Crossing the Bridge

by Michael Baron

  “Tyler?” I didn’t remember hearing the name before.

  “He’s my manager.”

  This meant that Tyler was no older than twenty. My father had always steadfastly refused to staff his stationery and gift store with anything other than high school and college kids, arguing, “What could I expect from an adult who was willing to work in a card store?” The logic made a certain amount of sense and it had essentially served him well. But his business model didn’t accommodate situations such as this one.

  “Have you spoken to him lately?”

  “He called yesterday and gave me a complete rundown. I told him I didn’t want him worrying about calling me every day. He’s fine. He’s been with me for two years. He knows the place.”

  I looked over at my mother, who was studiously avoiding eye contact.

  “I can take a few days if you want me to look in on the store while you recover,” I said, knowing as the words left my mouth that this was just about the last thing in the world I wanted to do.

  My mother’s face lifted. “You don’t have to get back to Springfield?”

  “I can take a little time.”

  “Tyler’s a good kid,” my father said. “I’m sure he can handle everything.” He stopped, as though he wasn’t sure that the doctor would approve of the effort required to keep talking to me about this. “But I would appreciate it if you checked to see that everything is okay.”

  I got to the store midmorning the next day. Amber Cards, Gifts, and Stationery (rumor has it that my father actually labored over the naming of his store. I could imagine him considering, “Is it Amber Gifts, Cards, and Stationery? Amber Stationery, Cards, and Gifts? If I just called it Amber Stationery, would people surmise that we also had cards and gifts?”) had been a fixture on Russet Avenue since before I was born. My father spent his first few years out of college managing a warehouse for an office supply manufacturer in Hartford. When a couple of stock investments he made shot through the roof, he took one of the few risks in his life and moved to the emerging riverside town of Amber to open the shop on its main street. Thirty-four years later, my father could never claim to have had a windfall year (or, for that matter, another investment that scored the way that pair in the ’70s did, even during the Internet boom). But he would boast that his “little enterprise” had given his family “everything they needed to get by.”

  I spent enough after-school hours and summers working in the store to know that small-time retailing was not in my DNA. I didn’t have the disposition to placate customers when the supermarket inserts were missing from the local paper or when we ran out of red poster board the night before a class project was due. That required a level of patience and concern that I simply didn’t have. I never once felt shortchanged.

  It had probably been five years since I’d stepped foot in the store. My father had moved the card racks, and the merchandise at the front was more focused on lower-priced items than I remembered. But the vibe was very much the same. Generic instrumental versions of popular songs peeking from the speakers, a handful of people pondering Hallmark sentiments, the guy breezing in to buy a copy of Forbes, the woman with the three-year-old looking at the figurines as a gift for Aunt Claire.

  There was a young woman dusting shelves who continued to do so even as a customer asked her a question and there was a guy behind the counter taking notes from a textbook. I walked over to him.

  “Are you Tyler?” I asked.

  He glanced up from his reading. “Yeah, hi.”

  “I’m Hugh Penders, Richard’s son.”

  He tilted his head for a moment as though he did-n’t understand what I was saying. I imagined him thinking, Richard’s son? But isn’t Richard’s son dead? Then his eyes brightened.

  “Oh, hey, yeah.” He reached out his hand. “I’m Tyler – which you already know. How’s it going with your dad?”

  “It depends on who you ask. According to him, he’ll be in this afternoon. Seems the doctors have different ideas, though.”

  “I’m sure it’s driving Richard crazy to sit in a hospital instead of being here. I’ve been meaning to get over to see him, but between the extra hours I’m putting in and studying for a bunch of tests I have coming up, it’s been tough.”

  Tyler seemed to be the latest in a line of college kids my father occasionally happened upon who actually thought it was worth doing their part-time jobs as opposed to simply showing up for them. It was apparent in the way he talked about my father. I began to relax a little. I’d been dreading meeting Dad’s latest “manager” from the moment I first learned about him in the hospital. Some of the people Dad had entrusted with responsibility over the years had been truly unworthy of the gift.

  “I’m sure he understands,” I said. “Listen, I’m in town for a few days and I told my father that I’d spend a little time giving you a hand.”

  Tyler looked briefly insulted, which I also took to be a good sign. “Yeah, great,” he said. “Could always use a little help.” He leaned in to me conspiratorially and gestured toward his dusting colleague. “Leeza’s not exactly MBA material, if you know what I mean.”

  I nodded and looked over to see her absently straightening cards. “Mind if I come back behind the counter?”

  “No, come on in. I assume you know your way around the place.”

  “I haven’t been here in a while, actually,” I said as I surveyed the desk. “The cash register is different from when I was last here. He still has the hourly log book, I see.”

  “Man, does he ever. You miss a register reading and it’s like you shot his dog.”

  For the next half hour, Tyler briefed me on the operations of the store. I rang up a couple of sales and helped a customer find graph paper. It felt precisely as it had when I was seventeen – like something that stood between waiting in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles and shoveling snow in entertainment value.

  Russet Avenue is designed for foot traffic and browsers. There’s parallel parking on the street and a couple of municipal lots around back. Among other things, there’s an inn, a craft shop, a print gallery, a few restaurants, a jewelry designer, and a chocolatier for the tourists, and a bank, a drug store, and my father’s store for the locals. I’m not sure which category of consumer I fit into at this point, though I certainly hadn’t returned to Amber for its quaint New England flavor. As the morning turned into afternoon, Tyler returned to his books and I spent a lot of time watching pedestrians out the window from behind the counter. I remembered quiet afternoons such as this when I felt shackled to the store and believed that every other teenager in Amber had something more interesting going on.

  It was while daydreaming that I saw Iris entering the gourmet food shop across the street. As I watched, my thoughts ranged from wondering if it was actually her, to how I would respond if she walked in here, to considering going to the stockroom until the moment passed.

  When I saw Iris come out of the shop and head down the street, I decided it was foolish to pretend (or even wish) that I hadn’t seen her. I told Tyler I’d be back in a few minutes and went out the door. I was crossing the street and she was about to walk into the bakery when I called out her name. She turned in my general direction, but didn’t make eye contact for several seconds. When she did, she seemed stupefied by the sight, as though we were standing on a street in Bali rather than in the town where we both grew up.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked as I walked up to her. I noticed her eyes scanning me from head to toe. She didn’t seem to be appraising me; it was as though she was taking inventory.

  “I read about this place in a guidebook and decided to check it out,” I said.

  “You look good. You seem – taller.”

  “Yeah, I get that a lot.”

  She looked stunning to me. I was surprised at how my memory had failed to do her justice. Her hair was shorter than I remembered, but her eyes seemed even more cobalt, her skin smoother, her posture even more approachable.r />
  “So what are you doing here? Last I heard, you were off wandering the globe.”

  “Yeah, moving from suburb to suburb in search of thrills. I finally got tired of the fast lane and decided to stop by for a little small town calm.” As I said this, I rolled my eyes to make sure that she understood I was being ironic. “Actually, my dad’s sick and I’m here to check up on him.”

  Concern darkened her expression. “Is he okay?”

  “I think so. I’m gonna watch the store for him for a few days.”

  “Wow, things have changed.”

  “Well I guess you can do anything for a few days, huh? So what are you doing here? You haven’t moved back, have you?”

  “God, no. I live in Lenox now. I come down every month or so to see my mom. My dad died a few years ago.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. He seemed like a good guy.”

  Iris nodded and looked up the street. I couldn’t tell if she was thinking about her father or feeling uncomfortable about seeing me.

  “Do you want to go grab a cup of coffee?” I said.

  She wrinkled her nose. “I can’t. I’ve got a few more stops to make and I told my mother I wouldn’t be gone long.”

  I shook my head and looked down at my shoes. “That just sounded like I was blowing you off, didn’t it?”

  “No, your mom doesn’t like to be alone. I get it.”

  “Actually, my mom is fine being alone. She just gets irrational if I tell her I’m only going to be gone a short while and then I come back a few hours later. Even if I call her.” She chortled. “Mothers. You’re here for a few days?”

  “Yeah, three or four probably, assuming everything turns out okay with my father.”

  “I’m going to be here until the weekend. Do you want to get a drink sometime?”

  “That would be good,” I said, disproportionately cheered by the fact that she wasn’t blowing me off. “Tomorrow night?”

  “I’d like that. I’ll meet you at the Cornwall at, say, 8:30?”

  “The Cornwall. Yeah, absolutely.”

  “It’ll be nice to catch up. You can tell me about all of your adventures.” She smiled and touched me on the arm. “This was a nice surprise. I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

  She headed into the bakery and I returned to the store. It was no more active there than when I left and I again found myself looking across the street from the window. When Iris came out of the bakery, I saw her take a quick glance in my direction before walking away.

  For a reason that wasn’t entirely clear to me at that moment, I found this extremely satisfying.

  CHAPTER THREE

  An Explanation That Works for Just about Anything

  The first time I met Iris, I was serving as the brunt of one of my brother’s jokes. I’d been home after my sophomore year at Emerson for a little more than a week and wondering how long I could get by with the excuse of a summer independent study class before my father penciled me into the work schedule at the store. That day, Chase hadn’t come home directly after school. This wasn’t unusual now that he had his driver’s license. But in the late afternoon, while I was alone in the house and listening to a vintage Clash album at a volume only allowable when my parents weren’t around, the phone rang. It was Chase speaking agitatedly, telling me that he needed me to pick him up from the mall in Milton. He’d left his car at school because the girl he was with had offered to drive, but when they got to the mall, her behavior became increasingly erratic. He was concerned that she was some kind of psychotic and he definitely didn’t want to get back in the car with her for fear of where she would take him. He’d managed to shake her with the excuse of needing to go to the bathroom, but he was sure he was going to run into her again if I didn’t come for him soon, and he had no other way of getting home.

  I wasn’t accustomed to this sound in Chase’s voice. He was four inches taller than I was and at least thirty pounds heavier. I’m not sure that I had ever seen him intimidated. He had also been handling women deftly from the time he was preadolescent. Yet the rising pitch in his voice suggested that I should make the fifteen-minute drive to Milton without even stopping to turn off the stereo first. I told him to wait for me in The Sharper Image and that I would get there as soon as I possibly could.

  When I got to the store, he was holding an electronic nose hair clipper in his hands while he scanned the room. The nervousness seemed incongruous with his broad, solid form. I imagined the girl he’d taken a ride with as a teen version of Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, and my mind reeled at the notion of what she could possibly have said or done to him to make him this skittish. The very fact of his nervousness caused my heart to race.

  I called out Chase’s name. His head snapped quickly in my direction and then his shoulders sagged. He came up to me, clapped me on the arm, and thanked me dramatically for coming to get him. I led him out of the store as he further described his encounter with the girl. He explained that she was extremely attractive and had always seemed even-tempered in school. For most of the drive to the mall, she had appeared to be completely normal. But then, just as they were getting out of the car, she had started talking about fate and the way things were meant to be and about the two of them going far away together never to be heard from again. He had managed to distance himself from her as quickly as possible, but as we walked, his head was in constant motion and he warned me that she could be anywhere in the mall. He told me that if she found us I needed to remember not to let her fool me. She might seem sensible, but under no circumstance was I to leave him alone with her again.

  I found my pace quickening as he spoke and my eyes scanned the mall, even though I had no idea what the girl looked like. Chase matched me step for accelerating step.

  That’s when she came out from behind a store directory.

  “Oh, there you are,” she said. “I thought you were going to meet me in The Limited after you went to the bathroom.” She didn’t look at all the way I imagined she would from Chase’s description. She had inviting eyes and lustrous hair, and for some reason I immediately noticed the sculpting of her bare shoulders. I realized that I could just as easily have fallen into her trap as Chase had.

  Chase stuttered (which was way over the top and in retrospect makes me feel especially foolish for buying into any of this) as he explained to her that he was in fact planning on meeting her at The Limited but then saw me and got distracted. Mention of my name caused both of them to look in my direction.

  She extended her hand. “I’m Iris. Chase has said great things about you.”

  I shook her hand, surprised at how soft it felt even though her grip had some real integrity. I’m not sure what I was expecting.

  “Are you gonna hang with us for a while?” she said.

  I glanced over at Chase, whose eyes were imploring me to make a move.

  “Um, you know, something has come up and I came to get Chase because we both have to go.”

  Concern quickly registered on Iris’ face. “Nothing bad, I hope.”

  “No, nothing bad,” I said. “Just something that means we have to leave right now.” I looked over at Chase again and he offered the faintest nod to acknowledge that I was taking the right approach. I thought I sounded like a bumbling idiot.

  “Sorry to hear it,” she said. Iris turned to Chase and he stiffened immediately. “You don’t look okay,” she said to him. “Are you sure there isn’t anything wrong?”

  Chase simply nodded, as though he was dumb-struck. Anyone who could move my brother to silence had the power to do much more than that to me. Genuinely concerned, even though every instinct told me that there was nothing to fear from Iris, I took Chase by the arm.

  “We really have to go,” I said.

  “Where are you parked?” Iris asked. “I’ll walk out with you.”

  Chase put his hand over the one I had placed on his arm. If I had been thinking at all rationally, I would have realized how absurd this performance was. Instead, I je
rked myself toward the girl and sharply said, “No, Iris. That really won’t be necessary.”

  She looked like I had slapped her, and I felt terrible about being so abrupt. Then I heard Chase laughing. He hugged my arm before pounding me on the shoulder. Then he walked over to Iris to kiss her while still laughing. It took him more than a minute to calm down enough to speak.

  He told us that he wanted to introduce us and just thought he’d have a little fun with it. I reddened, thinking about the way I’d treated Iris and how I should have known better, since this kind of trickery was always a possibility with Chase. It had been happening once every few months for as long as I could remember, and as stupid as I felt after each incident, I nevertheless marveled at his ability to devise fresh practical jokes that caught me completely unprepared.

  “I was never really convinced that you were insane,” I said to Iris.

  She smiled weakly. “You looked pretty convinced.”

  I took a deep breath. “I might have been. He’s pretty good at this stuff.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Chase was still chuckling as he walked down the hallway, beckoning us to follow him. We wound up eating bad Mexican food at the mall and then going to see a Cameron Crowe movie together. When we parted, Chase started toward Iris’ car, hesitated to throw me a concerned glance, and then laughed about his little hoax all over again.

  “You can have him if you want,” Iris said to me.

  “No, that’s okay. You keep him.”

  The morning after I saw Iris on the street, I was back in the store. Tyler was already there.

  “When do you go to school?” I said.

  “I was supposed to be in a marketing class this morning, but I figured I should be here instead.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. You know, your dad asked me to take care of the place and you didn’t say when you were coming in again.”

  I laughed to myself and wondered what it was about my father that inspired this behavior. I could think of at least a half dozen people he had previously employed who would have done the same thing. Tyler introduced me to Carl, a college freshman who usually shared this shift with my father. Carl shook my hand while looking over my shoulder and then retreated to the stockroom.