The Drowning House (15 page)

The shoppers moved on, and I edged closer.

I tried to flex the rigid sole of the boot. I tapped it against the table. I thought of Stella. Of the sound her feet would have made as she picked her way across the brick sidewalk to her father’s office, ducking in out of the heat.

She shades her eyes as the young architect, just leaving, steps out into the sunny street. The light glints off the gold cuff links that were his father’s and reveals the splendid whiteness of his collar and cuffs. He has two sets, and every night he washes one in a basin in his room at the boardinghouse on Postoffice Street. It’s not quite the thing, the neighborhood he’s living in—there are too many ladies lounging with their hair down on the front porches in the middle of the day for it to be quite respectable. But it’s only temporary, he’s sure of that.

He doesn’t really see the young woman as she passes. He has an impression of fair skin and lavender water, a rustling skirt, a glimpse of petticoat. His head is still full of the plans he carries rolled under one arm. This is his biggest job yet, the kind of opportunity that signals the beginning of a career. The client, a man with red jowls and a watch chain across his vest, envisions a brick-and-limestone fortress.
He will spend what is necessary to get it, without taking pleasure either in the spending or in the result. But Henry Durand, for all his ambition, has a romantic streak, something he inherited along with the cuff links, and cannot quite suppress, although he knows it is not modern.

The house in his mind’s eye is a castle, with turrets and chimneys, a spiraling stair to the second floor. It’s only then, as he adds a balcony, that a young woman appears and, bracing her hands, leans over its edge. He stops and turns back toward the office, but she has vanished. There is the closed door, the round, still knocker. Too late, he recalls the finely drawn eyebrows, the upper lip with its sweet curve.

“Ma’am?” The salesclerk was standing beside me. I knew from her tone of voice that it wasn’t the first time she’d spoken. “Can I help you?”

She was dressed in the style of the shop—a blouse with a high collar, a long skirt with a ruffled hem—but her hair was cut in a seventies shag. I recalled a flip-book of Bailey’s with split pages that let you pair different faces and bodies. I held out the shoe.

“I’m sorry, that’s not for sale,” she said.

“No. But I was wondering … Can you tell me anything about it?”

She tilted her head as if to get a better angle on my question. “What exactly do you want to know?”

“Do you have any idea where it came from? Who owned it?”

“No. But it belonged to a woman. A lady, I mean. It’s a lady’s shoe.” I felt her gaze intensify. “You used to go around with Patrick Carraday,” she said. It was a statement, not a question, and her tone suggested that she had won some point. I nodded, trying to imagine her heavier, slimmer, her hair lighter, darker, shorter, longer. “You don’t remember me,” she said.

What could I say? I didn’t recognize her, and I was amazed to find that she had noticed me. Unlike Frankie, who had distinguished herself in various ways, I had never been on a team, or performed in a competition, or even attended a school dance.

I shook my head.

“Well.” She folded her hands in front of her and looked down at a
tiny diamond and a matching wedding band. “I do. I’m a real people person. Why I’m good at retail. You were always together. You and Patrick. You were just a kid. But still.” I wondered how she knew. Could she have been in the crowd the night of the fire?

Now her face was eager. “He might have been a catch. The big house and all. Even if he was a little different. Are you married?”

“Yes,” I said, feeling the untruth of it as I spoke.

She looked surprised and a little disappointed. “I wondered, because you aren’t wearing a ring. Do you have kids?”

“No.”

She went on talking. “It’s another world when you’re a mom. I have three boys. Travis is my athlete, he’s thirteen, playing football, Jason is ten, and Kippy’s my baby, my sweetheart.” She picked up a paisley shawl and redraped it across the table. “I see him around sometimes,” she said. “Patrick Carraday.” She paused, gauging my interest.

“You do?”

“He looks different. Well he would after what happened. He works for his dad. If you can call that work. Not like a real job. On your feet eight hours a day.” She leaned forward. “You haven’t changed much,” she said. She registered the camera. “You still take pictures.” She brought her face close to mine. “When you left the Island, both of you, the same week, there were a lot of rumors. You know. Not that I ever believed them. They said it was like when Melody Johnson got pregnant and had to go stay with her cousins in Beaumont. I didn’t believe it. You were a kid. I mean, you’ve turned out different, but then, you were just … Why would he have wanted to have sex with you? Not that you would have, of course.” She paused. The air-conditioning cycled on, and the layers of her hair moved back and forth. “Carla’s mom and her boyfriend went someplace up north. Around Dallas. She didn’t want to stay on the Island after Carla died. They say she has a nice place now. With a hot tub and everything.”

I looked at the high neck of her blouse and felt my own throat close. I recalled stumbling down the hallway of the burning house, gasping for air. I glanced around for Harriet Kinkaid, but there was
no sign of her. A customer who had been hovering nearby called out. “Miss, we could use some help here.”

I backed away and set the shoe on the table. “I just remembered something,” I said. The bells overhead jangled cheerfully as I left.

What was the explanation Eleanor had offered for sending me and Patrick away?
People were upset. Your presence here would have been …
Eleanor hadn’t finished her sentence, so I did it now for her.
Disruptive
.

But it was clear that everyone remembered what had happened, just as they remembered the cars Patrick had wrecked. That knowledge didn’t change anything. Outrage was not sustainable on the Island, it spent itself like a brief squall, and life went on. That was the Galveston way, wasn’t it? Survival at any price?

Will had resolved everything. Still, Patrick and I had been sent away. Now more than ever I wondered why.

Chapter 14

ON THE STRAND, THE CROWDS HAD THINNED
, the tourists had moved inside for lunch. I realized I was hungry, but I didn’t want to sit by myself in one of the busy eateries in full view of anyone else who might recognize me. Where could I go? Not back to the house. I stood for a moment feeling trapped. Then I remembered that a block or so away there had been an old candy factory that also housed an ice-cream parlor.

It was still there, a long, narrow space with exposed brick walls and marble-topped counters. Cashiers in sleeve garters worked the black-and-gold registers. Traditional candies—saltwater taffy, root beer barrels—as well as others available from the supermarket were displayed in glass jars and wooden bins that made even the everyday items seem exotic and desirable.

The place was full of children, running, tagging each other, tangling on the worn wood floor. The clientele was mostly young families, accustomed to the racket. They seemed, if not happy, content at least. Wasn’t that what it meant when a couple wore the same shorts and T-shirt? The same rubber sandals? I wondered if they had started out with shared tastes and inclinations. Or had they made, over the years, countless small compromises, so that they no longer experienced them as losses? So that they found their achieved resemblance reassuring.

Toward the back of the space was the factory. A young man in a striped shirt was working the taffy machine. He was so wide-awake, so obviously entertained by what he was doing, that it was clearly a
summer job. He stood beside the machine, handing out a long rope of pink taffy, pulling on it and guiding it in front of him in a way that seemed cheerfully, intentionally suggestive.

In front of me, the rope passed through a slicer. Bite-size sections flew out and were spun by the machine into paper twists. The taffy puller looked up and grinned. I took a step backward, but he reached for a wrapped piece and threw it. He expected me to catch it, but it sailed past my shoulder. He winked. I took another step backward, bumped into a chair, and sat down hard. He threw another piece that landed in my lap.

“Clare?” I heard a voice behind me and turned to see Tyler Henry. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

I smiled at him, relieved. Ty was dressed for work in a tan suit and a tie. His face was open and cheerful. He was not an Islander. He didn’t know anything about my past.

“I was on my way back from lunch and I saw you come in,” he said. “Can I get you something? Ice cream? Or would you like something more substantial?”

I looked up at the menu board. “Ice cream, please. You choose.” The taffy puller kept his head down, focusing on his task. Now that he saw me with a man, he would behave differently. Ty returned with two dishes and handed me one. “Peach,” he said. “They say it’s homemade.”

In my mouth the ice cream melted and separated and I bit into a piece of fruit. Ty pulled up a chair and sat next to me. “Have you seen the movies they show down on the wharf? About Galveston?”

I shook my head.

“There’s a silly one about Jean Lafitte. He comes across more like a sleazy maître d’ than a real pirate. Assuming there is such a thing.”

“You’re talking about our founding fathers,” I said. “The Island was settled by pirates. By the way, they preferred to be called ‘privateers.’ ”

“And why not? If there’s any truth to the film, they were a pretty sophisticated crowd.”

“I think Lafitte was, at least commercially. By the time he got here, he’d given up raiding ships. He was more like a broker. Trading contraband
for legal goods. Laundering money, really. But the important thing is, he was successful. That counts for a lot in Galveston.” I realized how that might sound to Ty and I went on, quickly. “He gave famous parties, too.”

Ty thought for a minute. Then he said, “This place has quite a history. You might be interested in the other movie, the one about the 1900 hurricane. They use a lot of contemporary photos. The voice-over is mostly from accounts written by people who lived through it. It’s very moving, really. But of course you know all about it. Six thousand dead. A third of the Island gone.”

“You grow up with it here, with some version of it anyway.”

Ty looked at me inquiringly.

“I think the urge to interpret events like that is irresistible. In school, we were always encouraged to focus on what came afterward, on the triumph of the civic will. Galveston carries on! Man overcomes nature! The idea that after the grade raising, after the seawall was built, the Island was indestructible. This was at the same time that they were informing us about evacuation routes.” I was talking too much again. I took another bite.

“So you don’t think the Island is safe?”

“No one does, really. The seawall only extends so far. A lot of construction has gone on west of there since Hurricane Carla. That was almost thirty years ago. Big houses, right on the water.”

“Like where I’m staying for now, until I find something in town. Pretty posh for a beach house. I was expecting old wicker furniture and bunk beds. I was wondering if they would have a dishwasher!”

“And?”

“They have two. And a refrigerator just for wine. I haven’t really settled in. I feel sort of like a teenager who’s been left alone in the house while the parents are away.” Ty paused. “Would you like to see it? You could come out this weekend. I’ll give you the tour. That seems to be the thing here.”

The idea resonated briefly in the air between us. “I’m sorry, I can’t,” I said. “There are things I have to do.” As I said it, I felt again the sting of Eleanor’s
What did you find?
But Ty knew nothing about
that. He would think I meant the exhibition. I sensed Ty’s disappointment, but he went on talking, his manner pleasant, and I felt a rush of goodwill toward him.

“It’s not what I expected,” he said. “Galveston. I admit that when Will first said Texas, what came to mind was Clint Eastwood. Riding into town, riding out of town. Sagebrush. He straightened me out pretty quickly. I thought it would be hot and, well, closed. A small town on an island.”

“Not
an
island.
The
Island.”

He smiled, as if he found the distinction amusing.

“The heat you’re right about,” I said. “It’s only May. It’s going to get a whole lot hotter. And, in fact, underneath all the commerce and the easy hospitality this place is downright hostile to strangers.”

“What do you mean?”

I could probably have produced a colorful story to illustrate my point. There were plenty of tales about mainlanders coming to grief in Galveston. Instead I said, “You know how insistent people are about being BOI?”

Ty nodded.

I hesitated. There were things I couldn’t explain to a visitor. Was it foolish of me to try? I looked at Ty’s friendly face and knew I had to speak directly. “I’m not sure how to say this, but to Islanders, people from the mainland don’t really count. We don’t always tell them the truth. And sometimes we treat them badly.”