Nell (39 page)

“Well, at least it’s definite!” Nell snapped. “At least it’s clear. At least it’s not ambiguous!” She glared at Andy. It seemed that without planning it, they had stumbled onto a different, more intimate topic.

Andy glared back at Nell. Then he crossed the room and took her in his arms. “Yes, that’s true,” he said. “It’s not ambiguous. That’s one of the advantages—and disadvantages—of being juvenile. You can see everything in absolutes. There are no complications, no gray areas. Everything is clearly right or wrong.” He spoke into her hair. “But when you get older, it gets more complicated, doesn’t it? Decisions, I mean.” Before Nell could respond, he said, “Nell, I’ve been thinking a lot about how we can continue to see each other. You know I want that. I think you want that. But you’ve got to be in Arlington; your home is there. You work there. The children go to school there. And I have to be here. I’m going to miss you. Nell, I love you. You know that.”

“I know that,” Nell said. “And I love you.” She was glad he was holding her pressed against him so that he could not see her face. She was smiling, wild with hope.

He gently pushed her away from him then and walked around the room. “But there’s this problem,” he said. “I hate leaving Nantucket. Especially now. I mean, after all the tourists go it’s as if I have ‘my’ island back again. I really don’t like going onto the mainland. I hate the traffic, the people, the filth, the noise. I don’t suppose I’ve been off Nantucket but nine times in nine years. What I’m saying is that I’m going to have to ask you to be the one to travel here to see me. That’s a lot to ask, I know. But I’d be glad to help you financially. And you might enjoy coming here occasionally in the fall and winter. It’s pleasant here then, in a different way. You could come the weekends that Marlow and Charlotte have the children. I’d pamper you. Cook you gourmet meals. You could have a vacation from real life every time you came. You could fly over on Friday nights and back on Sunday nights; we’d have two days and two nights together. I’d be glad to pay for your plane tickets; I’d insist on doing that. I want to keep seeing you. I just selfishly want to see you here, as much as possible.”

Nell sank onto the sofa, stunned. She looked at the floor and dug her fingernails
into the palms of her hand, and the sharp pain distracted her and kept her from crying. She was shattered by the difference between what she hoped he would say to her and what he was in reality saying.

“I’m upsetting you, I can see,” he said. He came over and sat down on the sofa near her, but not touching her. “Is it because I’m asking you to come here to be with me?”

What shall I say? Nell thought. All the voices of her past warned her: Be cool! Play hard to get! Don’t be clingy! He won’t want you unless he has to work for you. Don’t make it too easy for him.

“No,” Nell said. “It’s not that. It’s just that—Andy, there’s such a difference between what I want to talk about with you and what you want to talk about with me. I want to talk about the—the future and you want to talk about
seeing
each other.”

“But I am talking about the future,” Andy said, bewildered.

“Seeing each other?” Nell asked. “Andy, we’ve been practically
living
with each other for three months now. Are we going to go back to
seeing
each other? Andy, the future I want to talk about is—is a long-range future. I mean, our
lives
. I mean, don’t you ever think about the two of us sharing our lives?”

Andy had been looking at Nell intently; now his eyes dropped to the floor. “Nell,” he said, “I’ve lived alone for a long time now. I’ve gotten to like it a lot. I don’t have any idea how good I would be at really living with someone else. And after all, we’ve known each other for only three months. Don’t you think it’s a little early to talk about the distant future?”

I hate myself for being a fool, Nell thought. I hate myself for being the beggar here, and I hate you, Andy, for rejecting me. Yet how subtly this is all being done, she thought. None of the crucial words was being spoken. At least there was that. Maybe that’s all the grace you gain by growing older. She had a lump in her throat and was afraid to speak, afraid that any movement on her part at all would start tears cascading from her eyes, would make her voice quaver, would start an avalanche of emotion. She did not want to fall apart in front of him.

“Yes,” she managed to say. “I suppose it is a little early to talk about the distant future.”

Andy looked at Nell, pulled her into his arms, held her against him. “Oh, Nell,” he
said. “I do love you. Believe me, I love you. I want you in my life. I can’t promise more than that, and I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t know how much I can change. I’ve been a terrible recluse for a long time. But I want to keep seeing you. I love you, Nell.”

He held her against him, kissing her face and hair. Nell couldn’t stop herself from crying then.

“Please,” he said. “Please say you’ll come see me. Let’s make some plans. And I’ll call you often. And I’ll try to come to Arlington sometime. I want to see your house, meet your friends. Nell, don’t cry.”

“Oh, Andy,” Nell said. She was completely confused. She felt like a starving beast whose owner is throwing him crumbs instead of the whole and satisfying meal. And yet, she thought, Andy was right. They had been together for only three months. If he was erring by his slowness, she was erring equally by her impetuosity.

“Oh, Andy,” she said again. “I love you. I love you so.” Say you need me, she was thinking. Say something more, anything more, I need to hear more from you.

“Oh, Nell. My sweet Nell,” Andy said.

That’s not it, Nell thought.

“Mommy! We’re home!”

Hannah and Jeremy came through the front door, their voices and movements coming loud and clear even through the rock music. They passed by the closed front parlor door and went thundering into the back living room. “Mommy?” they yelled. “Where are you?”

Reluctantly, Nell released herself from Andy’s arms. “The children are back,” she sighed. “Can we talk about this later?”

“Sure,” he said. “Look, let me take you all out to dinner tonight. And I’ll dig out some airplane schedules. We’ll make some plans.”

“I really can’t plan much until I talk to Marlow,” Nell said. “We usually have had the children alternate weekends, but I don’t know what he’ll want to do this year.”

“Well, but that’s great,” Andy said. He smiled. “We’ll be able to be with each other every other weekend. Who could ask for more?”

I could, you stupid goddamn fool, Nell thought. Then she thought, no, Nell, it’s
you who are the stupid goddamn fool. She opened the door to go out into the hall.

“Nell,” Andy said. “Nell. I love you.”

“Mommy!” Jeremy said, running up to her. “Look what we bought!”

Nell turned to her children, both angry at their interruption and grateful for their presence. She knew they would keep her from saying more, asking for more. “Let me see what you got,” she said, her voice normal.

Andy came to her side and surveyed the children’s loot with Nell. “I’m going to take you all out to dinner tonight,” he said. “So think of your favorite place.”

“Vincent’s!” Hannah yelled.

“Henry’s!” Jeremy yelled.

Andy laughed. “Well, you two decide and I’ll pick you all up at six. Be sure to tell Clary she’s invited, too.”

He left then. Nell told Jeremy and Hannah to put their purchases in the room and to get ready to go to the beach. She walked back through the house, and she was numb. From the stereo, a male rock singer sobbed raggedly about a love that was so deep, so true that it was eternal from the first instant they kissed. Jesus Christ, Nell thought, I’m going to have to stop listening to this sentimental slop. It’s doing me no good. When I get off this island, she decided, I won’t listen to this kind of music ever again. I’ll just listen to Beethoven, Mozart, Erik Satie. Maybe that will calm me down. Maybe then I’ll learn to be cool as crystal inside,
restrained
.

But she was afraid that for her, restraint would always come as an imposed curbing, like the reins biting into the mouth of a galloping horse, rather than like the inner integrity of a pure block of ice that stood alone, cold to the core, disdainful of heat.

For one last time Nell, Jeremy, Hannah, and Clary spread their beach towels on the sand. Today they had driven out to Surfside. Tomorrow Clary would take the children to Jetties Beach to spend the morning while Nell did the last-minute packing and cleaning. This was the last time they would all four be here together.

* * *

The waves were rolling in. The children dropped their T-shirts on the sand and raced for the water. They joined a crowd of people who jumped and dove with the incoming waves.

“Come on, Mom!” they yelled back at Nell. “Come
on
, Clary!”

“Let me get hot first,” Nell yelled back. She stretched out on her stomach, watching them. She yearned for a little peace so she could think about her conversation with Andy that morning. She wanted to replay it in her mind, word by word. She wanted to replay it for her innermost self, then to lie as still and receptive as a seismograph, to discover exactly the reaction their discussion had caused within her. Was she damaged? How badly? Was she broken or merely fractured? What did it all mean? What could be read into it? She put her head on her arms and envisioned herself and Andy in the front parlor, heard him speak his first few words.

“Mommy!”
Hannah stood directly above her, dripping water on her. “You
promised
.”

Nell looked up at her daughter. At this moment, she thought, I could as easily kill you as swim with you. Then her own needs faded in the face of Hannah’s beauty. My daughter, Nell thought. And I did promise.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll go with you. But then you and Jeremy have to let me rest. Deal?”

“Deal,” Hannah said in a rush. “Oh goody, Mommy, you’re going to love it today!”

Nell could not resist Hannah’s exuberance. Here, at least, she thought, was one human being on earth who got genuinely excited by Nell’s presence. Hannah pulled her mother into the water. It was cold, but not painful. Together they walked out deeper.

“Where’s Jeremy?” Nell asked. Hannah pointed to her brother, who was far out, turned away from shore, watching for the giant waves. They had been told there was some rhythm to the waves, that every sixth or seventh wave was the big wave that would billow in to lift and carry them on its back. The other waves were too flat, good only for little jumps. Nell and Hannah walked out until the water reached Hannah’s shoulders. After a few minutes, Nell’s stomach stopped contracting at the chill and she felt comfortable in the water. She could feel against her feet the sharp points of shells and
pebbles mixed in with the sand. Here the water was opaque, a thick moving turquoise. The safe white edge of foam ran several yards back up on shore. She held her daughter’s hand tightly, waiting to lift her child from the crash of the wave.

The first few waves were silly, easy; she and Hannah just jumped lightly, playing a little game. Then they saw the giant wave approach. Nell knew from past experience it was better to stay this far out, where the wave might overwhelm them but throw them into the relative softness of water. If they raced back to shore now, the wave’s force would hurl them headlong into the sand. This had happened to Nell more than once, and her children had scrapes on their legs and arms from being in too close to shore when a giant wave came. It took courage, though, to make a stand here, watching the swollen water, a sail full of sea, heading for them. Just before it hit, she turned and lifted Hannah up. Nell pushed off the sand with both feet. They rose of their own accord, and then came that fabulous sensation of being lifted up even more, so that they soared for a moment on the water’s curved back. Hannah screamed with glee.

Their feet touched the sand again, the ocean flattened around them. Nell turned back and searched the water for her son. Where was Jeremy? She saw him, surfacing from the water, far out with some teenagers and adults. He had gone out this far before, she knew that; she had seen him. She had to let him trust his own judgment, his own abilities to judge and swim. Still, it was hard to watch him, hard to let him make his own decisions in this way. Nell’s eyes burned from the salt in the water.

Clary came wading out toward them, smiling, her slim body slipping into the sea like a knife. “Great waves!” she called. She stationed herself a few feet from Nell and Hannah. The next few waves were small again, and Hannah and Nell and Clary jumped lightly, as if they were skipping rope. Then, “Look!” Clary called, and pointed. Once more a giant wave came rolling toward them, turning in the sunlight so that the water seemed a solid thing, a whale’s back, perhaps. Nell squeezed Hannah’s hand tightly. They looked at each other, giggling with fear, then back to the glistening wave, which had swept up and over past Jeremy so that Nell could not see him and which now approached her and her daughter like a great blue tongue that would overwhelm them and pull them down into the belly of the monstrous sea. They held hands, gauged the wave, jumped—and were lifted up, lifted free, carried, dropped. It was surprising how gently
the wave set them back down each time.

Nell stayed out with Hannah for a long time, until her eyes were stinging from the salt. Hannah didn’t seem to mind the sea water, and although she came in to play on the sand, to run on the teasing edge of surf, she wouldn’t stop to rest. Nell threw herself onto her towel, wiped her eyes, caught her breath. She saw that Clary had gone farther out and was with Jeremy now. Hannah was on the sand; both children were safe for a while. She could close her eyes.

The sun beat down on her back, warming her through and through. She stretched, felt her limbs relax. She meant to think over the events of the morning. Instead, she fell asleep.

She slept only a few minutes. When she awoke, things were all as they had been. Hannah was making a sand castle. Clary and Jeremy bobbed out in the ocean. The lifeguards in their orange trunks sat on their high chairs or strolled the beach, life preservers and whistles in hand. People laughed nearby. The sun was high and still; it seemed it would never move, it would never be dark again, nor would summer ever end. Nell sat up, ran a comb through her salty hair, put more lotion on her face. She watched her children play against the endless blue of water and sky.