The Waterman: A Novel of the Chesapeake Bay (29 page)

“Jesus, I'm sorry, Clay. I've been running into people everywhere. Here's your drink. Let's head for the party. C'mon.”

“Somewhere out there,” Matty said as they walked toward the barn, “lies a trap or a promise.”

“I'm the one needs to be trapped,” Clay said. “Trapped and treed.”

“Desire can strip a man clean.”

Clay looked at Matty. He had nothing to add.

“I've got questions.”

“You've got everything. Except a grip.”

“Who wants a grip?”

“I do,” Clay answered. But Matty had walked ahead.

Inside the barn, paper streamers decked the rafters, and balloons bounced high against the roof. Near the band, a microphone was set up for the callers. An introduction had just been made, and a square dance started. Three girls began right out dancing together.

Clay and Matty found a fenced livestock stall to lean against. While watching the women dance and watching others take to the
floor, they drank their beers. Clay went off by himself and took a slow tour of the crowd in the barn. He thought to begin a conversation with a slim brunet over by one of the slot machines, but the music was loud, and his mind was elsewhere. He settled back next to Matty, who hadn't moved. When the music stopped, two women approached. They came up to them from the side, and one of the women said hello. Matty hadn't seen them approach, but he turned quickly at the woman's voice. The one who had spoken was stunning. She was dark haired and olive complexioned, with a high forehead and an exotic, almost haughty air. She wore a long red-patterned cotton skirt and a blousy shirt that was tight at the waist, showing a fine figure. Her sleeves were rolled up. Her hands were on her hips. As Matty turned in surprise at her voice, she laughed and flipped her head slightly, throwing her hair back, a gesture that reminded Clay of Kate.

“Matty,” she said lightly, “this is my cousin Celeste. Celeste, this is my friend Matty.”

Clay thought the one who spoke looked familiar, and then it came to him.

Celeste held out her hand, and Matty shook it. “Celeste,” he said, “it is a pleasure. Please meet my friend Clay Wakeman. And Clay,” he went on, turning toward the girl who had spoken, “this is Rosa Satie. A client. She's a model.”

“Hello, Clay,” Rosa said. She spoke with clear, impeccable pronunciation, but with a hint of a European accent.

“Hello, Clay,” Celeste repeated.

“My pleasure. Twice.” Clay took each hand in turn.

“Celeste is visiting our family,” Rosa said to Clay, as if there were a need for an explanation. “She may stay all summer. She is a student in California. Her parents are from Castille. She is learning English.” She turned toward Celeste, who blushed. Celeste was thin. She reminded Clay of a sparrow.

“Rosa,” Matty broke in. “Would you have a dance with me?”

The band had taken a break, but someone had started playing records. Bob Dylan sang “Lay Lady Lay.” Rosa had offered Matty her hand and they were walking away. Clay considered asking Celeste also, to be polite, but sensed her discomfort and instead led her to one of the nearby tables. He tried to talk with her, but she had trouble understanding. She smiled and nodded but said little. Matty and Rosa remained on the dance floor for several songs. When they returned, Rosa had her arm linked in his.

“He's a marvelous dancer,” she remarked. “He dances on air.”

Rosa and Matty sat, making light conversation, and then, over Clay's protest, Rosa insisted on buying beers for everyone. She pulled Matty with her, and Matty pulled Clay. He followed them out to one of the far corrals. There, Matty took the small glass vial from his shirt. “Dessert time, Clay. Special occasion.” Matty had a shortened straw. Rosa went, and then Matty. This time Clay tried to pretend to partake. Without meaning to, he inhaled some and felt the jolt. Walking back, his head was rushing like a heavy sea.

The caller started again. Matty and Rosa pulled Clay and Celeste out and made them try the Virginia reel. A large crowd was square dancing and Clay lost track of everyone. Back at the table, he found Celeste, alone. She smiled but didn't speak. Night had fallen, and outside, the lanterns glowed in the air and the summer insects whirled. After a while Matty and Rosa returned, hot and sweaty from the dance. Matty gave Clay a five-dollar bill and asked him to bring four more beers back. Clay told Matty to walk with him. It was in the line at the keg that Matty, stumbling through his words, told Clay about Rosa. That they were having a fling. “
Fling
's not the right word,” he said. “She's burning into my heart. It's on fire. I'm in love with two women.”

Clay walked out soon after. He was dizzy and disoriented. Matty had given him the keys, telling him he would get a ride home with Rosa. Clay found a fence post to lean against over past the barbecue pits. He took a few deep breaths. Through the smoke, he
thought he saw a familiar face. Then two. He wasn't sure. The smoke was thick and their faces were shrouded. The first looked like Hugo Brigman. He was talking to the second, unmistakably the man with the ponytail and earring. They turned and moved away from him. Clay pushed off the fence post, his head spinning. He walked through the field and managed to find the car.

He drove slowly back. He passed the turnoff to Indigo Seafood and continued down the highway. He veered off toward Bavon and went down the long gravel drive to the Waterman's Hole. It was closing but sold him a last-call whiskey, which he took outside to the dock. He sat in the silence of the summer night. A light breeze cooled his face and brushed the halyard of a lone sailboat against its mast. He could hear the cicadas from the nearby woods. He watched a near-full moon rise over the creek and bay, backlighting the shadowed horizon and firing a swath across the water, to the other side of Mobjack's shining mouth. He wondered at its brightness and then at the strangeness of human behavior, and of coincidence. He stayed until the moon was well overhead and, trying to regain his sense of balance, drove back through the glistening fields of corn to Kate and Matty's house.

Clay slept late. When he got downstairs, Matty was already gone. He had left a note. Clay's head buzzed as he read it.

“On my way to Richmond,” it read. “Sorry about last night. I needed to talk. Compulsion. Be back in a few days. Matty.”

Clay showered and dressed. He drove the truck to the Highway Diner and ordered a big breakfast, which made him feel better. His plan was to find Amos Pickett. To confront the problem. Then he would make the decision. Outside, the day was hot, the sun rising in the sky over the fields. He drove to Pepper Creek, but again the
Vena Lee
wasn't there. He stopped back by the cottage to wait awhile. Kate met him at the door.

“We're going to the beach,” she said. “I'm taking you. It's Sunday and I need some sun. I've had enough of grown-ups. That bad boy Matty is off again, but he's making his own way. And you deserve a day off. I'll be your chaperone.” He told her he couldn't. “It's Sunday,” she pleaded. “I drove back early to be here.” Something in her eyes wouldn't let him say no. He showed her the painted shell he had bought for her. She took it and turned it over and over in her
hand. Then she put it on the mantel, leaning it carefully against the mirror over the fireplace. “It's so delicate,” she said. She saw herself in the mirror and shook her hair loose. “C'mon,” she said. “The sun is calling.”

Kate knew a place on the north end of Virginia Beach, away from the crowds. Clay drove the truck and she directed him there. She had a blanket, a cooler, and beach chairs, and they set up camp just above the breaker line.

“We've got enough stuff to be on safari,” Clay mumbled.

“When you go, you got to go in style,” she pronounced.

“We look like an Arab encampment. You must be the belly dancer.”

Kate had just wiggled out of her jeans, revealing a bikini beneath. She threw the jeans in his face, then picked up a small seashell and tried to put it in her belly button. She ran down to the water, and Clay followed her. It was cold, and neither went in further than their knees. They watched the breakers fold over themselves and slide down the shore. The warm sun felt like a balm on their skin.

They had pâté out of the cooler, with French bread and a chilled Chablis Kate had brought back from Maryland. She even had canned peaches for dessert. Kate fed Clay a peach, dripping the syrup on his chest.

They washed their hands and faces in the surf and kicked spray on each other. They took a walk down the beach. Gulls and terns hovered overhead in the light breeze. Sandpipers were all along the beach, scampering ahead of the surge. Four pelicans cruised the water beyond the breakers, gliding over the surface looking for shadows underneath. Occasionally, one would swiftly rise up, as if lifted by a thermal, and then fall like a dart into the water. Kate and Clay walked back, their feet in the sea. Back on the blanket Kate lay on her stomach. Clay asked if she'd like him to spread lotion on her back and she laughed. She unfastened the back of
her top. He sat next to her, his arms around his knees, watching the ocean, watching her tanned shoulders in the sun. Lying there, she told him about the steeplechase. She had competed with her father. Her horse was a three-year-old chestnut gelding, and she had done well. Her father would expect her to go fox hunting in the fall. On the last hunt, she said, the riders had fox's blood smeared on their foreheads. It bothered her more than ever before. She wasn't sure whether she wanted to hunt again. She sat up, holding her bikini top to her breasts.

“What do you think?”

Clay reflected. “I think knowing and riding a horse like you do, feeling a bond there—that's special. Being outside like that, with your father. Important to him, I'm sure.” He picked up some sand and let it sift through his fingers. “I don't know. I hunt. I crab. Let it sit awhile. You'll make the right choice.”

Kate fastened her top. “Yes,” she said. “I guess.” Then, “Did you and Matthew and Byron have fun at the roast?”

“Byron didn't come. Laura-Dez surprised him on Saturday. He's still with her.”

“Oh. So it was just the two of you. Well, how about you?”

“It was nice. Crowded. Great food. Music.”

“What was it that you and Matty were talking about? In the note.”

Clay brushed some sand off his leg. He looked up at Kate, who was looking at him. “Oh, you know, just talk. Relationships.”

“What did he say about me?”

Clay turned aside toward the horizon. “He said he loved you.”

Kate hesitated. “Oh.” She shook her hair out. “You know I've never been with anyone but Matthew. Matty.” She hesitated. “Until you.”

Clay was silent.

“Matty and I've been together since tenth grade. I know you know that. I mean, I know that's not the case with him. Not being
with anyone else. Not even now. And I'm sure you also know that.” She looked down the beach. “And I wouldn't want to know that from you, anyway.”

After a while, Kate traced a line down his arm with her finger. “Clay?” she said. “Do you think a person can love two people at the same time? Really love them?”

With the question, he began smoothing out the sand in front of him. He took his time, as though he were preparing a tablet and about to write the answer across it. “That's a hard one,” he finally responded. “Yes. Maybe. But I'm not sure it would work if you tried to act on it.” He started to write something on the sand, then wiped it out.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

She tilted her head. “Was Matthew's model Rosa there last night?” she asked. Then, “Never mind,” she quickly said. “Never mind.” Standing up, she reached for his hand. “Come on. Let's swim.”

She took his hand and pulled him up. And then she was off for the water. She dove under a wave. Clay watched her in the surf. She was a pretty swimmer, with a long graceful stroke. He entered the water after her, pulling hard over the rollers, and was about to catch her when she turned and came back to him. When she reached him, she was out of breath. They were bobbing in about five feet of water, and each successive swell lifted them off their feet. She put her hands on his shoulders and let him hold her up. He held her waist with his hands. Then she was pointing at something in the water, about thirty yards off.

“What is that?” she asked.

Clay saw something thrashing in the water. He couldn't make it out at first. They both swam closer. It was struggling. “It's a bird. A big one,” he said. “It looks hurt.”

They both swam toward it. From its brown-gray plumage and long neck, it appeared to Clay to be a pelican, though he could not
see its bill or pouch. It was entangled in something. “Can we help it?” asked Kate. “It looks bad.”

“I don't know.”

“Clay?”

“We'll need a blanket. Could you swim back and get it?”

Kate worked her way ashore. Clay edged his way closer to the bird. He could see its trouble now. It was caught in a fishing line that was tangled around its neck and one wing. Its bill also seemed to be caught. The bird stopped struggling. It was low in the water. It flailed just to keep its head up.

Kate returned, swimming on her back with the blanket held above her. She was breathing hard. Clay took it, asking her if she was okay and she nodded. He swam toward the bird. When he got close enough, he threw the blanket over its head and body and gathered the bundle, keeping it above the water. At first the pelican jerked, but Clay held firm, and as he kicked toward Kate, it soon gave up and was still.

She helped him get the bundle ashore, holding one side up as they swam. They walked up the beach to their towels. Kate sat down. “Hold it tight,” Clay cautioned, handing it to her. They folded the blanket back from the bird's head, talking to it softly. It did not struggle. Clay took a linen napkin and wrapped its beak closed lightly, and Kate held its beak and petted its neck and whispered to the bird in a calming voice. The fishing line was cutting into its flesh. A rusty hook was embedded in its plumage at the base of one wing.