The Wooden Sea Page 4

  The title of the painting was “Old Vertue.”

  “How did you know about this, George?”

  “I remembered the painting.”

  I closed the book and read the title. Great Animal Portraits. “Does the author say anything about the picture in the introduction?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about this after you saw the body and I told you his name?”

  “Because first I wanted to hear how you felt about it.”

  I was so angry I wanted to hit him on the head with the book. I was so rattled I wanted to go into the second hole I was going to dig for the dead dog and hide. I dropped the book on the floor. George started for it but when my body tensed, he froze.

  “What am I supposed to do about this?”

  He squatted down like a baseball catcher and put his hand on the arm of my chair to balance himself. Both of us remained silent. Chuck rolled over on his back and started doing that thing dogs do when they’re happy or feeling goofy: back and forth – flip flop.

  “George, what would you do if you were me?”

  “Bury the dog again. Then see what happens.”

  “Not much else I can do, is there?”

  “You could have it cremated at the Amerling Animal Shelter, but I don’t think that would end the problem.”

  “It’ll come back, won’t it?”

  “I think so. Yes it will.”

  “No good deed goes unpunished. That’s what I get for being nice to a dead dog: Fucker comes back to haunt me. This is absurd. Why am I talking this way?”

  “Because wonder’s grabbed you by the arm, Frannie. Because it’s out of your control. Something else is making the rules now.”

  A strange, disturbing thought arrived. I couldn’t stop asking, “Is it you, George? Have you done all this? Is that why I came here today—because you set it up? You’re weird. Maybe you’re weirder than I imagined.”

  “Thank you, I’m flattered, but you’re still looking for logical answers. Even if I had set you up, how do you explain that painting in the book?”

  “You found a dog that looked like the picture. You put it in the parking lot knowing someone would find it.... This is ridiculous. There would be too many coincidences and things that could go wrong.”

  “Exactly. You want clear answers where there are none. What you have to do is create a real question and put it honestly in your heart. Then go looking for a clear answer. I’m not involved in this, but I’m very happy you came today. It’s the only time I have ever seen wonder firsthand. And I believe that’s what this is.”

  There was a big beautiful apple tree in George’s backyard he planted years ago when he moved into his house. He was enormously proud of it. All year he sprayed, watered, and cared for it. A tree surgeon was called at the slightest sign of anything suspect. Although he never ate any, George spent hours in the fall carefully picking and placing the fruit in large wicker baskets he bought specifically for that purpose. He donated all of it to our town hospital. I had eaten apples from the tree and they were horrible, but don’t tell him that.

  Sitting under that tree, he watched as I flung dirt out of the hole. Although he had offered to help, I insisted on doing the job myself. If Old Vertue had come for me, I assumed it was my duty to dig for him.

  “How old are you, Frannie?”

  “Forty-seven.”

  “Have you noticed how the meanings of words change the older we get? When I was young I used to think old meant fifty. Now I’m almost fifty and old is eighty. When I was twenty, I thought the word love meant a sexy woman and a good marriage. Now the only love I feel is for my work, Chuck, and this tree. Yet that’s sufficient.”

  I shoved the spade into the ground and heaved. “Aren’t you just saying things are relative?”

  “No, something completely different. Over a lifetime our definitions of things change radically, but because it’s so gradual we’re blind to them. As the years pass, our names for things no longer fit but we still keep using them.”

  “Because it’s convenient and we’re lazy.” Up with another shovelful.

  “Did you know the Farsi language has over fifty different terms for the word love?”

  “Why are we having this conversation, George? Uh-oh! Here we go again.”

  “What?”

  “There’s something in here. In this hole too. Just like last time with the bone.”

  “What is it?”

  I bent over and picked up the brightly colored object the shovel had just uncovered. “Oh my God!”

  “What Frannie? What?”

  “It’s—it’s—”

  “What?” George was frantic.

  “It’s Mickey Mouse!” I tossed up the rubber figure I’d dug up. “It must have been in the ground ten thousand years.”

  Even he laughed while he jiggled the child’s squeeze toy in his hand. “At least. Twenty years ago some kid was heartbroken a whole afternoon after losing this thing.”

  When I finished digging and hadn’t unearthed any other archaeological treasures, I laid Old Vertue in his new berth and shoveled dirt over him. Chuck christened the new grave by pissing on it as soon as I was done, which was only appropriate. Ashes to ashes, dog to dog. George and I stood there a few moments looking at the spot.

  “What do I do now?”

  “Nothing. Wait.”

  “Maybe he’s already in the trunk of my car.”

  “I doubt it, Frannie.”

  “But you do think he’ll be back? That it wasn’t just some lunkhead’s prank?”

  “Nope. And I think it’s exciting.”

  “I knew this guy whose wife got pregnant when they were in their forties. I asked how he felt about it and he said, ‘It’s okay, but to tell you the truth, I’m too old for Little League.’ It’s sort of the same thing for me here—I think I’m too old for wonder.”

  “Pauline got tattooed.” Magda’s voice hit like a flamethrower the minute I walked in the door that evening. But her news was sensational. The thought of Fade making such a confident and uncharacteristic gesture made me want to clap. But if I let her mother know that she’d hit me.

  I tried to sound... thoughtful. “Well, it is her body—”

  She glared at me. “It is not her body when she does something as stupid as this. What’ll it be next—piercing? I hear branding is very in these days. She’s a teenager who suddenly wants to be trendy. I’ll be your cliché tonight. Don’t you dare take her side in this, Frannie, or I’ll tattoo your head.”

  “Is it big or small?”

  “Is what?”

  “The tattoo.”

  “I don’t know. She won’t show me! She just announced she’d done it and left me standing there with my jaw on top of my foot. My daughter has a tattoo. I’m so ashamed.”

  “I thought you two were together today.”

  “We were! We went to the Amerling mall. After lunch we split up for a couple of hours. When we met up later, she told me what she’d done. She’s such a quiet kid, Frannie. Why on earth would she do something so loony?”

  “Maybe she doesn’t want to be quiet anymore.”

  Magda crossed her arms and tapped her foot. “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “Well, what are you going to do about it?”

  “I think we have to see what it is first, honey. If it’s a little thing like a bug or something—”

  “A bug? Who gets bugs tattooed on their body?”

  “You’d be surprised. Down at the county jailhouse you’ll see tattoos—”

  “Don’t change the subject. You’re her stepfather and a policeman—”

  “Should I arrest her?”

  She stepped up close and surprisingly wrapped her thin arms around me. With her mouth an inch from my ear she growled in her deadliest voice, “I want you to talk to her.”

  Dinner that night was no fun occasion. Luckily it was my turn to cook so I didn’t have to endure the lunar si
lence emanating from the living room. Usually dinnertime was nice in our house. The three of us gathered in the kitchen and talked about our day. The radio was always on to an oldies station and when a great one played, we’d stop what we were doing and dance to the Dixie Cups or Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders.

  That night, for some ominous reason, both women sat in the living room five feet across from each other, pretending to read. I think Magda was there to make believe her daughter’s tattoo didn’t bother her a bit. Life as usual. The only problem was you could see her mouth moving as she thought up one good zinger after another to say to her errant child. I think Pauline was there because she was either testing the waters or silently proclaiming she’d do whatever she pleased now and we’d just have to accept it.

  So long as it wasn’t something dumb or obscene, I had no gripe with a tattoo. I was only curious to see what this strange young woman would want permanently engraved on some as yet unknown location on her body. While stirring the mulligatawny soup, I wondered out loud, “A dragon? Nah. A heart?” Et cetera. But if I didn’t placate Magda on this matter I knew I’d be in soup deeper than the spicy one bubbling on the stove.

  I had an idea. Divide and conquer. I opened the kitchen door and asked Pauline to come in a minute. She shot a quick glance at her mother to see if this move had already been worked out between us, but Magda didn’t even look.

  No one gave up less when it was necessary. The queen of the Cold Shoulder, the Zipped Lip, Mum’s the Word, Pauline’s mum could shut you out quicker than a slammed door.

  Tossing her head, Pauline marched across the room and into the kitchen. “What?” she demanded in an imperious voice completely not her own.

  I smiled at her.

  “What?”

  “Your ma’s going to glue us both to her shitlist if you don’t at least tell me where and what it is.”

  She crossed her arms and tightened her lips exactly like Magda. “It’s my body. I’ll do what I want with it.”

  “I agree. But we’ve got to come up with a way to resolve this thing without her going nuclear. Being stubborn is not how to do it.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Where is it?”

  She sized me up, stuck out her bottom lip. “I’m not going to tell you. You’re trying to manipulate me. I hate that.”

  “Then what is it? At least you can tell me that. Give us a bone, Pauline; give me something I can offer Magda that’ll calm her down. Be an individual, but remember you’re also a daughter. Your mother worries about you. Don’t be unreasonable. We’re on your side.”

  “Forget it, Frannie. I don’t need to justify what I do. I wanted a tattoo and I got one. If I want to pierce my tongue I’ll get it pierced.”

  I looked at heaven and clasped my hands together like an Italian in prayer. “Pauline, don’t tell your mother that! Don’t even use the word pierced within a two-mile radius. Holy shit!”

  “I’m not going to get pierced, but I will if I feel like it!”

  I mentioned before that as a kid I was dangerously bad news. For the most part I have disappeared that part of me. But now and then that little shit from yesteryear pops up, usually in the wrong situation. Pauline’s voice was so rude and self-righteous that young Fran sprang out of my mouth and went right for her throat. In the most annoying and obnoxious voice I had, I mimicked what she had just said. To further the insult, I tipped my head left and right while I spoke, like some retarded Punch and Judy puppet, “...but I will if I feel like it!”

  To her credit, my stepdaughter said nothing but gave me a long, disgusted look. Dignity intact, she turned and left the kitchen. I heard her mother call out anxiously, “Where are you going?” Then came the sound of the front door closing. Magda was in the kitchen twenty seconds later. “What did you say to her? What did you do?”

  “Blew it. I made fun of her.”

  She touched her forehead. “This is ridiculous! I’m sounding exactly like my mother with my sister!”

  Magda’s older sister was a teenager when she was murdered thirty years ago. A wild girl, she was notorious in Crane’s View for doing whatever she wanted. Magda said most of her childhood memories were of her mother and sister screaming at each other.

  The front doorbell rang. We looked at each other. Pauline?

  Why ring the bell to her own house? Maybe she’d forgotten her keys. I put down the soup ladle and went to answer it.

  No one was there. I stepped out beyond the range of the porch light to have a look around. Nothing. Kids ringing the police chief’s bell and running? As I was going back into the house something stopped me: My nose. Although it was much vaguer, that wonderful fragrance was in the air again. The last time I’d smelled it around here was in the garage when Old Vertue reappeared. Was this his calling card? I wasn’t waiting to find out.

  Ignoring the cooking soup, I crossed the lawn to our garage and looked in. Someone was sitting in the passenger’s seat of our car. I took a few steps toward it and recognized Pauline. Before dealing with her I had to check something out. I already had my keys in hand and opened the trunk expecting I don’t know what. Nothing was there. I let out a long slow relieved breath. If that dog’s body had been there again at that moment with Pauline in the car I would’ve ... I don’t know what I would’ve. But the smell was stronger in the garage, no doubt about it.

  “Pauline?”

  “I want a prime-time life.” She didn’t move. Simply stared straight ahead and addressed the garage wall.

  “Nothing wrong with that. Prime time is the place to be.”

  “We read this line in class last semester that scared me so much; I can’t stop thinking about it. ‘How can you hide from what never goes away.’ That’s why I got this tattoo. Mom thinks it’s because I want to be like everyone else, but it’s just the opposite. I want people at school to hear about it and say ‘Her, Pauline Ostrova? That stupid little bookworm got a tattoo?’ I don’t want the person I am to be the person I’m going to be when I get older, Frannie.

  “I rang the bell just now. I didn’t want to be alone out here. I was hoping you’d come find me.”

  “That’s okay. But I wish you’d come back in the house now. Soup’s on. Remember one thing too—usually what scares you most makes you do the most work. Ghosts make you run faster than a math test.”

  She didn’t move. “I’m not sorry I did it. The tattoo, I mean.”

  “You don’t need to be sorry. What is it anyway?”

  “None of your business.”

  Life went on. We drank our soup, went to bed, rose the next morning, and walked into the future Pauline was so worried about. Old Vertue didn’t reappear, and neither did the Schiavos. The air went back to smelling like it usually does; our car started. Johnny Petangles fell into one of the ditches they were digging by the river and sprained his ankle. Susan Ginnety went away for a conference of small-town mayors. When she returned, her husband Frederick had moved out. Even worse for the mayor, he rented a house four blocks away. When I bumped into him at the market he said she could throw him out of her life but he wasn’t going to leave the town he had grown to like very much.

  I was surprised. To tell you the truth, Crane’s View is not much of a burg. Most people happen on it by mistake or while looking for other more picturesque Hudson Valley towns. Sometimes they stop to eat at Scrappy’s Diner or Charlie’s Pizza. Sometimes they hang around long enough afterward for a stroll around the one-block downtown while digesting their high-cholesterol meal.

  I like living here because I like familiar things. I always put my shoes in the same place before going to bed; I eat the same meal for breakfast most days. When I was younger I saw enough of the world to know I was not meant to live in countries whose postage stamps picture elephants, penguins, or coluber de rusi snakes. No thanks. Like others of my generation who went to Vietnam and were traumatized by the experience, I traveled a lot before returning home. I can do without waking in the morning to
the sound of a coughing camel sticking its head in my bedroom window (Kabul), or eating fresh mangoes at the outdoor market in Port Louis, Mauritius. Crane’s View is a peanut butter sandwich—very filling, very American, sweet, not very interesting. God bless it.

  A few nights later the frantic little man who took up residence in my bladder around age forty woke me up, demanding the toilet—right now! Welcome to middle age. That time in life when you learn your body is not the sum of its parts but some of its parts work and some stop.

  Magda was wrapped around me in a sweet familiar way. She mumbled a sexy grumble when I untangled myself from her. My first wife slept so far away from me that I had to make a longdistance call if I wanted more covers. Even waking in the middle of the night now, the first thing that came to mind was how much I loved the woman next to me. I kissed her warm cheek and stood up. The wooden floor was cold under my bare feet; one of the small sure signs fall was on the way.

  Your home is always more mysterious in the middle of the night. After-midnight noises hide behind the rest of the day. The finicky way the floor creaks, the slippy, wood-sanding sound of bare feet going someplace. The fat fly unmoving on the window-pane, black against the silver-blue light from the street. You smell the cold and dust.

  I walked down the hall toward the bathroom. To my surprise the light was on in there. Music was playing quietly. Getting closer I recognized Bob Marley singing “No Woman, No Cry” at two in the morning. The door was cracked open a few inches. I leaned forward and peeked in.

  Pauline stood with her back to me staring at herself in the mirror. She wore enough black eye makeup to pass for a crow. She was also completely naked. My first reaction was an instinctive whoops! and a quick pull back. Which I did, but something lodged in my brain like a thrown dart. I’d seen something in there and not just my stepdaughter naked for the first time. I did not want to see Pauline naked—not once, not twice, not never—but I had to go back and look again. Luckily, she was still hypnotizing herself in the mirror and didn’t notice the Peeping Fran at the door.