by Minot, Susan
Mr. Wittenborn did not hear. He inhabited a solitary column unpenetrated by those around him. Through the crowd Harris Arden was making his way toward them. Ann could feel him getting nearer.
Good evening, he said first to Mr. Wittenborn, and bowed his head. Hello Ann.
Mr. Wittenborn broke out of his oblivion for one strange moment and pointed a loose finger at Harris. Why don’t you marry this one? he said.
Ann looked down and blushed. The heel of her shoe wobbled and she nearly fell. Harris Arden looked at her. She sipped her drink.
Oh I’m not good enough for her, he said, holding his stare.
I stopped wondering about you after a while. It took too much out of me.
If that’s what you had to do, he said.
It’s not what I wanted to do. The whole thing was not what I wanted.
No.
But it was the only thing. What else could I do?
Nothing. You did the best you could. We both did.
There wasn’t much of a choice, she said.
We did our best.
Maybe I should have done something, she said. Maybe I could have …
What?
Her eyes looked this way and that. I don’t know. Just not … I don’t know. Maybe done something drastic.
Like what?
I don’t know. But something. Just not let it happen the way it did.
Some things you can’t help.
Think of how different it would have been, she said.
You think so?
Of course. I mean … She thought for a moment. I mean …
What?
You’re right, she said. It couldn’t have been different.
The branches came in through the window, their leaves yellow and curling. They wound around the desk lamp and along the bookshelf and coiled around the bedposts. She looked up at the ceiling. There were leaves all over it. Leaves were crawling down her throat, goldenrod was shaking like a windstorm in the corner, purple lupin sprung up across the foot of the bed and ticked side to side like a metronome. Purple buds flew off into a purple tornado. But the bed remained steady, the bed didn’t blow. Hope had changed direction, toward the past. Things shook through the night and at dawn she saw humming red-shelled bugs trembling on the branches as they gnawed through.
At the entrance each person took a small envelope with a sailboat embossed on it saying which number table he or she was at. The woman overseeing the seating was the same woman who organized the raffle benefits for the school. She also worked in the post office. The waiters and the people back in the kitchen all lived on the island year round. There was the boy who pumped the one gas pump carrying a bucket of ice, and the girl who worked behind the penny candy counter waiting with clasped hands by the swinging doors. All the guests being served were summer residents.
Ollie Granger stopped and introduced his girl. She had curly hair and a squinting smile and looked about fourteen except for her smoking a cigarette and wore, Ann noticed, a nice pin in the shape of a chrysanthemum.
Lily, he said, this is Ann. She’s the woman I would have married if she hadn’t turned me down.
Ann Grant used to see Oliver Granger at dances in Cambridge. She vaguely remembered canceling a dinner date, she’d been seeing Vernon then. Or was it Malcolm? She couldn’t remember, but it was hardly a romance. But Ollie Granger was always a flirt. He was handsome in a bulldog sort of way and always flattering. At any rate Lily didn’t seem in the least distressed by his comments and continued to smile at Ann.
She said hello to the Finches, an older couple she’d seen at the sailing teas. Mrs. Finch in a lavender dress leaned toward Ann and said wasn’t it smart of Lila to have the dinner in this fog so not everyone could come. Mr. Finch stood by silently. She looks like a garden party, said Mrs. Finch as Gigi came toward them.
We’re supposed to sit down, Gigi said, looking over their heads, searching for something.
Of course we are, said Mrs. Finch. Gilbert, do you think we’ll ever find our table?
Mr. Finch scratched at his small envelope. With great application, he said, and they walked off together.
Gigi twisted around like a horse pulling at a tight bit, scanning the room, and Ann saw her eyes fire up a little when her gaze landed on Harris Arden.
Well it is her big thing, her stuff, Constance said. That’s what she cared about, her house and her pictures and all her things.
I wish you would stop talking about her in the past tense, Teddy said.
She liked gardens, Margie said. Margie was now doing landscaping work. This, after classes in anthropology, cooking school and studying sculpture.
Let’s face it, she was a material person, Constance said.
Is, Teddy said.
She told me once she wanted to be a nun, Nina said. She was on the floor in black shorts and an unraveling tank top pressing her forehead to one knee then the other. The living room doors were open to the garden. Their mother had put in a fountain at the far end of the lawn which made a soothing gurgling sound when it was on, but no one had thought to turn the water on.
Give me a break, Constance said.
I’m telling you, Nina said. She said so when I was doing Agnes of God.
It’s a knee-jerk Catholic thing, Margie said. All Catholic girls think it at some point.
I never did, Nina said, rotating her torso end extending her arms.
Do you think we should get a priest? I mean, does she want to see one? Margie said.
No one voiced an opinion.
Finally Constance said, Wouldn’t she ask?
There was silence in the living room. Nina puffed in measured breaths. Then she stood up, put earphones on her ears and jogged out the door.
I think I’ll call Paris, Constance said, getting up. Teddy hit a chair back and followed. Margie stood up quickly. In seconds they had evacuated the room.
Ann had Buddy on one side and Ralph Eastman on the other. Two small blue presents tied with white ribbon sat on her plate. She opened the larger, a burlap pillow with a stencil of a pinecone, hard and new. Out of Lila’s hearing Gail Slater said she had three already. Lizzie Tull wanted to compare the little silver perfume flasks to make sure they were identical. Lila’s initials were on one side, her bridesmaids’ on the other. Harris was seated between Gigi and Gail. The wineglasses trembled in the candlelight. Buddy got up and came back, each time returning with a fresh gin and tonic.
Can I get you anything? said Ralph. He unfolded his napkin and lay it on his lap.
I’m very happy thank you, Ann said.
Yes, Ralph said. You look it.
She had known Ralph Eastman longer than she’d known the Wittenborns and it occurred to her how some people continued through no design of one’s own to be in one’s life while others might initially enter in a sort of blaze and seem to change everything but then might not stay around. She had never sought Ralph Eastman out, reliable Ralph with his pressed shirts and shined shoes, always on time. She did not know then what she knew now lying on her bed that she and Ralph would continue to cross paths and would know each other all their lives and his presence would turn out to be one of the more consistent threads in her life. Ralph was at two of her three weddings—no guests were at the first—he was often in Europe when she was there. He would have been at the funerals, too, though her memory of the funerals was blurred, but she could be sure of that, of Ralph Eastman’s being there. In fact he and his wife Kit had been at her bedside that very morning.
The waiter put a smaller plate on top of the one there. Clams casino. Ann knew the menu.
Across the table Gigi was whispering into Harris Arden’s ear. He stayed still, watching her hands move in little waves above the table, then glancing at her low neckline and cleavage. A prickly uncomfortable feeling came over Ann.
A wet washcloth scooped under her armpits. She was propped up with her head dropped forward. Her back was being rubbed.
Ted was rubbing her back, they we
re in a brass tub facing the same way with Ted’s legs around her hips, outside was Wyoming and a ranch he was rubbing her back with soap he reached around with the soap and washed her in front he pulled her back washing slowly got under her pulled her up outside was the night deep brown and somewhere the horses they’d ridden that day and the bleached green sage and pointed peaks against the clouds the dim light sconces threw unfamiliar shadows she was splayed out new rooms inspired Ted he spread her knees her feet were balanced on the thin rim he was rubbing the bar of soap murmuring in her ear telling her what he was going to do in Ted’s arms it was like being on a trip to a place she never would have gone on her own he was fierce sometimes he made low guttural sounds and afterward sitting across from him as he cut his steak it was hard to see the same man she’d seen in bed or the same power then even that changed became blunted the more he drank the more his embraces became abrupt his feeling dulled he began to panic and the more fierce he became lunging without feeling desperate to be close coming at her without warning but it wasn’t working he wasn’t getting through to himself he’d been padded he could not feel the softness of skin or smell her hair soon drinking was the only thing gave him a feeling and one he could count on and the lashing out came with the frustration till finally only violence provided him with genuine feeling and afterward feelings of remorse and shame and self-loathing were the only real feelings he was left with and he had not the least idea why
One night they gave a dinner and the guests took their drinks outside in the mild air and sat facing the water halfway down the long lawn. Ann Stackpole went to get more tonic and through the lit window of the kitchen saw her husband and Collie Shepley. Collie Shepley was wearing a pink sweater and Ted had his hands on her breasts. Once playing a parlor game Collie Shepley had screamed at Lizzie Brocaw for embracing Dan when they won a point. Don’t you ever put your hands on my husband again! Ann walked up the steps slowly, knocking the railing, giving them time to separate and at that moment snapped off the final thread of Ted in her mind.
Though she lived on with him for a year after, imagining how it would be with him gone, not having to hear his unsteady footsteps on the stairs in the middle of the night after a visit to the liquor cabinet. So after when he was gone she thought about him little.
Smooth stones hung in the air and one by one dropped down. She’d not known how much the sound of stones clicking together meant to her till she heard them now.
Rain fell quietly outside. Just try to eat a little. She traveled to the other side of the bed and looked down at men working in a web of ropes and ladders with shirts off covered with sweat and mud caked at their ankles and a clanging machine at the bottom of the pit. Dishes were being stacked in the kitchen and high heels banged on a wooden porch and the tock tock tock of hammering went on through the night. She tried to make the pain small to keep it from invading every part it’s coming in from the south it blew by white and all was obscured again.
She liked watching him across the table, she liked looking at the wide line of his shoulders in the dark jacket. His chair scraped back when Lila got up and scraped again when she returned. He held his fork still, listening to Buddy tell of the first time Lila brought Carl home and how they never stopped holding hands. Gigi’s food lay untouched on her plate, tomato aspic, lamb chops, Dauphine potatoes. The rolls were round and hollow. The dessert plates came, whipped cream hiding the cobbler, and Ralph Eastman stood. Tap tap tap, silver on glass. The chatter in the room dwindled. Ralph Eastman looked down at a piece of paper.
What Ralph said was forgotten.
Mr. Wittenborn swiveled stiffly and spoke of how much it meant to be a father, never once looking in the direction of the bride. Lizzie Tull, clutching her throat and giggling, listed the names of Lila’s old beaux and why each didn’t deserve her. Carl’s friend Monty stood up at the same time as Oliver Granger and Ollie being less gracious won out. His toast left everyone perplexed, something about Carl fixing a motorboat and not being a sailor. Then Monty stood up and in a honeyed Southern accent said simply he wished he were marrying Lila himself.
One of the Holt boys made everyone laugh and Carl’s mother spoke so softly at the far end of the room no one could hear. Gail read a rhyming poem in a shaky voice about growing up with Lila. Carl’s nine-year-old nephew stood up on a chair and recited “When You Are Old” making everyone tear up. Buddy spoke robustly and thanked Carl for loving his sister and making her happy.
While Mr. Cutler rambled on Ann slipped to the corner shadows and after the raised glasses and hear hears the musical combo started and as she had promised Lila she would Ann sang. A waiter shut off the wall lights and the candles turned the flowers into black shadows. The fog against the windows was as dense as quartz and Ann Grant sang “Our Love Is Here to Stay” in a low unhurried voice. The tables were dark islands with glowing centers and shadowy figures around them. She faced Lila and Carl’s table and made out Harris Arden’s brow darker than anything else in the room.
She finished, there was applause. The odd thing about applause was how sometimes it was hollow and at other times seemed to overflow. This was not hollow. Ann Grant came back to the table keeping her mouth pressed together and Lila squeezed her hand and the band launched into a lively beat. The summer residents of Three O’Clock Island were not quick to dance, they preferred to drink. A couple from Carl’s side of the family not knowing any better moved into the small area cleared in front of the hopeful band and hitched their feet together in little shuffling motions. Ann thought it looked like fun but group habits are not fickle and no one joined the dancers.
He sat with her in the early evening while the nurses were changing shifts and conferring in the next room. He sat with his book shut on his knee and looked at her sleeping. Her face was altogether changed from even a few months before and he stared at it. He had never looked for such a long time at her face and probably hadn’t seen her sleeping since he was a boy standing uncertain by her bed not daring to wake her. He wondered if this would be the image which would stay with him of her mouth stretched over her teeth slightly parted and her skin smooth as china. The bones were prominent in her cheeks and the skeleton apparent beneath had the mute wisdom of a mountain range. The face had taken on something beyond the personality of his mother and the new face beneath seemed to say, This is what it comes to in the end, this is what we all are, this will come even to you.
He was not what she thought after all. Turned out Harris Arden was a superficial person who only appeared substantial. He had hardly spoken to her all night. Only when it was time to leave did he come up to her and ask her if she wanted to walk back with him. So he would see her only if they were alone? Well. O.K. she’d walk back with him, but the scales had been lifted from her eyes. He had talked with nearly everyone but her. Now what was he doing? He took the presents and tissue paper out of her hand and put them in his pocket.
In the fog the streetlights were fuzzed. The air was padded and as they walked their voices sounded strange and clear and isolated. Ann Grant walked a few feet from him with her arms folded across her chest.
That was beautiful when you sang, he said. You really should keep singing.
I would if I were good enough. I’m not.
I think you are.
You’re being nice.
No I’m not. I really think so.
You’re nice, she said stiffly. You’re always nice.
Not always, he said. She could tell he was not thinking of her. They walked in silence.
Is something the matter? he said.
Not at all.
You seem angry about something.
She shrugged. A foghorn blew.
Then she told him in a tone which showed she didn’t particularly care that she did think he’d not been very friendly tonight. When she turned to see how he’d take this he was smiling. He reached for her hand.
I was worried about seeming too friendly, he said.
Her hand remained limp.
Ann? His voice caught deep like a hook. She’s coming tomorrow. I don’t want it to be too awkward.
His hand was warm but she didn’t hold it back.
I want her to know as soon as possible. But not here.
His warm hand was lovely.
It would be too hard. I have to wait till we get back to Chicago.
She took small steps in her heels and walked nearer to him. He was right, but she didn’t have to like it. He lifted her hand to his chest. They were on a strip of road with no houses.
Ann.
I’m always in the dark with you, she said.
Will you come see me in Chicago?
I don’t know.
You won’t?
I don’t know.
The road turned and up ahead were blurred lights with spaces between them. It was like walking on air.
You must.
She stopped and looked at him. I don’t know, she said in a different way, and leaned against him. He lifted her face and turned it toward the fuzzy light coming off a porch.
God, he said looking.
He kissed her and she kissed him back.
How did this happen? he said and they kissed again.
They walked slowly and he kept his arm tight around her. They crossed the bridge at Bishops Harbor and her footsteps in heels made the hollow sound of crossing an empty stage. She felt as if they were made out of fog.
Come here, he said suddenly. I want to show you something. He took her arm and led her off the road onto the gravel edge then over the wet grass. She hoped he wouldn’t let go his grip. He brought her under a tree where the fog had not gotten to and the night was darker and stood her against the bark. Here, he said and pressed against her. I want to crush you.
She was pulling a rope out of the water and knew it was coming to the end when the barnacles started to appear and they became more thick and clustered. Then it was strangely peaceful and the sound was turned off. She stood at the bow of a ship. If only she could have stood this way above the water and really breathed and let the waves go by like pages being turned and watched everything more closely and chosen things more carefully then she might have been able to read the spirit within herself and would not have spent her life as if she were only halfway in it.
