Hemingway's Girl (11 page)

“Mike—Mike Johansen, from Josie’s bar. We shot pool one night with Larry and his girl,
and saw a big bar brawl with some soldiers. Holy shit, that was something else, wasn’t
it?”

“I think you’d better watch your mouth in the presence of a lady,” said Hemingway.
“And can’t you see I’m working here?”

“Jeez, Hem, sorry.”

“Good. Get the hell outta here.”

Mariella squirmed in her seat while the man walked away, shoulders slumped and humiliated.
Hemingway went right back to scribbling away in his notebook. She stared at him. After
a few minutes, he stopped writing and looked up at her. His face was friendly and
open. Her brows were knitted together. His smile faded.

“What?” he asked.

“That wasn’t very nice.”

“Do you think it was very nice for that loser to come over and interrupt me at work
with his foul language and his stupid memories from some night I can’t even place?”

“No, but you shot him down pretty hard.”

“And it’s a good thing. Otherwise he’d have pulled up a chair and driven us crazy
with his ridiculous ramblings. Can’t a man sit and write without being aggravated?”

“You’re in a public place, Papa.”

“But I’m doing a private thing.”

“You’re a famous writer. You can’t expect to sit in public, unnoticed, doing the very
thing you’re famous for.”

“But I need to watch people for ideas.”

“Then expect to get interrupted every now and then.”

“You could sit here without interrupting me,” he said. He stopped to take a long drink
of his lemonade.

“That’s because I had my pie to keep me occupied. I’d probably interrupt you if I
didn’t have my pie.”

He broke into a grin and shook his head. She went back to her pie, and he went back
to his notebook. He stopped after a few minutes and reached into his pocket.

“I just remembered, I have something for you,” he said.

He placed a black rabbit’s foot on a key chain in her hand.

“For luck,” he said.

“Where’s the rest of it?” she asked.

“How the hell should I know? The foot’s the only lucky part of the rabbit.”

“Wasn’t so lucky for him,” she said.

He laughed loudly and took another drink. “You know, I’m going to write a story about
you, Mariella.”

“Please don’t,” she said.

“Why?”

“I won’t be used.”

“Used?”

“When you put people on your pages, you take something away from them.”

He looked at her closely, and then at his notebook. “I don’t want to share you with
anyone, anyway.” He drew a long, diagonal line over everything he’d written, and turned
to a clean page.

She felt chills rise on her arms when he crossed the pencil down the paper.

There. Gone
.

After another bite of pie, she put down her fork and sipped at her lemonade. He looked
up again.

“What’s wrong with the pie?”

“Nothing. I just want to save some for my little sisters.”

He stared at her for a moment and then stood and disappeared inside the café. She
wondered what he was doing and started to get uncomfortable sitting alone, with people
at neighboring tables looking her up and down and surely wondering why Ernest Hemingway
was sitting in a café with his housekeeper.

He was back in a few minutes.

“Go ahead and finish that,” he said.

“But my sisters,” she said.

He raised his hand at her, and the waiter suddenly appeared with a brown bag he set
heavily on the table.

“A pie for the family,” said Papa. “There are also some sandwiches in there.”

Mariella was embarrassed to feel tears well up in her eyes. He winked at her and went
back to his work. She willed herself not to cry and finished her pie, basking in his
generosity and attention, until a shadow fell over them.

Pauline.

“Hello, Mama,” said Hemingway with enthusiasm.

Too much,
Mariella thought.

He jumped up from the table and wrapped Pauline in a big embrace. She never took her
eyes off Mariella.

“Where’s Lor?” he asked.

Pauline glanced at her watch and ignored the question. Mariella burned, knowing it
was earlier than five and Pauline would be upset that Mariella had knocked off before
quitting time.

“I didn’t know you weren’t putting in a full day today,” said Pauline.

Mariella started to stammer an apology when Papa cut her off.

“I insisted she come keep me company,” he said. “She’d finished, anyway.”

“She doesn’t work by the chore,” said Pauline. “She works by the day.”

“It’s really not your concern,” said Papa.

“It actually is,” said Pauline.

Some of the people at the nearby tables started to stare. Mariella wished she could
just melt away into her chair. She could see Papa’s temper flare in the red on his
face.

“Why don’t you sit down and join us instead of making a scene,” said Papa.

“I’m just fine where I am—”

“Sit.”

Pauline stared at him for a moment, and then took a seat at the table, placing her
shopping bags at her feet.

Mariella felt responsible for the trouble, and worried that Pauline would dock her
pay. She found her voice. “I’ll go back to the house and do some more work. I shouldn’t
have left early.”

“Absolutely not,” said Papa. “I told you to leave. Now let’s just drop it.”

“Yes,” said Pauline, closing her eyes and rubbing her temples. “Let’s drop it. I want
to go home, anyway. I’m exhausted.”

The waiter came and asked Pauline whether she’d like anything, and she shooed him
off.

“I’m going home,” said Pauline. “Mariella, be a dear and help me with my bags. We’ll
leave Papa here so he can finish his work.”

Mariella felt her cheeks burn and thought she’d like to lay Pauline out with a right
hook to her smug face. It took every ounce of self-control in her to stand and pick
up Pauline’s bags. She was aware that her own bag of food that Papa had bought for
her sat on the table. She didn’t want to pick it up, feeling that it would somehow
make all this worse in Pauline’s eyes, but she hated to leave it.

Pauline kissed Papa on the head and started out to the sidewalk. While her back was
turned, Mariella looked at Papa and then the bag. He shook his head and mouthed,
I got it
. She turned back to Pauline and hurried to catch up with her, mentally coaching herself
not to respond to any insults.

Pauline didn’t say a word on the way home, and her silence unnerved Mariella more
than shouting would have. Pauline walked several paces ahead, with perfect posture
and the grace of a queen. Mariella tried to walk a little straighter herself. Pauline’s
poise and confidence made her attractive, and Mariella recognized the power in that.

When they got to the great wall bordering the Hemingway house, Pauline turned and
took the bags from Mariella’s hands, her face flushed from the brisk pace she’d set.
Mariella suppressed her pride and spoke. “I’m sorry I left before I should have. I’ll
come over early tomorrow to make up for it.”

“Fine.” Pauline started through the gate but stopped herself and turned back. She
looked like she badly wanted to say something. Mariella prepared herself for the tongue-lashing,
the reprimand, the
stay away from my husband
talk she thought she’d get, but Pauline’s face just looked tired.

“He’s incorrigible,” she said. “He wants playmates like a child, but you
can
say no.”

Mariella nodded and looked down at her feet.

“In fact,” said Pauline, her voice steel, “I insist.”

The bag of food was sitting on Mariella’s front porch when she got home. It was good
of him to drop it off, and she marveled that they’d been able to read each other’s
minds like Catherine and Henry in
A Farewell to Arms
. But these were the thoughts she had to stop thinking. They made Pauline suspicious,
Mariella blush, and others judge her harshly.

When she stepped through the door with the bag and opened it on the table, Lulu clapped.
It cheered Mariella to see Lulu looking so much better since her fever had broken.

“Where did you get this?” asked Eva.

“Papa bought it for us,” said Mariella, instantly regretting referring to Hemingway
as Papa.

They spread the food out on the table and began eating. Her mother didn’t say a word
and tried to leave the table without dessert. Mariella put her hand on her mother’s
arm.

“You have to eat a slice of pie,” said Mariella.

“¿Por qué?”

“It would be wrong not to,” said Mariella. “It will go bad if you don’t eat it. You
don’t want to be wasteful.”

Eva looked at Mariella and then at the pie. She sat down, and Lulu spooned a bite
from her own plate into Eva’s mouth. Eva
looked at Lulu with wide eyes and then closed them, savoring the tangy perfection.

“Isn’t it heaven, Mama?” asked Lulu.

Eva nodded, her eyes still closed, and a smile slowly spread on her lips. Estelle
smiled a little, too. They took turns feeding one another with spoonfuls of the pie,
going in for seconds until only one slice remained. They agreed to give it to the
old man across the street. Lulu and Estelle volunteered to deliver it, leaving Mariella
and her mother alone in the kitchen.

Mariella felt sedated by the delicious dinner and hoped her mother did, too. She started
taking dishes to the sink when Eva said, “That was a big gesture, don’t you think?”

Mariella felt her heart sink. Somewhere inside she’d suspected that her mother would
find a way to twist Papa’s gift, but she hoped she wouldn’t. “He’s a generous person,”
she said, resolving not to take the bait. She wanted to enjoy her full belly.

“I just hope he doesn’t expect anything of you,” said Eva. “You need to be on guard
about that. Men like him don’t give something away for
nada
.”

Mariella squeezed the dish towel in her hands and clenched her teeth to keep herself
from responding. Her mother placed the rest of the plates next to the sink and went
to her chair. Mariella could feel Eva’s eyes on the back of her head and had just
about worked herself up enough to respond when Lulu and Estelle ran back in the door,
Lulu chattering about the good food, the good rich people, and the happy old man with
his pie. Mariella suppressed her anger for the second time that day and forced a smile.

That night, Mariella couldn’t sleep and lay in bed brooding over her mother. She fantasized
about finding her dad’s old boat, fixing it up, and cruising out to the Gulf Stream.
When she finally drifted off to sleep, she dreamed of a boat on the sea at night.
There was a man behind her with his arms wrapped around her waist, but she couldn’t
see his face.

Mariella shoved the last of the ice into a tub on the yacht, pocketed the money, and
thanked the men for the tip. She watched the boat slip out of the harbor and felt
the pull long after they were out of view. She ached for the water and closed her
eyes, imagining she was at the wheel of her own boat, cruising around the gulf.

“Daughter.”

She opened her eyes, and he stood before her.

“You miss the water,” he said.

“Terribly,” she said.

“Then today’s your lucky day.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m just heading out and I want you to go with me.”

“No, I couldn’t.”

“Why not?”

Mariella fumbled for an answer. “I didn’t tell my mother I’d be out that long.”

“So what? Are you six years old?”

“No, but my sisters,” she protested.

“—have their mother.”

“It could take a while.”

“They’ll survive.”

“But you don’t want to take
me
.”

“I asked you, didn’t I? I don’t do anything I don’t want to do.”

A cloud threw them in shadows, and Mariella looked around, half expecting to see Pauline,
and remembering her words about saying no to Papa.

But it was Mariella’s day off. She’d made a little money.