“Hi,” I said to the kids. “I hear today’s the big day. You’re taking off for camp.” They looked a little confused, wondering who I was and how I knew about them. But polite. They said yes, and that they couldn’t wait; the younger one, the anxious one, said to Storey, “Mommy, did you pack my box of stationery? And Mille Bournes? And two bathing suits, two?”
“You’re all packed,” Storey assured her. “Now, let’s get down to the Point and back. Pick up a stone along the way to leave at Rocky Point.” They took off, walking down the beach like storks, their long skinny legs joined at bony knees so articulated they looked as if they’d bend either way. Maybe they were at an awkward age. “How old are they?” I asked.
“Pick a stone!” she called behind them. “It’s part of our beach-clearing project,” she explained to me. See how she’s always thinking about something else? Women like that are responsible for gravity. If they ever let up, we’ll all go streaming off the earth, like dandelion seeds. “Seven and nine,” she said. “Lizzie’s nine. The other one is Cora.”
We walked along silently, in the same direction as the children, watching them grow smaller ahead of us. “We’re leaving right after lunch,” she said. “We’re planning to drive to Bangor and spend the night, and then take the girls over to the camp tomorrow morning. We’ll be back home sometime tomorrow evening.”
“I have to talk to you.”
“It will have to wait.”
“It won’t wait. We have to talk.”
“It’s not fair to pressure me like this. This is not the way to do it.”
I felt like pointing out that it was going to work, but I decided to wait and let her see for herself. She sighed. “I’ll come in to New York on Tuesday. Monday, even. Day after tomorrow. Can’t it wait until then?”
I was silent, matching my pace to hers exactly. The sand was wet and took our footprints in deep impressions.
“Please, Nick!”
“Tell him you have a headache and can’t go. It’s too late to change all the plans now. He’ll drive the kids up to camp. I’ll come over later. We’ll have a drink. We’ll sit down and talk. We’ll have plenty of time, no pressure.”
She sighed again.
“You want them to get off to camp, don’t you?”
She nodded. I could almost see her thinking of the packed foot-lockers. They were all ready to go.
“Or I could come over now—”
“No,” she said. “No. I’ll try to stay. We’ll talk.” She was silent for a moment. “I want to talk to you,” she said. Ahead of us, the girls came to a halt and pinged their rocks onto the Point, where they rattled over the boulders and sent the gulls cawing into the air.
“Nick, could you go before they get back?”
I hated her for saying that. The kids had accepted me as a friend of hers. She didn’t like that. She hated it. She would like it if no one but Storey knew of my existence.
“I’ll see you later,” I said, and touched her shoulder. She froze. You’d think I’d never touched her before, never done the things she had so willingly let me do. “Later,” I repeated, loudly, and she managed to nod. Then she walked forward to meet the children, not looking back.
I was over at the bridge when they left. It was late in the afternoon. I guess they didn’t get away as early as they had expected to. Maybe they waited to see if Storey’s headache would go away.
I was watching about a dozen people, mostly kids, fish for shiners from the rocks below the bridge. It was high tide, and the little bay was so full that the grasses along the edge were drowning. The Land Rover was packed to the roof, and two bright faces in the front seat pressed against the window to watch the fishing while George slowed for the bump on the arch of the bridge. I stayed there for a while, leaning on the parapet and watching the activity. Then I walked over to Storey’s house.
When you enter the house from the lane, you find yourself on the middle level, entering through the kitchen. On this side, it was a two-story house, with an old-fashioned gabled roof. On the opposite side, where the cliff drops down to the beach, it was three stories high. Each level had a deck — a wooden porch, really — with a railing around it and a wooden staircase going down. Storey let me look around while she was making coffee.
I really looked around, even going down to the basement, which was partly a garage and partly a workroom and storage area. George had stored the storm windows on the rafters up near the ceiling. Metal shelving along the walls held neatly labeled boxes, and a large sheet of pegboard displayed an assortment of tools. I had to admire George. Over near the doors that opened onto a paved area, there was a small Sunfish with its sail leaning against the wall and various beach chairs, floats, water toys, and life preservers.
Upstairs, I prowled around the dining room, reconstructing lunch from the remains on the table. One of the kids, probably Cora, had left nearly a whole plateful of food, partly hidden under a piece of toast. There was cold coffee in two yellow cups.
Storey was clinking away in the kitchen. She put a whole pot of coffee on a silver tray. The cups had saucers, and the milk was in a little crystal pitcher. She couldn’t help making it attractive, I suppose. She couldn’t help making domesticity seem worth the effort. She called out, asking me to come and take the tray into the living room. “Do you want something to eat?”
“No, just coffee,” I said. “Come on, I’m pouring yours.”
She came in and sat at a little writing desk, leaning on an elbow, stirring her cup.
“Nick,” she said, and I waited. “Nick?” she asked. “Have I been unfair to you?” And then I knew she was about to be.
“We went out to dinner the other night,” she went on. “Not really out, just here on the island. A dinner party. I was sitting next to a man, I think he’s a stockbroker. Something on Wall Street. He talked to me at the dinner table, not about anything in particular, and then he suddenly said, ‘You look like you’re about to bolt. Are you a bolter?’ ”
“And I said No. No, no, no, you’ve got me all wrong. I’m not a bolter. And I’m not, Nick. I’m going to stay here, I’m going to stick with what I’ve got, and I’m not going to see you again.”
“We’re just going into another phase,” I told her. “I feel it too. At first I just wanted to hear about Screwbosky, learn all I could about him. Now I want...”
“I know what you want,” she said, looking around the room, which was beginning to grow dark. “But there’s no place for you. There’s no way you can come into my life. I never wanted that.” She rubbed her head, as if she really had a headache.
“I thought about what you said, the last time I saw you in town. That I like only the things about you that gave me pleasure. When I got home that night, when I was getting ready to have my bath and go to bed, I took off my clothes and your smell rose up around me on the air. I thought to myself, it’s true, I do like only the things about him that give me pleasure. Why else would I lie in bed with a neurotic boy?”
She looked at me apologetically and I stared back at her.
“I know you think that I was just taking, not giving. I’m sorry for that. But there’s nothing more I can do.”
“This is good,” I said. “This is very good. We’re communicating. Go on. Go on talking. We’re talking about us now, I think it’s an improvement.”
She frowned at me, beginning to be a little angry. “You’re not listening to what I’m saying.”
“Don’t talk to me like that.”
“Listen to what I’m saying, Nick.”
“I’m not your child.”