“I thought you needed a little space. Time to think, sweetie, to remember our good times— to miss me.”
“Aren’t you dating some dad from the preschool.” The word had gotten back to him that she had met a divorced father, an airline pilot, probably dashing in shiny epaulets. Not that he cared. He was jealous for ten seconds, then incredibly relieved.
“Who told you that? I have been home every night, crying my eyes out.” She sounded about as sincere as Dolly Parton in her favorite movie, Steel Magnolias. The pilot probably saw her clogging video on the Internet. A day to remember: at work when somebody sent the link to everyone.
“I don’t care. I’ve moved on. Get it into your head. Our marriage is over. Done. Finito.”
Cruel but true— and necessary. Some people never got it. You could hit them with information and they never showed the tiniest indication that you’d made an impression. Were they thick-skinned, self-possessed, able to slough off criticism? Or so narcissistic that whatever you said made no difference if they disagreed?
She only cared about herself, that he had tarnished her public image. This time, at least, she didn’t argue. She was silent, crossing her arms and giving him her annoyed look that once upon a time had an effect on him.
“I’m leaving now. Go home.”
An old Springsteen song was on the car radio, Tunnel of Love, the words only too apt. Love really was a sideshow with trick mirrors. Jonny turned up the bittersweet tune until it boomed, driving too fast out of town, going north through the woods, turning off onto the farm lane where the elderberries grew thick in the barrow pits. He sang along, remembering when he’d first heard it, at ten or eleven. He thought it was about a fabulous amusement park somewhere.
His old Fairlane was rusted and ancient, built like a tank. It bounced hard in a pothole. He rolled down the window and no, he didn’t let the wind blow through his hair, despite Bruce on the radio. Thanks to Lenny he had all the old lyrics in his head. He stuck out his elbow, letting his temper simmer. Seeing Cuppie had pissed him off. At himself mostly, but a little at her.
He looked up into the treetops, searching for birds, looking for a hawk in the sky. He didn’t want to think about her anymore. She wasn’t part of his life anymore. The sky was blue. It was summer. She wouldn’t ruin everything.
His grandparents’ farm was on this lane. He passed a collapsing barn where once there had been dairy cows. You couldn’t even smell it anymore. Another grove of birch and maples in a ravine, then he climbed up the other side and turned in at the old mailbox with the name: ‘KNBL.’ Reinholt was too cheap to buy vowels.
The drive wound through apple orchards and maple woods tangled with undergrowth. The apple trees were still oiled in the spring and fall, trimmed in late winter, picked in autumn. Nora hired it out now. The apple cooperative Reinholt founded back in the fifties helped, but migrant workers did most of the work these days. As soon as he could walk Jonny helped pick apples, running around with his sibs, gathering windfall, throwing it into a basket. His mother made pies and sauce with these apples, and sold them at a farm stand on the highway until she decided that was too much work.
The apple trees looked more gnarled than he remembered. Everybody was getting older, lumpier. He slowed, looking down the straight rows, trees lost here and there to fire blight or storms. At the end of the orchard a cluster of buildings marked the end of the drive. The dingy farmhouse, gray and sagging where it once was bright and alive, was rented to a back-to-the-earth couple who raised goats. Beside the old barn their vegetable garden was fenced high to keep out the deer— and possibly goats. It looked lush, buzzing with insects. The yellow flowers of the squash were as big as trumpets, the bean teepees ten feet tall.
No one answered his knock. No vehicle in the yard or barn. He supposed they wouldn’t mind his wandering around. Nora had inherited the farm from her parents who inherited it from her grandfather. Maybe that was why she never sold it. Ozzie expressed zero interest in farming. Jonny paused by the vegetables, admiring their vigor.
Behind the barn, an old milking shed listed to the south, advertising its desire to fall down. A corn crib, its wire sides rusted and bent but the round metal roof intact, sat empty. The days of cornfields were long gone, replaced by blueberry bushes and alfalfa. Nora had put in blueberries thirty years ago and was known as a local blueberry guru. Farmers pumped her for information about cultivation, varieties, and cultivars. She still managed her berries on the far end of the apple orchard, next to the woods to keep poachers away. Maybe the blueberries kept her from selling out.
The square metal door of the corncrib hung on one hinge. He pushed it open and stepped into the round wire structure with the cement floor. Dry kernels wedged in cracks, surviving all these years. A moldy hay bale sat on one side with brown leaves around it. Jonny and Wendy had played in here when they were children, pretending it was their house. Artie laughed at them, he had a literal mind. A round house? It looked more like a tea kettle.
He was glad he wasn’t a kid anymore. But sometimes he felt like he’d skipped an important step by marrying so young. He jumped straight into adulthood and responsibility. He had no one to blame but himself. He turned in a circle inside the corn crib. What was the point of continually beating yourself up? He just needed to move on.
He sighed and sat down on the bale. Instantly a loud squeal came from below. He jumped to his feet and was face to face with an enormous raccoon, standing on its hind legs, snarling.
“Hey, fat bastard. Wanna dance?” The animal came around the bale toward him, hissing, his enormous belly swinging.
Jonny backed out the door and watched the raccoon go down on all fours and give him a last baring of teeth. “All yours, chubby.”
In the Owl hours later, Jonny put his feet up on the table. The afternoon had run away with him and here he was, chair pushed back, leafing through the afternoon’s sketches while he drank a beer. After a walk through the apple orchards kicking leaves and feeling stupid, he dug the sketch pad out of his trunk. He used to carry it everywhere, doodling constantly, but he couldn’t remember when he’d sketched last. Making a living drawing office parks made sketching old barns seem childish. But today he’d gotten a cramp in his hand, drawing so fast and furiously.
He’d drawn twelve different angles on the old corn crib. Even tried to capture the snarl in the raccoon’s muzzle but that didn’t turn out very well. Straight lines, perspective, capturing the depth and breadth of a building in two dimensions, that was what he did best. Something about that corn crib. Its roundness, and that funny funnel-like roof. It intrigued him.
What if it had solid walls, not mesh wire? Like a— what did they call those short, squatty silos? Grain bins. Could you live in a grain bin, a sort of metal yurt? He ripped out a clean sheet of paper and drew the corn crib with solid sides this time, added a door, a couple windows, the vent at the top now a chimney. He squinted at it. Just precious, a first-grader’s version of a house. He tore it up, started over, spreading out his drawings over the table and scribbling so feverishly he knocked his empty bottle off.
“Another, Jonny?” A waitress in a red tank top picked up the bottle. He’d already forgotten her name. When she came back with the beer she looked at his sketches. “Whatcha doing?”
The answer was in there somewhere. A grain bin. A door. He drew a lay-out angle as new arrivals let a blast of warm moist air. Jonny sat by the only window that let in light, lost in his sketches. The summer evenings stretched long; he had no idea what time it was.
The Owl was common ground for singles of all stripes, a place where husbands could get away from wives, where there was always someone to talk to or stare at you while you got drunk. Ten small tables inside gouged, dirty walls, a dusty wood floor, a single, ancient lavatory, a bandstand that held three assuming none of them were drummers. A long bar along one side, with a mirrored back-bar with its silver half-gone. The back-bar was the pride of Red Vine, transported up the Mississippi River on a steamb
oat in the 1870s from New Orleans and passed from bar to bar in the county. Dark and sticky from decades of smoke and liquor, its carved trim and decorative posts draped with faded streamers from New Years gone by. The Owl hadn’t allowed smoking for over a year now but the smell of it was deep in the woodwork and paneling, in the furniture, in the bar, and especially in Walter.
In black apron and green golf shirt, Walter Leclerc wiped the bar obsessively. The white towel, a new one each morning and evening, was a fixture in his left hand, just down from the tattoo of the dancing girl. Thin with a hooked nose, nicotine-stained teeth, and a shock of gray hair, he’d managed to stay single into his fifties. He’d been wiped out in a hurricane down in Mobile or Mississippi or somewhere. (Everywhere that far south was the same to a Minnesotan.) His insurance money being as green as anybody’s, after five or six years of careful scrutiny proved him to be no skirt-chaser or confidence man, he was allowed to become part of the town— a rather important part.
“What the hell?” Lenny stood by the table, glaring down at the sketch paper. “Is that your grandma’s corn crib or my grandpa’s?”
“Can’t have it. Unless you trap raccoons.”
Lenny pulled up a chair. “Was it the polka mass that tipped you over or did you eat some funny mushrooms out on the farm?”
“Didn’t see you at mass.” Jonny flipped over the page. Where would you put the toilet, the kitchen sink, the bed? Was there room for a partition?
“Well, it was a bit early. And I had to wash my hair. And— how was Little Toot?”
“We survived.”
“No wrath of God? Sweet.” Lenny took a long drink from his beer and started describing the plans for the fundraiser on Friday night. A groundwater expert from the Department of Natural Resources would discuss landfill runoff. Fifty people might come, more if the food was free. Lenny was looking for a sponsor; without one Kool-aid and Ritz crackers would do. With the Notable Knobels playing, well, the sky was the limit, attendance-wise.
“About that, Len.” Jonny set down his sketch pad.
“You can’t back out on me now.”
“I was just thinking. What if it’s just me? My sister—“
“Gotcha. Ix-nay on the umpet-tray.”
“And my dad is friends with Norm.”
A black look transformed Lenny’s face as if it occurred to him that people he knew might vote for someone else. That it was a race, and there was a possibility, slim though it was, that somebody else— namely a dumb-ass named Norm— could actually win.
“Is the party here then?” Jonny asked. He had never seen more than twenty-five people in the Owl at one time.
“I gotta get another beer. Walter!” Lenny headed for the bar, then turned back. “It’s at the landfill. That’s the point, man.”
Great, a concert at the dump. How appropriate. The accordion was the Rodney Dangerfield of the music world. Well, what did he expect from a hometown homer who lived in his parents’ garage? He liked Lenny, always had. But if he thought a concert at the dump was going to be fun, well.
Jonny went back to his sketch pad, trying to work like he once did, organically, without thinking too hard. He scribbled, absorbed in his task. The bar was silent. Even Walter had stopped wiping the bar. In front of the table stood Cuppie, wearing a pink sweater, her hands folded in front of her, head tilted in a coy way.
“Look at you. Working so hard,” she said, smiling down at the table piled with sheets of paper. “Just doodling or something special?”
The morning’s drama crashed back into his mind. He jammed the papers into the sketchbook and threw down a five-dollar bill.
Cuppie asked, “Where are you going?”
He rounded the table, hit a chair with his foot and knocked it over. Someone— that stuck-up college girl— righted it for him. Cuppie was calling to him, asking him to stop. Of all places, the Owl Bar, a sanctuary from nagging wives and small-town gossip. She never went into bars. Why start now? He stopped, unwilling to give her the last word— or these people something to talk about.
“What is it?” He kept his voice even. He turned to face her. Yes, that was the right thing. Face your demons. “What do you want?”
“I just wanted to say goodbye.” Cuppie looked at the students lined up at the bar, at Lenny, at Walter. She stepped closer to him, smiling. Her scent again repelled him. “And that I’ll see you at home soon.”
Jonny blinked, amazed by her stubbornness. Why couldn’t he just push her away, here in front of everyone? He was a coward.
She gave him a little squeeze as she swished out the door.
Chapter 6
When Isabel arrived at the gathering of rose lovers in Margaret Knobel’s parlor she was already tired. The day started at dawn in the blueberry fields. When she got back she downloaded the photos of the screens, counted the bees, and worked on her spreadsheets. If she didn’t keep up with the logging of the research, her own notes as well as Professor Mendel’s, she would get too far behind. Even one day could threaten to throw the entire project into chaos.
So many bees. That was the good news, for the environment, the earth, the project, the apples and berries— and the bad news. More bees, more work.
And the phone call from her sister. Somehow Daria had gotten the number of the University’s cell phone. The anticipation of being sucked back into her family’s drama made Isabel weak as she mounted the sagging front steps of the Victorian farmhouse.
Gray clapboard, peeling, rot. So different from the houses back home. Surrounded by gardens, that at least was similar. The front lawn had been ripped out for rose bushes, a stone path, an arbor of climbing vines. The same attention didn’t extend to the house. Cardboard filled a broken pane. Shingles were missing. Dead leaves accumulated on the stoop.
Isabel felt the wind go out of her crusading sails. But she knocked and arranged a smile on her face.
Margaret was wearing chartreuse Capri pants and a pink print blouse, a Florida look rarely seen this far from a beach. Her lipstick missed her mouth in places. She offered to take Isabel’s flowered beanie, and there was a moment when Margaret almost snatched it off her head.
In the parlor she met Vern and David, Vern’s wife, three plump women from New Ulm drinking wine from tumblers, and Margaret’s friend, Carol Chichester, who followed the same fashion cues with a frizzy perm and vivid yellow slacks. A dark-haired woman in a tight skirt, high heels, and bright red lipstick entered from the kitchen. Loreen was a secretary at the church and at least ten years younger than the others. She carried in a tray of carrot sticks and ranch dressing. Ozzie followed with coffee.
After the chitchat died down Isabel told the old story of ‘Silent Spring,’ new material to this group. The food chain, DDT and the bald eagle. Then she launched into her bee message. She explained the Bee Wild study, what they hoped to find about the relationship of wild bees to orchards, about feral bees versus honeybees. She explained about colony collapse disorder, the mysterious die-off of honeybees. The importance of bees to fruit and vegetable yields. The magic of insect life. The intricate balance of plant and animal interdependence. Yada yada.
They asked polite questions. After a long pause, sips of coffee and wine, Loreen pursed her ruby lips. What was it like trying to corral all those rowdy young college students, she asked.
One of the New Ulm ladies squealed. “Are they jumping into each others’ beds?”
The three ladies slapped each other on the knees, giggling. Isabel looked around the parlor. Oh Good Lord. Their eyes shined eagerly. Did they want to live vicariously through a field camp of twenty-year-olds? Some old people got incensed about sex, mad anyone was having it. Maybe not this group. The men and women tipped up their chins, eager.
Isabel bit her lip. What would be best? A joke? A suggestive phrase? She looked up into the gray eyes of the accordionist, Jon, who had materialized in the hall, arms crossed on his chest. He fixed her in his cool stare, amused, as if her embarrassment was high enter
tainment.
“Tell us, Isabel,” Carol said. “Is it Peyton Place over there— or Melrose Place?”
One of the men, presumably a birdwatcher, asked if there were any ‘double-breasted mattress-thumpers’ on the loose. The New Ulm ladies whooped. Isabel had never seen so many old people go pink so fast. Next dentures would fly. Jon continued to smirk, no help at all. His parents were laughing with the others. The dolled-up woman in the tight skirt looked around with a strange hunger in her eyes.
“Well, ah. I do have to apply the occasional towel snap to an— to a behind,” Isabel said, trying to keep her tone light.
“A bare behind?” a lady cackled.
“A bare ass, you mean?— Are they taking showers together? Is that what she means?— Don’t be silly, Vern.— Don’t bend over in the shower, Vern!”
More jokes, more laughter. Isabel felt her face go red. Pesticides— oh, who the hell cares? Bees? Forget about it. She straightened, trying to recover her composure. “If there are no more questions then. Thanks for inviting me.”
Terry was loitering outside her door when she got back to the motel. He wanted to go to the bar again. She blew him off. He shouted something through the door. “Go away,” she called back.
A knock while she was washing her face. Before she could shout again, a girl spoke through the door: “It’s Kate. I need to talk to you.”
Kate wasn’t one of the problem girls. Isabel only knew her through her work habits. She took orders gracefully, worked hard. She was from Utah where the worker bee is famous although she made sure everyone knew she wasn’t like all of that state’s citizens. No, she liked to have fun. Short with plump cheeks and long highlighted hair, Kate now looked like she’d been crying.
“What’s wrong?” Isabel handed the girl her hand towel as she sat on the bed. “Has something happened at home?”
“No.” She wiped her eyes with towel and sighed. “I just had to get away from that bitch.” She looked up and spit out the name: “Alison. We were talking in my room and she says she’s got dibs on Jonny, and she could get anybody— she’s got a boyfriend back home who calls her all the time— why does she get dibs? I hate her!”
All Your Pretty Dreams Page 5