At Barnes Hole, where the beach was touched by an endless silver bay, she decided that she did not even want to get out of the car.
“Don’t you feel well, dear?” June was asking.
“I don’t want to go here.” She had a sense of some new power that was hers; but now that she was at the bay, at the brink of a regular day, the familiarity of the landscape and the routine was not the comfort she had been expecting it would be.
“Where would you prefer to go?” June removed her sunglasses. While she rubbed her eyes Cynthia had to turn away — their redness embarrassed her. “Would you like to visit somebody?”
“I just don’t want to go here, I’ll tell you that.”
“Well, how about the ocean beach?”
“I suppose so.”
“Honey, where would you like to go?”
“Oh, the ocean beach is okay.”
She did not look up to see what the effect had been of the little snarl in her voice. But looking down she saw that June’s slender suntanned hand, the one with the pretty blue ring, had curled over hers again. In a moment the car had turned and they were headed for the ocean. The wind blew her hair — a delightful cool feminine feeling — and she could not help herself: she was smiling. It was because she had had to look straight into Markie’s blood that she was receiving so much care and attention; she knew this, but she continued smiling anyway. The truth was that she deserved special attention; the sight of the red blood creeping down the floor boards had nearly turned her stomach. She had cried and become hysterical, and she had screamed and screamed. She remembered now what it was she had screamed: “Markie fell! Markie fell out!”
And hadn’t he? Well, hadn’t he? If not, then June would be punishing her now instead of rewarding her with kindnesses. If anyone at all had pushed Markie it was God, who had seen that it was a sin for her stupid little brother to get in bed with her when they weren’t married.
They were driving along the road that led between the trees to Amagansett. “Don’t you like Barnes any more?” June asked.
“The water’s dirty.”
“I thought it was so clean—”
“I don’t like it there! I’m not going there!”
“Nobody’s making you,” June said, and that, she thought happily, was the case. At the edge of Springs they approached the small grocery store with the gas pump out in front. June pulled the car over and parked by the steps that led up to the store. She went inside to make a phone call, while Cynthia waited in the car and spelled out the sign over the doorway.
H. Savage — Groceries and Gas
Barnes Hole Rd, Springs
It had turned out, of course, that there was no hole at Barnes at all. She had looked for it during the first week of her stay. By herself she had walked the long stretch of beach, and then she had even enlisted Markie, but he was no help because he kept seeing holes, virtual abysses, that weren’t even there. At low tide she went off alone, dragging her legs through the receding waters, but with no luck; at last she had to come back up to the blanket, her nose wet and the ends of her hair damp, and ask June where the hole was. June explained to her that it was only a name given to the place — officially it was called Barnes Landing. But all the ladies continued to smile and she realized that it was something a child wasn’t supposed to know. And she was right — that same afternoon a boy with large ears had let her hang onto his tube with him, and he seemed so helpful she had decided to ask him where the hole was. He had pointed between her legs and then ducked her under the water.
She looked up the steps. Nobody in the dark store was near enough to see her; all she could make out were June’s white sandals and one hand holding a Kleenex. She slid down into the crevice of the front seat of the convertible. Pushing her bathing suit aside, she put her finger a little way inside herself. So far, no baby.
Soon June emerged into the sunlight, but her expression was impossible to figure out. She had on dark glasses and was wearing her big straw coolie hat — the one Markie used to like to parade around in — and a blue jumper over the top of her bathing suit. Cynthia thought she looked like a man, but then she came down off the little porch swinging herself like a lady, and got into the car.
“May I turn the radio on?”
June nodded and they started away.
“Is it okay if I listen to music?”
“That’s fine,” June said.
Turning all the knobs, she asked, “Did you call the hospital?”
“I spoke to your father. Markie’s resting — Cynthia, could you tune it down just a little?”
“Is he unconscious?” She had heard earlier that he was.
“That just means he’s getting a good rest, Cynthia. It’s the body’s way of making sure we get a good rest.”
“Will he be all right then?”
“Of course—” June said. “Cynthia, please lower the radio—”
“But then I won’t be able to hear it—”
June did not answer. Cynthia listened to the music, her concentration not so intense that she did not notice the tears moving down June’s cheeks. “Well, when he comes home,” Cynthia said, her hair blowing wonderfully out behind her again, “we’ll have to teach him not to fall out like that any more. He was never very careful. Even my mother will tell you that.”
Only four other cars were parked at the end of the street leading down to the ocean beach; it was not yet noon. Cynthia raced around to help June take the blanket and folding chair out of the trunk. From the trough in which the spare tire sat, she un-wedged her pail and shovel, which she had hardly played with all summer. She grabbed Markie’s pail and shovel too, and dragged both pails along the pebbles of the parking area. Then she waited for June to tell her to put Markie’s pail back where it belonged. Instead, her stepmother reached out and smoothed the top of the child’s hair.
They spread the blanket out where the beach began its slope toward the water. A wave had rolled in a moment before, and the four or five people floundering in the sudsy wake were all laughing and calling to one another. To Cynthia the waves looked large and unfriendly. She carried her pails down to where the sand was wet and started to dig, turning regularly to see what June was doing behind her. A book was open on her stepmother’s lap, though she did not seem to be reading it. She did not seem really to be doing anything.
When her sand castle had been washed away, she looked back to see that her stepmother was talking with Mr. Siegel. Pretending to hunt for seashells, she cut a zigzag path up toward the blanket. By the time she was close enough to hear, they had stopped saying anything.
“Hi, Cindy Lou,” Mr. Siegel said.
She ran to where he knelt in the sand beside June. “We saw your television program the other night, Mr. Siegel,” she said.
“Well, let’s hear the dark news,” he said. “What’s my rating, friend?” She knew that he was one of the people who liked to pick up Markie all the time. Markie, however, was in the hospital this particular morning.
“Oh I loved it!”
“Come on,” he said, “you’re kidding me.” He tossed a handful of sand at her feet. “I understand you’re a skeptic about TV. Your father tells me you’re an intellectual, that you spend your mornings looking through books on Brancusi.”