Nothing Ventured

by Roderick Price

  The cameras were rolling, and the sun was low in the wintry, afternoon sky as they poured out through the impossibly tall, double oak doors of the Courthouse. Taylor paused judiciously at the top of the steps. Her crowd of adversaries from the meeting were packed closely behind her, awaiting her next move.

  “Ms. Thompson,” asked the first reporter, “what is the timetable toward ending this dispute?”

  The microphones were all clustered around her now.

  “We are doing everything we can to assist these large corporations in the development of a sound and coherent plan to meet the environmental needs of the people of Wisconsin. We’re doing everything we can to help them develop a solution as soon as possible. We would love to bring more jobs to this area.”

  “Taylor, Mr. Mack, the Senior Vice President from Empire Oil, has publicly referred to your Agency, the DNR, as Damn Near Russian in the enforcement of government regulations. What is the DNR’s response to this?”

  “The Department has not and does not intend to engage in frivolous name-calling or innuendo. Frankly, our hope is that Mr. Mack and his associates can channel such creativity and resourcefulness in a positive direction. We need these big oil companies to craft a constructive program that enhances the health, safety, and environment for the workers of northern Wisconsin and Minnesota. Surely, they can simultaneously expand their refinery and protect the environment.”

  Behind her, Taylor could hear the grumbling of the company executives. They sensed the scene unfolding before them and surged forward, enveloping Taylor, the cameras, lights and reporters, creating the kind of carnival-like atmosphere that television news stations—even networks—look for in every story.

  “So, Taylor,” beckoned the next reporter, “you’re rumored to be the leading candidate for lieutenant governor in the April election. What are your plans?”

  Just for a moment she smiled ever so slightly. Only last week she had arranged for a couple staff members to float that rumor at the monthly meeting of the Mifflin Co-op. It had been no big deal. They had just mentioned it, ever so discreetly, over decaf latte after the main meeting. Now it was coming around very nicely.

  “I can’t think of anything right now other than safeguarding the people and incredible resources of the state of Wisconsin. You’ll have to ask the governor whom he wants for lieutenant governor next spring. Now, I’m very sorry, you’ll have to excuse me. No further comments for today.”

  It was eighteen steps down to the nondescript black sedan waiting at the curb. Jason, her top litigator and advisor, was right by her side. She stood silently on the wide sidewalk for just a moment and took a deep breath of the cold, fresh air. Only the afterglow of the setting sun was left now, falling over the shoulders of Superior’s lakeshore. Here it was, just before Thanksgiving, and her only plans were to spend three days with her parents in Iron River, and then make the drive back to Madison on Monday morning before Thanksgiving. She hadn’t even thought about the actual Thanksgiving holiday. Starting tomorrow, the state offices were shut down for the next ten days, but she sure wasn’t spending a week with her parents. Madison was going to be quiet. Even the students in Madison would be gone for the holiday. It would be a good time to get some work done.

  “All right Taylor, let’s do it.” It was Jason as he opened the door of the Department’s car and guided her easily into the backseat. With her settled—oversized briefcase and all—Jason abruptly slammed the door and rapped on the roof for the driver to get moving. It was an easy, half-hour drive down Highway 2 from Superior to Iron River, and another fifteen minutes to the old house where she was raised, on the shore of Spider Lake, south of town. By 5:30 p.m. she was with her parents, watching her courthouse press conference on Channel 11. It had been a long Thursday, and she needed to get some rest. She was taking Friday off and planned to sleep in her old bed until noon.

  CHAPTER 3

  The flight from Minneapolis showed a 9:20 p.m. scheduled departure time but it was 11:35 p.m. before the announcement came. The feedback from the microphone jarred Martin from his nap. “Flight 4655 from Minneapolis to Lacrosse will now begin boarding. All passengers with tickets should report to Gate D-11 on the green concourse for immediate boarding.”

  Martin Cantrell rose carefully from his seat and approached the counter.

  “Well rested, Mr. Cantrell?” asked the young woman smiling from behind the counter. “You know there’s terrible weather on the way to Lacrosse.”

  “Sounds like show time,” Martin replied evenly as she handed over his ticket.

  “I would normally say have a good flight,” she smiled. “Have a safe flight.”

  “Thanks for that,” said Martin.

  In her mid-thirties, she had appraised him hours earlier when he had first gotten in from Houston. He was athletic, obviously a seasoned business traveler, flying first class alone on pleasure. While the weather cleared, and the crowd of travelers thinned, she had watched him as he napped innocently in the departure area. The small plane to Lacrosse was going to be one of the last ones out. Lacrosse did not have the most sophisticated airport equipment, and farther south, the weather was severe.

  As a group, they headed out to the waiting plane. All eleven of them—those who had waited it out—were led down the ramp by a balding man dressed in a burnt-orange, polyester blazer over which he had pulled a cotton-lined navy windbreaker. Martin silently admired the fiber of the man; his sense of duty. The man was sallow from countless nights under these dirty fluorescent lights. His eyes shone the gray of the knowing, the pursued, and the beaten. His mother would have never let anyone take him for granted as this airline had. His cheap, chalky black shoes were worn smooth on the soles. But tonight, he drove on as the leader of this tiny platoon because he took pride in his job. It was just his job.

  Down the steps they went, clutching carefully both their belongings and the polished, aluminum rail. They emerged from the grimy, nicotine-scarred boarding room and heaved forward in a dark huddle, arrested by the bitter, spitting darkness of late November. Leaning into the wind and rain, their guide pulled them forward to the plane and wished them well as they vanished into the lean, taut belly of the Twin Otter quivering on the tarmac.

  A half-dozen, middle-aged salesmen had already fallen into seats ahead of Martin. To his left, an older woman with a Russian accent was cursing as she tried to stow her tired bag under the seat. There was a young, college-looking kid behind him, followed by an average-looking man in a business suit accompanied by a good-looking woman.

  Martin eased into the left window seat of row 7, as the rear cabin door slammed shut. The de-icers pulled away from the plane. Hunched over in the rose hue of the passenger cabin, the co-pilot gave brief, uninspiring flight instructions. Along with every other passenger in the cabin this night, Martin looked coldly and cleanly through the boy co-pilot and felt a knot twist in his gut. He glanced again out the window. It was only 150 miles from Minneapolis to Lacrosse. In fair weather, he had himself flown the route at night a dozen times, as a young private pilot in an old Cherokee 140. But it was icy, windy, and black out there tonight, and the plane shuddered knowingly with each Arctic blast from the north. As they started the engines, the familiar whirring sound of the gyroscopes pulled Martin’s attention back to the cabin. From his unique vantage point, he looked toward the pilot’s seat and saw the old man request clearance as the big props roared to life. Suddenly relieved with the sight of the veteran pilot, Martin pushed back in his chair and extended his 6’2” frame. He pulled the collar of his leather jacket up and around him and wandered off toward dreamland. He was going home. Lacrosse.

  CHAPTER 4

  If Elizabeth Cantrell was a tough one, she just couldn’t help it. She blamed her father. From the day she was born, she was his. Powerfully built, with an intensity foreign to most men, her dad had meant what he said, did what was needed, and helped to write the rules. Liz had two older brothers, but she was the one to w
hom he tried to teach everything. She almost died with him, at his funeral, her senior year in college. He had taught her every single thing he knew about living, yet not a single, damned thing about dying.

  She had worked as a financial analyst for Prudential for three years after they got married. When her second child came around, she retired from her full-time job, but she kept busy. After a couple of kids, everyone told her they couldn’t believe how great she looked. Most of them knew she made it to the gym six mornings a week after dropping off the kids. Had to work off that edge, almost every day. She’d also spend a lot of time running out in the Memorial area, in the deep humidity of Houston’s summer mornings. After they had been married for four years, she and Martin bought their little bungalow in Bunker Hill. She had joined the Houstonian Club and started the women’s tennis club. The past five years she had worked part-time as a professional fund raiser. It had started when she was running the annual benefit for the kids’ school. When that event became incredibly successful, she was offered part-time work on other fundraisers. The expansion at the zoo. The Children’s Museum. One thing Houston had was a lot of money, and they didn’t mind spending money at a charitable event. With the family, the house, and her occasional job, Liz kept busy. She met many of Houston’s rich and famous, too. Her life was fine, but it wasn’t like it used to be with Martin. Back when they were first married, they would make love all the time. Candles. Laughing. They had gone to Yellowstone, of all places, for their honeymoon, and in six days they had left the Lodge just twice to walk out and see Old Faithful. She knew things always changed, but she was only forty-one years old—not exactly ready to hang it up.

  “Earth to Mom, earth to Mom, come in Mom.”

  She bolted upright, cutting away from her sea of thoughts. It was her fourteen-year-old daughter who had been watching her from the kitchen table. Liz was working over the sink, slowly, meticulously, cradling her fine wine glasses after a rough night.

  “What’s up honey?” said Liz.

  “Oh nothing,” said her daughter, “it’s just that when someone in the house uses half the water in Ethiopia to wash two wine glasses, I want to make sure they are held accountable.”

  “I thought you had homework to do,” Liz suggested in a flanking maneuver.

  “All finished. Guess I better get out of here before somebody asks me to start building an ark or something.”

  “Guess so,” said Liz as she carefully set the crystal upside down on a towel on the blue-tiled countertop and turned off the water.

  It was quiet in the kitchen. The kids didn’t know yet. Hell, Liz didn’t know for sure, but rather than tell the girls anything now, she had asked Martin to wait until he got back from his deer hunting trip to Wisconsin.

  She had told him last Sunday night that they “needed to talk.” Maybe go out for dinner on Wednesday. It wasn’t like they hadn’t had this conversation before. She said she was unhappy. Martin said she was impatient, or bored, certainly “hard to make happy.” If there was one thing they were not suffering from, it was open communication. She thought he was too relaxed, too easy-going. She told him maybe he needed to get more of a “killer instinct,” even though she didn’t really know what she meant by that. When Wednesday night had come, they were both tired. She had been running errands all day and he got held up at work and didn’t get home until 7:30. She was finishing her second glass of wine and as soon as he got changed, they were through the door and headed out for dinner.

  Bunker Hill was a beautiful little village in the heart of the Memorial area in Houston. Many of today’s residents built their dream home there fifty years ago when a lack of good roads, central air conditioning and industrial infrastructure stifled Houston, and made Memorial, at best, a frontier bedroom community with a long drive to downtown. Times had changed. Now it was easily one of the most sought-after areas.

  Liz knew when she first drove through Memorial that someday she was going to have a house there. That was when she had been apartment hunting years earlier. With the villages having their own police it would be safe enough for a small-town girl from Wichita Falls, Texas. Its winding, tree-lined streets spoke tacitly of comfort and discretion. She liked the retired man in the royal blue jump suit carefully mulching around his newly planted fruit trees in the front yard. She had longed for the day when her children could swing on the huge, gray jungle gym at Bunker Hill Elementary. It made her a little sad, but she liked it when an older four-bedroom ranch on an estate-sized lot would occasionally get scrapped to make room for one of those large, two-story brick houses with pillars that lawyers, doctors and oil men were building all over Memorial.

  Last night it had started amazingly easy, and yet it was exceedingly difficult. As Martin eased out of the driveway, Liz finished her lipstick in the mirror.

  “Cody’s?” Martin half asked, half stated, as he surveyed the road ahead.

  “Sounds good,” said Liz. “You know we really haven’t been there since Stephanie’s birthday party.”

  “Don’t remind me,” said Martin, thinking back to the night. Cody’s was their place—had been their place. When they first got to Houston, they’d go there two or three times a month for late dinner and then close the place down listening to jazz by Angel McGill or Film At Eleven. They would talk and dance for hours, sharing their dreams and often just holding each other in warm silence during the drive home.

  Stephanie’s birthday party had been different. Coarse. It was all of Stephanie’s friends from the Houstonian. Liz knew every single woman and every single man. It wasn’t that Liz had done anything wrong; she just had had too many laughs and too many looks. Martin finished the evening retreating into himself, analyzing the Houston skyline and suddenly feeling exceedingly small in a big city. When they got home, he berated Liz, her friends, her behavior and her lack of respect for him. He said she had ignored him all night. She told him that he was no fun. He sulked stoically about the house for several days afterward. He told himself he was going to do the things he wanted to do, and he found himself vindictively waiting for the smallest infraction from his wife. At first Liz didn’t recognize her feelings toward Martin as he sulked about. She tried to categorize them. She tried to analyze them. Her feelings were different, awkward. Then one evening Martin went to bed early. As she caught his reflection in the large mirror over the double sink vanity, she thought deeply of him and came face to face with this newfound feeling. It was sympathy for him. Sympathy for her husband. For the first time in fifteen years she was scared.

  “Their” maître de had died long before from AIDS, but his replacement took one look at Liz and led them directly to a table perfectly suited for dining and dancing. Martin followed Liz confidently across the dining room floor. He eased into his chair and unfolded the crisp, neatly-creased napkin across his lap. The view from the twelfth floor was beautiful; looking back across the city skyline as the sun closed with those golden rays framing the towers against the far-off ship channel. Shell Towers. Pennzoil Place. The Petroleum Club on top of the Exxon building. Then Martin looked across the room to see if there was anyone he knew. For the first real time today, maybe the first time this week, he looked unwaveringly into his wife’s eyes. Liz set her elbows wide apart on the table, leaned ahead with her chin set evenly on her firmly-clasped hands, and matter-of-factly said, “Martin, I want a divorce.”

  “A divorce?” Martin repeated. “You want a divorce?” He knew she had been moody, not her normal self, but divorce?

  “I don’t like saying it. Never thought I would have to say it. But yeah, divorce.” Liz was looking straight at him with an unblinking stare.

  “Where is this coming from? I mean, I know things have been a little rocky lately, but lots of people go through rough patches,” he submitted.

  “Yeah, well, the last three years hasn’t been what I would call a rough patch. It’s been going on for a while; at least for me.”

  “Three years?” said Mart
in.

  The waiter showed up. Liz looked at him. “Vodka and cranberry juice on the rocks for me, and a double vodka rocks for him.”

  The waiter turned on his heel.

  “Well, I remember when the girls went to camp in the Ozarks. I was basically alone for six weeks that summer and that was three years ago in July. So yeah, three years,” said Liz. Not angry, not smiling, just very matter-of-fact.

  “So… you’ve been unhappy for three years?”

  “Unhappy. Frustrated. Tired of it. Wanting something more. I could go on,” she shrugged.

  “Jesus, that’s pretty harsh. Better get you on suicide watch. I didn’t know it was that bad,” Martin responded, trying to make light of it.

  “Bad time for a joke, Martin,” Liz said.

  “Sorry,” said Martin, hesitating and looking out over that skyline. “Just from the outside looking in, it doesn’t seem that bad to me. I like our house. The girls are doing great—as far as I know. My job’s going pretty well…”

  “Wow, now I know you’re joking.”

  “Well, I get frustrated with management, as you know, but we aren’t exactly starving to death.”

  Liz looked him over. He was a good man. Still good looking, too, even if he had got a little thicker around the middle. “As weird as this sounds, we can talk about other things. I just wanted to put it out there. I want a divorce. A separation for sure… you know, just to see.”

  “Just to see what?” said Martin.

  “Well, I guess, just to see how it feels… For both of us, really,” said Liz.