Red Ruby Heart in a Cold Blue Sea (9781101559833) (19 page)

36

N
ext morning I put the sweater into a little box and hugged it to my chest as I walked it up the hill to Ray's. Stella was dusting shelves when I showed up, but she came right over when she saw I had business with Ray.

“Mind if I take a peek?” Stella asked.

I opened the box and she ran her hand over the wool. She said, “You got the touch.”

“Put some more together,” Ray said. “Grand's sweaters always sold.”

“How much did Grand get?” Stella asked.

“Not a lot,” Ray said. “She said she just liked making them.”

“Florine's got to make some money,” Stella said.

“I'll pay her, Stella. Don't you worry. It'll be between her and me.”

“'Course, but she needs a job. She's got to do something.”

“I'm right here,” I said. “I can hear just fine.”

They looked at me as if I had just showed up.

“This is what I'm planning,” I said. “There's the bread. And making sweaters will bring in some extra. I'm hoping Daddy will take me on next spring to help on the boat. Maybe I can housekeep at the cottages when the summer people come in. There's plenty of stuff to do around here.” I didn't mention working at the Lobster Shack. I would never be able to waitress there without thinking of Carlie.

Ray nodded. “Maybe you can help out here this summer. We'll see.”

“That'd be good,” Stella said. “We can have her do what I'm doing so I can get going on the sandwiches, or she can sell ice creams.”

“She's going to help me, Stella, not you,” Ray said.

“I know,” Stella said, “but I could use the help, too.”

Since they didn't seem to need me there to carry on about what I should be doing with my life and for whom, I left the store. Ray would pay me for the sweater later.

Once outside, I sucked in a season's worth of winter air: cold, clean, filled with snow. The gray swells in the harbor huddled close, as if to keep warm. I thought about what I had just told Ray and Stella. Most of it was talk. I didn't know if Daddy would take me on, wondered how many sweaters I would have to make, how many loaves of bread.

My head filled with half-risen plans, I headed toward the path that led to the State Park. About an inch of snow covered the ground. I meant to take the path to my little clearing that day, but my feet changed my mind and took me through to the Barrington place. I stood on the edge of the woods. I thought back to how Mr. Barrington had kissed my hand and called me lovely, like my mother. I thought about the fire. The old man pissing on Bud and me. Seeing my first Negro. Getting talked down to by Mr. Barrington. The way Carlie had squeezed my shoulders when he had done that. “My little criminal,” she had whispered into my ear. The wind in the pines picked up the word “criminal” and spread it amongst themselves. I thought about the walk the four of us had taken last winter. The downed pine was gone, cut up, no doubt, last summer. I walked down to the edge of the lawn to see if they had put a new beach in. A pile of rocks edged the soil ledge carved by the ocean, and a strip of new, imported sand faced the sea. “Foolish,” I said. “Just going to happen again, sooner or later.” I turned and walked back toward the cottage. It was beautiful in the winter sunshine. Each weathered gray shingle stood stern and stark, and the lupine-blue trim of the windows and porch shone bright. I walked up onto the porch and peeked through a large window. Furniture slept in lumps and curves under white sheets, except for one big, rose-colored sofa sitting in front of a pink quartz fireplace the size of Daddy's boat. Charred logs filled the hearth.

“Huh,” I said. “That's kind of strange.” The caretaker for the cottages lived a couple of miles away from The Point. I'd seen him come into Ray's on this and that errand for the summer people. Always wore thigh-high rubber boots, even on the hottest days. Always walked fast, as if he had long distances to cover in those boots.

I wondered why he hadn't cleaned the fireplace. Maybe he had something going with someone's wife and they used this place to get away together. Or maybe he liked to come here and drink. Whatever he did or thought was beyond me, though, so I stepped off the porch and looked out over the ocean. I wondered how far Carlie's horizon would be by boat. Ten miles? Twenty miles? “If you'd stayed in school,” I said out loud, “they might have told you.”

“Probably not. They're ignorant bastards,” a man's voice said behind me.

I whipped around. The man was so close that I hopped backwards.

Then, given distance and the fact that he was smiling, I studied the speaker. Brown freckled skin where his red beard didn't grow. Light brown hair, dark brown eyes. Dressed in an old pea jacket, jeans, green flannel shirt, and beat-up Bean boots.

“How you doing, Florine?” he asked.

“I'm okay,” I said, looking deep into his face to figure out how I knew him.

“I saw you looking into the house. I figured it'd be a matter of time before you saw my truck. I thought I'd save you the trouble of trying to guess who was here.”

“Who
is
here?”

“I'm crushed,” he said. “Andy Barrington. I helped you set off firecrackers.” He took off his right glove and held out his hand for me to shake. His was warm. Mine was cold.

The whole summer rushed back and passed through me like a high-speed train and I stepped back again to get out of its way.

“You okay?” Andy asked.

“A lot happened after we saw you,” I said.

“Well, if it makes you feel better,” Andy said, “I got busted for spiking Aunt Camilla's Virgin Mary. They didn't appreciate it, seeing as how she'd been on the wagon for a while. They sent me back to Connecticut after that.”

“Why are you here now?”

“Christmas break at school. Early time for good grades. I was sitting in English class one day thinking about this place and something told me that I had to come. Mother is going to the Bahamas and Dad is spending the time with a bottle somewhere in the Berkshires. So, I drove up from Boston a couple of weeks ago.”

“Your folks divorced?”

“Yeah. About a year ago. Edward started drinking like the world was running out of booze and he went from a part-time asshole to a full-time one. Wouldn't quit drinking and Mother left him. I see him maybe twice a year. Always a good time when we get together—he picks me apart and I count the hours till I can leave. Jesus, sorry. Probably more than you wanted to know.”

I shrugged. I wasn't surprised, somehow. “How are you keeping warm?” I said.

“Fireplace throws off a lot of heat,” Andy said. “I sleep pretty close to it. Might move my sleeping bag up to the master bedroom. Room's smaller but there's a fireplace there, too. How's your family?”

I blinked. It was weird that someone didn't know everything and then some about my family. I decided on the short version. “My mother disappeared. Grand died almost two months ago. Daddy's living with Stella, the deli woman from Ray's store. I quit school and I live at Grand's house. Otherwise, same old thing,” I said.

Andy went right past Carlie to Grand. “Your grandmother died?” he said, and his voice went sad. “No. She made me sweaters for years. I got one every year at Christmas. Mother ordered them. I'm sorry for your loss.”

I nodded.

“And you lost your mom?” he said.

“Yes, she disappeared the summer I last saw you.”

“Like, poof?”

“Yes,” I said. No one had ever put it that way before. Poof.

“I'm sorry,” Andy said. We just looked at each other for a few seconds. I studied the way his face changed second by second. His expressions were never still.

“So, everyone else around?” he asked. “The big girl, the big guy. That skinny guy that jumped in and rescued my father's money from a briny death?”

“We don't go far.”

“What do you do all day with no school?”

“Knit sweaters. Bake bread. Clean house. I keep busy.”

“Whatever it is you're doing is good,” Andy said. “You're lovely.”

Lovely. Shades of his father. I could see Mr. Barrington telling Andy, “Son, call 'em lovely. Gets them every time.” Truth is, it did. It was a—well—lovely word. “I mean it. You're a good-looking woman,” Andy said. “Do you have a boyfriend?”

“No,” I said.

“Well, I know the place isn't heated, but would you consider joining me for dinner tonight?” Andy asked. “It's quiet here and I'd love to have some company.”

When I balked for a second, drinking in the fact that this was the first time someone had asked me for a date, he added, “You can bring the others, if you want.”

That confused me. Did he want them to come? Or did he want just me to come? I said, “They're probably busy.”

His smile went wide and he said, “Good. Five thirty work?”

People came home from school and work at about that time. They would see me walking up the road and through the woods and wonder where I was going. I wanted this for myself. I didn't want them to know. “Later,” I said. “Six thirty or so?”

“Okay,” he said. He held out his hand again and I took it. His eyes winked like stars as he lifted my hand to his lips and brushed it with a kiss. His lips, I noticed, were like his father's lips. He grinned and his breath appeared in clouds of white that floated up into the blue sky.

Walking home through the woods, I noticed that red berries dangled from bushes ranging in color from brown to maroon. Dark green moss poked through the thin layer of snow. Blue-green pine needles brushed against my face. The belly of a blue heaven stretched above me. I felt so light that I turned around to check my tracks to see if they showed. They did. Barely.

The rooms in Grand's house were quiet. The clock ticked, a faucet dripped, the furnace grumbled on and the heat whooshed up through the floor register in the living room. I stood over it and let the warmth seep into my bones. I took off my coat and gloves and looked at the clock. It was noon. What the hell would I do until six thirty?

To take up some of the time, I got naked and checked myself out in the full-length mirror on Grand's closet door. From the side, my ribs showed and my back curved in a little. My tummy had a little pouch. The things that stuck out furthest were my feet, which were long and flat, like wharf ramps. Front-to, my mouse-sized boobs, with nipples the color of new pencil erasers, perched high on my chest. Nice calves like Carlie's. Square hips. Red brown triangle of pubic hair. Belly button with a small brown birthmark to the north. Long neck. Freckles starting at my chest and walking up my face to my hairline. Long arms, like a monkey. I smiled. Ivory teeth. Not as white as Andy's, but Grand had made me brush twice a day and floss. When she died, she had most of her teeth, and I guessed she had intended that I keep mine.

I turned back-to and studied my butt. Dimples above it. Carlie once told me that they were special dents the angels made when they touched you to see if you were done. I bunched one, then the other butt cheek. They reminded me of loaves of bread, and that gave me the idea to make some to take to supper.
“You never go calling without a small gift,”
Grand always said.

While the dough rose, I took a bath. I kept heating the water, using my big toe to turn the faucet on and off. I was dozing in the tub when I heard Bud's Fairlane slow down as it passed Grand's house, chugging almost to a stop before moving on. I wondered if Susan sat beside him. I wondered that it had mattered as late as this morning. Dottie had been right about getting out more.

I climbed out of the tub, dried myself, and dabbed on some Lily of the Valley perfume. Just a whiff which, according to a magazine article I'd read some time back, would keep Andy searching for the source until it drove him wild.

At about five o'clock, while I was looking for something to wear, someone knocked on the front door. “Damn,” I said. I didn't want to answer it but if it was Daddy, he might worry. I threw on jeans and a sweatshirt and went down.

It was Bud.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi,” I said.

He frowned.

“Do you want to come in?” I asked.

“Okay.”

He stood in the kitchen and looked everywhere but at me.

“What?” I said. I took the moist dishtowel off the loaf of raised bread dough, put it into the warm oven. A whoosh of hot air blasted my face. I stood and looked at Bud. His face was as sad as I'd ever seen him.

“Bud,” I said, scared now. “Did someone die?”

“Nothing like that,” he said. He turned for the door. “I shouldn't have stopped by.”

I walked him to the door.

“What's going on?” I said. “You're acting funny.”

He turned and looked at me. “I got a girlfriend, Florine,” he said.

“I know,” I said. “Susan. Unless you got a new one.”

“No. It's still Susan.”

“Good,” I said. “Everything all right?”

“You tell me,” Bud said.

“Bud, what the hell are you talking about?”

“I talked to Dottie today.”

“You talk to her every day.”

“Yeah, I do. But she was saying something about . . . ,” Bud said. “I just wanted to tell you that if I didn't have Susan, you and I . . .”

Shit on Dottie, I thought—so much for best-friend secrets. I'd deal with her later. But right now, all I wanted to do was finish baking the bread, get dressed, and hightail it up to Andy's place. I said, “It's okay, Bud. I know you got Susan. I'm glad.”

“Good,” Bud said. “That's all I wanted to say. It ain't that I wouldn't consider it, but I'm taken. I wouldn't hurt your feelings for nothing.”

“I'm okay,” I said. “Thanks for being honest. We're friends, right?”

“I guess the hell. You're a hot shit, Florine. Don't ever let them tell you different.”