Twillyweed (10 page)

He put down the paper he was reading. “Yes”—he strode across the room—“I know all about them. That used to be a mudroom. Sink still works, I think.”

“They're a trip!”

A pained, half-humorous, half-wincing expression took him and he turned away. “She used to let me play with them when I was little,” he murmured. “Took them away, though, when I tried shooting them from my cannons.” He scratched his head, dazed by the childhood memory. Perhaps stirred by these childhood memories, he became suddenly the host, venturing back to graciousness and hospitality. “Oh, and,” he added with sudden charm, “be so kind and call me Morgan. The only one calls me Mr. Donovan is Patsy Mooney up at the big house.”

Embarrassed by this sudden warmth, I turned away and dislodged two fancy buttons left on the top of the cabinet. They dropped to the floor and I picked them up, saying, “They seem to be all sorted and labeled, except for some in a basket and these two.” I held them up to the light. “But aren't they lovely? Like little jewels!” We watched them glimmer in the half-light.

“Keep them,” he said gruffly. “… if you like them.”

“Oh, I couldn't.”

“Claire,”—he raised his eyebrows dismissively—“they're only buttons.”

I felt the blood in my cheeks. He'd not yet said my name. Defensively, I said, “Yes, but someone loved them once.” I realized even as I said it I'd passed the mark. That's the trouble with me. I give too much too soon. “I'll make them into earrings,” I stammered. “Thanks.”

He turned away and I, chagrined now, returned to my assessment. But I knew now that he was not entirely mean. I'd seen the crack in that cold shoulder. And I liked it—liked him—that he wouldn't sell his mother out, belittling her by saying she was crazy. She'd probably been an old dear, just too feeble to keep up. I focused on the buttons in my cupped hands. “It's a wonderful collection, though. I've never seen anything quite like it.”

“Yes. My inheritance. Buttons by the dozens …” He flipped the papers in his hand like a deck of cards and sneezed from the dust. “… and clocks after clocks …”

The scornful way he said it. I turned and busied myself reading the titles of all those books. There were two rows of clock repairman's guides and a group of herbal and gardening books. There was even a guide called
Collecting Buttons
. I would investigate them later, alphabetizing and categorizing, I thought, my mind already taking on the job at hand. I spied a pen, an expensive, glistening affair with a golden nib. It lay on top of a pile of decaying antique maps and somehow did not go with the room, too new and shiny to belong here. I imagined someone had left it behind.
An intruder
, I thought, my heart beating quicker. Shy, I didn't touch it. I didn't mention it either. I still don't know why.

Morgan held his arms up in the air and cleared his throat. “Well, as you can see, it's not a palatial dwelling.”

I smiled. “No. Not palatial. But so imaginative!”

“So.” He watched my face. “Too big a job you'll be thinking? They're not all repair books and research,” he assured me. “Do you care for novels?”

My eye scanned the other shelves of books. There were lighthearted novels and mysteries by the dozens, most of them outdated and romantic. I was surprised to see they were, almost every one of them, my own cup of tea. I ran my finger over the alphabetized names: Brookner, Drabble, Du Maurier, P. D. James, Lively, Mansfield, Maugham, O'Brien, poetry, V. S. Prichett, Jean Rhys, Rohmer, Shaw, Muriel Spark, Steinbeck. Oh, yes. I could stay here. Morgan Donovan and I regarded each other with a strange sort of satisfaction.

With the relinquishment of his crankiness the entire atmosphere had changed, lightened. And suddenly I knew what it was about his house that reminded me in a funny way of the house I'd lost. It needed me. It was old and decrepit, and without me it would never regain its quaint charm. It would be torn down or renovated into something else. What lay beneath the clutter, the dear antique pieces this woman had spent a lifetime accumulating, would be sold at a tag sale, the clock journals cut up for quaint picture frames and then someone else would come along and turn the place into a modern granite beach house surrounded by pavers. “Oh, I love it so,” I cried out emotionally. “I'd love to stay here!”

He gave me a screwy look and I realized he might think me nuts. Well, I am nuts.

And I remembered I must go find my car. But on the floor a box moved. I think we both jumped. It moved again. Both of us half expecting a rat, Morgan stretched a long leg out and lifted the milk crate cautiously with his toe. It was a leggy kitten, milky gray and cowering.

“Oh, the poor thing!” I cried, kneeling down to pick it up.

“A stowaway!” He laughed.

“How long has it been here, do you think?”

He leaned over and I caught his scent, salt and canvas and leather. “I've no idea. My mother had a cat. Yellow eyes just like hers. But she went missing just before Mother died. For a moment I thought it might be her, but her Weedy was a hefty size.”

“Ooh,” I crooned and carried it over to the sink. “It's scared to death!” She just stood there blinking her yellow eyes, shaking her head with outrage. I cupped some water into my palm and held it to her. At last she figured it out and took it, lapping at it with her little pink tongue. I knew I still had the deli paper my sandwich had come in. I'm not one to litter and any small animal could probably live for days on the entrails of snacks in my purse. I opened the white, waxed crumple of paper and scraped the cheese shreds and offered them to her. Very daintily she sniffed them. Surprised, she looked at me as if to sum up my trustworthiness, then nibbled at it skeptically. I don't know if you've ever heard a cat talk. But the little nipper let out something between a yowl of complaint and a sigh of relief. It was the same groaning sound we'd heard when we came in.
Mystery solved
, I thought.
No ghost.
I can't stand cats. I really can't. I don't like their torturing ways with mice and birds. But I picked her up into the curve of my arm and she didn't try to jump away. She sunk in compliantly, no doubt exhausted from trying to right the milk crate. I stroked her back with a knuckle. Pure velvet. She turned over on it and looked right at me as if to say
A little to the left, please
. I could feel her ragged breath through the skin. I looked up at Morgan, standing there with his straight face, his arms barricaded across his chest. He shook his head, charmed, despite himself. “Well, you can't leave now,” he said in his gruff way. “Who's going to feed the cat?”

I became aware that I was alone in a house with a man. Suddenly unsure, I asked him, “Well, what should I do now? Stay here?”

He scratched his ear. “I don't exactly see how you can. It's such a mess.”

I shrugged. “Now or tomorrow. No reason for me not to start right in.” I scrunched down on my haunches and peeked into the GE. “Do the washer and dryer work?”

“They should. I had them put in just over a year ago.”

“Well, that's good.” I stood up, mentally beginning my list. “I'll drive to a store and buy some new sheets. I can't bear someone else's. Oh! I didn't mean—”

“Don't worry,” he assured me, “I'm not that sensitive. And neither was she. At least … not when she was well. She'd have been the first to see you set up right.” He hesitated, giving me a quizzical look. “But wouldn't you like to get yourself some new, uh … duds?”

I stood, self-consciously backing my rear against the wall. “New clothes. Right. That's just what I'll do. Because I simply don't have the courage to go back home and face Enoch.”

“Enoch?”

I tried to laugh. “You know, my gay fiancé.”

This time he didn't laugh. He shrugged his leather jacket off and rubbed the dirt from his hands. He put them under the faucet in the sink and lathered them with dish detergent. I don't know why I stood there staring at his hands, the workman's veins like ropes climbing his forearms, so able and alive, but he looked up suddenly and caught me looking at them with a stupid look on my face. They were beautiful, his hands. Luckily, heartbroken, I was immune to his charms. But evidently I wasn't blind to beauty. That I never was.

“I'm sorry,” he said in a way that he hadn't spoken to me before. A gentle way. The mocking tone was gone and I felt for this reason worse. He grabbed a dishtowel and dried himself, then put a strong, brotherly hand on my shoulder.

I was wrong about immunity to men's charms. I felt his touch right down to my toes.

“It's only natural that you're upset,” he said.

“You know, you're a funny guy. I can't figure you out.”

He gave me a lopsided grin. “That's because I'm all mixed up myself.”

“You?”

“When I was in the seminary, I was told—”

“Hold on,” I interrupted. “You were in the seminary? As in studying for the priesthood?”

He made a pained face, “That's it.”

“Oh” was all I could say, thinking,
Aha! That's why no kids
.

He stood abruptly. “But that's a story for another day.”

“I can't wait to hear it,” I said, meaning it.

He stood at the open window, looking out reflectively, squinting into the cold light. “Odd,” he remarked at last, “our meeting like this.”

“How do you mean?”

“We're both at a crossroads, aren't we?”

I tried to smile. “Yes. That's it exactly. And I'm sorry if I was rude. Hopefully we can help each other out. Shall we start fresh?”

Again we shook hands. There was the cry of gulls as they swept by just outside the window. What a place! You could hear the waves lapping against the sand. All at once I was so grateful. This sort of opportunity didn't fall into your lap often. Morgan jammed his hands into his pockets and turned in a circle, looking around the room. “She wasn't always like this,” he remarked. “It was just this last year … She was always sharp as a tack … then all of a sudden”—he shook his head sadly—“she just went senile. Senile and deaf at practically the same time.”

I waited.

“The thing is”—he bit his lip in an effort to stave off emotion—“I really regret losing my temper with her. I didn't realize at first what was happening. And you had to repeat everything. I know that's no excuse …” He looked away.

“I'm sorry,” I said and I meant it. But he didn't like anyone being sorry for him, you could tell that right off. He grimaced at his chronometer watch. “That's it for me. I've got to meet the harbormaster in ten minutes. Big regatta coming up.”

I shut the window and firmed the latch. “Okay,” I said, “so how shall we do this?”

The shrill of his cell phone cut me off. “Donovan,” he answered. He listened intently to the person at the other end. “Right,” he said, seeming to change his mind about something. Scowling, he hung up. “Well, it seems I'm to dine at Twillyweed this evening. Why don't you find me there and we can talk about it. I can't make heads or tails of anything now. I'm too distracted.” He turned abruptly and, becoming the captain again suddenly, ordered, “I'll expect you no later than sixteen hundred hours. Give you time to see your niece. Will that suit you?”

I laughed. “Aye, aye. Four o'clock.” I saluted. “Got it.”

“Now I really must go. Draw up a list of things you'll want. Oh. You'll be needing money.” He reached into his pocket.

Horrified, I pushed his fistful of bills back at him. “Don't be silly. I have some.”

“Well, then, keep the receipts and I'll reimburse you.” He took hold of his leather satchel and went out the door, the screen slamming with a friendly bang. He loped down the path. “Bring the list with you to the Cupsands'.”

Scooping the kitten up, I followed down the windy path and called after him, “But I don't even know the Cupsands!”

“Nobody does.” He laughed with his back to me. “Least of all the Cupsands.”

When the sun leveled with the horizon, he washed out the gray gloves, his agitated hands inside them. He worked them feverishly, with a mixture of mild white soap and fabric softener. It seemed to work. The water ran foamy and clear. He relaxed, leaning on his outstretched arms, his wrists and palms against the old grain sink.

A job well done.

He consulted himself inside the broken mirror and was comforted by the conviviality and composure that greeted him there. He winked. He drew his legs up on the bed and rested now, clicking on the TV to watch the news. He liked channel 2.

Beside him, the gloves lay neatly out to dry—one on top of the other, palms down like hands in repose—away from the heat on a polished table. It was a small, elegant table with feet, each foot holding tightly on to its own mahogany sphere. Each rigid foot had claws painted abalone and verdigris, claws pearly and expectant with their greenish talons.

Claire

I stretched and raised my arms above my head to reach the sky and realign my spine. The wind in the boat sheaves wailed and you could just hear the harbor bells clang. If you had to pick a place in which to be miserable, I thought, stepping over the ruins of daffodils—
I must locate a broom
—you couldn't find a better one than this, overgrown and mysterious and far away from it all. What better place to sort one's self out? And things were looking up. Morgan. Good name. He must be just my age. A little older, I thought hopefully. I didn't see why I should always be the oldest one around. I'm not going to play coy and say it didn't occur to me that he might not be someone in my future. A friend. A good friend, maybe. When you reach my age, you know right away when someone is interesting to you or not.
Well, just wait and see
, I reminded myself. A priest! I couldn't get over it. I hopped over the puddles. On my way back up the path, I noticed the neighbor, Mrs. Dellaverna, hunched over the fig tree wrapped in potato sacking; her iron-gray helmet of hair stayed in perfect chunky waves despite the wind. I put the kitten in my pocket and leaned on Noola Donovan's creaky lattice gate. “Hi!”