“It might look like fairyland at the moment but believe me when the snow comes and you can’t get out your door; then the rain turns it all to slush and the roads are covered in black ice, you’d wish you were some place warm like Florida. No, I take that back, definitely not Florida. The Bahamas… perhaps; Texas… maybe; … or California.”
“Still nice to dream,” Danny said as he eased the SUV back on the road. As they rounded a bend Danny noticed a turnout with a view of a river and pulled off the road.
He told hold of Nicola’s hand as they walked to the safety rail and looked at the silvery water. On the opposite bank they could see the rich treasury of autumn leaves reflected in the surface of the lake.
Danny slipped his arm around Nicola and pulled her close. She shivered and leaned into his shoulder.
“Cold?” he asked hugging her tighter.
“Just a little. It’s so beautiful here isn’t it?” Nicola said. A cool breeze off the water ruffled her hair and made her eyes smart.
“Do you want me to get your sweate?”
“No, I’ll be all right.”
They stood locked in each other’s arms and took in the scene laid out before them–in glorious Technicolor.
“It’s so quiet there doesn’t seem to be another soul within miles,” Danny said after a while.
“There probably isn’t.”
Nicola wandered down to where an old aluminum runabout lay half submerged in a nest of debris of weathered driftwood, rotting vegetation and discarded plastic. The upturned hull that rested against a rock displayed a large jagged gash some two feet long shaped like a jagged lightning bolt. Just below the surface of the water, moss-covered rocks shimmered in the sunlight. Nicola pondered the fate of the crew on the boat’s last voyage.
Danny stretched his arms above his head and massaged his scalp with his hands while his eyes scanned the woods on the other side of the lake. The air was fresh and the light breeze sent ripples across the surface of water. Not a sound could be heard except for the chatter of birds and rustle of wind through the trees as it sent leaves dancing through the air.
As the SUV pulled back onto the road a car drove into the turn-out and parked where the SUV had stood moments earlier. Danny glanced in the mirror and noticed a tall man wearing a baseball cap set out of the vehicle and walk over to the fence. As the man leaned with his back against the rail, Danny thought he had the same emblem on his cap as the one that sat on the back seat of the SUV atop his own luggage–but, from that distance he could have been mistaken.
As the SUV rounded a bend, the image of the stranger disappeared from sight.
* * *
Nicola hummed in time with an old INXS song playing on the radio as she watched the landscape slide past the window. With summer vacation over, ski resorts and campgrounds would be waiting in anticipation for the first snow falls that would herald the return of ski crowds breathing life back into the small towns and villages that were almost deserted, except for a few hardy locals.
“Do you like INXS?” Danny asked.
“I like some of their music. They’re a talented band. It’s a shame what happened to Michael Hutchence.”
Danny shrugged. “Rock singers have a habit of wiping themselves off the board early. It comes with the territory.” He buzzed down the window and breathed in the resinous smell of pine trees and damp humus from overnight rain, and wood smoke from fires. “I love that smell. The nights must be starting to get cooler; you can feel the drop in the temperature already.”
“This far north winter comes early. Many of the trees have already dropped their leaves,” Nicola said.
They passed a faded sign by the road that boasted, Best food in town. Underneath, an arrow with the words, 2mls, indicated the location. The sign was old and Danny wasn’t sure if the food would still be good–or if the restaurant would even be there.
He glanced over at Nicola softly humming to herself and asked if she wanted something to eat. She gave him a nod in time with the music.
“There was a sign back there but it looked pretty old so I’m not sure what we’ll find, if anything. We might have to go on to the next town,” he said.
Some two miles down the road, Danny turned into a pot-holed car park overgrown with weeds, and pulled up to the front of an old wooden building where the shingles on the roof had turned gray over time, and a curling wisp of blue-gray smoke rose from the chimney. Riverview Restaurant the sign above the door boasted amid layers of peeling paint–with no sign of river.
Danny parked well back from the only other car in the lot–a tired looking gold Chrysler whose faded, scarred duco was covered in mud streaks. The rear bumper was hanging by a couple of loose screws duct taped to the body; the back passenger-side door was staved in–the car was parked at an odd angle.
When Nicola climbed out of the SUV, the scent of wood-smoke and rotting humus tickled her nostrils. The air was laced with the smell of distant rain.
Danny held open the door and followed her inside.
The restaurant appeared to be empty except for a couple sitting in a booth not far from the door. Danny assumed these were the owners of the oddly parked Chevy.
The man had a full head of thick, wavy, gray hair, a neatly trimmed beard and thick rubbery lips. His spoon, dripping soup, stopped midway to his mouth as he regarded the young couple with curious, washed-out pale eyes. His companion, her back to the door, stopped talking and turned to scrutinize them with inquisitive, unblinking eyes, her face thin and leathery–her hair was dyed a strange shade of red–like the color of plums. Danny estimated the woman’s age to be mid-fifties but she could easily have passed for seventy.
The two men took the measure of each other and nodded a greeting. Once the pleasantries were dispensed with, the gray-headed man bought the spoon to his lips and resumed his lunch. The woman turned back and took up the thread of their disrupted conversation.
On a shelf behind the counter, amid an assortment of china and containers that held all manner of things, sat an old fashioned radio where the tinny voice of an announcer was reeling off crop prices and weather reports for the benefit of local farmers.
“Sit anywhere you like. I’ll be with you shortly,” the waitress said as she popped her head through the doorway that led to the kitchen, disappeared, and reappeared a moment later.
“Coffee?” she called as an afterthought.
Danny smiled and nodded. “Thanks.”
The waitress appeared a short time later with a balancing act of plates and condiments and shuffled them in front of the other couple, all the time laughing and talking in a manner that bespoke an old familiarity. When she finished she walked to the counter, filled two mugs with rich aromatic coffee and grabbed a couple of well-worn menus covered in cracked plastic, yellowed with age and dotted with what appeared to be fly droppings and dried food.
Fiona, if the name embroidered on the worn, faded pink uniform was correct, looked to be in her late forties with lank dirty-blond-colored hair, a sunny disposition and smiled easily as she deposited the mugs on the table. She gave the menus a cursory wipe with her apron and placed them on the table.
Danny and Nicola took a moment to scrutinize the selection, while Fiona, if that was her name, stood waiting, pencil poised, ready to take their order.
“I’ll have the hamburger and fries,” Nicola said.
“Soup or salad?”
“Salad. Can I have the dressing on the side?” Nicola smiled up at the woman who barely touched pencil to paper.
“You betcha: Ranch, Caesar, French, Thousand Island, blue cheese, house…”
“Blue cheese,” Nicola interrupted before she could go through a whole lot more choices.
Danny held up two fingers and smiled. “Make that two.”
“Can we have the salad with our burgers?” Nicola asked.
“You got it.” The waitress slipped the pencil into her hair, collected the menus and hurried over to the other table to check on th
e food and collect empty dishes before returning to the kitchen.
While they were waiting Nicola took the time to look around. The old linoleum on the floor was faded and cracked, the seat covers worn and threadbare, the furniture scarred and battered. Old photographs and dog-eared posters, yellow with age, lined the walls. The place had that damp, musty smell often found in old wooden buildings set among trees where the air was always damp.
Danny stood up to get a better look at a couple of photographs on the wall above the booth. He read the inscription under an old sepia-colored photograph of six woodcutters holding upended wooden-handled cross-cut saws, taller than them, standing in front of what appeared to be an enormous felled tree. The exposed cut end of the tree that displayed many centuries of age rings dwarfed the men as it towered over them like the front-end of a steam train engine. One could only wonder what these men had endured cutting down a tree that size with such primitive tools−they all seemed so puny.
“Have you been to Maine before?” Nicola asked.
Danny leaned closer to scrutinize the way the men were dressed in hand-me-down overalls with no shirt underneath; the legs of the pants at least twelve-inches above sockless boots; the cut of their hair, and pale unblinking eyes that looked like pools to lost souls.
“Danny?”
Danny looked at Nicola distractedly, and murmured, “Um, what? Oh, sorry. I was just thinking about that old photograph.” He smiled and sat down. “Have I been to Maine before? Yes, some years ago we traveled up the coast from New York to Bar Harbor.”
“I’ve heard of Bar Harbor but I have no idea where it is except it’s somewhere on the coast in Maine.”
“Bar Harbor is about thirty miles south-east of Bangor. It’s a real pretty place in the summer, but I wouldn’t care to try my chances in winter…” Danny said.
The sound of voices drew their attention as the other couple grabbed their jackets from the coat rack by the door and wandered over to the counter. The waitress stepped out of the kitchen, exchanged pleasantries and took their money, then helped them with jackets, pulling out caught collars and inverted sleeves, said goodbye, and headed back to kitchen. The man delved into his pants pocket and came up with a handful of scrunched up dollar bills. He dropped them on the counter and followed his companion to the door.
The small bell tinkled as lazy dust motes rode in on a shaft of sunlight that pooled on the faded, cracked linoleum floor. The man turned and nodded to Danny and Nicola then followed his companion out into the bleak watery sunlight.
“What was that all about?” Nicola asked when they were gone.
Danny shrugged. “Who knows? They’re probably just friendly folk acknowledging fellow travelers.”
*****
My sister’s voice cut into my concentration and dragged me back to the present. “Who was that?”
I looked at her over the top of my glasses. “Just a couple of travelers, so don’t go reading any more into it than that.”
Rosie got up off the chaise lounge and wandered over to where a small patch of garden was planted with colorful blooms. She kneeled on the soft grass and picked a small posy of flowers, and held them up.
“What are these called, Bubbie?”
“No point asking me, I don’t know a daisy from a dandelion.”
Ross held out his hand. “Show me,” he said. When Rosie handed him the flowers he gave them a cursory glance and handed them back. “They’re pansies for crying out loud. I don’t know how you two manage to get through the day. You both need full-time carers.”
“Hey! We’re not horticulturists, are we, Hon?”
“No, Bubbie, that’s what gardeners are for.”
“And, husbands,” I added.
Rosie settled onto the wicker chaise and studied the purple and yellow flowers, then looked over at Ross, and smiled. “Ross?”
I watched my husband’s eyes go limpid. “Yes Hon.”
“Can you make us something to eat?”
“Oh, sure, Hon, what would you like?”
“Something yummy?”
“I’ll see what I can whip up,” he said and rose from the chair.
“And, can you put these in some water?” she asked handing him the posy of smiley-faced flowers.
Ross wandered down the path carrying the pansies like a delicate bridal bouquet.
Rosie and I looked at each other–and burst out laughing.
“I’ll just keep going then, shall I?” I said.
*****
“…The waitress shuffled food onto the table. From the crook of her arm she dealt out bottles of ketchup, Tabasco and mayo then dipped into her pockets and came up with two different types of mustard as well as barbeque and steak sauce, and lined them down the middle of the table like a demarcation line. When she finished, she must have noticed the bewildered look on their faces.
“Anything else I can get for you?” she asked.
“You can sit down and help us eat all this food,” Danny said as he eyed the biggest burger he had ever seen surrounded by a mound of homemade fries–and large garden salads in china bowls. The blue cheese dressing served in separate jugs looked homemade and smelled delicious.
The waitress laughed. “Big boy like you shouldn’t have any trouble getting through that. Oh! And don’t forget to leave room for some pie,” she threw over her shoulder as she walked away.
Nicola turned her plate around. “My God, Danny, one of these could feed a family of four.”
When Fiona returned with the coffee pot she saw them studying their plates.
“Don’t be afraid, just hoe right on in. It’s dead, it won’t bite you back!” She laughed and walked over to the recently vacated table, humming, and started to clear it.
“I’ve never seen a burger this size before. Not even in Texas, where they make everything bigger,” Danny said as he removed the top of the bun and covered the meat patty with hot mustard, Ketchup and steak sauce. He picked up the Tabasco, removed the cap and was about to shake it over the mince patty, had second thoughts and screwed the cap back on. He replaced the top of the bun and squashed it down with his hand. He admired his handiwork for a moment, then picked up the burger with both hands and took a large bite.
“Mm, this sure tastes good!” Juices and sauces dripped through his fingers and ran down his chin.
Nicola leaned over and dabbed his mouth and chin with a napkin.
Danny grinned and took another mouthful. “This would have to be the best hamburger I’ve ever eaten.” When he noticed the look on Nicola’s face, he said, “Go on, like the lady said, just hoe right in–it won’t bite.”
Nicola cleared a space on the side of her plate and poured a mound of ketchup on it, cut the burger into bite size chunks and, using a fork, dipped a piece in the sauce and popped it into her mouth.
“So,” she said between mouthfuls, “what part of Texas have you been to?” She picked up the napkin and dabbed at the corners of her mouth.
“Pretty much all over. I went to El Paso–once. That was enough,” he said and took another bite of the burger.
“Why, what happened?”
He gave her a dismissive shrug while he chewed and then swallowed.
“About five years ago I traveled down Eighty-five where people on the wrong side of the Rio Grande live in a corrugated scrapheap of destitution, desperation and downright despair.”
*****
Rosie sat with her face cantered towards the sun. “You’ve been to Texas haven’t you, Bubbie?”
“Uh-huh,” I murmured my mind caught in a distraction as my fingers flew over the keys.
Ross looked out from behind the newspaper he was reading and smiled. “We’ve been to Texas a couple of times haven’t we, Bee?”
“Mmm. Houston, Dallas, Galveston …”
Ross flashed me a cheeky grin. “Don’t forget El Paso.”
“Wish I could.”
“Why. What happened in El Paso?” Rosie shuffled herself upright leaned in
to the pillow, steepled her fingers–and waited.
I looked at Ross knowing he wouldn’t be able to contain himself if I did the telling, so I opened the door and tossed him the reins.
“Go ahead, Ross. You tell her.”
Ross folded the newspaper in half and placed it on the grass by the chair, rubbed his hands over his bald pate, and pretended to think.
“Well, let me see now …” He made a big show of trying to remember, but I knew every minute detail was indelibly etched in his mind. I allowed him center stage. He needed no prompting.
“About five years ago we went to El Paso to pick up some Harley parts from a guy I met at a swap-meet in Iowa.”
I nodded, and kept typing.
“If I remember correctly it was just after lunch when we met D’Wayne, and as we hadn’t been to El Paso before, we decided to spend the night and take a look around.”
The children’s voices drifted up from the Dipsea steps, and the loud, deep bark of a large dog.
“Big mistake!” I offered.
“Yeah, real big mistake,” Ross added.
Rosie looked at him, a question mark hanging over her head. “Why, Ross? What happened?” she asked leaning forward.
I picked up the story. “We were getting low on gas so Ross pulled into a Texaco station, and while he was filling up I noticed some local hoods on the street corner opposite, dressed gangsta fashion…”
“Gangsta fashion?”
“You know, Hon, the crotch of their pants hanging round their knees, their bodies were covered in jailhouse tatts.”
Rosie nodded.
“They had malice in their eyes–and weapons in their hands.”
Rosie sat bolt upright. “Weapons! What kind of weapons?”
“A couple of them were carrying baseball bats,”
“Oh My God, Ross, what did you do?”
“I just kept filling the tank, avoiding eye contact the way everyone says you should.”
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