Sea Glass (14 page)

  Vivian

This has to be the house, Vivian decides. It’s three stories tall, painted white with black shutters — not quite as bad as she has remembered. Work has been done on the front door, and a trellis surrounding it has fresh white paint. She steps from the four-year-old beach wagon and draws her coat around her. Snow started falling in the morning, lightly at first, and then more heavily. She is glad that she had her fur-lined boots and coat sent north from Boston, despite her father’s protests.

Her father has nearly given up calling. He refuses to be dissuaded from the notion that Vivian has taken up with a married man (and who started that wicked rumor? Vivian would dearly like to know), when nothing could be farther from the truth. She hasn’t even been out to dinner with a man since Dickie left. Periodically, she hears from Dickie, who is staying with Johnny Merrill on Marlborough Street. Short bulletins that suggest a kind of panic. Holding a finger against one leak while another starts at the other end of the boat.

Vivian knocks against a windowpane inside a Christmas wreath. When the door opens, Vivian watches the woman’s features rearrange themselves — dipping in a flash from expectant to disappointed and then rising immediately to pleased.

“Hello,” Honora says when pleased has been reached.

Vivian notes the shell-pale satin blouse and the brown wool skirt. Marcasite-and-pearl earrings. Ordinary brown pumps.

“Come in,” Honora says. “What a surprise.”

“I don’t want to bother you. I was just on my way to the airfield. I’m leaving, and I wanted you to have these.” Vivian opens the antelope-and-sardonyx bag Dickie gave her for her twenty-ninth birthday in September and takes out a small tissue-wrapped packet tied with string.

“When does your plane leave?” the woman asks.

“I have a few minutes. It might not even go at all because of the bad weather.”

“I’ll make us some tea.”

Vivian wipes her feet on a doormat and follows Honora into the kitchen. The woman is as slim as a wand, Vivian sees from behind. She has beautiful shoulders as well — a swimmer’s build.

Honora sets the tissue-wrapped packet on a kitchen table covered with a linen cloth. An apron has clearly just been tossed aside. Vivian removes her chamois gloves and unbuttons her coat.

“May I take those?” Honora asks.

“I can’t stay long enough for a proper visit, though I should have come by ages ago. I’m off to New York — having Christmas with an aunt — and . . . well . . . open the packet.”

Honora sits at the remaining kitchen chair and unties the string. Spread out upon the tissue paper are two dozen pieces of sea glass. “Oh,” Honora says, clearly moved.

“After I met you that time, I started looking for sea glass,” Vivian says. “It gets addictive, doesn’t it?”

“Thank you. They’re very beautiful.”

“I thought you could add them to your collection,” Vivian says. Her own favorite is the meringue disk that seems to have melted and bubbled as if it had been cooked. Honora holds up a shard of white milk glass. “I wasn’t sure if milk glass counted,” Vivian says.

“Oh, yes,” Honora says and then laughs. “Well, how would I know? I just make up the rules as I go along. These are lovely. It’s rare to find these colors. Most sea glass is white or brown.”

“Look at us,” Vivian says. “We’re like two diamond merchants exclaiming over a shipment.”

Honora rises to fill a kettle with water. Vivian notices the mismatched cups hanging from hooks under an oilcloth-covered shelf, the two pies (they smell like mincemeat) on a table next to the stove, the cleanliness of every surface, even the floor. Mrs. Ellis, who comes twice a week to Vivian’s house, doesn’t do half as good a job. A copy of
Woman’s Home Companion
is on the kitchen table next to the apron.

Honora lays a tea cloth on a tray and sets upon it two mugs and a pink glass sugar and creamer set. She is unapologetic about the mismatched crockery, a trait Vivian immediately admires.

“Can I tempt you with a piece of mincemeat pie?” Honora asks.

“I don’t want you to cut into your pies. You’re obviously expecting someone.”

“I’m expecting my husband,” Honora says. “I’m not sure when he’s coming. He said he’d be here for lunch, but he didn’t make it. He and I can’t eat both pies anyway. I didn’t realize you were still here. I thought just about everybody had gone home.”

“We had an unexpected turn of events,” Vivian says. “My friend Dickie Peets, the fellow who owned the house, had to sell it rather quickly. And so I bought it. I’m not sure why, other than that I’ve loved being here.”

Honora opens her mouth to ask a question, but then closes it. Instead she fetches the kettle from the stove. The water must have been near a boil already, Vivian thinks. Yet another indication of the way in which the woman has prepared for the arrival of her husband. For a moment, Vivian envies that sense of expectancy.

“Dickie and I were
living in sin,
” Vivian says lightly. “I hope you’re not shocked.”

“Oh,” Honora says, flustered.

“He’s gone now,” Vivian says, taking a sip of tea. “I’ve never been on my own. What do I taste?”

“Cinnamon. And cloves.”

“I’m sure your husband is tied up in a department store. With all the other husbands picking out last-minute gifts for their wives.”

“You don’t want any milk with that?”

“No, no. This is perfectly fine.”

Honora cuts two slices of pie and sets them on the table with forks. Vivian wonders briefly about the snow. She has no idea how a Ford wagon will fare in bad weather. Mrs. Ellis’s husband taught Vivian how to drive shortly after she purchased the beach wagon from Archie Swetnam, a man in straits not dissimilar to Dickie’s. At first, Vivian thought the idea of profiting from someone else’s losses distinctly immoral, but now she has decided that it is much the other way around: she is simply helping her friends out of tight spots. “Lovely pie,” she says.

“Your plane,” Honora says, glancing at the clock on the wall.

“I’ve still a minute or two,” Vivian says.

“My husband has had a lot of worries lately,” Honora says. “Business isn’t going well.”

“He sells typewriters.”

“And other business machines.”

“This can’t last forever.”

“No, but you see we’d just bought the house.”

Vivian nods, once again experiencing the guilt of the survivor. The fiasco with the stock market has ruined a good number of her friends: the Nyes, the brothers Chadbourne, Dorothy Trafton. She finds it hard to muster sympathy for Dorothy Trafton. “What are you giving your husband for Christmas?” she asks.

“It’s called a Multi-Vider pen. It multiplies, divides, works percentages and proportions.”

“Sounds clever.”

“It’s crimson and black, gold filled,” Honora says with a flush of pride.

“I’m sure he’ll love it,” Vivian says. “Men love gadgets.” Vivian has bought her father a movie camera for Christmas. She’ll be up all night wrapping presents; she has seven parties to go to in the next ten days. The stock market thing will be all the talk — who is destroyed, who is not, quaint economies one has heard of.

“I’d show it to you, but it’s wrapped,” Honora says.

Another pang of something like regret passes through Vivian, regret that she hasn’t a lover to whom to give a Christmas gift. Of course she will give Dickie a present — a small painting by the artist Claude Legny — but it isn’t the same. Their meeting will almost certainly be strained and tense.

“I’d better go,” Vivian says.

“Where’s the airfield?” Honora asks.

“The other side of Ely Falls.”

“How are you getting your car back to your house?”

“I’ve a fellow who’ll take the trolley to the airfield the day after tomorrow and drive it back,” Vivian says.

“I was just going to suggest I drive it for you.”

“You know how to drive?” Vivian asks with more incredulity than she has intended.

“I do indeed,” Honora says. “My husband taught me this summer. I’ll just get my coat.”

Vivian sits a moment and then politely finishes her tea and pie. She puts her dishes in the sink and slips on her coat. She moves into the hallway and follows a corridor that leads to what appears to be a front room with floor-to-ceiling windows looking out onto the beach. The sky seems to be brightening, and Vivian notices a sliver of blue to the east. A grand piano is in one corner, a decorated Christmas tree in the other. Several carefully wrapped packages have been set upon a tree skirt. A small settee near the tree is covered in a white crocheted throw, doubtless meant to hide a stain. Vivian has a sudden and powerful need of cheer — of fireplaces and highballs and brittle chatter and women covered with velvet and pearls.

  Sexton

Sexton leans against the lamppost as if drunk already. He wants only to be drunk. Men and women brush past him, some with heads bent, letting the brims of their hats catch the snow, others with their faces tilted back, laughing. It seems that the entire city is on the streets this afternoon, ducking into doorways and balancing packages, everyone expectant and purposeful. He fingers the summons, now crumpled in the pocket of his coat.

 

The summons is typed on a Fosdick No. 7 that Sexton sold the bank. The note was Copiographed for the files on a machine Sexton himself carried into the building just weeks earlier.

Sexton moves with the crowd, scarcely knowing where he is headed, too tired even to light a cigarette. After he has gone a block, he finds his path obstructed by a group of men and women waiting their turn to enter the revolving door of Simmons Department Store, and this reminds him again that he has to buy a Christmas present for Honora. He cannot go home empty-handed — no, of course he can’t. He has ten dollars saved from his last paycheck. He sincerely doubts there will be another. Last night he slept in the Buick and shaved in the lavatory of a Flying A filling station in Lyndeboro. He can still feel the mantle of a bad night’s sleep all about his face and eyes.

He enters through the revolving door and is deposited at a perfume counter just inside the entrance. Men stand in a cluster, trying to attract the attention of a blond woman in a smart red dress who is spraying an atomizer onto their inner wrists, flirting a bit as she does so. Sexton longs to be among those men, lighthearted with the holiday, spending slightly too much on an easy gift for the wife. He doesn’t even know what kind of perfume Honora prefers. She always smells like soap.

He wanders through the millinery department and then passes by the glove counter. He is pushed aside (“Excuse me, sir, I didn’t see you”) and finds himself in the hosiery department. He is fairly certain Honora would like hose. Once he walked into the bedroom when she was mending a stocking with a tiny hook that was all but invisible. She hadn’t wanted him to see her doing that, and so she very quietly let the sewing fall into her lap while she spoke to him. He can’t remember the conversation now. He can recall only the image of Honora in her white slip on the bed, the slip not even reaching her knees, her legs bare and beautifully formed.

He imagines her at home waiting for him. She will be sitting on a chair in the kitchen, flipping through the pages of a magazine, looking out the window from time to time, worrying about him driving in the snow.

The image is unbearable.

“You can appreciate,” Rowley said, his voice cold, not a hint of drink upon him. No sign of the affable and lazy bank president who had wanted to talk cars and baseball scores and leave the decision-making to the girl out front. No, this was a different Rowley altogether, and, sitting across from the man (not having been invited to remove his coat), Sexton had an image of Rowley’s shoulders strung up like a puppet’s. “You can appreciate, Mr. Beecher, that in this current economic climate, this bank, and indeed most of the banks that I am familiar with, are taking a very close look at the loans that have been issued. And, frankly, in so doing, we have discovered an irregularity with your particular loan. Now that we have all the paperwork in front of us.”

“I’m sorry?” Sexton asked, attempting a smile.

Rowley smiled thinly back at him. “As you recall, Mr. Beecher, you came in on Friday, September fourth, requesting a loan of seven hundred dollars for the purpose of home improvement.”

He’s enjoying this,
Sexton thought.
Of course he is. Man bites dog bites cat.
The bank would have tremendous shortages now, for which Rowley would be held responsible.

“At that time, you told us that you owned your home on, let me see, Fortune’s Rocks Road. Isn’t that correct, Mr. Beecher?”

A bead of sweat angled across Sexton’s temple. With an effort at the nonchalance of innocence, he shook his head. “I’m not sure what you mean, Ken.”

A small flinch, like a tic, passed across Rowley’s features, and Sexton realized that the
Ken
had been a mistake. The paneled walls that once seemed the very epitome of graciousness now felt oppressive, the windowsills too high, the room taking on the punitive menace of a classroom. “I’m sure there’s been an error of some sort in the paperwork,” Sexton added.

“There’s a very simple way to settle this. I can pick up the telephone and call Albert Norton over at the Franklin bank. I’ve been reluctant to do that, Mr. Beecher, as you can appreciate, for it would almost certainly precipitate an investigation into your loan with them.” No need to play the innocent now, Sexton thought: Rowley had him in his sights. “However, I am afraid that we
shall
have to call in the loan this bank gave to you. The loan of seven hundred dollars for home improvements to a house you did not, in fact, own.”

Sexton sat forward. “But in essence I did. Really, what does a day or two matter — particularly since it was over a holiday weekend and business was suspended for three days?”

“There can be no debate on this matter,” Rowley said. “As a banker, I cannot tolerate any irregularities. Seriously, Mr. Beecher, can you imagine a depositor not minding the irregularity, say, of a miscalculated sum in his passbook?” Rowley waited a moment for an answer to his rhetorical question. “No, I think not,” he answered himself.

Is the bottle in that right-hand drawer an irregularity? Sexton wanted to ask. “Could we talk about restructuring the loan?” he asked instead.

“No, that will not be possible.”

The trickle of sweat pooled on Sexton’s cheek.

“And I am afraid, Mr. Beecher, that while I have refrained from notifying the Franklin bank in hopes that you and I might reach an easy settlement here, I did have to speak with the head office of your company. We were unable to reach you by telephone, you see.”

Sexton briefly closed his eyes and watched his life tumble away from him. His job. His car. His house.

“You spoke to whom?” Sexton asked.

“I have it in my notes here. Mr. Fosdick himself, I believe. Yes, that’s right.”

Sexton took his handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped the sweat from his face. Rowley too was sweating, Sexton noticed. His collar was limp and — was it possible? — dirty.

“Mr. Fosdick has asked me to have you call him at your earliest convenience. I do encourage you in future, Mr. Beecher, if you are to continue in business of some sort, to install a telephone at your residence.”

“So then. Not to prolong this unpleasant matter. We should like repayment in full of the loan in question no later than Wednesday of next week.”

“But I can’t raise that kind of money by next week,” Sexton said, stifling a note of rising panic that had crept into his voice.

“No, I thought not. But, as I recall, Mr. Beecher, you mentioned you drove a Buick? What do you imagine it’s worth now?”

Sexton was silent.

“I’m trying to find a way for you to keep your house, Mr. Beecher. Frankly, I consider this an awfully generous gesture on my part. If your automobile is worth what I think it is, then it could go a fair distance toward repaying this loan we’re speaking of.”

Sexton thought frantically.

“So you’d say it’s worth how much, Mr. Beecher?”

“Four hundred and seventy-five dollars,” Sexton said. “That’s what I paid for it.”

“Well then, Mr. Beecher. If you would be so kind as to deliver the Buick to the address I have written on this piece of paper next Wednesday, we would be most grateful. As you will see, the address is that of an auction house. I can’t guarantee the four hundred seventy-five. Indeed, I should think not in this economic climate. But with commission we might net four hundred.”

Panic blossomed in Sexton’s voice. “Without the car, Mr. Rowley, I can’t make a living.”

Rowley winced as surely as if Sexton had begun to cry. “I hope we’re not going to have a problem here,” Rowley said quietly.

With a supreme effort, Sexton stood.

“Well then,” said Rowley, relief evident in his voice. And without a trace of irony added, “Good luck to you.”

“May I help you, sir?”

A lithe, diminutive woman, beige of hair and of face, who suddenly seems so precisely the color of the product she is selling that Sexton wonders if she has sprung to life from behind the counter, tilts her head to catch his attention.

“Can I show you anything in particular? Are you looking for a gift for your wife? Your girlfriend? Is she tall or is she short?”

“She’s . . . long,” Sexton says. “She’s very long.”

The beige woman looks sharply up at him, as if she might be dealing with a fruitcake. Or a man who’s celebrated just a bit too heartily at an office party around the corner. Sexton struggles to attention. The task seems monumentally difficult, but he cannot go home to Honora empty-handed.

“I have some marvelous chiffon hose I could show you,” the salesgirl says. “Some lovely pairs. Dressy. Quite smart. Chiffon is all the rage now. But serviceable as well. A woman must have durability, don’t you agree?”

Yes, he does agree. Honora has durability.

The salesgirl holds a slim pair of delicate stockings between her outstretched fingers. The chiffon flows like liquid from hand to hand. Briefly, Sexton imagines the silky feel of the stockings on Honora’s legs.

“Sir?” the salesgirl asks.

Above him, the chandelier seems to be burning too brightly and, for a moment, to spin. Around him there are voices, animated and brisk, rising to a crescendo. He thinks again of Honora at the house waiting for him. He cannot bear the thought of going back to her. How can he ever explain to her what he has done?

“Get a move on,” a man behind Sexton calls out. “Haven’t got all day.”

“I’d like two pair,” Sexton says quickly. He takes from his pocket a thin roll of bills secured by an elastic band and gives the salesgirl a two-dollar bill and a one.

Behind him, someone cheers.