John Casey - Spartina

T hey all went to the house first thing in the morning. Eddie said right off, “It looks worse than it is, May. When I get off work, I’ll help Dick jack up that corner — make all the difference in the world.”

But he cautioned the boys not to go inside.

Dick opened the storm-cellar door. Down inside, the water stood pretty near up to the tops of the bait barrels. But they were still tight, still standing in rows.

He ran the outlet hose of Eddie’s pump as near the creek as he could. It was mostly salt water in the cellar and he didn’t want any more salt on his yard.

He figured he’d better get the insurance agent to take a look while things were still at their worst.

When he got to the insurance office in Wakefield there was a line coming out the door. They were giving out numbers like at the supermarket meat counter. He got 102, the head of the line was 37.

He picked up some sandpaper and paint and drove to Spartina to dab up the worn spots in her coat.

The manager had his crew cleaning up the yard. Dick took the johnboat out to Spartina and set to work. The sun was hot, a late-summer day in September. Even working slowly on account of his sore ribs he worked up a sweat. At midday a little onshore breeze blew across the salt pond, dried him up nicely. He thought of getting the boys, but didn’t want to break this thread of pleasure. His ribs felt better in the sun. Maybe it was just bruises and pulled muscles.

He finished sanding and touching up the front of the wheelhouse. He found a can of lukewarm Coke in the corner of the locker. Good enough. Everything he did, everything he touched or smelled gave him pleasure. He couldn’t figure it, he hadn’t felt so good for years.

He stripped the wood off the broken window. He was still working slowly and pleasantly. He felt as good as a bee inside a flower. He wondered if May ever felt so good tidying up the house when he and the boys were out. He opened up the wiring, tried to see where it’d shorted out. He’d get Eddie to check it. Even messing with the wiring didn’t irritate him. The breeze came in the window and out the door, cleaning out the damp. He pulled the mattress on deck to air it out, and he couldn’t pass up lying down on it in the sun.

He woke up from a simple dream — bright-blue sky and flat-bottomed clouds piled in billows against the westering sun. An easy waking — in front of his eyes was blue sky and flat-bottomed clouds.

Elsie was sitting on the hatch cover next to his head.

She said, “I like you having a boat in port. I can always find you.” He sat up. “When I was a little girl I used to go visit old Mr. Hazard in his bookshop, it was like having a little tea party whenever you felt like it. A floating balloon on a string, give it a tug and down it comes to you. Have you had lunch?”

Dick rubbed his eyes, sniffed the air. He wasn’t sure where he was with Elsie, but she seemed cheery enough. He said, “I had a Coke.”

Elsie opened up her lunch box and began to lay out food on the hatch cover. Dick said, “I ought to get back to work.” She peeled a boiled egg and gave it to him. She said, “Get a cup, I’ll give you some iced tea. It won’t take a second, I want to tell you something funny.”

He got his White Rock — girl thermos and unscrewed the cup.

“Now, that’s funny too,” Elsie said. “You have to admit.”

“You’re in a pretty cheery mood.”

“I am, I am indeed. Here’s the funny thing. I was moaning around about how I might have to resign if the department won’t give me leave. I even went and talked to the new headmaster at the Perryville School — Jim Bigelow, you remember him? The Bigelows’ son … Anyway I was thinking I could teach science there when I get back. But here’s what was going on. My rich Republican brother-in-law is in with some guy who wants to run for governor in a couple of years. But the Republicans don’t have enough women. There’s a not-bad Republican woman in Congress, and their thinking is that competent women can update their image. So this guy asked Jack for a list of women who were likely candidates for appointments to this and that, and Jack told him about me — degree in forestry, pioneer woman in Natural Resources, years of good and faithful service. All of this leaks out. Everything leaks out around here. So when I went in to ask about extended leave, before I open my mouth, my boss tells me he’s heard I’m on the emergency hurricane task force. Two months’ TDY. And my promotion is coming through. His whole tone was ‘You’re on the way up and don’t forget your friends, Elsie.’ And here I was going to beg.… After the emergency-panel reports — Jack is on it too — though how he’s going to square that with being a partner in Sawtooth Point …

“Anyway, after the panel writes the report and fusses around another month or so explaining it, then I get to go back to school for a management course for a term. I can do that in Boston, drive to school from my mother’s house. And the department pays for it and they pay me my salary and a per diem. That takes me up to June. Then I’ll have enough accrued leave and sick leave to stay at my mother’s for three more months. The whole thing makes me laugh. I mean there I was about to throw in the towel and it turns out like this. From knocked-up and driving a jeep to being some kind of executive trainee with rumors that I’m a hot item. Ms. Buttrick as part of the new gender-ticket. Anyway that’s why I’m dressed like this.” Elsie flipped the hem of her green uniform skirt and touched the little black tie on her white shirt. Her badge was on her starched breast-pocket.

Elsie said, “Of course there may be hell to pay later. I mean if Jack finds out he was touting me as Miss Responsibility and all the time I was carrying a baby … But the timing works.… And I feel lucky. No, not just lucky, I feel really good. I mean I have worked hard, I am a perfectly good person for this. I know what I’m talking about, and why shouldn’t I go on working and have a baby if I want?”

Dick was dizzied by Elsie. Glad for her. Also charmed and touched by her in a way he’d mislaid recently.

He said, “That a girl, Elsie. Go ahead and get what’s coming to you.”

Elsie laughed. “When someone says, ‘You’ll get what’s coming to you,’ it makes me look over my shoulder.”

“I don’t mean it like that.”

“Oh, I know.” She touched his forearm briefly in her summer-party style. Intimate, easy, one-way. She laughed again. “Here’s another funny thing, speaking of getting what’s coming to you. I saw Schuyler for a second. He’s absolutely cleaning up. He’s into his Mr. Zip-zip-zip mode. He’s been to Boston and New York and he’s got a deal for his documentary. He’s sold the whole film, with all that stuff we shot on Mamzelle and some other footage — and what he shot during the hurricane too. You know what he did? He stayed in Galilee after it was evacuated. He was in a kind of pillbox with his camera, and he got shots of roofs flying through the air, the surge coming right over the breakwater and over the docks. He was up the slope a bit or he would have drowned. As it was, he was waist-deep in water in his pillbox. He got that footage processed and sold clips to the TV stations in Boston and Providence. He wasn’t in Galilee when you got back but he had someone else working for him, so he’s got shots of Spartina coming back up the channel.”

Dick said, “The boys saw that on TV.”

“And he’s going to use what I shot that morning you came in. I must say he’s sort of insufferable in his ruthless show-biz mood. I gave him the film of Spartina ’s homecoming and he asked me why I hadn’t gone out with you.”