“You’re a peach, Peaches,” he said. “A real peach.”
“I don’t see what’s wrong with Miranda.”
“Nothing’s wrong with Miranda. It’s a heck of a name. Suits you just fine in the winter months, I’ll bet, sitting indoors with your books and your cocoa. Or dressing up for some party in your gown and long gloves. Miranda.” He said it slowly, stretching out the vowels. “In Latin, it means ‘worthy of admiration.’ That’s what Shakespeare was talking about, in that line I threw at you this morning.”
“I know.”
“Aw, of course you do. Sorry.”
“My father used to tell me things like that, when I was little.”
“Did he? I like your dad. In my head, I’ve been calling him Prospero. But I guess that’s not his real name, is it?”
“No. It was Thomas. Thomas Schuyler.”
“Thomas Schuyler. Warrior, teacher of art, father of Miranda. And maybe a bit of a Shakespeare nut, too. Right?”
I stretched out my legs and listened carefully to the rhythmic wash of the waves as they uncurled onto the beach. The air was so warm and so silvery, like a primordial dream, like we sat on a beach at the beginning of the world, and we were the only people in it. I said, out to sea: “We used to read plays out loud to each other.”
“Did you? Now that’s grand. Do you remember any of it?”
“Of course I do.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. A lot of things.”
“Can you do Once more unto the breach?”
“That’s a man’s part.”
“So what? You’ve got it in you, I’ll bet. Thomas Schuyler didn’t raise a sissy.”
I straightened and crossed my legs, Indian-style. The tulle floated out over my knees, and as I gazed out over the gilded water, I thought, if I strained my eyes, I might actually see all the way to France. Harfleur. Did it still exist? Had anything happened there in the last five hundred years since the siege, or had it fallen into obscurity? Had my father maybe glimpsed it, in his last days? We’d received no letters from France. Any messages, any postcards he’d had time to write had disappeared along with his body, and yet I felt sure that if my father had seen Harfleur with his own eyes, he would have written to tell me.
“It’s been a while,” I said. “Since he left for the war.”
“Say, you don’t have to if you don’t want to. I mean, if it hurts too much or something.”
“No. It doesn’t hurt anymore.”
“All right. Whatever you want. I’m listening, that’s all.”
I lowered my voice and said,
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility,
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the actions of the tiger:
Stiffen the sinews, conjure up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favored rage.
“Go on,” said Joseph softly, from the sand.
I scrambled to my feet and shook out the grit from my dress. I had told Joseph the truth; I hadn’t spoken those words since childhood, and yet—in the way of certain memories—they rose passionately from my throat. They burst from my mouth in my father’s hard, warlike delivery. The blood hurtled into my fingers to grip an imaginary sword.
On, on, you noblest English,
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof,
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:
Dishonor not your mothers. Now attest
That those whom you called fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war …
I didn’t recognize myself. I was not Miranda but someone else, a man, a king, a warrior, a voice roaring. I heard its faint echo from the rocks.
The game’s afoot.
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry “God for Harry, England, and Saint George!”
And there was silence, and my original soul sank back into my skin. Miranda resumed herself. My arm dropped to my side. I went down on my knees, one by one, shaking a little. Against my hot skin, the sand felt cool. Each grain made its individual impression on my nerves.
“That was something,” said Joseph.
I shook my head and laughed.
“I mean it. You’re something, you know that? You’re something else.”
I felt as if I’d just stepped off some boardwalk roller coaster. Been spat back ashore by some monstrous wave. Shaken and changed, muscles stiffened from the shock of metamorphosis. Joseph’s gaze lay on my shoulders, on the back of my neck. I thought, If I turn, if I look at him looking at me, I’ll die.
“Here, lie down,” he said. “You can see the stars real good from here.”
So I settled myself back in the sand, rigid, arms straight against my sides. Wanting and not wanting to come into contact with Joseph’s shoulder, Joseph’s arm, bare above the elbow in his white T-shirt. From this small distance, I could smell his soap. He must have been getting ready for bed when he saw our signal. That would explain the toothpaste, the soap, the T-shirt. I should have felt overdressed in my blue tulle, but I didn’t. Maybe it was my stocking feet, crusted with sand, or the democratizing effect of moonlight and salt water.
“How well do you know your constellations?” Joseph asked.
“Pretty well.” I was surprised to hear that my voice had returned to its ordinary timbre, not quivering at all. “But you must be an expert.”
“Why’s that?”
“Aren’t sailors supposed to be experts on the stars?”
“Not anymore. The old explorers were, I guess. Back before we had clocks and instruments, and you only had the sky to tell you where you were. Skies and lighthouses. The old days.” He made some movement with his hand, sliding it out from beneath his head to rub his brow. “Anyway, lobstermen fish by day, mostly.”
“So what does that mean? Are you an astronomer, or not?”
“The answer to that, Peaches, is yes. I can map the night sky pretty well.”
“Peaches,” I said.
“It’s your Island name. Don’t you like it?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t