Portion of the Sea (18 page)

“So it wasn’t anything that might win me a tournament?”

“No,” said Josh. “But that performance might win you an Academy-Award nomination.”

I looked around at the other men on the pier and noticed a couple of smirks. I tossed my hands up in the air. “Haven’t you ever caught a blowfish before?” I asked.

When they started laughing, Max jumped in. “She’s from Chicago.”

That’s when the men nodded, waved, and continued their own business
of fishing.

“Shall we call it a day?” I asked when I saw Max reaching in the bucket for more bait.

“We’re just getting started,” he said.

“I know, but my father needs to rest, and I’ve got things I need to do.” “What could possibly be more important than fishing?” Josh asked.

“I could think of a million things,” I said.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said. “Life’s too short to have so much to do.”

“That’s easy for a male to say,” I replied. “But it’s a different world for us women. You men like to eat, right? Who do you think has to make your dinners? And guess who has to go shopping first and then do all the housework? I’m glad you have time to fish. I don’t. My father is going to get hungry soon.”

I said too much and didn’t mean to take all my frustration with men out on him. He actually ranked better than any of the boys I had known from school and the ones my father tried setting me up with all the time. But now, I had opened my big mouth the way I’ve done too many times before, and I waited for him, turned off and terrified, to turn his back to me and pick up conversation with the men.

“Your father seems like a pretty intelligent individual,” Josh said, nearly knocking me off the pier with surprise. “I’m sure he’d survive just fine if you weren’t around to cook and clean for him.”

I thought about it a moment, then said. “He is smart. But I’ve never seen him pour his own cup of coffee. I don’t think he’s capable.”

“Women like you give men no credit, so you do everything for us. You think we’re stupid when it comes to the basics.”

“Not at all,” I stated. “I believe men don’t think women are capable of success outside of the home. You men want us in the kitchen baking cookies all day and then waiting on you hand and foot when you walk through that door.”

He raised his eyebrow and laughed. “This could get ugly,” he said, shaking his head. “First, I’m as man as man gets, but don’t stereotype me. You don’t know me. Second, yeah, I love home-baked cookies and a
woman mixing up something good in the kitchen. But, third, if baking cookies ain’t your thing, don’t spend your life crabbing about baking. Do whatever turns you on in life. That’s what a guy like me finds attractive in a woman.”

I was speechless for the first time, and my mouth hung open as wide as an open-mouthed bass. I felt stupid for not knowing what to say as Josh shrugged his shoulders, smiled at me, then turned to go join our fathers who were off the pier by now.

“Josh,” I called after him.

He stopped and turned.

“We’re going to be here for the next few months. Would you like to go fishing again some time? I don’t mean catch a blowfish again, but maybe something prettier.”

He smiled. “Yeah, I think so, and it’s not so bad catching a blowfish. We’ll be in touch.”

“Where
?
How
?
When?”
I said, stopping myself with a mental kick in the behind.

“Let’s not complicate things,” he said, and then smiled. “I know I’m on the pier every morning around sunrise. That’s all I need to worry about.”

“Thanks,” I said as if getting the only answer I needed. “Bye.”

“Bye.”

XV

WHEN WE GOT BACK
to the cottage, my father was hungry, so I walked into the kitchen and leaned on the counter with my head in my hands. I took a deep breath to prepare myself and then I opened the cabinets, only to discover there were hardly any utensils.

“Great,” I moaned. “I’ll bet the pre-Columbian Indian housewife was better supplied than this. How am I supposed to make anything in this kitchen? There’s not even any food to work with.”

“You can go to the store and buy whatever it is you need,” my father said.

I was glad he didn’t expect me to make my own knives out of bone or shark teeth. But grocery shopping and preparing a meal sounded just as challenging in the mind of a girl who hardly ever had to make her own sandwich.

“Coffee,” I said. “We need coffee, or at least I do. I don’t think it’s good for you right now.”

“Buy yourself some. Buy whatever you need. This is all good practice for when you get married one day.”

“One day maybe a zillion years from now,” I said. “But Josh was a nice boy, don’t you think?”

“Of course he was,” said Lloyd. “Boys without any ambition are always nice.”

It wasn’t a fair and balanced statement, and it upset me at first, but then
I told myself to forget about Josh. I wasn’t the sort of girl who needed any boy in my life, ever! There were more important things to think about.

“It’s not fair that I’ve waited so long to return here only to grocery shop and cook,” I said. “If I don’t set foot on that beach within ten minutes, I will die,” I told my father.

“Fine,” he said. “I can take care of myself. But you are grocery shopping first thing tomorrow morning, you hear?”

“Yes, sir.”

The map to Bougainvillea was imprinted in my mind. Over the last couple of years, I had imagined myself walking through that fine line of Australian pines a million times, and I had rehearsed everything I would say.

As I stopped short of the steps that led up to the yellow cottage on stilts, I could hardly wait to clear my slate and return to feeling the way I did before my act of piracy. I had lived every day with this secret weighing on my mind, and when a girl keeps a bad secret like this all to herself she builds four prison walls around herself, walls invisible to everyone but her.

Marlena’s forgiveness would set me free at last, I thought. There is nothing I wanted more than forgiveness.

Knock. Knock. Knock
. I took a deep breath.
Knock. Knock. Knock
. I let it all out.

I knocked harder. Freedom. I could taste it. I knocked faster. Freedom. I could smell it. I knocked louder. Freedom. I could see it.

And it was staring me in the face. Marlena stood in the doorway, as beautiful as I remembered, wearing a sexy pink Capri outfit and her dark hair now in a poodle cut. I said nothing as I reached into my straw bag and pulled out the journal, then handed it to her.

“I need your forgiveness,” I said, my lips quivering. “I can explain.”

The door opened wider, and I walked in with a spring breeze and joined the classical music playing softly. She walked quickly, and I kept up. Then, she stopped and took a sip of her coffee, allowing me to study her profile. I remembered her nose, still perfect as if a sculptor had shaped it from clay. She turned and stared down her porcelain nose at me with a look in her eyes that made me feel like a bitter-tasting bug she just spit out.

“Thief,” I thought I heard her say. But her lips didn’t move so it had to be my own conscience reminding me I was still behind bars.

“I need to explain what happened,” I said, breaking the silence.

“One moment, dear. Let me have a look at the journal.”

I stood awkwardly before her as she set her mug on the coffee table and slowly began perusing the pages of the journal as if inspecting its condition. My mind started recalling the impact those pages had on the last couple of years of my life.

Marlena glanced up at me. “And what have you learned from all of this?” she asked.

“That a girl is as hardy as any perennial flower,” I answered, recalling what Ava’s grandmother had said.

Marlena continued her inspection of the book, and I felt myself tearing up just thinking about the day I learned Ava’s writing ended. I not only lost my unladylike president, but a friend and in an odd way, a mother and a grandmother that came along with her. I liked Abigail. I liked Dahlia. Of course they belonged to Ava, not me, but in reading about them, I felt as if I had a family of my own. I liked hearing what a mother and a grandmother had to say about things regardless of whether we shared the same blood.

“You’re crying,” Marlena said, when she closed the journal and set it on the coffee table. “Sit down, dear.”

I did as I was told, wiping my tears with the sleeve of my blouse.

“Don’t worry. I’m not going to charge you any late fee,” she said, handing me a handkerchief. “Now what’s with the tears?”

I sniffled and sobbed and sniffled more before gaining my composure. I felt like a fool, for I hadn’t ever cried like this in front of my father, or anyone come to think of it. “I need your forgiveness,” I replied.

“I forgive you. Now why are you really crying?”

“She changed my life,” I said.

“Who? Who changed your life?”

“Ava,” I said. “She inspired me to think things I never would have thought before. And I did things, crazy things, as a result of what I read. I joined her unladylike club and lost my own friends and any chance at
dating any boys at school and then I felt so driven to pursue my dream of becoming a journalist that I rebelled against my father and got a job at the paper and now, just today, I met a boy I can’t get off my mind and I’m not sure what to do. It makes me wonder what Ava would have done—what she did with Jaden. I know it’s just a journal, but I feel like I know her, like she’s a friend of mine, and she just left me hanging.”

Marlena stood up and walked over to the window and stared out at the banyan tree. “My dear,” she said. “Ava wanted more than anything in life to become a novelist. By enjoying and valuing her writing as you have done, you are helping to complete her dream. She’d be honored that a girl some seventy years later was appreciating her writing.”

“Then, why did it end so abruptly? I couldn’t believe it. I was dying to know if she ever met up with him again.”

“She did,” Marlena said, turning to look at me. “Why? Are you thinking of meeting up with your boy again?”

“I don’t know. My father wouldn’t want me to. He wants me marrying some young and rising bank executive and living properly ever after in the suburbs,” I said. “How do you know she met up with Jaden again?”

“I’ve got the torn-out pages. Ava tore them out so her parents wouldn’t ever find them. But after hearing the impact she has already had on your life, I’m not so sure it’s wise of me to let you read further. Did you say the boy you met lives here on the island?”

“Yes, he does.”

“And how long are you here for?”

“The summer.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think I should let you read them, dear.”

“Please,” I begged.

“Excuse me, but you’re how old?”

“Seventeen. How old are you?” I asked.

She pushed her neck back like the pelicans do and it made her look as if I frightened her. “How old do I look?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Do I look the same age as Debbie Reynolds did in ‘Singing in the Rain’?”

“You look young but not that young,” I said.

“I never got an audition for that. I thought it was my nose back then, but I know now it was my age. For the record, in case you’re wondering, I’m a solid eighteen years older than Debbie. What about Katharine Hepburn? Do I look her age?”

“I saw the
African Queen
. My father doesn’t know I went to see it, but I did. You look younger.”

“I’m liking you more and more,” she said. “Vivien Leigh?”

“Who?”

“Tell me you’ve seen
A Streetcar Named Desire.”

“I haven’t.”

“I’m her age, just a year older. Didn’t get that audition either. Makes me question why I ever surgically altered my nose in the first place. I’ve got this perfect nose, and I’m still not getting any good roles. I’m forty so now I’m wondering if it’s my age. And you know there’s no surgical intervention for age. Oh well, I can’t feel all that bad. I have done my share of acting.”

“You’re a movie star!” I exclaimed.

“Not quite a star. I’m transitioning over from a successful career as a theatrical actress. I’ve appeared in more stock and Broadway productions than I can count, but Hollywood is where I’ve always wanted to go. I’ve been trying to break in now for five years, but now I’m competing with all these younger women. I wished I’d started with screen earlier, that’s all.”

“You’re more beautiful than any of them. You’ll get in,” I said.

“You’re saying that because you want to read more of Ava’s journal.”

“No I’m not, but, yes, I do want to read more. Do you think I’ll be able to?”

“There’s a different set of rules this time around,” she sighed. “The pages don’t leave my house. You’ll have to come here to read them and only a little at a time.”

“Thank you!” I said, wanting to shake her hand, hug her, and tell her the real reason I was crying. I was so relieved she had forgiven me, and was now sharing the rest of the journal with me, but really, I was starving to know whether she still stood behind the words she spoke to me that day
on the beach. I wanted to know if she still believed in me. But I’d take the forgiveness. That would have to be enough for today.