Edna lifted the painting from the backseat carefully, since some of the paint was still wet. She intended to give it a name soon, something pretty, maybe like the bottles of nail polish Bertina had. Crimson Sky. Purple Dare. Amber Autumn. Maybe she would call it something romantic like Seasonal Escape. She almost forgot to knock on the trailer’s door. Most of Mattagash didn’t knock when they visited each other. But Bertina had let it be known that she considered this custom uncivilized. “If you walked into a home in Tampa without knocking first, someone would pump a bullet between your eyes.”
Bertina’s voice was distant, coming from the bedroom maybe, but it definitely gave Edna permission to enter. She leaned the painting against a leg of the kitchen table and took off her coat. She saw that Bertina’s bedroom door was open, her television set flickering images off the walls, its sound turned down.
“Who is it?” Bertina asked.
“It’s me,” said Edna. She heard the sound of a mattress creaking. Bertina appeared in the bedroom doorway, her hair mussed, her eyes swollen as if she’d been sleeping too hard, maybe even crying. She was in a pair of cotton pajamas, pale blue, that looked as if they’d been on her body since that morning. She went into the tiny kitchen and stood before the narrow refrigerator, which was green, same as the narrow stove. Across the refrigerator’s door was a huge dent, one that had come with it, free of charge.
“You okay?” asked Edna, and Bertina nodded. She pulled out a can of beer and popped its top.
“Want one?”
Edna shook her head. She could feel her excitement rising now, waiting for Bertina to turn and notice the painting. But Bertina stood there in the kitchen, staring at the bottles of nail polish still on the table. She stood there as if she couldn’t remember whose kitchen it was or how she had ended up there. Edna wondered if getting married and divorced a lot of times can do that to a person, can catch them in the middle of a thought so fast they can’t remember who they’re married to or where they live, which kitchen they’re standing in. Maybe they no longer even know who they are, especially those women who keep changing last names with every new marriage.
“I got something to show you,” said Edna. “It’s my first attempt.” She lifted the painting onto the kitchen table. The light would be better there, and Bertina wouldn’t have to take a single step forward to look at it. Bertina looked at the painting now, dreamlike, the way she had the bottles of nail polish.
“The right bumper is crooked,” Bertina said.
Edna studied the truck. The bumper was, indeed, a bit lower on the right than on the left.
“I guess that’s my style,” said Edna, remembering something she’d read from her new art book. “You know. Unrealistic spatial proportions.”
Bertina stepped closer to the painting and leaned down for a better view.
“Well, what do you think?” asked Edna
“Why are they driving away?”
“I’m not sure,” said Edna. She felt her artistic nature with all its “raw power, stamina, and resilience,” as the book said, beginning to fail her. Any second now, the artist in her would be waving a white flag. “I guess they’re leaving because they want to.” She stared at the truck. It could almost be a wedding car if she had painted a string of cans tied to its bumper.
“Oh,” said Bertina.
“Well?” asked Edna.
“I think you should paint a license plate on your truck,” said Bertina. “Otherwise, I hope you know how to paint a cop car.”
Edna’s eyes moistened with tears. She hated tearing up, as Mama Sal called it. It wasn’t a natural talent but a fault.
“I’m kidding you,” Bertina said and put an arm around Edna. “This is a wonderful job you’ve done, Eddie. You’ve got real talent, you know that? I could never paint something this good in a million years.”
Edna let the artist in her go ahead and cry. She wasn’t sure at that moment what had moved her more. Was it what Bertina had said about the painting? Or was it because her big sister now had a loving arm around her shoulders, hugging her? And she had called her “Eddie,” the childhood nickname that Edna used to hate for its boyish sound. Now, hearing it again and feeling that arm that didn’t belong to Roderick or the twins, she was overcome with emotion. In that single moment, Edna knew for certain that she really was an artist, for a true artist cries over small poetic things that most people find stupid.
“Come on,” said Bertina. She took the painting and leaned it tenderly against the wall. Edna saw respect too in the gesture. “Get yourself a beer. This calls for a celebration. My little sister is a genius.”
***
As Harry followed Blanche, he passed other homes where other Mattagash lives were unfurling inside. At Orville’s house, just before Cell Phone Hill, he noticed the mail car parked in the front yard. Now that the car itself was retired, no longer a vehicle employed by the government but just another Ford Motors product, its demeanor appeared somehow less snotty. He passed Cell Phone Hill and then Sheriff Ray Monihan’s house. Harry saw Ray inside, remote control in hand and sitting in front of his television set. Black-and-white images were flickering off the mirror that hung on the wall behind the sheriff’s head. Harry figured the images were reruns of the old Andy Griffith Show. Ray was a fan of the man from Mayberry, the “sheriff without a gun.”
The pickup truck rolled past Porter and Lillian Hart’s house. The old brick school was next. Since Mattagash’s young blood had moved away and enrollment numbers couldn’t justify the expense, the school had been closed for years. It was now used for town functions and storage. It was Ed Lawler, the school’s first principal, who had gone into his office one night and put a gun to his head. Teachers and school kids swore that the principal’s ghost still walked the empty halls. The young might be moving away, but at least the ghosts were staying in town.
There was a time Harry could drive through Mattagash and see whole families lounging in front of their TVs or sitting around the kitchen table playing a board game. Or maybe they were sprawling in chairs on their front porches, adults talking up the events of the day while the kids played and swatted blackflies. But all he saw now were lights burning in single rooms where a man or woman or child sat alone, staring face-to-face at their best new friend, the computer. The pickup rolled past Lydia Hatch’s house and Harry wondered if anyone had taught Owl to use a computer. It might do the kid some good, give him a bit of freedom from Lydia. Even geniuses need to escape now and then.
The first house a visitor would see as they passed the welcome sign with its moose in the artwork was Blanche Tyler’s own small home. “From my bedroom window,” Blanche once told Harry, “I can see the moose smiling on the welcome sign.” Harry put on his blinker, even though blinkers were rarely used in Mattagash since everyone knew where everyone else lived. As Blanche reached her mailbox, Harry drove past and pulled into the driveway. He got out of the truck. The sound of his door closing echoed back from the river. Blanche pulled the bonnet off and her hair came cascading down onto her neck and shoulders, an avalanche of hair. She leaned against the hood of the truck, still breathing hard.
“So, what brings you out on a starry night?” she asked.
Harry said nothing. He turned and looked down the road to where the Welcome to Mattagash sign sat atop its two thick posts. He remembered the day when the women’s committee had put up the very first sign, a smaller one. That had to be fifty years ago. The whole town had turned out with picnic baskets and bottles of pop for the unveiling. That night, someone made a bonfire in the field across the road from the sign. Everyone stayed late for a hot dog roast until the youngsters grew tired from playing tag and kick-the-can. Then, slowly, folks said good night to each other and drifted off to their homes, leaving behind only glowing embers, fireflies, and stars. Harry’s mother had been one of those people.
“Tell me something,” said Harry. “How
does a man who’s about to turn sixty-three years old make a move, as you put it?”
Blanche took in a deep breath of air, head back, filling her nostrils with it. Then she exhaled deeply. Harry had seen her do that before too, once a run was over. She had told him it was good to breathe deep, that it relaxed tension in the muscles. He already knew so much about Blanche by stopping by the café each day, especially those little things that, once you string them together, make up the important part of a person’s life.
“I guess he’d do it the same way a man in his twenties would,” Blanche said.
Harry nodded. He kicked at the front tire of his truck. He put both hands in his jacket pockets, his fingers feeling the chill of night.
“We could go to a movie,” Harry said. “But our elbows will probably rub other elbows while we eat popcorn and our feet will stick to the floor.”
“I hate sticky floors,” Blanche said.
“We could drive up Cell Phone Hill and look at the stars,” said Harry. “The frogs are all gone, but we could listen to the cell phones peeping.”
Blanche smiled.
“Nothing like the sound of cell phones on a starry night,” she said.
“You’re not going to help me, are you?” Harry asked.
“Nope,” said Blanche. She turned then and put her hands against the hood of his truck, began her after-the-run stretching exercises, flexing first the muscles of one leg, then the other. Harry saw a car pass the welcome sign and head toward the guts of town, its two yellow headlights cutting the way.
“We can go to my place,” he said. “I’m a pretty good cook if you don’t expect something fancy. We can watch a movie, then maybe sit on my back patio and let the moon rise over the river. You’ll need a warm coat, maybe even a glass of wine. I gotta tell you, it’s been a lot of years since I’ve been on a date.”
“Just so you know,” said Blanche, “the hooks are now at the front of the bra.”
10
SATURDAY MORNING
AND AFTERNOON
Roderick had left for his day’s work, as usual, just before dawn. He’d been working Saturdays for extra money. He still thought the way the old-timers did, that you worked six days and then, like God, you rested on the seventh. “Folks today are lazy,” Roderick liked to say as he drank his morning coffee and put on his work gloves. “Before you know it, the forty-hour week is going to be ten hours long.” Again, Edna had stayed in bed and listened to the banging of cupboard doors down in the kitchen. He was still searching for where she had hidden the candy bars. She knew he’d never look in the canister that said Rice. Maybe she could put other words on her canisters, words like Divorce and Alimony and Help. He had finally given up, for she heard the pickup spin out of the driveway. She listened as the sound of it was swallowed up by yet another day of work, another day of life.
It was almost lunchtime and she was halfway through her second cup of coffee when Edna decided to do it. She’d been thinking about it for days and now it was jump or get away from the ledge. She opened the phone book and flipped to the back pages where she often scribbled phone numbers. There it was, scrawled under the letters WH. She had called information days earlier and asked for the number. Ward Hooper. The operator had found the name quickly. After all, Bangor isn’t New York. How many pages of Hoopers did she have to search? “I have only one Ward Hooper,” she had said, using that clipped voice operators use to let callers know how important and how busy they are. “On Clairmont Drive.” And before Edna could respond, even to lie, before she could say with her best business voice, “Yes, Clairmont Drive, that’s the one,” she heard an automated voice giving her the number. The operator was already gone, clipping a fingernail maybe, out in Texas or over in India, wherever operators lived these days. Or maybe she had dropped dead to know that Edna was going to telephone another man behind her husband’s back. Edna had written the seven digits down, but as soon as the last number became ink on the page, she had chickened out.
Now she was ready. She listened as the phone rang twice before a man’s voice answered. She wondered if he would be home. It was a Saturday, after all. If he’d taken up gliding as he planned, maybe he was out soaring soundlessly over the Bangor Mall and the huge statue of Paul Bunyan, and even the mental institute where poor Aunt Mildred had stayed. But it was his voice. She had not spoken to him since early July, the day he left Mattagash, but she had not forgotten the kindness in that voice, for it was indeed a charismatic voice. And again she felt the words Florence Walker had taught her coming to the rescue, giving her emotions a name. She felt daunted, and yet euphoric. She felt so poignant that there could be no doubt this phone call was affecting the mind and emotions.
“Ward, it’s me. It’s Edna,” she said. “I’m calling from Mattagash to say hello and inquire how you’re doing.” She heard movement over the line, that kind of shuffling people do with a phone as they think, a sense of expectancy. A dog began to bark and sounds of excitement came out of the earpiece of Edna’s phone. She heard him say, “Queenie, quiet down.” There was a thunk as the receiver was put down. In the background, muffled voices filled the air. Soon, he was back.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “The mailman just delivered the mail. Who did you say you are?”
Edna felt the poignant starting to melt. Daunted began to outweigh euphoric. She took a deep breath and tried again.
“Edna Plunkett,” she said. “From Mattagash. Remember how we used to sit at Blanche’s Café and talk about how I have twin boys and a daughter and I don’t think we should bomb any country, and how you’re going to take up gliding one day?” She heard the surge of recognition, felt his mind reeling until it caught the memory.
“Yes, of course,” Ward said then. “How are you, Edna? How are things up in Mattagash?”
She had wondered for weeks how she would tell him, how she would bring up the subject without seeming too pushy. I’m about to get a divorce didn’t seem like the best way. It would sound forward and needy.
“Well, they’ve been better,” said Edna. “I’m suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder and it’s put me in a tailspin.” She shifted her weight on the kitchen chair, her back tensing, her legs feeling like they might fall asleep, even during so important a phone call. “I was wondering if you might be coming back to take some more soil samples.”
She heard another awkward pause coming at her like an invisible slap in the face, another silence too long.
“Well, the samples I took last summer turned out fine,” Ward said then. “No need to take any more, but I sure did enjoy my time up there. You have a very friendly town.”
“Did you take up gliding?” There were a hundred things she might have asked at Blanche’s Café as the two of them waited for their food to arrive. Things like “Are you married, Ward Hooper?” But he had never mentioned a family, a wife, a son, a daughter, a home, a garden, not even a parakeet. He had never even mentioned owning a personal car so all she knew of him was that official state vehicle he drove, the white pickup truck. She had assumed this meant he possessed none of the above, except maybe a car. It never occurred to her that he might not speak of these things because he considered them personal, considered them his own, in that protective way unless someone with a big mouth full of nosy questions wrested them away from him.
“Ward, is that Sheila?” It was a woman’s voice, one that seeped past the man on the phone and leaked into all those little dark holes in the mouthpiece. “Remind her that your birthday party is tomorrow night. She’d better not forget to pick up the cake, and she’d better not be late.”
“It’s someone from that town up north where I worked this summer,” Ward said, and Edna had to catch herself. She wanted to say, “It’s not just someone, Ward Hooper. It’s Edna.”
“I’m sorry for the interruption,” Ward was saying now into the phone. “Edna, right? This is so nice of you to call m
e. No, the soil samples turned out fine, and the studies will be mailed to the state when they’re complete. I’m sure someone at the department will see that a copy of the report is mailed to Mattagash, if you folks would like one.”
And that’s when Edna began to understand. When someone is kind, truly kind, they don’t sit and talk so much about themselves, especially at a quaint little place like Blanche’s Café. They don’t say I got a wife whose voice is so musical you’d swear she was a movie star, and my daughter, Sheila, is often late and sometimes forgetful, but she’s a great kid, and oh yes, did I mention that I live on Clairmont Drive or that our dog Queenie barks every day at the mailman? You don’t do any of these things if you are the sort of person who is empathetic, able to understand the feelings, thoughts, and attitudes of others. Instead, you see the need in them, you see the longing in those thoughts, the sadness in those attitudes, the hurt behind those feelings. So you talk to them. You say things like So, you have twin sons? I bet that’s a workload. Or, What do you think about the war in Iraq? Think we belong there? Or you even ask about the only environment a person really understands, the only town, the only soil they’ve known. You ask, Are the blackflies always this bad in the summers? Does it snow a lot in the winters? This is what you do when you’re empathetic.
“That’s great news,” Edna said now. The woman seemed to have gone away and the mailman must have continued on down Clairmont Drive, and maybe Queenie went to eat some dog food. “The folks here have been wondering so I’ll let them know. We’re sure gonna look forward to that report.”
She hoped he didn’t hear that tiny gasp in her voice. It was the same little intake of air Edna had learned to do as a child, when Mama Sal would be looming big over her. It seemed if you could take in a bit of air, all to yourself without anyone noticing it, your own secret, it would be a good way not to cry. In thirty-plus years, Edna had perfected the technique.
The One-Way Bridge Page 14