Whiteout

by Vicki Delany

  As she sipped her coffee, Joanna drew a mental picture of what the property could look like in the summer. She would dig a few flowerbeds for bunches of impatiens along the deck, perhaps some perennials around the sides of the cabin. With all the trees there wouldn’t be much sun, so she would put in some hosta and other plants that didn’t mind the shade. Pots of flowers, lots of big terra-cotta pots, overflowing with summer blooms in a riot of color to line the driveway, maybe some begonias and more impatiens. And smaller containers spilling across the porch railing, geraniums perhaps, in a lovely red. No lawn though, she smiled at the thought. No grass to cut. That would be true freedom. She would pull her lawn chair out of storage and set it out overlooking her new garden as soon as it was warm enough.

  The lake was located too far north, too far from Toronto, to have many true cottages. While driving in yesterday, Joanna had seen only a few cabins scattered along the shore of the lake, not many of them any fancier than hers. No one would be coming up here for weekends away from the city. Which suited Joanna perfectly.

  She hadn’t brought much in the way of groceries, there not being any room left in the little car after crowding in all of her possessions. So after a leisurely breakfast and still more unpacking and arranging of furniture, Joanna drove to the nearest town to shop. And to check out the locals.

  Hope River, as it was called, consisted of not much more than a slowing in the speed limit and a collection of small stores, small being the operative word.

  The signs were clear; the days of this town’s prosperity were long past, if indeed they had ever been at all. The main, and as far as she could see, the only street boasted a liquor store, a run-down old restaurant, a tiny grocery store, a hamburger stand with a hand-printed sign in the window informing one and all that they were “Closed for the Season,” an antique “shoppe,” a gas station long past its prime, and the ubiquitous T-shirt emporium. And that was it. Beyond the hamburger stand, the road curved and widened and disappeared back into the endless rocks and pine of Northern Ontario.

  Her first stop was the liquor store to stock up on red wine. Then she was off to the grocery store. She was impressed by the wide variety of goods available in the little shop: different types of pasta, vegetarian specialties, exotic teas. Even her favorite rice: basmati. She wandered through the store, filling up her shopping cart. It was a treat to be buying only for herself after all those years of trying to please a family. Wendy was a strict vegetarian, James grumbled if a “dead animal” didn’t grace his plate at every meal, and Alexis discussed in great detail the fat content of everything that approached her mouth. Trying to please them all was a nightmare, and she never seemed to end up preparing anything she actually liked. With a frisson of guilt she tossed a carton of whipping cream, a bottle of chocolate syrup and a freshly baked pecan pie into the cart. Prices of fresh produce were absolutely out of this world but she was surprised to find that most other goods, particularly anything canned and packaged, were comparable in price to the city.

  As she strolled up and down the aisles, Joanna could see that the woman behind the cash register was making no attempt to hide her interest. She was about her age; considerably overweight with a pasty tint to her skin testifying to a lifetime spent in front of the TV, ample supplies of chocolate bars and bags of chips for company. She was dressed in a smock of a highly unflattering pink. A shockingly bad blond dye job adorned her head. Two inches of black roots screamed for a touch-up. Catching sight of the clerk smiling at her as she headed for the counter, Joanna hastily stuffed the two large bags of chips in her cart back onto the shelves. She remembered that she was almost due for a visit to the hairdresser. God help me find someone any good around here, she thought.

  “Just passing through, are you?” the woman asked as Joanna unloaded her shopping cart and placed her purchases, one at a time, on the counter.

  Joanna hid a smile. The clerk must know full well that no one in their right mind would stop in this hole-in-the-wall town just to go grocery shopping. “No, I’ve rented a cabin nearby for the winter. I expect I will be coming in here regularly.”

  “Is that so, what cabin would that be now?” The woman stopped any pretence of working and turned to face Joanna, ready to launch a full-scale inquisition. She was clearly delighted at this sudden break in her routine. Joanna was somewhat taken aback; in her experience store clerks were for checking out your groceries and nothing else. Of course there were no other shoppers in this store, so no one was likely to complain about being kept waiting.

  The woman stood behind her cash register patiently, head cocked to one side, waiting for a reply. Joanna hesitated-she had no desire to advertise where she was staying, or to discuss her business with anyone, but the question was so direct, she simply did not know how to avoid answering. “Mr. McKellan’s place. On Concession Road Five. By Black Lake.”

  “Jack, come meet this here lady,” the clerk bellowed into the back.

  A work-worn, middle-aged man emerged from the stock room, wiping his hands on a butcher’s apron that stretched to the limit across his ample stomach. The apron was freshly laundered, but nothing could remove the residue of blood and grime that had accumulated over the years. He was almost completely bald with a few greasy hairs dripping down the sides of his head. Small black eyes stared over Joanna’s shoulder in a total lack of interest. He said nothing.

  “What did you say your name was, dear?” the clerk said.

  “Joanna Hastings.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Joanna Hastings.” The woman extended her hand.

  Joanna shook it with some trepidation, overwhelmed by this woman’s friendliness.

  “I’m Nancy Miller, and this here’s my Uncle Jack. My daddy and Jack own this store. Joanna’s rented the McKellan’s place,” she explained to her uncle.

  He grunted and returned to the stock room.

  “Don’t you mind Uncle Jack.” Nancy smiled at Joanna. “He just don’t like strangers too much.” Joanna’s sympathies were with Uncle Jack entirely.

  “Where you from then? Toronto, I guess, eh?”

  “Toronto, yes.”

  “You’ll be finding our little town pretty small, after Toronto. I lived in Toronto once. Nineteen-seventy, I think it was. No, nineteen sixty-nine, I remember we watched the moonwalk on TV. It was just so exciting, being in Toronto I mean, although the moonwalk was exciting too. Everything was exciting in Toronto. I had a small apartment with my cousin Mary. Mary was going to the university, the University of Toronto. My dad didn’t want to let me go. He thought I would just get into trouble. But my mom, she said I needed to get out of this town.” Nancy stared vaguely into space and smiled at her memories. “She told him that things had changed; girls needed some experience of the world these days, she said. What fun it was. I got a job in Eaton’s, working in the lingerie department. Such nice things they had.”

  The gentle smile disappeared and Nancy shook her head sadly. “But then my mom died, and I had to come home to help Dad and Uncle Jack in the store. Mary stayed at the university and got her degree. She lives in Vancouver now. She’s an accountant. Have you ever been to Vancouver, Joanna?”

  “What?” Joanna started guiltily. She hadn’t been paying much attention. “Vancouver… Oh yes, I’ve been to Vancouver. I have friends there.”

  “It must be nice to travel.”

  “Uh, I really must be on my way,” Joanna said. “Do you think perhaps we could finish here now?”

  Nancy sighed and returned to punching numbers into the cash register. Only half the groceries had been checked before she paused again.

  “Why would someone from Toronto want to live in the old McKellan cabin? It’s just a shack you know. You’ll find it isolated. Boring, I would think.” She smiled at Joanna, once again waiting for an answer.

  “I’m a writer. I’ve come up here to write.”

  “A writer.” Nancy’s eyes opened wide. “How exciting. What do you write? Do you write romances? I lov
e romances.”

  Joanna groaned inwardly. “Yes, that’s right,” she lied, “and I really do have to be going now. Can you finish with my groceries please?”

  Nancy continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “Do you write under another name? Maybe I’ve read something of yours. I’ve read all the best romances. What name do you use?”

  The door chime tinkled as more patrons entered the store. Saved by the bell. An elderly woman came to the end of the counter and waited patiently until Nancy finished helping Joanna while her teenaged companion moved languidly to the magazine rack.

  Joanna stared at the girl. She was short and slight and fairly pretty, but everything from her slovenly posture to her gigantic flannel shirt and ridiculous purple hair screamed “attitude.” The girl tossed her hair and selected a magazine. A silver nose ring caught the light. Joanna’s heart ached.

  “Maude, I’d like you to meet Joanna. Joanna’s taken the McKellan cabin for the winter. Though I don’t know why anyone would want that broken down place. Joanna, this is Maude Mitchell. Maude has been living here in Hope River longer than almost anyone else.”

  “How nice.” Joanna tore her eyes away from the teenager. “Can we please get on with this? I don’t have all day you know.” She jerked open her wallet without noticing that she was holding it upside down. Coins sprung from the little change purse and a flurry of pennies, nickels and dimes clattered across the counter and onto the floor.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Joanna scrambled to pick up the money while Nancy finished checking her out. At last it was over and Joanna handed across what she owed. She wondered if she was being a touch rude, maybe she stopped taking the Prozac a bit too soon.

  “Bye now,” Nancy said cheerfully, packing Joanna’s purchases into white plastic bags. “I’m sure we’ll be seeing you again. I’ll look forward to talking to you some more. Would you like me to call Uncle Jack to help you carry out your bags?”

  “Heavens no, I can manage.” Joanna took one more glance at the teenager who was flicking though a magazine with a vacant air, not registering a word she saw.

  “Well,” Mrs. Mitchell harrumphed indignantly as they watched the door swing shut. “Don’t think much of the likes of her. Pretty rude, if you ask me.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so. I liked her. She’s a writer you know, a writer of romance novels. She’s really famous and has come here to Hope River to be alone and work on her next novel. It’s going to be turned into a movie. Starring Tom Cruise. They might even film some of it here, she told me. Imagine Tom Cruise right here in Hope River.”

  “I’ll believe that when I see it,” Mrs. Mitchell said, “but for now I believe I’ll have a pack of Du Maurier, please.”

  Chapter 2

  The brief non-encounter with the teenaged girl in the grocery store left Joanna tense and short of breath. She drove back to the cabin, much too fast, forcing her breathing to slow itself, forcing herself to calm down. By the time the car crunched to a stop on the gravel drive she had managed to regain some semblance of composure. “This is absolutely crazy,” she shouted to the interior of the car. “I can’t be running off half-cocked like that.”

  She remained sitting in the car, giving her heart time to stop pounding and her breath to return to normal. The driveway ended at the top of the hill and the view was quite wonderful. In the summer the lake would no doubt be obscured by dense green foliage, but at this time of year most of the trees had only a smattering of red and yellow leaves still clinging to their branches.

  It was a large lake, spotted with small islands. As far as her eyes could see there was no sign of habitation; nothing but thick stands of trees stretching off into the distance. A small motorboat sped through the channel between two of the islands and was lost from view. Long after it disappeared the roar of the motor vibrated in the still air.

  She breathed deeply and let the peace of her surroundings work its magic on her jangled nerves. The air was heavy with the scent of rotting leaves and the timeless decay of the forest floor. An aroma rich with the promise of the renewal of spring sure to come.

  A flash of movement beneath the largest of the white pines and Joanna turned her head in time to catch sight of a bushy red tail disappearing back into the cover of the woods. A fox: the first of her neighbors to come and pay a call. The heaviness of scant moments ago was forgotten. She smiled.

  A line of churning black clouds was advancing in a steady line across the lake, moving in from the horizon. Joanna roused herself to carry her bags into the cabin as the first thick raindrops fell.

  It poured all afternoon, a real storm with lashes of rain and heavy winds, rolling thunder and quick flashes of distant lightning. But far from dampening Joanna’s spirits she found the chaos of the storm strangely comforting.

  As nature railed outside her window she prepared her workspace. With enormous care, the computer was set on the wooden table that would be used as a desk, and the bookshelf arranged with precision. It took a great deal of resolve, but she managed to resist the urge to scatter her possessions every which way. A large part of Joanna’s determination for her new life was to be neat and organized, something she had never quite accomplished in the past. She hooked up the modem to the single phone line and tested it with a call to her internet provider. Success on the first attempt. She was congratulating herself on a perfect set up when she realized that the printer cable was nowhere to be found. A search was initiated through all the now-empty boxes and under the desk. No cable.

  Damn, where is that blasted thing? She shrugged on her raincoat and prepared for a dash into the elements. The rain was coming down heavier than ever and a gust of wind tossed a bucket of water straight into her face the moment she pushed open the cabin door. Despite the raincoat, by the time she got to the car she was soaked right through to the essentials. Drops of icy cold water dripped down the back of her neck.

  The trunk and back seat were empty. She crawled into the car and felt all around on the floor. Nothing left behind. Abandoning the search, she ran down the hill back to the cabin. In her headlong rush to escape the strength of the lashing rain, Joanna failed to watch her footing. Her moccasins slipped on a patch of wet gravel, pitching her forward face-first into the mud. A sharp stabbing pain jolted up her arm into the shoulder as her left wrist took the full force of the fall.

  “Hell and damnation,” Joanna shouted into the wind. She struggled to her feet, slipping and sliding on mud and gravel. She fell once again as she hit a loose step on the rain-slicked wooden porch, tumbling backward to a crashing halt flat on her bottom at the base of the steps. She sat in a puddle in the freezing rain in her useless raincoat, the pain from her wrist shooting up her arm…and laughed. The release of the tension carried around like a ball and chain since the grocery store was almost too much to bear. She laughed and laughed. When the laughter eventually stopped Joanna struggled one-armed out of the mud to her feet and, with greater care this time, climbed the steps. Once inside she pulled hard to close the door in the face of the storm that was still struggling to get into the little cabin. She leaned against the doorframe and watched the floor as a wet and dirty puddle spread outward from her feet.

  She started up the stove and peeled off rain-and mud-sodden clothes. As she rubbed her hair one-handed with a towel, Joanna smiled at herself in the bathroom mirror. Don’t I look a treat? But I wanted solitude amidst the forces of nature. And that is certainly what I have.

  Once she was dry and a fire was burning merrily in the stove, Joanna opened a can of chicken noodle soup. Soup heated, a lettuce and tomato sandwich constructed, it was time to get to work.

  She started up her word processing program and began to type, using her left hand gingerly. She could manage without the printer for a few days but would have to get a new cable soon. It was just too difficult to proofread properly off the screen; she needed to print out her work to check for spelling mistakes and typos.

  Joanna had worked as a programmer, then a
systems analyst and eventually project manager at a major computer company for more than 20 years. Unexpectedly, last month she came across an ad in a trade newspaper, looking for people to write technical documentation.

  And she jumped at it.

  Over the objections of most of her friends and family she quit her job, cashed in her company pension money and her retirement savings and rented out her house for one year.

  The week before the move her closest friend invited her out for dinner. Joanna and Elaine had been best friends ever since they suffered through grade nine together. They had both been “nerds” with thick glasses and even thicker braces and A+‘s on every test. High school was a torment. Only their friendship and their shared “geekdom” saw the two girls through the five long years until graduation.

  Elaine had sipped her vodka martini carefully and looked Joanna in the eye. “After all you’ve been through, why would you give up now?”

  “I’m not giving up,” Joanna said quietly. “I’m going to do something new. Try something completely different.”

  “But you’re a city girl, like me. You’ll be lost up there in the back of beyond. It will be nice in the fall, hills covered in masses of colored leaves and rustic bonfires and all that sort of thing. Maybe you’ll even meet a strapping young farmer on his way to milk the purebred Jersey cows-are cows purebred? But you’ll hate it in the middle of winter, trust me, Joanna. It will be a frozen hell on earth. Imagine, no theater, no book readings, no wine bars.” She shuddered at the thought. “What on earth will you do with yourself then?”

  “I’ll reconsider my options and do something else. But I don’t expect to hate it. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be just fine.” Joanna took a tentative sip of wine and picked a sliver of tomato off the brushetta on her plate, knowing that she was attempting to convince herself of the rightness of her decision as much as her friend. “I think that I can do without the book readings for a while. This isn’t something right out of nowhere, you know. This is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, a very long time. All those years when things were so difficult, I kept everything together because it was always in the back of my mind that some day I could give it all up.”