Picture This (17 page)

Chapter 29

R
ocky's copy of
Peterson's Field Guide to Mammals
was looking frayed after eight months of continual use. It had been her constant reference since she became the animal control warden on Peaks Island. She often kept it in the truck so that she could study it as soon as she got a call from someone about bats, deer, skunks, or raccoons.

Isaiah had asked her to attend a community meeting about the rising population of beavers on the island.

“I know you have a lot on your plate right now, what with kids showing up at your door and suddenly buying a house, but as the animal control warden, you need to be aware of the dilemma. Not that I'm expecting you to do anything about the beaver problem. They're not in your job description,” explained Isaiah.

Rocky had seen evidence of the beavers on the back shore of the island, around the marshy land behind Battery Steele and on the land next to her new property. Maybe the beaver appreciated wild wisteria as much as she did. Smaller trees had been meticulously nibbled by the animals, leaving telltale stumps with sharp, pointy heads. She wondered if all beavers used exactly the same tree demolition techniques. Did young beavers observe as their parents selected trees for their home building? Did they sit and watch as their elders gnawed chunks of the tree, first girdling it, then working into the depth of the trunk?

“Who's running the meeting?” asked Rocky. She had stopped at Isaiah's office in the public works building to drop off her report on animals transported to the mainland.

“The City of Portland Public Works along with the Forestry Department. The beavers have chosen public land as well as private land, so it's not just a community problem,” he said, sliding Rocky's two-page report into a well-worn manila folder. “This would be a good opportunity for you to observe. By that I mean listen and don't say anything. Emotions can run very high about what to do when wild animals and human real estate collide. You'll be in attendance to show your broad depth of concern over animal-human coexistence.”

“Got it. Sit on my hands and zip the lips,” said Rocky.

“Yes. Being silent will give you a wise and benevolent look. You could use some of that.”

When Rocky went home, she consulted her
Peterson's Guide
for background information about beavers. Her calico cat, named after the guidebook, leapt down from her perch on top of the fridge to sit on the very page Rocky was reading. She tipped the book toward the floor, and Peterson slid off, landing with insult on the rug.

“Sorry, Peterson, this is work. Go annoy Cooper.” With her back to Rocky, the cat tried to maintain dignity by immediately licking a paw and cleaning her face, as if she had truly intended to be in that very spot at that very moment.

“You aren't fooling anyone,” said Rocky as she ran her big toe along the cat's spine.

Beaver: Castoridae. She flipped through the book and noticed that Peterson had remarkably little to say about beavers. Squirrels got seven pages, mice got twelve, but beavers merited only two, according to the tome on mammals. Beavers, despite their prowess in dam building and aquatic house construction, are really large rodents. She read the usual physical descriptions: thirty to sixty pounds in weight, rich brown in color, tail shaped like a paddle about six inches wide and ten inches long, and huge front teeth that can slowly but persistently buzz-saw through trees. Beavers are chiefly nocturnal. Rocky wondered if animals would still be nocturnal if humans weren't around. Did they take the graveyard shift so that humans wouldn't bother them?

She continued reading. Beavers prefer to eat and build with hardwoods, especially birch and maple. They live in family groups in their lodges consisting of parents, yearlings, and kits. Family groups may form colonies, and one colony may defend itself against another encroaching colony. But there's one bottom line: beaver colonies unite to share in repairing a dam. They are essentially water and forestry management specialists. Sort of like the guys coming to run the meeting on Peaks.

On impulse, she picked up the phone and called Hill. He hadn't returned her call two days earlier, but she was determined to pull herself out of the morass of reactionary rejection.

He picked up quickly. “I got the feeling you weren't going to call me back,” he said.

“What do you mean? I never got a call from you,” she said. They were already disagreeing. How had they drifted so far from sweet expectation and yearning?

“I left you a message. I'm not making this up. Why would I do that?”

“I have someone staying with me, she could have botched up a phone message,” said Rocky.

“Who's staying with you?” asked Hill.

“Natalie, a girl who thinks that Bob was her biological father. A lot has happened, and I want to talk to you instead of acting out. I have to go to a meeting tomorrow night with the Forestry Department, and I could use your help with the whole wildlife management angle on this meeting. This is about a beaver population, and my wildlife encounters have been confined to cats, dogs, skunks, and raccoons. Will you come out?”

“Your deceased husband has paternity issues?”

“Yes. Maybe. It's not entirely clear yet. Seven o'clock tomorrow evening at the library.”

“I wouldn't miss it.”

R
ocky and Cooper walked to the meeting in the community room of the library. She sat near the back of the room to keep Cooper out from underfoot as people arrived. Hill pulled a metal folding chair next to hers and sat down. He dipped his head down slightly, a gesture that in a young girl might have meant shyness, but with Hill it had to mean something else. She hated the way his cheeks flushed red, as if he had just come in from the cold, and the way the dark hair of his eyebrows and his brown eyes revealed a seriousness that his loose body camouflaged. She hated the way his wrist bones slanted out and sloped back to the long bones of his forearms. She especially hated that he had assessed the entire room of people the way a hunter would and that he had probably noted that her heart was beating double time. Her heart skittered and stuck in her throat.

“Both groups are here,” he said quietly, turning his head and leaning into Rocky's ear.

Her bones felt disconnected, floating outside the sockets. “What do you mean?” she whispered.

“The same thing happened in Brunswick a few years ago,” said Hill, keeping his voice low. “We have the save-the-beaver people on the window side of the room and the kill-the-beaver people on the bathroom side of the room. This always happens.”

Somewhere on the island the beaver colonies had banded together in a meeting to decide what to do about the human encroachment. But their meeting was simple: they all agreed that when the dam was broken, they should fix it. There were no other options to consider when aquatic home designs depended on a particular water level.

Several options were offered by the kill-the-beaver group. Beaver pelts could be sold to Russia and the profits funneled into the school fund. The opposing side shot out of their seats in protest. “There's no market for beaver pelts in Russia. Maybe eighty years ago, but not today!” said a woman who taught at the school. She added that the schoolchildren would not want money gleaned from beaver cadavers.

“Cadavers are bodies, and we were only suggesting that their skins could be sold. But now that you mention it, the meat could be donated to either the homeless shelter or some very high-end restaurants in Boston,” said one man whom Rocky vaguely recognized as a patient she had seen exiting Tess's physical therapy office.

The save-the-beaver people had only one viable suggestion, which was to acquire the land as a trust and just let the beaver live there.

Hill leaned over to Rocky again. “Great idea. And maybe they can speak beaver and get them to stop flooding the back roads and personal property. But it's hard not to vote for the furry guys with the fat tails.”

“This isn't going well, is it?” asked Rocky. She wanted to soothe this thing between them. She moved her foot next to his and nudged him.

“Do you mean the meeting or us? If you were back at your university job, you wouldn't be having half as much fun. Does the girl have evidence that Bob is her biological father?”

“Not as such. We're looking into DNA. I haven't figured out a way to get DNA material from Bob. Right now I'm tracking down a long-lost uncle in Oregon and also trying to dig up something of Bob's that would yield, you know, cellular matter. And I'm not going back to my job. I resigned. I bought a house,” Rocky whispered.

“When did all this happen? Never mind. Did you buy a house on the island?” Hill's voice had risen to a level that could project to the back of a classroom.

The entire row of people in front of them turned around to look at them.

“Yes. Can we talk about this after the meeting?”

The meeting yielded a standoff. The last of the summer sun glinted on the ocean as they exited the library. Hill automatically placed a hand on the small of her back as they walked and then, suddenly self-aware, he shoved his hands into his pockets.

“Before you say anything else, I need to tell you something. I should have said something about Julie, and if I had, this is what it would have been. She did nothing wrong in the marriage. I screwed up, but she was the one who left, and I didn't want her to leave. She was the one who bolted out of the marriage, took the dog, took the microwave, tossed everything into a trailer hitched behind her father's big silver diesel pickup. I did not see her for the next two and a half years. Until she showed up at the house and, as luck would have it, until you happened to show up as well,” said Hill.

“You should have told me. I thought we were . . . ,” said Rocky, suddenly feeling incoherent.

“Should I have called you the second she walked into the house? Should I have told you that she came to deliver the divorce papers and she broke down and cried? I hurt her, and as everyone involved agrees, I was a giant asshole. I spent one stupid night in a motel with a woman after an archery competition, and no matter what I said after that, there was no reaching Julie. She reacted like a chemistry experiment bubbling over, corroding everything in her path. So, yes, when she showed up I tried to comfort her, and I'm glad that I was able to.”

Rocky's backlog of righteous rage searched desperately for an outlet.

“Julie and I crashed and burned before you ever moved to Peaks. I don't come with the best relationship credentials. The easiest part of my day is teaching 130 students in my English classes, and I can promise you that no other teacher at the high school would say the same. And grading papers at night and on weekends was less complicated than my personal life.” He slapped a mosquito on his arm, and a small dot of blood rose up.

“I was afraid that you were going back to Julie. And then I went straight to crazy angry,” Rocky said. They stood toe to toe. Cooper had walked ahead of them, and now he stopped and turned around, as if waiting for a response.

“If we have a chance, you can't just throw me out the first time you get scared. I mean, what was that at your house?”

“That was a de-evolved version of me.” She put her hand on his forearm and slid it over his wrist, tucking into his fingers, knitting them together.

“I can't stop thinking about you,” he said. “But you jumped to a terrible conclusion and never asked me anything, never talked to me, and you decided I was guilty. While I may be guilty of many things, one of them is not that I would lie to you. I will tell you every awful truth,” he promised. “I will not lie to you, at least not about big things. If you ask about hairstyles, butt size, or shoes, then I might resort to creative answers.” His hands moved toward her face, hesitated, and touched her so lightly that it might have been a breeze. “I want to hear more about the girl who says Bob was her father.” He squeezed her hand.

“I want you to meet Natalie. Come on, she's home by now.” Rocky pictured the three of them, snug in the cottage. She thought of the beavers banding together so that they could eat and huddle together at night. She knew what she'd do if she was a rotund beaver with a flat tail and buck teeth and if a little lost beaver showed up seeking shelter.

As they approached the cottage, Rocky said, “If Natalie is Bob's daughter, then I have to do anything I can to help her.”

“What if she's not family? What do you do then?” said Hill.

“Then I might still have to do anything I can to help her,” said Rocky. Cooper clattered along the deck, and the front door opened, spilling light from the kitchen.

“I heard Cooper . . . ,” said Natalie, stopping abruptly and staring at Hill. Her hair was wet, and she had a towel wrapped around her.

Hill turned away and stepped back. “Bad timing. Sorry about that. I'll call you,” he said, retreating, waving a hand in the air.

“Good night,” said Rocky, wishing she could have banded together with Hill and Natalie.

Chapter 30

Natalie

T
he next day Natalie walked into the cottage and saw a pile of Rocky's clothing on the couch. She'd met the boyfriend for the grieving widow. Deleting his phone message hadn't been good enough. She knew how to handle men, knew their essential weak spots. That was no longer the problem. The real problem was that Hill took far too much of Rocky's attention.

“Natalie, I'm meeting Hill in Portland tonight, and we'd like it if you would join us. Come on, it would be fun,” said Rocky.

“Do you mean, do I want to go on a date with you two? No.”

Rocky had washed her hair and blown it dry with the hair dryer, something Natalie hadn't seen her do in the two weeks she'd been on the island. Usually Rocky was a wash-and-go gal. She was primping too much; she had tried on two different pairs of pants and had finally settled on a skirt. A skirt?

“Wait, I guess I can come with you,” said Natalie.

Rocky paused in midstroke as she rubbed lotion on her legs. “Good. This will give you a chance to get to know him.”

Oh yes. Getting to know him was just what she wanted.

They met Hill at the dock on Commercial Street in Portland, where he had parked his truck. He looked uneasily at Rocky. “The truck isn't an easy fit for three people,” he said.

“I can sit in the middle, I don't mind,” said Natalie, getting in before protests began. She squeezed in, letting one leg press casually against Hill as she straddled the two bucket seats. “See, this works for me,” she said with a smile in her voice, a young-little-girl smile that no one could object to.

Rocky got in and leaned forward to speak to Hill. “We're only going to the park, it's not like we're going to drive forever. I think we can all manage,” she said, fastening her seat belt.

Hill gave her a sideways glance and started the truck.

“Can I put my bag behind the seats?” asked Natalie. Why would they say no?

Turning slightly away from Rocky, she picked up her canvas bag with her left hand and reached up and over Hill's shoulder. The side of her left breast grazed his arm. Contact. He flinched and moved away. Two white-and-gray gulls examined the heel from a baguette on the sidewalk. One lifted off with the bread in its beak.

“Where did you say we're going?” asked Natalie.

“A free concert in Deering Oaks Park, just on the other side of downtown. Tonight it's some fiddler.”

The traffic on an early summer evening had swelled with people cruising for parking. Hill buzzed his window down and leaned his left elbow out. “I only brought two lawn chairs,” he said. “If you'd told me that there would be three of us tonight, I would have thrown another chair in.”

At the grassy congregation of kids, families, dogs and couples, Hill did exactly what Natalie imagined a good boyfriend would do: he offered her his chair, insisted that she take it, and then sat on the ground near Rocky, leaning back uncomfortably for half of the concert, propped up on his hands. He stood up halfway through and said, “I'll be back in a few.” He picked his way over blankets and around chairs, making his way to the bathrooms.

M
uch later, when Rocky and Natalie had returned on the ferry and were walking along the darkened roads of Peaks to the cottage, Natalie said, “I think it's better if I don't hang around with you and Hill. I don't know how to say this, but I get a feeling from him, an uncomfortable feeling. That's all I'm going to say.”

They were on the long dirt road, going past Melissa's house. “What do you mean?” asked Rocky. They crunched along in silence, distress building like a storm. They opened the door, and Cooper burst out, greeting Rocky with his high singing voice, his tail wacking everything in sight.

“It's probably nothing. But do you know that feeling you get when you're scared and there's nothing really happening that you can point to, not exactly? Like I said, it was probably nothing.” Natalie walked into her bedroom. Rocky followed.

“Wait a minute. This is very serious. I don't want you to feel uncomfortable with my friends, so could you be more specific? Did Hill do or say anything tonight? The man hardly spoke eight words the whole night. He was quieter than usual, but he has a lot on his mind. Natalie, talk to me.”

She sat on the bed and kicked off her sandals. “I really want to go to sleep. Is that okay? Forget that I said anything.”

She heard Rocky and the dog go outside. She had already learned that the more Rocky had to think about, the longer the walk. She didn't return for an hour. After that, Natalie saw the light from her bedroom glaring beneath her door long into the night.