The Hard Blue Sky (25 page)

And as she remembered, she was almost sure it had happened to her.

“There were lots and lots of trees out back there … a pecan orchard somebody planted a long time ago. And there was a little street that went across the back, a mud street and not very good, so not many people used it, just the ones who had houses there.”

“Be damned,” Inky said, “that’s beginning to sound all right.”

“You could park a car there—and he’d always come in with his lights switched off, just to be extra sure. And there was a piece of the wire fence that just lifted up—it was old wire and rusted through. It was so dark with the trees. And the streetlight way down at the corner.”

She was crying now, she felt the tears on her cheeks. She stopped, wiped them away. The feeling of elation was gone, and she was back staring at the short slim dark man who had come in to the island on the sailboat. He was wearing a white sweat shirt with a big rip on the shoulder and his pants had grease stains.

And she wondered if the tears had smeared the make-up. …

“You had a rough time, huh?” Inky said.

She noticed with surprise that he was looking at her legs and without thinking she drew them closer under her.

He noticed and grinned. “You got nice legs.”

“Warren used to say that. …” but the fun was gone from the story. And there was only a dry taste at the back of her mouth.

He was carrying a long switch of willow in his hand. He flicked it back and forth like a whip.

“Look at me,” he said, “I’m working to get in the circus.”

“You got nothing else to do?”

“This is the life,” he said, “man, this sure is.”

“Nothing to do.”

“That’s what I like, honey.” He squinted at her. “I never had very much of that in my life … and I like it now.”

She pulled a long blade of grass and began to suck it.

“I heard the racket from your party last night clear down to the boat.”

She had almost forgot—the party, the wedding-party.

“You didn’t come?”

“Nobody ask me.”

“It was sort of a family thing, I guess.”

“I figured that.”

“You coulda come.”

“I guess.”

“People are all right, when they get used to you.”

“That girl now, Cecile something or other, she seemed like a nice sort.”

Annie nodded, threw away the blade of grass and reached for another.

“She was the first person I ran into on the island.”

“She’s all right,” Annie said.

She was beginning to feel the lack of sleep. There was a little headache starting and her shoulders felt heavy.

“What sort of a guy is he?”

“Who?”

“Her husband.”

“He’s nice too.” The few tears made her eyes burn. She blinked rapidly.

“She’s good-looking.”

“Don’t you let Hector hear that.”

“Why not?”

“Just don’t.”

“Don’t he know what she look like?”

“Sure he does,” Annie said, “only he’s not going to like anybody else looking.”

“Okay,” Inky laughed, “I got it.”

Annie yawned and shook her head.

“Party got you too?”

“Guess so.”

“Say …” Inky said, “it was your old man? The guy who got married?”

“Sure.”

“How’d you like that?”

“I liked it fine.”

“Two women in the house.”

“I’m not likely to be in the house long.” No one had used the word woman to her before—she felt a little jump of pride.

“How come?”

Annie shrugged and yawned again.

“You getting married or something?”

“Could be.”

“I was crazy not to see it,” Inky said and scratched his curly short-cut hair. “A good-looking gal is bound to get married.”

It’s me he’s talking to, Annie told herself.

And she lifted her head and, very carefully, smiled just a little to herself.

The way Beatriz must have done. … And for a minute she could feel the long black hair waving down to her shoulders, hanging down her back.

She lifted one hand, and touched her own short blond hair.

And she wasn’t Beatriz anymore. She was back on the island. And Inky was in front of her, grinning.

“You sure do go off in a trance.”

“Oh,” she said, vaguely.

“Was he that good?”

“Huh?”

“You get that look in your eyes when you think about him.”

“I don’t.”

Inky got a new pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket.

“How long you going to be here?”

“Until somebody tells me to get going.”

“He pay you?”

“Maybe,” Inky said.

Annie put both hands behind her head and laughed. “I’m not trying to find out how much money you carrying around.”

“He didn’t pay me, but he will all right.”

“I don’t believe that,” Annie said.

“I can’t make you.”

“You got sense not to go flashing a roll.”

“If I had it, I wouldn’t do that.”

Annie got up. “I got to see about getting me a nap.”

“Can I come?” Inky grinned and lit a cigarette. “Want one?”

She took it. “Just one match.” She put both in her blouse pocket.

“What’s that for?”

“My papa’ll hit the roof if he sees me smoking.”

“You going to sneak it?”

“Sure.”

“Where you going to take your nap?”

She shrugged.

“I’ll come keep you company.”

“What for?”

“Watch you.” Inky blew smoke in a small ring that the wind broke. “Maybe take a nap myself.”

There was a tingle in Annie’s stomach and for a minute she wondered if she was going to be sick. “No thanks.”

“Okay,” Inky said, “I was just asking.”

Annie yawned again.

“I was taking a short cut,” Inky said, “and sort of got mixed up—which way’s the grocery?”

“Right down there … and you turn when you see a red-painted cistern, and keep on going.”

“Thanks,” Inky said.

Annie ducked back through the blackberry thicket. She could move through the tangle almost as quick as a deer could, and just as silent. That was why she always found more berries—she could go farther in than anyone else.

She came out of the thicket and cut across the little swampy spot. She pulled a leaf from the jonc plat and chewed on it, wondering why the muskrats liked it. She stopped to spit out the reed, and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. A whole cloud of grasshoppers flew up from her feet. She climbed the slight rise of the shell mound and was in the shade of the chinaberry trees. It was a kind of island here, with swampy stretches on all sides. Under the trees the black ground was covered with the crinkled gray seeds, a few heaps of white shell, and a clump or two of nicomus daisies.

She stretched out flat, the seeds crunching and shifting under her weight. And she stared straight up at the blue white sky through the umbrella-shaped clumps of leaves.

Did Beatriz do this, she wondered, Beatriz who had sheer flowing nightdresses. Annie closed her eyes and could see her. The lovely gown, and the heavy beautiful figure. Annie craned up her head and squinted at her own body: she would never look like that.

There was a dry taste in her mouth. From the jonc plat, she thought.

“I shoulda brought some water,” she said aloud.

And she was terribly sleepy. … She thought about her father, who was married now. He had done it, she thought, and that was all.

There was the warmth of the ground under her, and the heat of the day all around her. She closed her eyes but didn’t sleep. There were just pictures floating across her lids. Beatriz with her hair in curlers. … Inky’s brown eyes, that were too large for his face … the way the flat mulberry leaves looked against the sun. … The chipped front tooth Inky had … her father’s mustache, and his teeth that were white and perfect … the breeze that went past her, flowing like water, and the heavy jasmine odor. And the feel of the stone on the convent’s roof. … The blue shirt that had faded almost white except at the seams. … An ortolan skimming right over the green pebblelike buds of a crepe myrtle. … The shirt bright blue at the seams, and a pack of cigarettes in the pocket. Inky’s shirt … A bayou whose name she’d forgot, thick heavy water, like oil almost, breaking in slow waves from the boat’s bow, water that was black and heavy from all the dead things in it. … The brown-haired woman with her hair drawn back so smooth it looked like it was painted there over her ears. … The dogs, one black, two brown-and-black-and-tan, loping down the beach, just inside the little surf line. … Beatriz, peering out of the window, while the wind swirled her robe and her heavy perfume.

Annie rolled over, rubbing at her eyes.

How did it start, she wondered, this man that Beatriz met? And what had happened? What were they doing now?

“I’ll write her,” Annie said, and even she did not believe that.

Where did she meet him? Or did it just happen?

Like Inky, maybe?

“He needs a woman,” she said aloud and her eyes popped open in surprise. She had not thought of it before she said it. She would not have believed it. But now, being said, it seemed true.

So, she thought, so … that was how it started.

Still, maybe. And how did you find out. How did Beatriz find out? It wasn’t something you could ask. And it wasn’t something you could push. How did you know? And what did you do?

Without opening her eyes she picked up a handful of the little chinaberry seeds and began tossing them in the air one by one. The steady cricket calls stopped abruptly.

Maybe you just waited and waited and nothing happened. And maybe if you tried to hurry it it would go all wrong and he’d go running away a thousand miles.

She should have asked Beatriz.

But that wouldn’t have worked either. That wouldn’t have worked.

Maybe there was something she was supposed to do and she wasn’t. Maybe it was something right in front of her, lying right in front of her eyes. And maybe he was cursing her for a fool.

She wanted to cry but her eyes hurt too much from last night. So she kept very still and listened to the crickets come back one by one, until the whole hot afternoon was filled with their dry rustling.

She was a cute kid, Inky thought. And she needed a man worst way. They all did at that age. It was kind of funny the way they couldn’t quite figure out what was eating on them. The story about Warren now … it just didn’t make sense. She was probably just sleeping with some island guy. And that was her way of dressing it up. Or, maybe, he paused, rubbing his chin and smearing grape juice on his jaw … maybe it was true. Hell, no, he thought.

She was almost grown up. Figure was pretty good: he had noticed. And she did have one thing—a gal he’d once dated had named it for him—a blouse full of goodies. She had quite a face too, with those big light blue eyes.

But she just wasn’t the type he went for. Not his type at all.

That same afternoon he got to feeling restless. The island was so small. And the mosquitoes. And just now a cloud of biting gnats. When a lizard ran out on the deck, he smashed it savagely—and then had to clean off the smear.

Finally he marched over to Arcenaux’s to use the telephone. The grocery was crowded, and he knew that all the people would be listening, but he didn’t care. He got three dollars in change from Julius and then went into the little phone room.

He called Arthur first at his office. A voice said that he had gone home, a soft gentle voice with a touch of Alabama drawl—Inky recognized it. He had seen the secretary once, when he’d had to go to the office; a good-looking redhead. He’d wondered then about Arthur. What man wouldn’t give that a try. …

Inky called the house. He got Helen, then Arthur. By this time the irritation that had prompted him to call had worn away. And he listened to Arthur patiently.

“Okay,” he said finally. “One more week.”

He hung up the receiver and went back into the grocery. No one was standing anywhere near the wall—no one was listening—but Inky could have sworn that he had heard the rush of feet just a second before. It didn’t really bother him.

H
ENRY HAD BEEN GONE
for six days before the Livaudais started to worry.

In the morning Pete was very nervous. He had got up five or six times during the night to check his brother’s bed. When during the afternoon he finally got into a fight with George Manint, he felt much better for it.

And when Eddie came home that night, Belle was waiting, standing just inside the front screen door. “He ain’t back yet,” she said.

Eddie stopped just where he was, halfway up the steps, for a couple of minutes. Then he nodded. And walked away.

He was back again in maybe ten minutes. They did not have to say any more. Before light in the morning, he and his brother Mike went out.

And within a couple of hours the whole island knew that Henry was lost in the marsh and that the Livaudais had started to look for him.

That was on Friday.

W
EEK-ENDS THERE WERE
dances at the Rendezvous. On Friday night there was a piano and an accordion and on Saturday there was a five-piece band—they came down from Petit Prairie every week. And on Sunday night there was nothing but the juke box.

Late on that Friday afternoon, Inky finished scrubbing the jenny. It had gotten mildewed, stowed away. So he had put it out on the wharf, and gone over it foot by foot, with a bucket of Clorox and soapy water and the garden hose he’d found down by the sea-food packing-plant. (It was the only place on the island had a well and a pump.)

Even the well water was almost warm, Inky thought, and he had an idea. But first he lugged the heavy wet sail on board and ran it up, leaving it to hang almost limp under the bright sun. He stretched and rubbed his back. Scrubbing like that, on hands and knees. … God damn.

For a while he watched the streams of water drip down into puddles on the deck and then the puddles themselves turn into streams down the slant of the bow.

Then he rubbed his back again, went below, got a towel and a bar of soap. He took the hose and pulled it as far back into the shelter of the trees as it would go—it wasn’t very long, just three twenty-five foot sections put together—and fastened it to the limb of a locust tree. He had a shower.