The Summer Guest (29 page)

Back at my desk, I wrote a note to my lawyer, explaining my plans to sell the house, and one to my accountant, saying more or less the same; I wrote a check to Williams, Hal’s tuition for the coming year, and another to the lawn service, to carry them through till fall. By this time it was early evening; I made myself a sandwich, poured a glass of beer, and took it back to the office, to continue my work. I paid my taxes, made a promised donation to Hal’s private school, resigned from the country club and the board of the local hospital, and fired the gardener, for stealing tools. When this was done I washed a load of laundry, reading a magazine while my clothes flip-flopped in the damp heat, then descended the stairs to the basement, to extinguish the pilots and shut off the gas. I thought for a minute about draining the pipes, thinking this customary, but how this was accomplished was a mystery to me, a thing I’d never learned; and in any event, the house would certainly be someone else’s before winter. I turned on the sump pump, opened the fuse box-not even certain what I was looking for, though it seemed fine-and checked the bulkhead door.

Upstairs, I emptied the contents of the refrigerator into garbage bags and hauled these to the garage; I filled the cans and dragged them outside where the carting service would see them and sealed the lids tight with rubber cords, so the raccoons could not get in. I stacked the patio chairs and covered them with a tarp. In the backyard, I saw that a large limb had fallen from the big oak that stood beside the garden; it was too heavy to move on my own, so I retrieved an axe from the gardener’s shed, whacked it into smaller pieces, and carted them beyond the house’s circumference of light, where the lawn met a tangle of woods, and left them in the weeds.

The work had made me sweat, and I thought to take a shower before I remembered that I had already shut off the water heater. No matter; the house was cool and dry. I changed my shirt and poured myself a Scotch and ascended to the attic to fetch a suitcase, brought this down to the bedroom, and packed it quickly. It was a little after nine, later than I’d hoped, but to consider this contingency too closely seemed fraught; one moment of doubt, and my courage would collapse. I carried my case downstairs, out through the breezeway to the garage, where my car, a Jag, was parked; I went back into the kitchen, made a pot of coffee to fill a thermos, retrieved a warm jacket and a pair of boots from the hallway closet, then moved through the house one final time, top to bottom and back to front, dousing the lights as I went. When I reached the door connecting the house to the garage, I removed my key from my ring, placed it on the little table by the door, and set the lock; I stepped through the door and closed it behind me, listening for the little click as the mechanism dropped into place-an irrevocable sound, final as a plunge. I placed the jacket and boots on the backseat with my suitcase. Then I got into the Jag and started the engine.

It took only a minute, what happened next. Sitting at the wheel, the engine roaring under me, I lifted my eyes to the mirror and saw, with mild surprise, that I had neglected to open the garage door. Ah, my mind said, the door is closed; I never opened the door. My right foot pressed the gas pedal, pressed it again. The car was fussy as a thoroughbred; half the time, the damn thing wouldn’t start at all, or else the choke would stick and flood the carburetor. But not that night. The engine eased onto its idle, pushing more gray exhaust into the air of the sealed room. I pressed the gas again and watched the tachometer leap. A wondrous calm had eclipsed my awareness of events, floating inside me like a bubble. The windows of the car were open; I felt a tickle in my nose, accompanied by a curious lightening of the senses, and heard this as a sentence: My nose is tickling. In the rearview mirror, the image of the closed door wavered like a mirage as the garage filled up with smoke.

Another ten seconds, twenty, thirty. It’s hard to say how long I sat. Long enough, and then I wasn’t sitting anymore: I was outside the car in the smoky garage, hauling the door open to a blast of evening air. Twice I coughed, but only twice, and before the air had cleared-quick as anything, quick as death-I was back at the wheel. I put the Jag into reverse, the smooth engagement of its gears like something snapping into place inside me, and backed away; my head still roaring with the fumes, I turned the wheel and gunned down the drive, lifting my eyes quickly one last time to see the garage door-a message to any who might care to look-standing open behind me.

I didn’t go, not right away; it took me three more months, after I received Joe’s letter, to work up the nerve. And even then, I hedged my bets. I didn’t want to let go of my apartment, not for good, so I put an ad on the bulletin board at the Y, and two days later sublet it to a couple of Irish girls looking for a place to spend the summer while waitressing on the waterfront. In early April I’d written my parents and asked them to sell my car and send the money on to me; a month later a fat envelope arrived at the restaurant, with a piece of blank paper wrapped around fifteen twenty-dollar bills. It was more than I’d expected-my car was actually an old one of my parents’, a rusted Rambler station wagon with nearly 120,000 miles on it-so I decided to hold a hundred back and used the remaining two hundred dollars to buy an ancient VW bug that one of the line cooks had been trying to unload all winter. The car was the color of a rotten pumpkin and stank of stale smoke and old socks, but it ran; with the leftover hundred I bought a pair of retreads for the front, new wiper blades, and a little pine air freshener to hang from the mirror, and parked the car in the street outside my apartment, waiting like a jet on a runway for the day of my departure.

The morning I left, a Monday in the second week of June, Deck and May came to see me off. It didn’t feel quite like summer yet, but a sharp, salty wind was blowing off the harbor, and seagulls wheeled promisingly in the air over the house. I stood in the gravel driveway beside my car, and hugged Deck and May, feeling very much as if, sublet or no, I would never see them again. The Irish girls didn’t seem like the types to spend the summer worrying about my asparagus fern, but it seemed silly to take it with me, so I’d carted it downstairs with my suitcase, and gave it to May and Deck.

“I’m sorry, this is the only present I could think of.”

“We’ll take it as a loan.” Deck hugged me again, tightly, pressing me into his chest. Since that night at the Lobster Tank, when Deck had poured shot after shot to ease my aching heart-I’d gotten good and drunk, as ordered, and awoke the next morning in Peg’s room to see May placing my clothing, freshly washed and folded, at the foot of the bed-the two of them had been like family. Not a week went by that I wasn’t at their house for dinner at least once, and I sometimes spent whole weekends there. One funny thing: they never called me Lucy. To them, I was Alice.

They were the kindest people I had ever known, and it suddenly seemed absurd to leave them. But then Deck blinked and looked aside, brushing an eye with his thumb. “Go on with you, then,” he said.

I got in the car and drove away. I hadn’t actually turned the engine over for almost four weeks, and oily-smelling smoke huffed out the tailpipe in a blue plume that billowed behind me. But after a few miles it settled in and actually drove quite nicely. I cried for a while, but by the time I was out of town I knew I was done with this. Look at you, Lucy girl, I thought, and turned north, away from the water, so that I was watching the seasons turning in reverse; where I was headed it was still just spring. Look at you, going home, where nobody knows you’ve been Alice.

I had no idea what I was looking for, only that I would find it, or not, when I got there. My parents were away until July, visiting my father’s sister in North Carolina. Only this part of my trip was strategic: I had two weeks before I would see them, and by then I would know what to do.

My immediate destination was the Rogues’, where Joe had said his father was staying. Hank Rogue was a crotchety cuss, even by the standards of my town; I had a memory from years ago of standing in the yard behind our house and watching him back his drilling rig right over my mother’s flower beds, then step, scowling, from his cab, a cigarette bobbing in the corner of his mouth, spitting once at his feet and then lifting his head to give me a look that said: “Got a problem with this?” His wife was a mousy thing with a permanently sad look stitched on her face who punched a register at the IGA; the story went that the pair of them were actually divorced, but Hank had refused to move out, so they’d stayed that way for years. The only mental image I had of their daughter was taken from a dance my freshman year at Regional: a tall girl in a macramé poncho, sitting on a stone wall outside the gymnasium, loud music throbbing inside-“Smoke on the Water” or “Brown Sugar” or “Takin’ Care of Business,” the usual cover crap that were the only things the local bands knew how to play-drinking from a widemouthed bottle in a paper sack that one of her friends had handed her, and then her laughing in a way that made me think of a bird flying into a window-something stopped midair. It wasn’t a promising picture, the sort that usually ended badly in my town, but then the girl, whose name was Suzanne, astounded everyone by taking first place in the all-state spelling bee and winning a full ride to a college in Texas nobody had ever heard of. As far as I knew, she’d never been back.

The Rogues lived in a little house with pea-green asbestos siding just behind the fire station, hard to miss because of Hank’s drilling rig parked in the yard like the wreck of an alien spacecraft. Four hours after leaving Portland I parked behind it and released my cramping hands from the wheel-I hadn’t noticed how tightly I’d been holding on. A cold wind was blowing, and some of the trees were only just beginning to bud out. I had a feeling of exposure, as if, at any second, everybody I’d ever known would leap from the bushes and demand to learn where I’d been all these months.

When Hank Rogue answered my knock, I knew at once he had no idea who I was. He was wearing loose denim overalls, same as the day he’d spat at his feet in my parents’ yard, and his hands were caked with grime and oil. The skin of his face had the bubbled texture of cooking pancake batter. A sour smell of cigarettes and unwashed skin floated through the open door.

“I’m Lucy,” I explained, and heard the nervousness in my voice. “Lucy Hansen. Phil and Maris’s girl?”

He gave a slow, indecipherable nod, and tipped his head slightly to flick his eyes over my shoulder, as if my parents might be standing behind me.

“They got problems with their well?”

“No, nothing like that. They’re in North Carolina, actually.” I felt ridiculous. Why was I explaining this to him? “I’m here to see Joe Crosby. Somebody told me he was staying here.”

“He’s here, all right,” he answered flatly, and crossed his arms over his barrellike chest. “Sleeping.”

“His son asked me to look in on him. Would it be all right if I came in?”

His eyebrows lifted in a warning. “I said he was sleeping now, didn’t I? That’ll have to satisfy you.”

This was a wrinkle I hadn’t considered: that I might get to the door and simply be turned away. “Please, Mr. Rogue, I’ve come a long way.”

“Thought you said you were Phil Hansen’s girl.”

“I am, Mr. Rogue,” I said. “I’ve been… away. In Portland. I just drove up this afternoon. I used to cook for Joe at the camp.”

“He owe you money, then?”

“No, of course not,” I said. “I’m just a friend.”

He snorted. “Ain’t you heard? Joe Crosby ain’t got none a’ those.”

“Well, he does, and I’m one.”

He considered me another moment. His eyes flicked up and down my body like a butcher eyeing a carcass.

“You’re a persistent one,” he said finally, and stepped back from the door. “Suppose you might as well come in. He won’t like being woke up, though. You’ll see for yourself.”

He led me into the kitchen. Dirty plates were piled like poker chips under a dripping tap, and opened cans were strewn everywhere-chili, beef stew, Campbell ’s soup, their crinkled lids all standing at attention. A half-gallon jug of off-brand bourbon, mostly empty, sat on the counter. The room reeked of wet dog, though I saw no trace of one. Beyond the kitchen was another door.

“Through there,” Hank said, and pointed.

The room was dark, its one window covered with a yellowed shade; what light there was seemed soaked up by the wavy paneling that served for walls. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust. The space was tiny, obviously some kind of makeshift addition hammered onto the back of the house-the sort of extra room where people usually stored tools or skis or muddy shoes. A thin cot was pushed against the far wall, and beside it, an orange crate, covered with pill bottles. Joe’s father was sitting beneath the window in an overstuffed chair, his head rocked back and mouth slightly open, hands folded at his waist. His glass eye was slightly open; the other one was closed. A chrome cane with a rubber tip leaned against the wall beside him.

“Joe?” I knelt before him on the plywood floor. His body seemed smaller than I remembered, half swallowed by the immense chair. He needed a haircut, and his fingernails were long as a woman’s; a smell rose off him, sharp and a little sweet, like overripe fruit. I took one of his hands and gently shook it.

“Joe, it’s Lucy Hansen.”

His eye flickered open. He tipped his head and looked at me a moment without recognition.

“It’s Lucy Hansen,” I said again.

“Lucy.” His face brightened slightly; he licked his lips and swallowed. His mouth seemed off-kilter, as if he’d just gotten back from the dentist and the Novocain hadn’t quite worn off. It was hard to tell, of course, Joe’s face being what it was, but between this and the cane, I wondered if he’d had a second stroke, or if the first one had been more serious than he’d let on. Hank Rogue, the filthy kitchen, this dismal little storage room with its caved-in cot: no one deserved this. It all felt like a terrible punishment for my being gone. It was all I could do not to burst into tears.

His voice when he spoke was thick in his throat. “Lucy, what are you doing here?”

I squeezed his hand. “Joey sent me. I’m here to take you home.”

I turned over the orange crate and quickly filled it with his pills and the small pile of folded shirts and pants I found on the floor at the foot of the bed. With my other hand I pulled him upright, surprised by how light he was, and guided the cane into his hand. He was breathing hard, and I heard a phlegmy rattle in his chest that worried me. Then I turned to see Hank Rogue standing in the doorway.

“What the hell you think you’re doing?”

“What does it look like?” I said. “We’re leaving.”

“Is that right? The fuck you are.”

I positioned myself in front of him, holding the crate between us. The urge to cry was gone; taking its place was a feeling of pure anger, like a thunderhead climbing inside me.

“Get out of my way,” I said.

He reached a hand down to his crotch and rubbed. His eyes went soft, trying to hold my gaze. “Little girl.”

Which was when I took two steps forward and rammed the crate, hard as I could, into Hank Rogue. I had no idea what I was doing, but it worked; momentum was on my side, and all that swimming had made me strong. The crate caught him across the loose flesh of his stomach, pushing the wind from his lungs and sending him tumbling out of the room. He crashed backward into the kitchen table, tried to grab the edge for balance as it slid away behind him, then went down hard. He was a big man, and the whole house seemed to shudder under the weight of his fall.

“You fucking cunt!”

I did the only next thing I could think of, which was to grab the half-empty jug of bourbon from the counter. It had a curved handle, perfect for throwing, and glass sides thick as a windshield. Without aiming I flung it, like a center spikes a volleyball, in the general direction of Hank Rogue. A perfect shot: he managed to deflect the bottle with his hand but the corner still caught him over the eye, knocking him down again before it smacked, miraculously unbroken, into the wall behind him. A line of blood surged along his brow.

The blow hadn’t knocked him out, but I knew I’d bought the time we needed. I turned to Joe’s father, where he stood at the door with his cane. It took me a moment to realize that the look of mute wonder on his face was meant for me.

“I’ll be god… damned.”

“Quick as you can, Joe.”

He let me lead him across the kitchen. Hank had risen to a sitting position, a fat palm pressed to his bleeding head. It was possible I’d hurt him badly, but I didn’t spend a second fretting over this. All I wanted was to get away. Outside, I helped Joe down the front stoop and across the weedy yard and into the VW, then shoved the orange crate into the back, scattering the bottles of pills everywhere. I’d gotten myself into the driver’s seat and was fumbling for the keys-too damn many of them, keys that seemed to multiply and tangle in my hand like scarves pulled from a magician’s sleeve-when the clock ran out: I heard a bellow and looked up just as Hank burst out of the house, swinging a baseball bat. For an instant, my brain seized with a vision of Suzanne, sitting on the gymnasium wall, and her high, frightened laugh. Whatever had happened to her, I knew how the story had ended: she’d run for her life.

“You little bitch!”

Joe turned toward me in the passenger seat. “Lucy-”

“Got it!”

The key found the ignition; the engine caught and held, and I shoved the car into reverse and hit the gas just as Hank, realizing he’d never reach us in time, launched the bat straight for us. I didn’t have a second to be afraid; I saw it coming, closed my eyes, and ducked. The hard, heavy end of it punched the front hood with a sonorous clang, pinwheeling the thing up and over the car like a majorette’s baton. In another instant I heard it strike the pavement behind us and bounce harmlessly away-just a child’s toy rattling in the street. A high, wild joy filled me as I swung out into the road and turned and sped away.

We’d reached the corner when Joe finally spoke. “Where’d you learn to do that?”

“Pure instinct. You lived with that guy? Tell me you weren’t paying him, Joe.”

Beside me, Joe said nothing.

“Jesus, Joe. What happened to his wife?”

“Gone. Last winter.” He looked at his hands. “It wasn’t so bad. Just twenty-five a week. Plus help with the groceries.”

I figured it was worse than that but held my tongue. We passed through town; I realized I was speeding and made a conscious effort to slow the car to thirty-five. The streets were empty, just a few cars and pickups parked here and there, their fenders spangled with spring mud. Most of the tourist businesses were still closed for the season. As we passed the police station, a pang of dread quickened my heart: whatever else was true, hitting Hank Rogue in the head with a bourbon bottle was certainly against the law. All he had to do was wander down to the station and file a report, and I would be a wanted woman. But in another moment this fear left me. Who would believe that little Lucy Hansen had laid out the likes of Hank Rogue?