Spartina Page 20

  Dick thought of Parker’s grin. He saw it clearly. For the first time in all the years he’d known Parker, Dick noticed there wasn’t quite enough flesh between Parker’s nose and Parker’s upper lip. No wonder Parker had paid to get his teeth fixed, even before he paid to fix his boat. Parker couldn’t help that grin. Was that how it worked? Parker was just born with that short upper lip and couldn’t help living up to it? Or had that lip shortened up a hair’s breadth with every quick trick Parker pulled? With every sly dollar he conned from tourists, insurance companies, his crews of green college kids? Captain Parker’s Pep Pills for Sleepy Sailors.

  Dick stopped. What was he up to? Blame it all on Parker? Dick had always known how Parker lived. If he’d gone along with Parker, it was because there was a piece of him that wanted to be just as sly. Dick couldn’t claim he caught that disease from Parker. He’d gone poaching clams all on his own, no matter that was small potatoes. And the way he felt about banks, if he could have robbed one without inconvenience, he just might have.

  And it had been Dick’s idea to get Schuyler on board and stick him with the bill for the spotter plane. That was pure Parker, and Dick had done it.

  As for Parker’s drug run, Dick had balked at that, but he’d gone ahead. And to be honest about that, he had more worry that Parker was going to stiff him than he had remorse. Goddamn right. He couldn’t get any more mortgages on what he owned, so he’d taken one on his being a free citizen. No interest, but lots of penalty.

  But mainly here he was fooling around with Elsie. Parker didn’t have a thing to do with this.

  With every minute of waiting, Dick saw more and more clearly how Elsie was linked to every piece of his life. To his father’s land, and even to his father’s death by that odd condolence. To the bright rich people who now inhabited his father’s land by the salt pond—Joxer, Schuyler, the whole clambake. To Natural Resources, for God’s sakes. To Miss Perry. To his own sons. Dick remembered Charlie’s startled look of longing at Elsie’s legs when she’d whipped off her skirt to go swimming.

  Charlie’s dreams might be full of Elsie—Miss Buttrick to him. Charlie’s puppy love merging with Charlie’s first spasms of billy-goat anguish. Banging his head on a tree for sweet Miss Buttrick, for her complete sweetness as she bent over him at her ecology class, her sleeve touching his hand as her finger touched the powder on a butterfly wing. Gritting his teeth at night, thinking of the terrible things he wanted to do to Miss Buttrick’s body, imagining with equal and simultaneous shame and pleasure Miss Buttrick saying “No, Charlie,” Miss Buttrick saying “Yes, Charlie.”

  Dick cringed. He didn’t want to get that close to that part of Charlie.

  But the thought of Charlie clung to Dick’s mind; Dick’s actual pleasure—accomplished not ten feet from where he now sat—seemed pale by comparison with Charlie’s dreams.

  Dick was finally getting rid of Charlie’s daydreams when Elsie came in the door, down the two steps. He stood up. She put her pocketbook on the table. One hand on his shoulder, she kissed him shortly. She said, “I thought you told me you’d be back day before yesterday.”

  Dick thought of what to say—“We got into some fish” was answer enough for anyone—but the sight of Elsie in a blue seersucker woman’s suit, dressed up as soberly as if she worked in a bank, and Elsie’s face cocked to one side in such a perfect imitation of a wife waiting for an answer, not May, not May now, not May ever—this was an affronted wife out of someone else’s life, someone wearing a suit and a tie to match her suit, someone who would say, “I’m terribly sorry, darling—I got tied up at the office”—all this was so far from Dick, so far outside what he’d just imagined, that Dick was popped right out of a straight answer.

  He felt himself slide back into himself, reinhabit his body, from his vacant face down to his wide feet in his tight good shoes. He looked up to Elsie’s face, still cocked, her chin stuck out, her forehead furrowed up. When she folded her arms across her chest, he started to laugh.

  He tried to stop. Elsie said, “What’s so funny?”

  Dick shook his head. Elsie said, “It’s the whole thing, is it?”

  Dick said, “That’s right,” and sat down.

  Elsie said, “You son of a bitch.”

  “It’s not the whole thing with you,” Dick said. “It’s everything right now.”

  “You liar,” Elsie said. “You think you can get away with anything because you still think I’m just a spoiled brat.”

  “You’re wrong there,” Dick said. “That’s just one thing I think you are.”

  “You asshole!” Elsie wasn’t out-and-out screeching but there was some screech to her voice. It struck Dick as odd that Elsie was losing it. In all his set-tos with yachtsmen, bankers, and such, Dick had been the one to lose it. The other guy may have been mad too, but it was Dick who lost it. Just now he’d been a little riled, but he didn’t want Elsie to lose it.

  “Aw, come on, Elsie. I couldn’t use the radio, for God’s sakes. The operator at the Co-op is nosy as hell. And Charlie was on board, remember how close by everyone the radio is? I know I said I’d be back, but if you get into fish, you—”

  “I don’t give a damn about your calling in. Though I’ll bet you could have thought of something if you’d tried just a little. You could have sent some innocent message, you could have asked if I still wanted a basket of lobsters even if you were going to be late.”

  Dick said, “I’m not too good at thinking up things like that.”

  “But what is rude, what is unspeakably rude, is your sitting here going har-har-har like a big oaf! I come in, you’ve been gone nearly a week, and you laugh in my face.”

  Dick said, “I wasn’t—”

  “And in fact the first person you go see is Miss Perry.”

  Dick said, “It’s hard to explain. I was—”

  “I’m sure it is,” Elsie said. “In that case you could at least have had the grace to lie and say you were looking for me.”

  Dick didn’t try to say anything.

  Elsie said, “Do you know what Captain Texeira does when he gets back to port? He phones Miss Perry. If he comes in late at night and can’t call, he leaves flowers. She finds a little flowerpot on her front step and she knows he’s back safe. And he named his second boat after her.”

  Dick was afraid he was going to laugh again. Flowers. Him and Elsie Buttrick arguing about flowers. He got up and walked to the window, looked down at the pond.

  “I don’t have one boat, let alone two. I’m not sure I’ll ever be the kindly soul Captain Texeira is, even if I do.” The pond was glaring, exposed as muddy by the midday light. Dick said, “I told you why I was going to see Miss Perry. I can tell you too that I don’t want to. I’m going ’cause it’s rock bottom. It came to me this morning when I got in. This trip I did as good as I could hope for, I had as good luck as I could ask for, and it ain’t enough. If it was just me, I’d give up, I’d salvage what I could from the goddamn boat and beg for a job. That’s what May would have wanted a year ago. Now she wants the boat in the water because she says I’ll be poison to her and the boys if I give up. And she’s right. I could bring myself to sell off the boat, but I couldn’t do it cheerfully. Even if I got fifty or sixty thousand for her, that money would evaporate. If I back off now, I won’t ever get a boat. So I’m willing—just barely willing—to go begging to Miss Perry. I knew this morning, if I didn’t do it that very minute, I wouldn’t ever do it.”

  Dick heard Elsie moving around behind him. After a while she said, “Let me get this straight. You want a loan.”

  “That’s right.”

  “You’re not begging. A loan isn’t begging. I know you went to Joxer Goode—”

  “Joxer Goode is a businessman. He stood to gain. But even talking to him I felt I was stripping myself naked. I’ll tell you something I don’t like to remember. Joxer asked me about collateral, and after I’d listed the house and truck I said, ‘There’s my eighteen-foot skiff and ther
e’s the boys’ little skiff.’ ”

  Elsie said, “I don’t get it. What’s so bad about that?”

  “Jesus, Elsie. It was like I was going into the next room and coming back with the boys’ piggy bank. It’s the boys’ boat. And it was so … puny. Joxer’s a decent enough guy, so he didn’t laugh. Not to my face at least. But there I was in front of him, turning my pockets inside out. I might as well have been taking off my damn pants, I might as well have said, Go on and take the boys, take May. They’ll pick crabs for you, they’ll clean your house.…”

  Elsie said, “I don’t think he saw it that way. I understand how you feel—”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes, I do,” Elsie said. “Goddamn it, I do. And it’s wrong of you to think I don’t.”

  Dick turned around.

  “It makes me mad,” Elsie said. “The way you think of me. You should have made this clearer to me before now. Much clearer. Either you think I’m a moron, or you don’t trust me. I know things, for God’s sakes. I built this house, I live on a salary. And I’m trustworthy.” Elsie pursed her lips. “I’m not perfect, but I’m trustworthy.” Elsie suddenly deflated. She said, “I know it’s complicated. I mean, we are having an affair and that’s always more than anyone imagines.… And I’m tied up in odd ways with all sorts of people you might not trust—there’s my brother-in-law for one, building his dream resort for the right people on Sawtooth Point. He’s not a bad person but … One thing I’ve always felt is how unfair it is that my family just swooped down on Sawtooth Point. And now my sister and brother-in-law are doing it again. I’ve always felt my family owed you something. And I understand how hard you’ve worked. I feel guilty. I can even imagine that it might make you angry to come here and see this house.”

  “No. Jesus, Elsie, I don’t hold your house against you. And if your father bought land from my father, that’s their business. My old man needed the money. And it was later when he sold the rest of the point. Once he knew he had cancer, he was scared they wouldn’t treat him right if they thought he couldn’t pay his bills.

  “It’s funny—these last couple of weeks I’ve softened up a lot. I’ve never laid around so much in my life. I’ve never spent so much time in bed.”

  Elsie cocked her head. “Is that so? Sloth and lust drive out anger and envy. So what does that make me? Some siren luring you to a doom of pleasure in her enchanted cave?”

  “No.”

  “Do you want me to start nagging you about working on your boat?”

  “No.”

  “Do you think we should stop? I mean, do you think there’s some correlation between our affair and your not working on your boat?”

  “No.”

  Elsie said, “You always get so gloomy when I ask you questions. Submerged swamp Yankee. But it does you good, you know. On a scale of one to ten, how guilty do you feel about sleeping with me?”

  Dick said, “Jesus, Elsie.”

  Elsie laughed. “Isn’t our little spat cheering you up? It does me.”

  “Come on, Elsie. Don’t just fool around. I’ve screwed everything up. I’ve blown it all into the air. Every goddamn thing.”

  Elsie sighed. “I suppose I should be a comfort to you. The problem is, every time we get all cozy and tender, we don’t have sex. But go ahead. This is my last good deed of the day, though. I’ve spent all morning driving Miss Perry to her doctor and back.” Elsie took off her jacket, sat down on the sofa, and said, “Come on over here.” She took his hand and held it between hers on top of her knees. “Tell me one thing that makes you think you’ve fucked up.”

  Dick shook his head, but went ahead and said, “You know most of it. I just told you about why I don’t want to go to Miss Perry.”

  Elsie said, “I’ll tell you about that in a minute, that’s not out of the question at all.” Elsie reached up, stroked his head and said, “Something else.”

  Dick leaned back and said, “I think Charlie’s got a crush on you. While I was waiting here I couldn’t get it out of my head that he spends time dreaming about you.”

  “Oh. Yes. I see.” Elsie cocked her head. “Don’t worry. He may have a little sneaker for me but it’s tiny. And I think he has a girlfriend in school. But no one will find out about us. You don’t have to worry, it really is all right.”

  Dick let go. He thought he might regret it, it might be games to her. But the effect of her saying “I know, it’s all right” was too much relief to resist. He told her he was the one who’d dug the clams from the bird-sanctuary beach. “I know. Don’t worry.” He told her he’d once smuggled coke in his boot. He told her he’d done it again. Recently. “I know,” she said. “That’s probably why Parker and Schuyler went to New York.”

  “I didn’t get paid.”

  “Don’t do it again. You’ll be all right if you don’t do it again. It’s good you didn’t get paid. That’s all right.”

  He told her about the detective on the dock, the dog, the whelks. “Jesus,” she said, drawing in her breath, “don’t try that again.” She laughed. “Whelks!” She said, “It’ll be okay. Parker’s got enough sense to let Schuyler do it his way. Schuyler probably sells it where he plays squash.”

  As she said “squash” soothingly, Elsie took Dick’s head between her hands. “You really are miserable,” she said. “You really do feel just terrible.”

  Dick had never imagined such indulgence, such soothing, indulgent pleasure.

  Elsie pulled him toward her so he lay with his head in her lap. She smoothed his forehead with her palms, closed his eyelids.

  Dick said, “I sometimes feel like I’m caught already. Like there’s a whole other force nosing around, nothing clear or smart about it, just a bunch of dumb sharks, they can’t see anything, but they’re nosing around.”

  “I know, I know,” Elsie said. “But they’re not after you. Believe me, you’re not what they’re after.” She smoothed the furrows in his forehead with her fingertips. She said, “And Parker won’t sell you out. He might use you and cheat you, but I’m sure he wouldn’t ever turn you in.”

  “It’s not just that,” Dick said. “I’m all spread out, everything can go wrong.”

  “It won’t,” Elsie said. She kissed his temple. “It’s going to be all right. Really. May doesn’t have a clue, I can tell. You’re going to get your boat and be busy. You and I will be friends. You’ll see. Miss Perry is going to lend you the money. It’s all set.”

  Dick said, “What?”

  “Maybe I shouldn’t have stuck my nose in, but there wasn’t a lot of time—she’s going into her depression. You don’t have to go see her.”

  Dick started to get up.

  “Not yet,” Elsie said, putting a hand on his chest.

  “No,” Dick said, “Jesus, Elsie …”

  “It’s all right,” Elsie said. “I know I should have checked with you, but it’s set now, and I want you to let me help. Miss Perry wants to do it. We talked with Captain Texeira, who came by, and he said you’re good, that your boat’s a good investment. She’s going to lend you ten thousand. You pay back a thousand a year plus ten percent interest. And I’m going to lend you a thousand that I borrowed from my brother-in-law.”

  Dick was silent. It was tumbling on him. He wasn’t surprised, it was part of the way things were going, more invisible force disorienting him, dislocating him.

  “The reason she’s doing this,” Elsie said, “I mean apart from her deciding it’s a perfectly good kind of investment—and of course her liking you—is that she wants things to be in good order around here. And her idea, somewhat feudal though it may be, is that you ought to be able to maintain your family’s place in the community. So.”

  Dick shook his head. Elsie put her hand on his forehead. “I know it’s not exactly the way you’d like it. But that’s the deal.”

  Dick had been feeling a drugged pleasure at Elsie’s reassurances. That was gone now. But his attention didn’t come right to the present, not entirely.
He had a moment of fear as complete as he’d had on the hummock in the salt marsh lying flat beside the skiff. It wasn’t that he thought of himself as a criminal, but that there were people in uniform who thought he was. They knew someone was hiding in the salt marsh. They wanted to know his name. Once they had his name, that would be it. He imagined an office, a desk, a sheet of paper with his name on it. There was a force there—in the office, in the desktop, in the paper. The force wasn’t in the truth or not of what it said under his name. It was the power of duplication that terrified him—office after office, desk after desk, paper after paper. The power of his name on those papers to draw him to office after office … It wasn’t a fear of a trial or prison, it was of the tedium of plastic chairs, each chrome foot on a square of pale linoleum, square after square, pale brown, pale green, gray.

  He stared at Elsie. Her sharp, tan face, the white collar of her blouse, the single-pearl earrings. Lipstick for her morning with Miss Perry and the doctor. A navy-blue velvet ribbon pulled her dark hair back from her high forehead and made her look like a nice young girl.

  Elsie’s forest-green uniforms were all on clothes hangers for the moment, her .38 revolver shut up in the chest of drawers next to her jewel box. Her red bathing suit was hanging by one strap on a hook by the shower, the backless party dress on the same rack as her uniforms. What did Elsie think of the undertow in those linoleum-tiled offices? It wouldn’t scare her, it was another game she knew how to play.

  Elsie said, “I promise you this is all for the best.” She put her hands on his shoulders. She smiled and said, “Say something.”

  Dick brushed her hands away and sat up.

  Elsie said, “You sometimes make things harder than they have to be.”

  “You’re right,” Dick said. “That’s one thing different between you and me. I make it hard. You make it easy. For you it’s almost nothing at all.”

  She said, “Oh, for God’s sakes.”

  “I’m being dumb,” Dick said, “I can see that. I’m being a pisshead. It’s just going to take me a minute.”