The Stars Are Fire(14)

What would she take if someone, this very minute, were to tell her she must evacuate her house? Her children, of course, and bottles for Tom, clean clothes for Claire. Perhaps a change of clothes for herself tucked behind the children in the carriage. A photograph of her wedding? Of the children, when they were younger? Yes, one or two. A picture of her father. The layette for the baby? Her purse. An address book? Cigarettes? But then what would happen? She can’t outrun a fire. Perhaps she might be able to hoist the children and a suitcase onto the back of a truck. But she can’t get rid of the image of herself on foot, pushing the carriage as fast as she can, trying to shush Claire, who would smell and sense, if not actually see, the danger. No one needs to explain a wildfire to a child.


Normally, Grace loves this time of year. It’s not just the turning of the leaves or the crisp weather that one expects; it’s more a feeling of relaxation while the rest of the world becomes busier. With fewer people in town, streets are less crowded. Quiet descends. This year, however, that sense of peace has curdled to one of nervous watching. It’s bound to rain sometime soon, they say. It has to rain someday, they moan.


“Hey, Missy.”

The name jolts Grace, who turns to look. A man calls to her from inside a black Ford across the street. At first she thinks it might be Gene teasing her, but then she notices that the driver has a straw hat. Gene never wears a straw hat.

“Lady, can you give me some directions?”

“Where do you want to go?” she shouts back, putting a hand over her eyes so that she can get a better look at the man’s face. Middle-aged. A little soft.

“Well, I want to go to Cape Porpoise, and I got a map here.”

Grace hesitates.

But why?

As she approaches the automobile, she discovers that the man’s shoulders are bare. In the heat, many men have shed their shirts. He must not be very tall, she decides, because his neck barely clears the bottom of the window. How does he see out to drive?

“How can I help you?” she asks.

“Well, I got this map here.”

She bends to take a better look. The man is naked and is touching himself. He grins up at her. The missing tooth, the fold of flesh at the belly, the limp penis.

She slowly backs away, ignoring the man’s catcalls. She steps onto the grass, then onto the sidewalk. She reverses direction. She walks with her head bent, her shoulders hunched, praying he won’t follow.

To see a soft naked man inside a heavy metal machine. To have been tricked into having to watch, if only for a second, the man fondling himself. She knows her face is red and that sweat is trickling down the inside of her blouse. Why do men do this? she asks herself. Not the touching—she understands that well enough—but the stealth, the wanting to hurt women, to trick them. Rosie would have laughed and said something vulgar about the size of the man’s penis. If only she had Rosie’s nerve, her ability to think on her feet.


When Grace reaches the beach, she heads for the water. She takes off her shoes and walks in. She did not go home because she didn’t want the man, if he was following her, to know where she lives. If he stops at the beach, she won’t leave the water. If he gets out of the car and starts to move in her direction, she’ll scream and run like hell. But wait, he can’t get out of his car. He’s naked.

She sits on the sand, knees up, only her feet in the shallow waves. She would love to go for a swim. The coolness, the cleansing, her head diving under the water, coming up for air. How good that would feel.

Why not?

Except for the knee length of her cotton skirt, what she has on is not all that different from a maternity bathing suit. What if the baby weighs her down? No, it won’t. With all her extra blubber, she ought to float effortlessly.

The idle thought becomes a desire. The desire takes on a sense of urgency.

She stands and walks into the water up to her knees. She lifts her skirt a bit and runs and stumbles, but then she turns and executes a backstroke the way she was taught so long ago at summer camp. Her skirt floats up beside her, and her legs are free to make any movement they want. She dives, reaching for an underwater breaststroke.

When she comes up for air, she is not at the same place at which she entered. The current has carried her along with it. She squints, and in the distance she sees a black Ford cross an intersection. Lots of people drive black Fords. Her husband for one, the minister for another.

She will never tell anyone—not Gene, not Rosie, not her mother—about the incident with the man in the car.

She floats with her arms out beside her. She lets the waves push her closer to shore. She catches a scent she doesn’t normally associate with the ocean. She stands and sniffs again.

A faint whiff of smoke.

Someone burning leaves? Yes, that must be it. But the air seems slightly hazy to the west. The black Ford rounds a corner and begins to come along the beach road. Grace thinks of ducking below the surface, but then sees that there are two men in the car. On the top of the automobile is a bullhorn.



Fire



By nightfall, a reddish glow appears at the western horizon. With Tom in her arms, Grace gazes at the fearful and exquisite disaster. Even Tom seems riveted, and when she looks into his dark eyes, she can see the unexpected light producing a silhouette: tall pines, maples, an electric tower, a barn. How far away is the fire? How fast is it moving?