Cameo Lake (20 page)

Twenty-five

A
t noon, unplanned, we met on the raft. Half a day's sleep and we had both regained our equilibrium. “How are you?” I asked and he said, “Fine, how are you?” and I said, “Fine.” We lay on the raft and dozed for a few minutes, just glad to have the sunshine on us, our fingertips discreetly touching.

My laptop remained closed this morning. I hadn't been able to do more than drink coffee and sit on the glider, trying to make sense of my life. Now my stomach burned and the only thing clear to me was that I had to leave the lake and go home.

“Grace is coming tonight.” Ben's voice startled me out of my half-sleep.

“What? When did you hear that?”

“She left a message on my machine—reluctantly, no doubt. She couldn't raise you on your, her, car phone, so she assumed I'd be willing to give you the message. Of course, I wasn't home last night, so you've got very short notice.”

“How like Grace. She sends me up here to get away from distractions and then joins me.” I might have laughed at the irony, but I was too soulsick.

“Maybe the lesson here is that there's no such thing as getting away from your distractions.”

“Or developing new ones.” I linked my fingers with his and let the magnitude of what we had done roll through me. It wasn't as if I'd been seduced, or as if I had chosen to break my vows out of mischief or immorality. Ben and I had comforted each other, and if I stayed on the lake that comfort would take center stage against the anguish of my marriage. The ultimate distraction.

Ben rolled from his back to his stomach and tweaked a lock of my wet hair, “She wants to know if you have anything done.”

“Oh, really.”

“So, do you?”

“Yes. It's nearly done.”

“What's it about? Do you mind my asking?”

I shrugged. It's always hard for me to synopsize the unfinished. “It's a story about strangers coming together against great odds, becoming friends, and then losing each other . . .”

“And then?”

“I don't know. I haven't finished it.” I took my hand away from his and sat up. “I have to go home, you know.”

“I know. What will you do?” Ben sat beside me on the edge of the raft facing north.

“I don't know. It's not a very simple question. I've been sitting on the porch, wondering why I don't just give Sean the boot. But it's not just Sean.”

“No, of course not, there are the kids. These things are so hard on them.”

“Not only the kids, Ben. Sean's family is the closest thing I've ever had to a real family.” I felt the pressure in my chest build as I articulated this truth for the first time even to myself. “I love them like my own, and they've always treated me like one of theirs. How can I ever walk away from them?” I was embarrassed at the flood of tears leaking from my squinting eyes. I wiped them away, angry at them.

“Cleo, if they love you, they'll find a way for you to stay part of the family. You'll always have the kids in common.”

“It's complicated, but thanks, that helps.” I didn't add that the
other complication was that I wasn't sure I didn't still love Sean. Would I let his weakness force our life apart? Or my weakness?

As I slipped into the water, Ben remained on the raft. “Hey, Cleo, about your characters . . .”

“What?”

“I hope they find each other again.”

“Me, too.”

As soon as I reached the top of the drive I called Sean's office. Once again I got Audrey, who reassured me before asking that she had given Sean the message about the Barbies.

“Oh, right, the Barbies. Well, actually I need you to give him another message.”

“Do you want me to pass you along to Eleanor?”

“No.” Surely Audrey had heard the sharp intake of breath. “I want you to give him this message. Not anyone else.”

I told Audrey to tell Sean I did not want him coming up tomorrow. I would be going home Saturday morning. Then I wondered at the wisdom of giving him warning. Of giving him an extra night. It couldn't be helped. The last thing I wanted was to upset the kids by hauling them out of camp a day early. There was going to be enough upset in their future.

Lily and Tim were as tired and cranky as after the last camp-out and they clambered into the car with very little comment to me. “It was okay, yeah, can we have pizza?” Tim's usual greeting.

“Grace is coming tonight.” I watched their faces in the rearview mirror. The cranky exhaustion dissipated briefly as my children got excited about the arrival of their pseudo-aunt.

“When, what time, where will she sleep?”

“Those are exactly my questions,” I said and pulled into the parking lot of the Big G.

The whole time I was cleaning up and driving and picking up groceries, my stomach kept churning against the moment when Grace, my dearest, most perceptive friend, would divine my situation.
I played a mental tennis game between the opposing racquets of telling her about Sean's affair and not telling her about my friendship with Ben. It wasn't that I didn't want her to know either of these things, it was more how she would react to them. I expected her to be angry at Sean, I expected she'd be annoyed at me for forming a friendship with the lake pariah. Screw it, I thought. If Grace has chosen to dislike Ben because of some lakeside gossip, it was her loss. I wouldn't betray Ben's secret, I had promised.

An unfamiliar car was parked in the driveway when we got back. As soon as we pulled in beside it, Grace came bounding, as only Grace could, to sweep us up in her arms. “Hello, hello, hello, hello!” She kissed the children and told them to go into her room and find their presents. Then she stood, holding me at arms' length, studying me for a second before squeezing me tight. “Sweetheart, you look fabulous. Tired, overworked, but fabulous.”

“Grace, you do, too. Tell me everything.”

“First things first. We came home early because Joanie's mother fell and broke her hip. Of course I wouldn't let Joanie come home alone, and as she's with her mother in Boston and our student tenants still have a week of summer school left, well, there's no place left for me but here. Between you and me, I could use the stillness. We did nothing but tour and eat and walk the whole time in Italy. It was fabulous.” Clearly
fabulous
was Grace's word of the day. I let her take me by the hand and bring me into the house. “What have you got done?”

On the island counter, neatly piled, were three hundred and fifteen pages of an almost complete manuscript. “I've been busy.”

“See, I told you this was the best thing in the world for you.” Grace gave me another of her bear hugs and then whispered in my ear, “But how come the kids are here?”

“Long story.”

“After they go to bed?”

“Yup. Should be early tonight. They were at overnight camp last night and they never sleep when they're there.”

True enough, and almost as soon as dinner was over, they trundled off to bed with hardly a protest. I grabbed the half-empty bottle
of chardonnay and our glasses and went out onto the porch. Grace settled herself on the glider. She was wearing one of her trademark flowing dresses and with visible additional avoirdupois she'd earned while in Italy, she looked wonderfully Rubenesque. With a dramatic fling of her unruly gray-streaked black hair, Grace patted the seat next to her.

“I have to pace this one out.” I poured a little wine into her nearly empty glass and more into my empty one. In novels, the hook at the very beginning, the very first words the writer speaks to the reader, are the most critical. It is the hardest sentence to write. I perched a little on the writing table and drew words together which would be my first sentence of a sorry tale. Direct, as always with Grace, seemed best. “Sean is having an affair.”

I let my words sink in. To her credit, Grace didn't flinch. Nor did she rush me with rebuttal or confirmation of suspicion. She pursed her lips and said, “Go on.”

I tried to give the story a framework, a chronology, but as I told it, I realized that I had no framework, no timeline. It had happened, I had seen it. Grace kept my glass full and her eyes on me and her comments to herself. The only twitch I saw in her eye came as I explained why I was at Logan when I was. Finally, sated with telling, I sat beside her and she enfolded me in her big arms.

“Cleo, will you leave him?”

I shrugged, voiceless now, raw with talking.

“I
would if I were you. He might tell you it's the only time he's done something like this, yada yada . . .”

“It's not.”

I felt Grace's interest in the swift shifting of her weight away from me. “What?”

Tired, a little drunk, I gave her an abbreviated version of the eight-year-ago fling.

“Sweet Mary, that man ought to be castrated.”

“Grace, please don't.” I was feeling pretty dizzy by this time and Grace's presence seemed to be growing bigger and bigger as I sat there beside her. I love Grace, but she can overwhelm me about the
smallest things, never mind something of this magnitude. I always said it was the director in her. “Grace, I have to go to bed. I didn't get much sleep last night.”

“I'll sleep out here.”

“No. I changed the bed for you, I want you to take it. I actually like sleeping out here. And you won't hear me when I get up to run in the wee hours.”

“Okay. You don't have to twist my arm. I'm too big to be comfortable on this old thing, anyway.” Grace got to her feet, a little inebriated as well, and less graceful than usual. “Tell me something, though, before I leave you.”

“What?”

“What does Ben know about this? He was there when you saw Sean kissing his tart, did he realize what was going on?”

I hadn't told Grace about Ben's taking me home, about our daylong journey back and the hours at the Flume. I'd glossed it over, saying only that I was dropping Ben off. “He knows everything. He was a great comfort to me that day.”

“Hmm.” Grace could impose a tremendous weight on that little hmm. I'd heard her do it to Joanie when her partner did something Grace didn't like; I'd heard her do it to students when they presented airtight defenses for late work. I'd been the recipient on more than one occasion. Imbued in that little hmm was deep disapproval and disappointment. “Well, give me a kiss good-night. Sleep well.”

A night bird called, seeking its mate. Then I heard Ben's piano, softly playing the now familiar motif of his homage to Talia.

Twenty-six

I
awoke to the sound of frying meat and banging pots. Grace was up, the kids were up, and I had slept miraculously late.

“Good morning, sleepyhead!” Grace flourished a spatula. “Go pee, then sit and eat. Coffee's ready, your mug is on the table set so beautifully by these two incredibly cute children.”

Lily and Tim, still in pajamas, giggled. I didn't let Grace or the children see the tears in my eyes as an unforeseen sense of well-being, of being taken care of, washed over me. My world may be cracked in the middle, but Auntie Grace is cooking. Everything's gonna be all right.

After breakfast and while the kids got dressed for camp, Grace and I walked out and down to the water's edge, our third cups of coffee in hand.

“I'm always delightfully surprised at how beautiful this place really is. I was so right to send you here.”

“Yes, in the main. Yes, you were.” I might have made some wry comment about how being here had opened up new challenges for me, but I held my tongue. Instead, I looked across the shimmering lake at Ben's cabin and smiled to catch sight of him heading our way in his canoe, his bike athwart the bow. “Looks like we're about to have company.” I gave Grace a “be nice” look and waved to Ben.
“You do know Benson Turner, don't you.” My voice was just a shade on the challenging side, daring my oldest best friend to diss my newest.

Jumping out of the grounded canoe, Ben hauled it up onto the waterfront grass and walked over to Grace with a slow boyishness. “Hello, Grace.”

“Hello, Ben.” There was a moment's hesitation as they sized each other up and then they kissed, cheek to cheek. Suddenly Grace reached out and wrapped her arms around Ben. “It's good to see you.”

Ben smiled into Grace's shoulder and then looked up at me. “And to see you, Grace. I've missed you out here this summer.”

“Well, enough mush.” Grace pushed away from Ben but hung on to his hand. I knew that Grace was clearly reconsidering sides in the ongoing lakeside controversy.

“I came to beg a favor. Can I hitch a ride to town?”

“Are you still driving that beat-up old buckboard?”

“Only when it runs, Grace. Which apparently this morning it has chosen not to do.”

Ben muscled the bike into the back of the SUV and climbed in, teasing the kids about something, making them laugh. We let the kids be a buffer between us as we headed toward camp.

After dropping the kids, we drove along in silence to Cameo, where I would drop him and his bike, listening like true New Englanders to the local weather report on the car radio. A brief cool front moving over the mountains, more heat later.

“Are you leaving today?” Ben's question was sharp and unexpected.

“Tomorrow. I'm going to Narragansett.”

“Why?”

I gave a little shrug. “I need to be with Alice, my mother-in-law. I can't be alone with Sean right now, but I need to be home.”

“Cleo, will you ever come back?”

“Ben.” We were quiet again. The news broadcast over, we kept listening to the oldies rock station, and when the DJ introduced “Frozen Heart” I had to keep Ben from shutting it off. It was the
longer, live version recorded at one of their concerts. I'd forgotten what a great song it was, forgotten how powerful and evocative good rock music could be. It had the power to remind me of what passion and loss can sound like. Stash's voice crying out the words to the chorus:—
You will never, no never, be lost to my mind. Frozen forever in my heart
—seemed suddenly too personal and Ben snapped the radio off.

“Ben, you may say you sold your soul to the whore of success, but your music was really quite brilliant.”

“It was all right.”

“And your homage to Talia is brilliant, too.”

I had grown so used to some of Ben's mannerisms that it didn't surprise me when he ran a hand through his hair and rubbed his face. “Cleo, remember when I told you that I'd been writing a new piece for Talia, the one I wanted her to hear that night?”

“Yes.”

“The one I destroyed?”

I nodded.

“It's become my concerto, my homage.”

When I got back to the cabin, Grace was already at the beach, schmoozing with the beach biddies. I had a moment's anxiety that she would be discussing what I had confided in her and then chastised myself. However voluble Grace might be, she was not a breaker of confidences. I stripped to take a shower, then changed my mind. I grabbed the last dry towel in the cabin.

It seemed only natural that I swim to the raft. I couldn't face the women on the beach, even with Grace there. On board, the air was cooler than my wet skin, and I was a little chilled. The sun was behind new clouds, too muted to bake me dry, so I lay down only to get away from the breeze. The breeze was picking up, already it had changed the surface of the lake from the glassine of dawn to rough fish-scale shapes, prelude to wavelets. I caught myself making up similes to describe the water and knew that perhaps my next book would take place near a lake.

The gentle movement of the raft was enough to put me to sleep. With no one to distract me I slept until I heard the spooning of the paddle into the lake. I sat up and watched as Ben left the beach in front of the cabin and stroked towards his own. Neither one of us called out or gestured. I simply sat and watched as Ben took long powerful strokes against the force of the increasing breeze. As he passed the raft, he slowed the forward motion of the canoe down, J-stroking to a near halt, but standing off, about ten feet away.

I know you don't fall in love with someone in the course of a month, but what I felt for Ben seemed like it might, under the right circumstances, have become love. We had let each other see more of ourselves than near strangers ought, and in that moment, as I watched from the raft and he kept the canoe still with his paddle, it was impossible for a simple greeting to pass between us. So we said nothing, only smiled. And even that seemed overweighted.

I could see the orange cat sitting on the short wooden pier, standing up as Ben came alongside and arching its back in a luxurious stretch. I lingered for a moment to watch Ben climb out of his canoe and hoist the lashed bicycle off the bow. Then I stood up, ready to go home. As I moved to the edge of the raft I could see Sean standing on the porch steps, just watching me. What I felt for Ben was equally offset by my anger at Sean. Two extremes of my emotional repertoire.