Along the Infinite Sea

  “That will take ages.”

  “I know.” He swears softly. “Anyone got any better ideas?”

  Pepper taps her chin and examines another macaroon. Her fourth, if she allows it entrance, but then she’s never tasted macaroons like melted coconuts, and what if she never has the chance again? Florian picks up his glass and stares keenly through the trickles at a refracted courtyard full of lemon trees. Behind him, the brass carriage clock on the mantel lets out a pair of delicate chimes.

  Susan clears her very pretty throat. “I’m sorry, this is going to sound really dumb. But have you thought of searching her study?”

  Florian is shocked. Shocked. “You mean ransack her private papers?”

  “I’m sorry. I know. Dumb idea.”

  Pepper sets down the macaroon and reaches for her crutches.

  “Jesus Christ, Susikins. I’m starting to like you after all.”

  2.

  Susan bends flexibly to the rug, flashing a dangerous length of golden thigh. “What’s Mrs. Dommerich’s Grammy doing on the floor?”

  “Breaking my foot.”

  Susan picks up the statuette and arranges it on the shelf with reverent hands, while Florian eases himself into Annabelle’s desk chair and sets eight fingers along the edge of the polished wood, ever so gingerly. He frowns and lifts up a piece of paper. “What’s this?”

  “Nothing.” Pepper snatches it away. “I already told you, I was writing a letter.”

  “On my mother’s stationery?”

  “Oh, please. It’s not personalized.”

  “So you were writing home, after all. Commendable.”

  “You’re not supposed to read people’s personal correspondence.”

  “I beg your pardon.” He offers a smile that comes off like a scowl. “Isn’t that exactly what we’re doing now?”

  Susan turns from the shelf, sets her hands on her dainty hips, and beams. “Don’t you just love this room? If I had a study of my own, I’d want it to look just like this.”

  “Imagine that,” murmurs Pepper. She settles herself on the edge of the desk, an inch or two away from Florian’s leftmost pinkie finger, and admires the plentiful curve of his shoulder. He looks a little too large for the chair, a little out of place in the room, which is distinctly feminine without being an inch pink. Something about the creaminess of the paintwork and the attractive arrangement of the furniture. Or maybe it’s the cheerful yellow paisley armchair in the corner, an article no man would ever allow in his private study. “I was just thinking,” she says softly.

  “And?” Florian is lifting up the blotter a fraction, opening up the drawers a crack, wearing an expression that suggests he’s changing diapers instead.

  “About that morning. Afternoon, really. I slept in a wee bit. I had breakfast in the dining room, and Annabelle was there, and there wasn’t any talk about going away. In fact, I distinctly recall her suggesting we go into town later and shop.”

  “Shop?” Florian’s head pops up, like Sherlock sniffing a clue. “Shop for what?”

  “It doesn’t matter what. Clothes for me, clothes for the baby. Who cares. My point is that no earlier than half past noon on the date of her so-called disappearance, she was planning on hanging around. And then she left. So what caused her to leave?”

  “A telephone call?” suggests Susan.

  Florian snaps his fingers. “Or the mail.”

  “She did say she was going to catch up on the post while I went for a walk.”

  Florian looks down at the tidy desk. “No mail here.”

  Pepper shimmies off the desk and hops to the door. “Clara!” she calls out, into the pristine hallway, and a moment later the housekeeper arrives at a canter.

  “What is it, Miss Schuyler? You need your pills? You need more macaroons?”

  “No. I mean yes! Yes, please, to more macaroons. But can you also tell me where you stash Mrs. Dommerich’s mail, when she’s away?”

  3.

  For the record, Pepper’s not the slightest bit concerned about the health and safety of Mrs. Annabelle Dommerich. The woman is no shrinking cornflower. Besides, if the Nazis couldn’t thwart her, nobody could, right? But Pepper has inherited—along with her tip-tilted dark blue eyes and her penchant for choosing the wrong man—the Schuyler nose for dirt, and her talented proboscis began twitching madly right about the moment handsome Florian uttered the magic words.

  Ever since Dad died.

  Now, what could that possibly signify, except that Annabelle’s hiding something under her ladylike fingertips? Something like . . . let Pepper ponder for a moment . . . dirt.

  Not that it’s any of her business. But when did Pepper ever mind her own business? Your own business is so unfruitful, so tedious, so lacking in neat solutions and satisfactory conclusions. But the beeswax of others! It gives you a charge, doesn’t it, a burst of not-too-commendable energy to plow right past your own tribulations and frolic about in the muck of someone else’s. For a change.

  “The trouble with your mother,” Pepper says, head bent over an open manila folder, “among other things, is that she’s so damned organized. Really, who pays the bills and files everything away just hours after getting home from abroad?”

  “She hates loose ends.” Florian doesn’t look up. He’s sitting in the desk chair, flipping through a file folder that rests on his lap, looking as if he’d rather poke through a garbage can.

  “Or she’s hiding something.”

  Susan says, a bit throaty, “This feels so naughty, looking through her papers.”

  “Oh, admit it, you’re enjoying the thrill. Not that there’s anything thrilling to discover, unless you’re turned on to know she paid five dollars a week to have the flowers watered.” Pepper tosses the folder aside and bends back over the file drawer. “Dommerich. You’re awfully quiet over there. Tell me more about this genealogy research of hers.”

  “I don’t know. She was pretty vague.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “She would clip things from newspapers and magazines. There was someone she had in Washington, looking up records and archives.”

  “Do you happen to know his name?”

  “Nope.”

  Pepper flips past the files, which are organized alphabetically, until she comes to a tab marked in thick black letters: HARRIS.

  “Was it Harris?” she asks. “The man in Washington?”

  “No idea.”

  She pulls the file free and flips it open. A fan of typewritten letters spreads out before her, some attached to newspaper clippings with small silver paper clips. Dear Mrs. Dommerich, one began, dated March of 1965, The possible lead in San Diego appears not to be significant after all. (Please see the attached report for details.) I have now begun research into the candidate in Oklahoma [there is an angry blue margin note: Not Oklahoma! Coast!!] and will shortly provide an update . . .

  Genealogy, my aunt Julie, thinks Pepper.

  There is a ceiling fan overhead, twirling the air in lazy circles. The draft ruffles the thin corners of the letters—cheap typing paper, the kind they used in small and ramshackle offices—and in the lull of conversation, Pepper considers whether to hold this remarkable paper aloft right now, to wave it triumphantly underneath the steady stroke of the ceiling fan, or whether to keep it in its place, inside the folder marked HARRIS, for the private eye tracking somebody down for Mrs. Annabelle Dommerich. Somebody she must have known well, or at least well enough to be quite certain he (or she!) would never put down roots in the nation’s heartland, far from the sea.

  Of course, there are other letters. Pepper skims. They have all been arranged in chronological order, oldest to youngest, beginning in January of last year (now, when, exactly, did Mr. Dommerich ascend to the great tobacco shop in the sky?) and ending—Pepper licks her thumb and shuffles to the back of the fo
lder, hoping and praying, because she could use a little excitement here—

  November 6, 1966.

  4.

  “I’m going with you,” says Susan. Her bottom lip is fixed stubbornly beneath the upper.

  Florian puts his hand on her arm. “Sue, you’re much better off down here. I’ll telephone and let you know how it goes.”

  “But I can help!”

  She gazes upward, and Pepper thinks, My God, you’re better at this than I am, aren’t you? The three of them are standing rather intimately in Florian’s bedroom, neatly made, while Florian packs his toothbrush back into his overnight bag. He’s already dressed for the ride, in a comfortable cotton shirt and dungarees, beaten-up loafers fitted snugly to his feet. Outside, the afternoon light is yellowing with age.

  He smiles down at Susan. “That’s sweet of you, kid, but Pepper’s the one who knows the most about what’s going on.”

  “Pepper’s going?”

  “I’m going?” Pepper says.

  Florian turns to her, eyebrows raised. “Aren’t you?”

  “No, no, no.” She gestures to her belly. “Pregnant lady. A cripple! I can’t handle another all-night car ride. Take Susan instead. I’m sure she can see to your needs much better than I can.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Susan says modestly.

  “Sure you can, honey. He seems like a simple enough man to me.”

  “Pepper,” says Florian, “can we step outside for a moment?”

  5.

  They stop under the shade of a lemon tree, and Pepper turns to face Florian, crutches braced under her arms.

  “Before you say a word, just consider for a moment. You can’t possibly be thinking of keeping poor Sue-Sue at home while you whisk another woman off in your T-Bird.”

  The astounded look again. “But there’s nothing going on with the two of us. It’s strictly platonic.”

  “My God. Do you know nothing about women at all, Dommerich?”

  “I know a lot about women.”

  “So you say. But don’t you know that dear Susan will spend the next week imagining us pulling off the road every five miles to have screaming fog-up-the-windows sex in the backseat?”

  Florian’s gaze drops down to her belly and back up again. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “My goodness. How flattering.”

  “I’m not saying you’re not attractive. Christ. I think I already made that clear. But—well, for one thing, the logistics—”

  “Where there’s a will there’s a way.”

  A slow shade of pink rises up Florian’s neck and over his cheeks.

  “Not that I’ve actually tried it,” Pepper admits. “But I do have an imagination.”

  “Well, that’s not the point. It’s none of Susan’s business who I’m sleeping with or not sleeping with.”

  “Really? Because I get the feeling she wants it to be her business. And don’t even try to tell me you’re not aware of that little fact.”

  He had the grace to look embarrassed. “Maybe so. But she also knows me better than that.”

  “Does she?”

  “Yes. I may be a lawyer, but I’m not a cad. Anyway, I’ve got other things on my mind. You’re coming along because you’re familiar with the car Mama’s driving, you’re familiar with her state of mind and all that, and you’re just—well, you’re just a little more—I don’t know. Resourceful.”

  “I think you underestimate Miss Willoughby.”

  “She’s not that kind of girl, that’s all.”

  Pepper curls her fingers around the handles of the crutches. “Oh? And what kind of girl is that, hmm?”

  Florian holds up his hands. “I’m not going to let myself fall in that trap again, believe me. You’re just two different women. Not bad or good. Just different. And if I need someone back me up while I track down my mother somewhere on the Georgia coast, someone I can count on, I want your type of woman.”

  “And if you’re going to get married and have pretty babies, you want her type?”

  “What are you talking about? Who’s getting married?”

  Pepper puts her hand on Florian’s arm, just above the elbow. A lemon branch, heavy with fruit, brushes her shoulder. “Look. Take my advice. Bring Susan with you, okay? She’s stronger than you think. Besides, this way you really can pull off the road and have sex with her, if you feel the itch.”

  “Actually, the thought didn’t cross my mind.”

  “Now it will.”

  6.

  From the grateful look on Susan’s face, Pepper knows she did a Good Thing. She hopes God is taking note, assuming He hasn’t given up on her long ago.

  Susan hurries home to pack a few things (she says). Her family’s house is about a quarter-mile down the road. That’s how they met, Florian says, as they watch her car pull away in a puff of dust. They played in the ocean together as kids. The girl next door, says Pepper. Just like the movies.

  She heads back to her room to rest, tosses her crutches in the corner, lies back on her neat bed, and watches the ceiling fan rotate above her. The baby, awakened by the stillness, begins to squirm inside her. You did a Good Thing, she tells herself, though she doesn’t feel particularly good. She feels as if a hollow has opened up in her chest, occupying a space she didn’t know existed. It interferes with the businesslike beat of her heart.

  A few minutes later, there’s a knock on the door. “It’s me,” says Florian, through the crack.

  “Haven’t you left yet?”

  “Are you decent?”

  “I’m never decent, or so they tell me.”

  He opens the door. Pepper sits up.

  “Are you sure you won’t come?” he says, filling the doorway, framed by the growing blue twilight.

  She shakes her head. “Third wheel.”

  “You wouldn’t be a third wheel. Anyway, what are you going to do? I can’t let you stay here alone.”

  “I won’t steal anything, I promise. Throw any wild parties and drink up your liquor.”

  “That’s not what I meant.” He sits down carefully at the end of the bed, sinking the mattress, and stares down at his knitted hands. “You should go home to your folks.”

  “Wouldn’t that be a delightful Thanksgiving surprise! Pepper waddles in on her crutches, looking unnervingly like the turkey on the table. No, I’ll wait just a bit longer. Like they used to do it, you know. Sending the shameful daughter off to Switzerland for a six-month walking holiday with a trusted female relative.”

  “Except you don’t have one of those around here.”

  She snaps her fingers. “Oh, damn. Well, modern times.”

  “This is stupid,” he says. “You should be with your family.”

  “My family’s not the same as yours, darling. We’re better off without each other, in times of trial. Otherwise the arsenic bottle gets uncorked, and the police have to get involved.”

  “Pepper,” he says, shaking his head.

  “Off you go, now. I’ll be all right. I have Clara to run for the doctor, if anything goes horribly wrong.” She reaches over and pushes his shoulder, because she can’t resist, just once.

  Florian lifts his large hand and places it over hers. “I’ll telephone and let you know what we find out.”

  “Do that thing.”

  She slides her hand away. He climbs to his feet and scowls down at her. His waist is right at the level of her eyes: his trim stomach, his brown leather belt pinning the dungarees in place.

  “Take care of that foot, all right? Use your crutches.”

  “Would I never?”

  And then his hand is cupping her chin, and she has to look down at his blurry wrist, because the two of them combined—his gaze and his touch—create way too much firepower for the hollow in her chest to contain.

  ?
??Off you go,” she says again, and the hand falls away.

  He makes it to the door and stops. “Oh, hold on. This is for you.”

  She looks up. He’s holding out a small envelope between his fingers.

  “What’s that?”

  “Letter for you. Clara sent it along.”

  When she doesn’t get up, when she doesn’t even move, eyes frozen on the white rectangle in Florian’s paw, heart frozen inside the black hollow, Florian shrugs and sets the envelope down on the lamp table near the door.

  7.

  Pepper’s heart starts again, at a brisk hand gallop. But she’s not the kind of girl who avoids bad news, is she? She’s not the kind of girl who sits and stares for an hour at the Ominous Object, before she finally gathers up the strength to pick it up with trembling fingers.

  Not Pepper.

  She doesn’t bother with the crutches. She hops ungracefully across the rug and snatches up the envelope. The light has faded fast, the way it does in November. She switches on the lamp and rips open the flap.

  The handwriting. How could you possibly rage at the familiarity of someone’s messy black handwriting? But she does. She wants to rip it to pieces. She reads it instead.

  We need to talk. Forget the lawyers. I’m waiting on an airplane at the Melbourne Municipal Airport. Let’s work this out together.

  It was unsigned. Of course.

  Lawyers. What a hoot. If Captain Seersucker has a law degree, she’s Marie Antoinette.

  Pepper rips the note to pieces, and when she’s done, and her heart is once more cold in her breast, shooting frozen blood all over the place, she finds her toothbrush and a clean dress and a change of underwear. She throws them in a linen laundry bag, tucks her pocketbook over her shoulders, grabs her crutches, and hobbles out the door of the guest cottage, through Annabelle’s soft-scented courtyard and toward the driveway.

  8.

  They haven’t left yet. Florian is putting Susan’s bag in the trunk of the Thunderbird. Susan’s in the passenger seat, touching up her lipstick.