“Let’s get married,” he said in a sudden strong voice. He had the air of a man who has decided that the best way to solve the Gordian knot problem would be to hack right down through the middle of it. Full speed ahead and get the whiners below decks.
“No,” she said. “I don’t want to marry you.”
It was as if his face was held together by a number of unseen bolts and each of them had suddenly been loosened a turn and a half. Everything sagged at once. The image was so cruelly comical that she had to rub her wounded tongue against the rough top of her mouth to keep from getting the giggles again. She didn’t want to laugh at Jess.
“Why not?” he asked. “Fran—”
“I have to think of my reasons why not. I’m not going to let you draw me into a discussion of my reasons why not, because right now I don’t know.”
“You don’t love me,” he said sulkily.
“In most cases, love and marriage are mutually exclusive states. Pick another choice.”
He was silent for a long time. He fiddled with a fresh cigarette but didn’t light it. At last he said: “I can’t pick another choice, Frannie, because you don’t want to discuss this. You want to score points off me.”
That touched her a little bit. She nodded. “Maybe you’re right. I’ve had a few scored off me in the last couple of weeks. Now you, Jess, you’re Joe College all the way. If a mugger came at you with a knife, you’d want to convene a seminar on the spot.”
“Oh for God’s sake.”
“Pick another choice.”
“No. You’ve got your reasons all figured out. Maybe I need a little time to think, too.”
“Okay. Would you take us back to the parking lot? I’ll drop you off and do some errands.”
He gazed at her, startled. “Frannie, I rode my bike all the way down from Portland. I’ve got a room at a motel outside of town. I thought we were going to spend the weekend together.”
“In your motel room. No, Jess. The situation has changed. You just get back on your ten-speed and bike back to Portland and you get in touch when you’ve thought about it a little more. No great hurry.”
“Stop riding me, Frannie.”
“No, Jess, you were the one who rode me,” she jeered in sudden, furious anger, and that was when he slapped her lightly backhand on the cheek.
He stared at her, stunned.
“I’m sorry, Fran.”
“Accepted,” she said colorlessly. “Drive on.”
They didn’t talk on the ride back to the public beach parking lot. She sat with her hands folded in her lap, watching the slices of ocean layered between the cottages just west of the seawall. They looked like slum apartments, she thought. Who owned these houses, most of them still shuttered blindly against the summer that would begin officially in less than a week? Professors from MIT. Boston doctors. New York lawyers. These houses weren’t the real biggies, the coast estates owned by men who counted their fortunes in seven and eight figures. But when the families who owned them moved in here, the lowest IQ on Shore Road would be Gus the parking attendant. The kids would have ten-speeds like Jess’s. They would have bored expressions and they would go with their parents to have lobster dinners and to attend the Ogunquit Playhouse. They would idle up and down the main street, masquerading after soft summer twilight as street people. She kept looking out at the lovely flashes of cobalt between the crammed-together houses, aware that the vision was blurring with a new film of tears. The little white cloud that cried.
They reached the parking lot, and Gus waved. They waved back.
“I’m sorry I hit you, Frannie,” Jess said in a subdued voice. “I never meant to do that.”
“I know. Are you going back to Portland?”
“I’ll stay here tonight and call you in the morning. But it’s your decision, Fran. If you decide, you know, that an abortion is the thing, I’ll scrape up the cash.”
“Pun intended?”
“No,” he said. “Not at all.” He slid across the seat and kissed her chastely.
“I love you, Fran.”
I don’t believe you do, she thought. Suddenly I don’t believe it at all… but I’ll accept in good grace. I can do that much.
“All right,” she said quietly.
“It’s the Lighthouse Motel. Call if you want.”
“Okay.” She slid behind the wheel, suddenly feeling very tired. Her tongue ached miserably where she had bitten it.
He walked to where his bike was locked to the iron railing and coasted it back to her. “Wish you’d call, Fran.”
She smiled artificially. “We’ll see. So long, Jess.”
She put the Volvo in gear, turned around, and drove across the lot to the Shore Road. She could see Jess standing by his bike yet, the ocean at his back, and for the second time that day she mentally accused him of knowing exactly what kind of picture he was making. This time, instead of being irritated, she felt a little bit sad. She drove on, wondering if the ocean would ever look the way it had looked to her before all of this had happened. Her tongue hurt miserably. She opened her window wider and spat. All white and all right this time. She could smell the salt of the ocean strongly, like bitter tears.
Chapter 3
Norm Bruett woke up at quarter past ten in the morning to the sound of kills fighting outside the bedroom window and country music from the radio in the kitchen.
He went to the back door in his saggy shorts and undershirt, threw it open, and yelled: “You kids shutcha heads!”
A moment’s pause. Luke and Bobby looked around from the old and rusty dump truck they had been arguing over. As always when he saw his kids, Norm felt dragged two ways at once. His heart ached to see them wearing hand-me-downs and Salvation Army giveouts like the ones you saw the nigger children in east Arnette wearing; and at the same time a horrible, shaking anger would sweep through him, making him want to stride out there and beat the living shit out of them.
“Yes, Daddy,” Luke said in a subdued way. He was nine.
“Yes, Daddy,” Bobby echoed. He was seven going on eight. Norm stood for a moment, glaring at them, and slammed the door shut. He stood for a moment, looking indecisively at the pile of clothes he had worn yesterday. They were lying at the foot of the sagging double bed where he had dropped them.
That slutty bitch, he thought. She didn’t even hang up my duds.
“Lila!” he bawled.
There was no answer. He considered ripping the door open again and asking Luke where the hell she had gone. It wasn’t donated commodities day until next week and if she was down at the employment office in Braintree again she was an even bigger fool than he thought.
He didn’t bother to ask the kids. He felt tired and he had a queasy, thumping headache. Felt like a hangover, but he’d only had three beers down at Hap’s the night before. That accident had been a hell of a thing. The woman and the baby dead in the car, the man, Campion, dying on the way to the hospital. By the time Hap had gotten back, the State patrol had come and gone, and the wrecker, and the Braintree undertaker’s hack. Vic Palfrey had given the Laws a statement for all five of them. The undertaker, who was also the county coroner, refused to speculate on what might have hit them.
“But it ain’t cholera. And don’t you go scarin people sayin it is. There’ll be an autopsy and you can read about it in the paper.”
Miserable little pissant, Norm thought, slowly dressing himself in yesterday’s clothes. His headache was turning into a real blinder. Those kids had better be quiet or they were going to have a pair of broken arms to mouth off about. Why the hell couldn’t they have school the whole year round?
He considered tucking his shirt into his pants, decided the President probably wouldn’t be stopping by that day, and shuffled out into the kitchen in his sock feet. The bright sunlight coming in the east windows made him squint.
