Off Season (6 page)

“What's the matter? Something's eating you.” Angie was, as usual, sharp. “Coffee, black,” she said to the waitress. Then, to me, “Woman trouble. I can tell. What's happened?”

I quoted Manny Fonseca, the oracle of matrimony. “it's just nerves.”

“You mean somebody's nervous about getting married? I wouldn't blame Zee for being nervous. The idea of marrying you would make anybody nervous. But if you're the one who's nervous about marrying her, you're just a nut.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“Well, if she throws you over, which I wouldn't blame her for doing one bit, let me know. I have worse taste than Zee Madieras, and I could probably put up with you.”

“You had your chance, and you let me slip away. Now it's too late. I think our tragedy would probably make a nice two-hankie movie. We could film it right here in Edgartown. Lonely man, lonely woman, growing old, always seeing one another, but doomed to live tormented, loveless lives with other mates. If Olivier and Leigh were still alive, he could be me, and she could be you. Sort of a ‘Wuthering with the Wind' combination. What do you think?”

“Sounds good.” She drank her coffee. “Is this going to be an old-fashioned, black-and-white movie where the man and the woman flash their eyes at each other on-screen, but all the really good stuff happens off-stage, or is it going to be in living color and include the modern obligatory nude sex scenes?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I thought maybe we could write, direct, produce and star. I mean, it is our film, after all. I think the modern version would be best.”

“We'd have to rehearse, I suppose, just to get it right.”

“You and I could play the roles in the flashback scenes, when we were still young and juicy. We could get Olivier and Leigh to do the parts where we're old, if only they were still alive.”

“At last, a way to earn a living on Martha's Vineyard. I've been trying to figure out how to do that for years.”

She glanced at her watch. “Oops, time to go, or they'll start without me.” She got up and let her eyes range up and down me, from toe to pate. “Get to work on that script, J.W.”

She arched an eyebrow and went off. I watched her go.

Nice hips.

I went out and walked to the edge of the harbor. A couple of sailboats still hung at their moorings out beyond the yacht club. Between the yacht club and the Reading Room, several fishing boats and the
Shirley J.
and the
Mattie
swung at their stakes. There were dinghies pulled up on the dock at my feet, and some scallop boats tied alongside, but the only person there besides me was the chief of police, who was leaning on a patrol car drinking coffee. I deduced that he had come into the coffee shop and gotten a cup while I had not been paying attention. I advanced this theory to him.

“You are as keen a thinker as ever,” he said. “When I went in, you were being distracted by Angie Bettencourt. And you an engaged man, too.”

“I notice that you noticed her. And you're a married man.”

“I am a minion of the law. I'm supposed to notice things.” He put his cup on the hood of the car and got out his pipe. He stared into its bowl, poked at it with a finger, then stuck it in his mouth and pulled out his Zippo.

I inhaled the fragrance and decided again that maybe I'd start smoking my own pipes again. I still had my rack of them at home, even though I hadn't smoked for years, and I still got the urge whenever a pipe passed me on the street.

“You just stoke that thing up to make me edgy,” I said.

He looked around. “Quiet, isn't it? I like it. Maybe when I retire, I'll live here winters and go to Nova Scotia summers. They say Nova Scotia's like the Vineyard was thirty years ago. You know, slow and easy.
Like the island is right now, only up there, it's like this in the summertime.” He gestured up Main Street. “Look at that. Parking places everywhere. Nobody walking in the streets. Quiet.”

“Not always. Not as long as Mimi Bettencourt has a supply of water pistols, for example.”

“Wasn't that something?” He shook his head. “Those two! I can remember when Nash Cortez and Gus Bettencourt were pals. Used to go goose hunting together. Fishing. Now look at him and Mimi. It makes you wonder.”

“I hear that Nash is threatening to sue.”

“Talk to the lawyers about that, not to me.”

A large car came down Main Street and parked beside the patrol car. A large man got out of it. I recognized Vincent Manwaring, Phyllis's husband, would-be member of the U.S. Senate, rumored cuck-old. I looked for horns, but didn't see any. He was a tall, florid man who appeared to be in good shape. One of those people who worked out at the gym when he wasn't working out at the bank or the office or the stock exchange or wherever it was that Vince Manwaring made his money. He had a good set of teeth and a studied air of frankness, but his eyes had no warmth in them.

I had attended a couple of island cocktail parties which had included him, and I thought I knew the secret of his social success and his strength as a political candidate. He would keep his mouth shut and look a speaker in the eye when he was being addressed, and then would nod thoughtfully and arch a brow. He might say, “Ah,” or he might say nothing, then move slowly away, as though to ponder the speaker's thoughts. He thus created the impressions that he was actually listening, when indeed he might not be, and that he considered the speaker to be an
insightful and possibly subtle thinker. The speaker, flattered, felt Manwaring to be a splendid, intelligent fellow, and became a convert. As someone said, if you can become the friend of fools, you can get elected to anything.

Manwaring looked at me, smiled and nodded, trying but failing to remember if he'd seen me somewhere, then faced the chief. “I'd like to talk to you, Chief.” His eyes flicked toward me. “Privately, if I may, if you don't mind, sir.”

I didn't mind and moved toward my old Land Cruiser. Behind me, I heard Manwaring's voice say, “it's about this Cortez fellow. He worries me. My wife is very disturbed . . .”

Phyllis Manwaring wasn't the only one who was disturbed. I was disturbed about Zee. But to whom could I go for solace? No one. Except, possibly, Angie Bettencourt, and that didn't seem like a good idea.

It was still cool and partly cloudy, but the threat of rain seemed to have diminished, so I decided to go after some oysters while I planned what to do with this morning's duck. Maybe I would make a meal with both oysters
and
duck. I could invite Zee, and I would be damned careful about not mentioning Angie Bettencourt. Or any of the other women I used to see before I knew Zee. It irked me to think that I should have to be careful about mentioning women who really didn't mean anything to me anymore, but if that was what it took for Zee to be happy, I would give it a shot.

I drove up Main Street to the four corners, turned left on South Water Street and drove past the huge pagoda tree that some nineteenth-century sea captain had brought over from the Orient in a flowerpot, then took another left down to Collins Beach, where I got my dinghy and put it in the back of the truck.

I drove up Cooke Street, seeing only a few late season walkers here and there, as they admired the white houses and the cedar-shingled houses and the silent, narrow streets of Edgartown. I passed the A & P without even having to slow down for any left turners, and went on out to my place.

From the shed behind my house I got my waders, my Buck Rogers, my innertubed basket and my oyster tongs, and headed for the town landing on the Edgartown Great Pond. This necessitated a drive down Meetinghouse Way, but I crept along that wretched road at a turtle's pace and managed to save my shock absorbers from an untimely demise. At the landing, I put the dinghy overboard, climbed into my waders, loaded the rest of my gear aboard and pushed off.

My little Seagull pushed me smartly across the pond toward the fingers of land that reached down into the pond from the north. Just around the end of the proper one of those points, there were some excellent oysters. As I rounded that point, I was surprised to discover visitors ahead of me. Most unusual. A canoe with a person in it, and another person in the shallows, tonging for oysters.

I got closer and saw that the tonger was none other than Chug Lovell and that the canoeist was Phyllis Manwaring's youngest, Heather, attorney-at-law. They waved as I killed my engine and let the dinghy slide up and nudge the shore. I pulled the boat up a bit, got my gear and walked out toward them. Heather had a wineglass in her hand, an old-fashioned lunch basket at her feet and a large, rather summerish hat over her long yellow hair.

“A popular spot on a Sunday morning,” I said. “I hope I'm not intruding.”

Heather waved her glass and shrugged and smiled.
“There is no privacy on Martha's Vineyard. If you want to be alone, go to Boston.”

Curly, chubby, slightly grubby Chug sloshed up and shook hands. “There are some good ones here, J.W. Nice size. Plenty for one and all.”

Chug's disintegrating house was about a mile straight north, and there were narrow roads winding down through the woods to the pond.

“How come you came down in your canoe?” I asked. “Why didn't you just drive?”

“Canoes are more romantic,” said Heather, lifting a bottle from the floor of the canoe and emptying it into her glass. “Don't you think so?”

“Actually, it's because somebody bought this point and built a house right on the other side of these trees.” Chug pointed and I saw through the trees that there was, indeed, a new house there. “And they're here this weekend, and they've got No Trespassing signs up . . .”

“And a big dog . . .,” interrupted Heather.

“And a big dog that barks and growls,” agreed Chug amiably. “So we came by sea. One, if by land, two, if by sea . . .”

“And there are two of us, so we came by sea.” Heather smiled.

She had her shingle hanging in Oak Bluffs, and, instead of leeching off rich Dad, was making a living, if not thriving, on island business. It seemed that the hospital gossip line had been right. Shiny clean Heather had a beau, and unkempt Chug was it. Not the oddest couple on the island, perhaps, but contenders.

“They'll be gone on Monday, probably,” said Chug. “Then we'll have the point to ourselves again.” He rolled his banjo eyes at Heather and snickered. “Won't have to paddle down here, then. Hee, hee!”

“Oh, Chug! You're such a card! Isn't he a card, J.W.?” Heather laughed and spilled some wine and pawed at round Chug, who allowed himself to be patted.

Young love. I felt a flicker of jealousy.

“Maybe I'd better find myself another spot,” I said. “You two act like you want to be alone.”

“Oh, J.W., you're a card! Isn't he a card, Chug?”

“An ace,” said Chug. “But we don't want to try anything in a canoe, sweets! That'd, hee, hee, be dangerous. A feller could upset and get drowned, hee, hee!” He peered into his basket. “I think we got enough of these little rascals, sweets. I figure we can let old J.W. have the rest. What do you say?”

“Anything you say, Chug. You're the one who opens them. I just eat them.” Heather winked at me. “Oysters are aphrodisiacs, you know, J.W. We may get home just in time!”

I felt a smile on my face. “You'd better get started right now,” I said. “And make sure you don't eat any of those guys on the way, or you may explode before you get to the house.”

“You got that right, old buddy!” said Chug, after Heather had reaffirmed that I certainly was a card. He climbed into the canoe and found a paddle. “Come on by the place one of these days, J.W. Got some venison you might like. You ready, sweets? Okay, then, stroke, and stroke, and stroke.”

The canoe moved off around the point and disappeared.

South of the point, across the pond, I could see the inner edge of South Beach, the world-class beach that runs the whole twenty miles of the Vineyard's south shore, from Wasque Point to Gay Head. Beyond that the gray Atlantic swept uninterrupted all the way to the West Indies. Around the pond there were woods
and meadows, and, here and there, houses that were almost completely out of sight during the summer, and only a bit more visible in the winter. There is a whole subculture of people who live around the edge of the pond. If you aren't one of them, you'd never know they were there. There are lots of such subcultures on the Vineyard, known only to themselves and their friends.

Far out in the center of the pond floated the large flock of ducks that had been there earlier that morning, when I had been gunning. The ducks knew where to be during hunting season.

It was a lonesome, lovely, cool place, and I was glad that Chug and Heather were gone so I could have it to myself.

The water where Chug and I had been standing was murky from the movement of our feet, so I moved off where the visibility was better, and began my oyster hunt.

Oysters live inside laminated shells that are often stuck together or are attached to rocks on the pond bottom. Inhabited oyster shells are usually clustered together with empty or broken ones, and the whole mess can be pretty ragged or muddy. When you tong up oysters, you have to knock off all the waste material before you drop the oysters in your basket, or else your basket will end up being full of useless crud. I use my oyster tongs to do the knocking.

As I picked my way over the oyster bed, I thought about Zee, and about my possibilities as a husband and potential father. I thought about Chug Lovell and Heather Manwaring, the recluse and the lawyer, having a thing together. Why not? I wondered what her very proper father would think. And I thought about Chug's offer of venison before the deer season even opened. Could it be that nature boy Chug was jacking
deer? If so, I did not intend to call in the law, since a dead deer doesn't know whether it was killed in season or out. Hunting seasons, like fame and money and other things we take very seriously, have no reality outside of men's minds.