Sweet Mercy (4 page)

T
he attack I was bracing against didn't come. Instead, the red-eyed devil withdrew his hand and straightened his back. “All right, then,” he said, a hint of annoyance in his voice, “you can just get yourself up.”

My muscles relaxed, except for those between my eyes that pulled my brow into a frown. “I . . .”

“You're not hurt, are you?”

“Um, no, I don't think so. I—”

He lifted his chin and started to move away. I knew what he was, but I'd never seen one before and I hadn't expected to see one now. That's what startled me. I pushed myself up from the floor.

Abruptly, he swung around. “Just who are you anyway? And what are you doing here in the ballroom? It's off-limits during the summer season, you know. You can do your dancing on the island like everyone else.”

“Listen,” I said, “I'm sorry. I'm Eve Marryat. I just came in here because I couldn't sleep and—”

“Oh yeah,” he said. “I know the name.” He nodded
slightly, the dim light in the room illuminating his pale skin, his stark white hair. Combed straight back without a part, his hair was a ghostly halo on top of his narrow face. Central to that face were the two crimson eyes, glowing like rubies on a bed of lambs' wool. He wore a washed-out gray shirt that was several shades darker than his skin and a pair of weathered denim pants held up with black suspenders. It was hard to tell, but I guessed him to be a few years older than I was.

When he didn't go on, I said, “I'm Cyrus's niece.”

“Yeah.” He nodded again. “I know. He said you were coming.”

“And you are . . . ?”

“Jones.”

“Jones?”

“That's right. Jones.”

My frown returned. I was trying not to stare at those strange red eyes, but the sight of them unnerved me. I slowly became aware that my thumbs were rubbing my index fingers like worry stones. “What's your first name?” I asked.

“That
is
my first name. It was my mother's maiden name.” He said this as he walked to the phonograph and lifted the needle from the record. The room was suddenly, jarringly quiet. He turned off the phonograph and put the lid down as though to tell me it was off-limits.

But I wasn't paying much attention. I was trying to connect the dots as I followed him to the stage. “Your mother?” I said. “Wait. You don't mean Cora?”

“Yeah, I do. So?”

“You're her son?”

“That's right. What about it?”

“How come I never heard of you?”

He lifted his shoulders, seemingly indifferent. “Beats me.”

“You weren't here for the wedding. You weren't here when she married Uncle Cy.”

“That's right, I wasn't. I was still in Chicago. I was staying with relatives because I had pneumonia.”

“So when did you come down?”

“About a month later, I guess. I don't really remember. Why?”

“No one ever mentioned you.”

“So?”

“Well, it's a pretty big secret, isn't it? I mean, you've been here five years and Uncle Cy never told us about you?”

“It's no secret, just because you don't mention someone.”

I found myself momentarily speechless. My fingers were becoming sore from the rubbing. I willed myself to stop but wasn't sure what to do with my hands. “Well, I mean, you're family, right? Isn't Uncle Cy your stepfather?”

He shrugged. “Sure. If you want to put it that way.”

“Then that means we're step-cousins. Right?”

“I suppose we are,” he said, though he sounded reluctant to agree.

“And you live here? At the lodge?”

“Yeah.” He nodded toward Uncle Cy's apartment behind the ballroom. “I live and work here. What do you expect?”

“Well, I'm just wondering . . . what else don't we know?”

“What do you mean?”

“What else hasn't Uncle Cy told us?”

“Beats me. And if I knew, I wouldn't tell you.”

We locked eyes a moment, his growing narrow as I slowly moved my head from side to side. “Listen,” I said, “I'm sorry
I was afraid at first. It's just . . . well, I wasn't expecting to run into anyone.”

“Yeah? Especially not someone like me, huh?”

“Well, I . . .”

“You've probably never even seen someone like me before, have you?”

I hesitated only a moment before answering truthfully. “No, I haven't. Not that I haven't heard of people like you. That is, I know there are people like you, even though I've never seen one or seen a picture or even thought very much about them. I . . .” I stopped. This wasn't going well. My nervousness was tying my tongue up in knots. I took a deep breath. “Look,” I said, “why don't we start over? It's very nice to meet you, Jones.”

His features stiffened into a sneer. He took one step back. “Yeah,” he said. “I bet.”

He turned and walked away without saying another word.

I
crawled into bed that night a little less thrilled about our new home in Mercy, Ohio. Something nagged me about having a cousin these past five years that I knew nothing about. Was Uncle Cy ashamed of Jones because of his color—or should I say, his lack of color? My uncle didn't seem to me that kind of person. But then again, beyond a few childhood memories, I really didn't know Uncle Cy very well.

I slept a fitful sleep and awoke the next morning to the sound of Mother tapping on the bedroom door. “Time to get up, Eve,” she called softly. “They're starting to serve breakfast now.”

Twenty minutes later, I found Mother and Daddy sipping coffee at one of the tables in the dining room. Daddy smiled at me. “Sleep well, darling?”

“Not really.” I snapped open the linen napkin at my place and laid it across my lap.

“What's the matter? Too excited to sleep?”

“No.” Leaning forward, I shook my head and lowered my voice. “I found out something you're not going to believe.”

Mother settled her coffee cup in the saucer and looked at me warily. “What is it, Eve?”

In my best conspiratorial whisper, I informed them, “Uncle Cy has a stepson and he lives here at the lodge.” I topped off my announcement with a nod.

Mother and Daddy glanced at each other. Daddy said, “Do you mean the boy Jones?”

I leaned back in the chair, dumbfounded. This was not the reaction I had expected. “You know about him?”

“Well,” Daddy said, “we don't really know anything about him, but I remember hearing him mentioned at the wedding. He's Cora's son.”

“That's right. So how come no one ever told me?”

Daddy's brow went up as he shrugged. “I suppose we thought you knew.”

“Well, I didn't.”

Mother poured herself more coffee from the pot on the table. “We're sorry, honey. We weren't trying to keep any secrets from you. It's just that we haven't been in touch with Daddy's side of the family very much. Not like we should have been these past few years.”

I looked from Mother to Daddy and back again. “Then why are we here?”

Daddy frowned at that. He picked up his spoon and began stirring imaginary sugar in his coffee. “All I can tell you,” he said, “is what you already know. Your Uncle Cy was good enough to help out—temporarily—until things get better for us. Now the honest truth is, it seems like Cyrus, Luther, and I have been fighting about one thing or another since the day we were born. Maybe that's just the way it is among brothers sometimes. I don't know. But maybe too
this is a chance for us to mend some fences. Heaven knows if that happens, our parents would die from the shock of it, if they hadn't passed on already. But I'm at least willing to give it a try.”

“But I just don't understand it, Daddy,” I said, shaking my head. “You're the best man I know. You're good to everyone. How could you and Uncle Cy ever argue about anything?”

“Well, darling,” Daddy said, putting down the spoon and patting my hand, “no one's perfect. Not even your old man.”

“Maybe not, Daddy, but you're as close to perfect as anyone I know.”

While Daddy and I shared a smile, Mother said, “So how did you happen to find out about Jones, Eve?”

My smile slipped away as I turned to Mother. “Last night I decided to look around the lodge, and I just ran into him.”
Quite literally,
I thought, but I wasn't about to admit to Mother and Daddy that I was dancing with an imaginary lover in the ballroom.

At that moment a young woman showed up at our table with an icy pitcher of fresh-squeezed orange juice. She bade us good morning and chatted amiably as she poured us each a glass. I took a long swallow; it tasted heavenly, so much better than the canned orange juice the milkman brought to our door in St. Paul.

“Will I be waitressing here like she is?” I asked after she left.

“You might,” Mother said, “if they need someone to fill in. But not today.”

“Cyrus told us this morning that he's opening the Island Eatery today,” Daddy explained. “Summer's here and it's time to get it under way. You can help us with that. Looks like the Eatery is where Mother and I will be spending most
of our time this summer, serving up hamburgers and soda pop. Sounds like fun, huh?”

“Sure,” I said with a nod.

“The rowboats and canoes will be coming out of storage too. We'll be responsible for the rental of those.”

As Daddy spoke, the romance of the island came back, and I forgot about family squabbles and my strange and previously unknown cousin named Jones. I was glad once again to be living at Marryat Island Lodge, where families came to play and life was good and surely some faint scent of Eden still lingered in the sweet clean air.

We spent the day, along with a couple of other workers, cleaning and stocking the Island Eatery, a cinderblock building painted pale green and fronted by a breezeway, where patrons could eat at concrete tables. We polished the grill, readied the soda machine, oiled the popcorn maker, laid out condiments, filled the walk-in freezer with hamburger patties, hot dogs, and tubs of ice cream. Folks came to the counter looking for refreshments; we had to turn them away with the promise we'd be ready for business by five in the evening.

While I was sweeping the breezeway sometime in the early afternoon, an overturned canoe passed by, carried on the shoulders of two young men. One of the men was wearing only a swimsuit, the trunks a solid black, the top a black-and-white stripe. In contrast the other fellow was fully clothed; he wore the long-sleeved gray shirt, denim pants, and black suspenders I'd seen in the ballroom the night before. When the men heaved the boat off their shoulders and onto the boat rest, I saw that Jones was also wearing dark glasses
and a broad-brimmed safari hat. Other than his hands, very little of his skin was exposed to the sun, not even his feet, on which he wore a pair of white tennis shoes.

“Mother, come here a minute,” I hollered. She looked up from one of the tables where she sat stuffing paper napkins into aluminum holders. She put the napkins aside and joined me where I stood. “That's Jones,” I said with a nod toward the boat rest. “The one in the hat and suspenders. He's—” I stopped. For some reason I was finding it difficult to say the word.

“He's what, Eve?” Mother asked.

I let the word escape on a sigh. “He's albino. Did you know that? His hair is completely white, and his eyes are the fieriest shade of red you could imagine. Did Uncle Cy tell you?”

Mother shook her head slowly. “No, he didn't. He never said a word. Then again, Cy never told us much about Jones at all.” She gazed at Jones and seemed deep in thought. Finally she said, “Pity. His eyes might have at least been blue, like some of them.”

“Blue?” I echoed.

“Some albinos have blue eyes,” she said absently. After another moment, she shook her head again, as though to shake away her thoughts. “But it doesn't matter, does it? That he's albino, I mean?”

“Of course not,” I answered dutifully.

She smiled at me. “We can look forward to getting to know him.”

Good luck,
I thought, remembering my encounter with him the night before.

Mother stepped away, then turned back. “You know, Eve, he probably has a hard time of it, being different the way he is.”

“I know, Mother. Maybe that's why he's so . . .”

“So what, Eve?”

I wanted to say rude, but Mother wouldn't like it. “Shy,” I said. “He seems rather timid.”

“Well, then, we'll make sure to let him know he's part of the family, won't we?”

I nodded. Sometimes it was hard to be my parents' daughter, but I wanted to think I was up to the challenge.

At about nine o'clock that evening I was passing by the front desk on my way up to my room when Uncle Cy stopped me. Another man, one of the night clerks, was behind the desk with him.

“Wait just a second, will you, Eve?” Uncle Cy dropped a stack of thick manila folders into a cardboard box and closed the flaps. He handed the box to the night clerk. “Okay, Thomas,” he said, “this old tax stuff is ready for storage. Take it on up to the attic, will you? One more box to add to the clutter.” He winked at me. “But we've got to keep it in case the IRS ever starts breathing down our necks. Got to have all our ducks in a row for the feds, you know.”

Thomas, bald and bespectacled, nodded and took the box. Without a word, he slipped around the desk and headed up the stairs.

“How do you get to the attic, Uncle Cy?” I asked.

Uncle Cy, already busy gathering another pile of papers, didn't look up. “You know where the VIP suite is, right?”

I thought a moment, reaching back into childhood memories. “It's at the opposite end of the hall from my room, isn't it?”

“That's right.” He nodded. “That's where I stick the bigwigs and the people who think they're bigwigs. Well, the door to the right of that door, that's how you get up to the attic. I don't recommend you going up there, though, especially if you're allergic to dust.”

I shrugged. “I'd rather spend my time in the suite. From what I remember, those are the prettiest rooms in the lodge.”

“Smart kid. And don't worry. You'll see the suite plenty, once you start helping the maids clean the rooms.”

“That wasn't exactly what I had in mind, Uncle Cy!” I tried to sound stern but laughed instead.

Uncle Cy smiled good-naturedly as he bundled the papers with a clip. “Now, listen, Eve honey”—he waved the papers at me and looked annoyed when the phone rang—“do me a favor, will you? Take these invoices to Jones.”

“To Jones?”

He nodded and picked up the receiver. “Good evening. Marryat Island Lodge. Cyrus Marryat speaking.”

He listened to whoever was on the other end of the line. I took the invoices and whispered, “But where is he?”

Uncle Cy put his hand over the mouthpiece and nodded over his shoulder. “In the apartment.”

“But—”

Uncle Cy cut me off with a wave of his hand, pulled the guest register from beneath the front desk, and started flipping through it.

I frowned at the invoices. I really didn't want to carry them to Jones. So far, he wasn't anybody I liked very much, and besides, I had worked hard at the Eatery all day and I was tired, too tired to deal with anyone as surly and ill-mannered as this newfound cousin of mine. But I remembered what
Mother had said, that we needed to make him feel like part of the family, so I resolved to deliver them willingly and perhaps even wish Jones a good-night.

I clenched my teeth as I made my way through the sitting room, down the hall, through the ballroom, and into yet another hall that led to Uncle Cy's apartment. The door was open, so I paused to look inside. From what I could see of the room, it was sparsely furnished with a couple of wing chairs, a bookcase, and a long dining room table pushed up against one wall. The hardwood floor was dull and rutted with scrapes and scratches. Dark heavy drapes hung in the window. A few paintings and framed photographs adorned the walls. Other than that the room was nearly devoid of a woman's touch, and I wondered why Aunt Cora hadn't tried to make it more homey and cheerful.