Barnegat Bay - 9. Chapter 9

Talking with Spence wasn’t going to be easy. For one thing, I’d never had that kind of talk with a guy. With women, yes – kind of. But mainly when things seemed to be getting too close, and we needed to ease apart. And I’d had them with my parents. But those were largely about education and careers – mine – and most of the time I was listening. Sometimes, Dad was, too. Mom would ask all the difficult questions and make us think. But I supposed I could turn that around if I needed to.

“I’d appreciate that,” Claire told me before we’d left the beach. She’d been, again almost squinting into the near distance, trying to see elusive silhouettes. But Mary and Spence were suddenly beside us: he sitting casually on the sand and leaning against an upturned lifeboat, Mary stretched out, with her head resting in his lap.

“Yes, I know,” she told Claire immediately. “I’m going to be covered with sand.”

“It’s almost one,” Claire simply replied. “We need to be getting back.”

The “you need,” was unstated, because – by that point in the summer – Claire’s parents almost completely trusted me, and her father no longer stayed up to see what time his younger daughter got home. And Spence and I didn’t need to go anywhere.

In fact, after Claire’s parents relocated the family to Barnegat for August, and they’d become completely used to having me around, they assured me I was welcome in their house at any time. So there were Saturday nights after Jenkinson’s when the two of us would sit in their living room, unescorted, quietly listening to phonograph records and talking about not much in particular. That was long after Mary had presumably gone to sleep. Claire’s parents’ only rule was that she be awake and presentable for church. Fortunately, I was spared that.

After Spence and I walked Mary and Claire back, first, to Mary’s aunt’s store and then to Claire’s house, I asked him if he wanted to come to the boat. “I’ve got a bottle of something you might be interested in.

He grinned. “You sure I didn’t finish it already? The guys and I? Is this a bottle we’ve seen?”

“No, this is a new one. Came down with me this weekend. And before that, straight from Canada – if the label’s to be believed.”

“I’m sure the ink’s still wet.”

“Either way, it tastes pretty good.”

“Then I might give it a try,” he said, grinning again. So we wandered back to the boat, and I dug the bottle out from under my berth where it was hidden. Then I got a couple of small glasses and joined Spence on the dock.

“You’re gonna give me a lecture, Sir?” he quickly asked. “I know this is just a lure.” He gestured with the glass I’d just given him, and his dead-on guess made Claire not seem clever at all.

“Do I really seem that much older than you?” I quickly defended. “That I can start calling the shots?”

“Yeah, you do. You seem almost... well... stodgy at times.” He’d paused, maybe to get a diplomatic word. “The guys and I joke about it.”

I must have seemed a little surprised, because he added, “Sorry, I didn’t mean that as an insult. It’s just what I think.”

“In what way stodgy?” I had to ask. Though I thought he might be leading me off my subject.

He laughed. “In almost every way. Just opposite us – the guys and me.”

“Are you using them for protection?” I asked, smiling. I actually found the whole thing funny.

“Well, you are pretty well set-up – a doctor and all. With patients and even a office.”

I had to laugh. “That’s so much of an illusion. My whole career could vanish with the Depression. As quickly as taking a dive in that water.”

I’d had a little experience with that that evening. But Spence didn’t know I’d been pushed.

“I’m sure you’d pick right up,” he countered. “You have the family and the education. What do the guys and I have?”

I tried to move our conversation back to Mary. “Every girl on the beach.”

He laughed. “You could take any one you wanted.”

I needed to think about that. I hadn’t before.

“You’re kind of right,” I admitted. “Though the kind of women I usually meet – the kind who interest me – I wouldn’t meet at Jenkinson’s. Or in the sand.”

“I might,” he said grinning.

I paused for just a second. “Then I guess the real question is, ‘Have you?’”

He was silent, maybe realizing that – if this were a prize fight – I’d just landed a blow. I gave him the benefit of time and privacy. But looking straight ahead, into the water, I was probably as uncomfortable as he was, just having this conversation. And when his silence went on too long, I turned my head and realized he’d been studying me.

“You didn’t have to ask that question,” he said quietly. “You know the answer as well as Mary does – if she’s the one who put you up to this.”

I smiled and let him think that.

“Just a little over protective,” he went on. “And you’re not even her brother.”

“I think hers are younger,” I said, smiling.

“Well, don’t worry. I’m not gonna suddenly start fucking your baby sister.”

He said it as plainly as that, as if trying to shock me. Because we both knew he didn’t normally use that word. Then he gave himself away and almost giggled.

“Sorry,” he said, grinning again. “I didn’t need to say that – especially to you. You’re a gentleman. But sometimes, you’re such a prig, Doc. The guys and I plot out ways to shake you up.”

I thought about that. “Better a prig than a prick,” I said, far more comfortable with obscenity than he probably expected. He quickly got that – and my point – showing he was far savvier than Claire supposed.

“I hope I don’t come off that way – not to Mary. I’m not sure I care what you think.”

“From what I’ve been told,” I said carefully, “Mary’s thoughts about you go far in the opposite direction.”

He started to make a joke about that, then immediately stopped, maybe realizing how deep the compliment was. Then he was quiet for a moment and turned that into a sigh that almost ended in a whistle.

“I wish things were different,” he said. “A lot of things.” He paused again, unable to suppress a smile. “And I don’t even want to count how many guys have probably said that in the history of guys.” Another pause. “Though if we’re making dumb wishes, I wish I knew where I’d be tomorrow. Wish I had the assurance of your career. Wish I knew that everything was going to turn out all right.”

“If I could tell you it will, would you believe me? You’ve got everything going for you.”

“You mean the girls think I’m cute.”

“That, too – and I wouldn’t underestimate that power. I’d never had it. But you also naturally take charge. And you’re a lot sharper than you let people see.”

“He grinned at that. “Yeah, well... man of few words...”

I let that hang. Then asked, “What’s that mean?”

He considered. “Well... if I don’t say much, I can’t embarrass myself.”

“You could talk all you want.”

He just looked at me. “It’s never gotten me anywhere.”

“As much as your dancing?

“You’re too fast for me,” he said, once more grinning. It seemed to be insurance. Then he took a drink from the glass he’d mainly ignored – he’d simply been holding it. Then he went back to studying my face. “You’ve probably never lived more than ten miles from home,” he finally went on.

I laughed. “It’s over ten to here, though this is no longer my home. And I was away for college. And med school. And my residency. But I get your point.”

“All those places are the same,” he quickly pointed out. “The same people... same habits. Probably even the same conversations. You never got up in the dark, in the cold, even in the summer, to milk a cow and know your father had done that his whole life.”

“No,” I agreed. “But it could be worse.” I tried to lighten him up. “He could’ve spent his life in a mine.”

“I’m sure you’ve never been in one of those, either.”

“And you?”

“Equal punches. They cancel themselves out.”

“Six of one,” I joked. And he nodded.

“What do you want?” I finally asked. “Given any of your wishes?”

He barely hesitated. “To be forty-five and on the other side of all this. To know the world is gonna be okay, and I’m gonna be all right with it. To know that any girl – any woman, as I need to learn to call them – to start thinking of them... That any woman I get attached to isn’t a fool for coming near me.”

“You can’t think so little of yourself.”

Again, no pause on my part. But he was right there.

“Is that how I come off?” He honestly seemed surprised. “I guess we never know ourselves.”

“In some ways, you do – like right now. I’ve told you how you seem to be in others.”

“I don’t want to... I mean seem that unsure. Maybe it’s the hour. Or talking with you.”

“Why me?”

Because you’re so fucking emasculating, guy. It’s not the swagger. You don’t have or need that. It’s the words. I’m really racing to keep up.”

“There’s no need.”

“But there is. Because this is what the world is going to be like – the business world. The one I want to be in. And I listen to Larry and Mike and Al, and words just fucking whiz out of them. And forgive me if I’m talking like a farmer but that’s the way I was raised, and that’s what I am. I grew up in a world of men – with the women off in another room, talking about cooking and babies. And the guys were just fucking there, and being guys all the time. And sometimes, you just want to shove their heads together, for wanting so little.”

“You want more?”

“Much more. But where I come from, that’s beaten out of you. Both by your life and your friends.”

“I thought you were raised to leave.”

“Do you remember everything people say? Do you really have a mind like that?” He was grinning again.

“I remember some things – the important ones. Not all.”

“Well, we were raised to leave, but not go far. The nearest city. The nearest large town. A place where we could get factory work. When there were factories.”

“Is that why you came to New York? When they closed?”

“No, I grew up thinking about New York. First, Boston, because it was closer. But then I figured, what the heck? I’d go for the big one.”

“What do you like about New York?”

“That it isn’t Vermont. That there are no cows. That I have to be polite all the time. And clean. And well-dressed. And that I have to keep thinking every moment, just to stay even.”

“Would you rather relax?”

“I told you – I want to be sure this is all gonna matter. I want to be sure I shouldn’t have taken the easier life.”

“You’d be wasting a lot.”

“So you say.”

“You set me up as the expert,” I said, smiling. “Accept my opinion.”

“I do – and thanks.”

And then we just looked at each other and were quiet again.

“In any case,” he finally went on, “please tell Mary I’ve been warned. That I’ve been sent to the woodshed.”

I nodded, still letting him think what he had.

“But see to it that she’s warned, too,” he went on, almost too carefully. “Because you’ve got to know, what’s going on between us isn’t all just my doing.”

We both laughed at that. “I know that,” I said, with something of my own sigh. “And I’m sorry I seem so responsible.”

He grinned. “Aw, I was mostly kidding, Doc – you’re so easy to get to. The only thing that stops the guys and me from doing it more often – or maybe much at all – is you’re such a nice guy.”

He seemed as sincere as I’d ever seen him, and now I was embarrassed. I certainly wanted to be thought of a nice guy. But I never wanted it pointed out. That kind of attention made me uncomfortable.

Spence finished his drink and pointed at the bottle. “You’re not going to be stingy with that now?”

“Nah – not after grilling you like that. Drink all you want. ‘Long as you can save lives in the morning.”

“Been managing to all summer.”

And he soon stretched out on the dock and went quickly to sleep. And I just sat there for a while, looking at him. Wondering if he could really be that innocent.