After school, Ben headed straight to Jim’s house, a small cottage near Washington Harbor. Jim frequently invited Ben to walk some trails with him, and Ben knew he would be welcome. He liked Jim and always learned something interesting from him. And being out in the woods together would give Ben a chance to ask questions about caring for the injured deer in a way that wouldn’t make Jim suspicious. To his delight, Ben saw Jim’s truck parked beside the cottage, and he went up to the porch and knocked. Through the window he could see Jim sitting at his kitchen table, working at his computer. Jim looked up and waved Ben in.
Jim’s cottage had been built in the 19th century, and sat on a bluff above the rocky shore of Washington Harbor, near an old neighborhood known to residents by the rather unappealing name of Gasoline Town. The house had a porch that wrapped around two sides, with a small screened-in section to keep away the mosquitoes. There was a panoramic view of the harbor, and of the western horizon. Inside was small and snug, with a little kitchen, bathroom, and sitting room on the first floor and two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. The back bedroom, the one Jim occupied, had broad views of the harbor, and Jim had put in a big window that made it possible to see the water while lying in bed.
Jim had restored the place himself, painstakingly saving what he could of the original beams, stone fireplaces, and wood floors, and updating the kitchen and bathrooms with simplicity and good taste. The place had the feel of a carefully maintained boat, with everything crisply painted, compact, and efficient. Ben liked Jim’s house, and imagined that someday, when he was grown up, he would live in a house exactly like it.
“Ben,” said Jim in greeting, as he rose from his work. “What are you up to today?”
Ben noted the papers on the table, and recalling his father’s mood when doing paperwork, began with the kind of apology that would have been appropriate in his own house.
“I’m sorry to bother you.”
“That’s okay,” said Jim, glancing over his shoulder at his table. “I’m in a good place to take a break. Besides, I hate paperwork.”
Ben nodded seriously. “My dad does, too. He always says he’d rather have a root canal.” Ben did not actually know what root canal was, but his father made it sound like a primitive form of torture.
Jim laughed. “I completely sympathize with that point of view.” Jim leaned back on the edge of the table and folded his arms.
“So, what’s on your mind, Ben?”
“I wondered if we could do some trails today. You said I could stop by.”
Jim thought a moment, nodding to himself. “Your timing is perfect, actually. I need to cover some trails I haven’t been on for a while, and my head could use some clearing.” He went to a kitchen cupboard and pulled out two protein bars and two bottles of water.
“Here,” he said, tossing one of each in Ben’s direction. “May as well go well-supplied.”
He took his jacket off the wall rack, and held the door open for Ben.
“After you, Mr. Palsson. Let’s go see what’s happening out there.”
He followed Ben out onto the porch, and together they set off down the road, toward the woods.
As they walked, Ben peppered Jim with questions about wildlife, injuries, and the hard realities of nature. Jim listened seriously and answered, sometimes explaining in simple terms the philosophy of land and animal management. Ben listened and absorbed everything with a child’s vigorous capacity for memory. As Ben asked, he couldn’t help worrying whether Jim would guess the purpose of his questions. If he had been more experienced, Ben might have realized that he had the guilty man’s sense that everyone knows what he is thinking. Jim, used to the boy’s intelligent curiosity, and good-naturedly determined to encourage it, didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. They passed the afternoon in good spirits, both happy to be doing what they loved.
When at last they emerged from the woods, it was getting late. It was easy, out in the woods, for your eyes to adjust to low light so you lost track of time.
Jim noted guiltily how close to dark it was.
“Come on, Ben. I’d better give you a ride home. Your mom will be wondering where you are.”
“Thanks,” said Ben. “She worries a lot.”
“That’s what moms do,” said Jim. “My mom still worries about me.”
Ben tried not to stare. “Really?” he asked, aghast. Jim was old. Probably over thirty.
“Yessir.” He glanced at Ben sideways and grinned. “It has its upsides and its downsides. But it’s good to be loved, Ben, and worry is just a kind of love. Remember that.”
Ben nodded silently. He was still slightly shocked about Jim’s mother. Somehow, he had always hoped to put that kind of thing behind him. But if Jim could be so cheerful about it, then, he thought, probably he could, too. Doggedly, he returned to his primary objective.
“Do you think a deer with a broken leg could survive very long?” he asked as they turned onto Jacksonport Harbor Road.
On this topic their conversation continued until Jim pulled up to the Palsson house a few minutes later. Thanking his friend politely, Ben jumped out and trotted up the driveway. Jim watched until he was safely inside the house, then drove on, feeling the sudden silence after an afternoon spent with a chatty ten year old. The solitude of his house did not appeal to him at the moment, he realized. He would head down to Nelsen’s and see if there was any news. Eddie always knew the Island’s business.
After a full day of writing, Fiona was chatting on the phone with Elisabeth. It got lonely in the little house, and she needed a little conversation. She told Elisabeth about the insurance check.
“Well, in one way, anyway, your new barn would be safe.”
Fiona was puzzled. “How so?”
“Think about it. If Stella did burn the barn down—and I’m not saying that she did—the fact that she wants to buy your place now ought to mean that she wouldn’t want to reduce the value of the property.”
“If that were the case, she wouldn’t have burned it down in the first place.”
“But that was when she thought you were there for good. Now that she’s running for chairman, she has to assume that you’ll be leaving. She has to think that your place is coming up for sale.”
“Even if that were true—and I’m not saying that it is—I don’t think Stella much cares about the barn.”
Elisabeth was quiet for moment considering this. “I suppose not.”
“I’m not even sure that I do. Care, I mean.”
This was patently untrue, and even as she said it, she knew she didn’t mean it. Fiona fiddled with the pen in her hand. She had been drawing little buildings with flames rising from their roofs.
“So what are you going to do?” asked Elisabeth. “With the money, I mean.”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“You could visit Pete.”
“Mmm,” said Fiona.
“Don’t you want to?”
“I want to see him. But I don’t want to show up on his doorstep. Besides, I don’t even know where he is.” Fiona sighed heavily, completely unaware that she was doing so.
Elisabeth, always a thoughtful friend, decided that it might be best to leave this topic alone, and deftly moved the conversation on to other matters.
When Jim walked into Nelsen’s, all eyes were glued to the local television news. Eddie was on the far end of the bar, but as soon as he saw Jim he moved up to talk. “Did you hear the news?”
Jim shook his head. “I’ve been doing paperwork and walking the trails all day.”
“State turned down the harbor dredging project. Transportation Department says there’s no money in the budget for it.”
“There’s money to build those damned roundabouts all over the state,” commented Jake, coming to sit next to Jim. “Can’t drive 100 yards without running into one of them things.”
Jim frowned. “So now what?”
“Nobody knows. It’s a big deal. Coast Guard says the water levels are getting so low it won’t be safe to run the ferry.” Eddie pulled a beer for Jim and put it down on the bar.
“And they’re all out in the middle of nowhere, where a stop sign’d do just fine. Waste of taxpayer dollars,” continued Jake. He was in a grumpy mood, a rare thing for him.
“Guess we’ll all have to move,” said Jim.
“Or go back to the old days and drive across.”
“Hard to do in July.”
They were all silent, thinking their own thoughts.
“Want a menu?” asked Eddie.
“Sure,” said Jim. “No, on second thought, I’ll just have a burger. With fries.”
A side from a sense of horror nearly as intense as Fiona’s, the Town Board’s incumbents were offended by Stella’s slogan and its implications of incompetence, or worse. A change from what? A change from the steady integrity and patience of Lars Olafsen? A change from the fiscal responsibility and good stewardship of the Board over the past 30 years or more? A change from the peace and goodwill among islanders that had been regnant—more or less, and not counting the factions that formed and shifted over every issue large and small—for generations?
Lars, too, pondered these questions. He didn’t flatter himself that he had any particular insight beyond that of a thoughtful observer, but he thought he had a pretty good idea of what change Stella was hoping for. It wasn’t a specific policy or a project, it wasn’t hope for advancing favorable legislation at the State level, and it had nothing to do with fiscal responsibility. No matter what smoke screen she might throw up in order to be elected, Stella DesRosiers wanted two things: control and revenge. And if she were elected, he had no doubt whatsoever that she would get both. What she would do, or how she would do it, now, that was another matter altogether, but he was pretty sure that whatever it was, it would start with Ms. Fiona Campbell.
One of the things Fiona loved about owning a house was that it always required some kind of tweaking. What others considered an annoyance for Fiona was a delight. Each repair, each small improvement created a fresh feeling of accomplishment and renewal. And so, her regular trips to the Mercantile were pleasure jaunts, and also lovely distractions from whatever writing deadline loomed ahead. Today there were several, all past due.
She was happily foraging in the fasteners aisle, looking for something with which to hang the mirror she had acquired recently at a rummage sale, when she sensed that someone else was nearby. She looked up, smiling. It was Stella.
Fiona’s smile faded and there was a chilly silence. She imagined that Stella was as surprised to see her as she was surprised herself. Stella merely looked without speaking, her face wooden.
“Hello, Stella,” said Fiona steadily. This, she felt, was sufficient interaction, and she turned back to her perusal of picture hooks and fasteners, feeling pleased with herself for managing to be civil, even as she felt Stella’s eyes boring into the back of her neck.
Under her mask of feigned calm as she picked absently through drawers of wood screws which would serve no purpose in hanging a mirror, Fiona recalled the day that the goat, Robert, had chased Stella into her house, and how, to Fiona’s astonishment, Stella had been wearing pink fuzzy slippers. They seemed, even now, so utterly incongruous with Stella’s personality that Fiona felt they must be important, somehow. Pondering fuzzy slippers, she realized that she could no longer maintain this odd hardware stalemate. No matter how cold or how rude Stella was, Fiona would not be goaded this time. No. She, Fiona, would keep a stoic calm. Stella was a force of nature. Like a tornado. There was no point in fighting. Fiona decided that she would move on, and do so with dignity. “Resistance,” she thought, with a faint gleam of silent amusement, “is futile.”
With what she hoped was an infuriating smile, she inclined her head slightly and walked past Stella, who was standing intimidatingly in the middle of the aisle. Fiona’s basket of hardware store sundries swung lightly on her arm.
She was pleased when she heard Stella’s angry huff behind her. “Point won. Advantage Team Fiona,” Fiona thought as she made her way down the aisle to the checkout counter.
The fasteners aisle was filled with small plastic bins filled with screws and nails of every conceivable size and purpose. They were stacked on metal shelves that stretched the length of the aisle. As Fiona turned the corner into the main path of the store, she didn’t notice when her big, loose-knit cardigan sweater caught the corner of a tall, metal mesh shelf that had a display of light bulbs on the top level, and cans of on-special spray paint underneath. Fiona felt the small tug on her sweater, and thinking it was some new indignity from Stella, she turned swiftly. In one moment, as if watching a movie in slow motion, Fiona saw the teetering movement of the shelf of light bulbs. She tried to reach out her hands to hold it in place, but her movement caused the sweater to pull the shelf harder, and the entire display wobbled in one last moment of final dignity before collapsing spectacularly to the floor. The movement of the display threw Fiona off balance, and she grabbed wildly for something to catch herself. Her hands grasped the only solid thing nearby, the shelving that held the nails and screws.
As she went down, Fiona watched in a detached way the easy movement of the fastener shelves, swaying gracefully like the Hindenberg on its tether. Then, in a long and fluid arc, they gave way, and with the same grace fell to the floor, carrying their cargo of an entire aisle of plastic bins filled with nails and screws. There was a crash, and then the aftershocks of several cases of spray paint rolling with force along the aisle, as tens of thousands of little metal pieces came cascading from their bins and spinning along the uneven surface of the floor.
It seemed a long time before there was silence. Helplessly tangled in sweater and metal mesh, her face next to the old linoleum floor, Fiona found herself noticing the little black dents on the floor that had been made by older displays. A dead fly and some old gum that would have been invisible from normal heights were precisely at her eye level. She heard the clerks calling out and running toward the disaster, just as Stella’s sneaker and striped socks stepped without care over Fiona’s carrier basket, crunching broken light bulbs as she went. Mentally noting the striped socks for future consideration, Fiona lay back and closed her eyes, imagining the pleasures of death. Her advantage, she felt, had been extremely short-lived.
It was not in their family nature for Emily or Jason Martin to allow any opportunity to improve their community to pass them by. They were agreed that teaching Boy Scouts about goats would be a great opportunity for the boys to learn about farming, that it would be good for the Scouts’ long-term health—since goats milk, they felt, was so much healthier than cows—and, between themselves, they privately anticipated a debt of gratitude from the community that might be turned to their advantage. So it wasn’t long before Jason followed up with the Scoutmaster on his idea for a goat farming merit badge.
Ben’s Boy Scout troop was a particularly active one, led by a man whose experience in the woods was extensive. He was a native Islander, and had spent his life relying on his own wit and skill to take care of himself and his family. When his own expertise did not apply, he happily sought out someone else to teach his Scouts, and the result was a broad exposure for the boys in the traditional arts of outdoorsmanship, survival, and citizenship.
Since the Scoutmaster had no real objection to Jason’s proposal, at least nothing he could say aloud, he gave way to the Martins with, if not enthusiasm, then, at least, resignation.
One chilly Saturday afternoon, the Scouts met for the first time at Windsome Farm. Jason and Emily greeted them with gusto, and led them to the goat pens. Their young son, Noah, joined his troop with the earnest sweetness that was his natural disposition, and hung back so the others could see what was so completely familiar to him.
Boys and goats regarded one another with curiosity as the adults spoke about the care of goats and goat personalities. Some of the herd came toward the fence hoping to be fed, and Jason distributed a handful of pellets to each boy. The boys hung over the fence laughing and exclaiming as the animals pushed against one another greedily to get closest to the fence and the eagerly proffered snacks. Inevitably, there was an attempt to mimic the goats’ voices. The boys’ calls seemed to inspire the goats’, and soon the air with filled with the voices of both species, to the evident enjoyment of both.
After a graphic discussion of the necessity for farm hygiene and a vigorous hand washing for all, Emily served hot chocolate and sloppy joes in the kitchen. Everyone left feeling that it had been a most successful beginning for the Animal Science Merit Badge.
At her next trip to Mann’s it was immediately evident to Fiona that the news of her hardware store disaster had traveled quickly. She noticed some sly smiles and the quick, stolen looks of her fellow shoppers just before they innocently looked away. With a deep sense of humility she made her way through the small store, stopping, when conversation seemed inevitable, to immerse herself in reading without comprehension the labels of random items on the shelves.
Just as she was approaching the checkout, she ran into her friends Jake and Charlotte in the dairy section. Charlotte was extremely solicitous about her well-being.
“We heard about your fall at the Mercantile,” she said kindly. “I hope you weren’t hurt.”
Jake’s eyes sparkled as he looked Fiona up and down. “Hope there aren’t any bruises in inconvenient places. These digital cameras pick up every flaw these days, don’t they?” He leaned closer and spoke confidentially. “But I’ll bet you have a few special tricks of the trade to cover up things like that.” He looked at her expectantly, filled with curiosity. Charlotte nudged him hard with her elbow and changed the subject.
It occurred to Fiona that this remark indicated a shift, and possibly an escalation, in the illicit rumors about her. Hadn’t her activities been said to have been limited only to writing pornography? Was she now supposed to be making videos? Had Stella upped the ante?
But this was not a topic Fiona felt equal to discussing with Jake, or, in fact, with anyone. With what dignity she could muster, she extricated herself hastily and moved toward the checkout line before the topic of harbor dredging could even arise.
Emily had not forgotten her encounter with Stella at the grocery store, and it was with shock that she realized one afternoon, that all those purple signs for Town Chairman had Stella’s name on them. Surely the Islanders would not want that woman to run the place? It was unthinkable. Emily acknowledged to herself that she did not have time for such a job. But someone needed to run in opposition. If only she knew the area better, she was certain she could have found someone suitable. Someone who could hold the office and run it with reasonable competence until she, Emily, or, in a pinch, her husband, Jason, could take over. “Oh, well,” she thought to herself. “I can’t do everything.”
It was this reflection that reminded her that the Scouts would require poster board for tonight’s planned activity. Each boy was expected to produce a chart showing the components of goats’ milk. She shifted her thoughts to determining when she would have time to run into town to purchase the necessary supplies.
The day of Fiona’s party was cool, crisp, and sparkling, and she was hoping for a cold evening so she could use her newly repaired fireplaces.
Not normally a superstitious person, Fiona had waited until the year had been completed before celebrating, lest she somehow jinx herself. But once the date had come and gone, she felt it was time to acknowledge this small milestone.
Her other key reason for delay was that she couldn’t imagine a party without Elisabeth and Roger, and she wanted to give them a chance to breathe after their return from their honeymoon. As for Pete, well, Fiona had already learned that she could not postpone events waiting for his availability. This, she felt, was a flaw in the relationship, but one for which she had no solution.
Pete’s work travels were unpredictable, remote, and prolonged. Sometimes she heard from him every day, but then he would go off the grid for weeks at a time, and although he tried to give her warning, it was still difficult to be always wondering where he was and how he was. Today, however, she had a distraction.
Fiona approached the preparations for the party with the sense of both accomplishment and nostalgia. She could not help feeling that circumstances were not propitious for her future on the Island.
“But when,” she thought wryly, “had they ever been?”
It was not as if the whole sojourn had been a festival of joy. She considered Stella, the terrible rumors she had spread, and which—as she recalled Jake’s recent remarks—seemed to have taken root, even among people who should have known better. She thought of the winter, the demon goat Robert, and the fire. And yet, when she thought about her life in Chicago, of the crimes she had reported on and the ugliness she had witnessed, the stress of daily deadlines, and the pace of city life, she couldn’t help appreciating the contrasts. Fiona looked at herself and saw a fundamental change, and it was one she wasn’t willing to let go.
In preparation for the evening, she had made dozens of stuffed mushrooms and tiny cheese turnovers, and arranged—if she said so herself—some spectacular trays of canapés, none of which included mango salsa or cilantro—two food fads whose tenacity Fiona felt, had defied explanation.
She had noted, on a recent trip to Chicago, a new culinary fascination among the fashionable: that toast had been elevated from mundane to the forward edge of chic. This, she felt, was an unfortunate development. Toast would now be following in the culinary footsteps of meatloaf, macaroni and cheese, cupcakes, sliders, and grilled cheese sandwiches—all fine in their way—but all of which had been snatched from delicious domestic routine and ruined by fame.
They had had their turns passed on elegant trays at parties, and tinkered with on the menus of celebrity chefs with additions of goat cheese, fennel, shaved coconut, fresh sea salt, avocado, chipotle, or heirloom tomatoes, and occasionally all of the above—even with the cupcakes. Fiona supposed that this series of comfort food elevations was the price of modern cuisine’s obsession with weirdness; its peculiar flavor combinations, and the same mad hunt for the new that despoiled modern art.
But food trendsetters quickly abandoned their stars and moved on seeking another innovation, leaving some perfectly respectable food forgotten in fashion’s dust, as unloved and purposeless as bustles or spats. It wasn’t that grilled cheese was any less delicious than before—although Fiona preferred hers without truffle oil—it was simply that it was no longer beloved of the in-crowds.
Toast, she knew, was fated now to a future worse than obscurity: it would become a shameful relic, one of popular culture’s has-beens, as forgotten and unbeloved as a fading Hollywood idol. Fiona felt sorry in anticipation. She was fond of toast.
Shaking off this rumination, Fiona continued with her preparations.
She had invited more people than the little house could hold, and ordered candles and vast quantities of wine and beer. If she had learned one thing over the past year, it was her neighbors’ capacity for alcohol. She had noticed more than once that she rarely saw any of them drunk, but she had concluded that it was related more to tolerance than abstemiousness.
She could imagine the smooth voices of her Chicago friends making comments about there being nothing else to do on the Island, and in this imaginary conversation she rebuffed them. “In the first place, there’s more to do here than you could handle in a day, and in the second, you drink just as much.”
She caught herself muttering irritably as she unwrapped cellophane from candles—an exceptionally frustrating task—and then, laughing at herself, shook it off. Had she gotten to the point where she had to invent annoyances? Remembering Stella’s gaudy sign, she recognized the lack of necessity here. But—and this was more pertinent—why was she feeling defensive about the Island and its ways? And to whom was she actually defending it? Having caught herself in this little exercise in self-awareness, she fell again into her quandary.
Fiona had never belonged anywhere, but at least in the city, no one else really belonged either. To settle here would be to cast herself forever into outsider status. She recalled a recent conversation at an Island event in which a thirty year resident had been referred to, though affectionately, as a newcomer. Was this how she wanted to live? Never fitting in? Never feeling at home?
And then there was the house. A money pit, she fully acknowledged, but one beloved. She looked with pleasure around the cozy little rooms as she placed dishes of nuts and olives at strategic points and set up the bar. The house was charming, mostly untouched by the hazards of bad remodeling.
Charm, however, was not a substitute for structural integrity, as Fiona had quickly learned. The bills for the repair of the porches, the roof, the foundation, and fireplaces had been staggering, and had stretched Fiona’s meager finances to the limit. The floors needed to be refinished; the upstairs bathroom’s ugly laminate vanity and, dreadful peel-and-stick floor needed to be replaced; and the refrigerator was doddering. She still had frequent visits from the nighttime crunching animal, doing God Knows What to the infrastructure of the attics. There were clearly many more expenses to come. And then there was the question of whether to rebuild the barn.
Beginning to feel overwhelmed, Fiona chose to set these thoughts aside. “Just for tonight,” she told herself, knowing full well her propensity for midnight angst.
By the time the first guests began arriving, Fiona had shifted the focus of her thoughts to more pleasant things. Everyone she knew, no matter how remotely, had been invited. Terry and Mike and their wives had come from the mainland, along, of course, with Elisabeth and Roger, and, separately, The Angel Joshua. Nancy, Jim, Pali and Nika, and their circle had come, along with Jake and Charlotte, Young Joe and many of the ferry crew. Even Eddie the bartender, who normally felt that he had had sufficient professional encounters with Island society, had promised to stop by after closing.
Lars Olafsen and his wife, Katherine, were the first to arrive. Fiona heard their steps on the porch, and hastened to receive the beautiful iced cake they carried. It was a homemade cardamom cake, a Swedish tradition, and one of Fiona’s favorites. She set it carefully on the side table, and offered them both a drink. Before long, the other guests began to arrive, and soon the little house was filled and overflowing onto the porch. Fiona’s favorite Billie Holiday songs were mostly inaudible amid the din.
Stella had not been invited to the party, but she was an invisible presence. Her yard signs had been noticed by almost everyone almost immediately, and the first question out of nearly every guest’s mouth to Fiona and one another was: “Have you seen them?”
The resulting conversations were by turns hilarious and grim. It was too early to take Stella’s candidacy very seriously, but for those who had thought it out, like Nancy and Pali, the prospects were unpleasant indeed.
Fiona had chosen to take the high road. She would not think of Stella tonight; it was her celebration. She laughed off the questions about her plans to stay or go, deflecting the need for any serious response. But she knew that tomorrow she would have to come to grips with some decisions about her future. A future, she fondly hoped, unmarred by the activities of Stella. Unfortunately, as Fiona was well aware, this would also mean a future off the Island.
Circulating among her guests, Fiona was having a good time. The party had reached a pitch of enthusiasm that generated a fair amount of noise, and there were a number of people there she could not remember having seen before. She was silently and, she hoped, subtly checking out a group by the fireplace and trying to identify them before approaching when Young Joe came rollicking into the kitchen from the back porch.
“We have Northern Lights tonight!” he called out in a voice accustomed to shouting over ferry engines. “Best I’ve seen in a while.”
The Islanders, while no strangers to this phenomenon, were blessed with a genuine appreciation for their surroundings, and almost everyone flowed out into the back yard, drinks in hand, to observe.
Fiona followed her guests outside. She had been too busy even to have poured herself a glass of wine. Her new high-heeled Italian short boots had proven unequal to an evening of standing and moving, so she was now barefoot. The dew on the grass was cold, but the autumn air was still balmy. She looked up at the sheets of green and blue and deep red lights that shifted in the night sky as if they were raining onto the earth without touching it. The red became purple and deep rose, and the green gleamed at the edges closest to the earth and to the sky. The universe seemed to hum with color.
The crowd became respectfully silent, awed by what fell before them. Fiona felt that the glory of it was almost terrifying, as if the earth had come to an end and some new universe had come into being. They watched, together, unified by this phenomenon before them.
It was at this moment that Fiona became aware of a different source of red light, and she realized that it was the circling strobe of a police car pulled up at the side of the house. She moved toward it and found her old friend, Sergeant Johnsson, approaching the house.
He nodded politely to her. “Good evening,” he said.
“Good evening,” said Fiona, and checked herself before she could ask: Is there a problem? Instead she said: “It’s spectacular, isn’t it?”
“Sure is,” he said. And then, “I’m afraid we’ve had a complaint.”
Fiona was genuinely puzzled. “About what?”
“Well, noise for one thing.”
Fiona gestured toward her somber and wondering guests. “There’s your noise.”
The Sergeant almost smiled, but he responded in a deadpan. “We have to investigate.”
“I can imagine who called.”
“It’s a matter of public record, ma’am.”
“It was my neighbor.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Well, thank you for doing your job, Sergeant,” said Fiona, about to go.
“But there’s another thing,” he said. “It’s the parking.”
Fiona waited respectfully, restraining her sigh.
“You can’t have this many cars parked after midnight. It’s against town ordinance.”
Fiona looked at him steadily.
“You can’t be serious.”
“I’m afraid I am.”
“Are you giving everyone a ticket?”
“I’m afraid so. And you.”
“Me?” asked Fiona. “For what?”
“Constituting a public nuisance.”
“A nuisance?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“What nuisance?”
“The party and parking, ma’am.”
“Please stop calling me ma’am,” said Fiona. She knew she shouldn’t make things worse for herself, but ma’am was a word she detested.
The Sergeant looked at her steadily.
A thought came to her, inspired by her experience as a reporter in Chicago.
“I suppose I ought to know this by now, but what constitutes the designation of a nuisance property here on the Island?”
“Three citations, ma—” he broke off. “Three citations.”
Fiona nodded slowly. “I see.” She was silent for a moment. “Do my guests all have to move their cars?”
“They already have tickets.”
“You have had a very busy night, Sergeant.”
He shrugged philosophically.
“Okay, Sergeant. Carry on.” Resigned to her fate, Fiona turned to go announce the news to her guests.
“Uh, Ma’am?”
Her back to him, Fiona rolled her eyes and turned toward him politely. “Yes?”
“I need to write out your ticket.”
It was Fiona’s turn to deadpan. “Write away, Sergeant.” She stood stoically as he wrote on his clipboard.
He started to write her name, which, by now, he knew very well, but he paused and looked up.
“I’ve forgotten your middle initial.”
“A,” said Fiona.
“Oh, yes. For… ?” He looked up curiously. “It’s something unusual.”
“Ainsley.”
“Oh, right!” he said, delighted.
She stood with him, contemplating the juxtaposition of the spectacle above them and the mundane before them. When he was finished, he gave her a copy of the citation and explained about a court appearance.
As he was leaving, he broke, for just a moment, his official demeanor and leaned forward confidingly.
“Maybe next time you should invite her.”
Fiona did not feel like laughing, but she made a brief noise. “You do know her, right?”
This time the Sergeant smiled. “Yes, ma’am.”
The Northern Lights swirled above their heads as they each parted to their separate duties. Fiona found herself looking forward to the new book of essays that lay on her bedside table, William Hazlitt’s On the Pleasure of Hating.
Fiona was wandering the streets of a foreign city with a group of friends, but no one whose names she knew. Everyone was urgently going somewhere, but they were all cautioned to be careful of the snakes, which were extremely poisonous. Looking down at the sidewalk, Fiona realized that the snakes were everywhere: on the streets, hanging from trees, slithering out of sewer grates. They were an iridescent blue and their yellow eyes glittered.
Cautiously, she made her way toward a distant hill outside of the city, but as she was stepping from a bus onto the curb, she looked down into the gutter, and there was a snake, moving toward her, about to strike. In a quick movement, she grabbed the snake behind its head, holding tightly, so that it could not turn its head to bite her. The rest of its muscular body writhed furiously and she used her other hand to grab it. The snake was terrifyingly powerful, and she knew that if she loosed her grip, it would turn and bite and she would die. Desperately, she squeezed the neck of the snake, hoping to kill it, but it fought hard. The snake’s tail thrashed with so much power that she could barely hold it, even as it struggled to turn its head to bite her arms. Her hands were aching from the struggle, and she did not know if she could hold on long enough. She squeezed harder and the snake’s eyes began to pop, but it did not lessen its strength in the fight. Harder and harder she squeezed with both her hands, knowing that her only hope of saving herself was to strangle the snake. It was horrifying and it disgusted her, but she did not have any choice.
Fiona felt her strength failing, and even as it strangled, the snake renewed its battle to kill her. Finally, just as Fiona began to doubt that she could hold on, the snake went limp.
Unsure that it was dead, and afraid to let go, she continued to strangle the snake with both hands, looking for a safe way to release it and get away quickly. At last, in a clear space on the sidewalk, with no one else near, Fiona flung the limp snake away from her, and as she had feared, it began again to move. Suddenly, a hole opened in the sidewalk, and in one moment the snake slithered down it, disappearing into the dark. The hole disappeared in a small bright flash, and the sidewalk was clear.
Fiona woke with aching hands. In her sleep she had been acting out her dreams and her hands were stiff from clenching the dream snake. Feeling slightly sick in her heart, she looked at the clock. 3:17. Sighing, she turned on the light and reached for the book at her bedside. It was unlikely that she would sleep anymore tonight. Even with the light on, she couldn’t help imagining snakes coiled in her slippers next to the bed, or hidden under the covers. Chiding herself, and with great effort, she turned her mind away from the dream and concentrated on her book, On The Pleasure of Hating. Hating, she found, was becoming increasingly easy.
“So how’s married life, Roger?” asked Terry one morning. Roger looked clean, and rumpled as usual, but he also had dark circles under his eyes.
“Fine,” he said.
His friends had not expected a paean to wedded bliss from Roger, but there was something defensive in his manner that made them both suspicious.
Mike took in the expression on Roger’s face and put some things together.
“Women can be hard to understand,” he said in his quiet way. Roger glanced at Mike with a look of recognition.
“First year is rough,” added Terry. “You need to learn to work together as a team, not to keep pulling your own way.” He looked with sympathy at Roger. He had doubted all along that Roger was capable of the kind of personal interaction required for a successful marriage, but, of course, it had not been his place to say so. He felt sorry, too, for Elisabeth, who surely deserved more.
Roger burst out unexpectedly, “I want her to be happy. I don’t think I make her happy.”
There was an astonished silence after this, and everyone felt a bit embarrassed at this unwonted intimacy.
The Angel Joshua, who had not been invited to participate in the discussion, looked up from polishing the Italian coffee machine, and turned a beatific gaze of peace and beauty at Roger. “You need to get in touch with your feminine side to help you communicate. You should come to yoga with me.”
“Now, that’s something I’d like to see,” said Terry. “Let me know, so I can clear my schedule.” Mike smiled, and watched the expressions on his friends’ faces without speaking.
Roger turned his back on all of them and stalked into the back room. Terry and Mike stood up to go, taking out their wallets and putting bills next to their empty plates.
“Got to get down to Sturgeon Bay to the lumber yard,” said Terry. “Anybody need anything while I’m there?”
Mike and Joshua shook their heads and expressed their thanks, but from the back room came a kind of bellow.
“Paper towels!”
“Got it,” called Terry, and the door closed behind them as Terry and Mike headed out to their trucks and their separate ways.
Roger returned from the back, picked up a rag, and began wiping the counter. Soft jazz played tunelessly in the background.
“When is this class?” he asked, casually.
“There’s one at two o’clock today,” said Josh. “St. Anatole’s community room. Wear loose clothing. You know, like sweats.”
Roger nodded. The two men worked in silence until the next customers arrived.
“So is that it? You’re leaving us?”
Nancy Iverssen’s frank blue eyes bored into Fiona with such intensity that Fiona looked down in embarrassment. She felt like a schoolgirl caught in some underhanded endeavor.
It was the morning after Fiona’s party, and the house was in a reasonable state of post-party restoration. The only signs remaining were the random placement of chairs in the living room, the peculiar tilt of one of the lampshades, the prodigious array of empty bottles on the back porch, and the long row of newly washed glasses and dishes, neatly arranged along the kitchen counter waiting to be put away.
Nancy had stopped by on one of her random and unsolicited social calls, which Fiona generally enjoyed. They were sitting in Fiona’s kitchen drinking coffee. Fiona, who had been too busy at the party for even one drink, felt nevertheless as if she were nursing a hangover. If anything, she thought, the hangover came from her dream.
On top of that, the prospect of Stella DesRosiers running the Island crouched like an ugly toad in the corner of Fiona’s consciousness, making her head feel even worse. Stella would be capricious, petty, vindictive, and mercilessly efficient. She would seek out those whom she considered her enemies—chief among these would be Fiona herself—and find every means possible to make their lives a misery. The prospects for Fiona’s future happiness on the Island, she felt, were small indeed.
“Well,” began Fiona, weakly. “It was only supposed to be for the winter. I just felt that if I made it a year, no one would be able to quibble.”
Nancy harrumphed impatiently. “Damn fool idea. Moving to the island on a dare. But now you’re here, you might as well stay.” She paused, frowned, and pursed her lips as if considering some very serious proposition. “We’re kind of used to you.”
Fiona got up and stood at the window. This, she knew, was high praise coming from Nancy. She looked out at the autumn leaves falling from the big, old maple tree in the yard. There was a blank space beyond, where the barn used to be, and Fiona instinctively averted her gaze.
From the beginning, Fiona had had no intention of staying on the island for another winter. She had won her dare—with nothing but her own self-respect to show for it—and had been prepared to pack up and go back to the relative comforts of Ephraim on the mainland of Wisconsin’s Door County Peninsula. For a few brief and wild moments, she had even considered returning to Chicago where she had worked for some years as a reporter for a major newspaper.
But now that the time had come to make the move away, Fiona wasn’t sure that she could do it.
Moving back to the mainland felt like some form of disloyalty or betrayal, even though she wasn’t quite sure of what or of whom. But the trump card was Stella’s candidacy. That would change everything. Life here would be most unpleasant. Fiona shrugged her shoulders in a gesture of helplessness and turned back to her guest.
“The truth is, I don’t know if I can sell. The real estate market is pretty soft everywhere, but especially on the island.” She picked up an apple from the basket on the table and turned it idly in her hand. “I really can’t afford to leave if I don’t sell the place.”
Nancy grunted. “No doubt Stella would buy it,” she commented shrewdly.
Fiona nodded. She had thought of Stella buying her house, and she hated the idea, as Nancy had known she would. Stella desperately wanted Fiona’s property, and had schemed ruthlessly to acquire it. So ruthlessly, in fact, that Fiona couldn’t help suspecting that she had been involved in the barn fire. Would Stella have been capable even of that? It was no secret that she had feared and despised Robert, Fiona’s unwanted but oddly beguiling goat, who had been lost in the fire. And Stella no doubt blamed Fiona for the public victory she had won last June in front of the town board. But arson? “Surely not,” thought Fiona for the thousandth time. No, even Stella could not have done such a thing. Surely not.
Why, Fiona asked herself, should she even care whether Stella bought the place? Why should she care what Stella did or didn’t do? Let Stella find whatever warped victory she wanted. Let her run the Island. Why give Stella control of her life by letting her determine Fiona’s path?
Fiona recalled one of her favorite lines from Marcus Aurelius: You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.
She turned from the window, smiled at Nancy, and shrugged. “More coffee?” she asked.
Nancy was not to be deterred. “Maybe you’re planning to follow Pete to wherever he is.” She smiled wickedly. “He’s one probably worth following.” She nodded to herself in recollection. “I liked him. Capable, direct, and just a bit wily.” She looked at Fiona over the tops of her glasses. “Definitely a keeper, I’d say.”
Nancy paused for a moment, seeming to catch herself in a reverie, then shook her head as if shaking a strand of hair from her eyes, and smiled a bit regretfully.
“Well, time I was off. Those apples won’t pick themselves.” And with a nod of thanks, she was out of her chair, out the door, and down the path to her truck in her usual blaze of energy.
Rather dazedly, Fiona watched her go, and went slowly back to the kitchen to wash the coffee cups. She smiled to herself, remembering Nancy’s description of Pete. “A bit wily, indeed,” she thought.
Finishing in the kitchen, Fiona sat down at her desk to work on an article she had due, but her mind was preoccupied.
Despite what Nancy and Island gossip seemed to presume, Pete Landry—though ever charming—had not invited her to follow him anywhere. Even if he had, Fiona was not at all certain whether she would want to. To be fair, they had only really known one another a few months. He led a busy life, travelling all over the world for the energy company he worked for, often to remote and unfriendly places, and for months at a time. If she went to London, where he was based, she’d be alone most of the time anyway. Fiona had drastically uprooted herself twice recently: once when she moved to Ephraim from Chicago, and again last year when she had accepted the dare. Pete’s absence had left a hole in her life, but she was tired of upheaval. She wanted routine and normalcy and calm.
She sighed and turned her attention to her work. So far, nothing of her life on the Island—or anywhere else for that matter—had included any of those things.
At one-forty-five, Roger walked down the steps into St. Anatole’s basement community room to discover that he was the only one there. The light in the stairway was sufficient for him to find the wall switch, and he flipped it on. The room still smelled of the coffee and cake that had been served there for Bible study that morning. Folding chairs and tables had been stored neatly against the wall; and a series of posters announcing day care, rummage sales, and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings covered the wall near the big double doors that led upstairs to the church.
He was just in the process of deciding whether to sit somewhere or flee when he heard the voices in the stairwell, and two women clad in form-fitting clothing came in, followed closely by The Angel Joshua. The newcomers all knew one another, and Joshua introduced Roger to them. Roger gave a curt nod, but said nothing.
“I brought an extra mat for you,” Joshua told Roger. Roger accepted the mat, and following Joshua’s example, spread it out on the floor.
“I like to be toward the back,” said Joshua, “so I can follow the movements if I get lost.”
Still silent, Roger sat on his mat, and watched the others go through a series of similar, but, to Roger, impossible stretching and swaying movements. The room was beginning to fill, and the sound of women’s voices began to reverberate in the cinder block walls of the room.
Then, in a rush of energy, the instructor swept into the room, carrying a big tote bag and apologizing fluently for being late. She was a lithe, blonde woman, about forty. She was not beautiful, but she had an animal grace and vivacity that made her striking. Her wild blonde hair seemed to surround her face and shoulders like an aura.
She shed her boots and set up her mat quickly, then turned her attention to fidgeting with a small portable speaker that was wirelessly connected to her phone. This whirlwind of activity completed, she sat on her mat facing the class and began a little monologue of greeting.
“I’m so sorry for being late, everybody, but I had to take my car in for service down in Sturgeon Bay, and they didn’t have the right part, and it was just barely completed in time, and then I still needed to grab a couple of essentials down there, and, well, you know how it is. Time just got away from me, and I missed the ferry.”
All of this was delivered as she sat cross-legged on her mat, making a circle with her slim, perfect body as if she were hypnotizing a cobra. Roger, too, was mesmerized.
“I see we have a new class member. You’re a friend of Joshua’s?”
Roger nodded, but she barely paused before continuing.
“Just take it easy, if this is your first time, and I’ll come around and help you through. I’m Shay.”
She seemed to be expecting a response.
“Okay, Roger, great. Nice to have you here. Okay, everybody. Everybody nice and warmed up?”
A chorus of responses came from the group, and the class began.
Self-consciousness had never been a problem for Roger, since, in order to feel self-conscious, one needed to be aware of other people’s feelings. Thus unencumbered, Roger endeavored to follow the class as best he could. A series of movements Shay called “Sun Salutations” provided one challenge after another to Roger. Shay may have appeared scattered, but she was a gifted teacher, and she quickly realized that Roger was out of his depth. Only a few moments after the class began, she began to move to the back of the room, and talking non-stop to the class, directing and cajoling, she was simultaneously standing near Roger, pulling on his leg here, nudging his shoulders back and his arms higher, gently pushing his head further toward the floor.
Roger did what he was told, to the extent that he was capable, but he wasn’t very flexible, he discovered. The rest of the class seemed to easily bend themselves into the requisite shapes, and the strange sound of their rhythmic breathing filled the room. Roger couldn’t touch his toes, his downward dog was spread too far apart, and his sun salutation was clumsy. His arms and legs seemed to have minds of their own. Shay came around to him again, offering instructions to the class as she moved to the back of the room. She told them to lift their legs to the sky, and Roger thought he was doing so until she tugged it into a place that did not feel natural. His leg did not go that way, he was quite certain. He tried rotating his shoulder back during downward dog, as instructed, but he didn’t know what it meant to rotate his shoulders, and he succeeded only in appearing to writhe in some kind of yogic agony. He tried to concentrate on breathing as Shay instructed, but this added a level of complication he had not imagined possible. After what seemed an hour of the deepest concentration and pain, he caught a glimpse of the clock and saw that seven minutes had passed.
Sun salutations, Roger discovered, were nearly endless, and endlessly difficult. He had no difficulty in raising himself from the floor in a plank pose, which Shay called “Phalankasana,” on the way to Cobra, but for all practical purposes, this was the extent of his abilities. With relief, he heard Shay announce that they were moving on to Warrior pose. Warriors, Roger felt sure, were something he could understand. But when the warrior pose morphed into inverted triangles and other geometric eccentricities, Roger, his head pointing to the floor, began to realize that there would be no refuge.
At last it was over. The class sat cross-legged facing the front of the room, and Roger, whose legs didn’t exactly cross, copied the others as they put their palms together in front of their hearts and bowed to their teacher. “Namaste,” they said in unison. Roger had heard this word, but did not know its meaning. Perhaps it was Sanskrit for “gratitude after pain.”
There began a bustle as the students began rolling up their mats, gathering belongings, and putting on jackets and sweaters. Shay came up to Roger and put her hand on his arm.
“What did you think, Roger? Will we be seeing you again?”
“Yes,” said Roger in his economical fashion. “When?”
“On Thursday, same time. Be sure to practice. And Roger,” she put her both her hands on each of his arms as if she were about to shake him, “I sense a deep well of spirituality in you. Nice work.”
Roger watched her go, and then turned to hand Joshua’s mat to him.
“Hang onto it ‘til you get your own, man. I don’t need it.” And with a wave, The Angel Joshua departed, leaving Roger to find his own way out, his borrowed mat rolled carefully under his arm.
Emily and Jason Martin were quite pleased at the way their Scouting project was going. The visits from the boys inevitably led to visits from their parents, coming to pick them up, or to chaperone the small, boisterous, but essentially well-mannered group. This growing familiarity with their new neighbors would help to ensure the Martins’ entrée into the community, and this was all according to plan.
Today they were working on the presentations each boy would have to make about what he had learned. This, on the Island—where finding entertainment in small things was something of an art form—would be an opportunity for a well-publicized community event. The presence of an audience would place additional pressure on the boys, but would nevertheless provide support and enthusiasm as well. Making the posters for the presentations would come later. There was a visit to the barn to make first.
The Martins felt strongly that it was important for the boys to spend as much time as possible with the animals, and therefore every session for the animal husbandry badge began with the boys heading out to the barn to participate in the many aspects of goat care and feeding. The Scouts grew increasingly confident around the animals, calling them by name, leading them in and out of their enclosures, and knowing the farm’s routines and the locations of various necessary equipment. In encouraging these encounters, the Martins proved to be thoughtful and effective teachers.
Among the vital lessons taught was the necessity of keeping the bucks and does separated. On a farm, there could be no unplanned co-minglings, and Emily and Jason were clear and firm in explaining these common sense facts of life. The boys listened with only a few secret, gleaming glances at one another. They were duly impressed by the responsibilities being shared with them, and by the unexpected revelation of this adult knowledge. Their usual chatter somewhat diminished by self-consciousness, they returned to the house and their posters afterward, and set to work with a seriousness of purpose. It wasn’t long before their animation returned, however, and fueled in part by the appearance of cookies, the house was soon filled with boyish exuberance.