There was still no sign of the mother.
“Out! Let’s go before the bugs arrive,” said Greenie. She handed Alan a towel. In the cooler air of the late afternoon, he felt pleasantly chilly as he followed her along a dirt path through a prickly green thicket blooming with pink and white flowers. The path wound away from the houses, around several curves of rocky shore, to a patch of dark pebbled sand.
Greenie threw her towel on a rock and sprinted into the water. “Oohoo!” she exclaimed, and “Yowza!” But she did not pause until she was treading water, up to her neck, looking back at Alan.
Alan clutched his towel. “Here comes the dare to the city-slicker oaf.”
“It’s worth it, believe me!” she called out.
“I don’t like the arctic quaver in your voice.”
“Just make a run for it,” said Greenie. “That’s my motto in life.”
“Well, mine is ‘Always test the waters.’” Which he did, with his toes, and was instantly sorry. “No,” he said. “Definitely no.”
“Suit yourself, city boy.” She dove under, the soles of her feet the last of her to vanish. He watched her surface a remarkable distance away, then swim, gracefully and languidly, around another bend of the shore. He began to clamber along the rocks, to follow her, when he was stopped short by a voice.
“Hello, young man—though you’re not exactly young by the standards of my day.”
The most striking thing about the woman standing behind him, at the foot of the path, was the bathing suit she wore. It looked as if it was made of white satin, reflecting sharply the last bright sun of the day. An oddly mixed fashion statement, it was cut low on top but draped down into a modest skirt, reaching nearly to the middle of the woman’s thighs. The woman herself was tall and athletically slim, and though she was clearly on the far side of fifty (only the looseness of the skin on her limbs showed her age), her hair was a convincing shade of auburn. It was the hair that made him certain.
“Mrs. Duquette. You surprised me.”
“Well, thank you. I like surprising people,” she said. She did not move to shake his hand but bent to place her folded towel carefully on a rock, away from the damp sand. She looked him up and down with ambiguous pleasure. “You haven’t been in.”
“I think I’m not,” he said. “Going in.”
“Oh, but the cold is worth the shock. The air feels splendid when you come out.”
He was going to tell her that she sounded just like her daughter when, just like her daughter, she ran and plunged. She, too, turned to face him, treading water at almost precisely the place where Greenie had. She said, “How was your trip? Was the traffic horrendous? I hope not.”
Greenie resurfaced, right beside her mother. “Boo,” she said. “Hi, Mom.”
“Hello, my darling.” The woman who liked to surprise people did not appear surprised in the least. She kissed Greenie on the cheek, and Greenie kissed her back. How absurdly decorous, this floating kiss between these disembodied heads.
“Children,” said Mrs. Duquette, “the hors d’oeuvres are out, as I know you must be famished. So go on up and I’ll join you after my swim. I’ll do the Reader’s Digest version. And Charlotte, don’t let your father begin another project. Make him be a host, however much it pains him.” Whereupon she turned around and swam straight out. She did not hug the shore, as Greenie had, but seemed bent on challenging the boats that crisscrossed the thoroughfare between her island and the next.
Dinner was by candlelight, with French wine procured from a picnic cooler of ice, the table spread with a cloth. George Duquette still wore his polo shirt with the logo of a boatyard, half tucked into baggy madras shorts, the fabric worn so thin in places that the pattern looked smudged. His wife, however, after returning from her Reader’s Digest swim, changed into a close-fitting shirtdress, white again. It looked like a well-preserved dress of the fifties, the kind of thing Alan’s mother wore in his earliest memories, with so many careful details—pearl buttons, thin belt, pleated skirt—that it gave off a military air, except for its attention to the wearer’s curves. (“I have to warn you of one thing: Mom overdresses just about all the time,” Greenie whispered to Alan before her mother emerged from her bedroom. “Though she doesn’t expect the same of anyone else.” Later, when Alan asked if her mother always wore white, Greenie said, “Except to funerals and weddings.”)
As soon as they were seated, Alan said, “Thank you so much for inviting me, Mrs. Duquette.”
“Olivia, please,” she scolded. “Do not make me feel like the grande dame I’m fighting every second from becoming.”
Throughout the meal, Olivia quizzed Alan about his work. She told him that she’d always preferred Jung to Freud, as if they’d been opponents in a crucial election. Alan told her that his interest was in human emotions and personal histories, why people make the individual choices they do and how they can be helped to understand their motivations.
“That’s bold,” said Olivia, looking intently at him. “But also risky, wouldn’t you say? To actually understand such things about oneself? Just the wondering could leave you quite neurotic.” She smiled.
“Beats me what motivates my self,” George joked.
Olivia did all the serving, all the taking away, stacked the dishes in the cabin’s small sink. Dessert, however, she invited her daughter to serve. “You’re the one with the professional knife skills,” she said. “Not that that should make you nervous, Alan.”
He laughed, as expected, while Greenie cut tall, fine slices from the tower of a cake that her mother had concocted. “Oh, the baking I did off island,” she said when Alan expressed his amazement. “Every fine meal should end with a cake.”
As they all began to eat this indispensable cake, the only sound, besides the urgent ruckus of crickets and the occasional snap of a moth against a screen, was the nicking of forks on plates. “Greenie’s right,” said Alan. “You’re an extraordinary cook.”
“Who?” said Olivia. “Who speaks so highly of me?”
Greenie said, “That’s me, Mom. Alan calls me Greenie.”
George said, “I’ll be!” He laughed loudly. “You know, I like that. ‘Greenie.’ Yes. Sounds sweet. Innocent. Yearning.”
“Charlotte was her grandmother’s name,” said Olivia. What she meant, of course, was that Alan had messed with tradition.
“Mom, outside the family nobody calls me Charlotte anymore.”
“Perhaps you’re tired of the name?”
“Of course not! It’s just…well, Alan met me as Duke.”
“Oh that. That was your college phase, wasn’t it? In my sorority, I was called O.J. Lucky thing that name went the way of the saddle shoe!” Olivia pushed her plate aside, having eaten only two or three bites of her cake.
“Livvy,” said George, “am I permitted seconds? To paraphrase my students, this stuff is to perish upon.” What he meant, of course, was that his wife should permit the subject to be changed.
So this is high WASP, thought Alan, whose father was a lapsed Jew, his mother a deflated Methodist. He’d never quite realized, because she did not dress or speak or socialize the part, just where Greenie came from.
When dinner was over, George lit a battery-powered lamp and went back to polishing his brass. “Got everything you need there, Alan?” He murmured his approval when Alan held up his book.
“Not enough readers in this world, that’s a problem nigh on to rival global warming; what would we call that, literary cooling? Ha,” said George, and then he gave his full attention to his project.
“The girls,” as he called them, went through a complex ritual to wash the dishes, draining water from an outdoor barrel (rainwater gathered from the roof, explained Greenie) and boiling it on the stove. Alan, once again, was told to behave like a guest. Since George had the one good lamp on the table, Alan had to sit across from him to read, but it was impossible to concentrate on Winnicott when his girlfriend’s father, close enough to kiss, was humm
ing the 1812 Overture. After pretending to read for a few minutes, he got up and wandered out the front door onto the porch. The night was more beautiful than he could have imagined, and he felt the thrill of good fortune: the company of a girl he adored, a fine meal, a clear night, and a setting unlike any he had ever known.
From the next cabin, music drifted sporadically through the pines. Listening hard, Alan caught the harsh sorrow of an Irish ballad. The children he’d heard before were probably asleep. The crickets had also gone silent—puzzling, though perhaps they, too, had a curfew—and a slight breeze had risen, ruffling leaves and swelling the beach towels that hung on the laundry line. From the direction of the water came an occasional, arhythmic sound, like a spoon striking an empty tin can.
Wrapping his arms around his chest for warmth, Alan started down the dirt path, choosing the way toward the dock. As he passed through the waist-high thicket, he found himself surrounded by the green Morse code of fireflies, sparking the colors of the roselike blossoms about them. Did they drink the nectar, like bees? He bent toward one of the flowers; it smelled of nothing to his urban nose. How little he knew of the natural world; it was shameful. As he stood there, looking toward the dock for the source of the metallic tattoo, he was startled for the second time that day by Greenie’s mother.
Just behind him, quite close, she said, “You appreciate our little bit of heaven.” It sounded like an order, rather than an observation.
“Yes, I do,” he said.
“This is your first time in Maine.” Another statement; Alan felt slightly resentful, though why shouldn’t Greenie have given her mother such details?
“Yes. And now I have to wonder why.”
Her laugh was rich and relaxed. “You do indeed.”
“You grew up coming here?”
“Oh yes, sometimes for entire summers. I was quite spoiled. I still am!”
Having just met her, he couldn’t disagree without sounding absurd, so he tried to laugh lightly, and she made no effort to rescue him from his own wooden reaction. Alan looked out at the water. Even at this hour, boats threaded the channels between the islands, and in the still air he heard the stealthy muttering of motors.
“Charlotte’s rather spoiled, too, of course.” Greenie’s mother spoke abruptly, as if there’d been no pause in the conversation. “She’s very talented, I’m sure you know that. She’s also very forceful.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “She knows where she’s going. I like that.”
“You may like it now, but be careful,” said Olivia. “My daughter is a very strongheaded young woman. I say that only because I’ve known her so long and I love her virtues dearly enough to recognize her flaws—relatively few though they may be.”
You say that, Alan thought reflexively, only because she’s young and you’re not and she’s taking your talents to a height you never did. But he said, “We all have flaws. Like me—I don’t know a thing about these flowers, all these trees, about anything more natural than a well-watered lawn in the suburbs.”
“Oh, that. That’s not a flaw, because it can be corrected. Give my husband the time and he will gladly do the job. But be forewarned! The expression ‘ad nauseam’ comes to mind.” She laughed. Alan could not tell if she was speaking fondly or critically. “These flowers? Prunus maritima. More commonly, beach plum. Come fall, I make a pretty mean jam from the fruit. I’ll send some to you, shall I?”
“Thank you,” said Alan. “I’d be honored.” And then, like a baffled sailor spotting at last the beacon of a lighthouse, Alan saw the pennant of Greenie’s yellow T-shirt approaching through the beach plum.
“Darling!” called Olivia. “We were just speaking of your talents!”
“Mom thinks she has to sell me,” said Greenie as she joined them.
Alan hugged her to his side. “What’s that noise?” he said, eager to change the subject. “That clanging.”
“Halyards against the mast of a sailboat,” said Greenie. He loved the feel of her hand on his waist. “Daddy’s pride and joy. He’ll take us out tomorrow—or you and I could go out on our own.”
Alan wanted to say no, no thank you, but he just smiled. If she wanted to sail, he would go along. If she wanted to climb a tree or scale a cliff (well, a small cliff), he would follow. Next day, he would brave the cold of the water.
She led him toward the boats. “I’m taking him down to show him the phosphorescence,” she said to her mother. Alan hoped this was code for “See you tomorrow, Mom.” To his relief, Olivia kissed them both good night.
Later on, as he lay alone in his bunk, he heard Olivia’s voice, in the room below his yet alarmingly close, as if she lay on the floor underneath his bed.
“I think he’s too handsome for her.” She spoke softly, but every word was clear.
“Oh, what’s handsome got to do with the price of tea in China?” Greenie’s father answered.
“You’re a man, George. You couldn’t possibly know the perils of handsome. To a woman.”
“Well, you were sure friendly enough to Boy Handsome.”
“I like him. I didn’t say he wasn’t pleasant. Or smart. He’s just a little…a little too prominent for Charlotte.”
“Prominent? Like the fellow’s in Who’s Who?”
“No. Like he knows he can do better. Like he’s biding time. Would you want to see her hurt?”
“Livvy, you underestimate our girl,” said George.
“No, George, I protect her. That’s a mother’s job.”
“Huh,” said George. “The dad’s job, I guess, is to bring home the bacon, right? So let the dad get a good night’s sleep.”
The floor was so permissive that Alan heard even their good-night kiss and, shortly after, George’s grumbling snore.
In the years that followed, before she went over that Scottish cliff with her husband, Olivia was nothing but gracious to Alan, yet the longer he knew her, the less he liked her—and the more he marveled at the cheerful admiration with which her only child seemed to regard her. There were times when he wanted to tell Greenie, outright, that her mother was not the generous, loving woman Greenie presumed her to be, but he knew better. Maybe some fortunate children were born with platinum emotional shields, protecting them from harm and keeping them, also harmlessly, oblivious.
When he helped Greenie go through her parents’ house after their death, empty its drawers and closets, he kept expecting, almost hoping, to find some deviance that Greenie’s mother had kept from the world. They never found anything of the sort, not so much as a diary or an accessory to unconventional sex. The closest thing they found to a secret was a list Olivia had compiled in a journal of menus she kept: a list, person by person, of her all friends’ food allergies and metabolic quirks. In the midst of perpetual tears, Greenie sat down at the kitchen table and read it with interest. “I had no idea Mrs. Austin was diabetic,” she murmured.
By then, however, Alan wasn’t one to point a finger at secrets.
FOR CLOSE TO A YEAR after sleeping with Marion—until Greenie gave birth to George and started to nurse—Alan’s guilt was the most extreme when he touched Greenie’s breasts. Every time he did, he thought of the thick, sinuous caterpillar scars, ridged and warm, he had felt on Marion’s chest in the dark. He had felt them before she had let him see, but because she had told him, they were a surprise only to his fingers and his mouth. Because she had told him so calmly, whispering in the dark as they undressed, the scars were a marvel, not an obstacle. The third and last time they made love, very early in the morning, before she drove him back to the high school where he had left his mother’s car, he came all over her chest as he looked at the scars, long and straight, magnolia purple against the pale tight skin and blue veining around them.
Over dinner at the roadhouse—the same greasy cheeseburgers of days gone by, two patties served naked in a pool of pink juice on an oval platter, large white biscuits on the side—Marion had told him about the cancer, the wide rough detour it had m
ade in her life. She’d been in Kenya when she felt the lump. By the time she came back to the States six months later and got a proper diagnosis, she felt she had to do the most aggressive thing.
When she saw the look of horror on Alan’s face, she laughed. “Hey, my prospects are good. I took the meanest motherfucker drugs they had to offer, and I decided I’d think about reconstruction—love that term, like hard hats are involved—I’d think about that part later. And when later finally came, I didn’t really care. I liked feeling so light, like gravity didn’t own me there. And I didn’t want any more surgery either.”
She’d still had nothing strong to drink, and Alan wondered how she could tell him these details with so little inhibition, especially since they practically had to shout to hear each other over the band. Hardly conducive to intimate confessions. Yet her story made him feel safer than he had in the parking lot when they arrived; after all, how could you talk about things like tumors and chemotherapy and then fall illicitly into bed?
“Marion…I don’t know what to say,” he said. “I am so sorry. And all your beautiful hair…”
“Oh, little brother, losing my hair was the least of it, let me tell you. Even losing my breasts. I found out, you know, that I have a pretty gorgeous skull. Except that I have to work with people it might scare, I might’ve kept that Amazon look. I might’ve commissioned a great tattoo right across the back of my cranium. ‘You lookin’ at ME?’ ‘Keep on truckin’.’ Anything, really. I could’ve grown my hair back over it, but I’d know it was still there, my own subliminal message.” She laughed softly, as if she were reminiscing about a sports event or a party. “No, the worst came later, when the doctor broke the news to me that I’d almost certainly be infertile because of the chemo. It was like he just up and punched me in the gut. And when I asked him why he hadn’t told me this before, he said—and I quote—‘It’s my job to buy you as much life as possible. I couldn’t risk that you’d say no to the drugs.’ Move over, Nancy Reagan.”