Caretakers (Tyler Cunningham) (4 page)

Camp Topsail, Upper Saranac Lake, 7/14/2013,
1:26 p.m.

It was awkward/difficult/tense at first, and only their deep-seated WASPiness kept my entry into their regular Sunday schedule from causing an angry mob, albeit a small one, from raising my head on a pike outside the ornamental gate that separated Camp Topsail from the road (
and the rest of the world … and the present day
). When all was said and done, however, Kitty was the queen of Camp Topsail, and what she said was law. The family arrived home from church in two cars, a Saab and a Subaru. From out of the Saab climbed the older generation: a fit and hard looking man, possibly in his sixties or seventies, and a soft and smiling woman, looking 15 or more years his junior. A toddler in a pretty church dress boiled out of the Subaru and ran over to Dorothy and Cheeko, with an au pair in tow, followed less quickly by the girl’s tired looking parents. Thinking back to the table settings, I guessed that Anthony must be taking his meals with the Crockers (
I didn’t know if it was open-minded or practical to have the lawyer eating with the family, and decided probably a bit of both
), which left one person/place-setting unaccounted for … I spend time on things like this.

Cheeko was a big hit with the toddler, and it was obvious that the adults were all familiar with Dorothy (
she had told me on our way over with Cheeko this morning that the Crockers were large and long term supporters of the TLAS, and had held a benefit at Camp Topsail a few years previously, which raised a few thousand dollars to support TLAS programs
). I was, as I generally am, content to smile and nod in the background (
with a friendly dog and happy 2.5 year-old, it’s a pretty easy thing to do
). Everyone talked and milled around for a few minutes, until Dorothy started edging towards my Element, and the Crocker tribe started drifting towards the main lodge for drinks and to check in with Kitty and possibly lunch for the kid; I was left stranded in the middle, and was forced to define my role.

“Hello, folks, I’m Tyler Cunningham, a friend of Kitty’s, and she’s asked me to stay for lunch.” Dead silence … except from little Deirdre, who wandered over, and held out her hand, possibly hoping for more treats for Cheeko, who she obviously wanted to become her big brother (
I handed her a few treats, which made both her and Cheeko happy
). I could tell that while the Crockers appreciated Cheeko for his calm demeanor, they were more of an AKC registered purebred kind of family, so little Deirdre was destined to be disappointed in the long run (
but aren’t we all
).

I wished that I could have scripted this portion of the day (
I am scared of nothing so much as new or unexpected or unscripted social situations, as I’m horrible at handling/managing them
), so that we could have avoided the awkward stretch that came next … Dorothy looked at me goggle-eyed, and said, “But Cheeko and I have to go Tyler. How will you get home?”

I have been watching/studying people since I realized that I was fundamentally different (
at age four
), and noted that the smile is an ubiquitous facet of humanity that largely eluded (
and still eludes
) me. I have been practicing for years, and have nearly two dozen smiles in my repertoire (
of varying levels of functionality/believability
) but in this instance I fell back on Smile #3, friendly/sincere/helpful.

“Kitty and I were talking about it, and I’m reasonably sure that we’ll work something out.” I did not want to talk about ‘borrowing’ Mike’s Porsche, or even allude to it, before he had given me a walking tour of Topsail, and a memory tour of the night that his sister went missing. I’m sure that he already had some idea of why I was here, but I didn’t need to throw gas on the fire of his suspicions just yet, if I could help it.

“If you get a chance, could you park, and leave, the Element, at the Ampersand Bay end of Lower Saranac Lake?” I asked, knowing that the ranger would find my car in short order, and waste days paddling to all of the official and unofficial campsites on Lower and Middle Saranac Lakes, hoping to catch me squatting for longer than allowed, or without a permit at one of the pay-sites.

Dot must have seen some level of the desperation in my eyes beneath my attempt to distract her with a chance to harass the ranger, or heard it in my voice (
she knows me better than anyone else on Earth, except possibly for Mickey Schwarz, and could read the tiny signs I give that most people miss altogether
), because she let Cheeko swoop down on baby Deirdre for one more round of kisses, and then peeled out of the gravel parking area and driveway nearly fast enough to shower us in pea-sized indignities and gravel.

I got an awkward round of introductions, with the highlight being a leg-hug from the short, but enthusiastic Deirdre; I perhaps got some kid-cred for being a member of Team Dorothy and Cheeko. Mike walked us all inside, was surprised to note two extra settings for lunch, and arranged drinks for everyone (
and a snack for Deirdre
) and then led a discussion about the service, and paddle trip-planning for the afternoon and/or tomorrow as everyone settled into the overstuffed furniture around the room engaged in pre-lunch conversation, talking as if I wasn’t there.

“Back from church, time to begin drinking,” said a woman who had walked up from the direction of the boathouse to join us. I nodded, taking in her different-ness … outside tan and wrinkles and fancy earth/sky tone clothes and lots of turquoise and silver (
Santa Fe, I guessed internally, to be checked against the facts, should they come to light
).

She made a quick scan of the room and then headed right for me, looping her arm in mine and ushering me over to the large bay window and its views of the lake. “Elyse Portner, I’m a friend of Peggy’s, Mike’s second wife, the current one,” she said. “I’m up visiting for a week or so. Peg’s helping me put together a show in
‘The City’ (
emphasis hers
) this fall, and we’re hashing out some details before I talk with her people at the gallery.” She talked with an assurance of (
or lack of caring about
) my knowledge of her and her relations with the Crockers, which I found interesting … I nodded, and waited to see what else she would say; it worked.

“I was hiding down by the water in the upstairs of that magnificent boathouse while they were all off being churched up. I saw your girlfriend and the dog, but just kept painting those two lovely islands off to the left of the tiny one (
Tommy’s Rock and Dry Island, I thought, but didn’t say. I also didn’t say anything about Dot not being my girlfriend, a type of relationship I couldn’t/can’t imagine for myself, with Dot or anyone else … not from a desire to keep secrets/truth from this woman, but from a lifelong habit of not volunteering information that might be used to further unwanted social interactions
). What is that tiny one, Loon Island I believe Mike called it (
Goose Island, actually, but again, I just smiled and nodded politely
), and the big one in front of us—what’s it called?” She ran down, hoping perhaps for me to supply the name for her, which after a somewhat long pause, I did.

“Green,” I said, pointing out at the island, so that she wouldn’t think that I was just telling her my favorite color (
which is, in point of fact, green
).

“Yes. At any rate
, I was starting to get hungry—and thirsty,” she said this last with a wink, the meaning of which was lost on me, “when I heard the cars and commotion that heralded the arrival of the churchgoing Crockers, old and small.” She spun me around to gesture at the room full of Crockers who were busying themselves with post church/pre-lunch activities.

“Peg is so glad to have Daniel and Kristen up, with little Dee. They haven’t seen them hardly at all since Dee was born. It was so sweet of Kitty to arrange for Tessa,” she said gesturing towards the au pair who had
just re-entered the room with Deirdre in tow, freshly changed out of her church fancies and ready for an afternoon of camp play. “Although,” Elyse went on without missing a beat, “I think perhaps ‘Tessa from Odessa’ is almost too attractive to be spending all that time within reach of Daniel, or possibly even Mike, don’t you think?” she asked. I couldn’t have commented, even if I wanted to; I’m generally not aware of beauty or the lack thereof in humans, beyond symmetricality and obvious disfigurements (
Tessa had, and did not have any, in turns, if you were wondering
). I was getting tired, absorbing all of this information, and wondered if there would be a quiz later; Kitty could have talked for a week without letting slip this much personal data.

“You’re the secret, the surprise, the mystery that everyone knows about, but they’re all much too polite to talk about, right?” She said/asked/g
uessed. I smiled vaguely, my #2—friendly/gentle/clueless-ish, and re-directed.

“How do you know Peggy?” I asked.

“We met at Bennington, both of us in the process of trying to escape that glorious green state. After school, the two of us opened a gallery in Girlington, grinding painfully along for a few years until she met Mike, and I fled the winters for Santa Fe (
I credited myself with a win
).

“That was a nice try, Tyler, but I’m going to spill my Bloody Mary on you if you don’t tell me your secret,” she said, smiling in a way that would let most people know if she was kidding or not; I took a half-step back and saw her eyes widen with what might have been pleasure.

“Mike will know after lunch, and I assume you can get it from Peg shortly thereafter. I’ve had worse on these clothes, and still worn them for a couple of days. Can you say the same?” I said.

She looked for me to be kidding, saw that I wasn’t (
can’t
), tried to decide whether to land on angry or shocked, and eventually settled on a loud and comfortable laugh. Everyone else in the room turned to look at us, in much the same way that Frank and Meg look at my dog Hope when she farts loudly during a visit. I took advantage of the interruption to orbit away from Elyse, and study a trio of Blagden watercolors on the wall … they looked to have been done at this end of Upper Saranac: Dry and Goose islands from a point just to the northwest of Green Island, Spider Creek coming from Follensby Clear Pond, and Buck Island from the mouth of Saginaw Bay, unless I was wrong (
which I mostly add for politeness’ sake, because I’m not, except in very rare cases
).

As I slid around the rim of the Great Room, taking in the details of artwork and taxidermy, I was enjoying the sights and smells and sounds of an old great camp, while all of my sensory recording equipment kept running; I didn’t mind being isolated from the majority of the conversation. Mike’s wife and children (
Peg and Daniel and Kristen, as I now knew
) made a few attempts to either steer the conversation in my direction and/or to loft a conversational slow-pitch my way, but I am horrible at polite conversation, and was able/destined to avoid getting caught up in whatever they were talking about. I took in the old and dark wood all around me, the fancy but well used silver at the table (
and in Deirdre’s hands and mouth
), the birchbark placemats around the table decoratively stitched with porcupine quills, the smells of old wood and dust and moth balls and pitch and Murphy’s Oil Soap and coffee and lake and pine needles, the sound of a loon out on the lake yelling at a jetskier and the help rattling around in the kitchen while ‘the wealthy Spanish landowners’ (
a phrase my father had always used to describe America’s old money, a Zorro reference I believe
) debated the merits of various pastors in their log-built summer church and canoe trips they had all done dozens of times over the years. I took it all in, taking advantage of the chance to be a fly on the wall.

The mood, and my reverent study of the great camp environment, was broken when Anthony came into the room, followed, noisily, by Kitty Crocker. She rattled through the door, propelled and held aloft by an incongruent (
both in this setting, and apparently, by design
) aluminum walker with bright/new/glowing tennis balls on its feet. The walker seemed to bang into everything, establishing its territory like an aggressive dog, and fit into the calm (
and calming
) room like poop in a punchbowl (
a saying that popped unbidden into my head, my mother’s, from my childhood … this place seemed to evoke memories of long ago times
). Kitty scowled at attempts to help her, at her walker, at Anthony for suggesting that they should pull up the old Persian carpet to allow her easier access to the room, at Mike’s too-large/too-early bourbon, and to a lesser degree, at my presence (
I know that she wanted me to do what I do, but I had complicated her day in a number of ways, and so had certainly earned the scowl
); little Deirdre was our saviour.

As if scripted, she reached for the walker as Kitty hunched and shuffled past her, grabbing one of the brightly colored balls, and nearly making the old woman fall. Everyone drew breath at the same moment, anticipating disaster/anger/shouting/crying (
except me, I like to watch crises not of my creation unfold, to log/learn about human emotions under stress
), then Kitty turned to me, and said, “Tyler, get one of these balls for her so she doesn’t kill me.”