Spring comes late in Maine. Snow changes to rain; branch tips redden;
you can see your breath. Not a whole lot different than winter until
the daffodils, crab apples, and forsythia bloom. The sun skips off the
water, impossibly bright, impossibly blue. You can almost almost hear
the cracking of seeds, buried and forgotten.
Charlie Garrett was as hardnosed as most. He kept going, did what he
had to. "Ninety percent of success is showing up," Woody Allen said.
Charlie repeated that in dire times--before medical checkups or visits
to his brother, Orson.
Orson knew a lot about success and never hesitated to pass it on. "What
you need, Charlie, is a Cessna. You aren't supposed to spin them, but
you can. That'll clear your head, Charlie, straight down, counting as a
barn comes around--one time, two times, three times--correct and pull
out nice and easy." Orson dipped his knees, lowering his flattened
palm. Or a catboat: "A solid little Marshall, Charlie. Putter around,
take some cutie coasting. You're in sailor heaven, man, all those
islands."
"I know some cuties," Miranda had said.
"Last cutie took my silver garlic press. Well, she didn't take it; she
borrowed it and never returned it."
"Call her up and get it back," Orson said.
"That's what she wants you to do." Miranda was the best thing about
Orson.
"I got another one."
"Where the hell did you find a silver garlic press?" Orson was
impressed.
"It's aluminum, I think, or a composite material."
"Oh."
It was always like that; motion was Orson's answer to everything.
Charlie stretched and checked his watch. The ten o'clock ferry from
Peaks Island was edging to the dock. Soon a few dozen passengers would
walk off the ramp, carrying shopping bags, slipping day packs over one
or both shoulders, holding dogs on leashes. Margery, short and polite,
would be toward the end of the line, one hand on the railing, blinking
as she looked up at the city buildings and around for him.
They were similar physically and recognized each other as related, not
lovers, not brother and sister, but distant cousins perhaps or members
of a tribe--the patient, the witness bearers. "There you are," she
said. Charlie stood and they patted one another's shoulders.
"You look very well, not a day over forty," Charlie said, standing
back. "Here, let me take that." She handed him a stout canvas bag.
"Jesus! What's in here?"
"Rocks and books. You're looking pleased with life. How's the world of
architecture?"
"All right. Still looking for the perfect client." He rubbed his
stomach with his free hand and pointed across the street to Standard
Baking Company. "Croissants," he said. "A croissant a day keeps the
doctor away. Are you hungry?"
"No. Let's get on with it."
Charlie led the way to his car, an elderly red Volvo. "Rocinante,"
Margery remembered.
"As good as ever." Charlie lowered the bag into the back seat.
"Could we swing by the library? I need to return these books."
"Sure. What have you been reading?"
"Tolstoy. The Russians. Dostoyevsky, Chekhov."
"That'll get you through a long night."
"There's no one like Tolstoy," Margery said. "So serene. Cosmic and
down to earth at the same time."
"I wrote a novel once," Charlie said.
"What happened?"
"It wasn't very good." Charlie stopped by the library book drop.
"At least you finished."
He watched her slide three souls and twenty years work through the
brass slot. "There's a story I love about Chekhov," she said, getting
back into the car. "He paid a visit to Tolstoy. Late in the evening, on
his way home after a certain amount of wine, he cried out to his horse
and to the heavens: 'He says I'm worse than Shakespeare. Worse than
Shakespeare!'"
"Wonderful," Charlie said. "Chekhov--didn't he die after a last swallow
of champagne?"
"It was sad," Margery said. She turned and stared out the side window.
They drove out of town in silence. The cemetery where Margery's father
and son were buried was an hour and a half up the coast and midway down
a long peninsula. The drive had become an annual event. Margery had no
car. Charlie drove her one year and then had just continued. This was,
what, the fourth or fifth trip? He couldn't remember.
"Margery, did you see that picture of President Bush on the carrier
deck, wearing the pilot get up?"
"I did."
"Wasn't that ridiculous? The little son of a bitch went AWOL when he
was in the National Guard. I read that it delayed the troops their
homecoming by a day and cost a million dollars."
"Light comedy," Margery said. "The Emperor Commodus fancied himself a
gladiator. Romans had to watch him fight in the colosseum many times.
He never lost. His opponents were issued lead swords."
"Nothing's changed," Charlie said. "Commodus?"
"Second century, A.D. We're not a police state, yet. Things get really
crazy under one man rule. Have you not read Gibbon?"
"The Decline and Fall--never got around to it."
"Good for perspective," Margery said.
"That green!" Charlie waved at the trees along I-95. "We only get it
for a week when the leaves are coming out."
"Yes." Margery settled into her seat. Perspective was a good thing,
Charlie thought. Even keel and all that. But there was something to be
said for losing it. If he could have his choice of cuties, he'd just as
soon have one of those dark eyed Mediterranean fireballs--breasts,
slashing smile--someone who spoke with her whole body.
They arrived at the cemetery in good time. Margery declined his offer
to carry the special rocks, wanting to bring them herself. They were
intended to protect the base of a rugosa she'd planted the previous
year. As usual, Charlie accompanied her and then returned to the car.
She would take as long as she needed to arrange the rocks and to say
or hear or feel whatever she could.
Charlie had no children; it was hard to imagine what she felt. Her son
had skidded on a slick road and been wiped out by a logging truck, a
stupid accident, pure bad luck. Her father had died later the same
year. Margery had been on hold since, he supposed, although he hadn't
known her when she was younger. The lines in her face seemed to have
been set early. We were all full of hope once, he thought.
He leaned against the car and watched a man approach. The man was
carrying a shovel. He had a white handlebar moustache and a vaguely
confederate look. "Hey," Charlie said.
"Yup," the man said. He stopped and leaned on his shovel.
"Nice day," Charlie said, after a moment.
"Yessir. Black flies ain't woke up yet."
"Don't disturb them."
"No. Jesus, no. I guess we got a couple of days yet." He tested the
ground with the shovel and looked into the cemetery. "Margery Sewell,"
he said.
"You know Margery?"
"Since she was about so high." He gestured toward his knees. "Used to
go smelting with her father, Jack."
"I'm Charlie, friend of Margery's."
"Tucker," the man said. "Tucker Smollett."
"That's an old name."
"Smolletts go way back around here. Smolletts and Sewells, both." They
stared into the graveyard. "You from around here, then?" He knew that
Charlie was from away; he was being polite.
"Live in Portland, born in New York. Family came over in the famine."
"Well, then." The world divides into people who have been hungry and
those who haven't. Charlie felt himself grandfathered into the right
camp. It was strange how some people you got along with and some you
didn't. "I'll tell you one thing," Tucker said, "there weren't nobody
smarter than Margery Sewell ever come out of here. She got prizes,
awards--some kind of thing from the governor, even. Whoever he was.
Can't recall."