Sharing Spaces

by Nadia Nichols

  “How the hell are you, George?” Jack said, dropping into a chair beside the bed and shaking George’s hand. For the first time in his life, George was looking his age. “You ready to come out to the lodge with me?”

  “They tell me I got to have some treatments,” he said, “but I wonder if I shouldn’t just go with you now, and to hell with modern medicine.”

  “I’ll take you out of here if that’s what you really want, George, but if you need more work, maybe you should stay.”

  “My daughter tells me the same thing, but she’s not lying here in this bed, y’see, and you aren’t either.” George sighed in defeat. “I told you about the steelworkers’ strike in Lab City, then?” Jack nodded. “Well, she’s shaping up bad. They say it’ll be a long one, and times’ll be tough. Even the women are on the picket line now, supporting their men, but soon they’ll have to support them in other ways. My daughter told me she’d come out there, to your lodge. She’d work hard, that one. She’d do anything. Her little ones are all growed but she still has bills to pay and a husband who’s out of work, so that’s something for you to think about, bye, if you’d still be needin’ help. And I’ve a grandson who’d help with the guidin’. He’s in Gander now but he c’n be here in two weeks after he gives his notice at the gas station. He’s missin’ the woods.”

  “Would you happen to have their phone numbers?” Jack said, seeing a bright light at the end of the tunnel. Any relative of George Pilgrim would be worth their weight in gold. “I’ll call them both right now. I just fired both my cook and my housekeeper. The cook couldn’t boil water and the housekeeper couldn’t do anything at all.”

  George laughed, then winced with the pain of it. “Eh, bye. I’ll give you both numbers. My daughter probably has friends, too, looking for work, but if the strike ends tomorrow, I don’t know where that’d leave you.”

  “No worse off than I am right now,” Jack said, as George scrawled the numbers on a piece of scrap paper and handed it to him.

  “I told her I’d be going out to the admiral’s lodge myself, so she’d have her old daddy to goad. Give her a call. And don’t forget about me.”

  Jack stood. “I won’t, George. I’ll be here an hour after you call for me, guaranteed. Here’s the phone number to the lodge, in case you misplaced it. Keep it right by your phone.”

  Jack shook George’s hand one last time and felt bad leaving him behind in the hospital, even if it was just for a few more days. He phoned George’s daughter from the pay phone in the hospital’s lobby and was relieved when she answered. Her name was Mary and she was glad to hear from him. George had told her all about the admiral’s remote fishing lodge, and she was very interested in the job.

  “I’ll be wanting to meet you,” she said. “I’m interested in the job. Me and a good friend, if you could use her help, too.”

  “When?” Jack said.

  “Negotiations between the mining company and the union have come to a halt,” Mary said. “If you have work for us, we’ll be needing it, and soon.”

  “Can you meet me at Tanya Lake at noon?”

  “We’ll be there with bells on,” Mary promised.

  Jack then called George’s grandson, who assured him that he could be there in less than a week and that George had taught him a lot about guiding. He left the hospital feeling hopeful that George’s daughter and grandson might bail him and Senna out of an almost impossible scenario. He climbed into the plane, and moments later had shaken free of the water and was heading for Labrador City, where members of the Steelworkers’ Union were on strike and their wives were desperate for work.

  NOON, AND JACK STILL hadn’t returned. Senna took a break from cleaning and baking and walked down to the guides’ cabin, Chilkat at her heels. Charlie was splitting wood and had made surprisingly good progress on the pile. He was happy to accept the sandwich she’d brought, and the cold lemonade. She gave the crackie a pat on the head and a piece of beef left over from supper the night before. “Charlie, did Jack tell you when he’d be back?”

  “He left early,” Charlie said around a mouthful of chicken sandwich, “but the note on the table said nine or ten o’clock, and to keep splitting wood until the job was done then wheel it up to the lodge and stack it on the porch.”

  Senna felt a coil of fear tighten in the pit of her stomach as she walked back to the lodge, determined not to let herself dwell on the worst-case scenario. No doubt there would be some reasonable explanation why Jack was late getting back, and it wouldn’t have anything to do with that old plane crashing. She continued baking an assortment of sweets, enough to last out the week, and in between mixing and baking she worked on the in-room booklet and kept thinking about that old plane going down somewhere between the lodge and Goose Bay. She kept imagining that Jack was hurt and needed help. She had a very bad habit of always imagining the worst.

  Twelve dozen cookies and three batches of brownies later, Senna shut down the big oven, moved out of the warm kitchen and into the registration area, and began inputting the lodge’s mission statement into the computer. Her fingers flew over the keyboard and her eyes never left the computer screen, but she was seeing the twisted wreckage of a plane and remembering her father’s funeral. At 5:00 p.m. she walked down to feed the sled dogs, and while she scooped out the food, Charlie watered. By the time she’d finished, Senna’s anxiety level had reached an all-time high.

  “Charlie, I’m a little worried that Jack’s so late. He was due back seven hours ago. Does this happen often?”

  Charlie shrugged. “Sometimes. Once, he was gone for two days. When he came back, the admiral hollered at him. Hanson told him he went to the big city to see the tall buildings and visit a friend.”

  “Terrific,” Senna muttered. “Then I guess we’ll just hope he shows up for opening day.”

  She returned to the lodge and was climbing the porch steps when she heard Jack’s plane approaching. Her heart leapt and she raced down the ramp, feet hitting the dock at about the same time the plane touched down. Moments later the old aircraft taxied around the river bend into sight and pulled up beside the dock. The engine cut out, the prop feathered to a stop, and the plane’s side door popped open. Jack jumped out onto the pontoon, looking as if it were just another sunny day. He flashed her a brief grin over his shoulder as he secured the plane to the dock.

  “I come bearing tidings of great joy,” he announced.

  “We were getting a little worried about you,” Senna said, struggling to keep her voice calm. After all, he didn’t owe her an accounting of his day. “You said you’d be back by ten.”

  “Sorry I’m late, but I have good news. Great news.”

  In spite of her resolve to remain cool-headed, Senna felt perilously on the verge of tears. “You’re seven hours overdue. I don’t suppose you have any idea what it’s like, waiting for someone who’s flying around up in the air in an ancient plane. I was beginning to think something bad might have happened.”

  “Well, I did have to make an unexpected landing on the way back home and it took me a few hours to get the old girl up and running again, but Senna, listen to this. I went to see George Pilgrim in the hospital. His surgery went pretty good, I guess, but he needs some treatments and can’t come out right away. It turns out he has a daughter in Lab City—” Jack stopped talking and his eyes narrowed. He reached out and grasped her shoulder. “Are you crying? What’s the matter? What’s wrong?”

  “What’s wrong?” Senna wiped her palms over her cheeks. “You’re standing there talking to me as if nothing had happened, even though you just told me you had to crash-land that old derelict. You’re such an idiot, John Hanson. Such a fool!”

  Jack looked bewildered. “I’m sorry I’m a little late, but I’m not used to having anyone worry about me. I would’ve called but there wasn’t a pay phone near the lake I landed in, and it wasn’t a crash landing. As a matter of fact, it was a pretty damn good landing, for a beautifully built vintage aircraft whose engine
unexpectedly quit.” He stepped onto the pontoon, reached inside the plane and drew forth a box filled with plants. “I brought you some purple petunias,” he said, holding them out as if they were a peace offering. “And some herb seedlings, for the kitchen garden.”

  Senna stared at the big box of plants and felt the hot prickle of tears again. She whirled and raced back up the ramp before she could make a fool of herself for the second time. She was churning with anger and frustration and relief. She knew Jack didn’t understand why she was behaving this way and she also knew that no amount of explanation would enlighten him. She wasn’t sure she could explain, because her reaction had taken her as much by surprise as it had him. She had to get a grip on her runaway emotions. Crying, for heaven’s sakes! She never cried! And of course he wouldn’t understand why she was crying because he didn’t know how she felt about him.

  She fled to the cook’s cabin she’d moved into that morning and collapsed on the bunk, taking advantage of the privacy to vent all those hours of pent-up anxiety. Gradually she got herself under control and was blotting her tears and blowing her nose when a shadow darkened the doorway. She glanced up to see Jack standing there, one hand braced on the doorjamb, the thumb of the other hand hooked in the rear pocket of his jeans. He slouched that way for a few moments before stepping inside. “Look, Senna, I didn’t mean to upset you,” he began tentatively, as if he were afraid she would start crying again.

  Senna rose to her feet, crossed to the wash basin, and splashed cool water on her hot face. She dried off with a towel, then turned to look at him. “I’m sorry I carried on that way. It won’t happen again. At least not today,” she added with a shaky laugh. “I don’t know what came over me. I guess I’m just tired.”

  “I saw all the baking you did and sampled some of it, too. Maybe we should have a cup of hot tea and sample some more.”

  “Or maybe I should lock the sweets up to keep you and Charlie from devouring everything before the guests arrive,” Senna said, leading the way back to the lodge where she put the teakettle on to heat and arranged a plate of cookies and brownies on the kitchen table. She sat down. “Go ahead and tell me the good news. I could use a little about now.”

  Jack picked up a cookie, leaned against the counter, and took up where he had left off. “George has a daughter in Lab City who’s married to a guy who works in the iron-ore mine. The miners all belong to the Steelworkers’ Union, and the union’s on strike.” He bit into the cookie with a smug look.

  “So George’s daughter’s husband is no longer working.”

  “Correct. And George’s daughter is looking for a job to help pay the bills. So I flew to Lab City to meet with them—”

  “What?” Senna interrupted, the dreaded emotions surging back. “That’s a long flight! You might have called the lodge and told me you were going, or are you going to tell me that all the phone lines were down in Goose Bay?”

  Jack turned off the burner under the boiling water and filled two mugs. He set the teakettle back on the stove and plopped a tea bag in each mug, placing one in front of Senna. He leaned against the counter again, picked up another cookie and continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “Mary, George’s daughter, met me at Tanya Lake with a friend of hers. We talked business. Those two gals know how to cook and clean, Senna. They both raised big families. They’re hard workers, good people. I told them how much work there was, how hard it would be, and how long the days were, and it didn’t phase either of them. I’m picking them up next Wednesday. They said they needed that much time to take care of loose ends. And we have another guide. George’s grandson can start in less than a week. So there you have it. Three more full-time workers that’ll do anything you tell them to do.”

  “Until the strike is over,” Senna pointed out.

  “The feeling is that this strike is going to last a long time and things are going to get pretty grim. Money’s already tight.”

  “How much did you promise them?”

  “They asked for nine dollars an hour, plus room and board.”

  “That’s equitable. There’ll be gratuities, too, on top of that.” Senna dunked her tea bag up and down in the mug, watching him. “The next time you decide to change your flight plan, Hanson, please call me first? That’s only fair, especially if I have to tell you when I’m going into the woods searching for wolves.”

  “Okay.”

  “What was wrong with the plane’s engine?”

  “Fuel filter was clogged.”

  “Does that happen often?”

  “Nope. Never happened before. Believe me, that plane is properly maintained.” Jack finished off the second cookie.

  Senna hesitated. “Jack, I think we should contact Thunder Air Service and have them fly our clients in.”

  Jack’s expression became carefully neutral. “There’s nothing wrong with the Cessna.”

  “Nothing wrong? You just had to make an emergency landing. Maybe you’re okay with that, but our clients might feel otherwise. Thunder Air uses brand-new Twin Otter float planes that can carry six passengers and all their gear, and their rates are competitive.”

  Jack said nothing for a few moments but she could tell from the set of his jaw that he was getting hot. “I take it you’ve already inquired.”

  Senna nodded, still dunking her tea bag and judging the negativity of his reaction. “Your plane can only carry four passengers. We have twelve people arriving tomorrow. Granted, they’re not all coming at the same time, but you’d spend the entire day ferrying them to the lodge then turning around and going back for the next group. That’s three heavily loaded trips in a very old aircraft.”

  “The Cessna can handle it, but go ahead and call the flying service, if that’s what you want to do,” he said, stalking out of the kitchen without touching his tea. His anger with her was so great that he didn’t come up to the lodge to see if she’d cooked anything for supper, and long after sunset she could hear him down by the guides’ cabin, splitting wood with a vengeance. Senna knew that she’d insulted his beautiful plane, but he had to face reality. They had a business to run, and there was no contingency in place for emergency landings in a plane old enough to be hanging from the ceiling of an air and space museum.

  She phoned Thunder Air Service and made the arrangements for three trips the following day, the first arriving at 2:00 p.m. and the last guests just before supper. She gave them her credit card number to cover the charges and added that to her little notebook, wincing at the rapidly climbing total.

  That detail taken care of, she kindled a fire in the woodstove that heated the hot tub and made sure that the stove was cranking before filling the firebox to the brim. Back in the kitchen she set up the sourdough starter and put it in a warm place to work overnight. She put the meat for the following day’s dinner into a marinade and then tucked it back into the refrigerator. Then she worked in the garden, a small plot she’d turned over just outside the back door. She planted the herb seedlings Jack had bought and potted the petunias in the two rustic planters Charlie had hewn for her from two sections of spruce log. The planters flanked the base of the main porch steps, and even though the seedlings were small, they’d soon fill the space with a mass of bright color. She gave everything a good drink of water, then washed up in the kitchen and made a stack of sandwiches and a pitcher of iced tea and carried them, along with two beer mugs, down the path toward the sound of an angry man at work.

  Jack had stripped down to his undershirt, and although the evening was chilly, he was sweating. He spotted her and split the piece he had just placed on the stump, then sank the ax into the stump and put his hands on his hips as she approached. He was studying her like a frowning scientist again, and she counterattacked with what she hoped was a calm and pleasant expression.

  “I thought you might be hungry,” she said, setting the plate on a wall bench outside the cabin door. “Has Charlie eaten?”

  “Eaten and gone to bed, which is where you should be. Tomorrow’s
a big day.”

  “I know, but I thought a 10:00 p.m. snack might be good after all the work you’ve been doing. Sit with me. Please, Jack, don’t be mad.”

  Jack picked his flannel shirt off a nearby tree branch and pulled it on, wiping his brow on the sleeve. “I’m not mad,” he said. “I’m too damn tired to be mad.” He sat down with a weary sigh and leaned against the cabin wall. “And you’re right. Probably not many guests would appreciate the plane breaking down en route to the lodge…not that she ever would. That clogged fuel filter was just a freak thing.” He took the cup of iced tea Senna handed him and drank it down without stopping. She refilled it and he emptied it again almost as quickly. His breathing slowed as he gradually relaxed. He drank the third mug more slowly, then picked up a sandwich, contemplating the river. “She’s a good reliable plane.”

  “Maybe you could use her for ferrying clients to those nearby lakes you told me about, the ones loaded with ten-pound brook trout and giant landlocked salmon, but I really think we should let the commercial airlines fly the guests and their gear to and from the lodge. It’s a liability thing, and I don’t know what kind of insurance we carry on that plane.”

  “Never thought about that,” he admitted. “She’s insured, but not as a commercial carrier. That’d probably be pretty expensive.”

  “Wicked expensive.”

  He looked at her, then gazed back down at the river and uttered a short laugh. “You think about all the details, wedding planner. Every last undesirable one.”

  “That’s my job. Now eat your sandwich, Hanson, because if you feel up to it, the hot tub should be just about ready.”