“Where’ve I seen you?” His voice was a pinch. He was holding two pounds of butter as if they were hot bricks. Maybe he didn’t have kids; someone with kids would’ve been three aisles over by now, whipping Pizza Pops into his cart and pushing for the checkout.
One kid, maybe—like us, with Sonny.
I gave him my base girl smile.
“Pardon?”
“It’s just—I’m sorry—I’ve seen you before. Just can’t place it.” He’d put the butter in his cart, was holding an economy slab of cheese. “I don’t get to shore too often,” he said, almost apologetically. “God. When I do I’m like a kid in a video store.”
I glanced at his cart, feeling myself redden again. There wasn’t much in there a kid—a normal kid like Sonny—would eat. Canned beans and stew and packages of fancy dried bean and rice mixes, and canned tuna and tomatoes, a lot of cans, and regular white noodles and even a box of Hamburger Helper. There was a family pack of Mars bars, and, oh, yes, canned milk. The biggest size box of tea bags they sold. Peanut butter, a vat; smooth. An extra large box of laundry soap.
“Forget something?” he asked.
I must’ve looked baffled. “Oh…I, um—”
“I remember—you were at that dance we did. That’s it, that’s where I’ve seen you.” He sounded almost relieved. There were fine lines around his eyes and his face was windburnt; the redness couldn’t be from the cold alone. Right, I thought. A wife, about to appear any second. Emily. Maybe something less flowery: Ann.
“Am I right?” he was saying, and my mind flew to Sonny and his dad in coveralls, inspecting things.
“Sure. That must be it.” The ruddier his face seemed, the hotter mine felt. “Great music,” I lied. “Gosh, what time is it? I left the house in a…I just hope my son made it to school.”
Even as I glided away, my pulse quickened and dull regret attached itself to me.
Leaving the store—it took no time at all getting through the checkout—I loaded up the trunk and slowly pulled out. Remembering we were out of toothpaste, I stopped at a drugstore. Back on the road, a red truck fishtailed ahead of me. Maybe I’d stop for coffee; I’d left the house without making any, since Charlie had been out of cream. As the Tim’s came in sight, I thought that he and Sonny would like some doughnuts, so I turned in. The truck had turned in, too. It was parked next to a Mustang with smoked windows—the only vehicles in the lot.
A guy with badly permed hair had beaten me to the counter, and was ordering three double-doubles. I asked for a Boston cream, a chocolate dipped, and a medium black. The clock said 8:58. Oh go for it, I thought, and took a seat. It had started snowing again, a fine white spray ticking the windows. Poodle Hair made his way to a spot, lighting a cigarette. As he sat down near the disposal bin, I noticed his friends. One was the man from the dairy aisle—the sax player, again!—and the other seemed vaguely familiar. It was the husky guy with the mullet, who’d been helping the band with its equipment that night. The three of them were folded around a tiny table.
The sax player must’ve sensed me looking. Glancing up, he blinked, appearing surprised. He mouthed something like “Hey!”—it was hard to tell exactly through the cloud of smoke. When I shrugged, he left his friends and came over. He waved his hand in front of him as if apologizing for the smell, explaining, “My buddies. A colleague, you know, and my good friend Wayne. Drives me around when I need it.”
The one with the poodle cut rose, stubbing out his cigarette, and left; the other, the big guy, brought their coffees over.
“I’m his chauffeur,” this one said. “Good thing, Hughie, otherwise you’d starve on that fuckin’ island.”
“Aw, get out.” The sax player winked at me.
It was odd; for a second I felt like someone on TV meeting two talking heads onscreen—or how I imagined that would be. It was sort of like being underwater. Not quite real, despite the background noise of dishes clanking and coffee hitting a burner.
Hugh pointed to the seat beside mine. “You look like you could use company.”
That bad? I almost said, hearing Charlie’s voice inside me. I would’ve said it, had Hugh been someone like Sandi fishing for an invitation; I’d barely managed to brush my teeth that morning.
I looked at my watch. The friend, the shaggy one—Wayne—shuffled closer to let someone with a tray go by. There was a stringy silence.
“You live on an island,” I finally remarked, for something to say. It sounded instantly dopey, like saying, Soooo—you have one arm and you’re applying to the circus.
Wayne sniggered, fidgeting. He seemed anxious—for another cigarette maybe, or to hit the road. “Hughie’s a lighthouse keeper. When he’s not blowing his brains out on that fuckin’ horn.”
“A lightkeeper,” I said idiotically, picturing the Tim and Ginger books Sonny’d read before moving on to Goosebumps. My mind filled with cartoon images of rocks and waves and craggy old men. “That’s…different.”
Hugh eyed me, amused or disappointed, it was impossible to tell.
“I’m surprised, you know, they still have people doing that…kind of thing.”
He was staring now, with the hint of a smile, his eyes a startling blue. He rubbed his jaw and I noticed his fingers. They were long and tanned with nails that were clean but not too clean.
“I don’t know your name,” he said. Wayne was slapping at his coat pockets, rooting for matches.
“Willa,” I said. “Willa Jackson.”
He nodded and stuck out his hand. “Hugh Gavin. And my best bud,” he said. “Wayne Tobias.” His eyes warmed as they locked on mine; there were grey flecks around the pupils. “I’m over on Thrumcap,” he explained, the way I’d tell Sonny there was pop in the fridge. “Wayne’s got the boat.” He sipped coffee. “He’s my taxi.”
“An island.” I was still taking it in. Thinking how I’d go nuts on an island, and how for Sonny it’d be even worse—like life without TV. “I don’t know how you stand it.”
“Lots of time to practise.” He tootled his fingers over invisible keys. “Lots of time to fart around, figure things out.” He rolled his eyes good-naturedly, that blue shifting like the snow at the window.
Wayne shook his head. “Drink up, you friggin’ bastard, if you’re expecting me to get you back there any time soon.”
Ignoring him, Hugh seemed in no hurry. “It’s grand out there,” he said. “You should see it sometime. Especially in a storm.” He stood up slowly, finishing his coffee. “You could come check out the light.”
There was a pause.
“I could call you sometime,” he said, crumpling his cup.
“What?” My voice seemed to come from the cup in front of me.
His friend flipped a matchbook onto the table and Hugh dug for a pen.
“Buddy’s bored.” Wayne smirked, stomping his feet.
Like a machine—a floor polisher or a dishwasher or something out back—Charlie’s voice grumbled inside me. I wrote down our number. Just like that. My hand trembled, and I hoped no one noticed. It was like entering a raffle for a prize I didn’t even know I wanted. Wayne’s eyes bored through me as I slid the matchbook over to Hugh.
“I’ll give you a tour,” he said.
“A tour would be great…sometime. My son would love it.”
He didn’t look at all put off by that, wearing the grin he’d worn on New Year’s Eve when the crowd applauded a solo.
Sweet God, what had I done?
Watching them trudge outside, I remembered the groceries sitting in the trunk, and wondered if keeping a light was anything like housework. Whether there was someone always running a finger over things, sizing up your efforts. At least he hadn’t asked about me, what I did. Good thing, I thought, stuffing the napkin into my cup. There wasn’t a whole lot to tell.
***
The news came in Februar
y; the Sea Kings would be going out on an exercise for three months. I shouldn’t have been surprised; it’s why they say there’s no life like it in those recruitment ads that make enlisting sound like a leap to glory. Twelve weeks. Word came the day the washer died and the car’s muffler went. “But why you?” I asked Charlie, throwing up my hands. The answer was plain. He and the other technicians were to the choppers what I was to Sonny. Well, not so much Sonny now as Sonny just out of the womb. Milk-machine, handmaiden, and guardian rolled into one. A human remote controlling a black and white TV.
Charlie waited till after supper that Friday night to say they’d be shipping out the following week. He waited till I’d swallowed dessert, springing it on me between rising from the table and scraping his plate.
“But we’ve only been here five months,” I protested, even as the Jell-O pudding curdled in my throat. “Isn’t there anything you can tell them?”
He looked at me as if I had carrots for brains. “I don’t know why you’re so upset. It’s not you who has to go up in those things. Think about the guys, Willa! Life is rough,” he mocked, “get used to it.”
Sonny skulked to the living room and turned on the TV.
Charlie put his hand on my hip to move me away from the garbage. Then he went and shut himself in the bedroom. I could hear the clock radio while I cleaned up. My mind wheeled through all kinds of excuses for him. He was lying there reading a magazine when I went to bed hours later.
“I’m sorry, hon,” he said, without looking over. He turned the page and kept reading. “Three months isn’t that bad. It could be worse. We’ll be with a destroyer in the Mediterranean. Thank your lucky stars it isn’t some godforsaken place like Haiti.”
Three months can feel like three years; if anyone knows that, it’s a no-life-like-it wife.
After the muffler, the car needed a valve job. I was coming in one lunchtime from the garage and collecting Sonny when the phone rang.
“Charlie?” I jumped in. There was always that second between picking up and wondering: is this it? The news that he’d been lost or hurt, and was lying somewhere like a jigsaw puzzle.
There was a pause which set my heart racing, and for a second everything stopped, even Sonny opening some Twizzlers at the counter.
“Is this Willa?” a man asked, clearing his throat. “Honk, honk,” he said, and hummed something into the phone. My mouth went dry. I was about to hang up when he said, “It’s Hugh.” He paused and a little chill leapt between my shoulder blades. “Remember?” he said. “You drink your coffee black.”
I tried babbling something about Charlie, but the words died in my throat. It was as if I’d spent my whole life casting out excuses in a long, billowing line; and suddenly the line had spun itself out. There was nothing to do but start reeling, madly.
***
Sonny wasn’t impressed when he heard we were going on an adventure. He was ticked off because there was a WWF match on TV that he wanted to watch.
“Let me guess,” he said, sucking a Cherry Blaster. “We’re going to Beirut? Germany? I know: Slobodanlovakia!”
“Guess again,” I said. “An island.”
“Australia!”
“Um, closer.”
He stuffed more candies into his mouth, scowling.
I bribed him with Kentucky Fried Chicken to get him in the car. He ate his snack pack while we followed Hugh’s directions to the Passage. It was a ten-minute drive, which wasn’t bad. You could see the tip of the island from the base, standing at the top of the hill; it was the one I’d spotted from the chopper the day of our ride. But you couldn’t see the light; it was on the opposite side on a spit pointing like a finger into the harbour. Wayne’s boat was docked near a government wharf.
“We’re going to visit a friend,” I’d told Sonny. “He’s a musician.”
Sonny’s face had a sour look as I pulled up to the rickety marina. It was a few yards from a big wharf with fishing boats tied up alongside it. The red truck was parked nearby, beside a trailer that looked like a French fry wagon, with the sign: Charters. Eco-Tours. Deepsea Fishing. It had a faded picture of a figure like Captain Highliner painted on the side. Wayne emerged, cursing to himself as he locked up and sauntered ahead of us down to the open boat. He just grunted when Sonny asked if there were sharks, and mumbled about Hugh owing him.
It was early April, a drizzly day grey as flannel; Charlie had been gone six weeks. The island loomed close enough to shore that you could see the trees. As we got into the boat, the drizzle thickened to a slow white rain and Sonny and I hunched together for warmth. Wayne didn’t seem to notice it, starting the outboard. He had his red and black hunting jacket undone, and his shirt was unbuttoned so you could see dull looking hair and pasty skin. Snowflakes dissolved in his mullet as he lit a cigarette. He smoked the whole time; maybe that was how he kept warm, lighting one cigarette off another. We kept our backs to him, motoring along. It was as if the boat was a Chevette and Sonny and I were a couple of hitchhikers he couldn’t wait to unload. The water was choppy and I thought of “The Minnow,” that theme song stuck in my head from Gilligan’s Island reruns. What had gotten into me, to put us in such a spot, at the mercy of this greaseball who didn’t even carry lifejackets?
Shit! I could imagine Charlie yelling, if he’d known, though he’d have said sugar in front of Sonny. You trying to drown my son?
This wasn’t the half of it. If Charlie could’ve seen us—chugging across the water in a Boston whaler to meet somebody who could’ve been a madman for all I knew. Except that Hugh had those eyes. I’d seen pictures in the paper of crazies, murderers, and people with no conscience: that fuck-you look in their eyes. Hugh’s, if I remembered, were wide open, clear and calm as a lake.
5
THE COMPASS
There was a man waiting on the wharf, which listed badly into the water. I hoped it was him as we motored closer. An echo of Charlie’s voice droned with the engine: If you’re so bored, go do something. There must be some class you could sign up for. Decorating?
Hugh seemed thinner than I recalled, and taller in that canvas coat. He reached down to help me as I clambered up the rotting ladder. Sonny balked at first, rocking the boat as Wayne stayed put in the stern. “Don’t look down,” I said when he started climbing. Hugh reached for Sonny’s hand and hauled him up. Sonny eyed him as if he were some kind of misfit but mercifully kept his mouth shut. Hugh jumped down to hand his buddy some bills, and told him to come back in a few hours.
“I’m not waiting over the house all day,” Wayne groused. “Me and Reenie are going out to the club for a few. If you want a ride back it’ll have to be soon.” It was meant for us, though he said it to Hugh.
“Whatever.” Hugh shrugged, standing with us on the dock. “We’ll have our tour, then Wayne’ll pick you up. Right, bud?”
You couldn’t hear Wayne’s reply above the throttle. As the boat skimmed off, it was as if Charlie were in the clouds, looking down. Here we were in the middle of the harbour with nobody around but this guy I’d known for all of five minutes at the Tim’s.
“Call me Hugh,” he said to Sonny, shaking his hand. Sonny gave him the same look he’d given the teacher on his first day at school. Here we go, I thought.
“Hugh’s a saxophonist,” I told him, as if it made any difference. “Hugh, this is Sonny. Alex.”
Sonny kicked stones into the water.
“Well,” said Hugh. “First stop’s the light, I guess.”
“How far is it?” Sonny glowered.
Looking amused, Hugh pointed towards an opening in the woods, what appeared to be the head of a path. “I don’t get a lot of visitors,” he said. “Well, except Wayne and fellas from the band. Mostly I go over to jam. Too big a pain hauling gear over here. We don’t practise enough.” He glanced at Sonny. “Your mom can tell you that.”
Sonny took out a packe
t of sugar he’d got with his chicken, and shook some onto his tongue. As I elbowed him he piped up, “We have to walk? That sucks.”
“No cars out here,” Hugh shouted. He was slightly ahead now, starting up the trail. His voice caught in the wind. “It’s not that far.”
“It looks far,” Sonny grumbled and I gave his arm a little wrench.
It ended up being farther than I expected. Hugh walked fast; we almost had to sprint to keep up. He could’ve been a runner; he had that tautness about him, that compactness, and he didn’t seem in any real hurry plodding ahead. The woods thickened—mostly crowded spruce, their boughs breaching the path—and I was getting winded when finally the water came in sight, a pearly gleam through the trees.
The trail ended at a beach where waves beat the greyish sand. Sonny poked behind, filling his pockets with dull-looking shells. The sand gave way to a stretch of blackish mud and rocks like teeth with seaweed and litter caught between them. Sonny went to pick up a feather and I gasped. It was attached to bones—the carcass of a gull pressed flat as a duck in a Chinese restaurant, one eye gazing up.
At the start of a boardwalk, silver timbers banked against boulders, Hugh paused and we leapt from rock to rock catching up. Ahead was a barn-like house and just beyond it, the bright white tower with its red top. The wind pushed us towards it, and reaching the tower we huddled there for a moment, pressing ourselves to its cold concrete. Behind us, a clothesline ran from the house to a telephone pole, its pulley squawking like a bird. You had to shout to hear yourself.
Hugh unlocked the door and we stepped inside. It was cool and still as a cellar, the cement floor painted grey, the walls white. There was a dusty-looking broom propped below a window, and a bulky piece of machinery on a trolley—a generator in case of power failure. “A lifesaver, that thing,” he said.
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