Hemingway's Girl (9 page)

Why did everyone judge her for spending time with Hemingway? Was it so unusual for
a thirty-five-year-old man and an almost twenty-year-old woman to be friends?

Yes.

She knew it was strange, especially because she was his maid. Especially because he
was married. And especially because she could feel the electricity between them whenever
he was around. She wondered whether others felt it, too.

Part of her wanted to pull away from Papa and not incite gossip. She didn’t want to
interfere with another woman’s husband. She knew he was too old for her, and she certainly
meant nothing to him beyond amusement. But another part of her, the part she didn’t
want to acknowledge, continued to assert itself and didn’t care what others thought.

In the meantime, Mariella was thrilled with the bike. She’d seen it collecting rust
in the Hemingways’ cellar when she was fetching wine for Pauline, and asked whether
she could borrow it. Pauline told her it wasn’t in good working order because the
chain kept coming off, but with a little help from Toby, the Hemingways’ handyman,
it was up and running in no time.

It took Mariella an afternoon of falling and cursing to teach herself to ride it,
but she learned quickly, knowing that the sooner she could ride, the sooner she could
get over to Stock Island to see whether her father’s boat was salvageable.

As it turned out, it wasn’t in the first boat graveyard she found, or the second.
The third was clear up on No Name Key, and Mariella couldn’t go all that way and get
back to town before
dark. She was disappointed, but she’d just have to go some other time.

Mariella felt a tug in her heart when she saw her little sisters on the porch. Lulu
sat on the step below Estelle, while Estelle brushed out her knotty hair. Lulu jumped
up when Mariella returned, and ran to greet her.

Mariella leaned the bicycle against a tree and hugged her youngest sister, alarmed
by her warmth. Mariella put her hands on her little sister’s face and saw the flush
in her cheeks.

“How do you feel?” asked Mariella, uncertain whether Lulu was warm from the sun or
the beginnings of a fever. Lulu’s bouts of fever and stomach pain had plagued her
most of her young life, but had seemed to get worse within the last few months. The
doctor had always treated the symptoms, but he had never been able to come up with
a diagnosis.

Lulu pulled away and rolled her eyes with a smile.

“I’m fine,” she said.

Mariella checked Lulu’s eyes to see whether they looked glassy.

“Are you sure? Let’s get you inside in the shade.”

That evening, Mariella watched the child’s every move, and felt relieved when it was
time for bed and Lulu seemed well, though especially tired. Eva went to bed early,
leaving Mariella to help the girls wash up. She’d tucked them into the bed they shared
in the tiny room and started out the door, when Lulu called her back in.

“Lie with us,” she said.

Mariella didn’t want to, because she’d had it in the back of her mind that she’d go
to Sloppy Joe’s once they fell asleep. She’d already chosen a dress from her closet
that she rarely wore, and
hung it in the bathroom, just in case. She knew that if she lay down with the girls,
she might fall asleep.

“It’s late,” said Mariella.

“Please,” said Lulu. “Tell us about the rich house where you work.”

Mariella sighed and climbed into the bed. Lulu had asked to hear about the rich house
every night since she started work at the Hemingways’. She was pretty sure her younger
sisters could tell about it themselves. But she indulged them, taking them into the
house in their minds, past the peacocks and huge tropical flowers, past the wrought-iron
railings, through the rooms with their fancy chandeliers reflecting off rounded windows
and wall mirrors, across the walkway to the writing cottage, where dead animals guarded
the words of the famous writer.

“It’s the lion that guards the cottage,” said Mariella. “Anyone who enters first sees
its jaws wide-open on the floor, and dares not disturb it.”

“What is a lion?” asked Lulu slowly, drowsily.

“It’s a big huge cat, with big huge teeth, and a woolly mane of hair like sun rays
around its head.”

“Are you scared it will bite you?”

Mariella thought of how the lion reminded her of Hemingway. She felt warm all over
and thought of his gaze in the cottage, and his touch on her hand when she’d dropped
the towels, and his leg against hers at the bar.

“No.”

Soon the sound of the girls’ rhythmic breathing filled the room. For a moment, Mariella
wanted to melt into the bed with them, but the thought of him pulled her away and
into the bathroom, where she put on the dress she was outgrowing, brushed back her
hair in barrettes, and ran a tube of her mother’s lipstick over her lips. She wouldn’t
allow herself to think it was the hope of running into Hemingway again that drew her
back to the bar.
She told herself it was the camaraderie, the freedom, the friendship.

Mariella stepped into Sloppy Joe’s and was suddenly filled with dread at the thought
of seeing Hemingway. Would he think she’d dressed up for him? Had she dressed up for
him? Would he think her too forward? Would he be annoyed? Or would he greet her the
same way he did last weekend? Mariella didn’t even know whether she’d act like she
was looking for him. She didn’t know what she wanted from him even if they met.

A buxom, bleached-blond woman with red lips laughed in the midst of a group of soldiers.
A bottle shattered on the floor near Mariella, and a drunk knocked her into the wall
as he pushed past her to vomit in the street.

Mariella ran her ring finger along her lower lip to smooth the edge of the lipstick
and ran her hands down the front of her dress. She looked at his place at the bar
and, mercifully, Papa wasn’t in his usual seat. Mariella stood on her toes and scanned
the crowd, but her limited height gave her a view only of the faces closest to her.
The crowd opened and she saw a man who looked familiar, buried in the shadows at the
end of the bar. He wore a white shirt tucked into blue dungarees. His dark hair was
clipped close to his head. He had a young face, almost feminine. But his eyes were
old and blue, and one had a yellowed, fading bruise around it, and a scar like a line.
He was smoking, and the tip of the cigarette glowed bright orange when he inhaled.

Gavin.

His gaze met hers, and he stared. She felt self-conscious without her baseball cap
and work clothes and looked for an exit. Drunken soldiers surrounded her, filling
the space leading out of the bar. The only pathway open was the one leading to him.
She
took a deep breath and started forward. He never took his eyes off her and, as she
neared him, broke into a grin.

“We keep running into each other,” he said.

“I know. I’ve never seen you in my life, and now I’ve seen you three times.”

“This look suits you more,” he said.

“What—female?”

He laughed, and pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket.

“Smoke?” he said. She took the cigarette he offered and lit it off his. When she leaned
into him she could smell the warm, pleasant spice of his aftershave.

“You looking for him?” He nodded down the bar. She turned to see Hemingway slip into
his chair. He laughed loudly at something Skinner said. Mariella flushed and was glad
for the shadows, hoping Gavin didn’t notice her reaction.

Suddenly, a man fell off the chair next to Mariella and into a drunken vet. The vet
punched the man in the side of the face and they began to fight, until Skinner came
out from behind the bar and dragged them out the door by their necks.

“Kinda rough in here for a lady,” said Gavin.

“There are plenty of women in here.”

“Not like you.”

Mariella looked at the crowd and saw that most of the women there were clearly trying
to earn a living. She felt more pity for them than disgust. She knew she was lucky
to have found steady, honest employment.

“So what’s it like working for him?” asked Gavin.

“It’s…interesting. They have a lot of visitors. I’m very busy.”

“What about him?”

“I don’t see him much. He writes early, goes fishing when it gets hot, and goes to
the bar in the evening. How about you? Are you working on the Overseas Highway?”

“Yeah. I live on Matecumbe Key.”

“You vets have a bad reputation around here.”

“Hemingway has a bad reputation around here.”

“I’m surrounded by thugs.”

Gavin laughed.

Mariella looked back in Papa’s direction, and he raised his glass to her and pointed
at her dress. Then he raised his eyebrows and nodded at Gavin. Papa probably thought
she was on a date with the boxer. At first she hoped he didn’t think that, but then
stopped herself. Hemingway was married. She didn’t want another woman’s husband. She
didn’t know whether she wanted any kind of man right now. Relationships led to trouble.
She knew that from her parents.

Gavin’s voice in her ear drew her attention back to him.

“Wanna dance?”

Mariella looked at the sign over the door: no vulgar dancing. She looked at the dance
floor and saw sailors gyrating all over drunken women in low-cut shirts and tight
dresses. She raised her eyebrow and pointed to the sign. He laughed and grabbed her
hand. She pulled away.

“No, really,” she said. “I’m terrible.”

“Who cares,” he said. “I am, too.”

Her eyes flicked over to Hemingway, and she saw that he was watching them with interest,
maybe even jealousy. She turned back to Gavin and took his hand.

He pulled her close to the band, and they started a messy Lindy to the music pounding
through the bar. The next time she tried to get a glimpse of Hemingway, he was gone.
Her heart sank. She wondered whether she’d made him jealous, but then realized the
madness of the whole thing, from her dressing up, to coming out, to trying to anger
him. This behavior scared her, because it was purposeful and had a note of desperation.
She didn’t know who she was.

A couple ran into Mariella’s back and pushed her into Gavin. They bumped heads, and
laughed at each other’s absurdity. The
drummer began banging out a solo that had soldiers throwing their girls all over the
dance floor. Gavin grabbed Mariella and flipped her over his arm, and when she landed,
she fell on her backside. He picked her up and apologized, but then they laughed until
they couldn’t catch their breath.

He pulled her over to a corner and touched her forehead.

“You really are a terrible dancer,” he said.

“I don’t know why you didn’t believe me,” she said.

“I thought you were just trying to put me off.”

She looked him in the eye squarely for the first time that night and saw all the intensity
she’d seen the first night they’d met. She grew warm and hoped he hadn’t noticed her
divided attention. The strains of the slow and sultry “All Through the Night” began.
Gavin reached for her hand.

“Let’s try this one,” he said. “If we knock heads now, we can cross dancing off the
list forever.”

She smiled and allowed him to lead her back to the dance floor, enjoying the way she
fit into his arms and the weight of his hands on her back. She looked up at his face
and stared at his scar and the shadows under his eyes. It didn’t seem as if he could
look her in the eye from this close, and she wondered why he was suddenly so shy.
She thought he tried to turn his face so his scar was away from her, and she wished
she could tell him that it didn’t bother her, but she didn’t want to make him uncomfortable.
When the song ended they walked back to the bar. Hemingway wasn’t there. She was satisfied
with herself that she’d gone a whole five minutes without thinking of him.

“Where do you live?” Gavin asked.

“Whitehead and Louisa. Where are you staying?”

“At a friend’s house on Olivia Street. How about I walk you home? It’s getting ugly
in here.”

Mariella hesitated. What if he was just trying to get her alone? She looked at his
face and decided that she trusted him.
Besides, if he tried anything, she knew all the hidden alleys and escapes and had
friends on every corner. He wouldn’t get away with anything.