Simple Riches

by Mary Campisi

  “We were pretty traditional.” She looked out the window, stared at the mesh of green blending together as they drove by. Family recipes? Aunt Helen left the recipes to Bon Appétit and the cooking to Rosa.

  “What nationality are you?”

  “Excuse me? Oh.” She was remembering Rosa’s chateau briand . “My father was English and my mother was Russian.”

  “Was?”

  What was he doing, taking a history, like she was one of his patients? Alex prided herself on keeping her personal life just that, personal. She pressed her shoulders into the back of the seat, kept her head turned. “They died when I was eight. I was raised by my aunt and uncle.”

  “No brothers or sisters?”

  She shook her head. “Just me.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Why?” She looked at him, forced a smile. “I never had to share a thing. I always got first choice, second too. My aunt and uncle gave me everything,” her voice grew louder, “everything I ever wanted.”

  He didn’t look at her when he answered, or change the tone of his voice, but let it roll out in a matter-of-fact statement. “Like I said, I’m sorry.”

  “I hate pity.”

  “So do I.”

  She should let it go. After all, she needed him on her side if she were going to convince him to sell. But she hated it when anybody felt sorry for her—she didn’t need or want sympathy. Sympathy made people weak, made them powerless, made them think things… I’m sorry about your parents… didn’t they love you enough to avoid such a risk… I’m sorry you don’t have any brothers or sisters… didn’t your parents love you enough to want more than one child… I’m sorry about your husband… didn’t he love you enough to stay faithful… sorry, sorry… sorry… She squeezed her eyes shut, willed the words from her brain. It had taken years to fight the belief that her parents had died because she wasn’t good enough, wasn’t loveable enough, wasn’t…enough. But she’d figured it out, all by herself, through reason and intellect that she wasn’t responsible for their deaths any more than she was responsible for her husband hopping into bed with a Playboy bunny. She was a good person, a loveable person. She was.

  “So, what do you think of it?” Nick’s voice reached her, soft, low, perhaps a bit apologetic. Alex opened her eyes. There, in front of them, sat a huge lake, blue and sparkling like a jewel, surrounded by the rich foliage of trees and shrubs and wildflowers.

  “Beautiful,” she breathed. This is it. As long as she didn’t have to get any closer, she could think of it as a backdrop, a setting on a stage, and she’d be fine. Her pulse kicked in an extra few beats the way it did when she saw bodies of water larger than a Jacuzzi. It’s perfect. You don’t have to go near it, you can just look from here. She forced her breathing to even out as she pictured a few small boats rowing toward the middle of the lake, the women wearing broad straw hats and sundresses, the men, polos and walking shorts. And there would be a pier off to the right, and a gazebo just past the left bank. There. She took a deep breath through her nose, held it, let it ease out past her lips. I’m okay, I’m okay.

  “This is Sapphire Lake.”

  Perfect. Perfect.

  “Let’s eat and you can get a closer look.”

  “Sure.” Alex had no intention of getting any closer. The fear that crawled in her gut every time she saw lakes or rivers or oceans, might be ridiculous, but it was real. Years of forced swimming lessons—You will do this Alex, Uncle Walter had said. Your parents’ deaths were a fluke, an accident. There’s nothing to fear in the water, nothing— had culminated in one last attempt to embrace the water; scuba lessons. Her hatred of defeat and desire to please her uncle, had pushed her on, plummeted her in the water, dive after dive, until the final test, when she had to actually put on her gear at the bottom of a quarry. She could still feel it, clawing at the water as she fought her way to the surface, harder, harder, panic chasing her. I’m going to die… I’m going to die… She had to get out or she would die, die, die… just like them.

  Uncle Walter had never talked about that day, when the instructor dove in and pulled her out of the water, thrashing and hysterical. Nor had she mentioned it. There was no need to—fear had won. But each resort she worked on had either a natural lake or a manmade one in her plans. Perhaps it was a perverse method of facing her demons, indirect and remote as it might be, or maybe it was her subconscious attempt to appease her uncle for failing him. Either way, the inclusion of a lake in her resort plans added to the beauty of the land and made Uncle Walter very happy. He’d be thrilled with this lake. Not only would it save the cost and aggravation of installing a manmade one as they’d done on the last two projects, but this one had the mark and elegance of natural beauty that was often hard to duplicate.

  “How about over here?”

  “That’s fine,” she said, following Nick to a shaded spot underneath a big tree. Walnut? Chestnut? Oak? What had he told her about the bark? And the leaves? Who knew? Her excitement mounted as she envisioned sharing these wonderful findings with her uncle.

  Nick spread out a quilt, red and white, with a circle of blue stars in the center. He placed the picnic basket between them and eased himself onto the ground. “So, what’ll it be”—he flipped open the basket—“tripe and liver or a sweetbread sandwich?”

  “Uh…”

  He laughed. “Just kidding. Looks like ham and Swiss on wheat, or”—he fished around, uncovered part of another sandwich—“turkey and Swiss on rye. You pick.”

  “They both sound good. I’ll take whichever one you don’t want.”

  “Alex, I’m eating both of them. My mother packed two for each of us. Can’t have anybody going hungry or even think about getting hungry.”

  “Then I’ll take the turkey and Swiss.” There was more than just sandwiches packed away in the picnic basket. Stella Androvich had sent potato salad, sugar cookies, and lemonade, all homemade. And all delicious, quite a departure from the raspberry yogurt Alex usually ate at her desk every day. The company wasn’t bad either or maybe it was easier on the digestive tract to hear about deer and rabbits feeding around the lake than it was reading about Wall Street’s latest ventures. Nick stretched out his legs, ate his sandwich and told her about growing up in Restalline.

  “Did you always want to be a doctor?”

  “No. I thought about becoming an anthropologist , studying the history of man, where he came from, how he evolved. I used to go in the woods and dig around looking for fossils, anything to tie in pre-existing life. I’d spend hours on my knees with a shovel.” He stopped speaking, took a drink of lemonade. “But then my dad died and everything changed.”

  “Do you have any regrets?”

  He looked her square in the eye. “Everybody has regrets, but if you’re asking me do I regret becoming a doctor, then no. I was fifteen when they carried my father’s body out of the woods and I swore I’d do everything possible to prevent that kind of thing from happening to somebody else.”

  “You were close to your father?”

  He nodded. “It was a tough time. Thank God for Uncle Frank.”

  “The uncle who doesn’t come to his own birthday parties,” Alex said, recalling the guest of honor’s absence at his own party last night. She’d inquired about him, curious to meet another Androvich, but Edna had only laughed and Nick’s mother had shaken her head in disgust. Who knows when that ornery old cuss will show up? she’d said. Maybe an hour from now, maybe two, maybe not at all. Never you mind, Alex, you just enjoy yourself. And eat as much food as you like, especially the stuffed cabbage. They’re his favorite. Serve him right if we leave him an empty dish.

  “That’s Uncle Frank. He doesn’t like big displays, never has, even more so since the accident two years ago. Anybody tell you about it?”

  She shook her head.

  “Here’s a man who practically grew up with a chain saw in his hand and one day he goes out in the woods, just like he’s done ten thousand times before, but this
time is different. This time, he hits a tough knot, he miscalculates by an eighth of an inch, whatever it is, he can’t remember much right before it happened. Anyway, the saw kicks back and rips half his face off.” He met her gaze. “Literally. He’s got scars down one side of his face and a pocket where his left eye used to be.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “Yeah. God was with him all right or he’d have bled to death.”

  Alex tried to picture the grotesqueness Nick was describing. “Couldn’t he… couldn’t he have some type of reconstructive surgery done? Something to help him?”

  “Of course he could, but you don’t know Uncle Frank. He got fitted for a glass eye and it sits in his bathroom in a denture cup. He doesn’t care what people think, just like he doesn’t care about birthday parties or glass eyes. All he wants to do is stay in his workshop.”

  “What does he make?”

  “Anything with wood. He’s an excellent woodworker, a real craftsman, the best in the area. People see the bowls he turns and they want to buy them and the boxes, they’re incredible. A man even came from Pittsburgh last year, some big buyer for a specialty store. Told him he wanted to commission some of Uncle Frank’s work. He wouldn’t do it, said he wasn’t interested in turning himself into a machine. He only gives them as gifts, didn’t want to hear anymore about it.”

  “But if he’d have taken that deal and shown some of his work in the city, do you have any idea how much exposure he could’ve gotten?” How much money he could be making? The man might be an excellent craftsman, but he certainly wasn’t a very good businessman.

  “He’s not interested.”

  Alex fished a sugar cookie out of a plastic baggie. It had pink icing with pink and white sprinkles. She pictured Stella Androvich in her kitchen, dipping a spatula into pink icing, her silver-brown hair tucked behind her ears. Alex bit into the cookie and a pang that could only be described as emptiness spread through her. Never, not in all her years with Uncle Walter and Aunt Helen, had anyone made her sugar cookies, and even if they had she was certain they wouldn’t have been iced and sprinkled. She laid the half-eaten cookie on the blanket beside her. “Well, maybe your uncle doesn’t understand the value of what he’s making.” Business was a safe topic. She understood it, excelled at it, thrived on it. It was much easier than dealing with old emotions that could serve no purpose. Past was past.

  “He understands it,” Nick said, taking two sugar cookies.

  “Maybe not. Some people don’t, you know. They’re the true artists—they don’t want to muddy their creative waters with something as obscene as money.” That was probably it. Frank Androvich was an eccentric recluse who created for the sake of creating. “He might just need a manager, you know, somebody to handle the financial end of things for him, get him set up, advertise, take orders.”

  “You sound like a representative from S.B.A.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t like to see potential go to waste.”

  “You mean you don’t like to see the chance to make a dollar go to waste.” He was watching her, his expression a mixture of disbelief and dislike.

  “No, that’s not it at all.” But in a way, it was.

  “You see that lake out there, Alex?” He pointed to the calm blue waters of Sapphire Lake. “Do you have any idea how it got its name?”

  The lake was blue and shiny like a sapphire. “My guess would be that it was named after a sapphire because it sparkles like one and has the same blue color.”

  He shook his head. “That’s not it at all, though most people would think that if they didn’t know the truth.” He picked up a blade of grass, ran his fingers down the middle. “Just goes to show you that appearances can be deceiving. You just never know.”

  “So, are you going to tell me or do I keep guessing?” Was he testing her, challenging her in some obscure way?

  He flung the grass in the air. “When my great grandfather settled in Restalline all he wanted to do was buy up land and start a lumber mill. That’s it. So, for three years, he worked hard, night and day, trying to raise enough money for a down payment.” He rubbed his jaw, kept his gaze on the lake. “But the kids started coming along and they could never seem to scrape enough together. He became discouraged, disillusioned that he’d never realize his big dream. Then one day my great grandmother went to town and when she came back, she had enough money to buy fifty acres of land and put a down payment on a lumber mill.” His lips curved into a slow smile. “She’d sold her mother’s sapphire earrings, the only keepsake she had.” There was a gentleness in his next words that reminded Alex of a summer’s breeze blowing over bare shoulders.

  “My great grandfather was so moved he named the lake in her honor. And the story goes that every time he came here and looked at the water, he didn’t see jewels or sparkling gems—he saw love and sacrifice, and hope. Simple riches. As for my great grandmother, she didn’t think about the earrings or what she gave up. She thought instead of what she’d given—a dream to her husband and a cherished memory to her children and her children’s children, down through the years, so much more valuable than a pair of sapphire earrings.”

  Alex listened, thinking of the velvet-lined boxes that had become hers when Aunt Helen died. Pearls, rubies, diamonds. Sapphires. Her aunt would never have given them up, any of them, not for love or friendship or the realization of a dream. It was her legacy to Alex but perhaps more so to herself—a mark left behind weighed in carats and clarity, not compassion and consideration. Alex fingered the single strand of pearls she wore. Had anyone asked her, she too would have selected the memories, the stories of love and sacrifice, handed down from generation to generation rather than a glittering accumulation of meaningless jewels. She too, would have chosen the simple riches. But no one had asked.

  “That’s a very touching story,” she said, her gaze fixed on the calm blueness of the lake. “Your great grandmother must have been quite a woman.”

  “She was. The Androvich women are all strong, determined, single-minded.”

  “Not even a weak-kneed one in the bunch? One that’s just a little off center maybe?” It had been meant as a joke, to lighten the uncomfortable inadequacy Alex felt when Nick talked about his family and their commitment to one another. Uncle Walter cared about her, loved her, and even Aunt Helen had in her own way, though not with words or action. Alex, my lipstick, please. Watch those sticky fingers. Not on my Armani. Affection was foreign, unfamiliar, and uncomfortable.

  But Nick didn’t like her attempt at humor. Her words had him jerking his head around as though she’d slapped him. “Why did you really come to Restalline, Alex?” There was a hard edge to his voice this time, no pretense of politeness.

  “What?”

  “Why? I want the truth.”

  “I told you—”

  He slashed a hand in the air, cutting her off. “At first, I thought you might be one of those “Save the Tree” people, but you don’t know a tree from a piece of particle board. And it was obvious by the way you stayed right on the path this morning and never touched a thing, not even a piece of moss unless I told you to, that you didn’t belong in the woods, so I doubt you’re one of those environmentalist crazies who’s fighting for a bat’s right to live there. So what is it?” His gaze narrowed on her. “Why are you really here?”

  Alex cleared her throat, looked at the lake, tried to think. What to say? You’re right there, Nick Androvich, I’m not one of those environmentalist crazies. I’m not trying to save your trees. As a matter of fact, I was calculating a way to clear out more trees, except for a certain amount that would enhance the value of the area, and then I’d have you haul the lumber at cost, maybe involve Norman Kraziak, too. You see, Nick, the only thing I’m thinking about here is getting this land and saving money. Oh, didn’t I tell you? That’s why I’m really here, to buy up your town. That means the lumber mill, too. And then I’m going to flatten it and build a beautiful resort with this magnificent lake as a backdrop. That�
�s why I’m really here, Nick.

  She tried again. “I told you why I’m here.”

  “Bullshit.” He grabbed her wrist. “Look at me.” She met his gaze, saw the clenched jaw, the flared nostrils, … the dark eyes burning into her, branding her a liar. He released her wrist and when he spoke again, his voice was calm but just as threatening, perhaps even more so because of the absence of emotion there. “What was that smart-ass comment about off center? Is this about Caroline?”

  “Caroline?” She’d heard that name before. Edna had mentioned a Caroline, said something about the Kraziaks and a tragedy, a tragedy that Nick still blamed himself for. Had she been one of his patients? Had she died and he’d felt responsible for her death?

  “If you’re another grad student coming to prey on the misfortune of others for your research material, you can just pack your bags and head out of here. I mean it. I won’t be so easy this time.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He eyed her. “Don’t lie to me. Are you trying to cozy up to the town so you can find out about Caroline? Find out if I was responsible for her death?” His voice dropped, came out hard, low. “If it was my fault?”

  “Nick! What are you talking about? And who’s Caroline?” She didn’t like the way he was looking at her, as though he wanted to reach down her throat and drag the truth from her, one syllable at a time.

  He turned away, stared at the lake, his breathing hard, uneven, his right fist clenched. “Caroline is dead. Nothing will bring her back.” His next words were precise, measured, cold. “And I will not let you or anyone else desecrate her name or dredge up the past. Do you understand?”

  Alex didn’t answer. She had too many questions of her own pounding in her head, the first and foremost, crowding out the rest. “Who is Caroline?”

  As much as she wanted to know, she almost wished she hadn’t asked. His gaze moved over her in slow motion, reel by reel, like the film on a projector, boring into her, through her, stopping, starting again, his face a distorted mask of pain. She wished she could fast forward through this moment, but it went on and on until finally, his lips thinned into a flat line and he spoke. “Caroline was my wife.”