Heart of Stone (8 page)

I said nothing, and he kissed me again.

“Isaac?” Damn it. Miriam was standing in the doorway of the lodge watching us. “There you are. I'm going to bed. Good night.”

Cursing myself for my forward behavior in front of people I barely knew, I pulled away from Isaac.

“I've got to go now,” I said.

“Don't mind her. She's harmless. Come with me to my cabin.”

CHAPTER FIVE

SUNDAY, AUGUST 20, 1961

It was still dark outside when I rose and crept across the room. I gathered my dress and underthings from the floor, then grabbed my shoes. I looked back at the bed. Isaac was asleep, facing the other way. I turned the handle on the door—no creaking—and slipped into the next room. There, I dressed and scribbled a brief note that I left on the breakfast table.

Leaving before daybreak to avoid scandal. Ellie

The first blush of dawn broke in the eastern sky as I stepped off the porch of Isaac's cabin. I glanced at my watch—just after six. Scanning the surrounding cabins for early risers, I saw no one. I crossed the compound and disappeared into the woods unnoticed. My worries of being seen escaping Arcadia now behind me, I could concentrate on my fear of crossing the thick woods in near darkness. The trees were, in fact, blocking all but the faintest glow in the sky to the east, so it might just as well have been midnight with a crescent moon. I couldn't see more than a few feet in front of me, so I had to go slowly. Despite the gloom, I could hear the first birds of the day chirping their morning songs. Soon it would become a chorus. But until the sun peeked over the mountains across the lake to the east, I would feel no comfort.

I stepped gingerly over the pine needles, trying to move in silence, but I was no Indian scout. If I could hear my footsteps, so could a marauder or an on-the-lam murderer. My skin felt cold and clammy, and the dew of the forest floor, kicked up by my shoes, soaked my toes and sprinkled my ankles.

I paused and listened. Had I heard something to my left? Squinting through the darkness was useless. I couldn't discern anything but gray and black pine trees. Carefully, I took a first step then another, treading as if fearing to detonate a landmine underfoot, and resumed my long, unnerving journey.

My father came to mind. His life's work was dedicated to the study of Dante, especially
The
Divine Comedy
. I remembered a spooky drawing of his of the dark wood of
The
Inferno
, thick with gray and black trees, bare but for their sharp, brittle branches, some tapering into winding tendrils or long, bony fingers. That sketch, and many others, gave me nightmares as a girl. Weaving through the trees, I felt now that, like the pilgrim Dante, I was in a dark wood and the right path was lost to me. Perhaps not a spiritual crisis in my case, but I was experiencing serious doubts of whether I was heading in the right direction to exit the woods. Not a good time for me to recollect childhood nightmares. I pushed on toward the light—the east—and, I hoped, Cedar Haven.

It seemed like half a lifetime, though it was only ten minutes according to my watch, when I finally emerged from the trees onto Jordan Street. I found myself about two hundred yards farther east toward Lake Road, but I was relieved to be out of the dark forest. The sky was brightening, and I knew night had passed. Now free of the woods, I chided myself for surrendering to my childhood fears. The trees weren't going to devour me, after all.

I turned to head up the empty street, reflecting on the night I'd spent at Arcadia. I thought of that song by the Shirelles, “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?” I wasn't sentimental over my attachments with males of the species, and I didn't usually worry about being loved in the morning. But that night had been different. I didn't care to enumerate in my mind Isaac's qualities, though they were many, as I believed that attraction was not a formula or a recipe one could mix together. Rather it was the sum of the parts, a tenebrous and unfathomable chemistry of warmth, spirit, and desire that can never be known and certainly not explained. I wanted him—that much I knew—and it was all I cared about in that moment.

There was a light in Aunt Lena's bedroom in the main cabin, but the sitting room and kitchen were dark. I felt confident that she hadn't yet embarked on her morning hike to the lake and back, so my late-night tryst was still secret. Aunt Lena wouldn't have judged me, but I preferred to keep my affairs to myself.

There's a time and place to steep oneself in the redolence of intimacy, but daybreak brings other undertakings. With the rising sun, I put all the romance to bed for another day. It would keep until the cover of darkness returned. I stripped out of my clothes and stepped into the cold shower behind my cabin to wash away the indulgences of the night.

I found Max alone in Lena's kitchen, slathering butter on a slice of wheat toast. Given his adventure of the previous day, I was surprised to find him up and about at such an early hour. I told him he should be resting. He dismissed my concerns in typical fashion.

“The earth has rotated on its axis, my dear. The moon and stars have completed their nocturnal peregrinations, and the sun is dispatching its daily duty high in the sky. Why wouldn't I, too, be engaged in fruitful enterprise?”

“Because you got yourself lost last night and nearly died in the woods.”

He waved his hand. “A leisurely stroll through a sylvan glade, my dear.” And he smiled at me over his eyeglasses.

“Do you still have that Kodak home-developer's kit?” I asked, changing the subject. He nodded. “May I use it? I need to develop a few rolls of film I shot yesterday for the chief of police.”

“Help yourself,” he said. “Everything is in order. The chemicals are fresh, and there's plenty of Velite paper. But the enlarger is broken.”

Max had set up a darkroom inside the small powder room off the kitchen. I took forty-five minutes to run the film through the roll tank, add the developer then the fixer, then rinse off the negatives and hang them to dry.

I returned to the kitchen for some coffee and toast. Max was still at the table, now slicing a banana. Aunt Lena was sitting beside him, nursing a cup of coffee. She gave me a sly look.

Damn it. She knew.

Isaac showed up on foot at half past eleven, just as we'd agreed in the small hours the night before. We'd rehearsed an act, intended to throw Lena off the scent and preserve my good name. Isaac was to arrive at Cedar Haven with the innocent goal of finding out what had prevented me from attending the gathering at Arcadia Lodge. As soon as he began, I signaled to him to cheese it; we would have looked ridiculous.

Aunt Lena prepared a light lunch of vegetables from her garden and some frozen northern pike that Max had caught a week earlier on the lake. She claimed he'd nearly been yanked out of the boat when the fish took the bait and would certainly have ended up as the fish's supper, instead of the other way around, had it not been for the quick thinking and assistance of Bennie Wilson, the young man who graciously took Max fishing from time to time. Max disputed her account of the events with the vigor of a fiery defense attorney, which, of course, he was.

“My dominance over the fishes of river and sea has yet to be challenged by the slippery little bastards,” he said in conclusion. Aunt Lena rolled her eyes.

Isaac seemed to enjoy Max's peculiar turns of phrase, idiosyncrasies, and genial oddness, if back-slapping and joking like a couple of old cronies meant what I thought it did. He invited Aunt Lena, Max, and me to Arcadia for dinner and entertainment that evening and wouldn't let go of the bone until they'd agreed. He offered to send a car for them, but I said that wouldn't be necessary.

“I'll drive them,” I said.

“A woman driver,” Isaac said to Max, nudging his ribs. “Are you sure you want to take the chance?”

Max frowned. “I don't know what you mean, my boy,” he said. “In my experience, Ellie is an excellent driver. Fine hand-eye coordination, quick reflexes, and perfect vision. I have no reservations about her abilities behind the wheel.”

I said nothing. Isaac's grin wilted, and he mumbled an apology.

“Don't apologize to me, my boy,” said Max. “It's Ellie, here, whose driving skills you've impugned.”

“He's pulling your leg,” said Aunt Lena. “Ignore him.”

“What were we talking about?” asked Max, feigning befuddlement, something he liked to do regularly.

“Dinner at Arcadia Lodge,” prompted Isaac. “Will you join us?”

“I'd love to,” said the old devil. “But how do you propose we get there?”

The sun was burning high in the sky when Isaac and I reached the village. We stopped at the bakery run by Mrs. Ingve Enquist, a transplant from Norway who used butter as if it was melting in the back room. Isaac offered me a couple of almond cookies for dessert after our lunch, and we enjoyed them in two chairs on the front porch facing Lake Road and the water on the other side.

“What are you up to, Ellie?” he asked as I snapped a photo of him with the eastern mountains as a backdrop. “What's your grand plan in life?”

I shrugged and slipped the camera back into its case. “No grand plan. I work as a newspaper reporter. I find it very rewarding. That's enough for now.”

He nodded then asked why I wasn't married. “You're twenty-five. Why hasn't anyone snatched you up?”

“I'm quite good at avoiding capture,” I answered. “Why aren't you married?”

He smiled and said it was different for a man.

The village of Prospector Lake straddled Lake Road, also known as Route 15, for about a half mile. Small, quaint businesses lined the thoroughfare, catering mostly to the summer tourist trade. Ice cream parlors, a couple of taverns, gift shops, and eateries on one side, the post office, library, and sporting goods on the other. At the center of the village was a square that served as the fulcrum of community activity. A green with a large bandstand, a gazebo, spreading chestnut trees, and rows of boxwood hedges, Palmer Square presented a postcard-perfect image of an Adirondack idyll. As Isaac and I strolled across the grass, we passed a pushcart selling popcorn and another with cotton candy. There was a man flying a kite, inviting curious children to take turns holding the string. And there were groups promoting various activities and causes.

“Look over there,” said Isaac, pointing to four sorry-looking specimens, flanked by two American flags, manning a small booth piled high with pamphlets. A sign stenciled in black read, “John Birch Society of America.”

“I've heard of them,” I said. “They're the rabid anti-Communists.”

Isaac nodded. “They march around like they're saving the Free World, but Prospector Lake isn't exactly the State Department.”

“No card-carrying Communists to root out?” I asked. He smiled and shook his head. “What about the Politburo of Jewish Bolsheviks at Arcadia Lodge?”

“No, we're not Communists,” he said with a wave of his hand. “Not all of us, anyway.” He paused, watching the John Birchers across the square. Then he added, “Not anymore.”