From the ferry the new bridge looked precarious, rising high above them as if on stilts. Fog hung underneath it between the concrete pylons, plumes of frothing runoff pouring down like waterfalls. Arlene watched the tops of the trucks highballing by as Emily fiddled with the knot of her scarf. The wind blew the rain sideways, flogged the Taurus so hard Arlene would have worried if she hadn’t crossed in far worse. The ferry hadn’t changed in her lifetime, the open deck large enough for nine cars, turretlike guide-houses the size of phone booths at the four corners. A young couple occupied the one nearest them, holding each other as they rode the choppy water. The whole trip took five minutes.
“Okay,” Emily said, ready. For some reason, she needed to take her purse.
“Are you sure you want to go out in this?”
“Oh, don’t be such an old fart.” Emily opened her door and the wind stirred the ashtray so Arlene had to slap it closed.
“Old fart you,” Arlene said to no one, then followed her out.
Her first steps were wobbly, though the ferry was rock-solid, the diesel chugging evenly, hauling it along the cable. She slitted her eyes against the wind. Rain stung her cheeks as she veered toward the rail. Emily opened the door to the guidehouse for her, and she ducked in out of the storm, wiping her wet hands on her pants.
“Well, that was fun.”
“I’m glad I bundled up,” Emily said. “You’d never know it was August.”
No, Arlene thought, it was typical of August at Chautauqua, but let it go. Rain snaked down the windows, braided streams twisting like curtains blowing in the wind. They stood and watched Bemus Point draw slowly closer, the old casino and the new docks along the shore, fat cabin cruisers bobbing in the slips—lawyers from Buffalo.
“The casino has seen better days, I’m afraid,” Emily said.
“I’m surprised it’s still standing. I thought it would have burned to the ground by now.”
“It always was a firetrap. Did you ever see them burn the old steamboats off of Celoron Park?” Emily pointed down the lake as if the place were still there, the roller coasters and flying swings standing unpopulated in the rain.
“I’ve heard about that.”
“They used to do it for Labor Day. They’d buy one of these old hulks and anchor it offshore and soak it in kerosene. Terrible for the environment, I’m sure. You couldn’t do anything like that today. It would be sitting out there all day where you could see it, and that night when the park was about to close, they’d set it on fire and everyone would watch it burn. It was better than fireworks.”
“I wonder why we never saw one,” Arlene said.
“They stopped right before the war.”
“We were here then.”
If it was a mystery, it would remain unsolved. One of Emily’s more infuriating talents was bringing up an intriguing subject for no specific reason, dropping it in your lap and then flitting off to something else before it could be fully inspected. It reminded Arlene of her students’ propensity for non sequiturs. But they were children, easily distracted. Now, like the teacher she was, Arlene waited, testing her hypothesis, the deck vibrating through her shoes.
“Remind me to get some of that good Lappi at the cheese shop,” Emily said. “I know I’m going to forget.”
“Lappi,” Arlene repeated.
Emily was just trying to make pleasant conversation, and here she was grading her. After all the years they’d been sisters-in-law, they were still new to each other. When Henry was alive, Arlene had been a fifth wheel. Now the two of them were a couple, calling each other to propose a movie (the spate of Jane Austens was a favorite), a day in Shadyside, an expedition to the grocery store. And how much better it was than going alone, even if Emily did wear on her nerves. She felt engaged, part of the world in a way she hadn’t before Henry’s death. “Arlie,” he’d summoned her, and asked her to take care of Emily as if it was a burden, but surely he’d known. He was smart, her brother, probably smarter than her for all her love of knowledge and logical arguments. He understood her.
“And you must remind me,” Arlene said, “to remember that horseradish spread I like.”
“That dreadful stuff. Must I?”
“You must,” Arlene said, pleased, as if she’d struck a deal in her favor.
The attendant moved to the bow, and they hurried back to the car, braving the rain. The diesel shifted gears, suddenly went quiet, and, floating, they docked, the stopped momentum making them lurch forward in their seats. Waiting for the attendant to unhook the chain, she was tempted to turn the heater on, but didn’t. The young couple had one of those new Volkswagen bugs, in an ugly green she supposed was fashionable. She followed them off, a steel plate clanging as the nose of the Taurus rose and then fell.
“A day like today,” Emily said, “we should have no trouble parking,” and though Arlene thought her optimism—like so many of her pronouncements—groundless, it proved true.
The Lenhart was the same buttercup yellow that had delighted her as a girl, and she thought that maybe they could stay there next year if the Institute was booked solid. The place was built on a different scale, a grandiose robber-baron excess that now seemed quaint and endangered. They walked up the hedge-lined promenade under the dripping oaks and onto the cavernous porch, the rockers herded away from the railing to stay dry.
Before they reached the door, Emily stopped. “I’d like to take in the view, if you don’t mind.”
“I think that would be nice,” Arlene said, though she was cold.
The floor was dirty and peeling. A few boards were new, the wood raw and tattooed with shoe prints.
“That’s not kosher,” Emily pointed out.
The bridge did ruin the view—had become the view, running like a fence across the lake, blotting out the far shore. Arlene remembered some long-lost weekend dance at the casino, Jimmy Dorsey and his orchestra. Once again she’d been passed over by Henry’s friends and had gone to a window of the ballroom where she looked out at the lights of the cottages, wavering like flames on water black as oil. She’d been a silly teenager, terrified that no one would ever love her. No one had, perhaps— certainly not Walter, though she’d hoped. She’d had her chances. It had long since stopped being a need.
“It’s criminal, that’s what it is,” Emily said.
“They could have picked a better design,” Arlene agreed. “Bridges can be pretty.”
“It appears they were going for the strictly functional.”
“They achieved that.” Arlene half turned to show she was ready to go.
“It’s so disheartening,” Emily said, keeping her there. “You look at something like this and you have to wonder what kind of society we’re living in.”
Arlene’s first inclination was to ridicule this as more of Emily’s hand-wringing, but in its immense ugliness the bridge seemed to support her claim, as did the woeful state of the casino, even the floor they were standing on. She thought of her school, falling apart around her, and the neighborhood, much of it burned out now, the business district gone.
“Are you hungry?” Emily asked. “I think I’m going to keel over if I don’t get something to eat soon.”
“Me too.”
“Oh, that damned alarm,” Emily said as they retraced their steps. “I tried calling the Lerners at home and got their answering machine. Isn’t that maddening? I told them to leave us their code so we can turn it off. I’m not going to have that thing waking us up at three A.M. every night.”
In the front hall of the Lenhart, they gazed up at the portraits on the walls, staying on the plush runner leading them like a conveyer to the maître d’s lectern. The walls had recently been painted, but they hadn’t bothered to do the trim in cream the way she remembered. Emily made a dubious face, as if disappointed. They gave their jackets to the coat-check girl, keeping their purses, and just then a draft followed a guest in from outside, chilling them. The maitre d’ was young and wore a business suit, probably off from college. The reservation was under Maxwell, a window table.
“Ladies,” he said, and led them past a board on an easel advertising Sunday brunch.
The great room was set to accommodate hundreds but was empty save a strip of tables along the windows, most filled by women their age, though at the one next to what seemed to be theirs a baby in a high chair hammered at his tray with a spoon.
“May we have that one instead?” Emily asked, motioning to a table farther along, and the maître d’ retrieved the menu he’d just put down. The mother of the child tracked them as they passed.
Finally they were settled, their purses resting on the low windowsill. Their view was much the same as it had been on the porch. The bridge loomed above them, the trucks like flying billboards. The yellow in here was cheerier, lit warmly by chandeliers and wall sconces. The silver was pleasantly heavy, the monogrammed handles nicked and soft-looking from being washed. The menu had the fresh lake perch, her favorite. A waiter in a white coat dropped off an iced butter dish, oversized pats embossed with the hotel’s name in script.
“I believe this carpet is new,” Emily said.
“I love the potted palms.”
“I’m sorry about changing tables, but at this point I am not in the mood.”
“This is fine.”
“I know it’s a terrible thing to say about one’s grandchildren, but I swear they are the rudest children at times. And spoiled? I cannot believe what their parents let them get away with. Do you see this or am I making it up, because it seems that way to me.”
“All kids are that way,” Arlene said, trying not to contradict her. She’d heard this same complaint every year and knew not to join in lest Emily turn on her. “Especially when you get a bunch of them together. They get their own little social scene going, and then you become the intruder, the authority figure telling them what they can’t do.”
“That’s their parents’ job, but I haven’t seen them doing it. I haven’t seen them play with the children once, and this morning Sam didn’t get his breakfast until after eleven because his parents couldn’t be bothered. I guess I shouldn’t let myself worry about these things.”
“Well of course you should,” Arlene said.
She checked the table for an ashtray and realized with a familiar disappointment that the whole room was nonsmoking. She broke open a roll—ice-cold—and offered the basket to Emily, who was going on about Kenneth and Lisa being burned out from working, their priorities mixed up. She wasn’t completely serious, but neither were her criticisms empty. Arlene couldn’t fathom her dislike for them. She’d always seen in Kenneth and Lisa a younger version of Henry and Emily, the wife the real driving force behind the marriage, the husband just going along. Perhaps that wasn’t true. She spoke with them so little now, all her information filtered through Emily.
She was saved by the waiter, who gave them his name before taking their drink order. It was a clue to how Emily was feeling, and Arlene was pleased when she asked for a Manhattan. There was something extravagant about mixed drinks at lunch that made her happy. She ordered a perfect Rob Roy, which seemed to momentarily confuse the waiter.
“Well done,” Emily said when he was gone. “The look on his face was priceless.”
“My great-aunt Martha used to have a perfect Rob Roy whenever we came here. She said it was a proper drink.”
“It is. I just haven’t heard anyone order one in ages. I can see the bartender flipping through one of those little books. You’ll have to give me a sip.”
They talked of Pittsburgh, as always, and their changing neighborhoods. They talked of politics and of schools, public versus private, and of Emily’s neighbor Marcia, who Arlene knew to see but with whom she’d exchanged maybe ten words all told. Marcia’s daughters were in college now, and Emily tracked their academic success as if they were her own children. One of them was doing a semester abroad in England, which led to a long, swooning monologue on the trip Emily and Henry had taken there in the mid-seventies, and the cathedrals they’d seen. Arlene thought of Henry tramping the worn cobbles of Oxford, a place she’d always wanted to see, or huffing up the spiral stairs of some Gothic tower, Emily ahead of him, chattering away. He only half paid attention to her when she was like this. He’d nod or supply an interested “huh” at the right place as a sign for her to go on. It seemed to Arlene, sitting there listening to Emily, that in some way she’d taken his place.
The drinks came, and they both ordered the perch, as if it were a tradition. Emily proposed a toast. “To the Lenhart. Happy days.”
“Happy days.”
The first sip of her Rob Roy put a chill in her skin, which changed, as if with a flick of a switch, to a syrupy warmth melting over her bones.
“How is it?” Emily asked.
“That is a proper drink. Maybe I’ll order one for myself. I’m not driving.”
The drinks restored the Lenhart’s charm. They both had another after the French-onion soup, vowing it would be their last. The family with the baby left, along with the other earlybirds, leaving only a few scattered couples. Arlene thought this must be what coming in the off-season must be like, the hotel at their disposal. She pictured winter—ice fishing, a sleigh crossing where the ferry ran. That god-awful bridge. The rain on the water made the place cozy. Setting down her Rob Roy, she was fascinated by the outside light caught in her water glass, the ice silvered with veins of air. She was looped.
“I haven’t told you about Margaret,” Emily said. She looked over her shoulder as if someone might hear, as if this were a real confession, something new she’d just decided to share with her. “I’m worried sick about her. I’m sure she’s told you she’s getting the divorce.”
“Yes.”
“That was in the cards long ago, in my opinion. You saw how she treated Jeff.”
Arlene wasn’t sure she agreed, not knowing either of them well enough, but dipped her head, interested.
“Well, it turns out she’s also broke and a recovering alcoholic. And do you know what? I’m not surprised. I know what a terrible thing that is to say, but it’s true. Nothing she could do would surprise me at this point.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“I do. She’s forty-three years old, for God’s sake. You’d think she’d know better, with two children to take care of. It makes me so angry.” Emily clenched her fingers above her soup as if she might leap across the table and strangle her.
“But she told you. Isn’t that a good sign?”
“I’m sure it’s partly our fault,” Emily said. “But Kenneth’s never had these kinds of problems.”
The waiter was approaching from behind Emily, and Arlene looked up to signal her. The perch was too much, the filet covering the rice pilaf. No, they were fine with their drinks.
“It looks very good,” Emily said after he retreated. She speared her lemon with a tridentlike fork and squeezed the juice onto her fish, her attack on Margaret forgotten.
The perch was excellent, and for a moment neither of them spoke, the meal needing their full attention. Finally Arlene cleared her throat and steeled herself with a sweet sip of her drink.
“I think Margaret’s all right,” she said. “It sounds like she needs the divorce.”
“You say it like it’s a good thing.”
“In this case it might be. I mean, how long have they been separated?”
“All right,” Emily said, “but how is she supposed to support herself now? Who’s going to pay for Sarah’s education?”
“I’m sure Jeff will do the right thing.”
“Not according to Margaret. According to her he’s got this hot little girlfriend he’s running around with.”
The news stopped Arlene. She could see this all too well, Jeff with his flashy cars and dirty jokes, the way he could make anyone laugh, even Emily. He seemed to Arlene an eternal teenager in the same way—she thought—Margaret must seem to Emily.
“It’s not just the divorce,” Emily said, “it’s everything. It’s too much all at once. She needs to spread out her disasters better.”
She’d heard Emily say cruel things in the past, but this was too much. She looked at her blankly over her perch, waiting for an explanation, an apology.
“What?” Emily said. “I’m the one who has to clean up after her mess—again. It’s always been like this, nothing’s changed. Eat.” She pointed with her fork, nodding at how good it was. “I can say this because I’m the one with ulcers from worrying about her. I’m the one who stayed up when she came dragging in at four o’clock in the morning. Henry said I was crazy, and he was probably right, but I can’t help the way I am. I’ll be worrying about her on my deathbed. Both of them. Kenneth’s no better. Neither of them has the least idea about money, and I know that’s our fault.” She sighed as if tired of discussing it, her knife and fork poised, then tucked in again.
The unstated assumption behind all this, Arlene thought, was that she couldn’t comprehend what the two of them had put Emily through. There had been a span of years when a litany like this would be followed by “You’ll find out when you have kids of your own,” but that was long past, though Arlene still filled in the words, felt their dismissal of her as someone without depth or responsibilities. If anything, she had lived her life too stringently, giving too much, asking too little in return. Her students had been enough, and the school, waiting for her every morning, the bright halls swabbed clean, the blackboards ready for the next lesson. It was only when she retired that she began to feel brittle and unloved.
“You’re lucky to have them,” she said.
She’d surprised Emily, because she had to dab at her lip with her napkin, then reached across the table and laid a hand on Arlene’s wrist as if to thank her.
“I know,” she said. “I know. Without Henry there’s no one to keep my feet on the ground. I start thinking about Margaret’s problems, or Kenneth, and I just work myself into a state.”
“They’re stronger than you think,” Arlene said.
“I wish that were true.”
“They’ve gotten this far, haven’t they?”
The waiter materialized to ask if everything was all right. Everything was fine.
“I guess I just want them to be happy,” Emily said. “And they don’t seem terribly happy.”
“I guess you just have to hope it’s temporary.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth she realized they applied to her—and to Emily as well.
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Emily agreed.
“Things change.” Arlene gestured at the high white ceiling with its fanciful moldings painted gold. “Remember this place after the war? They wanted to tear it down. Now it’s a landmark.”
“I get the point.”
Arlene argued harder when she was drinking, thank God. Emily conceded that Margaret was still young and good-looking, and that Sarah and Justin seemed to have a strong bond. Yes, Kenneth did his best, and Ella was by far the brightest of the four children. At times Arlene thought that Emily didn’t listen to her, their conversations a monologue, but here was proof otherwise. Though the children would never know it, she’d successfully defended them, and the glow buoyed her as much as ordering dessert—a Boston cooler, her mother’s favorite, still anchoring the menu: a slice of canteloupe with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Emily had the Dutch apple pie with a block of sharp cheddar melted on top.
“Lappi,” Arlene reminded her.
“That horseradish crap,” Emily said. “Did you ever call Mrs. Klinginsmith?”
“Not yet. Why?” She tried not to show her excitement. She hadn’t called Mrs. Klinginsmith because she didn’t think Emily was interested.
“I was thinking if the Institute’s booked we might try here. Depending on the price. I imagine it would be reasonable. They’re not exactly swamped.”
“No.” Then they would come next summer. In her relief, Arlene caught herself wondering—as she had since February—why Emily had bothered to sell the cottage. She didn’t understand.
“It’s not the Hilton,” Emily said, “but it’s better than the We Wan Chu.”
Arlene gouged a scoop out of her cooler and the ice cream froze her molars. “I’ll call her when we get back.”
She’d gotten what she wanted, and yet she was still dissatisfied. As much as she loved the Lenhart, she didn’t want to stay here. Even the Institute was second best, a compromise. She wanted the cottage, and now Emily was telling her unequivocally that that was not going to happen. Arlene could not reconcile herself to losing it and Henry in the same year, as if her only comforts were being taken away.
The waiter came to clear. Arlene wanted another cup of coffee but Emily was done. Emily figured out the tip and they split the check down the middle, their wrinkled ones piled high on the plastic tray. They took a last look at the lake—at the bridge—and searched for their coat checks. On the way out, everyone thanked them for coming, the maître d’ affecting a stiff bow Arlene thought he’d borrowed from the movies.
“We should stop at the front desk and see what their rates are,” Emily said, and though Arlene no longer wanted to, she knew Emily thought she was making a concession and it would be rude to say no.
“A single with two beds?” the sideburned boy asked, and after a moment’s consultation they agreed—for the sole purpose of getting a base quote—to entertain the notion of rooming together. The figure the clerk gave them brought the idea uncomfortably close to reality.
“Well,” Emily said on the porch, “the We Wan Chu is looking better and better.”
“I was surprised too.”
“I can’t imagine what they’re charging at the Institute—if we can get in. It was a nice lunch though.”
“It was,” Arlene said. And it had been, up to a point. Maybe it was the Rob Roys, but she felt rattled, unmoored in the gray afternoon, the rain dripping down through the trees. The idea that this might be the last time she saw the Lenhart sent her into a momentary panic.
“Are you going to be all right to drive?” Emily asked, as if she’d sensed it.
“I’m fine,” Arlene insisted.
They were careful on the stairs, holding the cold railing. The ferry was coming in, the diesel plowing a creamy wake. Like the Lenhart, it had been here a hundred years. Before that an enterprising Dutchman had run one hauled by oxen, and before that the Seneca had used canoes, naturally seeking out the easiest place to cross the lake.
It was remarkable how far back her own history went here. Her great-grandmother had stayed at the Lenhart, her grandmother McElheny and her great-aunt Martha, her mother and father, then Henry and herself with them. It did not seem wrong that the hotel had outlived them all. There was nothing sinister about it; it was only her mood, her circumstances joined with the gloom of the day.
She started the car and pulled out before the ferry could unload. She had actually been looking forward to the cheese shop, but now the thought of it held no pleasure for her, seemed just a stop, not a true destination. She peered in her rearview mirror. The yellow monstrosity of the Lenhart filled it, the endless porch and its rockers, the hedge-lined promenade. Again, was it the fading exaltation of the booze on top of her funk, because she felt as if she were seeing past the trappings of the world to some ultimate truth beneath in which her life played almost no part, a game piece, an insignificant marker. Landmark or not, the Lenhart would burn down or fall apart, be demolished like Kenneth’s Putt-Putt, and the new bridge too, dynamited before a cheering crowd like the steamboats burning off of Celoron Park, but the point would always be there, permanent, eternal, watching over the lake while the seasons changed.
Everything passed. And that was right, she thought. There was no sense fighting it. There was nothing to be done, and yet the inevitability of life nagged at her, death without resurrection, the end of things.
“Your blinker’s on,” Emily said.
“Thank you,” Arlene said, and silenced it.