Women Drinking Benedictine (15 page)

“You having fun?” I ask Evan after we are both out of the car. I try walking next to him, but it's difficult with the potholes, the weeds, and the cars driving by at sixty miles an hour.

“What do you think?” Evan asks. His attitude disappoints me because it's not such a bad afternoon. Looking for Claire's boyfriend has given the afternoon shape. It's not just listless movement from one place to the other, like how we usually spend the weekends when there's nothing to distract us from the long afternoons and the even longer nights.

“It's not that bad, is it?” I say. He is walking fast and I have to half skip, half run to keep up with him.

“It's not a whole lot of fun,” he says, and this time I can't ignore the tone of his voice. He's not happy, and his foul mood is directed at me. As if the day is my fault.

“What is it?” I ask. “What's so wrong with everything?”

His eyebrows are pulled together and he looks exhausted, as if the three or four beers we've drunk have sapped all his energy. He really seems to be struggling to make it through this day.

Behind us I hear Claire and Pete—their footfalls on the gravel. “Hey, slow down, you two,” Pete calls out. “There's no race to get there. Hunter's isn't going anyplace soon.”

Claire catches up to us and starts walking alongside Evan and me, forcing me onto the blacktop. I drop back and let her go on ahead with Evan. Pete seems happier than he was in the car and we start talking about summer vacation. Pete has been teaching in Meadville longer than I have. He's the one who told me you have to plan your vacations way in advance so that you have something to look forward to. He told me that it makes the days more tolerable if you know exactly when you'll be leaving.

The sound of a gun being fired comes out of nowhere. I stop in surprise and spin around to see where it's coming from. It sounds farther away than it really is because of all the open space, but the man who shot the gun is standing in the field right across from the bar. Evan yells for us to watch out. He grabs Claire by the shoulders and pulls her to the ground with him. The two of them roll between the cars and take cover under the back bumper of a rusted-out LeMans.

“It's okay, guys,” Pete says. “He's not aiming at us.”

I can see the man perfectly. He looks like a hunter. He's wearing a plaid overcoat and a red cap. He's got the rifle balanced on his shoulder and fires a second shot at the turkey standing a couple of yards in front of him.

Evan and Claire stay huddled under the bumper. They must think they're still in some kind of danger. “It's just some guy killing his turkey,” I tell them. “It's nothing to worry about.”

“Look,” Pete points to the field near the group of abandoned trailers. “He's right over there.”

Pete and I both laugh when the two of them stand up. Evan has rolled them through the mud and their clothes are streaked with the damp dirt. Claire has it worse than Evan. Her coat must have been open and her sweater is muddy.

“You really think someone was out to get you?” Pete asks Evan. “You must really be a city boy.”

“Hey, the guy had a gun,” Evan says. He tries to brush the dirt off the front of his jacket, but his hands are covered in mud and he only streaks it worse.

They look so odd standing there all dirty and I can't stop laughing. Pete reaches in his pocket and hands Claire the crumpled bar napkin he must have picked up off the front seat. Instead of wiping the dirt from her face, she blows her nose. Evan tells me that he doesn't see what's so funny.

“You would if you could see the two of you,” I say.

Claire must have rolled through a puddle, because the ends of her hair are wet. She brushes them with her fingers so they won't tangle.

Evan spits out the dirt in his mouth. “I'm going to go wash up,” he says. “You want to go on ahead with me?”

Claire says yes and the two of them walk toward Hunter's. Pete and I watch them leave.

“I guess I shouldn't have laughed at him,” I say. I'm sorry that I've made Evan mad.

“It's no big deal,” Pete says. He is still trying to keep the afternoon light, full of fun. “He'll get over it.”

“You think so?” The clouds shift a bit and rain falls for a second as if the clouds are shaking the drops loose. It is not that cold out, but I'm chilled and would like to go inside where it will be dry. We go on walking.

A small group is watching the guy kill his turkey. We can hear them taunting him when we approach.

“You're supposed to kill the turkey at home, guy.” I recognize the men in the group. I don't know any of them by name, but I have seen them around town—at the grocery store, in the bars. We must look familiar to them too, because one of them waves. We stop and stare. The man clears the rifle and then goes over to his turkey.

The men head for Hunter's. We follow a few feet behind.

“I don't know why he does that,” we overhear them saying. “Every year he waits to kill his bird until he gets here.”

“That's 'cause he falls in love with it.”

“It's got to be something like that.” Their voices echo over the open fields. The guy with the turkey is right behind us. He can hear what they're saying about him.

“Is that what it is?” one of them shouts. “Are you in love with your bird?”

“Just forgot to kill her,” the guys says in his own defense. “I just forgot to do it until right now.”

This cracks everyone up, including Pete and me.

Hunter's is full. Most everyone is standing around the dance floor with their turkeys. There are plenty of empty tables on one side of the bar. I tell Pete I have to go to the bathroom. I've had to go since we left the last bar. He says he'll get us a table.

Claire is waiting for me when I walk out of the stall. She has washed the dirt off her face, but her sweater is stained with large brown-green circles. Her elbow is cut but clean and she has matching dirt circles on the knees of her pants. She is talking, but with the sound of the toilet flushing, I don't hear what she's saying.

“Listen,” she says and points her finger at me. “I want to talk to you about the way you treat Evan,” she says. Her makeup has faded, making her look younger. Her sentences are clear, her words not slurred, though it takes me several minutes to understand what it is that she wants. “You don't treat him very good. Not very good at all.”

“I don't?” I am surprised by her accusation, but do not deny it.

“Not at all,” she moves closer. I am trapped in the corner, where the smell of industrial cleaning solution is strong. “He's a real sweetheart. He is always saying nice things and you don't care about him.”

“I think you're being melodramatic, Claire.” I try to step away from her, but she puts her arms on either side of my shoulders, caging me in further. Guys have been buying her drinks all afternoon, and I imagine she's a bit out of it.

“You better start appreciating him a whole lot more than you do.”

“I appreciate him just fine.” I push away her arms to break free of her trap.

Our conversation is so strange, even for Claire, that I don't take her seriously until I go out to the table and find Pete sitting there alone.

I assume Evan is in the bathroom. The dance floor is packed with people and turkeys. The women hold them like babies, cradled in their arms, while the men hold them by their necks, their bodies dragging on the wood floor. The bar smells of the dead birds. It's a rotting smell, nothing at all like Thanksgiving.

“Evan left,” Pete tells me.

“He left?” I ask. I give the bar a quick search as if I don't believe him. “Why? Why'd he leave?”

“He said he was tired,” Pete tells me. “He wasn't in the mood for all this.”

“How's he going to get home?” I didn't think Pete would lend his truck to Evan. Not that they're not buddies, but Pete wouldn't leave us stranded out in Frenchtown. It's not like we could call a cab or hop on a bus.

“Randy Coyne didn't make it into the final competition,” Pete says. “He was eliminated in round two. Evan drove back with him.” I can tell Pete is uncomfortable having this conversation. He's someone involved in something he didn't want to be. Pete stays out of other people's business.

“Randy Coyne?” I ask, and though Pete nods, I ask again. “Evan drove back to town with Randy Coyne?” It's odd that Evan would leave like that, even for the kind of dark mood he was in. He has never done something like this and I find it odder still that he would choose to ride home with Randy Coyne, who is one of the most famous locals around. Everyone can tell stories about him, even those of us who don't participate in gossip and don't listen for it. We all know that he has been blamed for every accident in town, even the burning of the Meadville Press office when there were four witnesses who swear that he was out at camp deer hunting. They did convict him of one robbery. He robbed the town bakery on its last day of business, three hours before it closed for good. The owner said that Randy didn't even have a gun. He simply asked for the money—all twenty-eight dollars and fifteen cents. The guy handed it over to Randy because, he said, he didn't think there was any reason to fight. Randy spent a month or two in the Crawford County jail. Evan's not the kind of person to drive home with someone like that. This much I know about Evan.

“Did I do something wrong?” I know Pete can't answer these questions, but I want somebody to tell me what's going on. “I mean, was Evan upset about something?”

“I don't know,” Pete shrugs, then asks if I want to play a game of pool. The tables at Hunter's are usually crowded. They get serious players out there, but today, because of the contest, because there's more money at stake in turkeys, both tables are empty.

“Is Evan mad at me?”

Pete tells me he doesn't know.

“Would he tell you if he was?” I pick up a pool stick and rub rosin on the tip. It occurs to me that I sound an awful lot like Claire, and this bothers me, but I have to find out what's wrong.

“Who knows?” Pete shrugs.

“Does he talk to you about things like this?” I ask, insisting that I get an answer.

Pete breaks and the balls scatter to the sides of the table. The seven ball rolls into the corner pocket and he shoots again. I don't look to see if he makes the shot. I don't care if he cheats.

Claire walks up to us and someone follows right on her heels. I don't recognize him. I figure she's going to introduce him to Pete. It would seem fitting to end the day by letting her new boyfriend meet her old boyfriend.

“Evan's the only decent single man left in Meadville,” Claire says, and again I'm so surprised by what she's saying that I don't register her remark. For a minute, I forget that I am Evan's girlfriend, but then remember and tell her that he's not so single.

“He is as far as I'm concerned.” Claire moves in closer, and right then her teeth whistle. Pete smiles at the way she's trying to be so serious about everything and still sounding like a kid's toy.

“Why do you say that?” I ask. “What did Evan tell you?” I know she knows something I don't. I look to Pete to see if he is in on it, too, but he's concentrating on his shot, trying deliberately to stay out of our argument.

“He said he was planning on breaking it off with you,” she tells me loud and clear. This time there is no whistle. “He said there was nothing interesting about the two of you together.”

The guy behind Claire tells us that he's going to the bar. He wants to know if we want anything. “A beer, maybe some whiskey?” he offers.

“We're leaving,” Claire turns slightly as if just remembering him. “You promised to give me a ride back to town anytime I wanted it, and I'm calling it quits on this place right now.”

The guy seems unconcerned if they stay or go.

“I just wanted to let you know that I'm going to Evan's tonight,” Claire tells me. “I don't do things behind other people's backs. I'm not sneaky or underhanded. I told Evan I wanted to come over, and he said that was fine with him. He said he'd like that just fine.”

“He said that?” I ask and I put it all together and realize that Evan's leaving was his way of breaking it off with me.

Pete is quiet, not saying anything, not acting surprised, so I know that Evan must have told him that he wanted to let things cool between us.

“That's what he said,” Claire says. “I promise you. I'm not making any of it up. I'm not a cheat. He said those things and I have to go now.” She looks at her watch, and I wonder if she timed herself in finding a new boyfriend. Has she set a new record? Has she at least beaten her own best time?

Pete and I are quiet on the car ride home. The road turns sharply five or six times before we see the lights of town. The clouds have lifted some and the sky is almost clear, but not quite. There are no stars. From here, Meadville looks quaint, almost inviting.

“Did he just get bored?” I ask without mentioning Evan by name. “Is that what you think happened? Did he just get bored with me?”

“Maybe,” Pete says. “That kind of thing happens.” Then he speaks with the wisdom of someone who has lived three years in northwestern Pennsylvania. “That kind of thing happens all the time around here.”

We coast down the hill into town and Pete asks me if I'm hungry.

“Not really,” I say. I am upset, but I can't quite figure out what it is that bothers me. I don't think it's Evan specifically. I will miss him, but Claire's right. We were never that good a match. I'm mad about the way he's handled the whole thing and wonder if I'll ever mention it to him or if I'll just let things go their own way.

“It's not that late,” Pete tells me and I agree. Neither one of us teaches on Mondays, but we usually go into school to grade papers, to check our mail, to be around people.