Wolf Point Page 9

  “I hear you,” T said. He added, “I don’t know what’s with me.” He wanted to apologize, but only because he didn’t want Jenny to feel responsible. He wanted to explain that he didn’t think it was about her, whatever it was, but before he could figure out what to say, the cabin door opened and Lester’s voice came booming happily down the hall. “Hey,” he yelled. “You guys up yet?”

  “Don’t come back here,” Jenny shouted. She wrapped her arms tightly around T when he tried to slide away from her. She held him to her and yelled, “We need some privacy, Les.”

  Lester ignored her and appeared in the doorway just as T pulled up the covers. In a matter of seconds Lester’s expression changed from happy to worried to furious to calm. He said to T, “I see you’re not having sex with Jenny again.” To Jenny, he said, “I’ll whip up bacon and eggs. Your favorite,” and then he disappeared down the hall. From the kitchen, he yelled, “I got presents for everybody. Come on out and have breakfast.”

  “Damn,” Jenny said. She stroked the side of T’s face, running her fingers against the grain of his stubble. “I wanted to just hold you for a while.”

  T kissed her on the forehead. From the kitchen he heard the sounds of pots and pans clanging, and then the sizzle of fat in a frying pan. “Was the gas range working last night?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” Jenny answered absently. She combed the hair of his chest with her fingertips.

  “He must have turned on the propane,” T said, remembering a tank at the back of the cabin. “He’s resourceful; you’ve got to give him that.”

  “Lester can be charming,” she said. “But don’t trust him, okay? He’s a liar, and he’s— He’s just—”

  “I’m not likely to trust someone,” T said, “who steals my money and then comes back to announce he bought me a present.”

  “Actually—” she said. “Actually, that’s perfect Les. It’s so typical, I didn’t even notice.”

  “What do you think he’ll say when I ask him why he took my wallet?”

  “I know exactly,” she said. “He’ll give you this look like, Is there something wrong? And if you say there is, then he’ll get all hurt, like he can’t believe you have a problem with him taking your wallet and spending your money. He’ll turn it around like you’re the cheap, ungrateful bastard and he’s the poor, mistreated victim. Watch.”

  T sat up and gathered the strength to push himself out of bed. “I guess I’ll go help him with breakfast,” he said. “Then, I suppose, we should probably talk about what we’re going to do, you think?”

  “I don’t know,” Jenny said. She grabbed his arm as he started to slide away from her, and she pulled him back to kiss his shoulder. “I want more close time,” she said. “You owe me, okay?”

  Lester shouted from the kitchen, “Bacon’s ready. Eggs’ll only take a minute. You guys coming or what?” Along with his words came the aroma of coffee, and then the familiar, if long unheard, rhythm of coffee percolating in a pot.

  T laughed. “I think he bought a coffee pot,” he said. “I don’t recall seeing one.”

  Jenny said, “We’ll be lucky if he left us any cash.”

  As a way of covering his surprise at Jenny’s use of us, T stretched and yawned. “I’d offer you a pair of my pants,” he said, crossing the room toward his suitcase, “but you’d swim in them.” In the suitcase, he found a pair of khakis and a black knit shirt. He sat on the edge of the bed to put them on. “I’m going to need a shower at some point.”

  Jenny sat up and pulled the sheets to her chest. “I’m not putting on those leather pants again,” she said. “I’ll walk around naked.”

  T found his pajama bottoms under the sheets. “You can have these if you want.” He tossed them to her.

  She held the pajamas to her cheek. “If it weren’t for Lester,” she said, “I’d prefer walking around naked.”

  “I’d prefer it too,” he said. “In fact, I’d like to photograph you naked.”

  Jenny’s expression changed with that, and not in the playful, seductive way he had expected. Instead, she looked suddenly worried. “What’s up with the photography equipment?” she asked. Before he could answer, she added, as if a second problem had come quickly to mind, “I don’t know anything about you yet. I’ve told you a whole lot about me, but you’ve—” She stopped and waited, as if hoping for him to tell her more.

  “I’m an amateur photographer,” he said. “With artsy ambitions.”

  “What’s that?” she asked. “Artsy?”

  “As in, to make art.”

  She watched him a moment in silence and then asked, “Do you have a girlfriend? Someone else? I know you said you’re divorced, but—”

  “No girlfriend.”

  “Hey!” Lester yelled. “You guys want your eggs or what? I got coffee brewing.”

  “It smells good,” Jenny yelled back to him. When T started for the kitchen, she said, “Throw me your pajama top, sweetie, will you?”

  T found the pajama top on the floor beside the bed and tossed it to her before he went out to the kitchen, where Lester was in front of the stove, turning the bacon. He wore the same heavy black boots, faded jeans, and dark T-shirt from the day before, but now his hair was pulled back into a ponytail and he was draped in a red apron with white frills that tied behind his neck and around his back. Scores of cows were sewn onto the red backdrop of the apron in various random positions so that it looked like they were floating around in red space.

  Lester posed, extending one arm, greasy spatula in hand, to model the apron. “Cool?” he said. “I saw it in the window and couldn’t resist it.” He went back to attending the bacon.

  “Lester…” T went around behind him and began pulling out drawers, looking for silverware. “You took my car and my wallet,” he said. “And I’m assuming it’s my money you spent.”

  “Jeez,” Lester said, spinning around at the stove and crossing his arms in front of him. “A little gratefulness? A thank-you? I drove all the way into Alexandria Bay, bought food and necessary supplies, and here I am slaving in front of the stove to make you both breakfast.” Before T could say anything, he added, “Are you having a good time with Jenny? Are you enjoying yourself, Tom?”

  “What kind of time I’m having with Jenny’s got nothing to do with you taking my car and my wallet—which, if you don’t mind, I’d like back.”

  Lester pointed to a brown paper bag on the counter. “Why don’t you get the eggs?” he said. He gestured toward T’s shirt. “That’s expensive, isn’t it?”

  “Probably,” T said. “My ex bought it for me.” He looked into the bag and saw two cartons of brown eggs. His wallet lay on top of the cartons. He inspected it and saw the cash was all there minus one fifty-dollar bill.

  “You have one of those relationships where your wife buys all your clothes?”

  “Had,” T said. “What about the car keys?”

  “Left them in the ignition.” He pointed to a second brown bag next to the first one. “Want to grab the paper towels for me?”

  T pulled out a roll of towels and brought them to the stove. He watched as Lester dropped strips of bacon onto the paper to soak up grease.

  “Jenny must really like you,” Lester said. “I’ve never known her to do it twice, night and morning, like that.” He looked up from the bacon. “She must be hurting like hell. I’m surprised she can walk.”

  T went about gathering what he needed to make eggs.

  “Does that matter to you?” Lester pressed. He watched T take a second frying pan from a cupboard. “I mean, would you care if it was, like, killing her? Or is she just, nothing, doesn’t matter?”

  T adjusted the flame under the frying pan and watched as a slab of butter began to melt. “You and Jenny are friends, right?” he said. “You knew her growing up? You rented a room from her while you took acting classes at UTC?”

  “She told you about me?” He seemed pleased. “What else did she say?”

&nb
sp; “She said you were friends. She said you… hooked up for a little while when she was renting you a room in her house. She said she worked for you as a stripper in Atlanta, that you were her manager.”

  Lester seemed surprised. “She told you all that?” He nodded, apparently absorbed for a moment in his own thoughts. “Did she say anything about why she worked for me?” he asked. “Did she say anything about why she needed the money?”

  “What do you mean?” T cracked an egg and dropped it into the melted butter. “What do you mean, why she needed the money?”

  “Nothing,” Lester said. He yelled down the hall, “Jenny! The eggs are cooking!” He took three plates from the counter and put them on the table.

  “Are you talking about her mother’s trial?” T said. “Do you mean that she needed the money to pay for her mother’s defense?”

  Outside, the sun came out again and the kitchen flooded with light. T turned around to find Lester staring at him, slightly red in the face. Behind him, he heard a back-room door open, and Jenny appeared in the kitchen wearing his striped pajamas with the cuffs and sleeves rolled up.

  “Hey,” Lester said, “look at you. You look like an inmate in one of those old movies.”

  “Thank you,” Jenny said. “God, it smells good in here.” She wrapped her arms around T’s waist and kissed him on the shoulder. “Oooh,” she said, checking out the eggs. “You can cook too.”

  “How are you feeling?” Lester asked.

  “I’m feeling fine, Lester.” She leaned against T’s back, her arms still wrapped around him. “By the way,” she said, “What part of Don’t come back here did you not understand?”

  “Don’t get bitchy,” he said. “I bought you a present.” He went out into the living room as T peeled Jenny’s hands away from his waist and set about ladling eggs and bacon onto plates.

  Jenny leaned against the stove and looked around the room. “You guys forgot the toast,” she said.

  “I saw bread in that bag,” T said, pointing. He pulled a toaster out from under the kitchen counter and then held the plug in his hand, remembering there was no electricity. “Then again,” he said, “doesn’t have to be toasted.”

  Lester came back into the kitchen with a big smile, holding a sundress out in front of him. It was a wraparound with bright red flowers against a white background.

  Jenny checked it out for a second and said, “Couldn’t you find one with cows?”

  Lester looked down at the floating cows on his apron and then back at Jenny. “You’re not going to say thank you?”

  Jenny found two cups on the counter and poured coffee for herself and T. “Thank you for the dress,” she said to T. “You want milk?”

  “We have any?” T asked. He took a seat at the table.

  She turned back to Lester, who was holding the sundress folded over his arm and looking back at her darkly. “Did you get milk?” she asked.

  “Yes, I did,” Lester said. “It’s in the bag.”

  Jenny went about pouring milk into T’s coffee and then sat down to eat while Lester watched. He placed the sundress carefully on the back of his chair at the kitchen table. “Can we talk a second?” he asked Jenny. “Privately.”

  “T just made me these delicious eggs.” She separated a piece of the white with the edge of her fork and held it up for Lester to admire.

  Lester yanked her chair back from the table.

  T started to get up, but Jenny quickly put a hand on his shoulder, pushing him down.

  “What?” Lester said to T.

  Jenny took Lester by the arm. “All right. Asshole,” she said. To T she said, “Excuse us for a minute.”

  “Let’s go outside,” Lester said, looking to the front door. “Sun’s out.”

  T watched them disappear around the front of the cabin. For a minute he considered hurrying to the bedrooms in the hope of overhearing their conversation through one of the windows, but he decided instead to go at the eggs and bacon, which were delicious. He was sopping up egg yolk with a slice of bread when he saw their shadows on the rocks through the kitchen window; then, when he stood by the counter—plate of eggs in one hand, coffee cup in the other—he saw them standing by the rocks side by side, looking down at the river and talking. He finished off his breakfast while watching them. Jenny with her long blond hair tousled by the breeze, wearing men’s pajamas that wimpled and snapped in the wind, looked like she might have just stepped off the screen in one of those’50s romantic comedies, a Doris Day character, simultaneously cute and beautiful, her sexuality obvious but unthreatening—which was a striking difference from how she looked when he first saw her. He wondered about the transformation, how much of it was the clothes and how much was in his head. Lester, holding the crumpled-up cow apron in one hand, the other hand in his pocket, looked like a hometown rebel with his long hair and black boots. Sling that red guitar over his shoulder and he’d be perfect for a country western music video. Side by side, gazing out over the water, they might have been a pair of honeymooners. T watched them intently, waiting for some gesture or action that might be revealing—but they only stared out at the water a moment longer before they turned around and started back for the cabin.

  They looked sad, both of them, as they walked slowly over the rocky ground, their eyes cast downward, Lester trailing a little behind Jenny. When they were close to the cabin, only a moment before they moved out of T’s line of sight, Lester reached out for Jenny’s hand and pulled her back to him. Jenny looked toward the cabin, as if to be sure she wasn’t being watched, and then gave Lester a warm hug and fixed his hair where the wind had mussed it. He kissed her on the forehead, and they continued, hand in hand, until they disappeared from view. T sat down again at the table and sipped his coffee, and in another moment they were at the front door.

  “We made up,” Jenny said, sitting down to her eggs and attacking them hungrily.

  Lester winked at T. “I was jealous,” he said. He took a bite of egg and made a face. “They’re cold.”

  “Still good,” Jenny said, breaking a yolk with a slice of bread. “I think I was starving.”

  “What did you make up about?” T asked.

  Jenny said, “I admitted I was being bitchy.”

  “And I should have asked you before I took the car and the money,” Lester said. “Sorry about that.”

  “I told him you were worried,” Jenny said. “I told him you thought he’d taken off.”

  “I wouldn’t do that,” he said. “Jenny knew I wouldn’t do anything like that.”

  “Okay,” T said. “I have my wallet back. The car’s parked out front. I don’t see any real harm done.”

  “There you go,” Lester said. He took another bite of egg and then pushed the plate away.

  “But we should talk about where we’re going from here, don’t you think?”

  “Absolutely.” Lester slapped the table enthusiastically. “And we should do it while we’re fishing.”

  Jenny laughed. “He bought fishing gear and rented an outboard motor.”

  “You rented an outboard?”

  With a grin, Lester said, “Guy at the marina owns cabin number 3. That’s his boat down by the rocks.”

  “So you rented the outboard and the boat,” T said, “and you bought fishing gear? What did you buy?”

  “Couple of poles, line, bait—it’s all in the boat. We’re ready to go.”

  “And how much did this all cost?” T asked. “Because I only noticed a fifty missing, and you can’t rent a boat and an outboard, outfit two people to go fishing, and buy groceries, an apron, and a sundress, all for fifty dollars. I don’t care how depressed this area is.”

  “Well,” Lester said, “I kind of used your credit cards a bit too.”

  T looked down at the table a moment, then back up at Lester. They both laughed.

  “You said you were rich,” Lester said. “I figured, what’s a few hundred to a rich guy?”

  “I assume both cards are bac
k in my wallet?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Okay,” T said. “So. We’re going fishing. Is there a plan beyond that?”

  “Let’s talk about it,” Lester said, pushing his chair back from the table.

  “And you?” T said to Jenny.

  “I want to lie down a bit,” she said. “I thought I might warm some water in the fireplace and take a bath too. I saw a couple of big metal buckets by the propane tank.”

  “Nothing you won’t do to get a hot bath,” Lester said.

  T asked, “You want some help getting the fire going again?”

  “I can handle it,” she said, getting up from the table. “You boys have you some fun fishing,” she said, putting on her Southern accent. “Hear?” She smiled, looking suddenly tired, and turned and walked slowly out of the kitchen with T and Lester both staring after her.

  Tstretched out on the bed while Lester went down to the boat ahead of him—he had told Lester that he’d join him in a moment—and he found himself wondering what Alicia would say if she could somehow see him here, if somehow she could walk like a ghost around the cabin and see Jenny in the bathroom and him in the bed taking a moment for himself before going fishing with Lester. No doubt she would be perplexed. She would have a hard time figuring out T taking up with Jenny and hanging out with Lester. In those last years before the divorce, she had come to see T as a simple bore. The marriage was already dead those last few years, though T hadn’t known it. He thought it was only changed and quieted after the children had grown and gone off to start their own lives. Free from the responsibility of children and still relatively young, Alicia had gone back to work in the city, acting when she could, volunteering where needed, keeping busy, spending most nights in Manhattan. While T did what? He could hardly remember. He called people on the phone. He set up appointments. He visited sites, hired workers, negotiated contracts. He watched football. That he remembered. He watched a lot of football. Dinner and a movie or a play was a big night out. The guy who might spend a day wandering through a museum, that guy was long gone. Sundays he spent mostly on the couch watching games. Weekdays he was busy. Really, he was always busy. When he thought back to himself in those years, he saw a man on the phone, a man in traffic, a man going somewhere or coming back, while his wife was somewhere else, doing something else, which was fine with him because it meant she was entertained and thus he didn’t have to worry about keeping her happy, which he was too busy to worry about, busy doing a lot of things that would all come, only a few years later, to nothing.