by Luanne Rice
It frightened Mary to admit this, but Ronald Reagan had been the last politician to move her. She disliked his politics—Mary was a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat. But his warmth, the twinkle in his eye, his obvious love for Nancy had endeared him to her.
“That should be good for a plug in the papers tomorrow,” Jim said glumly. “The governor eating Fourth of July dinner at Lobsterville.”
“Now snap out of it, Jim,” Mary said. “Quit feeling sorry for yourself just because we don’t have a clear sky. There’s hours yet before the fireworks, and the weather could break.”
“I know,” Jim said. As if he were sick and tired of indulging a bad mood, a slow smile started. It tugged the left corner of his mouth in a way Mary had always found sexy as hell.
She couldn’t in a million years have predicted this, but Mary suddenly thought of Jim’s brother, Ward. She had dated him once before she even met Jim. Right now, beguiled by Jim’s smile, she saw Ward’s easy grin, his bright hazel eyes, his handsome nose. It took a long look at Ward’s Air Corps photo, or moments such as this, when a certain expression flashed across Jim’s face, for Mary to imagine how Ward would look now, as a senior citizen. But she’d conjured him up; he stood before her here, right in Jim’s spot. Mary gasped and thumped her heart.
“Mary, darling,” Jim said, wrapping one arm around her shoulder. “What is it? Do you have a pain?”
“It’s nothing, I’m fine,” Mary said.
“It was a chest pain, don’t lie to me.”
“It was not a chest pain, for God’s sake! You make me feel so old. I just had a fright, that’s all.”
Even so, Jim forced her to sit on one of Tony’s upside-down fish barrels. “Right there,” he commanded, sitting beside her.
“Oh, Jim, watch the dress,” Mary said crossly. I’m going to have fish scales all across my behind.” She tapped out a cigarette to stop her hands from shaking. “I thought I saw Ward, that’s all,” she said.
“I’ve thought of him all day,” Jim said.
“I suppose it’s natural to be thinking of him on a national holiday.”
Usually Ward was frozen in time: a young hero shot down over the German island of Helgoland. But Mary liked to think of him aging along with everyone else. She believed he was as much a part of the family as when he’d been alive, hovering just out of sight; she believed that even death couldn’t tear a family apart.
“Ward wouldn’t be in deep shit with the insurance police, that’s for sure,” Jim said.
“What are you talking about, ‘police’?”
“I mean the pinstripes whose job it is to keep from insuring you after you’ve been a policy holder for fifty years.”
Mary, who thought it odd and slightly alarming that Jim would say “police,” as if he had the real police on his mind, tried to sort things out. “Are you in trouble?” she asked finally.
“No, dear. Not trouble. But my main trucker’s going out of business, I can’t afford to insure my fleet, I’ve got captains shopping around for their own boats. And you’ve just reminded me that if Ward were still alive, we’d all be sitting pretty; we’d be running in the black every month of the year.”
Mary climbed off the fish barrel. Standing, she was barely taller than her seated husband. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you today, Jim, but I don’t like it one little bit.”
“Neither do I, my darling. Neither do I.”
Mary, in her red Independence Day dress, marched back to the restaurant, and she had a crazy picture of Nancy mad at Ron, leaving the big man at the end of some dock. Mary wondered whether Jim could tell by the way she walked that she was furious with him. Usually, Jim could charm you out of staying mad at him. Jim had charm, all right, but frankly, he’d been too damned stingy with it lately.
Nora had been working the reservations desk all day. Time flew; it felt like they’d never been so busy. Six o’clock, seven o’clock. Soon it would be time for the fireworks, if the rain didn’t spoil things. “Pentwarse, party of two,” she called over the loudspeaker. “Hartunian, party of four.” Her throat felt dry from speaking and from others’ cigarette smoke. A lot of the regulars complimented her on her new hair color. Nora even managed a civilized smile and a thank-you when Al Sweet told her she looked like a college girl.
“Have they been in?” Cass asked, looking harried, stopping by with a tray laden with drinks.
“No. I’m sure they’re fine,” Nora said. Cass had left T.J. in charge of the girls, as they waited for the show to start outside.
“Dad’s going to get me when the fireworks are about to start,” Cass said. “I promised Josie I’d watch with her. She’s so excited.”
“No problem. I’ll have someone cover your tables.”
Vinnie Fusaro swaggered over, picked up a wine list, and smiled at Cass and Nora as he walked away.
“Vinnie,” Cass said, smiling at Nora. “Boy, he’s cute. If he weren’t so young, and I weren’t so married …”
“He’s twenty,” Nora said, then wished she hadn’t spoken. She wondered what Cass would think if she knew Nora had slept with him. It had happened only once. The strange thing was, in spite of his being so young, he had treated her better than men twice his age. Although they never directly acknowledged what had happened between them, Vinnie always seemed to twinkle in her presence. It was very flattering.
“What’s wrong with Mom and Dad?” Cass asked.
“They do seem a little tense,” Nora said. She lifted the microphone: “Connors, party of two; Burns, party of six.”
“They’re in a mood,” Cass said. “The same mood: bad.”
“His Excellency,” Nora said, standing tall and facing the door.
“What, no honor guard?” Cass asked, hurrying into the bar.
“Good evening, Governor, Mrs. Malloy,” Nora said, grabbing menus for them. “Happy Fourth.”
“Happy Fourth, Nora,” Governor Malloy said, pulling her against him in a backslapping hug. He smelled of cigars and whiskey. As the menus dug into her breast, Nora noticed that the governor had freckled, whiskery ears just like her father. He had a paunch and a dwindling voter base, and so Nora let him hug her like an uncle.
“What a lovely dress, dear,” Mrs. Malloy said, nodding at Nora’s blue knit. “It’s so patriotic, and it looks lovely with your hair.”
“Thank you.” Nora had bought it just this week, for the Fourth. She’d gotten it at the Eastport Shop in Providence’s Wayland Square, and she liked the way it hugged her figure but managed to look sophisticated instead of cheap.
“Let me show you to your table,” she said.
“Oh, is that Sheila over there?” Governor Malloy asked.
“Yes,” Nora said, glancing around for her grandmother. It was family tradition to have everyone together at Lobsterville on the Fourth.
“Hello, dear,” the Governor said, bending to take Sheila’s hand, but she walked right by without acknowledging him.
“A bit deaf, is she?” the governor asked.
“Well, it happens to us all,” his wife said.
“This way, please,” Nora said.
After Nora had seated the Malloys, she discovered her grandmother leaning on the customers’ side of the reservations desk.
“But I have a reservation!” a burly man was insisting. He wore a New York Yacht Club blazer, and he jabbed his finger at the book with undue vigor. “It’s right there.”
“Smada?” Sheila asked, frowning at the book. “What an unusual name. Where are your people from?”
“My name is Adams” the man said. “Adams. I can’t believe this.”
“You’re reading it upside down, Granny,” Nora whispered in her grandmother’s ear. In the circle of Nora’s embrace, her grandmother felt insubstantial, about to blow away.
“Oh, Adams. I’m sorry, Mr. Adams,” Sheila said, tugging on the collar of her beaded pink silk dress. She blushed with embarrassment.
Without even greeting Mr. Adams, Nora a
sked Vinnie Fusaro to show him to table thirteen, right between the kitchen door and the bus table.
“You want to help me tonight, Granny?” Nora asked, leading her around the desk, pushing the stool beneath her rump. Sheila leaned precariously against it.
“He really gets my goat, that big shot. His mother would turn in her grave if she could hear him talk. You’d think he was king instead of just governor.”
“Oh, he’s not that bad.”
“He was in Ward’s class at school, and he couldn’t hold a candle to him. Ward would have made a wonderful governor. Too bad you never knew him.”
“I know.”
“They should have named the highway after him, for that matter.”
Nora smiled, patting Sheila’s shoulder to console her. Sheila was about to launch into her Casey Memorial Highway tirade. At groundbreaking in 1950 for a swath of road intended to connect Mount Hope with the main drag to Providence, the town council had announced plans to name the new highway for Timothy Casey, the first Mount Hope boy to die in World War II. Tim and Ward had gone through St. Vincent’s High together. Although Sheila had been fond of Tim Casey and still prayed for him and his parents, it pierced her to think the town could mourn any Mount Hope boy more than her son Ward.
“Well, hello again,” Willis Randecker said. He stood before Nora, looking exactly as she had remembered.
“Aren’t you tall!” Sheila exclaimed. “Do you have a reservation?”
Nora couldn’t look away from his eyes. People waiting for tables had piled up behind him, but she just stood there.
“So, you’re back,” she said finally.
“Yes, I surely am,” he said. “More business up this way. I thought I’d come up a day early and see what the Fourth of July is like in New England.”
“Go on,” Sheila said, poking Nora. “Go off with him. I mean it, now. I’ll take care of the restaurant. It’s not as if I haven’t done it before.” She laughed, flirting with Willis. “I’m the old grandmother. I started this place.”
“Best seafood place I’ve ever been to,” he said.
“We’re so busy tonight,” Nora said, nodding at the line.
“I’ll just go have a drink at the bar,” he said.
After Nora had seated seven tables and brought the checks to three others, the first firework went off. Swizzles of red fire reflected in the picture windows. Nora turned down the restaurant’s globe lights.
“There you are,” Mary said, standing between her eldest daughter and her mother-in-law. “Like old times, seeing Sheila at this desk, isn’t it, Nora?”
“It’s great,” Nora said, listening to the explosions. Nora wondered whether Willis was watching from the bar’s porch.
Sheila chucked Mary under the chin. “Be a good girl and take over for Nora, will you? She’s got a man on hold.”
“A man?” Mary said, raising her eyebrows. “Go ahead, dear.”
Nora struggled through the crowded bar, past tables of sailors, friends, regulars, and a few fishermen. For the third time since she’d come to work, Nora heard “You’re a Grand Old Flag” coming from the speakers.
Nora found him, towering above the others, on the bar porch. He stood at the rail, his head tilted back, watching the fireworks. Nora stood aside for a moment, taking in the flat plane of his tan cheeks, the sweep of his jaw line, the strength with which he gripped the porch rail. Nora eased closer. She stood beside him, and he smiled down.
An umbrella of blue and gold sparkles lit the sky, followed by a red lobster, its claws clicking. In the firelit glare, Nora looked across the small channel that separated Lobsterville’s porch and Keating’s Wharf. There, standing between two sturdy pilings, were her father, Cass, T.J., Belinda, Josie, Bonnie, Gavin, Emma, and Sean. As the red lobster flashed and disappeared, Nora saw Cass and Bonnie watching her.
“That’s my family over there,” she said.
“Wow, you’ve got a lot of them. A whole bunch of nieces and nephews?”
“Five altogether.”
“Will you look at that little one? She’s having herself a great old time.”
Nora looked at Josie, spellbound by the fireworks. “She can’t even hear the explosions, really,” Nora said, but her words were muffled by the next bang.
“What?” Willis asked, but Nora didn’t repeat herself.
She blinked at the momentary darkness. She felt Willis take her hand and hold it. “You folks sure put on a beautiful show,” Willis said.
“We do it every year,” Nora said with shy pride.
“And what a gorgeous place to watch from. One heck of a nice piece of property.” He slid a glance at Nora. “Did I tell you I’m in the real estate business?”
“I don’t think so,” Nora said.
“Have you kept to your plan, Nora?” Willis asked. “To quit smoking?”
“I have,” she said, amazement coming through in her voice.
Willis squeezed her hand, as if to direct her attention back to the fireworks. It didn’t matter why he had returned to Mount Hope; it only mattered that he had. A light breeze picked up. Nora shivered under her blue dress. Waiting for the pyrotechnics expert from Providence to set off his next charge, Nora leaned closer to Willis.
She watched her sisters across the narrow channel, surrounded by their families. For once, Nora didn’t feel so different. Blue streamers popped overhead. A silver cascade. Purple starbursts. The grand finale: jewels of azure, gold, scarlet, and emerald scattering into the harbor. Josie spun around, her arms waving as if she were a baton twirler leading the parade, to make sure Cass was watching. Sean jostled T.J., pointing up; Nora loved how fireworks could make her teenage nephews lose their cool. She wished she could catch her sisters’ eyes, but Cass and Bonnie had their heads tilted back, watching for the last silvery streaks to fade away.
Now Nora saw Cass kiss Josie, then run with Bonnie back to work. Nora turned to Willis, to tell him she had to go, too, when she noticed his gaze. He was staring at her with the sweetest expression. Then he brushed her throat, his touch tender as a feather.
“I hope you don’t mind,” he said.
“I don’t,” said Nora, because she knew what was happening, and she let him kiss her.
7
Aunt Nora is a slut, you know.” Emma had said it the other night, when everyone was together watching the fireworks. Aunt Nora was across the channel, leaning against some stranger with her eyes closed. Belinda hadn’t even noticed her. She had her head back, watching colors exploding everywhere, when Emma put her mouth against her ear: “Aunt Nora is a slut, you know.”
Now Belinda sat under a beech tree, shredding grass while she waited for Emma to come out of summer school. It felt dangerous, illicit, to be on school grounds instead of at the beach on such a hot July day. Everything looked different from the way it did during the school year. The parking lot, usually full of teachers’ cars, was empty except for five or six spots. The rolling green lawn had dried in patches to scorched brown straw. All the folding chairs lay stacked on the sidewalk as the custodian waxed the auditorium floor. There weren’t any kids around.
When Emma had said that Aunt Nora was a slut, Belinda had laughed and said, “I know what you mean.” Actually, she had been totally shocked to hear it. She had always thought of Aunt Nora as the old-fashioned type—very tightlaced, like an old lady’s shoe. Not at all fun-loving like her mother and Aunt Bonnie. She never brought men to family gatherings; in fact, Belinda couldn’t remember ever seeing Nora with a man. She used to dye her hair blond, and she smoked cigarettes like a movie star. Maybe that was why Emma had called her a slut.
Belinda had the idea she had to act dumb in order for Emma to like her. Emma had failed math and gotten a D in science, and Belinda had gotten straight A’s. But the fact was, Belinda felt dumb around Emma. Emma was beautiful, funny, and wicked, and she was always surprising Belinda. Her latest shocker was having her hair cut like a boy’s. Belinda couldn’t imagine doing it, but
on Emma it looked great.
Here she came now, across the schoolyard. All the other summer-school kids hung around the bike rack, laughing and talking loud, as if it were recess. Emma took long strides, but she didn’t seem in a hurry. She wore a dark-yellow sundress and black sunglasses; she had gelled her spiky hair. Emma was thirteen, same as Belinda, but she seemed so much cooler.
“You look fabulous,” Emma said theatrically, bending under the low branches to join Belinda.
“Are you serious?” Belinda said. But she posed anyway, elbow crooked, hand behind her head, like Marilyn Monroe. Belinda wore torn Guess? jean shorts, a flimsy cotton peasant blouse she’d borrowed from her mother, and flip-flops.
“It’s knowing how to sit,” Emma said. “You’re lying under this gorgeous tree, very mysterious in the shade. All those juvenile delinquents are wondering what the smartest kid in school is doing hanging around outside summer school.”
“I’m not the smartest kid.”
“Don’t be embarrassed.”
Belinda didn’t say anything. She didn’t want Emma thinking of her that way: Belinda, the smartest kid.
“Don’t look now, but you-know-who is watching you.”
“He is?” Belinda peeked from under her bangs. She was smiling like a maniac in spite of herself. Todd Evans was talking to kids at the bike rack, but he was definitely looking their way.
“He wants you,” Emma said.
“He’s probably looking at you.”
“No. He told me. He wanted me to ask you if you’ll go out with him.”
“Are you kidding?”
“No, but I’m not going to do it. He’s a jerk. You can do a lot better.”
Belinda felt flattered, but Emma didn’t know what she was talking about. Belinda had liked Todd since April. “What did he say?”
“He said …” Emma took off her sunglasses, raked some hair into her eyes, and let her lower lip protrude. She cleared her throat. “He said, ‘I wanta go out wit huh.’”
“He’s nice, Emma,” Belinda said, laughing but stung.
