A Simple Thing (4 page)

“Who's your favorite author?”

Katie didn't hesitate. “Harper Lee.”

“Good. I was afraid you were going to say either someone I've never heard of, or perennial teen favorite J. D. Salinger.”

“I hated
Catcher in the Rye,
” Katie said. She allowed herself a small smile.

Jim grinned back. “Me, too. Most overrated book in the history of English class.”

“So what do you do if you're not a lawyer?” Katie said.

“Teach,” Jim said. “You'll see me at school at eight tomorrow morning. Don't be late. I give detention.”

“Seriously?” Katie said. “
You're
the teacher?”

Jim nodded. “Yup. Dropped out of law school, roamed around, then went to the University of Washington and got my teaching certificate. Taught in San Diego and then came home to help my mom with the farm. But last spring our teacher on Sounder got sick and had to leave. We couldn't find someone to fill the slot, so I stepped in.”

“You teach your own kids?” Quinn said.

“Yes. Not ideal. But it's just for one year. They'll live off-island next year to go to high school in Friday Harbor. Our school only runs through eighth grade.”

“I would kill myself if my mom was my teacher,” Katie said.

“How fortunate for us all that she isn't,” Jim said, his voice dry.

Susannah laughed; she couldn't help it. “Don't worry, Kate,” she said. “I have no desire to teach.”

“And what do you do?” Jim said in his best cocktail-party voice. He turned his head to look at Susannah but then turned back to keep his eyes on the waves.

“I drive. And volunteer. And organize. Before the kids, I was a ‘visual merchandising manager,' which is a fancy way of saying window dresser.”

She had loved her job. In those early years of their marriage, when Matt was working on his Ph.D., they'd lived in a tiny apartment in Chicago, and she'd worked for Marshall Field's as a design assistant. She had loved the sense of purpose of those days—getting to the store early when it was quiet and still, gathering clothes and shoes, painting backdrops, constructing props. She and Matt had had a sense of purpose, too, the two of them scrimping by on her meager salary and forgoing dinners out and movies and new books, with Matt's Ph.D. their dual goal, their dual accomplishment. In the evenings, while Matt was buried in his books, she'd paint, experimenting with bold colors and large canvases. She painted a series of landscapes they'd seen on their honeymoon trip out west—bright orange canyons, vivid blue rivers, red moons, and black skies shot with brilliant gold stars. They were filled with all the exuberance she had felt then, happy to love Matt and be loved by Matt and work at something creative. She wondered now where those paintings had gone. The attic?

“Window dresser?” Jim said. “Really?”

“I wanted to be an artist,” Susannah said. “But that way poverty lies, as my father loved to point out, so I found something to do that at least let me work with color and design, and the occasional male model.”

“Oh, my God,” Katie said. “I cannot believe you said that.”

“I'm kidding!” Susannah said.

Jim started to say something, then stopped and peered forward.

“I'll hold that thought for a moment. Look! We've got company.”

Susannah looked ahead. Cutting through the blue-green water in front of the boat she could see sleek black-and-white forms leap above the surface and then disappear. “Dall's porpoises,” Jim said. The kids raced outside, climbing along the side of the boat until they knelt on the bow, side by side, peering into the water. Susannah followed them, her eyes on the kids, not the porpoises. She knelt next to Quinn. There, so close she could lean forward and touch them, three porpoises leaped in graceful arcs above the waves. They flipped onto their backs. They swam in undulating, elongated S-curves—flashes of black, the luminescent white of a belly, then black again, leaping, splashing, spinning. Quinn crowed with glee.

A jolt of fear shot through Susannah—the kids were leaning over the railing, so close to that deep, deep water—but she took a deep breath. She looked at Katie. Her face was open, unguarded. Susannah suddenly remembered being thirteen and skimming across the glassy surface of the lake on water skis, her thighs burning, the skis chattering under her feet as she cut across the wake, and how she'd felt a moment of pure joy, pure freedom. It had been so intense she'd never forgotten it, and she felt it again now—the wind whipping her face, the sharp scent of seawater, the porpoises wheeling through the water, and her children, kneeling on the bow, lost in wonder.

If only Matt could see this,
Susannah thought. In spite of all the arguments over the last year, she missed him. She could draw every line of his face with her eyes closed, from the scar on his right cheekbone to the lopsided angle of his smile. The feel of his body against hers was as familiar as the feel of her own tongue against her teeth. They had known each other for thirty-nine years, since that first summer at Camp Chingwa, and been married for seventeen. This next month until he came to visit would be the longest they'd been apart in twenty years. She remembered a time early in their marriage when she'd gone away for work and Matt had mailed a postcard to her every day, just as he used to do when they were kids in the week before camp. Matt didn't talk much about feelings or longings, so she was surprised by what he wrote, things like: “It's raining here, and I miss you. Your pillow still smells like you. COME HOME.”

She wondered if he was lonely. She wondered, all at once, if he would still his loneliness with someone else in her absence. The thought startled her so much she almost fell off the boat.

The porpoises twisted, dove. The cold spray from the wake splashed against Susannah's cheeks. Then, just as quickly as they had come, the porpoises shot away, disappearing into the darkening water.

Jim popped his head up through the skylight in the roof of the wheelhouse.

“Hey gang,” he shouted. “Look up.”

Susannah raised her eyes. She could see an island in the distance. It was shaped like the tail of a dragon, low and close to the water on one end, slowly rising to a thick, solid mass on the other end. She saw sand dunes along the low shore, backed by the sharp silhouettes of cedars and firs, and huge, clay-colored cliffs at the other end, with bright patches of orange lichen, and thick moss covering the rocks below. At the top of the cliff, at the end of the island, she could just make out a shape perched there—not a tree, or a cabin, but something else. It almost looked like a boat, although obviously no one would perch a boat on top of a cliff. But before she could figure it out, Jim's voice broke in.

“Thar she blows,” he said. “Welcome to Sounder.”

Chapter 4

Susannah 2011

Betty Pavalak's skin looked like a piece of paper that had been crumpled and then carefully unfolded and stretched over a frame, so the surface was smooth while all the lines remained. She was tall and slim, with high cheekbones, warm brown eyes, and a shock of wiry gray hair shaped in no particular style. Her wide smile revealed surprisingly even white teeth for a woman who had to be well into her seventies. The man's plaid flannel shirt she wore hung loosely over her jeans, which were tucked into sturdy bottle green rubber boots.

“Hey,” Betty said, catching the rope Jim tossed to her to help pull the boat alongside the dock. Her voice was low, gravelly. “You made it.” She slipped the rope through and over one of the cleats on the dock, and then held the side of the boat steady as Susannah stepped off.

Susannah held out her hand to Betty. “It's so nice to have a face to put with your voice. Thanks for all you've done for us, in making these arrangements.”

“It was nothing,” Betty said, shaking her head. “We're happy to have you here, believe me. And if you don't believe me, my grandsons, who are up there at the Laundromat collecting the mail, will convince you soon enough.” She eyed Quinn and Katie, who had clambered onto the dock and were standing next to each other, looking around. Susannah noticed that Quinn stood a little closer to Katie than he usually did, and that Katie wasn't pushing him away.

Betty straightened up, dug into her pocket for a cigarette, shook one out of the box, and lit it with a match, also from her pocket. She blew out a long stream of smoke with a satisfied sigh.

“You will have dinner with us tonight, won't you?” She turned to Susannah. “I figured you'd be tired, and you won't have much food in the house, unless you bought something in Friday Harbor.”

Susannah put a hand to her forehead. “Oh, my God. I didn't even
think
about food. How stupid can I be? I'll have to go back to Friday Harbor tomorrow. So, yes, thanks, we'd love to have dinner with you. That's very thoughtful.”

“Good,” Betty said.

Susannah turned to help Jim unload, feeling both disoriented and strangely at home. They stood on a floating metal dock, with a ramp leading up to a long wooden pier that jutted out over the water in a sheltered bay. A small flotilla of motorboats, dinghies, rowboats, and sailboats bobbed around them, tethered to buoys in the bay. Many of the boats were painted bright colors—yellow, crimson, royal blue—in stark contrast to the blue black water, the muted greens and golds of the trees and shrubs, and the pale white driftwood logs clustered along the shoreline. A faded red pickup truck was parked on a gravel road at the end of the dock. Just up the road sat a log cabin with a green tin roof, a wide porch, and two big windows facing the bay.

“That's the one business on Sounder,” Jim said, seeing Susannah look up toward the cabin. “The Arctic Laundromat, which also serves as our post office. My wife, Fiona, ran it for a while; now Frances Calvert, one of the other islanders, oversees it. It's the heart of the island. Parties, community meetings, dances, baptisms, weddings, funerals—they all happen at the Laundromat.”

“Why the ‘Arctic' Laundromat?” she asked.

“I'm a poetry fan. There's a poem I love called ‘Anna, washing' about the first woman to open a laundry in Alaska. Her place was called the Arctic Laundry.”

Susannah wasn't sure what she had expected of Sounder's residents, but she hadn't anticipated a poetry-loving farmer/teacher and his Lauren Bacall–like mother.

“The Arctic Laundromat,” Susannah said. “Those are funny words to say in the same breath. I never pictured
laundry
as a priority in the Arctic. In the tropics, maybe, where everyone sweats so much. A Tropic Laundromat would make much more sense.”

“True, that,” Quinn said, one of the slang phrases he'd picked up that drove Katie crazy because it had been cool two years ago and Quinn was just using it now. Susannah glanced at Katie, who, indeed, had stepped away from Quinn and looked like she wanted to push the whole lot of them off the dock. Susannah could feel the anger and impatience emanate from Katie like shimmery waves of heat from a hot sidewalk.

Betty leaned toward Quinn. “You know how to fish?” she said.

“A little,” Quinn said. “But I always let them go.”

“Ah, don't be a sissy,” came a voice from the other side of the dock. “If you don't kill 'em, something else will.”

They turned to see an old man floating in a bright kelly green wooden dinghy just yards away. He was lean and muscular with weather-beaten skin, bushy gray eyebrows, and eyes of a bright, piercing blue. He had a red bandanna tied Gypsy style over his head. A black Labrador stood in the boat behind him, nose pointed toward the shore.

“Hey, Barefoot,” Jim said. He lifted a suitcase from the back of the boat and handed it over the side to Susannah. “Meet the Delaneys. Susannah and her kids are going to be renting our cottage until June. They're here from the East Coast. This is Barefoot Jacobsen, a longtime islander.”

“Hello,” Susannah said.

Barefoot snorted. “Let me guess. You're here because you want to get back to a simpler life, grow your own food, work the land—another version of all the goddamned New Yorkers who overran Vermont. Only now Vermont's too crowded, so you've come to the San Juans. Do us a favor: if you like it here,
don't
tell your friends.”

Susannah saw Quinn bite his lower lip and reach a hand up to twirl his hair with one finger, something he always did when he was nervous.

“For God's sake, Barefoot, you could be a little more welcoming,” Betty said. She turned to Quinn. “Don't mind him. Every island needs its resident grouchy hermit.” She ground out her cigarette in a bucket on the dock and pocketed the stub. “The Delaneys are coming to dinner tonight. Why don't you come, too? You can tell them about early days on the island and get to know them so you don't have to be so rude next time you see them.”

“I'm not rude; I'm honest,” Barefoot said. His tone changed, from one of irritation to something softer. “But I appreciate the invitation and I'd like to come, Elizabeth. I'll bring the wine.”

The dog started to bark as a gull swooped down and lit on the piling at the end of the dock. He barked and barked.

“Toby!” Barefoot said. “Quiet!” The dog stopped barking and sat down, looking expectantly at Barefoot. “You'd think he'd never seen a gull before,” Barefoot said, shaking his head. “Dog lives on a damn island and sees a hundred seagulls a day. It's the breed. He's a hunter.”

“Actually, Labrador retrievers used to be fishing dogs,” Quinn said. “The fishermen in Newfoundland used them to help pull in nets and catch the fish that escaped.”

Barefoot stared hard at Quinn. “Is that so?” he said. He shifted his body on the seat of the dinghy and looked at Toby as though he'd never seen him before. “This is my fifth black Lab—fifth one named Toby, too—and I've never heard that.”

He turned, raised a hand to his bandanna-covered forehead, and gave Quinn a small salute. “We'll discuss it further tonight,” he said. He nodded at Susannah and Katie, and then pulled at the oars and turned the dinghy out toward the bay.

“He's a brilliant and interesting guy,” Jim said. “Don't let him intimidate you.” He leaned closer to Susannah. “But I'm warning you about his wine—it's homemade and sweeter than maple syrup. If you're lucky, he'll bring apricot wine and you can manage a few sips. If you're unlucky—” He shook his head. “
Brussels sprouts
wine
. Seriously.”

Two gangly teenage boys came running down the path from the Laundromat to the dock, their strides wide and long, their feet pounding on the wooden boards.

“Hah, beat you!” the first one said to the other.

“Who cares?” the second one said with a wide grin.

“We've been waiting for the new kids,” said the first one. He was shorter than his brother, with curly reddish brown hair, warm brown eyes, and a broad, open smile like his father and grandmother.

“Thank God!” his brother said. “This is the most exciting thing that's happened here since the washing machine exploded at the Laundromat.”

“If an exploding washing machine is exciting, then this place is even more pathetic than I thought,” Katie said. She had come up behind Susannah, and was peering over her shoulder at the two boys.

“You got
that
right!” said the taller brother, amused. His thick, straight blond hair fell below his ears and almost covered his eyes. Susannah could see the glint of green irises beneath his bangs, and the faint traces of blond stubble along the lines of his jaw. “I'm Hood, this is Baker. We're about to be your entire social life.”

“Not that you should feel stressed about that or anything,” added Baker.

“She may decide the orcas are more scintillating conversationalists,” Jim said. “Don't scare our new residents off before they've even set foot inside their house.”

“Come on, we'll show you our house and the school,” Baker said.

“Okay,” Quinn said. He was staring at the two boys in utter fascination, as though they were magical creatures arisen from the ocean mist.

Jim lifted the last piece of luggage onto the dock and then turned to face Susannah. “You have to forgive my boys if they're a little excited,” he said. “Your brood is going to increase our student population by fifteen percent.”

“There are only thirteen kids in the whole school?” Katie asked in disbelief. “You mean by fifteen percent per grade, right?”

“Ah, beautiful
and
good at math,” Jim said, turning to her. “You had it right the first time. We have thirteen students in grades kindergarten through eight.”

Katie picked up her backpack. “Oh, my God,” she said. “This is
so
fu—”

“Kate!” Susannah's voice was a warning.

“Teenagers,” Betty said. “Raised one of 'em, now have a couple twerps for grandchildren. I'd be just as happy to skip from twelve to eighteen. That's when they become human again.”

“Very funny,” Katie and Hood said in unison. They looked at each other in surprise, and then Katie grinned—a big, genuine smile that transformed her whole face from sullen teenager into beautiful child-woman.

Susannah suddenly remembered the first time Matt had kissed her, when they were both fourteen and working as junior counselors at camp. He'd taken a big wad of gum out of his mouth, dropped it on the sand, and then turned to her, his lips firm and insistent against hers, followed by the surprising and exciting feel of his tongue in her mouth, the sugary, sharp taste of peppermint. Her body flooded with the memory—the feel of his lips, the shocking sensation that had electrified her whole being as he had continued to kiss her, run his hands down to her waist, pull her close to him until they were pressed against each other so tightly she couldn't tell where the frantic thumping in her chest ended and his began.

She looked at Katie. She was very pretty, without seeming to know it, or to care. The ponytail she favored for convenience only emphasized the lovely contours of her face—the wide-set eyes, the high cheekbones, the strong arc of her brows. Her jeans outlined the long, lean shape of her legs. Of course Zach had targeted her; of course boys would be attracted to her no matter where they were. A beautiful disaster.

“Mom?” Quinn said. “Can we go see everything with Hood and Baker?”

“Not so fast,” Jim said. “Believe me, you'll have plenty of time to explore. Let's get your stuff loaded into the truck and get you moved in. Then you can take off.”

Jim untied the boat from the dock and motored slowly to a buoy about fifty yards away where he secured the boat. Hood invited Quinn to row out in a dinghy to pick Jim up, and Susannah watched Hood demonstrate how to use the oars, how to pick a point on shore as a guide for rowing straight. Quinn looked very small in the dinghy, the muscles of his thin back straining as he pulled at the oars. He
was
small, compared to the vastness of the waters around him. Susannah shivered.

Within minutes they were back and loaded up, and Susannah found herself in the front seat of the pickup, wedged between Jim and Betty. “Our place is on the southwest shore,” Jim said, as he accelerated up the rutted dirt road that led from the dock to the Laundromat. As they drew level with the Laundromat, Susannah could see a golden meadow behind the little building, then the woods beyond. Ahead, the road stretched away under a cathedral arch of trees. Bright yellow and rust-colored leaves littered the sides of the road, danced from the branches of the oak trees, and lay scattered along the tops of the ferns and huckleberry. They passed two or three small houses, with gardens of varying sizes, from small vegetable and flower beds to entire fields. In one field, the rusting hulks of two abandoned cars rose above the grasses like an outdoor sculpture.

Betty caught Susannah looking at the cars.

“Costs a fortune to haul a car off the island once it dies,” she said. “I know some people think they're eyesores, but we scavenge them for parts.”