Three Rivers (54 page)

They went down and walked around Edgartown and went into the few shops still open, where they spoke to people who were friendly and kind about giving information.

Their first day out of New York had been a glorious one, and the weather held for them the second day as well. They rented a car, and Alexis was impressed with the unspoiled beauty of the island.

They’d taken a picnic with them, and had it down on the beach, where they built a bonfire out of the driftwood they had collected. It was deserted, with high sand dunes that protected them from the road. They loved being
there alone together, with the ocean and the sun and the slight nip of coming winter in the air. When Isabel stood up to throw another piece of driftwood on the fire, Alexis stood behind and put his arms around her to unzip her fly.

“Alexis, no, someone will see us.”

“Not if you stand still just as you are, facing the ocean. From the road no one can see us; if someone comes by, they will think, ‘There are two lovers looking out at the water,’ and we are.”

“Well, if we get caught, you get us out of it!” She laughed and said, “Darling, hurry, I long to have you inside me.”

He pushed her trousers down around the top of her thighs and he had her bend over slightly. He pounded into her with the same force as the waves pounding onto the beach, and they watched the white foam as they crashed together in their own foaming orgasm.

When it was over for them, he withdrew and spun her around and held her tight to him. He kissed her passionately as he pulled her trousers up and then zipped up the fly. He pulled her down on their picnic blanket close to the fire and said, “You are disgustingly sexy, thank God!”

They remained in Edgartown another night, and early the next morning he woke her and took her down to the harbor where he had been having a talk with an old sailor called Bill. They went sailing and after lunch flew out on the seaplane for Cape Cod.

They flew along the ocean side of the Cape. It was beautiful with its bays and inlets and the fallen colored leaves mixed with the scrubby, but still luscious, green pines. They put down at South Orleans, on Pleasant Bay.

There were more wonderful days when they explored Truro and Wellfleet, then Provincetown, old, filthy, ramshackle to the point of being sublime. They ate lobster and New England clam chowder, blueberry muffins and home fried potatoes and green salads with Roquefort dressing, which absolutely appalled Alexis. But he did admit that they were eating the best seafood he had ever had in his life.

They flew out after two days, and he told her what a good time he was having and that her New England was
lovely. “But, darling,” he said, “you know that you were already grown up when you sought out these places.”

She wondered what he meant by that.

They routed themselves across Nantucket Sound, and then the top end of Buzzards Bay, and on down, past Newport. Alexis liked that very much. They flew low over the great houses and sprawling gardens perched on cliffs above the stormy ocean.

They followed the coast of Rhode Island into the coast of Connecticut. The plane wove in and out along the coast, and she showed Alexis the charming small towns. They then turned away from the coast and flew up the Connecticut River.

Isabel was following the map and putting old familiar names to the towns that she saw below. There it was, Windsor and Windsor Locks and Suffield — how many thousands of times had she driven through those places, most of the time unhappy? And there was Enfield and Thompsonville and Longmeadow, beautiful Longmeadow. There below now was Agawam, Springfield and West Springfield, Westfield and Chicopee. All this she pointed out to Alexis, and he watched her and listened to her tell about them, but in the telling, he was finding out more about Isabel.

They were over Holyoke now, and from there they cut away from the river because they had a plan. They were on their way to Stockbridge. There, waiting in an eighteenth-century inn was a room, and down by Stockbridge Lake was Alexis’s chauffeur waiting for them, just as instructed, with the Rolls.

They taxied over to the car and Isabel and Alexis left the plane. It would be waiting in two days’ time for them at the spot they had pointed out on the Connecticut River between Springfield and Longmeadow. They need not rush, the pilots would wait as many days as necessary for the Hyatts.

Stockbridge, a jewel of a town, was where Natalie lived. It was also where Norman Rockwell had lived, and so many of its people and places looked like his magazine covers. It was plunk in the center of the prettiest part of the Berkshire Mountains in Massachusetts.

Isabel called Natalie and went to see her without Alexis. She broke the news of the deaths to Natalie, who was horrified, never dreaming anyone died anywhere
except in their own bed or in a hospital, and there was
always
a body to bury. She said how grateful she was that Isabel had made the effort to come and see her, and was thrilled that Isabel had found someone to make a life with and was married. She recovered enough to have lunch with Isabel and Alexis, and did not mention the tragedy again.

From Stockbridge they went to Williamstown and its fine, small museum, which Alexis was delighted to see. They went to Pittsfield, Greenfield, Adams and North Adams and then made their way down to Great Barrington, through Lee and Lenox, over to Otis. They cut across country so she could show him Amherst and Smith College, and they stayed at Wiggins Tavern.

They drove back down along the Connecticut River to a home town which she hardly recognized. Most of the city had been swept away by a great urban renewal project which never came off. Now it was a wilderness of parking lots. She had once thought it one of the nicest cities in the world to grow up in, if you had to grow up in a city. Now it was nothing but a shell. A dirty, miserable, depressing shell of what it had been.

In her tour around the city she had them pass by the house that she was born and brought up in. It was a small, Cape Cod, cottage-type house, white with blue shutters. It should have looked charming and quaint with its white picket fence running around it, but it didn’t. It was shabby and tiny and worn-out looking, and it had crab grass everywhere.

The Rolls purred by the house, and she never even told Alexis that it was the house that she had run away from, because when she looked at the house and was about to tell him, it was not the house that stopped her, but the memories. The unhappy memories and the final running away. So they drove past it.

They stayed in the best hotel in town, which was depressing beyond belief, and in bed that night, after they had made love, they talked about the look of the town and all that they had seen.

Alexis said, “Martha’s Vineyard is the American dream come true, darling. Your hometown is the American dream gone bad. Do not be upset, it happens.”

The next day Isabel and Alexis went to a completely restored New England village an hour’s drive away.

Sturbridge Village was in pretty countryside and kept and lived in just as it was in the 1700’s, when the pilgrims settled there. There were country stores and craftsmen working, and everyone wore costumes of the period. There was a tiny museum which Alexis found charming.

At the inn they had an excellent lunch of corn chowder, turkey with all the trimmings, sweet potatoes, and vegetables like yellow summer squash and pumpkin, which Alexis had never before eaten. For dessert he had lemon chiffon pie with whipped cream on top.

They strolled around the village again and he bought her some small mementos. It was all pleasantly charming, and at one point they looked at one another and wondered what they were doing there.

They took small, winding country roads as they made their way back towards Springfield and the seaplane that was waiting for them. It was a pretty day, but the leaves were all down off the trees, and their wonderful bright colors were now faded and rusty. They were just dead leaves. It was beginning to smell as if winter was just around the corner.

They leisurely drove through the small towns of Brookfield and Warren and Ware. They followed a river from Ware through West Warren and a place called Thorndike. Suddenly there appeared another river on the other side of the country road. The ride was lovely. A river on either side of an almost deserted country road that was banked thick with dark green ferns and great tall trees.

The road kept winding its way downhill, until suddenly the two small rivers rushing around the occasional boulder were especially pretty. There were the sounds of rushing water and rustling leaves as the light wind moved them about. Around another curve, and about a quarter of a mile away, they could see a small town at the bottom of the hill. Alexis had the car stop and instructed the driver to wait for them in the village just beyond the bridge.

They walked arm in arm through the leaves towards the small hump-backed stone bridge that led into the center of town. It was more like a village; you could see it all from where they were. They watched the Rolls disappear, and then they walked in silence, just listening to nature all around them.

Just as they were about thirty yards from the bridge
they saw a third, small, swift river coming from another direction. They walked onto the bridge and stopped in the middle of it to look down into the water.

“I like your New England,” Alexis said. “Thank you, darling, for taking me with you on your pilgrimage.”

“Oh, Alexis, I did not know it was a pilgrimage.”

“Yes, darling, I feel like we
have
been on a pilgrimage. If nothing lies at the end of it, I can only say that the traveling has been worthwhile.”

“You have known this all along, haven’t you?” Isabel whispered.

He put his arm around her waist, and she her arm around his, and together they walked over the bridge, listening to the roar of the three rivers rushing along underneath them. At the end of the bridge there was a very neat, white sign with the crest of the State of Massachusetts emblazoned on it.

It said:
WELCOME TO THREE RIVERS, MASSACHUSETTS, POPULATION
… and the numbers had been wiped out.

Isabel looked up at Alexis and said, “The circle has come full round: Three Rivers, Massachusetts, is where Kate was born, and I have never been here before.”

“You know, darling, there is a great deal of mysticism in a pilgrimage.”

The two walked on in silence for a few minutes and then Isabel looked up at Alexis and said, “What does one wear in Baghdad this time of year?”

A smile broke out on Alexis’s face, and he roared with laughter and said, “I will buy you something new for Baghdad.”

Slowly a smile crept over Isabel’s face, and she said, “Come on, I’ll race you to the car!”