South of Superior (10 page)

“That so? Glad, she don't ask for nothing easy.”

Madeline wondered if he meant Gladys didn't easily ask for anything, or that she never asked for anything simple, thinking both were probably true. “She needs some wood.”

“She run out of what I brang her last fall already? That was more'n five face cords, I thought they was heating with fuel oil, just Using a little wood here and there.”

“It's almost gone.”

Emil sighed. “Come on in,” he said, walked over to his trailer and Up the steps.

The trailer reeked of sour clothes and dirty dishes and Urine, spilt whiskey and wet dog and skinned raccoon—a pile of skins was draped on a chair just inside the door. There were boxes piled everywhere, overflowing with rags, oily smelling parts, magazines and papers, empty bottles, chain saws in various states of dismantlement.

Emil tipped the skins off the chair and waved her into it, then hiked another chair Up close and settled down, pushing Sal aside with a boot. He crossed his legs tidily, the right knee cocked over the left. He tapped his toe Up and down in the air, thoughtful and almost dainty. “Butte, she get cold easy now, that the problem?”

Madeline made a noncommittal sound and then challenged into truth by his look she said, “They're out of propane.”

Emil scratched his cheek with a black-nailed finger. “They sold that car of Butte's here a month or more ago, couldn'ta got much for it, it was old. Wouldn't be surprised they put Butte's house Up next, eh?”

She nodded. Maybe they would, no matter what Gladys said. Arbutus was quiet but she was determined, and once she got an idea about something Madeline thought she was not likely to let go of it easily. The house was a few blocks away from Gladys's, on Mill Street. Madeline had gone there to tend the flower beds. Butte's flowers were much more rambunctious and disordered than Gladys's, much prettier really, and more numerous, though her yard was a fraction of the size. Her place was sweet but minuscule, no more than twenty feet by forty, with no garage or shed, even, and Madeline wasn't sure it would bring what she owed if they did decide to sell.

“They ain't got much, really, but what they do got is going fast. Them bills from the hospital is eating it all Up.”

Madeline nodded again.

Emil tapped his fingers on his ankle. “This ain't a good time for it,” he said at last. “All mud out in the woods with this rain. Hard to get back in where I usually go. Plus the State's keeping a sharp eye out, setting Up a sale. Hell, they'll ruin more'n I could ever take if I kept at it steady all year. Knock it over, leave it to rot, God help you, you go in and take a piece. But I'll get 'em some wood.”

“Thank you.”

“You tell Gladys she can pay me when she's got the money around, no sooner. And send me out some more of them cookies. That's the interest on the loan.” He cackled and clumped his right foot to the floor, startling Sal.

“I'll tell her.” Madeline stood to leave and then she said, fast before she could think better of it, “So, did you know my grandfather?”

“
Know
him? Slept two to a bunk with him coupla winters in lumber camp down at Wolf, it was that damn cold. Tipped down a few at the Trackside with him now and again too, long time ago. Yeah, I knew him.”

Madeline waited, but Emil didn't offer anything else, so she walked to the door, relieved in a way.

“Don't forget them cookies,” he said.

She forgot the apples.
“I'll go back,” she told Gladys when she realized.

“I suppose you'll have to. I thought of a few other things. Make sure you tell Albert it's for me. It makes a difference, don't think it doesn't.”

“I'm sure it does.”

“Get a rutabeg if he has any. I've got such a taste for them browned in butter, Mother fixed them that way. Get some asparagus too, Butte loves asparagus.”

“Okay.”

“Get a gallon of milk at the gas station, Unless you want to run to Crosscut.”

“No, I'll get some.”

“Get carrots. And make sure the spuds are firm. And check the onions, he might have Vidalias. Don't let him sell you any of last winter's yellows, their texture'll be no good. And look at the apples, if he got any. Make sure there's no brown spots, and make
sure
they're tart. I don't want any sweet apples.”

“I've purchased an apple before, Gladys, I think I can handle it.”

“I want what I want, that's all.”

“Don't we all.”

Before Madeline got halfway down the walk Gladys opened the screen and called out, “Make sure you stop by Mary's stand, see if she needs help with anything.”

Madeline waved without turning and got in her car, which still sported its gloved wiper. Also it was developing a knock she couldn't account for and the tailpipe was crumbling, eaten away by rust. She backed out onto Bessel Street, but there was a strange lurchiness in the car's bearing, so she stopped to investigate and found the rear tire on the passenger's side flat. This she was not prepared for. She thought wistfully of her old familiar car guru. She needed a new Pete Kinney. Was there even a mechanic in this town? She supposed there must be, and supposed too that really any self-respecting McAllaster-ite would know how to change her own tire. She sighed and considered her options and then pulled the Buick carefully back into the drive.

After a moment's more consideration she headed down the street on foot rather than taking Gladys's car. It was a beautiful day, and what else was she doing? It'd give her half an hour of privacy anyway. The house was just so small. It seemed strange and Unfriendly to sit in her room during the day, so she rarely did. Only if she was sketching. But the truth was that as much as she loved Arbutus and held a cautious regard for Gladys, sometimes Madeline felt like she'd scream if she spent one more hour at the kitchen table with yet another cup of coffee.

A thought she'd been having for days came into her mind as she walked:
You could sneak back into the hotel.
She stomped the thought out, another little grass fire that could be controlled. But the idea was so attractive, before long its spark had flamed Up again and she was talking herself into it. She'd forgotten to give the key back that first day, and Gladys had neglected to ask for it. Madeline found it now in her pocket, and her fingers wrapped around it just for the pleasure of holding it. There was no harm in going in. Gladys wouldn't mind. Madeline wouldn't be hurting anything. It would be a very tiny and completely harmless adventure that would take nothing from anyone.

Madeline gave herself twenty minutes in the hotel—up in the attic, staring out at the lake—because anything more than that and Gladys would start to wonder what had become of her. When her time was Up she clattered back down the stairs and out the door, taking care to look relaxed and confident, so that if anyone noticed her they'd assume she'd been there on some errand for Gladys.

T
he fruit man's stand was just three long tables with a canvas awning pulled over them, behind which sat a battered white delivery van with the doors slid open. The fruit man himself was tall and lanky, brown from standing out in the sun. He looked tired and worn, as if he had worked too many hours for too many years. But he also looked kind.

He handled the produce fast but gently with big hands that never stopped moving, and he chewed on a stub of Unlit cigar as he talked, keeping Up a steady stream of conversation with his customers. As quickly as he could sell cartons of tomatoes and bags of onions and bunches of celery and little crates of plums and apples and apricots, he had his helper bring out more from the back of the truck.

His helper was his opposite—short, bandy-legged like a jockey, with a shock of white hair and rheumy blue eyes. He wore hard-soled brown oxfords with a pattern tooled into the toes, brown polyester pants, a silky blue windbreaker. He grumbled over his chores but he didn't seem really to mind them. He hurried as best he could on his crooked legs, saying, “Yeah, yeah,” to his boss's orders in a put-upon way that seemed merely habit, flashing a seedy grin at the ladies.

Madeline waited her turn as half a dozen women ahead of her squeezed tomatoes and thunked melons. They must have all simultaneously been watching the television and had seen that the fruit man's line was short.

Apparently there was a webcam mounted on one of the buildings nearby that made a sweep of the main street and the water's edge, panning a nearly changeless landscape day and night. This played nonstop on the local cable channel. Madeline had laughed out loud when she stopped at Mabel Brink's house one day to return a dish Gladys had borrowed and found her watching the static scene with great absorption. Mabel had said she wanted to see how busy it was at the bank before she bothered to drive downtown, a distance of three blocks. So now Madeline waited her turn, struggling to hide how funny she found this because the ladies mightn't have been amused.

The produce looked good and the prices seemed fair, and she thought it was no wonder the grocery didn't want the fruit man coming to town, although she doubted the Bensons would consider him significant competition. Even if he did cut into their business, she didn't suppose they would do anything to stop him. Wasn't competition the gospel of the free market, and weren't they more patriotic than the president himself with their two oversized flags flapping at the front of the store?

“Well now, young lady, what can I do for you?” Albert asked when it was her turn. She explained what Gladys wanted.

“Ah, Gladys.” The way he said it made her grin When they'd assembled everything, he said, “Where's your car, I'll send Gus to carry for you.”

“
Me
carry?
You
carry, I'm getting too old for this game,” Gus said.

“Oh, that's all right, I walked.”

“Walk, when you have all this?” Albert shook his head, chewing on the cigar harder. “Naw, that ain't no good, it's too much to lug all that way.”

“I'm fine, don't worry. I'll make a couple of trips. It's a nice day.”

“Naw, now listen. You just leave it and I'll drop it off on my way out of town.”

She protested, but he was immovable. Finally she gave in, and his smile was delighted and boylike. “Here, take an apricot,” he said, handing her a big, deeply golden one from a pint basket that the woman next in line had been about to buy.

Madeline stopped by Mary's stand next, but Mary was deep in conversation with a young couple who looked like tourists, so Madeline ambled along Main Street, apricot juice dripping down her chin, looking in shop windows. In the first block there was Taylor's Two Scoops and McAllaster Crafts, neither of which had opened for the season yet; Second Time Around Consignments (only open three days a week); and The Butcher Block Café. The next block was mostly consumed by the hotel—which sat on three lots, at least—and Benson's SuperValu, next to which sat a tiny bakery called Maki's Pasties, also not yet open. The third block had the Tip Top Tavern and a small engine repair shop that didn't have any obvious name. She turned the corner there.

She passed the Village office and the newspaper office and then saw a hand-printed “Help Wanted” sign in the window of the next business, which was Paul Garceau's pizzeria. Gladys and Arbutus had told her that he owned the place. She stuffed the apricot pit in her pocket, suddenly interested. She'd only been thinking of saying hello—she hadn't seen Paul since that day they'd returned Greyson to Randi, but she'd thought about him a few times, thought maybe he was someone who could be a friend—but what about a job? Maybe a job was exactly what she needed.

Paul's building looked like an old house, long and low-slung, white clapboard with red shutters. It was sweet—appealing with its quaint shutters—but the location seemed unfortunate to Madeline, sitting on this Uninspiring side street. Though maybe location didn't matter so much in such a small town, maybe all that mattered was being the only pizzeria. She pulled open the door.

Inside it smelled of hot bread and pizza sauce. A chalkboard behind the counter described the menu options, and in the lower corner a quotation was written in blue chalk:
There are no facts, only interpretations
.
F. Nietzsche.
She grinned. She'd told a customer at Spinelli's almost the same thing one time, not realizing it was an official kernel of philosophy, and had been surprised how angry the woman got. Her eyes traveled on. There were three wooden booths along each wall, the tables covered with red-checked cloths. The floor was a checkerboard of white and black tile and the walls were crowded with framed photos and pictures. Music drifted out of the kitchen, something bluesy.