Cameo Lake (17 page)

He kept his eyes on the road in front of us, but nodded. I'm sure he must have known that I would ask.

“Why do you let everyone think Talia is dead?”

“Is that what they think?”

“Ben, you know that they do, you told me yourself they resented you because you didn't have a funeral service. Why have you let this evil misapprehension go on, let those women treat you with disdain?”

“Cleo, I don't know those women. Despite what I said last night, I really don't care about them. They only knew Talia slightly. Since I've lived on the lake they've always treated me with disdain, because I was different from them, didn't fit into their worldview. But, believe it or not, it was the greater world I wanted to keep out of our business. You have to understand that as a popular recording artist, Talia was a public figure. Having dealt with being a public figure myself, I knew exactly what kind of hay the press would make of this tragedy. We—her parents and I—decided it was wiser to simply let them believe she'd died that night, and then we'd never find photographers sneaking into her hospital room. They don't even know who she is at the nursing home. There she's Talia Judith Turner, resident of room one-oh-four.”

“They know who
you
are, though?”

“Some do. But it's been long enough, not many care or are impressed.”

“Clyde asked you to play for them.”

“Sometimes I flex my classical training and play a little Mozart or Rachmaninoff for the residents. Sometimes just play-it-by-ear show tunes. Depends on my mood.”

“You come every day?”

“No. I used to, in the beginning, when there was . . .” He cut himself-off. “I come about every other day. Jeremy convinced me that I didn't need to come every day. Or spend whole days sitting by her side. He's been pretty blunt with me on occasion.”

“How?”

“By not letting me delude myself into hope.”

We were almost back to Cameo, another three minutes and we'd
be in the parking lot of the laundromat. If I were writing this scene I knew that this was the last opportunity for the important dialogue to be said. Pressed by time I reached out and touched the hand which rested on the stick shift. “Ben, you have to know that I'll say nothing about this to anyone.”

“I wouldn't have brought you if I couldn't trust you.”

“Why
did
you bring me?” There it was, the important question.

He turned into the dirt lot and put the car in neutral, letting it idle as he thought about his answer. He sucked in a breath and let it out. “I guess because you are the first person to come into my life in a long time with whom I feel safe.”

Over the awkward barrier of the gear shift we hugged, then kissed each other's cheek as good friends will. Then I got out of the car and waved goodbye, wondering if now Ben would tell me the story of how the accident had happened, enabled now by this event to ask him.

Twenty-one

T
he kids were indistinguishable from the twenty others all dressed in shorts and Camp Winetonka T-shirts. Everyone was uniformly dirty and overtired. Only Mrs. Beckman seemed rested and perky in the wake of the overnight. Lily looked a veritable Medusa: her curly hair, caught erratically into a knotty ponytail, was threaded through with bits of leaf mulch and some unidentifiable substance which might have been juice or sap. Tim struggled to get his unrolled sleeping bag stuffed into the car while attempting to climb in on top of it. I had to sort him out, separating little boy from sleeping bag, and get both into the car.

“So, was it any fun?”

“Yeah. It was fun.” Exhausted, thus listless, my two were asleep even before we achieved the main road.

“Fun is such hard work. I wonder why any of us do it,” I said to the sleeping forms in the backseat.

The bumpy road leading to the cabin shook the kids awake. Rejuvenated by even a twenty-minute nap, they were the first to catch sight of a car parked just under the cedar trees. Sean's.

“Daddy's here! Daddy's here!” Almost before I could bring the monster car to a complete halt, they were unbelted and out of the car.

“Yikes. Who would have imagined this.” I threw the car into park and unsnapped my own seatbelt. “Well, what a surprise.”

Sean was wearing his aviator-style sunglasses. His mint-green polo shirt was fashionably untucked from his khaki shorts. He wore the old topsiders he'd had since we were first married. Coming up the path, I couldn't help but notice how worn they were, the leather laces dangling in ancient square knots, the stitching shot along the toes. When I hugged him, he smelled freshly showered, and his hair was still damp.

“How long have you been here?”

“You'll be proud of me, I left the office before noon.”

“I'm sorry I wasn't here.” By way of explanation, I pointed out the laundry basket filled with unfolded clothes and sheets. I would have been here if I hadn't gone with Ben.

Sean scampered off with the kids, who were anxious to show him newly discovered treasures of the lake. I lugged the heavy laundry basket into the cabin and wondered at this new Sean. Had I finally pierced through to his conscience? Or maybe it was my ill-considered remark about a dinner date. Either way, I was glad he was there and I set about making dinner.

It was natural that soon after the kids went to bed we would tumble into bed ourselves. Sean wanted the light off, although the bedroom faced only deep woods. Aware of the thin walls, we were very quiet, two invisible bodies touching and tasting and moving. We danced the intimate dance, and yet the moves seemed unfamiliar to me, robbed of sight on that moonless night, as if danced with a stranger. Sean was vigorous and I was ready quickly, but it was the accidental thought of Ben's kiss which triggered me.

A sudden cold front kept us from swimming, and thus, from the raft. Twice over the weekend, I saw Ben stroking his canoe toward the town landing, then, a couple of hours later, homeward. We kept indoors as the cold front produced drizzle. If Ben played at all, I
never heard his music that weekend. I didn't run, got my period, and used the menstrual energy to clean the cabin top to bottom and make a real winter dinner for my family two nights running. On Sunday morning Sean decided to stay until Monday morning, a decision that necessitated his driving to the top of the hill to call Eleanor to let her know his plans. “You can't call her in the morning? Why bother her at home on a Sunday?”

“Eleanor hates surprises.”

“What possible difference can it make to her to know today or tomorrow morning at eight that you're staying longer?” I was annoyed, both at this controlling secretary and at my husband for letting her be that way. “Who's the boss?”

“Hey, just let me call her, no big deal.” He grabbed the car keys from the island counter and stomped out, clearly annoyed himself. At me.

I put a kettle of water on for tea when Sean left. It had boiled and reboiled three times by the time he got back.

“Did you get her?” I asked as he dashed back into the cabin, trailing bits of pine mulch on his wet topsiders.

“Yeah. I found her.”

“You should have told her you're taking the whole day off.” I poured water into his mug, “You could, you know. We could go hiking while the kids are at camp.”

“Oh, Cleo, I'd love to. And I will, but not this week. I've got to head to Pittsburgh on Tuesday.”

“But you will come back next weekend?”

“Definitely. Can't keep me away. I have to admit, this place is growing on me. I miss Narragansett, but this place has one superior quality.”

“What's that?”

“My family isn't here.”

“Are they at the beach now?”

“Everybody who was going went last weekend. They send their love to you. Oh, and I forgot to tell you, they want to know if you want to go down and join them for a little while.”

“Your mother went?”

“Of course, she's the matriarch of Watch Hill.”

An unaccountable foreboding wafted through me, I tipped a little tea out of my mug. I dashed to the sink to grab a cloth, when I turned back around Sean was wiping the drips up with a paper napkin. I leaned back against the sink. “Are you all right at home by yourself?”

Sean looked up at me from under bushy eyebrows. “I'm fine.”

Sean happily drove the kids to camp on Monday morning on his way home, leaving me to get a run in and started on my work before eight-thirty. Our goodbye kiss was perfunctory, a couple's kiss, signaling solidarity and a certain superstition that, should anything happen in the meantime, we had at least kissed goodbye.

I stretched with deliberate slowness on the little patch of grass at the lakefront, using the picnic table as a barre. The cold front had moved off and the day was pure dry warmth. At that early hour, there was little noise emanating from the other cabins as I ran by, nearly silent except for my footsteps against the nicely moistened leaf mulch. I had used up the last of my batteries, so I ran without accompaniment, keeping my rhythm with remembered strains from Ben's music. And then I was hearing Ben's music. I matched my stride to the allegro section of the piece, the playful lighthearted theme. I began to run so fast, my breath and my footsteps obscured the actual music, but by now I had heard it enough, I could fill in the missing phrases until I caught the sound of it again. I realized that Ben had committed the notes to paper, that what he had been working on for weeks had codified into actual music and that what I was hearing, as it went on and on without the usual stop and start, was something no longer first-draft but almost complete. Complete except for the solo part.

The allegro segued gently, easily into the adagio, just as I began to slow down. Then the music stopped, leaving me to walk through my cool down alone.

I wrote for a couple of hours, but my work was slow and mainly
disjointed. The impulse which had given me my conflict had leveled out and now I had the technical work to do, the weaving of foreshadowing and believable character reaction. It was a little hard getting back to work on Monday morning, just like a real job. I was fidgety and eventually I abandoned the attempt and climbed into my suit. The water was charged by the breeze still cool from the weekend's weather. Little choppy waves kept splashing me in the face as I swam to the raft. It wasn't yet noon. I climbed aboard the raft, puddling it with the drips from my suit, slipping a little against the slick surface. I lay down to get out of the cooling breeze, and as I did I heard Ben's screen door. I think I held my breath as I waited for him.

He climbed onto the raft quietly, as if he thought I was asleep up there. I felt him lie down next to me, my eyes closed against seeing him. I opened them at his touch, the slight grazing of his fingertips against my bare arm. “Cleo.”

“Ben.” Unaccountably, tears threatened. I hoped he thought the moisture lake water and not from the tenderness I felt at the sight of him. Tenderness he had no right to, tenderness I had no right to feel. I sat up quickly, deliberately giving the moment short shrift. “You've finished the allegro movement?”

Now it was his turn to look not at me but stare with pleased eyes at the view beyond. “Yes. It's the last bit before I really have to get down to work and write the flute melody. But . . . how did you like it?”

“It was wonderful.” I touched him then, saying without thinking, “Talia would be so pleased.”

“I hope so. I think that it just needed a little happiness to move it from garbage to music.”

I knew that he meant he'd needed a little happiness. That in some way I'd given him a little by sharing his secret with him. The weight of this emotional responsibility kept me from looking at him.

I was perfectly aware that somehow Ben had slipped into my erotic world, the physical presence of him reminded me of that. But it was more than that which made me glad he was opening up to me, and yet equally afraid of his candor, afraid of the entanglements such revelations bring.

We had so much more to say to one another, but Ben clamped down on the moment with a complete change of subject. “Hey, do you still want to give me a ride to Boston on Wednesday? Promise me that you'll do it only if it's convenient. Otherwise I'm going to rent a car. Really. Not a problem.”

“Ben, I want to go. The camp-out is Wednesday this week and I'll have all the time in the world. Besides, like I said, I need a day in the city. Recharge my batteries. Buy new batteries. Go to Tower Records and get some new running music. “

“Okay. But if you change your mind—”

“Just shut up, Turner. I keep my promises.”

“Cleo?” Ben was on his feet.

“What?”

“I really am glad you came with me Friday.” He stood on the coaming of the raft, not looking back at me. “I'll see you later.” His splash threw a fine spray of water over me and I shivered.