Island View Court

Island View Court

A short story that appeared in the Portland Review Magazine

“Let’s go; it’s now or never.” Rebecca means it. I put down the binoculars, lean forward in my rocker, and let the momentum carry me up, as if I had already aged well beyond my forty-two years. I had inherited the rocker and this summer house on Island View Court, with its washed-out porch and clapboard rooms, from my Uncle Harmond. Perched on a ninety-foot cliff, the house overlooks Dana Passage, a deep arm of water at the southern end of Puget Sound. Rebecca says I surely have Harmond’s genes because if I die here, I will do so just as he did’“alone. Ariel, our ten-year-old daughter, joins Rebecca and me by taking both of our hands in her small ones. ”Tomorrow I’m going to make cookies,“ she announces as we set off for the annual Bastille Day Dinner at the Gabrielles”’’our francophile friends who live down the street. Rebecca and I have been together for twelve years, and Ariel’s trying to take care of us.

Even though I’ve hammered a few support blocks into the rickety stairs descending from the porch, the steps still creak as we make our way down to the fading lawn. The house is the last of its kind. Over the past twenty-five years, new money bought the other eleven lots between the cliffs and Island View Court. Architects and builders razed the old homes and erected stylish estates with expansive lawns and planned gardens, destroying the tall, second-growth fir, alder, and madrona that used to rise out of the thick undergrowth. My uncle Harmond had held on, outlasting his contemporaries who lived along the gravel road before it was “discovered” and paved. A UPS delivery man found Harmond’s body resting comfortably in a chair on the porch. His will was in his two-drawer cardboard filing cabinet.

I think three sorts of people come to these cliffs: those who look away from the world; those who look down at it; and those who look into it. Uncle Harmond had looked away. We’ve been coming for the last five years’’since he died. I suppose he left the place to me because my parents, before they divorced, used to send me down from Seattle to visit for a few weeks every summer when I was a kid. During those visits, I would sit with Harmond on the porch and say “I get it” when he made a pun. We’d hike down the cliff and fish for salmon and bass off the rocks near Little Fishtrap estuary. But he was generally withdrawn and impatient, and I didn’t like his gun collection, which was nailed to one wall and covered by a black curtain he told me never to open. Sometimes I’d hike alone through the trees or down the beach with his dog Mike, or I’d head to the end of the road where Joan Sparks’“the only kid my age in the area”“lived. More than once, Uncle Harmond said, ”That Sparks girl is cute, and their family owns all the fields on the other side of the road. You might grow up to marry her.’ I married Rebecca Bluestone instead, a woman who easily pulls me into her dark moods. She warned me about them from the beginning. I was in love enough to think I could save her. As we cross from our gravel driveway to paved Island View Court, Rebecca says something in her low, warm voice to Ariel. In a different voice, Rebecca has told me that I live in a world of my own, that we don’t talk anymore, that she feels depressed’“with the implication that the fault for all of this lies with me. Sometimes, when I say I love her, she asks ”Why?“ or ”What does that mean?“ or ”You think that makes everything better?“ That these exchanges also reflect the times we live in”“the hopelessly high expectations of love, the weight of our overexamined lives”“is no help to me. ”Let’s not stay too long,“ Rebecca says just before we arrive at the Gabrielles” two-story, grey house. She doesn’t like these parties, doesn’t know what to say to these people anymore. I lean over and whisper, “Maybe we should just stay home and make love.” “Right,” she says, her face humorless. I grimace in return. If I were to point out the gracelessness of her answer, she would say, “You were angry before I said a thing.” Pulled forward by Ariel and the aromatic smoke from the Gabrielles” barbecue, we walk down the circular driveway toward the house. Rows of struggling miniature roses that don't belong in this soil border the pavement. At the front door, Helen Gabrielle welcomes me with kisses on both sides of my face in the style of her upbringing. She thanks us for the casserole dish filled with little-neck clams, now covered with a butter-pesto sauce, that Ariel and I had collected in the estuary. A sweet, lemony scent lingers as Helen pulls her head away. She is tall and lanky, nine or ten years older than I. We always talk easily, almost as if we were better friends than we are. She has mostly nice things to say and seems so content with where life has carried her that I am sometimes tempted to go to her for advice or confession. The thought that something sexual might occur after such a session has also passed through my mind.

Helen’s husband, Sandy, arrives just after us. He’s a surgeon, and I’ve never liked him. On the other hand, I’ve had a lot of fun attacking the medical profession as pompous and unethical and then countering his inept replies. I suspect he is one of those who live on Island View Court to look down on the world, and people like me. Sandy is shepherding a young couple on to the patio, and in his stuttering way introducing them around. “They’re from California,” he says when he reaches Rebecca and me. This fact is supposed to mean we have something in common with them. During the academic year, we live in Hayward, California, where I teach European history at the state university and Rebecca works with kids who have learning disabilities. Sandy’s repeated joke is to ask me about the Crimean War and wink at whatever I answer. The young woman Sandy is introducing is an internist. Maybe she’s strong and intelligent and not yet lost in the forest of her profession, I think. Sandy says he is interested in her joining his group at the clinic. Her husband waits a deferential step behind her, reminding me of photos of Margaret and Dennis Thatcher. They both smile broadly. Seconds later I catch sight of them standing alone looking at each other. She raises her eyebrows for a moment, as if to say “we’ve got it made.” I suppose they do, but after a while, things will get rougher in ways they now think couldn’t happen to them. I look for Rebecca. She has drifted a few yards away, her back turned to me. I am tempted to follow her, to try to protect her from something that might happen or impress her with some sort of wisdom. It is my persistence, I think, that holds her to me. I glance around and assess the rest of the guests’’two stockbrokers, a lawyer, another doctor, a retired engineer. I’ve met them all before but have forgotten their names. I talk for a while with one of the stockbrokers. He comes from Montana, and has the ruddy complexion to match. He also seems faultlessly polite. He knows I’m a historian who has published a little, and tells me, again, that he used to be a journalist but went into brokerage fifteen years ago. The job, he explains, will allow him to retire soon to something more creative. He means to apologize, as one intellectual to another, for working in such a meaningless capitalistic business. His wife, who works in the same office with him, has brought their wheaten terrier. The dog sits on tremulous haunches when told, and the woman weaves anecdotes about him into the conversation. They need a baby, I think to myself, but I’m willing to bet that in the few years that remain, they won’t do anything about it.

A woman I haven’t yet noticed walks toward me and says “Hi.” I don’t recognize her until she tells me she is Joan Sparks. Back during those summers I spent with Uncle Harmond, Joan was as tomboyish as they came, though I didn’t think of it that way then. Her curly hair used to blow every which way when we stood at the edge of the cliffs and tossed stones as far as we could. One afternoon, she suggested we find a place in the forest and take off our clothes; I considered her idea for a moment, and then demurred. Now I say, “So, how did your life go?” Joan laughs and says she grew up fast and hard, but that she’s fine. She and her husband broke up a while ago, and she’s rented a place in town where she manages the new Starbuck’s. She tells me she'll be visiting her parents here at the end of Island View Court more often than before, implying that something important had kept her from them for a time. She says all this without blinking, without moving her hand to brush at some stray strand of hair, without bobbing her head at all or shifting her hips or glancing around or taking a sip from the glass of pale wine in her hand. I like how she holds herself now, how frank and concise she is. I wonder how my life would have played out had I followed Uncle Harmond’s advice and married her. Rebecca drifts toward me. Our eyes meet before she veers off toward Ariel, who is talking with two kids she sometimes plays with. Rebecca always makes a point of not appearing to be jealous, though we both have had short, wounding affairs. I nod toward her, tell Joan she’s my wife. “Do you love her?” she asks, as if it's the natural thing to say, as if the answer is as easy as throwing a stone. My eyes stay on Rebecca. In her late thirties, she still has a petite build that makes her baritone voice and caustic wit even more surprising when people first meet her. I turn back to Joan. She is full bodied and, I imagine, more forgiving. “Yes,” I answer. “Lucky you.” I catch a glimpse of Ariel but decide not to say anything about her to Joan. “Yes,” I murmur, “Lucky me.” I am not sure whether I am making myself more accessible to Joan or less through this direction of talk. We move on to memories of how things were on Island View Court and surprise each other with what each of us has remembered or forgotten. We laugh and I sense the strength in Joan that always made her dangerous. The Montana stockbroker approaches with his wife and terrier. I make the introductions. Talk soon centers on dog training. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Sandy Gabrielle walking toward us. I excuse myself and amble slowly toward the kitchen, wondering if Joan will follow me. In the kitchen, a few people fill their plates from platters set out on the large, butcher-block island. I smile, poke at some food, and refill my wine glass. Through the window I see Rebecca sitting in a lawn chair and writing in her notebook. I imagine it’s some sort of social criticism or commentary about the false images regularly produced by the “haves” in this society. She writes a lot, especially during the summer, sometimes getting up at night, and she always carries her notebook with her. When I say that her constant writing might bother people, she retorts, “That’s too bad.” She never lets me see what she’s writing. It’s just stuff for short stories, she explains. If she let me read any of it, she says, she couldn't believe me if I said it was good.

Helen Gabrielle walks by the butcher-block table and into the hall. She turns up the stairs. I notice the easy smile on her face and her graceful and strong posture; perhaps she once was a dancer. She seems so enveloped by grace that I feel sure I could be safe with her. I know this house and what’s upstairs. I hurry after her. From the bottom of the stairs, I look up at her. “I want to come up, too,” I say, my voice childish and innocent. “Come on, then,” she says, smiling. “But you’ll have to wait outside the door like a good boy.” I follow her up the rest of the stairs. She goes into her bedroom, and I pause outside the open door. She continues on to the bathroom without looking back, flicks on the light, closes the door. Framed, illustrated manuscripts hang from the bedroom wall. I step into the bedroom, look more closely at some of the manuscripts. They are old, in French. Some come from an early edition of La Fontaine’s fables and show the animals we are and the morals to be learned. “I’m looking at your etchings, Helen,” I joke in a loud voice. “That’s okay,” she calls gaily I hear from the bathroom. A wedge of light extends from under the bathroom door. I think about being in the bathroom with her, lying back in her bathtub, she wearing a clean, terry-cloth robe and a towel wrapped around her hair, bathing me. The sound of water trickling in the sink comes to me. I sit down on the bed and look out the half-open window. The view of the sound and of Hartstene Island nearby is only a little different than from our own front porch. On the lawn below I see Rebecca still in her the chair. To the left, Joan Sparks walks alone toward the railroad-tie barriers separating the lawn from the cliff. I think about the money it took to build this place. I press my fingers into the bed, remembering how I had scooped my fingers through the sand for clams. I remember the blue heron I saw standing at the mouth of the estuary waiting so patiently for the tide to bring small fish to its feet. The bathroom door opens. Helen says something, but I’m not sure what’’perhaps it’s a single word, in French. I sit motionless, still looking out the window. Her footsteps come toward me, and then she is standing between me and the window. Her feet are bare, and again I think of the heron, its toes splayed and pointed. I look up at her neighbor-friend smile’’nothing to suggest that she’s thinking of anything more than leading me to another glass of wine or helping of fruits de mer. Her greying hair is in a wrap around her head and held loosely by two combs. I say, “Will you hold my head for a minute?” She frowns, starts to say something, then steps forward. She takes my head in her hands and presses it to her soft breast, rocking slightly. I close my eyes, breath easily, and float into a pale grey mist. “This doesn’t count for anything,” she says. “It”'s like “time out.”’ In seconds, before I can cry or say something I shouldn’t, it is over. I’m following her back down the stairs, my hand on the railing. By the time I step outside, I’m telling myself I'm not sure what just happened. But the breeze from the west feels good on my face and arms, and the delicate dialogue of a Mozart oboe concerto emanates from the kitchen speakers. I see Rebecca standing on the lawn with Sandy. She is wearing a skirt I like, and I remind myself to find a moment to tell her so. She looks up at Sandy, smiling briefly. She probably feels stuck there, but I decide I don't want to help her quite yet. I stand there rocking, as if I am still in Helen’s arms. I look for Helen or Joan, then watch Ariel. My daughter is showing her friends a dance step that she learned in her ballet class. Her brow furrows, and her face takes on an statement of intense concentration. She is self-conscious but not embarrassed. I feel myself hoping she can maintain that balance. Helen comes from behind me, holding a platter of pastries. She is talking with Joan, who is walking alongside her. Helen says to me, “You two must be old friends.” I nod, and the two women stay with me. They continue talking, and from time to time they both look at me. Other people are milling around, and I’m not following what they are saying. I want them to be talking about me; I wish Rebecca were with them talking about me. A few people take pastries from Helen’s platter. She tells someone she got the recipe from a baker in Paris, in the seventh arrondissement near the rue de Bac. I step away and squint into the sun as it drops toward the horizon, reddening the clouds over the Olympic peninsula. I sense Rebecca walking up behind me. She touches my elbow and asks if I’m thinking about going home. This means it’s time to go, and if I think otherwise she might go without me, Ariel in tow, and mark it in her notebook as something to consider as she charts our course. “Okay,” I say.We make our way out of the Gabrielles”. As we turn on to Island View Court, the voices and the strains of the oboe concerto fade. Dragonflies dip toward the daisies and Queen Anne’s lace in the narrow band of fields between the road and the darkening woods to the east. Down the middle of our driveway, the grass is getting high again. The salal, bracken ferns, and thimbleberries are pushing in from each side. A pungent, sweet smell rises from the damp summer earth.

Already unraveling her long, chestnut braid, Ariel ambles inside to get ready for bed. I sit down in the wooden rocker on the porch. Rebecca sits next to me, her chair not as close as I would like, but here anyway. The sun has set, silhouetting the mountains. I remember reading about a man who rowed his boat into Dana Passage, lowered himself into the water, and drowned. I wonder what might make a man slip into the cold like that. I imagine him swimming against the current and thinking about giving up. I think about him stopping and letting the water pull him north toward the sea. Ariel patters out and crawls into to Rebecca's lap. She asks, “How much longer ”til we go home?“ I wish she had chosen my lap, but am glad she is holding Rebecca now. ”Six weeks,“ says Rebecca. At the end of the summer, we'll return to California, where Ariel will enter the fifth grade. She’s growing up just when we still need her to be a little girl. ”Five weeks and two days,“ I say. ”Will we come back next summer, and then the summer after that?’ asks Ariel.On Dana Passage, a tug pulls a huge logjam north, probably to mills in Tacoma or up to Seattle where the wood will be loaded on boats for Japan. I can't see what holds the logs together, or how the tug stays on course pulling such weight. “Will we?” Ariel says again. I sit motionless. Except for the distant hum of the tug’s motor, the air is silent around us. “Yes,” says Rebecca, honest to a fault. I rock in my chair, hear a board creak. It is something I can fix. Ariel squirms in Rebecca’s lap, faces the water, and reaches her hand up to the back of Rebecca’s neck. Rebecca lets Ariel pull her head down. She whispers something into Ariel’s ear between kisses that makes my daughter close her eyes and wrinkle her tiny nose. They raise their heads and both look out to the west and, I’m sure, into the world. They turn toward me, in unison, as if performing a dance they had practiced in secret. Ariel’s mouth is open in self-assured innocence, and Rebecca has the subtle, off-center smile that she sometimes gives me after we've made love’“a smile that tells me I’m saved.

Island View Court, by Dennis Sherman ” 2002 Portland Review Literary Journal