Over a plate of fettuccine at their favourite Italian restaurant, Annabelle told Sarah the plan.
“We’re going away for the Fourth of July,” she said, while Sarah slurped the saucy noodles.
“Where?” asked Sarah, inspecting the complementary sugar packets in a cut-glass bowl on the table.
“Northern Vermont.”
“You mean we’re really going somewhere?” beamed Sarah. “For more than one day?”
“Yes.”
“Where will we stay?”
“Eddie’s parents have cottages on a lake up there and we’ll stay in one of the cottages.”
“Eddie? I don’t want to stay with Eddie!”
Annabelle lifted her palms and lowered them slowly, gesturing for Sarah to lower her voice.
“Why not?” said Annabelle.
“Is Danny going to be there?”
“No, Danny will be spending the holiday with his mom.”
“I just want it to be me and you,” insisted Sarah. “If Eddie goes then I’m not going!”
“Well, the cottage is free so we could either stay in Gardenia for the weekend and not do anything or we could go up to Eddie’s parents’ farm and stay in a cottage.”
“Let me think about it,” pouted Sarah.
Sarah silently watched while Annabelle and Eddie piled their weekend clothes, towels and bedding into Eddie’s red jeep. Then they stuffed Sarah in the back seat, surrounded by pillows.
They arrived at seven in the evening, as the sun arched high in the west. Tall poplars surrounded the dirt path to the cottage.
Eddie ambled onto the creaky porch and felt around the rafters for the old iron key, then opened the ancient wooden door. Sarah raced out of the car and Annabelle followed.
“You can go first,” said Annabelle to Sarah.
“Where is it?” said Sarah, bouncing up and down.
“Here,” said Eddie, showing Sarah the door to the bathroom. “I hope the water’s been turned on.” He walked around the corner to the kitchen and turned on the faucet. “Good,” he said, “the water’s on.”
While Annabelle assessed the living room, Eddie grabbed her, lifting her high in the air. “How do you like the cottage?”
She continued looking around. “It’s old.”
“It’s very old. It was the original milk house when this place was a farm. Mother had it renovated a few years ago but she kept most of the original features.”
They brought in their bags, then they left for the beach.
Sarah baulked when she saw at least a dozen children of various ages darting around on the sand.
“This is it,” said Eddie. “How do you like it?”
“Does your family own the beach?” asked Sarah.
“Yeah, this is all family land.”
“Is everyone here your family?” she asked.
“Yep,” he said as they got closer.
They were greeted by a young woman carrying a large toddler.
“Eddie!” she exclaimed. “How are you!”
“Carol,” said Eddie, “this is Annabelle and Sarah. Carol is married to my cousin Mark. And this is Ethan, he’s gotten huge!”
“Hi,” said Carol, “welcome to the lake.” She looked at Sarah and said, “There are lots of kids here.”
Sarah grimaced. “I can see that.”
Carol reached down and took her hand, “Come on,” she said. “You have to meet Julie and Beth. They’ve been dying to meet you. Three eight-year-old girls are here, can you believe that!”
“I turned nine two months ago,” said Sarah, reluctantly walking with Carol and her large placid baby.
One by one Annabelle was introduced to Eddie’s brothers, their wives, his cousins and his uncle. Then Joanne appeared.
“You made it,” she said. “Where’s Sarah?”
Eddie pointed her out as she stood talking with Julie. “Well, she looks just like her mother,” said Joanne to Annabelle, who was soon immersed in family chatter juxtaposed with rolling mountains, wide water, and a red Vermont setting sun.
That night, after Sarah had fallen asleep, Annabelle crept downstairs to the front porch and snuggled beside Eddie as he slept. For a while she listened to the brook sing and the cicadas hum. Then she reached down and fondled him, his gentle sleeping organ, until it became hard in her hands. She rubbed and kissed it and it stayed hard and it throbbed. Then she crept back upstairs.
Early the next morning there was a loud knock on the back porch door. Annabelle woke to hear voices on the porch. She quickly put on a sundress and hurried downstairs.
“Hiii,” said Julie’s mother, Donna, “I hope we didn’t wake you, Julie couldn’t wait to see Sarah again.”
Donna’s short hair was fair, her face open, her eyes wide.
“No, it’s OK,” said Annabelle, “I’ll go wake her up.”
Sarah and Julie went off to play and Donna stayed to share some coffee.
“How do you like it up here?” asked Donna. A warm breeze lifted the poplar leaves outside the porch.
“It’s just beautiful,” said Annabelle.
“Yeah,” said Donna. “It can be a little overwhelming at first.”
“What?” said Eddie. “How can this place be overwhelming?”
“Oh Ed,” said Donna, “you know what I mean. The politics of it all.”
“What politics?” said Eddie. They looked at each other and laughed, sharing a private joke.
Annabelle squinted.
“Your mother,” Donna finally said, “your intimidating mother!”
“My mother? Intimidating?” said Eddie, laughing again.
“Those Wright boys,” said Donna. “Carl’s just the same way. We all forgive Joanne though. She really has a heart of gold.”
“The problem is that she thinks Annabelle must be just like Karen,” said Eddie.
“Karen?” asked Donna. “Why Karen?”
“You know, because she left her husband, and Sarah is close to the same age as Ben. Guilt by resemblance.”
“Well the resemblance stops there, obviously,” said Donna. “Annabelle, if you were anything like Karen you’d be drinking whiskey right now instead of herbal tea and you’d have a long pink streak in your hair and multiple tattoos and body piercings. Karen really was a wild one. But I think that was why Joanne loved her so much. Joanne loves to shock people. Have you noticed that, Annabelle?”
Annabelle nodded and Donna laughed again.
“I’ll never forget the first time she got me alone,” said Donna. “She went on and on about how Don always wants to poke her! I mean what was I to say?”
“She said that to me too!” said Annabelle.
“And the first time I ever came to dinner at their house,” continued Donna, “I was talking about NYU, where I went to school. And out of the blue, Joanne said, ‘So, you ever been raped?’ Don and Carl just ignored it. Carl asked me to pass the potatoes, and I said, ‘Why no, Joanne, actually, I never was raped.’ Then she started talking about her garden. Now Ed, wouldn’t you find that intimidating?”
“That’s just Joanne,” said Eddie.
“That’s right,” said Donna. “So Annabelle, she’s like that to all of us. You have to take it with a grain of salt.”
Annabelle attempted to smile and stared into space. What if Joanne ever asks me that? Then she’ll have me cornered and I’ll have no defences. A grain of salt. A pillar of tears. It’s all about the salt in the tears: looking back… at the terror, the sorrow, ingrained in the salt…
“Why are you so quiet today?” said Eddie after Donna left. “I guess you really don’t like it here.”
“Actually, I love the lake,” she whispered. “This is the most beautiful place I’ve ever been.”
“Sarah seems to be having a great time. What are you thinking about?”
“Do you know what I did last night?”
“What do you mean?”
“While you were sleeping. Did I wake you?”
“No,” he said, confused.
“I came down and lay beside you while you were sleeping on the porch.”
Eddie smiled. “That’s nice.”
“I fondled you.”
“You did?”
“You got very hard.”
“Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“I don’t know, I thought it would wake you up.”
“I wish it had. That would be a wonderful way to wake up.”
“You think it was OK? I didn’t think you’d mind.”
“Of course it’s OK. Why do you ask?”
“I feel like I did something improper.”
“By fondling me?”
“In your sleep. Without your permission. Sometimes sex scares me. Sometimes it brings things up.”
Eddie got up, returned with another cup of instant coffee for himself, another cup of tea for her. They were still sitting around the back-porch table, covered by a red-and-white-checkered cloth, a remnant from someone’s kitchen in the 1950s. Fly swatters hung on exposed beams; there were no flies.
“We need to go to town this morning for some food,” he said. “Tonight we’re having a potluck on the lake. Then there are fireworks and the kids make these newspaper boats which we set on fire and sail out into the lake. Then we have a big bonfire.”
Annabelle remained silent.
“I’d like to make a new by-law,” said Eddie.
“What’s that?”
“You can fondle me any time you want. You can make love to me in my sleep.”
She nodded. “I thought you’d feel that way, but I just felt strange afterwards.”
“Can I fondle you in your sleep? Can I make love to you then?”
“I don’t know about that,” she whispered, the hot cup at her lips, steam in her eyes.
After lunch, Julie insisted that Sarah stay and swim with her. Donna offered to watch them at the beach, so Eddie led Annabelle to the falls.
Along the way, he pointed to the earth around the banks and said, “There they are, mother’s beloved jack-in-the-pulpits.” Annabelle knelt down to inspect one.
“Wow, you really have to be looking for them; they blend right in with the ferns.”
Eddie knelt beside her. “I always thought they were very sexual looking. Like little vulvas popping out of the ground.”
Annabelle looked at him.
“Want to see the pine grove?” he asked.
She followed him through the woods; this time there was a hint of a path, not just snowy limbs.
The grove hadn’t changed much since early spring although now it was warmer, muskier. The smell of pine was stronger.
Eddie sat on the log where he’d sat months earlier.
“Remember this place? Remember what we did here?”
Annabelle nodded, looking around.
“Want to sit with me?” he said.
She wandered beside him and sat on the log. Occasionally small creatures made sounds in the woods around them.
“The bears must be up by now,” said Annabelle.
“Oh yeah, but they can smell us. They don’t like to come near humans.”
“But sometimes I read about bear attacks in parks.”
“Those are grizzlies. We only have shy old black bears. Don’t worry about them.”
“It’s really beautiful here.”
“You like it? Have you forgiven my parents yet?”
Annabelle looked away. “I honestly do think your parents are nice but I don’t think they like me.”
“Sure they do. Last night mother told me what a doll Sarah is. She’s happy that she’s fitting right in with Julie and Beth. Sarah and Julie are really hitting it off.”
“I know. I hope she’s not upset that we’re gone right now.”
“She’ll be OK.”
Eddie was wearing yellow nylon shorts and a plain blue shirt. Annabelle still wore her flowered sundress. Their colours beamed in the brown and green grove.
Annabelle raised her left hand, lifting the elastic waist of Eddie’s shorts, slowly sliding inside. With both hands she gently tugged at his organ until it protruded from under the elastic. She pulled her hair behind her ears, lowered her face, and kissed his penis, suckling it. A minute later she looked up. He touched her cheek.
“You don’t have to do that,” he said.
“Do you like it?” she asked.
“Do you like it?”
“It’s interesting.”
“I’m not convinced that most women really enjoy doing it,” he said, “I think women think men like it and that’s why they do it.”
Annabelle said nothing.
“Is that why you did it or is it because you like it?” he asked.
“Well I thought you’d like it.”
“But do you like it? You never did that before.”
She paused. “Well you know I had braces a few years ago. Before I got them men were always telling me how sexy my mouth was. Dennis used to insist I do it and I didn’t like that. But I want to please you. I just want to please you.”
“I only want to do what pleases you,” he said. “That’s how true love works. If you’re not enjoying it I can’t enjoy it.”
“You are so different from Dennis,” she whispered. “It’s not that I hate it, I’m sort of indifferent to it. Maybe I have some healing to do around it. I really just want to please you.”
“But you don’t especially enjoy it?” he asked.
“Well, no.”
“Then please don’t do it. I think it’s demeaning for you to do something you don’t really enjoy. Would you like me to taste you?”
Annabelle laughed. “Not exactly.”
They were both silent.
“We don’t have to have sex all the time,” he said. “We can just make love by sitting together, holding hands.”
They sat in silence for several minutes.
“But I just want to please you,” Annabelle finally whispered. “I don’t feel like I have any value to you unless I’m pleasing you.”
Eddie frowned at her. “Do you remember when you accused me of using you as a sex object? I’m not trying to do that to you. Maybe you just think of yourself that way.”
She frowned. “Maybe you’re right,” she whispered. “There’s a part of me that feels useless unless I’m earning something. And with you… maybe I feel… maybe I always feel like I need to earn your love.”
Eddie thought for a moment. “I could pay you,” he finally said.
“What?”
“I could give you fifty dollars each time we make love. Would that make you feel better?”
She scowled. “Are you trying to hurt me?” she whispered.
“No,” he said. “No, not at all. I’m honestly trying to help. I want to please you as much as you want to please me. If you want to feel that making love is something worthwhile to me, then I could pay you for it.”
They stared at each other. Annabelle shook her head.
“You’re missing my point,” she said. “I just want to feel like I’m pleasing you. That’s all. I just want to satisfy your fantasies so that I can validate my own sexual existence.”
Eddie smiled. “OK,” he whispered. “I have a new fantasy.”
He stood up and slowly unbuttoned the top of her dress, gingerly lifting it over her head. He gently folded it and laid it across a log. Then he removed her bra and panties.
She trembled, although the grove was hot.
“This is all I want,” he whispered. “I just want to stand here in awe of perfection.”
He stared at her body.
“This gives me great pleasure,” he whispered. “Thank you.”
Annabelle nervously looked around.
“Nobody can see you,” he whispered. “Nobody but me.”
“Does this really please you?” she asked. “Even if you don’t come?”
“This pleases me immensely. I’ll be hot all day. That pleases me. The Tao teaches men to hold back, it increases virility.”
Several more minutes passed. Annabelle reached for her dress. “We need to find Sarah and make some lunch,” she said. “I hope she hasn’t been looking for us.”
“Did you stay at the beach all morning?” asked Annabelle after lunch. She was applying more sunscreen to Sarah’s sturdy back while Sarah was attempting to vault into the water.
“No. Donna made us get out of the sun. Julie showed me the falls. It’s really pretty up there.”
Annabelle paused. How close had Sarah come to observing me with Eddie this morning?
“Did you see the pine grove?” asked Annabelle.
“No,” said Sarah, “Julie told me about it but she’s not allowed to go up that far without a grown-up.”
Annabelle sighed. Then Eddie beckoned her into the cold water.
“Julie took Sarah up to the falls this morning while we were in the pine grove,” Annabelle told Eddie that afternoon when Sarah was playing at Julie’s cottage.
“Don’t worry about that,” he said, pulling her onto his lap. “The kids aren’t allowed to come near the pine grove without an adult.”
“Why not?”
“Bears.”
“But you said it was safe!”
“It is; we just tell them that. We just don’t want them wandering that far off.”
They were back on the porch, back at the 1950s kitchen table. Annabelle heard a noise from the wooden footbridge across the brook and peered over.
“Look, what’s that?” she said, pointing at a chubby creature poised in the ferns, loudly chewing the vegetation.
Eddie looked. “The woodchuck is back.”
“Oh, he is so cute!” exclaimed Annabelle.
“Not to my mother. That little guy could destroy her garden in a matter of hours.”
She watched the woodchuck for a while, then looked back at Eddie. He was crying.
“What’s wrong?” she exclaimed.
He smiled. “Your breasts are so gorgeous in that dress, all tan at the top. I can see your bathing suit line.” He fingered the dress bodice and spaghetti straps. “You like it here, don’t you?”
She nodded. His eyes were red.
“This is my Shangri-La. It’s Brigadoon. It comes out of the mist every summer and I spend a few weeks here. I’ve been coming here all my life. When I was a kid I didn’t appreciate it so much because it was always there. I really took it for granted. Other kids got to go on trips to all kinds of different places but I always had to come up to the lake and visit my grandparents. Back then my grandparents rented out the cottages but after my grandfather died and grandmother was starting to get old my mother and her brother took it over and it became a place just for our family.”
“How long has it been in your family?”
“My grandfather was a stockbroker in New York City. Just before the depression he got sick of it all and decided to become a farmer up north. So he cashed it all in and bought this place outright. Back then it was quite a fortune, now it’s really something.”
Tears spilt from his eyes again.
“What is wrong?” insisted Annabelle.
“Nothing! I’m just so happy that I can share this with you and Sarah. I’ve been lonely here. I hated bringing Barbara here. We always had our worst fights here. She and my mom used to scream at each other.”
He paused.
“I’d like to bring Sarah up here every year. It’s a wonderful place for kids; it’s like a dream in the winter that comes true every summer. I’d like to bring you here with our babies.”
Annabelle smiled.
“Will you marry me?” he said.
She paused, and then nodded.
They both cried.
“Soon,” he said, “in October. Under the full moon. OK?”
Annabelle thought for a moment. “That’s a good time. Everything will be direct again. Full moon in October. That would be sun in Libra, moon in Aries, a good time to form partnerships, lots of passion.”
“Can we tell everyone tonight?” he asked, smiling.
Annabelle shook her head. “I need to talk with Sarah about it first.”
“When will you talk to her?”
“Can we get my ring first?”
“Your ring?”
“Engagement ring.”
Eddie paused. “I never gave one of those to Barbara.”
“Dennis never gave me one either.”
“Do you want a diamond?”
“No, I don’t want to support diamond mining. I’d like a ruby or an emerald. A ruby could symbolize passion but emeralds are sacred to Aphrodite. My birthday is next week.”
Eddie nodded. “Yes, your birthday is next week. OK, we’ll do that first. We’ll get you a nice ring.”
The night went as Eddie had predicted. There was a potluck dinner with all kinds of pasta casseroles, hamburgers, steaks, salads, strange jellied-fruit moulds, ice cream, soda and beer. Someone lit fireworks across the lake and everyone stood watching, slapping the last of the black flies and the first mosquitoes. Joanne helped the children make paper boats out of Don’s old copies of the New York Times. They set the boats on fire, launched them on the lake, watched them sink, built a bonfire, put the babies to bed, cleaned off the picnic tables, and stayed up late singing folk songs in broad shadows of huge flames.
“Didn’t you just love the lake?” asked Sarah over and over as Annabelle straightened the apartment after their weekend away. Sarah spoke only of the lake and Julie and Eddie’s marvellous family.
Annabelle kept agreeing, wondering how to broach the subject of Eddie’s proposal.
“Could you ask Eddie to marry you?” Sarah suddenly asked.
Annabelle stopped working and looked at her. “I thought you said you didn’t want me to get married again!”
“Well, didn’t you just love the lake? If you marry him we could go there all the time.”
“Well how would you feel about having Eddie as a stepfather?”
“If I have to have a stepfather, I think he’s the nicest one I could get. He’s more like a dad than Daddy was.”
Sarah hadn’t mentioned her father since the weekend after the divorce. Annabelle had told her Dennis would probably wait a while longer before seeing her again. He’d sent her two postcards, saying that he’d moved to a small studio in East Boston. Annabelle wasn’t sure what he was doing for work but had tried not to let it concern her. He had mailed a fifty-dollar child-support cheque for the two months since the divorce and that was the extent of his communication.
She had wondered whether to renew counselling for Sarah, to help her work out her feelings about Dennis, but since things had remained calm she hadn’t bothered. Now Sarah wanted her to marry Eddie and things suddenly seemed too easy.
“I won’t ask him to marry me, Sarah. But what if he asks me? Should I say yes?”
“Yes! Say yes!”
“Well he should give me a ring if he wants to marry me. My birthday is Wednesday so maybe he’ll give me a ring. Wouldn’t that be nice?”
“Well if he doesn’t, don’t be too disappointed,” cautioned Sarah. “And if he doesn’t ask you to marry him by the end of next week, why don’t you just go ahead and ask him?”
“I’ll think about it,” said Annabelle.
During his lunch hour on Annabelle’s birthday, Eddie ventured into Harvard Square and purchased an antique emerald ring in a Victorian setting, slipping it on her finger in the office, with the door closed. Annabelle wore it to the afternoon planning meeting.
Brian Anderson was dominating the meeting again. Arthur Ziminski was explaining that a final version of the new user interface wouldn’t be ready for another month, a week after the first draft of Annabelle’s book was scheduled for preliminary release to beta clients.
“You’ll have the book ready to go, won’t you?” said Brian to Annabelle.
“How can we possibly do that?” asked Patty, Annabelle’s editor. “If the UI won’t be ready, she won’t even be able to create screen shots.” Patty had started attending the weekly MVI Access meetings when schedules began heating up.
“You don’t really need screen shots,” said Brian.
Annabelle and Patty looked at each other. “Well, we really do,” said Patty, “the book is filled with references to screens. It won’t make any sense at all if it doesn’t have any screen shots.”
“You have that snazzy desktop-publishing system, can’t you just make them up on that?” insisted Brian.
“I could,” said Annabelle, “but if the UI won’t be ready, how will I know what they’ll look like?”
“Arthur,” said Brian, “everything’s all specked out, right? You guys could just tell her what will be on the screens, couldn’t you?”
“I suppose so,” said Arthur, “assuming we don’t need to change anything.”
“OK,” said Brian, “that’s it, it’s not a problem.”
“Wait,” said Annabelle, “what if they do need to change something? It will make the documentation look wrong.”
“That doesn’t matter,” said Brian, “Nobody reads the doc anyway.”
To: ABonney
From: EWRIGHT
Here are some happy birthday poems to you.
Our love is a multicoloured limo
speeding down the highway
our limo has those big fins
that were popular in the late fifties
a full bath
and some beer
our love plays with images
and fills a rear view mirror.
My father
called you
a changeling
A paratrooper
hitting the ground
roughed, standard issue
running
but to where?
There are no enemies left.
To: EWRIGHT
From: ABonney
Thank you for the poems but there are enemies left! Brian Anderson! “Nobody reads the doc anyway!” Could you believe that? What a nerve! Why do they bother paying me to write these books if nobody reads them?
Patty and I had a long talk after the meeting. We’re both upset by this business of producing the book before the software’s ready. It’s like I’m being asked to write telepathically. It’s a good thing I took so many creative-writing courses in college!
Patty noticed the ring and I told her we’re engaged. Have you told anyone yet? I wonder how quickly word will spread.
Tonight I’ll tell Sarah.
I love you,
Annabelle
To: ABonney
From: EWRIGHT
Go home and read the Tao. As you write a book that nobody will read, think of the Tao. You are writing the Tao of Software, the eternal Documentation, infinitely important, never to be removed from its shrink-wrapped case, never to be read by clients, never to be followed, only to exist.
I have told everyone on the seventh floor that we are to be married in October.
I love you,
Eddie
In the parking lot at Sarah’s day camp, Annabelle waited until Sarah was sitting in the car with her seatbelt buckled. Then she held up her left hand.
“See what Eddie gave me?” she said.
Sarah looked at her hand. “What?” she said.
“The ring!” exclaimed Annabelle.
Sarah looked at it. “That ring?”
“Yes! Do you like it?”
“Does that mean that he asked you?” said Sarah, becoming excited.
“Yes! What do you think?”
“And you said you would? You said you would?”
“Yes!”
“You’re going to marry him?”
“Yes!”
“You are?”
“Yes!”
Sarah became quiet. “When?” she whispered.
“In the fall. In October.”
“Can we go back to the lake then? Will you get married up there?”
“Yes.”
“Good,” whispered Sarah. “That’s very good.”