She's Gone: A Novel (17 page)

24

Walden Pond

Saturday morning dawned muggy under a faint blue sky. Will came in the kitchen. “What are you doing?”

“Making trail mix and brownies.” Jolie slid a pan of brownies out of the oven.

“We have to get to the office. I have people coming in from New York.”

“Remember? I’m going to Walden Pond today.”

“No, I don’t remember. I want you to meet them.”

She stopped stirring the nut mixture. “We talked about it twice. I’m meeting work friends and we’re driving to Walden Pond.”

Will shook his head. “I don’t want you out with people I don’t know.”

She took a deep breath. She spent all day at work with people he didn’t know. “I want to see where Thoreau wrote
Walden
.” She placed the nuts on a cookie sheet and slid them into the oven to toast.

“If you’d rather spend your time at some pond, go ahead.”

She looked up at him. He stood resolute, waiting for her to give in. Her head pounded. She didn’t like disagreeing with him, but she wanted to go to Walden Pond. She wanted to meet new friends other than those at the office.

“Don’t forget there is a meeting here tonight and I promised everyone dinner.” He turned and walked out the door.

She stared at the closed door. He hadn’t even hugged her goodbye. Her stomach flipped. Why did he always get into a bad mood when she had her own plans? She didn’t mean to make him upset. It put her in a low mood too. He just wanted her with him. She could call Nick and cancel. But she really wanted to go to Walden Pond, and that was what she was going to do. She’d cook a good dinner tonight to make up for it.

A burning smell rose through the kitchen. She bolted to the oven and took out the blackened nuts. The morning was going downhill fast. She wanted to bring trail mix and brownies, and now all she had were the brownies.

Jolie stood at the entrance of Harvard Yard, anxious about meeting Nick’s friends. She looked down at her outfit and smoothed her skirt. Would they be dressed like preppy college students? A white VW bus pulled up, and the German horn bleated a greeting. The back door opened, and Nick jumped out and waved her in. He crawled in behind her and pulled the door shut. They sat on bench seats covered with Mexican serapes. Nick introduced her to Chase, Allison, Preston, and Stella, all students at Harvard and Radcliffe.

Chase adjusted his ball cap and drove the sputtering bus down the avenue. Jolie scanned their clothes, relieved to see cut-off jeans and T-shirts. Chase eased the bus onto the highway and headed north to Concord. Preston sang along to the Rolling Stones’ “Street Fighting Man” on the radio.

“Something smells good.” Nick said. “What’s in the bag?”

“I baked brownies,” Jolie said.

“Yum, we never get anything homemade on campus,” Stella said.

The group was in high spirits. They’d finished finals and had the whole summer ahead of them. Chase drove into downtown Concord. Blinding white churches with tall steeples stood stoic next to brick houses with rooster and horse weather vanes. Nestled alongside were stately colonial-style houses with wrap around porches shading wooden rocking chairs and porch swings.

“It’s so quaint,” Jolie said.

“More like Puritan,” Allison said, and everyone laughed.

Jolie laughed too, although she wasn’t sure what was funny. Chase stopped in front of a grocery store in an old brick building. They piled out of the bus. Jolie snapped a few photos of the historic buildings and tree-lined streets. Inside the store, they bought picnic food and two bottles of wine.

“We have one more stop before Walden Pond: Author’s Ridge,” Chase said. Allison smiled at him and turned his cap askew.

Chase drove out Bedford Road and turned onto a narrow lane. He killed the engine in a small parking lot at the foot of a hill. A sign declared: Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.

Jolie warily scanned the landscape. Paths led to headstones and small monuments that were rooted under towering evergreens. Sleepy Hollow Cemetery? She glanced at Nick and his friends. They didn’t seem like morbid people. Still, maybe Will was right. She shouldn’t have gone off with people she didn’t really know.

“Allison, you’re the English major, you lead the way,” Preston said.

They hopped out of the bus. Jolie hesitated.

“Come on,” Nick said, holding out his hand to her.

She reluctantly took his hand, and they trailed after Allison along a broken stone path to the top of a rocky ridge. They came upon a granite marker resembling a headstone with an arrow pointing ahead to Author’s Ridge. Allison led them along the path and abruptly stopped.

“Wow,” Jolie said.

Before them, in close proximity, lay the graves of Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Louisa May Alcott. Emerson’s nameplate was attached to a huge uncut slab of pink granite. This was his gravesite? Jolie glanced around. The cemetery was oddly beautiful among the rocks and trees.

“Hawthorne’s
Scarlet Letter
was the first great American novel,” Allison declared.

Thoreau, they confirmed, was the father of naturalists and conservation. Emerson, the father of Transcendentalism, the mystical unity of nature
and humankind. At least Jolie had read some of their work before, thanks in part to the bookshelves and long days at the ranch and the Big Yellow House.

“What about Louis May Alcott’s
Little Women
?” Chase said.

“Never read it,” Stella said.

“Me neither,” Jolie and Allison said in unison. The three smiled at each other.

“The coolest thing,” Preston said, “is they all lived at the same time here in Concord and were friends.”

“Let me get your photo,” Jolie said to the group. “Friends on Author’s Ridge.” They posed by Thoreau’s marker. Nick’s smile embraced her through the lens. What a beautiful group of friends.

“Take mine by Emerson.” Jolie handed Nick her camera. She sat cross-legged in front of the pink granite boulder, her hands in a prayer position against her chest. She smiled up at the cameraman.

They walked back down the uneven stone path, crammed into the bus, and drove off to the “Pond,” as Nick called it. Chase eased into the parking lot. They gathered their picnic and walked along a trail. Small boats dotted the water. It was noon, and the main swimming beach was crowded.

“This is a lake, not a pond,” Jolie commented. She was glad she’d brought her bathing suit.

Around the lake, past Thoreau’s Cove, they took a side trail and stopped at the site of Thoreau’s cabin. Jolie took a photo and stood before the marker in awe. This is where he wrote
Walden
.

A quarter of a mile down the trail, Chase lead them onto a small path that ended at a secluded cove with a sandy shore and grassy bank. Stella and Allison spread out sheets for picnic blankets. Preston opened a bottle of wine and passed around paper cups. They sat in a circle and toasted the beginning of summer, final exams, Henry David Thoreau, and anything else that came to mind. Jolie sat quietly, with a smile, observing the group of light-hearted friends and their celebration, raising her glass to toast but not really drinking. Stella sliced the bread, apples, smoky gouda, and brie.

“To the feast,” Chase toasted, and they dove in to eat. A boat motored by, leaving a small wake on the glassy blue water. After most of the food had been eaten, Jolie unwrapped the brownies, and Nick passed them around. The conversation hushed as they bit into the rich, chewy chocolate.

“These are the best,” Stella said.

They lay back contentedly in the sun.

Sometime later, Chase sat up and looked out over the lake. “The coast is clear. It’s time for a swim.”

Stella dropped towels at the shoreline. “We have to be careful. We don’t want to get a ticket from the park ranger.”

“My father would cut me off,” Allison said.

Jolie stood with them at the shoreline holding her suit. She was never comfortable showing her body. The others quickly undressed and dove into the water.

Oh, what the heck, she thought. She left her suit by her clothes and dove in after them. She caught up with Nick and they swam together far out away from the shore. The water was clean and cool, the sun warm on their faces.

“I’m glad you came,” Nick said. “You’re not afraid this far out?”

“I love the water. I could stay out here all day.”

They stopped swimming and floated on their backs. She made sure her breasts were underwater.

“Do you have a girlfriend back home?” She had surprised herself by asking.

“Not anymore. Angela and I split when we went off to different colleges.”

“Oh.” Angela. What was she like?

“It’s going to be a long summer, not seeing you,” he said.

“Can I get your address in Chicago? I’ll send you a photo from today.”

He smiled and nodded. “I’d like that.”

They floated for a long time, talking. The others were back on shore.

He came up close to her. “Do you know how beautiful you are?”

“No.” Embarrassed, she dipped underwater and resurfaced.

“Well you are.” He touched her cheek with his fingers. A row boat approached lazily from the other shore. “Race you back.” He took off swimming toward the shore.

They grabbed towels from the rumpled heap and quickly dressed. The others, already dressed, lay in the sun. Allison announced it was time for the poetry contest. They each had to recite at least two lines of a poem or an essay and the theme was nature.

Jolie glanced at Nick. He hadn’t told her about this. She shrank inward. These were Harvard and Radcliffe students. She’d look like a fool. It was a mistake to have come.

Allison, having the advantage of being the English major, had to go first. Stella said she was at a disadvantage, being a psychology major. Preston moaned that his head had been in pre-med books all year. Nick and Chase were law students and were assigned to go second and third. Jolie, relieved, would go last. They were so competitive. Nick winked at her. Did she look as terrified as she felt?

Allison recited a beautiful sonnet, a lot longer than two lines.

It was Nick’s turn. He stood and faced them with a big smile, ready and confident for his performance. Jolie snapped his picture.

“The sea hath its pearls,

The heaven hath its stars;

But my heart, my heart,

My heart hath its love.

Thou little, youthful maiden,

Come unto my great heart;

My heart, and the sea, and the heaven

Are melting away with love!”

“Ohhh!” The group swooned and turned to look at Jolie. Her cheeks flushed warm.

Chase recited a few lines of something, but Jolie wasn’t paying attention. Her mind raced to think of a nature poem.

Preston stood and beamed. “My turn.” He cleared his throat dramatically.

“There sat one day in quiet,

By an alehouse on the Rhine,

Four hale and hearty fellows,

And drank the precious wine.”

He took a bow.

“What does that have to do with nature?” Allison asked.

“The Rhine River.”

A few boos erupted from the group.

Stella stood and recited a Carson McCullers verse and then it was Jolie’s turn. She wasn’t about to stand up. She cleared her throat, looked at Nick and in a soft voice recited: “‘The only prophet of that which must be, is the great nature in which we rest, as the earth lies in the soft arms of the atmosphere; the Unity, the Over-soul, within which every man’s particular being is contained and made one with all other; the common heart.’”

They stared at her. Unnerved by the silence, she said, “Emerson, from one of his ‘Nature’ essays.”

“That was beautiful,” Stella said. They all clapped.

“I think it’s a tie between Allison and Jolie,” Chase said.

“What about the wine on the Rhine?” Preston asked, and they responded with laughter.

The guys got up to play Frisbee.

Allison turned to Jolie. “How do you know that essay?”

“I’ve read about transcendentalism. I don’t understand all of the philosophy, but I believe in the over-soul and the connection with man and nature and the universe.”

Allison and Stella nodded.

“There are a lot of religions with a similar philosophy. Buddhism for one,” Jolie said.

“It would be a good topic for a paper next quarter,” Allison said.

“You can study that in college?”

“Sure. You can study philosophy or theology,” Stella said.

Jolie imagined herself studying philosophy and talking in depth with others. When she tried to talk to Will about transcendental concepts, he turned the conversation to Marxism and the revolutionary movement. He dismissed her interests and mocked her spirituality. He always made her feel small. But these were intelligent people who welcomed her interests.

They sat back and watched the guys playing Frisbee, leaping for the disc and showing off tricks. The sun warmed her. She was at Walden Pond with people she was becoming comfortable with and enjoying the day. She didn’t want it to end. The poetry contest had been terrifying, but she had held her own.