“He crawled along the shore,” Natalie was saying. “I saw him go—he was like a little sand crab, and I just scooped him up and brought him back.”
“Duncan doesn’t crawl,” said Maddy.
“He does now,” Natalie said. “Very fast, too.”
Peter appeared then, and behind him were Shawn and Adam, and quickly everything was explained and re-explained. “Thank you,” Peter said quietly to Natalie. “My God, he might have drowned. What would we have done?”
“Yes, thank you,” Maddy said flatly. But she couldn’t even look at Natalie. The circle of watchers had broken up, going back to their blankets, their radios, their places in the sun, since there was no real drama here after all. “You saved his life,” she added, and then she wrapped her arms tighter around Duncan, her baby who now crawled, who would soon walk, who would need to be watched more closely—her baby who would soon be off into the world.
14
Spinsters!
At the end of the season that had come to be known as the summer of Sara’s death, the house seemed to outlive its usefulness. No one wanted to be there now, but no one knew how to move. There was a geometry of bad feelings in the air—none of it referred to directly. The only sounds of pleasure and comfort came from Maddy and Duncan, a mother and child who played together these days with ease.
Natalie was searching for a pack of matches in her straw bag, when she came across the tape of Shawn’s songs that Mel Wolf had returned to her. “Oh, Shawn, I completely forgot,” she said, taking out the tape. “Mel Wolf asked me to give you this, and to say thank you for letting him listen to it.”
Shawn took the tape without saying a word, but Adam, who was watching the transaction, blinked a few times and said, “What’s all this?”
And so the story of Shawn’s secret tape was revealed to Adam, whose face took on a squinting expression of incredulity. “You gave my producer your tape?” he said. “Without my permission?”
“Your permission? Give me a fucking break. You’re not in charge,” said Shawn, his hand shaking a little as he thrust the tape back into his pocket.
“No, but I distinctly told you it would make me uncomfortable,” said Adam.
“He was just trying to get Mel to listen,” said Natalie. “Come on, Adam, lighten up.”
Adam swung around to stare at Natalie. “You don’t know what you’re saying,” he said. “So please stay out of this.”
“Shawn didn’t mean anything,” she insisted.
“Yes he did, and don’t protect him,” Adam said. “You’re not his mother.” His voice was resoundingly loud and inappropriate, but he didn’t care. “You’re not my mother either, or the mother of any of us,” he went on. Everyone else just sat and stared. No one had ever raised their voice to Natalie; she was a grieving mother, she was exempt.
“I never said I was,” said Natalie.
“Oh, that is completely untrue,” he said. “You came here—I mean, you just showed up on our doorstep like an orphan—and what were we supposed to do, turn you away? No, we let you in because we felt sorry for you—”
“Don’t do me any favors,” said Natalie.
“So you became the big mother in the household. We were used to being the kids, and it felt right. But you got really into it, didn’t you?”
Natalie seemed to have sunk into her chair, to become smaller, old. Peter stood up in her vague defense, unsure of what to do. “Can you just stop this?” he asked Adam. “I think it’s enough already.”
“Oh, you’re one to talk,” said Maddy. “You’re the paragon of virtue, aren’t you?”
Peter turned to his wife. “I’m not a paragon of anything,” he
said. “I know I’m not.” He moved toward Maddy, but she flinched away from him.
“Please don’t,” she said. “I’ve been putting up with this, I’ve been living in this house because I don’t know what else to do, but don’t make me pretend everything is okay.”
Shawn glanced back and forth between Maddy and Peter, puzzled. “Is there something going on here that I don’t know about?” he said. “I mean, I snuck my tape to Melville Wolf, I put it in his car; what does that have to do with anybody else?”
“It’s not about you, Shawn,” said Maddy.
“Then what is it about?” he asked.
“Sara,” she said simply.
“Sara?” said Shawn. “I didn’t even know her. I met her the night of the accident.”
“Exactly,” Maddy said. “But it doesn’t matter. It extends forever and ever. Her reach. Her influence. I mean,” she continued, “who the hell was she? This person who we confided in, who we lived with. Look at us—we’re so pathetic. Dwelling on her, trapped here with each other.” She stood up, trembly suddenly, and said, “I wish I’d never met her.”
Now Natalie, as though signaled by some maternalistic satellite, sprang into defensive words. “She was a wonderful girl. She was. I knew her like no one else.” She broke off her own speech, because she had begun to cry. Fumbling in her bag for a tissue, she blew her nose very hard, and then said, weakly, “I am in mourning here, you know. I am the person who’s grieving.”
“We all are,” said Adam.
“No,” she said. “I’m the mother.
I’m the mother”
“Of course you are,” said Adam. “But we count too.”
“You were her friends, not her family,” Natalie said.
“I am so sick of that distinction,” Adam said. “Family is everything, and friends are nothing. Why wouldn’t you let us come to the funeral?”
“I already told you.”
“Tell me again. Don’t we have any rights? We wanted to say
good-bye. But no good-byes were allowed. Instead, we get you instead.”
“You invited me,” said Natalie.
“We were desperate,” Adam said.
“I’ll say you were,” Natalie said.
“Sara was a part of our lives,” said Adam. “Not just yours. I loved her. We didn’t have a password we’d say on the phone—we didn’t have a little ‘Surrender, Dorothy’ shtick; we had something completely different. A friendship. Which,” he continued, inhaling hard, raggedly, “you don’t give me any credit for. Because I’m the ‘gay friend,’ and I wasn’t her lover—I wasn’t like goddamn phony Sloan, or one of those other men who wouldn’t have made her happy—so I have no right to be hysterical about her.” He paused, feeling so far out of his element that it temporarily emboldened him. “But I am hysterical,” he said. “We all are. This whole house is hysterical.” She kept staring at him. “Look,” he said, lowering his voice, “I know it’s the hardest thing in the world to lose a child.”
“Oh, don’t give me your platitudes,” said Natalie. “You don’t know anything about having a child.”
“No,” he said. “But I know about Sara.”
“She was my daughter,” said Natalie.
“It’s not a contest.” But of course it was, a heated, furious competition, and the theme of it was: Who owned this broken girl now, her mother or her closest friends? There were no rules, no reference book in which to look up the answer. “We all loved her,” he said. “And I think that it’s made us a little insane.”
“Are you just about done?” said Natalie.
“Yes,” said Adam. “I am.”
“All right then,” she said in a prim voice, and then Natalie strode across the porch and walked out onto the lawn, going around the side of the house. In a moment they heard her car ignition starting. Everyone stared at each other; no one knew what to say.
“What’s this about?” said Shawn after a moment. He looked
at Maddy and Peter. “Why are you so angry at each other? What is going on that I should know about?”
“No offense, but there’s nothing you should know about,” said Peter. “This is private. You don’t even know us.”
“No, I don’t,” said Shawn. “And it’s just as well.” He was tired of them, tired of their wearying solipsism, their unhappiness. He was also tired of their disappointing house, and tired of Adam, who had a connection to a dead girl who still wouldn’t die. He was tired of all the talk that went on here; in this crowd, talk was such a big deal. For them, conversation was a form of high entertainment. But he was done with the talk, the late nights in the kitchen with the sunburst clock, and all the dawns in the narrow bed next to Adam, that mouth-breathing, sleepwalking boy genius. Shawn shouldn’t have come here at all; right now, he should have been in his apartment in Hell’s Kitchen with his two roommates, the actor/waiter and the weight trainer/musician, complaining about the heat and the grime, going to Sunday tea dances at Kimo Sabe and meeting men with good bodies, men who were fun to be with.
“Just tell me one thing,” Shawn said to Adam when the others had gone inside. “How come you get everything?”
“I don’t get everything.”
“How come,” Shawn went on, “there are some people who just know how to
get
things in life? It’s like there’s this whole breed of people who can’t win enough prizes. Other people want to keep
giving
them stuff, making dinners in their honor, handing them fucking plaques with their names engraved on them. Really, how come everyone is interested in what
you
have to say? Why should that be? It’s not as though you’re exactly a man of experience. Although I suppose you’d say that Sara’s death has given you experience, has opened you up or something. But you haven’t been around the world, or worked on a tramp steamer, or spent a year living in a ghetto. It’s not as though you have life experience, Adam. I mean, almost anyone has more of that than you. Even
I
do! I’ve gone to bed with more people, and I’ve worked at jobs you wouldn’t dream of doing, and I’ve been places that would give you a heart attack. I’ve been down by the docks in the city, and to a coke deal in Harlem with my fucked-up actor friend who had just gotten his first commercial—that margarine thing where he had to dress up like cholesterol—and he spent his entire paycheck on coke. I’ve done all these things, and I’m not stupid, either. So why can’t I have what you have? I know I’m not the greatest writer in the world, but do I really have to be? Is that what it takes? Is that what makes it happen, this golden thing that happened to you?”
“Two writers,” Adam said, helplessly. “It never works. We’ll always be looking over each other’s shoulder. It’s a mistake, it really is.”
Shawn nodded. After a moment he said, “I’m going to go now.”
“Go where?” asked Adam.
“Home. I’ll take the Jitney back to the city,” said Shawn, and he turned and walked into the house. He climbed the stairs slowly, waiting for the sound of the screen door opening, and Adam rushing in. But it didn’t happen; the house was silent and hot and as claustrophobic as ever. He hated Adam for wanting to hold him back, and he hated Melville Wolf for not liking his music. And he hated himself for not being able to make something happen, for not being able to charm everyone into giving him what he wanted. He needed to leave. He would miss Natalie; she was the only one. She would be puzzled when she returned and found him gone, but there was no other way. It had been a great relief to have a mother for a while. He wanted nothing more, right now, than to be in the dressing room of that men’s store with her again, dressed in finery and singing show tunes.
Shawn went into the bedroom, where his belongings mingled with Adam’s in haphazard maleness: waterproof watches with thick black straps; Jockey shorts; a stick of Arrid for Men,
unscented; a box, largely untouched, of Trojans; and the beautiful clothes Natalie had bought him. Shawn shoved all his things into his shoulder bag and hurried back downstairs. By the telephone in the kitchen was a list of numbers: Fire, Hospital, the Police, and, finally, a number that was to be saved for emergencies. “Mrs. Hope Moyles,” Shawn read, and then suddenly, impulsively, he picked up the receiver on the wall phone and dialed the number.
The landlady’s sister answered and put Mrs. Moyles on; Shawn had heard plenty about her, that she was an old drunk, and bitter. She sounded a little slurred now, but still she seemed to listen with attention when he spoke. “Mrs. Moyles,” he said in a clear, slow voice, “I am currently visiting your house at 17 Diller Way, and I feel it is my duty to report what has been going on here.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“I mean,” he said, “they’ve trashed your house. Totally. The place is a disgusting wreck.” He paused, then added, “And they’ve taken drugs here, too. Ask your next-door neighbor, he’ll tell you. Actually,” he said, “I think you should get here as soon as you can.” And before she could say anything, Shawn hung up. He was gone from the house within minutes, pausing to stand out front briefly to remind himself once again how ugly this place was, and how he wouldn’t miss it. The only thing he left behind was the gift he had brought that first day: the bayberry candle that flickered out on the back porch, in the kind of chilly breeze that always signifies the end of summer.
W
ITH
S
HAWN GONE
and Natalie off in her car, the house was quiet. Maddy sat with Duncan on the grass, listening attentively for the sound of Natalie’s car pulling up out front. Hours went by; no car came. It was astonishing to realize that she loved Sara’s mother; she loved her like a mother. After everything that had
happened, she couldn’t hate Natalie Swerdlow, just as she couldn’t hate Sara. All the hatred had been dismantled piece by piece, and Maddy felt only very tired now. Duncan was crawling in pursuit of a butterfly—one of those small, pale yellow ones that fluttered especially quickly and desperately. She loved being with her baby, ever since her late-night talk with Natalie. She loved Duncan in a way that took her by surprise. She knew that even if she and Peter broke up, she would have Duncan, and she would be okay. She would bury herself into him, devoting all her thoughts and energy to him. What else was there, after all? She had no best friend anymore, and she could not trust her husband. If Peter moved out, she would be as lonely as Natalie, lying alone in the center of the bed at night and pacing the rooms she lived in, forever.
Now Maddy went upstairs and made her way onto the roof, which seemed the right place to be. Out there, smoking again, she leaned against the warm shingles and thought of how much she wanted her life back. She wanted to be just meeting Sara by the lake, just falling in love with Peter in college, just starting the hopeful rise instead of the premature descent. Nearby, a window squeaked open and Peter stepped outside.