Preston Falls : a novel (5 page)

"How're you going to get all this shit back to the house?"

She looks at him. "You are going to bring the platter back here" she says. "After you have washed it."

"Ah," he says. "Silly me." Then he stands there.

"You have heard of salmonella? Or is this all beneath your notice?"

"Got it." He salutes again. "I had not been clear as to why it was that the platter had to be washed. I now understand." He takes up the platter and stalks out into the rain.

In the kitchen, he cracks another tallboy, takes three monster gulps and waits for the rush. The rush: dream on. But he thinks he maybe feels just the slightest little added distance from things. When he's got the platter washed—not just rinsed, as he could've done with no one the wiser, but washed, with Lemon Joy—he can't find the fucking dish towels. He flumps into the dining room like the prince of all put-upons to see if they're in here for some reason, then glances into the living room: Champ and Tina are sprawled on the couch, her bare foot at the crotch of his jeans, his leg up to the knee under her sleeveless sundress.

Champ looks up and sees Willis looking. "Hey," he says. "So when's din-din?" He looks out the window—to misdirect Willis's gaze?—and eases his bare foot from between Tina's thighs.

Willis consults an imaginary wristwatch, scowls and barks, "Ten minutes, Mr. Whiteside."

"Can we do anything?" says Tina. She's rubbing the sole of her foot along Champ's fly: couple inches up, couple inches down.

"Just make sure your hands are clean when you come to the table," Willis says. "We like to keep it sterile around here."

"Sounds hot," she says.

Willis polishes off the rest of the tallboy, cracks another one and gulps down about half of that. And as he's bringing the platter back out to the woodshed, son of a bitch if he doesn't feel like he's getting a little buzz on. This fleeting moment—a late-summer rainstorm slowly letting up, a bird's sad little rain song, the muskiness of the country air—will never come again. So fuck it.

Squatting on the dirt floor of the woodshed, Jean lifts a skewer and

PRESTON FALLS

tilts her head to peek at the underside. She always worries that the vegetables will burn before the chicken's cooked, but it always turns out okay. Except the vegetables always get a little burned. Well, fine; she's not Martha Stewart. And nobody else, frankly, is lifting a finger. Though in fairness, Willis has been helping—here he is with the platter. Still, she's seen about enough of that salute.

When she finally sets the shish kebabs on the dining room table, she sees Champ and Tina on the couch in the living room. "Hey hey hey," he says.

"Lunch is ready," she says. Absolutely classic: this man going Hey hey hey while she runs herself ragged. And the girlfriend, what's her problem? Recuperating from her shower? Jean could've used a shower too. She steps into the hall and hears herself yell the kids' names like a fishwife.

Willis pokes his head in from the kitchen. "So we need two more chairs, right?"

"If everybody intends to sit, yes."

"We got 'em, we got 'em," Champ says, pulling Tina to her feet and leading her by the hand toward the kitchen.

Willis goes to the sink and washes his hands with Lemon Joy one more time, just to be pissy, then wipes them on his jeans and brings what's left of his beer into the dining room. He hears the kids trudging down the stairs and Mel saying, "Cut it out, Roger."

Champ and Tina, each carrying a chair, squeeze through the doorway. "Now the motorcade is making a sharp left on Elm," Champ says. "We can see the President waving—"

"Will you stop?" says Tina.

"You can't say Texas doesn't love you, Mr. President."

"Why can't he be into the Civil War?" says Tina.

"Anywhere anybody likes," says Jean. They all sit. Roger pointedly next to Champ, Mel pointedly not next to Roger. Rathbone lies down on his side in the corner, looking lonesome and defeated.

"Good dog," says Willis. One thing they've done right, at least: not feeding the dog at the table.

"Does anybody care for lemonade?" Jean says. Willis wonders when she found time to make lemonade.

"Tm set," says Champ.

"I'm fine, thanks," says Tina. They're both working on tallboys.

Willis says nothing. Seems better than heaping it on.

"Me," says Roger.

"Is that a yes-please?" says Jean,

"Yeah," says Roger.

"Yes please," says Mel.

"Yes please," says Roger in a pinchy voice.

"Hey hey hey, and what have we here?" says Champ, rubbing his hands.

"Roger?" says Jean. "Once more and you have a time-out."

"Chicken droit du seigneur,'' says Willis. This jeu d'esprit just came to him.

"Ooh la la," says Champ.

"Well, you told me to say yes please," says Roger.

"You have a time-out," says Jean. "Go. Up to your sisters room."

Roger shrugs and gets up. Mel stares down at her plate.

When he's trudged into the living room, heading for the stairs, Jean aims a finger-and-thumb pistol at the doorway and goes Pyew. "I'm sorry about his behavior today," she says. WiUis waits to hear her add that Roger's not always like this, so he can say something cutting. But she leaves it at that.

"Don't even think about it," says Tina. "7 was a bratty kid at that age. Jean, this looks so excellent''

Champ looks at Tina and does zip-your-lip. Tina frowns in puzzlement.

"Ahem," Willis says to Champ. "You were supposed to say, 'Why do you call it chicken droit du seigneur}' "

"Anything for a giggle," says Champ. "Okay, why?"

"Because I get the first piece." Willis grabs a skewer, puts it on his own plate and passes the platter to Tina.

Champ just looks at him. "That was the punch line?"

"Please help yourselves," Jean says. So at least somebody got it. Then she looks over at Mel, which really pisses Willis the fuck off. It was deliberately over the kids' heads, for Christ's sake. And Mel's not paying attention anyway. She's looking over at Roger, who's peeking around the doorway, giving her the finger.

''Mo-ther?" Mel says.

The way Willis feels—he's buzzed, no question—they can all take a flying fuck. This will never be over.

When it clears up, late in the afternoon, Willis takes Champ and Tina for a walk to the top of the hill. Jean claims she's got stuff in the house to take care of; Mel, friend of the rain forest, stays inside cultivating her boredom; Roger's having yet another time-out, this time for calling Mel a cunt.

On the path, sunbeams slant with false cheer through the dripping trees. At last, breathing hard, they stand in wet grass on the hilltop and look across at other hilltops. "Shit, it's already fall up here," Champ says.

"Hey, this is the North Country, bro," Willis says, meaning he's man enough to take it. In fact, he's been trying not to notice the few red leaves.

Back at the house, Champ and Tina go upstairs and Willis gets a start on stacking that wood. When they come down, an hour later. Champ tries to tinker with his top, gives up and insists on taking them out to dinner, to celebrate Willis's quote liberation.

Jean's not thrilled, but she's also not thrilled at the prospect of getting a dinner together for these people she just got a big lunch together for. She calls the Bjorks to ask if that invitation to swim still holds and if it could possibly be stretched so the kids could stay for dinner. Jean is never this pushy, but the Bjorks owe them one: last summer the Willises took the Bjork kids overnight so Arthur and Katherine could go to a resort on Lake Champlain for a twenty-four-hour Marriage Intensive.

The Bjorks live on 82nd between Central Park and Columbus; God knows why they chose Preston Falls for a weekend place. Though their house is great: a big old two-and-a-half-story Federal on Watson Road. White clapboards, dark-green shutters, red barn, pond with a dock and a sandy beach—your basic $750,000 country retreat, which they probably got for like one seventy-five because it's in Preston Falls. He's a something at ABC and Jean's forgotten what she does. Lawyer? They

put up with the Willises because otherwise it's down to the locals, whom Katherine calls "a bit rough-hewn." Jean knows what she means. Once, at an auction, Mel befriended a pretty, grubby little girl who called her father "fart-face" and got smacked across the mouth by her three-hundred-pound mother, whose sloppy arms were as big around as the child's waist. Sorry, but Jean has zero regard for these people.

Willis herds everybody into the Cherokee: Jean shotgun, Mel in back between Champ and Tina. Roger refuses to sit on his mother's lap and share her seat belt but climbs over everybody into the wayback, where of course he starts whining about getting carsick. (The dirt roads are in washboard mode, because the town can't afford to grade.) At the Bjorks', the kids disappear and the adults do their dance. Stay for a drink? Gee, wish we could. Willis notices that Arthur Bjork's got this fucking cap on: P inside a star, from some old Negro League team. (He recognizes it because he once priced these caps himself.) Watching him and Champ together might be fun, but only in retrospect.

"Why don't I go in back with Tina," Jean tells Champ. "Be a little more room for your legs."

"No-no-no-no-no," says Champ. "Plenty of room. Fuckin' Taj Mahal back here."

"Taj Mahal?" says Tina.

"Really, do take the front," Jean says. "I never get to ride in back."

"Well, if that's your dream."

"Yes, that's my dream," she says.

For the next two hours they drive around Vermont and New York State, looking for a place Champ thinks has the right vibe: nothing log, nothing steakhousey, nothing too seventies (by which he seems to mean big windows with plants) and nothing that calls itself an "inn." And no Mexican. He tells Willis about a document that says a George Bush of the CIA briefed the FBI about something the day after Kennedy was shot; the CIA claims this was a different George Bush, but researchers managed to track down that George Bush and he says it wasn't him. Willis catches bits of what Jean's talking about back there with Tina: shit about kids and school, how lucky she is that her sister will be around while Willis is away. But he knows she must be ready to jump out of her fucking skin; Jean hates just aimlessly driving.

At last Willis remembers this place called the Old Tuscany, on the access road to one of the big ski areas on the other side of Manchester. He and Jean ate there once and it was okay. Pretentious enough to be

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camp: maybe that's the vibe. He pulls over onto a sandy shoulder— "What are we doing?" Jean says—and makes a U-turn. Champ tries to find a Christian station, but Willis heads that off and gets Hot Country, which Jean dislikes but will usually sit still for.

"Isn't that a new awning?" says Willis, when they finally get to the entrance. White canvas with gold trim and a lion rampant.

"I wouldn't know," says Jean.

Champ breaks into song: It's a neeeew awning. Doodle-a-doodle-a. Neeeeiv awning . . .

"Champ missed his calling," says Tina. She doesn't go on to say what his calling might have been.

Champ and Tina, goosing each other, follow Jean up the flagstone walk while Willis gives the keys to a shaven-headed kid with white shirt, black bow tie, knife-creased black slacks and running shoes you're not supposed to notice. A red-faced alcohoHc in Swiss Guard's uniform (the idea seems to be Tuscany = Italy = the Vatican) pulls back the heavy, studded door, thick as the Manhattan phone book, and in the dark foyer the greeter lady waits at a rostrum whose bronze lamp lights her book. Do they have reservations? "Who wouldn't?" says Willis, affecting to quail before a suit of armor in the entryway. She gives him the smile he's extorted.

Some guy in black takes them to a table and hands around upholstered menus, and somebody else comes to turn the water glasses right side up and pour ice water from a sweating metal pitcher. Then yet another guy arrives and asks if they'd care for drinks. "Definitely," says Willis. "I'm a very caring person."

When the drinks arrive—martini, martini, martini, Pellegrino— Willis says, "Now that I have you here." He feels in his pocket. "It's not much, but hey—what is?"

"Now what the fuck is this about?" says Champ.

Willis shrugs. "I don't know. Anniversary? Labor Day two years ago, I remember you were up here and you said you'd just met this amazing person. Little did I know you wouldn't screw it up—I mean, so far."

"You dick," Champ says. "What are you, trying to guilt me?"

"So who does the honors?" says Willis.

"Shit, now I will have to pick up the fucking check." Champ pokes a thumb at Tina. "Better let my animal companion open it. Everything I am today, I owe to her."

"Sure, blame me," says Tina.

It's not until Tina's actually got a fingernail under the wrapping paper that it hits Willis what an incredibly bad idea this was.

"Now what have we here?" says Champ when Tina holds up the box of Touch Thins. Willis doesn't dare look at Jean but hears her take a breath.

"Well, you know," Willis says. "I just figured the madness has to stop at some point, right?" He's alluding to overpopulation; even Champ looks puzzled.

"Would you excuse me, please?" says Jean. She gets up and goes off toward the rest rooms.

Willis figures his best stance at this point is unremitting joviality. "There, ah, should be something else in there?" he says. "An envelope, perchance?"

"Is Jean all right?" says Tina.

"Hey," he says. "When you gotta go, you gotta go."

"Now what have we here?" says Champ. Which he's said already. He picks up his butter knife and slits the envelope.

Willis waits, then says, "That confirms you guys for the second weekend in October, which should be pretty near peak foliage. If you had plans for then, better start weaseling out of them."

Looking at Willis, Champ passes the printout to Tina. "Are you shitting me?"

''Oh my God," says Tina. "We loved this place—it is the most fabulous. Champ actually relaxed"