Snapper (4 page)

TOWN SAYS NO TO LITTLE GIRL’S TOE

Beneath the headline was the reporter’s by-line: written and researched by Marc Bozian.

Judd lifted his right foot and placed it back down on top of the headline.

“I don’t think you’ve seen Bonds’ yet,” said Judd, shepherding the Woods away from Druckers’ front porch.

“It’s our local soda fountain,” he explained, as he led the Woods across the street. “They make a milk shake that they call the Awful-Awful – because it’s awfully big and it’s awfully good. You’ve got to try it.”

Rebecca Woods returned Judd’s smile, but there was something different about it.

Chapter 4

TURTLEBACK LAKE JUNE 2006

People in Turtleback Lake didn’t worry about global warming. At least for the time being, it was working in their favor.

The “season” at Turtleback Lake was longer now. The water along the shoreline – if not in the depths of the unfathomably deep middle – was now warm enough to swim in from Memorial Day till well into September.

All of which was good for business.

When the weather was warm, daytrippers paid for passes to the beaches, families rented sailboats and canoes, and fishermen bought bait and tackle. At the restaurants and markets, sales doubled and tripled. And people who kept cabins and cottages as second homes made a pretty penny renting them out by the week, month or season.

It was one of these little rentals – a cabin on the lake’s western shore – that had brought Deena Goode to Turtleback Lake in the first place.

It had been back in March or April when Deena spotted a tiny classified ad in the summer rental section of The Bergen Record. The headline,
“Piece of Paradise,”
caught her eye. The rest of the ad convinced her to call.

“Rustic log cabin on lakeshore in mountains of North Jersey,”
said the ad.
“Serene setting. Swim, fish, boat. Reasonable rent. Call owner.”

“Perfect,” thought Deena. “Absolutely perfect.”

It was exactly what Deena imagined she needed: a small desk by a window in a cabin overlooking a lake. In two months – three at most – the dissertation she had put off finishing for years would be done.

Deena dialed the number.

“You’re the first caller,” said the man on the other end of the line. “It’s yours if you want it.”

Deena asked him the rent. She could hardly believe her ears.

“I’ll take it,” she said, afraid that if she hesitated for even a moment someone else would snap it up.

“Sight unseen?” asked the man.

“Is there any reason why I shouldn’t?” asked Deena.

The man hesitated. Should he tell her about…

“Forget it,” said Deena, cutting off the man’s silence. “I’ll take it. When can I move in?”

They arranged for the lease to begin the second week in June, the day after the private school where Deena worked as a vice-principal let out for the summer.

Deena’s only regret was that their conversation was so short and sweet. There was something about the man’s voice – its timbre and his diction – that flicked some switch inside her. Then again, maybe it was best she’d gotten off the phone. Over the past twenty years, how many men had flicked that inner switch – and what had become of them?

This summer was going to be different. This summer there would be no men, no romance, and most of all, no sex. This summer she would allow no distractions.

*

Turtleback Lake was less than a hundred miles from Deena’s condo in Edgewater, but it felt more like a thousand. She could hardly believe her eyes. Where did all these tree-covered mountains come from? She had lived in New Jersey all her life but she had never seen anything quite like this.

Deena pulled her Volvo into the clearing in front of the little cabin. When she hopped out she took the deepest breath she had taken in years. Instantly, she felt more alive. There was something in the air here.

She looked at the cabin. It was perched on a rise that sloped gently down to the water. Deena marveled that the cabin was made of real logs – logs that had once been trees, trees that had probably once stood in the very same clearing where she was standing now.

This was a far cry from the vinyl siding she had known all her life.

*

In the week that followed, Deena settled into a new routine. She rose with the sun and was at the little wooden table by the window, writing, by 6:30. Except to get up for a cup of coffee or to go to the bathroom, she worked straight through until one o’clock.

But it almost seemed wrong to call to it
“work.”
Sitting at the little wooden table with a pen in her hand, Deena would look up and gaze out the window. The strange white rock out in the middle of the lake mesmerized her. She’d stare at it and fall into a kind of trance. Then, breaking free of its hold, she’d start to write – and write and write. Never before had thoughts and ideas organized themselves so clearly in her mind. Never before had sentences poured so freely from her pen.

Deena laid her right hand on the stack of papers that were rising at the corner of her desk. Then she looked back out at the bleached white rock in the middle of the lake.

“Ah, my silent muse,” she murmured. “Thank you.”

Then, at one o’clock, with the sun high in the sky, Deena stopped. Her mind was best in the morning. And by one she was hungry.

As she made herself lunch, Deena thought how strange it was having no one to talk to. She had always been a talker, a gabber. Now she was thinking that maybe she had talked too much. Everything she had ever said in conversation, no matter how clever or insightful, just went
poof.
Words were uttered and then they were gone. And to whom had she been talking?
Men.
Men, who all turned out to be interested in one thing. And it wasn’t the brilliance of her conversation.

But none of that mattered now. Deena had turned a corner and she wasn’t going to turn back. She had set her sights on a goal: two little letters in front of her name. A capital
D
, and a small
r
, period. She knew plenty of women who actively pursued doctors. She, on the other hand, was going to become one. Dr. Goode. Dr. Deena Goode. It had a nice ring to it.

And all she had to do was finish her dissertation. And every day she was getting closer.

Deena took her lunch over to the window. Each day it was the same: an open-faced liverwurst and onion sandwich and a bottle of Carlsburg beer. It was a man’s lunch – no different from what her grandfather had eaten back in the old country – but Deena liked it. When she was finished, she stripped naked and changed into a sleek, black, one-piece bathing suit. She walked barefoot down to the lake, took a few steps in from shore, then plunged in headfirst. She was a strong swimmer and the forty or fifty yards to the floating dock was nothing to her.

When she reached the dock, she pulled herself up onto its sun-warmed surface. Over the years, people had carved their initials into the weathered wood.
BL. OH. IA.
Who were these people and when had they been here? Then Deena let her fingers slip into the deep grooves that formed the initials
AA
. The man she was renting her cabin from was named August Andersen.
AA
. Remembering his voice on the phone, Deena rolled over onto her back and started to daydream. Steam rose from her body as the sun dried her suit.

Soon, the sun and the lapping water lulled Deena to sleep. She hadn’t taken an afternoon nap since she was in kindergarten. It was a lifetime ago. Where had all those years gone?

Whatever dreams she was having made her toss and turn.

Meanwhile, far across the lake, a man on the lake’s mountainous eastern shore was watching her through a pair of high-powered binoculars.

A few days earlier the man had been out on his deck when he spotted someone swimming near the lake’s western shore. It was too far for him to make out who it was, but it appeared to be a woman. His curiosity was aroused. The swimmer seemed to have come down from the old Andersen cabin. When the swimmer climbed up onto the dock, the man went back inside his house for a pair of binoculars he had picked up at a garage sale at Coach Lupo’s a few years earlier.

The binoculars were powerful. They brought the woman so close he felt he could practically reach out and touch her. And looking at the steaming black bathing suit that clung to her body, he wanted to.

The man was a professional. He prided himself for always being available to his clients at their convenience. But now he found himself making excuses.

“No, I’m sorry,” he would say. “I can’t meet between 1:30 and 3:00.”

The best he could do for them now was any time before 1:00 or after 3:15.

“Would that work?”

* * * *

Russ Meyer, the mayor of Turtleback Lake, stood on a stage hung with red, white, and blue bunting. A crowd of hundreds was gathered on the green before him. His amplified voice came crackling through loudspeakers mounted to poles at the corners of the stage.

“Everybody thinks that turtles are slow,” began the mayor. “But as the young people of our town have proved – on land and in the water – the turtles from this neck of the woods are anything but.”

Mayor Meyer paused to clear phlegm from his throat with a cough. Then he continued.

“The runners on our track team take top honors, year in, year out. Our swimmers leave the competition in their wake. And as for our turtles, well, I think I’ll let our turtles’ speed speak for itself. And so, without further ado, boys and girls, please place your turtles on the starting line.”

Dozens of children bent down and placed the turtles they’d been holding on a white chalk line that had been drawn across the green.

“On your mark...get set...”

BANG!

Deena was a half-block away but the sharp crack of the starter’s pistol made her jump.

Deena had walked into town to get groceries for the coming week. Everywhere she looked there seemed to be a poster or banner heralding the town’s 50th Annual Turtle Trot. Now, as she recovered from the shock of the gun blast, Deena glanced in the direction from which it had come. She saw the large crowd gathered on the green.

For weeks now, Deena had kept her interactions to a minimum. It wasn’t because she was unfriendly. If anything, she was the opposite. She just wanted to stay focused on what she was here for. And she had succeeded. Though cordial to shopkeepers, she had as yet to divulge her name to a single person. And she liked it that way. She liked being the mysterious stranger.

But now her curiosity was piqued. What was happening over on the village green?

Deena made her way to the edge of the crowd then started slipping through the throng of tightly packed bodies. Soon she had wriggled and squirmed her way to the second row. Only one person – a tall, broad-shouldered man – was left blocking her view.

“Excuse me!” she said, addressing the back of the man’s head.

Either he didn’t hear her, or he was choosing to ignore her.

“Excuse me!”
she said again, louder.

Still the man didn’t respond.

The crowd was going wild. Deena was afraid she’d miss whatever it was that they were cheering about. So she made her first contact with a native. She tapped the man in front of her on the shoulder.

Still he ignored her. So Deena tapped again, this time harder. The man remained utterly impassive. Finally, she couldn’t take it any longer. She had to do something, so she straightened her index finger and gave him a good poke in the back.

At the same instant, the crowd roared and surged. Deena was thrust up against the man’s back. The side of her face – her cheek, lips, and nose – was squished up against him. She could feel the heat radiating from his body. Then the man swung about abruptly, brushing against her breasts. Deena’s last jab had hurt. The man was angry as he turned. But when he saw Deena his anger vanished.

“Oh,” he said. “Hi! It’s you.”

“Do I know you?” asked Deena.

“No,” said Judd, making room so Deena had a clear view of the turtles that were rumbling across the green toward the finish line. “I don’t believe we’ve met. My name is Judd Clayton.”

“Well, hi,” she said. “My name’s Deena – Deena Goode. Could you tell me what all this excitement’s about?”

“It’s a turtle race,” said Judd. “Turtles are big around here. This race goes back fifty years.”

“Hmm,” said Deena.

The first turtle was about to cross the finish line when Judd leaned down to speak into Deena’s ear. Then somebody in the crowd bumped against him. For a brief instant, he lost his balance and his lips brushed against Deena’s ear.

“I’m so sorry,” he said.

“Don’t worry,” said Deena. “It’s nothing.”

But it wasn’t
nothing
. Both Judd and Deena were tingling from the lip-to-ear contact.

As Russ Meyer handed out ribbons to the winners, the crowd started to disperse.