Red Clover (18 page)

“May I help you?” she asked them.

Dennis explained the reason for their appearance.

“We were told no open-forum agenda items had been submitted, so I’m afraid we’ve adjourned.”

“I completed the necessary forms and submitted them two weeks ago,” Dennis told her.

“Well, I’m not sure what happened then. Anyway, everyone is gone now.”

Lee could feel the blood rising up his neck into his face. “Look, I’m trying to build a—”

Dennis grabbed his arm. “It’s not her problem, Lee. Let’s go.” He waited until they were safely inside his car before he continued. “I don’t know why, but there’s some ridiculous game-playing going on here.”

“I may know who’s at the root of it.”

“Who?”

Lee told him about DeRam.

“Really? Look, I’ll do whatever I need to do to get your permit, but I’m going to have to start charging you extra for my time.”

“That’s certainly fair. Do whatever it is you need to do.”

Three days later, Dennis called Lee to tell him he had called the Building Department, and the same woman he had spoken with earlier informed him that the permit was sitting on her desk—no horse-and-buggy structure required—and she was wondering why it was taking so long for someone to pick it up.

* * *

At eight A.M., two days after the permit had been secured, Lundberg’s construction crew began getting ready to pour the foundation for Lee’s house. But by noon, a city inspector had shut them down.

Lee was livid when Earl told him what happened. “Tell me I didn’t hear you right, Earl. That’s preposterous.”

Earl had explained there was another old law on the books in Harvard that stated no licensed contractor could subcontract work from any person or company that charged more than the price fixed by the local craft societies. The law referenced an 1836 price book for thirty-one categories of construction work. The inspector had cited them for twelve violations.

“They’re going out of their way to either cause you unnecessary delays or stop you from developing this property altogether,” he told Lee.

“So what do we do now?”

“Well, the inspector admitted the price book was outdated and they didn’t have a current one, so he said as long as I produce two more estimates for each trade to show my good faith in providing you with the most economical services, he would give us the go-ahead.”

“How long will that take?”

“Luckily, I have at least one and in some cases two other estimates, so I’m a little ahead of the game. The problem is that I don’t know where to find a third estimate for some things, like putting in sewer lines. There are only two outfits within fifty miles of here who do that.”

“Do we have any recourse?”

“Not that I can see. They shut us down. If you ignore them and proceed anyway, you’ll get fined, and my guess is they’ll make those fines especially high for you. Or who knows, you could end up in jail.”

“I want to proceed.”

It took Earl three weeks to secure the required estimates, ten days to arrange for a meeting with the county inspector, and another week to free up his crew to pick up where they had left off.

By mid-May, Lee’s house had been roughed in, and fifty acres of land had been cleared for building three greenhouses and a main lab for Dr. Rad. Lee’s spirits were high—until he received a call from his mother, who told him the entire family intended to spend Memorial Day weekend in Lake Geneva...with him.

As unnerving as it was to be spending an entire weekend with his family, something unsettled Lee even more, and that was his concern for CJ following the incident with DeRam. He was at a loss for what to do next, if anything. He had talked to her on several occasions at the bar, and she had said she hadn’t heard from DeRam since then, but Lee wasn’t sure he believed her. After carefully considering the consequences of potentially butting too far into her business, he asked if he could come over to her house before she left for work the next day, and she said okay.

When CJ opened her door for Lee, he greeted her with a handful of wildflowers.

“Nice daisies,” she said. “What’s the occasion?”

“I found them alongside the road and thought you might like them...but they’re not daisies.”

CJ led him into the kitchen where she quickly reached for a vase. “So what are they?”

“Heath asters.”

“Really. So tell me about heath asters, Socrates.”

“
Aster ericoides.
Bees, butterflies, and wild turkeys love them.”

“Oh, really? I’ll have to remember that the next time I invite a wild turkey over.”

“They grow well on dolomite prairie land, and we’ve got a lot of that in these parts.”

“No shit. What’s dolomite?”

“It’s a calcium magnesium carbonate sediment a few feet below the surface. Very rich in nutrients.”

“You’re a regular
repository
of information.” She laughed. “That was today’s word on my Harvard Business School word-of-the-day calendar.”

He gave her a puzzled look.

“One of the bar bums gave it to me for Christmas last year...probably as a joke. I didn’t think I’d ever have an opportunity to use any of the words. Ha! Then I met you.”

“Thank you...I think.” They settled in at the kitchen table, the vase of flowers in front of them.

“Nice touch,” he said referring to the cookie jar. A giant blue cartoon character riding a tricycle and blowing a trumpet was on the side of it.

“Thanks. He’s a Smurf by the way. Got it with green stamps.”

He gave her a blank stare.

“I’ll explain some other time.”

He wondered if green stamps had anything to do with social welfare, like food stamps. Up until now, he hadn’t given much thought to how CJ had managed to raise two kids on a bartender’s salary.

“So how are you? Really.”

“I’m okay.”

“You haven’t heard from DeRam since that day?”

“I told you I haven’t.”

“I know, but we were in a crowded bar then. I wanted to make sure.”

She looked at the flowers for a moment and then at him. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“Why are you here?”

The question caught him off guard. “Because...I wanted to make sure DeRam has left you alone.”

“No, I mean why are you really here?” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Why do you give a rat’s ass about how I am? Who are you, anyway? What do you want from me?”

The pressure in his chest caused him to wince. “I don’t want anything from you. I care about you. I like you.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m human, and you’re a nice person?”

“You know what I mean.”

“No. I’m afraid I don’t.”

“People who show an interest in you want something. That’s just human nature. So what do
you
want?”

“That’s not true. I don’t want anything from you.”

“Liar.”

He wondered how this visit could have gone any more wrong. While he may not have fully understood his intentions when it came to her, they were certainly not underhanded.

“I can’t care about you without wanting something from you?”

She leaned back in her chair until its front legs lifted off the floor. “Think about it, Soc. As a kid, you pay attention to your mother because you need food, shelter, love. As a teen, you pay attention to your teachers because your father told you if you failed in school, there would be hell to pay. And then you pay attention to a man because you need...”

He suspected she was speaking from a distant past, reminding Lee things that happened years ago could grab you by the throat at any time. “You need what?”

Her mood changed. “Nothing. I don’t need shit from anyone. You’re getting off the subject.”

“Am I?”

She got up. “Look, don’t think for a minute I don’t appreciate what you did to that asshole for me. I do. But...maybe you better go.”

He remained seated. “I don’t want to leave on a sour note.”

“Looks like you’re not going to get what you want then.”

Lee stood up. “You’re right. I do want something from you.”

“Knew it.”

“Do you have any plans for the weekend?”

“What?”

“Can we sit down?”

“No.”

“May I sit down?”

“Suit yourself.”

“My entire family is coming to my house for the weekend, all eleven of them. That’s eleven against one—hardly an equal match.”

CJ rolled her eyes and then sat back down. “Explain yourself.”

“Look, I fit in with the rest of my family about as well as...well, I
don’t
fit in is what I’m trying to say. That’s the truth of it. I can’t be, nor do I want to be, like them. Oh, there was a time there wasn’t anything I wanted more than to be just like my brothers, but I stopped thinking like that when...”

She relaxed her posture some. “So you were like a fish tryin’ to ride a bicycle?”

Lee laughed. “Well, yes, something like that.”

“The peels of laughter emulate from within, while he stands on the outside forever looking in.”

Lee reeled back in his chair, and after he’d recovered from the power of the words she’d uttered, he asked, “Where did
that
come from?”

“It’s the first line of a poem I know.”

“A poem.”

“Some English guy wrote it. I don’t remember his name. I found it in a book of poems in the library one time when I was in one of my weird moods, read it over and over again, and for some bizarre reason remembered it after all these years.”

“What’s the rest of it?”

“Not now. I’d hate to dazzle you with all the culture I possess in one shot. You were saying?”

“I was saying, I had to break away from my family in order to find myself, because I couldn’t live in their elite world...and survive, let alone be happy, so...”

“So here you are. In your parents’ house, trying to be yourself, but you don’t know quite who that is yet, and they’re all coming up for a nice long visit, and you'd rather be anywhere else but there. How am I doin’?”

“You’re doing great. Look, I’m telling you things I’ve never told anyone before...except for my shrinks, of course.”

“Okay, but what’s all this got to do with me?”

“I thought I’d plan a barbecue for Saturday, and I would be eternally grateful if you and the boys would attend.”

“You gotta be shittin’ me. If you’re saying
you
don’t fit in, just how am
I
going to fit in?”

Lee shrugged. “You don’t have to. Just show up, talk to them like you do at the bar with other perfect strangers, which you seem to do effortlessly, enjoy the food, and then go home. There’ll be other kids there. We’ll have things for them to do and...”

“So just how will you introduce me?”

Lee got up from his chair and made a sweeping arm gesture toward her. “May I present my good friend, CJ, to all of you royal—”

“Pains in the asses?”

“Very funny. Actually, they’re usually very well behaved in social settings. Hey, I have an idea. Maybe I’ll invite a few other people from here and try to outnumber them. Ha! This could be fun.”

“Look, I’m sorry I misjudged you. Someday I’ll have to tell you my whole story, and then you’ll understand my trust issues. You can count me in, but only if there are other normal people there.”

“Bring your sister, too. The more the merrier.”

“Soc?”

“Yeah?”

“As far as Bern goes, I carry this with me at all times now.” She reached in her pocket and pulled out a green and white metal canister not much bigger than a roll of Lifesavers.

“What’s that?”

“Mace.”

“Is that legal?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t care.”

17 | Watermelon Stains

Lee didn’t have much time to plan the barbecue. His guest list included CJ, her two sons, and Francine; Dr. Rad and his sister; the architect, Dennis Freborg, and his son, David; the builder, Earl Lundberg; and the hardware-store owner, Lenny Vinik, and his wife. He hadn’t originally thought of inviting Lenny, but they had become pretty friendly in the course of Lee’s many visits to his store to purchase whatever tool or gadget Bob Vila had just used on the latest episode of
This Old House.
It was fun and interesting learning about different tools, and he snickered at the notion his family was missing out by hiring everything done for them.

Lee felt good about the guest list. The playing field would be even—eleven Winekoops and eleven of his own guests.

Shaneta appeared to be overwhelmed at the idea of having to cook for a crowd that big by herself and asked for help. When Lee told her he wanted to make it a traditional barbecue with hot dogs, hamburgers, and potato salad, her eyes grew wide.

“You’re not serious, Mista Lee.”

“I’m totally serious.”

She put her hands on her hips. “I have been your parents’ cook for over ten years, and I can assure you they have never eaten a hot dog or a hamburger.” She shook her head. “If Mrs. Winekoop was plannin’ this, we’d be havin’ roasted squab or grilled shrimp, maybe yellow tomatoes stuffed with wild mushrooms, and—”

“Well, she’s not planning it, and we’re having hot dogs and hamburgers.”

“Oh, mi God. I can’t wait to see this.” She smiled. “Can I make deviled eggs too?”

“Of course.”

“And watermelon?”

“Sure. And how about red, white, and blue cupcakes for dessert?”

Shaneta threw up her hands. “Wait ‘til I tell Helen.”

“And none of that lavender lemonade stuff. I want pure, unadulterated fresh-squeezed lemonade.”

Shaneta clapped her hands together. “You got it.”

“And soda and beer.”

“How ‘bout some chips and dip just to round things off?”

“Perfect.”

* * *

The Winekoop procession of Mercedes and BMW cars arrived Saturday morning at eleven o’clock...in precise pecking order. His parents pulled in first. Nelson followed, with his wife, Yvonne, and their twin ten-year-old boys, Vincent and Virgil. Bringing up the rear were Bennett with his wife, Daphne, and their three children, eleven-year-old Odessa, eight-year-old Anna, and nine-year-old Bennett, Jr.