Melody (38 page)

“This,” he said in a low, breathy voice, “is a replica of the H.M.S.
Victory,
the flagship of the British admiral Horatio Nelson.”

“It's beautiful, Cary.”

“Isn't it?” He beamed. He put it back carefully and lifted another. “This was Laura's favorite,” he said, “the American clipper. This is a replica of the
Great Republic,
built in 1853. These ships set records for transatlantic crossings.”

“The parts are so tiny. How do you do it?”

“With great patience,” he said laughing. “I renamed this
Laura,”
he said and showed me where he had carefully engraved her name on the side. He held it a moment longer and then put it back lovingly on the shelf.

“I've got a lot more here: steamships, container ships, tankers, and of course, luxury liners. Know what this one is?” he asked, holding it up.

“I'm not sure,” I said.

“It's the
Titanic.”

I shook my head in amazement.

“You know so much about ships, Cary. You should do better in history.”

He grimaced. “One thing has nothing to do with another.”

“Did you ever make a report on ships?”

“Yes,” he said. “I got an A but I had so many spelling and writing errors, the teacher reduced it to a C.”

He put the model back and went to the small window where he had a pair of binoculars.

“Laura and I used to spend a lot of time right here gazing out at the ocean,” he said. He handed the binoculars to me when I stepped up behind him and I looked out at the ocean. Way in the distance, I saw a small light.

“What is that?”

“A tanker, maybe heading for England or Ireland. We used to love to imagine where they were going or imagine ourselves on them.” He smiled to himself. Then he sat on the cot. “Laura and I spent a lot of time up here. She would lie on this cot and read or study while I worked on my models.” He grimaced. “Then she stopped spending time up here after she started going with Robert Royce.” His face grew angry.

“She just got interested in boys, Cary. It wasn't weird for that to happen,” I said softly.

“Yeah, well, he wasn't the right one.”

“How can you be certain?”

“I just am,” he said. He had his eyes squinted shut as if trying to drive out some scene scorched on his brain.

I turned to look out the window again. “Then why did you let them use your boat?” I asked with my back to him.

“Laura was a good sailor, almost as good as I am,” he said. “She wanted it.”

I turned around and looked at him.

“I never said no to Laura,” Cary said sadly. “If only I had. . . just that once.” He looked at the floor so I wouldn't see the tear escape from his eye.

“I'm sorry.” I was close to tears myself. I gazed at the ocean again. It could be beautiful and so deadly. “To lose her like that. It's as if she just disappeared.”

“No,” he said, so softly at first I thought I imagined it. But when I turned back, he repeated it. “No. It wasn't really that way.”

“What do you mean, Cary?”

He stared at me a moment. “I've shared this with no one, not even my parents.”

I held my breath.

“After Laura and Robert failed to return, I borrowed a friend's boat and went looking for them. I looked every day for nearly a week, combing the beach, getting so close to the rocks at times, I nearly crashed into them myself. Then one day something caught my eye.”

“What?” I asked, my heart pounding.

He rose and went to one of the chests. He opened it, dipped his hand into it, and came up with a pink silk scarf. “She liked wearing this around her neck when she sailed. I found it floating in the water.”

“Why didn't you show your mother?”

“I wanted to keep the hope alive, and then I felt so guilty about not showing it, I never told. It doesn't
matter any more. She's accepted the grave. Laura's gone.”

I felt the hot tears streaming down my cheeks.

“You're the first person who I thought would understand,” he said. He gazed at the scarf and then brought it to me. “I want you to have this.”

“Oh no, I couldn't.”

“Please, take it and wear it,” he said. He pushed it into my hands.

“Thank you,” I said softly. “I'll take good care of it.”

“I know.” He raised his head and our eyes locked. The depths of his pain made me forget my own.

We heard Uncle Jacob coming up the stairs below. He paused at the attic stairway and then he plodded on to his bedroom and closed the door.

“I'd better go down,” I said.

He nodded.

“I'm going to see Grandma tomorrow,” I told him. If he could trust me with his deepest secrets, I could trust him, I thought.

“Why?”

“To get her to tell me everything. I'm going after school.”

“Do you want me to be there too?”

“No. I've got to speak to her myself. But thanks.”

“Remember, her bark's worse than her bite.”

“Good night, Cary. Thanks for showing me your models.”

He smiled and then abruptly, awkwardly, he planted a kiss on my cheek.

“Careful going down,” he said as I lowered myself on the ladder. After I reached the bottom, I looked up at him.

“Good night,” I said.

“Good night.”

He lifted the ladder as if he wanted to lose all contact with the world below and then he closed his attic door and shut himself up with his memories and his own voices.

Clutching Laura's silk scarf in my hand, I went into her room and prepared for my own dreams, filled with my own memories and voices.

We were alike, Cary and I, haunted by lies and sadness, two sailboats drifting, looking for a friendly wind.

16
 
Daddy Who?

Although Cary had been suspended from school, he was up and ready to escort May and me the next morning. He carried my books since he didn't have to carry any of his own. It was gray and overcast when we started out. The mist was so thick, we couldn't see very far ahead of us. It was like walking through clouds.

“It will burn off by early afternoon,” Cary promised. Despite his being punished for attacking Adam Jackson in the cafeteria and Uncle Jacob and Aunt Sara's disappointment with him, Cary was uncharacteristically animated. He talked continuously, permitting only a few seconds of silence to linger between us. It was as if he thought that silence would make us think and thought would make us sad.

He was especially excited about his plans to build his own sailboat this summer. For now he had to use his father's.

“I've had enough practice building the models, eh?” he said. He was thinking he might even get into the leisure boat-building business someday.

“I can't depend on the lobster and fishing industry,”
he explained. “Someday I'm going to be responsible for more than just myself,” he added.

I held May's hand and listened, a small smile on my face, as I looked down and walked. Cary continued to voice his plans. He wanted a home just outside the village and he wanted a garden and, of course, his own dock. He would raise a family with at least four or five children and he would take trips to Boston and maybe even New York.

“Provincetown is a good place to raise a family,” he assured me. “It really is. I mean, it takes a lot longer for the bad stuff to get up here, and when it does, it can't hide as well as it can other places. Know what I mean?”

I nodded, but before I could speak, he added, “I knew you would. You're so much smarter than the girls around here, and I don't mean just book smart. You have common sense.”

“Thank you,” I said.

He smiled, sucked in his breath, and looked at the fog.

“It will clear but rain's coming later tonight. I can smell it.”

After we brought May to her school, he insisted on continuing on with me.

“Just to be sure you're okay,” he explained.

When we arrived at school, he glared back furiously at any of the students who gazed at us with gleeful smiles on their faces. They turned away immediately and hurried into the building as if to escape freezing cold temperatures.

“You just tell me if anyone bothers you, Melody. Don't let them torment you in any way, hear?”

“I won't.”

“I'll be here after school to check on you.”

“But I told you I was going to see Grandma Olivia,” I reminded him. His eyes grew small with worry and disappointment.

“I know, but I'll just check anyway before you go,” he insisted. He gave me my books.

“What are you going to do?”

“I'll work on the plans for my boat,” he said. “My father won't let me help him with anything when I'm in trouble, as if I might contaminate him.” He sounded critical of his father for the first time. “People who've done wrong bring bad luck. Well. . .” He hesitated, looking at the front entrance to the school.

“I'll be fine, Cary. Stop your worrying.” I squeezed his hand and rushed into the building. When I turned at the door, he was still standing there, looking after me.

Most of the students kept their distance in the hallway, all gazing at me with some interest. Theresa met me at my locker.

“How did it go for Cary at home?” she asked.

“Not well. My uncle Jacob was very angry. Actually, he's just as angry at me.”

“It wasn't his fault or yours. You tell them that?”

“Yes.”

“I like Cary,” she said. “At least he doesn't put on a phony face,” she added, loud enough for some of the girls to hear. Janet, Lorraine, and Betty walked by quickly, just giving me a passing glance.

This day I concentrated only on schoolwork, even though I sensed there was a good deal of whispering and note passing going on behind me. There was just one critical moment in the cafeteria after I entered. The jabber lowered and all eyes were on me for a few seconds. Theresa came up and began talking to me. Then the din in the cafeteria rose again and everyone appeared to go back to his or her business. It left me feeling I had swallowed a spoonful of nails.

Theresa told me that Adam Jackson had tried to recoup his reputation by telling everyone Cary's actions just proved him right. But he stayed away from me, not even glancing in my direction. Toward the end of the school day, I had the distinct sense that everyone had grown tired and bored with this scandal. Some of the students in my classes who had often talked to me about
the work did so again. I felt more relaxed and at ease moving through the corridors.

All of Cary's teachers were glad to give me assignments for him, and every one of them said he or she felt Cary could do better if he only tried or cared. Mr. Madeo winked at me and said he was sure Cary would pass his English final if his tutor would stand by him.

“I'll see to it she does,” I told him.

True to his word, Cary was waiting after school his hands in his pockets, his hair over his forehead, his face drawn in a scowl, right at the entrance to the school when the bell rang ending the day.

“Everything's fine,” I told him immediately. “It's over, forgotten.”

“Sure.”

“It is. Here.” I thrust the pages of assignments in his hands. “This is your schoolwork, Cary Logan, and I expect you will do it even though you're not attending classes.”

He gazed at the papers and then looked up at me and smiled. “You'll make me an A student yet, eh?”

“You'll do it yourself.”

We started away and at the end of the street, we paused because I was going to walk to Grandma Olivia's.

“It's not a short walk,” he warned. “If I hadn't gotten suspended, my father would have let me use the pickup and I could have taken you, but—”

“I know how far it is. I'll be all right. I want to do it. I have to do it,” I said. He nodded and kicked a stone across the macadam.

“You sure you don't want me along?”

“Cary, you have to see to May,” I told him.

“She can make her way home alone if she must.”

“I once said that and you nearly bit my head off.”

He smiled. “I did. I remember. All right, go on, but don't get upset and—”

“Mr. Worry Wart, stop it!” I ordered.

“All right.”

I started away.

“Her bark's worse than her bite!” he shouted after me.

“So's mine,” I shouted back. He watched me walk off for a while and then he went to fetch May.

It was a long walk, and when I broke out to the main highway, it was harder, because the cars were whizzing by, some so close I felt the breeze in their wake lift my hair. Suddenly, an elderly man driving a rather beaten up light orange pickup truck stopped.

“You shouldn't be walking on this highway,” he chastised.

“I have no other way to go,” I said.

“Well, get in and I'll drop you off. Come on. My wife would give me hell if she heard I let a young girl walk along here.”