by Anne Fall
Still, Sylvia found herself enjoying this less salubrious part of town. It felt like an insider's tour. David pointed out the little shops he liked, the concealed benches they could sit on in privacy, and the local cats that prowled around. During his childhood, he had the liberty of running around town freely, and he knew the secret places, the hidden treasures well.
He returned Sylvia to Ella on time; Ella had very little to say but watched them. Sylvia felt abruptly exhausted, worn from holding herself tall and chin high. She was learning to carry herself as if a stack of books was piled on her head, a posture she used to practise as a child, with her mother laughing as the books toppled down.
CHAPTER 6
The next night, David came to take Sylvia away on the boat trip. It was simple for her to escape the house and her aunt. They easily swallowed the lie she told them, almost happy to see her go. It was as if she hampered them with her presence in the house.
"I didn't know if you'd come." He looked behind her at the house. She turned and looked, too. It was a large house with clean lines, and there were subtle but assured signs of wealth. Still, it was not gauche. It was not that imposing. It was mostly the nearness of the ocean, an unavoidable distinction, a proclamation of rank. What must he think of her?
"Of course I did." Sylvia climbed behind him without waiting for him to ask, free again. The ride, cutting through the darkening air, felt like the ride last night. It was happening again, right then, so fast. This is now, she thought.
The motorcycle brought them to the docks. Boat after boat lined up in grandeur and self-importance. The larger boats were prominently placed towards the entrance to the docks, and the smaller vessels lost on the ends. Status loomed around Sylvia in white sleek lines. The boats had names, and she read them while remembering walking in a graveyard as a child, sounding out the odd last names and the familiar ones.
Leading her down one of the docks, David took her to a medium sized boat near the end. The boat was painted with the name ‘Wash Ashores’ in dark blue.
"What does that mean, the name?" She pointed at it.
" ‘Wash Ashores’? I suppose you wouldn't know, would you? I don't know if other beach towns use it or not, but it means someone who is new to Cape Cod, not a native. There are a lot of old families here. Ours isn't that deeply rooted. We moved here maybe thirty years ago? They used to call my father a ‘wash ashore’. He always liked the sound of it." He helped her aboard, calmly preparing to leave the dock. "I suppose it's an insult, but we try to own who we are. We're not rich or an old family. The boat was very important to my father. We scraped and saved. It's why I drive the motorcycle instead of a car. Here, having a boat is more important than what you drive around town in. It's different. My step-mother always reminds us that Christ called fishermen to be his apostles. She's a good woman, a good Catholic woman." He nodded as he spoke, affirming what he said. "She prays for us every time we go out."
David was busy for the first hour or so, managing the boat in the sea. The further out they went, the more still Sylvia felt. He seemed to be able to handle the boat, but there were times he clearly needed someone else to help, but he somehow endured.
After a time, he came to sit with her. The boat drifted in the steady lapping of the water. It was not like the roaring waves of the shore, rather it was the gentle rise and fall of a chest. The moon was brighter than she had ever seen it, and it cast remarkable shadows.
"When are you going home? At the end of the summer?" The subject changed the familiar tone of his voice. He sounded tentative.
"I think so. Whenever the divorce is over. I don't know, really. I'm in limbo, you know?"
"Why are they divorcing?" He kept his eyes on her face which did not allow her to study him.
"My mother thinks my father had an affair." It was a confession, something that no one in her circle would have admitted to each other.
"My mom died when I was eight." The ocean wind brought his voice forward and then stole it away.
“I’m so sorry. You must miss her.”
"I do."
"You know, I don't know how I got here. I barely remember." The forces of discretion and the need for frankness wrestled. How she still longed and sought to be understood. It was years later that the sensation stopped, halted by the belief that no one would understand.
"I think I know how you got here." His tone turned playful, light. "The first time I saw you, after that swim, you looked lost, like a shipwreck survivor, washed up on the beach." Sylvia smiled and turned her chin up to meet his.
"The first time I saw you, you looked like the shore."
Sylvia Marie Hinshaw was fourteen, and David Samuel Nickerson was seventeen. They thought they were in love. Maybe they were.
CHAPTER 7
The days passed slowly. Sylvia and David were only able to see a very little of each other. Spending more and more time within the household, the world of its occupants became less opaque. Sylvia watched them rummaging their hearts for love and peace without success. Phone calls from her mother were short and heart-wrenching.
During that time, a three night party on the beach approached that required massive tents to be set up. Adam worked hard in the sand alongside the catering company, shirtless and purposeful. Tables were placed inside the tents, and every night of the party, fresh flowers were to be brought down in the cool of the evening, when the hot sun would not sap their strength. Crates of wine and champagne, portly kegs of beer, wheels of good cheese, and pink seafood on ice arrived. Vivian and Catherine clapped their hands like delighted children. It was enjoyable, and Sylvia began to help them with the planning.
The Friday night that commenced the entertainment, guests trickled in early. All the bedrooms in the house were to be filled up. Hanna worked in a flurry of activity. She occasionally fed Sylvia and made sure she had plenty of tea. She barely spoke to her except to remind her to keep her bedroom door locked at night, there being strangers in the house. Other than that, they neglected her.
For the next three days, the house stayed in a continual state of splendor. How it was managed, Sylvia could not say. The home ran resolutely with Hanna at the helm. Cut flowers leisurely died everywhere.
The first night, champagne delated in flutes left scattered over the property. Guests were flushed with it. Giddy and laughing, they forgot their first and second glasses and looked for fresh ones. Glass hurricane shades with pale pillar candles lit the path to the beach. Food was served on two large buffets, one in the house, and one on the beach. The best side of the party was on the beach. At the house remained the older couples and sandy, unhappy children. On the sand, there was a shunning of propriety, as if it was not allowed there. Grown men chased women along the surf, splashing and spinning in the waves.
Conversations near Sylvia consisted of men railing against politics and women trading secrets. Life here was an eternal summer, hidden from the other seasons. It appeared that anything went. The dialogue ranged from heated rows to hilarity.
Sylvia saw their faces as imprecise and exaggerated representations of themselves, too lurid with wine and sun. Underneath, there was a current of uncomplicated instinct. The beauty of the flowers, champagne, and flickering light of the candles were required to allow something to appear, almost spell-like in their properties.
Standing, Sylvia stepped away from her table with a glass of champagne in her hand, and no one noticed. She walked into the distance, towards the rise and fall of the beach dunes. Settling among the ever-slipping hills, she found herself hidden and reveled in the seclusion. She sipped the champagne quickly. The rough sea grass rasped in the wind. She felt safe, nestled in a cradle.
As she knew he would, Eric came to her. He stood on the tallest point of the dune behind her, watching her in the sand. Sylvia pretended not to see him but straightened her posture, which must have given her away. After that, he walked towards her, barefoot on the sand that slipped away and fell under his step.
"You're a
lways running away from your aunt's parties. Why is that?" It was the first time they had spoken alone since Catherine had asked her to go upstairs to him.
"I don't like them. You know I don't belong here." It was to be embraced, the sense of isolation as superiority.
"You fit in well enough. Imagine being the starving artist of the group." He laughed as he said it, pleasantly taken by the cliché. "I want to go home just as much as you do."
"Why don't you like it here?" Insolently, Sylvia sipped her champagne in front of him.
"It's a temporary place for us. There's something very dangerous about that, surreal. It makes what we do less significant or separate from us. A beach town isn't home—it's an escape. People do all sorts of things when they're escaping. Things they're ashamed of later and forget, if they can." He was running sand through his fingers as he spoke, and he reminded her of an hourglass.
"Why are you painting me?"
"Why shouldn't I? Innocent girlhood is as paintable as ripe womanhood." She felt a twinge of annoyance. He had invented himself as an artist. Artists were permitted a certain licence; excuses could be made for their behaviour.
"I have to say that to me all womanhood seems to be is a state of disappointment."
"Disappointment? What do you mean by that?" There was sand in the last sip of his champagne.
"I mean, look at the women around us. Don't you see they are drowning in disappointment? If you had seen what I had seen…"
"Do you think I don't know what you've seen, Sylvia? I am not blind." He straightened. "What, may I ask you, do you think manhood is? A triumph? What do you think the disappointment of our women does to us?" Sylvia stood up, turning her back on him. "Sylvia, I'm sorry."
"It doesn't matter. I don't know or care." Neither of them spoke but listened to the party behind them, aware again of the others.
"Catherine told me you have a young man." He stated it calmly, carefully picking his words.
"She shouldn't have told you. He's just my friend."
"Is he?" Questioning her, his voice understood her denial and accepted it but still waited for her to deny it once more.
"Yes. He's not like the rest of you. This isn't his temporary life."
"A fisherman. A fisherman with a motorcycle, says our Catherine. I see." He took a long pause, not to form a response but to soften it. "It must be strange to live here the year round. You won’t live here the whole year, Sylvia. Catherine and I are not the only ones who are temporary. You're going to go home, after a fashion. Do you think you're temporary to him?"
"Why would you say that to me? I've had enough. You should go back to Catherine. I don't think she likes you speaking to me." Her words deliberately carved out a place for a question.
"Why do you think that?"
"It's the painting, don't you see?" She went away from Eric the way one leaves a hospital. Frightened and sweating, the knowledge of her vitality weakened her with thanks. She would escape this, and they would not. She walked up the lawn towards the house where children played and laughed on the front porch. It was the happiest she had seen the house.
CHAPTER 8
The next two days of the party passed in the same haze as the night before. At breakfast, tall Bloody Marys were served in highball glasses, poured from great pitchers of them. Their scent was repulsive to Sylvia but seemed to help the others. Golden piles of pancakes and French toast covered the sideboard with cinnamon scents. Sticky maple syrup spilled onto the tablecloth in perfect amber drops.
The night that followed was wild enough to enable Sylvia to steal away with David. She dressed warmly and thoughtfully looked at her appearance in the mirror. She turned this way and that to see herself.
The party was in the woods outside of town. David parked the motorcycle and rolled it into the trees to hide it. She could smell the bonfire at the edge of the woods. The pine needles slid under her feet, and Sylvia gradually saw the light of it through the trees. David kept her hand in his when they came into view. Male voices called out to David, greeting him with jovial laughter.
The firelight threw light against and through the trees. Sylvia had never liked the woods. There had been a heavily wooded glade near her parents’ home. It was not a place where she played. Sylvia felt on edge, unsure of her ability to find her way back to the road without David. At home, the forest was a being that climbed and descended the mountains. If you could just walk down the hillsides, you would find your way out. Here, it was so flat. How would you know which way to go? You'd be lost, gone, immersed.
Near her, there was a girl with soft brown curls and gold flecked eyes. She leaned toward Sylvia and introduced herself. She searched Sylvia's face.
"I'm Mary Katherine. How do you do?"
"I'm Sylvia, Sylvia Hinshaw. It's nice to meet you." Sylvia could tell Mary Katherine had already heard of her. What had she heard?
"Are you here for the summer?" Shining in the firelight, Mary Katherine's skin had the same gold as her eyes.
"Yes, I'm staying with my aunt and uncle." Her words sounded repetitious to her. Everyone asked her this, asked her to define herself with whether she lived or vacationed here.
"I live here year round. You can’t imagine the winters.”
"It's my first time up here. My parents usually take vacations in North Carolina."
"So, you're not a regular?"
"No, not at all. My aunt and uncle have a house here."
"Oh, I see." While Sylvia struggled to separate herself from the rest of the summer people, it was clear that to Mary Katherine there was no difference.
"I think I saw you in downtown, walking with Ella Overbrook."
"Probably. Her grandmother is a friend of my aunt and uncle. Our friendship is something like an arranged marriage."
"You're dating David?" The polite smile on Mary Katherine's face disappeared.
"I think so. We're seeing quite a bit of each other. I really don't know what we're doing." Sylvia turned to face David, but he was talking to a friend, laughing at a joke she had not heard.
"Where are you from?"
"Virginia." Sylvia looked off into the woods, sure she had heard something rustling there.
"What's it like there?" Mary Katherine watched Sylvia's eyes, and in turn looked towards the woods.
"It's beautiful. My parents have a little farm. We have horses. Four of them. There are mountains, and it's green as Ireland this time of year…." Out of the woods stumbled four boys and two girls. They were laughing, and two boys held four cases of beer like trophies.
"Here we are!" The crowd around the fire cheered and clapped. Beers were passed around to everyone in the circle. Sylvia took one, laughing with the rest. The beer was cold and bitter. It seemed to go so well with the salty air, the bread-like yeastiness of it. The people laughed and turned the wet bottles up together, toasting something she had not heard.
Sylvia had to use the bathroom, but she waited as long as she could before she turned to Mary Katherine. The beer went through her so quickly, and she was uncomfortably full. Her stomach felt like a balloon, like she had eaten a large meal.
"Where do we use the bathroom?"
"In the woods, here; do you want me to come with you? I have to go, too."
"Okay." The two of them stood after Sylvia excused herself to the distracted David.
Entering the darkness of the woods frightened her, and Sylvia stayed close to Mary Katherine. Far enough away not to be seen but close enough to still see a hint of the firelight, the two of them paused. It was the first time Sylvia had to relieve herself outdoors. The scene felt like a ritual.
"How do we do this?" The two of them erupted into giggles. The hilarity of the situation brought them together immediately in a rush that managed to step over the months of formality it would have taken to bring them to intimacy.
"Don't worry, I won't look at you." So achingly lady-like in spite of her circumstances, Mary Katherine lifted her skirt around her in modesty and pulled d
own her panties. Allowing her skirt to balloon out like a bell, she crouched down and passed water with their amusement ringing out in the woods.
After Sylvia had drunk her third beer, the world warmed around her. The trees loomed even taller, but she was no longer afraid of them. Her voice became dauntless, and she spoke out without fear, muffled by the humming conversations around her. Vulgar jokes burst out, and girls blushed and boys fawned. To steady herself, Sylvia tried to focus her eyes through the canopy of the dense trees to find the stars, but she could not see any. The sky was heavily overcast and her vision indistinct. She danced with David that night while the wind picked up and threw the flames of the fire the same way it threw the waves. The radio that the boys with the beer had brought played out achingly sweet love songs as the evening wore on. Sylvia breathed deeply, conscious of the rise and fall of her chest, and her arms hung limply around David's neck.
Into the firelight stepped a boy she did not immediately recognize. It was Mark, from the first party on the beach. The crowd grew silent. Sylvia saw Mary Katherine walk toward him. She spoke to him gently at first, and the murmur of the crowd picked up. Within minutes, their voices were raised.
"Will this be like last summer? I can't do this again." David, who had tensed in Sylvia’s arms, pushed her away from him lightly and went to the couple.
"I think you'd better get the hell out of here." It was the first time Sylvia had heard David use a curse word. The thunder rumbled as if on cue.
