Local Girl Swept Away (7 page)

“God, Mom, people come from all over the world to see the place we live—it's beautiful! Have you even been to the beach in the last decade?”

“I've got too much to do to sit around on my butt and get skin cancer.” She took a bag of carrots from the fridge. They looked a little dried up to me, but I didn't say anything.

“Do you even own a swimsuit?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Why would I need a swimsuit? I can't swim.”

“Really?” How had I not known this? “You grew up in Provincetown and you never learned to swim?”

“We're surrounded by a dangerous ocean, Jackie, not some fancy swimming pool. There's nothing beautiful about that ocean to me.”

This was a conversation I'd spent my life trying to avoid—the lethal effects of the killer ocean. I perched on the lip of the chair and scarfed down my roll, which was, in fact, delicious.

Mom frowned. “I guess you were taking pictures out there again. Doesn't that get boring?”

“No.”

“It's the same everywhere you look.”

“No, it's not, Mom.”

“
Pictures
,” she said scornfully as she whacked up the large, knotty carrots. “That's all you ever think about.”

It was an old argument and I didn't take the bait. “Why did you want to talk to me?” I asked. Might as well get it over with.

Mom pointed her knife at me. “This college idea of yours. Your father and I have been talking. You have to start being more realistic about your future.”

Oh damn, it was
that
talk. I clenched my jaw.

“College is one thing,” she continued. “If you wanted to go to Cape Cod Community like Michael, get an apartment in Hyannis with some other girls for a few years, that would be okay. You're smart—you could get a business degree or a teaching certificate. You could get a loan—we'd figure it out. But art school? It's a silly idea for people like us, Jackie.”

Us? I wanted to scream. “And what kind of people are we, Mom?”

“Simple people,” she said immediately. “We don't have grand ideas like the kind Elsie McGavrock puts into your head. Going off to Boston or New York or someplace like that. Do you know how much it costs to go to a fancy art school, Jackie? To live in a city? A lot more than you can make working at the Blue Moon in the summer, I'll tell you that. And we don't have the money to help you pay for it.”

I stared at the tabletop, rolling stray breadcrumbs together into a pasty ball. “I know. There are scholarships,” I said, but so quietly I could hardly hear myself. The whole question of college was so big it overwhelmed me. Getting into the school. Getting the money to go. And then actually packing up and moving there. I hated to admit it, but that was what scared me most: leaving Provincetown, the place I knew so well the streets and alleys were practically extensions of my own body. I didn't just live in this town—it lived in me.

“Even if we did have the money,” Mom said, “it's like throwing it away! Art school? What good is being an artist? Who makes a living at that?”

“Some people do.” But I knew I didn't have a solid argument against her worries. I debated the issue with myself all the time. Even if I worked while I was in college, I'd be lucky to cover the cost of housing and food. I couldn't possibly earn enough to pay tuition. And even if I got a scholarship, what would happen afterward? How
would
I make a living? I knew being an artist wasn't a practical decision, but if everyone was practical there wouldn't
be
any artists. Maybe if I'd never seen those books of Picasso and Matisse, never held a charcoal pencil, never looked through a camera lens, I could be happy working in a real-estate office or teaching elementary school. But now I knew what I'd be missing. Without the chance to make art, to learn and get better at it, my life would feel so small.

“Who makes a living at it?” Mom wanted to know. “Finn's parents? Sure, they've got money, but it's just because his father won that big prize. Most people who write books or paint pictures don't live in a big house like they do. Most of them are lucky to have some little room over a garage. They wait tables until they're too old to stand up straight. Is that the life you want? I hope not.”

She took a package of thawed codfish chunks from the refrigerator and located her fish knife. “It's like you've been bewitched by that Rosenberg family,” she said. “Those people think they're Provincetown royalty or something.”

“No, they don't. Elsie's invited you over lots of times, and you always come up with some excuse not to go. You're the snob.”

But she wasn't listening to me. She was whacking up the fish with such force I was a little afraid she was going to slice off a finger and throw it in the pot with the seafood. “They're not even
from
here!” she continued. “What right do they have to give you advice? Just because they've got money doesn't mean they can run everybody's life!”

“Mom, Elsie isn't running my life. She got me interested in art, is all. She knows I love it and she wants to help me figure out how to keep doing it.”

“Well, she needs to mind her own business. She's not doing you a favor making you want things you can't have. We're not rich people, Jackie. We have to make the best of the life we were given.”

“That's what I'm trying to do! Elsie's helping me apply for grants and scholarships. There are ways to—”

“She's giving you false hopes! And then what? When all your big dreams fall apart, you'll be back here, crying on my shoulder. And I've got enough problems as it is.”

I liked to think I was anesthetized to my mother's bitterness after years of listening to her complain. Still, it stung to be characterized as just another one of her many problems. But it also made me more determined. If I didn't get into art school, or if I couldn't come up with the money, I'd figure out the next step then. But I didn't intend to spend the rest of my life sitting around this fish-stinking kitchen listening to Teresa Silva repeat her list of resentments.

“I know you think I'm hard on you, but I'm just trying to protect you from disappointment,” she said, sounding the tiniest bit apologetic. “I'm not saying you can't apply to that Tiz-Dee or whatever it is, if you've got your heart set on it.”

“Riz-Dee. Rhode Island School of Design.”

“Whatever. You'll see it's way too expensive. You should apply to some regular places too. Cape Cod Community, or, if you're determined to go off-Cape for some reason, UMass Boston or one of the state schools. That's the kind of place people like us go.”

People like us
. What did that even mean? That you were born a certain way and could never escape it? That if your parents scraped by all their lives, you were never going to have an extra shoelace either? That you shouldn't even
try
to make your life better?

My mother's default emotion was hopelessness, but it hadn't always been that way. When my older brothers were kids, Marco and Teresa actually laughed once in a while. The boys would roughhouse with each other until something got broken. “
You drive me nuts!
” Mom would yell at them, but there was pride in her voice as well as irritation. Dad would laugh off their bad behavior, saying, “I was a wild animal too at their ages.”

And then, just as I got old enough to join in the romping, everything changed. Uncle Peter's fishing boat sank one miserably hot July day in a sudden squall, all hands lost at sea. For the next year Mom begged Dad to quit fishing.

“I can't do nothin' else, Teresa,” he'd say, sorrowfully. “What should I do in this town? Open a hot dog stand? Sell jewelry to the tourists? Fishing is all I know how to do.”

Finally she gave up trying to convince him and resigned herself to being mad at the world. My brothers graduated high school and two out of three joined Dad on his boat, the
Sally Marie
, named after my grandmother. Mom was worried sick every minute they were gone, and Dad, who was more susceptible to guilt than his children, took to stopping at the Old Colony Tap to knock back a cheap whiskey or two before coming home for dinner.

I was the good kid, the one who didn't worry my mother, who did what she was supposed to. But I was tired of being quiet and invisible. I couldn't spend the rest of my life standing in front of a kitchen stove just so my mother knew where I was every minute.

Mom had her back to me, stirring the simmering brew.

“How come Michael didn't want to work on the
Sally Marie
too?” I asked, steering the conversation away from my own future. “Did he always want to go to college?”

Mom gave a brief, triumphant smile. “I talked him into it. I couldn't stand having
all
my men out on the water.” She shook her head. “I don't know what Marky and Bobby are gonna do, though. They got girlfriends—pretty soon they'll get married, have a few kids. The
Sally Marie
can't support another generation. I can't see the future for them.”

She looked so forlorn, I leaned my head against her shoulder. “Mom,” I said, “you can't see the future for any of us. Nobody can.”

The summer months passed quickly, long days of work, darkened by grief, but also sweetened by budding friendships with Charlotte and Cooper. The last week of August the Jasper Street studios had to be cleaned out for the new fellowship recipients who'd take up residence soon. From the office window I saw Finn and Tess, armed with mop, broom, bucket, and garbage bags, head into Studio 9. Over the summer other artists rented the spaces, and I knew from years past that the mess they left behind infuriated Finn.

I'd been keeping my distance from Finn all summer, but I decided I'd go talk to the two of them after I finished updating the website. Having Tessie around would make it less uncomfortable, and I didn't want to have to avoid Finn forever.

Elsie looked up too when her children walked past the building. She glanced at me and a sigh escaped her. “He'll be okay, won't he?” she asked.

“Who?” I knew she meant Finn, but I didn't want her to guess that I was thinking about him too.

“Finn. Sometimes I'm afraid he'll never get over Lorna. But he will, won't he?”

I didn't know what to say. I wanted to reassure Elsie, but I was pretty sure Finn never would get over Lorna and I didn't want to lie. Finally I said, “It hasn't been that long.”

She nodded. “I know. You're right. And I don't mean to make light of the effect of it on you too, Jackie. I know you must miss her terribly.”

My fingers went slack on the keyboard. “I can't believe it's been three months already.”

Elsie narrowed her eyes. “What was it about Lorna that made you all so loyal to her? I know she was an exciting person, but she could be difficult sometimes too, couldn't she? A little bossy?”

I was taken aback by Elsie's criticism. She seldom had anything negative to say about anybody. “Lorna liked being in charge, if that's what you mean. But none of us minded that. We did what she wanted us to, but that was because it was more fun than anything we came up with.”

“Until it wasn't.” Elsie's eyes locked on mine. “I'm sorry. I know you loved her, but as Finn's mother, I worried about the way she led the three of you around. I hoped that Finn . . . well, it doesn't matter now.”

“Lorna was the best thing that ever happened to us!” I couldn't believe Elsie didn't understand this.

A frown puckered her brow. “It seems to me you and Finn and Lucas were the best things that ever happened to Lorna. You supported her when her parents didn't. Or couldn't. Without the three of you, she would have been a sad little girl.”

I thought about the way Lorna, at ten or twelve, would pull her long fiery hair in front of her eyes, closing the curtains so we couldn't see the emotions trampling her face. “She
was
sad sometimes. It made me want to protect her, which was ridiculous because she was a lot stronger than me.”

“Oh, Jackie, I doubt that. You have an inner strength Lorna never did. I'm sure that's what she saw in all of you.”

I didn't want to argue with Elsie, but if I was strong, I was pretty sure I had Lorna to thank for that too—she was my role model.

Elsie pawed through the file cabinet, a little distracted now. “I like your new friend Charlotte. Hanging out with her must be helping you get over Lorna, isn't it?”

Why did she want us all to “get over” Lorna? It wasn't going to happen. “Charlotte's great, but no one can replace Lorna.”

“Of course not. I'm sorry. I put it badly,” Elsie said. “I just meant it's healthy that you have a new friend. That's what I worry about with Finn—that he's stuck in the past. He can't move forward.”

She was right about that, but I didn't confirm her fears.

“I'm finished here,” I said. “I'll go say hi to Finn and Tess before I leave.”

“Oh, do that.” Elsie brightened up. “They should be done soon too. Finn can give you a ride home.”

Don't get your hopes up
, I thought as I walked across the parking lot toward the row of studios. Half a dozen bulging trash bags were stacked outside the open door of Studio 9. I heard Finn complaining before I saw him.

“Why can't these friggin' geniuses clean up their own messes? They can't even take a minute of their precious time to throw out the moldy food in the back of the refrigerator. I'm surprised they can manage to flush the toilets for themselves.”

I stood outside the window for a second and watched as Tess filled a bucket at the sink in the corner, her arms long and graceful. She didn't look like a child anymore, another reminder that time didn't stop, whether you wanted it to or not.

“Most of them aren't that bad,” Tess said. “There was this really sweet guy, Neil, here this summer. A sculptor. We had a long talk one day about how you can tell who's trustworthy and who isn't. He says you can tell by a person's voice.”