Venom and the River

by Marsha Qualey

  “Marti,” Kate said, “I told you turn it down.”

  Phil moved to a chair next to Leigh. “You know about Terry, right? He’s told you?”

  She held still.

  “Do you know who I am? And Kate?”

  Dee reappeared, holding four brown bottles by the necks. “No points if you answer sexy naturalist and lesbian librarian.” She set the beers on the trunk and returned to the galley.

  Leigh said, “I’m starting to feel like I know nothing.”

  Phil said, “I’m Terry Bancroft’s former son-in-law. Kate’s his former daughter-in-law. We’ve each divorced one of his kids. Well, to be totally accurate, Kate divorced her Bancroft, but I was dumped by mine.”

  “So that’s how you all knew who I was that first night. And it sure explains the chilly reception.” She stared at each in turn. How had she missed knowing who they were? She’d read Terry’s first book twice, but it only went up to in the mid-seventies, with his appointment to the vice-presidency, before either Kate or Phil would have entered the family picture. She rubbed her eyes. Once upon a time she wouldn’t have—couldn’t have—missed details like family members. Once upon a time, she’d have zeroed straight in on the truth.

  Kate said, “Don’t feel bad if you didn’t know. I never changed my name, nor did Phil’s ex. And neither marriage lasted all that long. As for the part about Dee and me, well, it’s a surprise to almost everyone.”

  Phil stood and went to the door. He pressed a hand against a bulging spot on the screen. It popped outward. “We knew you were due in town, Leigh. My ex called a few weeks ago to warn me that Terry had hired a ghost and was working on another book, one that would cover the years she and I were married. His three kids are worried about their lives showing up in his book.”

  “We’ve hardly talked about his kids,” Leigh said. “It’s a political memoir.”

  “And Leigh’s just a secretary,” said Marti.

  Phil shook his head. “We know what you’re doing with him. They’re worried about him overworking and confronting a lot of old memories. He’s quite sick, you know.”

  “Tick tock, tick tock,” Dee said, appearing with a plate of crackers and cheese.

  “Dee,” Kate said sharply.

  “You can learn plenty about the Bancrofts from these three,” Marti said to Leigh.

  “It’s a political book,” Leigh repeated. “And if there’s anything about the family that I need to know, I’d prefer to hear it first from Terry. Thank you all very much.”

  “Fine,” Marti said. “Sordid details of people’s lives aren’t what we came for anyway.” She turned and scanned a bookshelf. “Here we go. Phil, better make your break now or you’re stuck. Of course, you can stay and read the boy parts.”

  “I’m going.”

  “Confirm that date with Leigh first,” Dee said.

  “She’s got a panicked look again,” said Marti. “Just go; we’ll get her phone number for you.”

  Not panicked, Leigh thought. Just miserable. She looked up at the sexy naturalist. Well, not entirely miserable.

  After Phil left, Marti curled up on one end of the sofa. “That was fun, and so is he, Leigh. You might as well have someone to play with while you’re in town. He can answer all your duck questions.”

  “What are we doing?” Leigh said. “Besides tossing your guest down the rabbit hole?”

  “Looks like an intervention,” Kate said. “These two have done a few.”

  Marti paged through the book in her hand. “Very simply, you’re going to listen until you fall in love. ‘Charming’ is unacceptable. Dee, do you want to start?”

  Dee settled into a chair. “Let the storytelling pro do it.”

  Kate took the book, opened it to the first page, and began reading. “‘It was difficult later for Maud to think of a time when she didn’t know and love the river.’”

  Marti prodded Leigh with her foot and whispered, “Now isn’t this a whole lot better than working on a dreary political memoir? A nice summer night on the river with friends.”

  “Friends?” Leigh said. “I was kidnapped and humiliated tonight.”

  “Spare us that,” Dee said. “We heard you give him your number.”

  “Shhh,” said Kate. “Are we doing this or not?”

  “We’re doing it,” Marti said. She leaned over and whispered to Leigh, “Considering all our secrets, I’d say we’re definitely friends.”

  11.

  Leigh rubbed her eyes, trying to erase the dull ache that lingered after a night involving too little sleep and too many Leinies. Clearly, beer wasn’t a good late-night drink for a middle-aged woman, especially one who had to spend the next day staring at a small computer screen and making sense of an old man’s brambled memories.

  A sick old man, according to Phil.

  Phil Chesney, another reason she hadn’t slept well. How long had it been since she’d had a dream like that one? And how long since she’d done anything similar in real life? If they did go out to this blues-band bar it would be hard to look at him and not remember the dream.

  She pushed the curtains aside and caught a silvery glimpse of river through the branches of trees. The details of the dream came into focus, one by one.

  Did he really have such lovely nimble fingers?

  *

  “Early again,” Geneva said. “Trouble working?”

  Leigh nodded and then kissed the top tuft of Tucker’s curls. He tilted his head and smiled, then flapped his arms, attempting lift-off from the high chair. Geneva poured some Cheerios on the tray, and he shifted his attention to the little O’s.

  “I was drifting into daydreams and couldn’t shake them off. I thought if I worked in the study I might be able to focus.”

  “I can see how that might be a problem for a writer, the daydreaming. You know my biggest work problem lately? Getting decent berries. He loves a cup of berries with every meal. Doesn’t matter what kind, just wants the berries. You should see what they’re selling at Hy-Vee. I wish I felt up to going to a pick-your-own patch.” She sat and held her stomach. Tucker patted his.

  “Are you okay, Geneva?”

  “I wish I didn’t have three more months, that’s all. I just want to get on with it, get on with whatever’s going to happen. I don’t intend to be a housekeeper my whole life, in case you were wondering. What kind of daydreams?”

  Leigh willed away the image of Phil Chesney’s hands roaming over her body. “This and that. Winning the lottery. How sick is Terry?”

  Geneva refilled Tucker’s sip cup. He hoisted it eagerly and drank until water streamed out of the corners of his mouth. “Any ninety-year-old body is sick by definition, wouldn’t you say? Ask him yourself. I should warn you, though, that he’s not in the best mood today.”

  “My fault. He may have put me in the cottage, but I’ve turned it into a circus.”

  “That’s true enough, but it’s not the problem today. He’s been on the phone with the posse this morning, catching up on everyone’s old news.”

  Terry’s hand rested on the phone that lay slightly askew in its cradle. Leigh nudged it into place to silence the bleating. He turned away. “You’re here early,” he said gruffly. “More questions about that dead writer, I suppose. You hang that drawing yet?” A hand quickly wiped across his cheeks.

  “Right where you told me to put it. And don’t worry about spending time on Ida May and your grandfather. I’ve heard all I can bear to hear on the subject. I’m here early because I couldn’t get any work done in the cottage. I thought if I sat where my boss could see me it would go better. I’m sorry to barge in on you. Geneva said it was okay to come in.”

  He flipped a hand. “Doesn’t matter. Just finishing up another round of sad phone calls. You think you get used to the bad news from friends, but no. Who are your closest friends, Leigh? Hometown? College? Work?”

  “Work, I suppose. Other writers. Though…” Though along with the house, career, and Emily, Chase had
also by default been awarded the friends they’d acquired in the business, every single one taking Chase’s lead and backing far away from her after the scandal. “I’ve been pretty unrooted for a while. Makes it hard to keep up with people.”

  “Sorry to hear that.” He gestured toward the chair opposite his. “Hell, let’s not think about sad things. I’m glad you’re here, but don’t count on getting much done because I feel like talking. Helps clear out the blue thoughts. Heard from Sonny about the car?”

  “Had a message yesterday; they’re waiting on one more part.”

  “Use mine, anytime.”

  “You’ve offered before, Terry,” Leigh said. “It’s very generous but it’s not necessary because I can pretty much walk everywhere in town.”

  He nodded. “And Geneva gets your groceries while you stay with Tucker. She told me. That’s a nice break for her. It’s not easy being so young and a single mother in a strange town. Shut up with me, to boot. Not so fun for you to be shut up, either, but I’m glad because you’re making good progress on the book.”

  “I’m not entirely cloistered, Terry. Last night I was even asked out on a date. A very casual date, but still. First one in years.”

  Oh, it was too easy to catch his interest, the old gossip. It was almost cruel to go any further. “Phil Chesney.” Leigh opened her backpack and pulled out the laptop. She flipped the lid, turned it on, and only when it had whirred and flashed an opening screen did she glance at him again.

  He stared out the window, hands air-tracing the oak tree. “Nice man, Phil. Not much ambition, of course. He could be a professor at one of the top universities, but he stays here with the DNR and his little water testing station.”

  “It’s just a different type of ambition, Terry.”

  He nodded, acknowledging the point. “He must have told you he was once married to my daughter, otherwise I doubt you’d have mentioned his name. I loved going out on the river with Phil. The man may have grown up in Greenwich, Connecticut but he turned into a real Mississippi River rat. That’s the big reason Delia walked out. She might have eventually been reconciled to living in Pepin, but she got tired of trying to make him presentable, at least by her standards.”

  “I’ve met Kate Patterson too.”

  He wagged a finger. “That one broke my only boy’s heart, so I don’t forgive her so easily. Phil’s different. I wouldn’t mind seeing him again but I just never got in touch when I moved back.”

  “Kate’s very nice, as is her partner.”

  He shrugged. There was a long silence that she left alone, suspecting the memories so obviously stirring would eventually jar loose some comment. Finally: “I hear they make good pizza down at their café. Geneva won’t let me eat pizza. Too much sodium and fat. What the hell difference does it make now? I suppose Phil told you that I’m a short-timer. I know Delia’s been in touch with him.”

  “He didn’t tell me much at all, Terry. Just that he’d been married to your daughter.”

  He raised his eyebrows at the evasion, but let it rest. “What’s planned for the date?”

  “To go hear music at a bar called Chester’s.”

  “Oh lord, that place was unsavory back when I was too young to drink.”

  “Apparently there’s a good blues band there some nights, and I like that sort of thing. I spent too many years working in Chicago not to have fallen in love with crummy little bars and the blues.”

  Another damn slip. She closed her eyes, lightly rubbed her keyboard with her fingertips. Between Marti’s blackmailing and her own loose mouth, she’d be lucky to finish this job and leave town with the second half of the generous fee.

  “Then it sounds like a perfect first date. I’m glad you didn’t say no on my account. And I’ll spare the two of you the dilemma of whether to talk about me or pretending that you haven’t. I’m sick, Leigh. Time is short, that’s what they tell me. Of course, at my age time is always short, but the doctors at Mayo say it’s more than that.”

  “I’m sorry, Terry.”

  “All in all, it’s a good thing, as long as we get this book done, because chances are I’ll go like that!” He snapped his fingers. “They tell me it’s likely the heart will just shut down. Not a bad way to exit, wouldn’t you say? I’m ninety, I’m mobile, more or less on top of things, and I’m in daily contact with two beautiful women. I’m luckier than most.” He pointed at the phone. “When you came in I’d just finished up talking with my old pal Rob. His wife had a mild stroke last winter. She lost her speech, but it was coming back. Now they think maybe she’s had another little stroke and she’s not doing so well. Feeling defeated, Rob says. She’s just so blue, he says. I can’t stand to think of her like that. She was always so spirited. Most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on. I loved just being in the same room with her. She had this yellow suit…a Chanel…Christ, Leigh. Every day we all wonder what’s next? Who’s next? You get tired of wondering that, Leigh. You get damn tired of losing your friends. I’m sorry you’ve lost touch with yours. Hell of a thing.”

  She scrolled through her mental file. “Rob Cooper, the Minneapolis flour company heir. One of the boys that went east to school with you. He ran your first campaign for Congress.”

  Terry nodded. “Lord, we had fun with that race. Then the next year he went east to help with another one, a special election. That’s when he met Sylvia. What a woman. I’m not going to let go of her yet. I hate to think of this world without her.” He tapped his chest. “Gallbladder cancer, and it’s spread to the heart of all places. Won’t be long. But we’ll get this book done, right, Leigh? No more getting distracted by those silly children’s books?”

  “I’m working hard on your story, Terry.”

  “Even if I don’t make it, you’ll finish the book, promise me that? The money’s there, you’ll get paid, don’t worry about that.”

  “I’ll write your story, Terry. And I count on doing it with you.”

  “It’s a story all right. Oh what a life! I was a shy skinny boy from Pepin, Minnesota and look at all that happened, more than I dared dream. One thing I did dream about didn’t happen, of course. That’s where I need another promise, Leigh. There’s something we’re not putting in the memoir, even though I suppose it’s obvious to you now. Not a word in the book about how all these years I’ve been in love with my best friend’s wife. How pathetic is that!” Their eyes met. He nodded. “Yes, just like Granddad: thwarted love.” He rubbed his chin and stared into middle distance.

  “Did you and Sylvia have an affair?”

  He shook his head. “Not a chance in hell of that. I never would have risked losing Rob’s friendship. Besides, she was utterly faithful. Besotted, both of them, for over sixty years now. That sort of love passed me by, Leigh. I don’t want it mentioned because the unrequited, unfulfilled lover is not the image I want to leave behind. Promise me? No hint of all that.”

  “It’s a political story, Terry. And I need to get back to it.”

  The methodical tap-tapping of her typing quickly lulled him into sleep. She watched him for a while, the short puffs of his breathing lulling her into a trance. Finally, she closed her computer and put it in her backpack. She pulled down several volumes from his bookcase, tucked those under her arm and left him alone, letting herself out of the house by the front door.

  *

  Leigh finished reading just as the sky above the trees across the river was beginning to darken to a dusky purple. A few yards away from where she sat cross-legged on a rock, a bird dove toward the water and then flew up, a fish clamped in its beak.

  Terry’s diaries lay scattered on the rock. She gathered them into a stack on her lap and counted the green Post-its. Twenty four entries in the four volumes, the years selected at random. April 29, 1958: S was there, wearing the yellow Chanel she knows I love. February 11, 1959: NY on UN business. Escorted S to noon concert at Met. Heaven! November 7, 1962: White House state dinner. Jackie so arch, cool, clearly pissed at S’s elega
nce, glamour. Upstaged by a housewife from Minnesota!

  She’d missed them the first time she’d read through the diaries, missed the connection, the aggregation.

  May 13, 1962: Damn it Rob, do me a favor and die!

  What would it feel like to live with an unfulfilled longing that powerful? To live, like his grandfather had lived, with love just out of reach. The thwarted lover.

  She supposed it explained in part Terry’s three divorces, the string of uncommitted relationships with younger women, possibly even the coolness between father and children.

  Terry Bancroft had been a major part of many important world events in the first forty years after the Second World War. His final memoir wasn’t entirely a vanity project; he had something worth telling, if only to remind those still interested what had happened and why. The book she was writing was going to be good, better than the standard Wise Old Man memoir and for a week or two it would receive some press and applause. When it happened she’d be happy to step back and let the spotlight shine on him.

  And of course she’d grant his wish to leave out the fact of his unrequited love for his best friend’s wife. Why not? But if she left out that single detail with its rippling effect in his life story, would the book be any more honest than the columns she’d doctored with false information? Wasn’t the omission simply another kind of lie?

  “What was ever true?” Chase had shouted during that final conversation. Oh, how angry he’d been.

  “What was ever true,” she whispered, a finger sliding across a green slip and into the pages. June 20, 1958. Gave speech at university, then out to Coopers’ for dinner. S. taught the kids how to make pasta.

  A faint shout broke into her reverie. Was someone calling for her? Oh shit, she thought. Marti had probably dropped by to hound her about Ida May’s letters.

  Or was it Phil Chesney? She gathered the diaries and rushed up the nearly overgrown path through the trees toward the cottage, slightly embarrassed at the urgency with which she moved but not slowing until she reached the wire fence. Then she tossed the books over, picked up a stout stick, lay on her back and wiggled through as she held up the lowest strand of sharp wire up with the stick.