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Authors: Jackie Calhoun

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BOOK: Looking for Julie
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Edie remembered the woman with the frightful hair. All she wanted to do, though, was go inside and belt down a glass of wine. She was chilled. “Maybe another night. Do you have equipment?”

Pam stepped closer. “Not with me.” She pushed back her hood and the frizz that passed for her hair sprang up.

“You had another meeting here?” Edie asked, not quite sure what to make of Pam’s appearance.

“Yes. Work related. Boring.” Her eyes were hollows in her face. “I work at MATC.” Madison Area Technological College. “I’m a computer geek. What do you do?”

Edie smiled and said, “I’m a book geek,” as she stepped out of her bindings and picked up the skis. “Want to come inside?  It’s cold standing here.” Sweat was drying on her skin. She shivered. With a mittened hand, she knocked the snow off her skis and stuck them and her poles in a snowbank outside the back door.

In the mudroom, Pam asked, “What’s a book geek?”

“Someone who writes books.” Edie sat on a bench and changed from boots to slippers. The room branched four ways—into the basement, into the kitchen, into a small bathroom and outside.

“No kidding,” Pam said, looking all excited. “What kind of books?” She took off her snow boots and hung her jacket next to Edie’s.

Edie sighed. She hated this question, because she never knew how to answer it. “Fiction,” she said. The kitchen tile felt warm under her feet.

“I’m so impressed, but before I ask any more questions I have to use the john.”

Edie pointed the way. She was opening a bottle of merlot when she heard the key in the front door.

Lynn padded into the kitchen. “Someone is parked in front of my side of the garage.”

Edie’s brows shot up. “Your side of the garage? You haven’t been here since the kids were here.” It wasn’t meant as a rebuke. At least she didn’t think she meant it that way. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

“Who’s here?” Lynn asked.

Pam popped out of the bathroom. Edie looked at her and nearly laughed. What was it about hair that made people do strange things to it? Maybe because they knew it would grow back to its original color and shape?

Lynn looked astonished. “You, Pam? What brings you here?”

“A meeting. What else?” Pam replied.

“Anyone want a glass of wine or coffee or something?” Edie asked.

Lynn said, “Sure, I’ll have a glass of wine.”

“Do you live here too?” Pam asked.

“No.” Lynn winked at Pam.

“Something in your eye?” Edie asked, looking from one to the other.

“No,” Lynn said. “Why?”

Lynn was not in the habit of winking. Edie poured three glasses and sat at the table. She felt a little foolish and pushed the glass away.

“Hey, I better take off. I didn’t tell anyone where I was going. They’ll be worried.” Pam drained her glass.

Edie nodded. Was it a huge leap to think the wink was meant to keep Edie in the dark about something? She could understand Lynn having another life.  What bothered her was Lynn not trusting her enough to tell her. In the next moment she realized that she no longer loved Lynn in a physical way, but she did love her as a best friend. A best friend doesn’t lie to her best friend.

After the front door closed, she said, “Tell me what that was about, Lynn.”

Lynn looked down. “Nothing.”

Edie’s chest hurt. That was the problem with knowing someone so well. You caught all the nuances. “Don’t play me for a fool, Lynn.”

“I strayed a little.” Lynn met her eyes. A worried frown was etched between her brows.

“You sound like one of those philandering politicians. It’s okay, Lynn. Just don’t lie to me, please.”

“Her name is Frankie. I met her at a meeting. We talked for hours.” Lynn drained her glass. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Just give me some time to digest this. You better go.”

Lynn hesitated, but Edie thought she looked relieved.  “You’re my best friend.”

“I still am your friend, but I want to be alone now.”

After Lynn left, Edie remembered how she’d been bursting to tell someone about the deer that had crossed her path, brushing against her as they went. Now there was no one to tell.  She got up slowly. Her muscles ached.

She took a shower and stared at her naked body in the full-length mirror. It was a nice body, even if it showed her age in small ways—graying pubic hair, slightly drooping breasts. She pulled an oversized T-shirt over her head and turned off the lights on her way to bed. She picked up the book she was reading,
Infidel
, about an amazing woman from another world, and fell asleep in the middle of a paragraph.

 
 
 

She wanted to avoid Lynn till she could look her in the eye and feel okay about it. When the phone rang early Saturday morning and Lynn’s name and number appeared on the display, she let the call go into her message box. She needed time and space. Not even the book and its upcoming deadline could keep her home. She decided to head to Minocqua and hit the ski trails.

She was loading up her car, sliding the ski bag crossways from front to back, when a VW Jetta drove up. Pam got out of the car. Her jacket was open and her hands were stuffed into her pockets. “I just came to say goodbye. I guess you’re going somewhere too.”

Edie put a small cooler in with her backpack. “Skiing,” she said.

“Wish I could join you. Actually, I am going skiing with a friend as soon as I get back.”

“Good,” she said. “See you next time.” As Pam got back in the Jetta, Edie lowered herself into the Focus and backed out of the driveway. She followed Pam’s VW out of the neighborhood and turned north on Interstate 39.

She was lucky to get a small room at the Concord Inn, a Best Western across the road from Lake Minocqua, where snowmobiles were zipping across the ice. She skied at Winter Park the first day, using her skate skis on the wide trails. Up and down, up and down without stopping. She wanted to be so tired at night that she would drop into sleep. The sky was clear and whenever the sun penetrated the trees, it was blinding.  Her strong legs carried her till closing time, and during those hours she thought of nothing that she could remember. She picked up a sub sandwich and took it to her room. Opening a small bottle of Sutter’s cabernet, she washed down the sandwich and watched the news. Afterwards she took a shower and went to bed with her book.

The next morning she drank coffee and toasted a bagel in the motel’s lounge before driving over snowy roads to the American Legion State Forest. The parking lot was empty, and she waxed her diagonal skis before heading off on the trail. She hardly noticed the cold. She’d be hot once she started to move. There would be no skate skiers on these trails. The tracked paths were narrow and steep. They twisted through the forest, sometimes widening at a sharp turn at the bottom of a hill.

She was more than halfway through the one-way trails when she stopped at a three-sided shelter. A fire, contained by rocks, burned in front of the shed. A pile of split wood was stacked nearby. Feeders, placed near the edges of the opening, hosted small birds. Chickadees and nuthatches and goldfinches sparred over toeholds, while juncos ate on the snowy ground. Two women joined her in the clearing as she leaned on her poles, captivated by the chattering birds flitting to and from the feeders. Yesterday’s skate skiing was catching up with her. Her hips ached, her thighs and calves burned.

One of the women pulled off her knit cap, and Edie recognized Pam. The red-cheeked woman accompanying her did the same.

Transfixed by the sight of the woman’s hair, electric in the brittle cold, Edie stared for a moment. It was a shiny chestnut color and fell in waves almost to her shoulders. She was squinting, one gloved hand shading her eyes as she watched two chickadees fight over a perch. She seemed unaware that Edie was in the clearing too.

“Claire Bouveau, this is Edie Carpenter.”

Claire turned a green-eyed gaze on Edie.  “Hello, Edie.  Are you the reason we couldn’t pause to catch a breath of air?”

Edie touched her own face, wondering if her cheeks were as rosy. Her curiosity was piqued. “Hello,” she said, smiling. She bent over and put a log on the fire, and heat flared into her face.

“I always ski fast.” Pam grinned at Edie. “Are you alone? That’s not a good thing.”

“I ski alone all the time.” She always liked the sound of her skis on the snow and the nuthatches muttering in the trees and occasionally she saw deer in the woods. Once she came upon a porcupine crossing the trail.

“I’m getting cold,” Claire said. “I have to keep moving.”

“Want to have dinner with us? We’re going to Jacobi’s. They have the finest dining around.”

Edie knew that. She glanced from Claire to Pam. “What time?”

“Six thirty okay? We’ll pick you up. Where are you staying?” Pam asked.

Edie told her. “I’ll be in the lobby.”

She let the other two get a good head start before pushing off. When she reached the parking lot, Claire and Pam were loading their skis into a Ford Escape. Pam waved. Edie scraped the snow from her skis, put them in their case with the poles and fitted it crossways in the Focus. As she drove to another trailhead, she washed a peanut butter sandwich down with half frozen water.

At the end of the day, she was tired and sorry she’d agreed to go out for dinner. But a hot shower revived her, and she dressed in jeans and a turtleneck. She’d brought no good clothes with her, intending only to eat in her room.

After blowing her short hair dry so it wouldn’t freeze, she went out to the lobby. The local news was on the TV and she watched while she waited. A big snowstorm was coming their way. She thought she’d rather be snowed in at home where she could ski out the back door.

Pam appeared in the lobby, her hair comically askew. The tips were frozen and glinted under the lights. Edie got up and pulled her jacket on. Outside, Claire was sitting behind the wheel of the Escape when Edie climbed into the backseat.

“What a coincidence, huh, running into each other on the trail?” Pam said.

“You never know who you’re going to see where,” Edie said agreeably. She felt sleepy.

“I should have known Lynn was the one you were taking notes for at that meeting.”

Edie said nothing in response. Lynn was a political animal, and one Edie would rather not talk about right now. The wound was fresh.

“Lynn is the kind of person we need right now. She gets things done.”

“Yes,” she said, looking out the window at the snowy night. Of course, there was no way Pam would know that they’d been much more than friends.

Pam seemed to catch the drift and changed directions. “We’re going to Winter Park tomorrow. How about you?”

“A big storm is coming. I think I’ll head for home in the morning.”

“She can ski right out of her backyard,” Pam told Claire, who had yet to say anything besides hello.

“Really.” Claire’s attention zoomed in on Edie in the rearview mirror. “How lucky you are. I used to live in Point.”

“When was that?” Edie asked, meeting her eyes in the glass.

“When I was married. I moved to Madison after the divorce. We both left. My husband taught at UW-Stevens Point those few years.”

She couldn’t remember a Dr. Bouveau, but why would she?

Claire seemed positively chatty now. “Stephen taught anything French—French language, French literature. He wasn’t there long enough to get tenure. He moved back to France. I liked Point.”

Edie asked her what she did.

“I’m a librarian at one of the branches. I took a couple days off.” She smiled at Edie in the mirror. It transformed her, making her disarmingly attractive.

“Edie writes books,” Pam said. “Tell me where I can find them. I want to read one.”

Edie looked out her window. “Almost anywhere. I write as Lauren James.”

“Why is that?” Pam asked.

“Because everyone who writes for this publisher uses another name.”

“What else do you do?” Claire asked, meeting Edie’s eyes in the rearview mirror.

“I used to manage a bookstore in Madison, but that was years ago.” She was not offended by the question. She was well aware that most people didn’t make a living wage writing books. She’d never get rich writing for Horizon, but she made enough to get by.

Claire parked in front of Jacobi’s, which was tucked off the Interstate, and they went inside. The hostess showed them to a table for four in the corner. She took drink orders and handed them menus.

When the waitress left, Edie asked, “Are you active in ERFA, too?” She was trying to figure out the connection between Pam and Claire.

Claire shrugged. “Not like Pam. I go to meetings occasionally.” Claire raised a thin eyebrow and smiled. Edie was enchanted.

Edie looked around the room and saw Jennifer Gottschalk, who got up from her table and walked over.

“Hey, how did I miss you on the trails?” Jennifer smiled down at them. She was tall and well muscled.  Her hair was more reddish than brown, chin length and wavy. She worked as a pharmacist in Wausau.

Edie introduced her to the others. “I was at Winter Park yesterday and the American Legion today.”

BOOK: Looking for Julie
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