Revolution #9 Page 4

  “That’s great,” he said.

  Then Emily looked up, studying his face in the same probing way she had studied his house. “Do you mean it, Charlie?”

  · · ·

  But she had seen the house on its best day; Charlie didn’t mean it, not at first. He pretended. Then, after a week or two, the baby crossed some frontier in his mind that separated concept from reality. He didn’t know anything about babies, had never even held one, yet suddenly he knew just how a baby’s hair—his baby’s hair—would feel. At that moment he knew he wanted to be in the picture too. This was wrong, but he had lost the will to do anything about it. A long-stuck brake had been released. Charlie, at last, was on the move.

  And picking up speed. First, Emily got a two-year grant from the center to study relationships between water temperature and sand particle movement. Next, she was hired as a consultant by a Wall Street arbitrageur who wanted to save the beach in front of his summer house. After that she began interviewing high school girls who wanted baby-sitting jobs. She also sketched some plans on sheets of graph paper, and Charlie soon found himself building an addition to the house—and knowing the mental state of nesting birds in the spring: happy confusion. He was happy, happier than he’d been in twenty-two years, happy as the safest citizen in the land.

  Emily came out one day while he was framing the roof. “Hit your thumb yet?”

  “Not hard,” Charlie said. Looking down at the top of her head, and thought: I’m going to make sure you’re happy too. That’s a promise. He was so busy making this vow that he almost missed her next question.

  “Do you care if it’s a boy or a girl, Charlie?”

  “Nope.”

  “Neither do I,” Emily said. “So when we have the amnio, let’s not find out the sex.”

  “Okay.”

  Emily smiled and went back inside.

  Charlie smiled too, but he wanted a girl.

  · · ·

  The wedding was scheduled for a Saturday in May. They invited a few of the lobstermen and their families, De Mello, some of Emily’s colleagues, and her parents, who arrived from the Midwest on Friday. Charlie had no parents—dead in a car crash was the story—or any other relatives. “But that’s going to change now,” he said to Emily, and for the second time felt the twisting sensation inside. Don’t push it, asshole, he told himself.

  Friday night they had a party on Cosset Pond. The lobstermen lashed some rafts together and everyone rowed out in dinghies. The night was soft and warm. They lit candles and lanterns and fired up barbecues, creating a golden glow in the middle of the pond. A fat white moon was easing its way above the treetops.

  “Quite the locale,” said Mr. Rice, sitting in a deck chair with a drink in his hands.

  Charlie, on his third beer—and last, he told himself—said, “Thanks, Mr. Rice.”

  “Hey, I told you—Doug.”

  “Doug.”

  The raft rose on a slight swell, then sank back down. Someone had brought a tape player. A lobsterman’s wife popped Tammy Wynette into it: “D-I-V-O-R-C-E.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Kathy,” someone said. Laughter. Charlie heard it, but he was gazing up at a sky full of stars, like sequins spilled on black silk. Sometime later he grew aware that Mr. Rice was looking at him.

  “After all,” said Mr. Rice, “I can’t be much more than ten years older’n you now, can I?”

  “Guess not.” Charlie noticed how small the drink in Mr. Rice’s hands appeared, noticed how broadly built the man was, in fact how much of a physical type the two of them were. He was beginning to deal with the observation when Mr. Rice asked:

  “Ever in the service, Charlie?”

  “No,” said Charlie, taking a drink. “You?”

  “Marine Corps,” said Mr. Rice. “ ’Sixty-five to ’sixty-nine. Two hitches.” He sipped his drink. “In ’Nam,” he added.

  Charlie said nothing.

  Mr. Rice swirled the whiskey in his glass. He looked up and smiled at Charlie. “How old were you back then?”

  “Back when?”

  “Back during ’Nam.”

  “Dougie,” called Mrs. Rice from the next raft, “please not the war stories.”

  “No war stories, hon,” said Mr. Rice, with another smile, much briefer than the first. He lowered his voice: “I don’t think Charlie here’s much interested in war stories, are you, Charlie?”

  Charlie put down his beer. “I don’t get you, exactly.”

  Mr. Rice finished his drink. “Nothing to get. You must’ve grown up in the sixties, that’s all. And in my experience sixties people don’t care for war stories.”

  Mrs. Rice approached, a little unsteady on high heels. “I knew it,” she said. “You are making him listen to your war stories.”

  “Not true, hon,” he said, pulling her over and patting her rump.

  “Dougie,” she said, but did nothing to stop him. Mrs. Rice was tall like her daughter, with a strong, lean body like her daughter; but born too soon, she didn’t carry it with the same confidence. She smiled brightly at Charlie. “What a lovely party,” she said. “So … different—but lovely. And Emily seems to love it here so, even if it is a little far away.” Her smile dimmed. “She seems so happy, doesn’t she, Doug?”

  “Sure. She’s always been a happy kid. Mind freshening my drink, hon?”

  “Here, I’ll do it,” said Charlie.

  “Oh, that’s all right,” said Mrs. Rice, taking the glass. “He likes it just so.” She moved toward the portable bar.

  Mr. Rice’s big hands, with nothing to do, smacked each other lightly. “How’s the lobster business?” he asked.

  “So-so.” Charlie replied. He thought: Want to go over my bank statements?

  “So-so?”

  “The price hasn’t been going up, even though the supply is going down. Demand isn’t what you’d think. If it wasn’t for the Japanese we’d be in trouble.”

  “The Japs?”

  Charlie nodded.

  “The Japs,” said Mr. Rice. His hands smacked each other a little harder. He folded them in his lap. “How long you been doing it?”

  “Eighteen, nineteen years now.”

  “And before that?”

  “I kicked around some.”

  “College?”

  “No.”

  “No? So you were lucky.”

  “Lucky?”

  “To avoid the draft,” said Mr. Rice.

  “I never got called.”

  Mr. Rice nodded and opened another front. “We could have won that war,” he said.

  Keep your mouth shut, Charlie told himself. But he said: “You think so?”

  Mr. Rice leaned toward him. Charlie smelled his whiskey breath, looked into his angry eyes. “You know why we didn’t?”

  “Because we were fighting in someone else’s backyard?”

  Mr. Rice put his hand on Charlie’s knee and squeezed hard. “No, son. Because this country got its balls cut off by a lot of dopehead hippie liberals.”

  Charlie laid his hand on Mr. Rice’s arm and pushed it away. He knew that in moments he could be in a physical fight with his future father-in-law, rolling across the rafts, falling in the water. “That’s an interesting theory, Mr. Rice. What became of these conquering hippies?”

  “Oh, God,” said Mrs. Rice, appearing with a full glass. “Don’t get him started on hippies. Here you go, dear.”

  “Thought you’d fallen overboard,” said Mr. Rice, taking the glass and drinking deep. He sat back in his chair, giving Charlie a sidelong look.

  “Sorry, Dougie. I got to talking to the nicest man, in the fish business, I think. He said Charlie’s the hardest-working lobsterman on the coast.”

  She flashed her bright smile at her husband, then at Charlie, as though trying to warm some cold current running between them. Mr. Rice took another drink, shorter this time. “That’s nice,” he said. “You from around here, Charlie?”

  “I told you, dear,” said his wife. “H
e’s from Pennsylvania, isn’t that right, Charlie?”

  “Right.”

  “Oh?” said Mr. Rice. “Whereabouts?”

  “Pittsburgh,” Charlie said.

  “Yeah? I’ve got a buddy in Pittsburgh.”

  For a moment Charlie thought he was going to be asked if he knew him. Then Willie Nelson started into “Georgia on My Mind,” and Mr. Rice stood up abruptly. “Let’s dance, hon,” he said.

  Charlie rose too. Mr. Rice held out his hand. Charlie shook it. Mr. Rice squeezed hard again. “She’s a mighty fine girl, that’s all,” he said. “Mighty fine.”

  “He knows that, Dougie,” said Mrs. Rice, stroking her husband’s back. “That’s why he’s marrying her.”

  Exactly, you son of a bitch, Charlie thought. The Rices danced slowly away.

  Charlie picked up his beer and stepped onto the next raft. Emily was popping a shrimp into her mouth. “You and Daddy had a nice tête-à-tête.”

  “I look forward to many more.”

  She touched his hand. “He’s a sweet old bear.”

  Charlie put his arms around her, felt the swelling in her womb. Sweet old bear or son of a bitch, it didn’t matter—he wasn’t marrying Dougie. He kissed her ear, stuck the tip of his tongue inside. She made a low sound in her throat.

  “I want you, Charlie.”

  “I want you too.”

  “I mean now, physically.”

  “It’s a small town, Em.”

  She laughed. Over her shoulder Charlie saw a pickup park under the light on the town dock. A figure got out and busied itself with something in the back.

  “Hey! Here’s to the happy couple.” Everyone was gathered round them, glasses raised. It was getting late. “Come on, Charlie—speech.”

  Charlie knew the lobstermen and their wives didn’t really want a speech. They had known him for years, but not well. They were just doing what they always did at wedding parties. Charlie shook his head.

  “Speech, speech.”

  Charlie looked at their faces. It occurred to him that because he was taking this step, they for the first time considered him part of the community. What, then, had they considered him up to now?

  He tried to think of something to say. “I’m a lucky guy,” he began. The figure on the dock was lowering something into the water. A kayak, Charlie thought. The figure climbed in. A paddle flashed. Was there something odd about the figure? The kayak slid out of the circle of light and into darkness before Charlie could get a better look.

  “You call that a speech?”

  “That’s the sound bite,” Charlie said. Everyone laughed except Mr. Rice, who may have thought that solemnity was called for, and Mrs. Rice, whose laughter died quickly when she saw the look on her husband’s face. “The speech is even less original,” Charlie added. “You don’t want to hear it.”

  “We do.”

  Charlie was standing in a circle of party guests with Emily beside him, thinking of what to say, when the kayak came cutting out of the darkness into the golden glow and slipped sideways toward the lashed rafts, smoothly docking. The kayaker, dressed in a gorilla suit, looped a line through a ring and climbed up.

  The gorilla man was big. He walked across the rafts, through the circle of guests, right to Charlie. He was taller than Charlie, inches taller, though not as broad. He handed Charlie a floral-painted magnum bottle of champagne with a black ribbon around the neck, then turned without a word, got into the kayak and paddled into the night.

  Someone laughed, a little drunkenly. Charlie realized he was a little drunk too.

  “Who’s it from?” Emily asked.

  There was an envelope clipped to the ribbon. Charlie opened it and took out the card. It read: TO BLAKE WRIGHTMAN, WITH MY CONGRATULATIONS, UNCLE SAM.

  Charlie felt dizzy, a stick figure with its head high in the sky, perched on feeble legs. The bottle started to slip from his grasp. He clutched it hard; the dizziness subsided.

  Everyone was looking at him. “Well, who?” said Emily.

  Charlie stuck the card in his pocket. “Just an old pal,” he said. Nothing else came to mind.

  6

  “Perrier-Jouët,” said Emily. “This is the real thing, Charlie. Crack ’er open.”

  They were back in the kitchen of Charlie’s house, their house. Two o’clock in the morning. In hours they would be man and wife—whatever that meant, Charlie thought. Was it the same thing as woman and husband? Big questions; they no longer mattered at all.

  “Come on, Charlie.”

  She wanted champagne. “Now?”

  “Why not?”

  “The baby,” said Charlie. “Alcohol.”

  “A glass or two couldn’t hurt,” Emily said. “You’re not marrying Jane Brody.”

  Charlie held the bottle up to the light. There was nothing inside but translucent liquid.

  “Charlie, you’re acting very strange.”

  “Am I?”

  “Like you’ve never seen champagne before.”

  He popped the cork. There was an explosion all right, but it was just the usual fun-promising sound that was part of the champagne makers’ hard-won mystique. Foam poured through the opening. Charlie filled two glasses.

  Emily clinked her glass against his, looked him in the eye. It was late; she’d been up late the night before; she was pregnant; but slightly flushed and smiling, she looked better than ever. “Us,” she said.

  “Us,” said Charlie, and again felt the twisting sensation inside.

  Emily tasted the wine. “Heaven,” she said. “Tell me about this mysterious friend.”

  “It’s a long story.”

  Emily waited for him to tell it. When he said nothing, she stretched up to him and kissed him on the lips. “I look forward to hearing it,” she said. “Let’s have a little music.”

  They went into the living room. “Like what?” Charlie asked.

  “Like you,” Emily said. “Play ‘My Romance.’ ”

  “Shouldn’t we get some sleep?”

  “There’ll be lots of time for sleep,” Emily said, “but only one night like this. I’m an old-fashioned girl, Charlie.”

  The saxophone case lay on the floor by the window. Opening it, Charlie couldn’t stop himself from looking out. The street was dark, quiet, still. Charlie drew the curtains. For the first time since he had met Emily, he felt the stifling feeling again. He took out the sax and tried to play the feeling away, tried to play something for an old-fashioned girl. He understood what she was telling him: this marriage was for life. Charlie tried to play for her, but he wasn’t a pro who could fake it, and what he produced was a short, stifled, angry version of “My Romance,” played for Uncle Sam.

  Emily was watching him as the last flatted note died away. “That certainly was artistic,” she said. “It just needs a different title.”

  Charlie laughed, couldn’t stop himself. This woman was good for him. He put down the sax and held her tight. He wanted never to let go. Some men might have cried at that moment, but Charlie wasn’t like that. Just the same, he felt a sudden strange need, a need to confess. “Supposing …” he began.

  “Supposing what?”

  But who was this confession for, he thought, her or him? “Nothing,” he said. “It didn’t make sense.”

  Charlie turned off the lights. They went upstairs, got in bed. Charlie hoped that Emily would just fall asleep, but she reached for him instead. His mind was on other things; his body responded anyway—and once responding, responded with urgency.

  “Oh God, Emily.”

  “Gentle, Charlie, gentle.”

  He tried to be gentle. He tried to be calm. He tried to make love to her like a loving husband. He owed her that. He owed her a taste of what it would be to have a loving husband. He held her tight and made time go as slowly as he could. Emily relaxed, opened, sighed, moaned, came. “Come, Charlie.”

  But Charlie, up again in the little tunnel world, didn’t want to come. He wanted to fuck and fuck and neve
r stop.

  “Not again, Charlie.”

  Then he came too. They lay together, hot and damp, felt the blood coursing in their bodies. “A whole lifetime of this,” Emily said. “I don’t know if I can stand it.”

  Charlie buried his head in her shoulder then, something he had never done. Don’t, he told himself, but couldn’t pull away. He lay like that in the darkness of his house until Emily’s breathing slowed and fell into a deep, even rhythm. Charlie heard her heart beating in his ear, strong and steady. He lay still for a long time, eyes open in the darkness, wishing he could crawl up inside her and disappear. Then he slid his arm out from under her, rolled carefully away, and slipped out of bed. He gathered up his clothes, stopped to straighten the covers on Emily, and silently left the room.

  Leaving the lights off, Charlie went down to the kitchen. He peered out the window, saw his street, dark, quiet, still. He took a carton of orange juice from the fridge, a loaf of bread from the counter, the keys to Straight Arrow from the hook on the wall. Then he opened the back door and stepped outside.

  It was the same night, soft and warm. The moon hung higher in the sky now, not so fat but even whiter than before. Charlie didn’t move for a minute or two. He heard an animal run across his roof and a fish splash in the pond, but that was all. He walked through the soft grass, down to the dock.

  Straight Arrow was tethered to the end, as always. Charlie climbed on, freed the lines, cast off. He took a paddle from the forward compartment and started paddling toward the cut. Nothing happened on shore—no sirens, no lights, no shouts. Charlie leaned over the starboard side and paddled hard. There was no sound but water sound: the tumbling of little waves pushed by the hull, the occasional sucking at the paddle. Charlie paddled all the way to the cut, under the bridge, beyond.

  Outside a breeze was blowing, stirring up a light chop. Charlie put the paddle away and switched on the engine. He left the running lights off, idling for a few moments when he should have been on the move. He was trying to make himself not look back. The moon gleamed in endless striations on the water, lighting a silver path that ran from south to north. Charlie swung Straight Arrow onto the path. North was Canada, a long way north, and that would mean landing to refuel; but it was better than traveling by road in a yellow Volkswagen Beetle, and that was his only other idea. Brutally, he banged the throttle all the way down, and Straight Arrow surged forward.