Cameo Lake (9 page)

Ten

B
efore I even took my run, I jumped into the SUV and headed up to where the phone would work. I think I must have woken Sean, although it was late enough this weekday morning he should have been up. His voice was thick and he seemed startled to hear my voice. “Cleo, I'm sorry I wasn't here last night.”

“Late night?”

“Yeah. I think I'm getting too old for this.”

“Sean, you're only just forty.”

“Thanks for the
only.”

We chatted a bit and I could hear Sean move around the house with the portable tucked up under his chin, the running of coffee water, the slam of the refrigerator door, and for a moment I was a little homesick. “You have watered my plants, haven't you?”

“Ma does, twice a week. Your violets will be fine.”

“I'm making good progress.”

“That's good, Cleo.” I heard the rustle of newspaper and his response seemed awfully distracted.

“What time will you get here Friday?”

There was enough of a pause on the line for me to feel that first alarm of battle.

“Ummm, I'm not sure. There's a lot going on.” There was no other noise on the line, he was standing still.

“You are coming this weekend?”

“Jeez, Cleo. You know, if you could just . . .”

“Just what?”

“Hang on for a little while longer.”

“I can't believe you.”

The day was already hot and Sean's reneging on our agreement served to build up my own heat to the boiling point. I felt the sweat burst out on my forehead and my heart beat with anger. I wanted to scream but I could not. My stilted upbringing had limited me. We did not raise our voices in my parents' home. We did not emote. I had not learned how, not even by being subjected to Sean's vociferous family; it had been too late to learn. Instead I resorted to hanging up on him. There was no satisfaction in pressing the off button. I wanted to slam a receiver down hard enough to break it. I sat in the hot car and held my head in my hands and wished that I could let go.

The car phone rang and I let it go for a couple of beeps. Then I picked it up in the hopes that Sean had quickly seen his mistake and was calling with an abject apology.

I should have known better.

“Cleo, don't do that to me again. I only mean to say that I've got a lot of traveling to do in the next two weeks and my mother isn't up to keeping the kids for that long.”

He'd done it. He'd played the mother hand. I knew full well Alice McCarthy was more than up to keeping my kids, but Sean would prefer I did my duty.

“Did she say that?”

“You know she never would. Come on, Cleo. What do you think?”

“I think you're going back on your promise.”

“You know it wasn't a very realistic promise. I did my best. You said you were making good progress.”

“I have a deadline, Sean.” Not quite true, but believable, and a word he understood.

“I appreciate that.” Another pause. “All right, I'll figure something out for August, but I can't change things for now.”

“Sean.” I was actually shaking, sitting there in the hot car on an already stifling day, “Don't you want to see me?”

He didn't say anything for a moment, then, “May I remind you who left whom?”

“What do you mean,
left?”

“Look, I'm sorry.” Now he was backpedaling. “Of course I miss you, and want to see you. But, it may not be possible.”

I was not mollified, only more deeply wounded. “I'll come home, Sean. Obviously that's what needs to happen.”

“No. Don't. I'm sorry. I'll be up next weekend. I'll come next Friday and stay through Monday. A nice long weekend, okay?”

He had negotiated a truce and I accepted the terms. “Okay. Next Friday.”

I was on the other side of tired where sleep is denied. I had lain for hours in the hot bedroom, spread-eagled on the three-quarter bed, chewing on Sean's words, feeling more and more angry. Giving up, I went out onto the porch and opened my laptop's lid. I got settled and opened the file which contained the sum of my three week's work, reading through a few pages, then scrolling down to where I'd left off. It seemed so bland, so trite. I could fluff it up here and there, but the fact was, the critical developments lacked verisimilitude. Simply not enough real emotion represented there. Opening up a cold Coke, I got to work.

The only light was the blue background of the laptop. The only sound the percussive thump of my right thumb on the space bar, and the occasional croak of a bullfrog. It was so quiet I allowed myself the total immersion I craved. Like being locked in a closet, I could only keep my eyes on the light of my screen, the door to my refuge.

I entered the place all writers long to go, need to go, in order to get the job done. I was in the groove, as if all senses, all thoughts and emotions were extant only in the confines of the screen and the world
I was creating. Except for having to pee and getting another Coke, I remained at work in my dark space with the heat and humidity southern in intensity, but not oppressive now. Heat which was comfort, protection, and forgotten as I directed all my conflicted thoughts into the written word.

As I drew my characters into their painful story-defining crisis, Ben's musical memorial to his wife came to mind. I stopped typing long enough to actually run it through my head, trying to capture it entirely, but only the four measures of his main theme would circle my inner hearing. I could hear the chordal progression as Ben had sung it that other evening. I didn't know the names of the chords, only that they had risen. Against the evil words of the lakeside neighbors, it was poignant and served to still their cruelty in my mind. Now, when held up against the evil befalling my protagonist, it seemed less poignant. As imagined background music for my imaginary people, it had, instead of homage, the sound of anger, pain, and misunderstanding. I felt a little corrupt in taking it.

There is a time of night which is darker than any other; a time when even the night creatures are still. Nurses will say it is the time of death.

I felt my consciousness close down. I was awake, but my impulse had slowed and I realized I'd been sitting still for some time. I reread my last paragraph and smiled at the transpositions. I fixed the obvious ones and shut down. The air was still oppressive, unmoving. Even if I lay down now, I wouldn't sleep. I stripped off my soaked boxers and T-shirt and grabbed a towel. Naked, I walked to the water's edge. By the light of Ben's porch light I could just make out the raft. Otherwise the bare night sky and the lake melded into one darkling horizon. The water was like silk against my skin. The sudden relief of the spring-fed lake water made me groan with pleasure, the only sound to be heard, and I was a little embarrassed.

In twenty strokes I was at the raft, just visible as a dark form in the dark water. Feeling for the ladder with one hand while holding the edge with the other, and praying with all my heart no spiders were within reach, I hauled myself out of the water.

“Cleo?”

Ben's voice startled me back into the water.

“God, Ben, you scared me.”

“I didn't want you to land on top of me.”

From below I couldn't see him in the thick night air. His disembodied voice floated above me.

“Come on up, I've moved over”

“I can't.” I didn't quite want to say I was buck naked, but Ben caught on.

“Cleo, I can't see the hand in front of my face. And neither can you.”

So it was that we sat, side by side, perfectly naked. We kept the distance of four boards between us. Only our voices, hushed against the amplification of the inverted air and echo of water, were visible. It was like the intimacy of the telephone. We didn't lie down, I think because that would have been for both of us a too, too vulnerable position. As it was, I was exquisitely aware of our nakedness, a feeling which began to dissipate as we talked.

As if he needed to explain himself, Ben offered, “I sleep out here when it's this hot.”

“I just needed to cool my body temperature off. I've been workingall night.”

“I know. Every now and then you vocalize.”

Had he heard me humming his tune? “I hope I haven't kept you awake.”

“No. I'm restless anyway.”

I heard a distant splash. A jumping fish perhaps.

“I'm pretty restless too.”

“Are you all right?” Ben had detected my poorly disguised unhappiness.

“Yeah. Fine.” I really couldn't go into it. I really didn't want to begin to loose the private battle between me and my husband, even to this kind stranger.

“You don't sound fine, Cleo. What's the matter?”

A man who reads nuances in music could hear the false note in my reply. “I'm just wiped.”

“Kids okay?”

“Sleeping like, well, like babies.”

“Sean?”

The very first threat of tears clogged my throat and my silence was eloquent.

“Hey, I'm a neutral wall. You want to talk, I'm here.”

“What makes you think . . .” I couldn't finish the statement. It cost too much after a day full of emotional effort to work up the energy to pretend everything was well ordered in my world.

“He's not coming back for them, is he?”

“No. But it's all right. They shouldn't be spending the summer in the city when I'm here.”

“Maternal guilt?”

“Ben, sometimes we just don't get what we think we want.”

“Suggestion?”

“Shoot.”

“There's a really nice day camp on the other side of the lake. Starts every Monday. They teach water safety and horseback riding. Camp Mom-Needs-Time-Alone.”

I laughed a little at his joke, amazed at his perception. “I'll look into it tomorrow.” I reached across the four boards to touch his bare shoulder, in the darkness a curiously intimate gesture. “Thank you, Ben.”

He patted the hand that touched him, holding my fingers there. I didn't move to withdraw them. “Just being neighborly.”

We were quiet then, my hand still on his shoulder. I pressed the tips of my fingers against his skin, “Ben, you do know that I can be a good listener, too.”

“I know.” He pressed his cheek against my fingers, I felt the day's growth of beard rough against them. “I know.”

We sat quietly on the raft until a slight breeze, like a sigh after weeping, touched my skin and I realized that the hour before dawn had arrived. Darker shapes were outlined by the fading darkness. I could see Ben clearly, and if he had been less of a gentleman he could have turned his head and seen me. We slipped off the edge of the raft simultaneously, a nearly splashless landing. A cardinal's piercing note announced the new day.