John Casey - Spartina

He was giving in to her imagination now.

He hadn’t known what he was doing before. (What had it felt like, all that tussling around? Just their outer shells … Like handling some guy you knew who kept popping off at you, but who was too drunk to fight? Like punishing a child?)

He turned his head so his cheek was flat against her. He could feel her muscles moving softly — her coming was more in her mind still; when she got closer she would become a single band of muscle, like a fish — all of her would move at once, flickering and curving, unified from jaw to tail.

His mind was half in hers. He felt her still loose-jointed drift — only an occasional little coil in the current tugging at her harder, moving her toward the flood.

The tide came all the way up.

He felt all of her pass into him through his forehead: the effort of her body as if she was swimming upward, then the uncurling as she stretched out to catch the break, body-surfing a wave bigger than she’d thought, caught in the rush.

He felt it — she had an instant of fear — he didn’t hear it but he felt a bleat from her as though her lips were pressed against his opened forehead. Then she breathed — he felt her body move as if her mouth opened on all of him — she took a breath and let herself go tumbling.

After a while they moved up the bank as though they had to escape the flood. They clambered onto the table of higher ground, onto the spartina. He sat to untie his shoes, and Elsie clambered on his back as if she couldn’t get enough of clambering. He got his feet out of his pants and made a bed of them for her on the long flattened stalks.

Everything was brighter than in the creek — all around them the even tops of the spartina caught flat shadowless starlight.

He reached under her back to smooth out broken stems. For an instant he felt her feel his body, felt her register him, his inner sounds, the outer wave of them pressing toward her. And then they both fell into their own urgencies, overlapping disturbances, like waves from separate storms, at first damping, then amplifying each other.

They lay still in their pit of gray light. Her cheek moved against his. He had no idea what her expression was now — maybe smiling, maybe recovering herself the way she laughed at herself after she cried.

She moved her head and kissed his mouth. It didn’t make her clear to him. Pretty soon she’d start talking.

She stayed quiet, though. She wasn’t coming back so easily. He caught one more feeling from the heavy stillness of their bodies. Both of them this time — no matter what silly game she’d started — they’d both been caught and tumbled hard and carried this far. They were both stunned by sadness.

And then they had to get up and find their clothes, foolish people again. The blue canoe was still caught sideways across the creek. Elsie’s sweatshirt was on the bank. Dick’s paddle was in the canoe, but Elsie’s had floated away, along with her jeans and the key to the boathouse. And the key to her car.

They left the canoe on the grass above the boathouse and walked back to Elsie’s house. Elsie pulled the hem of her sweatshirt down to miniskirt length when a car drove by them on the point. And again when they scampered across the four lanes of Route 1.

Dick got into the shower with his clothes, got the mud cleaned off inside and out. The solar-heated water began to run out. Elsie didn’t have a dryer, so she put his clothes in the oven. Dick picked up his unfinished glass of beer from the arm of the sofa. He felt dull about everything now. Dull but unfamiliar again. He felt a sliver of hope that everything here was so askew, so unfamiliar, that it wouldn’t show noticeably in his general life.

A t last Dick got hold of Keith college-boy. Dick spoke to him agreeably and reasonably. Keith hadn’t heard from Parker either, and agreed they shouldn’t just hang around doing nothing, the boat doing nothing. They’d leave that night.

Charlie was pleased about going. Tom wanted to go too. May said no. Dick said to May that he’d gone out on a lobster boat when he was Tom’s age. May said, “Not on one of Parker’s boats. And not all three of you on one boat. No.”

Dick told Tom, “When I get my boat in, we’ll get you some sea duty.”

Dick took the pickup to go get some more replacement pots. He was only half surprised to find himself jouncing up the dirt road to Elsie’s, running in low so as not to jar loose the lashed stacks of pots.

Elsie was getting ready to go out to a garden party at her sister’s. He told her he’d be at sea for a few days, going out this evening.

“Oh no,” Elsie said. “I wish you’d told me.”

Dick said, “I didn’t know for sure until just now.”

Elsie looked at her watch. She went to her curtained cubicle and got a red wool sash which she wound around the waist of her white skirt. She put on a pair of sandals, took them off, and put on a pair of high-heeled shoes. She looked at them, looked up, and asked Dick what he thought. Dick said, “Fine.” Elsie took them off and said, “I wish you’d told me. I’m still on leave — I could have gone with you.”

Jesus, Dick thought. But why did that surprise him?

Elsie put the sandals back on. She said, “I found out about a preventive for seasickness, but you have to start it the day before you go out. I’d love to go out again.”

“That’s up to Parker.”

Elsie looked at the sandals. She said, “I know — I’ll wear the sandals and borrow some decent shoes from Sally. You know, what I can’t wait for is when you get your boat in. Maybe I’ll quit Natural Resources and crew for you. I hope your bunk room’s going to be nicer than Parker’s.”

Dick didn’t know whether Elsie was serious. He said, “Parker’s boat is the worst you’re likely to see. Around here at least.”

Elsie said, “Who are you going to get for crew? I mean for your boat.”

“One thing at a time. It’s not certain I’ll get her in the water.”

“I wish I’d known you were going,” Elsie said. She tied a silk bandana over her head, pirate fashion. “What about this? Does it make my face look funny?”

“No,” Dick said.

Elsie put on dangling earrings. She said, “And these? Don’t just say fine.”

“You look like a gypsy fortune-teller.”

Elsie changed them for little pearl studs, straightened the collar of her blouse. “You’re right, this is better. Do you wish you didn’t have to leave? Why don’t you tell Parker to wait a day?”

“The sooner I go, the sooner I get back. And you’ve got your party to go to.” He held back from Elsie that Parker was up in New York. There was a crazy lurch to his life, there were people running loose all up and down the coast with secrets that could undo him.

Elsie said, “What time are you going out tonight? I could get back.… ”

“I’m taking Charlie this trip,” Dick said. “I got to get him squared away. It’s his first time offshore.”

“Well, then, I might as well spend the weekend at Sally and Jack’s.”

Elsie packed a tote bag, crammed in her tennis gear. She slipped a wristband over the handle of her tennis racket and zipped the racket head into its pouch. She looked at herself in the mirror. She said, “This is dull.” She took off the bandana, ran her hand through her hair. She got a lavender chiffon dress from behind the curtain and held it up in front of her. “What about this?” Before Dick said anything, she ducked back behind the curtain. She came out wearing the dress, holding the front up by its strings. “The only problem is it’s backless and I’ll stick to the carseat. I can always hang a towel over.… What do you think? Here, could you tie these things, they go behind the neck.… Not so tight.” She stepped away from him. “Any strap marks? Or is it all tan?” Elsie turned her back to the mirror and craned her head around. “I guess that’s okay. You’re not much help, are you?”