The Body in the Kelp

for clay. They became partners and built up a thriving business in New York, producing unique ceramic pieces as well as an elegant line of dinnerware, much of which appeared in at least one room in the Kips Bay Decorator Show House and went from there to penthouses, country homes, and favored dwellings on both sides of the Atlantic. Needing change and more space, they had come to the island on the recommendation of a printmaker friend who lived nearby on the mainland. They had been here for six years, going their separate ways for a month or two in the dreary winter months, but otherwise living and working together in what seemed like an easy harmony.

Eric was a master at glazes, although they both did everything. His current woman friend was Jill Merriwether, who operated a small gift shop in Sanpere Village. Jill didn't sell their work. Her line tended to run to objects with blueberries on them, clam-basket planters lobster potholders, balsam pillows, books about Maine, and jam, usually strawberry and blueberry, made by a number of people on the island. The shop was, in fact, called The Blueberry Patch. Faith had bought Robert McCloskey's Blueberries for Sal there for Benjamin, and it was rapidly supplanting Goodnight Moon as the most-requested bedtime story. She figured she had read it about twenty times since buying it, and so far neither Ben nor she was tired of it.

Sanpere was an idyllic place, but still she imagined it must be pretty horrible in the off season. The population dropped drastically—from 3000 to 1200—although according to many islanders this was a blessing—and the cold weather forced an existence just ripe for cabin fever. She had met a friend of Pix's who had lived here one winter between jobs, and she had told Faith that by January she was going to every meeting on the island, even AA, just for the company.

“Don't you miss the city, Eric?' Faith wondered aloud.

“Of course I do, and when I can't stand it anymore I go down, and then after a week I miss Sanpere and can't wait to get back. That's how I know this is right for me. If you aren't satisfied in New York, then you must either be nuts or have found a spot that's better for you. Roger feels the same. He goes to the city even less often than I do, and it's usually for the business.'

“But what about the opera, theater, bagels?”

She looked at his well-worn 501 jeans. Clothes were obviously not a problem.

“Our deep freeze is stocked with bagels, Jewish rye, decent steaks, and all those necessities, and we have Alistair and PBS for the finer things of life. We do miss our friends, but they love to come up here. It's a much better atmosphere for us to work in, less pressure, less distraction. We are happier as artists and happier as people than we've ever been in our lives. Saner.' He gave the clay an emphatic slap, then started to kick the wheel.

Still Faith found it all very hard to understand. Aleford was bad enough, but at least Boston was not a cultural wasteland. There were all sorts of things to do that they seldom did. Sanpere didn't even have a movie theater. She'd heard that a group of residents did get up a little-theater production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof a few years back. Then the week before the opening the Maggie ran off with the Big Daddy, and no one had tried since.

She stood up. 'Well, I wish you good luck and much happiness in your new house, and if you have a housewarming, please invite me. I want to look in every corner and drink tea or something else in the gazebo.”

Eric gave her a warm smile. 'You don't have to wait for the party, Faith. As soon as we move in, you and the Millers will be our first guests, and anytime you want to sit in the gazebo, feel free.”

Faith decided she liked him. She liked attractive people. They were nice to look at, but Eric had more than that—intelligence and the kind of good nature that charms, yet isn't revolting.

“Thank you,' she replied. 'That sounds wonderful and I'll try to dig up a parasol. Now I have to rescue Samantha and get Benjamin home for lunch and a nap. I never realized what a slave children are to routines. I always thought childhood was supposed to be a time of freedom, but if the same things don't happen at the same time every day, he gets totally crazy.'

“I know; my sister's kids are such little conservatives. But with them it's food: `I say it's spinach and I say to hell with it' type stuff.'' Faith laughed, and her impression of him was reinforced—it was nice to share the same classics. She said good-bye and set off down the path to the beach.

Benjamin was right on schedule and started falling into his chowder at one o'clock. Faith scooped him up and put him to bed. She decided to take the new Vogue out to the hammock and have a rest herself. She'd drastically shortened most of her skirts a couple of years ago despite the prevailing fashion in Aleford, which had been mid calf since the late twenties. Now it looked as if she would have to raise some of them an inch or two more. It was absorbing work coping with trends. Besides, all this lassitude was exhausting. And she needed her strength for clamming with Pix later in the afternoon when the tide was still low.

She had no sooner opened the magazine to an Issey Miyake quilted jacket that said 'Faith, you need me' when a shadow fell across the page. She looked up. In this case, way up. It was Pix.

“Faith, how long have you been asleep? You were so peaceful I didn't want to disturb you, but you said you wanted clams.'

“I don't even remember dropping off. What time is it?' Faith tried to avoid wearing a watch whenever possible.

Pix consulted her gigantic multipurpose timepiece, which did everything from simply reporting the hour to informing one of the current exchange rate in Addis Ababa and the exact date of the return of the male elephant seals to Ano Nuevo.

“It's almost three o'clock.'

“Oh, my God!' Faith leaped out of the hammock and started running to the house. 'If Benjamin is up, there's no telling what he's into, and if he's not, he'll never sleep through the night.”

He was up, but miraculously had stayed in his crib, diverted by one of the branches of FAO Schwartz Faith kept steadily rotating there in the vain hope of keeping him from climbing out. He had learned to climb out of his crib six months before, and for weeks Tom and Faith's life was anightmare. Thrilled at the acquisition of this terrific skill, Benjamin would repeat the maneuver seven or eight times a night. It was one of those things no one tells you before you have a baby, yet everybody mentions afterward: 'Oh yes, Johnny climbed out forty times a night for eight months and we were regulars on the parental stress hotline.' Leach, Spock, Brazelton, all the heavy hitters commiserated and said just put him firmly back. Of course they weren't the sleep-deprived zombies in question.

It was at three o'clock one morning, after lifting Benjamin back in and admittedly snarling at him, 'It's time to go to sleep, you must stay in your bed,' that Faith realized she had literally stumbled on the solution to the capital-punishment dilemma. It was fiendishly simple. Put the murderers, rapists, insider traders, what-have-you, in a cell with a two-year-old hardened crib evacuator and after a week tops, total rehabilitation or insanity would have occurred. Tom was not amused when she woke him up to tell him. 'Faith, you're getting dangerously close to the edge,' he had mumbled.

Although Benjamin had somewhat curbed his wanderlust and slept through the night now, Faith was haunted by fears A recidivism. She and Pix were discussing this as they walked through the aspen grove that separated the cottage from the nearest shoreline. The green-gray leaves were quivering in the slight breeze on stems that looked too fragile to hold them in place. Shortly after Faith and Tom had arrived in Sanpere, Pix had told her that legend had it that the reason the aspen always quivered was because the cross had been made of its wood and forever after it mourned. Faith had been amazed that she had missed this tidbit of ecclesiastical folklore in her clerical upbringing and resolved to work it into the conversation at the next meeting of the church's ladies' alliance. She had found herself woefully lacking in such bona fides as a minister's wife. Pix would have been far abler, she reflected —not for the first time.

Samantha followed behind with Ben in a Gerry backpack. For some typical two-year-old reason he would let Samantha and no one else carry him this way.

All three of them were armed with clam hoes and wooden clam baskets lined with wire mesh. Faith was intrigued and a bit wary. Her wariness had increased when Pix had handed her a pair of olive-green rubber boots, size sixteen and encrusted with the vestiges of ancient mudfiats. Flapping along in these, wearing a bathing suit (Pix had said an old one, but then she didn't understand about updating a wardrobe), and beginning to feel uncomfortably warm, Faith found herself thinking that the victory might not be worth the price. However, she wanted clams and Pix said there was nothing in the world like absolutely fresh ones.

Faith decided to concentrate on dinner and hoped that would give her the sticking power. She had invited Pix,