Late in the Season (18 page)

She would call Bill when she returned to town, of course; she would make it clear that what he suspected was true. She would ask Rose how to do it; surely Rose Heywood had broken off with lovers before and could tell her how to do it graciously. She suspected Rose would be wonderful at such things; she was positively Jamesian at times in her dealings with the students—her mixture of hidden disdain and complex compassion made her enviable and aloof.

Stevie folded the note and put it in her pocket and went off to do her grocery shopping.

As she was on her way home, passing along the edge of the little harbor, the blond man stopped unloading the tall, dull gray canisters of natural gas all the houses at Sea Mist used and said, “What did you do to your foot?”

“Tore it on a nail,” she answered. She’d been thinking about dinner later with Jonathan, candlelit in his dining room, the fire going perhaps in the other room. She was only half-conscious of the man inquiring. But now he lifted himself out of the flatboat and onto the deck beside her.

“Did you get shots for it?” he asked.

He was surprisingly young. She’d thought him mid-thirties or fortyish before. Now that he was so close, she saw that he was only a few years older than she, his face hidden behind a deep tan and a wild blond and brown beard.

“Barbara at the post office took care of it. She put some kind of antiseptic on it,” Stevie said, then continued on.

He caught up with her. “Maybe you shouldn’t be walking on it.”

“It’s all right. It happened a while ago. It’s almost healed up.”

He continued parallel to her around the harbor.

“I could carry your package for you. That must be pressure on it.”

“No, thanks,” she said, then went along to where the main boardwalk began, and continued walking.

“I have a key for the truck,” he said, still alongside her. “I can give you a ride.”

She was feeling annoyed now: he
was
persistent. Perhaps she’d sensed that as a potentiality in him right away, that first day here at Sea Mist. Maybe that’s why she’d placed him lurking in the darkened corners of her family’s ill-lit house during the night of the thunderstorm.

“It’s not far.”

“You’re Jerry Locke’s sister, aren’t you?”

“So?”

“We were friends. Jerry and I. A couple of summers ago,” he said.

How transparent he was being, she thought, to take that line.

“Really! Well, then you’re the only male friend of Jerry’s I ever met out here.”

“What?” He was confused.

“I believe it was said of my brother that he’d sleep with your wife as soon as shake your hand here in Sea Mist.”

He became more confused than ever. “I don’t have a wife,” he protested.

Jonathan would have laughed at her quip, gently, with irony. The poor thing… “Forget it,” she said.

“Wait a minute. My name’s Matt. What’s yours?”

He wasn’t going to leave her alone.

“Why don’t you call me Jerry’s sister?” she said. Lord, she was halfway home and he still wasn’t letting up.

“Do you mind if I walk you home?” he asked, stopping and touching her arm.

“Yes,” she said.

“You mean it’s okay?”

“No. I mean, yes, I do mind.”

She’d meant it to be clear. It was. His face colored over, a deep unhealthy red that she took at first for blushing, until she saw it was equally composed of anger.

“Just because you go to college, that doesn’t make you better than me,” he said, thickly, loudly.

“I never said I was.”

“Well, you sure act it!”

“If you’d behave like a gentleman, I wouldn’t have to act it.”

“I’m not a gentleman! I’m a ferry hauler!” he said, pride and shame mingled in it. “But I don’t have to be a gentleman. I’m honest. And I’m clean. And I know what this is for,” he said, suddenly gripping the crotch of his pants.

His intensity, his roughness, and especially that last gesture startled her. For a second she was certain he was going to strike her, knock the groceries out of her hands, grab her, and pull her off the walk into the yard of an unoccupied house, and there beat and rape her. He was trembling, on the edge of something, some kind of violence or impulse or breakdown, she didn’t know which. If only Jonathan were here. He’d offered to come with her. Or if only…who? Her father? Lord Bracknell? Or Bill Tierney? Those fools would rip this guy apart first and ask questions later.

She was alone now, on her own, as she had wished. She had to try to handle this disturbed man herself, or scream and run and attempt to find some kind of help from him among the dozens of vacant houses surrounding them. Thinking that helped her somewhat: she really only had one choice. Her panic subsided.

“Hey, Matt,” she said, trying to put all the sympathy she could gather into her words, “I didn’t say you didn’t know what to do.”

“You sure acted like it.” Stubborn.

She tried reasoning with him: “Why should it make any difference to you what I think or act like?”

That stumped him for a second. Then, honest as he said he was, he blurted out, “Because I like you.”

“I like you too, Matt,” she said. “But I don’t worry about how you think or act.”

“I mean,” he began hesitantly, the anger ebbing, the embarrassment continuing, “I like you a lot.”

“Well, thanks, Matt. But you know, I’m seeing someone.”

“He didn’t come out here with you.”

“I’m
still
seeing him. I’m not leading you on, am I?” she asked. “Is that what you think?”

More hesitantly, “No. I guess not.”

“Is that the kind of woman you think I am, to be seeing someone and to go around leading on other guys?” She hoped this would disarm him a bit, allow his confused ideas to settle, rather than incite him further.

Hesitantly again, “I guess not.”

“Good!” she said, more brightly this time. “Then why don’t we be friendly, instead of arguing over nothing. All right?”

He didn’t answer.

“Would you want someone coming on to your girlfriend?”

“I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“I’m sorry, Matt,” and she meant that. He’d taken his hand off his crotch; both of them hung, large and potentially dangerous, next to his sides. He seemed so young now. Stevie felt so strong with him, strong in a way she’d never really felt before, not even with Jonathan.

“Do you want to relax and talk awhile?” she asked. “I’m a little tired. My foot is hurting again. Why don’t we sit here and talk?”

She sat on the boardwalk, making certain to place the bag of groceries next to herself, between them, then gestured for him to join her. They were out in the open, on the main walk, surely the most public spot around, although she hadn’t seen any passersby since she’d left the harbor. He slowly joined her, moving a bit closer than she would have liked, pressing up against the groceries. She put out her feet, so they dangled over the sand. Longer, lankier, Matt sat next to her, looking at her, then down at the sand, still embarrassed. She hoped she was doing the right thing. But it must be right: he seemed relaxed, and her panic had subsided to an occasional shiver around her heart.

“You have very nice eyes,” she said. They were blue-gray like bay waters on a stormy day. Uncertain eyes.

He looked down at his feet, silent. Evidently he wasn’t comfortable.

“So! You’re a ferry hauler. I always wondered what that was called.”

“That’s what they call us. You know, in the businesses here and on the other side.” His voice was still sulky.

“Do you live with your family on the other side?”

“Just my dad and my brother. He’s a mechanic for the Long Island Railroad. My dad worked for the railroad too. He’s retired now. Paralyzed. My mom’s dead…” His voice trailed away.

She asked another question; then another. Little by little, Matt began telling her about himself and his family. She heard about his hard, bleak childhood, a life without luxuries, without promise, a life of hand-me-downs and pride in just managing to get by. He’d had little schooling, had gone to work early on and was still working hard. She got the impression it wasn’t very different from Barbara’s life. No wonder they hated and envied the summer people—who had money, who vacationed here three or four months a year without suffering because of that, and who provided them with work, food, clothing, infrequently a new bike for their children or a new boat for their livelihood. Stevie found she had to draw Matt’s words out of him, he was so reticent. It was clear that he was bitter. Only when he’d begun work as a ferry hauler three years before and come to see the summer people’s lives—their yachts, their limousines picking them up on the mainland, their houses here, their expensive purchases, had he suddenly realized how much he was lacking—and would probably always lack. It was easy for her to be attentive to him—now that she’d gotten over her initial terror she was fascinated. He was a boy who not only lacked material things, he seemed most to lack love: whereas her life was drenched in love, cushioned by it, burdened with it even, on all sides. Yes, that was what her dream this morning had reminded her, how many obligations of affection she had—to her family, to Bill, to her friends at school, and now to Jonathan. It was too much, not too little she suffered from. And now she was starting to make them suffer for giving it to her. Only Jonathan was exempt; theirs was such a new, and special kind of love: with no attachments, no debts. But the others! Rose and the girls at Smith missed her; Bill missed her; she knew her mother must be sorry by now she’d given her the keys to the summer house. Stevie hadn’t meant for any of this to happen.

Matt was winding down, finishing his narration. His words came more slowly, he paused more between sentences. He told her about a boat he wanted to buy—to become an independent ferry hauler. He mentioned how he sometimes thought of just picking up and leaving, going west, to the Rockies, to Seattle, perhaps to become a logger. He heard there was a good living in that, constant work, and beautiful women.

“In California,” she said, “the women are very beautiful. Maybe you ought to do that, Matt. Move out west. You like the sun and the outdoors and the water. Why not go where you have those all year round. Who knows, maybe your woman is waiting for you out there.”

“My woman?”

“Your intended,” she said firmly. “As I’m intended for someone else.” Calmly enough said, but in the middle of saying it, the question within it had almost silenced her: Who
was
her intended? Bill? Jonathan? Someone else?

“You really think so?” he asked. He evidently liked the idea.

“Why not? And how are you going to find out, unless you try, right?”

“Maybe,” hesitantly. Then, “They really do get me down here. My dad and brother. Especially in the winter.”

“No winter in California,” she said.

“I think I ought to apologize for everything I said before.” He looked down at his feet again.

“You don’t have to, Matt.”

“Just talking here with you makes me feel better,” and he cracked a little smile. His lips seemed parched, his teeth yellowish, bad for someone so young. “Even dreams…”

“If you have a dream, you should follow it,” she said. “If you don’t follow it, you’ll never know if you can really have it or not.”

His whole face opened up at that.

Stevie was surprised at her own words, which had just slipped out of her. She was wondering where they’d come from. Did she really believe what she said? And if not, why had she said it? Merely to comfort him? Then what was her own dream? Was it this, being strong, being independent, not relying on others, being able to sit down and talk to someone like Matt, someone disturbed, in need of another person, and even help him?

It did make her feel good. She wasn’t tired by it, wasn’t at all bored, she was fascinated by the glimpses into his life she’d received—touched by his revelation of a possible future for himself—as though it were a gift to her. Maybe this was what she wanted. And all she would have to do was to follow her ideal, and the rest would follow in time, a man, or a family, or something else—friends, a career, doing something useful.

It rang through her body like a gong suddenly struck. She felt so elated, she thought she might be hyperventilating.

Matt chose that moment to stand up on the boardwalk and offer to help her up. He thanked her, apologized again, backed off, thanked her again, then turned and began to walk away, back toward the harbor. Was it her imagination, or was he walking with a lighter, springier step, as though he’d dropped a load off his shoulders?

Still stunned by what this odd meeting had told her about herself, Stevie walked home slowly, and turned onto the ramp to her family’s house. She was halfway up it, before she realized her mistake.

“Damn!” she said, stopped on the walkway. “That’s the second time today about my parents. I’m going to have to do something about that.”

When she entered the lovers’ house a few minutes later—how apt, how prescient her bestowal of the name had been!—Jonathan was at his desk. He looked up from his composing.

“You sure had a good walk,” he said.