by Garth Stein
“I guess as far as dogs go, I didn’t think he’d be your type.”
“What ‘type’ did you expect me to have?”
“I don’t know. Something smaller. More proper. A purebred, I guess.”
Jenna laughed. “I didn’t have much of a choice. He was the only dog wandering around in the woods without an owner.”
“You found him in the woods? Where?”
“He found me, actually. On Mount Dewey.”
“Wild dog,” a muffled voice called out from under the sink.
Eddie crouched down and scratched Oscar’s back as Oscar licked Eddie’s face.
“He doesn’t look wild to me, Field. He sure doesn’t act wild.”
Jenna pointed to the kitchen. “That’s Field?”
“Yeah, that’s Field. I told him to get down here quick and fix the sink as soon as I knew I’d be having company. He’s afraid I’ll whip him even with my one good arm tied behind my back, so to save himself any public embarrassment, he came.”
“I ain’t afraid of you, Fleming,” the voice called out again.
Field came out from under the sink with a grin and dusted himself off. He was an older man, maybe in his late sixties, with curly white hair and a weathered face. He put his arm around Eddie.
“Well, your sink is fixed, Lover boy.”
Field studied Jenna from top to bottom, shaking his head.
“I don’t know what you were talking about. She ain’t as plain as all that.”
Eddie blushed and shoved Field.
“I never said she was plain, you old fart.” He turned to Jenna. “I never said you were plain. He’s just trying to make me look bad.”
Field grabbed Jenna’s arm and squeezed it firmly.
“Good and sturdy. Looks like she could take a punch.”
“Don’t pay attention to him,” Eddie broke in, shoving Field toward the door. “He’s an old boozer whose brain is all melted down from diesel fumes. He thinks he’s being charming when he’s really being an overbearing ass.”
Eddie had the front door open and was pushing Field out onto the porch, but Field grabbed the doorjamb and held on for dear life. They were both laughing. Putting on some kind of show for the new female.
“If he starts making any moves on you, you give me a call and I’ll come down here and straighten him out. You hear that, young lady?”
“I hear you,” Jenna called out as Eddie broke Field’s grip and slammed the door shut on him.
Eddie turned to Jenna and shook his head.
“Sorry about that. He thinks he’s Jack Palance or something.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
They looked at each other for an awkward moment. There was something about Eddie that really intrigued Jenna. It was his boyishness, most likely. He stood there, smiling, with his eyes bright, in dirty jeans and a Seattle Supersonics T-shirt, with his arm strapped to his side. For some reason Jenna tried to put Robert in Eddie’s place, but it wouldn’t fit. Robert couldn’t wear jeans low on his hips like that. Robert has weekend jeans—jeans that fade in an even, washing machine way—not the kind that get worn down on the thigh from wearing, like Eddie’s. And if Robert had a Sonics T-shirt, he would wear it only when watching a Sonics game, not to paint in, as the telltale white spatter on Eddie’s shirt proved that he did.
Eddie reached down and unsnapped Oscar’s leash. Jenna noticed Eddie’s hands for the first time. They were small but well shaped, strong-looking and calloused, but properly scaled to the rest of his features. Some people with small hands have thick fingers and fat palms. Others, like Robert, have long, thin fingers with big knuckles. Eddie, though, had perfect hands, even if one of them was dangling uselessly from a sling.
“Is he housebroken?” Eddie asked.
Jenna shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“He can sleep out on the porch tonight, to play safe. I don’t think he’ll mind.”
“He’ll be fine.”
“You might want to give him a bath, too. He smells very . . . I don’t know . . . earthy. Come on, let me show you your room.”
Eddie led Jenna to the first room off the hallway. It was small and furnished with a double bed, a night table, and a dresser. Jenna dropped her backpack on the bed and went to the window. It looked out on her grandmother’s house. She wondered if the house might be haunted, and, if it was, would the ghosts think to look at Eddie’s place for her. She supposed not.
“It’s nice,” she said
Eddie nodded and pushed down on the bed with his good arm.
“The bed’s real comfortable. That’s what everyone says, anyway.”
Another awkward moment passed between them. Then Oscar appeared in the doorway. Jenna seized the opportunity.
“Hey, Oscar, how about that bath?”
Eddie seemed relieved by the distraction. He led Jenna and Oscar to a faucet in the backyard, gave Jenna a bar of soap and some old towels, and sent them off to clean up.
BY THE TIME they were finished, Jenna didn’t know who had bathed whom. She certainly couldn’t judge by who had gotten wetter. Although, with a few shakes, Oscar was dry and ready to go, whereas Jenna had to put on new clothes.
After Jenna had changed into her Banana Republic dress (the one she thought she wouldn’t need), both she and Oscar presented themselves to Eddie looking fresh and clean. Perhaps even too fresh and clean, Jenna thought shyly. She had felt like such a boy recently in her jeans and boots that to show herself to Eddie in only a cotton flowery dress and white socks seemed almost a misrepresentation. She was a girl. True. And as a girl she had certain rights, one of which was to dress the part. Still, she felt strangely guilty about it.
Eddie was putting away the last of the groceries when he turned and saw Jenna and Oscar.
“Wow,” he said, raising his eyebrow. “You two look much better.”
Jenna smiled. “Can I do anything?”
“You can have a seat in the living room. I’ll be right there.”
Jenna went into the living room and sat on the couch that looked out toward the street. From her seat she could see another island across the water from Wrangell. She had seen it from her grandmother’s house, she remembered, but she didn’t notice its odd shape then. It was a lopsided island.
Eddie set down a cutting board with cheese and crackers on the coffee table.
“Oh, you didn’t have to do that,” Jenna protested.
“Relax, it’s nothing,” Eddie said. “Can I get you something to drink? Beer, wine, sangria?”
“Sangria?”
“I don’t actually have any sangria. I just said that. I do have beer and wine, though.”
“Nothing for me, thanks.”
Eddie disappeared into the kitchen again and returned with a beer for himself. He took a seat next to Jenna. They sat for a moment in silence.
“So,” Jenna started. “Tell me what happened to your arm.”
“Oh, it’s nothing,” Eddie said, grabbing a cracker. “A fishing accident.”
“It doesn’t look like nothing. Is it bad?”
“Well, yeah.” He sighed. “Pretty bad, I guess.”
“What happened?”
He took a swig of his beer.
“It’s pretty gross,” he said. “I don’t think you’d want to hear about it.”
“I can handle it,” Jenna said. She suspected that he wanted to tell her, but he didn’t want to seem too eager.
“Okay. But you asked for it.”
Eddie leaned forward and set his beer on the coffee table.
“I fish halibut, and with halibut fishing you have a lot of hooks tied on to what they call a ground line. The end of the ground line is sunk to the bottom with a weight and the other end is fed off the back of the boat. When you haul the ground lines back in, you’ve got your halibut. Anyway, when the ground line is being set, the hooks are flying over the side pretty fast, and one of those hooks jumped up and grabbed my arm right here.”
H
e pointed with his right finger to just under his armpit; then he moved his finger down to his elbow.
“Caught me right up here and ripped all the way down.”
“Ouch.” Jenna cringed.
“Yeah. I had to grab the side of the boat or it would’ve pulled me over and taken me down to the bottom. I would’ve been crab food.”
“What happened?”
“It ripped down and then across the inside of my elbow, tearing out this tendon and ripping the whole muscle loose so a big hunk of muscle was flapping around from my shoulder.”
“Did it hurt?” Jenna asked, and then laughed. “That’s a pretty stupid question.”
“Actually, no, it didn’t,” he said, seriously. “It didn’t really hurt at first. I could see the pink muscle flapped up, and I think the bone was exposed because something was real white underneath. And then, like it took a minute for my body to understand what was going on, all of a sudden blood started squirting all over the place. Like, shooting blood, and I thought, ‘Oh, man, this looks bad.’ ”
“I think I’m going to be sick.”
“And then I started to yell, but it wasn’t because it hurt—it was because there was so much blood I thought I was going to die. The hook ripped open my artery, the one right there in the inside of your arm, and that’s why I was bleeding so much.”
“Did you die?”
He laughed.
“No, I made it okay. The guys wrapped a tourniquet around my shoulder, figuring it would be better to lose an arm than bleed to death. Luckily there was a Coast Guard chopper right there, and they airlifted me to a hospital. They got me there in time to save me and my arm.”
“That’s lucky.”
“Yeah, but I don’t have any more feeling in my hand. It cut all the nerves, I guess, which kind of sucks. The doctor said some nerves can repair themselves, but it’ll never be the same.”
“Oh, I’m sure you’ll get some sensation back,” Jenna said hopefully, and then felt her face flush. It felt weirdly personal to talk about Eddie’s nerves.
Eddie smiled at Jenna and Jenna smiled back, and they sat there looking at each other for a good minute. It was scary and exciting for Jenna, like when she was in high school and she would work really hard to get next to a guy she liked, and then she’d suddenly realize that she was alone with him in a back room or something and she’d be, like, well, I got what I wanted, now what? We’re here alone. There are no teachers or parents. We could do whatever we want, but we’re too afraid. Jenna laughed nervously, and Eddie did too. She knew that he was thinking the exact same thing that she was. Embarrassed, Jenna stood up and went over to the window.
“What’s that island over there?”
“Woronkofski. Nobody lives on it.”
Eddie got up and followed Jenna to the window. He stood right behind her. Very close. Too close, really. Not that Jenna didn’t want him to stand that close. She wanted to feel the warmth of his aura. He stood with his left shoulder almost touching her back. The fabric of his shirt brushing lightly against the fabric of Jenna’s dress. That was his wounded shoulder. He reached around her with his right arm and pointed to the island.
“They call it Elephant’s Nose.”
Jenna could see why. The island looked like a giant elephant standing in the water up to its armpits. Eddie’s armpit was wounded. Torn from armpit to elbow, right through the tender flesh between the biceps and the triceps. Jenna wanted to see his wound. The purple scar. To touch it.
“I could see them calling it Elephant’s Head,” he said. “Or Elephant’s Back, or Elephant’s Head and Back. But it doesn’t look like an elephant’s nose to me. An elephant’s nose is a trunk. What does that look like?”
Jenna turned to him quickly and for a moment they were standing within each other. They were in each other’s breath and grasp, and if they had wanted to make love in that moment they easily could have. They could have fallen into each other’s arms (or her two arms and his one arm) and shared their passion. And Jenna knew that what she felt, Eddie felt as well. But they held back. There was almost a strange pleasure in the pain of resisting. It wasn’t right, it wasn’t time, they didn’t know each other, they really shouldn’t. But they wanted to. And the thrill of being caught in this moment and not seizing it was almost too much to bear. They loved the thrill of it. Jenna knew it. Because they stayed there. Looking into each other’s eyes, each hoping that the other wouldn’t break the spell. Their lips were within inches of joining. But it was not meant to be. Maybe one day, soon. Maybe never. But definitely not now.
Jenna turned back to the elephant.
“It’s beautiful.”
“Yes.”
They ignored each other’s breathing. Short, hot breaths.
Jenna tried to force out some conversation. “I’m starved.”
“Me, too.”
“Want me to cook? You have plenty of food. I could cook dinner.”
Jenna turned to Eddie. Still close. Her heart jumped an inch, enough to let her know.
“I’d like that a lot,” he said. “That would be real nice.”
Jenna headed toward the kitchen and she knew that feeling. She’s not stupid. She knew what that little heart stutter-step thing meant. And she knew that she needed a drink.
JENNA HADN’T BEEN drunk in at least a year. It was against the rules. She could have a glass of wine a day, but no more. No hard alcohol of any kind. And, obviously, no regulated substances, pharmaceutical or otherwise. It was a system, that’s all. A clear-cut system for her to follow. Not that she thought she would have had any problems if she hadn’t had the system. But, still. It’s always nice to have rules to depend on. Rules are necessary to prevent lapses in judgment.
Like the lapse in judgment on the day Jenna met Eddie. She didn’t know why she did it. Maybe she wanted to get drunk so she wouldn’t have to deal with the things she was feeling. Or maybe she wanted to be out of control. Whatever the case, that night Jenna forgot about her rules. She drank. And she and Eddie got drunk on cheap white wine as they ate their dinner of steak and spaghetti with tomato sauce. And you know what? Jenna had the time of her life.
Jenna didn’t learn many facts about Eddie. They didn’t talk about facts. She didn’t learn where he was from or how old he was or how long he’d been fishing. But she did learn that they both wanted more to hear what the other had to say than to speak. And so, their conversation about nothing was filled with giant holes of delicious silence. Silence that was so full of feeling that it could hardly be called silence at all. The evening had an organic quality, like a mountain brook flowing through the cool woods of spring. And yet they hid behind the wine. Perhaps hoping to wash away their past lives and confine themselves to the present moment; perhaps wanting to wash away the present in the hopes of returning to the past.
Then the wine was gone, and with it the feeling that they were protected from whatever it was that was trying to bring them back to reality. So there was only one thing they could do. They got in Eddie’s truck, an old blue Dodge parked by the side of the house, and made a road trip for wine.
The road trip was about a minute, to the package store down the block. Sitting in the truck, Jenna laughed to herself. A sixteen-year-old girl waiting for her high school sweetheart to score some booze with his older brother’s I.D. What a goof.
It was eleven o’clock, but the fact that it was just getting dark really hit Jenna as strange. There she was, in Alaska, drunk, waiting in a pickup for a guy she didn’t really know to get some wine, watching the beautiful blue sky turn a smoky purple color. She felt a little chill up her spine, and she really hoped that Eddie would get in the truck and put his hand on the back of her neck, lift her hair slightly and slip his warm hand behind there and scratch behind her ears, and then lean forward and kiss her with soft lips and a tongue that fit smoothly inside of her mouth. She looked out at the black water and the blacker hills of Elephant’s Nose and the sky that was a hundred million miles deep,
and she closed her eyes and breathed the air that smelled of fall and fireplaces, and she felt, for the first time ever, that it was okay that Bobby died because maybe she had a life to go on with after all, and while it wouldn’t be a life with Bobby, it could still be a life. And maybe that had been her problem the whole time: she never really believed that she had a life that was livable without him.
Eddie walked out of the store and headed toward the truck and Jenna wanted it to continue. She was sending a psychic vibe like you wouldn’t believe. She was bombarding him with her desire, but her face read nothing. This is a test.
He got in the truck and in the bag were two double bottles of some kind of Chardonnay and a pack of Camel Lights. And do you know what he did? He reached his hand up and slid it under Jenna’s hair behind her neck and he kissed her lightly. And she said to herself, I rule. I am the god of hellfire and brimstone! I’m your Venus, I’m your fire, it’s your desire.
Eddie pulled away quickly.
“Sorry.”
She wanted to ask why, what for, but she knew it wasn’t right, it wasn’t the time, they hardly know each other, they couldn’t . . .
“I couldn’t resist,” he said and he started the truck and pulled it onto the street. “You were so beautiful sitting there looking out at the water.”
She looked over at him and smiled.
“I watched you through the window of the store. I watched you and I knew I had to kiss you. But that’s bad.”
“Why?” Jenna asked, almost whispering.
“You’re married,” he said, holding up his left hand and showing it to her. There was no ring on it, but there was a ring on hers. She turned the ring silently, looking at it. She looked up at Eddie and shrugged. He didn’t say anything.
They pulled into the driveway next to his house and he turned off the engine. They sat in the quiet truck and looked straight ahead into the woods. Eddie took the cigarettes out of the bag and tapped the top of the pack on the back of his hand and took one out. Jenna asked for one and he handed it to her.
“I didn’t know you smoked,” Eddie said.
“I used to.” Jenna smiled. “When I was in high school.”
Eddie lit the cigarettes and they smoked in the car outside his house.