Point Pleasant (3 page)

Caroline half-shrugged and fidgeted with the leather strap of her purse. “Maybe you should go on a trip. Get back to your roots or something. Isn’t that the usual cliché they say is best?”

“It’s something to think about.” Ben finished the inscription and slid the book across the table to her.

“Well, good luck. Thank you for signing this,” Caroline said as she waved her tattered copy of
The Blue Tulip
. “I look forward to your next one,” she added before she turned to walk away. Ben noted her pace quickened when the organizer—Ben struggled to remember the man’s name—joined Ben at the table.

Ben offered a final smile as the man—
Matthew
, according to his name tag—went through all the usual niceties;
how it was an honor to have him; how the turn-out had been greater than expected; how they would love to have him again for his next publication
. Ben shook the man’s hand on his way out of the bookstore, but his thoughts lingered on Caroline’s candidness.

Those thoughts were not specifically on her suggestion to travel or on his own machinations of a journey to the East. No, his thoughts were on her much simpler, much more affecting advice:
get back to your roots
.

As Ben climbed into his blue, two-door ‘68 Chevy Camaro—a gift from his father when he turned sixteen and a tangible reminder of his roots—he thought of Point Pleasant. He thought about Point Pleasant all the time. Ben’s thoughts always returned to the town that shaped and sculpted him like a crooked statue from a ball of cheap clay.

He revved the Camaro’s engine and thought of the title page of Caroline’s book.

  ‘Enfolded in blue, her eyes were like the blessed break of dawn.’

  Caroline, thank you for your honesty. – Preston James, 2012

Ben reversed out of the parking space, turned out of the lot, and headed home for the first time in weeks. He was glad he had arranged for the last leg of his trip to end in Boston; home was only a fifteen-minute drive from the bookstore with a DeLuca’s Market on the way for him to stop off to replenish his non-existent food supplies.

Ben’s apartment was a historic two-story brownstone in the heart of Boston. He had signed the lease six years prior after spending only ten minutes viewing the property. With its hardwood flooring, high ceilings, and wide windows, Ben had found the space to be the ideal writing environment. He had painted its brightly colored walls a dark gray to accent the brickwork in the kitchen, and he had filled the rooms with shelves of books and teak furniture finds from Craigslist to suit his taste for Mid-Century modern. There was an intentional lack of green, however; Ben Wisehart was not the type to tend houseplants.

The walls were adorned with prints from Mark Rothko’s Red series and Francis Bacon’s studies for a crucifixion triptych. Alongside original pieces by the artist Angie Olsen, who specialized in photographic explosions of light and color she deemed as representations of the supernatural, there were also framed posters of Ben’s favorite films: Alfred Hitchcock’s
Vertigo
and Gordon Douglas’
Them!

Once home, Ben showered, made his grilled cheese sandwich—it was everything he had hoped it would be—and cleared the disarray he had left his apartment in weeks before in his rush to hit the blacktop. He re-shelved scattered stacks of books and cleared the clutter of junk mail and old proofs of
The Corpse
from his desktop. He set aside the tenancy renewal contract he had received a month prior but had yet to sign and return.

Note to self,
Ben thought.
Get your shit together, Benji.

When he felt he had achieved a modicum of order, Ben made a cup of coffee in his favorite mug. It was old and blue with a chip on the outer lip, but it was
his
. The coffee was black but sugary, just how he liked it.

He slouched against a counter in the kitchen and played through the surprising number of messages that had been left on his landline. He sighed as he pressed ‘Erase’ on almost all of them as they were outdated requests for dinner or drinks from friends who had forgotten he was out of town.

Ben saved only the most recent message, which he replayed with interest; it was from Kate.

“
Benji, I’m so sorry we couldn’t get together when you were in town last week,
” Kate said on the recording, and Ben rolled his eyes as he took a sip of coffee.

He had been in New York the previous week and had arranged to meet his sister for dinner only to find that Kate had been stuck at the office. Ben had not discovered this until he arrived at the designated restaurant with his table reservation at the ready and no Kate in sight.

Ben had called his sister, but he had gotten voicemail.
Of course.
After thirty minutes of waiting at an empty table with a glass of water, Ben received a text. “
Sorry, in the middle of huge case. Have dinner without me. I had Margaret call in to tell the restaurant you’re on my tab. I’m in Boston soon, will see you then. K
”

Margaret was Kate’s personal assistant, and Ben was not about to let her offer him a consolation dinner. He left the restaurant and walked five blocks to Le Parker Meridien’s divey Burger Joint where he partook in the best and greasiest cheeseburger he had ever eaten.

“
I completely forgot to let you know ahead of time, but it’s been crazy around here since I made partner. You know how it goes
,” Kate’s voice said from the answering machine. “
I’m in Boston in a couple weeks, just before Thanksgiving. I’ll set aside a whole day for you, and we can catch up then, okay? Sorry I’m such an asshole lately, but I have some good news. I’ll save that for when I see you in person.
”

There was a short burst of static, and the message ended.

Ben wondered about the good news. Maybe David had finally proposed. After three years of dating, marriage was certainly a prospect. Kate was career-driven, but Ben knew she wanted to start a family of her own as much as she had wanted to earn partner in her firm.

Ben sipped his coffee and considered the idea of another Wisehart in the world someday. He had never thought of marriage or children for himself. He was not opposed to the concepts; he had simply never given them much consideration.

His sister, however, always had
the plan
. Kate was the college girl with a law degree and a fast-tracked career in a reputable firm. Now that she had scored her dream job, it was only a matter of time before she acquired the New York City equivalent of a white-picket-fence dream complete with 2.5 children and a tiny, lovable dog named Toby, or Jones, or something equally befitting such a pivotal member of the modern American lifestyle.

Ben thought of Caroline,
his
Caroline. She would have loved to see her children get married and have children of their own. He could not imagine Caroline as a grandmother, though. The spill of her youthful, sun-kissed golden hair over the neckline of her favorite red dress was forever melded into Ben’s memory.

Caroline died of a brain aneurysm. She had dropped dead in the kitchen one sunny afternoon while baking a cherry pie to celebrate the first day of her vacation. She had insisted throughout the spring that that would be the year she and Andrew finally made the trip to Barcelona she had dreamed of since before the burden of children relegated summer holidays to exhausting ventures to Disney World.

The coroner said she had not suffered; it had been quick and painless. Ben was the one who found her. He had gone home by chance after he realized he had forgotten his wallet that morning before he left for work as a junior reporter at the
Gazette,
Point Pleasant’s local newspaper. He had known he would need cash that night; there was a showing of Lon Chaney Jr.’s
Frankenstein’s Monster
on at the Marquee.

A waft of thick, pungent smoke and the repetitive beeping of the smoke detector had greeted him when he entered the house. Caroline’s pie had caught fire in the oven as its maker lay dead and sprawled out on the kitchen floor.

If left much longer, the whole house would have gone up in flames. According to Eddie Longino, chief firefighter, at least. The chief told this to Andrew, who had been called out of surgery at County General, but Ben had been privy to the conversation as a detached witness. He felt numb and empty in the aftermath of the blaring wail of fire trucks. Saving the house was of little consolation to Ben when his mother was dead.

Ben took the phone from its cradle and was listening to the sound of a connecting line before he even realized the number he had dialed. There were two rings, then four, and a familiar, brusque voice answered.

“Yeah, hello?”

“Dad,” Ben said. “It’s me.”

“Hey Benji,” Andrew said with a gentler tone. He sounded pleased. Ben wondered if his father had been drinking.

“Just got home, thought I’d call,” Ben said as he shifted from one awkward stance to another. The kitchen floor’s marble tiles were cold under his bare feet.

“Oh,” Andrew said, and Ben heard the roll and click of a lighter. He imagined his father sitting in his old armchair, lighting up a cigarette as he balanced the phone between his ear and the crook of his shoulder. “That’s good, I guess.”

“Yeah. I was just thinking about—you know, it doesn’t matter. How are you?”

“Fine. How’s the car?” Andrew asked. “She get you where you needed to go?”

Ben laughed. Andrew never asked how Ben was, but he always asked about the Camaro. “Yeah, she’s fine. Changed her oil last week.”

“Good. That’s good.”

“Yeah. Listen, I was thinking about coming down to visit,” Ben said. This was not true at all, and Ben started to pace. He had not been home, to Point Pleasant, in over ten years.

“Oh yeah?” Andrew said, laughing. “You need money or something?”

Ben huffed out an uneasy chuckle. “No, no. I was thinking about a change of scenery for a little while. I guess I just thought it’d be good to see you. And the town.”

A raspy inhale filled Ben’s ear, and he supposed Andrew was taking a drag. “Nothing’s changed. Still the same old, same old, Benji. Right down to the cow theft.”

“What do you mean?”

Andrew exhaled, and Ben envisioned a puff of smoke surrounding his father like a toxic halo. “The Batman, you know. Jack Freemont’s telling folks in town his cows are going missing. The whole place is up in arms. The old folks at least. They’re saying the Bat woke up again.”

“Moth,” Ben corrected as he wandered to the sink and poured the last of his coffee down the drain. “They called him the Mothman.”

Andrew snorted; the sound echoed like an empty bark from Kate’s hypothetical dog. “Oh, that’s right. You met him personally.”

Ben put his index and middle finger together, pointed them to his left temple, and mimicked the effect of shooting himself in the head. He regained his composure and sighed. “Dad,” Ben started, but Andrew let out a loud sigh.

“Don’t start on that, Ben. It’s bad enough this town is full of crazies who won’t shut up about it. I don’t need to hear it from you too.”

“Yes, sir.”

The line went silent, and Ben was about to ask if his father was still there, but Andrew spoke again.

“You can always come home. Your room is still like you left it.”

Ben took a moment to assess his father’s rare show of sincerity. “Yeah, okay. I’ll look into it.”

“You do that,” Andrew said, and a sizzle of static from the connection disrupted the final word. Ben closed his eyes at the condescension in his father’s tone. It was as if Andrew
knew
that he would not see his youngest child anytime soon.

“I should go, I’m pretty beat,” Ben said, and he berated himself when he heard the awkward edge to his voice.

“Yeah, all right,” Andrew said. “Bye, Benji.”

The connection went dead. Ben stared at the phone for a few seconds before he returned it to the cradle, and his thoughts drifted far off to another state.

“Bye, Dad,” Ben said, and the words echoed through the empty kitchen.

He went to the front door where he had dropped off his bags when he first entered. His brown leather messenger bag—a well-used gift from Kate given to congratulate Ben on the publication of
The Blue Tulip
—leaned against the wall. Ben grabbed it and strode upstairs to his office. He placed the bag on his desk by the window and pulled out his laptop.

As he waited for the computer to boot up past the screen with the half-eaten apple logo, Ben headed to a wall of shelves that held his collection of vinyl records. He thumbed through the covers until he found Bob Dylan’s
Blonde on Blonde.

Ben thought of Caroline in the utility room singing along to ‘Visions of Johanna’ while she ironed Andrew’s white button-down shirts. He put the record onto play and turned his attention to the laptop.

He sat down at his desk and clicked a small icon on the dock, and a white page opened on the screen. The Google Search box was poised and ready for enquiries. Ben thrummed his fingertips on the teak wood of his desk and finally typed
‘point pleasant news.’

The first entry in the search results was for the online version of the
Point Pleasant Gazette
. “Well, look at you,” Ben said aloud. “Finally caught up with the twenty-first century.”

Ben clicked the link and took a moment to scan the page, which was full of all the general news one might expect out of a small town: weather reports, harvest information, and the upcoming town festival.

The yearly festival had always been a bit of a joke; it was an unadulterated excuse for the people of Point Pleasant to gather in the square and drink ale while eating funnel cakes. The weeklong festival always coincided with Halloween, and he smiled at fond memories of caramel apples and a Luke Skywalker costume from when he was eight years old.

What caught Ben’s attention was not the nostalgic memory of festivals past but rather the major headline: an editorial piece written by Elizabeth Collins. Elizabeth, or Lizzie, had been the awkward girl in high school. With stringy hair and a mouthful of braces, Lizzie had considered herself the Lois Lane of the school paper. Ben had worked alongside her during his senior year stint on the paper and his two years at the
Gazette
. Journalism was not to his taste. Especially when it pertained to covering the latest Point Pleasant High football game. Lizzie, however, had apparently stuck with the profession.
Good for her
, Ben thought.