The Complete Elizabeth Gilbert: Eat, Pray, Love; Committed; The Last American Man; Stern Men & Pilgrims (139 page)

“I think Candy wishes she could be a girly-girl sometimes, and play girly games for a change,” said Dotty. “I’m the only girl she can play with, and I’m no fun. I haven’t been much fun all year.”

“That’s because my dad died,” Candy said.

“We don’t need to talk about that today, honey,” Mrs. Pommeroy said. “Today your mommy’s getting married. Today’s a happy day, sweetheart.”

“I always wanted a little girl,” Mrs. Pommeroy said. “But I had a whole bunch of boys. Is it fun? Is it fun dressing Candy up all pretty? My boys wouldn’t let me touch them. And Ruth always had short hair, so it wasn’t fun to play with.”

“You’re the one who kept it short,” Ruth said. “I wanted my hair to be just like yours, but you were always cutting it.”

“You couldn’t keep it combed, sweetheart.”

“I can dress myself,” Candy said.

“I’m sure you can, sweetheart.”

“No bangs.”

“That’s right,” Mrs. Pommeroy said. “We’re not giving you any bangs, even though they’d be beautiful.” She expertly circled the puff of curls she had created on top of Candy’s head with a wide white ribbon. “Adorable?” she asked Dotty.

“Adorable,” said Dotty. “Precious. You did a great job. I can never get her to sit still, and I don’t know anything about styling hair. Obviously. I mean, look at me. This is about as good as I get.”

“There you go. Thank you, Candy.” Mrs Pommeroy bent over and kissed the little girl on the cheek. “You were very brave.”

“Obviously,” said Candy.

“Obviously,” said Ruth.

“You’re next, Dotty. We’ll do the bride, and you can go get dressed, and then we’ll do your friends. Somebody should tell them to start coming over. What do you want me to do with your hair?”

“I don’t know. I guess I just want to look happy,” Dotty instructed.

“Can you do that for me?”

“You can’t hide a happy bride, even under a bad hairstyle,” Mrs. Pommeroy said. “I could wrap your head in a towel, and if you’re happy, you’d still look beautiful, marrying your man.”

“Only God can make a happy bride,” Kitty Pommeroy said very seriously, for some reason.

Dotty considered this and sighed. “Well,” she said, and spat her gum into a used tissue she’d fished out of her bathrobe pocket, “see what you can do for me. Just do your best.”

Mrs. Pommeroy set to work on Dotty Wishnell’s wedding day hair, and Ruth left the women and went to look more closely at Pastor Wishnell’s house. She could not make any sense of its delicate, feminine style. She walked the length of the long, curving porch, with its wicker furniture and bright cushions. That must be the work of the mysterious Mrs. Post. She saw a bird feeder, shaped like a little house and cheerfully painted red. Knowing that she was trespassing, but overcome by curiosity, she let herself into the house through the French doors that opened from the porch. Now she was in a small parlor, a sitting room. Brightly covered books lay on end tables, and doilies covered the backs of the sofa and chairs.

She walked up the steep wooden stairs and, on the next floor, peered into an immaculate bathroom, with a potted fern hanging in the window and a small cake of lavender soap in a dish above the sink. There was a framed photograph of a small girl and a small boy, kissing. BEST FRIENDS, it read below in pink script.

Ruth moved to the doorway of a bedroom containing stuffed animals propped against the pillows. The next bedroom had a beautiful sleigh bed and its own bathroom. The last bedroom had a single bed with a rose-covered quilt. Where did Owney sleep? Not with the teddy bears, surely. Not on the sleigh bed. She couldn’t picture that. She had no sense of Owney at all in this house.

But Ruth kept exploring. She climbed up to the third floor. It was hot, with sloping ceilings. Seeing a partly closed door, she naturally pushed it open. And walked in on Pastor Wishnell.

“Oh,” Ruth said.

He looked at her from behind an ironing board. He was in his black trousers. He wasn’t wearing a shirt. That’s what he was ironing. His torso was long and seemed to have no muscle or fat or hair. He lifted his shirt off the ironing board, slid his arms into the starched sleeves, and fastened the buttons, bottom to top, slowly.

“I was looking for Owney,” Ruth said.

“He’s gone to Fort Niles to pick up Mr. Ellis.”

“Oh, really? Sorry.”

“You knew that very well.”

“Oh, that’s right. Yes, I did know that. Sorry.”

“This is not your house, Miss Thomas. What made you think you were free to wander about it?”

“That’s right. Sorry to have bothered you.” Ruth backed into the hallway.

Pastor Wishnell said, “No, Miss Thomas. Come in.”

Ruth paused, then stepped back into the room. She thought to herself,
Fuck,
and looked around. Well, this was certainly Pastor Wishnell’s room. This was the first room in the house that made any sense. It was stark and blank. The walls and ceiling were white; even the bare wooden floor was whitewashed. The room smelled faintly of shoe polish. The pastor’s bed was a narrow brass frame, with a blue woollen blanket and a thin pillow. Under the bed was a pair of leather slippers.

The bedside table held no lamp or book, and the room’s single window had only a window shade, no curtain. There was a dresser, and on it a small pewter plate holding a few coins. The dominant object in the room was a large, dark wooden desk, beside which was a bookcase filled with heavy volumes. The desk held an electric typewriter, a stack of paper, a soup can of pencils.

Hanging above the desk was a map of the coast of Maine, covered with pencil marks. Ruth looked for Fort Niles, instinctively. It was unmarked. She wondered what that meant. Unsaved? Ungrateful?

The pastor unplugged the iron, wrapped the cord around it, and set it on his desk.

“You have a pretty house,” Ruth said. She put her hands in her pockets, trying to look casual, as if she’d been invited here. Pastor Wishnell folded the ironing board and placed it inside the closet.

“Were you named after the Ruth of the Bible?” he asked. “Have

a seat.”

“I don’t know who I was named after.”

“Don’t you know your Bible?”

“Not too much.”

“Ruth was a great woman of the Old Testament. She was the model of female loyalty.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“You might enjoy reading the Bible, Ruth. It contains many wonderful stories.”

Ruth thought,
Exactly. Stories. Action-adventure.
Ruth was an atheist. She had decided that the year before, when she learned the word. She was still having fun with the idea. She hadn’t told anyone, but the knowledge gave her a thrill.

“Why aren’t you helping Mrs. Pommeroy?” he asked.

“I’m going to do that right now,” Ruth said, and thought about making a run for it.

“Ruth,” Pastor Wishnell said, “sit down. You can sit on the bed.”

There was no bed in the world that Ruth wanted less to sit on than Pastor Wishnell’s. She sat down.

“Don’t you ever get tired of Fort Niles?” he asked. He tucked his shirt into his pants, in four smooth strokes, with flat palms. His hair was damp, and she could see the tooth marks from a comb. His skin was pale as fine linen. He leaned against the side of the desk, folded his arms, and looked at her.

“I haven’t been able to spend enough time there to get tired of it,” Ruth said.

“Because of school?”

“Because Lanford Ellis is always sending me away,” she said. She thought that statement made her sound a little pathetic, so she shrugged blithely, trying to indicate that it was no big deal.

“I think Mr. Ellis is interested in your wellbeing. I understand that he paid for your schooling and has offered to pay for your college education. He has vast resources, and he obviously cares what becomes of you. Not such a bad thing, is it? You are meant for better things than Fort Niles. Don’t you think?”

Ruth did not reply.

“You know, I don’t spend very much time on my island, either, Ruth. I’m hardly ever here on Courne Haven. In the last two months, I’ve preached twenty-one sermons, visited twenty-nine families, and attended eleven prayer meetings. I often lose count of weddings, funerals, and christenings. For many of these people, I am their only connection to the Lord. But I am also called upon to give worldly advice. They need me to read business papers for them or to help them find a new car. Many things. You’d be surprised. I settle disputes between people who would otherwise end up attacking each other physically. I am a peacemaker. It’s not an easy life; sometimes I’d like to stay home and enjoy my nice house.”

He made a gesture, indicating his nice house. It was a small gesture, though, and seemed to take in only his bedroom, which wasn’t, as far as Ruth could see, much to enjoy.

“I do leave my home, though,” Pastor Wishnell continued, “because I have duties, you see. I’ve been to every island in Maine in the course of my life. There are times when they all look the same to me, I must admit. Of all the islands I visit, though, I think Fort Niles is the most isolated. It is certainly the least religious.”

“Is that right?” she said.

“Which is a pity, because it is the isolated people of the world who most need fellowship. Fort Niles is a strange place, Ruth. They’ve had chances, over the years, to become more involved in the world beyond their island. But they are slow and suspicious. I don’t know whether you’re old enough to remember when there was talk of building a ferry terminal.”

“Sure.”

“So you know about that failure. Now, the only tourists who can visit these islands are those with their own boats. And every time someone needs to go into Rockland from Fort Niles, he has to take his lobster boat. Every penny nail, every can of beans, every shoelace on Fort Niles has to come on some man’s lobster boat.”

“We have a store.”

“Oh, please, Ruth. Scarcely. And every time a lady from Fort Niles needs to do her grocery shopping or visit a doctor, she has to get a ride on some man’s lobster boat.”

“Well, Courne Haven’s fortunes are closely tied to those of Fort Niles. And Fort Niles is slow to act; your island is the last to embrace any change. Most of the men on Fort Niles still make their own traps, because, without reason, they’re suspicious of the wire ones.”

“Not everyone.”

“You know, Ruth, all over the rest of Maine, the lobstermen are starting to consider fiberglass boats. Just as an example. How long will it be before fiberglass comes to Fort Niles? Your guess is as good as mine. I can easily imagine Angus Addams’s reaction to such an idea. Fort Niles always resists. Fort Niles resisted size limitations on lobsters harder than anyone in the state of Maine. And now there’s talk all over the rest of Maine of setting voluntary trap limits.”

“We’ll never set trap limits,” Ruth said.

“They may be set
for
you, young lady. If your fishermen will not do it voluntarily, it may become a law, and there will be wardens crawling all over your boats, just as there were when the size limits were set. That’s how innovation comes to Fort Niles. It has to be rammed down your stubborn throats until you choke on it.”

“The world changes, Ruth,” he went on. “There was a time when many of the men on Fort Niles were hakers. Now there’s not enough hake left in the Atlantic to feed a kitty cat. We’re losing redfish, too, and pretty soon the only lobster bait left will be herring. And some of the herring the men are using these days is so bad, even the seagulls won’t eat it. There used to be a granite industry out here that made everyone rich, and now that’s gone, too. How do the men on your island expect to make a living in ten, twenty years? Do they think every day for the rest of time will be the same? That they can count on big lobster catches forever? They’re going to fish and fish until there’s only one lobster left, and then they’ll fight to the death over the last one. You know it, Ruth. You know how these people are. They’ll never agree to do what’s in their best interest. You think those fools will come to their senses and form a fishing cooperative, Ruth?”

“Is that what your father says?”

“That’s what everyone says.”

“Well, everyone may be right. They’ve certainly fought it hard enough in the past. Your friend Angus Addams came to a cooperative meeting once on Courne Haven, back when our Denny Burden nearly bankrupted his family and got himself killed trying to form a collective between the two islands. I was there. I saw how Angus behaved. He came with a bag of popcorn. He sat in the front row while some more highly evolved individuals discussed ways that the two islands could work together for the benefit of everyone. Angus Addams sat there, grinning and eating popcorn. When I asked him what he was doing, he said, ‘I’m enjoying the show. This is funnier than the talking pictures.’ Men like Angus Addams think they’re better off working alone forever.