Man Camp (3 page)

Jesse mumbles something sympathetic and goes back to doing what he was doing when she got there: searching through his small toolbox.

“Need help?” Martha asks. “Or should I stick to pouring wine?”

“I’m okay. Just having a little trouble finding my screws.” He peers into the orderly, wooden box. “They should be in the
S
-through-
Z
section.”

He didn’t just say that,
Martha thinks, squeezing past him to get to the refrigerator. “White okay?” she asks. It’s all she has. Then she can’t stop herself: “Your tools are alphabetized?”

Ignoring her, Jesse begins elaborately washing his hands, soaping from his fingertips to his wrists and back. When he’s done, he holds his hands up surgeon-style and scans the room for something to dry them with. He rules out a germy dish towel, opting instead for a paper napkin. “Where do you want the shelf to go?”

Martha points to a spot above the sink. “There. Basically, I want to be able to put my cookbooks on it, and maybe a vase or two. What do you think?”

“Perfect,” he says, nodding with confidence, which for some reason makes Martha nervous.

“Don’t forget to use wall anchors,” she says, picturing the ugly holes Jesse seems about to inflict on her walls.

“What?”

“Wall anchors. You know what they are, don’t you?”

“M-a-r-t-h-a,” Jesse says, stretching her name into a warning.

“What? I can’t ask a question?”

Jesse picks up the little kitchen stool Martha uses to reach the bowls and platters that are stored on top of her cabinets and places it at the far end of the kitchen. “Sit down, drink your wine, and no backseat carpentry.”

“Fair enough,” she says, and does as she’s told. The wineglass is cool in her hands and she takes a large swallow, resigning her shelf and her wall to their fates. “So, what’s up in the world of editing children’s books?”

“I’ve discovered two wonderful new writers,” he says, rising onto his toes in excitement.

Martha makes a mental note to discuss his tiptoeing habit with him at some point.

Jesse fills her in on his latest book acquisitions,
Chicken Bedtime Is Early
and
Wheezy Weed Gets Whacked.
His face is animated as he describes the stories, their illustrations, and the children the books will appeal to, and Martha is reminded how much her brother loves his work. She only wishes that the rest of his life were as easy. Jesse is wound too tightly. He leaps when trucks drive over manholes and he worries constantly about germ warfare; anxiety attacks keep him up at night and allergies bother him during the day; the skin on his hands is chapped from over-washing and the prolific use of antibacterial wipes. Recently, he bought four identical pairs of shatterproof eyeglasses.

“What’s up with that woman you told me about? How’s that going?” Martha asks.

“Andrea?” Jesse says with a shy smile. “We had our third date last night.”

“And?”

“I think it’s going pretty well,” he says, putting in the fourth of six screws along a line he’s drawn on the wall. Plaster and paint chips and dust crumble out with each twist.

Martha wants to avert her eyes, but can’t make herself.
Listen to what your brother is saying, don’t look at what he’s destroying.
“Any canoodling to report?”

Jesse blushes. “Andrea hasn’t given me very clear signs.”

Martha notices that the line he’s penciled onto the wall slopes downward. “Don’t you think agreeing to a third date is a clear signal?”

“I guess I was hoping she’d let me know if she wanted to, uh, be kissed.”

Martha rolls her eyes. “Why’s that her job?”

Jesse looks at his sister. “Well, it’s not her job per se, but I don’t want to be offensive or overly aggressive.” He resumes his work. “Andrea is just so smart and capable and independent that I figure she’ll let me know when she’s ready to step things up.”

This is what Andrea gets for being smart, capable, and independent!
Martha thinks. “There’s nothing offensive about letting her know how you feel.”

Jesse loses his grip and the screwdriver slips from its groove and out of his hand, skittering across the kitchen counter and landing on the floor. “How about some help?” Together they pick up the shelf, guide the six loop fixtures over the six screws, and lower it into place.

“Do you know how I’d like to be treated by a man?” Martha asks.

“With respect?” Jesse says hopefully. He tightens the screws, oblivious to the shelf’s slant.

“Yes, of course, but I also want to be pursued and courted and seduced.”

A look of discomfort crosses Jesse’s face.

“How about letting your natural alpha-male instincts come out a little with Andrea?” Martha suggests.

Jesse starts to hum “The Toreador Song” from his favorite opera,
Carmen,
and Martha can tell from his faraway look that he’s testing his alpha-male instincts by imagining he’s a charging bull about to confront a matador. He’s standing tall with his chest thrust forward and his shoulders square.

“Da dum da-dum, dum da de da-de-dum,”
he sings until he stops abruptly and his shoulders slump.

“What happened, Toreador?” Martha asks.

Jesse looks at his sister. “I started thinking about Ferdinand.”

Ferdinand the Bull
is the story of a sweet bull who’s mistakenly thought to be fierce when matadors see him bucking wildly after being stung by a bee. They cart him off to a bullring in Madrid, where he’s expected to fight, but all Ferdinand does is admire the flowers that decorate the ladies’ hats. It’s Jesse’s favorite book from childhood.

“Look, Martha, you know as well as I do that I was raised to be a nice Catholic boy. Plus, I’ve had to listen to you for thirty-plus years and I’ve dated New York women for the last twelve. As a result, any alpha-male instinct I had has either been bred or beaten out of me.”

“But don’t you sometimes want to completely ravish Andrea?”

“Ravish?” Jesse couldn’t sound more shocked if Martha had suggested slipping Andrea some Spanish fly. “You’re the one who trained me to be sensitive, remember?”

“I know I did. Sorry.”

“You’re freaking me out here.”

Martha stands up. “It’s a disaster!”

Jesse looks at his handiwork.

“Not the shelf. You and Andrea! You can’t expect her to do all the work.” Martha strides into the living room. “Think of how courtship works in nature: males strut and fight and sing their little hearts out to get females. Ask Lucy.”

Jesse closes his toolbox and follows her.

“Why don’t you kiss Andrea tonight?” Martha asks. “Just call her right now and tell her you can’t stop thinking about her.”

A loud
meow
interrupts them and gives Jesse the out he needs. “I have to go,” he says, gathering his belongings. “I locked psycho kitty in the bathroom.” He folds his scarf carefully over his chest, leaving one end free to place discreetly over his nose and mouth should he need to protect himself from coughing passengers on the bus.

Martha hands him his coat and kisses his cheek. “Thanks for the help.”

“Glad to do it.” Jesse puts on his hat and pulls down the earflaps, just like a six-year-old might.

Martha hopes that if he does muster the courage to see Andrea tonight, he’ll take off the hat.

Once Jesse leaves, Martha opens the bathroom door and her orange tabby, Hannibal, shoots out and begins to circle her ankles, madly rubbing and purring and mewing, simultaneously demanding to be fed and petted. The cat might be one of Jesse’s few justifiable fears. Hannibal ambushes the ankles of anyone other than Martha who enters the Bordello.

“Is it any wonder no man will spend the night with me with you here?” she asks Hannibal, as she pours kibbles into his bowl. Martha studies her brother’s handiwork and very gingerly places
The Joy of Cooking
on the slanted shelf.

CHAPTER 3

“Men lose more conquests by their own awkwardness than by any virtue in the woman.”

Ninon de Lenclos

MATCHES, COMPASS, CANDLES, wool socks, red wine, snow boots, bird
book.
As Lucy makes a mental list of what she and Adam will need for their weekend in the woods, her brow furrows.
Call
Hertz. Get map of Ulster County. Bake cookies. Bring corkscrew.
Unable to keep track of it all, she grabs a legal pad and scribbles down her questions:
Should we bring water? Wood? Supplies for outhouse?
Kerosene for lamps? First-aid kit?
Her stress level grows proportionally to the list and before she realizes what she’s doing, her fingers are tapping Cooper’s number onto the phone pad. His answering machine picks up.

“Cooper? Are you there? It’s me.” She pauses for a moment, stepping over a pile of supplies for the trip: hiking boots, strike-anywhere matches, long underwear. “Okay. I guess you’re not in. Call me back. Today, if possible. We’re going upstate this weekend to a friend’s farmhouse that has no running water, no electricity, only a woodstove—”

“Hey, Lucy-goose,” Cooper says, slightly out of breath when he finally picks up. “I was out back working on my truck. Now, what’s got your feathers in a ruffle?”

All at once her feathers settle and she feels silly for being nervous in the first place. “Hey, Coop,” she says. “How’s everything down there?”

“Everything’s grand, sweetheart.”

“Why’s it always so grand with you, anyway?”

“Visit someday and find out.”

It’s a running joke between them: In the twelve years since they’ve known each other, Lucy’s never been to Tuckington Farm.

“Yeah, I know. I’d be a sweeter, happier person if I woke up to cows mooing instead of horns honking,” Lucy says. “But I think you grossly underestimate the competitive edge that crankiness gives a city girl.”

“Perhaps I do,” he says. “Maybe I should come up and suss out the situation in person.”

“Oh, why don’t you, Cooper? Your annual visit is long overdue.”

“You’re right about that. And I could sure use a break about now.”

“Mi casa es su casa,”
Lucy says.

“Well, maybe I’ll look into flights later in the week. But first things first. How can I help with this
terrifying
trip into the savage wilderness of upstate New York?”

Lucy ignores his teasing and starts right in with her questions: “There’s some kind of a siphon system that transports water from the well to the house through hoses. Have you ever used one?”

“Sure. They’re temperamental,” Cooper says, all business now. “You might want to bring a few gallons of water with you, especially if you plan to arrive at night and it’s cold. You don’t want to mess with frozen hoses.”

She adds
water
to her list. “What about firewood? Should we buy some?”

“I guarantee your friends have a well-stocked woodpile,” he says, and reassures her that small houses are easy to heat.

“But what if the logs are wet?” Lucy persists. “What do we do then?” Suddenly nervous again, she reads off her entire list in one frantic breath.

“It’s only a weekend, Luce, but if you’re so worried, maybe you and Martha shouldn’t go it alone.”

“Martha? I’m going with Adam. Friday is Valentine’s Day.” She hears a muffled sound on the other end, and realizes Cooper is laughing. “What exactly is so funny?”

“Just what a little worrier you are. Good God! You’re going to suck the romance right out of this weekend if you don’t relax.”

“What do you mean?”

“Listen, Luce, Adam can handle this stuff. In fact, you need to let him handle it. Your questions are right out of the Boy Scout manual.”

Lucy sifts through her memory to see if she can recall Adam ever mentioning building a campfire, whittling a stick, or partaking in any Boy Scout–like rituals. She’s sure he’s had no such training. What Adam’s good at is abstract thinking, advanced mathematics, and the occasional love note. Not wilderness survival.

“You Yankee girls need to learn how to let men be men,” Cooper says.

THE WIND IS GUSTING, and tiny, dry snowflakes swirl around the Hertz rental garage on West Thirty-fourth Street, where Adam and Lucy rendezvous for their weekend. It’s a blustery day and they’re bundled up, Lucy looking ready for the Iditarod in a blue down parka with a fur-trimmed hood, and Adam in his heavy navy peacoat, with a gray wool hat-and-scarf set that his mother gave him for Christmas.

Adam says hello to the small patch of Lucy’s face that’s visible and kisses her pink nose. As planned, they arrive at the rental office at noon to eliminate any chance that they won’t find the Wolfs’ farmhouse by dark.

Lucy takes the first shift behind the wheel, trying not to be annoyed that Adam forgot his driver’s license.

“I remembered the flashlight you told me to bring,” he says, as if the one makes up for the other.

Lucy gives him her best no-problem smile and steps on the gas. There’s no traffic and they speed up the West Side Highway, over the George Washington Bridge, and along the Palisades Parkway, where she and Adam get intermittent peeks of the ice-covered Hudson River, which has a path cut through the center so that boats can pass. Excited to be going away with Adam, Lucy tears along the highway, maneuvering in and out of lanes and between cars with the grace of a professional hockey player.

Adam’s right hand never leaves the dashboard.

Near Bear Mountain, they stop at a scenic overlook to eat a couple of turkey and Brie sandwiches Lucy packed.

“Have I told you recently that you make the best sandwiches in the world?” Adam says, chomping into his, the corners of his mouth shiny with mayonnaise.

“No,” Lucy lies. She loves that Adam thinks she’s a wonderful cook.

The flurries have stopped for a moment and, in the distance, Lucy sees a pair of bald eagles leaving an aerie on the other side of the river. She points them out to Adam. “Aren’t they beautiful?” she says, holding his hand. Whatever lapse of confidence she’s been feeling about their relationship is buoyed by the sight of the birds. “They’re kind of like people, you know. Eagles mate for life.”

“That might be the least scientific thing I’ve ever heard you say,” Adam replies.

Lucy wonders if this comment is meant to bring her down a peg professionally or personally. It smarts on both fronts and she tries not to sound hurt when she says, “I wasn’t making a scientific observation.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for that to come out the way it did. It was supposed to be a joke.” Adam looks genuinely contrite, but the mood has changed. They eat their sandwiches in silence for a few moments until he asks if she’s read an article in the current issue of
Nature.
“It’s about a new genetic fingerprinting technique that tracks birds. It’s on your side of the bed.”

Lucy shakes her head. There are stacks and stacks of biology magazines all over her apartment; she’s forever trying to catch up.

“The new technique proves that only ten percent of birds that biologists used to believe mated for life are actually monogamous.”

Lucy’s stomach twists into a knot.
What’s Adam’s point?
She wishes she’d never mentioned the bald eagles and turns on the ignition. “Actually, how about you take over for a while?” She leaves the engine running, opens the door, and walks around to the other side.

When Adam’s been driving for about fifteen minutes, Lucy is struck by the realization that she’s never seen him drive before.
How New York is that?
she thinks, and scrolls through the trips they’ve taken in their two years of coupledom: A week in Paris; no car was necessary. A Christmas vacation on Cape Cod; she drove her mother’s. Several brief escapes to the Hamptons; they were given rides by friends. A couple of business trips; they took trains.

Lucy watches as towns pass by her window: Newburgh, Marlboro, Highland, New Paltz. She’s mesmerized by the swirling snow, which is getting wetter and heavier as they travel north. In this dreamy state, she imagines that they’re already at the yellow farmhouse, sipping red wine in front of a roaring fire tended by a shirtless Adam. Just as she’s about to stroke Fantasy Adam’s well-muscled side, Real Adam hits the brakes and Lucy lurches forward, her seat belt catching her, as it has several times in the last twenty miles. She feels a wave of nausea from listing back and forth, and remembers Martha once telling her that everything you need to know about a man can be gleaned from how he drives: Is he confident? Self-centered? Reckless? Lucy wonders what to make of Adam’s indecisive foot on the gas pedal—on/off, on/off, on/off—and tries not to draw any conclusions. She does, however, grow to dread every on-ramp and merge, where only after a series of jerky hesitations is Adam able to insert himself into the flow of traffic, much to the aggravation of the drivers around him.

Straining to cling to the shirtless, fire-tending vision of Adam, Lucy puts on her sexiest voice. “What’s the first thing you want to do when we get to the farmhouse?”

Adam doesn’t even glance Lucy’s way; he’s leaning forward, gripping the wheel. “At this point, my only concern is making it there in one piece.”

The snow gets heavier as they near the Catskills. They get lost on some of the smaller roads, passing old houses, dilapidated barns, country stores, and a ramshackle tavern with a neon BUD LIGHT sign in the window. Neglected stone walls, built hundreds of years ago, resemble long, crooked smiles with missing teeth. Friendly, earnest signs give directions to local ski areas, recommend restaurants, offer solutions to legal problems. There’s even one with three smiling tomatoes kicking up little stick legs Rockette-style over the message: LOCALLY GROWN, LOCALLY KNOWN. Utterly charmed, Lucy’s ready to move to Ulster County.

When they pull into the driveway, Lucy gasps with delight. The yellow farmhouse sits at the edge of a large meadow that is dwarfed by hills on the other side. For a moment she just takes it in, then she unbuckles her seat belt and hugs Adam. “We’re here!”

She leaves him to unpack the trunk while she gets the key, hidden beneath a stone in the window box. With a push and a creak, the front door opens into a musty-smelling cabin, with uneven floorboards and unfinished beams.

Adam traipses in after her, kicking the snow off his boots in a way that sounds like a complaint, but when Lucy turns around, she sees that he’s carrying some holly branches.

“They’re beautiful,” she says, taking them from him and putting them in a large pitcher on the kitchen table. She rubs her hands together. “How about you start the fire and I unpack?”

The house is one large room. A denim futon that doubles as a sofa sits in front of the Franklin stove, and the skin of some extremely fuzzy animal lies on the floor in between. The rug looks incredibly soft, and Lucy wonders if they’ll make love on it later. The kitchen area has an old farm table, a basin for a sink, and pots hanging from hooks on the clapboard wall.

“Don’t you think it’s adorable?” she asks.

“Adorable?” Adam takes in the Wolfs’ odd assortment of antique tools propped against walls and hanging from beams: a two-tined pitchfork beside a dented shovel, an ax, a sledgehammer and wedge, a bow with horn tips and lots of arrows in a decaying quiver. “These look like props from a horror flick. And what the hell’s that?” he asks, pointing to a metal device hanging from a hook on the wall.

Lucy examines the old animal trap, the kind that works on a spring and snaps shut on the animal’s foot. There’s a tiny bone, most likely a toe joint, suspended delicately between its metal jaws.

“Interesting,” she says.

“More like gruesome.”

Adam kneels down in front of the Franklin stove and Lucy watches him lay folded sections of the newspaper on the bottom of the hearth.

“Need any help?” she says, willing him to scrunch up the paper into balls, but remembering Cooper’s admonition—
You
Yankee girls need to let men be men
—she doesn’t say a word.

“I’m fine.”

Wine,
Lucy thinks.
A glass of wine will make everything okay.
She opens the better of the two bottles she brought and finds a cupboard full of old Dundee Marmalade containers that apparently serve as mugs for all occasions. She fills one and kneels down on the rug beside Adam, who’s lighting the corners of the newspaper. She hands him the mug and, after he’s taken a sip, wriggles into his arms and kisses him. “It’s your job to keep me warm until this fire gets going,” she says. They embrace and sink into the rug, kissing and moving against each other, until Adam abruptly pushes her off him. Smoke is spewing from the stove in great curlicues and the wood is smoldering without any flames.

“What the hell!” he says, leaping up.

“Did you open the flue?” Lucy asks.

Adam glares at her and drops to his knees, placing his head near the mouth of the stove so that he can see inside to find the lever.

Lucy finds it first, on the outside of the chimney pipe. “I got it,” she says, flipping the lever so that the flue opens and the smoke starts to flow out. She tries to cozy up to Adam again, but he gets up and clomps across the room to open the door and clear out the remaining smoke. His heavy steps reverberate against the floor, causing a log to dislodge and roll onto the lip of the stove. While his back is turned, Lucy pushes the log back with the fire tongs and jams a few balls of crumpled newspaper underneath the wood so that the fire catches in earnest.