Twillyweed (18 page)

I was relieved when no one argued with him and moved swiftly before Paige would come back with the guitar and have something else to say. “Checkmate!” Teddy grinned triumphantly and Jenny Rose waved gaily from the board. Morgan and I went through the elegant rooms to the vestibule. He held my tablecloth up like a bullfighter flourishing a cape and I shrugged into it. He slipped into his bomber jacket and we went out the grand door into the night and crunched down the drive.

“Let's take a detour along the water, shall we?” he suggested.

“All right.” The air was soft and delicious and I thought how crazy we all are not to live near the water when there is so much of it in the world. Here I was embarking on an entirely different life. And all because I hadn't gotten on that bus.

Jenny Rose

Jenny Rose went up and checked on Wendell. Teddy followed her. He stood standing just outside the door when he noticed the muck on the soles of his shoes and scraped it off under Paige's fancy French carpet.

Wendell looked like a statue of a child, still as marble. Jenny Rose almost touched him just to see if he was alive. He was. Of course he was. His red mouth moved a little. She went to his closet and touched his clothes. Boy colors. They were so nice. It was hard to believe a woman would waste her time choosing them and then go off like that. She felt as though that woman wouldn't like her standing here going through Wendell's things and she moved away, sensing something preemptory. But that was foolishness. Hadn't the woman deserted Wendell? She took a last look at the little boy and silently went out.

Teddy reared up onto his toes.

“Oh!” she said. “Hi.”

“Hello there.” He looked at her with eager eyes.

She remembered her horrible stuffy quarters downstairs to look forward to, gave him a friendly smile, went back in the nursery, and shut the door.

Claire

“Penny for them,” Morgan said as we walked along.

I looked up at him. How suddenly everything had happened. And here I was to be friends with these enchanting people. Gardening clubs. Wednesday-night Scrabble. I said, “I wouldn't have figured you for Scrabble.”

He lit his cigar and took a deep, satisfying pull on it, “Oh, when you're out at sea you read so many books, and you find yourself able to spell all sorts of words you never even knew you knew.”

“And do you spend a lot of time out at sea?”

“As much as I can.”

“And what do you do?”

“Think, mostly. Crosswords. Read. I read a lot.”

“Who do you like? To read, I mean. Novels?”

“Oh, I don't know. I used to love Joseph Conrad when I was young. Let's see, history mostly. And Thomas Merton I loved. I love the Civil War. Bruce Catton. David McCullough. And naval battles. Nothing I like more than settling down with a story about a good fight at sea. Mainly, I just like an entertaining yarn. Morris West was my favorite. Chap who sailed to the Azores? I'll sit a long night in the bar just to wait for someone to come up with one close to that.” He stopped to relight his cigar. “You strike me as bookish, a reader, I would think.”

“Do I?” Mentally I raced through my store of good stories. “I'm glad because I thought I came off more as a hysterical woman.”

“That, too,” he said and we both laughed. There was that good silence that follows a shared laugh. Then he said, “It was nice having you with us tonight.”

“For me, too,” I said, pleased. “So you're from Scotland originally …”

“Oh, aye, a small place called Invergowrie in the north. No one's heard of it but for a famous train wreck in 1979. Glinty comes from nearer to Edinburgh.”

“He seems an odd man out,” I commented. I thought of the one earring he wore. “Kind of like a pirate.”

“Glinty?” He laughed. “He is a bit. He'd love the description. He's harmless enough, though. Good sailor. Worked under me in Bosnia. Good soldier, he was. Well intentioned. …”

“Really? I would have judged him weak.”

“Ah, no. The power is in the intention, isn't it?”

I thought about this for a bit. Then I asked, “You were a soldier, too?”

He spit out a piece of tobacco. “For a while, yeah. Choppers. Helicopters. 'Twas a good while ago.” He brushed it off and we were silent. A ferry horn blew. “That's from Steamboat Landing,” he said, adding, “Teddy worked over there, too, for a bit.”

“He gets around, doesn't he? And why does Teddy never hold on to his jobs?”

“Never finishes anything. Bit of a temper, that lad. But having one myself, I can't hold it too much against him. Glinty, now, he's cool as a cucumber but a bit of a daredevil. I think he crashed more often in Bosnia than I did. But he never broke a bone!”

“And he lives here in Sea Cliff?”

“Well, down there at the marina, yeah. He didn't have much where he came from in Scotland. A fool's trap. I came across him when I was at university there. He was just a lad. He'd lag about on the docks and take work from the fishermen. No mother. His father was a beast. Had a shop where he'd cheat the tourists. A roaring drunk. But he would tell a great story, you see, so they left him about in the pubs—the father, that is.” Morgan's eyes became tender. “Glinty learned the shopkeep's business and everyone else's as well. He'd be playing his guitar down on the loch in the freezing cold—that's where I first heard him—and he didn't even have a jacket so I gave him mine.
‘Ach,'
he told me later, ‘that was just to get sympathy from the old slags. I had plenty a garb!'”

I had to laugh at the thick Scottish accent that perfectly captured Glinty's.

“Enterprising, he is. When his father died, I took him along with me. He's got a nice little sloop now, called
The Black Pearl Is Mine
.”

“Funny name for a boat.”

Morgan chuckled. “You'll find there's no name too silly for a boat. Glinty had a shop for a while in Southampton, living off the gentry. Jewelry, he had, mostly. That's his specialty. Made a bundle. But it's seasonal there. The music, that's where he shines. Well, you heard him. A regular troubadour. He could have stayed a musician but there's no money in it. Doesn't want to spend his life doing gigs at the Barefoot Peddler, he says. And you can't meet all trains, can you? He's hungry for the money, Glinty is. And he's very good at what he does. Always up and down the coast doing estate sales.”

“Really? That sounds like fun.”

“It was. I did it for years. It was that or boatyard repairs. I don't have the heart to work at a desk, or for someone else. Wears on you after a while, though.”

“So that's what you do? Antiques?”

“I did, yes. But it's rare timepieces, complex timepieces that are my crumpet, antique ship's compasses with sundials. And moon dials. Especially moon dials. I'm mad for them.”

“I didn't know there was such a thing.”

“Oh, aye, timepieces actually dictated by the moon. Can you imagine the strength of the pull of the moon? The tides she rules? She's the queen of time, the moon. And yet it's men's science that channels it, actually directs it. It's mathematics, isn't it? Why, you can feel the movement of the earth as the dial shadow moves!” He laughed at his enthusiasm. “
Och
, any antique gizmo interests me. Fine paintings. Some estate jewelry. But not much of that. That's Glinty's department. Almost went into business with Glinty at one point but then—” He stopped. “I seem to work best on me own.”

We walked along silently and came to a house set back from the road. There was an old man with a white beard in the window. When he saw us, he jerked awkwardly and went and hid behind the drapes. I thought that's what I should be doing; I had my own elderly parents who could use some help. I vowed to have them out, make a day of it. But first I was going to have to help myself.

I glanced at Morgan, summing him up. “So the priest thing was just a passing fancy …”

He winced with something like disappointment. “Oh. You remember I told you I'd left the seminary, do you? Well, it was more the other way around. Booted out, I was. I, um, beat up a feller there. Another seminarian.”

“Ah! I thought Teddy was the loose cannon.”

“No. It's not just him. All right, if truth be told, I almost killed that fellow. You don't have to look at me like that. Look. He was having it on with one of the kids from the sacristy. Or trying to. Kind of the old story, isn't it? But can you imagine? Well, I came upon them. Under a beautiful dogwood tree they were. I can't so much as look at a dogwood to this day without thinking of it. I tore him off the kid and almost strangled him. So … they threw me out. You can't blame them.”

“No,” I agreed, but I didn't blame him too much, either. “What did they do to him? The fellow you almost strangled?”

“Him? Short stay in hospital was all.”

“Was he badly hurt?”

“Oh, aye. But they don't keep them long, nowadays.”

“They throw him out, too?”

“Not at all. He went to confession and stayed on, I imagine.”

“That's terrible!”

“It is. But then they're more in the forgiveness business than the punishment business. Or at least they were then. That's my trouble, though. I always imagine I'm here to dole out reward or punishment.”

We walked along in silence. Then I said, “And now? What will you do now?”

“Oh, I don't know. We'll see.”

I took it he meant after marrying money he wouldn't have to. Funny, though, I couldn't fit him into that niche. And then, before I could stop myself, I said, “So. You're engaged!”

“That's right.”

I felt like saying,
You might have told me
, but of course why should he have? If I'd thought him courtly, it was only my frenzied wish for it to be so. And so I said, “You'd never find a prettier bride anywhere.”

“No,” he agreed.

“When's the date?”

“No date set yet.”

I couldn't help liking this news. We walked steadily down one hill and then up another. I thought I ought to say something glib or fresh and self-confident so I didn't look like I was after him, which of course I wasn't. “Don't bother coming up the walk,” was all I could come up with. “Mrs. Dellaverna's probably watching out for me and she—”

He didn't seem to hear me. He grabbed hold of my wrist and pulled me toward him. I thought he was going to kiss me and I froze. But he didn't. He just squinted at the sickle moon with that cigar in his teeth and held me up close to him and sort of breathed me in. When he let me go, I turned and walked hurriedly away. But my knees, never my most resolute of hinges, dissolved and loosened like slithery Del Monte peaches in oatmeal. Not so dried up, it seemed. Not so dried up at all.

Jenny Rose

Behind a curtain, a fluorescent-lit Radiance lay with her face to the wall, her big hair a pale jumble on the pillow.

“
Psst
. Hi.”

Radiance turned in slow motion.

“How's it going?”

“Oh.” She looked disappointed. “It's you.”

Jenny Rose smiled. “You look better.”

“I feel like shit.”

“Yeah. Well. That's something.”

“It's the middle of the night. What do you want? I suppose you want me to say thank you.”

“Nah. No big deal. Just want to see you're all right. Did you see the papers? My picture's right on the front. I know I look awful but that's not the point, is it. Everyone at Twillyweed is thrilled. It's like I'm a celebrity.”

Suddenly remembering her woes, Radiance rallied. “My back. They think I ruptured a disc.”

Jenny Rose drew closer. She made a grimace. “That's tough luck, that.”

“I'll never be able to dance!”

Jenny Rose pulled up a chair. “Then you'll just have to learn to live like the rest of us. Flat on our feet.”

“What's the difference anyway,” Radiance mumbled, half to herself. She frowned. “How did you get here?”

“Swiped your dad's truck.”

“Eh? He'll kill you.”

“Naw. He's out fishing.”

Radiance swallowed painfully and took in Jenny Rose. Little face like a heart. Little jerk. She was just a kid. “
Asseyez-vous
.”

Jenny Rose sat down. She cleared her throat. “You jumped off that boat, didn't you? It was for real, right?” She reached her hand across the blanket but did not touch. “You had enough, right? Aw, that's okay, you don't have to answer. I had enough a couple times myself. I just wanted to tell you, if you ever need some extra money—I always have a little something put away—get you out of town like. Not that you think you've got no choice, right?”

Radiance's drooping lids moved to the doorway and Jenny Rose's eyes followed.

“What are you doing in here?” The cranky nurse stood, hefty arms crossed, feet planted apart.

“Just shoving off, I was.”

“See here, you get yourself home. Don't you know it's dangerous to walk around this time of night?”

“I'm already gone.” Jenny Rose winked and smiled and patted Radiance's hand. “Take good care of her now,” she advised the old cow and slipped out cheerfully.

Radiance, alone now and still taken aback by Jenny Rose's words, was almost sorry she'd stuck those moonstones in the kid's pocket.

Claire

I stood on the cliff a good while, looking and listening to the night. You could hear the water lapping at its edge, soft and sweet. The fog was rolling in and I let it surround me. Suddenly I couldn't bear to impose myself on anyone, and, bad as the state of the cottage was, it was like a place of my own now, and I just really wanted to be alone. I opened Mrs. Dellaverna's door and stood there for a moment, Mrs. Dellaverna's loud snores barreling from inside. There was Carmela's blouse washed and ironed on a hanger, the suit brushed, with only the merest shadow of the stain along the hem. She'd even cleaned the shoes! I leaned down to pick them up and, from a box of tissues on the floor, the kitten popped her head out. The dickens had been hard at work shredding dozens of tissues. I swept them and her up before she went and hid somewhere, then left a quick note of thanks on the kitchen table and crept out.