Margaret from Maine (9781101602690)

by Monninger, Joseph

  Charlie set down the suitcases. Margaret slipped past him and closed the door.

  “Do you like it?” Charlie asked, turning to her.

  “It’s gorgeous! It’s perfect.”

  “Well, we’re lucky it’s a little early in the season or it would be booked. And it’s a Sunday night.”

  “It’s so good to be here with you, Charlie.”

  “No regrets? No second-guessing?”

  She smiled. She crossed to him and kissed his cheek.

  “None whatsoever,” she said.

  “I think if we open these windows we’ll hear the river,” Charlie said and slipped his arms around her. “The fellow at the desk said they have good fishing here.”

  “Are you much of a fisherman, Charlie?”

  “Fair. I had a friend growing up—Pete, he’s my best friend—who fished the bass ponds around our area and I did some of that with him. I learned to fly-fish about a year ago at a weekend clinic type of thing up in Boston. I can cast all right, but a lot of it escapes me. But I guess there’s no hurry. No fisherman like an old fisherman.”

  Charlie moved to the windows and cranked the right-hand one open. Immediately the sound of the river filled the room and the air became fresher. Margaret took a deep breath.

  “Is that the Shenandoah?” Margaret asked.

  “I think so. We’ll be able to sort it out better in the daylight. Would you like a fire?”

  “I’d love a fire.”

  “That’s something I can do fairly well. I haven’t told you I’m an Eagle Scout.”

  “Were you really?” Margaret asked and felt her heart melt a little.

  “I was. I am. You don’t think it’s terribly dorky?”

  “Not at all. You’re the all-American boy.”

  “A little bit,” he said and began working at the fireplace. “Corn-fed Iowa boy, West Point, the army . . . Maybe I ought to grow out my hair and get a Harley or something.”

  “Absolutely,” Margaret said and began emptying the shopping bags onto the bed.

  How natural it felt, Margaret realized, to have Charlie making a fire while she unpacked. It had been ages since she had spent time with a man other than Grandpa Ben and Gordon. She had forgotten what it was like to divide labor, to work in complementary ways, to feel the pleasure of teamwork. She stopped for a moment to watch Charlie making the fire. True to his word, he did it expertly: two fire dogs, a bit of paper, and then the fire started. He knelt beside it and waited, adding a few sticks. For a moment the flames appeared to move with his hands.

  “Not really fair to use fatwood,” he said, his eyes on the fire. “But they put it here, so we might as well make use of it.”

  “An Eagle Scout should rub two sticks together, shouldn’t he?”

  “You laugh, but I can do it. I have the badge to prove it.”

  She wanted a picture of him there, to stop time and lock it into her memory. The evening light fell softly into the room and she heard the river passing by, its course full-throated this early in spring. Dear Charlie. She observed the outline of his prosthetic; his trouser leg sagged around it. Firelight moved and caused his skin to change colors. She liked watching his patience with the fire. Some men seemed always in a rush, but Charlie moved with a measured confidence so that his presence reassured her.

  “I’m very lucky to be here with you,” she said softly, a pair of jeans half folded in her hands.

  He looked over and smiled. Yes, just like that, she thought. Remember him. Remember him like this.

  * * *

  As he walked down the hallway from their room to the grill, Charlie felt happy and buoyant. He liked this place, the Ruggles Inn. The room was exactly right and the atmosphere inside the inn was relaxed and comfortable. Charlie admitted to himself that he liked inns and hotels. Always had. Heck, he even liked motels. Maybe it was the transient nature of such places, but he felt a genuine spring in his step, a sense of well-being as his shoes moved over the thick weave of carpet in the hallway. It was the cocktail hour. His parents had always talked about a cocktail hour and he had thought such an idea old-fashioned and somewhat quaint, but here he was anticipating a good drink and a good meal in a pleasant inn. Why not? Cocktails separated the day from the night, his dad always said. And now the day had given way and it felt good to be inside and looking forward to Margaret’s company.

  He found the grill by a combination of following his nose and making logical deductions about its likely location. When he pushed through the large, padded doors, he spotted the bar and headed toward it. You couldn’t miss it. It was the good kind of bar, dark and hospitable, with heavy stools arranged beside it and a glistening rack of wineglasses above. The river ran outside in the ghost of the dying sunshine, its gray curl running quiet and muted in the faded twilight. A large, mullioned window cut the river into squares as it passed.

  “Evening,” the bartender said.

  The bartender was a short, broad man, dressed in a black wool vest and a clean blue shirt. He had a monk’s tonsure, a reddish rim of hair that reminded Charlie of a baseball diamond. His eyes had a merry cast; he seemed to find life humorous, which was probably a good trait in a bartender, Charlie decided.

  “Evening,” Charlie said and slid onto the bar stool closest to the window. “I’d like a beer, please . . . what do you have on tap?”

  The bartender—Hans, Charlie saw by his name tag—went through a list of beers and Charlie stopped him on Bass.

  “A pint of Bass then,” Hans said.

  “Please,” Charlie said and looked around the grill.

  Three couples sat at a table beside a large fieldstone fireplace. Otherwise, the place was empty.

  “Early in the season?” Charlie asked when Hans slid his Bass in front of him.

  “A little,” Hans said. “A couple warm days and people will come out of hibernation. It’s supposed to be great weather this week.”

  “Any blooms?” Charlie asked.

  “Some. Just starting in places,” Hans said. “The warm weather will make them pop.”

  Charlie sipped his beer. It tasted great. He reached for a bowl of Goldfish and realized he was hungry. He ate a few Goldfish and turned to watch the river running by. The group at the table behind him laughed at someone’s comment, and Hans cocked his hip against the bar and watched a baseball game with the volume off.

  Margaret came in when Charlie had finished half his beer. She wore her new jeans and a navy sweater but she had changed her hair somehow and Charlie admired it. She was understated; that was what he loved about her appearance. She was like a brown paper package—not a great analogy, and not a flattering one, Charlie decided, but one he could build on—that he valued for its lack of ostentation. Her beauty did not depend on clothes or on jewelry, and Charlie stood and put his arm on her chair back to guide her into the place next to him.

  “You’re beautiful,” he whispered and kissed her cheek.

  “Hardly glamorous attire,” she said, “jeans and a sweater.”

  “On you they work.”

  “Well, you’re easily impressed, but thank you. Isn’t this a pretty room?” she said and turned to see the fireplace and the window. “I like this inn.”

  “So do I,” Charlie said and smiled at Hans, who came over to take their order.

  “You’re having a beer?” she asked.

  “Guilty.”

  “I think I’d like a glass of wine or maybe a scotch. Would you think I’m a complete lush if I had a scotch?”

  “On the rocks?” Hans asked.

  “Yes, please. Dewar’s if you have it.”

  “We do,” Hans said and went to fix her drink.

  “My father of all people taught me to drink scotch,” she said. “It was his one small vice. He said it was like
visiting a thoughtful friend as long as you didn’t do it too often.”

  “Funny you should say that, because I was just thinking about the cocktail hour,” Charlie said. “My parents called it the cocktail hour, but I’m not sure people call it that anymore.”

  “Shame to lose an important tradition,” Margaret said and smiled.

  “I’m enjoying this place,” Charlie said. “The Ruggles Inn. It has a good feeling.”

  “It’s really lovely, Charlie. I’ve told you before, but you’re spoiling me. I’m a cowherd. A dairy woman.”

  “Is a shepherd only a shepherd if he herds sheep? Or can you be a shepherd if you drive cattle?”

  “Either way I’d have to be a shepherdess, wouldn’t I?”

  “I suppose so.”

  Hans brought Margaret’s scotch and set it before her.

  “Cheers,” Margaret said and lifted her glass.

  “Something witty, witty, witty,” Charlie said.

  Margaret raised her eyebrow, questioning.

  “Sorry,” Charlie said. “Cheers. That was my brother’s little joke. Whenever you were supposed to observe a social nicety, he would simply say the thing instead. Like, if he went up to new people, he might say, ‘Icebreaker, icebreaker, icebreaker.’ Always three times.”

  “I like it,” Margaret said.

  “His favorite was ‘Meaningful good-bye, meaningful good-bye, meaningful good-bye.’ People thought he was a little crazy.”

  “Obviously this was before the accident at the quarry?”

  Charlie nodded. He tapped her glass and took a drink. Margaret followed.

  “Sounds like a fun guy,” Margaret said. “We haven’t talked much about him. All I know is that he was injured.”

  “He was a good guy. It sounds a little strange, but he was the most balanced person I ever met. He should have been a tightrope walker. You give him just about anything to do that involved balance and he could do it before anyone else. It was a little uncanny. Skateboards, bikes, even just walking on the railing of a fence . . . he was wizard at it.”

  “You say wizard?”

  “I do,” Charlie said and then decided he wanted to change subjects. “Are you hungry?”

  “Getting there.”

  “We need to plan our day tomorrow.”

  “Let’s do that tomorrow. Right now I just want to enjoy being with you.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “I called home. Everything’s good there. Gordon was a little cross with his grandfather about something or other, but no emergencies. Blake came over and peeked in on them. You think you can’t step out of your life, but surprise, you can.”

  “Did Blake tell them we were having a wild, illicit getaway?”

  “Yes, absolutely.”

  “Good.”

  Margaret turned slightly and slid her leg against his. She gave him a look, a look he had begun to recognize as that look. He smiled and dangled his leg against hers.

  “How’s your scotch?” he whispered.

  “Whiskey, whiskey, whiskey,” she answered.

  He leaned across the short distance between them and kissed her lips.

  * * *

  In the eighth inning, the Red Sox rallied from behind to take the lead against the Orioles. Something in the satellite reception had gone fuzzy—a storm over the Midwest and sun flares nine million miles away had caused the transmission to turn slightly ghostly. It made no difference to Benjamin Kennedy, who slept in his La-Z-Boy in front of the television, his head tilted to one side, his feet, encased in saggy white socks, extended forward on the footrest. It was 9:32. In eight hours he would rise and slip back into his boots and walk out to the milking parlor and he would stand amid the pooling cattle, guiding them, hooking them to the suck machines, glancing out the door frame to check the weather. But for now he slept. He slept in the same room where his father had slept before him, and his father before him, and once again, another father before that. His own son, Thomas, would not sleep in this room again, because his son now slept in a white bed suspended on a turn-wheel that the nurses could move to prevent bedsores. At this passing thought, Benjamin drew in a sharp breath, a strangled snore, and it scared the cat, Wink, who had gone to sleep on the rug beside the old chimney. The cat turned and saw the channel changer slide off Benjamin’s lap, and for an instant the cat believed it was a mouse, or some other small creature, running down Benjamin’s leg. The cat’s pupils dilated sharply, and its body gathered, but then its vision clarified, and it tucked its chin against its white chest and returned to sleep, its ears cocked to the wall in case a mouse should enter there, deep in the lath work and horsehair that had clung to the wall since the moment the house had risen from the ground.

  Chapter Sixteen

  At dessert, well after the dining room had filled, Marco showed up. He wore a black tuxedo with a frilly white shirt, and for a moment Charlie mistook him for a sommelier arriving to make a late wine suggestion. He stood in front of the table, a little chubby and frazzled, and then he shucked his cuffs back and made a cigarette appear in his fingers.

  “Oh, perfect,” Margaret said, laughing and clapping.

  “I’m Marco,” the man said in what may have been a fake Italian accent.

  He made the cigarette disappear, then reappear in his other hand.

  “So you’re not a waiter?” Charlie asked, teasing him.

  “I am the world’s greatest magician,” Marco said, deadpan. “Isn’t it obvious?”

  He made the cigarette disappear again. Then he drew a deck of cards out of his breast pocket.

  “Can you shuffle?” he asked Margaret.

  She took the cards and scrambled them together. Charlie watched. He enjoyed seeing her delight. Nothing threw her; nothing disappointed her. Clearly, she had needed a little break from her routine, and Charlie felt pleased and honored that he had a part in it. Now as she handed the cards back to Marco, he watched her gaze up at the magician, her eyes filled with light, her expression asking to be dazzled.

  To be honest, Charlie hardly followed the trick. It was of the “pick a card, any card” variety, and though Marco carried it off with adequate aplomb, Charlie concentrated on watching the trick reflect in Margaret’s pleasure. She laughed at Marco’s jokes and took every request seriously. She did not try to hold back, or to trick Marco at his own game, but obliged him by taking his magic seriously. When Marco finally revealed her chosen cards, she bubbled up in a happy murmur, clapping and smiling. A glance at Marco let Charlie understand he seldom found a more appreciative audience.

  “Anything after Marco is going to be a disappointment,” Charlie said as Marco moved to the next table. “Talk about spoiling you.”

  “Wasn’t he fabulous?”

  “The greatest magician in the world, no less.”

  “I don’t think we can prove that he wasn’t, do you?”

  “He is in my book.”

  “I’d love to sneak out and get a breath of air,” Margaret said, her face still glowing with excitement. “Would you mind? It’s so cold in Maine and it feels so wonderful here. I can’t get enough of this spring air. Let me just run back to the room for my coat. I’ll meet you in the lobby. Is that okay?”

  Charlie held her chair back and she hurried off while he walked to the lobby. Someone had started a woodstove that was hooked into the backside of the grill chimney. The woodstove pushed a deep, soothing heat and Charlie stood with his back to it. He wondered again if they weren’t too early for the spring buds. It could fluctuate, he imagined, but the plants required a certain level of light without which they would remain curled in their casings, waiting. He imagined someone could identify a metaphor in the annual blooms, but he hadn’t the energy for the moment. He turned and faced the woodstove, then smiled when he saw Marco ap
pear out of the dining room, obviously warm from performing. A line of sweat had bisected his temple.

  “How did it go?” Charlie asked.

  “Same old, same old,” Marco said, stopping for a moment to stand by the stove. He appeared out of breath.

  “Margaret loved your work,” Charlie said. “It made her night.”

  “People either love magic or they don’t. You’d be surprised how sharply divided people can be. I show up at some tables, and I’m a guest of honor. At other tables . . . you can tell they want me to bug off.”

  “How long have you been doing it?”

  “Oh, years, really. Not here, but magic, most of my life. The management here thought it might liven the place up during the slow season.”

  “So what’s your guess as to why some people like magic and some don’t?”

  Marco shrugged.

  “You really want to know?” he asked and patted his forehead with a white handkerchief.

  “Sure.”

  “People who don’t like magic don’t think life has any more surprises for them,” he said. “They see everything as a con. Magic is simply theater and you have to let yourself go to enter it. So it’s a good trait in your girlfriend that she likes it. At least that’s what I think. That’s what I’ve observed, anyway.”

  “Sounds right to me.”

  “You down here for the rhododendron?”

  “That’s part of it.”

  “A little early, I’m afraid. But you never know. Magic, right?”

  Marco left and a moment later Margaret appeared. She handed Charlie a sweater and stood beside him while he slipped it over his head. When he had the sweater on, she reached across and straightened it a little at the back. It was such an intimate thing to do, such a wifely thing to do, that Charlie couldn’t help smiling.