Cameo Lake

by Susan Wilson

  The car phone rang and I let it go for a couple of beeps. Then I picked it up in the hopes that Sean had quickly seen his mistake and was calling with an abject apology.

  I should have known better.

  “Cleo, don't do that to me again. I only mean to say that I've got a lot of traveling to do in the next two weeks and my mother isn't up to keeping the kids for that long.”

  He'd done it. He'd played the mother hand. I knew full well Alice McCarthy was more than up to keeping my kids, but Sean would prefer I did my duty.

  “Did she say that?”

  “You know she never would. Come on, Cleo. What do you think?”

  “I think you're going back on your promise.”

  “You know it wasn't a very realistic promise. I did my best. You said you were making good progress.”

  “I have a deadline, Sean.” Not quite true, but believable, and a word he understood.

  “I appreciate that.” Another pause. “All right, I'll figure something out for August, but I can't change things for now.”

  “Sean.” I was actually shaking, sitting there in the hot car on an already stifling day, “Don't you want to see me?”

  He didn't say anything for a moment, then, “May I remind you who left whom?”

  “What do you mean, left?”

  “Look, I'm sorry.” Now he was backpedaling. “Of course I miss you, and want to see you. But, it may not be possible.”

  I was not mollified, only more deeply wounded. “I'll come home, Sean. Obviously that's what needs to happen.”

  “No. Don't. I'm sorry. I'll be up next weekend. I'll come next Friday and stay through Monday. A nice long weekend, okay?”

  He had negotiated a truce and I accepted the terms. “Okay. Next Friday.”

  I was on the other side of tired where sleep is denied. I had lain for hours in the hot bedroom, spread-eagled on the three-quarter bed, chewing on Sean's words, feeling more and more angry. Giving up, I went out onto the porch and opened my laptop's lid. I got settled and opened the file which contained the sum of my three week's work, reading through a few pages, then scrolling down to where I'd left off. It seemed so bland, so trite. I could fluff it up here and there, but the fact was, the critical developments lacked verisimilitude. Simply not enough real emotion represented there. Opening up a cold Coke, I got to work.

  The only light was the blue background of the laptop. The only sound the percussive thump of my right thumb on the space bar, and the occasional croak of a bullfrog. It was so quiet I allowed myself the total immersion I craved. Like being locked in a closet, I could only keep my eyes on the light of my screen, the door to my refuge.

  I entered the place all writers long to go, need to go, in order to get the job done. I was in the groove, as if all senses, all thoughts and emotions were extant only in the confines of the screen and the world I was creating. Except for having to pee and getting another Coke, I remained at work in my dark space with the heat and humidity southern in intensity, but not oppressive now. Heat which was comfort, protection, and forgotten as I directed all my conflicted thoughts into the written word.

  As I drew my characters into their painful story-defining crisis, Ben's musical memorial to his wife came to mind. I stopped typing long enough to actually run it through my head, trying to capture it entirely, but only the four measures of his main theme would circle my inner hearing. I could hear the chordal progression as Ben had sung it that other evening. I didn't know the names of the chords, only that they had risen. Against the evil words of the lakeside neighbors, it was poignant and served to still their cruelty in my mind. Now, when held up against the evil befalling my protagonist, it seemed less poignant. As imagined background music for my imaginary people, it had, instead of homage, the sound of anger, pain, and misunderstanding. I felt a little corrupt in taking it.

  There is a time of night which is darker than any other; a time when even the night creatures are still. Nurses will say it is the time of death.

  I felt my consciousness close down. I was awake, but my impulse had slowed and I realized I'd been sitting still for some time. I reread my last paragraph and smiled at the transpositions. I fixed the obvious ones and shut down. The air was still oppressive, unmoving. Even if I lay down now, I wouldn't sleep. I stripped off my soaked boxers and T-shirt and grabbed a towel. Naked, I walked to the water's edge. By the light of Ben's porch light I could just make out the raft. Otherwise the bare night sky and the lake melded into one darkling horizon. The water was like silk against my skin. The sudden relief of the spring-fed lake water made me groan with pleasure, the only sound to be heard, and I was a little embarrassed.

  In twenty strokes I was at the raft, just visible as a dark form in the dark water. Feeling for the ladder with one hand while holding the edge with the other, and praying with all my heart no spiders were within reach, I hauled myself out of the water.

  “Cleo?”

  Ben's voice startled me back into the water.

  “God, Ben, you scared me.”

  “I didn't want you to land on top of me.”

  From below I couldn't see him in the thick night air. His disembodied voice floated above me.

  “Come on up, I've moved over”

  “I can't.” I didn't quite want to say I was buck naked, but Ben caught on.

  “Cleo, I can't see the hand in front of my face. And neither can you.”

  So it was that we sat, side by side, perfectly naked. We kept the distance of four boards between us. Only our voices, hushed against the amplification of the inverted air and echo of water, were visible. It was like the intimacy of the telephone. We didn't lie down, I think because that would have been for both of us a too, too vulnerable position. As it was, I was exquisitely aware of our nakedness, a feeling which began to dissipate as we talked.

  As if he needed to explain himself, Ben offered, “I sleep out here when it's this hot.”

  “I just needed to cool my body temperature off. I've been workingall night.”

  “I know. Every now and then you vocalize.”

  Had he heard me humming his tune? “I hope I haven't kept you awake.”

  “No. I'm restless anyway.”

  I heard a distant splash. A jumping fish perhaps.

  “I'm pretty restless too.”

  “Are you all right?” Ben had detected my poorly disguised unhappiness.

  “Yeah. Fine.” I really couldn't go into it. I really didn't want to begin to loose the private battle between me and my husband, even to this kind stranger.

  “You don't sound fine, Cleo. What's the matter?”

  A man who reads nuances in music could hear the false note in my reply. “I'm just wiped.”

  “Kids okay?”

  “Sleeping like, well, like babies.”

  “Sean?”

  The very first threat of tears clogged my throat and my silence was eloquent.

  “Hey, I'm a neutral wall. You want to talk, I'm here.”

  “What makes you think . . .” I couldn't finish the statement. It cost too much after a day full of emotional effort to work up the energy to pretend everything was well ordered in my world.

  “He's not coming back for them, is he?”

  “No. But it's all right. They shouldn't be spending the summer in the city when I'm here.”

  “Maternal guilt?”

  “Ben, sometimes we just don't get what we think we want.”

  “Suggestion?”

  “Shoot.”

  “There's a really nice day camp on the other side of the lake. Starts every Monday. They teach water safety and horseback riding. Camp Mom-Needs-Time-Alone.”

  I laughed a little at his joke, amazed at his perception. “I'll look into it tomorrow.” I reached across the four boards to touch his bare shoulder, in the darkness a curiously intimate gesture. “Thank you, Ben.”

  He patted the hand that touched him, holding my fingers there. I didn't move to withdraw them. “Just being neighborl
y.”

  We were quiet then, my hand still on his shoulder. I pressed the tips of my fingers against his skin, “Ben, you do know that I can be a good listener, too.”

  “I know.” He pressed his cheek against my fingers, I felt the day's growth of beard rough against them. “I know.”

  We sat quietly on the raft until a slight breeze, like a sigh after weeping, touched my skin and I realized that the hour before dawn had arrived. Darker shapes were outlined by the fading darkness. I could see Ben clearly, and if he had been less of a gentleman he could have turned his head and seen me. We slipped off the edge of the raft simultaneously, a nearly splashless landing. A cardinal's piercing note announced the new day.

  Eleven

  The first flashes of impotent heat lighting began just as I lay down, more pulsing sheets of light than streaks. I fell instantly asleep and dreamed of cityscapes and the voices of my children. I didn't dream of Sean. Still, my sleep was intermittent, disturbed by the light of another scorching day. By eight o'clock I was up and back at my computer. The kids slept on and I didn't chide them awake.

  The humidity was layered over the lake like whipped cream over a pie. I sat in a tank top and running shorts, hunched over my laptop, rereading the last few paragraphs from the night before and trying desperately to get back into that groove where no other world but Jay and Karen's existed. Where the betrayals and disappointments were products of my controlling imagination and not about me.

  Morning had not brought with it a lessening of my anger at Sean. The anger was less white hot, but no less real. It reminded me of another anger long ago. If Sean couldn't hold up his end of the bargain in this situation, why did I think he could maintain his end of a bargain now almost eight years old? He had been so contrite, so sorry, so boyish in his belief that he could be forgiven for his infidelity. So assured and yet grateful that I would be like his mother had been when Francis McCarthy cheated on her.

  My parents divorced when I was sixteen. Typically, they never spoke of the cause of their separation, but I knew deep down that Mr. Ramsey was the catalyst. The separation and divorce came suddenly, without warning and without negotiation. I never saw Mr. Ramsey again. It was as if they had needed an excuse to go their separate ways, a minimum of fuss. When Alice discovered Francis cheating, she screamed bloody murder and threw a lamp at him. They stayed married and seemed content.

  I looked up from my screen, still exactly as it had been an hour before, and saw Ben paddling north, up the widest part of the lake. I picked up the binoculars and focused on him as he drew the paddle through the still water. Under the scrutiny of my gaze his strokes were graceful, making the motion seem effortless, rhythmic, and strong. He switched sides and paddled on the starboard side of the Old Town, digging deeper into the lake, the motion etching fine muscle against his strong back. Thinking myself entitled to a mean thought, I compared him to Sean. My husband's physical fitness was limited to an occasional business round of golf. In spite of my chiding to be active, he remained sedentary. His natural body type saved him from being overweight, although, as I had noticed earlier in the summer, his lifestyle was beginning to catch up to him. By the time he was Ben's age, he'd pretty much look like his father. Rusty red hair faded to yellow, paunch outlined by expensive suspenders. Good suits to disguise the bandy legs.

  I shook myself out of the visual punishment. It wouldn't be that bad. Sean's legs were pretty good. I lifted the binoculars again and watched my neighbor bend the trajectory of the canoe toward the pier belonging to the lakeside general store. The store had only opened for the season just before July Fourth and I found it useful only for Popsicles and the kid's bait. The price of milk was absurd and the owners carried only one kind of bread, the “squishy white bread” which my kids loved and I wouldn't let them have.

  I lowered the binoculars and wondered for a moment when I had become such a nosy neighbor. I admitted to myself that I was fascinated with Ben Turner because he let so little of himself out. He was niggardly with details, letting clues drop here and there, obviously protecting himself from saying out loud that he hurt. I had meant what I said out there in the middle of the night on the middle of the raft. I could be a good listener. I hoped that he understood it wasn't really just nosiness, it was an offer to be the neutral wall he'd offered me.

  Lowering my binoculars, it occurred to me that my interest had not been entirely on his story. Thinking of our midnight visit on the raft, the warm breeze on our bare skin, I recalled the sense I felt sitting there, as if we were doing something very naughty. Playing with fire.

  “I know you probably have a waiting list a mile long.” I stood in the dank director's cabin of Camp Winetonka.

  “Well, yes. We have a repeat clientele which takes precedence over . . .”

  I listened with a sinking heart to the slightly supercilious affectation of the camp director, who was also the owner, and, I believe, the cook. She was one-half of a married couple who had opened up their camp thirty-five years ago and never looked back. The place seemed very homey, if a camp can project that. Because it was a day camp, there was only the director's cabin, which was also their summer home. A teepee took center stage in the flat, dusty fire-pit area. Everything was incredibly neat and tidy, and as I waited for her to speak to a counselor, I noticed a boy scooping up a pile of horse manure.

  Mrs. Beckman was a round woman, wearing knockoff Boy Scout khakis and a broad-brimmed hat, which she took off and hung on an antler as she ushered me into the office. Under the hat was a head of steel-gray hair. I had never used the description “steel-gray” for any of my characters, deeming the words way too trite. But in this case, steel-gray was the only adjective appropriate. For a minute, I thought the hard curls were a spun aluminum wig.

  “Mrs. Beckman, I understand. May I explain to you my problem?”

  Mrs. Beckman sat with her hands folded on top of her desk and nodded. “Of course.”

  “I came to the lake to write . . .” Oh God, how pretentious did that sound. “I'm a novelist.”

  “Would I have heard of you?”

  “I don't know. I write as Cleo Grayson. I wrote—”

  “ Cardinal Rules !”

  “Yes.” I felt that little blush of pleasure which comes with someone-recognizing your work.

  “And Tillotson's Mecca.”

  “You know my books?”

  At this point, Mrs. Beckman was up and around her desk and melted into a much softer person. Even her curls began to move. “Ms. Grayson, it would be an honor to have your children be our guests. We call them guests, you know.”

  At long last, my work was paying off.

  “They start tomorrow. Full days, five days a week. Mrs. Beckman was very accommodating.”

  I lay on the raft, almost dry now in the intense heat. Ben had just climbed aboard. “Good. I expect that you'll get a lot done while they're learning really useful stuff like lanyard weaving and bow hunting.”

  “Stop it. They mostly get to do what they best love, swim and schmooze.”

  “Schwim and smooze, huh?”

  I laughed at him, and rolled over to dry my backside. “What about you? Getting much done?” I leaned my chin on my fist.

  “Enough. I have to go to New York pretty soon with it.”

  “New York. God, that seems a million miles away from here.”

  “It is when you try to get there via mass transportation.”

  “How are you getting there?”

  “Renting a car, flying out of Boston.”

  “Why are you renting a car?”

  “You've seen the Wagoneer? It's got over two hundred thousand miles on it and I can't ask it to do heavy work anymore.”

  “I'll drive you down.”

  Ben lay down next to me on the hot surface of the redwood raft and placed his chin on his hand. “Nonsense. You've just cleared the slate to work, I'm not going to take any of your time away from you.”

  “I'd love to do it . . . just give m
e a day's notice.” My volunteering had been spontaneous and without forethought, but my disappointment as he refused my offer was genuine. “It isn't that far.”

  “Cleo.”

  I cut him off. “Look, I get very stale if I don't take a day now and then to do nothing. Or to stimulate my senses. Besides, I need to do some research.” This might have been true. I could make it true. It seemed very important to me just then to have that hour and a half alone with Ben, to see him outside of the context of the lake. To see if the friendship we knew on the raft was mobile.

  “Well, it would make my life easier. But that's not why you were put on this earth.”

  I wanted to come up with a snappy response, but his words touched something in me. Hadn't I been put on this earth to make Sean's life easier? Keeping daily distractions at a minimum while he focused on building the firm his father had left to him; asking little of him domestically except to take out the trash, a job he'd passed on to his son in recent months. Hadn't I made it incredibly easy for him to dump the kids on me? Easy for him to fool eight years ago, depending as he had been on my blind trust in him. I felt punched. Not by Ben's words, but with the sudden realization that Sean's maneuvering had triggered an alarm bell I had long thought dormant.

  “Ben, sometimes I do wonder why I was put on this earth.” My voice carried with it the weight of my bitterness.

  Abruptly I stood up to dive off the raft, heedless of the direction I faced. Before I could launch myself, Ben grabbed me by the hand. “Jesus, Cleo, not from that side, please. The rock.” The look on his face startled me with the intensity of his concern. I would almost have said that he was terrified that I would deliberately launch myself off the rock side of the raft.

  “I'm sorry, I forgot.” Ben still clung to my hand and I could detect a faint tremble, and I knew that I had given him a shock by my thoughtless action. I squatted down next to him. “I won't make that mistake again.”