Those Who Favor Fire (17 page)

Which made Rachel laugh. Angela walked behind the counter and faced her from the far side, changed in subtle ways. “What’ll it be?” she asked.

All at once Rachel felt near tears. She longed for her mother. She was so very hungry. The coffee seemed to splash in her empty stomach. “I want your apron,” she said.

“My what?”

“Your apron,” Rachel repeated impatiently. “Your apron.” Angela didn’t hesitate. She had witnessed the changes in Rachel much as she might have watched a volcano rumbling toward eruption. She untied her apron and lifted its harness over her head as Rachel came around the counter and stood waiting. Angela silently fitted the apron on her friend. “It’s all yours, my dear,” she said, reclaimed her stool, and lit another cigarette.

Rachel went straight to the big fridge. She assembled three eggs, a dollop of cream cheese, and a ripe tomato. Found a frying pan. Diced a small onion. Collected a bowl, a whisk, a spatula, salt and pepper. She cracked the eggs into the bowl, whipped them into a lather. Cut a disc of butter and set it to sizzle. Swirled the onion in the butter. Poured the eggs into the hot skillet. Added the cream cheese in small chunks, a few cubes of tomato, salt and pepper. “This is my favorite omelet,” she said over her shoulder. Angela watched in silence, enjoying her cigarette and the sight of Rachel as she cooked. None of her patrons had ever made breakfast in her kitchen before.

While the omelet swelled, Rachel made brown toast and spread it with butter and jam. She put ice in a tall glass and poured orange juice into it from such a height that the juice immediately frothed up, instantly cold, and the ice cubes whirled. She poured fresh coffee into a clean cup, slid the omelet onto a hot white plate, added the thick, sweet toast, and wiped her hands clean. When she turned to the counter with her breakfast in her hands, she saw Angela smoking another cigarette and noticed the flour that had collected in the lines around her eyes. She saw the tiny pits in her earlobes where jewelry had once hung. She saw pale hair scraped back into a knot, fingernails dulled by detergent, cut to the quick.

“Put out that vile thing, Angela, and here”—she set the orange juice on the counter—“cleanse your palate.” She put down the steaming omelet, returned for the coffee, and on her way back to the counter, grabbed knife, fork, cream, and sugar. “Eat,” she said.

Their eyes met for a moment, no more, before Angela picked up a fork and began to eat. The two men in the corner stood up, put on their hats, and called out good-byes without comment as they walked into the sunshine.

“Want a job?” Angela asked, omelet in her mouth.

“Maybe someday.” Rachel cleaned up the mess she’d made and warmed her coffee. Then she lifted a cake cover off a plate of fresh cinnamon rolls and picked the biggest one she could find. The first gooey, buttery bite nearly dissolved in her mouth. “God, that’s good.” She groaned.

“Better than sex, when they’re fresh. Last longer, too.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Rachel said, licking wet brown sugar off her wrist as she carried the roll back around the counter and took her seat at Angela’s side.

“Hear anything about the doorknob who got stuck on the bridge yesterday?”

“Didn’t hear
about
him, but I did hear him,” Rachel said, her mouth full. “All the way up in my backyard.”

“I got the skinny from Ed just before you got here, and he’s a pretty reliable source,” Angela said, wiping her plate clean with a corner of toast, “but there’s a lot that doesn’t quite add up. For instance,” she said, reaching for her coffee, “here we have a young man, about your age, give or take, dressed up like a Harvard snot, looks like an ad for L.L. Bean (though, according to Ed, he coulda’ used a shave and a shower), talks like he’s got a plum in his mouth, driving, get this, a motor home that’s half as old as I am. Which, I grant you, is not all that old. But still. Doesn’t quite fit his image. Plus”—and here she leaned forward and rested her hand on Rachel’s forearm—“he knows absolutely nothing about this thing he’s driving. Has no water, doesn’t know how to work the pump, the heater. He couldn’t even find the gas tank. When it comes time to pay Frank for the gas, he hands over an American Express Gold Card. Looks real nervous the whole time. Turns out the card’s no good. So this kid pays with a fifty.”

“This clinches it. I always had my suspicions about Ed, but now I’m sure. He’s an android. Gotta be. A man gets stuck on a bridge, and within twelve hours Ed could write his biography.”

“Shut up and let me finish before this place gets busy.”

“You want your apron back?” Rachel asked as Angela slid off her stool.

“Nah. Keep it on,” she replied. “Suits you.”

Rachel smiled all the way through a second cinnamon roll while Angela, mixing pancake batter in a huge bowl, told her the story of Belle Haven’s newest arrival.

“Just Joe. Frank doesn’t remember the name on the card. The kid cut it up and threw it out, and Frank can’t be persuaded to troll his Dumpster for a second look. Old bastard. Anyway, the boy says his name is Joe, just Joe, but if there’s one thing he’s not, it’s a Joe.”

“This according to Ed.”

“Right. But Ed’s got very good judgment.”

“Absolutely,” Rachel said, still smiling. She couldn’t remember when she’d enjoyed a breakfast more.

“After Frank hauled him off the bridge and gassed him up, he sent him out to Ian Spalding’s place. Haven’t been any campers out there for months ’cause the hot spots make them nervous, but he’s still got hookups and privies on a real nice piece of ground near the crick.”

Angela heard the bell on her door jangle and turned to take a look. “Well, speak of the devil,” she muttered.

Rachel saw Joe for the first time in the polished side of a ten-slice toaster and therefore spent the next few minutes thinking he was fat. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Angela hand him a menu and pour him a cup of coffee. She was afraid that if she looked at either of them she’d burst out laughing. So she leaned over the counter, hooked a dishcloth with her fingernail, and began to wipe down the countertop. She polished a pair of salt and pepper shakers, decided to top them up, but Angela, suspicious of her motives, reached over and took them out of her hands.

“Thank you, Rachel,” she said. “I must’ve missed this pair.” But Rachel was not to be so easily put off.

“May I take your order now?” she said, turning, and looked straight into the eyes of the man who called himself Joe.

He had had better nights. Once he’d arrived at Spalding’s defunct campground he had managed to find the spot that Mr. Spalding had assigned him and had then unpacked the groceries he’d bought at the Belle Haven A&P, filling his sink with ice and perishables until his tiny fridge was up and running. Bolstered by a cheese sandwich and a tepid beer, he filled his water tank, got his generator going, and, having finally read the owner’s manual cover to cover, unlocked the mysteries of on-the-road hygiene. The toilet and all its attendant complexities still gave him pause, however, so he thrashed his way through the impressive collection of spiderwebs that seemed to be
doing as much as nails to hold the nearest privy together and speedily took the first steps toward relieving himself.

It was damp and gloomy in the privy, though, and he simply could not force himself to sit down on the moldy seat below which untold horrors lurked. Even more appalling was the thought of shining his flashlight into the unspeakable pit. So he set it down, clambered up onto the wooden bench, and carefully, carefully stood up—all the while terrified that the old and soggy wood would suddenly give way and he would plunge down into the noisome depths. Standing so that he was straddling the despicable toilet seat, he was unknowingly veiled with the cobwebs gracing the rafters, only vaguely aware of something clinging lightly to the helixes of his ears.

As he lowered his pants, he felt an almost overwhelming need to talk to himself aloud. To say things like, “What in hell am I doing in a privy—a
privy
—in the middle of this godforsaken wilderness?” But he took pains to keep silent. He had never yet talked to himself. He would not start now.

Slowly, he crouched above the toilet seat, lowering his pants to his ankles in order to free up his legs. Almost immediately, he heard the approaching drone of a mosquito and knew, when it abruptly ceased, that it had landed on him somewhere. It wasn’t until he felt an astonishingly painful jab in his left buttock that he realized where. As he reached awkwardly back to defend himself, he was yanked off balance by the pants that hobbled him. With a purely involuntary scream, he pitched forward, knocking the flashlight over and slamming into the privy door with his head and shoulder. The door flew open like a torpedo hatch, and he landed on the mossy ground, bounced once, and skidded into a tangle of thorny bushes. The bounce, which had knocked the breath out of him, left him heaving and gasping, tucked up like a fetus, his pants still down around his ankles.

Ian Spalding was getting old, and his eyesight wasn’t what it had once been. But he knew his way around his land. Glasses were a pain in the ass, he thought as he headed out to check on his new and only tenant. It was warm and still, and he was enjoying the feel of the night as he walked down the grassy lane that cut through the woods to the campsite. He stopped now and then to listen for the whisper of bats, to refresh himself with the sight of stars. As he approached the campsite, he almost turned back: it was one of his favorite indulgences to lie full-length in his unmown yard with nothing between
him and the star-spangled sky, a pipe warming his palm, and sometimes the sound of owls, waking from their dreams.

This Joe who had come to him so suddenly was a nothing sort of boy. Handsome, yes, but that wasn’t something he had earned. Arrogant, the way he had come straight out of the blue, saying I want this and I want that with every other breath. Hardly worth his trouble. But everyone deserves a place to sleep, water for his thirst, warmth when it’s cold, fire, food, safety. So he’d allotted the little prick a campsite, helped him sort things out, and felt it only right to look in on him before bed. Now, despite the lure of the stars, he continued on through the trees—and broke into a run when he heard a muffled scream up ahead.

Something white was thrashing around in the bushes near Joe’s campsite, but without his glasses Ian couldn’t make out what it was exactly. He paused at the edge of the woods to arm himself with a long and spiky branch, then went on more slowly. Skunks were fairly common around these parts. Rabid ones less so, but not entirely out of the question and dangerous as all hell. He warily crept toward the thing, sniffing the air, wondering where Joe was. Whether he’d heard the scream. Whether he’d done the screaming. Maybe the boy was lying there in the bushes while this possibly rabid skunk gnawed his head off.

Closer now, Ian admitted to himself that whatever it was, it appeared to be much larger than any skunk he’d ever seen, rabid or not … about two, maybe three feet long, with a big, moon-shaped head on it, bucking and doubling up on itself like it was in pain, which made Ian think again about the scream he’d heard. What in the hell is it, Ian wondered, taking another step closer and belatedly unclipping his flashlight from his belt. As he fumbled with the switch, the thing in the bushes begin to wheeze and splutter … and to roll slowly toward him. His adrenaline pumping, Ian lifted his club high over his head and shined the light directly at the creature’s round, white head.

Even without his glasses, Ian knew a rump when he saw one. He quickly lowered his flashlight. “That you, Joe?” he said. His heart was still beating like a jackrabbit. Okay, so it wasn’t a three-foot-long rabid skunk, but it still looked to be some pretty weird stuff. “That you, Joe?” he repeated, club in hand, wondering if maybe he shouldn’t just scamper on back home and let the boy get on with whatever it was he was doing out here in the bushes with his ass hanging out.

“Oh, God,” the thing whimpered, and Ian knew.

“Tell you what, son,” he stammered. “I’ll just wait on your doorstep. I’ll be right there if you need me.” And he hurried away.

As Spalding rounded the end of the Schooner, Joe struggled to his feet. It took a moment for him to realize that his pants were still down around his ankles. The feeling of illness that engulfed him then made his lips tremble. He wanted so badly to be away from this place that he turned to look into the woods and to consider quite seriously whether he could walk through them and so, eventually, back where he belonged. But the thought of his father—like his sister’s stories and the useless credit card—made him feel a much worse sort of fool than a narrow bridge, an elusive gas tank, or, now, an unflattering posture ever could. With a sigh, he wiped the dirt from his face and hands, returned to the privy, and sat squarely on the cold seat of the toilet he’d so disdained.

Spalding was still waiting for him when he returned to the Schooner, so Joe asked him if he’d like to come inside for a beer. “All right,” his landlord said a shade too loudly. After a pause, he left his club outside and followed Joe in.

For an hour or so, Ian and Joe explored the Schooner, learning its secrets and applauding past owners who had added the sorts of things that make even small homes comfortable: an extra-high table in the kitchen booth granted more room for long legs and crossed knees; strips of padding tacked to the sharp edges of counters and cupboards testified to the amount of head-banging that can go on in tight places; buckled straps looped along the edge of the ceiling suggested fishing poles, paddles, and other gear awkward to store. Joe had noticed none of these things until Ian pointed them out.

Ian then helped Joe unpack the assortment of goods he’d selected from the tiny Sears in town: sheets and towels, a can opener, laundry line and clothespins, a lawn chair, a washtub, matches, a coffeepot, Scotch tape, pencils, a pad of paper, dishes, a pot with a lid, a skillet, hangers, a broom and dustpan, and various and sundry other things no young man on his own should be without.

All of this had taken a good deal of time and more energy than Joe had thought he had left. It seemed beyond possibility that he had first laid eyes on his Schooner only a dozen hours before: that in those few hours he had learned to drive a motor home, nearly wrecked it several times, partially wrecked it once, shopped in stores he’d never before in his life contemplated entering, talked to people who said
things like “yup,” eaten cold beans from a can (and been pleased with the function of his new can opener), fallen headfirst from a rotting outhouse, inadvertently exposed himself to another man, and then astonished himself by offering this same man a drink.