by Susan Wilson
“Once or twice, but not since you've been there. How the hell are you?”
“Great. Working well. Getting in some good runs.”
“Weather been okay?”
“Better than okay. I went for my first swim today.”
“Out to the raft?”
“Not yet. Just a quick in and out.” Mention of the raft brought my neighbor to mind. “By the way, Grace, who's the guy who lives across the lake from your cabin? The tall skinny guy with the cats?”
“Oh. Ben Turner.” There was a downturn in Grace's voice, a tinge of disgust or dismissal, I couldn't decide.
“Who is he?”
“A loner. Keeps to himself.” There was hiccup in the line, not a noise but the absence of noise, and Grace excused herself. “Sorry, Cleo, I've got to take this call. Call me tomorrow. No, wait, we leave tomorrow. I'll call you when we get home.”
Sitting there with the disconnected phone in my right hand, I wondered whether my absence was working out too well for everyone else. Who has not, in childhood, thought . . . they'll miss me when I'm dead. That'll show 'em. I sat there in Grace's car and wondered if I was being shown just exactly how unmissed I'd be. Life certainly goes on.
Day six and Karen and Jay were shaping up nicely. With my Discman providing background music, this day heavily Dvorák, I advanced Karen's falling in love with Jay, who remained aloof or oblivious to her feelings. I hadn't quite defined his motivation or conflict yet, it would come out as I got to know him better. I had given him a nifty occupation—restaurateur. And, with Karen being a food critic pathologically afraid of gaining weight, I had opened up a whole world of potential conflict. I got hungry as I devised a menu for Jay's restaurant and gave up mid-entrée. My Spartan diet was getting boring and I decided a pork chop was exactly what I wanted. It was late enough in the day to call it quits, anyway.
He stood in the checkout line just ahead of me in the Big G supermarket. I watched his choices as they rode the conveyor belt to the cashier, who popped her gum and chatted relentlessly with the teenage bag boy. Milk, eggs, whole-wheat bread, and cheese; canned soup, five pounds of sugar, a hand-picked bag of baking potatoes; cold cuts, a two-pack of chicken breasts, and a tiny, one-person pot roast. His array looked almost like mine, except I'd chosen pork chops instead of beef. The one concession to temptation, in his case was a two-pound bag of Oreos; in mine, Fig Newtons. He'd picked up a copy of George, I'd snagged Vanity Fair.
It crossed my mind that our menu plans were similar because we were single people living in a world which put things in six-packs. I had never experienced having to buy groceries in such limited quantities before and never realized how difficult it was if you wanted to avoid eating the same thing over and over. I had a notion to comment on our groceries, something about how if we combined our resources we could have more choice and still be economical. But, of course, I didn't. I didn't speak. After all, we really didn't know each other.
He turned toward me as he fished his wallet out of his back pocket. He smiled with that little “You look familiar” smile. Civility. I smiled back with a little nod of, yes we do sort of know each other. He picked up his bags—paper, not plastic—and walked out.
The gum popper looked at me long enough to ask my bag preference, then continued her conversation. I stared after my neighbor until he was obscured by the display of beach balls blocking the store's windows. I could see only the top of his head with its tan baseball cap, then he was gone. In the one split second of eye contact my interest in my neighbor moved from mild to more.
. . . He had the most mild eyes of any I had ever looked into. Full deep brown, they revealed a man incapable of hurting anyone but himself . . .
“Thirty-nine twenty-seven, please.” The cashier's gum-muffled voice startled me and I knew I'd been writing description in my head. Those collie eyes would suit Jay perfectly. I wrote that line on the back of my receipt and stuck it in the back pocket of my shorts.
I maneuvered the big car around my bicycle-riding neighbor, pedaling with determined pace on his twelve-speed trek bike, its panniers filled with his groceries. This far into the White Mountains, there is no flat, just up or down, and he was working hard. I left him in my rearview mirror as I turned into the parking lot of the local library. For such an outpost, the Cameo Lake Public Library is well endowed, and I took a leisurely time registering as a patron and picking out a couple of quick reads. I never like to read anything too good when I'm working for fear I'll give up when faced with superior writers.
Chiding myself for leaving off work for so long, I was going a little-fast along the narrow secondary road which looped around the lake. Ahead I saw something on the side of the road which quickly resolved into my neighbor squatting next to his bike. I was a full twenty yards beyond him when I stopped and, in neighborly determination, reversed to where he stood. I buzzed down the passenger side window. “Need some help?”
He was slow to come alongside of the car, almost as if he thought I might hit the gas pedal and take off. He stood off a little from the passenger side of the car and looked in to see who it was who had stopped. “Thanks. I could use a lift. Flat tire.” He gestured toward the now supine bicycle. “I live on the lake.”
I restrained myself from saying “Yes, I know” and simply popped the release for the back door. “I think it'll fit inside. This car is so big I think you could slip a full-sized motorcycle in without trouble.”
I pulled a little farther off the narrow road, aware suddenly of the danger from cars just like this one speeding past. Bike settled, my neighbor climbed in. “I'm Benson Turner.” For a moment, it almost seemed as if he expected me to react.
“Cleo Grayson.” He took my hand in the briefest of greetings, but long enough for me to get a sense of warmth and long fingers, a little callused.
“I live on one of the islands, so you can drop me at the road to the boat ramp. I'll be fine from there. It'll be less out of your way.”
“It's not out of my way. I live across from you in Grace Chichetti's cabin.”
“Oh.” Ben pressed the palms of both hands against his knees. “I didn't realize that was you. I've seen you running.” He seemed a little uncomfortable with that admission, but I couldn't make myself leaven the tension with an admission of my own voyeurism in watching him chop wood. However, as nominal hostess in this situation, I felt compelled to find small talk. The mile to the access road loomed interminably. “I hope you didn't break any eggs.”
“Eggs? Oh, no. Fortunately I didn't fall off. I hit a broken beer bottle. I wasn't looking where I was going. Lost in thought as usual. A failing of mine.” I had my eyes on the road so I couldn't see if he was smiling in self-deprecation or not.
“Should we drop the bike off somewhere?”
“No. No, this is good. I'll take care of it. I usually fix them myself.” Another tenth of a mile. Then two more silent tenths. I was about to fall back on the traditional weather gambit when Ben spoke. “So, how do you like the lake?”
“Oh, I love it. So peaceful.”
“Won't be in another week. Once July hits, the lake gets pretty busy.”
“Grace told me there's a pretty active social circuit here.”
“I suppose there is. I pretty much keep away from it.”
Grace had called him a loner. “Well, I imagine that I will, too. I came up here to get away from those kinds of distractions. Besides”— and at this point I arrived at the access road—“I don't know anybody here to socialize with.”
I drove him down to the boat ramp, where he had a canoe tied up. Ben climbed out of the SUV and fetched his bike and groceries from the back. “Thanks for the rescue, Mrs. Grayson.”
“Please. Call me Cleo. Mrs. Grayson was my mother.”
He smiled, “Well, Cleo, now you do know someone. Even if it is just me.” He held out a hand and once again I looked into those mild brown eyes. “By the way, you know that you can use the raft?”
“I will.”
When I looked out the picture window of Grace's cabin, I could see Ben paddling a green Old Town canoe from the direction of the boat ramp. Lashed across the bow was the bicycle. The only moving object on the still lake, the canoe left a mild etching of wake behind as the sharp prow neatly pushed through the dark water.
He paddled with slow strokes, coaxing the canoe, not forcing it, across the expanse of lake toward his landing. I watched until he made landfall, stepping neatly from boat to beach, pulling the canoe, with the bike still athwart, securely onto the shore. The screek of his screen door pierced the quiet dusk.
A self-described shy person, I am quick to recognize that characteristic in others. Sometimes our reserve as shy people comes across as snobbery, sometimes as being quiet, or standoffish people. Sometimes our shyness is inbred, sometimes it's learned. My mother used to say of me, “Still waters run deep.” I suppose to explain to her friends why I wasn't talkative in their company, to excuse my failing to be witty in their midst.
Benson Turner seemed to be a shy person. Not shy as if he had been born that way, but shy as if he'd become that way. As if he was recovering from an illness and needed all of his strength to get well.
Three
The next day was unnaturally hot. When I woke up it was already stifling in the cabin, the night air had given no hint of this surprise-change in the heretofore temperate June weather. I opened all the windows and, fighting a little with the expandable screen inserts, no matter how I pushed or pulled, there remained a mosquito-wide gap between the top of the screen and the bottom of the window.
The breeze off the water kept the shaded screen porch cool enough that I was fooled into thinking it would be perfect for taking my noontime run. Even before I had gotten up the initial slope of my track, I was drenched in sweat. The air was dense but I kept going, enjoying the sense of a hard workout without the hard work. The heat loosened my muscles and eventually I reached that silken flow of stride and breath which keeps runners running. The rhythmic pum pum pum of my feet against the humus in time with the music on my Discman, a steady quarter-note motif. All the way around I held the cool thought of plunging into the lake at the end of my run. I made the turn for home and sprinted for about a hundred yards. Halfway back I began to downshift until I came to a pulse-slowing jog for the last thirty yards. I might be eager for my swim, but not for a heart attack—the water was still ice cold. At the water's edge I balanced on first one foot and then the other to pull off my running shoes and socks, dropping them next to the Discman.
I yelped as I hit the water. The shock was mildly pleasant in a masochistic sort of way. I stood up in the waist-deep water, then plunged again, striking out for the raft anchored halfway between my shore and Ben's. The redwood surface of the raft was lasciviously warm in the afternoon sun. I lay my chilled, exhausted body flat against the wood, luxuriating in the palpable waves of heat already drying my nylon tank top and running shorts.
Lulled half asleep as the noon sun sucked the chill out of my wet clothes and the raft rocked ever so slightly, I was slow to become aware of piano music until it stopped. And then started, and then stopped again, each time the same few notes, varying a little in rhythm. I listened casually, without lifting my head, letting the tinkering drift in and out of my consciousness. Then the notes began to coalesce into a recognizable new theme, new chords embroidering it until what drifted to the raft from Ben's cabin really was music. Music which stopped abruptly with an irreverent “shave and a haircut, two bits.”
I rolled over to bake my still damp nether end. In the distance I heard a screen door slam and a soft splash accompanied by mild swearing in acknowledgment of the lake's chill. Just as I flipped onto my back, Ben's head crested the edge of the raft. The startled look in his eyes was clear evidence he had no idea I was out there. His surprise forced us both into quick, unnecessary apologies and laughter at ourselves.
“I'm sorry, I didn't know you were here.”
“Hey, there's plenty of room for both of us.” To demonstrate, I slid over another board-width.
Ben hauled himself up without using the ladder, arriving aboard with a cascade of lake water. “Forgot your bathing suit?” He gestured at my odd swimming attire.
“Running.”
Ben thumped the raft to scare away a big water spider.
“Was that you? Playing just now?”
Ben nodded without looking at me.
“It was lovely. Except perhaps for the bit at the end. A little trite, don't you think?”
Ben laughed, a nice amused chuckle. “You've just been treated to the new theme for some car coming out in the fall. I forget which one. Luxury sport utility. Oxymoronic, if you ask me.”
“So, then. You're a composer.”
Ben laughed again, but this time the amusement was derisive. “Sort of. I write commercial music. You know, advertising jingles.”
“Would I know any?”
He named a potato chip and an adult dietary supplement. I recalled both products and their TV commercials, but no music came to mind.
“It's subliminal. You really aren't supposed to be aware of it. Sometimes it's pseudo-rock and sometimes it's pseudo-classical. Not like the old days, when ad jingles had words . . .”
“Oh, you mean like the Toyota theme?” Unusually unabashed, I sang the little ditty I associated with Toyota commercials for years.
“Something like that. I don't write lyrics, just music.”
“It's funny but such things are so much a part of our culture. I mean, who can't sing the ‘I'll wonder where the yellow went when I brush my teeth with Pepsodent.’”
“You'll.”
“What?”
“You'll wonder where the yellow went . . .”
“Right. Well, generally speaking, people do remember those things, like cigarette slogans, long after the products disappear, or evolve.” I stood up. “You're part of the American subconscious, Ben.”
“More like the American unconscious. Anyway. I promised myself a swim when I got that piece of Americana out of the way, and now I must go tackle a breakfast cereal. Something incredibly sweet and garishly colored. They sent me a carton of it for inspiration.” He named the cereal.
“I have to admit, that one's my kids' favorite.”
A stillness dropped between us, a slight wedge whose provenance I thought was the mention of kids, maybe a little surprise that I was there without family. He quickly broke through the pause, “By the way, I've read all your books.” It came out as if he had had to steel himself to make such a personal remark. “You're a good writer, Cleo.”
“Thank you, Ben. I have a good editor. But, you know, it's funny, I don't usually introduce myself as Cleo Grayson. That was like introducing my alter ego. McCarthy is my married name. I don't know why I did that.”
“Maybe because while you're here, you are Cleo Grayson.” Ben stood up, dry already in the baking sun.
“Thanks for the company, Ben. I hope I didn't intrude on your privacy.”
“No. Not at all. I've been pretty solitary lately and a little company is nice.”
He poised himself at the edge of the raft facing north, which puzzled me for a minute as his cabin was due west. Then he stepped back and gestured to the west side of the square raft as if aware of my thought. “Cleo, you should know that it's really dangerous to jump off that side of the raft. There's a submerged boulder and it's hard to judge where it is as the raft tends to swing a little.”
“Thanks for the heads up.”
“I keep meaning to paint a warning on the edge, but I'm the only one out here. I mean, usually.”
“I'll make sure my family knows that when they come.”
Somehow he didn't seem convinced by my answer and repeated, “Remember, never jump off that side.”
“I won't, Ben. I promise.”
That seemed to satisfy him. Ben dived then, a graceful arc of lithe body, entering the water with only a slight splash. In twenty strokes he'd
curved back toward his own shoreline.
I dived off the east side of the raft a moment later, though with much less grace. I arrived, breathless, on my shore and bent to retrieve my shoes and Discman. When I stood up I could see Ben on his shore, one hand raised in friendly salute, as if acknowledging my successful return to shore. I waved and went back to work.
Four
The nocturnal music of bullfrogs and crickets, a rare owl, and myriad other night sounds surrounded me. Breaking through my random thoughts, another sound. The light music of a breezy piano piece, Mozart, I thought, not being musically confident enough to be sure. A sweet sound competing equally with the natural sounds of the lake. The only human sound until next week, when the other cottages would fill the air with televisions and radios, and two-cycle motors on fishing skiffs. But for now, Ben's music was the only human-derived sound, wafted to me on a breeze which riffled through the trees, carrying on it also the promise of a storm.
I was awakened sometime after midnight by the first volley of thunder. The surrounding peaks echoed with the sound and the blackness was riven with lightening. I lay in my bed and watched, thrilled by the storm, electrically charged by its bright intensity, no other light invading. Even my little digital alarm clock was blank, the power out now. I pulled the blankets to my chin and enjoyed the event.
The storm rolled off the lake like a lover, leaving the area with only sporadic rumbles followed by a hissing sound. It took a moment for it to register, then I recognized the sound of hard rain falling on the water. It was as dark with my eyes open as it was with them shut. Just knowing the electric pump wouldn't work was enough to make me need to pee. I was enough of a girl scout to have a flashlight ready, and the little ecology couplet came to me, “If it's yellow, let it mellow.”
On my way back to bed I glanced through the picture window. The dark ridges of the hills stood out against the darker sky. The only light was Ben's little porch light. Gatsby's kerosene beacon.