Leaving Lucy Pear(34)

Caleb had written Josiah’s speech in the end, after Josiah admitted the night before he was supposed to make it that he had written nothing at all. (He would never show anyone that first sentence.) The speech was good, Josiah thought, but giving it had made him feel ridiculous, like a character in costume, the upright one that speechified about canals and temperance while his other one, the down-low one who wheeled and dealed in his office, went on undermining everything this one had to say.

This, he supposed, was maybe part of why he was unhappy. But nobody seemed to notice. Even his father believed in Josiah For Mayor. Josiah had gone to him back when Caleb first proposed the idea, had worn to his father’s shop the suit Susannah had bought him on her last trip to Boston, and his camel and white two-tone brogues, still stiff from the box. Some part of him must have meant to offend his father, ply his insecurities, incite his judgment and gall, so that Josiah would not have to feel any of this himself. He expected his father to rant about the vileness of elected officials. But Giles Story was not himself that day, or else he had changed. He was smitten by the notion of seeing the name “Story” on campaign signs all over town. He especially liked the idea of seeing it added to the company billboard out on Washington Street, which he was sure would happen if Josiah won his campaign. STANTON & STORY GRANITE COMPANY. Giles went straight to the shop telephone—he was usually stingy with the telephone—and rang a friend who made signs.

And so. Josiah ran for mayor. He tried for fatherhood. He rowed.

“How are the children?” he asked, to ask something. Emma didn’t answer. He considered asking why her husband had been off “fishing” for nearly two months now, when the longest ice could last in a hold was two or three weeks. Or maybe he would tell her how her daughter, the different, dark one, was working at the quarry dressed up as a boy, and how Josiah had seen through her disguise right away but hadn’t said a thing, and wouldn’t—he was that magnanimous! Maybe then Emma would forgive him.

Or not. She was looking at him now, harshly. She asked, “Have I been of use to you, Mr. Story?”

“I wish you would stop calling me that.”

“I know. Have I?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Has Beatrice Cohn agreed to endorse you?”

“She’s working on a speech. I thought I’d told you.”

“No.”

“I’m sorry.”

She chewed her lip with her big front teeth. He loved to lick those teeth, just as he’d known he would the first time they met. Josiah stopped rowing. He heard the roil of the cut now. He had forgotten that, too, the river’s agitation as it squeezed between the stone walls, how it churned with square waves, how a boat could jump and slide in the narrow passage. He rested the oars on the gunwales, hung his head on his neck. The tide began to push them back.

“You’re afraid,” Emma said. Her tone was gentler now—not accusatory but matter of fact.

“The Feds are out some nights, patrolling,” he said. He wondered why hadn’t he thought of this excuse before. “And the Coast Guard’s got seaplanes stationed on Ten Pound Island. Smack in the middle of the harbor.”

“Not afraid like that.” Emma lifted his chin with her finger and made him look at her. The dark pools of her eyes glistened—they seemed not to watch Josiah so much as take him in. She was the one who saw his unhappiness, he realized, saw that he was split in pieces.

“Susannah’s pregnant,” he said. “That’s why I didn’t come. I’m sorry.”

Emma’s finger dropped. “That’s good,” she said. “That’s very good.”

“It’s only three months in. Further than before, but still. She’s too excited. She’s talking about names.” Josiah stopped, conscious of Emma’s having retreated. He had not meant to talk about Susannah. The whole point was not to think of her, to trade her flat, taut stomach for Emma’s soft one, to assert himself, to take charge! How pathetic it seemed now.

The sound of jeers and whistles made him turn. He saw dark shapes on the drawbridge above the cut. Early revelers, perhaps the firework setters. He and Emma wouldn’t be seen from this distance, but they couldn’t risk going closer, either. They could not row through, thank God. Something landed on his neck and Josiah reached back to feel the nubby slime of a rotting tomato. He was always being saved like this, in ways he had not thought to want, from dangers he had not foreseen. Before he could react—he fingered the tomato, stunned—Emma had grabbed the oars, shoved him off the bench into the bow, and turned the boat around. She was far better at rowing than he. She started to pull and like that the stuff between them fizzed again, Josiah’s punishment complete, her hand’s imprint on his chest a hot desertion, his prick rising. Another tomato hit the stern but Emma rowed fast and well with the tide, her back rocking toward him and away. Stuffed onto the tiny bow bench, Josiah felt he had been stolen. He felt helpless and safe. They reached the sagging dock in a quarter of the time it had taken him to row them out, an instant, a blink, so that when he had cleated the line it seemed they had never left. His agony was erased. He let her wrestle him onto the dock, roll him off into the marsh, and pin him against the stabby grass, leaving bright red nicks in his back, which Susannah, he knew with glad and grievous certainty, would not notice.