“Manny Ocho?” Aragon switched to Spanish. “What’s going on down there? Are you in trouble?”
Ocho started to reply but someone yelled, “Speak English, you bastard.”
“Chinga tu madre,” Ocho said.
“I told you, speak English.” The voice rose hysterically. “What’s that mean, that chinga business?”
“Guess.”
“I am guessing, you bad-mouthed little creep. I ought to kill you.”
“You need me, I not need you.”
Aragon was forgotten for the moment as the argument continued. Only a couple of feet of water separated the ramp from the deck of the Spindrift. He jumped it easily and landed on the deck. The door was closed to the forward cabin where the argument was taking place. Aragon pounded on it with his fist and there was immediate silence. Then the door was jerked open so violently that he almost fell down the steps into the cabin. After the glare of the sun it was dark and he could see very little at first. But the voice was recognizable, half whine, half bluster:
“Well, well, look who’s dropped in, my old pal that leaves his car keys in the ignition.”
Mermaid
13
When Cleo woke up, the boat was rocking slightly with the rising tide. She wasn’t ready to wake up yet, so she kept her eyes closed and rolled her head back and forth on the pillow and thought of the baby inside her rolling back and forth, too, rocking, rocking, rock-a-bye baby. She held another pillow clasped tight against her belly. This second one was made of foam rubber and it felt smooth and yielding like flesh. Sometimes, in a foggy moment, she believed it was real flesh, her own real baby. But usually she knew it wasn’t, that her real baby was deep down inside her, very tiny, hardly bigger than a grain of sugar.
Once she tied the pillow around her waist inside her dress and went downtown, walking along the streets and into the stores. People looked at her oddly.
Some were pitying: “Why, you poor child, you’re scarcely more than a child yourself. How far gone are you?”
“Quite,” Cleo said solemnly. “Quite far gone.”
Some were contemptuous. “Don’t they teach about contraceptives in school? Look at her. Probably on welfare. That brat of hers will probably be on welfare, too. And we’ll be picking up the bills.”
One woman reached out and touched Cleo on the stomach.
Cleo drew back, surprised and frightened. “What did you do that for?”
“For luck. Didn’t you ever hear that?”
“No.”
“Whenever you see a woman big with child you touch her on the stomach for luck.”
She went back to the motel near the beach and told Roger about the woman who touched the baby for luck, only it wasn’t the baby.
“Why did you do a thing like that?” he said, turning red with anger. “People will think you’re crazy.”
“But there really is a baby deep inside. And you’re going to be the father and I’m going to be the mother. You promised, Roger. That very first day when I came to you and told you what happened with Ted and me, you said you would take care of me. You said you would see to it that Hilton wouldn’t take the baby away and have me fixed like he did our cat. You promised, Roger.”
“Yes.”
“And after this one, we’ll have some more. Boy, girl, boy, girl, or two boys and two girls, whichever you think is best. It wouldn’t be fair to have just one child. It would always be lonely, the way I am.”
“What if we can’t make it, Cleo, if things don’t work out?”
“You’re always telling me that people can work anything out if they really try, that people can make things work out. You told me that.”
“Yes.”
“You weren’t lying?”
“I didn’t intend to lie, Cleo. Perhaps I only spoke too soon, too optimistically.”
She began to cry then, and Roger held her in his arms, trying to soothe her, stroking her hair, brushing her tears away with his mouth.
“Come inside, Roger,” she said. “Come in and visit our baby. Come inside.”
“Not now.”
“Why not?”
“The dog,” he said. “The dog wants out. I have to go and walk him.”
“Oh, I’m sick of that dog. He’s always interfering like this. He’s not my friend anymore... Will you come back soon?”
“Yes.”
Roger was gone a long time. When he came back he told her he’d arranged to have the dog returned to the Jaspers. He was very pale and smelled of liquor.
“Are you going to visit the baby now, Roger?”
“I want to.”
They lay down again and she clasped her legs around his and held him tight against her. She could feel him struggling to get away and pretty soon he began to cry.
“God forgive me. I’m sorry, Cleo. Sorry, sorry, sorry.”
Roger always said things three times when he really meant them, so that was the night she found out that things sometimes didn’t work out no matter how hard people tried.
This time when Roger left he took his clothes with him and that was the end of the marriage.
She phoned Ted at the house the next morning and told him a sort of lie. She said Hilton had kicked her out just the way he had kicked Ted out and she was staying at a motel because she had nowhere to go. She asked him to help her find a place to live. He said he’d be right down, though he sounded rather peculiar.
She waited for him outside the motel.
His first words were, “That story you gave me on the phone was a lot of bull, wasn’t it?”
“A little,” she said. “Not a whole lot.”
“So what actually happened?”
“I ran away. I ran away because they kicked you out and I didn’t think it was fair.”
“Why’d you do that?”
“Because I like you.”
“Oh, come off it, kid.” But he sounded flattered. “You shouldn’t have run away. You know you can’t look after yourself. What do you intend to do?”
“I was going to get married.”
“What changed your mind?”
“I found out he was already married.”
“Hang in there. He might divorce her.”
“It’s not a her.”
“So why did you drag me into this?”
“I don’t know.”
She did know, though she hadn’t known for long. When she telephoned him for help she had only a vague idea in her mind, but now she was perfectly sure. Ted had nice features, he laughed easily, he played games well, he surfed and skied, and he could teach all these things to a son the way a good father should.
They walked along the waterfront. Ted told her his mother had given him enough money to live on for the summer, and that if his father hadn’t relented by next fall she intended to sell some bonds to finance his senior year in college. Cleo asked him where he was going for the summer. He wasn’t certain.
“Aspen, maybe,” he said. “It’s not as lively as it is in the winter but there’s still plenty of action if you look for it.”
“I was in Catalina once.” She recalled the trip vividly because it had been the only real experience in her life, with no Hilton or Frieda around, no Mrs. Holbrook or counselors, just the waves and the sea birds and a pleasant little man who ran the boat. She even remembered his name, Manny Ocho, because there weren’t many names in her life to remember. She saw the little man once in a while because on her free afternoons she sometimes took a bus down to the harbor and looked for the boat. If it was there she waved to the skipper or whoever was on board. But usually it was gone and the space where it was supposed to be was empty. She felt left out, like a little girl not invited to a party.