Michelangelo's Shoulder Part 2

"Oh."

It was always like that; motion was Orson's answer to everything.

Charlie stretched and checked his watch. The ten o'clock ferry from Peaks Island was edging to the dock. Soon a few dozen pa.s.sengers would walk off the ramp, carrying shopping bags, slipping day packs over one or both shoulders, holding dogs on leashes. Margery, short and polite, would be toward the end of the line, one hand on the railing, blinking as she looked up at the city buildings and around for him.

They were similar physically and recognized each other as related, not lovers, not brother and sister, but distant cousins perhaps or members of a tribe--the patient, the witness bearers. "There you are," she said. Charlie stood and they patted one another's shoulders.

"You look very well, not a day over forty," Charlie said, standing back. "Here, let me take that." She handed him a stout canvas bag.

"Jesus! What's in here?"

"Rocks and books. You're looking pleased with life. How's the world of architecture?"

"All right. Still looking for the perfect client." He rubbed his stomach with his free hand and pointed across the street to Standard Baking Company. "Croissants," he said. "A croissant a day keeps the doctor away. Are you hungry?"

"No. Let's get on with it."

Charlie led the way to his car, an elderly red Volvo. "Rocinante,"

Margery remembered.

"As good as ever." Charlie lowered the bag into the back seat.

"Could we swing by the library? I need to return these books."

"Sure. What have you been reading?"

"Tolstoy. The Russians. Dostoyevsky, Chekhov."

"That'll get you through a long night."

"There's no one like Tolstoy," Margery said. "So serene. Cosmic and down to earth at the same time."

"I wrote a novel once," Charlie said.

"What happened?"

"It wasn't very good." Charlie stopped by the library book drop.

"At least you finished."

He watched her slide three souls and twenty years work through the bra.s.s slot. "There's a story I love about Chekhov," she said, getting back into the car. "He paid a visit to Tolstoy. Late in the evening, on his way home after a certain amount of wine, he cried out to his horse and to the heavens: 'He says I'm worse than Shakespeare. Worse than Shakespeare!'"

"Wonderful," Charlie said. "Chekhov--didn't he die after a last swallow of champagne?"

"It was sad," Margery said. She turned and stared out the side window.

They drove out of town in silence. The cemetery where Margery's father and son were buried was an hour and a half up the coast and midway down a long peninsula. The drive had become an annual event. Margery had no car. Charlie drove her one year and then had just continued. This was, what, the fourth or fifth trip? He couldn't remember.

"Margery, did you see that picture of President Bush on the carrier deck, wearing the pilot get up?"

"I did."

"Wasn't that ridiculous? The little son of a b.i.t.c.h went AWOL when he was in the National Guard. I read that it delayed the troops their homecoming by a day and cost a million dollars."

"Light comedy," Margery said. "The Emperor Commodus fancied himself a gladiator. Romans had to watch him fight in the colosseum many times.

He never lost. His opponents were issued lead swords."

"Nothing's changed," Charlie said. "Commodus?"

"Second century, A.D. We're not a police state, yet. Things get really crazy under one man rule. Have you not read Gibbon?"

"The Decline and Fall--never got around to it."

"Good for perspective," Margery said.

"That green!" Charlie waved at the trees along I-95. "We only get it for a week when the leaves are coming out."

"Yes." Margery settled into her seat. Perspective was a good thing, Charlie thought. Even keel and all that. But there was something to be said for losing it. If he could have his choice of cuties, he'd just as soon have one of those dark eyed Mediterranean fireb.a.l.l.s--b.r.e.a.s.t.s, slashing smile--someone who spoke with her whole body.

They arrived at the cemetery in good time. Margery declined his offer to carry the special rocks, wanting to bring them herself. They were intended to protect the base of a rugosa she'd planted the previous year. As usual, Charlie accompanied her and then returned to the car.

She would take as long as she needed to arrange the rocks and to say or hear or feel whatever she could.

Charlie had no children; it was hard to imagine what she felt. Her son had skidded on a slick road and been wiped out by a logging truck, a stupid accident, pure bad luck. Her father had died later the same year. Margery had been on hold since, he supposed, although he hadn't known her when she was younger. The lines in her face seemed to have been set early. We were all full of hope once, he thought.

He leaned against the car and watched a man approach. The man was carrying a shovel. He had a white handlebar moustache and a vaguely confederate look. "Hey," Charlie said.

"Yup," the man said. He stopped and leaned on his shovel.

"Nice day," Charlie said, after a moment.

"Yessir. Black flies ain't woke up yet."

"Don't disturb them."

"No. Jesus, no. I guess we got a couple of days yet." He tested the ground with the shovel and looked into the cemetery. "Margery Sewell,"

he said.

"You know Margery?"

"Since she was about so high." He gestured toward his knees. "Used to go smelting with her father, Jack."

"I'm Charlie, friend of Margery's."

"Tucker," the man said. "Tucker Smollett."

"That's an old name."

"Smolletts go way back around here. Smolletts and Sewells, both." They stared into the graveyard. "You from around here, then?" He knew that Charlie was from away; he was being polite.

"Live in Portland, born in New York. Family came over in the famine."