Off Season (4 page)

“This sounds worse by the minute.”

“I brought you a surprise. I know you'll love it. Come and see.”

She walked to the Land Cruiser. I bent and offered pursed lips. She kissed them.

“You smell like fish. Fish. You've been fishing!”

“I only got one little one. I'd give it to you, but it would embarrass me.”

I opened the rear door of the Land Cruiser and took the lid off the fish box. Zee looked in.

“Oh, my God! You devil! Where did you get that fish?”

“Shall I describe the scene? Me, all alone at Wasque. The sun coming up. A green flash . . .”

“A green flash?! Don't tell me you saw a green flash, too?!”

“Well, all right, there was no green flash, but the rest is true. I had some coffee and listened to some C and W music, you know . . .”

“Get on with it, Jefferson! I have to go to work. Besides, it's bad enough just knowing you got this fish while I wasn't there. I don't think I should have to listen to this drawn-out tale. Why didn't you get me up so I could go with you? Why is it that I'm always home when the big ones come in? Why me?”

But I knew how long it would take her to drive to the hospital, so I stretched the story out until the very last second, giving her details both real and imagined, until she absolutely had to leave.

“I hate you,” she said, giving me a goodbye kiss.
“You'd better not try this sort of thing after we get married!” She got into her little Jeep and started out of the driveway. Then she stopped and stuck her head out the window. “A dynamite fish, Jeff, if I do say so myself!”

“Come for supper,” I said.

“I will.” She grinned and was gone.

A most successful visit. I drove home and dressed out the fish, throwing the bones into the woods behind my house so the worms and maggots would have something to eat. In a couple of days the flesh would be gone, and there would be no bad smells even if the wind came around to the northeast. I skinned and cut the huge fillets into meal-sized portions and put all but one in the freezer. It is comforting to have a freezer full of fish.

It was too late for hunting, too early for sunbathing, and the tide was a bit too high for scalloping. I got keys from the drawer in the kitchen, climbed back into the truck and went to check out the houses I look after in the winter. If you're going to live on the Vineyard in the wintertime, you pick up a few bucks wherever you can. I make some fishing and some more being a caretaker and handyman.

I had a dozen houses, and I went to them all. Everything was fine. No broken windows, no broken shed doors, no sign of vandals. Pipes were drained and the power was turned off. The houses and barns were cold and dead-looking, the way empty buildings are in the winter. I checked everything, then went down to Collins Beach, got my dinghy and rowed out to the
Mattie
and the
Shirley J.
Both were catboats and both swung at stakes between the yacht club and the Reading Room. The
Mattie
belonged to Professor John Skye, and the
Shirley J.
belonged to me. Both of them stayed in the water all winter, and I watched over them.

All was well with the boats. I sat in the cockpit of the
Shirley J.
and looked out at the harbor. It was almost empty, with only a couple of sailboats still out there on moorings. Across the water was Chappaquiddick, most of its houses now vacant and tranquil. The sky was pale blue and the water was darker blue and rippled by a cool, gentle breeze. It was a peaceful scene.

After a while I rowed back to shore and pulled the dinghy up away from the tides. The beach was lined with scallop boats with their culling boards, drags and winches. In a week or two, when the commercial scalloping season began, they would be out at work every day. I would be out with Dave Mello, since he had a work boat and I didn't. There is a lot of money to be made scalloping, especially in the first few weeks when the scallops are still plentiful and the weather is good enough to make dragging for them fairly comfortable. In early November, therefore, a lot of guys are out in their boats; later, when the pickings get slim and winter arrives, the scalloping crowd thins out considerably. Dave and I were two of the guys who dragged all winter, and on the really bad days we earned our bucks.

But the commercial season hadn't arrived yet. Instead, the people with family permits were out on the flats getting their bushel a week. Even though I had my commercial license, I was also a family of one, so I could get my bushel, too. I checked things out. The sun was high, the air was warming, there wasn't much wind and the tide was now halfway down. Perfect. I put the dinghy in the back of the Land Cruiser and went home to get my gear.

Before the beginning of the commercial season, I, like most family scallopers, use a dip net, a bushel basket floating in an inner tube and a glass-bottomed
peep-sight known locally as a Buck Rogers (this because it had reminded some past scalloper of the noted 25th-century adventurer's space helmet). I collected all of my equipment, got my waders and headed for Katama.

I put the boat in from the beach beside the launching ramp that was wrecked by Hurricane Bob back in ‘91 and was always too sanded in to use before that (another example of man proposing and nature disposing), piled everything aboard, started the little Seagull and putted out to the flats in the middle of the pond. I had so much gear that the dinghy looked top-heavy. When I got where I wanted, I anchored and climbed overboard into the knee-deep water. I could see several other boats anchored here and there on the pond, and other scallopers who were busily dipping up their prey.

Scallops lie right on the surface of the bottom of the ponds. You spot them through your Buck Rogers, snag them with your dip net and dump them in the basket you have floating beside you. Nothing to it, on a day as fine as this. No wind to build up waves, plenty of light, warm weather. Mighty fine. Next to eating them, netting them is the most scallop fun you can have. You can see the results of your work, the company is good and you can sing or meditate or otherwise enjoy yourself while you're filling your basket.

The scallops were numerous if not thick, and I was back on the beach in an hour with what I thought of as a nicely rounded bushel, which meant one that was more than level, but not so much more that the fish warden would make me throw some back, if he happened to see me. Next would come two hours of extracting the little rascals from their shells. Unlike any other island shellfish—quahogs, steamers, mussels or
oysters—all of whose innards are eaten, only the scallop's large muscle is deemed eatable. Because you have to separate the muscle from the rest of what's inside the shell, it takes a bit longer to open scallops than to open other shellfish. I reached my top opening speed several years ago, and have not improved with time. I'm not bad, but there are a lot of people who can cut scallops faster than I can.

Although opening them is the worst part of scalloping, even that isn't too bad if you have a good place to do it and remember that once you've opened them you can eat them. I opened mine in the shed behind my house, and planned to feed some of them to Zee for supper, so I was well motivated. With luck, I might persuade Zee to spend the night. I would ply her with fine food and liquor. It seemed like an excellent plan.

When I wasn't thinking about Zee, I wondered what was going to happen between the hunters and the anti-hunters. I didn't think any of them were going to change their minds. Was there going to be trouble right here in River City? Or was peaceful coexistence possible? Maybe we should put all of the combatants on a boat and send them to the mainland. After all, Adam and Eve had been tossed out of Eden because they couldn't leave well enough alone, so there was precedent.

If I were God, what would I do with Nash and Mimi and their crowds? I put the question aside. I had no interest in being God. Just being a human being kept me busy.

“You know, of course, that Heather Manwaring is supposedly sneaking off for lurid romance with the man of her dreams,” said Zee, sipping her martini in front of my new stove between bites of bluefish pâté and crackers.

“Who's the man of her dreams, and how do you learn all this stuff?” I asked.

“Hospitals are rumor mills,” smiled Zee. “Sooner or later everybody goes to see his or her doctor, and people speculate and talk. You know. I don't know who the man is. I just know there's supposed to be one. I approve, by the way.”

“I'm trying to imagine Heather's type.”

“Everybody's somebody's type. You, for instance, are my type in spite of your inclination to go fishing without inviting me. I deserve better.”

“You're about to get it. Dinner is served.”

Dinner was scallops, simmered first with wine, salt and pepper, a bay leaf and a celery stalk, then combined in a baking dish with sautéed sliced mushrooms and chopped onion and green pepper, covered with a roux flavored with thyme and pimento, topped with some bread crumbs and grated Parmesan, and baked until bubbly.

This I served with some whipped potatoes, a salad and a bottle of sauvignon blanc that I'd been saving.

Zee, who has the body of a nymph, also has the appetite of an elephant. She and I had little to say for several minutes, while we concentrated on eating. Finally she touched her napkin to her lips. “A notable meal, my dear chef, even by chez Jackson standards. I take back all the nasty stuff I said about you earlier.”

“Madam is too kind.”

“I like your new stove.”

“it's not as pretty as the fireplace, but it does a better job of heating. Why, I'll bet that if you took off all of your clothes, you'd still be warm as toast.”

“I dare say, but I plan on finishing this meal before testing the rest of your domestic offerings.”

“We could take turns eating the remains of this repast off various parts of each other's body.”

“I don't believe I've ever heard you mention this particular urge before.”

“I've been waiting for just the right moment to tell you.”

She gestured with her fork. “Eat, Jefferson. You're the guy who doesn't even like to go on beach picnics because you're afraid you'll get sand in your food. You shouldn't be thinking about eating off a body that's been in an emergency ward all day.”

“Romance is dead, just like people say.”

Afterward we sat in front of the new stove and had Brie, French bread recently from my oven, coffee and cognac.

“So Phyllis Manwaring's little girl is swinging with somebody, eh? I always imagined Phyllis had some Yale lawyer and a big formal marriage in mind for Heather. I wonder if Heather's guy meets the standards.”

Zee gave me a wry smile. “I don't know, but it doesn't make any difference because as far as I know, Phyllis doesn't know anything about it. Heather is trying to make it on her own. She doesn't confide in Mom and Dad.”

“I thought you girls told your mothers everything.”

“Sure you did. I wonder what Vincent will think of the beau, if he ever meets him. I mean, Vince Manwaring's
so straitlaced that he's still got his tie on when he comes down to the island for the weekend. And ever since he's decided that Connecticut needs him as a senator, he's even worse than before. Having a daughter sleeping with who-knows-who can't be a political asset.”

“Maybe Heather is picking out the man of her parents' dreams.”

“Who knows? Maybe she's slumming.”

“Maybe he's a caveman.”

“Some women like the caveman type.”

“Now, now, let's not talk about your feelings for me. Let's just gossip about other people. What else is hanging on the hospital grapevine?”

“Well, Cotton Williams seems to have a new woman.”

“Where's the news in that?”

Cotton Williams, better known as Shrink, was a psychiatrist who had landed on the island several years before. He was then newly shed of a wife and needed a change of scene from New York. He had settled into the Vineyard lifestyle quite nicely and now had a good practice, since islanders are just as prone to psychological malaise as anyone else. He had not remarried, for the very good reason that a long string of attractive women had found him irresistible for varying lengths of time.

“If my rumors bore you, you can give me yours.”

I looked at my nails. “Sorry, I never gossip.”

“In that case, I'm going home.”

I hooked an arm around her shoulders and slid her closer to me. “Wait a minute, wait a minute, I'm thinking, I'm thinking! Let's see. Did you hear that Jeanette Norton wants Carl to sell his land to a developer instead of to the Commission?”

She snuggled against me. “Who's Jeanette Norton? I've heard of Helene Norton. She's the daughter Carl is staying with on the Cape, isn't she? Who's Jeanette?”

“Jeanette is Carl's ex. Helene's mom. When she left, she didn't get much from old Carl. Now that he's getting old and sick, she wants him to leave as big an estate as possible. Ergo, a developer should get the land.”

“If she's his ex, what difference does it make to her what his estate is?”

“Because she and Helene are close, and she figures Helene will inherit and then share with Mama!”

“I see, said the blind woman.”

“And since Carl is staying with Helene, Jeanette figures that Helene can maybe get the old man to change his mind.”

“And Jeanette has some developer in the wings, eh?”

“Eh, indeed. You're a smart cookie, for a nurse. In fact, Mom's developer is now dating Mom's daughter. Is that some kind of incest?”

“Where did you get this bit of gossip?”

I had a sudden foreboding of danger. “My sources are confidential, I'm afraid.”

“Well, I've got to go now.” She wiggled within my arm, and pretended to try to sit up. I didn't want to let her go, and made a quick, wrong decision.