Melody (23 page)

He looked at me curiously for a moment. I felt, since he was being honest, I should be. “But you're too fixed in your thinking for someone your age. You should have a more open mind about things.”

“Sure,” he said. “And be willing to smoke dope and drink and waste my time just like those other jerks in school.”

“They're not all jerks, are they?”

“Most are.”

“You can be pretty infuriating,” I told him.

He shrugged and began serving the fish. “I don't bother anyone and just ask they don't bother me,” he said. “Let's eat.”

He made sure May had her meal first. The way he took care of her, saw to her needs and happiness, softened my frustration and anger toward him.

“How hard was it for May when Laura died?” I asked him as we sat at the picnic table and began our meal.

“Real hard,” he said.

“Poor thing. To have such a tragedy on top of her handicap.”

“She does fine,” he said angrily.

“No one is saying she doesn't, Cary. You don't have to jump down my throat. There is such a thing as being too protective, you know.”

“You can never be too protective,” he replied. “Once you go out there, you'll understand.” He nodded toward the ocean.

“When am I going out there?” He was silent. “I've never been on a sailboat. Daddy used to take us to the beach, but Mommy hated boats so we just went swimming and got suntans.”

“What a bunch of tourists,” he quipped.

“You shouldn't make fun of the tourists. They buy your lobsters, don't they?”

“And ruin everything, litter the beach, poison the water, make fun of us.”

“I think you'd be happy just being a hermit,” I concluded. It didn't faze him. He shrugged.

“This is good,” I told him after I ate some of the fish, but it sounded like a complaint.

“Thanks,” he said without any feeling.

“You're welcome,” I growled.

We ate silently, shooting darts at each other with our eyes, but when we turned to May we saw her staring at us and smiling a wide smile of amusement. Cary's eyes shifted to mine. We gazed at each other a moment and then we had to laugh.

It was as if a sheet of ice had cracked and let in some warm air. Our conversation lightened up and I talked about the scenery. I was taken with the apricot glow of the sunset as we looked out over the ocean. I hadn't realized how beautiful the ocean could be. That pleased him and he revealed that when he was a little boy he and Laura would lie on their backs in their father's rowboat at dusk and watch the sky change colors.

“It seemed magical,” he said.

“It is.”

There was real warmth in his eyes and I thought the girls were right: he was good looking when he wanted to be. Suddenly, though, he became self-conscious and quickly reverted to his serious, hard look. However, after dinner when I helped him clean up, he surprised me by suggesting we walk into town with May for some frozen custard.

“And see what damage the outsiders are doing,” he added.

“And what money they're leaving with the local merchants,” I added. He hid his smile, but I caught it.

For the first time, when we walked with May, he allowed her to hold both our hands. Cary led us a different way that took us past high grass, bushes, and scrub oak trees. I heard the peepers in the marsh.

“Theresa and her brother and sisters and her father live down there,” he pointed when we turned a corner.

I gazed at a street that wound east. The houses were small and the grass in their yards was spotty and rough. Closer to the town, the houses were nicer, with real lawns and flowers, like yellow tea roses in a bed of Queen Anne's lace, dark purple iris, and hydrangeas.

The Cape was truly amazing. Toward the ocean, there were rolls and rolls of sand that looked as dry and sparse as any desert, but a short distance away were oak trees, blueberry bushes, red maple trees, and houses with lawns full of crocus clusters, emperor tulips, and sprawling lilac bushes. It seemed like two different worlds. Cary said there was often two kinds of weather. It could be stormy on the east with the sun shining brightly on the west.

Perhaps the differences in the land explained the differences in the people, I thought, some hard, frugal, with religious ideas carved in stone; other carefree, impulsive, jolly, and hungry for fun and excitement. Some lived to work and some worked just enough to live.

At night the little town was exciting, especially with all the people, the music from the bars and restaurants, the carloads of tourists yelling to each other, the crowds
down at the dock. My eyes went everywhere. He bought May her frozen custard and asked me if I wanted one, too. I did. He got himself one as well.

May wanted to go to the dock and watch the deep-sea fishermen try to entice the tourists to hire them. I had never been in a real tourist town at night before, and was taken with all the lights, and the way store owners and desert tour operators barked at the people, tempting, cajoling, practically begging for their business.

“I hate those desert tours,” Cary remarked when a jeep load rolled by. “Once, a couple of jeeps pulled up behind our house and the guide pointed to my mother and Laura, describing them as native fishermen's women.”

“So, that's what your mother is, right?”

“She's not a freak for tourists to gape at, no,” he said, “and Laura certainly was not. How would they like a sightseeing bus coming around to their backyards and having people gape at them while they did their housework?”

I nodded, understanding some of his anger.

“You're right. That isn't nice.” He looked appreciative, but quickly checked his smile and gazed at May.

“Better get back,” he said. “May's sleepy.”

When we returned to the house, Uncle Jacob was entertaining his fisherman friend in the living room while their wives chatted in the kitchen. We went directly upstairs. May went to sleep quickly.

“Thanks for the custard and the walk,” I told Cary in the hallway.

He stared at me a moment.

“Are you very tired?”

“No, not very,” I said.

“Want to see something special?”

“Sure.”

“Come on,” he said, leading the way down the stairs. We stepped quietly through the house, but Uncle Jacob heard us and came to the living room doorway.

“Where you going now, son?” he asked.

“Just going to check the bog,” Cary replied.

Uncle Jacob looked at me, his eyes growing smaller before he nodded softly and returned to his company.

Cary said nothing. He hurried out of the house and led me over the grounds to the hill. When we reached the top, he paused and we gazed at the bog. The moonlight played tricks with the blossoms. They dazzled like jewels in the night.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“It's beautiful.”

“I thought you might like it.”

To our right the ocean roared in the darkness. I embraced myself.

“Cold?”

“A little,” I admitted.

“I bet you really wanted to go to that beach party,” he said.

“I've never been to one.”

“All they do is smoke dope or drink around the fire. Some of them go off into the darkness, of course.”

“Don't you want a girlfriend some day?” I asked him.

“When I find someone sensible, I'll speak to her,” he replied.

“No one's sensible?”

“And pretty, too,” he admitted. He stood there with his hands in his pockets, kicking the sand and occasionally glancing at me and then at the ocean. “What about you?”

“What?”

“Did you have a boyfriend back in West Virginia?”

“For a while I was going steady, but after Daddy died . . . I stopped going to school dances and things.”

“Yeah, I didn't want to do anything after Laura died. I didn't want to work or ever go back to school.”

“That was the only good thing about us leaving Sewell,” I told him. “Not having to go to the places Daddy and I used to go to anymore, not having to look at the coal miners and wait for him to come home.”

He thought a moment. “I couldn't leave here ever.”

“Most of the young people I knew were always talking about getting away from home someday.”

“Not me. This is where I belong, where I was meant to be. I got saltwater in my blood.”

I laughed.

“I probably won't graduate anyway,” he added.

“Why not?”

“Doing pretty bad in English.”

“Badly.”

“What?”

“You're doing badly, not bad.”

“See what I mean?”

“Maybe I can help you. I'm a very good English student.”

“It's probably too late. If I don't pass the final—”

“Then you'll pass it,” I told him. “I'll help you every night. Okay?”

“I don't know. I don't know if I even care.”

“You've got to care! Besides, I'm sure you'll do well if you try.”

He smiled.

“I understand Laura was a very good student. Did she help you?”

He looked away instead of answering and then he turned back and started down the hill. “Let's go back to the house.”

I followed him. When we entered the house again, Uncle Jacob asked Cary in to talk about the lobster business with them. I told them good night and went to my room to read. A little while later I heard Cary go up to his attic hideaway. I listened to him scuffle about and then all grew quiet, but for the muffled voices of Uncle Jacob, Aunt Sara, and their friends below.

My eyelids felt heavy. I dozed off, woke up, went to the bathroom, returned, and dressed for bed. After I put the lights out, I gazed out the window and saw the moon walk on the ocean. How beautiful. Had Laura looked out this window and been thrilled by it? What was she really
like? I had Aunt Sara's constant descriptions, comparisons, and remarks, but somehow I thought there was more to her daughter than she knew.

Cary knew, I thought. She had been his twin, but he was afraid or unwilling to talk about her. It would take time, but more importantly, it would take trust. I wondered if I could ever get him to trust me with the secrets of his heart. I knew he had secrets buried deeply.

I closed my eyes and lay back on my pillow and thought about Mommy. Where was she tonight? I swallowed back my tears and pressed for sleep to keep myself from thinking sad thoughts.

Was that what Cary did every night?

10
 
A Cocoon of Lies

The next morning, Sunday, we went to church then came home and prepared for our visit to my grandparents as if we were going to visit royalty. Aunt Sara explained that everyone had to wear his and her best clothes and be prim and proper.

She paraded through the room explaining what I was to wear and how I was to wear my hair and carry myself. “Olivia doesn't like women to have their hair loose and down. She says it makes them look like witches. Use the bobby pins and combs to wrap your hair neatly. And no makeup, not even lipstick. You can wear the charm bracelet, of course, but rings and necklaces, and especially earrings don't belong on young ladies, she says.”

“Is that what you think, too, Aunt Sara?”

“What I think doesn't matter when we go to Samuel and Olivia's home,” she replied. “Jacob's pleased when they're pleased.”

“And you? When are you pleased?”

Aunt Sara paused and gazed at me as if I had asked the most ridiculous question. “I'm pleased when Jacob's pleased, as any wife would be.”

“I hope that my husband will want me to be happy, too, and care about my feelings as much or more than he cares about his own. My daddy was like that.”

“Oh dear, don't say things like that in front of Jacob. Especially not today,” she warned.

“Maybe I shouldn't go along,” I said. Alarm sprang to her eyes.

“You have to go! It's Sunday. We always go to Samuel and Olivia's for Sunday brunch,” she said. “Why, Laura used to look forward to going. Olivia always has wonderful things to eat. Laura loved the tiny cakes with frosting and jelly in the center, and Samuel always gave her a crisp five-dollar bill when we left. She was the apple of his eye. She was . . .” She paused to take a deep breath.

For a moment she seemed locked in a daze. Then her eyes snapped closed and open and she spun around. “Try to keep your shoulders back and your head up when you walk. Olivia hates the way young people slouch today. She's always saying posture shows character and embellishes good health.”

“No one's ever said I slouch.”

“No, you don't, but just be more attentive to it. Well, I must see about May.”

I took a deep breath and rose, feeling even more nervous this morning than the day I had first arrived. When I finally thought myself dressed well enough and looking somewhat the way Aunt Sara wanted me to, I descended the stairs to find the family waiting in the living room. Everyone was still dressed in their church clothes.