Twillyweed

by Mary Anne Kelly

  “You don’t say!”

  “I do.”

  “Couldn’t you tell, Auntie Claire? How daft can you be?”

  I’m embarrassed to say my mouth quivered. “It seems you can live with a person and never know a single thing about who they really are!” I could feel the tears getting ready to let loose down my cheeks.

  But Jenny Rose encouraged, “That’s it. Cry. It will do you good.” With permission, it’s almost impossible to cry so I did not. I blew my nose into my napkin. Jenny Rose made a face. “We’re a fine pair, we are.” But my news seemed to have cheered her up. Together we had a rueful laugh, and I knew things were going to be all right between us. I noticed the young fellow who’d served us the tea was banging his tray lightly against his knees while he stood watching us. He had a handsome face with light blue eyes and dirty blond hair.

  “British, are you?” he asked us.

  “Fuck, no.” Jenny Rose scowled. “We’re Irish.”

  “Oh,” he said.

  The other customer, disgruntled that the server was paying him no attention, threw his left arm out to examine his watch in a display of irritation, gave an adamant call for his check, paid, and left. Then three more customers came in so the young man didn’t say any more, but when we were about to leave, he came over and asked Jenny Rose if he could see the drawing she’d done.

  “Sure,” she said, handing it over as she stood.

  “But,” he marveled, “this is wonderful!”

  “Keep it.”

  “Oh, but I didn’t mean—”

  “No, really. Keep it.”

  “Thank you,” he murmured wonderingly. He stood watching her go, she oblivious to his admiring expression. She sauntered off in that way she had, generous and carefree and good in her skin, unself-conscious­, a kid on a soccer field.

  “He was very keen,” I remarked when we stood squinting at each other outside in the sunshine, “and good looking.”

  “Sweet.” The way she said it explained him away with all the world-weary offhandedness of the young. I looked back at the young man, conscientiously returned to his work now. He wore no earrings or tattoos or other bad boy accoutrements to signal and lure a young girl artist like Jenny Rose. He wasn’t cool, but serious and intent. Nice. The kiss of death.

  “Well …” Jenny Rose hoisted her backpack up onto her shoulder and smiled. “It was grand to see you. Do you think you’ll come out here again?”

  “I was thinking I’d poke around Sea Cliff.” I remembered the cottage but decided it would be silly to mention it. It would most likely come to nothing. I shrugged. “Wait around for you to get off tonight. Take you to dinner, if you’re not too tired.”

  Her hazel eyes lit up. “I thought you said you had no money.”

  “Oh, I have money. I just don’t have money.”

  “Oh. Okay. Yeah, that’ll be great.”

  We traded cell-phone numbers and the both of us hurried off, the young man watching us go from the window.

  Jenny Rose

  She took the long way down to the pier. Her knees were trembling, and her heart thudded with disappointment. She’d just lollygag pointlessly around the marina, she told herself, having no heart to go shopping or visit the rectory. Aunt Claire was great, a real doll, but—Jenny Rose stopped on the shore and lit a cigarette—she’d been so sure she’d get to meet her mother. So sure! She pressed her back against a piling, sank down onto the dock, and looked up at the moving sky. There was no comfort. She felt nothing but desolate. If she’d had a joint, she’d have smoked it. Feeling herself watched, she looked up. There was that guy again. That cute guy on the pirate ship, now tethered to the dock. With something like rebellion, she jutted her chin out and stared right back at him and with no more encouragement than that, he hoisted himself over the prow of his boat and came across to her, moving with an elegant, catlike poise.

  “What’s your name?” was the first thing out of the side of his mouth. The emphasis was on the your. Like she was next in line.

  “Jenny Rose,” she answered, her eyes on the level of his worn, black jeans, “Jenny Rose Cashin. What’s yours?”

  “Malcolm McGlintock. But you can call me Glinty.”

  She looked him up and down with more coolness than she felt. He was, she smirked to herself, right up her alley.

  “Here on vacation?”

  You could get arrested for working without papers. “Sort of,” she replied, smiling.

  He tipped his head. “Irish?”

  “Yeah. Scots?”

  “That’s right.” His eyes circled her slowly, assessing her, taking in the tattoo, the devil-may-care eyes. She was thin, but curvy. Suddenly the sun broke through. Liking what he saw, he said, “Wanna see my boat?”

  She let him pull her up. “Why not?”

  They walked together across the reach, the glare so bright you could hardly see. Jenny Rose followed him along the heaving dock and onto his sloop. The boat was a two-master, painted all black, The Black Pearl Is Mine, with a white stripe of a railing, pine-colored wood on the deck with faded Moroccan red sails when they were unfurled, tied up neatly now. Jenny Rose felt herself go weightless with the ebb and flow of the deck, the sound of the bay sloshing against the prow. She followed him, this perfect stranger, beautiful as he was, down the hatch and into the cabin, with his long, lustrous black hair, and for a moment she thought of her mother, never there, never there for her, not even now after she’d come so far across the ocean. She touched his sleeve and he turned around and she raised her chin and opened her mouth and, understanding what she wanted, he kissed her. Through the grinding cloth she felt the stirring of his erection. Their eyes caught in the dark and now, winding into the rickety tight galley and before she could catch her breath, he fell with her onto the bunk, pinning her under him, kissing her neck while they undid each other’s jeans. His skin was milky white and dense, almost silver, with a fray of black hairs in a silky trail leading down. She saw him only swiftly, his pendulum toward her, as he lifted her leg and moved forward into her, his wet eyes catching hold of hers in the dark cabin. There was a moment when she flew away, propelled, and then, brought back to that elegant moment of staggering bliss, erupted. She’d felt that before, but never with someone, always alone under covers in her bed, and she pivoted into a frenzy of stillness, a clenching and then a gush without warning.

  “Jenny Rose,” he whispered and flinched.

  She was still in a spasm. She locked her knees up and she rattled again. “Oh, my God,” she breathed out, trickling down.

  “Wow,” he said, turning her face. “Most girls don’t get there so quick.”

  And she shuddered again.

  “That was awesome,” he said, getting up. He went into the head.

  She got sober quick. “Fuck,” she said, remembering. Patsy Mooney would be waiting, wondering what she was up to. She reached for her jeans. He was still in the loo. “I’ve got to go,” she called in.

  “Okay,” he called out. No Hold on, I’ll walk you home.

  She felt in the dark for her boots, grabbed her jacket, still trembling with the spinning of it, into the blinding brilliant sunlight. Just get away quick was all she could think. On the ladder over the side she hesitated. Just in case he would call up to her. No. No sound. She’d left her panties on the floor. Damn. Nobody around. A crass sound made her jump and she looked up on the prow, but it was only a crane, a small rangy one, watching her. A baby one, maybe. She buttoned up her jean jacket. She ran, footfalls muffled on the deck, past the spot on the beach from where she’d first seen him, alluring and smirking. The wind hit her and she was cold again now, so she continued running, under the cover of sunlight and end-of-May wet wind, up the hill, way, way up the hill to somewhere else, anywhere but here and who she knew she was.

  Claire

  I hung around, spent t
he day poking around the town, exploring the shops and the library, thinking I might run into Jenny Rose, but I never did. The low clouds had moved along and the evening was sunlit by the time I made my way down to the marina. It was a good way by foot and I was reminded again just how out of shape I’d become. There was a parking lot and then seven or eight rows of boats. I went into a restaurant called the Hideaway that catered to the sailors and occasional townies. It wasn’t serving dinner yet but someone who looked like he might be the owner—collared shirt and mildly prosperous looking—was sitting there with another man, a delivery man in a route uniform.

  “Excuse me.” I approached their table in the sudden dark and asked if they knew Noola’s son’s boat. They both shrugged. Behind the bar a wiry old fellow in an undershirt was carting a full pail of calamari entrails. He dumped the slimy lot into a bin, covered it, and shut it tight, then pulled a stogie from his mouth, and said to no one in particular, “That’ll be Morgan Donovan’s boat.”

  “Oh, Morgan!” they both said at once, sitting taller with the sure air of respect. They pointed me over toward the third dock. “He’s got that forty-foot sloop out there, the Gnomon. She’s docked right next to the schooner, the For Sail. Get it?” The route guy spelled it out. “For S-A-I-L?”

  “Ha-ha. I get it. Thanks.” I took off down the walkway and checked off the names of one pretty boat after the next. I don’t know anything about boats except I like to be on one. This sloop was navy blue and white and clean as a whistle. The Gnomon. It rocked gently in the flood of evening gold. “Hello!” I called. “Mr. Donovan!” There seemed to be no one there. I didn’t like to peek below deck. There was a bell, a big brass one, up on the deck and I climbed on board and pulled its cord so it clanged.

  A man’s head popped up, surprised, and whacked on the beam. “Jesus Christ!” he shouted, rubbing his head. He was a onetime redheaded, now amber-haired fellow, weathered tan from years of sun and fuzzed with gold. My first thought was, Uh-oh, he looks like a golfer.

  “What the hell’s wrong with you?” he yelled, and in what sounded to me like a Scottish accent he raved on, “Can’t you give a cry out before you come on board? You scared the crap out of me!”

  “I did.” I took two steps back. “You’re wearing earphones!”

  “What?” His eyes were greenish gold.

  “I said you’re wearing earphones!”

  “Oh!” He slipped them off and threw them violently down on his bench. “Well, you’ve done a fine job messing up me varnish!”

  I looked down and behind me and saw my own footprints. “Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry.”

  “Women.” He shook his head scornfully. And with that he picked me up bodily, flung me over his shoulder, and put me over the side.

  “Hey! Let me go!” I protested, but he already had.

  “It took me two hours to finish that job!” he flashed angrily.

  “Well, you should have put up a sign!” I shrieked with injured pride.

  He held up the pertinent sign he must have been working on when I’d surprised him. Only the last N and T were missing. His face was all sucked in with fury. “What the hell do you want, anyway?” he growled.

  I spat on a tissue and wiped his red paint print from my arm. “I was wondering what you’re doing with the cottage up on the cliff.”

  He searched my eyes for a long moment and held them. Then with this crushed look he turned from me. He sort of sagged.

  I remembered what the neighbor had said. His mother only dead three weeks. “Look …” I stammered, “I’m really sorry. I sure know how to start off on the wrong foot. I’ll come back later.” I don’t know what I thought he’d do. Say something conciliatory, I guess. But he whirled on me and shouted, “Just don’t come back at all. Just leave well enough alone!”

  “Okay. Okay.” I tried to sound soothing and I tripped, backward, away up the deck. Sheesh, I thought, rubbing my arm, what a grouch! I cleared the marina and stomped back up the beach road, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember which cliff stairs I’d come down. All I could think was what an unnecessarily rude, cantankerous man he was! And so strong, picking me up like that! He’d made me feel like a foolish little girl. I realized I was trembling. I stopped walking and sank down onto the nearest bottom step and as I did so I heard a harsh ripping sound. It was my pants. Or should I say, Carmela’s (that I hadn’t yet mentioned to her that I’d borrowed) good interview pants. They were split soundly up the back. If I’d have had a cigarette, I think I’d have smoked it. And now the best part, Carmela’s fancy shoes—the ones she was so finicky about—were absolutely crusted with varnish. They looked caramelized. It all seemed to catch up with me. My marriage. Now Enoch. I let my head down and this time I did cry, cried my heart out, my face cradled on my knees at the bottom of the dock shelf. I just collapsed and crumpled into a mush of mascara raccoon eyes and tears. Then, just to make everything perfect, the man from the boat, Morgan whatever his name was, came up the road. He was carrying my purse.

  “I believe this belongs to you,” he said and plunked it down at my feet, removing his eyes from the sorry sight of me. But I was beyond caring. My nose, he didn’t have to tell me, was running like a hose. A hose! I collapsed again into wretched sobs.

  He handed me his handkerchief and squared his fists to his hips, seemingly oblivious to my hysterics. “I keep telling you people to leave me alone. Don’t you have any respect?” he went on. “You people think all I’m interested in is the lure of your money.”

  I reared up in dismay. “Hold on a second.” I snorted disdainfully, for I, too, am (or was) a hotheaded red-head. “While we people demystify our-our-our tantalizing allure.” I gave a meaningful good honk into his pristine handkerchief, dredged up what was left of my shreds of dignity, and stood to go. My feet, however, were already stuck to the ground with his quick drying varnish and I fell like a tree on my nose.

  Jenny Rose

  She hung up the phone. No answer. Again. All evening she’d been calling, and here it was night. This was odd. She wouldn’t have pegged Auntie Claire as one to let you down. She went upstairs to the kitchen. Wendell was still sitting at the table with Patsy Mooney. He was eating creamed corn with a spoon and picking at a saucer of torn-up little bits of deli ham. He was having trouble with the spoon, however, and the creamed corn leaked onto the tablecloth.

  “Not like that.” Patsy Mooney picked his little hand up and smacked it.

  The little boy did nothing. Said nothing. He was locked in a shell.

  Jenny Rose strolled in. “Hello.” She smiled and sat down next to him.

  “He don’t like to be talked to while he’s eating.” Patsy Mooney leaned over and mopped the table around Wendell’s plate. “Don’t you get up until you finish every bit of what’s on that plate, mister,” she said, aiming her pointer finger at the boy.

  “Oh, go soak your head,” Jenny Rose said.

  “Excuse me? What was that?”

  Jenny Rose batted her eyelashes innocently. “What? No, nothing. So. Wendell. Would you like to go for a stroll?”

  “A walk?” Patsy Mooney shrieked. “In the dark? He gotta finish his supper!”

  “Where’s your jumper, cookie?” Jenny Rose took the boy by the hand. “Your sweater?”

  “And he got his programs to watch!”

  Wendell slipped to the floor and they went out into the hall where he pointed to the mackintosh hung on the coat tree.

  “Close enough,” Jenny Rose said and unhooked the thing and put it on the boy. It practically reached the floor, but he’d be warm.

  Patsy Mooney trotted after them and ranted on, “I’m not taking this crap just because Mr. Cupsand is in the city and isn’t here to see! You doing whatever you feel like! Radiance taking off without even asking! Mr. Piet taking the car! What the hell do I look like? What’ll Mr. Cupsand say?” She sank onto the hal
lway chair. “Now Noola’s dead it’s all gone wrong.”

  He wasn’t sure what would happen next, the boy, but Jenny Rose had the distinct feeling he was game. He watched them both from behind his thick glasses, his bad eye dancing with the stress and his lips pulled tight, like closed purse strings. Jenny Rose put her own soft beret on the boy’s feathery hair and out they went, down the great steps. They walked along, hand in hand, under the glittering branches. Jenny Rose could smell the earth, rich and loamy. She wasn’t going to bring up the stones. Not yet. One thing at a time. There were plenty of houses to look into. The moon was a sickle but bright. “That’s an American sky, Wendell. And a new moon,” Jenny Rose informed him, remembering her Sikh driver. “Good luck.”

  She began to hum. And then, just when she thought the kid had started to cry and she felt her heart sink, she heard the shred of a tinny sound of a sort of a hum. Like a song. Not a song, but almost.

  Claire

  He’d driven me very swiftly, I must say, to the hospital. I’d telephoned my mother on the way to tell her I’d be staying out here with Jenny Rose.

  “Jenny Rose, is it?” My mother flew into a rage. “You’ve been drinking! I can hear it in your voice. Drinking and driving! What kind of a good influence is that?!”

  I’d shifted the paper towel wad soaked with blood from my nose so she’d understand me. “Yes, Mother,” I’d agreed, just to spare her a sleepless night, “that’s why I can’t be driving anywhere. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  Morgan had stuck me on top of a blanket in his car—his precious upholstery to be protected—maneuvered me into the emergency room, stayed at my elbow while they’d signed me in, and then he’d walked out and left me there. He should have called an ambulance because then they take you first. I was good and sorry for myself, let me tell you, and I wanted, for the time being, to stay that way.

  They did their battery of outlandishly expensive, agonizingly long tests that go on sporadically through the night and always just when you’re dropping off. I checked my cell phone. Not one message! I yearned for a toothbrush and a change of clothes. It was my second day, now, in Carmela’s go-to-the-city-look-for-a-job clothes. But I couldn’t call her. Both my sisters were in Italy, remember, dining on anchovies and Gorgonzola. Drinking wine from Orvieto. I was all alone. Nobody cares, I thought as I sniveled. I waited and waited, crackers from painkillers, for the plastic surgeon to come and have a look at me. Sprawled on my creaking gurney, I floated in and out of a doze while the night passed in white emergency light North Shore noise.