The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing - Melissa Bank [2]
In response to my mother's questions, Julia told us about her brother in San Francisco and sister in Paris, both of whom would be "attending" her mother's annual "gala" in Southampton. Julia chose her words carefully and used ones I'd never heard spoken—she sounded to me like she was trying out for a job as a dictionary.
My mother eyed me: Do not smirk.
However slowly Julia spoke, she opened her crabs twice as fast as anyone else, and I asked how she did it. She showed me the key on the belly side and how to pull it so the shell lifted right off. Henry leaned over to watch, too.
My father asked about the publishing house where she and Henry worked. Julia described their boss as an exquisite editor and true gentleman. My brother had a laugh-smile on when he said, "Every morning when we're opening the mail, Mr. McBride comes into subrights and says, 'Did we get any dough, babies?' "
I'd met this exquisite editor and true gentleman myself when I'd visited Henry; and I repeated now that Mr. McBride had told me my brother "Aaron" was irreplaceable.
My father said, "Hank Aaron," almost to himself.
"Mr. McBride must be forgiven," Julia said, "as a baseball aficionado and octogenarian."
I thought, Exquisite octogenarians and aficionados will be attending the gala.
Then I asked my question: "Do they know about you two at work?"
My father shot me a look; and I looked back at him, Why is everything I want to know wrong?
Henry changed the topic: he'd been promoted from intern to assistant. I could tell he expected my parents to be pleased, and I saw right away that my father, at least, wasn't. It was harder to tell with my mother; she wore the mask in the family.
The issue, I realized, was college. Henry still hadn't decided if he was starting Columbia in the fall.
He'd already transferred four times, or five counting twice to Brown. The reasons he gave for transferring each time were always sound and logical, like "better course selection." I wondered about the reasons he didn't say.
—•—
Before bed, my mother told Julia she'd be staying with me—my cue. I led her down the hall to my bedroom, which was completely taken up by a built-in bunk-bed complex; it slept four but, I realized, lived only one comfortably.
"A bunk," she said, as though charmed. "Like camp."
A cell, I thought. Like prison.
I asked which bunk she wanted; she chose the near bottom, which meant the far top for me. I got fresh towels for her and left her alone to undress; then I knocked on my door, and she said, "Come in."
She was already under the covers, so I turned out the light. I climbed up to my bunk and swept the sand off my sheets. We said good night. After a few minutes, though, a door slammed, and I had to explain that the doorjambs in this house didn't stick; the doors would be opening and slamming all night. Then "good night"—"good night" again.
I closed my eyes and tried to pretend I was in Nantucket.
The house we'd rented every year there had a widow's walk—a square porch on the roof, where the wives of sea captains were supposed to have watched for their husbands' ships. At night, we'd hear creaks and moans. Once, I thought I heard footsteps pacing the widows walk. You could feel the ghosts in that house, scaring you in the best way.
If there were any ghosts in this one, they weren't moaning about husbands lost at sea but slamming doors over modern, trivial matters, such as not being allowed to go waterskiing.
I couldn't sleep with Julia down there, and I could tell she couldn't sleep either. We lay awake in the dark, listening to each other. The silence between us seemed both intimate and hostile, like a staring contest. But Julia was just waiting for me to fall asleep so she could go down the hall to my brother's room. I heard her bare feet on the wood floor and Henry's door whisper open and close.
—•—
My father and Henry went to look at sailboats to buy, though I suspected talk about Columbia.
My mother, Julia, and I took a walk on the beach. I walked behind them, in and out of the water, looking for sea glass.