of them together were fragments: a diamond brooch presented in a green leather box at Christmas; her mother running her hand over her father’s whiskers; the intermingling smell of Royal Yacht tobacco and L’Heure Bleue.
Her mother hadn’t wanted her to marry; she thought they were too young. She had forced Nick to go on dates with other boys, boring dances with a sweaty-palmed neighbor trying to hold her hand under the table. But when it became clear that she and Hughes were meeting in secret, her mother gave in. Better she be married if anything happened, she had said.
They wed on the Island, at the church where she had been christened. Small, with beautiful stained-glass windows. The reception was at Tiger House. They had some overly strong punch and tea sandwiches and a sweet white cake with candied violets on it.
Nick, feeling strange and sick, had escaped to the upstairs drawing room. Sitting on the gray silk Sheraton sofa, she began pulling the orange blossoms out of her hair. She wondered if she’d ever be able to go back downstairs. Maybe she’d waste away on this sofa, like a sort of Miss Havisham; the orange blossoms would wilt and petrify, the chocolates set out on the side table would become brown, old stones.
And then Hughes had appeared in the doorway in his morning coat. Without a word, he came over and sat beside her. Nick continued to toy with the small scented sprigs, not daring to look at him, ashamed. He had taken her chin in his hand and turned her face to him. And in that gesture was everything, everything that wasn’t dead and stale and confining.
He took her hand and led her to the maid’s bedroom in the back. The window was open and the yellow-checked curtains were blowing in the harbor air. Lifting her voluminous skirt and petticoat, he knelt and put his face against her, inhaling her, but remaining still. Minutes seemed to pass before they heard footsteps in the corridor. Hughes turned his head toward the open door, but remained pressed against her. The downstairs maid passed by the door and stopped, paralyzed and flushing before their tableau. Hughes had stared at the woman a moment, as if he wanted her to see them, see what was happening and changing between them, keeping still, before kicking the door shut.
It was ten o’clock, the sun was on its way to its apex and Nick was still wearing her nightgown. The coffee stood cold beside her motionless hand on the breakfast table. She thought
she could detect the lingering odor of last night’s shrimp, although it could have been the shrimp from Wednesday, or Sunday, for that matter.
She had found the remnants of the radio carefully wrapped in tissue outside the front door, like a baby left on a doorstep. She had half expected to find a note pinned to it reading “Unloved and unwanted.”
Damn him, Nick thought, damn him to hell.
They were supposed to be different, different from all the people who didn’t want things and didn’t do things and who weren’t special. They were supposed to be the kind of people who said to hell with it, who threw their wineglasses into the fireplace, who jumped off cliffs. They were not supposed to be careful people.
But, if only he weren’t so beautiful. If only she didn’t want him so much.
She heard an engine outside and slowly rose, moving toward the kitchen window.
Charlie Wells was slamming the car door shut, a stack of records tucked under his arm. Nick ran into the bedroom and shut the door. A sensation from the night before—his hand on the soft interior of her thigh under the dinner table, a silent interloper—came back to her. How could she have forgotten that?
Her heart pounding, she found her dressing gown and checked her appearance in the mirror. She looked thin and unhappy. Goddamn it, she thought, I am thin and unhappy, so what?
Charlie was knocking on the screen door. Nick straightened her back and went to greet him.
“Hello,” she said, looking at him through the screen.
“Hello,” he said, smiling back at her. “I’m sorry for dropping in on you like this, but I was wondering what to do with my morning and I thought to myself that I’d like to spend it listening to Robert Johnson. And then I thought, maybe you would, too. I’m playing hooky.”
“Ah, and Hughes told me what a good worker you were.”
His hand, seeking her out while she’d fiddled with her napkin.
“Yes, your lieutenant is a very serious man.”
“He is,” Nick said.
Charlie stood there, jostling the records under his arm. He was wearing a pair of khakis and a chambray shirt, dock shoes and that cathouse smile.
Nick picked at the grime lacing the screen.
Tigers in Red Weather Page 3
