Red Ruby Heart in a Cold Blue Sea (9781101559833) (21 page)

39

W
e were out in the open after that. Some may have thought I was throwing it into their faces but that wasn't the reason I trotted Andy around. I liked him. Partly I liked him because he thought different, he'd seen different things, and he told me stories about the things he'd seen and done. Partly I liked him for the sex. And he was a person who had come back from the past. He was living proof that it was possible that lost things could show up again. He listened to me talk about Carlie. Telling someone new about her was such a relief to me. It shifted the heaviness in my heart, moved her loss around a little bit so that there was more room to breathe.

“I remember her,” he said. “She was so pretty. I only saw her that day on the lawn when she came over with you, but I remember she had the reddest hair and a happy face. I hated that my father was such an asshole that day. He hit me. Did I tell you that?”

“He hit you?” I said. I must have been staring at him as if he had two heads, because he said, “What? You think because we have money that this shit doesn't happen?”

“What about your mother?” I asked. “We've talked about Carlie, but you never talk about your mother.”

He was quiet for a minute, looking at the fire. We were dressed, for once, and had just eaten fish chowder I'd thrown together for us. Somehow, he'd managed to get a bottle of red wine that sat on my tongue like velvet and made me sleepy.

“Mothers can disappear in more ways than one,” he said. “My mother—she sleeps a lot. Sometimes, she'll sleep the whole day away. That's when I'm home. Probably, she sleeps more than that when I'm gone. Her sister, my Aunt Meggie, took her to the Bahamas to get her away for a while.”

“When Grand died, I was so sad that all I wanted to do was sleep,” I said. “I might still be there if people had left me alone.”

“Sometimes, I feel like I'm an orphan,” Andy said. “I mean, I got two parents, but where the hell are they? And when I'm with them, it's just a pain in the ass.”

By that time we'd been together every day, except for Christmas. I spent that time with Daddy and Stella. I had invited Andy, but he had wanted to be alone.

“No one wants to be alone for Christmas,” I argued. “My father wants to meet you.”

“Some other time, Sweetness, okay?” Andy said. “This year, I want to write some, think some, sleep some, take a walk. Besides, I'm not alone. You're not that far away.”

Christmas night found us curled around one another like greedy vines. We toasted in 1969 wrapped in a thick sleeping bag on the porch with a bottle of champagne that made me giggle and feel ticklish. We snuggled and picked out stars for ourselves and named them. We got stoned, too, although I wasn't as sold on it as Andy was—I didn't like the smoke and heat hitting my lungs or the dull depression afterward.

It went on like that into January. Him and me, prone, heating one another against the freezing weather and the storms that raged outside. We stayed in his cottage, mostly, for the adventure Andy liked, and for the privacy I craved. We managed by keeping the fire going and wearing layers of clothes. When we needed showers or warmth, we headed for Grand's house. We did our business in chamber pots, then flung out the slops into the ocean at the end of the lawn. Emptied pot in hand, I would turn to look back at the house, picturing our children rolling down perfectly mowed summertime grass.

Andy didn't seem to be in a hurry to get back to school. That seemed odd to me, but I'd quit, so who was I to ask anyone about their own plans? Still, he was supposed to graduate in June, and it was coming up on the second week in January. Finally, I asked, “When you going back to school?”

We were face-to-face, naked in bed. He smiled and gave me the tender eyes. “Independent study,” he said.

“You're not going back to school, are you?” I said.

“Would it bother you if I stayed?” Then he did something that made me forget I'd asked the question.

A couple days after that conversation, we both got a hankering to clean up. We walked hand-in-hand through the quiet of the mid-morning and met Bud driving up the road from his house. He passed by without looking at us, his mouth set taut like nylon rope.

“He's late for school, I guess,” I said.

“He's cool,” Andy said. “That look in his eyes. He could be a dangerous character in some movie, someone you least expect to do what he's doing. A spy or something.”

I snorted. “Bud? Nah.”

I knew someone had been in Grand's house the minute I opened the door. I listened for the echo of what had gone on while Andy headed upstairs to check things out. Then, in the kitchen, I found a piece of paper on the table, held down by Grand's bluebird pepper shaker. At first I didn't recognize the writing, but then I saw that it was in Daddy's hand. He seldom wrote more than a list. His cursive was big and loopy and the words sloped down on the paper.

 

Florine, dear,

I got to tell you how I feel. You ain't here much, so I can't do it. But I need to say I'm worried about you and I want you to come home to Grand's house. I know we don't talk much at all, but I'm still you're father and you got to know I love you, even if I don't say it much. If you don't want to come by youreself, bring that young fella along and we can work things out. I told you to bring him to supper and I ment it. Please come and talk to me.

You're loving Daddy.

“Oh Daddy,” I said, feeling tender about the wrong spellings and the way he'd borne down on the pencil so hard it had ripped the paper in a couple of spots. To write me a note, Daddy had to have been bothered. Maybe Stella had put him up to it but it didn't matter. I had been a bad daughter. I hadn't been thinking about him, or Grand's, or bread, or knitting, or anything or anyone else downwind of Andy's cottage.

When Andy got out of the bathroom, I said to him, “Do you want to meet my father?”

He looked at me out of the sides of his eyes. “Is he here?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “He wants us to come to supper. It'll be okay,” I said when he looked like he wanted to bolt. “Stella will cook something good and there will be lots of it. Daddy won't say much but Stella will do all the talking. We won't be there long, couple hours, maybe. He just wants to meet you, look you over.”

“I don't know,” Andy said. “He's a big guy. I wonder what he thinks of me poking his daughter.”

“I don't see that coming up,” I said.

“I don't have too much luck with fathers,” Andy said.

“So you don't want to go to supper?”

When he caught the low growl in my voice, he said, “I'll do it for you. What time?”

“Let's go ask Stella if tonight is okay,” I said. “Get it over with.”

We walked toward Ray's to ask her there, but before we got there Andy said, “I'm going back to the cottage. You come for me when it's time for dinner. We're almost out of wood and I should bring some in. It might snow.”

The sky was as blue as Daddy's eyes.

“Well, it feels like it's going to snow,” Andy said.

“What is wrong with you?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he said. “I just have this feeling that if I don't bring in wood, it'll snow. Why wait when I can do it now and prevent that from happening? Your father would approve of me taking care of you by making sure you're warm and dry, right?”

I knew he was stalling. But I let it go.

“See you later,” I said.

He gave me a lip-smacking kiss in front of Ray's, then walked toward the path.

I went inside. “Got Daddy's note,” I said to Stella. “How about we come over tonight?”

She lit right up. “Oh, that would be wonderful,” she said. She leaned over the deli counter and said, “I saw you kissing Andy.”

“What time do you want us?” I asked.

“About five,” she said.

I went back to Grand's for a little while. It was well past the New Year and the ruby glass hadn't had its January cleaning. I took each piece out, cleaned the cabinet, washed and dried the pieces and put them back. I touched the spot where the red ruby heart had lain, wondering if anyone would ever find it; maybe in the belly of a fish or swept up in a net. What would they think if they did find it?

I went up to the cottage around four. It was dusk but I could see smoke rising from the tall chimney over the central fireplace. When I went inside, the place reeked of pot. Andy had taken the fire screen off and was feeding the fire little twigs, rocking back and forth and humming.

“I see you got the wood,” I said.

“Hey,” he said. He turned to me. The whites of his eyes were cherry red.

“You can't come to supper like this,” I said.

“What?” he asked. Then he giggled and said, “You're pretty.”

“What's my name?” I asked. “Do you even know my name?”

He laughed and slapped his thighs. “What's your name?” he asked me. “I know your name. It's my darling Florine of The Point. She's the girl for me.”

“Damn,” I said. “Andy, I'm going to have to go on to supper. If I don't, they'll be worried.”

“Oh,” Andy said, face suddenly serious. “Well, help me up and we'll go.”

“You're too stoned,” I said.

He laughed and when he did I turned around and walked out into the dark. He caught me by the edge of the woods. He tackled me and I fell into the icy snow, scraping the palms of my hands. Andy fumbled under the fresh, ironed skirt I'd put on for supper.

My eyes stung as I shoved his hands away. “Don't,” I said. “I have to go. Go back to the house, you'll get cold.”

He stroked the side of my face with the backs of his fingers and gave me a look that held so much love that it hurt me to see it. I struggled to get out from under him.

“I'll talk to you later, okay?” I said.

He rolled off me and helped me up. He smiled and said, “I love you.”

“I know,” I said. My hands and knees hurt like hell. “I love you, too.” I did at that moment. How could I not, when he needed me so much?

He kissed me so hard that one of my teeth pinched my lip and I tasted blood.

A little ways down the path, I looked back to see him watching me go. In the faint light, he seemed to be floating on white. I got to Daddy's house at five thirty.

I told them that Andy had gotten a cold that had come on fast. But Stella's eyes shone like high-beam headlights and I knew she was dying for morning to come so she could spread the word. Andy's not showing up would make him stand out like a sore thumb and turn the spotlight on him and on me in ways we had never, ever wanted.

40

I
stayed in my own bed that night. I waited for Andy to show and worried when he didn't. Somewhere around dawn I fell asleep.

The phone rang at around ten o'clock Saturday morning. It was Dottie, wanting to know if I was home. Dottie hardly ever called—usually she dropped by—and her call brought it home to me that I hadn't been around enough to be dropped in on. I suddenly couldn't wait to see her. I made cocoa and a stack of cinnamon toast and we sat at the kitchen table and wolfed it down while Dottie unloaded some news.

“I almost bowled a three hundred,” she told me. “Well, more like two seventy, but that's closer than two hundred.”

“It would take me about forty games to get that,” I said.

“Most likely, but you got other talents. How's things with Andy?”

“Okay,” I said. “No. Not okay.”

“Okay. Not okay. Which is it?”

I told her about the supper and about Andy being stoned, and how he'd been dragging his feet as far as meeting Daddy went. “He told me that Mr. Barrington hit him a lot and that he's a drinker,” I said to Dottie. “Every time he talks about him, it's like a black cloud sets down over his head.”

“Well, he
was
like some general on that day we had to tell him we was sorry,” Dottie said. “He passed down the line of us like we was fresh recruits. I was waiting for him to bring out a whip and beat us all foolish.”

Thinking of Mr. Barrington trying to beat Daddy, Sam, and Bert made me smile.

Dottie said, “Madeline's made me apply to a couple of colleges. She thinks I need a Plan B in case bowling doesn't work out.”

“Why does she care if you go to college?” I said, thinking about how that would take Dottie far away from me. “She didn't go and she's fine.”

“I know,” Dottie said. “But she pulled a funny one at the supper table a while back. She suckered us up with a homemade Boston cream pie and while we was eating it, she went on about how no one on either side of the Butts family ever went past high school. And then she got to crying about it and Bert said, ‘There, there,' and Evie and I just looked at each other. I says, ‘Well, maybe I'd give it a shot if I wasn't so damn dumb.' She says maybe I can get some kind of scholarship and why don't I just give it a try? Bert says, ‘Your mother never asks for much, for chrissake, Dottie. You've had an easy road. Do something for her, for a change.' So I got some applications and she's writing them for me. So, yours truly might be heading off to school in the fall.”

“Wow” was all I could think of to say.

“But I made sure that wherever I go has a bowling alley in town, or close by.”

“Good thinking.”

“I might as well do it to shut her up.”

“I guess so. What are you going to study?”

“Gym teacher, I think. They don't look like they need to know too much. I'd get to wear shorts all day and yell at people to move here and go there. I could do that.”

“You'd be good at it.”

“When's Andy going back to school?” Dottie asked.

I decided to keep his secret. I said to Dottie, “Tell the truth, I don't know. We aren't much past the staying in bed part of things. He's just told me he loved me.”

“You tell him back?”

“Yesterday,” I said. “Now I'm wondering if it was the right thing to do.”

“Why?”

“I don't know. He was stoned. I was mixed up. I didn't know what else to do.”

“Some guy told Evie he loved her,” Dottie said. “Well, he paid for that because she chased him all over school. He finally got another girlfriend just to fend her off. Evie was all upset. Madeline told her to let them come for her. I say the hell with the whole thing. Someone shows up for me, he's gotta have money to support my bowling career.”

We drained our cocoa and felt like having more, so I got up to heat some water for it.

Dottie said, “Bud doesn't like Andy.”

“Bud can just stick it where the sun don't shine.”

“I'll tell him you said that.”

“You do that. I've never said anything bad about Susan.”

“Bud says Andy gets his dope from Kevin. You remember Kevin Jewell? Dope dealer. Pusher man. Bud says Andy's Kevin's best customer.”

“How's Bud know all this stuff?”

“Gets it from Susan, I guess. She gets around more.”

“Well, good for Susan.”

When Andy said a soft “Hello” behind us, we both jumped out of our rocking chairs.

He looked better today, eyes clear, hair combed, and beard trimmed. I wondered if he'd heard a lot of what we'd said but before I could ask, Dottie stood up, stuck out her hand, and said, “I'm Dottie Butts. Not sure you remember me.”

Andy shook her hand. “Of course I remember you. You'd be hard to forget.”

“I'll take that as a compliment,” Dottie said.

“I meant it as a compliment,” Andy said. “I've heard so much about you from Florine. I was hoping I'd get to see the famous Dottie again.”

Andy let go of her hand and they took each other in for about five seconds. Then Dottie did something I'd never seen her do or would ever see her do again. She blushed. Then she said, “Well, I got stuff to do. Nice to see you.” And off she went.

Andy and I looked at each other, then Andy said, “I let you down. I'm sorry.”

“Told them you had a cold. We pretended it was true.”

“I made a mistake and I'm sorry.”

“You did,” I said.

“What can I do to make it up to you?” I was surprised to see tears on his cheeks.

“I mess up a lot, Florine,” he said. “I don't know why, but I do.”

Then he ran shaking hands down the sides of my face. He said, “Please don't leave me. Please, please give me another chance.”

Because I knew what it felt like to be left, I said. “I'll give you another chance.”

He nodded and we held each other for a minute.

“Are they home right now?” he asked, wiping tears from his cheeks.

When I nodded, he said, “Let's go over.”

We walked across the road, hand-in-hand, and he knocked on the door.

“I'm Andy Barrington,” he told Daddy when he answered the door and let us in. “I'm sorry I missed supper.”

“You don't sound like you got a cold,” Stella said.

“I heard I missed a fabulous feast,” he said with a smile.

Stella put on a pot of coffee and we sat around the table. Like I'd told him, Daddy didn't do much talking, but Stella made up for it, asking him about his folks, where he'd grown up, and his school. We finished our coffee and stood to go. Andy shook Daddy's hand and looked him in the eye. He thanked Stella for the coffee, and we walked toward Grand's house.

“Was it as bad as you thought?” I asked.

“No, Angel,” Andy said, and squeezed my hand.

Ray's truck was parked in front of Grand's house. Hoppy the Beagle sat in the truck bed, tongue lolling, eyes half closed in the winter sun. Ray came around to the driver's side and spied us. “I was just knocking for you,” he said to me. “Need some bread. Special—four loaves for a dinner. You got time to make it up by five? Hi,” he said to Andy. Andy nodded and scratched Hoppy behind an ear.

I said “Yes” to Ray and he reversed the truck up the hill and disappeared out of sight.

“I'll go clean the cottage,” Andy said. “Fix dinner. Make us a loaf and bring it up.”

“Thanks for coming down,” I said.

“You're my baby,” he murmured, cupping my chin. “I got to take care of my baby.”

I felt as warm and flexible as the dough I kneaded and shaped that day. The smell filled my head and heart and I understood what it was Andy found so special about it. Once, when he'd been only a little stoned, he'd cut off the end of a loaf of fresh-made bread. He'd held it up and breathed in, deep. “I could live in there,” he said. “It's warm, and soft, and I could just crawl inside of it. It smells like home should feel.”

I'd laughed but as I sat at the kitchen table, watching the dough rise beneath the damp dishtowels I'd put over the tops of the bread pans, I had to agree. I lazed around the house while the bread baked. At about four thirty, I bagged it up and headed for Ray's.

A strange car with Massachusetts license plates was parked in front of the store. It shone white in the late January twilight and I wondered if these were the people who had ordered the bread. It was a Mercedes or a BMW. I could never remember which symbol stood for which car. I peeked inside at butter-colored leather seats. I wanted to climb inside and sit down just to see if I would melt into them.

Inside the store, Stella was talking to a man who stood with his back to me. I put the bread down for Ray, and Stella caught my eye, stood up straight and looked afraid. Then the man turned around.

“You're lovely,”
I heard him say inside my head, clear as day. Then I heard Dottie's voice just as clear.
“I was waiting for him to take out a whip and beat us all foolish.”
And Andy's voice.
“He hit me, you know.”

When Mr. Barrington spotted me his eyes went snake black, flat. But his smile was beautiful, just like his son's smile. I didn't know whether to run or stay. I scowled at Stella to give me somewhere else to look.

Stella's face was red as she said, a little too brightly, “Mr. Barrington's come up to bring Andy back to school. He's got to get back this weekend.”

“Hello, Florine,” Mr. Barrington said, softly. “Stella has been telling me all about you two.”

I shrugged. “Not much to tell.”

“My boy has good taste,” he said, and smiled.

I turned away, my heart hammering hard, my head saying run. I wanted to get to Andy before he did, to warn him he was coming. But I tried to be calm as I waited for Ray to pay me. He looked hard at me as he gave me my fifteen dollars. I said, “Thank you,” and left the store. The minute the door shut behind me I ran as fast as I could through the woods, toward the cottage and Andy.

I burst into the lantern-lit kitchen to the smells of roasting chicken and pot. Andy was setting wine goblets down on the rug in front of the fireplace. He looked at me with a smile as raw as a child's. It was the last smile I ever saw him give me, because when I said, “Your father is here. He's come to get you,” it was replaced by a look much as a wild thing might wear when caught in a trap.

“Shit,” he said. “Shit. I'm so dead.”

A chuckle came from the hallway. “Don't be so dramatic, Andrew,” Mr. Barrington said. He leaned against the living room doorway and said to me, “You're a fast runner.”

When I didn't say anything, he said, “It's a compliment. Please don't look at me as if I'm the big bad wolf. I'm here to take Andy home, that's all.” He looked at Andy. “How are you doing, son?” Andy shrugged, eyes unfocused, darting, cornered, confused.

Mr. Barrington sniffed the air. “Hmmm. Is that chicken I smell?”

When Andy didn't answer, I said, “Yes.”

“I thought so,” Mr. Barrington said. “I'm starved.”

I looked at Andy. His arms hung by his sides, and the fingers on the hand that wasn't holding the wine bottle twitched. What on earth was wrong with him, I wondered? Although I didn't trust him, Mr. Barrington wasn't being unpleasant, and he didn't seem drunk. Maybe we could get through this over supper. Maybe we could figure out a plan.

“Would you like to have some supper with us?” I asked him. Andy looked at me, eyes wide, as if he couldn't believe what he'd just heard.

Mr. Barrington said, “I would love to. And I see you have some wine.”

Andy looked down at the bottle as if he wondered how it had gotten into his hand.

“What can I do to help?” Mr. Barrington asked me.

“Andy, what can he do to help?” I asked Andy.

“Nothing,” Andy said in a dead voice. “It's all ready.”

“Great,” Mr. Barrington said. “Now, the rug is a fine thing,” he said, “but how about we take the sheets off the coffee table and move it in front of the fire. Give me a hand?”

Andy walked over to the table and put the bottle of wine down on the floor. The two moved the heavy oak table so that it covered the same rug I'd been deflowered on and where we'd eaten, talked, slept, and made love many times.

“There,” Mr. Barrington said. “Now, shall I help bring in the food? Florine, why don't you sit on the divan and Andy and I will wait on you.”

“It's okay,” I said, “I'll help, too.”

Andy had cooked up carrots, potatoes, and the chicken. He served them up as I sliced up the bread. Mr. Barrington hovered between us, talking about the drive up. Half a joint sat in an ashtray on the top of the stove. Mr. Barrington must have seen it, but he made no comment, even when Andy slipped it out of sight behind the dirty potato pan.

We sat down in front of the fire at the table, Andy and me on the divan, Mr. Barrington in a creaky rocking chair beside me. He picked up the bottle of white wine and looked at the label. He said, “Not bad,” and said, “Give me the corkscrew, son, and I'll open it.”

Andy looked around for it. He finally spotted it on top of the hearth and fetched it, brushed it off, and gave it to his father.

“So,” Mr. Barrington said. “Where did you get this wine?”

“Long Reach,” Andy said.

“How did you get this wine?” Mr. Barrington said.

“I bought it.”

“How?”

“They sold it to me.”

“Who is they?”

“Market in Long Reach.”

“They didn't ask for identification?”

“No.”

“Oh. Well, give me your glass,” Mr. Barrington said. “You won't be driving home, anyway. And you, Florine?”

“No, thanks,” I said.