A Ship Made of Paper Read online

  A Ship Made of Paper

  Scott Spencer

  No novelist alive knows the human heart better than Scott Spencer does. No one tells stories about human passion with greater urgency, insight, or sympathy. In A Ship Made of Paper, this artist of desire paints his most profound and compelling canvas yet.

  Daniel Emerson lives with Kate Ellis and is like a father to her daughter, Ruby. But he cannot control his desire for Iris Davenport, the African-American woman whose son is Ruby's best friend. During a freak October blizzard, Daniel is stranded at Iris's house and they begin a sexual liaison that eventually imperils all their relationships, Daniel's profession, their children's well-being, their own race- blindness, and their view of themselves as essentially good people.

  A Ship Made of Paper captures all the drama, nuance, and helpless intensity of sexual and romantic yearning, and it bears witness to the age-old conflict between the order of the human community and the disorder of desire.

  A Ship Made of Paper Scott Spencer

  On a ship that’s made of paper I would sail the seven seas “Just toBe with You”

  Bernard Roth

  [1]

  Daniel and Hampton were paired by chance and against their wishes.They were not friends—Hampton did not particularly like Daniel, and Daniel had every reason to avoid being alone with Hampton.But Daniel’s girlfriend or partner or whatever he was supposed to call her, Kate, Kate went home to relieve the baby-sitter who was minding her daughter, and Hampton’s wife, there was no ambigu-ity there, his wife, Iris, with whom Daniel was fiercely in love, had gone home to look after their son.Daniel and Hampton stayed behind to search for a blind girl, a heartsick and self-destructive blind girl who had run away from today’s cocktail party, either to get lost or to be found, no one was sure.

  The searchers, fourteen in all, were each given a Roman candle—whoever found

  the lost girl was to fire the rocket into the sky, so the others would know—and each of the pairs was assigned a section of the property in which to look for Marie.

  “Looks like you and me,”Daniel said to Hampton, because he had to say something.

  Hampton barely responded and he continued to only minimally acknowledge

  Daniel’s nervous chatter as they walked away from the mansion through an untended expanse of wild grass that soon led into a dense wood of pine, locust, maple, and oak.Aside from the contrast of their color—Daniel was white, Hampton black—the two men were remarkably similar in appearance.They were both in their mid-thirties, an inch or so over six feet tall, broad-shouldered, reasonably fit.They were even dressed similarly, in khaki pants, white shirts, and blue blazers, though Daniel’s jacket was purchased at Macy’s, and Hampton’s had been sewn specially for him by a Chinese tailor in the city.

  Two years after he was kicked down the stairs ofhis apartment building in NewYork City, which shattered his wrist, chipped his front tooth, and, as he himself put it, broke his heart, Daniel Emerson is back in his hometown, driving Ruby, his girlfriend’s four-year-old daughter, to her day care center, called My LittleWooden Shoe.The drive is ten or fifteen minutes, depending on the weather, and though Daniel is not Ruby’s father, nor her stepfather, it usually falls to him to take the little girl in.Daniel cannot understand how she can so willingly and unfailingly absent herselffrom the beginnings ofher daughter’s day;Ruby’s mother, Kate Ellis, cannot bear to rise early in the morning, nor can she bear the thought ofhaving to deal with Melody, orTammy, Keith, Tamara, Grif-fin, Elijah, Avery, Stephanie, Joel, Tess, Chantal, Dylan, or any ofthe otherWooden Shoers, not to mention their fathers and their mothers, a few ofwhom Daniel knew thirty-two years ago in this very town, when he was Ruby’s age.

  It’s fine with Daniel.He welcomes the chance to do fatherly things with the little girl, and those ten morning minutes with dear little four-year-old Ruby, with her deep soulful eyes, and the wondrous things she sees with them, and her deep soulful voice, and the precious though not entirely memorable things she says with it, and the smell ofbaby sham-poo and breakfast cereal filling the car, that little shimmering capsule of time is like listening to cello music in the morning, or watching birds in a flutter ofindustry building a nest, it simply reminds you that even if God is dead, or never existed in the first place, there is, nevertheless, something tender at the center ofcreation, some meaning, some pur-pose and poetry.He believes in parental love with the fervency ofa man who himself was not loved, and those ten minutes with Ruby every weekday morning, before he drops her offat My LittleWooden Shoe and then drives over to his office, where he runs a poorly paying, uneventful country law practice, in the fairly uneventful town ofLeyden, one hun-dred miles north ofNewYork City, those six hundred sweet seconds are his form ofworship, and the temperamental eight-year-old black Saab is his church.

  Or was, actually, because, unfortunately, this is no longer the case.

  The drive is still ten minutes, Ruby is still snugly strapped in her child safety seat in the back ofthe car, her sturdy little body encased in lilac overalls, her short-fingered, square hands holding a box ofraisins and a box ofgrape juice, and today she is commenting on the familiar land-marks they pass—the big kids’school, the abandoned apple orchard where the wizened old trees wreathed in autumn morning mist are so scarily bent, the big yellow farmhouse where there is always some sort ofyard sale, the massive pasture where every July the county fair assem-bles, with its cows and snow cones, Ferris wheels and freaks—but today it is all Daniel can do to pay the slightest bit ofattention to Ruby, because his mind is seized, possessed, and utterly filled by one repeating ques-tion:Will Iris be there?

  Daniel has been carrying the unwieldy weight ofthis desire for months now, and so far his behavior has been impeccable.When it comes to Iris the rules he has made for himself are simple:look but don’t touch, long for but don’t have, think but don’t say.All he wants to do is be in the same room with her, see what she is wearing, see by her eyes ifshe has slept well, exchange a few words, make her smile, hear her say his name.

  Until recently, it was a matter ofchance whether their paths would cross.Iris’s deliveries and pickups ofNelson were helter-skelter, one day she’d have him there at eight o’clock, and the next at nine-thirty—it all depended on her class schedule at Marlowe College, where she was a graduate student, as well as Nelson’s morning moods, which were un-predictable.But now, suddenly, she is exactly on Daniel’s schedule most days, herVolvo station wagon pulls into the day care center’s parking lot atvirtually the same time as his.He wonders ifit’s deliberate on her part.He has reached the point ofthinking so often ofher, ofso often go-ing out ofhis way to pass her house, oflooking for her wherever he goes, that it’s become difficult for him to believe that Iris is not thinking, at least some ofthe time, ofhim.

  Daniel pulls into My LittleWooden Shoe’s parking lot and sees her car, already in its customary spot, directly facing the playground, with its redwood climbing structures, sandbox, and swings.He is so glad to know that she’s here that he laughs.

  “What’s so funny?”Ruby asks, as he unsnaps her from her car seat, lifts her up.Her questions are blunt;he guesses one day she’ll be a tough customer.

  “Nothing.”

  “Then why are you laughing?”She smiles.Her milk teeth are tinged brown:as a baby she was sometimes allowed to fall asleep with a bottle of juice in her crib and the sugar wore away her enamel.Now the dentist says the best thing to do is just let them fall out.Yet the brown, lusterless teeth—along with her slight stoutness, and her ruddy complexion— make her look poor and rural, like a child in the background ofa Brueghel painting.

  “Just crazy thoughts,”Daniel says.“How about you?Any crazy thoughts lately?”

  “I
want to go to Nelson’s house after day care.”

  “That’s not a very crazy thought.”

  She thinks about this for a moment.“I want to sleep over.”

  “You never know,”Daniel says.He swoops her up into his arms, turns her upside down.She clutches her knapsack, afraid that her snack and box ofjuice will slip out.Daniel restrains himself from suggesting to Ruby:Ask him, ask Nelson if you can spend the night.

  Today, Iris is wearing plaid cotton pants that are a little too short for her and a bulky green sweater that is a little too large.Her clothes are rarely beautiful, and it has often struck Daniel that Iris herselfmay have no idea that she is lovely to look at.Her dark hair is cut short, she wears no makeup, no jewelry, everything about her says,I’m plain, don’t bother looking at me.Maybe he has drifted into the periphery ofher life because somehow in the grand design ofthings—and this private, pulverizing love he feels makes him believe in grand designs—he is the man who must awaken her to her own beauty.Is there some casual, defused way he can say to her:Do you have an idea how lovely you are?

  He wants to hold her in the moonlight.He wants to stroke her shoulder until she is fast asleep.

  She is crouched next to Nelson, whispering something in his ear.He loves seeing her with her son, the intimacy ofit pierces him.She seems a perfect mother:calm, present, able to adore without consuming.Nel-son is a handsome boy, strong, bigger than most ofthe children in the day care, several shades lighter than his mother.There is something regal and disdainful in him.He has the air ofsomeone forced to live around peo-ple who don’t understand the full extent ofhis excellence.He nods im-patiently as his mother speaks to him, and when his eyes light upon Ruby he bolts and the two children greet each other wildly, almost in a bur-lesque ofhappiness, holding hands, jumping up and down.Iris heaves a sigh and stands up, shakes her head.

  “Sorry about that,”Daniel says.

  ”Those two,”says Iris.

  ”It looked like you were giving him some last-minute instructions,”

  Daniel says.

  Iris looks around to make certain she will not be overheard.“There was a note in his cubby from Linda.It seems he hit one ofthe other chil-dren yesterday.”

  “Oh well, these teachers have a way ofcatastrophizing everything.”

  “I just don’t want the oneAfrican-American child in the whole school to be the one committing little acts ofviolence.”

  She never refers to race around him, and Daniel wonders if her saying this now is a way ofinviting him in, or pushing him back.

  “Do you have time for a cup ofcoffee or something?”he asks her.

  She looks at her watch.“I’ve got a meeting with my thesis advisor in halfan hour.”

  “That’s nothing compared to the tight schedule of an unsuccessful, small-town lawyer,”he says.

  “Where would be fast?”Iris says.

  ”The Koffee Kup.The coffee’s so bad they spell it with a K.And the lighting is so bad, it’s impossible to sit there longer than fifteen minutes.

  I’ll race you there.”

  He drives behind her, not wanting to risk letting her out ofhis sight, and feeling the juvenile, slightly demented thrill oflooking at the back ofher head, her hands on the steering wheel.A Marlowe College sticker is on her rear window.The sight ofit ignites a little fizz ofpity and tenderness in him—at thirty-three, she’s new to Marlowe’s graduate program, and her fixing that sticker to her car connotes some desire for definition, a will to belong, or so it seems to him.She maintains the exact thirty-five-mile-per-hour speed limit all the way to Leyden’s miniature Broadway, and when she pulls into a parking spot in front ofthe diner she uses her turn signal.Such devotion to the rules, such commitment to the princi-ples ofhighway safety—it would be ludicrous to believe that a woman like her could ever entertain the possibility ofsome sexual adventure, of entering into the grim geometry ofinfidelity.

  He is astonished by his own ardor.He is like a man who suddenly discovers he can sing, who one day opens his mouth in the shower and mu-sic bursts out ofhim, each note dipped in gold.But the timing is wrong.

  He is thirty-six years old, he has commitments, and until now he gave no more credence to the transforming, commanding power oflove than he did to the myth ofAtlantis.Yet this desire, this overwhelming need to look at Iris—who he is convinced is not only beautiful but beautiful in a way that only he can fully appreciate, a beauty somehow designed espe-cially for his eyes—is something he has allowed himself to succumb to.

  What harm, really, can it do?

  Daniel wants to do no harm, nor does he want any harm to come to him.In fact, he has moved back to Leyden, home ofhis bucolic, mediocre childhood, leaving a prosperous career back in NewYork City, largely because he had lived for months with the fear that either one or severalAfrican-Americans were going to beat him within an inch ofhis life, or perhaps go that extra inch and kill him.It was not an idle, racist fantasy;he had been told flat out that his time was near.He had unsuc-cessfully defended a black man accused ofdealing drugs, and on the day ofthe sentencing, a short, mild-looking black man in a blue suit, a white turtleneck, and a diamond earring whispered to Daniel,“Keep your eyes open.You know what I’m saying?”Within a week, Daniel’s own dread had wound itselfaround him so tightly that he couldn’t see a person of color—a cleaning woman, a bus driver, acrobats and break-dancers in Washington Square Park, a bunch ofhigh school kids horsing around on the subway platform—without thinking that this one, or that one, might be an emissary from his furious client.“I’m afraid ofblack people,”he fi-nally said to Kate.It was the most shaming thing he had ever told another person.He felt like an insect, a fool.Kate, for her part, was entirely sym-pathetic.And to think you defended that fucking idiot for free,she kept on say-ing.Did anything she said make him feel better? He can no longer remember.He spent another two months crossing the street to get away from suspicious-looking blacks, spending a fortune in cab fares, exhaust-ing himself with gasps and double takes, feeling weak and loathsome, and they caught up with him anyhow.

  Daniel and Iris walk into the Koffee Kup together.Ofthe three breakfast spots in Leyden, this is the oldest, and the core clientele are na-tives ofLeyden.It’s a simple, sparsely decorated storefront, with a high ceiling and overhead fans, a row ofdark wooden booths, a long Formica counter, and a scattering oftables up front.The women who run it—country women with checkered domestic lives and a penchant for teas-ing and wisecracks—open for business at six in the morning, when the truckers, contractors, and farmworkers gather for ham and eggs.Now that Leyden is changing, with more and more city people moving in, there are fancier and, to be honest about it, better places to have break-fast, but Daniel still frequents the Double K, where his parents took him for his first restaurant meal.He holds the door open for Iris, knowing there will surely be people here whom he knows, people to whom he will have to nod, or greet, or perhaps even speak with.Kate, however, will certainly not be among them.It is not yet nine o’clock and she is probably still sleeping, or ifshe is awake she isn’t out ofbed yet.She is probably pouring herselfa cup ofViennese roast from the thermos he al-ways places at her bedside before leaving with Ruby in the morning.

  Daniel and Iris sit at a table near the front window.The youngest of the Koffee Kup waitresses, ponytailed and pierced Becky, brings Daniel a coffee and a glass ofwater, which is what she always does as soon as he sits down.She brings nothing for Iris and seems, in fact, not to register her presence.

  “I think we’re going to need another coffee here, Becky,”Daniel says.

  Becky looks momentarily confused, and then she turns and looks at Iris as ifseeing her for the first time.

  “Oh, sorry,”she says, her voice flat.

  ”Do you have decaf?”Iris says brightly, smiling.She has a space between her front teeth.

  “Do you want decaf?”Becky asks.She heaves a sigh.

  ”That would be great,”Iris says to Becky.

  What Daniel does not see:Iri
s’s foot is tapping nervously.The waitress’s slight stubbornness about the decafis potential trouble.All Iris wants is for it to go unnoticed;the small rudeness is the sort ofthing that her husband would be fuming about, ifhe were here right now.He’s thin-skinned, his radar for slights is always on, always scanning the social horizon for incoming missiles.Iris has sat with him in innumerable restaurants while he has glared at the waitress, gestured impatiently at the waiter, sent back the soup, sent back the fish, asked to speak to the manager, and let it be known with a few choice words that he was no one to be trifled with.And it’s not just in restaurants that this highly tuned sensitivity to insult turns what Iris always hopes will be a simple outing into a kind ofdespairing war against prejudice.At aYankees game when the usher asks a second time to check his tickets, in the first-class cabin on a flight to Hawaii when the stewardess forgets to bring him an extra pillow and then tells him there are no more macadamia nuts, at the Jaguar dealership where the salesman will not let them take the car out for a test drive without xeroxing his license and taking an imprint ofhis American Express card.

  “I guess they’re brewing up a fresh pot ofthe decaf,”Daniel says.“Are you going to have time?”

  They talk about the children, and Daniel feels the minutes ticking away;it’s like feeling himself bleed to death.He wonders, wildly, ifIris remembers that he is not really Ruby’s father.How can he bring that up without it seeming small-minded? Iris’s coffee has still not arrived, and she checks her watch, looks quickly over her shoulder at Becky, who is at the far end ofthe counter leisurely chatting to an old man in a tractor cap and suspenders.

  “I’m having such a hard time in school,”Iris says.“And I can’t be late for this meeting with my advisor.He already thinks I’m a flake.”

  “He can’t think that.”

  “I’m getting my doctorate inAmerican Studies, and I can’t even figure out my thesis.I keep changing it.The thing is, I really want to get my de-gree, but another part ofme would be happy to stay in school forever.It’s so much fun, and it’s not like I’ve got to put bread on my family table.”