The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud (8 page)

“What’s the rush? Another attack on those poor geese?”

Charlie laughed. “Thought you wanted a little quiet, that’s all.”

“It’s better now.”

Charlie felt her eyes looking him up and down, and he was embarrassed about the mud on his boots and the stains on his pants.

“You know,” she said, “my dad’s buried here. Just on top of that hill.” She pointed. “The view’s pretty nice up there.”

Without another word, she took off, her ponytail bouncing behind her. Charlie wasn’t sure whether to follow. Was she inviting him for a look? Or was she finished with the conversation? Every instinct told him to go back to work. He had no business chasing after Tess Carroll. But then he found himself racing up the hill to catch her. When he reached the crest, she had already plopped down on the grass. Her legs were stretched out, and she was looking down toward the harbor where the boats pointed northeast on their moorings. In the distance, a fisherman hauled a lobster pot from the water with a gaff hook.

“Looks like Tim Bird had a good catch today,” she said. “His stern sure is riding low.”

“Your dad was a lobsterman, wasn’t he?” Charlie said.

She looked at him. “Yeah, how’d you know?”

Charlie wasn’t sure whether to fess up. He didn’t want to seem strange, but he remembered every job he had worked in the cemetery. He recalled every eulogy.

“How’d you know about my dad?” Tess asked again. This time her voice was more insistent.

“I was working the day he was buried.”

“Oh.” Tess leaned forward and put her face in her hands. She rubbed her forehead and smoothed her hair back. “God, I was in such a fog. Barely remember a thing.”

But Charlie recalled the entire funeral and the fact that her dead father hadn’t shown up in the cemetery. It wasn’t too surprising: Many folks chose to move on immediately to the next level without ever stopping in Waterside.

He studied Tess’s face. The memories were coming back now. She was the kind of girl he had dated long ago when everything seemed possible. She was also the kind of woman he never encountered in the graveyard. She had everything going for her—a successful business, a thirty-eight-foot sloop, and those green eyes.

And yet . . . strangely, she wasn’t intimidating at all. She was more lovely, more real than anyone he had known in a long time. That feeling inside was now under control, and he was beginning to feel emboldened. “This may sound weird,” he said, “but I loved what you read that day.”

“What I read?”

“You know, that poem you recited by the grave.”

“You remember?”

“It was e. e. cummings’
dive for dreams
.”

“My dad’s favorite,” she said.

“I went and looked it up afterward.” He paused, then recited a few lines:

trust your heart

if the seas catch fire

(and live by love

though the stars walk backward)

“(and live by love,” she repeated, “though the stars walk backward)”

“It’s great,” Charlie said, “but I’m not really sure what that means.”

“Me neither.”

Her face relaxed, her eyes twinkled, and her lips curled up in a bow. She leaned back and let out a good laugh. It echoed across the grounds, and Charlie was sure it was the best sound he had heard in ages.

Then she rolled over, fixed her eyes on him, and said: “So tell me, Charlie St. Cloud. What’s a guy like you doing in a place like this?”

It figured she would spot a cute guy the week before leaving town. That’s what had always happened. Her timing was either impeccably off or the guys she liked turned out to be nothing more than deadweight. Tess wanted to live by love, but the stars never walked backward for her, and they most definitely didn’t line up for romance. She was unlucky when it came to the heart, always had been, always would be, and that was a big reason she wanted to get away. For her, sailing was a cinch, but relationships were not. Somehow, mastering the wind was always easier than taming unruly men.

And yet, she was lying in the grass and she was kind of—maybe—sort of—liking this guy Charlie. It was strange. She had lived in this town all her life and had never really noticed him until today. Sure, she had seen him around in his blue uniform, but he had always seemed a bit shy, preferring the darkest edges of the local bars and dinner joints. Back at school, everyone had known about the St. Cloud boys. They were the most promising brothers in Essex County until the elder had killed the younger on the General Edwards bridge. It was an accident, a real tragedy, and folks whispered that Charlie had never gotten over it.

But here he was and he seemed perfectly okay. All right, he worked in a cemetery and that was a bit odd, but he was funny, kind, and great looking in that rough way. His arms and shoulders were solid, and he had obviously been working hard that morning. His shirt was damp from labor, his hands were a little muddy, there were flecks of grass in his hair, but damn it if he didn’t quote cummings. There was a gentleness to him, a sweetness. And then there was the way he was looking at her.

“Oh, Charlie?” she said. “Quit staring and answer my question.”

He blinked. “What question?”

“What’re you doing here? Why work in the cemetery?”

“Why not? Beats having an office job. I get to be outdoors all day, plus, I kind of run the place. It’s fun being the boss, you know?” He pulled a blade of grass from the lawn, put it between his fingers, cupped his hands, and blew. It made a strange whistle, and suddenly the trees seemed to come alive. This guy was too much. Paul Bunyan in a graveyard. Even the birds sang to him.

She pulled a few blades herself and held them to her face. “Love that smell.”

“Me too.”

“You’d think they’d bottle it and sell it.”

“All you need is some hexanol, methanol, butanone, and—”

“Okay. You talk to the birds. You know the chemicals in grass. Are you for real?”

Charlie laughed. “Of course I am. Real as you are.”

Tess studied the dimple on his cheek. The shock of hair flopping down over his eyes. The little slanted scar on his temple. He was real, all right. But then she wondered about him and this netherworld he worked in. “So what about all the dead people?”

“What about them?”

“Isn’t it a little creepy, you know, working here every day?”

He laughed. “Not at all. Hospitals and nursing homes deal with death. Funeral homes too. But this is different. This is a park. When folks get here, they’re in caskets and urns, and we never even get close to them.”

Tess pulled the rubber band from her ponytail. She let her hair fall around her shoulders. Her headache was still there, and she was groggy from the lack of sleep, but she was also feeling more relaxed. She liked the deep timbre of Charlie’s voice. She wanted to know more, so she pushed forward. “What about your brother?” she asked.

“My brother? What about him?”

It was almost imperceptible, but she sensed him pulling back.

“He’s buried here, isn’t he? Is that why you’re here?”

Charlie shrugged his shoulders. “It’s my job,” he said. “Pays the bills and beats selling insurance in an office, know what I mean?” Tess watched his eyes. She knew his answer was just camouflage. This wasn’t just any job. He wasn’t here to pay the rent.

“Listen,” he said. “I’ve got to get back to work. It’s been really nice talking.”

“Hey, I’m sorry, that was none of my business. Me and my big mouth.”

“Trust me, there’s nothing wrong with your mouth,” he said. “Maybe we can talk about it another time.”

Tess stood and looked up at Charlie. He was more than six feet tall. She wanted to wipe the smudge from his forehead and brush the leaves from his shoulders. But suddenly the intrepid sailor didn’t know which way to tack.

“I’d like that,” she said. “Another time.”

“Hey, good luck with that trip of yours,” he said.

“Thanks,” she said. “Hope I see you again when I get back.”

“Get back?”

“You know, I’m sailing in a few days.”

She watched his face closely. His brow furrowed, and then he surprised her.

“Listen, if you don’t have plans, how about dinner tonight? I’ll throw some fish on the fire.”

“You cook too?!”

“Nothing fancy.”

Tess couldn’t stop the reflex. “Do you always pick up women in the cemetery?”

“Only if they’re breathing.”

Tess smiled. She liked his guts and she knew exactly what she wanted. “I’d love to,” she said.

“Great.”

“Can I bring anything?”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got it covered. You drink beer or wine?”

“Take a guess.” This was an easy test.

Without hesitating, he said, “Sam Adams all right?”

“Perfect.”

“I live over there by the forest,” Charlie said, pointing to the thatched-roof cottage with a brick chimney that was nestled against the trees. “I’ll meet you at the front gates. Eight o’clock work for you?”

“It’s a date.”

Tess heard the words—“it’s a date”—and couldn’t help laughing. Charlie waved, then strolled off toward his cart, leaving her alone on the hill. For months, she had walled herself off from the world with preparations for the race. She had deflected every invitation and dodged every overture. She was the last person in Essex County who was supposed to have a date tonight.

She kneeled down by her father’s grave and put one hand on the stone. God, life was strange. Maybe Dad really was looking out for her. He had heard her prayers in the storm. He had guided her home. And maybe he was the reason she found herself saying yes to Charlie St. Cloud’s invitation.

“Dad,” she whispered into the wind. “Thank you.”

ELEVEN

THE SPLASHES OF PURPLE AND PINK PAINTED ACROSS THE
sky meant trouble.

For years, Charlie had vigilantly organized his life around the sundown meeting with Sam, and there was no margin for error. He knew that night he had until exactly 6:51
P
.
M
., the precise moment of civil twilight when the center of the sun’s disc dropped six degrees below the horizon and the hidden playground was dark. That gave him twenty-one minutes to race around in his old ’66 Rambler to pick up swordfish steaks at the Lobster Company in Little Harbor, and then whip over to the other side of town for salad and dessert ingredients at Crosby’s.

It was going to be very close.

He thought of Tess standing up there on the hill and couldn’t believe his gumption. He had actually asked her to dinner at his place, and her green eyes had lit up when she said yes. Joe the Atheist would be stunned. Had he ever been around a woman like this, so full of spunk and sass? Just talking to her made him feel more alive.

“Relax, you just spent fifteen minutes with her,” Charlie told himself. He was a practical man in all matters, including the heart. He had to be. In his life governed by the setting sun, there was no room to get carried away.

Indeed, it had been four years since he had gotten tangled up with anyone. Becca Blint was his last girlfriend. They had met at the Pub at the Landing on beer-tasting night and had fallen for each other over a pint of Angkor Extra Stout from Cambodia. She was a first-grade teacher in Peabody and was funny, flirty, and older. She had definitely taught him a thing or two during their summer together, sprinting through the sprinklers, skinny-dipping in the pond, and snuggling up in the cottage. But when autumn came, Becca wanted to go away on weekends to watch the leaves change or use frequent-flyer miles, jet off to Paris, and visit the Père-Lachaise Cemetery, where Jim Morrison was buried.

Charlie never told her his secret about Sam, and soon his need to be in the graveyard every night at sundown became ridiculous to her. When he had run out of excuses and was exhausted by her nagging, he tried to relax the sunset rule a little, showing up a few minutes late now and then. Nothing terrible happened, so he pushed the limits further. One night, he actually got there after dark, and that’s when he realized that Sam was beginning to fade. At first, the change was almost imperceptible, but then it became frighteningly obvious that he was losing his gift. The hard fact was that the more he lived in one world, the less he could see the other.

So he drew the line, retreated to his old ways, and refused to discuss the subject with Becca. When the New Year arrived, she was gone. Charlie found a note pinned to the steering wheel of his cart.
I’m done with this cemetery
, she wrote.
And I’m finished with the living dead. Breaks my heart that I can’t be the one to set you free
.

It hurt to see her go, but the choice between Sam and Becca was a no-brainer. He could see no compromise. After that, he protected himself by working even harder and avoiding any real attachments, especially of the female variety.

He kept up the happy-go-lucky appearance and was always first with a joke or quip. But when it came to real entanglements, he had mastered the dodge. Every chance, he sabotaged, and every night, he remembered why. He had robbed Sam of life, so he, Charlie, didn’t deserve love or happiness.

The logic was irrefutable.

Now this scary new feeling inside was sounding every alarm. Tess was trouble. If anyone could toss his carefully ordered world upside down, it was she.

He aimed the Rambler into a parking place on Orne Street, glanced at the sky, and checked his watch. Seventeen minutes to go. He got out of the car and saw an energetic woman in a burgundy track suit leading a group of tourists away from Little Harbor, the rocky cove where boat-makers and fishermen had done business for centuries.

Uh-oh
. Where to hide?

“Ladies and gentlemen,” she bellowed, “please note how our chimneys lean to the east. See? Over there?” She pointed toward a tilting smokestack. “That’s because of the sun and the way the mortar dried.”

Fraffie Chapman was the town historian and chairwoman of the esteemed Historic District Commission. No citizen could add a cornice or gable or even brick a walk without prior approval of Fraffie’s board. Her arched nose was strong, her white hair poofy, and she looked remarkably like one of her direct ancestors: George Washington himself, who had twice visited Marblehead.

“Look at that color,” she said rapturously, pointing with her walking stick to the door of an old house. “Gorgeous! Authentic blue. Exactly matches the colonial original!” She took a few more steps. “This way, please. Now, you see those shutters up there! I can’t even bear to look.” She covered her eyes in mock horror. “They do offend me greatly. Shutters weren’t used in the eighteenth century! They came into fashion in the early nineteenth. So, the Historic District Commission is demanding that the owners take down these monstrosities.” Charlie laughed to himself. To many townsfolk, the Hysterical Commission was more like it.

“Any questions?!” Fraffie shouted, but the visitors cowered. She turned and stomped toward him. “Marblehead is a clapboard town, not a shingle town,” she declared to no one in particular. “We won’t let the off islanders turn this into Disneyland. No, we won’t!”

Charlie crossed the street to take cover behind a Ford Explorer. Maybe he could avoid her. But then he heard her piercing voice: “I see you, St. Cloud! You can’t hide from me!” She frowned, cocked her head, and marched over to him. “You better cut those bushes on West Shore. I’m serious this time. Get them in shape or face my wrath!”

Charlie preferred letting the boxwood and yew in front of the cemetery grow wild. They made the entrance feel more natural. But he didn’t have time to argue. He could tell from the low light reflecting on the water that the sun had already dipped below the tree line.

“Those bushes aren’t historical,” Fraffie intoned. “They’re a blight. I’m giving you one more chance. Remove them or we’ll go to war.”

Charlie imagined her shooting him with her very own musket or slashing him with a cutlass. Then he mustered his most polite tone. “I’ll see what I can do; now, excuse me please. I’m in a hurry.”

Fraffie turned back to her group and pointed her cane toward the waterfront. “That’s Gerry Island out in the harbor. Elbridge Gerry was our most famous native son. He was Vice President of the United States in 1813, and we named a school, a street, and a veteran fireman’s association after him. . . .”

Off Fraffie went, declaiming about pitched roofs and paired chimneys. Charlie rushed down the street and opened the door to the Lobster Company, with its sign in the window:
UNATTENDED CHILDREN WILL BE SOLD AS SLAVES
. He stepped inside and was accosted by the musty smell of brine and fish. Big tanks filled with lobsters gurgled in the middle of the room. The concrete floor was wet from water splashing over the edges. As a boy, he had loved pushing his face up against the moist glass and watching the crustaceans do battle.

At the register, a pale man in pinstripes was collecting his purchase. Pete Kiley had played second base on the high-school team and was now an associate in a fancy Boston law firm. He and Charlie had turned more double plays than any infield in Marblehead history. Now Pete and his family lived out on the Neck in an expensive home and took vacations in France and Italy.

“Hey,” Pete said, turning around. “I’ll be damned. If it isn’t number twenty-four . . . shortstop . . . Charlie St.—”

His routine was always the same no matter where they ran into each other, and Charlie knew it was intended to cut through the awkwardness. Pete had done something with his life, and Charlie hadn’t. But the truth was that Pete’s attempt to recall their glory days only made things feel worse.

“Sorry I can’t stay and chat,” Pete said, twirling his BMW keys, “but the wife is waiting for me in the car.” He punched Charlie in the shoulder. “Give me a ring one of these days, and we’ll have you over for dinner. It’s been too long.”

“You bet,” Charlie said, watching him go. Of course, he would never make the call.

“That kid’s making too much money,” an old voice said behind the counter. “Just shows you, taxes should be higher on the rich.” Bowdy Cartwright had owned the Lobster Company forever. He was a jowly fellow with at least three chins who had amused generations of kids with his uncanny imitation of a puffer fish. “What are you looking for today?” he asked. “We’ve got good haddock for chowder and clams for steamers with drawn broth—”

“I’ll take two swordfish steaks, half a pound each.”

“You got it. Just off the boat from the Grand Banks.”

A young woman stepped out from one of the back rooms of the store. Margie Cartwright flipped her long blond hair to one side and flashed a red lipsticky smile. She went straight to the cash register, leaned over, and thrust her cheek toward him.

“Come on, Charlie. Give one up for your old gal.”

Way back before he ruined everything, Margie was his sweetheart. She was a year older. He was a sophomore, she was a junior, and they had met one freezing Thanksgiving at the big game against Swampscott. She was a cheerleader who insisted on wearing a little skirt and sweater whatever the weather. After all, she said, girls with pompoms had no business in parkas and long pants. Their romance was innocent enough, with nights spent immersed in conversation over chicken parm at the House of Pizza. Then came the accident, and Charlie retreated. All the cheerleading in the world would not lift his spirits. Margie tried her hardest to bring him back, but he pushed her away.

Charlie leaned forward and kissed her.

“Thatta boy,” she said, batting long eyelashes. Charlie smelled her Chloe perfume. In many ways, Margie hadn’t let go of her glory years. Her long blond hair was unchanged, and she wore a tight pink sweater, short black skirt, and high boots. Up and down the coast, the fishermen knew her name and outfits, her only form of protest against spending her life in the family’s fish shack.

“So? Whatcha cooking tonight?” she asked.

“Oh, nothing much.”

“Here ya go,” Bowdy said, handing Charlie a paper bag. “That’s two swordfish steaks, Margie. A little more than a pound.”

“Two steaks? Oh really!” Margie said, arching a well-plucked eyebrow. “Fish for two?”

“Nah . . .”

“C’mon, Charlie! Who is she? Maybe I can put in a good word for you.”

Charlie threw a $20 bill on the register. “Sorry, Margie. I gotta run. Ring me up, please.”

“You’re no fun anymore. What’s the big secret? You know I’m going to find out anyway! Might as well tell me.”

Charlie thought for a moment. She was right. Her far-flung network of spies would report back within days. What was the harm in telling? She knew the skinny on every person in town. In fact, maybe she could help.

He checked his watch—eleven minutes to go—and decided to skip Crosby’s for salad and dessert. If he improvised at home and whipped up something from scratch, he still had a few minutes to get some valuable intelligence. So he leaned forward conspiratorially, and said, “Swear you won’t tell?”

“Cross my Catholic heart.”

“All right,” he said, lowering his voice. “What do you know about Tess Carroll?”