"You did? What's it like?"

I told her about the school and about my life at my uncle's house, Laura's disappearance and death, and May's handicap.

"It sounds sad."

"It's hard to live with them, especially with my cousin Cary. He's so bitter about everything, but I keep telling myself I won't be here long."

"What are the girls like at school?"

"They're different," I told her. "They seem to know more about things and do more things."

"Like what?"

I told her how they had given me a joint of marijuana in the school cafeteria.

"What did you do? You haven't smoked it, have you?"

"No. I was scared. Actually, I was terrified when a teacher came to our table. Afterward, when the girls weren't looking, I threw it in the garbage."

"That's what I would have done," Alice said.

"Maybe you should stay away from them."

"They invited me to their beach party tonight, but my uncle won't let me go."

"A beach party!" She hesitated and with some envy said, "Sounds like fun. Maybe you're going to like living there after all."

"I don't think so," I said. "I wish I were back home."

"I was passing the cemetery yesterday and I thought about you so I went in and said a little prayer at your father's grave for you."

"Did you? Thank you, Alice. I miss you."

"Maybe, if you're still there, I can come up to visit you this summer."

"That would be great, but I expect to be gone from here by then. Mommy's coming to get me as soon as she gets settled. Which reminds me, have you seen Mama Arlene? Mommy was supposed to contact her to send me my things."

"I saw her, but George is real sickly."

"I know."

"I think he may be in the hospital."

"Oh no! Would you please tell Mama Arlene I called?" "I'll go right over to see her," Alice promised.

I gave her my uncle's name and telephone number and she promised to call me the next weekend.

"I really have no friends since you left," she admitted at our conversation's end. It brought tears to my eyes. After I hung up, May wanted to know why I was crying. I tried to explain, but I really didn't know enough sign language to reveal all the pain in my heart. It was easier just to go home.

When we arrived, Aunt Sara explained that dinner was going to be different this night. Uncle Jacob had invited another lobster man and his wife, the Dimarcos. May, Cary, and I were to eat first and be gone by the time the adults sat at the table. I thought that was a blessing and was grateful for a meal without Uncle Jacob glaring at me as if I were one of the Jezebels he saw on every corner.

However, late in the afternoon, Cary and Uncle Jacob returned home in a very happy mood.

Apparently, they had one of their best days at sea, a catch of fifteen lobsters as well a dozen good-size striped bass.

To celebrate, Cary declared that he, May, and I were going to enjoy a real New England feast: clam chowder, steamed muscles, grilled striped bass, potatoes, and vegetables. Cary said he would prepare the fish himself outside on the barbecue grill.

"Mother's busy with her own dinner. We can have our own picnic,' he said.

"Fine," I told him.

"It won't be as exciting as the beach party, I'm afraid."

"I said, fine."

He nodded and told May, who was very pleased with the idea.

"You two can set the picnic table, if you like."

I nodded without smiling, even though I was happy with the idea.

Cary went about preparing the meal meticulously. He was much better at it than I had expected. None of the boys I had known in West Virginia knew the first thing about preparing fish and vegetables. He thanked me when May and I finished setting the table. I decided to make civil conversation.

"I still don't understand how you fish for lobster," I said standing nearby and watching him grill the fish. "You don't need a pole?"

He laughed.

"We don't fish for them exactly. We set traps at the bottom of the ocean floor and attach buoys that float above."

"How do the other fishermen know which trap is theirs and which is yours?"

"Each lobster fisherman has his own colors on his buoys. We're using the same colors my great grandfather used. They sort of belong to our family, like a coat of arms or something. Understand?"

I nodded.

"After we bring up a trap, if there is a lobster in it, we measure it with a gauge from its eye socket to the end of its back. An average lobster runs anywhere from two to five pounds. My father once brought up a trap with a lobster in it that weighed over thirty."

"Thirty!"

"Yeah, but someone else trapped one closer to forty last year. Lobsters with eggs on their tails have to be thrown back in immediately. We have to do all we can to keep up the supply. It takes about seven and a half years for a lobster to grow to decent size."

"Seven and a half years?"

"Uh huh," he said smiling. "Now you know why we grow and harvest cranberries, too."

"Is this what you want to do for the rest of your life?" I asked him.

He nodded.

"You don't want to go to college?"

"My college is out there," he said pointing toward the ocean with the fork.

"There's more to life than just fishing and sailing, and there are wonderful places to visit on land, wonderful things to see."

"I see enough here."

"I never saw someone so young act so-"

"What?" he asked quickly. I swallowed back the words and chose less painful ones. "Grown up."

He nodded.

"Go on," he said. "If you want to call me Grandpa, too, you can. I don't care."

"You're nothing like a grandpa."

He looked at me curiously for a moment. I felt, since he was being honest, I should be. "But you're too fixed in your thinking for someone your age. You should have a more open mind about things."

"Sure," he said. "And be willing to smoke dope and drink and waste my time just like those other jerks in school."

"They're not all jerks, are they?"

"Most are."

"You can be pretty infuriating," I told him.

He shrugged and began serving the fish. "I don't bother anyone and just ask they don't bother me," he said. "Let's eat."

He made sure May had her meal first. The way he took care of her, saw to her needs and happiness, softened my frustration and anger toward him.

"How hard was it for May when Laura died?" I asked him as we sat at the picnic table and began our meal. "Real hard," he said.

"Poor thing. To have such a tragedy on top of her handicap."

"She does fine," he said angrily.

"No one is saying she doesn't, Cary. You don't have to jump down my throat. There is such a thing as being too protective, you know."

"You can never be too protective," he replied.

"Once you go out there, you'll understand." He nodded toward the ocean.

"When am I going out there?" He was silent.

"I've never been on a sailboat. Daddy used to take us to the beach, but Mommy hated boats so we just went swimming and got suntans."

"What a bunch of tourists," he quipped.

"You shouldn't make fun of the tourists. They buy your lobsters, don't they?"

"And ruin everything, litter the beach, poison the water, make fun of us."

"I think you'd be happy just being a hermit," I concluded. It didn't faze him. He shrugged.

"This is good," I told him after I ate some of the fish, but it sounded like a complaint.

"Thanks," he said without any feeling.

"You're welcome," I growled.

We ate silently, shooting darts at each other with our eyes, but when we turned to May we saw her staring at us and smiling a wide smile of amusement.

Cary's eyes shifted to mine. We gazed at each other a moment and then we had to laugh.

It was as if a sheet of ice had cracked and let in some warm air. Our conversation lightened up and I talked about the scenery. I was taken with the apricot glow of the sunset as we looked out over the ocean. I hadn't realized how beautiful the ocean could be. That pleased him and he revealed that when he was a little boy he and Laura would lie on their backs in their father's rowboat at dusk and watch the sky change colors.

"It seemed magical," he said.

"It is."

There was real warmth in his eyes and I thought the girls were right: he was good looking when he wanted to be. Suddenly, though, he became self-conscious and quickly reverted to his serious, hard look. However, after dinner when I helped him clean up, he surprised me by suggesting we walk into town with May for some frozen custard.

"And see what damage the outsiders are doing,"

he added.

"And what money they're leaving with the local merchants," I added. He hid his smile, but I caught it.

For the first time, when we walked with May, he allowed her to hold both our hands. Cary led us a different way that took us past high grass, bushes, and scrub oak trees. I heard the peepers in the marsh.

"Theresa and her brother and sisters and her father live down there," he pointed when we turned a corner.

I gazed at a street that wound east. The houses were small and the grass in their yards was spotty and rough. Closer to the town, the houses were nicer, with real lawns and flowers, like yellow tea roses in a bed of Queen Anne's lace, dark purple iris, and hydrangeas.

The Cape was truly amazing. Toward the ocean, there were rolls and rolls of sand that looked as dry and sparse as any desert, but a short distance away were oak trees, blueberry bushes, red maple trees, and houses with lawns full of crocus clusters, emperor tulips, and sprawling lilac bushes. It seemed like two different worlds. Cary said there was often two kinds of weather. It could be stormy on the east with the sun shining brightly on the west.

Perhaps the differences in the land explained the differences in the people, I thought, some hard, frugal, with religious ideas carved in stone; other carefree, impulsive, jolly, and hungry for fun and excitement. Some lived to work and some worked just enough to live.

At night the little town was exciting, especially with all the people, the music from the bars and restaurants, the carloads of tourists yelling to each other, the crowds down at the dock. My eyes went everywhere. He bought May her frozen custard and asked me if I wanted one, too. I did. He got himself one as well.

May wanted to go to the dock and watch the deep-sea fishermen try to entice the tourists to hire them. I had never been in a real tourist town at night before, and was taken with all the lights, and the way store owners and desert tour operators barked at the people, tempting, cajoling, practically begging for their business.

"I hate those desert tours," Cary remarked when a jeep load rolled by. "Once, a couple of jeeps pulled up behind our house and the guide pointed to my mother and Laura, describing them as native fishermen's women."

"So, that's what your mother is, right?"

"She's not a freak for tourists to gape at, no," he said, "and Laura certainly was not. How would they like a sightseeing bus coming around to their backyards and having people gape at them while they did their housework?"