A Piece of the World(2)

“Who?”

“You know N. C. Wyeth. The famous illustrator? Treasure Island?”

Ah, Treasure Island. “Al loved that book. I think we still have it somewhere.”

“I think every boy in America has it somewhere. Well, his son’s an artist too. I just met him today.”

“You met him today, and you’re riding around in a car with him?”

“Yes, he’s—I don’t know. He seems trustworthy.”

“Your parents don’t mind?”

“They don’t know.” She smiles sheepishly. “He showed up at the house this morning looking for my father, but my parents had gone off for a sail. I answered the door. And here we are.”

“That happens sometimes,” I say. “Where’s he from?”

“Pennsylvania. His family has a summer place up here, in Port Clyde.”

“You seem to know an awful lot about him,” I say, arching an eyebrow.

She arches an eyebrow back. “I plan to learn more.”

Betsy leaves with her cup of water and makes her way back to the station wagon. By the way she’s walking, shoulders back and chin forward, I can tell she knows he’s watching her. And she likes it. She hands the boy the cup and climbs onto the roof next to him.

“Who was that?” My brother Al is at the back door, wiping his hands on a rag. I can never tell when he’s coming; he’s as quiet as a fox.

“Betsy. And a boy. He’s painting a picture of the house, she said.”

“Why would he want to do that?”

I shrug. “People are funny.”

“Sure are.” Al settles into his rocker, pulling out his pipe and tobacco. He starts tamping and lighting, both of us spying on Betsy and the boy out the window and trying to act like we aren’t.

After a while the boy climbs down and sets his pad of paper on the hood of the car. He offers his hand to Betsy, who slides down into his embrace. Even from this distance I can feel the heat between them. They stand there talking for a minute, and then Betsy tugs on his hand, pulling him toward—oh Lord, she’s bringing him up to the house. I feel a momentary panic: the floor is dusty, my dress soiled, my hair unkempt. Al’s overalls are splashed with mud. It’s been a long time since I’ve worried about being seen through the eyes of a stranger. As they walk toward the house, though, I see the boy gazing at Betsy and realize I don’t need to worry. She is all he sees.

He’s at the screen, now, on the threshold. Lanky, smiling, quivering with energy, he fills the entire doorway. “What a marvelous house,” he murmurs as he opens the screen, craning his neck to look up and around the room. “The light in here is extraordinary.”

“Christina, Alvaro, this is Andrew,” Betsy says, coming in behind him.

He inclines his head. “Hope you don’t mind my crashing in uninvited. Betsy swore it was okay.”

“We don’t stand on ceremony,” my brother says. “I’m Al.”

“People after my own heart. And call me Andy, please.”

“Well, I’m Christina,” I say.

“I call her Christie, but no one else does,” Al adds.

“Christina, then,” Andy says, settling his gaze on me. I detect no judgment in it, only a kind of anthropological curiosity. Still, his keen attention makes me blush.

Turning to Al, I say quickly, “Remember that book Treasure Island? His father did the paintings for it, Betsy said.”

“Did he now?” Al’s face lights up. “You can’t forget those pictures. I probably read that book a dozen times. Might be the only book I ever actually finished, now that I think about it. I wanted to be a pirate.”

Andy breaks into a grin. His teeth are large and white, like a movie star’s. “So did I. Still do, in fact.”

Betsy’s holding the oversized drawing pad. As proud as a new mother, she brings it over to show me. “Look what Andy did, Christina, in that short amount of time.”

The paper is still damp. In bold strokes Andy reduced the house to a white box with two gables facing the sea. The fields are green and yellow, with bristly blades of grass poking up here and there. Near-black firs, a purple swipe of mountains, watery clouds. Though the watercolor has been done quickly—there’s movement in the brushstrokes, as if the wind is blowing through—it’s clear this boy knows what he’s doing. The windows are mere suggestions, but you have the peculiar sense that you can see inside. The house seems rooted in the earth.

“It’s just a sketch,” Andy says, coming up beside me. “I’ll keep working at it.”

“Looks like a nice place to live,” I say. The house is snug and cozy, a fairy-tale version of the one Al and I actually live in, the only hint of its decay in smudges of blue and brown.

Andy laughs. “You tell me.” Running two fingers over the paper, he says, “Such stark lines. There’s something about this place . . . You’ve lived here a long time?”

I nod.

“I sense that. That it’s a place filled with stories. I’ll bet I could paint it for a hundred years and never get tired of it.”

“Oh, you’d get tired of it,” Al says.

We all laugh.

Andy claps his hands together. “Hey, guess what? Today is my birthday.”