by Susan Wilson
Here’s Adam. I come down off the porch and greet him like a friend. Chance sits and waves one paw in the air, wanting his special greeting, too. Not satisfied with simply shaking hands, as it were, he starts to lick the back of my hand, working his flat, wide tongue up my arm until I pull it away. He stares at me with these bulgy eyes, his face a little like Winston Churchill’s with the weight of the country on his shoulders. I stand up, shoulders back. Adam puts both hands on my shoulders. “Check me in later. Let’s go get lunch.”
We head into what passes for a town center for this town, a crossroads really, but the variety store there has a pretty good natural-foods bar and we can sit at one of the little wrought-iron tables on the wide front porch to eat our sandwiches, and the dog can sit with us.
“So what’s going on?” Adam picks the sprouts off his sandwich. “You look a little down.”
“The usual.”
“Bookings?”
“No. Actually, that’s improving. Bills all got paid this month.”
“Miss Cody not behaving herself?”
“It’s not misbehaving; it’s more attitude. More attitude.”
As usual, Cody ate her breakfast without comment, and I fussed with last night’s dishes, two women in a kitchen with nothing to say to each other.
“I don’t know, Adam. She looks unhappy and she has looked this way for so long that I almost don’t notice. I know that she’s been unhappy at school, but it’s summer, and surely she can put a bad school year behind her. She’s unhappy with me, and there’s nothing I can do about that. I want to believe that all children, on some level, hold their parents in contempt, but this seems less an adolescent attitude than something deeper. More troubling. Something from which she may not recover.” I take up one half of my sandwich. “I gave my mother hell, so perhaps this is just karmic payback. I cringe to think that maybe Cody is just carrying out some kind of genetic predisposition toward making a mother’s life pure hell.”
I pray, agnostic that I am, that Cody doesn’t ruin her life in the way that I did just for the sake of defying me. No. That’s not quite true. My association with Randy was wrong and misguided and dangerous, but I have Cody, and I wouldn’t have her if I hadn’t fallen for him. My life wasn’t ruined; it was changed.
“I’m sure you’ve asked her. And probably gotten the cold shoulder, but keep asking.”
“She used to tell me everything, Adam. Almost too much. And, then one night…” I can’t go on. It’s too painful. How in the aftermath of Randy’s death, my daughter slammed the door on our relationship. I haven’t told Adam anything of who Randy was. How he died. How can I start now?
“And then one night she turned into an adolescent. It’s the oldest fairy tale in the book.” Adam puts his half of sandwich down. Pats my hand. My own sandwich is untouched.
“I wish that’s all it was. She has physically alienated herself from me. We used to sit on the couch and share a bowl of popcorn; now she sits apart, as if she would be contaminated by getting too close to me.” I yank a paper napkin out of the holder, blow my nose, but I’m not embarrassed. This is a guy who had his own battles with his daughter. “But maybe you’re right. You’ve been through it. Maybe it’s just extreme adolescence in her case.”
“Skye, Ariel hated me because I did something heinous, not imaginary heinous, but actual. It cost me everything, including her. It took a very long time to normalize relations, and, sometimes, it’s still obvious that I ruined her life.”
“I can’t believe that of you.”
Adam doesn’t say anything for a moment, shifts his eyes away as if looking at something distant. Chance stands up, plants his boxy jaw on Adam’s leg. I watch as Adam visibly relaxes. “The point is, I deserved her anger, and I knew it.”
I wonder if he’s suggesting that I look deeper into myself, but I don’t have to. “I know in my heart that Cody’s transformation has to have something to do with Randy’s death.
“That night, after Randy’s funeral, I’d wanted to do something cozy, to purge away how we’d spent our day. All day Cody had been dry-eyed, even at the graveside. Even I had shed some tears of grief, of regret for his sad ending. So I suggested a night of movies and ice cream sundaes, dressed appropriately in our jammies, our go-to happy place. She and I made the sundaes, flipped through Netflix, found something to watch, and planted ourselves on the couch, where she cuddled up to me. At some point, I felt her shaking, and squeezed her gently, whispering to let the tears come, that they were a good thing. I told her, ‘I love you.’
“She said, ‘Don’t touch me.’ In the next moment, she was gone, off the couch and behind her closed door, where she still is.”
“Maybe it’s latent grief.”
“She never, ever, speaks of Randy. It’s like he never existed for her.”
“How did he die? Maybe she’s afraid she’ll die the same way. Kids fear heredity.”
Would it be better if my ex had died of cancer, or in a car accident? Would it be easier to have this conversation? Adam is so willing to listen. Living up here, so far from my old friends, there hasn’t been anyone I’ve been able to talk to in so long. So I tell him. “He was gunned down. Randy was a small-time criminal. A drug dealer who pissed someone off.” Adam has the grace to say nothing, just quietly takes my hands.
* * *
Four little cottages, spaced fifteen feet apart, close, but not too close. The first occupied by Skye and Cody. The second is still in its tumbledown state, green moss growing thickly on its ancient roof, porch posts tilted. The fourth is the doggy day care/spa, empty right now; all the dog people have taken their dogs with them on their Berkshire drives. The third cottage is situated between the tumbledown one and the dog spa. New screens protect freshly washed windows, sparkling in the afternoon sun. The porch boasts hanging baskets of geraniums, bright red against the blue door. It looks like a fairy cottage, a welcoming hideout for a man sorely needing refreshment.
Skye unlocks the front door, which opens silently on greased hinges. The screen door slams behind them. It’s beautiful, bright, and sunny, and equipped with a small kitchen behind a peninsula counter topped with butcher block and complete with two bar stools for early-morning sitting and admiring the view of the hills outside the window. He has four blessed weeks to enjoy this little place with its sketchy Wi-Fi and ever-evolving cast of characters.
Skye points out the few pots and pans she’s supplied, where the dish towels are. “We’ll do linen changes twice a week.”
“Skye. Stop. Stop being an innkeeper for a minute. Sit down.”
They sit on the couch, but clearly she’s not comfortable relinquishing her role now that they are back on the property. He asks if she wants a cup of tea.
“Oh, no. Thank you.”
“Actually, I don’t think I brought any. But if I had, I’d make you a cup.”
* * *
The humans are settling down, so I mosey over to the couch, sniff at both of them, and then settle myself on the rug at their feet. I stretch out, exhausted after our long journey, more exhausted by the emanations of powerful emotion I’ve had to cope with since we got here. Not Adam’s, but Skye’s. She’s quivering with emotion—fear, anger, and that peculiar one humans alone can claim, frustration. Sadness. She’s kind of like some of the dogs I knew when I was much younger. Always expecting a challenge. Unable to accept consoling. A little like Adam was when we first paired up. I yawn, close my eyes, then open them. This is a bit unusual. Adam is doing the consoling. Skye has let him put his arms around her. He looks at me over the curve of her shoulder and raises one eyebrow. Their voices do not lull me into peace. I keep my eyes closed, but my ears are wide open as Skye uses copious tongue language and Adam uses words that I know, his soothing ones that he speaks whenever I am confused or, rarely, afraid. Okay. It’s okay. Everything’s okay.
* * *
“Really. I should get back to work.” Skye gently shifts away from him. “Sorry to have dumped a
ll that on you.”
She has been so open with him that the only thing he can do is be honest with her. Friendship cannot survive without revealing the key elements of a life. It is no longer enough that she knows about Gina, or about his work with human and animal nonprofits. Or that he depends on Chance for some unspecified therapy. She needs to know that he’s a bit like Mingo, an abandoned child; a foster child for whom anger became a defining attribute. An anger that elevated him into power, an anger than brought him low. “Skye, I should tell you something.”
She listens without a word. When he finishes his story, she looks him in the eye. “Gina was right. You’re not that man anymore.”
CHAPTER 34
“Nice haul.” Black Molly nods her approval at the collection of drugs that Cody has laid out for her. As if she is jeweler, sans loupe, she picks each one up to examine it closely. “Any idea which is which?”
Cody sorts the pills into groups. “Antidepressants, opioids, amphetamines, over-the-counter stuff.” She’s pleased with herself, remembering which pill is from what classification just on looks. Maybe she should think about pharmacology as a career path. Maybe she’s a natural.
“Okay. Let’s get busy.” Molly pulls out her ancient iPhone, scrolls her contacts. “I hear Ryan wants to join the wrestling team. He’s gonna need to slim down for that.” Molly slides two amphetamine capsules into a plastic bag. “That skanky girl, what’s her name? She’s interested in anything we’ve got she can grind and smoke.”
So it goes for half an hour, Black Molly dropping coded texts, setting up a round of rendezvous sites. Keeping each client, as she refers to them, separate. “I charge on a sliding scale,” she says. “No sense in anybody knowing what I charge anyone else.”
Cody just wants to leave the goods behind. She wants no part of getting face-to-face with any of those kids. “I gotta go.”
“You did good today, Cody. Keep it up.”
“I told you. This is it. I’m not doing it again.”
Black Molly flashes her yellow snaggletoothed smile, but there is no humor in her black-ringed eyes. “Did I mention that the guy you say was the driver was shot dead?”
“Shut up.”
“Saw it on TV. Execution style. Wonder who did it?” For a girl who comes across as kind of dim, Black Molly has a certain clever wit. “So, tell me again, why won’t you tell your mother that you know who did it?”
“Because he’ll kill us. Both of us.”
“Not if you put him in jail.”
“I can’t take that chance. Please, Molly. Don’t say anything.”
“Then you know what to do.”
“And you promise you’ll never speak to my mother?”
“Deal.”
* * *
The guest in room 12 is waiting for me in the office when I come back from Adam’s cabin.
“I need to talk to you about something.” The guest is a guy from upstate New York on his way to Boston. Arnold Simonson. He looks distressed and a little angry.
“Of course. Come sit.” I gesture toward the pair of chairs at the picture window. The hills are magnificent in their summer dress, every shade of green from lime to blue-green, a flash of white from the occasional birch tree breaking up the solid wall of vegetation. I know that beneath that canopy lie narrow country roads, threading their way up and around the mountains, leading to cabins and homes and overlooks. I wish I was on one of them now as Mr. Simonson informs me that his pain medication is missing.
“I had a full vial last night, and this morning it’s empty.”
“And you’re suggesting that…?”
“The kid, that Spanish one, did he clean my room?”
I don’t know the answer to that. I’ve left it to Cody and Mingo to work out who does which room. I don’t want to hear this; I don’t want to have my faith in Mingo destroyed. I’ve come to like him. But I’ve let my guard down. He’s reverted to type. At least that’s the obvious answer to Mr. Simonson’s missing medication. All this “I’m clean” crap. The crack addict doth protest too much.
“I’ll look into it. Is there anything I can do to help you get another prescription?” Making a useless offer is about the best I can do. My hands are shaking. I want to bring Mingo in and shake him until his teeth come loose. Slick boy. I’ve been Eddie Haskelled.
“No. But I think a refund might be in order.”
My business hackles come up. What if this guy is bullshitting me? How do I know he ever even had a vial of painkillers? Is this some kind of shakedown? Some variation on the “fly in my soup” dodge? I don’t think so, Mr. Simonson. I wasn’t born yesterday. I almost make the accusation. But I don’t. I am, after all, in the hospitality business. Besides, the way this guy gets up out of his chair, it’s pretty obvious he’s in serious back pain. And then I remember: He’s on his way to Boston to see a specialist; that’s what he’d said coming in. “Can’t wait to get this surgery over with.”
I refund his night’s stay. Wish Mr. Simonson good health.
Outside, a dog barks, a happy, playful bark. I stand at the door. The late afternoon is hot, but there’s a breeze, a suggestion of rain. It’s been dry; maybe a shower wouldn’t be a bad thing and wouldn’t mean that another rainy summer is inevitable, like the one last year that started my first year of running the LakeView on such a bad footing. If I have to fire Mingo, it’ll be just Cody and me again. With the recent uptick in activity, we’ll need to replace him quickly. Maybe this Molly friend of Cody’s is interested in a summer job.
I hate this. I hate being made a fool; I hate losing faith in someone. I hate that I buy into Mr. Simonson’s suggestion of Mingo’s guilt. But, what’s that expression? If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, et cetera. In other words, if you take a reformed drug addict and, as Adam worried when I hired Mingo, give him carte blanche in guest rooms, that might prove to be not such a good idea.
Live and learn.
The dog comes loping toward me, Mingo’s dog. Dawg. Fit and happy and friendly. He comes to a halt at the bottom of the stairs and casts his doggy gaze upon me as if he’s been looking for me, as if he’s looking for something from me. I go down the steps, sit, and take his somewhat juicy dewlaps in my hand. “What am I going to do?” He has no answer, just gives his head a shake, little ears flapping, then burrows beneath my arm almost to his shoulders, sucking up the hug.
I know that Mingo will be looking for him, and as I have always believed that there is no time like the present to deal with unpleasantness, I sit and wait with Dawg for his soon-to-be fired master. And there he is. Baggy jeans and wifebeater T-shirt. I really need to do something about uniforms. For once, he’s not wearing his trucker’s hat, cocked sideways or otherwise. He’s bareheaded, and it makes him look younger, more boy than the man the state says he is. “Hey Ms. M. My dog being a pest?”
“No.” Oh God, my heart is breaking. I gather myself, my employer self. “We need to talk. Come in.”
The dog starts to follow, mostly because he knows that there is now a jar of dog “cookies” on my desk. His tail starts up in anticipation, going from a slow swing to an accelerando of crisp beats. It strikes various objects on his way into the office, the chair, the side of the reception desk, the doorjamb. He seems not to notice, his focus entirely on the object of his expectation. A gentleman, Mingo allows me to go into the office first, and then I point him toward the guest chair. I close the door.
I tell him what Mr. Simonson said. I watch as his cheeks flood with pink. His mouth hardens and the muscles in his neck pulse. His green eyes don’t meet mine. He keeps them on the dog, who sits between his knees. He strokes the dog, says nothing. Doesn’t protest, doesn’t explain, doesn’t tell me that I’m wrong. He doesn’t say a word. Very slowly, his shoulders sag. He leans forward and kisses the dog on his head. Then stands up and meets my eye. “I don’t suppose there’s anything I can say that will convince you that this isn’t true? That I would never do something like that.” M
ingo knows the system. Knows that kids like him don’t get too many second chances and that if I can believe this of him, then this second chance is finished.
“Probably not.”
He considers my words. The defeat shows only in the way he sucks in his lower lip. “A-ite. I thank you for giving me a chance, Ms. M.”
Only a deposed king could have left my office with as much dignity. I close the door behind him and sink into my chair. What will become of him?
* * *
Adam has opened a nice bottle of wine, made himself a better-than-average dinner of scallops and rice. The dog, supine on the couch, is snoring, peaceful, his front paws folded delicately over his broad chest. Outside, the last of the long evening light has faded to blue-black and he can hear those bullfrogs ramping up their evening conversation.
“Chance, move over.”
The dog rolls from back to side, stretches, and gives Adam about a quarter of a couch cushion. It’s enough. Although there’s a Red Sox game on, Adam doesn’t really feel like disturbing the quiet, contemplative atmosphere of his new sanctuary with commentary, so he doesn’t touch the remote. Skye has done a lovely job with this cottage. Of course, Mingo had a lot to do with the quality of the paint job, and the way the apartment-size appliances are so well boxed in. Kid maybe has some potential. Good for Skye, bringing him on.
Chance suddenly rolls off the couch to the floor, gives himself a great shake, and then heads to the door. The front door is open, letting in the fresh evening air. No need for air conditioners this high in the hills; nature has it figured out. The dog pushes against the old-fashioned wood-frame screen door and lets himself out. Adam, taking advantage of the dog’s departure, swings his feet up onto the couch. Sips his wine. Considers how much he wishes that he and Gina had found this place a long time ago. She would have loved the cottage, the fact that Skye has turned the LakeView into a welcoming place for people like them, dog people. Tonight, the thought of Gina doesn’t pinch his heart the way it usually does. It’s less pining than most thoughts, more mild; one thought in a stream that will always have Gina’s spirit at its source.