The Bay at Midnight (13 page)

“Ain’t got no favorite,” Wanda said, reeling in her line, which was tangled up in a mass of seaweed. “I like them all.”

I was quite convinced she was lying now. How could she not have a favorite? “Well, my favorite is
The Clue of the Dancing Puppet,
” I said. “It’s new.”

“I ain’t read that one.” Wanda set the bottom of her pole in the sand and worked the seaweed loose. “I liked the one where she joined the circus.”

My mouth dropped open.
“The Ringmaster’s Secret?”
I asked.

“Yeah, with that—” she pointed to her wrist “—that horse charm.”

“Right,” I said. She actually had read it and I felt terrible for thinking otherwise. “My name’s not really Nancy,” I said to her, wanting to reward her honesty with my own. “It’s Julie.”

“Why’d you tell me it was Nancy?”

“’Cause I like solving mysteries, just like she did.”

“Ain’t no mysteries here,” George said. “So you can go back over your side of this here canal.”

“Shut up,” Wanda said to her brother again. She rolled her eyes at me. “You got any brothers?”

I shook my head, smiling.

“You lucky,” she said. Her worm was still on her hook, and with a forward motion, she cast the line into the canal again.

“You got a sister, though,” George said.

“I have two,” I said. “Lucy and Isabel.”

“Which one wears that bikini?” he asked.

“Neither,” I said, but I knew he meant Isabel, even though her bathing suit was not actually a bikini, since the bottom was big enough to cover her belly button. Pam Durant was the only girl I knew who wore an actual, navel-revealing bikini.

“You lie,” he said. “There’s one who wears that two-piece bathing suit. She sits out on the bulkhead sometimes, talking to boys in their boats.”

“That’s Isabel,” I said. “She’s seventeen.”

“She a fine-lookin’ woman,” George said, and the way he said it made me uncomfortable.

“Don’t talk about my sister that way,” I said.

“What way’s that?” he asked, grinning. He had the most perfect set of white teeth I’d ever seen.

“You know what way,” I said.

I thought I heard something, and I cocked my head, listening. There it was—the clucking sound of chickens. I looked over my shoulder toward the Rooster Man’s shack. It was barely visible for all the grasses and reeds surrounding it.

“Have you met the Rooster Man?” I asked Wanda and George.

“Who’s the Rooster Man?” Wanda asked.

There was a tug on my line. I pulled back, reeled it in a bit, but whatever had been there was gone. Most likely, my bait was gone as well, but I really didn’t care about fishing. I was making new friends.

“He lives in that shack.” I pointed to the ramshackle little building on the other side of the dock.

“I seen him,” Wanda said. “George and me went over there to fish one time and he chased us away.”

“I think he’s hiding something,” I said.

George laughed. “You just lookin’ for trouble, ain’t you, girl?” he said.

“He has a rooster and some chickens he just lets run all over his house,” I said.

Salena walked over with a big bowl of raspberries and offered me some.

“Thanks,” I said, taking a couple of the berries and popping them in my mouth.

“Your mama know you’re over here, sugar?” Salena asked me.

I shook my head. “No, but I’m allowed to go anywhere on this end of the canal,” I said, telling what I hoped was the truth. I knew I was allowed to take the
boat
anywhere on this end of the canal. No one had ever addressed my getting off the boat and visiting someone.

“Well, you ask next time, hear?” Salena said.

I nodded.

“Yeah, you say, ‘Hey, Mama, can I fish with dem niggahs?’” George said.

I was shocked he used that word. He looked at my stunned face, then broke into a laugh.

“Hey, girl,” he said. “I’m just razzin’ ya.”

Salena laughed, too, but Wanda looked at her brother with disgust. “You so retarded,” she said to him. Then to me, “He turned eighteen yesterday and now he’s more retarded than ever.”

So, I had some new friends. They were different from anyone else I knew, but that only intrigued me. I went across the canal a couple more times that week. I liked being over there. Salena turned out to be their cousin, not their mother, as I’d originally thought. I learned that all of them—including the men, who stuck pretty much to themselves—were cousins. Wanda and George had no father and their mother was sick, so this bunch of older relatives took them in.

There was always a lot of “razzin’” going on, as George would say, and it took me a while to realize it was a sign of affection between them. I gave them any fish I caught and discovered that they, too, released the blowfish and sea robins. I shared my binoculars with them, letting them take turns looking through them. I picked a bowlful of berries from the semicircle of blueberry bushes that grew in the sandy lot across from our house and shared them with the Lewises. I brought over
The Clue of the Dancing Puppet
, sat on an overturned bucket, and read it out loud to Wanda. She never offered to do the reading, and I didn’t ask her, afraid she couldn’t read as well as me and might be embarrassed. I put a lot of drama into the reading, and even George and Salena listened after a while.

I took Wanda for a ride in the boat, making sure I’d brought an extra life preserver with me that day. I wanted to take her across the canal to meet my family but instinctively knew I’d
better not. I’d told no one where I was spending my mornings. All they needed to do was look hard across the canal to see me, but they were so used to ignoring the colored fishermen that I guess they never did.

One day, though, I was standing next to Wanda, starting to bait my hook with a killie, when a white man suddenly emerged from the path cut through the tall grass. We all turned to look at him, and my thoughts were so removed from my family that it wasn’t until I noticed his limp that I realized it was my father.

“Daddy!” I said. “What are you doing here?”

I noticed some gray in my father’s brown hair as he walked toward to me. He skirted a fish bucket and gave George an even wider berth. George cut his eyes at my father, looking as though he would happily stick a knife in his side if given a chance. It was a side of George I hadn’t seen before.

“You need to come home,” Daddy said. His voice was very calm, but I knew the calmness masked his anger. My father was not a hitter, not even a yeller, but quiet anger could sometimes be even harder to endure.

“Why?” I asked, knowing perfectly well why. I was holding the killie in one hand, the hook in another, and both my arms felt paralyzed.

“We were looking for you,” he said. “You know you’re supposed to let us know where you are. Throw that killie in the canal and come with me,” he said.

Feeling self-conscious, I tossed the killie over the fence. “This is Wanda Lewis, Daddy,” I said. “And her brother George. And her cousin, Salena.”

“You got a nice girl,” Salena said. “She’s welcome to fish with us anytime she like.”

Daddy nodded to her. “Thank you,” he said. He put his hand on my shoulder and I tried to measure the anger in his touch: Nine on a scale of one to ten. I was afraid to go with him. My hands shook as I gathered my up my gear.

“What about the boat?” I asked him.

“Grandpop can come over later to get it,” he said.

“Bye,” I said to the Lewises, then turned to follow my father. He was already halfway down the path on his way to the small sand lot where he’d parked the car.

He didn’t speak until we were both in the car and he’d turned the key in the ignition. Then he looked at me, shaking his head slowly as though he couldn’t believe I was his child.

“What in God’s name do you think you’re doing on this side of the canal?” he asked, a cold, hard edge to his voice.

“Fishing,” I said.

“You think they’ve got different fish over here than on our side?”

Actually, I did, but I took a different tack.

“Grandpop said I should try to make friends with them,” I said, then cringed. I was a terrible person for pinning the blame on my grandfather. Daddy didn’t believe me, anyway.

“You’re starting to lie way too much, Julie,” he said as he drove the car from the lot onto the road. “You have a good imagination, and that’s fine. But you have to remember there’s a difference between making up stories that are harmless—that don’t hurt anybody, including yourself—and telling lies.”

“There’s no girls my age near us, Daddy,” I said, and I suddenly thought I was going to cry.

“You can play with Lucy,” he said.

“I would, except she never wants to do anything.”

Daddy suddenly looked sad. He reached across and stroked
his hand over my hair, his touch gentle, the anger gone and worry in its place, which was almost worse. “Honey,” he said, “I know you’re lonely this summer. But don’t try to mix with the Negroes. No good can come of it.”

“Wanda reads Nancy Drew,” I said.

“I don’t care if she reads Dostoyevsky,” he said, his voice remaining calm. I had no idea who Dostoyevsky was. “I don’t want you to go over there again. Understood?”

“If Izzy was doing it, you wouldn’t care,” I said.

“If Izzy was doing it, I’d lock her in the house for a year,” he said. He turned the steering wheel to take us onto the road leading to the Lovelandtown Bridge, then glanced at me. “You think I favor Isabel?” he asked.

“I
know
you do.”

He said nothing as we drove over the bridge, the steel grating rumbling beneath the car’s tires.

“Isabel was my first child,” Daddy said quietly, once we’d crossed the bridge. “She’ll always have a special place in my heart, but I love all three of you equally. I’m sorry if I ever let you think otherwise.”

Although I hadn’t meant to manipulate my father with my accusation, it definitely seemed to have worked to my advantage. Daddy hugged me when we got out of the car in our driveway and said he thought his lecture had been punishment enough. I cried then for real, because I loved him with all my heart—and because I knew I was incapable of being the obedient girl he wanted me to be.

That afternoon, I sat on the bulkhead, dangling my feet above the water, looking over at the Lewis family as they packed up
to go home. George and Wanda waved to me, and I waved back.

“Your dad went over and got you, huh?”

I recognized the voice without even turning around.

“Flake off, Ethan,” I said.

“I think it was neat that you went over there,” he said.

I turned to look at him, surprised. He was leaning on the fence. He had on sunglasses that were as thick as his regular glasses.

“My father had a big fight with your father,” he said.

“What are you talking about?” I swiveled on the bulkhead, drawing my legs up so that I was facing him.

“Your father was looking for you, and my father was out here and your father said, ‘Have you seen Julie,’ and my father said, ‘She’s where she is every day, on the other side of the canal, fishing.’”

“Your father finked on me?” I asked.

“Your father said he was going over to get you, and my father told him that, somehow, you ended up with an open mind and your father was trying to close it. And your father called mine a
liberal asshole
, and said that what happens in his family is none of my father’s business.” Ethan grinned. “It was pretty keen.”

Pretty keen if you’re not the subject of the dispute
, I thought. I had to admit, though, that the argument sounded like the most excitement we’d had down the shore in weeks. I couldn’t believe my father had used the word
asshole.

I did not fish with Wanda and George for a full nine days, but then I returned. I told Salena I had Daddy’s permission. I brought more blueberries and ate their raspberries and big hunks of corn bread Salena had made. I shared my binoculars with them and
read to Wanda. I would only go when my father was in Westfield.

And I practiced the line I would use in confession: “I disobeyed my parents just about every single day of the week.”

Julie

I
arrived at my mother’s house the morning after the ZydaChicks concert and was in the process of getting my gardening gloves, sunscreen and insect repellent from the trunk of my car when Lucy pulled up behind me.

“I brought bagels,” Lucy said as she got out of her car. She held up the bag for me to see.

“Oh, you’re good,” I said. “I didn’t think of that.”

“Love that hat with your haircut.” Lucy walked toward me, reaching out to touch the brim of my straw gardening hat.

“Thanks,” I said. “Where’s yours?”

“I forgot it. Mom’ll have an extra, I’m sure.”

We started up the sidewalk to the white split-level that had been our childhood home. We did this several times during the year—joined forces to help our mother with the yard work.
Mom was able to maintain her front yard flower beds beautifully, and she even mowed the lawn herself, much to our chagrin. She used a monster riding mower we had not yet been able to wrest away from her despite our many attempts. I’d offered to pay a service to handle the job for her, telling her I was afraid she might fall or the mower might tip over, but she waved off my concerns as ridiculous. I wondered how, when the time came, we would be able to talk her into giving up her driver’s license. At least Mom had accepted our help with the vegetable garden in the backyard, and that was to be our task for the morning.

We’d reached the front door, and Lucy rang the bell. I could see our reflections in the storm door nearly as well as I would have been able to in a mirror. The only thing alike about us, I thought, was our oval-shaped sunglasses. Mine were prescription. Our features were quite different, although I was usually able to see the presence of both our parents in our faces. Lucy’s hair was well on its way to being completely silver. Except for her thick bangs, her hair was pulled away from her face into the long French braid she always wore down her back, and I wondered if, beneath the dye and highlights, my own hair was now the same color as hers.

“Okay, Mom,” Lucy said to the air as she rang the bell again, “we’re here.”

We waited another full minute. It was early, but it had to be at least eighty degrees already, and I was hot standing on the shadeless front step.

“Is the car here?” Lucy leaned away from the door and looked toward the closed garage as if she might be able to see inside it.

“I called her yesterday before the concert to tell her we’d be coming,” I said, a smidgen of worry making its way into my brain. I reached into my pocketbook. “I have my key.”

I pulled open the storm door, glad to see our mother had not locked it, fit my key into the lock of the main door and pushed it open.

We stepped into the relative coolness of our old home.

“Mom?” Lucy called.

No answer. I walked into the kitchen and opened the garage door to see her silver Taurus.

I was about to head upstairs when Lucy said, “There she is.” She pointed through the sliding glass doors leading from the dining room onto the patio. I was relieved to see our mother sitting at the glass-topped patio table, her back to us. She was still in her light summer robe and terry-cloth slippers.

“She must have forgotten,” I said.

Lucy and I slid open the door and our mother jumped at the sound. She tried to look behind her, but couldn’t turn her head quite far enough to see us, and I was distressed that we’d startled her.

“It’s just us, Mom,” I said quickly. I bent over to kiss her cheek.

She was looking at an old photograph album, and she fumbled with it, trying to close it quickly but failing. Among the black-and-white photographs, I saw one of Isabel standing on the bulkhead dressed in a pale sundress, waving at the camera. My God, she looked like Shannon! A sailboat was on the canal behind her, heading toward the bay. I caught Izzy’s dimpled smile just before my mother managed to close the cover on the book, her hands fluttering, shaking.

“Hi, girls,” she said, struggling to put cheer in her voice. “What are you doing here?”

Lucy gave me a worried look over the top of our mother’s
head. Mom was no more forgetful than I was most of the time, but it was clear that we’d walked in on a private moment.

“We’re here to work in the garden,” Lucy said.

“Oh, that’s right.” Our mother got to her feet, lifting the photograph album to her chest. We were all going to pretend it wasn’t there. That was the way we operated in our family: We were masters at ignoring the elephant in the room. If we pretended it wasn’t there, it couldn’t hurt us.

“Let me get dressed and I’ll help you,” she said. She kept her head lowered as she scooted past us, as though she knew her eyes were rimmed with red and was hoping we wouldn’t notice. It was clear she wanted to get away from us to pull herself together. Seeing her self-consciousness made me ache for her. I longed to touch her. Hold her. I wished I could ask her what had her so upset, but it was clear that was not what she wanted and I let her pass.

“I brought bagels,” Lucy said, most likely because she didn’t have a clue what else to say.

“And there’s juice in the fridge,” Mom said, as she opened the sliding door.

Once she was in the house, Lucy and I looked at each other again.

“Maybe we should have called before we came over,” Lucy said in a hushed tone.

“How weird that she was looking at old pictures now,” I said.

“What do you mean, ‘now’?” Lucy asked.

“You know,” I said. “Ned’s letter. Me talking with Ethan. Having to think about Isabel’s death. All of that.”

“A coincidence,” Lucy said, then reconsidered. “But you’re right. It is kind of strange.” She held up the bag in her hand. “Cinnamon raisin, oat bran or plain?” she asked.

We each ate half a bagel in the kitchen, then left them on the counter for our mother. Lucy found one of Mom’s old gardening hats in the hall closet and she tugged it low on her head. Then we doused ourselves with insect repellent and walked out to the toolshed in the rear of the yard.

We opened the door to the musty-smelling shed and began digging through the tools.

“Any word from Ethan?” Lucy asked, as we put a couple of hoes and weeders in the wheelbarrow.

I laughed. “It’s only been…what? Ten hours since you asked me that question last night.” I felt the start of a hot flash, the damp heat burning the crown of my head, then radiating downward over my cheeks and neck. I took off my hat, fanning myself with it.

Lucy laughed. “One itty-bitty mention of Ethan, and look what happens to you,” she said.

I was only mildly annoyed with her. “Just you wait a few years,” I said. “I’m not going to forget how unsympathetic you’ve been to me while I’ve been going through this.”

I put my hat back on and we began pushing the wheelbarrow toward the garden.

“Do you think sex would be difficult?” Lucy asked.

I looked at her. “
What
are you talking about?” I asked.

“I mean…” She looked utterly guileless. “You know, with you being menopausal and all that.” Lucy had a knack for bringing up the most difficult subjects with an air of innocence. “Let’s say that you could get past your concerns about having a relationship with Ethan and—”

“I doubt very much that I could.” I stopped pushing the wheelbarrow at the edge of the garden and lifted out the hoe.
“And even if I wanted a relationship with him, I doubt he wants one with me.” I started raking the hoe between the rows of tomato plants. The garden was the same oversized plot of fertile soil that Lucy and I had grown up with, but it seemed like much more work now than it had been when we were kids. “And besides,” I added, “I have very little interest in sex these days, anyway.” That was a half-truth. I’d gotten used to thinking of myself as asexual. I couldn’t have cared less about sex during the last few years of my marriage to Glen, which might have been part of the problem between us—yet another thing that was my fault. But my reaction to seeing Ethan—even to talking with him on the phone—was forcing me to rethink my definition of myself as a sexless creature.

“I’m afraid that’s happening to me, too.” Lucy dropped the kneeling pad next to the lettuce.

“You?” I
looked at her in surprise. I’d expected Lucy to have an insatiable appetite for sex until she was on her deathbed—and maybe even then.

“Sad, isn’t it?” she said, lowering herself to her knees on the pad, a trowel in her hand. Her hat flopped low over her sunglasses. “I never thought I’d hear myself say that.”

We heard the sliding-glass door open and turned to see our mother walking toward us. She was dressed in the gardening overalls I’d bought her a couple of years earlier and wearing green rubber shoes and a straw hat, and she looked much, much better than she had just a half hour before.

“Mom,” I said, “why don’t you sit and relax and let Lucy and me do this today?” I suggested.

She stopped walking toward us. “Not a bad idea,” she said. “I’ll just get a cup of coffee and a piece of bagel and pull a chair
over so I can visit with you.” She turned around and disappeared into the house again, and Lucy and I exchanged another look.

“What’s going on with her?” Lucy asked. It was not like our mother to let us do the work ourselves, not that we minded in the least.

I brushed a bug from my damp forearm. “Maybe she finally realizes that gardening in this kind of heat is more than she should be doing,” I said, dropping my hoe to the ground. I walked over to the patio and carried a chair back to the garden, setting it in the shade near where we were working.

“How can she drink coffee when it’s this hot?” Lucy said, when Mom appeared again on the patio. She walked toward us carrying a cup of coffee and half a bagel on a napkin. She sat down on the chair, all smiles.

“I was so sorry I couldn’t join you at your concert last night,” she said to Lucy. “How was it?”

“A lot of fun,” Lucy said.

“They were great, as usual,” I said, picking up the hoe again. Mom had planned to go to the ZydaChicks concert with Shannon and me, but she’d canceled yesterday afternoon, saying she was too tired to go out. I’d thought little of it at the time, but now I wondered if whatever had tired her out last night was related to her sadness this morning. As for me, I still felt a little high from having had that quality time with my daughter the night before. I missed seeing her every day. I knew I was calling her too much, irritating her, but I was only calling once out of every ten times I thought of her.

“Did Lucy tell you I want to plan a combination birthday and going-off-to-college party for Shannon?” Mom asked me.

“No,” I said, delighted. “That’s a great idea.”

“I thought we should have it at Micky D’s,” she said, “but Lucy thought it should be here.”

I sneaked a smile at my sister, mouthing the words
thank you
to her.

“Here would be perfect,” I said out loud.

“I think we should make it a surprise party,” Mom continued, “so could you put together a list of her friends for me, Julie?”

“Sure,” I said. I leaned on the hoe, thinking through the idea. “How about I take care of the invitations so you don’t have to worry about that part?” I suggested. “We’ll have to look at our calendars and see when would be good. She has to be at Oberlin in late August.”

“I don’t think a surprise party is such a great idea,” Lucy said.

“How come?” I asked, scraping the hoe through the dirt and weeds again.

“I don’t know,” Lucy said. “I think…she might want to have some say as to who gets invited. That sort of thing. I know I would if I were in her shoes.”

“Well, why don’t you two talk it over and get back to me on it?” our mother said. She took a sip of her coffee. “And meanwhile…” She hesitated so long that we both looked over to see if she’d forgotten what she’d been about to say. “I have a question for Julie.”

“What?” I asked.

“I was wondering when you planned to tell me you had lunch with Ethan Chapman.”

Speechless, I looked at Lucy.
Did you tell her?
I asked with my eyes. Lucy looked as surprised as I felt and gave a little shake of her head.

“How did you know about that?” I asked, holding the hoe at my side.

“I have my ways,” she said, tucking a strand of her white hair beneath her hat.

“Mom,”
I said. “How?”

“His father paid me a visit,” she said.

“You’re
kidding.
” I pictured Mr. Chapman as he had looked the last time I’d seen him. He’d been on TV, a slender, handsome middle-aged man, shaking hands, kissing babies and making promises as he ran for governor. It must have been in the late sixties. “Why?” I asked.

“He said Ethan told him he was going to see you and that started him thinking about our family, so he decided to pay me a visit.”

“Weird,” Lucy said. She, too, had stopped her weeding and was now sitting down on her kneeling pad, hugging her shins. “How did it go?”

“Oh, fine,” Mom said. “He’s a feeble old goat. Hasn’t aged too well. He shouldn’t be driving a car, if you ask me.”

I suddenly thought of the photo album she’d had out that morning. No wonder. Seeing Ross Chapman must have brought back many memories of the shore for her.

“What did you talk about?” I asked.

“Not much,” she said. “He was only here a few minutes. What
I’m
curious about is what you and Ethan talked about.”

Could she possibly know about the letter? I reassured myself that there was no way she could, since Ethan had not even told his father.

“Sort of the same thing,” I said. “He just wondered about us. You know he and I were really good friends when we were little, and I guess he started thinking about me.You know how that happens sometimes.”

“Is he single?” Mom asked.

“Well, actually, yes,” I said. “He’s divorced.”

“So, he’s hunting for a new Mrs. Chapman, then, I guess,” she said.

I laughed. “Oh, Mom, I don’t think that’s what he’s after at all.”

“Well, if it is, I hope you’ll ignore his overtures,” she said.

“Why should she ignore them?” Lucy asked.

My mother let out a heavy sigh. She took a long swallow of coffee, then brushed a bagel crumb from her lap while Lucy and I waited. “Because,” she said, “the Chapmans are a reminder of times I would just as soon forget.”