“Boiled.”
“Yes, well. We haven’t had a nice lobster chowder for a while. And there’s advantages to that.” She looked toward the other room where Bunny was hammering. “We won’t have to hear that screeching about ‘red spiders’ and fix her a bowl of cereal. Or I could boil them and pull out all the meat and make lobster rolls. Or how about crêpes rolled up with the meat in a cream sauce inside?”
Quoyle’s mouth was watering. It was the aunt’s old trick, to reel out the names of succulent dishes, then retreat to the simplest dish. Not Partridge’s style.
“Lobster salad is nice, too, but maybe a little light for supper. You know, there’s a way Warren and I used to have it at The Fair Weather Inn on Long Island. The tail meat soaked in saki then cooked with bamboo shoots and water chestnuts and piled into the shells and baked. There was a hot sauce that was out of this world. I can’t get any of those things here. Of course, if we had some shrimp and crabmeat and scallops I could make stuffed lobster tails-same idea, but with white wine and Parmesan cheese. If I could get white wine and Parmesan.”
“I bought cheese. Not Parmesan. It’s just cheese. Cheddar.”
“Well that settles it. Lobster pie. We don’t have any cream, but I can use milk. Bunny will eat it without roaring and it’ll be a change from boiled. I want to make something a little special. I asked Dawn to come over to supper. I told her six, so there’s plenty of time.”
“Who?”
“You heard me. I asked Dawn to come over. Dawn Budget. She’s a nice girl. Do you good to talk to her.” For the nephew did nothing but work and dote.
There was a prodigious pounding from the living room.
“Bunny,” called Quoyle. “What are you making? Another box?”
“I am making a TENT.” Fury in the voice.
“A wooden tent?”
“Yeah. But the door is crooked.” A crash.
“Did you throw something?”
“The door is CROOKED! And you said you would give me a ride in the boat. And didn’t!”
Quoyle got up.
“I forgot. O.k., both of you get your jackets on and let’s go.” But just outside the door Bunny invented a new game while Quoyle waited.
“Lie down on your back, see, like this.”
Sunshine thumped down on her back, stretched out her arms and legs.
“Now look up near the top of the house. And keep looking. It’s scary, it’s the scary house falling down.”
And their gazes traveled up the clapboards, warped crooked with storms, to the black eaves. Above the peak of the house the thin sky and clouds raced diagonally. The illusion swelled that the clouds were fixed and it was the house that toppled forward inexorably. The looming wall tipped at Sunshine who scrambled up and ran, deliciously frightened. Bunny stood it longer until she, too, had to get up and tear away to safe ground.
Quoyle made them sit side by side in the boat. They gripped the gunwales. The boat buzzed over the water. “Go fast, Dad,” yelled Sunshine. But Bunny looked at the foaming bow wave. There, in the snarl of froth, was a dog’s white face, glistering eyes and bubbled mouth. The wave surged and the dog rose with it; Bunny gripped the seat and howled. Quoyle threw the motor into neutral.
The boat wallowed in the water, no headway, slap of waves. “I saw a dog in the water,” sobbed Bunny.
“There is no dog in the water,” said Quoyle. “Just air bubbles and foam and a little girl’s imagination. You know Bunny, that there cannot be a dog that lives in the water.”
“Dennis says there’s water dogs,” sobbed Bunny.
“He means another kind of dog. A real live dog, like Warren”-no, Warren was dead-“a live dog who can swim, who swims in the water and brings dead ducks to hunters.” Christ, was everything dead?
“Well, it looked like a dog. The white dog, Dad. He’s mad at me. He wants to bite me. And make my blood drip out.” The tears coming now.
“It’s not a true dog, Bunny. It’s an imaginary dog and even if it looks real it can’t hurt you. If you see it again you have to say to yourself, ‘Is this a real dog or is this an imaginary dog?’ Then you’ll know it isn’t real, and you’ll laugh about it.”
“But Dad, suppose it is real!”
“In the water, Bunny? In a stone? In a piece of plywood? Give me a break.” So Quoyle tried to vanquish the white dog with logic. And headed back to the dock very slowly so there was no bow wave. Getting fed up with the white dog.
In the afternoon Quoyle set the table while the aunt squeezed and folded piecrust.
“Put on the red tablecloth, nephew. It’s in the drawer under the stairs. You might want to change your shirt.” The aunt stuck two white candles in glass holders although it was still full sunlight outside. The sun would not set until nine.
Bunny and Sunshine were tricked out in white tights, their velvet Thanksgiving dresses with lace collars. Sunshine could wear Bunny’s patent leather Mary Janes, but Bunny sulked in grimy sneakers. And her dress was too small, tight under the arms and short. Hot, as well.
“Here she comes,” said the aunt, hearing Dawn’s Japanese car curving toward the house. “You girls mind your manners, now.”
Dawn came up the steps, balancing in white spike heels big enough to fit a man, smiling with brown lips. Her nylon blouse glowed; the hem of the skirt hung low behind. She carried a bottle. Quoyle thought it was wine but it was white grape juice. He could see the Sobey’s price tag. The toes of her shoes jutted up at a painful angle.
He thought of Petal in her dress with the fringe, the long legs diving down to slippers embroidered with silver bugles, Petal, darting around in a cloud of Trésor, shooting glances at her reflection in mirror, toaster, glass, flicking her fingers at Quoyle’s openmouth desire. He felt a pang for this poor moth.
The conversation dragged, Dawn saying the bare floors and hard windows were “striking.” Sunshine heaped grimy bears and metal cars in her lap, it’s a bear, it’s a car, as though the visitor came from a country where there were no toys.
At last the aunt thumped the fragrant pastry in front of Quoyle. “Go ahead and dish it up, Nephew.”
She lit the candles, the flames invisible in the cylinder of sunlight that fell across the table, but the smell of wax reminding them, brought the dish of peas and pearl onions, the salad.
“Let me help,” said Dawn, half up, her skirt caught under the chair leg. But there was nothing she could do. Her voice echoed in the hard room.
Quoyle pierced the crust with an aluminum implement. Bunny stuck her fork into the candle flame.
“Don’t do that,” said the aunt dangerously. A section of lobster pie rose from the steaming dish, slid onto Dawn’s plate.
“Oh, is it lobster?” said Dawn.
“Yes, indeed.” The aunt. “Lobster pie, sweet as a nut.”
Dawn made her voice very warm, addressed the aunt. “I’ll just have salad, Agnis. I don’t care for lobster. Since I was a girl. We had to take lobster sandwiches to school. We’d throw them in the ditch. Crab, too. Like big spiders!” Tried a laugh.
Bunny looked at the crust and orange meat on her plate. Quoyle braced himself for screeching but it did not come. Bunny chewed ostentatiously, said “I love red spider meat.”
Dawn to Quoyle. Confiding. Everything she said overwrought. Pretending an interest.
“It’s so awful what those people did to Agnis.” Didn’t actually care.
“What people?” said Quoyle, his hand at his chin.
“The people in the Hitler boat. The way they just sneaked out.”
“What’s this?” said Quoyle, looking at the aunt.
“Well, looks like I got stiffed,” she said, flames of rage sweeping into her hair roots. “We installed the banquettes on the yacht, all chairs but two done and delivered, all that. And they’re gone. The yacht’s gone. Pulled out after dark.”