The Hazards of Good Breeding (13 page)

“Rock?” Caroline says stupidly.

There is a click and then the buzz of a dial tone in her ear.

Why is some angry Spanish man calling in the middle of the night? A prank call. Or a wrong number.

Carefully, Caroline replaces the receiver. There is a cold, heavy feeling in her gut that makes her sit down. She feels hungover already—a great sloshy sea of gin and white wine churns dangerously in her stomach.

Without thinking, she puts one hand to her shoulder—the shoulder Stephan's fingers touched—and lets her fingertips rest on her collarbone. It is quite thin, considering. Nothing a falling branch or a thrown stone wouldn't break. She can see it in the hands of an archaeologist, some tall, terrifyingly evolved version of a human, a thousand years from now.
A female
, he would say, running his hand along it,
about five-eight, a hundred and sixteen pounds, Bostonus erectus.

Caroline drops her hand to her lap and stares at the telephone, which slips upward again and again like an image at the end of a loosened roll of film.

11

F
AITH DOES NOT WANT
to be sitting
around all morning waiting for Jean Pierre to ask her to go bird-watching. It is not that she wants to bird-watch, or that she doesn't want to bird-watch, just that she doesn't want to be waiting all morning to find out if she is going to go bird-watching or not. He didn't say he was definitely going, after all, did he? And of course it doesn't really matter. Pete and Lucy and the Eintopfs would all think it was very funny (
Oh, poor Faith
, Lucy would say,
don't let him bully you
), and anyway Faith would have nothing to say to him. He is so silly, with his pith helmet or whatever it is and gold necklace and questions about why she taps her foot so much and how she can stand the Eintopfs. She is, in retrospect, embarrassed that she answered all these with such earnestness yesterday evening. It was a cocktail party, for God's sake. He was probably expecting sly, witty responses; a Frenchwoman would certainly have been sarcastic and smart, not hopelessly, drunkenly sincere.

Pushing at the eggs on her plate and pretending to read the paper, Faith decides she will go back up to her room after breakfast so that she doesn't have to wait. She will read and write letters; she will write to Eliot. The egg stops in its greasy, crumb-absorbing track. Should she call him and ask him about the map? Faith puts down her fork. What would she say?
Eliot, I found your map.
But then he would know she opened it despite his dire warning labels on the cover. And anyway it sounds so sinister. What about,
Eliot, I found this paper in my pocket, is it yours?
This is ridiculous because it says
Property of Eliot Dunlap
on the cover. Picturing it gives Faith a gray, sorrowful feeling. She imagines his little freckled hand holding the pencil, drawing the skull and crossbones on the cover. His writing still has that rounded childishness—he is, after all, still really a baby. And she has left him all alone—he doesn't even have that sweet girl Rosita to take care of him any longer! What does he do all day? How does he fall asleep at night? These are things a mother should know. She can feel the quiet, familiar panic begin to engulf her.

Outside the windows, the sky is overcast and the water reflects back a cold pale gray. A ring of seagulls rises, squawking, from the marshy grass below. Well, Faith will go up to her room anyway. That was the point, even if she no longer feels like writing letters.

Walking across the porch to the stairway, Faith nearly trips over Jean Pierre, who is sitting, still as a cat, among the pillows of the wicker sofa.

“You have breakfasted,” he says, looking up at her.

“Yes,” Faith says uncertainly, lifting a hand to her mouth to check for crumbs or a remnant of egg.

“Then we can go.”

“Go?” Faith asks, as blankly as possible.

“To see the yellow-belly,” Jean Pierre says, unruffled, standing and holding his binoculars aloft. It is possible he is shorter than she is.

“Oh.” Faith feels herself blushing. The yellow-bellied sapsucker, whose name she offered up in some
National Geographic
story she was retelling last night. She should remember not to drink gin and tonics.

“We will
portage
?” Jean Pierre says.

“Oh—I'm not sure—isn't it too gray out?” Faith begins.

“Too gray for canoeing?” He pronounces it exotically, as if there is an umlaut over the
o
.

“Well, I have some letters I have to write, too, and I thought since it isn't—”

Jean Pierre raises his eyebrows. “It is your holiday,” he says, looking hurt. Out on the water, the ferry's horn blows.

“Oh, all right,” Faith says. “But I'll have to put on different shoes.”

A
s they lower the canoe of
f the dock, Faith's despondence has been replaced by a feeling of jittery recklessness. What is she doing, going out on the water with this man? Such an intimate thing, really, to be snugged up in a canoe. She will have to steer because Jean Pierre has never even been in a canoe before. And when was the last time she steered? Camp Kyoda for Girls, 1967? Jack would have died before putting her in charge of anything that floated.

On the other side of the dock, Emmett is making a science out of selecting the right-sized life vest for a bouncy sixteen-year-old cousin who is going out on the catamaran with him. (“Can't be too careful—you get hit on the head, you'll want something that floats you,” he is saying in a brisk, official-sounding voice.) Just watching him hold life vests up and measure them, squint-eyed, against the girl's breasts makes Faith's skin crawl.

“Where will you like to sit?” Jean Pierre asks over Emmett's voice. In contrast, he seems suddenly kind and sophisticated and reasonable.

Once they are in position, Faith takes a few tentative strokes, which zigzag the canoe out into the cove unevenly. It is one of those noisy aluminum boats, which clang and pop when you shift weight or knock the oars into it, which Faith has done three times already, once splashing Jean Pierre's right side.

“I'm sorry—I don't know—I haven't steered a canoe in forever,” Faith apologizes, giggling nervously.

“It is wonderful,” Jean Pierre says, ignoring her. “Like sitting directly on the water.”

It is, actually, quite nice, now that Faith thinks about it. The water makes gentle lapping sounds at the helm as they glide toward the marshy far side of the cove. Beach grass sprouts up, a startling yellow-green color against the gray of the water, sky, and pebbly sand, like a reminder of Christmas, or vacation, or the possibility of God. The steering is coming back to Faith when she doesn't think too hard about it. A J-stroke here on the left and then a straight stroke on the right. The terms present themselves in working order, along with a whole list of names of girls, women now (so strange! even little Kibby McCormac must be at least thirty-nine) who went to camp with her. Along with the image of herself, at fifteen, racing down the Saco River trying to get to the campsite first. It is like remembering another person, another girl, with a familiar name.

“Your children are in Boston?” Jean Pierre says. They have not spoken for a while.

“Yes—well, not right now. I mean, two of them are not right now, but the younger two . . .” Faith says, feeling again the twinge of, what is it—remorse? Or worry? The canoe is rounding the uninhabited part of the island, where low scrub pines and rose-hip bushes grow along the headland and large peach-colored boulders rise out of the water like knees from a bathtub.

“But you do not get to see them so often.” It is more of a statement than a question.

“Well,” Faith begins, “actually I just . . .” but then, of course, it is true. The girl racing down the Saco River, excited to get back to the campsite, to grow up and get married, to have babies and a husband and host big Thanksgiving dinners, has become a mother who does not see her children often—a mother who scares her children, even. A mother who lives carefully contained in a small apartment in a big city 230 miles away from her ten-year-old son. But the other, anticipated life of motherhood exists in her mind with such vivid specificity it seems almost more real than this. She has, after all, imagined it so carefully, so often, with such attention to the details, it is as if it actually
is
. As if, at this moment, separated not by time or space, but by half a million small decisions and indecisions, inadequacies and mistakes, she is unpacking a homemade beach picnic for her family, rubbing sunblock on Eliot's freckled back, giving Caroline advice on her love life, watching Tom and Jack Jr. throw a football in the low-breaking waves.

But right here, in this canoe, Faith does not actually
want
to fight her way back through the thicket of her failings to this other life. The realization hits her like a plunge into cold water. For a moment she forgets to paddle.

“Aha!” Jean Pierre says softly, his back tensing in front of her. “You see?” he whispers. Faith lifts her paddle out of the water. On the far side of one of the larger boulders there is a blue heron, standing absolutely still, staring at them. Silently, Jean Pierre reaches back to hand Faith the binoculars. As Faith lifts them to her eyes, the heron begins to flap its wings; it is close enough for them to hear its bones. There is something frighteningly unstable about its slow, effortful transition into flight. But the precarious breach of gravity is over in a moment—the bird airborne, soaring smoothly heavenward. Pressed against Faith's eye sockets, the binoculars feel warm from Jean Pierre's face.

I
t is almost an hour b
efore they are docked again at Pea Island. Faith's arms are tired and stiff—this is more exercise than they have gotten in months. Even years, maybe. She and Jean Pierre have seen three cormorants, four egrets, a blue jay, and three drab little birds with elegant French names that seemed much too grand for their dowdy New England plumage. Climbing out of the canoe, Faith realizes her legs are pale and covered with goose bumps, and her hair—yes, it feels frizzy when she reaches up to touch it—must look like a pom-pom. It has started to rain.

A collection of snug-looking Eintopfs struggle to top each other's aggressive salutations from the porch. “Happy canoeing?” “Catch anything?” “Louis and Clark ahoy!” She and Jean Pierre have become a spectacle. Faith's Keds squish water out onto the dock.

“
Merde
,” Jean Pierre says under his breath.

Together they drag the canoe up onto the dock, out of the water.

Lucy emerges from the house and shoulders through the Eintopfs with a concerned look on her face. “Faith!” she calls, hurrying toward her. “Come on in out of the rain—did Jean Pierre hijack you for one of his bird hunts?” Lucy says this last bit for Jean Pierre's appreciation, turning an exaggerated scowl at him. It is embarrassing, really, as if Faith is a child to be watched out for. “You'll catch a cold,” Lucy exclaims as Faith straightens, nearly dropping her end of the canoe on her toes.

“I will finish here,” Jean Pierre says, looking amused by the fuss. Lucy takes Faith's arm before she can protest and pulls her toward the house. Faith looks over her shoulder to say—what should she say? Well, to smile anyway, but he is bent over the canoe, gathering up the seat cushions.

“I'm sorry,” Lucy says, as they climb the steps to the porch. “I hope he didn't strong-arm you.”

“It was fine,” Faith says. “I like bird-watching.”

“You do?” Lucy makes a face.

Inside, there is a delicious-looking fire burning in the living room and a sweet, chocolaty smell wafts out of the kitchen. It is actually, Faith realizes with surprise, quite pleasant here. She does not need to go out and make conversation with the Eintopfs or hide in her room. She can sit here by the fire and read, or play cards—maybe Pete will want to play bridge. Maybe Jean Pierre likes to play bridge. This seems doubtful. He has very quick hands though, brown and lean and artful-looking. No wedding ring. What would it be like to kiss him? The thought sends color racing to her cheeks. She has not kissed anyone other than Jack in, what, twenty-three years? She has probably forgotten how.

“. . . and then cocktails at six,” Lucy is saying, when Faith catches sight of Rock Coughlin's bald pate across the room. She has almost forgotten he is coming.

“Rock,” she says. She is genuinely happy to see him. He is such a sweet man and Jack was always so unkind to him. Faith has always felt a strong unspoken kinship to him.

“Faith!” he says, lighting up. “I heard you would be here.” He crosses the room in his usual graceless stride and gives her an awkward hug in which she ends up kissing his neck by accident instead of his cheek as intended. Oh, well—it is only Rock Coughlin.

“How are you?” he says, stepping back and grinning, but still holding on to her shoulder.

“Good,” Faith says, smiling back. He reminds her of one of those big, clumsy, cuddly-looking bears that eats nothing but nuts and berries. “I'm fine. I just saw your fiancée at Eliot's play.”

“Denise? Oh, yes—right.” Suddenly his expression changes—the smile drops and an odd, uncertain look comes over his face. “You were in Concord before this; she said she saw you.”

Faith nods and Rock shifts his weight. Faith feels her own smile disappearing. Why does he suddenly seem so uncomfortable? Has Denise said something about her? But what could she have said? Faith barely even spoke with her.

“All right—” Lucy says, reentering the conversation from the across-room argument about cribbage rules she has been engaged in. “Faith has to get upstairs and out of these wet clothes, Rock,” she says scoldingly. “You'll have plenty of time to catch up later.” And already she is steering Faith off toward the stairs by the elbow.

Faith gives Rock a little half wave. Red splotches have sprung up on the surface of his bald head and he is still standing there staring after her with this strange undecided expression.

“Rocco!” There is a voice from the door. “Come on out here!”

She is probably just imagining that he looks strange, Faith tells herself. What could Rock Jr. or Denise, even, have said to make him look so discomfited? But all the same, it gives her an unsettled feeling.

When Faith reaches the landing, she stops for a moment to look back over the room. The prettiest of the Eintopf women is standing talking to Jean Pierre in the doorway, a Bloody Mary in hand. “Do I know Paris?” she is saying. “I lived on the Rue de Racine for three years.” It makes Faith think of her own frizzy hair and wet sneakers. She turns quickly and continues upstairs. After all, she does not want to be seen standing on the landing, staring out over the party.

S
INCE SEVEN A.M.
Rock has been lying in be
d awake—or at least not asleep—with his brain whirring drunken nonsense: last night's conversation with Jack Dunlap at the wedding running on a loop and infused with a slightly frantic quality, as if he can't quite hear him, or has a pressing question he can't figure out how to introduce. No amount of sitting up and taking sips of water, ordering himself to think of sheep or numbers or the names of his sixth-grade classmates, can keep his brain from retracing this circle—half real, half dreamed—like a hobbled windup toy.