“You never talk to Lily?” Margo asked.
“Hardly ever. Once every couple of weeks.”
A long pause. “Because she calls me fairly often. Every few days. I’ve been afraid to tell you.”
I thought about it. Lily and I lived in the same city; we had the same area code and lived within each other’s calling area, yet we rarely spoke. “Maybe that’s because you’re at the inn during the day when she’s alone. I work then. She never calls at night, because Henk’s home.”
“I think she feels safer talking to me. I haven’t seen Henk for ages—since before their wedding—and she can pretend with me. She makes their life sound idyllic. Apparently Henk loves tennis, so they play at Forest Hills. He just bought her a Renoir watercolor. Sometimes they take picnics to Central Park and lie on the grass and eat chicken wings. She makes it sound so wonderful.”
“I’ve told you, Margo—it probably is.” I felt uncomfortable, as if I’d been caught spreading vicious, false rumors about the marriage of the century. A Renoir watercolor?
“No, it’s not. Lily’s different. She’s always happy when I talk to her now, as if it’s a big act. She’s afraid to let anything real show—everything sounds rehearsed. She was never like that before, no matter how much in love she was. I think you’re right about her being brainwashed.” She paddled onto her back, and her small breasts bobbed like lobster buoys.
“Why would she let it happen?” I had wanted to feel relief, having my suspicions supported by Margo, but instead I felt small and horrible. The suspicions were correct: the prognosis was bad.
“Because of Dad.”
“
Dad
? You’re crazy.”
“No, I’m not. Lily has always wanted to be married—much more than you or I. I knew she’d wind up marrying the most dependable man around, with the biggest house, the most family heirlooms. You must admit—Henk is the exact opposite of Dad. Can you see Henk with Black Ass? Drinking his brains out in some dive?”
“No—plus he
is
older, sort of a more stable father figure,” I said, eagerly joining in the analysis.
“Not to mention a doctor. What could be safer than life with a doctor?”
“True!”
“One ray of hope: Lily always asks about the department at Brown. I think she misses art history.”
“She has the Renoir, and she says she goes to museums,” I said doubtfully.
“Una, that would be like you watching soaps instead of starring in one. We have to hang on to the possibility that Lily will break out of this someday—she’ll get tired of being dependent. She’ll resume being Lily.”
“God, I hope so,” I said, feeling bleak.
Trawlers, their outriggers fitted with nets and spread like wings, were heading back from Georges Bank. The pulse of their engines traveled across the water. Their nets made me think of Anne, Susan’s character in
Hester’s Sister
, of how she made fine nets and her sister made faulty ones.
“If any of those fishermen have binocs,” Margo said, “they’ll think they’re seeing sirens of the sea. Mermaids.”
Suddenly the open ocean seemed terrible. I imagined the trawlers’ catches: marlin, tiger sharks, monkfish, conger eels, manta rays. Dangers lurked in the deep. Long ago I had loved to look through books on marine life and frighten myself with images of gigantic sharks; strange, sightless creatures that exploded when brought above a certain depth; electric fish that flashed red and zapped their prey. Without saying anything, I swam toward shore and Margo followed.
On the beach we wrapped ourselves in towels and sat on the pebbly sand. The outgoing tide had sliced a bight parallel to the land in the wet sand. Water tore through it like a river. “That swim made me thirsty,” I said.
“‘Bring me glass of water, Sylvie, Bring me glass of water now…’” Margo sang.
When we were little we would watch a program called
Sing, Children, Sing
on educational TV. The folk greats like Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie would sing their songs, and Margo and I would sing them back. A few years later, when Margo was really twelve instead of still looking like it, my parents had been distracted by some trouble or other, and had not been able to attend her spring concert. I was the only person from her family there. Her class had sung “Bring me glass of water, Sylvie,” and hearing it reminded me of my parental attitude toward her. Overhead the sky was still brilliant blue. I lay down on my towel and put a small pebble into my mouth. Somewhere I had read that sucking a pebble is one way to stave off thirst.
“Does Matt’s family come from Rhode Island?”
“No, from Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Both of his parents are still alive.”
“Does he have any sisters or brothers?”
“One sister, two brothers. He’s the oldest.”
After a while we walked back to the inn. We walked into a lattice-enclosed shower. A soggy wooden pallet served as the floor. Margo turned on a faucet, and tepid water came out of the spout. Through the latticework I could see guests heading back from the beach. “Do they have to use this shower too?” I asked.
“No, they get hot water inside. But Matt doesn’t like too much sand going down the drain. So the family has to take their showers here.” She soaped her hair. She sounded like a good wife already: responsible, not dependent.
Chapter 10
The next night, Margo and Matt had planned a cookout on the beach. All the inn’s guests were invited. At seven Matt and two of the college boys who worked for the inn dragged brambles and driftwood to a pit they had dug in the sand. Then they left me and Margo to set fire to it. Without planning to, Margo and I had dressed like twins: white jeans and blue sweaters. Only hers was turquoise and mine was navy. I stood on the beach drinking a beer, watching Margo strike matches that the wind would blow out. She shifted her body various ways to shelter the matchbox, but the wind sailed around her every time.
“For someone who smokes, you’re not very good at that,” I said.
“Little help?” she asked, both eyebrows lifted.
I cupped my hands into an airtight windblock, and the match was struck. Margo flung it into the mass of dry vegetation; it caught the edge of some brown leaves, and the pile went up in flames. Wind blew blazing twigs down the beach. They burned for a while, then turned to ash in the damp sand. Margo poked the fire with the iron claws of a long-handled clamming rake, creating a hot core of embers.
The sun was settling into a bank of bruise-colored clouds, spreading violet light on the beach. Silhouetted against the sunset, the inn itself looked purple, its windows glowing orange with lamplight. The effect was unnatural, like a Maxfield Parrish painting. Wind whipped my hair around my head. Margo and I tended the fire without speaking, and I felt a sense of deep satisfaction. The only sounds were the fire cackling like a witch, the breakers rolling in, the wind soaring along the promontory. I was standing on a beach with a sister, with cozy shelter a short distance away.
Matt and the college boys led the guests down from the hotel. They carried a tape player playing Keith Jarrett and coolers filled with food and beer. The procession approached, looking strange and righteous: the townspeople coming to get the witches. Then, when they were close enough to be heard over the wind, their voices were friendly. Matt gave out beers while Margo and I inspected the foil-wrapped packages: bluefish covered with a mustard-mayonnaise-dill sauce, sweet corn, red potatoes. Margo placed everything on the fire. Then she and I stood with Matt, watching an orange moon rise over Block Island.
“Hey, did I tell you I have an audition with Emile Balfour?” I asked, knowing that I hadn’t.
“You’re kidding!” Margo said, squealing out the word “kidding.”
“That is fantastic,” Matt said. “Who the hell is Emile Balfour?”
“Emile Balfour is the movie director every actor in the world wants to work with,” Margo said. “He is fantastically innovative, right, Una?”
“Right.”
“He did
The Listener
.”
“Oh, now I know who you mean,” Matt said, nodding slowly. “All his movies open with rain falling on the windshield of a car, driving through the night, the wipers going, a voice saying, ‘The rain, the rain. I must find shelter from the rain.’ Only the words are in French, and you have to read the subtitles. That guy?”
Margo and I laughed. Matt shrugged and looked up at the stars, which were very bright except when the lighthouse’s beam arced over our heads. “I love movies, but I can never remember who directed or acted in them. Is that offensive?” He looked at me. “I mean, if you’re the star of a great movie, don’t you want people to know your name?”
“I guess that’s nice,” I said, thinking of course I do.
“Of course she does!” Margo said. “You want to be recognized for your work, don’t you? Wouldn’t you be pissed off if someone thought your inn was owned by Hilton?”
Matt hugged her. “Hilton doesn’t own little inns, baby.”
“You get the drift, though.”
“All I know is that I love certain movies, and I don’t stop to notice who starred in them. The whole thing has to work together, I guess. I don’t know one director from the other…it’s best when you don’t notice the separate elements. Like certain foods.”
“Wait, you
always
say you should be able to distinguish flavors in everything you eat. You said that about bouillabaisse, just last week,” Margo said.
“Well, a sauce, then. You want a roux to taste like a roux, not a mixture of butter and flour. You never want to taste the flour.”
“Oh, God,” Margo said, scoffing like Henk. “You’re so confused.” Then she and Matt excused themselves to check on the bluefish.
I glanced around. There were three couples plus the college boys. I stood there, trying to decide whether or not to mingle. A tall man headed down the path from the inn and stood, in silhouette, looking around. Then he walked over to me. His hair appeared black in the night, and his eyes were wide, startled-looking.
“I just had a nap, and when I woke up, everyone was down here,” he said, sounding abstracted.
“Yes, it’s a beach party.”
“For the Ninigret Inn, right? I hate to crash a party unless I’m sure I won’t get kicked out.”
“Actually, if you’re staying at the inn, you’re invited. I believe that’s official.”
“Oh, you’re from the back office?”
“No. I’m Una Cavan. Pretty soon I’ll be related to the inn by marriage.”
“Uh.” He let my inane comment go by with a lack of concentration peculiar to people who have recently awakened from sleeping late in the day. Then he drifted toward the fire, where people were starting to fill their plates. Matt brought me my dinner and showed me the best place to sit: on a smooth log he told me had been embedded in the sand since washing ashore in a winter gale. Then he went back to Margo, who was dishing out bluefish.
After a few minutes the man returned. He held his dinner plate and two beers, one of which he handed to me. “I’m Sam Chamberlain,” he said. “Mind if I join you?”
“No,” I said, making room on the log.
“You’re staying at the inn?”
“My sister helps run it. She’s marrying the owner.”
“You’re Margo’s sister?” he peered at me in the dark. Up close he looked thirty-five. His hazel eyes were curious, more gold than green.
“I’m Margo’s oldest sister,” I said, amused to know that the inn’s guests knew her by name. Library research on Rodin seemed a more appropriate profession for her. I couldn’t see her as one of those jolly innkeepers who say they got into the business because they “like working with people” (Margo is shy), who like standing behind the front desk, watching the guests trail back from day trips (Margo has no time for small talk), who make pies and hand out free slices to the guests (Margo hates to cook). I was still smiling when Matt and Margo came along. They sat on the sand, facing us.
“Glad you could join us, my good man,” Matt said to Sam.
“Good deal—a nighttime picnic,” Sam said.
I tilted my head back and tried to identify the constellations overhead. The Milky Way was prominent, and I found the Big Dipper. Noting my interest, Margo said, “You should have been here August twelfth when the Perseid meteor shower was in full swing. It was wild! Matt and I sat on the beach and watched them fall into the ocean.”
I gave her a look. “Meteors burn up when they hit our atmosphere.”
“Not these. I swear, we heard them hiss. Right?” She turned to Matt, who nodded solemnly.
“You don’t see many meteors in New York,” Sam said.
“Oh, I’m from New York!” I said.
“Oh yeah?” he glanced at me casually. Everything about him seemed casual: his messy dark hair, his billowing white shirt, his khaki trousers. He had bare feet.
“What do you do in New York?” Margo asked.
“I’m an oceanographer.”
“An
oceanographer
in New York
City
?” Margo asked.
“Yeah. I work at Columbia.”
That struck everyone, even Sam, as being hilarious. Although Manhattan is an island, edging toward the Atlantic at its southern tip and Long Island Sound at its northern tip, it was unthinkable that an oceanographer would spend time there instead of, say, Woods Hole or La Jolla. Where was the sea life? The rock formations? The silt? The water column? The food chain? In Manhattan there were only dark laboratories and offices and libraries, places where an oceanographer could study the sea secondhand.
“I’m there on a grant,” Sam said. “But I’ll eventually work my way back to Woods Hole.”
“Ah, Woods Hole,” Margo said, the way I could imagine her saying of Henk when she had first met him, “ah, New York Hospital,” ticking off the impeccable credentials of her sisters’ potential suitors. She smiled across the small patch of sand at me.
“What do you do in New York?” Sam asked me.
“I’m an actress.”
“I have season’s tickets to the Ensemble Studio Theater that I never get to use. Seems every time I’m supposed to see a play, someone I’m trying to get grant money from throws a cocktail party.”
“I’m a soap opera actress.”
“Oh.” Deadpan.
Margo chuckled. I looked at her as though I would like to kill her, because I knew what she was going to say. “Una always says ‘soap opera actress’ as if she’s announcing a contagious disease. She is a
fantastic
actress.”
“I think I heard a fan talking about you on the porch this afternoon—she said some celebrity was staying at the inn. Must’ve been you.”
“No doubt.”
“Not to mention, she has an audition coming up with Emile Balfour.” Margo’s eyebrows cocked expressively.
“What’s that going to be like?” Sam asked. His tone was straightforward; he was asking me about my acting job the way he might ask someone about their teaching job or mechanic’s job. Without awe or envy.
“It will be marvelous,” I said airily. “He makes great films.”
“Films.” Sam snorted. “When people say ‘film,’ they generally mean a movie that’s either foreign or doesn’t have a plot.”
“It is foreign,” I said.
“What’s it about?”
It suddenly occurred to me that I didn’t know. I had been so thrilled by the idea of a movie, any movie, I hadn’t bothered to wonder. “I’m really not supposed to talk about it,” I said.
“No, Emile Balfour always veils his projects with secrecy,” Margo said, letting me know she was onto me.
Sam leaned back, sinking his hands into the sand. His arms looked extremely long, but, then, he was a tall man. “Wow, what a night,” he said, gazing at the white stars. “I miss this in New York. Closest I feel to the shore is the foghorns you hear on the Hudson River.”
I nodded; I had noticed the foghorns. They seemed incongruous, penetrating the roar of traffic, subway trains, and planes en route to Kennedy, LaGuardia, Newark, or Teterboro. But I listened for them every foggy night.
Margo and Matt stacked our dirty plates and stood. “Empties?” Margo asked, fitting four empty beer bottles on the fingers of one hand. Then they walked around to the other groups, collecting garbage and asking people if they were having fun.
“What kind of an oceanographer are you?” I asked Sam after a while.
“Marine biologist.”
“Did you grow up on the shore?”
“Yes, in Padanaram. On Buzzards Bay. I generally keep migrating back to southeastern Massachusetts—I went to college in New Hampshire, and graduate school in New York, and now I’m back in New York. But usually I’ve worked in Woods Hole.
“Both my parents are geologists,” Sam said. “They go off on lecture tours and digs all the time. Recently, in fact, they were studying a vein of something in Colorado, and they discovered an Indian village. So now they’re going nuts, reading up on archaeology. My mother’s decided to go back to school and study it. They’re in their sixties, and my mother’s starting a brand-new career.” He spoke ruefully, with some amusement, as if his parents were a pair of difficult kids.
“Do you have sisters or brothers?” My perennial question.
“No, I’m an only child.”
An only child! Now that was a novelty, a situation to ponder, something to approach with care. I stared at his face, which was lean and angular. He had a rather long nose, like my own. “What’s your research on?” I asked.
“I study
Chondrus crispus
, mainly.”
“What is—”
“Seaweed. That crinkly brown stuff you see in tidal pools.”
“Oh,
that
stuff,” I said.
“There’s a lot going on in tidal pools.”
“I know.” I did. Margo, Lily, and I had loved to gaze into tidal pools along the rocks in Connecticut. When we were young we would stare at the periwinkles in their coiled shells, the thicket of mossy seaweed, the bottle-green rock crabs, brittle stars, shimmery pebbles, and play a game: what new things can
you
see? We tried the same game with a patch of grass, but acorns, leaf mulch, and ants were less wonderful than the contents of a tidal pool.
“Want to take a look?” he asked. Sounding like a small boy enticing me to come along to the fire station. A field trip!
“Sure.” Leaping up, I followed him along the high-tide line toward the rocky headland. The sea was at midtide, neither high nor low. “Tidal pools are much better at low tide,” I said, not mentioning the fact that it was too dark to see anything anyway. The lighthouse beam swung across our path.
“Sure, they’re
better
at low tide, but I have something in mind. Wait till you see.”
We scuttled over smooth rocks that had been underwater when the tide was full. Bits of damp seaweed clung to them; I felt it with my bare feet. When the lighthouse’s beam blinked toward us, it was possible to choose our steps, but then it would swing away and make the darkness total. Thus, we would advance, stop and wait, then advance again. It was a slow progression. Suddenly Sam stopped short, and I crashed into his back. I grabbed for him, but my left foot slipped on a weedy rock, plunging me to the knee into a pool. I felt the barnacles gouge my calf.
“Shit,” Sam said, struggling to pull me out. “Oh, shit,” he said again when the lighthouse’s beam revealed blood seeping from a hundred scrapes. He tore a handkerchief out of his pocket and soaked it in salt water. Then he pressed it again and again to my bleeding leg. It didn’t even sting.
“What was it you wanted to show me?” I asked.
He peered at my leg. “Christ, that looks terrible. We shouldn’t be out here in the dark. What a couple of crazy—”