The Cider House Rules (57 page)

'You're crazy,' Lorna told her. 'The more of a war there is, the more good jobs there are for us. The country needs to build stuff—it don't need to eat more apples.'

So will I see you next winter?' Lorna asked her friend.

'If I don't find Ocean View or Homer Wells,' Melony said.

'So I'll see you next winter, ' Lorna said. 'You're lettin' a man make an asshole out of you.'

That's just what I'm not lettin' him do,' Melony said.

Mrs. Grogan's coat had seen better days, but the bundle of belongings contained within the grasp of Charley's belt had grown substantially. Melony had made money in the shipyards, and she'd treated herself to a few sturdy articles of a workingman's clothing, including a good pair of boots. Lorna gave her a present as she was leaving.

'I used to knit,' Lorna explained. It was a child's woolen mitten — just the left-hand mitten — and too small for Melony, but the colors were very pretty. 'It was gonna be for a baby I never had, 'cause I didn't stay married long enough. I never got the right hand finished.' Melony stared at the mitten, which she held in her hand — the mitten was very heavy; it was full of ball bearings that Lorna had swiped from the shipyards. 'It's a super weapon,' Lorria explained, 'in case you meet anyone who's a bigger asshole than you are!'

The gift brought tears to Melony's eyes, and the women hugged each other good-bye. Melony left EJath without saying good-bye to young Mary Agnes Cork, who would have done anything to please her, who asked all her school friends — and everyone who appeared at Ted and Patty Callahan's to browse the antiques — if any of them had ever heard of an apple orchard called Ocean View. If this knowledge might make Melony her friend, {456} Mary Agnes Cork would never stop inquiring. After Melony left Bath, Lorna realized how much she missed her friend; Lorna discovered that she was asking about Ocean View all the time—as if this inquiry was as necessary and loyal a part of her friendship with Melony as the gift of that woolen weapon.

This meant that now there were three of them, all looking for Homer Wells.

That summer they moved Wally from San Antonio to Coleman, Texas. 'I wish someone would declare war on Texas,' he wrote Homer. That might be some justification for being here.' He claimed he was flying in his undershorts and socks—that was all any of them could stand to wear in such unrelenting heat.

'Where does he think he's going?' Candy complained to Homer. 'Does he expect a perfect climate? He's going to a if or!' Homer sat opposite her on Ray Kendall's dock, the snail population forever influenced by their conversation.

In the cool cement-floor classroom at Cape Kenneth High, Homer would unroll the map of the world; there would rarely be anyone present besides the janitor, who was no better informed about geography than Homer Wells. Homer used the summer solitude to study the places of the world where he thought it would be likely that Wally would go.

Once Mr. Hood surprised him in his studies. Perhaps Mr. Hood was visiting his old classroom out of nostalgia, or perhaps it was time to place an order for the next year's rabbits.

'I suppose you'll be enlisting,' Mr. Hood said to Homer.

'No, sir,' Homer said. 'I've got a bad heart—
pulmonary valve stenosis.'

Mr. Hood stared at Homer's chest; Homer knew that the man had eyes for rabbits only—and not very sharp eyes, at that. 'You had a heart murmur, from birth?' Mr. Hood asked. {457}

'Yes, sir,' Homer said.

'And do you still have a murmur?' Mr. Hood asked.

'Not much of one, not anymore,' Homer said.

'That's not such a bad heart, then,' Mr. Hood said encouragingly.

But why would Homer Wells feel that Mr. Hood was an authority? He couldn't keep his
uteri
straight; he didn't know rabbits from sheep.

Even the migrants were different that harvest—they were both older and younger; the men in their prime had enlisted, except for Mr. Rose.

'Slim pickin's for pickers this year,' he told Olive. 'There's too many fools think the war's more interestin' than pickin' apples.'

'Yes, I know,' Olive said. 'You don't have to tell me about it.'

That harvest there was a woman Mr. Rose called Mama, although she wasn't old enough to be any of their mothers. Her allegiance seemed quite exclusively assigned to Mr. Rose; Homer knew this because the woman did what she wanted to do—she picked a little, when she felt like it or when Mr. Rose suggested it; she cooked a little, but she was not the cook every night, and she was not everyone's cook. Some nights she even sat on the roof, but only when Mr. Rose sat there with her. She was a tall, heavy young woman with a deliberate slowness that made her movements seem copied from Mr. Rose, and she wore a nearly constant smile that was not quite relaxed and not quite smirking—also copied from Mr. Rose.

It surprised Homer that no special sleeping arrangements w ere made regarding the woman; she had her own bed, next to Mr. Rose, but no attempt was made to curtain-off their beds or otherwise construct a little privacy. There was only this: every once in a while, when Homer would drive by the cider house, he would note that everyone except Mr. Rose and his woman was either standing outside the house or sitting on the roof. That {458} must have been their time together, and Mr. Rose must have orchestrated those meetings as deliberately as he appeared to direct everything else.

There was a ban on shore lights by the end of that summer; there was no Ferris wheel to watch at night, no magic lights to call by other names, but these blackout conditions didn't keep the pickers off the roof. They would sit in the dark, looking at the dark, and Mr. Rose would say, 'It used to be over there—it was much higher than this roof, and brighter than all the stars if you hitched the stars all together. It went'round and'round,'Mr. Rose would say, the tall, heavy woman leaning against him, the dark heads above the roofline nodding. 'Now there's stuff out there, under the ocean—stuff with bombs, underwater guns. That stuff knows when there's a light on, and the bombs get drawn to the lights—like metal to them magnets. It happens automatically.'

'There's no people, holding no triggers?' someone asked.

'There's no triggers,' said Mr. Rose. 'Everything automatic. But there's people. They just there to look the stuff over, make sure it work right.'

'There's people out there, under the ocean?' someone asked.

'Sure,' said Mr. Rose. 'Lots of people. They real smart. They got this stuff so they can see you.'

'On land?'

'Sure,' said Mr. Rose. 'They can see you anywhere.'

A kind of communal sighing made the sitters on the roof resemble a chorus resting between numbers. In Wally's bedroom Homer marveled how the world was simultaneously being invented and destroyed.

Nothing marvelous about that, Dr. Larch would have assured him. At St. Cloud's, except for the irritation about sugar stamps and other aspects of the rationing, very little was changed by the war. (Or by what other people once singled out as the Depression, thought Wilbur Larch.) {459}

We are an orphanage; we provide these services; we stay the same—if we're allowed to stay the same, he thought. When he would almost despair, when the ether was too overpowering, when his own age seemed like the last obstacle and the vulnerability of his illegal enterprise was as apparent to him as the silhouettes of the Br trees against the sharp night skies of autumn, Wilbur Larch would save himself with this one thought: I love Homer Wells, and I have saved him from the war.

Homer Wells did not feel saved. Did anyone who was in love and was unsatisfied with how he was loved in return ever feel
saved?
On the contrary, Homer W ells felt that he'd been singled out for special persecution. What young man—even an orphan—is patient enough to wait and see about love? And if Wilbur Larch had saved Homer Wells from the war, even Dr. Larch was powerless to interfere with Melony.

During the harvest that year, Wally moved again— to Perrin Field in Sherman, Texas (basic training, Company D)—but Melony moved five times. She had enough money; she didn't need to work. She took a job in one orchard after another, leaving as soon as she discovered that no one working there had ever heard of an Ocean View. She worked in an orchard in Harpswell, and in another in Arrowsic; she worked as far north as Rockport, and as far inland as Appleton and Lisbon. She took a side trip to Wiscasset because someone told her there was an Ocean View there; there was, but it was a rooming house. An ice-cream vendor told her he'd seen an Ocean View in Friendship; it turned out to be the name of a resident sailboat. Melony got in a fistfight with a head waiter in a seafood restaurant in South Thomaston because she insisted on asking each of the patrons about Ocean View; she won the fight, but she was fined for creating a disturbance; she was a little low on money when she passed through Boothbay Harbor in early November. The sea was slate gray and white-capped, the pretty boats of summer were in dry dock, the wind had {460} plenty of the coming winter in it; Melony's own pores, as well as the earth's, were closing as tightly as her disappointed heart.

She did not recognize the sallow-faced, sulky juvenile who served the ice-cream sodas to the candy-counter customers in Rinfret's Pharmacy, but young Roy Rinfret— the former (and deeply disappointed) Curly Day— recognized Melony in an instant.

'I used to be Curly Day! Remember me?' Curly asked Melony excitedly. He thrust a lot of free candy and chewing gum at her and insisted on treating her to an icecream soda. 'A double scooper, on me,' Curly said; his adoptive parents would have disapproved.

'Boy, you didn't turn out so good,' Melony told him. She meant nothing insulting by this remark; it was a reference to his color, which was pasty, and to his size—he hadn't grown very much. She meant nothing more, but the remark triggered everything that was morose and waiting to be fired in Curly Day.

'You're not kidding; I didn't turn out so good,' he said angrily. 'I got ditched. Homer Wells stole the people
I
was meant for.'

Melony's teeth were too weak for chewing gum, but she pocketed it, anyway; it would make a nice gift for Lorna. Melony's cavities howled when she sucked hard candy, but she liked it occasionally in spite of this pain —or perhaps because of it—and she had never had an ice-cream soda before.

To demonstrate his loathing for his environment, Curly Day squirted a runny glob of strawberry syrup on the floor—checking, first, to be sure that only Melony could see. He did this as if he were exercising the nozzle before he squirted the stuff on Melony's soda. 'It draws ants,' he explained; Melony doubted there were many ants left in November. 'That's what they're always telling me,' Curly said.' “Don't spill, it draws ants.” ' He squirted the floor a few more times. I'm tryin' to get the ants to carry this place away.' {461}

'You still pissed at Homer Wells?' Melony asked him slyly.

She explained that Curly should simply inquire—of every customer—about Ocean View. Curly had never thought concretely about what he would do or say to Homer Wells if he ever encountered him again; he was resentful, but he was not a vengeful boy and he had a sudden, clear memory of Melony's violence. He became suspicious.

'What do you want to find Homer for?' Curly asked.

'What
for?'
Melony asked sweetly; it wasn't clear if she had considered it. 'Well, what would
you
like to find him for, Curly?' she asked.

'Well,' Curly said, struggling. 'I guess I'd just like to see him, and tell him that I was really fucked up by his going off and leaving me there—when I thought I was the one who should be going, instead of him.' When Curly thought about it, he realized he'd just like to see Homer Wells—maybe be his friend, maybe do stuff together. He'd always admired Homer. If he felt a little deserted by him, that was all he felt. He started to cry. Melony used the paper napkin that went with her icecream soda to wipe Curly's tears for him.

'Hey, I know what you mean,' she said nicely, 'I know how you feel. I got left, too, you know. Really, I just miss the guy. I just want to see him.'

Curly's weeping attracted the attention of one of his adoptive parents, Mr. Rinfret, the pharmacist, who was stationed in that end of the store where the serious drugs were dispensed.

I'm from Saint Cloud's,' Melony explained to Mr. Rinfret. 'We were all so close there—whenever we run into each other, it takes a little gettin' used to.' She hugged Curly in a motherly, if somewhat burly way, and Mr. Rinfret allowed them their privacy.

'Try to remember, Curly,' Melony whispered, rocking the boy in her arms as if she were telling him a bedtime story. 'Ocean View, just keep asking about Ocean View.' {462} When she had calmed him down, she gave him Lorna's address in Bath.

On her way back to Bath, Melony hoped that the shipyards would hire her back and that the so-called war effort would keep the stuff on the assembly line changing —that she might look forward to a task somewhat different from the insertion of those ball bearings into that hamlike sprocket. With that thought she removed Lorna's gift mitten from the pocket of Mrs. Grogan's overcoat; she had not yet needed it as a weapon but many nights its presence had comforted her. And it's not been a thoroughly wasted year, Melony reflected warmly, socking the heavy mitten with a painful smack into the palm of her big hand. Now there are four of us looking for you, Sunshine.

They kept Wally in Texas, yet they moved him once more—to Lubbock Flying School (Barracks 12, D3). He would spend November and most of December there, but the Army Air Corps had promised to send him home for Christmas.

'Soon to be in the bosom of my family!' he wrote to Candy, and Homer, and Olive—and even to Ray, who had contributed to the war effort by joining the force of mechanics at the Navy Yard in Kittery; Ray was building torpedoes. He had hired some local boys who were still in school to help him keep his lobster business from sinking, and he worked on the vehicles at Ocean View on the weekends. He enthusiastically demonstrated the gyroscope on Olive's kitchen table to Olive and Homer Wells.