by John Cariani
And she waited. And wondered who was coming.
And soon Dave Bonenfant emerged from the woods on his old Arctic Cat and into Rhonda’s backyard.
He pulled up to where Rhonda was standing.
And killed his engine.
And then took off his helmet and dismounted his sled.
“What’s up?” said Rhonda, hands on her hips, wondering what the heck Dave was doing at her house.
“Um, well—I just…” Dave was anxious and couldn’t seem to bring himself to tell Rhonda what was up. He seemed troubled.
“You okay?” asked Rhonda.
“Yeah. I just, uh … wanted to say…” Dave stopped breathing and realized that he didn’t quite know how to tell Rhonda what he had come all the way out to her house to do, so he told her something else—something he just wanted to make sure she knew: “That was just fun tonight.”
“Yeah. It was,” agreed Rhonda. She and Dave had gone on a sledding trip to the Snowmobile Club for Trivia Night. And it had been fun. But Dave didn’t have to come all the way over to tell her so.
“Yeah. It was,” Dave reaffirmed. And then he just stood facing Rhonda and didn’t say anything. And looked nervous. Or scared. Or sick.
“You sure you’re okay?” asked Rhonda.
“Yeah. I just also wanted to let you know that…” Dave stopped breathing—again—and realized—again—that he didn’t quite know how to tell Rhonda what he had come all the way out to her house to do. So he tried to think of something—anything—else to say. And finally came up with, “So that was fun tonight, huh?”
“Yeah,” said Rhonda, wondering why Dave was stating the obvious. They always had fun when they went sledding on Friday nights.
“Even though you whupped my butt!” added Dave, laughing.
“Well, that’s what you get for ridin’ an Arctic Cat. You get your butt whupped,” teased Rhonda. It was also what he got for taking on the Northern Maine Snowmobile Association’s Snowmobiler of the Year, but Rhonda didn’t say that because she didn’t want to rub it in.
“Yeah,” conceded Dave.
“And I whupped it!” she teased, giving Dave a playful kick in the butt.
“I know, I know, I’m not sayin’ you didn’t!”
Dave and Rhonda laughed. And thought about how much fun they always had together.
And then Rhonda looked at Dave, and she felt like he had a lot more to say than that he had had fun sledding, but he wasn’t saying anything, so she said, “Look, dude, I’m workin’ tomorrow—first shift. I gotta be up at the crack o’ butt, so what’s up?”
“Oh—sorry—um. I just wanna … can I, um…” Dave couldn’t stop stammering and was about to give up on trying to do what he had come all the way out to Rhonda’s to do when he felt a strange lightness fill up his insides—a lightness he had been feeling whenever he thought about Rhonda lately. And whenever he was around her. It made him feel like the blue flame from a gas burner on a stove was glowing inside him. And like he was about to be in zero gravity or something.
Rhonda waited for Dave to finish what he seemed to be having a lot of difficulty saying. And when it didn’t seem like he was going to be able to finish, she asked impatiently, “Dave, come on! Can you what?”
The lightness Dave had been feeling suddenly seemed to fill him with courage, and it made him blurt out, “Can I come in?”
Rhonda was a little taken aback by the question and asked, “Huh?”
“Can I come inside?”
“Um…”
“Just for a second,” added Dave. “I just—have somethin’ I’d like to … do … in there.”
“You got ‘somethin’ you’d like to do there’?” asked Rhonda.
“Yeah.”
“In my house?” Rhonda was scowling.
“Yeah.”
Rhonda looked at her house. And then at Dave, quizzically. And then asked, “Like what?”
Dave wanted Rhonda to stop asking him questions before he lost his nerve. Because he was losing his nerve. So he practically begged, “Just—can I come in?”
“Why? You gotta pee?” asked Rhonda.
“No.”
“’Cause you can pee out here.”
“I don’t have to pee.”
“Number two?”
“No—”
“’Cause you can do that out here, too. Got an old outhouse out back there.”
Rhonda’s cabin had originally been built as a hunting cabin with limited amenities, and there was an old outhouse in the woods not far from where they were standing. Not that Rhonda used it—her place had indoor plumbing and an impressive array of amenities.
“I don’t have to go to the bathroom,” groaned Dave.
Rhonda felt herself get hot in the ears and neck. Because the thought of Dave coming inside her house was making her really nervous for some reason. “Well, what do you gotta do?” she demanded.
“Nothin’, just—”
“Nothin’?” mocked Rhonda. “You rode all the way out here so you could tell me you wanted to come inside and do nothin’?”
“No—not nothin’. There’s just somethin’ I gotta do—inside—that I can’t really do out here.”
“Um…,” stalled Rhonda. This was weird. Dave had never been over to her house before—even though they’d been seeing a lot of each other since they met playing horseshoes at SummerDaze at the Rec Center over the summer.
They’d gone over to Dave’s a lot, though. Maybe because Dave was an excellent cook. (He worked in food services at Caribou High School.) So he made them dinner a lot. And after dinner they’d play cribbage and drink a little beer and maybe smoke a little smoke.
And they always had a great time hanging out at Dave’s.
But they had never hung out at Rhonda’s. Maybe because Rhonda never spent much time at her house. She slept there—but she spent most of her time out and about. She worked as much overtime as she could get. And she was the treasurer of the Northern Maine Snowmobile Club. And she was on the tribal council of the Aroostook Band of Micmacs.
All this to say—Rhonda had a big busy life. And she wasn’t home much. So she didn’t really hang out with people at her home.
And now it looked like she was going to hang out.
With a person.
At her home.
And that person was Dave.
And that made her uncomfortable.
“Rhonda?” asked Dave.
Rhonda had been in a daze and asked, “Huh?”
“Can we go inside?”
“Oh. Yeah, sure,” she said, trying to be casual about Dave’s request. And she gestured toward the back door of her cabin. And expected Dave to make his way inside.
But Dave didn’t. Instead, he scooted over to the storage compartment on the back of his sled.
“What’re you doin’?” asked Rhonda.
“I’m comin’, I’ll be right there, I just gotta get somethin’.”
“Well … hurry up.”
“I’m hurryin’!”
Rhonda turned and started toward her back door and stopped at the stoop so she could kick the snow off her boots. And then she turned back to Dave and called, “Before I change my mind, pal.”
“I’m comin’!”
As Dave approached the back door, Rhonda could see that he was carrying a flat, medium-size, square package under his arm. It was wrapped in brown craft paper. And looked like it was a present.
Unsure of what to make of what was happening, Rhonda went up the stoop’s two wooden steps and pulled open the silver aluminum storm door and then pushed open the wobbly wooden door to her small home and went inside.
Dave reached the stoop and kicked the snow off his boots and followed Rhonda up the steps and inside.
Rhonda flicked on the interior light and turned to Dave when he had barely stepped inside and said curtly, “Okay. This is it. You’re in. You’re inside.”
Dave didn’t quite agree. Because they weren’t quite inside�
�they were on Rhonda’s porch.
“This is the porch,” said Dave, implying that he’d like to go farther inside.
“It’s winterized,” said Rhonda, shrugging, and letting Dave know that, as far as she was concerned, he was as far inside as he was going to get.
Dave wondered if Rhonda’s porch actually was winterized. Because it wasn’t much warmer on the porch than it was outside.
And then he looked around and saw pretty much what you’d expect to see on a northern Maine porch.
To his left was a pile of wood that had a pile of old newspapers stacked on top of it.
An old telephone bench sat by the door that led to the rest of the house, with old sneakers and shoes and boots piled underneath. Jackets for all types of weather hung on a coat rack above it, and a bin full of hats and scarves and mittens sat beside it.
Across from the bench was a wicker table with a dead plant and some tools on it. Some plastic chairs sat at the table.
And the rest of the space was full of everything from snowshoes to old SnowGoer magazines to an old hibachi.
Rhonda’s porch was basically a giant closet.
While Dave took in his surroundings, Rhonda pulled off her neck gaiter and gloves and stuffed them in her snowmobile helmet, which she tossed into the bin full of hats and scarves and mittens.
And Dave pulled off his gloves and his balaclava and shoved them in his helmet and set his helmet down by the door near the woodpile.
As he did so, Rhonda couldn’t take her eyes off the flat, medium-size, square wrapped package that he was holding under his arm. Impatient and a little irked, she asked, “So, Dave, what? What do you gotta do in here that you couldn’t do outside?”
“Well, I got somethin’, here, for ya, here.”
Dave offered Rhonda the flat, medium-size, square wrapped package he had brought her.
Rhonda just stared at what Dave was offering and asked, “What’s the heck is this?”
“It’s just … well … we’ve been together now—”
“Together?!?” scoffed Rhonda.
“Um—well…,” stammered Dave, realizing for the first time that maybe he did think of him and Rhonda as being “together.”
“Together?” repeated Rhonda.
“I just meant—”
“What are you talkin’ about, ‘together’???”
Dave talked over Rhonda, because he didn’t want to lose his mojo. “Well, we been friends now for quite a few months, and … well…” He struggled to find words to express what he wanted to say. And then gave up on trying to find words and just forced his gift into Rhonda’s arms and mumbled, “Here,” avoiding eye contact with her, because he was really nervous about what she was going to think of it.
And now Rhonda had in her possession what he had been wanting to give her.
And the strange lightness filled Dave’s insides again. And it made him all tingly. And it made him almost smile. Because he couldn’t wait for her to open what he had given her. Because he couldn’t wait to see what she was going to think of it.
Rhonda slowly looked down at the flat, medium-size, square wrapped package that had been foisted on her. And asked gently—but also in a way that let Dave know that what he was doing was not copacetic—“What are you doin’, here, bud?”
“Just open it,” said Dave, looking at the floor.
“Okay,” said Rhonda skeptically. And she suddenly wished she hadn’t let him in her house.
“Please,” pleaded Dave, letting Rhonda know that he really just wanted her to open what he had brought her. Because it would say everything that he had been unable to say over the past few months.
“All right,” grumbled Rhonda.
And she scowled at what Dave had given her.
And then started to open it.
As she did, she scoffed again. “Together. What’re you doin’, here, bud?”
“Just open it! Jeez!”
“I am!”
Rhonda opened the flat, medium-size, square wrapped package, wondering why Dave was being so weird. And why he was giving her a present. Because she and Dave were the best kind of friends—the kind that don’t have to get each other presents.
Then she balled up the brown craft paper that Dave had wrapped the present in and chucked it into the corner near the woodpile and the old newspaper pile.
And then she looked at what she had unwrapped.
It was a large, square piece of stretched canvas—with something painted on the front.
Dave felt that strange lightness grow inside him, because Rhonda was about to see what he had painted for her, and he was hoping that she was going to love it and hug him and kiss him and that they’d live happily ever after.
But that wasn’t quite what happened.
“What is this?” asked Rhonda, screwing up her face as she peered at the square piece of canvas.
Dave was a little hurt by the question. And by the expression on Rhonda’s face. “What do you mean, ‘What is this?’”
“Exactly what I said: What is it?”
“Well, can’t you see what it is?”
“A paintin’.”
“Yeah,” Dave said. It was obviously a painting.
Rhonda propped the painting up against an old milk crate that had some old glass electrical insulators and a Nerf football and some softballs and some ball gloves and some Frisbees in it.
And she stared at the painting.
For a while.
And then she asked, “Where’d you get this, it looks homemade?”
Dave’s painting was homemade. That’s what made it special, he thought. But the way Rhonda said that it “looked homemade” made it seem like she didn’t think it was very special. Or of any quality. And that hurt. “What do you mean it looks homemade?” Dave asked, trying not to whimper.
“It looks like someone really painted it.”
“Well, someone really did paint it!”
Rhonda looked at Dave. And wondered if he was the someone who had painted it for her and asked, “Did you paint this?”
“Yeah.”
“For me?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh.” Rhonda stared at the painting and asked bluntly, “Why?” Because she really couldn’t understand why Dave would have painted something for her.
“Well…” Dave tried to answer Rhonda’s question—but couldn’t.
And Rhonda sensed that his feelings were hurt and tried to make him feel better and said, “I mean, thanks, thank you,” and didn’t much sound like she meant it.
“You’re welcome,” muttered Dave, hurt—but still eager to see what Rhonda thought of his painting.
“So, Dave,” said Rhonda sardonically, “I didn’t know you painted.”
“Well, I do.” Dave did a lot of things. He cooked. He played the piano. He gardened. He built ham radios. He read.
And he painted.
“I paint,” continued Dave. “See, I’m takin’”—Dave interrupted himself and went over to the painting and turned it right side up, because Rhonda had propped it upside down when she had set it against the old milk crate. And then he continued, “I’m takin’ this painting class on Tuesdays at the Rec Center—this artist from Allagash is teaching it—it’s real good—and this is my version of one of those stare-at-it-till-you-see-the-thing things. You ever seen one of those?”
“A stare-at-it-till-you-see-the-thing thing?”
“Yeah, you’ve seen ’em, right?”
“No, I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”
“Yeah, you do, you know what they are.”
“I don’t think I do, Dave.” Rhonda hated it when people—especially guys—decided what she knew and didn’t know.
“Yeah, you do: You know those picture books with the illustrations that take up the whole page and just look like rows and rows of a bunch of little repeating images—like little stars or birds or umbrellas or whatever—anything, I guess? Anyway, if you don’t focus on the little
images and kinda cross your eyes and stare at the whole page for long enough, you can eventually make out a 3-D image that’s hidden inside all the little repeating images. It’ll appear to you—from out of the 2-D patterns you’ve been starin’ at.”
“Okay, yeah, I’ve seen those but—”
“Told ya!”
“I can never see what you’re supposed to see in ’em!”
“Well, hopefully you’ll see this one!” And then Dave wondered for a moment what he would do if Rhonda wasn’t able to see what he had painted for her. And he almost lost heart for a second. But then that strange lightness that he had been feeling grew inside him and helped him find heart again, and he continued. “Anyway, these things are called stereograms, and that’s kinda what I made, here, for ya. And—we learned that some of the old painters made somethin’ like these with dots. They called it … oh, man, they called it … pointa-somethin’—I don’t remember—but—it doesn’t matter—anyway, we did it with little blocks of colors, see, and if you just look at the little blocks of colors, it’s just colors, but if you step back and look at the whole thing, it’s not just little blocks of colors—it’s a picture of somethin’.”
“Picture of what?”
“I’m not gonna tell you, you gotta figure it out.” Dave grinned. He loved making people figure things out.
“Oh, come on, Dave, I had so much crap to figure out at work today, I don’t wanna have to figure somethin’ like this out. Just tell me what it is.”
“No! I’m not gonna tell ya what it is! It’ll take all the fun out of it!”
“Dave—”
“Now, it can take a little time. It can be a little frustrating.”
“Well, why would you give me somethin’ that’s gonna frustrate?”
“No, no! I just mean … you gotta not try to look for anything, that’s what’ll frustrate you. You gotta just kinda … zone out at it. And look at it so it doesn’t know you’re lookin’ at it.”
Rhonda wondered how in the world a painting could know or not know if she was looking at it. “What’re you talkin’ about?!?”
“Here. Sit down.” Dave pulled one of the plastic chairs from its place at the wicker table and set it in front of the painting and motioned for Rhonda to have a seat.
And Rhonda warily did.