Agawam Lake, which was no larger than a pond, separated Gin Lane from First Neck Lane, where--at the very moment Eduardo released the remains of Ted Cole's drawings--the artist himself was pursuing his seduction of a slightly overweight eighteen-year-old girl. Glorie had brought Ted home to meet her mother, largely because the girl had no car of her own and needed her mother's permission in order to borrow the family vehicle.
It had not been too long a walk from the bookstore to Glorie's house on First Neck Lane, but Ted's subtle courtship of the college girl had several times been interrupted by insulting questions from Glorie's pathetic pear-shaped friend. Effie was far less a fan of The Door in the Floor than Glorie was; the tragically unattractive girl had not written her term paper on the perceived atavism in Ted Cole's symbols of fear. Though she was intensely ugly, Effie was a lot less full of shit than Glorie was.
Effie was a lot less full of shit than Ted, too. In fact, the fat girl was insightful: she wisely grew to dislike the famous author in the course of their short walk; Effie also saw the efforts of Ted's seduction-in-progress for what it was. Glorie, if she saw what was progressing, offered little resistance.
That Ted took an unexpected interest (of a sexual kind) in Glorie's mother surprised him. If Glorie was a little too young and inexperienced for his usual taste--and she was borderline overweight--Glorie's mom was older than Marion and the type of woman Ted generally ignored.
Mrs. Mountsier was preternaturally thin, the result of an inability to eat that had been brought on by her husband's recent and wholly unanticipated death. She was clearly a widow who'd not only deeply loved her husband; she was also--and this was obvious, even to Ted-- a widow still caught in the detectable stages of grief. In short, she was not a woman who could be seduced by anybody; yet Ted Cole was not just anybody, and he couldn't suppress his unpredictable attraction to her.
Glorie must have inherited her penchant for curvaceousness from a grandmother or an even more distant relation. Mrs. Mountsier was a classical but wraithlike beauty, a pretender in Marion's inimitable mold. Whereas Marion's perpetual sorrow had turned Ted away from her, Mrs. Mountsier's regal sadness turned Ted on. Yet his attraction to her daughter was undiminished--it was suddenly the two of them he wanted! In a similar situation, most men might have thought: What a dilemma! But Ted Cole thought only in terms of possibilities. What a possibility ! he was thinking, as he allowed Mrs. Mountsier to make him a sandwich--after all, it was almost lunchtime-- and he yielded to Glorie's insistence that he allow her to put his wet blue jeans and his soaked-through shoes in the dryer.
"They'll be dry in fifteen or twenty minutes," the eighteen-year-old promised. (The shoes would take at least half an hour, but what was the hurry?)
While he ate his lunch, Ted wore a bathrobe belonging to the late Mr . Mountsier. Mrs. Mountsier had shown Ted where the bathroom was, so he could change, and she'd handed him her dead husband's bathrobe with an especially appealing sort of sadness.
Ted had never tried to seduce a widow before--not to mention a mother and her daughter. He'd spent the summer drawing Mrs. Vaughn. The illustrations for the unfinished A Sound Like Someone Trying Not to Make a Sound had been long neglected; he'd barely begun to think about what those illustrations should be. Yet here, in a comfortable house on First Neck Lane, a mother-and-daughter portrait of unusual promise had presented itself to him--he knew he had to try it.
Mrs. Mountsier did not eat lunch. The thinness of her face, which looked frail and brittle in the midday light, suggested that she had at best an intermittent appetite, or that she had some difficulty keeping food down. She'd delicately powdered the dark circles under her eyes; like Marion, Mrs. Mountsier could sleep only for short periods of time, when she was utterly exhausted. Ted noticed that the thumb of Mrs. Mountsier's left hand could not leave her wedding ring alone, although she was unaware of how constantly she touched it.
When Glorie saw what her mother was doing to her wedding ring, she reached out and squeezed her hand. The look that Mrs. Mountsier gave her daughter was both thankful and apologetic; the sympathy passed between them like a letter slipped under a door. (In the first of the drawings, Ted would pose them with the daughter holding her mother's hand.)
"You know, this is quite a coincidence," he began, "but I've been looking for two suitable subjects for a mother-and-daughter portrait-- it's something I've been thinking about for my next book."
"Is it another children's book?" asked Mrs. Mountsier.
"Categorically, yes," Ted answered her, "but I don't think that any of my books are truly for children. First of all, there are the mothers who must buy them, and--usually--the mothers are the first to read them aloud. Children usually hear them before they're able to read them. And when those children are adults, they often go back to my books and read them again."
"That's just how it happened to me!" Glorie said. Effie, who was sulking, rolled her eyes.
Everyone but Effie was pleased. Mrs. Mountsier had been assured that mothers came first. Glorie had been congratulated for no longer being a child; the famous author had recognized that she was an adult now.
"What sort of drawings do you have in mind?" Mrs. Mountsier asked.
"Well. At first I would want to draw you and your daughter together," Ted told her. "That way, when I draw each of you separately, the presence of the one who's missing is . . . well, somehow, there ."
"Wow! Do you want to do it, Mom?" Glorie asked. (Effie was rolling her eyes again, but Ted never paid much attention to someone who wasn't attractive.)
"I don't know. How long would it take?" Mrs. Mountsier asked. "Or which of us would you want to draw first? I mean separately. I mean, after you've drawn us together." (In a rush of desire, Ted realized that the widow was a wreck.)
"When do you go back to college?" Ted asked Glorie.
"September fifth or something," Glorie said.
"September third," Effie corrected her. "And you were going to spend Labor Day weekend in Maine, with me," she added.
"I should do Glorie first, then," Ted told Mrs. Mountsier. "First the two of you together. Then Glorie alone. Then, when Glorie is back in college, you alone."
"Oh, I don't know," Mrs. Mountsier said.
"Come on, Mom! It'll be fun!" Glorie said.
"Well." It was Ted's famous, never-ending "Well."
"Well what ?" Effie asked rudely.
"I mean, you don't have to decide today, " Ted told Mrs. Mountsier. "Just think about it," he said to Glorie. Ted could tell what Glorie was already thinking about. Glorie would be the easy one. And then . . . what a pleasantly long fall and winter it might be! (Ted was imagining the vastly slower seduction of the grieving Mrs. Mountsier--it might take months, even a year.)
It called upon tact to permit both the mother and daughter to drive him back to Sagaponack. Mrs. Mountsier volunteered; then she realized that she'd hurt her daughter's feelings, that Glorie truly had her heart set on driving the famous author and illustrator home.
"Oh, please-- you do it, then, Glorie," Mrs. Mountsier said. "I hadn't realized how much you wanted to do it."
It won't work if they quarrel, Ted was thinking. "Speaking selfishly," he said--he smiled charmingly at Effie--"I'd be honored if you all drove me home." Although his charm didn't work with Effie, mother and daughter were instantly reconciled--for now.
Ted also played the role of peacemaker when it came to deciding whether Mrs. Mountsier or Glorie should drive. "Personally," he said, smiling at Glorie, "I think people of your age are better drivers than their parents. On the other hand"--he turned his smile to Mrs. Mountsier--"people like us are unbearable backseat drivers." Ted turned back to Glorie. "Let your mother drive," he told the girl. "It's the only way to keep her from being a backseat driver."
Although Ted had seemed indifferent to Effie's rolling her eyes, this time he anticipated her; he turned to the ugly wretch and rolled his eyes, just to show her that he knew.
To anyone seeing them,
they were seated in the car like a reasonably normal family. Mrs. Mountsier was at the wheel with the convicted DWI celebrity in the passenger seat beside her. In the back were the children. The one with the misfortune to be ugly was, naturally, sullen and withdrawn; it was probably to be expected, because her apparent "sister" was comparatively pretty. Effie sat behind Ted, glaring at the back of his head. Glorie leaned forward, filling the space between the two front seats of Mrs. Mountsier's dark-green Saab. By turning in his seat to view Mrs. Mountsier's stunning profile, Ted could also glimpse her vivacious if not exactly beautiful daughter.
Mrs. Mountsier was a good driver who never took her eyes off the road. The daughter couldn't take her eyes off Ted. For a day that had started out so badly, look what opportunities had come out of it! Ted glanced at his watch and was surprised to see that it was early in the afternoon. He would be home before two--plenty of time to show the mother and daughter his workroom while there was still good light. You can't judge a day by its beginning, Ted had decided, as Mrs. Mountsier passed Agawam Lake and turned from Dune Road onto Gin Lane. Ted had been so transfixed by the visual comparison between mother and daughter that he'd not been watching the road.
"Oh, you're going this way . . ." he said in a whisper.
"Why are you whispering?" Effie asked him.
On Gin Lane, Mrs. Mountsier was forced to slow the car to a crawl. The street was littered with paper; it hung from the hedges. As Mrs. Mountsier's car passed, the paper swirled around it. A piece stuck to the windshield. Mrs. Mountsier considered stopping the car.
"Don't stop!" Ted told her. "Just use your windshield wipers!"
"Talk about backseat drivers . . ." Effie remarked.
But, to Ted's relief, the windshield wipers worked. The offending scrap of paper flew on. (Ted had briefly seen what he was sure was Mrs. Vaughn's armpit; it was from one of the most compromising series, when she was on her back with her hands crossed behind her head.)
"What is all this stuff ?" Glorie asked.
"Someone's trash, I guess," her mother replied.
"Yes," Ted said. "Someone's dog must have got into someone's trash."
"What a mess," Effie observed.
"They should fine whoever it is," Mrs. Mountsier said.
"Yes," Ted agreed. "Even if the culprit is a dog--fine the dog!" Everyone but Effie laughed.
As they neared the end of Gin Lane, a spirited gathering of shredded paper flew all around the moving car; it was as if the ripped drawings of Mrs. Vaughn's humiliation didn't want to let Ted go. But the corner was turned; the road ahead was clear. Ted felt a surge of wild happiness, but he made no attempt to express it. A rare moment of reflection overcame him; it was something almost biblical. In his undeserved escape from Mrs. Vaughn, and in the stimulating company of Mrs. Mountsier and her daughter, Ted Cole's overriding thought repeated itself in his mind like a litany. Lust begets lust, begets lust, begets lust--over and over again. That was the thrill of it.
The Authority of the Written Word The story that Eddie told Ruth in the car was something she would always remember. When she even momentarily forgot it, she had only to look at the thin scar on her right index finger, which would always be there. (When Ruth was in her forties, the scar was so small that it was visible only to her, or to someone who already knew it was there-- someone who was looking for it.)
"There was once a little girl," Eddie began.
"What was her name?" Ruth asked.
"Ruth," Eddie replied.
"Yes," Ruth agreed. "Go on."
"She cut her finger on some broken glass," Eddie continued, "and her finger bled and bled and bled. There was much more blood than Ruth thought could possibly be in her finger. She thought the blood must be coming from everywhere, from her whole body."
"Right," Ruth said.
"But when she went to the hospital, she needed only two shots and two stitches."
"Three needles," Ruth reminded him, counting the stitches.
"Oh, yes," Eddie agreed. "But Ruth was very brave, and she didn't mind that, for almost a week, she couldn't swim in the ocean or even get her finger wet when she took a bath."
"Why didn't I mind?" Ruth asked him.
"Okay, maybe you minded a little, " Eddie admitted. "But you didn't complain about it."
"I was brave?" the four-year-old asked.
"You were--you are brave," Eddie told her.
"What does brave mean?" Ruth asked him.
"It means that you don't cry," Eddie said.
"I cried a little," Ruth pointed out.
"A little is okay," Eddie told her. " Brave means that you accept what happens to you--you just try to make the best of it."
"Tell me more about the cut," the child said.
"When the doctor took out the stitches, the scar was thin and white and a perfect straight line," Eddie told her. "In the whole rest of your life, if you ever need to feel brave, just look at your scar."
Ruth stared at it. "Will it always be there?" she asked Eddie.
"Always," he told her. "Your hand will grow bigger, and your finger will grow bigger, but the scar will stay the same size. When you're all grown up, the scar will look smaller, but that will be because the rest of you has grown bigger--the scar will always be the same. It will just not be as noticeable, which means that it will become harder and harder to see. You'll have to show it to people in good light, and you'll have to say, 'Can you see my scar?' And they'll have to look really closely; only then will they be able to see it. You'll always be able to see it because you'll know where to look. And, of course, it will always show up on a fingerprint."
"What's a fingerprint?" Ruth asked.
"It's kind of hard to show you while we're in the car," Eddie said.
When they got to the beach, Ruth asked him again, but even in the wet sand, Ruth's fingers were too small to leave clear fingerprints--or else the sand was too coarse. As Ruth played in the shallow water, the yellow-brown antiseptic was completely washed away; but the scar remained a bright white line on her finger. Not until they went to a restaurant could she see what a fingerprint was.
There, on the same plate with her grilled-cheese sandwich and her French fries, Eddie poured out a spreading puddle of ketchup. He dipped the index finger of Ruth's right hand in the ketchup and gently pressed her finger on a paper napkin. Beside the fingerprint of her right index finger, Eddie made a second print--this time using the index finger from Ruth's left hand. Eddie told her to look at the napkin through her water glass, which magnified the fingerprints so that Ruth could see the unmatched whorls. And there it was--as it would be, forever: the perfectly vertical line on her right index finger; seen through the water glass, it was nearly twice the size of the scar itself.
"Those are your fingerprints--nobody else will ever have fingerprints like yours," Eddie told her.
"And my scar will always be there?" Ruth asked him again.
"Your scar will be a part of you forever," Eddie promised her.
After their lunch in Bridgehampton, Ruth wanted to keep the napkin with her fingerprints. Eddie put it in the envelope with her stitches and her scab. He saw that the scab had shriveled up; it was a quarter the size of a ladybug, but of a similar russet color and spotted black.
At about 2:15 on that Friday afternoon, Eddie O'Hare turned onto Parsonage Lane, Sagaponack. When he was still some distance from the Coles' house, he was relieved to see that the moving truck and Marion's Mercedes were nowhere in sight. However, an unfamiliar car--a dark-green Saab--was parked in the driveway. As Eddie slowed the Chevy to a crawl, Ted, the obdurate womanizer, was saying goodbye to the three women in the Saab.
Ted had already shown his workroom to his future models--Mrs. Mountsier and her daughter, Glorie. Effie had refused to leave the backseat of the car. Poor Effie was ahead of her time: she was a young woman of integrity and insight and intelligence, trapped in a body that most men either ignored or spurned; of the three women in the dark-green Saab on that Friday a
fternoon, Effie was the only one with the wisdom to see that Ted Cole was as deceitful as a damaged condom.
For a heart-stopping second Eddie thought that the driver of the dark-green Saab was Marion, but as Eddie turned into the driveway he saw that Mrs. Mountsier did not as closely resemble Marion as he'd thought. For just a second, Eddie had hoped that Marion had had a change of heart. She's not leaving Ruth, he thought--or me . But Mrs. Mountsier was not Marion; nor did Mrs. Mountsier's daughter, Glorie, resemble Alice--the pretty college-girl nanny whom Eddie despised. (Eddie had also jumped to the conclusion that Glorie was Alice.) Now Eddie realized that they were merely a bunch of women who'd given Ted a ride home. The boy wondered which one Ted had taken an interest in--certainly not the one in the backseat.
As the dark-green Saab pulled out of the driveway, Eddie could instantly tell from Ted's innocent, only mildly puzzled expression that he didn't know Marion was gone.
"Daddy! Daddy!" Ruth cried. "Do you want to see my stitches? There are four pieces. And I got a scab. Show Daddy the scab!" the four-year-old told Eddie, who handed Ted the envelope.
"Those are my fingerprints," the child explained to her father. He was staring at the paper napkin with the ketchup stains.
"Careful the scab doesn't blow away in the wind," Eddie warned Ted. The scab was so small that Ted peered at it without taking it out of the envelope.
"That's really neat, Ruthie," Ruth's father said. "So . . . you were at the doctor, getting her stitches taken out?" Ted asked Eddie.
"And we went to the beach, and we had lunch," Ruth told her father. "I had a grilled-cheese sandwich and French fries with ketchup. And Eddie showed me my fingerprints. I'm going to keep my scar forever."
"That's nice, Ruthie." Ted was watching Eddie take the beach bag out of the Chevy. On top were the pages of stationery from the frame shop in Southampton--the story of the summer of '58, which Eddie had written for Penny Pierce. Seeing the pages gave Eddie an idea. He went to the trunk of the Chevy and took out the rematted, reframed photograph of Marion in Paris. Ted was now watching Eddie's every move with increasing unease.
"I see the photograph was ready, finally," Ted observed.
"We got the feet back, Daddy! The picture is all fixed," Ruth said.