An Ocean Without a Shore

by Scott Spencer

  “We’re going to be okay,” I said. “We can figure this out.”

  She looked at me skeptically. I was in my undershorts and a T-shirt. “They’re too strong,” she said, sadly, in that tone people use when they regretfully disabuse you of your illusions.

  “We’ll very carefully open the door and go out to the hallway and take those two crazy dogs downstairs and make sure those gates are properly closed. Okay?”

  “They want the cats, Kip,” she said. “They won’t follow us.”

  “We’ll force them,” I said.

  “They’re too strong.”

  “Okay, how about this? We lure them. I noticed one of the cats was playing with a candy wrapper. Do you have anything to use as a treat?”

  She was silent. How could a girl whose diet was so closely monitored, who snacked on carrots and celery sticks, drank eight glasses of water daily to slake hunger and flush the system, and who was pushed to do calisthenics with her mother at her side, admit to having a treat in her room?

  “I don’t think so,” Emma finally answered.

  “That’s okay.”

  We stood there for a moment. The cats were silent and the dogs were persistent, whimpering and whining.

  “Maybe I have something,” Emma said.

  “That would be great. They’ll follow us right down the steps, I’ll bet anything.”

  “I’ll look around,” she said. “I don’t know.”

  I tried to imagine where she had hidden food in this room. The closet? Her little black and gold dresser, with its bowed drawers and filigree? She would have had to have done better than that—surely Grace tossed the room from time to time, probably with the ruthlessness of a federal agent. But of course. Grace was in Florida. “Want me to go out there first?” I asked.

  “Okay,” Emma said.

  “The dogs won’t bite me or anything, will they?”

  “They don’t really bite.”

  “They don’t really bite?”

  Emma laughed, a dear little burble, half nervous and half grateful. I carefully let myself out of her room. The dogs tried to charge past me but I stopped them with my legs and closed the door very loudly behind me, on the off chance the noise would startle them. I stood there with my back to the door, and the dogs looked at each other and then at me and then at each other again. I wondered what Emma was unearthing in her room and some of the terror and claustrophobia of being young and harboring secrets from your family came rushing back to me.

  Marcel and Marceau kept watch as I stood there. They seemed to be inching toward me.

  “How you doing in there, Emma?” I said through the door.

  “I think I found something,” she said. I heard the scrape of furniture. “I’m sliding something.” A moment later, a slice of American cheese in its plastic wrapper slid under the door. I quickly picked it up, peeled off the plastic, and held up the bright Crayola yellow square for the dogs to behold. When I tore the cheese in half and flung it down the hallway they went clicking and clacking after it. I quickly let myself back in to Emma’s room, where she stood holding a second slice of cheese.

  “They’ll definitely follow us down now,” I said.

  By the time we had closed the door behind us, the dogs had already found and eaten the cheese and were back waiting for more. Emma tore the second slice in half and we each dangled a piece before the dogs as we walked quickly to the staircase. Grace had taught them enough manners to prevent their jumping up and grabbing the treats from our hands; they followed us down the steps, toward the half-open accordion gate at the foot of the stairs, a wooden accordion paused mid-polka.

  “It’s working,” I said to Emma, sotto voce.

  She took my hand as we made it to the bottom of the stairway. We tossed the cheese onto the inlaid floor of the foyer and Marcel and Marceau went bounding after it, at which point we secured the accordion gate.

  “Mission accomplished,” I said.

  Emma took my hand again. She lifted it toward her face and bent slightly to plant a kiss on my knuckles. At first I thought she was just goofing around, then I thought she was celebrating our getting those dogs away from the cats. But the kiss was her thank-you for my giving her privacy while she tucked into her storehouse of hidden food. The inexplicable tingle of art, the sweet oblivion of sex, the fleeting elations of money, travel, wine, all of life’s pleasures, I cherished them all, but this, this moment, this little grateful kiss, this recognition that I for a moment at least had helped a child feel safe, this was the happiest I had ever been. If it pleases the Court, my life would have ended on a high note if I had died then and there.

  Chapter 21

  Deal

  Emma and I secured the other staircases, put Marcel and Marceau outside, and settled into our late breakfast, one that clearly delighted Emma—scrambled eggs, apricot jam, and buttered toast. She asked for coffee and I gave her coffee. She asked for more toast and I toasted more toast. She wondered if she could have the blueberry preserves and I said I hadn’t seen them and she said there was a jar in the fridge behind the wheat germ, and I got her the preserves.

  “What do you have planned for today?” I asked her.

  “Just hanging out, I guess. Maybe go over to Henry’s house. Maybe I’ll bring my guitar over. We like to jam together.”

  “I didn’t know you were musical,” I said.

  She shrugged. “I know like seven chords. Mainly I sing.”

  “You do? No one tells me anything. I love music. I always wished I was musical. So what do you like to sing?”

  “Songs. All kinds. Do you want to hear?”

  “Definitely,” I said with an enthusiasm I didn’t feel. I was leaping into a pool without first checking if there was water in it. Everything was going so well between us and the last thing I wanted was to sit there with a suffering smile on my face while she butchered some pop song that I would probably hate even if it was sung well.

  “Wait here,” she said. “I’m going to get my guitar.” She practically ran out of the kitchen, and when she returned with her guitar she was flushed from the exertion of running up and down the stairs.

  Suddenly shy, she did not make eye contact with me, but busied herself with tuning her guitar.

  “Dad says it’s proof that there is a God,” she said.

  “What is, Emma?”

  “Music. And not just because it’s beautiful. It’s not like other beautiful things like flowers and mountains and stuff. He says you can make scientific reasons for those kinds of things but there’s no scientific reason for music. He says it’s there to remind us that there is something holy in us. That’s what he says.”

  “And is that what you think?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I agree with Dad.”

  Finally satisfied with the tuning, Emma played a G, an E minor, a C, and a D, and her expression, a moment ago so soft and uncertain, became confident and serene.

  “If I should stay, I would only be in your way,” she sang, the tempo slow, her voice brocaded with longing and nostalgia and kindness entwined, like soldiers helping each other off a battlefield. She continued to sing and then paused, perhaps to gather herself, or for the effect. Slowly, her eyes closed and she sang, very softly, “And I will always love you,” each word fainter and fainter, down to an incandescent whisper trailing off even further until all that remained was your own memory of the song.

  Was this the most beautiful singing I had ever heard? Suddenly, it seemed so and I felt my throat closing like a drawstring purse. “Oh no,” I muttered, and leaned forward and covered my eyes. But it was too late. I had been ambushed by the fragility of her voice, and if I had had to answer for myself and explain why suddenly tears were coursing down my face I don’t know that I could have said. I still can’t explain it. It’s the mystery of music.

  But that mystery was supplanted by the sudden appearance of Jennings Stratton, who had walked in without knocking or even calling out, and now, with Marcel and Mar
ceau at his side, he was in the kitchen, dressed in green and pink Bermuda shorts—impossible to imagine he had bought them or even found them himself. His legs were muscular and dark, rather trim and well turned, especially on a man who had otherwise succumbed to fleshiness. By any normal measure of allure and sexiness, Thaddeus had it all over Jennings. But, of course, Cupid is a drunken archer. I knew this, yet I could not look at Jennings, with his sweat socks pulled high, and his Allman Brothers T-shirt taut over his belly, without thinking that Grace’s unhappiness must have mutated into a kind of madness for her to choose this man over her husband, even for a night.

  Meanwhile, Jennings exuded ease and self-confidence. Apparently, early sexual success is indelible. Like someone who has lost his fortune but still expects the deference afforded to the rich, Jennings seemed to assume everyone wanted him. His luminous sea green eyes rested on me for a moment and he showed his teeth in a smile as hokey as a cocktail lounge pianist running the keys from low to high.

  “Hey, Emma-Bemma,” he said, “you should get your behind over to the house. Henry is going to take the canoe over to Lark River and we got an extra pair of oars. You should go.”

  “Can I?” Emma asked me.

  With the two of them in the same room, I was all the more sure that Jennings was Emma’s father, and though she asked me for permission, I could feel her leaving me as soon as he was present. Of course she knew him so much better than she knew me. They had shared these acres from the beginning of her life. They breathed the same air, the sun hit them at the same angle. I wondered if he had ever heard her sing—but of course he had. What to me had been a revelation was for him an everyday matter. He was there, he had always been there, patching the screens in her bedroom windows, carrying her on his back through snowdrifts so she could catch the shuttle bus to her twee private school, appearing midafternoon sweating and shirtless with an old milk can filled to the tarnished brim with dark purple wild berries.

  I didn’t know if this Lark River was dangerous. I didn’t know if she was a strong swimmer. I didn’t know anything about Henry. Maybe he was a risk taker, a show-off. I did know this: he was beautiful, with large eyes, more violet than blue, blond hair more silver than yellow, full lips, pale skin, a dreamer’s slow-motion walk. Before I could gather my forces, Emma had grabbed the last piece of toast and was out of the kitchen and on her way.

  “Be careful!” I cried out behind her.

  “Nothing to worry about,” Jennings said, taking Emma’s seat at the table. “She knows what she’s doing. She’s a terrific girl. We take her on our drills and she’s way ahead of the pack most times. Even in the rain.”

  “What kind of drills?”

  “Up the mountain.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “If we ever had to get out of here. You know?” He started to cough, deep, dry, painful sounding, as if he was tearing away at something that needed to be dislodged.

  Asbestos, I thought.

  “Can I get you something?” I asked. “Water? Anything?”

  He shook his head no, but the hacking continued. It seemed to feed on itself like a kind of hysteria. His face reddened, his eyes watered. Both of his hands were raised now and he made a pushing motion, as if to keep something at bay.

  At last, the coughing stopped. I handed him a glass of water and sat down again. “Christ, Jennings. What’s going on?”

  “It’s okay.”

  “You should drink some water.”

  “I don’t need water. But thanks,” Jennings said. He composed himself. The coughing had subsided and he stroked his chest, as if to subdue a distressed child. “Muriel’s got me on the wormwood. She makes it into tea. It’s pretty good.” He shrugged. “She thinks I’ve got a cancer.”

  “Oh no,” I said. “Jennings. Man. What does the doctor say?”

  “So many of the things you need to beat it grow right here on the property. I think it’s going to be okay. And remember that radio I showed you, the old Philco? Well, me and Henry got it working and the first thing that comes on is this guy Reverend Cobb out of a church way far away, in Florida, and he’s talking about healing through prayer. And then next thing I know the radio goes dead and we haven’t gotten it to work since. Isn’t that so cool?”

  “There are good doctors up here, right?”

  “Everything happens for a reason,” he said.

  “You think?”

  “I know.”

  “Do you have a doctor?”

  “You know a lot of people say Emma looks a lot like me.”

  “Really? Like who? Who says that?”

  His smile was at once radiant and horrifying.

  “Well, she’s really something, Emma. Hey, I’ve been thinking: What about building you a house? You’ve got those acres just sitting there. I could help you with that. I know the people who do the best work around here. Hometown boys, always the way to go. I could supervise and do some of the work myself. Save you a lot of money.”

  “I’m not planning on building,” I said.

  He took a small, polite sip of the water I’d handed him and placed the glass carefully on the table before standing up.

  “Well, it’s something to think about. It’s a beautiful spot, shame to waste it. Back in the old days, we all had this fantasy that we were going to live here, Grace and Thaddeus in the big house, Dad and me and the family in the yellow, and we were all going to work in the gardens and the fruit trees and fish and the kids would grow up together and we were all going to be one big happy family. Right?”

  “Right. Well, like you said. Fantasy.”

  “Yeah. Fantasy. There’s our plan and there’s God’s plan, not the same thing, that’s one thing we can all agree on. And don’t worry about Emma. Okay? I’d be the last person to ever let something happen to that girl. I love her like she was my own.”

  He left me with that.

  I sat at the table for a few moments, more or less staring at Emma’s plate, so bereft of food you’d think it had yet to be used. A wasp, black as oil and droning deeply, staggered drunkenly across the table, perhaps on its way to the sugar bowl. It crossed my mind that I ought to kill it before it gathered the strength to fly up and sting me. The wasp scuttled onto Emma’s plate, and watching it make its feeble way across the plate—I saw it! I saw it as if it were happening right before me: the canoe turning over in the Lark River. And I heard her cries as she struggled to stay afloat, trapped in a mesh of weeds and lily pods.

  I didn’t know where Lark River was. I would have to go to the yellow house and get Jennings to tell me. Hatred hissed through me like a sudden rain. I stood at the windows for an hour watching for her. The dogs slept at my feet. Upstairs, the cats scampered. I heard their footsteps through the ceiling. At last, I saw Emma and Henry walking up the driveway. They looked happy, but soaked through, with weeds in their hair.

  Chapter 22

  The Paris Commune

  Thaddeus was in the city more and more often. He’d signed with a new agent, a young guy named Milos who promised career resurrection and set up lunches, drinks, dinners, and meetings at which Thaddeus could trot out his wares and run through his well-practiced routines of charm and enthusiasm to producers and studio executives Milos’s age, which was about thirty. Thaddeus was meeting with people who were not even in the movie business when he became a pariah, yet nevertheless he sensed in their demeanor—the wry smiles, the carefully folded hands, the way they sat deep in their chairs, creating the maximum amount of space between them and him, as if his breath was offensive or his behavior a matter of nervous conjecture—that his ragged reputation had been passed down to a new generation of gatekeepers.

  When I could, I’d meet Thaddeus after one of these disastrous meetings, willing to absorb his feelings of rejection and desperation before sending him back to Orkney. I suppose it could be argued that this was a classic wallflower move on my part, but it’s also what friends are for. Sometimes we met for a quick drink, but if there
was time we had dinner, always with an eye on the clock—now that his pied-à-terre on Horatio Street was someone else’s pied-à-terre on Horatio Street, he needed to be on that last train out of Penn Station.

  It was awful to hear about the meetings he “took” and to hear the stories he proposed. I could not bear to see him treated so disrespectfully, so dismissively. Yet even though I loved him, I had my own way of seeing things, my own standards, my own purchase on reality, and I wondered if Thaddeus might very well lack the skills he would need to write himself back into contention. In the eerie, unnerving silence of failure, the question posed itself, perhaps not to Thaddeus but, alas, to me: Had the time arrived when that lifelong dream needed to be set aside? Aren’t they called youthful dreams for a reason? Don’t nearly all of us abandon them? Aren’t they the first things jettisoned, thrown over the railing and into the sea the moment the ship of self starts to take on water?

  * * *

  It was a warm evening, the daylight had faded but still remnants of it were scattered here and there. After work, I’d gone with Ken Adler to a gallery on Fifty-Seventh Street; he was on the verge of buying an Albert Pinkham Ryder painting, and he wanted my opinion about it. I was hasty in my judgments. Ken wasn’t clear about his intentions—did he love this broody, crepuscular canvas or was it an investment? And I was distracted because earlier that afternoon I’d agreed to meet Thaddeus downtown for dinner at a restaurant called the Paris Commune. He was already at our table and halfway through a bottle of white wine when I arrived. He was in jeans and an expensive shirt and sport jacket. He’d taken off his tie and stuffed it in his breast pocket like a pocket square. His legs were crossed and his chin rested in his upturned palm. Even in a funk his dark eyes were keen, and his hair glistened like the healthy fur of an animal in cold moonlight.