The Whole World Over (26 page)

"I think I'm not," he said. "Going in."

"Oh, but the cold is worth the shock. The air feels splendid when you
come out."

He was going to tell her that she sounded just like her daughter when,
just like her daughter, she ran and plunged. She, too, turned to face him,
treading water at almost precisely the place where Greenie had. She
said, "How was your trip? Was the traffic horrendous? I hope not."

Greenie resurfaced, right beside her mother. "Boo," she said. "Hi,
Mom."

"Hello, my darling." The woman who liked to surprise people did
not appear surprised in the least. She kissed Greenie on the cheek, and
Greenie kissed her back. How absurdly decorous, this floating kiss
between these disembodied heads.

"Children," said Mrs. Duquette, "the hors d'oeuvres are out, as I
know you must be famished. So go on up and I'll join you after my
swim. I'll do the Reader's Digest version. And Charlotte, don't let your
father begin another project. Make him be a host, however much it
pains him." Whereupon she turned around and swam straight out. She
did not hug the shore, as Greenie had, but seemed bent on challenging
the boats that crisscrossed the thoroughfare between her island and
the next.

Dinner was by candlelight, with French wine procured from a picnic
cooler of ice, the table spread with a cloth. George Duquette still wore
his polo shirt with the logo of a boatyard, half tucked into baggy
madras shorts, the fabric worn so thin in places that the pattern looked
smudged. His wife, however, after returning from her Reader's Digest
swim, changed into a close-fitting shirtdress, white again. It looked like
a well-preserved dress of the fifties, the kind of thing Alan's mother
wore in his earliest memories, with so many careful details—pearl buttons,
thin belt, pleated skirt—that it gave off a military air, except for its
attention to the wearer's curves. ("I have to warn you of one thing:
Mom overdresses just about all the time," Greenie whispered to Alan
before her mother emerged from her bedroom. "Though she doesn't
expect the same of anyone else." Later, when Alan asked if her mother
always wore white, Greenie said, "Except to funerals and weddings.")

As soon as they were seated, Alan said, "Thank you so much for
inviting me, Mrs. Duquette."

"Olivia, please," she scolded. "Do not make me feel like the grande
dame I'm fighting every second from becoming."

Throughout the meal, Olivia quizzed Alan about his work. She told
him that she'd always preferred Jung to Freud, as if they'd been opponents
in a crucial election. Alan told her that his interest was in human
emotions and personal histories, why people make the individual choices
they do and how they can be helped to understand their motivations.

"That's bold," said Olivia, looking intently at him. "But also risky,
wouldn't you say? To actually
understand
such things about oneself?
Just the wondering could leave you quite neurotic." She smiled.

"Beats me what motivates
my
self," George joked.

Olivia did all the serving, all the taking away, stacked the dishes in the
cabin's small sink. Dessert, however, she invited her daughter to serve.
"You're the one with the professional knife skills," she said. "Not that
that should make you nervous, Alan."

He laughed, as expected, while Greenie cut tall, fine slices from the
tower of a cake that her mother had concocted. "Oh, the baking I did
off island," she said when Alan expressed his amazement. "Every fine
meal should end with a cake."

As they all began to eat this indispensable cake, the only sound,
besides the urgent ruckus of crickets and the occasional snap of a moth
against a screen, was the nicking of forks on plates. "Greenie's right,"
said Alan. "You're an extraordinary cook."

"Who?" said Olivia. "
Who
speaks so highly of me?"

Greenie said, "That's me, Mom. Alan calls me Greenie."

George said, "I'll be!" He laughed loudly. "You know, I like that.
'Greenie.' Yes. Sounds sweet. Innocent. Yearning."

"Charlotte was her grandmother's name," said Olivia. What she
meant, of course, was that Alan had messed with tradition.

"Mom, outside the family nobody calls me Charlotte anymore."

"Perhaps you're tired of the name?"

"Of course not! It's just . . . well, Alan met me as Duke."

"Oh that. That was your college phase, wasn't it? In my sorority, I
was called O.J. Lucky thing
that
name went the way of the saddle
shoe!" Olivia pushed her plate aside, having eaten only two or three
bites of her cake.

"Livvy," said George, "am I permitted seconds? To paraphrase my
students, this stuff is to perish upon." What
he
meant, of course, was
that his wife should permit the subject to be changed.

So this is high WASP, thought Alan, whose father was a lapsed Jew,
his mother a deflated Methodist. He'd never quite realized, because she
did not dress or speak or socialize the part, just where Greenie came
from.

When dinner was over, George lit a battery-powered lamp and went
back to polishing his brass. "Got everything you need there, Alan?" He
murmured his approval when Alan held up his book.

"Not enough readers in this world, that's a problem nigh on to rival
global warming; what would we call that, literary cooling? Ha," said
George, and then he gave his full attention to his project.

"The girls," as he called them, went through a complex ritual to wash
the dishes, draining water from an outdoor barrel (rainwater gathered
from the roof, explained Greenie) and boiling it on the stove. Alan, once
again, was told to behave like a guest. Since George had the one good
lamp on the table, Alan had to sit across from him to read, but it was
impossible to concentrate on Winnicott when his girlfriend's father,
close enough to kiss, was humming the
1812 Overture.
After pretending
to read for a few minutes, he got up and wandered out the front door
onto the porch. The night was more beautiful than he could have imagined,
and he felt the thrill of good fortune: the company of a girl he
adored, a fine meal, a clear night, and a setting unlike any he had ever
known.

From the next cabin, music drifted sporadically through the pines.
Listening hard, Alan caught the harsh sorrow of an Irish ballad. The
children he'd heard before were probably asleep. The crickets had also
gone silent—puzzling, though perhaps they, too, had a curfew—and a
slight breeze had risen, ruffling leaves and swelling the beach towels that
hung on the laundry line. From the direction of the water came an occasional,
arhythmic sound, like a spoon striking an empty tin can.

Wrapping his arms around his chest for warmth, Alan started down
the dirt path, choosing the way toward the dock. As he passed through
the waist-high thicket, he found himself surrounded by the green Morse
code of fireflies, sparking the colors of the roselike blossoms about
them. Did they drink the nectar, like bees? He bent toward one of the
flowers; it smelled of nothing to his urban nose. How little he knew of
the natural world; it was shameful. As he stood there, looking toward
the dock for the source of the metallic tattoo, he was startled for the second
time that day by Greenie's mother.

Just behind him, quite close, she said, "You appreciate our little bit of
heaven." It sounded like an order, rather than an observation.

"Yes, I do," he said.

"This is your first time in Maine." Another statement; Alan felt
slightly resentful, though why shouldn't Greenie have given her mother
such details?

"Yes. And now I have to wonder why."

Her laugh was rich and relaxed. "You do indeed."

"You grew up coming here?"

"Oh yes, sometimes for entire summers. I was quite spoiled. I
still am!"

Having just met her, he couldn't disagree without sounding absurd,
so he tried to laugh lightly, and she made no effort to rescue him from
his own wooden reaction. Alan looked out at the water. Even at this
hour, boats threaded the channels between the islands, and in the still air
he heard the stealthy muttering of motors.

"Charlotte's rather spoiled, too, of course." Greenie's mother spoke
abruptly, as if there'd been no pause in the conversation. "She's very talented,
I'm sure you know that. She's also very forceful."

"Yes," he agreed. "She knows where she's going. I like that."

"You may like it now, but be careful," said Olivia. "My daughter is a
very strong-headed young woman. I say that only because I've known
her so long and I love her virtues dearly enough to recognize her flaws—
relatively few though they may be."

You say that, Alan thought reflexively, only because she's young and
you're not and she's taking your talents to a height you never did. But he
said, "We all have flaws. Like me—I don't know a thing about these
flowers, all these trees, about anything more natural than a well-watered
lawn in the suburbs."

"Oh, that. That's not a flaw, because it can be corrected. Give my
husband the time and he will gladly do the job. But be forewarned!
The expression 'ad nauseam' comes to mind." She laughed. Alan could
not tell if she was speaking fondly or critically. "These flowers? Prunus
maritime. More commonly, beach plum. Come fall, I make a pretty
mean jam from the fruit. I'll send some to you, shall I?"

"Thank you," said Alan. "I'd be honored." And then, like a baffled
sailor spotting at last the beacon of a lighthouse, Alan saw the pennant
of Greenie's yellow T-shirt approaching through the beach plum.

"Darling!" called Olivia. "We were just speaking of your talents!"

"Mom thinks she has to sell me," said Greenie as she joined them.

Alan hugged her to his side. "What's that noise?" he said, eager to
change the subject. "That clanging."

"Halyards against the mast of a sailboat," said Greenie. He loved the
feel of her hand on his waist. "Daddy's pride and joy. He'll take us out
tomorrow—or you and I could go out on our own."

Alan wanted to say no, no thank you, but he just smiled. If she
wanted to sail, he would go along. If she wanted to climb a tree or scale
a cliff (well, a small cliff), he would follow. Next day, he would brave
the cold of the water.

She led him toward the boats. "I'm taking him down to show him the
phosphorescence," she said to her mother. Alan hoped this was code for
"See you tomorrow, Mom." To his relief, Olivia kissed them both good
night.

Later on, as he lay alone in his bunk, he heard Olivia's voice, in the
room below his yet alarmingly close, as if she lay on the floor underneath
his bed.

"I think he's too handsome for her." She spoke softly, but every word
was clear.

"Oh, what's handsome got to do with the price of tea in China?"
Greenie's father answered.

"You're a man, George. You couldn't possibly know the perils of
handsome. To a woman."

"Well, you were sure friendly enough to Boy Handsome."

"I like him. I didn't say he wasn't pleasant. Or smart. He's just a
little . . . a little too prominent for Charlotte."

"Prominent? Like the fellow's in
Who's Who
?"

"No. Like he knows he can do better. Like he's biding time. Would
you want to see her hurt?"

"Livvy, you underestimate our girl," said George.

"No, George, I protect her. That's a mother's job."

"Huh," said George. "The dad's job, I guess, is to bring home the
bacon, right? So let the dad get a good night's sleep."

The floor was so permissive that Alan heard even their good-night
kiss and, shortly after, George's grumbling snore.

In the years that followed, before she went over that Scottish cliff
with her husband, Olivia was nothing but gracious to Alan, yet the
longer he knew her, the less he liked her—and the more he marveled at
the cheerful admiration with which her only child seemed to regard her.
There were times when he wanted to tell Greenie, outright, that her
mother was not the generous, loving woman Greenie presumed her to
be, but he knew better. Maybe some fortunate children were born with
platinum emotional shields, protecting them from harm and keeping
them, also harmlessly, oblivious.

When he helped Greenie go through her parents' house after their
death, empty its drawers and closets, he kept expecting, almost hoping,
to find some deviance that Greenie's mother had kept from the world.
They never found anything of the sort, not so much as a diary or an
accessory to unconventional sex. The closest thing they found to a secret
was a list Olivia had compiled in a journal of menus she kept: a list, person
by person, of her all friends' food allergies and metabolic quirks.
In the midst of perpetual tears, Greenie sat down at the kitchen table
and read it with interest. "I had no idea Mrs. Austin was diabetic," she
murmured.

By then, however, Alan wasn't one to point a finger at secrets.

FOR CLOSE TO A YEAR
after sleeping with Marion—until Greenie gave
birth to George and started to nurse—Alan's guilt was the most extreme
when he touched Greenie's breasts. Every time he did, he thought of the
thick, sinuous caterpillar scars, ridged and warm, he had felt on Marion's
chest in the dark. He had felt them before she had let him see, but
because she had told him, they were a surprise only to his fingers and his
mouth. Because she had told him so calmly, whispering in the dark as
they undressed, the scars were a marvel, not an obstacle. The third and
last time they made love, very early in the morning, before she drove him
back to the high school where he had left his mother's car, he came all
over her chest as he looked at the scars, long and straight, magnolia purple
against the pale tight skin and blue veining around them.

Over dinner at the roadhouse—the same greasy cheeseburgers of
days gone by, two patties served naked in a pool of pink juice on an oval
platter, large white biscuits on the side—Marion had told him about the
cancer, the wide rough detour it had made in her life. She'd been in
Kenya when she felt the lump. By the time she came back to the States
six months later and got a proper diagnosis, she felt she had to do the
most aggressive thing.