Living in the Weather of the World

by Richard Bausch

  “Talk about macabre,” Blake mutters, but he’s smiling. He reaches over and takes her hand. “Maybe she has Asperger’s.”

  “I’m sorry,” Julia says. “I really was trying to be funny.”

  “It’s too horrifying to be funny.”

  A few moments later she sighs again. “Everything seems spoiled now. We shouldn’t’ve come here.”

  “I get it that you’re disappointed. Okay?”

  “But we’re so sour now. It’s supposed to be our honeymoon.”

  “Just keep concentrating on that, Eunice. It’ll help you stay miserable.”

  She punches his shoulder, meaning it, but with a brittle smile. She moves slightly aside on the bench, away from him. “Point taken,” she says. “Asshole.”

  The engines stop and the boat glides soundlessly to the landing. Men tie the moorings and open the ramp for egress. A crew member pulls back the small guardrail, and people begin filing out, carrying their bags. Charlotte’s among the first. She searches the crowded dock for them.

  Julia murmurs, “She’s gained a lot of weight.”

  He’s quiet.

  “Christ. I really am sounding like Eunice. I’m sorry. Why did I even bring all that up?”

  “You’re really thinking about those folks a lot.”

  “It’s Catalina. I told you. It’s—it’s being here where they spent so much time. Oh, God, Blake, I want to relax and be ourselves.”

  “You’re the one picking at everything. The water’s too cold, the hotel’s macabre, Charlotte’s ruining everything and she’s rude and criticizing the freaking airport and she doesn’t like you.”

  “Okay,” Julia says, low. Two clipped, toneless notes. Oh-kay. Then: “I just said I sounded like Eunice. Please.”

  They stand and watch in silence as his sister comes up to them, carrying one bag over her shoulder and pulling another. Charlotte hugs Julia first, a peremptory little halfhearted squeeze, then turns to her younger brother.

  “Oh, Blake. It’s awful. It’s just the worst.” She smells like beer. Children run by them, shouting. Charlotte moves to the railing overlooking the water and the tied-up boats, her shoulders hunched. She looks like she might be sick. “Why don’t people control their children.”

  “Here.” Blake takes the bag from her shoulder. She just stands there, half leaning over the rail, as if searching for something in the water. Julia starts toward the walking path that leads to the hotel. The crowd moves in a kind of wave across the landing, some people already stopping to take pictures.

  Charlotte turns finally and regards Blake. “You look overweight.”

  “I’m ten pounds lighter,” he says. “You look nice.”

  Julia hears the emphasis on the word and coughs into her hand.

  “Let’s get you checked in,” he says.

  They walk over to Julia, and the other woman’s eyes trail down her body. “I like the yellow shorts. Good color on you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I brought my pencils and drawing paper. I’m going to stay out of your way.”

  Julia’s at a loss. Charlotte has never mentioned drawing or doing any kind of art. Her house is full of artificial flowers. There are books everywhere, of course, though she never talks about her own. Some Hollywood people wanted to make a movie out of Mozart’s Ghost. There was option money for several years. But the interest died away.

  “Let’s have an early dinner,” says Blake.

  “I’m not hungry,” his sister answers. “I’d like a beer.”

  He leads them toward the long pier and the little kiosk there, where they sell beer in paper cups. Two young men are serving it out of a big keg, along with sliders and fries, hot dogs, ice-cream cones, and other snack items.

  Charlotte drinks while they stand there. Her demeanor’s that of someone who has just arrived alone at the kiosk, looking around, observing the scene, the hills above the cove, the town, the crowds of people filing down to the long row of shops. After she drains the cup, she hands it to Blake, who throws it into the big trash bin near them, and then takes hold of her bags. “Let’s go.”

  Julia walks a little behind them. No one says anything for a while. People are stopping to look at the views of the museum and the cove. Finally Blake says into the silence. “So you’ll get a lawyer now?”

  “Got one. Friend of the family. Catholic.”

  “He giving you a break on the cost?”

  “Oh, Brian’s gonna pay the cost. We’ll make sure of that.”

  At the hotel she says to the young female clerk with the tattoo on her wrist that she wants a first-floor room. She stares at the tattoo. The clerk replies in a shaky but polite voice that unfortunately there are no vacancies on that floor. She’s not much out of high school, and evidently she finds Charlotte intimidating. Quietly, but levelly, Blake’s sister insists that she be accommodated.

  “I’m so sorry, ma’am, but we just don’t have a single one.”

  “Where’re you from?” Charlotte asks.

  “Alabama, ma’am.”

  “You don’t have to ‘ma’am’ me. Just find a first-floor room for me. Not everybody’s checked in, am I correct?”

  “Ma’am, everybody is checked in. I have a nice second-floor room if you like.”

  “There’s not one room you’re saving for somebody?”

  “Charlotte,” Blake says, “come on.”

  The girl seems about to cry. Charlotte accedes to the second-floor room and signs the form, and when she puts the pen down she does so with a smack, the flat of her hand on the desk, so that the clerk jumps.

  Julia leans toward her and says, low, “Don’t worry.”

  Charlotte takes her bags from Blake and announces, as if to everyone in the lobby, “I’ll be back down in a minute. Let’s go to that Jack’s Shack or whatever it is that I saw when we walked over here. The lobster place.”

  They watch her get on the elevator, and when the doors close, Julia thinks she can hear a sigh of relief.

  “Now she’s hungry,” Blake says.

  —

  PERHAPS A HALF HOUR goes by. The young clerk greets returning guests and arranges the tour cards in the racks on the counter. Julia and her husband, sitting on a bench along the wall opposite the clerk, watch the elevator doors open and close, people getting on and off.

  “Do you think she fell asleep?” he murmurs.

  “What’re we doing?” Julia says. “Can’t you call her?”

  It’s full dark now out in the street. The lamps are on. People stroll by, families with children.

  “I’m starving,” she says. “This is ridiculous.”

  Blake goes up to the counter and asks the young woman to phone the room on the second floor. “There’s no answer, sir.” As she speaks, the elevator doors open to reveal Charlotte, in a bright yellow-and-blue blouse, too-tight red shorts, and flip-flops.

  “Why didn’t you go to your room?” she asks. “I wanted to give you some time together.”

  Julia laughs, and then stops herself.

  They leave the hotel and walk in the teeming street away from the museum. Hired tour buses head in a line up the steep hill. The restaurant’s on one of the side streets, and there’s a line outside. They wait, talking little, because of the noise. A few feet away, street musicians are playing—bongos, guitars, a harmonica. Julia thinks she recognizes the song, and it causes an ache in her soul, beyond expression.

  “Do you know that?” she says to Blake.

  “Yeah,” he answers. “Can’t say what, though.”

  Inside, there’s the clashing of voices and music. Television screens hang on the walls around the room, showing different sporting events. It’s some kind of nostalgia loop—on one screen Michael Jordan lifts into an astonishing flight over two other players. On another, Jack Nicklaus bends over a putt. And directly across the room, a baseball game is in progress. The music comes from speakers in each corner. Their greeter’s a willowy, tall brown man with long dreads, wh
o wears a multicolored bandanna. He says, “A table’s just opened up on the balcony outside facing the water.”

  “It’s supposed to get a lot cooler,” Charlotte says.

  “Less noise,” the man says, obviously not having heard her.

  “Yes,” Blake shouts. “Take us to it.”

  “Gonna be cold,” says his sister.

  They follow the tall young man out onto the balcony, which spans the front of the place above the street, with, to the right, a wide view of the bay beyond the low roofs of the cove with its dense forest of skinny boat masts. The moon shines over the water, not quite full, making a shimmering wide avenue of reflected light, running all the way to the beach. Children and others run back and forth in the sand, and several people are playing volleyball. The young man seats them at a table for four and puts menus down. Julia realizes that now, suddenly, she has no appetite at all. “I was so hungry,” she gets out.

  Blake has turned to Charlotte. “All right. Tell us.”

  Charlotte pauses, and then sits back in her chair. “I told you. You haven’t told her?”

  “I told her some of it.”

  “How much?”

  “Okay, most of what you told me. Fill us in.”

  A waitress stops at the table with a notebook. She introduces herself as Paula and says she’ll be their server. She has large round very pale eyes. Julia looks at her hands, which are slender, manicured, the nails long and silver.

  “How old are you, Paula?” Charlotte wants to know.

  Paula smiles. “I’m new. This is my first night, actually.”

  “Is everybody in this town underage?”

  “Oh, I’m of age. I have two children. A boy and a girl.”

  “Ages?”

  “Jona’s three, and Lucy’s eight months.”

  “I don’t really care about the names.”

  “Do you-all need a few minutes?”

  “Yes,” Julia says.

  The waitress moves off.

  “I want the lobster,” Charlotte says. “I don’t need a few minutes.”

  Blake folds his menu. “Me, too.”

  Julia stares at the rows of choices.

  “My darling wife has a history here,” Blake says.

  Charlotte doesn’t look up. “Really. The restaurant?”

  “My former father-in-law ran the semi-sub during the summer of 1966.”

  She keeps staring at the menu. “I know you’re supposed to have white wine with fish.”

  The waitress returns. “What can I get you-all to drink?”

  “Water,” Julia says.

  Charlotte orders a bottle of Chardonnay, and two glasses.

  “I’m gonna have a beer,” Blake tells her.

  “Why be so contrary. Why embarrass me like that.”

  He shrugs. “I feel like a beer.”

  She turns to the waitress. “He never drinks beer.”

  “We have beer all the time,” says Julia.

  Charlotte gives her a disbelieving look. “Really.”

  “What difference does it make, ladies? I’ve taken a liking to cold beer.”

  “Okay, one glass.”

  When Paula returns with the water, beer, and wine, Charlotte says, “You’re a little too deliberate. Very deliberate. Is it overbusy tonight?”

  The young woman seems both puzzled and wary. “No, ma’am.”

  Charlotte tastes the wine and says, “No. Too sweet. Chardonnay is not supposed to be sweet.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Would you like something else then?”

  “Bring me a dry Chardonnay.”

  The girl holds the bottle out a little and looks at the label. “This says ‘dry white wine,’ ma’am. I don’t drink wine.”

  “Do you have a sommelier?”

  “I don’t know that drink, ma’am.”

  “Can you send someone to the table who’s of age.”

  “Excuse me,” Julia says. “She’s talking about a wine steward, someone who orders and stocks your wine.”

  “That’s right,” says Charlotte with a thin smile.

  “We don’t have anything like that,” Paula says. “I’m sorry. Do you want me to get the manager? I don’t think he’ll know anything, he’s just the night per—”

  Blake interrupts. “It’s all right. We’ll be fine. Maybe just bring us another bottle.”

  The girl leaves in a hurry, evidently wanting to get out of range before Charlotte can say anything else.

  “Jesus Christ, Charlotte.”

  “She was getting ready to cry,” Julia puts in. “Just like the hotel clerk.”

  “They’re all too young for their jobs.”

  Blake says, “I wait tables, Charlotte. And if it was me, right now I’d be planning to spit in your food.” He throws his napkin down and stands. “I have to use the restroom.”

  After he disappears around the wall, his sister sniffles and wipes her eyes, and then seems to slump in her chair. “I know you wish I hadn’t come.”

  Julia waits a moment, and then says slowly, “This is between you and Blake.”

  “I’m not talking about this.”

  “Well, I certainly am.”

  “You know what he would do when he was unhappy with us?”

  “You’re talking about your father.”

  “There’s a tendency in you to state the obvious, isn’t there.”

  “I hadn’t noticed. You have a tendency to be quite rude. I wonder if you’ve noticed that.”

  “It’s obvious, isn’t it?”

  Now Julia throws her own napkin down. She folds her arms and looks out at the sparkle of the bay. But she can’t refrain from saying, “Did you and Brian get a honeymoon?”

  If Charlotte received the emotion behind the question, she doesn’t show it. “A weekend in Denver. He got romantically drunk.”

  “This was supposed to be our honeymoon.”

  “I know that. I’m sorry. I said so, too. Didn’t he tell you?”

  Julia stares at her.

  “Anyway, I was going to tell you how Daddy was in the evenings when he came home.”

  “He’d come home drunk?”

  “You interrupt a lot. How can Blake stand that?”

  “Because I fuck his eyes out in the nights.”

  Silence.

  Julia sits there with her arms folded, one foot lightly tapping the floor, waiting for the other to speak.

  “I was telling you something.”

  “Tell.”

  “I don’t think you’d listen or care.”

  “Well, you’ll never know unless you make the effort. Isn’t that what they say?”

  There’s a long pause, during which Julia gazes through the window into the restaurant hoping to see Blake on his way back.

  “Well, he was never drunk,” Charlotte says. “Never touched a drop. No, Daddy was the storm-trooper type. Moral as the idea of morality, which of course means that he was very interested in morality in other people, particularly me. And Blake. But Blake was young. I know he says I shielded him, but do you know what that meant?”

  “It’s pretty clear.”

  Charlotte leans forward. “Really. Have you ever been beaten across the back with a stick? I mean a piece of wood, like a broomstick? He’d say, ‘I’m gonna get the broom.’ For any offense, including smiling when he didn’t want you to smile.”

  Blake comes back to the table and stops. “Oh.”

  “Sit down,” his sister tells him. There are tears in her voice. “You’ll love this.”

  “Let’s talk about something else, can’t we?”

  The waitress returns with another bottle of Chardonnay. She pours a taste, and Charlotte sips and nods. “It’s fine, I suppose.”

  Julia looks at her husband, who’s concentrating on the menu.

  “Are we ready to order?”

  They all end up ordering the lobster. For a few tense moments they sit quietly, gazing at the lights ranged in the hills on the other side of the cove, while C
harlotte sips the Chardonnay, and Blake drinks his beer. Julia wants to go back to the mainland and forget everything. Out in the water, there’s the sound of the girl’s shriek again, and the laughter, though it’s too dark there to see clearly now. The moon has dipped behind a wall of clouds.

  Two young men bring the dinners, and one of them pours more wine in Charlotte’s glass. Anyone would say it’s a festive occasion. Blake orders another beer, and Julia asks for one, too. They all begin to eat.

  “I was telling her about Daddy-doo,” Charlotte says, breaking one of the claws. She’s gained control of her voice, her demeanor, and she speaks through her teeth. “I want to tell about Daddy.”

  “Oh, God,” Blake says. “This is classic. At dinner, no less. Please. Can we do this later?”

  “I was explaining. I was asked to explain.”

  Julia keeps silent.

  “Let’s talk about what you’re gonna do now,” Blake says. “Can’t we? Are you gonna call Brian?”

  “Why would I want to do that?”

  “Isn’t that the pattern?”

  “I’m telling you something.” Charlotte takes a long drink of her wine and pours more of it, filling the glass nearly to the top. She stares at the sunny color of it. “Daddy wanted to know what a child’s reaction to being shot at might look like.”

  “Stop it, Charlotte.”

  “So—” She pauses, drinks, then shakes her head slightly, remembering. “He, um, chased me through the woods behind the house, shooting a pistol at me. Thwack into the trees just behind or to the side of me.”

  “Charlotte. That’s your novel. Don’t quote your novel at us.”

  “It’s true,” she insists. “It’s absolutely true. You were a baby.”

  “But why go into it now? We should be talking about getting you through this. I spent the first part of this evening hearing about Julia’s terrible mother-in-law and her suicide father-in-law. I don’t want to hear any of it. I’m sorry for it all, really, but this is my honeymoon, too, and I’d like to try enjoying what’s left of it.”

  “I was confiding in you,” Julia says. “They—I never would’ve—they spent time here. So they came to mind. That’s all it is, Blake.”