Coral Upchurch shot her wondrous machine into action for our excursion to Billy’s room. What a great ride it would offer if you were sure of getting out of it again. Its sissing sound rose in pitch the faster it went, and it took sharp corners better than we did.
Billy’s room was everything someone like Billy—or what I had come to know of him—would feel entitled to. The ocean was right outside the sliding doors, which were open to let in the breeze. The bed was made and turned down with crisp linens. There was a chintz-covered armchair with matching hassock and the prettiest writing table I had ever seen. I would have said more if I hadn’t used up too many superlatives on the cake. On the desk was a framed studio picture of a young man with flowing hair and perfect features. Everything in his countenance testified to expecting nothing in life other than unqualified admiration. “Billy’s about twenty in that picture,” said Coral. “Isn’t he handsome? That’s an antique Proven?al desk, Billy had it shipped here direct from France.” On the desk was the apple-green cut-glass vase full of pale orange roses in bud.
“I’ll leave y’all to yourselves,” said Roberta Dumas.
“Before you go, tell Marcus what we did with your Boogie Basket,” Coral said.
“Thanks to her I sent back my commission money to those folks, and now we have ourselves a great big sweet-grass laundry basket,” said Roberta, laughing softly as she went.
XXXV.
The period of time following my afternoon with Billy and Coral Upchurch and leading up to Aunt Charlotte’s return date with the surgeon had a mournful feel. Some things were drawing to an end, other anticipated things had not happened. For me it was a time of flat days and anxious thoughts. The sun rose later and set earlier. It was as if the summer knew that its best days were gone and was giving in without a fight. I continued my morning rides to Grief Cottage, wearing my helmet and ducking my head as I hurried past the final few cottages in case Pickett happened to be looking out. There was nothing going on with the ghost-boy, no sense of my being seen or heard. My visits to the cottage were so blank that I began questioning the relationship I’d had with him before going inside with the realtor. It was as if Charlie Coggins’s sky-blue paint to ward off Ole Plat-eye had driven away my ghost. I still talked to him, updated him with alluring trues (“Billy Upchurch’s mother said he invited you to run away from home and go to school with him in Columbia … she said you two had a hiding place where you could spy on the people inside … I missed the turtles’ boil because I had to clean up after this boy who left a mess in our bathroom, but I did get to see them racing for the ocean…”)
Not a flurry in the air between us, no vibrations of either interest or disgust, just a boy by himself on a rotting porch disturbing the peace with his human noise.
Ed Bolton had apologized. (“The boy was at loose ends and I thought it would be exciting for him. But you got the short end of the stick.”) Ed had returned to Aunt Charlotte’s dune to clean out the nest and count the little corpses and unopened eggs and carry them away to the sea turtle conservators for research. (“I’m sorry, Marcus. And Pickett was mortified, for what it’s worth.”)
I missed talking to the turtle eggs and sorting out my day. Their presence had been an aid to my meditations.
Coral Upchurch had overtired herself with Billy’s “welcome home” celebration and had taken to her bed. I still went over daily to get their list, but there wasn’t much on it. I asked Roberta had I done anything to tire her. “No, she’s getting down to her real grieving. Lord knows it’s about time.” Roberta was weaving an elegant bread basket of modest size.
Aunt Charlotte and I still had our evening meal together, though she ate less and less and I opened more bottles of wine. Sometimes when she asked me to open another one, she gave me this measuring look like she was seeing how close she was to goading me into “nagging” so she could counterattack with her “Just do it, Marcus.”
I told her about Coral’s “welcome home” for Billy. And about her collapse at the airport, which kept her from ever seeing how her son lived in Washington and meeting his friends.
“Did it ever occur to you that she might not have wanted to see how her son lived in Washington and meet his friends?”
I said no, it hadn’t.
“People have so many ways of shooting themselves in the foot to avoid facing something.”
These days her supper talk bristled with this kind of caustic observation. After that one, I asked myself if her kitchen mishap had been a means of not facing up to something. And if so, was she aware of it?
Lachicotte took me to his barber for a haircut—I had asked for this after meeting Pickett. The barber wanted to know how I would like it, as it was too long for him to make out the “line” of my last haircut (which the foster mother had given me). I said short on the sides and in back but leave a little fringe brushed sideways at the front. You could dislike someone and still admire their hairstyle. Then we went shopping for school clothes, which I knew how to do, so Lachicotte sat on a bench outside the store while I let Mom’s taste guide me through the Boys section. Trendy is soonest out-of-date. Wear your clothes, don’t let them wear you. They should fit your body, not be tight or baggy or out to make a statement. Go for the well-made things—as far as your budget allows. When I summoned Lachicotte so he could pay with his credit card, to be reimbursed by Aunt Charlotte, he said he’d expected me to spend more. I felt sad Mom wasn’t around to see how well I’d done.
While trying on clothes in the dressing room, I had scrutinized myself in the full-length mirror and pretended to be others at school watching me come down the hall. The beach and the bike riding had definitely improved the basic shape. Stripped down to my underwear I examined myself front and back from haircut to feet. I was not the boy that my mother had last looked upon. I was definitely on the road to manhood. Was this something to look forward to?