The Whiskey Sea Page 20

  “Slip the money under the door.”

  “Is that smart?”

  Charles said, “What else are you going to do?”

  So she took the cash, which she had already secured in an envelope, from her clutch bag and slipped it under Bea’s door. She almost knocked again before leaving, as if her sister’s note had been some sort of mistake and Bea was lounging inside. Her sister’s absence prickled keenly—Frieda missed her endless chatter, smart remarks, and little idiosyncrasies. The clothes strewn about, books everywhere, and her mannerisms; the way she laughed and the way she stood in the kitchen with one hand on the small of her back while she stirred something in a pot on the stove with the other. And now the city had swallowed her whole.

  Everything about the evening had changed because of worries about Bea, but as they had dinner at Voisin, supped on the famous French cuisine, and then went out for dancing at the equally famous Cotton Club in Harlem, Frieda’s worries worked themselves away. It helped that Charles had purchased a bottle of good scotch, which they passed between them and swigged. The gin served at the Cotton Club was known to have a volcanic effect on the brain.

  All around Frieda were women wearing embroidered silks, chemises in flesh and soft pastel colors, feathered and sequined headbands, long pearl necklaces, numerous bangles, and bracelets clamped on their upper arms, the air around them filled with the scents of Chanel and Guerlain. The men wore tailored double-breasted suits or the occasional tuxedo. It was completely beyond her existence, but she was struck by an intense new realization.

  She had expected so little of others, especially others of a different social stratum. Perhaps she had been the closed-minded one, inhibited by her own narrow ideas and prejudices, burdened with so many internal scars. She had imposed her ignorance onto others; she was the one who had needed to learn more. She pulled in a few deep breaths and felt as if her belief in humanity was broadening. She thought of all the lights out there in the city, blinking alive bits of wisdom inside her. From the outside the city had looked almost as if it were carved in miniature, but once here it was a place that could make them all bigger people.

  Their last stop was an underground speakeasy. Inside, Charles ran into the same young man Frieda had seen with him that very first night in the bar down on the docks. As she and Charles were sitting at the crowded bar, the man clapped a hand on Charles’s shoulder. She recognized his horn-rimmed glasses and remembered that he and Charles had first sought to rent a fishing boat and try running by themselves and how foolish she’d thought them. She had no idea what this other young man was doing with his summer. He was dressed more formally than they were, with a silk tie, finely tailored jacket, perfectly pressed shirt, and wing tip shoes. He had a slight frame but held himself as only aristocrats did—tall, straight, proud—and he had that ease Frieda had come to envy. She hadn’t noticed before how the extreme thickness of his eyebrows contrasted with his small features, but still his face came together in an interesting mix.

  Charles introduced the man as Will Reuben, and his eyes lit when he recognized Frieda. “I remember you. The feisty girl in the bar in Highlands.” He glanced at Charles as if seeing his friend in a new light. Maybe even a new respect.

  Frieda said, “I don’t make such a good first impression.”

  Will smiled and looked from his friend’s face back into hers. “On the contrary, you must have made quite a good first impression.”

  Her cheeks burned. She rested her hands in her lap—they might begin to tremble. So she had the approval of one of Charles’s friends, and it was much more than she had hoped for.

  “How’ve you been?” Charles asked Will.

  “I’d be better if I could get a drink.”

  Frieda worked to get the bartender’s attention, while Charles and Will caught up. She could hear snippets of the conversation over the drone of the crowd, bursts of laughter, and music played by the house band. Charles told Will little about his summer, but Will got the gist of it. Will, on the other hand, said that he’d been in the Hamptons and was preparing for law school in the fall; Frieda was surprised to hear that the rest of the conversation centered on Harvard and their plans for the upcoming fall semester. Charles gave no indication that he wasn’t going to comply with his father’s expectations, and she didn’t know if his ambiguity was simply because he didn’t want to delve into this tonight or if he was truly going. An unexpected heaviness reached across the bar, the people, and the tabletops and came to rest on her shoulders.

  Will asked, “Where are you going to live?”

  “I have no idea,” answered Charles.

  “You better make some arrangements soon, or you’ll end up in a dormitory.”

  Charles scoffed at that. “Not a chance.”

  “I’ve rented a house near the campus. You could stay there with me if you want.”

  “Thanks for the offer, but—”

  Shouts came. Men on the lookout yelled that the police were coming and beamed flashlights down the front stairwell. A contained rush ensued. Bartenders immediately put bottles of wine and liquor into under-the-counter storage, and patrons downed what was left in their glasses. Some women laughed, as if this were all some great joke, and poked another cigarette into their long holders. Waiters began to steer customers toward the back exit and narrow stairway leading to an alley.

  Charles said, “Don’t worry. The police are primarily after the owners, rarely the patrons. But it’s still time to get out of the way. You never know . . .”

  They got caught up in the frenzy of those wishing to escape, the crowd moving as one mob of humanity, some people still holding bottles and glasses in the air, others shoving to get out first, and for a moment Frieda lost hold of Charles’s hand. She was unused to crowds like this and wasn’t comfortable pushing her way through, but Charles waited, took her arm, and navigated through. They climbed a stairway to ground level, then burst out into a stinking alley, where women wearing fine leather or silk shoes tiptoed, tripping and laughing through the damp muck, and men deposited bottles on the ground and led those ladies away.

  Frieda was surprised to find that they had lost Will on the way out, but Charles whispered, “Good. Too much talk of sore subjects,” as he took her hand to his chest and ferried them down the alley toward the lights of the city streets.

  Later that night, after a long session of lovemaking and new, previously unexplored sensations, Frieda propped herself up on one elbow in the bed next to Charles. “Tell me more about Will.”

  Charles, lying on his back and gazing toward the ceiling, pushed the hair from his forehead. “What about him?”

  “Well . . . he’s a friend of yours, right? A closer friend than, say . . . Toby.”

  He sighed. “I don’t pry into your friendships.”

  She smirked. “You know them already.”

  “Dutch and Rudy?”

  “That’s about it.”

  Charles pulled her close. “Alright . . . Ah, Will Reuben. Pleasant chap. Smart. He has a friend of the female persuasion. Bess Templeton. Pretty girl. Appears tall, but I think it’s an illusion caused by the way she holds her nose high in the air. She and Will argue all the time. They even quarrel in letters.”

  “Maybe it’s love,” said Frieda.

  “Ha! You amuse me.”

  Frieda smiled and snuggled in, relishing the scent of him after sex.

  He pulled in a breath. “Quite right. Maybe it is love.”

  “Or lust.”

  “Ha again!” Charles exclaimed. “But that would be impossible. Bess Templeton wouldn’t lower her knickers for the Prince of Wales unless she first had an enormous ring on her finger and an outlandish engagement party in the works.”

  “Maybe I should’ve thought of that.”

  He laughed again and rolled over to face her. He touched her hair, then gently brushed it away from her face, his eyes filled with what Frieda could only interpret as love. And then words that moved her in her core: “Yo
u—never. You’re unspoiled. Fresh as a daisy.”

  “Most of the time I smell of Eau de Fish.”

  Another burst of laughter. “Stop it. You’re slaying me.”

  That night she watched Charles as he slept. His eyes flitted underneath his lids, and his limbs twitched from time to time. He slept fitfully, and she wished she could rest her hands on him in a way that would help. What could she do? And what was there to do to make him stay in a place he loved and with a person who loved him?

  When she returned home the next morning, Bea’s absence the night before hit Frieda like a jolt through her chest. Silver was already settled on the front porch, and Polly appeared behind the screen door. “Thank the Lord you’re back,” she muttered.

  “Why? Is something wrong?” Frieda asked as she sat down beside Silver. Under his eyes were sunken purplish crescents, but he looked much as he always did.

  “I have a family, you know. I can’t stay here all day and all night,” Polly yelled from inside as Frieda heard the woman gathering her things to leave.

  “I’m going to stay home for a few days,” Frieda said loud enough for Polly to hear, but she was really speaking to Silver.

  Later, as they sat and watched the water, the comings and goings of boats, and the sun crossing the sky, she said, “I met Whitey. You never told me you knew who Bea’s father was.”

  His eyes registered surprise. A silence ensued, soon filled by a trill of tourist voices nearby—people taking a walk, she presumed—and after they passed she could hear the clangs and hums of boats entering the bay from the river. She looked out over the bay, which had gone flat to the smeared blue horizon.

  “He’s not all that far away. It was bound to be discovered because of his pale hair and eyes. But don’t worry; I didn’t make a scene. Amazingly, he seems like a decent man.”

  Silver pointed to himself with his good hand, and his eyes became insistent, animated. He pointed to himself so vehemently that he was almost striking himself.

  Frieda took both of his hands in hers and searched his eyes. “Of course you—you are our real father.”

  His eyes asked, Then why?

  “I don’t know why. Just curious, I guess.” She waited while a mounting sense of apprehension stirred within her, but she had to ask. “Do you know who fathered me, too?”

  He shook his head, and she didn’t know whether or not she felt relief. She was stunned to see tears in Silver’s eyes. He wrenched his good hand away from her and pointed to himself again. How horrible it must be for him not to be able to speak. She had hoped for a long time that his ability to articulate words would return. It was obvious that he was concerned for her, and often as she lay awake at night she imagined what he would say to her about Charles if he could. Silver had always seemed like a man untouched by the pull of romantic love, so would he understand? Would he tell her she was crazy, that she was only going to be hurt in the end? Would he fight her on this, too?

  She said, “I know that. Of course you’ve been my father in every way except for that one way, and Bea and I haven’t thanked you enough. I don’t know what would have happened to us if it weren’t for you.” She would never again mention fathers to him. She waited another moment, then repeated, “Thank you. Thank you.”

  She should’ve said more. She should have recalled sweet memories and relived them with him. She should’ve spoken of his sacrifice and care that had kept them safe and in school, his focus always on their well-being. She should have conjured up old stories that would amuse him and let him know how much he’d done. She should’ve talked of how he’d given up his bedroom for them, his earnings, and his life. She should’ve spoken of love. She had thought she had years—at least months—more to do so.

  Instead, she said no more, and he set that sad, solid gaze on her, and she let it hold her still.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  July flowed by like a river. Sometimes, when they weren’t running, it was slow, hot, and lazy, and other times, when they were working, it was a wild rush. The borough of Highlands celebrated the Fourth of July and ushered in the height of the tourist season. Hotels and beach resorts were packed with visitors from the city and inland people with the means to take seaside vacations. Women wore the new stretched, ribbed jersey Jantzen swimsuits that fell inches above the knee over stockings and beach boots, and carried Oriental parasols while near the water. Men drove new Chrysler B-70s and the new men’s swimwear of a wool tank over shorts while they smoked and discussed the latest movies.

  Rumrunners were taking advantage of excellent ocean conditions.

  The crew of the Pauline began to make more runs during the day, under the scorching sun, with huge beach flies from Sandy Hook biting them on any exposed skin. Charles went along on every run, did his fair share of the work, and never complained. Dutch was more afraid of the go-through men running at night with their speedboats than he was of a coast guard boat that could see him during the daylight hours. They saw the cutter often, but the boat didn’t chase them, as if the guardsmen were all too aware that the Pauline would outrun them and it wasn’t worth their time to pursue.

  But newer, faster guard boats were showing up, and once a guardsman fired warning shots across the bow of a boat under chase and accidentally hit a man on board. Although the crew of the chased boat made an urgent landing and tried to get the man to a hospital, he bled to death on the floorboards of one of their delivery trucks. And no one knew or trusted all the shifty-looking newcomers in town. Why were they here?

  People were getting jittery.

  Frieda received weekly letters from Bea that contained effusive descriptions of her activities in the city. The letters arrived on the same day each week, as if Bea had set herself up on a mandatory writing schedule, but Frieda was so relieved she didn’t care. In the letters Bea apologized for missing the evening with Frieda and Charles, explaining that the city was so all-encompassing, and she felt she might have been a third wheel on the date anyway. She asked them to visit again and assured her that she wouldn’t miss it the next time. Bea had secured a job in a drugstore and had learned to use a cash register. Frieda sent money double-wrapped in a thick envelope anyway, and at night, with the lights of the city blinking over the water, she had a hard time imagining that her little sister was over there, obviously happy, fitting in and creating a life of her own. It was what Frieda had always wanted, but she hadn’t expected the change to be so sudden.

  One day Hicks showed up at her house driving an old Ford Model T Runabout.

  Frieda flew down the steps. “Is it yours?” she asked.

  Hicks gave her one of his rare smiles, and relief was like a salve. She hadn’t spoken to him since he’d walked away from the porch and from her. Occasionally they had passed by each other and waved, but that was all. Hicks was clearly no longer cross, and his forgiving nature stunned her yet again. He seemed to be able to get past hard feelings like flipping a switch. She didn’t know if it was because of the soft spot in his heart he held for her, or if he was that way with everyone. All she knew was that he was here, and it was like walking into the arms of an old friend. In fact, he had spruced up for the occasion. He wore a clean pair of dungarees, had combed his hair off his face, and held an old felt hat in his hands in front of himself. His face was tanned smoothly by the sun on the lower part of his face, whereas his forehead was baby white, and the contrast made Hicks look as constant as the sun and the moon. “Of course it’s mine. A little rusty. Needs some paint.” And yet she could see Hicks’s pride over this purchase. Maybe he was in an awkward way saying, See, I can make something of myself, too.

  “It’s great. It’s yours.”

  “Come out for a ride?”

  She looked back at Silver, who sat on the porch. She had recently purchased him a new battery-powered receiver radio, which he listened to voraciously. Frieda figured it kept him company.

  “Could we take him, too?” she asked Hicks.

  “I don’t see why not.�
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  With Hicks’s help, she got Silver into the seat, while Polly, who had come over to cook, watched disapprovingly. Frieda squeezed in beside Silver and shut the door as Hicks jumped in behind the wheel. The motorcar was a beat-up rattletrap, but Silver seemed to enjoy the ride around town, even smiling from time to time on the good side of his face.

  Hicks appeared to think it was a grand adventure. He waved at people they knew in the lower Highlands and stopped to talk with local men, who looked over the vehicle. Then they took to the hills and drove past summer “cottages,” churches, and the school. By accident they passed Charles’s summer house, and Frieda saw the Renault parked outside. He was home. But she said nothing about it to Hicks.

  “How did you get this?” Frieda asked. Hicks had still not participated in any illegal activities and continued to make his living legally, from the sea, scraping clams off the shoals and doing some engine work from time to time. He finally replaced the hat on his head, shading most of his face, but a soft light glowed on his chin and lips.

  “I’ve been saving,” he answered, and a rare note of pride entered his voice. “And I got a good deal on her. She wasn’t running, so I rebuilt the engine myself.”

  “So she’s a woman, just like a boat?” Frieda asked, grinning, as the wind whipped through her hair and the engine made satisfying sounds as Hicks accelerated.

  “A woman, yes. Finicky and needing lots of attention.”

  She laughed.

  “And she runs either hot or cold, rarely in between.”

  Frieda laughed again.

  After their ride they settled Silver back on the porch, and Hicks offered to teach Frieda how to drive the old car. She eagerly let him show her the laborious steps of cranking the engine to a start and how to work pedals and a clutch. After some instruction she took the wheel and nearly veered off the road on her first attempt to follow a straight line, but then she fell into the rhythm of it.

  As she drove, Hicks said, “When this is all over . . .” and gestured toward the sea. “The running, I mean. It’d be smart for you to know how to work on car engines.”