Whatever Lola Wants

by George Szanto

  They parted, all friendly. Si said, “Give it a week, okay? Think about it seriously.”

  Joss said, “As Governor you could do a hell of a lot for Vermont, locate the disaster areas early, keep them from happening.”

  Avoiding disaster, the chance to analyze, think ahead, sometimes succeed, this was their only real argument. But as Governor of Vermont what could he do about disasters in New Hampshire, or Arizona? And besides, governing was more than avoiding disaster, it was running things, some really foolish things. Besides, he was totally inexperienced, at forty-six too young to run anything that big. Too cynical to think you can govern properly for the good of the lowly citizen. He drove home on his back roads. A thought came to him, that politics stood about as distant from what he used to call a Moment as he himself was from Julie. What a strange way to think it. Back home he told Lynn about the meeting, and waited for her laughter.

  It didn’t come. She said, “Right now does Carney and Co. gross more or less than the annual budget of Vermont?”

  “Maybe a quarter as much.”

  “Don’t you find that a farce too, young fella like you in charge of a humungous enterprise like that?”

  “You think I—”

  “But you’re in love with it, the excitement of disaster. You’re like those reporters sending back dispatches from the front, how horrible the battles are, death and dying all around, but they won’t stay away. War junkies.”

  “Putting the lid on disasters is hardly—”

  “Same thing. A new place to solve a new problem, each week or each month. Never the same place twice.”

  “Hope not. When Carney and Co. solves a problem, it stays cleared up.”

  “Oh, Carney. You’re not listening.” So she kissed him deep and long, time enough to start a new tack. She pulled back. “As Governor, you could appoint me Secretary of Education.”

  He squinted at her. A bemused smile. “You’re serious.”

  She held him to her, and kissed his neck.

  He said, confronting the danger of the terrain, knowing she’d know it too since he’d told her most everything he remembered about himself and Marcie, “Time to grow up?”

  She drew back from him and didn’t mean to let her smile reveal even a little sadness. “Some grown-ups want to be responsible to the community. Along the way they make kids. A family. Kids force you to find ways to be responsible.”

  But didn’t she think his work with Carney and Co. was a real contribution? A life given over to cleaning up other people’s devastations? He was as close to her as any man could be to a woman. How could she understand so little about his work? “I told Joss I’d tell them in a week.”

  A week later he told Joss what he should have said right away: No. He didn’t have it in him to be Governor. Could Lynn be right, he was a disaster-junkie? Even if he delegated jobs more than ever? Can you ever grow out of being a junkie? Grow up?

  4. (1995)

  Leonora dropped Milton at the Burlington Trailways station. She insisted on waiting. He insisted there was no need, he was perfectly capable of getting on the damn bus all by himself. When the bus drove in she let him win the argument and drove away. She had to be in court back in Montreal in the morning.

  He kept his overnight bag at hand and climbed aboard. The double seat across from the driver was vacant, which pleased him. He felt like a bit of a kid, riding up front. Better than flying and by the time he got to Sarah just as quick, and he didn’t want that much of a drive by himself. Not every day your oldest daughter gets married, he thought, and felt a pang, wishing tomorrow were not that day.

  Damn it, Theresa should be attending too. But Theresa was in Athens, an international fencing conference. Two issues Theresa felt passionate about were on the agenda: that women’s épée should become an official Olympic sport; and that electronic scoring for foil, sabre, and épée be changed to digital scoring. Theresa, so violently opposed that nothing, not even the wedding of her eldest daughter, could keep her from being there to challenge that nonsense—with all her best rancor.

  Fair enough, Sarah had given them little warning of the wedding. Milton and Theresa had met Driscoll two months earlier, when he and Sarah had arrived at the Grange. They’d stayed for an hour, wouldn’t accept a meal let alone an overnight bed, and drove away. Sarah hadn’t even walked about, although she’d loved the place so, growing up. Still did, Milton knew, but the brevity of that visit bothered him. Theresa was mightily unimpressed by Driscoll’s stance and dry-as-powder mind, though his forehead tended to sweat; Theresa remained mainly civil. Milton had wondered, What is a Driscoll? Why had they come?

  Five days before Theresa was due to leave for Athens they’d found out. Sarah would be marrying this Driscoll Yeager. Sarah’s letter was more an announcement of a wedding than an invitation. “Here”—Theresa slid the paper across the kitchen table—“read this.”

  Milton did. His chest tightened, he closed his eyes.

  Theresa said, “Think she’s pregnant again?”

  “By Driscoll.” His hanging head drooped. “Oh god, let’s hope not.”

  “Well I’m not going. I don’t think you should either.”

  Milton faced her, nodding now. “I have to, Tessa.”

  She stood, walked around the table, stood beside him, and pulled his head to her hip. She stroked his hair, going white-gray. “I know you do.”

  He took her hand. “Why this guy? She could have anyone she wants.”

  Theresa had shrugged, and stepped away. “Maybe she wants him.”

  The bus pulled out of the terminal. Milton sat back and stared ahead. Sarah his brave foolish impetuous pushing-the-edges dear child. Leasie, Feasie, and Karl had never broken a limb; Sarah at five had smashed her ankle falling from a tree, at eleven had broken two teeth by chewing on marbles, and at sixteen had fractured five ribs in a fight with two older girls who had taunted Leasie and Feasie mercilessly for being so tall and skinny. But by climbing where she shouldn’t have she’d found the sweetest blackberries. She’d pushed herself to reach them before the others who were coming around the long way, slid, broke the forearm, stopped her fall, climbed up again, and stuffed herself with most of the berries before the others arrived. For weeks after the fight, she became the hero of her younger sisters. Theresa had approved of Sarah taking on two older larger girls; Milton still cringed thinking of it.

  But marrying Driscoll, what kind of sense did that make? Though very few marriages, seen from the outside, made much sense. Who could have thought Tessa would have chosen him? Why he would choose Theresa was obvious: her wit, her beauty, her strength, and the blatant fact that she admired him. Human chemistry. He didn’t understand it, never had. So what kind of chemistry was drawing Sarah to Driscoll? Why he should be attracted to her, this anyone could see. Sarah at twenty-four was smart and quick, beautiful as her mother had been—was still, a more mature beauty—a charming young woman when she let herself be.

  The thought, I am losing Sarah, flitted through Milton’s mind for the ten-dozenth time since getting her letter. A foolish thought: he couldn’t be losing her, he’d never owned her. But how could they all sit together at dinner again with Driscoll Yeager at the table sweating through his thin hair? How could Milton imagine a half-Driscoll grandchild from Sarah? How could they celebrate equinoxes or solstices with any joy in the presence of that desiccated young man staring at them, judging them? The bus stopped in Montpelier.

  Quickly they were on their way again.

  Earlier, they reveled in her visits. Only three times since the abortion incident. The first, 1990, the summer solstice. Milton and Theresa returned from their long hike through the woods, smelly with anti-bug goo, to find Sarah had arrived. Over dinner she announced she’d been accepted to the University of New Hampshire as, at twenty, a mature student. They’d given her a year to see if she could handle it.

  “Mature?” Karl, sixteen then, snickered. “You?”

  “A special student. Smart
, the university giving her a chance,” said Milton. “Very clever of my alma mater. She’ll show them.”

  “Hey, Milton,” said Karl, between smirks, “if I drop out of high school, can I be mature too?”

  “Stop it, Karl. I say we open a bottle of champagne to celebrate. Tessa?”

  Theresa had nodded, even gave her daughter a smile.

  They didn’t see Sarah again, all of them together, until the next summer solstice to celebrate the graduation from kindergarten of Ginette, Ti-Jean’s daughter, Feasie’s stepdaughter; she doted on the child. No children of her own, they’d have more tests in the fall. Meanwhile she and Ti-Jean were immensely happy together and with Ginette.

  Who had survived her first year of schooling. Ginette, wildest little girl Theresa had ever spent time with, capable of turning any utensil into a sword or pistol, any two pieces of furniture into a fort, any moment of calm into pandemonium. Theresa appreciated Ginette. And when Sarah arrived it was love at first confrontation, Sarah captivated by her niece’s anima: “Hey, are you Sarah?”

  “Yeah. What’s it to you?”

  “My mum says you can run fast.”

  “She’s right.”

  “Can you run fast as me?”

  “Want to find out?”

  “Can you run to the moon?”

  “Just show me the path.”

  “Come on.” She grabbed Sarah’s hand. “There’s two moon paths out there.” She dragged Sarah to the door, and out.

  Sarah saw little of Theresa that solstice, spending the best part of her time with Ginette. Much appreciated, this, by the others, the little hellion out of their hair. That had been a good visit. Then it took a year and a half before they were all together again.

  The bus pulled off the highway into White River. Milton got out to stretch his legs. He’d not seen the least spark of Sarah’s energy when she’d introduced them to Driscoll Yeager. Sarah Yeager as she might become. If she changed her name. She didn’t have to. Tessa had, for legal purposes, but that was thirty-one years ago. Ah well, the name would be the least of it. He climbed back aboard.

  Sarah had visited alone, on the winter solstice, about four months before she would introduce Driscoll Yeager and she hadn’t mentioned him then, half a year before her graduation. But over dinner, she told them, yes, graduate she would. She’d long been off probation, since after her first term her grades a perfect 4.0, no longer special, regular now like everyone else. At the dinner table, during a rare pause in the conversation, she’d suddenly said, “I have a favor to ask.”

  An odd moment. At a family meal people talked, they didn’t announce they were about to speak. Milton glanced at Theresa, who gave the tiniest shrug. Milton said, “The floor is yours.”

  “But not the walls,” said Karl. No one paid heed.

  “I’d like to build a cabin. Out in back. By the little pond.”

  Milton looked around the table: Feasie and Leasie’s faces blank, Karl’s grin still present, unchanging, Theresa’s brow in a small furl. He said, “Sounds like a wonderful idea.”

  Theresa said, “Why?”

  Sarah waited a moment, breathed in and out. “Because I like to be there.”

  Feasie said, “You want to come to the Grange and not be at the Grange? You don’t want to be with us?”

  “I can do both. I don’t know what I’m going to do when I graduate. But I want to think that I can build a cabin for myself out back.”

  “Fine by me.” Milton glanced about again. “Any objections? Tessa?”

  “You want to, go ahead.”

  After a moment Karl said, “Nobody really cares, Sarah. Build your cabin.”

  Sarah, Milton thought, looked crestfallen. Was it of such importance to her, that they should enjoy the idea of her building a cabin on Grange land? “Build a cabin, Sarah. Build it well, solid, so you can use it winter as well as summer. And now we’ll celebrate Sarah’s idea, a cabin by the pond. When it’s done, we’ll celebrate again, a housewarming of Sarah’s cabin. I’ll get the champagne.”

  Again the bus pulled off the highway, to the Manchester terminal where Milton had a fifty-minute wait for the Durham bus. He bought a sandwich. In less than two hours Sarah would pick him up. Would Yeager be with her? Would his family be present? Not much of a ceremony, Milton assumed; not much of an invitation. On the Magnussen side only he and Karl would be present, Karl arriving late, up from Swarthmore College. No special student; he’d got early admission on merit.

  The drive to Durham increased his sense of estrangement. Was it anger he felt? He didn’t know enough about Yeager to allow anger. Jealousy, then? Tessa had left her family for Milton, he had for some years left his family for her, until they’d come to the Grange. Milton decided: he would get to know Driscoll Yeager, come to understand him, perhaps to like him. For Sarah’s sake.

  He saw her from the window. He waved but she didn’t notice. He stepped out, wound his way to her through passengers waiting for their suitcases, and put down his case. “Hello, Sarah.”

  “Hello, Milton.”

  He spread his arms wide, she stepped close. He brought his hands around her back and held her. She returned his hug. She’d become his little girl again. It was going to be all right.

  •

  Lola nodded gently but with what appeared to be sadness. “But we know better, don’t we?”

  “We have a sense of her, later on. But who’s to say she’ll stay there?”

  “A strange thing. Seeing what was. All the while having a memory of how it is now.”

  A kind of backward remembering. I decided not to say this. I’d just detected another bit of the past. “Couple of days later, John Cochan was handing out cigars.”

  “Huh?”

  “Priscilla gave birth to a boy. She and John called him Benjamin.”

  All Lola said was, “Oh.”

  “And a few years after that—”

  •

  5. (1998)

  Nearly from the start, Intraterra North’s President, John Cochan, and his Vice-President Planning, Yakahama Stevenson, had, with the rationality of prophets, projected a huge chamber, hidden deep below the ground. Yak because of turns and curvings in the rock: it made sense. Johnnie because he’d seen the chamber in his mind, formed it from blended memories of summers in the woods, days exploring hills and valleys, probing caves in Quebec, New Hampshire, Vermont. Years ago he’d shared his questions with Yak: Do valley slopes stop at the bottom? What’s under the hills? And Johnnie’s strange concerns elided with Yak’s own: If a mass of granite rests beneath the fields of northern New England, what’s beneath the mass of granite? If the continental shelf is truly a shelf, what lies below the shelving? Every schoolchild knew, had been taught from enlightened time eternal: below lay rock, rock, on to more rock, rock solid or molten but rock all the way down.

  Maybe. Maybe not.

  Five years before, Intraterra had set out an apparently ridiculous but strangely effective front: if oil was to be found off Newfoundland on the continental shelf, why not right here in northern New Hampshire, northern Vermont on the outermost banks of the St. Lawrence River Valley, at the first thickening of the shield?

  With Intraterra capital they went drilling. Mineralogists wondered, lithologists doubted, mining engineers chuckled, geophysicists were stupefied. Go for it, gents, waste your money.

  Johnnie, Yak, and the team drilled. Primarily along the border, a location essential for the economic thrust of the potential project—that large unemployed Canadian labor pool, those cheap Canadian raw materials, so much low-priced Canadian power and water.

  In the beginning, solid granite. Granite to half a mile down, below this no sense drilling, working farther down would prove exorbitant.

  More drilling. Again, try again, and after that again; and again. Because the earth’s very hollows had to be there.

  One day, early June 1998, they were. In Merrimac County, Vermont, on a bore down to eight hundred feet, they found— Spa
ce. An abyss. Wonderful remarkable emptiness. The same gap on a bore a hundred-fifty feet away and a quarter mile north. Eleven drills altogether, seven of them plunging slap-bang-sudden into a void. The shelf, seen at last for what it was: massive roof to an immense cavern. Space in which to found a city of steel, of light and joy: Terramac. The ultimate earthbound frontier.

  •

  “So that’s what got Cochan started.” Lola stared at the down below. “Pretty big ideas, our John.”

  “Pretty big,” I agreed. “But he’s not the only one.”

  “Oh? Who else?”

  For Carney, only the idea of the project was there, so far. But it left me feeling proud, because I could already see the next memory.

  •

  6. (1999)

  These days Carney spent as much time writing and giving his lectures as he did on the road with the teams. He was increasingly in demand: a presentation about real-life disasters from the very man who fought them, who limited their devastation to a point where recovery could be seen as feasible, brought in packed houses wherever he spoke.

  He had six lectures he could give, according to what the audience was looking for. The oil-spills-in-oceans lecture wouldn’t work in Pennsylvania, there he’d remind them of the coal-mine fire that had been burning under Centralia since 1961. Deep-shaft mine fires would be wrong for San Diego, they needed to hear about depleted uranium. And for Portland, Oregon, tell them about the dying sturgeon of the Columbia.

  In Cambridge ten days ago, after his lecture, he’d been approached by an editor from Carlson Logan. “The name’s Terence Gold, Mr. Carney. You got somewhere to go right now or can I buy you a beer?”

  Carney was in fact busy. Gold suggested a meeting at Carney’s convenience. “And what’s all this about?”

  “Your lectures. This is the third time I’ve heard you. I think you’ve got a book there, Mr. Carney. A real important book.”