Enchanted August (22 page)

F
red was not finding it easy to get over to Little Lost Island, and the natives did not seem particularly friendly. Or maybe that was because Fred himself was not being particularly friendly. In fact, he was fucking furious. It had taken him three hours to go seventy miles on the Maine–New Hampshire border, so he had to push it hard to get up to Dorset. Now he only had twelve minutes to make the damn ferry and the GPS didn't work here and the directions seemed completely bogus. He made three desperate three-point turns before he even found the road to Big Lost and now that he was almost there he was behind a classic little old lady driver who would not go more than 27 in a 30-mph zone.

“Fuck
you
, Maine lady!” he said and hit the steering wheel. If he missed this ferry he would be furious at himself. He had driven more than ten hours in a hot car stupidly without even knowing if Caroline Dester would give a shit if he was there or not. She might not even be on the fucking island when he got there. What if he didn't find the lobster bake? What if she had gone back to New York? Can I honk at this lady? Go, woman—
go
, for fuck's sake.

Five fifty-four.

He had six minutes left to make a ferry he had driven ten hours to catch. Was it even possible to be this stupid?

The old lady car put on her blinker.

Turn, damn you.

She slowed way down, looked both ways before she turned, right, and finally got off the road. All the signs read,
SLOW
DOWN, 25
MPH ZONE MEANS YOU
, but Fred didn't give a shit. I don't even know if I'm on the right road anymore, he said to himself as he gunned the engine to 40. If the ferry landing is not at the end of this road I will just swim across.

The ferry landing was at the end of the road.

He swung into a space, grabbed his bag from the passenger seat, and ran wildly in the direction of the water. His watch said six o'clock. “Shit!”

Then he heard a boat motor and the toot of a horn. “Get on if you're gettin' on.” At the end of the dock was an excruciatingly adorable ferry, motor running, ready to untie.

“Little Lost Island?” asked Fred. What if he was at the wrong place?

“Yup,” said the ferry driver. Not much more than a kid. Could he get them across? “Get on.”

Fred took the couple of steps onto the boat and simultaneously it pulled away from the dock. There were only a few other people on it, all of whom seemed to know each other. They said nothing to Fred.

Had he rolled up the windows? Had he locked the car? He didn't know, and at this point he didn't care. He was on the ferry to the island, where a person he barely knew would or would not be. Jesus, what an idiot. He should have been writing. He should have been bonding with the kids. My wife goes away for four weeks and I act like I'm fifteen. Could I just get a hotel room in Bangor or whatever the hell town is nearby and go home in the morning?

But the die was cast and the Rubicon was crossed. Only it wasn't the Rubicon; it was this incredibly sweet spit of water that the ferry was now cutting through. He was on the
Eleventh Hour
; he was headed to Hopewell.

He approached the ferry driver. Ferry pilot. “Hey.”

The boy nodded. Here was a Mainer.

Fred spoke up over the whine of the engine. “I'm headed to the west shore. Do you know it?”

“Yep.”

“Can I walk there from where the ferry lands?”

“You're going to have to. No cars on the island.”

Fred hadn't even asked Caroline how to get to the beach. Or to meet him at the dock. More imbecility. It was hard, though, to feel too foolish on this boat, with the salt air coming at him and the late sun slanting on the windows of the boat. “Could you give me directions?” Before the ferryman could say, “I could,” in that Maine way, Fred added, “I'd like directions, please.”

“I'll show you once we're out. Almost there.”

It was amazing the difference it made to take a boat to a place. Little Lost Island was not more than ten minutes in the boat from Big Lost Island, but since the former was that much smaller and that much farther out at sea than the latter, it felt considerably more lost than its larger neighbor. Traveling over water was so easy, really. No lights or lanes, just buoys and channel markers to keep you from running aground. There were a few sailboats out, catching the evening breeze as it came up out of the west. He had resisted the temptation to check his messages since he'd left Brooklyn that morning. If Caroline had told him to call off the trip, it was too late. And if Rose had sent him something loving, it would undo all his resolve.

He checked his phone. It was dead.

“Ha!” Fred said. “Perfect.”

Rose's e-mails had been brief—apparently she couldn't get much service—but it sounded like she was enjoying herself. She said she was making new friends, which was good. She didn't mention her writing. Her life had gotten so narrow when the twins were born. She'd had to put all her energy into Ben right from the start. As soon as they got the first part of the book advance, he'd wanted to hire a nanny or an au pair so Rose could write too, but she'd felt like she had to do it all. “When he's ready, Fred, we can hire somebody.” But Ben was never ready. Actually, Rose was never ready. Fred felt that she wanted to get Ben to some mythical point of goodness and control before she handed him off to anyone else. But Ben was Ben and he wasn't going to change. Fred was not surprised that Patience was semibooting him from preschool. They'd figure something else out. Maybe this was the shock they needed to make some changes. Rose needed to finish her dissertation or just write something. She needed to be away from the kids. He actually could not believe she had managed to stay away from them for so long already. He'd thought she'd be back within a week, even though he'd told her she should stay away for at least two. Here it was, more than three weeks, and she was still up in Maine. He deliberately had not stopped for a lobster roll in Kennebunkport or Freeport just in case he ran into her. That would take some explaining.

What if this whole Caroline Dester thing was fake—some minion of a film studio leading him on? Then he'd get up here and find, what? The press? A mocking intern? It honestly didn't seem likely. Those texts he'd gotten from her even sounded like her voice. He closed his eyes and heard that voice again. He hoped she would speak French to him.

The ferry motor slowed, then reversed, as they approached the dock. One of the passengers jumped out and tied the boat up. The ferry driver cut the engine, the boat emptied out, and Fred stood waiting for the promised directions to the west shore. He didn't want to have to ask again.

“Go up the dock here, take the path right in front of you. It's the steepest but the quickest. Follow along to the big red cottage on your right, take the path alongside that one, and before you get to Grundys' there's a path to the west shore. Can't miss it.”

Fred was pretty sure he could miss it.

“They're all down the beach. Lobster bake. Maybe they saved a lobster for you.” He turned and left. Fred started up the dock and found the path. It was pretty steep, but it felt good to walk after ten hours in the car. Even with air-conditioning, it had been a hot, sticky ride. Fred wondered if he could persuade Caroline to take a sunset dive into the water. It was probably freezing, but it would feel so good after that drive. She looked more than hot in a bikini—there were plenty of pictures online. He liked to imagine her in one of those old, worn-out bathing suits that starlets never wear.

He kept hiking up the path. This place was well hidden—a good getaway from the paparazzi, although they seemed to have cooled off since poor Caroline did not get her Oscar. That must have hurt. He would write her an Oscar-winning part in this new book. Ha. Not possible. There are no Oscar-winning action heroes, and especially no Oscar-winning roles for the decorative foils to action heroes. Maybe he'd go back to one of his short stories, to give her something meaty.
MACARTHUR WINNER INSPIR
ED BY DICK TO WRITE
ROLE FOR INGENUE.
That would be an unusual headline in
Poets & Writers
. Although dick is the inspiration for a lot of great fiction.

An old barn of a cottage loomed up in front of him. This was where the ferry kid had said to do something—follow along it. There was only one way to do that. He was in less good shape than he thought he was. And he was getting sweatier by the minute. This cottage had better have running water. He'd be damned if he was going to show up to meet Caroline Dester looking like this.

“Holy shit.”

The cottage that emerged in front of him on the path was enormous. Really huge. This was a summer place to reckon with. He liked it right away. It looked simple, even if it was gigantic. Shingle-style.

Fred took the steps two at a time and peered in the screen door to the cool interior. “Hello?”

The place felt empty, though there might have been a family of four living upstairs and he wouldn't have found them for days. He didn't want to go inside—what if this wasn't even the place? Somebody else could be living here, for all he knew. And the kid had said they were all down at the beach. Wasn't the whole island basically a beach?

He could smell briny woodsmoke in the air. The lobster bake. He'd been to clambakes, but never a lobster bake. Could he just waltz up and join in? Why not? He walked around the porch to see if he could tell what direction it was coming from. If he strained, he could see a few figures on the water's edge. That had to be them.

He dropped his backpack, which had made huge sweat stains all over his shirt. Well, too bad. He was going to join this party, welcome or not.

He started down a worn grassy path that seemed to lead straight to the beach. It did not. Fred was disoriented and a little lost. The path meandered for a while, then stopped altogether. There was nothing for it but to bushwhack through the ferns. He knew he must look ridiculous in his sweat-stained shirt and skinny jeans—not great for this terrain. He had to be close by now.

In fact, he was. Two more steps took him to the edge of the beach. In front of him, silhouetted on the sand, were figures he did not recognize. A bunch of people and none of them was Caroline. Fred watched them for a while from the cover of his ferns. There was a couple with a kid about Bea and Ben's age. The kid was all over the place but keeping a cautious distance from the fire pit, which was letting off an amazing amount of steam. The smell was almost overwhelming—like salt water on fire. Fred breathed it in, deep.

He noticed something on the periphery of his vision. Oh God, right in front of him was Caroline Dester. At sea. On a rock, above the water, leaning back on her elbows, one leg extended. What a goddess! She wasn't as scrawny as some of those movie shots made her look, either. Here, in real life, she looked less like a movie star, more like a human being.

Had she posed out on the point just because she knew he was coming?

“Caroline!”

She didn't answer.

“Caroline!”

He ran down the path and started to climb over the boulders to where she was. They were a combination of enormous rounded stones and jagged volcanic ones. He didn't even stop to take off his stupid shoes till he got to a patch covered with seaweed and slipped onto his knees. “God
damn
it,” he said.

When he scrambled up again, there was a hole in his jeans and his shoes were sodden. “Fuck.” He had deliberately chosen his one pair of Prada loafers to impress Caroline Dester. They'd bog him down if he didn't take the time to get them off, so he kicked them off where he was, seaweed or no. He took another look at the goddess of the rock:
The Birth of Venus in Maine
. What if she disappeared before he could get at her? “Caroline!” he called. The sea devoured his voice.

He went out farther, with his leg probably bleeding and his shoes being eaten by sand crabs. The waves were pounding here—no wonder she hadn't heard him. But she had to see him soon. She turned and stood up.

He looked at her looking at him. He was facing straight into the sun, so he couldn't see her features. But after two months of watching videos of Caroline Dester he was almost positive this wasn't Caroline Dester. This woman was in a Speedo, not a bikini. She was taller, and she was not in her twenties. She didn't have a movie star body. She had a lush, curvy body that was actually much sexier than a twentysomething body. She started to climb over the rocks toward him. “I can't believe you came,” she said.

All at once she was pressed into him and he felt her breath come quickly.

A million sensations came over him at once: shock, surprise, tenderness, shame, love—and those were just the ones he could name.

“Oh my God,” he said. “Rose?”

He found her mouth and she tasted of salt and sun.

“Rose. You're the one who's here.”

He tightened his hold on her. She was utterly tender and open and all he could think was I have a goddess for a wife and she's here and Jesus Christ I adore her. I forgot that I adore her. He broke away from her long enough to say, “Rosie, darling, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.” His heart was pounding against her chest. Her skin was hot. He put his hand at the back of her neck and closed his fingers around her hair.

“I've missed you so much, sweetheart. I need you so much.” As he said it he realized how true it was.

She pressed her mouth to his and opened it. Her kiss electrified him.

“Can we go to bed?” she asked. They didn't even stop to pick up his shoes.

J
on, come figure this out with me,” Robert called. “We take the tarp off first and put it on the sand. There's going to be a lot of steam, so watch out.”

With a heave, Jon and Robert lifted the soaking tarp off the galvanized tub. The steam came at them like a typhoon. “Let it blow off! Let it blow off!” called Jon. “Keep Ethan away!”

“He is away!” Lottie called back.

They spread the hot tarp out on the sand.

“Ready?” asked Robert. Lottie had thought to bring oven mitts, thank God. He really was not much of a Mainer, despite the work boots. Anyone who knew what he was doing would have a pair of work gloves in his pocket. At all times.

“Okay, heave!” said Jon.

They lifted the tub, Robert trying not to show how much heavier it was than he'd thought. “Put it on the sand and then we'll tip it over!” said Jon, who suddenly seemed to know more about the whole process than Robert did. “Okay, now.”

He and Jon dumped the fragrant, steaming, confusing contents of the galvanized tub on the canvas. If there was ever an ad for Maine island life, this would be it.

Where was Rose?

He had proposed the lobster bake for Rose, and done all that digging and firewood dragging and tending a hot fire for her. At this point, he was almost prepared to admit that Rose did not care about him as much as he cared about her. Or as much as he wanted to care about her.

“Where's Rose?” asked Lottie. “I know you did all this for her, Robert. We are going to enjoy it, but it was meant to be Rose's special moment. But we can't wait for her. She has other things on her mind, I think.” She picked out a lobster from the steaming hot seaweed. “That'll be ours, I think, Ethan, don't you?”

“It's a giant
cockroach
! I want the red one!”

“They're all red ones!”

“I want the one that has the most red.”

“I hope Caroline makes it down,” Beverly said. “She's been up with those monstrous children all day.”

“The big-kid play!” said Ethan. “That's not
red
!”

“Yes, it would be very nice if Rose were here,” said Robert, not too pitifully, he hoped.

Lottie found another, possibly redder lobster. “Rose is already in love; that's the thing, Robert. You gave her just enough attention so that when she goes home to Fred—or when he comes here—she'll get attention from him, too. Want me to find a lobster for you, Beverly? I know you're color-blind.”

“Thank you, Lottie,” said Beverly.

“Ethan, see if you can find some corn. But just show me. It's too hot to pick up.” She turned to Beverly. “If Caroline doesn't make it down here we can bring her up a plate. She's in intensive rehearsals. The boys mostly want to play with their fake swords and the girls mostly want to put on costumes. Except for a few of the kids, who wanted to do both.”

Robert could not have cared less about the island play. The sun was starting to set and the rushing water was like molten gold behind the black trunks of the spruce trees. Where was Rose?

“Can I get you the crackers, Beverly?” asked Jon. “The shells are harder to break than I thought they would be. Hey, Lotts, Ethan found the corn.”

“And the potatoes!” said Ethan. “I found the potatoes, too! They're under the seaweed.”

“I can't believe Rose is missing this. Jon, can't you go around to Foster's Rock and get her?”

“Forester's Point,” said Robert. He was so disappointed that she hadn't been watching as they tipped the tub onto the tarp—the great moment of triumph!—that he was consoling himself with eating. He slurped a salty clam drenched in butter and then another. Jon sent Ethan over with a beer. Now he knew why people went to all this trouble. Everything tasted like the sea.

“There she is,” said Lottie. “Who's with her?”

Robert looked up. Rose—his Rose?—was coming down to the beach with her body pressed tight against a man he didn't recognize.

Their bodies were in sync. Their heads leaned toward each other. They had the freshly showered look of the postcoital.

Rose beamed at all of them. “This is my husband, Fred Arbuthnot,” she said. “He'll be here for a while.” She kissed him.

Robert's heart shattered. “Have a lobster,” he said.

He didn't know, precisely, how he got through the rest of the meal. The next clams he ate were sandy, the potatoes underdone, and the corn starchy. Lottie and Jon and Ethan were a tight little unit; Rose and Fred were practically intertwined; and Beverly was cranky because Caroline the actress had failed to appear. He was tempted to say he'd never felt more alone, but unfortunately, he often felt more alone.

He was tired of sitting there eating rubbery food, so he got started cleaning up. No one was helping. He raked the burning embers and dragged the tarp up the beach to the path leading to the cottage. The shells could stay where they were; the tide was coming in and would take them all away. He started picking up the corn husks and gathering the plates they'd brought down when Fred noticed him at last.

“Want a hand?”

I want a hand to connect with your nose and flatten it. “Sure,” said Robert. “Maybe you could take the galvanized tub down to the water and rinse it out. Or we can hose it off at the cottage if that's too much trouble.”

“No trouble at all,” said Fred. Robert hated that this Fred of Rose's was such a good guy.

“I'll help,” said Rose. She didn't look like Helga anymore. She looked like what she was: a real woman, with kids and a life; a woman with a husband whom she apparently loved.

I hope you deserve her, Fred, he thought. Bastard.

Together Fred and Rose took the charred tub down to the water's edge. He could hear them laughing at some private joke as they got closer to the water. They filled the tub with salt water and dumped it out a couple of times. Then they kissed.

“Gross!” said Ethan.

All four of them watched as Fred and Rose's kiss went longer and longer. The low sun cast their long shadows on the beach in front of them. They held each other's hands and came back up to the beach.

“I think we got it all cleaned out,” said Fred.

“Nicely done,” said Robert. Could he poison Fred's coffee tomorrow without harming Rose?

“Sorry we missed you taking this off the flame,” Rose said. “I had to show Fred the cottage right away.” They grinned at each other. “I don't think we'll make it to the play.” She was leading Fred up to the cottage.
His
cottage. “We have to watch the moon rise.”