The Ocean House

by Mary-Beth Hughes

  Get out of the sun, you dope, Faith thought, watching the girl. Redheads burn the quickest. Nearly strawberry blond herself, she knew the trouble a little carelessness could cause. She pulled into the last shaded diagonal at the diner across the street and parked the car. This was all Hadley’s idea, and from ample experience Faith knew it was likely to be a bust.

  Give the kid a chance. Surprise yourself, he’d laughed at her. Surprise everyone.

  She didn’t love that he spoke to her this way. But she’d forget about Hadley and go welcome her new au pair. Faith crossed to the bus depot, a soft swing to her gait. The girl was a little heavy in the hips, small bosom. A white crewneck T-shirt did nothing for her, but the striped skirt was good, witty colors, chartreuse and periwinkle, someone’s sample sale, well okay. But the girl was blushing, a sun flush already? No, Faith had been spotted and this was the response. Worse than the blush, the girl looked away. As if she hadn’t noticed Faith’s long stride across the new tar of the parking lot.

  What heat! Black vapors seemed to lift up and wrap around her legs. And the smell was thick like something she could bite. She’d worn something easy to cope with, for Lee-Ann to cope with. That’s how Faith thought about it. A man’s shirt, long shorts, a pair of sneakers, but there was no hiding herself really.

  The bus driver shimmied a pink rolling duffel out of the stow space onto the sidewalk and slammed shut the hold. Lee-Ann thanked him, laid the fat pink thing flat, and sat on it like an ottoman. She plucked a cigarette out of one chartreuse pocket. It was a half cigarette, now to be finished. Faith wanted to laugh. Maybe she hadn’t been seen after all. As the girl flicked a green plastic lighter close to her face, Faith noticed her hair was wet. Sweat? Definitely darker at the roots, and the smoking hand had intricate henna-colored rings tattooed on every other finger. Great.

  The bus closed its doors and rumbled away. The girl closed her eyes and settled into her suitcase in a way that looked an awful lot like a toddler concentrating on a poop. Faith stopped still. She realized the girl was very stoned. Well, that was that.

  Hello there, Faith called out. Lee-Ann?

  Oh, said the girl, blinking into the sun. Mrs. Barlow?

  Um, said Faith, frowning. She noticed the girl’s nails were bitten down halfway into the nail bed. Small black swatches of polish on some fingers but not all.

  Just like Uncle Hadley told me, the girl said. I thought he was kidding.

  Faith wasn’t going to take this up. She was trying to decide how best to turn the girl right around and ship her back to “Uncle” Hadley. Did she have an obligation to feed her first? No. Pay her a little something and goodbye, she thought. The girl could feed herself.

  I’m sorry, Faith began.

  Don’t be. I just got here. The girl stretched plump arms over her head in a yawn, she rubbed at her damp scalp. She was smiling but poked a black nail toward her pale eyelashes, and Faith could see tears. She’d been crying. Best not to ask, Faith decided and squinted toward the ticket window.

  Do you have a cat? said the girl.

  Pardon me?

  Mine ate my flip-flop. Some toxin stuck in the treads. I just know it. My landlord’s one of those pricks who’s out spraying the corridors in the middle of the night. So you know? You go down to do a little laundry and poof, you’re covered in something life-threatening.

  I thought you lived with your stepbrother and his wife.

  Yeah, well, it’s their bad situation, too. I do the laundry. That’s my task, chore, beat of burden, she nodded. I’m a good folder. I have technique.

  Is he all right? asked Faith.

  Who?

  Your cat.

  Ah. No.

  Faith wasn’t sure how she felt about cats. Actually she was sure. She didn’t like them but forming opinions against animals seemed a waste of energy. Like this conversation. It was so hot here. She flicked open her bag and hunted for her watch. She didn’t like the feel of it in the summertime, weighing down her wrist. The kids would be done with swim class soon. At least Cece would be. Connor just flopped around on wings in the baby pool until class was done. And Bernadette, her housekeeper, would want to be getting home. Bernadette didn’t much care for the Beach Club and who could blame her. But it wasn’t like Faith made her wear a uniform. Mrs. Barlow, she’d said, you just need a white girl sitting at that pool. I’m telling you.

  And Bernadette was right. Faith knew that. It was sort of unbelievable in this day and age, but Bernadette would just have to stay on double duty a little longer. Faith considered how to sweeten this proposition. Simple. Money. Though she already felt Bernadette was overpaid. She better go pick them up. They could still have lobster for dinner. The big welcome dinner, even if it would now be only for the kids.

  Look, said Faith. Lee-Ann.

  The girl glanced around from her pink perch. She had yet to stand, a rudeness that was almost interesting. She looked right then left, as if about to cross a busy street, then she laughed. Trained from birth! My mother had me acting all vigilant even in my stroller.

  The mother. Faith sighed. Hadley had given her one or two details, and she hadn’t asked for more. Faith sighed again. What’s wrong with me? The heat, she thought. The girl leaned to the side of her suitcase and rummaged in the zipper pocket. Check this out, she said, pulling out a Barbie in a thick bikini. The big knit and purl in creepy colors all the mothers cranked out when Faith was little. Even her own mother had been guilty of a boxy handmade outfit or two. It was some kind of desexing mind control.

  Your mother’s, right? said Faith.

  How did you know? The girl looked astonished. She shook her head and stared, and Faith noticed the dull diamond earrings peeking through the strands of her hair. Old-fashioned, each with a little pearl companion on a platinum prong. Had to be the mother’s wedding earrings, but Faith would keep this second bit of clairvoyance to herself.

  Actually, she had a pair, too. Hers were better, fatter in the prong, thicker pearl. She never wore them, though her mother had been so pleased with herself when she produced them on the morning Faith got married. Oh, Mom, Faith said, then she screwed them on. What else could she do. Always, always they got each other dead wrong. Once Faith went to hang a jacket in her mother’s coat closet and found a stack of presents she’d given, tagged and waiting for the consignment shop. It was embarrassing, but it didn’t change a thing about the gifts she chose.

  The girl was coughing now. Quite a hack and one hennaed hand only fluttered in the neighborhood of her face. Smoking, she croaked. Bad habit, just in the middle of quitting. She coughed a bit harder, then spit.

  Okay, said Faith. All right. Looking all around her.

  The girl pounded on her chest. That’s it, my very last, she said and finally rose from her tuft of a duffel bag and extended a hand to Faith, who stared at it. You’re sick, Faith said. That’s more than a smoker’s hack. Have you seen a doctor?

  Not really, said the girl. No, she said and stopped something. Faith could feel it, abrupt as a dropped utensil. Lee-Ann wasn’t listening anymore. She wasn’t tracking the conversation, such as it was. Faith followed her gaze and saw an angular-looking man had arrived on the scrolled ironwork bench under the decorative canopy. The green filtered light turned his dark skin an odd color. The fabric of his trousers was drawn tight over his crotch like a trampoline, and that’s where both the girl and Faith were staring. He looked right back at them through mirrored sunglasses, but his glance at Faith was cursory. It was the girl, standing, straightening her crumpled striped skirt, that held his slow-breathing attention. Where had he come from?

  Hey, said the girl, with an up nod of her chin, stiff and awkward, as if she’d been chucked. She held the Barbie sideways in her fist.

  The man made a slight lip lift of disappointment and looked away. Looked toward the ticket window. That’s right, thought Faith. We can’t wait
to get rid of her. Even the drug dealers were giving her wide berth. But the girl seemed somehow to miss the signal. Hold on, she said. I’ve got something. And she dug out a quarter and some pennies from the pocket where she’d returned her cigarette stub. Here you go. She went under the canopy and offered this pulsing-looking man her loose change.

  He stared up at her, legs wide, arms loose down at his sides like two quiet snakes. That’s mighty kind, he said, not moving. You’re a regular little saint. I can see that.

  No, take it.

  Little saint, you done now? You got anything else in the pink party pack of yours?

  Not for you.

  Not for me. That’s a good one. Very good. You tell that Hadley fuck, the next time he sends a fucking party hat to deliver a message: I won’t be laughing so hard. He curled his torso over his knees and swung up out of the bench. Get the fuck out of here, he said and started off in a trot. Hear me? he shouted over his shoulder, but he was already halfway around the corner, then out of sight.

  Hadley sent a message for that man? said Faith.

  The girl looked back at Faith and for a moment couldn’t seem to place her. He’s a soldier? Like a veteran, she said at last, stifling some kind of giggle or cough. He’s down on his luck. I was supposed to bring him some cash and I forgot.

  You forgot.

  It’s bad. I know. But maybe when I get paid I can make it up to him. Uncle Hadley probably knows where he lives, you know. I mean don’t you think he probably does? I can just go over there and give it to him. I’ll ask Uncle Hadley. Then it’ll be okay.

  Uncle Hadley knows all sorts of things, said Faith.

  The girl squinted up into the sun. I bet this is one of those perseverance things. You know, I think I’m supposed to follow him.

  Faith studied the girl, then pulled out her watch again. Bernadette was just going to have to sit tight. In fact, maybe Faith should skip the lobsters, just call down to the club and authorize a snack bar supper. She could make the call from the diner.

  Hungry? asked Faith.

  Starved, said the girl. I always am. I’m like compensating with my mouth.

  What are you compensating for?

  It’s better not to say, said the girl looking down. You know. And she kept her face tilted romantically, stuck that way until Faith finally laughed.

  All right. Faith nodded toward her car. They’d go to the diner, get enough pancakes to make up for anything, and then she’d load her back on the next bus. Another message for Uncle Hadley.

  The Long Branch Diner with its sticky turquoise vinyl booths had been Faith’s own since childhood. Sundays after Mass her father dropped her off here to wait while he made the rounds, to visit the homebound, he told them. Faith and her brother, Eddie, were favorites with Rita Cohey, the head waitress with the thick black wings of eyeliner painted over her light-green eyes. She kept them in waffles until their father returned. Sometimes Eddie cried. Rita tucked her apron into its band and slid into the booth. She cradled Eddie into her high, thick bosom until he calmed down and pretended to doze off.

  Faker, hissed Faith when Rita left to check her station. I’m telling. But she didn’t tell. Eddie had enough trouble.

  Rita Cohey always claimed they were angels from above when her father strolled in the door, handsome dark eyes finding Rita first. Best kids I know.

  No arguments there, said her father. Though the arguments about Eddie between her parents were severe. From the time he could walk—which was late, not like Faith, who was prancing around at nine months—Eddie couldn’t please his father to save his life. He’d trail him around the house, fetching a beer, a pencil, a hammer, the paper. Sometimes he’d get swatted across the head for his efforts. Sometimes he’d get a nickel, which he saved in a blue velvet box.

  Is Eddie the wrong son? Faith asked her mother. She was seven. Her mother was counting out tins of peanut brittle.

  The wrong son? Her mother stopped counting and looked at her. Of course not.

  I’m the right daughter.

  So it would seem, her mother said, and she didn’t look pleased. It was a blister conversation, raised out of the surface of Faith’s easy life. The trouble between her brother and her father didn’t affect her. Just an electrical current turned up and down in the family. She was the pride and her mother was tired. The rest was school, where she was very good, until she broke her upper arm in eighth grade and Mike McManus tried to lick it better. She called him a rapist and he was suspended. And her breasts pushed up in tiny aching bumps behind her nipples and her hair began to come in between her legs and her father lost his temper. But instead of the hospital Eddie went with his unstitched wounds to visit her mother’s long-lost brother in Virginia.

  He needs help on the farm, said her father. His wife died.

  What farm? said Faith.

  After she delivered Eddie—a drive through the night to avoid holiday traffic, her father said—her mother decided to visit a health resort. Your mother needs to lose a little weight, explained her father. Eddie wouldn’t return until the beginning of the next school year.

  Their first night alone together when dinner wasn’t ready her father called her a slut. But Faith knew he didn’t know what he was saying. Amnesia, she thought and said, Hey, Papa, let’s go to the diner for dinner. Until her mother came home whatever was wrong with him was cured by these diner dinners. Rita Cohey sometimes joined them, wearing deep-pink lipstick, starched blouses with A-line skirts. Faith preferred her in uniform, but she slipped in next to her father, just as she’d done with Eddie, and it worked fine.

  Now Faith hadn’t seen Rita Cohey since her father’s funeral, when to everyone’s embarrassment, she wailed in a back pew, eyeliner running in crazy squiggles down her swollen cheeks. Poor woman, said her mother. But it was Eddie, already half-bald and only twenty, who slid into the pew and held her hand.

  The Long Branch Diner had new owners, but nothing much had changed. When her children tried Faith’s patience, this is where she brought them. Now, the working lunch crowd was long gone, and a small woman with a fluff of frosted bangs and a tight skinny braid hanging down between her shoulder blades swabbed at the tabletops with a washrag. Her blue nylon dress damp beneath her underarms. The air conditioner roared without cooling much. Faith had seen her a million times but didn’t know her name. No tag. She winked as Faith showed the girl to her usual booth, the children’s booth.

  The girl slid in facing the front door, and her thighs stuck and made a rude sound in the unsticking. Now that she knew she was shipping her back, Faith was amused rather than appalled. It was an adventure. She was shaping the story for lunch at the Beach Club tomorrow, because now she’d have to go herself. Give Bernadette a breather. Yes, this would be good: the tattooed fingers, the half cigarette, the spitting, the bronchial cough, the flirting with drug dealers. Faith was smiling. My first au pair. If only Courtney Ruddy were back in town.

  You like it here, said the girl. You look right at home.

  You could say that. I was a big feature here as a child.

  I guess you’re probably a big feature wherever.

  Oh. Well. I don’t know about that, said Faith with a smile.

  Oh, yeah, Uncle Hadley told me. The air sucked right out of every perfectly good room.

  Excuse me?

  Larger than life. Everybody breathless to see you.

  Faith frowned. Tell me about yourself.

  I think Hadley’s in love with you. Just in the tragic, my brother got the pie way, you know?

  I really don’t.

  The girl smoothed down into a triangle a napkin pulled from the dispenser, careful, thoughtful folds, pressing down with the weight of a fist like a two-year-old on each crease. Made sense, Faith guessed. Isn’t that the whole thing? A mother skips and everything stops in the child, like a fossil. Like Faith had been looking at the
gestures, the squats, the noises this kid was making as a toddler, the parts of her that had just stopped still. Fascinating really. It must be what held Hadley’s attention. That combined with all the bubble-letter sexual telegraphing. But telegraphing what? A chaotic willingness. It was just like him, now that she thought about it. He was such a mess. She felt a general family policy forming: less of Hadley, much less of Hadley for them all. She’d talk it over with Owen next time he was home.

  So, Hadley mentioned your interest in finance? said Faith. I was an economics major in college myself.

  Yeah, but you dropped out, right? Hadley’s showing you as all triumph and adversity.

  I wouldn’t say I dropped out. My father was sick.

  But you left?

  Sure, right away. Packed, went to the bursar, all myself. My mother was never any good with that sort of thing.

  What sort of thing.

  Oh money, business. She liked to label things. She liked to wipe clean the jars and cans in the pantry. But forget about money. My father did all that. Always. Hard to imagine that now, I suppose.

  Not at all, my mother was the exact same way, I mean with money. Never entered her mind. At least that’s my guess. Uncle Hadley says I’m intuitive. And that I have the back of a great artist.

  The back?

  Not my naked back, of course. Just some kind of shoulder shape, who knows. The girl coughed then snorted water from the glass up through her nose and choked, then plunged the triangle napkin up one nostril.

  What are you doing?

  It’s a cleanse.

  Faith felt nauseated. She had small tolerance for physical humor. That’s really disgusting, she said. How old are you?

  Fifteen. Rounding up. What’s your column called again? Hadley showed me. Succubus?

  Faith nodded. Waited for her stomach to calm down, then gave her sweetest smile. Sure Success. Socially Responsible Investment Strategies, basically geared toward stay-at-home moms.