Jewelweed (57 page)

“Yes. But I never knew he was into drugs, never saw any signs. And believe me, I knew how to look for them, because of my father and stepfather. They could hide a needle, vial, cooking spoon, or foil packet inside almost anything, and I can spot a glassy eye, itchy nose, and face twitch from clear across the room.”

“You liked him then?”

“Sure I did—the part of him I knew. But that's the trouble with men, Amy, they won't show you everything. They get what they want and then spring the rest of it on you when you aren't ready. They aren't like us.”

“Would you ladies like another drink?” The waitress had streaks in her hair, and she looked too young to drink herself.

“Amy's the only lady here, and of course we would,” said Dart. “Bring us two more.”

The waitress walked away and Dart looked at Amy.

“So, do you think you know everything about Buck?”

“Not everything, I suppose,” said Amy, a little fearful of the new territory that was developing between them. “The other day, for instance, I
learned that Buck didn't know we had two different sizes of forks—long ones and short ones. After almost seventeen years together, he still couldn't tell a salad fork from a dinner fork.”

“See what I mean?”

Amy laughed nervously.

“Men don't know jack about the finer things, but in most other ways Buck seems like a good catch to me.”

“I'm happy with him,” said Amy, in spite of the fact that most of her inward self rebelled against openly talking about herself and her husband. Putting such feelings into words seemed to create impossibly simplistic images out of complicated and private dramas that couldn't possibly be explained to anyone. At the same time, the novel pleasure of drinking with another adult in a bar in the middle of the afternoon was undeniable, and talking this way seemed to be a natural enhancement of those other natural activities.

“I'll tell you about Blake if you tell me about Buck,” said Dart.

“This is childish, stop,” said Amy, squeezing lemon into her drink.

“I don't care. I want to tell you. There was this one time when Blake came home from the foundry after his night shift. It was around dawn, and I hadn't gotten out of bed yet. He came inside, hung up his coat, and wanted me in the worst way. He'd won a race the day before—against about sixty other riders—and we hadn't had time to be by ourselves and celebrate like we usually did when he'd won a race, so I should have known what was coming. I should have known it because whenever he felt real good about himself he tried to turn that into something between us. Anyway, when he came in the room that morning it was just killing him to be outside of me, like a fish out of water, you might say, like he couldn't hardly breathe, couldn't live without what I could do for him. He knew it and I knew it, because at that time our feelings talked to each other without any misunderstandings, on account of us living so close together. We only had two tiny rooms, and that bed took up all of one; there was just a sliver of space along one edge, so that you had to walk sideways. There wasn't enough room for two people to think separate thoughts, and our feelings kept nudging into each other until sometimes I didn't know if I was having a good time or if he was. Anyway, that morning he started yanking off his clothes like they were on fire and telling me how he'd thought about me all night at the foundry. And then he started
reaching for me and I told him I wasn't interested because I'd just woken up and my head was stuffed full of that sweet cotton that wants sleep more than anything else in the world.”

“Do all men want it in the morning?” asked Amy, sipping her drink.

“You'd have to ask someone with a lot more experience than me, but I think it's true 'cause about half the time they're ready as soon as they wake up. They can't help it.”

Amy took another drink and Dart continued. “Anyway, I managed to keep my night-top on and I got away from him, ran across the top of the bed and into the other room, where the kitchen and living room and everything else were, and he came right after me. ‘Oh no you don't,' I said, throwing on this old coat that hung on the wall, and I hurried out the door, down the steps, down the hall, and outside. He came after me without a stitch on but his wifebeater and red boxers. We lived in this rooming house in Red Plain. There were cars parked along the street and a sidewalk running along the front, and I headed down it as fast as I could run, with him right after me. Like I said, it was just getting light outside, and the cool air had this glowing grayness with shafts of blue. There were several neighbors outside picking up their newspapers, and as we ran by they looked at us like we were crazy.”

“Go on,” said Amy cautiously.

“He chased me all the way to where the street ended, across the field where the high school team sometimes practiced, under the fence, across the creek, and into this big old drafty shed of stored hay. By this time I was all woken up and ready for him to catch me, of course. Anyway, inside the shed we started going at it hard and fast. And then the guy who owned the building came out of his house and backed his trailer up to the front door of the shed. He'd come to get some hay. I didn't want him to see us, but that dumb Blake wouldn't stop. I tried to tell him someone was about to come busting in, but it was like he couldn't hear nothing 'cause the end was coming for him, and his face pinched together the way it always did, like he was thinking about something really important. That's how he always was; he'd get desperate, like someone dying of thirst and trying to get water up out of a deep well with a hand pump. But finally he understood the situation just enough to get off and we scrambled between two big round bales and hid there for almost half an
hour, until that guy finished loading hay into his trailer, closed the door, and drove away. I looked down at Blake then, and he was still ready. He'd stayed alert that whole time. I started laughing and he came at me again, but by this time I had my coat back on and I took off through the side door. When I reached the middle of the field he hadn't come out of the shed yet, so I stopped and waited for him. When he finally came out I yelled, ‘Come on, old man.' He set out after me again. I was only seventeen at the time. He was maybe three years older. Running felt really good then, and the morning still had that bursting grayness, cool against the skin, the grass wet against my feet. He chased me all the way back up to the rooming house, and then down the hall and up the stairs and into our room. He didn't even shut the door, and you know what, Amy, that was one of the best times ever. That's when I got pregnant with Ivan. I mean, he wanted me so much that's all he could see in the world. But I never knew anything about him being into drugs. I promise I never knew, Amy. And after he went to prison and Ivan was born, I knew I could never, ever see him again. I knew absolutely nothing about love, not the caring kind, and I knew that I loved him so much I might eventually forget he was into drugs, just the way my mother always forgot everything she didn't want to know about the men she was with. That wasn't ever going to happen to me, and it wasn't ever going to happen to Ivan. It just wasn't.”

“That's quite a story,” said Amy.

“Why are you smiling?” asked Dart, spilling an ice cube and some of her Bloody Mary on the table. “You're thinking of something now, and you have to tell me.”

“No, no, no, no, I can't.”

“Yes, yes, yes, yes, you can. I told you. Fair is fair.”

“I can't. It's just that your story reminded me of, it reminded me . . . never mind.”

“Don't you dare do that, Amy. Friends don't do that.”

“This friend does.”

“Hey,” yelled Dart to the waitress. “We've got a mess over here on the table.”

The waitress arrived with a damp towel and wiped up the spill.

“Okay, I'll tell you,” said Amy. “It was quite a while ago. Buck and I,
we liked to go camping. Still do, but we never do it anymore. Something about tents, I guess. Being inside them was . . . well, it was exciting for both of us in a way that's difficult to explain. This was after we'd been together for over a year, just after we got engaged and told our families and everything. Before that it didn't seem right to me. I kept putting him off.”

“Of course,” said Dart. “They should have to wait.”

Amy continued. “We'd gone up north to the Boundary Waters, and we canoed back to a small island of pine trees that you could smell every time you took a breath. It was spring and the sun was going down over the lake. The water was bumpy all the way out, but quiet. We started a fire and cooked our dinner, and both of us knew that this would be the night.”

“What did you have for dinner?”

“Some fish we'd caught that afternoon—rolled in flour.”

“What else?”

“We boiled rice and threw in some fiddlehead ferns, wild asparagus, and ramps we'd found after we tied up the canoe.”

“What did you cook the fish in?”

“Butter, we brought some butter. That was one of the problems, but I'll get to that later.”

“That's all you had?”

“That's it. After we finished eating and cleaning up, we sat looking out at the water and listening to loons until it was dark. Then we went into the tent. That's when we heard it.”

“Heard what?”

“This chattering and growling outside. Buck was half-undressed, but he stuck his head out of the tent, and on the other side of the fire pit was a bunch of raccoons, trying to get into our cooler. They could smell the butter. Buck jumped out of the tent and yelled at them, but they just stood up on their hind legs and stared at him, their faces lit from the coals. I don't know if you've ever seen a raccoon standing on its hind legs, but it's as strange a thing as you will ever see, and almost all of them were standing that way and staring at Buck. They were looking at him like he was even stranger than they were, and I was looking at them from between his bare legs inside the tent. He yelled at them again and they just looked back, so he ran forward and they took off. He chased them along the edge of the lake, running flat out while they were humping along. I came out of the tent and
watched until he stopped chasing them. Then he turned around and ran back to me with a big smile on his face, breathing harder than ever, and . . .”

“And what?”

“It was just funny, that's all. I laugh every time I remember it.”

“And what, Amy?”

“I'm not saying any more.”

“You have to.”

“No I don't.”

Two hours later, Buck and Kevin were sitting on the front porch, Buck on the railing and Kevin in the glider. They watched the SUV move up beside the shed and come to a jerking stop.

“Mom's back,” said Kevin.

“Looks like it,” said Buck. He watched both women climb out and come toward the house, laughing and talking in whispers. When they saw Buck and Kevin, they veered off toward the garden. Amy stumbled and took off her heels, which were sinking into the lawn.

“Your hat is still out here,” said Dart, running off. “I'll get it.”

She put it on Amy's head, tying the ribbons under her chin. “There,” she said.

“Go inside,” said Amy, taking the hat off. “I want to put some more water on these plants.”

Dart walked along the edge of the garden, heading for the side deck. Amy picked up the hose, twisted the nozzle, and sprayed Dart from the back.

Dart turned around into the spray, picked up the half-filled water can, and ran toward Amy, yelling.

“Why are they doing that?” asked Kevin, watching his mother and housekeeper running around in the yard, laughing and shrieking.

“Your mother's finally getting a chance to have a childhood,” said Buck, watching Amy with a look of immense fondness.

“Mom had a childhood,” said Kevin. “Everyone does.”

“Your mother was young, but she was never a child.”

“Why not?”

“Everyone expected too much from her. You should know about that.”

“I do, but you're not supposed to have fun with people who work for you. It isn't right.”

“There can't be rules about those things,” said Buck.

Kevin studied his father.

“I don't like Dart,” said Kevin.

“Yes you do, Kev. I can tell you do. You just don't like what she sometimes brings out in your mother, and maybe in you. That's different.”

“I wouldn't want her for a mother,” said Kevin, launching into a sudden fit of coughing.

“You don't have to,” said Buck.

“I pity Ivan.”

“He probably feels the same way about you. Where is he, by the way?”

Kevin coughed several times more, swallowed, and seemed to be over it. “He and Grandpa are out back. We got a video of that turtle coming out of the pond after a dead fish. They're repositioning the camera so when he comes out again we can get a better look at him.”

“Is that Helm boy coming back again?”