Leaving Lucy Pear(13)

“It’s politics. You think I don’t understand politics?”

“I think politics are boring. But if you insist. The man’s niece, Beatrice Cohn, she’s a leading dry down in Boston, statewide really, very popular, very charismatic, made quite a stir among her own. She made friends with the Christian ladies. Now she’s living up in Gloucester, taking care of her uncle. I saw her speak at the Ladies’ Sewing Circle last month. She’s had to care for her uncle instead of focusing on her work. The ‘cause,’ as they call it.” Mr. Story sighed. “I figure I relieve her of the burden, maybe she gets me the woman’s vote in November.”

“I thought you were a shoo-in.”

“That’s what they say. They haven’t heard me talk.”

“You talk fine.” You talk fancy, she almost said, but stopped herself. She didn’t know—it had taken her years to know, with Roland—how much teasing this man could take.

He shook his head. “Do you want the job or not?”

“It’s odd, don’t you think? You funding my perry operation, me helping you pose as a dry?”

“There are worse sorts of corruption, don’t you think? Nursing isn’t such a sin.”

“What if I turn out to be terrible at it?”

He lifted himself onto his elbows. “You have nine children, don’t you?”

“It’s not the same,” she said. But she was tiring of her protest. She was thinking of Joshua, who at three hadn’t tasted currants or worn shoes that fit.

“So where is it?” she asked. “Will I have to take the bus?”

“Out on Eastern Point. The Hirsch estate. Hirsch is the uncle. I’ll drive you,” Mr. Story added, but Emma barely heard. She pushed off him, grabbing the afghan to cover her breasts. “Hirsch” was like a curse word among the Murphys: spoken only inside the home and when strictly necessary. Hirsch was their secret. Or Emma had thought it a secret. Now, eyes shut, willing herself to shrink, she waited to hear Story describe her sins to her. The pears were nothing compared with what she was doing now, with him. Taking what the rich would not use anyway—she had barely flushed when she first confessed it and, because her penance had been a single Hail Mary, she never felt the need to confess it again. Even so, they did not talk of it: the dories they “borrowed” from Flanders’ Boat Yard once a year, the armfuls of fruit that didn’t belong to them, the canvas tarps mended so many times the children affectionately referred to them as “rags.” And most tender, most treacherous: Lucy Pear, before she was Lucy Pear, alone in the Hirsch orchard in a preposterously sumptuous blanket. For nearly a decade Emma had kept that blanket in her box, under the bed, rarely thinking of it, but now it occurred to her that this had been a terrible mistake. The blanket had followed her here: it swam dreamily across her skin, a fluffy, luxurious trap.

But when Emma opened her eyes, the afghan was only the afghan. Story’s eyes were innocent and bemused. He laughed. He touched her jaw, closed her mouth for her. “Are you squeamish of Jews, Mrs. Murphy?”

Emma worked her tongue drily, moved her head back and forth.

“If it doesn’t work—if the endorsement doesn’t come through—I won’t blame you. All right? I promise. Forget the politics. Just consider it me, wanting to do something for you.”

Emma managed a weak nod. As terrified as she was, a flame had been lit, the possibility of seeing Lucy’s mother—if this woman was her—brought within her reach.

“Can’t a man do something for the sake of doing it?” he asked.

Josiah sat up. He considered this a fair question, if not an entirely honest one within the context of this particular conversation. He would have liked it to be honest. He would have liked to be touched again by Emma’s rough hands that the cream had not salved. He had allowed her to undress him tonight. He didn’t think anyone but his mother had ever done that. He reached for her. But as he did so his nakedness became fully apparent to her—it plucked Emma out of her shock. With Roland it was usually dark, the children asleep, or they were hasty about it, clothed. They hadn’t seen each other naked in years. She wrapped the afghan around her and moved toward her dress, which lay rumpled on the floor. The hem, she saw, had begun to fray. One sleeve was torn at the elbow. She steadied herself with these defects, with thoughts of a needle and thread, all the while toeing into her dress, wriggling it up over her hips and shoulders, avoiding Story’s eyes. She buttoned her last button, noting that it needed tightening. She was not a skilled seamstress, but she could sew a button, tuck a hem. She took comfort in an image of herself at the kitchen table with a needle and thread, the clear, honest effort, her daily life intact. “Of course,” she said. “You can do anything you want. Will you take me home?”





Five




One week later, Josiah Story and Emma Murphy were fully clothed in his Duesenberg, blearing past Annisquam, Riverdale, Bayview, winding toward Eastern Point. In the backseat, Emma might have been a statue. Josiah, as he drove, noted the skyward point of her posture, the carved ridges of her neck muscles, the bone of her jaw, and told himself that if she appeared a little distant today, a little haughty, it was only proof that she was not too common or too old for him, that he was allowed to want her in the way he did. That morning, over coffee, he had told Susannah his plan to win Beatrice Cohn’s endorsement with a nurse and she smiled. “You look embarrassed,” she said. “I think it’s smart. It’s a smart gesture, Joe.” He had left out his familiarity with the nurse, of course, so her words gutted him, made him take her hands and kiss them, hiding his face. Now the pain had thinned to a chafing in his throat, a disturbance in his groin that wasn’t altogether unpleasant. Susannah’s smile grated on him: the confidence a lifetime of money granted her even when she was being conned. He watched Emma in the rearview mirror and fantasized that her stiffness was part of a game they were playing, the game of emerging together into broad daylight, visible to passing drivers and loitering men, to the children playing along the road. Here was the munificent Josiah Story, delivering a nurse to someone in need. No one would see Emma’s secret litheness, the way she gave under him, her soft stomach, her strong hands, the calluses on her feet that brushed against him like sandpaper. Josiah saw all this. The straighter Emma sat, the harder her gaze as she refused to meet his eye, the more naked she became for him. She was like an animal he’d caught. He caressed the wheel and squirmed.