Evenfall

by Liz Michalski

  “Pretty good, huh?” he says.

  Andie nods. “Amazing.”

  “Surprised?”

  “To find a place like this in Franklin? You’re kidding, right?” she says. “We couldn’t even get McDonald’s to come here when I was growing up.”

  “Chris has only been open a few months, but he’s been pretty good for the area. He’s bought a lot from us. And the asparagus comes from Old Lady Miller’s farm, just up the street.”

  Mary bustles over to clear away their plates and tell them about the specials. “There’s a goat cheese, onion, and red pepper flatbread. There’s also a trout prepared campfire style that I highly recommend,” she says, speaking to Andie.

  “Any recommendations for me?” Cort asks.

  “Yes. Be glad that it’s me waiting on you, and not Janet. Now, what can I get you?”

  “I’ll have the pizza,” Andie decides.

  “The trout,” Cort mumbles. The tips of his ears are bright red.

  It’s very quiet at their table after Mary leaves.

  “So you and Janet, ahh?” Andie asks, amused.

  Cort mutters something unintelligible.

  “Sorry, I didn’t catch that.”

  “Yeah, we went to high school together. She moved back around the same time I did and we’ve been out once or twice. It’s no big deal. I didn’t know she was working here, though.” He glances toward the hostess stand, and Andie follows his gaze just in time to see Janet smile and give a little wave. Mary’s cackle is audible from a table away.

  Cort puts his head in his hands. “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. I just thought…Chris’s food is really good…”

  It’s clear a diversion is necessary. “So, you and Chris are hunting buddies?” Andie asks. “I had no idea you were so bloodthirsty.”

  Cort looks like he’s wishing someone would put him out of his misery, but he rallies and sits up. “Ever been hunting? It’s quiet, peaceful out in the woods. If you do it right the deer doesn’t know what hit him. That’s not a bad way to go.”

  “I guess,” Andie says. She thinks of the deer that she’s seen in the woods surrounding Evenfall, all big eyes and delicate, fashion-model bones. She saw a fawn watching her one morning, just after her first year at boarding school; its white spots blended so carefully into the sun-dappled leaves that, recalling it later, she wasn’t sure if she’d really seen it or if her eyes, weary from a year of studying, had tricked her. It’s of this deer that she’s thinking when she asks Cort, “But why should he have to go at all?”

  “I guess, in an ideal world, he wouldn’t. But we’ve all got to eat, and all we can do is make the best choices we can. I’ll tell you one thing—I’d rather come back as a deer than a cow.”

  “I don’t know,” Andie says. “I’ve seen your farm. The cows look pretty fat and happy to me.”

  “For now, yeah,” Cort says. “But we’re an abnormality in the dairy business. Dad just put in automatic milkers about eight years ago, and we’re one of the last in this area to keep our cows on pasture. And pretty soon, if we don’t start making money, we’re gonna be out of business.”

  A busboy sets a plate of salad in front of each of them. Cort’s looking at it, but Andie can tell he’s not seeing it. His face is too bleak to be thinking about greens.

  “Come on,” she says. “It can’t be that bad.”

  Cort stabs at a piece of lettuce with his fork. “Yeah, well, my mom’s gone back to driving a school bus to pay for health insurance. My dad’s selling some land to pay the taxes this year but…” He shrugs. “It’s probably pointless. In a couple of years it’ll all be houses.”

  “I’m sorry,” she says, and she is. For years, the McCallister farm has been her touchstone, the first sign of Hartman she’s glimpsed coming off the highway. In summer the pastures were green and lush, unrolling before her like the weeks of vacation to come. In fall, when her father came to collect her, she’d twist around in her seat for one last look. The memory of the farm’s trees, tinged the faintest shade of gold, had to sustain her the rest of the year, like a deep breath of air before entering the suffocating atmosphere of boarding school. Andie’s always felt rootless, but she can see how having a legacy like Cort’s and then losing it might be worse.

  “Dad’s not the only one,” Cort says. “Every day, the state’s losing small farms. The little guy just can’t compete anymore.”

  “Couldn’t your dad grow something else? Something that makes more money?”

  “I’m open to suggestions, but the only profitable crop in Connecticut these days is houses,” he says. “Cows just can’t compete with $100,000 an acre.”

  Andie knows he’s right. Everywhere she turns, there’s a new subdivision. Driving in town last week, she took a wrong turn and became completely disoriented. Down the lane where she and Clara used to gather blackberries, a network of houses had sprung up like mushrooms after a rain.

  “A whole way of life is disappearing,” Cort says. “There’s been farmers like us here since forever, and in a couple more years we’ll all be gone.”

  “That can’t be true.”

  Cort shakes his head. “You remember my brother Joe, don’t you?”

  Andie has to think a moment before she can nod.

  “Joe’s the oldest of all of us. He went off to school when I was a kid and never really came back. He’s got an MBA, he married a city girl, and he lives a life with no manual labor required.”

  “My kind of life,” Andie says, but Cort ignores her. “Summers, though, he likes to bring his kids home to the farm and let them run wild. Last week, his youngest was out in the yard playing near the chicken coop, and all of a sudden he starts screaming “Grammy, Grammy!” at the top of his lungs. My mother rushes over, figuring he’s hurt himself. She grabs him to see what’s wrong, and he says ‘Grammy, do you know where an egg comes from? From a chicken’s butt!’ The kid wouldn’t eat eggs the rest of the week.”

  Andie laughs, but she knows what he means. There’s a disconcerting sterility to the supermarkets here. When she picks up a red pepper, its waxy surface gleams but has no scent. Cheese is wrapped so tightly she can’t tell if it is crumbly or not, and the dairy case is too cold in which to linger.

  “It’s not like that everywhere, you know,” she tells him. “In Italy, it’s a completely different experience.”

  “Tell me.”

  Andie thinks for a moment. “I made this recipe once that had shrimp and garlic in it. When I bought the shrimp, they still had their heads attached, and I almost couldn’t bear to unwrap them when I got home. Their little bug eyes looked so reproachful. The garlic was so pungent I could smell it through the paper bag. Carrying it home on the bus, I was so embarrassed. I was sure everybody was trying to figure out what the smell was.”

  “I’ll bet you got a good seat, though,” he says.

  “It was one of the first dishes I cooked for company there. I kept thinking it was going to be a disaster, but it wasn’t. The ingredients didn’t look perfect, like they would have if I’d bought them here, but they tasted so much better.”

  She’d served a Pinot Grigio, she remembers, and Neal had brought flowers, a handful of daisies he said he’d picked alongside the road. After, they’d gone out for gelato. Across the street she’d noticed a bucket of the same daisies in the fiorista’s window. Coincidence, she told herself back then. Now she knows better.

  Cort says something, but Andie doesn’t hear it. She’s about to ask him to repeat himself when Mary swoops over, removes the salad plates, and serves their meals. The goat cheese on Andie’s pizza sits in round white dollops across the crust, slightly browned on the edges. The red peppers are sliced thinly, and the whole pie smells faintly of garlic, onion, and yeast.

  The food serves as a natural break in conversation, and it’s quiet for a bit. Andie picks up a slice of pizza and bites into the tip, eschewing a knife and fork. It is, she decides, worth every single calorie. The cheese and
red peppers are slightly sweet, offset by the tang of garlic and the smokiness of the crust. She devours half of her piece before she looks over at Cort.

  He’s just as intent on his meal, but he takes a second between bites to smile at her.

  “Good?” he asks.

  Andie nods, her mouth too full to answer. They eat in silence for the next few minutes. When she comes up for air, Cort’s watching her.

  “What?” she says. “Do I have goat cheese on my face?”

  He shakes his head. “Nope,” he says.

  “Then what?”

  “Admit it,” he says. “I’m enthralling you with all my talk about land management and chickens.”

  “I’m fascinated,” she agrees. “No wonder poor Janet fell for you.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s a burden, being irresistible. Although you seem to be holding up just fine. Maybe I need to change my approach.”

  “Maybe,” Andie says, surprising herself. Her left hand is resting on the table, and Cort reaches across to take it in his right. His palm is rough with calluses, and very warm. “How’s this?” he says.

  Andie’s saved from a response by the arrival of Chris. She pulls her hand away and places it in her lap as the chef drags over a chair and straddles it, resting his chin on the back.

  “How was your meal?” he asks.

  “Delicious,” Andie tells him.

  “Thanks. I have to say, I’m flattered Cort chose to bring a date here. We give him such a hard time, it must be serious.”

  “It’s not really a date,” Andie says without looking at Cort. “I used to babysit him sometimes.”

  “No way. Little Cortie had a baby sitter? I’ll bet he was a real pain in the ass.”

  “He was,” Andie agrees. “I was always dragging him out of trees and sticking bandages on him. Once he even broke his arm.” She remembers the heart-stopping moment when he fell, the sick feeling in her stomach. His face when he landed on the ground was white as bone, but he never cried, just blinked back the tears so they pearled in the dark of his lashes, shiny as a spider’s web.

  “My babysitter was a seventy-year-old church lady with black hairs growing out of her chin. If I’d have climbed a tree, she’d have broken my arm for me,” Chris says.

  Cort looks pointedly in the direction of Chris’s stomach, which plumps out the front of the chef’s smock. “I have a hard time picturing that,” he says.

  “Yeah, well, some of us change between the ages of three and thirty, little buddy,” Chris says. “It’s called maturing, a concept you’re obviously unfamiliar with.”

  “Really? I thought it was called getting old and fat,” Cort says.

  Andie raises an eyebrow. “So thirty is old and fat, is it?”

  “Not on you,” Cort says hastily. “Definitely not on you.”

  Chris laughs and stands up. “It’s almost worth sticking around to hear how you get out of that one, but I’ve got to get back to work. Andie, it was a pleasure to meet you, and I hope to see you in here again soon.”

  “You will,” Andie assures him.

  “Cort, we still on for Thursday?” Chris says.

  Cort nods. “I’ll drive if you bring breakfast.”

  “Deal. See you then.”

  “What’s Thursday?” Andie asks after Chris is gone.

  Cort shifts in his seat. “We’re kind of working on a project together,” he says. “What do you think about dessert?”

  Andie’s sure she can’t fit anything else, but after Mary clears the table, she brings over two plates. In the center of each is a small tart, no bigger than a half dollar. A tiny strawberry adorns the center of each one.

  While Cort’s ordering coffee, Andie takes a bite. The tart is so lemony it makes her mouth pucker, but there’s a sweetness there too in the thin and brittle crust.

  “You must have made a good impression,” Cort says.

  “Why do you say that?” Andie’s saved the strawberry for last. She lets it sit on her tongue, the flavor unfolding like the essence of a warm summer day.

  “Those are Chris’s prize berries. Right now, he’s growing them in a little greenhouse until it warms up, and he hoards them.”

  “You got one, too,” Andie points out. Cort has eaten his tart in two bites.

  “Really? They’re so small I’m not sure I noticed,” he says, but Andie knows he’s joking. Cort, she’s starting to realize, notices everything.

  When the check comes, they both reach for it, but Cort is quicker.

  “This is supposed to be on me,” Andie says. She tries to peek at the bill, to see what she owes, but he deftly keeps it out of her reach.

  “We’ll just have to do it again so you can settle your debt,” he says. “I know how you Murphy women hate to owe anybody.”

  “I’ll take you to Johnny’s, then. That’s not payment—that’s punishment.”

  “Depends on the company,” Cort says, standing. “Ready to go?”

  The room is starting to clear out. Most of the tables are empty, and the crowd at the bar has thinned. On their way out, Andie spots Mary and Janet near the hostess station.

  “Bye, Cort,” Janet calls brightly. “See you soon!”

  Cort mumbles a good-bye. Mary laughs and waves good-bye, including Andie in the gesture, but Janet’s gaze is pretty cold.

  Glad I’m not up against that, Andie thinks, amused, but puts a little extra wiggle in her walk anyhow as she slides past Cort and out the door. She can always blame it on the shoes.

  THE silence on the ride home is different from the silence during the trip to the restaurant. It’s heavier, laden with expectation. Andie’s planning her exit from the truck almost as soon as they leave the parking lot, and Cort’s first words don’t help.

  “So who’s the guy?”

  “What guy?”

  “The guy you’re cooking meals with shrimp and garlic for. The Italian guy. The one you don’t want to talk about.”

  “What makes you think there’s a guy?”

  He sighs. “Andie, I’ve been…” The sentence trails off. There’s a hush before he starts again, carefully. “I’ve known you since I was six years old. There’s always been some guy. Why should now be any different?”

  Andie doesn’t speak for a second. “He’s not Italian,” she says finally. “He’s American, and I’m pretty sure it’s over.”

  “Is he why you left?”

  “Partly. I needed to come home anyhow, to help Aunt Gert. When Frank died, I was in the middle of my thesis, so coming back for the funeral was about all I could manage.” She shrugs, forgetting he can’t see her in the dark. “She wasn’t in a big hurry to get things settled, and said the summer would be fine. I think I was hoping the extra time…But it didn’t work, and Neal and I broke up right before I came home.”

  “How come?”

  She wonders which answer to give. She thinks about Neal, about the way the corners of his eyes crinkle when he smiles, his slightly spicy scent, his smooth, manicured hands. There’s a vitality to him, a kind of humming energy, that draws people in. In the three years she was with him, she never knew him to sit still. His energy was enthralling at first, until she saw it for what it was. By always planning for the future, he could avoid being fully there, with Andie, in the present. She’d known that even before she’d discovered the affair. She thinks of his apartment, filled with sleek, sharp-edged objects, and then the palazzo of her studies, the dust slowly drifting through its halls.

  “Remember when you were talking about living out West, how it never really felt like home?” she says finally, as they’re bumping down her driveway. “Well, Neal never really felt like home to me.”

  “Where is your home, Andie?” Cort asks, but that’s a question she can’t answer. She only knows it’s not here.

  When the truck pulls up in front of the door, Nina rises from her place next to the steps, wagging her tail. Cort kills the engine and shuts off the headlights, so that the dog becomes a dark shadow, illum
inated only by the moon.

  He comes around to her side of the cab, but Andie is already on the ground, precariously balanced on her stiletto heels. He offers his arm, and she takes it gratefully.

  “They’re pretty, but not really made for the country,” he says, nodding toward her shoes.

  “Neither am I.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that. You seem to be holding your own okay.”

  At the door, Andie turns to him. He smells like warm grass, like rain. “Since you were six?” she asks softly.

  “Yeah,” he says. When she kisses him in the moonlight, his face is white as bone.

  july

  Andie

  BEING with Cort is by far the craziest thing Andie’s ever done. It’s crazier than the time she “borrowed” her biology teacher’s red Honda on a Friday night to visit her boyfriend at a neighboring prep school; crazier than when she and her best friend Samantha skipped classes and hitchhiked to New York sophmore year to see the Rolling Stones, geriatric but still hot in their Steel Wheels/Urban Jungle tour, and wound up alone in a trashed hotel room with two passed-out roadies and some second-rate actor Andie still sees sometimes on late-night television. It’s even crazier than moving to Italy alone, with no money and only her classes and cramped living quarters paid for.

  Andie knows this. She knows Cort’s too young, too wide-eyed around her. She knows she’s on the rebound, that what she needs is space and quiet, time to think, not the complications of an affair. But she can’t seem to stop. She refuses to think about how this will, inevitably, end, and concentrates instead on the slow, delicious pleasure of kissing Cort, the taste of sweat-slicked skin and the feel of his muscles beneath her hands. Her days have already fallen into a rhythm around him. She wakes early and begins work so as to have the rest of the morning free. She pretends it will always be summer, that there will always be a canopy of green leaves casting shadows on the walls of this room, that this time will never end.