Fire and Spark

by Laura Singer

  Chapter 8

  For a moment Jenni's paranoia came back to her, the same feeling that she'd had when Lenny the fisherman had given her a couple of stanzas of Matt's poem way out at the other end of Hawk Lake. Then she shook her head. She wasn't the star in a secret TV show about her life; she was just surrounded by some nosy, pushy people with too much time on their hands.

  "And what sort of questions did you want to ask me."

  "Oh," Emilia said, "the usual nosy, none-of-your-damn-business girl stuff."

  Jenni nodded and watched a couple of loons on the lake. "Okay," she said, "but it doesn't mean you're going to get the answers you want. Or that I'll take any advice you have to offer. You go first."

  "Tough kid. Well, take a look at this." From a large manila envelope Emilia took out a color print and handed it to Jenni. Just printed this last night." When Jenni raised one eyebrow, Emilia put out her hands, palms forward. "Hey, didn't want you spending the night in the bush with a man I knew nothing about."

  "You got this off the net?"

  Emilia nodded. "This is one reclusive guy as far as information goes, but I got my sources."

  Jenni looked at the picture carefully. It showed four men, dressed in tuxedos, at a cocktail event somewhere. Two of the guys looked like they were born to be in tuxes, but Matt and one other man looked a bit uncomfortable and not at all glad to have a camera pointed their way. It was a knees-to-head photo, and somehow Jenni pictured Matt wearing the same wet outdoors boots she'd seen him in at the campsite.

  "Business event?" Jenni asked Emilia. "Wedding party or something?"

  "Ha!" Emilia laughed. "Not so fast. My turn."

  "Go for it." Jenni waved one hand in the air, but didn’t take her eyes off the picture.

  "How do you feel about Matt?" The question hung in the air for only a second before Emilia changed it. "Wait," she said. "That's a bigger question than a picture of a guy in a tux deserves. Here's a better question. How much do you like Matt?"

  "Isn't it the same question?"

  "It's a simpler one, if you want. You can just whip out a number between one and ten."

  But Jenni didn't want to even try to simplify it that much, even for Emilia. "I like him," she said simply.

  "Okay…. Well, then…."

  But Jenni wasn't finished. "He's a bit shy, mostly gentle, and fights if he has to, but not before." She looked briefly at Emilia, then away. "He seems to be smart and caring. He can make me laugh by making fun of himself." She turned back to Emilia. "How's that?"

  "That," said Emilia, looking away, tells me a lot. I knew a boy like that once, a lifetime ago."

  "Did you want him?"

  "With all my heart. But I was too shy to say so until I was nicely drunk. And by then it was too late."

  Jenni watched a heron land in the shallow waters where the lake had a small, lily-filled bay. There were still a few flowers on the water, like the one Matt had passed her. The late afternoon stillness stretched a minute, then the phone rang inside the lodge.

  "Shoulda brought the portable," Emilia said. I'll be right back." As she left, Lenny the fisherman came down the steps from the cottages, map tucked under his arm.

  "Jenni!" he said. "I hear you've had an adventure since I last saw you." He held up a hand. "I've just come to say goodbye; you'll need more of a rest than retelling your story again. Here – look at my map." He spread it on the table.

  "Okay…." Jenni knew the map; she'd taken a good look at the copy posted on the lodge wall the day before.

  Lenny's copy was sprinkled with checks and x-marks along the edge of Hawk Lake. "An x means there are no fish at that point willing to take my bait," he said. "Sometimes I could see them diving for cover or signing a pledge to starve to death before taking a chance that something might be one of my lures." There were lots of these marks on the map. "The check marks show where something actually made a strike at one of my lures. I use mostly surface lures, so I can see when a fish actually makes an effort by the splash near it. Of course, some of them are just teasing me, but that's better than nothing."

  "And the double check marks?"

  "Those," Lenny said triumphantly, "are where I actually caught a fish."

  "Well, that's good. Did you bring any back?"

  "No, but I took a picture each time, and as soon as I get home I'll adjust the, ah, clarity a bit with Photoshop, so I have a record."

  Jenni smiled. "Did you have a good time, all in all?"

  Lenny grinned widely. "It's a beautiful lake and I had a fine time." Then he turned serious. "Look, I don't know if I should have given you that poem. Maybe Matt didn't want… anybody… to see it. And besides, it was unfinished. I just sort of thought…." He looked decidedly uncomfortable."

  Jenni gave her best smile. "I'm glad you did. But I can't give it back; it sort of got.... Well, it's not available, but if I ever see another copy, I'll forward it to you."

  Lenny said, "I like maps. I like poetry. A map looks like it's all there, everything's laid out for you and there's nothing to find out. But when you actually get to the place on the map, there are a thousand things you didn't expect. Mysteries, delights. A map's only half truth. When you think you've got things mapped out, always be prepared for surprises."

  "And poetry?" Jenni remembered that Lenny and Matt had talked poetry in the rain that first night.

  "A poem's the opposite. Half the time it looks like a mystery, but there's a map hidden in it. Find the map and you can find a route to take." Lenny stood up. "I had a great time here, and it was a pleasure to meet you."

  "Thanks, Lenny. I'll remember you too." She made a mental note to check the web for his poetry, as he rolled up his map and headed down the steps to his car.

  Jenni got another ten minutes of watching the lake before Emilia came back. "Sorry," Emilia said, "I had a couple of things to do."

  "No problem." Jenni kept watching the lake. There was a ripple in the water that spoke of fish hidden under the surface. A lake surface, a map, a poem, the thoughts of people; there was so much under the surface. How was a girl to know enough to make her way anywhere? "Gave me time to think."

  "And what were you thinking?"

  "Lenny came to say goodbye. Showed me his map."

  "Okay. Sure. What was on the map?"

  "It wasn't what was on the map. He warned me not to trust any map because they don't mark where the surprises are."

  "I brought you a diet Coke."

  "Thanks."

  "You seem far away."

  "For a moment, every now and again, I see that gun barrel turning in my direction. Then everything stops."

  "Geez."

  "What have I done?" Jenni burst into tears. "What in God's name did I ever do that a man should point a gun my way and pull the trigger? Try to kill me? Hate me that much? I wanted to be loved! I loved that man all I could and he still brought a gun. He sawed off a shotgun just for me!"

  Emilia knew enough just to hold Jenni tight for a while. Then Jenni said, "Where's that Coke? Oh, here. Get me one of those sandwiches in the cooler. And a bag of… no just the sandwich."

  "I'll be right back. You'll be okay?"

  "I'll be just freakin' great." Jenni said.. "Go." She tried to focus on the lake, but failed. A minute later she heard Emilia come back.

  "Tuna and lettuce. I warmed it a bit."

  "Thanks. You got more?"

  "Food?" Emilia seemed confused.

  "Questions. And facts to trade for the questions."

  "Well, of course." Emilia picked up the package. "You're sure you're up for this?"

  Jenni shrugged. "Easier than being shot at."

  "Okay. I want to know about the kiss. It looked pretty good on the screen."

  Jenni thought it over a long time. "Saundra's idea. Said I owed him at least a kiss for saving my life. Or he owed me one for me saving his life."

  Emilia said, while eating a sandwich of her own, "Makes sense to me. Did you consider that maybe he d
idn't intend to save your life?"

  "You mean, he was just getting back at Julio for flipping him out of his canoe, and might not have even noticed the gun?"

  "Something like that."

  "Well, you could ask the same question of me? Did I save Matt's life or was I just doing the next best thing to stuffing a burning branch up Julio's ass?"

  "I doubt," Emilia said, "that anyone will ever know for sure. Which brings us back to the kiss."

  "Always the kiss. Maybe," Jenni said, "it was just me on impulse, taking Saundra's suggestion."

  "Oh," Emilia said, putting her palms forward in front of herself. I have no doubt of that. None at all." The statement would have had more effect if Emilia hadn't winked and laughed. "I just want to know what the effect was."

  "I think he liked it."

  "You know what I mean." Emilia tapped her foot on the deck.

  "Do I get another sandwich first?"

  "Dream on."

  Jenni sighed. "Let's just say I've been a while without a kiss, and this guy had just saved my life and I was a bit short on sleep – maybe a lot short on sleep – and I was running on post-traumatic stress and there's something just so primitive… about the wilderness…."

  "Too bad Saundra was there." Emilia stifled a laugh. "Without a witness you two mighta been out in the bushes doing it like they do on the Discovery channel."

  "Hey! You got your answer. Now I get to see what I traded for. I paid in advance, too."

  "You deserve it." Emilia swallowed the last of her sandwich, washed it down with a root beer, then drew some sheets out of the package. "Matt," she said, reading the papers, "was dressed up for a combination fund-raiser and art-show opening."

  "How is that?"

  "Matt is part owner of Tanglewood Surveying and Consulting." She pointed at the photo of the guys in tuxes. "It looks like – I can't trust all my sources, of course – it looks like Matt was a genuine nerd with a tendency to like climbing, sailing, and hiking by himself, when he discovered he had a talent for seeing patterns where others didn't and seeing outside the box, as they say." She shuffled the papers. "He spotted something on a geology map on a wall somewhere, and the next thing you know he'd made someone a bundle of money on a mine of some sort, as well as getting himself a reputation and more money than he'd dreamed." She raised her eyebrows. "Maybe he decided making money writing poetry wasn't going to fly."

  "The poetry thing isn't new?" Jenni had an urge for another sandwich, but didn’t want to interrupt.

  "He's had poems published in a bunch of artistic journals that nobody reads. But with the reputation he got for this first mapping success, he joined a mining exploration for a year, then left to form Tanglewood, with a fellow he knew. That's the other guy." Emilia pointed to a shorter guy to the left of Matt. They needed money, I guess, and were at the opening of some financier's wife's painting show, trying to look interested."

  "He's got money?"

  "He's got a working company, of which he owns a bit less than half. It's deep in hock for office space, technicians, and that helicopter, but doing well. They'll probably be out of debt in a year or two, some people say."

  "Good for him."

  "His business life is doing better than his love life."

  "You have stuff on that, too?" Jenni was amazed.

  "Being a drunk, or even an ex-drunk, gets a person contacts. It's like a secret club, filled with people you talk to, even if you can't depend on them.

  "And what's that going to cost me?" Jenni actually smiled. The sun was throwing long shadows across the lake. Jenni reached for a sweater.

  "The other kiss. That one in the parking lot." Emilia opened a plastic bag, took out a pipe, stuffed it, and lit it.

  "What are you doing?"

  "Just tobacco," Emilia said. She saw the look on Jenni's face. "You'll find a lot of ex-alcoholics smoke, or eat themselves into hippohood. We feel quitting our addictions was accomplishing something harder than regular people could ever imagine, so get off our backs if we don't want to give up some minor pleasures. I smoke this pipe once a week, for relaxation."

  Jenni could see it wasn't going to be wise to comment, so she said, "I don’t know what that last kiss was about."

  "Or maybe you don't want to ask."

  "That," Jenni said, "is probably the truth. It was an impulse. Maybe a way to say goodbye."

  "To Matt?"

  "What else?" Jenni watched Hank Dayton, the cat, walk to the end of the dock and look into the water. He can see what he can't ever get, she thought. "Sorry. It was a farewell to what never will be."

  "Because of Matt not being free?"

  "That, yes. I had enough of Julio's little adventures. I developed a few moral scruples there."

  "You're still married. Your divorce isn't till next week. Or do you think the gun incident this morning advances the date a bit?"

  "Wouldn't you say it did?"

  Emilia puffed a couple of big clouds of smoke. "Damn right." There was more silence, except from cabin four, where the two boys were obviously playing some loud video game. "Does Matt know that?"

  "That I'm married? Sure. I told him that by the fire last night."

  "Did he know about the divorce?"

  Jenni shrugged. "Look, I was still trying to get him out of any delusional fantasies about me. I didn't want that. So I didn't want him to think I was about to enter the singles market again."

  "But you did mention the divorce?"

  "Yes, but I implied that it wasn't certain. Actually, I implied that there was hope I'd get back with Julio."

  "Ahhh… And that's what you left him thinking?"

  "I tried to. It was my objective. At least at the time."

  "Did you tell him you left Julio, or why?"

  "I did, I guess."

  "And?" Emilia reached for her jacket.

  "Things seem to cool off about then. Shouldn't I have told him? Was I right to leave Julio?" Jenni looked at Emilia.

  "Cripes, Jenni, from what I've been able to gather, your biggest mistake in life was hanging on as long as you did. Whatever Julio wanted in life from a woman, you weren't it. You sure didn't love him by then, and…."

  "He kept telling me how much he needed me."

  "Need isn't love. Us drunks know that much, even in the gutters."

  "I guess," Jenni said, "part of me wanted to win Julio back." She raised a palm. "Not because I could stand him any longer, but because it might say that I hadn't been all that stupid in the first place. A little naïve, maybe, a little too young, but not just an idiot not to have seen what Julio was."

  "I can see how you might have pissed Matt off about then?"

  "By implying I was trying to get back with my husband?"

  "No. By saying you left him. Especially if you mentioned that any of that was because you felt Julio didn't understand you. Did you say that?"

  "Well, look at it from my point of view." Jenni raised her voice a bit, for a moment. "This guy drives into camp, takes a shine to me, and obviously doesn't know me or understand a thing about me. Been there; done that!"

  "That explains a few things. It's getting cool out here. Did you want to go inside, or should I bring out some hot chocolate and a couple of blankets?"

  Jenni shook her head. "I didn't get much sleep last night. Maybe I should just go to bed."

  Emilia shook her manila envelope. "Fine, but you'd have to wait for the tragic tale of Matt and Denise."

  "Denise?"

  "Matt's wife. She left him."

  "He's not married to Annie?"

  "Nope."

  "Outside, then. I like looking at the stars as they come out. Hot chocolate, and another of those day-old sandwiches from the fridge, thawed a bit."

  "Two-day-old, I'd guess, even being charitable. But I'll deliver them in a jiffy." Emilia got up and went into the lodge, turning on lights as she went.

  Jenni didn't look up as Emilia came back with a tray of microwave-warmed ham-and-lettuce sandwiches an
d hot chocolate. From over her shoulder she unloaded two wool blankets, one for herself and one for Jenni.

  "So?" Jenni said, after getting warmer.

  "Are you going to answer a question for me first?"

  "Not this time. You go first this time. Tell me about Denise."

  "Okay. Matt and Denise got married about four years ago, in a nice wedding in Kingston."

  "How long had they known each other?"

  "Not a clue. I'm an internet snoop on this one, but haven't achieved godhood yet."

  "I gather it didn't last."

  "Just over two years, or so one of my snoops thinks, but he wouldn't bet on it. But it's probably close."

  "So we don't know what happened?" Jenni looked up. The stars had gone and there was only a faint brightness in the east where the moon was coming up, shielded by clouds. A chill wind picked up and she pulled the blanket closer to her.

  "We know she's now with Harry."

  "Harry?"

  "Short for Harriet. They march in the rainbow parade in Toronto."

  Jenni laughed, then stopped. "That's not funny, is it?"

  "Tells us things about Matt, by inference, I think." Emilia finished her sandwich and made a face.

  "Like, he's going to figure he didn't know his wife at all. He'd been married to a stranger."

  "That's what I was thinking," Emilia said. "You see what this means about you."

  "That's not hard." Jenni finished the chocolate before it got cold. "He was ready to run as fast as he could from a woman he was attracted to but knew nothing about."

  "Until she showed up at his fishing lake in a canoe, at least."

  "That wasn't intended!" Jenni protested. Then she thought a bit and said, "Do you think Denise suddenly realized she preferred women?"

  "We'll never know, will we? But, sudden or slow, it's likely she abruptly told him one fine day, packed up, and moved out. That's the usual pattern."

  "Which means…. ah; that explains a lot. When he found out I left Julio, he saw me as just another woman who dumps her man."

  "Worse than that if you even implied that Julio didn't understand the real you and that was the main cause of your marriage breakdown."

  Jenni thought back. "I might have… implied something like that. It was the truth, you know."

  "Oh, I know that. Saundra told me some of the things Julio said about you, as well as those comments that got videoed. In any case," Emilia said, "it's a wonder Matt didn't embrace your husband as a brother when he showed up."

  Jenni thought about that a long time. "But let's remember that I wasn't trying to get closer to Matt; I was working on setting up a few barriers between us." The night got colder and darker.

  "It's going to rain," Emilia said, looking up. Let's go inside."

  "We'll wait till the rain actually starts, then I'll just go to my room."

  "In summary," Emilia said, tamping another wad of tobacco into her pipe and lighting it, "you didn't want to get anywhere near a guy who liked you without knowing you and Matt didn't want to hang around a girl who attracted him when he didn't know anything about her. So he goes paddling frantically off into the wilderness, portages into a remote lake, and damned if the two of you don't end up camped out together. Sound about right?"

  "Sounds like a bad comedy. It wasn't very funny."

  "Then, when you two are about to fall in love over a campfire in the moonlight, Matt reminds you of your cheating ex-husband and you remind Matt of his runaway ex-wife."

  "Close," Jenni admitted.

  "And if you hadn't saved each other's life, you've probably have parted forever by now."

  "But we have parted forever."

  "That remains to be seen. As Dustin Hoffman said in the movie Stranger Than Fiction, the difference between a comedy and a tragedy is how it ends. If the guy gets the girl, it's a comedy; if not, it's a tragedy."

  "So who gets to push Annie in her wheelchair off the dock?"

  Emilia laughed. "Maybe Annie can share Matt with you. They're not married, you know."

  "Not in my lifetime." Jenni wasn't actually sure of that, but she went on. "Matt told me theirs was a long-term relationship, which, in my mind is as good as married. If he stays there just from a sense of duty, that's still more sharing than I want."

  "Regrets?"

  "I wish I could have said goodbye without looking like something the cat dragged in. I wish I could have given him a better picture of me."

  Emilia shifted, and watched the moon peek through dark clouds overhead. "Actually, Matt didn't go home today. Apparently he went to Bancroft to meet what's-his-name, the helicopter pilot."

  "Kevin. That's the pilot's name. Come on. How would you know that?"

  "It seems Saundra and Clayton were having a supper some place called Mirrors Cafe when Kevin and Matt walked in. They shared a table for quite a while." When Jenni just gave her a blank look, Emilia added. "She got hold of me on the phone and I sent her the picture of the three of us. The one we took this afternoon."

  "You didn't!" Jenni said. Her tired mind had two thoughts, The first was that at least Matt had a better picture of her to look at, and the second was that, compared to Emilia and Saundra, she wasn't going to come off as anything but third-best anyway.

  "I did. And all of them will be staying in Bancroft for another day at least, thanks to Saundra."

  "Saundra?"

  "The police have hired the helicopter to take them back to look at your campsite. Matt thinks it's to check out whether to upgrade the charge against Julio from reckless endangerment with a firearm to attempted murder."

  "Oh…." Jenni's mind was wearing out. The first drops of rain hit the deck. "I'm going to bed. I can't focus any more."

  "Run off. I'll take the stuff in." Emilia was already on the move with the blankets. "I'll see you in the morning." The phone rang. "That's probably Carol in Kitchener again. Wonder what the cat did this time, and if she's already into the rum."

  Fifteen minutes later Jenni, who was sure she'd get insomnia, was drifting off to sleep to the patter of the rain on the roof. Her last thought was that, after seeing what Julio was really like, maybe Matt realized she'd had a good reason to walk out on her husband.

  ***