Water Dogs (18 page)

Bennie reached down and picked up the dog, who was as light as a newspaper. He’d been shorn recently; you could see his pink skin and sun spots through the white hair on his back. Bennie gave him a gentle squeeze, and he heard a quiet growl gathering in the dog’s throat.

“Go ahead and check out my room upstairs. I’ll take the old boy out for a quick pee.”

At the top of the stairs, the first room Bennie saw had a neatly made bed with a thick mattress, an uneven stack of
Lewiston Sun
newspapers at its foot, and a book called
Reinventing Your Inner Comanche Princess
on the bedside table beside a shriveled set of very used earplugs and an ashtray full of menthol cigarette butts. The next room was the carpeted bathroom; the end of the hall was what Bennie knew immediately was Helen’s room. It was early afternoon but the bedroom was dark and smelled slightly different than Helen—it smelled like high school. He sat down on her bed, a soft mattress on the floor. The shades were drawn, and as his eyes adjusted he could see the titles in her bookshelves:
Spenser and Marlowe next to some Lloyd Alexander fantasies and manuals for Dungeons and Dragons. On the same shelf, beside a snow globe from New Hampshire, the King James Bible. Also, books about witch hunts, whirling dervishes, butterflies, the Ottoman Empire, and American Sign Language. On a small bookshelf in the corner, she had all of Encyclopedia Brown, Tintin comics, and the Chronicles of Narnia.

He felt immediately willing to leave his family behind, to join forces with Helen. He wanted to run away and escape into the books of Helen’s childhood. He could even imagine a future when he’d adore the dog. It felt urgent—he wanted to hold on to her; he didn’t want to make a series of small mistakes that might lead, eventually, to a breakup. It had happened before, but he didn’t want it to happen this time.

Above the bookshelves were posters thumbtacked to the wall—the Cure, Billy Idol, the Eurythmics. Also, three old high school posters from the plays she’d been in. At the far end of the room was a large framed photograph of the poodle wearing a necklace made of small red felt hearts. He felt, for a moment, like he was being watched, sitting on her bed with her high school stuff on display.

He knew she’d acted in plays back then, and he tried to imagine it, but it was difficult: Helen had a tendency to be so withdrawn, so private. He wanted to go back in time, pay the two-dollar entrance fee to Lewiston High School’s transformed cafeteria on opening night, to see Helen as Josephine in
H.M.S. Pinafore
, Helen as Hermia in
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
, Helen as Lucy in
You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown
.

And then there was her time at Bowdoin College, only twenty minutes away—but it must have opened up a whole new world for her. Maybe she tried to be in plays there but wasn’t good enough; maybe it was college that had forced her to be shy.

He lay back and stared up at the glow-in-the-dark constellations on Helen’s ceiling and, squinting, tried to see them as actual stars in the sky. He wanted to block out all other thoughts, but his mind drifted
back to the island. He saw Vin Thibideaux’s ugly face, his shaved head and fat nose. Then he thought about LaBrecque running through the woods on that starless night, and Littlefield, panting, moving from tree to tree for balance, determined to make it out of the storm.

Hearing her coming up the stairs, he closed his eyes. She’d taken her shoes off and crept across the carpet; she crouched over him without making contact. She kissed his forehead, then his nose, then his cheek.

He felt numb.

“You okay?” she asked.

He opened his eyes and saw her body arched over his. He felt hollow in his chest, a deep, searing regret: there were so many times he could have reached out to his brother. When he’d returned to the island from Brooklyn. Earlier, too. When Littlefield didn’t have any friends in high school. When Coach died. Bennie didn’t know how to explain this.

The urgency to be absorbed by Helen returned, and he pulled her in close, wrapping his arms around her. “I think I’m letting my brother down,” Bennie said. “I should have never let him get so far away.”

She shook her head. “It’s really not your fault,” she said.

“I think things are going to get worse.”

12

T
he town center of Tavis Falls was a few miles west of the interstate. On the left side of Augusta Street as you came into town, a diner called Wendell’s was set back from the road with a gravel parking lot out front. They stopped there so that Helen could pee and they could get something to eat.

There weren’t many folks in the diner at four o’clock. Three guys at the counter, two of them reading the paper, one of them with his head just a few inches above his plate, eating mashed potatoes. All of the booths were empty. While Helen went to the bathroom, Bennie sat in one of the middle booths, sliding across the vinyl seat to the window. The snow hadn’t
let up; the sky was still dark gray and the air was white with flakes. He looked outside at the field behind the diner and heard snowmobiles.

There was only one waitress in the diner, a thin-faced gray-haired woman in her fifties. She wore her hair in a ponytail. When she came to fill their water glasses, he saw that both of her forearms were tattooed—a deer and an eagle. She nodded hello. She tapped her index finger on the paper placemat when she saw he was looking for a menu. He said, “Thanks,” and she didn’t respond.

The men at the counter weren’t speaking, either. Bennie was glad when Helen returned from the bathroom. The diner posted a list of the winners of the town’s tomato prize on the wall outside the ladies’ room, and Helen reported her findings: a guy named Chester Millbridge had won the tomato prize for seven consecutive years, from 1922 until 1928. Then Molly Magavern unseated him, the first woman to win the prize.

The men at the counter were eating silently, and while they didn’t turn around, Bennie knew they were listening. When the waitress came to field their order, Helen looked around for a menu, so he tapped his finger on her placemat, and she said, “Oh.”

The tattooed waitress held her order pad and pen but remained silent.

Helen asked, “The tomato prize. Is it for size or quality?” “Weight,” said the waitress.

“Right. I guess quality would be harder to judge.”

“Nowadays it’s rigged, that prize. My cousin always wins it. He owns the scale.” The skin underneath her eyes was dark and sagged deeply. She stared at them.

“Hmm. That’s too bad,” said Helen.

“The pecan pie any good?” Bennie asked.

“Nope,” said the waitress.

“What’s good?” he asked.

“Hamburger. Fried clams.”

“I’ll have a hamburger,” said Helen. Close up, the tattoos were that
long-ago shade of green: an eagle with its wings spread, holding arrows in its talons. The deer was standing proudly with a wide rack of antlers.

“I’ll have some apple pie,” said Bennie.

“Don’t have any,” said the waitress.

“Pumpkin?” he asked.

“Nope.”

“What do you have for pie?”

“Pecan,” she said.

“All right. I’ll have the pecan.”

“She just said it’s not any good,” said Helen.

Bennie looked up at the waitress and she returned his gaze, plainly. “You want it?” she asked.

“Sure,” he said.

She turned and walked through the swinging doors to the kitchen. After she left, one of the men reading the newspaper got up from his stool, put a few bills on the counter, and started walking toward the door. He stopped beside their booth. He had neatly parted black hair, long sideburns, and the clean look, clear eyes, and straight smile of a Cumberland County politician. He was wearing a turtleneck, and aside from his sideburns he was clean shaven.

“Hello,” the man said. “You folks passing through?”

“Kind of,” said Helen.

“Vacationing?” He clasped his hands together. His face looked chapped from the cold, which made his smile stand out. He seemed happy, but there was a hint of aggression in his cheer. Bennie was glad to let Helen do the talking.

“Not really. We’re here to see a friend,” she said.

“Are you in town for supper?”

Helen looked at Bennie, then back at the man. “We’re here for the evening,” she said. “But we’ll be with our friend.”

“Well, bring your friend along to the Grange. We’re having a gathering,” he said. “A Saint Patrick’s Day event. Lots and lots of folks—everyone I know, and some I don’t. We’ll have dinner, talk about some
important issues. Issues important to everyone, not just us here in Tavis Falls, and those of us in my group.”

“Sounds good,” said Helen, in her quiet voice.

“Try us out. The name’s Arthur Page.”

They introduced themselves, and he gave them directions to the Grange. Helen asked him if he knew Martha.

“I don’t know any Marthas in this town, but who knows, there might be a Martha or two. I don’t know everyone. I’m relatively new to the area. What I can tell you is that if you’re visiting for the evening, you can’t go wrong. Afternoon’s a good time as well. Enjoy the beauty of the world, my friends. It’s a gift.” He looked out the window beside the booth, at the snowy field. The snowmobiles were still whining in the distance.

The waitress arrived with food. “Move it, Art,” she said. “Let these people eat.”

He smiled and said, “She gets a little cranky, but she’s a good soul. Aren’t you, Evelyn.”

She ripped their tab from her order pad and placed it facedown on the table.

“Pecan pie,” said Arthur. “Finest kind.”

Evelyn rolled her eyes. She said, “Art’s from Massachusetts.”

“See you tonight,” he said, putting his hand on his heart and smiling again. Then he walked out into the snow.

The pie tasted like Aunt Jemima syrup and soggy bread. Evelyn was resting on one of the stools. Bennie asked her, “You know that guy pretty well?”

“Art? Sure,” she said.

He asked her what his “group” was.

She said, “Beats the hell out of me. Some kind of gladhanding, I’m guessing. You see, people come from out of town, say they like it here, and then next thing you know they’re trying to change everything to how they
really
want it to be.”

The man reading the newspaper at the counter laughed.

Helen chewed her burger. With a full mouth she asked, “You ever been to one of Art’s meetings?”

“Nope,” she said. “He’s giving out free food, though.”

“You know Martha?”

Evelyn looked at Helen skeptically. “I know a few Marthas,” said Evelyn. “But none of them is a Martha anyone would ask about.”

Helen seemed to think about this for a brief moment, then she nodded.

When they walked outside the temperature had dropped but the clouds were still hanging low in the sky, and what was falling now was that light, icy snow that sometimes falls for days at a time.

They drove into town, carving troughs in the deep snow, and parked on Main Street near the small green bridge that spanned the St. Jeremiah River just north of the falls. Portland had a big influence on Brunswick, and on their island as well. Inland Maine was a world apart. Tavis Falls was only thirty minutes from Brunswick, but its dark storefronts and boarded-up mill buildings were good reminders of this difference. As they walked down Main Street, the town felt like a shadow of the original model—maybe the mill had once brought color to the place, but now, especially in the new snowfall, everything felt muted and gray. The shops that had probably opened in the fifties were still there, and though they looked like they’d been closed for years, Bennie and Helen saw dim lights in the back of the shoe and hat store, and someone in the window of Wheatcroft’s Hardware arranging a bundle of snow shovels. The most active-looking storefront was Hilldreth’s Barbershop and Newsstand. The windows were clean, and someone had shoveled the walkway and the steps leading up to its door.

The metal rack by the door inside Hilldreth’s contained no local papers, only
Car & Driver, Penthouse
, and
Juggs
. The barber said he’d heard of Martha Doyle—but then he said, “Doyle? Are you sure it’s Doyle? I knew a Martha Pinkham. Married to my brother’s friend Jason Pinkham. He’s in lockup.” At the Shell station—where Bennie also asked about Martha and received a barely noticeable shrug in response—they
bought a copy of the
Jeremiah Bulletin
. The lead article, “
EAST HANCOCK LIKES IT INDIAN STYLE
,” reported on the grand opening of an Indian restaurant forty miles away. They stood out of the cold while Helen read Bennie the story, which was full of quotes from the restaurateur such as, “We will be serving Tikka Massala, Korma, Vin-daloo, and other savory dishes.” She flipped through the rest of the paper and saw no mention of Ray LaBrecque, the search, nothing. In the Events Calendar, Arthur Page’s gathering at the Grange was listed in bold type.

“If the party’s big enough, I bet someone’ll know Martha,” said Helen.

“Or how to find her,” he said.

The Grange was on the other side of town from Wendell’s Diner, on a bend in the road, at the top of a hill. There were no other cars parked in the lot, though there was a dim yellow light above the entrance illuminating neatly painted, gently curving black letters.
TAVIS FALLS GRANGE
. Bennie put his arm around Helen and he hopped with her through the snow to the door as she carried his crutches. Someone had plowed recently. The door was unlocked.