Lis tried to recall any time in recent years when she and Portia had spoken frequently. During the prelude to their mother’s death, she supposed.
Yet even then “frequently” was hardly the word to use.
Seventy-four-year-old Ruth L’Auberget had learned the hopeless diagnosis a year ago August and had immediately taken up the role of Patient—one that, it was no surprise to Lis, her mother seemed born to play. Her monied, Boston sous-Society upbringing had taught her to be stoic, her generation to be fatalistic, her husband to expect the worst. The role was, in fact, simply a variation on one that the statuesque, still-eyed woman had been acting for years. A formidable disease had simply replaced a formidable husband (Andrew having by then made his unglamorous exit in the British Air loo).
Until she got sick, the widow L’Auberget had been foundering. A woman in search of a burden. Now, once again, she was in her element.
Buying clothes for a shrinking figure, she chose not the shades she’d always worn—colors that made good backgrounds, beige and taupe and sand—but picked instead the hues of the flowers she grew, reds and yellows and emerald. She wore loud-patterned turbans, not scarves or wigs, and once—to Lis’s astonishment—burst into the Chemo Ward announcing to the young nurses, “Hello, dahlings, it’s Auntie Mame!”
Only near the very end did she grow sullen and timid—mostly at the thought, it seemed, of an ungainly and therefore embarrassing death. It was during this time that, on morphine, she’d described recent conversations with her husband in such detail that Lis’s skin would sting from the goose bumps. Mother only imagined it, Lis recalled thinking—as she’d protested to Owen tonight on the patio.
She’d just imagined it. Of course.
The chills, however, never failed to appear.
Lis had thought that perhaps their mother’s illness might bring the sisters closer together. It didn’t. Portia spent only slightly more time in Ridgeton during the months of Mrs. L’Auberget’s decline than she had before.
Lis was furious at this neglect, and once—when she and her mother had driven into the city for an appointment at Sloan-Kettering—she resolved to confront her sister. Yet Portia preempted her. She’d fixed up one of the bedrooms in the co-op as a homey sickroom and insisted that Lis and Ruth stay with her for several days. She broke dates, took a leave of absence from work and even bought a cookbook of cancer-fighting recipes. Lis still had a vivid, comic memory of the young woman, feet apart, hair in anxious streamers, standing dead center in the tiny kitchen as she slung flour into bowls and vegetables into pans, searching desperately for lost utensils.
So the confrontation was avoided. Yet when Ruth returned home, Portia resumed her distance and in the end the burden of the dying fell on Lis. By now, much had intervened between the sisters, and she’d forgiven Portia for this lapse. Lis was even grateful that only she had been present in the last minutes; it was a time she would rather not have shared. Lis would always remember the curiously muscular touch of her mother’s hand on Lis’s palm as she finally slipped away. A triplet of squeezes, like a letter in Morse code.
Now Lis suddenly found herself gasping for breath and realized that, in the grip of memory, she’d been working with growing fervor, the pace increasingly desperate. She paused and leaned against the pile of bags, already three-high.
She closed her eyes for a moment and was startled by her sister’s voice.
“So.” Portia plunged the shovel into the pile of sand with a loud chunk. “I guess it’s time to ask. Why did you really ask me out?”
14
At her sister’s feet Lis counted seven bags, filled, waiting to be piled up on the levee. Portia filled two more and continued, “I didn’t have to be here for the estate, right? I could’ve handled it all in the city. That’s what Owen said.”
“You haven’t been out for a long time. I don’t get into the city very much.”
“If you mean we don’t see each other very much, well, that’s sure true. But there’s something else on your mind, isn’t there? Other than sisters socializing.”
Lis didn’t speak and watched another bag vigorously fill with wet sand.
“What is this,” Portia continued, “kiss and make up?”
Lis refused to let herself be stung by the mocking tone. Gripping a bag by the corners she carried it to the culvert and slung it fiercely on top. “Why don’t we take five?”
Portia finished filling another bag then planted the shovel and pulled off the gloves, examining a red spot on her index finger. She sat down, beside her sister, on the low wall of bags.
After a moment Lis continued, “I’m thinking of leaving teaching.”
Her sister didn’t seem surprised. “I never could quite see you as a teacher.”
And what exactly did she see me as? Lis wondered. She assumed Portia had opinions about her career—and about the rest of her life, for that matter—but couldn’t imagine what they might be.
“Teaching’s been good to me. I’ve enjoyed it enough. But I think it’s time for a change.”
“Well, you’re a rich woman now. Live off the fat of the land.”
“Well, I’m not going to just quit.”
“Why not? Stay home and garden. Watch Oprah and Regis. There’re worse lives.”
“You know Langdell Nursery?”
“Nope.” The young woman squinted, shaking her head. “Oh, wait, that place off 236?”
“We used to go there all the time. With Mother. They’d let us water flowers in the hothouse.”
“Vaguely. That’s where they had those big bins of onions?”
Lis laughed softly. “Flower bulbs.”
“Right. It’s still there?”
“It’s for sale. The nursery and a landscaping company the family owns.”
“Jesus, look.” Portia was gazing across the lake into the state park. The water had pushed an old boathouse off its pilings. The ghostly white structure of rotting clapboard dipped slowly into the water.
“The state was going to tear it down.” Lis nodded toward the boathouse. “The taxpayers just saved a few dollars, looks like. The nursery, I was saying? . . .” She rubbed her hands together a few times and felt her palms go cold as the nervous sweat evaporated. “I think I’m going to buy the place.”
Portia nodded. Again a bit of yellow hair wound between her fingers and the tips of the strands slipped into her mouth. In the muted light, her face seemed particularly pale and her lips black. Had she refreshed her lipstick before coming out here to stack sandbags?
“I need a partner,” Lis said slowly. “And I was thinking I’d like it to be you.”
Portia laughed. She was a pretty woman and could instantly, as if by turning on a switch, become entirely sensual or charming or cute. Yet she often laughed with a deep breathiness that, Lis felt, instantly killed her appeal. This usually occurred when, as now, she was critical in an obscure way, leaving it to others to deduce their slipups.
Heat bristled at Lis’s temples as the blush washed over her face. “I don’t know business. Finances, marketing, things like that. You do.”
“I’m a media buyer, Lis. I’m not Donald Trump.”
“You know more than I do. You’re always talking about getting out of advertising. You were thinking about opening a boutique last year.”
“Everybody in advertising talks about quitting and opening a boutique. Or a catering company. You and me in business?”
“It’s a good deal. Langdell died last year and his wife doesn’t want to keep running the place. They’re asking three million for everything. The land alone’s worth two. Mortgage rates are great now. And Angie said she’d be willing to finance some of it herself, as long as she gets a million and a half at the closing.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“I need a change, Portia. I love gardens and—”
“No, I think it makes sense for you. I meant, you’re serious about us. Working together.”
“O
f course I am. You handle the business and finance, and I handle the product—there, doesn’t that sound professional? The ‘product’?”
Portia had been staring at the pile of bags she’d filled. She picked one up, carried it to the wall, dropped it into place. “Heavy bastards, aren’t they?” she gasped. “Maybe I oughta shovel less.”
“I’ve got a lot of ideas. We’d expand the formal gardens and open a specialty hothouse for roses. We could even have lectures. Maybe do videos. How to crossbreed. How to start your first garden. You know people in film production. If we work hard, it could really fly.”
Portia didn’t speak for a minute. “Fact is, I was going to quit anyway after the first of the year. Just stay long enough to get my bonus.”
“Really? That’s when I was thinking of buying the place. February. Or March.”
The young woman added quickly, “No, I mean I was going to take the year off. A couple years maybe. I wasn’t going to work at all.”
“Oh.” Lis straightened one of the sandbags, which teetered between the two women. “And do what?”
“Travel. Club Med it for a while. I wanted to learn how to windsurf. Demon of the sea.”
“Just . . . not do anything?”
“I hear that tone, Mother.”
Lis fought down the wave of anger. “No, I’m just surprised.”
“Maybe I’ll do Europe again. I was poor when I did the backpacking routine. And, God, those trips with Mother and Father? The pits. Señor L’Auberget, fascist tour guide. ‘Come on, girls, what the hell’re you up to? The Louvre closes in two hours. Portia, don’t you dare look back at those boys. . . .’ Ha, and you—you were probably the only kid in the history of the world who went to bed without dinner because she bitched about leaving . . . what was that?”
“The sculpture gardens at the Rodin museum,” Lis said in a soft voice, laughing wanly at the memory. “A culture victim at seventeen.”
After a moment Portia said, “I don’t think so, Lis. It wouldn’t work.”
“For a year. Try it. You could sell out your share if it isn’t for you.”
“I could also lose the money, couldn’t I?”
“Yes, I suppose you could. But I won’t let it go under.”
“What does Owen think?”
Ah, well, there was that.
“He had some reservations, you could say.”
You could also say that it nearly broke up their marriage. Lis began thinking about opening a nursery just before their mother died and it was clear that the sisters would be inheriting a large sum of cash. Owen had wanted to put money into conservative stocks and invest in his law firm, hiring several attorneys and expanding into new offices. That would be the best return on the investment, he’d told her.
But she was adamant. It was her money, and a nursery would be perfect for her. If not the Langdells’, then another one somewhere nearby. Always the practical counselor, he rattled off a list of concerns.
“You’re crazy, Lis. A nursery? It’s seasonal. It’s weather-dependent. With landscaping, there’re major liability issues. You’ll have INS problems with the workers. . . . You want to garden, we’ll build another one here. We’ll get an architect, we can—”
“I want to work, Owen. For heaven’s sake, I don’t tell you to stay home and read law books for fun.”
“You can make a living at law,” he’d snapped.
The more he argued, the more insistent she grew.
“Jesus, Lis. At best, you’ll probably clear a few thousand a year. You’d make more if you put it in the bank and earned passbook interest.”
She flung a Money magazine down on the table. “There’s an article on profitable businesses. Funeral homes are number one. I don’t want a funeral home.”
“Quit being so damn pigheaded! At least in the bank the money’s insured. You’re willing to risk it all?”
“Mrs. Langdell showed me the books. They’ve been profitable for fifteen years.”
He grew ominously quiet. “So you’ve talked to her about it already. Before you came to me?”
After a moment she confessed that she had.
“Don’t you think you might’ve asked first?”
“I didn’t commit myself.”
“You haven’t even got your hands on the money yet and you’re pretty fucking eager to throw it away.”
“It’s my family’s money, Owen.”
Most scripts of domestic confrontation would call for a little parrying at this point. Your money? Your money? I supported you when the teachers went on strike. . . . When you lost your big bank client two years ago, it was my salary—a teacher’s salary!—that got us through. . . . I’m doing all the estate legal work for free. . . . All those months when we couldn’t pay the light bill because you joined the country club . . .
But Owen had done then what Owen did best. He closed his mouth and walked away. He grabbed his old .22 pump rifle and walked out into the woods to plink cans and hunt squirrels and rabbits.
For several hours Lis was left alone with the distant pops of gunshots and the memory of the coldness in his eyes when he’d walked out the door.
And for several hours she wondered if she’d lost her husband.
Yet when he returned he was calm. The last he said about the nursery was, “I’d counsel against it but if you want to go ahead anyway, I’ll represent you.”
She’d thanked him but it was several days before his moodiness vanished.
Tonight, Lis started to tell her sister some of Owen’s concerns but Portia wasn’t interested. She simply shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
After a moment Lis asked, “Why?”
“I’m not ready to leave the city yet.”
“You wouldn’t have to. I’d do the day-to-day things. We’d get together a couple times a month. You could come out here. Or I could go into the city.”
“I really need some time off.”
“Think about it, at least. Please?” Lis exclaimed breathlessly to her sister’s face, pale and obscure in the darkness.
“No, Lis. I’m sorry.”
Angry and hurt, Lis picked up a large sandbag and tossed it onto the edge of the levee. She misjudged the distance though and it tumbled into the lake. “Shit!” she cried, trying to retrieve the bag. But it had slipped deep beneath the surface.
Portia spun some strands of hair once more. Lis stood. Several waves splashed loudly at their feet before Lis asked, “What’s the real reason?”
“Lis.”
“What if I said I didn’t want to buy a nursery. What if I was all hot for a boutique on Madison Avenue?”
Portia’s mouth tightened but Lis persisted, “What if I said, Let’s start a business where you and I travel around Europe and try out restaurants or rate châteaux? What if I said, Let’s start a windsurfing school?”
“Lis. Please.”
“Goddamn it! Is it because of Indian Leap? Tell me?”
Portia spun to face her. “Oh, Jesus, Lis.” She said nothing more.
The surface of the lake grew light suddenly, as a huge flash, bile green, filled the western horizon. It vanished behind a slab of thick clouds.
Lis finally said, “We’ve never talked about it. For six months, we haven’t said a word. It just sits there between us.”
“We better finish up here.” Portia seized her shovel. “That was some mean son-of-a-bitch lightning. And it wasn’t that far away.”
“Please,” Lis whispered.
A groan filled the night, and they turned to see the boathouse slide completely off the pilings and into the water. Portia said nothing more and started shoveling once again.
Listening to the chunk of the sandbags filling, Lis remained near the shore, gazing out over the lake.
As the boathouse sank, a vague white form appeared in the trees behind it. For a moment, Lis was sure that it was an elderly woman limping slowly toward the lake. Lis blinked and stepped closer to shore. The woman’s gait suggested s
he was ill and in pain.
Then, like the boathouse, the apparition eased off the shore and into the water, where it sank beneath the still, onyx surface. A piece of canvas tied to a cleat on the frame, or a six-mil plastic tarp, Lis supposed. Not a woman at all. Not a ghost.
She’d just imagined it. Of course.
The night Abraham Lincoln died, after spending many hours with a horrid wound in the thick mass of sweat-damp hair, the moon that blossomed out of the clouds in the eastern part of the United States was blood red.
This freak occurrence, Michael Hrubek had read, was verified by several different sources, one of whom was a farmer in Illinois. Standing in a freshly planted cornfield, 1865, April 15, this man looked up into the radiant evening sky, saw the crimson moon and took off his straw hat out of respect because he knew that a thousand miles away a great life was gone.
There was no moon visible tonight. The sky was overcast and turbulent as Hrubek bicycled unsteadily west along Route 236. It was a painstaking journey. He was now accustomed to the mountain bike and was riding as confidently as a Tour de France racer. Still, whenever a crown of light shone over the road before him or behind, he stopped and vaulted to the ground. He’d lie under cover of brush or tree until the vehicle passed then would leap onto his bike once again, his hammish legs pedaling fast in low gear; he didn’t know how to upshift.
A flash of light startled him. He looked across a field and saw a police car patrolling slowly, shining a spotlight on a darkened farmhouse. The light clicked out and the car continued east, away from Hrubek. His anxiety notched up a few degrees as he pedaled on, and he found himself thinking of his first run-in with the police.
Michael Hrubek had been twenty years old and the arrest was for rape.
The young man had been attending a private college in upstate New York, an area pretty enough at the height of a vibrant summer but for most of the year as bleak as the depressed economy in the small city and fields surrounding the campus.
During his first semester Michael had been reclusive and fidgety but he’d done well in his studies, especially in his two courses in American history. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, however, he grew increasingly anxious. His concentration was poor and he seemed unable to make even the simplest decisions—which class assignment to do first, when to go to lunch, whether it was better to brush his teeth before he urinated or after. He spent hour after hour staring out the window of his room.
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