Brindell Builders had a contract renovating ancient resort cottages built four-deep on narrow lots surrounding Empire Lake, twenty-five miles inland from Lake Michigan. Charlie’s father looked the other way when Robin and his son moved into a frontage cabin as soon as the plumbing was hooked up. Charlie brought home flowers Robin put in Mason jars; she made him eggs in the mornings, learned how to use a level and a power saw. They spent weekend days at the beach, and watched the Cherry Princess crowned at the Cherry Harvest Parade. They did the dune climb at the national park, and took photographs of Sleeping Bear itself, the dune that was eroding, that would slide, the rangers told them, off the bluff and into Lake Michigan within a generation. They visited the International Nun Museum, and Robin bought a set of magnets. She bought old posters at the flea market in Weldon to tack to the bare walls of their borrowed home, and little beeswax soaps from a beekeeper in Benzonia. That summer, their bodies smelled like honey, and they could lie in bed under the ceiling fan and press their noses against each other’s skin and smell the slow scent of sated bees in a field near the Benzie River.
Charlie was blond and tan to his waist, the burnt brown-overred of a pale man who works outdoors. Robin would lay her hand against his chest and worry he’d get skin cancer someday. Then she’d picture them as two old people, lovingly cancerous together in a little house on a lake somewhere. Robin’s father was black, her mother white, and Robin what her parents had joked was the warm color of an expensive coffee drink, her hair dark and tightly curled. Elderly Latina women had always come up to her asking for directions. I’m not Dominican, she’d tell them, in English. No, not Puerto Rican. I don’t even speak Spanish. In Chicago, or even Kalamazoo, Robin hadn’t stood out. In Beulah, Robin would watch people watch her, not hostile, just curious, wondering, What are you? Are you—something? Something different than what we are?
What are you? Robin was always tempted to ask them. What somethings are all of you?
During weekdays Charlie worked for his father and Robin volunteered at the Museum of Maritime Rescue; if she got her foot in the door, her supervisor had said, the Park Service might have something for her next summer. She retyped the labels for an exhibit about knots and gave presentations to visiting groups of summer campers. She spread a blue tarpaulin on the grass behind the museum and asked for volunteers to step onto it. The cut-ups waved their arms around and shrieked for help as Robin tossed ropes that slapped dryly against their sneakers.
On Sunday mornings Robin and Charlie went to Leland and looked at the boats in the slips. It was like touring a zoo, the habitats and lifestyles of the rich and aquatic, the white boats filled with tanned women in Capri pants and broad sunhats. Men in cargo shorts and polo shirts would come up the steps from the galley with trays of yellow eggs, blackened toast, rose-colored bacon, orange juice and champagne in long-stemmed glasses. Even the children were angular and bright, spidering around the confines of the fifteen-foot Easy Street, out of Manistee, or the thirty-foot Lazy Daze, out of Port Huron, or the enormous twostory Sunny Side, out of Grand Haven, whose dining deck stood well above the pier and which Robin and Charlie knew only from the enormous laughter that floated over the starboard side, the glimpses of dangling feet and hands and wet towels flapping from the railings. They all looked like people in advertisements for summer clothes, for boats, towels, lakes, a state of being.
The older women had small, soft white dogs. Once a Shih Tzu jumped from the stern of a boat onto the pier and circled Robin’s ankles, confused, its toenails catching on the rubber strap of her flip-flops. Charlie scooped the dog into his arms as its owner climbed out to meet them. She offered them a drink. In the flaring red sunset they toasted Charlie’s dog-catching abilities. Robin raised her glass and watched the light pour across the water through the clear vodka tonic. The waves slapped against the hull and Robin felt the deck rock beneath her. Her life, she thought, would be large with joy.
Brindell Builders finished the Empire Lake job after Labor Day and Mr. Brindell gently evicted Robin and Charlie. Robin rolled up the posters, stripped the bed, put the last of the honey soap in a Ziploc bag and spent three weeks on Charlie’s top bunk. “I think it’s time I got a job,” she told him.
But it was October: the fudge shops were closed, the kayak rentals shuttered, the boats in Leland going into dry dock. A strip club called the Pirate’s Booty didn’t need any more servers.
“We don’t need any more performers, either,” they added.
“I wasn’t asking,” Robin said.
The Beulah Community Center needed someone for six hours a week to teach classes on basic Internet usage. The Educational Outreach Coordinator, Mrs. Halstead, was a grandmotherly woman who had once babysat for Charlie. She called Robin “Honey” and was straightforward about the prospects. “Retirees wanting to open email attachments with pictures of their grandkids. Maybe sell stuff on eBay,” she explained. “That’d be about it, Honey.”
Robin taught Tuesday and Thursday mornings, never more than three or four people in each class. Tuesday’s only attendee was Mr. Zendler, frail and spotted, with the beginnings of a hump rising above his bent head. Robin instructed him in the finer points of a free email account. “Click on ‘Compose Message,’ right here,” she said, pointing to the screen with a long pink pipe cleaner she’d found in the Center’s Arts & Crafts closet. Mr. Zendler had brought his son’s email address written on a folded paper napkin, and Robin watched him hunt-andpeck it in. “Then the subject line.”
“Y-o-u a-r-e a m-o-t-h-e-r-f-u-c-k-i-n-g i-g-n-o-r-a-m-u-s,” Mr. Zendler spelled out, painstakingly, on the keyboard.
“Just so you know, I don’t think a subject line that long will show up in his inbox.”
Mr. Zendler backspaced his way to “Fucking Ignoramus = YOU.”
“Is there anything going on I should know about?” Robin asked.
“That you should know about?” Mr. Zendler snorted. Actually snorted, and Robin went home that night and told Charlie, “This old guy snorted at me today.”
He was back on Thursday. Twenty minutes into the class he left the computer lab and came back with red plastic lunch trays from the kitchen. He built little walls around his computer and glared at the rest of the class. It was clearly an effort for him, reaching to position and balance the trays. Robin wanted for a moment to help him. She had written her email address on the whiteboard, so the seniors could send practice messages, and after class was over and she’d put the trays back she checked her account. Subj: Snoop = YOU! from [email protected].
Dear Miss Lerman,
You are a good teacher except for when you are trying to read my personal correspondences over my shoulder so I ask you to please stop thank you very much.
Sincerely,
Mr. Joseph Zendler
PS—Where are you from? Detroit?
Sorry, Mr. Zendler. I wasn’t trying to read your email. I just hope, that if there are family problems, you’ll talk to someone at the Community Center about it. Please let me know if you need help with anything.
Best wishes,
Robin Lerman
PS—I am not from Detroit.
On one of the last nice afternoons of the year, Robin and Charlie visited the old state mental hospital, an enormous complex of Tudor-style stone palaces, decommissioned and emptied of patients. One wing was a bed and breakfast; the staff quarters had gone condo. The old lobby was a museum, featuring a glass display case of Items Ingested by Mental Patients: a buffalo nickel, a shoelace, a strip of film, most of a light bulb, the sleeve of an old Coast Guard-issue raincoat. Robin and Charlie had mugs of hot cider in a cafeteria with bars across the windows, then walked around the grounds, yellow grass and bare trees. They held hands inside a wide pocket of Charlie’s coat. Under an oak an enormous gravestone marked the resting place of the World Champion Cow of the Insane.
“You didn’t tell me she was dead.”
“Only blue-ribbon milk cow ever tended solely by
the mentally deficient. Don’t let anyone tell you there’s nothing to do in Benzie County,” Charlie said.
In class the next week Mr. Zendler was in a confiding mood. “My son’s trying to get me to move downstate,” he said, after the other seniors had left. “Says I shouldn’t be up in the woods alone.”
“How far out do you live?”
“In the park. The access road’s seasonal, but I’ve got chains.”
“In the park? Sleeping Bear?”
“The government bought this whole county for nothing. They bought just enough so the rest of us couldn’t afford taxes and couldn’t sell to anyone but them. A handful of us wouldn’t budge, got our property grandfathered in.”
“You’re living by yourself in the national park?”
“I just said that. And I’ve got a house. I’m not living in a tent like a goddamn hippie or something.”
“But is that safe?”
“Last time I tell you anything.”
“Okay, sorry. But just—let me know if you ever need help with anything.”
“You can bring me some groceries after class.”
“You came around fast.”
“Pretty girl offers to bring me things, how do I refuse? I’ll type a list. Make a map in that drawing program. Send them as email attachments. Last time I checked I was supposed to be learning something in here.”
The next afternoon Robin took Charlie’s pickup to the grocery store with Mr. Zendler’s list and followed his directions deep into the park. She turned off onto a restricted access road, the pickup churning on fresh snow. The house was several miles in, a peeling A-frame sitting in a clearing where the road deadended. Mr. Zendler didn’t help her carry his groceries in, but he did make them both tea, one bag for two cups. He insisted she take her coat off, warm her hands over the space heater he’d dragged alongside the kitchen table. The room was spare, bare walls and linoleum flooring. A handful of magnets were stuck to the fridge—a calendar from an insurance agent, a baby picture in a hard plastic sleeve, a cutout of a Ski-Doo. The only clutter was a mountain of black trash bags piled in a corner of the kitchen. The smell was ferocious, seeping into the tea until Robin pushed her mug away. “Do you mind taking away some garbage with you?” Mr. Zendler asked. “Don’t exactly get curbside pickup out here.”
Robin shrugged. “Okay.”
“You seem like a great girl, Robin.”
“Thanks.”
“You deserve a good man.”
“Mr. Zendler—”
“I don’t mean me, ignoramus. I’m 82 years old.”
“I’ve already got a good guy.”
“You need a better one.”
“I have Charlie Brindell. Do you know him? Does he pass inspection?”
“Sure, I know Charlie. Like I said, you deserve a better one.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing you won’t find out in due time, Honey.”
“Mr. Zendler—”
“I’m afraid I’m feeling like I need a rest. Take your time, leave when you’re ready. And thanks for taking that trash with you.” Mr. Zendler disappeared into a room off the front hall and shut the door. Robin stood by herself in the kitchen, then started dragging trash bags, heaving them into the truck bed. Bag by bag, she moved the mountain out of Mr. Zendler’s house.
Robin and Charlie had found an apartment to rent, a onebedroom unit in a resort-owned complex on Lake Mullett, smaller than Empire, a little farther inland. Mr. Brindell had helped them negotiate a special rate for the off-season. They didn’t know where they’d live come summer. Robin put the posters back up, used the honey soap down to damp splinters. The night after she visited Mr. Zendler she boiled frozen ravioli and over dinner asked where they could dump a truckload of garbage bags.
“The landfill, but we’d have to pay,” Charlie said.
“I couldn’t just let them sit there.”
“Zendler’s not your problem. He’s been around forever. My dad worked on his house when he was trying to get enough built to hold onto the claim.”
“Is there a reason you don’t want me helping him?” Robin asked, and Charlie looked confused. In bed that night they squeezed together to sleep, pressing skin to skin for the warmth of it. The next morning Charlie woke up and said, “I dreamed I loved you and you didn’t love me back.”
“Don’t dream that,” she said.
“I can’t help what I dream.”
Mr. Zendler didn’t show up to the next class until nearly the end. He sat quietly at the far side of the computer lab, typing an email that turned out to be for her.
Dear Miss Lerman,
Like I said, we all know each other around here and you are new to the County and I should tell you that you don’t know everything there is to know about Charlie Brindell. You should WATCH OUT!
Sincerely,
Joseph Zendler (Your Student)
The Museum of Maritime Rescue was closed for the season, but Robin had continued to volunteer in the afternoons, doing exhibit maintenance, some filing and envelope-stuffing. She drove home in the dark. It had been snowing off and on all that week and the roads were soaked in brown slush. The truck surfed when Robin braked. She was glad for the garbage still in the truck bed, keeping her from fishtailing too badly. “You seduced me,” she told Charlie when she got home.
“I hope so.”
“No, you seduced me with the World Champion Cow of the Insane. With the Cherry Parade. I didn’t know it was going to be like this.”
“Like what?”
“Look around.”
“What?”
“If you don’t know, I don’t know how to tell you.”
“There’s the Humongous Fungus Fest next summer,” Charlie offered. “The World’s Largest Fungus is in the upper peninsula.”
“I’ve fallen for that before,” Robin told him.
There was an email every day now from Mr. Zendler, for a week straight:
Brindell Builders cheats everyone in town. They are cheats and Jews and the whole town knows it. Charlie can’t hammer a nail in straight. Why do you think they only work for the big resorts with out-of-state owners?
You think he is your great boyfriend, but you don’t know what he does when you are not around. You have no idea.
Charlie Brindell is sleeping with all the WHORES in town. That makes you a WHORE too. Even if you’re a nice girl that makes you a whore Internet teacher person.
Do you know where Charlie was last night? Why can’t you keep your husband happy?
Robin did know: last night she and Charlie had watched Law & Order and played gin rummy. But even this could not entirely dissipate the threat of Mr. Zendler’s message.
“I looked up the Humongous Fungus Fest,” Robin offered. An ice storm had taken out the electricity during CSI, and Charlie was lighting candles. “It’s underground. The fungus.”
“Oh,” Charlie said. “I just always pictured a giant mushroom. I’ve never actually been.”
“Armillaria Bulbosa, thirty-seven acres. You know what the featured events are?”
Charlie shrugged, his shape outlined by a votive candle he’d lit in an empty jar.
“A cribbage tournament, pie social, and Finn vs. Polack softball game.”
“I’d have thought that’s up your alley. You liked the nun museum.”
“Finn vs. Polack softball? I have my limits, Charlie. You don’t know me at all.”
Robin printed out copies of the emails and made an appointment to speak with Mrs. Halstead. They met in her office, a woodpaneled room in the community center basement, a narrow rectangular window at the top of the wall almost flush with the parking lot outside. Mrs. Halstead was horrified.
“We’ll get him out of the class before tomorrow,” she said. “I’ll talk to him. Maybe have my husband give him a call. There are people he still listens to. Honey, why did you wait so long?”
“You don’t have to throw him out of the class, really. I w
ant him to have the opportunity to learn—if he needs to get hold of his son sometime, or—”
“Honey, he’s been coming to these classes since they started. If he’s been playing dumb, well, he’s been playing.”
Robin paused. “Still. I didn’t come to you to—to have him thrown out.”
“Then you came to what? Because these emails are entirely unacceptable.”
“I wanted—” Robin found she couldn’t say it, and trailed off, the pink pipe cleaner she used as a screen-pointer bent around her fingers. Outside the thin basement window the snow was patchy and ugly, the parking lot covered in gravel and salt.
“You want to know if it’s true.”
Robin nodded, realizing as she did that she didn’t trust herself to speak. Her throat felt tight and stretched, how she imagined swallowing the sleeve of a raincoat felt, the glass and metal cuff of a light bulb.
This Is Not Your City Page 7