The Whiskey Tide (4 page)

     
Aunt Norah's hands twisted in her lap. She was older than Maggie, and stouter, with iron gray hair; the practical one. When she hadn't reached for her crocheting, it had told Joe the aunties were worried. He made the way easier.

     
"You both look good," he said. "So you want to tell me what this is about?"

     
They exchanged a look. Sisters discussing things and making decisions together for more than half a century.

     
"Joseph, we didn't know who else could help. It's your cousin Michael. He's a good boy—"

     
"A good boy," Aunt Maggie echoed quickly.

     
"— but, well—"

     
"He's in jail," finished Aunt Maggie, the trip in her voice suggesting something near awe.

     
Joe sipped his coffee and didn't reply. 'Good boy' the Pope's ass. His cousin was a spoiled whiner who had picked fights all his life.

     
"We don't know what to do." Aunt Norah continued. Each word struggled from her throat. "They've accused him of taking money. He's working at a place in Beverly, you know. The manager called him a lazy Mick a few months back and Michael hit him. But Mike senior went to talk to them and things got smoothed out."

     
"Michael says the manager's trying to even the score. Set him up," supplied Aunt Maggie.

     
"The lawyer Mike senior went to said he couldn't do any good against the sort that folks from Beverly could afford to bring in, so they might as well not waste money. But it's — it's a shame on the family, Joseph."

     
The last words floated on the air for a moment, borne on the sunbeams that made their way over the African violets.

     
"We... thought maybe a better lawyer.... We've got a little something put by."

     
Joe ached for his aunt, turning herself inside out over his lout of a cousin. He'd bet Michael hadn't been to see the pair of them since he was ten. Even Mike senior, first cousin to Joe's mother, didn't call on them unless he wanted something. Two or three times a year he picked them up for Sunday dinner at his house and no doubt felt smug about doing his duty. Sometimes Joe was included in the invitation.

     
"We don't want charity." Aunt Maggie's forehead wrinkled with a concentration which didn't come naturally to her. "We can afford to pay." She nodded twice, preparing herself for the step they were taking. "Five hundred dollars."

     
Ordinarily, Aunt Norah would have been the one taking the lead. But Aunt Norah looked worn today, and more stooped with age than Joe remembered. She had worked as a nurse for most of her life. Her ankles were thick from long hours on her feet. She shifted them restlessly.

     
"You get around," she said. "And you know how to do things. We thought maybe... maybe you could find someone."

     
It occurred to Joe to wonder why they hadn't asked Father Anthony for a name. They depended on him for advice on day-to-day matters more often than on spiritual ones. Maybe they were too embarrassed. Or maybe they'd asked and he'd told them to save their money.

     
"Will you help?" asked Aunt Norah anxiously.

     
Joe scooted lower in the chair and stretched out his legs. He damned sure wasn't going to help them waste their whole savings. Three hundred, maybe, since they had their hearts set on this.

     
"There's a lawyer who might do it," he said. "His name's Hinshaw. Ran for alderman but didn't spout the line the party bosses wanted, so he didn't win. Fancy office downtown, but he takes cases for working folks sometimes. There's a girl lost a hand at the shoe factory. He got them to pay enough to her to take care of her the rest of her life. I could try to see him."

***

     
"Don't let the door slam. I've got a crashing headache," Aggie pleaded looking around from the kitchen cabinet where she was foraging for the bottle of seltzer crystals Peg kept.

     
The sun was up. Aggie still wore the peach silk shimmy she'd had on last night. Her gleaming jet hair, in the shortest of bobs, was rumpled in places. She was just coming home. Kate let the door to the back hall slip from her fingers with a satisfying bang and watched her wince.

     
"You vile, bad-tempered
brat
!" Aggie sagged on the counter, the seltzer bottle in hand, and stared at her sister.

     
Kate crossed the room and picked up the glass juicer with its squeezings from freshly cut oranges. The kitchen was immaculate; no trace of broken glass, not so much as a tray awaiting return to its proper place. Green linoleum and polished oak counters gleamed in the sunlight. Aggie swirled seltzer in water and made a face as she drank the results.

     
"What's eating you? Oh... you think I was out all night, don't you? Well, all the fellows were much too ossified to drive me home. I spent the night at Kitty Thorne's— "

     
"After you and Harlan Peale — or is it Harry? — rolled around on the beach like a couple of cats."

     
Aggie's startled squint might have been a widening of her green eyes had she not been hung over. It hadn't occurred to her that Kate or anyone else might come down the long flight of beach stairs for a breath of air during Rosalie's party.

     
"Not that I give a damn if you get pregnant," Kate added. "But you might think of what a scandal would do to Rosalie's wedding plans. And to Pa and Mama."

     
Though pretending indifference, she wanted to shake her little sister. Despite three years' difference in age they'd been closer than twins growing up. Now all Aggie seemed to care about was proving her wildness.

     
Lively now in spite of her headache and the rouge faded on her cheeks, Aggie threw back her head and laughed. Her Cupid’s-bow lips danced with mischief.

     
"Oh, Kate! Don't be such a flat tire. Of course I won't get pregnant." Hoisting herself onto the counter top as Kate had done the previous night, she eyed her shrewdly. "Or doesn't Big Sister know there are little rubbers and thingumys you can use?"

     
The swinging door to the dining room opened and Peg came in with an empty tray.

     
"Morning, Peg," Aggie sang, waving.

     
The cook's face tightened. She, too, realized Aggie had spent the night out, but the knowledge would go no further. She stumped out carrying the coffee pot.

     
Laughter which Aggie had barely hidden bubbled from her throat.

     
"Don't be so repressed, Kate. There's more to life than tea parties. You know it too, or you wouldn't spend yours crawling around looking at birds' nests." She slid from the counter. "Now all these greasy smells are too, too much. I'm going to bed."

     
"I hope you puke your guts out before you make it." Kate raised her juice glass in bright salute.

     
Already at the back hall door, Aggie struck a pose, one leg kicked up behind her.

     
"Only flat tires upchuck."

     
Gritting her teeth, Kate went into the dining room. Her father, the only one in the family habitually up and stirring at half-past seven, looked up from his paper. The coffee pot Peg had brought out gleamed on the long walnut table.

     
"It's a shame you and Mama didn't limit yourselves to two children." She filled a cup and snagged a triangle of buttered toast.

     
"Are we discussing Mrs. Sanger or are you and Aggie squabbling?"

     
Kate bit into the toast, letting butter soak over her teeth. "I cannot fathom how she always gets under my skin."

     
"Know your adversary, Kate." Her father dabbed a starched napkin at his mustache and its twitch of amusement. He was still in his shirtsleeves and vest. His suit coat would come later, just before he left for the office.

     
"I'm sorry I put my foot in my mouth with Mr. Benning last night. I had no idea he had a relative working with the prosecution in Sacco and Vanzetti."

     
Her father waved it away. "You were right. Their foreign names will affect the outcome as much as their anarchist politics. Mr. Benning is patronizing at times. Probably didn't expect you to know who they were.

     
"By the way, Peg tells me a thug barged in making threats about my representation of the string-makers union, and that you persuaded him he'd better clear out. The union-busters are a tough lot. What did you say to get him to go?"

     
Kate chewed carefully. "Oh... well... told him he was a damned fool to make trouble when the police commissioner was in the next room. Something like that."

     
Her father's mustache spread with amusement.

     
"While I disapprove of the language, I applaud the tactic. Pity you've set your sights on science instead of the law. And lest you worry, the men who sent him are more snarl than snap with anyone other than underpaid workers. I do carry a pistol when I go out in the evening. Just in case."

     
As Kate hid her surprise, he tossed his napkin aside and fished a gold hunter's case from his pocket, checking the time.

     
"I see you're in trousers. Are you out to provoke your mother, or does this mean I'm taking the
Folly
to work?"

     
Kate rose with an energy that matched his own. In her father’s company she seemed able to gather thoughts clearly and give them voice. Between the two of them hung the unspoken knowledge that she was more like him than his other children.

     
She went to the kitchen closet and slipped on the Keds which Mama and Peg had banished from the rest of the house out of fear of what rubber soles might do to carpets. She was on board the
Folly
unlashing the mainsail when her father came down the beach stairs. Behind him was Billy McCarthy, the freckle-faced boy who by rights was supposed to be doing garden work or helping Peg this morning. Though he seldom spoke, Kate was sure he, too, enjoyed these trips they made several times a week.

     
The sun was warm. The breeze stirred her hair. As they raised first the mainsail, then the other sails in sequence and the dark brown canvas swelled with morning breezes, Kate felt as always a wild urge to sail toward places she'd never seen, drawn by unseen oceans connecting her to thousands of strangers and hundreds of shores.

     
"What a shame it would've been to miss this," Pa murmured turning his face to the sun as she had done. Removing his suit coat he tossed it to Billy to stow below deck. As he stood at the wheel, he looked trim and youthful.

     
Now was the time. Kate took the envelope from her pocket. "If I could earn half the cost of a ticket to Scotland by the time I graduate, could you and Mama lend me the rest?"

     
Hospital Point was slipping by to port as they headed for Middle Ground where they would change course, and from which they could almost pick out her uncle's house on Scot's Beach. Her father scanned the letter.

     
"Kate, this is wonderful. Do I understand this Professor Shaeffer-Pierce is inviting you to do research under him after you graduate?"

     
"To assist him with his. If my final data and written report on the gulls' nests 'passes muster', as he puts it. His opinion that females lack commitment for research is insulting, but at least he's forthright. And he's doing brilliant things — substantiating Haeckel's theories. I never in a million years thought he'd say yes when I applied to him."