Salt Water (5 page)

THE NEXT AFTERNOON
Mr. Strangfeld dropped Hillyer off. Hillyer was big, with kind of a small head. He was over six feet and weighed a hundred and ninety, most of it muscle, which was a mystery because he didn’t move around much. Mother loved to watch him eat. That night she roasted two chickens, and he ate one by himself. Also, Father liked to play straight man to Hillyer. I think it was with this in mind that he asked him if the boys at school worried about venereal disease.

“We pretty much stick to virgins, sir.”

Father asked what happened after they ceased to be virgins.

“We move on, sir.”

“Is there an inexhaustible supply?”

“If you know where to look.”

“Where is that?”

“Among younger girls, sir. You can always find one among younger girls.”

“There must be a limit even there.”

“As we go down the age scale some of us lose interest, so demand never exceeds supply, if you see what I mean, sir.”

Although the next morning was clear, a strong wind from the ocean lifted sand along the beach. Instead of swimming we took the Angela out on the bay. When the wind comes off the ocean, chopping it up, it blows into the bay and keeps the water tight. Four of us were just the right weight for the Angela—she really dug in. Hillyer was a good sailor, and we all took turns at the tiller, even Mother.

After lunch Hillyer, Blackheart, and I went for a walk to the end of the Point. The only thing we passed was the wreck of the Rita M, which ran aground in the great storm of l938. The hull had lain exposed on the beach until World War II, when the Army Engineers, to stop erosion, constructed a two-thousand-foot stone jetty from the tip of the Point into the sea. As a result the tides collected sand in the pocket. The bay beach built up, and the wreck was mostly buried.
All you could see now was the bleached fo’c’s’le sticking up sideways.

We sat down beside it, Blackheart sniffed it and peed on it, and Hillyer broke out some pot. Pot is special on a bare beach in bright sunlight. There’s not much to fasten your eyes on. Waves and clouds become important. Hillyer and I chose favorite clouds and argued their merits as they passed overhead.

Hillyer’s girl, it turned out, was named Rita. He said that at first he thought I was kidding with the story of the Rita M, but then he realized I didn’t know his girl’s name. He thought the coincidence was fantastic, especially after a few more puffs. He said that Rita’s nipples were like the dials of a safe. The current combination was two turns to the left on the right one and three turns to the right on the left one. “But the combination keeps changing. You have to experiment.”

I asked him if he was in love with Rita.

He said he didn’t believe in love, and if you don’t believe in it you can’t be in it. “It’s like mortal sin. If you don’t believe in it, you can’t commit it.” Hillyer was a Catholic.

I pointed out that that logic didn’t work for, say, diseases. “I’ll give you a test,” I went on. “If you had to choose between saving your mother from a sinking ship and saving Rita, which would you save?”

“My mother’s a pain in the ass.”

“Your father then.”

“Pain in the ass.”

“Is there anyone you’d save instead of Rita?”

“Hannah.”

“Who’s Hannah?”

“Ben Fogarty’s sister.” Ben was in our class.

“Why would you save her?”

“Did you ever see her? You’d save her if you saw her.”

“Are you in love with Hannah?”

“I don’t
believe
in love.”

“What do you mean, you don’t believe in love? Do you think when people say they’re in love they don’t feel the things they think they feel?”

“Wha?”

“You’re just being dumb.”

“So what is love?”

“It’s more than wanting to screw someone. It’s wanting to be with them, listen to them, think about them. You treasure everything about them, a shoe, a handkerchief.”

“Snot.”

“What’s not?”

“Snot, snot,” he said and wiped his nose with the back of his hand.

“Oh, come on!”

“So what’s love good for?”

“People in love are exalted.”

He took a puff.

I took a puff and decided to tell him about Zina. As soon as he heard the name he chanted, “Zin-
a
! Hann-
ah
! Rit-
a
!” and we broke up. We staggered into the water to cool off. Hillyer fell down, and we broke up again.

A trip to the end of the Point included a walk on the Rocks. The Rocks were the jetty the Army Engineers built with blocks of trap rock dynamited from cliffs on the mainland. The blocks were as much as seven feet across. You could see drill marks where charges had been set to sever them. The Engineers got the blocks in place on a smallgauge railroad they constructed on a trestle beside the jetty site. You could still see railroad pilings sticking out of the water. After a rough tide or heavy rain the algae on the Rocks swelled with water and made them slippery. You were always hearing how a fisherman from the mainland had lost his footing and drowned. The only way to walk the Rocks, wet or dry, was the way we were walking, barefoot. Strong prehensile toes helped. This day the Rocks were hot and dry. The algae lay flat and sticky and actually gave us an extra purchase.

But even dry the Rocks could be dangerous. There was a section near the end called Three Rock Edge, where the
blocks had been awkwardly fitted. They presented edges up rather than horizontal planes. To get over, you had to straddle the edges and walk spread-eagle. My first time on Three Rock Edge, Father went before me, walking backwards to show me how to do it. Instead of walking, I sat on the edge, legs on either side, and inched across. I thought Father would be disappointed with me, but he squeezed my shoulder. On the way back I walked it upright. I was eight that summer.

Now when we reached Three Rock Edge I couldn’t coax Hillyer across. It occurred to me that for some reason Hillyer’s caution was connected with his denial of love. It also occurred to me that he didn’t have a father like mine. Blackheart never tried to get across Three Rock Edge. He would take up a position on the last flat rock and whine until I came back. Today he was pleased to have another coward for company.

At supper Hillyer asked Father if he believed in love and then included Mother, “Ma’am?”

“Romantic love?” Father said.

“Yes, sir.”

“Why do you ask?”

I think Father thought this was the beginning of one of Hillyer’s routines.

“Because Michael does, and I don’t.”

“Are you asking if I believe in its existence or if I recommend it?”

“Both, sir.”

“Many people claim to have experienced it.”

“Have you, sir?”

“Hillyer, my good wife is here beside me. If I had never felt it could I say so? On the other hand, if I had felt it often could I say that? But the answer is yes, of course.”

Father looked disappointed that nothing developed from the exchange. Apparently Hillyer really wanted to know what Father thought.

After the meal Father picked up a book and lay down on a couch. Hillyer said he would do the dishes. Mother said he could only dry. I wandered with Blackheart down to the water’s edge. I always checked the ocean in the evening. Tonight it was unusually still. Small waves broke quietly on the shore. On windless evenings in summer I thought the ocean was false. How could something so big and heavy in the body be so dainty in the fingertips?

I didn’t hear Zina approach and started at the touch of her hand on my shoulder. Her face was blue and pink in the dusk. For a second I could have kissed her. I don’t know why I didn’t. It would have been the perfect act of love. She bent down, picked up a shell, and scaled it, hollow side up. It skipped twice in the water, floated for an instant, and sank. I scaled a shell, hollow down; it captured air, hovered, tipped, and slipped into the water. Gulls circled overhead,
thinking there was something for them. Zina took my hand like a child’s, looked down at it, and said, “You’ve been avoiding me. You’re angry with me.”

I said I wasn’t.

“Let me try to explain something to you, Misha. I know you don’t like me talking about Melissa, but I want to say that at first I was sorry for Melissa. But when you told me what happened the night of the party I decided that she can take care of herself. It’s you I should have been concerned about. I’m not saying you should be grateful to Melissa, I’m saying don’t burn your bridges. Give yourself a chance, give Melissa a chance. You may not think so now, but—listen to me! don’t look away!—you may want to do again what you did that night. Don’t burn your bridges, is all I’m saying. Is that something to get upset about?”

“But I don’t
want
to do it again.”

“Maybe not now.”

“Now or ever. You’re trying to get rid of me.”

“
No
, Misha! All right, not another word. But don’t be angry with me. I’m only trying to help you. Say you’re not angry.”

I had lost my breath. “Come up to the house and meet my friend from school,” was all I could say.

As we walked barefoot through the soft sand she took my hand again and said, “Things are running through you very fast. Be careful!”

How do I do that, I thought.

Everyone was on the bayside porch. “You found him,” Mother said.

Mrs. Mertz was there. As she drew on her cigarette, her eyes glistened. She looked like a vampire. “As for me,” she was saying, “I adore it, every part of it, even the heartbreak. Being in love is like driving up the California coast. It gives you the illusion that life will work out.”

“How about when it’s over?” Mother said.

“The secret is, do it again, instantly.”

“You’re saying you can fall in love at will.”

“If you are predisposed, if you are in the
mode
, if you are looking for love—love will find you.”

“It sounds like being in heat,” Mother said. “How can you do it at will? It does take someone else, or does it?”

“Of course.” Mrs. Mertz paused to sip her drink. “Let me say that I believe one is born with the capacity or not.”

“I still don’t understand why it’s so prized. Is it good to be vulnerable?”

“Is it good to take a chance? If we don’t take a chance we don’t have a chance. Love, like butter, makes things better.”

Out of the corner, where he was sitting in a deep chair, Hillyer said to Father, “You never said, sir, whether you recommend love.”

“I recommend it to mankind, Hillyer, but not to each and
every member thereof. Love and its works were intended as a consolation for the human condition. I expect there were times when it wouldn’t have taken much for us to give up the human enterprise. We need all the rewards we can get. What do you think?” he said to Zina.

“It seems to me my mother is describing something pleasant, but it doesn’t sound like love.”

“Ah!” Mother said with satisfaction.

“You’re speaking from experience?” Father asked.

Zina said nothing.

“Are you?” Father said.

“Maybe Zina doesn’t want to tell you,” Mother said. “As for me, I don’t think love is a consolation for the human condition, I think it’s part of the human condition. Sometimes it works out, and sometimes it doesn’t, like most things in life. But it’s always a delusion. The beloved does not live up to expectations, and when love persists beyond disappointment it becomes a snare as well.”

I said, “Why doesn’t the beloved live up to expectations?”

“Because the expectations are high and the beloved is flawed.” She turned to Father and said, “Tell him!”

When Father was silent she said again, “
Tell
him!”

“I agree,” was all he would say.

Everyone fell silent, and after a bit Mother said, “Let’s go in, away from the mosquitoes.”

There were no mosquitoes. Mrs. Mertz and Zina excused themselves and went back to the guesthouse. The rest of us settled down inside. Mother fixed drinks for Father and herself.

“Hillyer,” Mother said, “if you want to talk more about love, go ahead.”

“No, ma’am, you and Mrs. Mertz explained it all.”

That amused Mother and closed the subject. We played Scrabble, and later, going up the stairs, Hillyer said he would save Zina even before Hannah. “Zin-
a
! Zin-
a
! Zin-
a
!” he chanted.

I WOKE LATE
the next morning. Mother and Hillyer were having breakfast. They stopped talking when I came into the kitchen. I asked where Father was. Mr. Strangfeld had picked him up, along with Zina and Mrs. Mertz. I was put off that Zina hadn’t told me her plans.

I asked Mother why Zina and Mrs. Mertz had gone to town.

She said she didn’t know.

I asked when they would be back.

“Michael, I don’t
know
.”

“When is Father coming back?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Did Father have to go to the office?”

“Michael, you can ask everyone these questions when they get back. I’m not a social secretary.”

Suddenly Hillyer suggested I return to town with him and stay over at his place. I expected Mother to veto that, but she said to go ahead. Later when Hillyer and I were alone I asked him what he and Mother had been talking about.

“You.”

“I knew it. What about?”

“She wanted to know what was up with you and Zina.”

“She thinks something’s up?”

“She thinks you’re in for trouble.”

“What else?”

“She asked me to invite you to town.”

“She thinks you’ll lead me astray and save me from Zina.”

“That’s our plan.”

“My own mother.” I was amused, sort of.

We got to Hillyer’s house about six. I was always struck by the size of his living room, with all the windows and the high ceiling. The bottoms of the windows were clear, and the tops were stained glass. When the sun hit them in the morning the room looked like a kaleidoscope.

Hillyer phoned for pizza, “with everything.”

“No anchovies,” I shouted.

“No anchovies,” he said.

Then he phoned Rita. His plan was for her to come over later with a friend for me. After the pizzas I looked up “Mertz” in the phonebook. The address was ten minutes away. I phoned—the line was busy.

“Listen,” I said, “I’m just going to walk over there and say hello. I’ll be back.”

Zina’s place was a converted carriage house on a street along the water with lots of trees, more Zina’s style than Mrs. Mertz’s. A man in a tweed jacket, with watery blue eyes, answered the door.

I introduced myself. “I’m a friend of Zina’s.”

“Me too. Come on in. She’s out. Mrs. M’s fixing her face. I’m Jack Packard.”

“Misha, what a surprise! How absolutely deliciously lovely to see you!” Mrs. Mertz in a red kimono stood in the doorway of the living room. “This is Mr. Packard. Misha lives next to us at the beach. I just put on some lipstick or I’d give you a big kiss. So you come over here and peck my cheek. Jack, fix drinks! And don’t be fooled by Misha’s youthful appearance. What’s your drink, Misha? Vodka? Neat, and neat for me. It’s been one thing after another. Just now Zina’s father called from Europe. What a thrill to hang up on an international call! Zina’s out. I know you didn’t come to see this old flesh.”

“I came to see you both, Mrs. Mertz.”

“How gallant! Well, you’ll have to do with me. Jack and I are going to dinner. We’ll have all evening to talk. So you come in and entertain me while I change. And, Jack, after you deliver the drinks you stay out here. Misha and I have matters to discuss. Come along!”

The bedroom was more Mrs. Mertz’s style—a dressing table with a mirrored top and flowered skirt, a high-backed upholstered chair, which she pointed me into, an unmade bed with pink sheets, and the smell of perfume and cosmetics.

She went into the bathroom, left the door ajar, and talked from there. “Why didn’t you drive in with us this morning?”

“I didn’t know you were coming in. Is Zina going with you to dinner?”

“No. Are you having dinner with your father?”

“No. I don’t know what Father is doing. Are you and Zina coming back tomorrow?”

“I am. I don’t know about Zina. Your father’s picking me up at noon. Does he come to town to work?”

“Mostly. Is Zina having dinner with anyone?”

“Twenty-year-old girls tell their mothers as little as possible. Did your mother come in with you?”

“No. Zina told me she was twenty-one.”

“She will be. Your mother must hate being alone out there.”

“She doesn’t mind if it’s not too often. Did Zina come in because she didn’t want to be alone?”

“Your father said he was an insurance broker. I’m not sure what that is.”

“He finds the right carrier for clients and the right clients for carriers. He’s not a salesman, he’s an insurance expert. He has his own business.” That’s the way it went. She wanted to talk about my father, and I wanted to talk about her daughter. “Are these Zina’s pictures on the wall?”

Each photograph—there were ten of them, black-and-white— had a vase in the foreground in sharp focus and part of a female nude in the background out of focus. The point was playing the lines and planes off one another.

“Yes, they’re Zina’s,” Mrs. Mertz said and poked her head in the bathroom doorway. “Do you recognize the body?”

“Zina?”

“No, darling. Moi. I hope you’re blushing.” She withdrew.

I was blushing. Not because the pictures were of Mrs. Mertz, but because I had thought they were of Zina.

Mr. Packard came in with our drinks, gave me mine, and blindly reached Mrs. Mertz’s into the bathroom.

“You can look, Jack. Misha is out there, looking more or less at the same thing.”

Mrs. Mertz came out, still in the kimono, nothing changed except she was barefoot. She took a small black dress from the closet and said, “Cover your eyes!” In a minute she said, “Look!” The dress was shiny and tight. There was
nothing to it. Otherwise she wore pearls and black high-heeled shoes. She posed for me, hands on hips, turning this way and that, but watching me. “What’s the verdict?”

“Innocent.”

“Not likely. Misha, let me see if I can tell what you’re thinking. You’re thinking Zina in jeans looks better. Right?”

I nodded. Why not, she was right.

“You’re thinking … you’re wondering if a time will ever come when you will really like a woman dressed like this.”

She was exactly right.

“What else? You’ll have to tell me, I can’t guess any more. You don’t have to be insulting, but there
is
something else.”

“The hundred times I’ve seen my mother go out in the evening she never looked as good as you do now, is what I’m thinking.”

“You
are
a charmer.”

“It’s true.”

“Yes, but you’re also thinking that nonetheless you prefer the way your mother looks. Don’t say anything! It’s too complicated. Come downstairs with us, we’ll drop you off wherever you’re going.”

Back at Hillyer’s Melissa opened the door.

It seems she had tried to get me at the Point, and Mother told her where I was. Melissa then called Hillyer and invited
herself over. Hillyer called Rita and told her to cancel the friend.

Hillyer was dancing with Rita in the living room. I was surprised at how slight she was. She waved at me and said hi, and they went on dancing.

Melissa and I began to dance. I couldn’t help thinking how much better Rita, small, would fit with me, and Melissa, big, with Hillyer. We must have looked like comedy couples. Melissa smelled good, the way she had after the party. We danced out of the living room, down to the end of the hall, and into a bedroom. I didn’t even know whose it was. We closed the door and lay down on the bed. We did it twice. In between, Melissa told me her father had a drinking problem. He didn’t sleep well, and he had veins in his nose. She said she had gone to the movies with Ari and asked if I minded. I didn’t care, but I said it was okay as long as nothing happened. She said it hadn’t and it wouldn’t. I felt like telling her to go ahead and enjoy herself, the way Zina had told
me,
but it would have been impolite.

Melissa had soft, smooth skin and didn’t seem so big lying beside me. She sang Beatles songs to me in her pretty voice, and I felt a genuine kind of affection for her. I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t upset. Even if the pact I had with Zina was only in my head, hadn’t I broken it? Then I realized I had done exactly what Zina said I should do. I was obeying her.

I lay on my stomach, facing away. Melissa’s head was pressed against my shoulder, her arm across my back. I tried to imagine she was Zina, but it didn’t work. Melissa was quiet and content. I think Zina would have been walking up and down, talking. Then I tried to imagine Zina where she really was at that moment. I saw her sitting at a table. I couldn’t see whom she was with—it was like a dream that tells you only certain things—but I could see her brown eyes and carved lips. I tried to hear what she was saying, but all that came through were things that she had already said to me. Then I fell asleep. Melissa woke me. She had to leave. I was pleased that I didn’t resent her. I even felt a sense of responsibility for her. Again I was obeying Zina.

There was no sign of Rita and Hillyer. I left the outside door ajar, and we walked to Melissa’s place. We went out of our way so we could walk along the water. The night was clear and dry, and the temperature absolutely perfect. You would be comfortable clothed or naked. The moon was thin and bright. We walked arm in arm, and every now and then Melissa pressed her breast against my arm.

“You know,” she said, “I don’t mind if you don’t love me.”

I said nothing.

“I care, but I don’t mind.”

“Do you have to love someone to go to bed with them?”

“I do, but you don’t. Is that all right, Michael?”

“Would it be better if the other person was in love?”

“Of course.”

“What’s the difference if they love you back or not?”

“If they love you back they won’t go away.”