Duma Key (58 page)

Wireman! I woke up early and I've been having such a wonderful time with my chinas!

“Come on, Eddie, you're tired. Come to bed.”

She led me into the bedroom. The window in here was smaller, the moonlight thinner, but the window was open and I could hear the constant sigh of the water.

“Are you sure—”

“Hush.”

I'm sure I've been told your name but it escapes me, so much does now.

“I never meant to hurt you. I'm so sorry—”

She put two fingers against my lips. “I don't want your sorry.”

We sat side by side on the bed in the shadows. “What
do
you want?”

She showed me with a kiss. Her breath was warm and tasted of champagne. For a little while I forgot about Elizabeth and Wireman, picnic baskets, and Duma Key. For a little while there was just she and I, like the old days. The two-armed days. For a little while after that I slept—until the first light came creeping. The loss of memory isn't always the problem; sometimes—maybe even often—it's the solution.

Be brave.
Don't be afraid to draw the secret things. No one said art was always a zephyr; sometimes it's a hurricane. Even then you must not hesitate or change course. Because if you tell yourself the great lie of bad art
—
that you are in charge
—
your chance at the truth will be lost. The truth isn't always pretty. Sometimes the truth is the big boy.

The little ones say
It's Libbit's frog. A frog with teef.

And sometimes it's something even worse. Something like Charley in his bright blue breeches.

Or
HER.

Here is a picture of little Libbit with her finger to her lips. She says
Shhhh.
She says
If you talk she'll hear, so shhhh.
She says
Bad things can happen, and upside-down talking birds are just the first and least, so shhhh. If you try to run, something awful may come out of the cypress and gumbo limbo and catch you on the road. There are even worse things in the water down at Shade Beach—worse than the big boy, worse than Charley who moves so quick. They're in the water, waiting to drown you. And not even drowning is the end, no, not even drowning. So shhhh.

But for the true artist, the truth will insist. Libbit Eastlake can hush her mouth, but not her paints and pencils.

There's only one person she dares talk to, and only one place she can do it
—
only one place at Heron's Roost where
HER
hold seems to fail. She makes Nan Melda go there with her. And tries to explain how this happened, how the talent demanded the truth and the truth slithered out of her grasp. She tries to explain how the drawings have taken over her life and how she has come to hate the little china doll Daddy found with the rest of the treasure—the little china woman who was Libbit's
fair salvage.
She tries to explain her deepest fear: if they
don't do something, the twins may not be the only ones to die, only the first ones. And the deaths may not end on Duma Key.

She gathers all her courage (and for a child who is little more than a baby, she must have had a great lot of it) and tells the whole truth, mad as it is. First about how she made the hurricane, but that it
wasn't her idea
—
it was
HER
idea.

I think Nan Melda believes it. Because she's seen the big boy? Because she's seen Charley?

I think she saw both.

The truth has to come out, that's the basis of art. But that's not to say the world must see it.

Nan Melda says
Where yo new doll now? The china doll?

Libbit says
In my special treasure-box. My heart-box.

Nan Melda says
And what her name?

Libbit says
Her name is Perse.

Nan Melda says
Percy a boy's name.

And Libbit says
I can't help it. Her name is Perse. That's the truth.
And she says
Perse has a ship. It looks nice but it's not nice. It's bad. What are we going to do, Nanny?

Nan Melda thinks about it as they stand there in the one safe place. And I believe she knew what needed to be done. She might not have been an art critic
—
no Mary Ire
—
but
I think she knew. The bravery is in the
doing,
not in the
showing.
The truth can be hidden away again, if it's too terrible for the world to look at. And it happens. I'm sure it happens all the time.

I think every artist worth a damn has a red picnic basket.

i

“Share your pool, mister?”

It was Ilse, in green shorts and matching halter. Her feet were bare, her face without make-up and puffy with sleep. Her hair was yanked back in a ponytail, the way she'd worn it when she was eleven, and if not for the fullness of her breasts, she could have passed for that eleven-year-old.

“Any time,” I said.

She sat beside me on the tiled lip of the pool. We were about halfway down, my butt on
5
and hers on
FT
.

“You're up early,” I said, but this didn't surprise me. Illy had always been our restless one.

“I was worried about you. Especially when Mr. Wireman called Jack to say that nice old woman died. It was Jack who told us. We were still at dinner.”

“I know.”

“I'm so sorry.” She put her head on my shoulder. “And on your special night, too.”

I put my arm around her.

“Anyway, I only slept a couple of hours, and then got up because it was light. And when I looked out, who should I see sitting beside the pool but my father, all by himself?”

“Couldn't sleep anymore. I just hope I didn't wake
your m—” I stopped, aware of Ilse's large, round eyes. “Don't go getting any ideas, Miss Cookie. It was strictly comfort.”

It had
not
been strictly comfort, but what it had been was something I wasn't prepared to explore with my daughter. Or myself, for that matter.

She slumped a little, then straightened and looked at me, head tilted, the beginnings of a smile at the corners of her mouth.

“If you have hopes, that's your business,” I said. “But I would advise you not to get them up. I'm always going to care for her, but sometimes people go too far to turn back. I think . . . I'm pretty sure that's the case with us.”

She looked back at the still surface of the pool, the little smile at the corners of her mouth dying away. I hated seeing it go, but maybe it was for the best. “All right, then.”

That left me free to move on to other matters. I didn't want to, but I was still her father and she was in many ways still a child. Which meant that, no matter how badly I felt about Elizabeth Eastlake this morning, or how confused I might be about my own situation, I still had certain duties to fulfill.

“Need to ask you something, Illy.”

“Okay, sure.”

“Are you not wearing the ring because you don't want your mother to see it and go nuclear . . . which I would fully understand . . . or because you and Carson—”

“I sent it back,” she said in a flat and toneless voice. Then she giggled, and a stone rolled off my heart. “But I sent it UPS, and I insured it.”

“So . . . it's over?”

“Well . . . never say never.” Her feet were in the water and she kicked them slowly back and forth. “Carson doesn't
want
it to be, so he says. I'm not sure I do, either. At least not without seeing how we do face to face. The phone or e-mail really isn't the way to talk something like this out. Plus, I want to see if the attraction is still there, and if so, how much.” She glanced sideways, a little anxiously. “That doesn't gross you out, does it?”

“No, honey.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Yes.”

“How many second chances did you give Mom?”

I smiled. “Over the course of the marriage? I'd say two hundred or so.”

“And how many did she give you?”

“About the same.”

“Did you ever . . .” She stopped. “I can't ask you that.”

I looked at the pool, aware of a very middle-class flush rising in my cheeks. “Since we're having this discussion at six in the morning and not even the pool boy's here yet, and since I think I know what your problem with Carson Jones is, you can ask. The answer is no. Not even once. But if I'm dead honest, I have to say that was more luck than stone-ass righteousness. There were times when I came close, and once when it was probably only luck or fate or providence that kept it from happening. I don't think the marriage would have ended if the . . . the accident had happened, I think there are worse offenses against a partner, but they don't call it cheating for nothing. One slip can be excused as human fallibility.
Two can be excused as human frailty. After that—” I shrugged.

“He says it was just once.” Her voice was little more than a whisper. Her feet had slowed to a dreamy underwater drift. “He said she started coming on to him. And finally . . . you know.”

Sure. It happens that way all the time. In books and movies, anyway. Maybe sometimes in real life, too. Just because it sounded like a self-serving lie didn't mean it was.

“The girl he sings with?”

Ilse nodded. “Bridget Andreisson.”

“She of the bad breath.”

Faint smile.

“I seem to remember you telling me not too long ago that he'd have to make a choice.”

A long silence. Then: “It's complicated.”

It always is. Ask any drunk in a bar who's been thrown out by his wife. I kept quiet.

“He told her he doesn't want to see her anymore. And the duets are off. I know that for a fact, because I checked some of the latest reviews on the Internet.” She colored faintly at this, although I didn't blame her for checking. I would have checked, too. “When Mr. Fredericks—he's the tour director—threatened to send him home, Carson told him he could if he wanted to, but he wasn't singing with that holy blond bitch anymore.”

“Were those his exact words?”

She smiled brilliantly. “He's a
Baptist,
Daddy, I'm interpreting. Anyway, Carson stood his ground and Mr. Fredericks relented. For me, that's a mark in his favor.”

Yes,
I thought,
but he's still a cheater who calls himself Smiley.

I took her hand. “What's your next move?”

She sighed. The ponytail made her look eleven; the sigh made her sound forty. “I don't know. I'm at a loss.”

“Then let me help you. Will you do that?”

“All right.”

“For the time being, stay away from him,” I said, and I discovered I wanted that with all my heart. But there was more. When I thought of the
Girl and Ship
paintings—especially the girl in the rowboat—I wanted to tell her not to talk to strangers, keep her hairdryer away from the bathtub, and jog only at the college track.
Never
across Roger Williams Park at dusk.

She was looking at me quizzically, and I managed to get myself in gear again. “Go right back to school—”

“I wanted to talk to you about that—”

I nodded, but squeezed her arm to show her I wasn't quite finished. “Finish your semester. Make your grades. Let Carson finish the tour. Get perspective,
then
get together . . . understand what I'm saying?”

“Yes . . .” She understood, but didn't sound convinced.

“When you do get together, do it on neutral ground. And I don't mean to embarrass you, but it's still just the two of us, so I'm going to say this. Bed is not neutral ground.”

She looked down at her swimming feet. I reached out and turned her face to mine.

“When the issues aren't resolved, bed is a battleground. I wouldn't even have dinner with the guy until you know where you stand with him.
Meet in . . . I don't know . . . Boston. Sit on a park bench and work it out. Get it clear in your mind and make sure it's clear in his.
Then
have dinner. Do a Red Sox game. Or go to bed, if you think it's the right thing. Just because I don't want to think about your sex-life doesn't mean I don't think you should have one.”

She relieved me considerably by laughing. At the sound, a waiter who still looked half-asleep came out to ask us if we wanted coffee. We said we did. When he went to get it, Ilse said: “All right, Daddy. Point taken. I was going to tell you that I'm going back this afternoon, anyway. I have an Anthro prelim at the end of the week, and there are a bunch of us who've formed a little study group. We call ourselves the Survivors' Club.” She regarded me anxiously. “Would that be okay? I know you were planning on a couple of days, but now there's this thing with your friend—”

“No, honey, that's fine.” I kissed the tip of her nose, thinking that if I was close up, she wouldn't see how pleased I was—pleased that she'd come for the show, pleased that we'd had some time together this morning, pleased most of all that she would be a thousand miles north of Duma Key by the time the sun went down tonight. Assuming she could get a flight reservation, that was. “And as for Carson?”

She sat quiet for perhaps an entire minute, swinging her bare feet back and forth through the water. Then she stood up and took my arm, helping me to my feet. “I think you're right. I'll say that if he's serious about our relationship, he'll just have to put everything on hold until July 4th.”