The River King (10 page)

“There's nothing wrong,” Helen said when she saw the worry on Betsy's face. It was pity that showed there, absolutely the last thing Helen needed.

Betsy went to turn off the kettle, and as she did she thought of Carlin Leander, the pretty scholarship girl who wore the same clothes nearly every day and never went out on weekends with the rest of the crowd. “I think you need some help around here and I know someone who'd be perfect. She needs the money, you need a strong pair of hands.”

“There's nothing I want less than help.” Helen felt dizzy, but with effort she managed to sound almost as ill-tempered as usual. This time around, however, she certainly wasn't scaring Betsy, who had begun to search the cupboards, at last finding something worthwhile, a jar of freeze-dried coffee.

Although the coffee Betsy fixed was awful, Helen did feel somewhat revitalized after a taste. If asked, she could probably walk to the history department and back right now. She could lift her damned book bag right over her head, couldn't she? In fact, she was feeling so much better she didn't notice Betsy sniffing around the pantry.

“Where are the roses?” Betsy asked. “They're definitely here somewhere.”

“There are no roses.” As usual, the scent had eluded her. Helen no longer imagined she would ever be able to experience that which had always passed her by, any more than she expected to be granted forgiveness for her youthful mistakes. “It's nothing. Some air freshener. An old sachet.”

As she spoke, Helen remembered that Annie Howe had been known for a particular recipe, rose angel cake, baked only on special occasions, Easter, for instance, or to celebrate a student's birthday. Fresh vanilla beans and rose petals were added just before the tins went into the oven, and maybe that was why students all over campus were drawn to Annie's kitchen, with the more forward among them knocking at her back door to beg for a taste. These days, nobody baked anymore, let alone added roses and vanilla to the batter. People were perfectly satisfied with store-bought desserts and quick divorces and watery instant coffee. Perhaps Helen had lived too long; certainly there were days when it felt that way. So much had changed, she wasn't the same person anymore as the girl who'd come to Haddan, that foolish child who thought she knew so much. She used to work all night long; she used to wait up for the sunrise. Now she was lucky if she was able to walk from her kitchen to her bedroom without her legs giving out. She was too weak to go to the market, and could no longer carry her groceries home. Lately there had been nights when she found herself wishing for company or a hand to hold.

“Fine, if you insist,” Helen Davis said. “Send the girl.”

* * *

HARRY McKENNA DECIDED HE WANTED CARLIN lin as soon as he spied her in the doorway to the library one rainy afternoon. In the low branches of a weeping beech, there sat a pair of phoebes, birds who mate for life and sing an uncommonly tender song. Most birds hide in the rain, but not these phoebes, and the girl with the green eyes was pointing them out to Gus Pierce, who had somehow managed to be lucky enough to be there beside her at the moment when Harry first saw her.

Carlin was laughing, unaware of the rain; her hair was damp and silvery. Harry knew right then that he had to have her, never doubting for a moment that like everything else he had ever wanted, she'd be his before long. He began to attend swim meets, watching from the bleachers, applauding her efforts with such vigor that before long everyone on the team was whispering about Carlin's not-so-secret admirer. In the dining hall, he watched from a nearby table, his interest so apparent and scorching that girls all around him wilted from the heat.

“You'd better watch out,” Gus Pierce said to Carlin when he observed Harry McKenna. “He's a monster.”

But of course, as soon as she heard that remark, Carlin did what any sensible girl might have done and looked for herself. She expected to find some leering creature, but instead she caught sight of the most beautiful boy she'd ever seen. Yes, she'd been aware that someone had been rooting for her at swim meets, and she'd known that someone had been following her, and she'd surely heard Amy and Pie gossiping about her Harry, how gorgeous he was, how unattainable. But Carlin had had her share of admirers and she hadn't paid the slightest bit of attention to this one, until now. She smiled at Harry McKenna for an instant, but that one look was enough to assure him that with the right amount of patience and fortitude he would get what he wanted.

Harry had always been well versed in seduction; he had a gift for such things, as though he'd been born with compliments tumbling from his mouth. Already, he'd been through the prettiest of the senior and junior girls. There were girls whose lives he had ruined, and those who persisted in calling him long after his disinterest was evident, and still others who waited steadfastly for him to return and be true. He was bored by such girls and primed for a challenge, and it amused him to wait for Carlin outside the gym. When she came out with her teammates, there he'd be, so obvious in his intentions that the other girls would elbow one another and trade jealous remarks. Before long, Carlin had begun to walk back to St. Anne's with him. They held hands before they looked into each other's eyes; they kissed before they spoke. It should not have brought Carlin pleasure to know how the other girls at St. Anne's envied her, and yet it did exactly that. Her skin flushed prettily whenever she felt their resentful eyes upon her. If anything, she had become even more beautiful. In the dark she was luminous, as though she'd been ignited by the other girls' spite and lust.

Of course, she told Harry nothing of her real background; he had no idea that she hadn't the money for a cup of coffee at Selena's, had barely enough for books, and that her wardrobe was sorely lacking. She had no decent socks, no winter clothes, no boots. She'd been forced to take Miss Chase's suggestion and had begun to work for Miss Helen Davis, twenty hours a week of shopping, cleaning, and running errands. As for Miss Davis, she found that having Carlin around was not as dreadful as she'd imagined it might be. This particular girl was quiet and quick. Unlike most of the spoiled students at Haddan, she knew how to use a mop and a broom. Carlin had begun to fix Miss Davis's supper, nothing fancy, a broiled chicken breast perhaps, prepared with lemon and parsley, served with a baked potato. There was a cache of old cookbooks in the cabinets, never used, and she began to experiment with desserts, preparing grape-nut pudding one night, cranberry-prune compote the next, graham cracker chocolate cheesecake on Fridays.

These suppers were by far the most delicious meals that had been set upon Miss Davis's table for some time. She'd spent the past fifteen years eating canned soup and crackers in the evenings rather than face the ruckus in the dining hall. “I hope you don't think I'll raise your grade because of this,” she said every time she sat down to her supper.

Carlin no longer bothered to remind her employer that she was not in Miss Davis's freshman class, having had the bad fortune to be scheduled into Mr. Herman's Ancient Civilizations seminar, which she found a complete bore. Still, she never replied to Miss Davis's remarks. Instead, Carlin remained at the sink washing dishes, her posture straight, her hair ashen in the dim light. She rarely spoke. She only stirred the pot of soup on the rear burner of the stove, nearly ready for the next day's lunch, and dreamed of a pair of boots she'd noticed in the window of Hingram's Shoe Shop, black leather with silver buckles. She thought about the way she'd lied to Harry McKenna, not only about her family's background, but about her own experience in matters of love. In truth, she had never even been kissed before. She'd been running from love, exactly as her mother had raced straight toward it, headlong and without any doubts. Now, her involvement with Harry had knocked the wind out of her. She had set out on a path she neither understood nor recognized, and because she was accustomed to being in control, the whole world seemed to be spinning past her.

“What's the matter with you anyway?” Helen asked one evening. Carlin had worked for her for several weeks and hadn't said more than a mouthful of words. “Cat got your tongue?”

Helen's own cantankerous cat, Midnight, was sitting on her lap, waiting for bits of chicken. The cat was ancient, and although wounded in many battles, it insisted upon going out every evening. It leapt down and scratched at the door until Carlin went to let it out. Twilight was coming earlier, and the low clouds turned scarlet at dusk.

“I'll bet you're in love.” Helen was quite smug about her ability to tell which girls had been stricken each October.

“Did you want custard?” Carlin returned to the stove. “It's butterscotch.”

Rather than admit she was desperate for money, Carlin told people she was helping Miss Davis in return for a community service credit. She had planned to tell this to Gus also, if she ever got the chance to talk to him, for it seemed he had begun to avoid her. If he noticed her heading toward him, he'd manage to disappear behind a hedge or a tree, skittering down a path or a lane before Carlin could catch up. He disapproved of Harry, that was the problem, and lately it seemed as if he disapproved of Carlin as well. In fact, it was a single image that kept him at bay. One afternoon, Carlin had leaned over the gate outside St. Anne's to kiss Harry good-bye, even though she should have known better than to share a kiss over a gate, an action that it is said to cause a rift between a girl and her beloved before the day is through. When she looked up, Carlin saw that Gus was watching. Before she could call out to him, he had vanished, like those foolhardy assistants in magic shows who crawl into trunks to be dismembered and put back together again. Unlike those individuals, however, Gus had not reappeared.

People said he was taking his meals in his room, and that he no longer changed his clothes, and there were those who reported he would not respond even when called by name. Indeed, he had been cutting classes, preferring to spend his time wandering through town. He had gotten to know Haddan's topography, particularly the deserted areas beside the river, where the marbled salamanders lay eggs in the green waters of Sixth Commandment Pond. He walked the lanes, watching as large congregations of blackbirds flew overhead. Plenty of Haddan residents were enjoying the outdoors at this time of year. It was the height of the fall colors, and meadows and woods offered dizzying displays of yellow and damson and scarlet. The fields were thick with blooming redtop and ripe wild grapes; on porches and in backyards all over town there were pots of chrysanthemums and asters in shades of crimson and gold.

In spite of his rambles, August Pierce was not especially drawn to the landscape; rather, his nature walks served only to help him avoid the Haddan School. By the time other students were in morning classes, Gus was already at his regular seat at the pharmacy lunch counter, ordering black coffee. He hunched over the counter as he worked on a crossword, often staying right on through noon. Ordinarily, Pete Byers didn't care for students hanging around during class time, but he had come to appreciate Gus and he sympathized with the boy's trials at school. Pete had been privy to more personal matters than anyone else in town; he knew people's appetites and their downfalls far better than their own husbands and wives ever did, and he was quite familiar with the private lives of Haddan students as well.

People who were well acquainted with Pete knew he didn't gossip and he didn't judge. He was as pleasant to Carlin when she came looking for earplugs to prevent swimmer's ear as he was to old Rex Hailey, who'd been frequenting the drugstore all his life and who liked to chat for an hour or so whenever he came to pick up the Coumadin that would hopefully prevent another stroke. When Mary Beth Tosh's father was going through colon cancer and the insurance money wasn't on time, Pete gave Mary Beth whatever medicine was needed without any charge, happy to wait for the correct payments. In his long career, Pete Byers had seen too many people sick and dying, far more, he would wager, than those young doctors over at the health center in Hamilton ever had. These days, people never seemed to have appointments with the same doctor twice, with HMOs shuffling their patients around as if they had no more weight and importance than playing cards. Dr. Stephens, who had kept an office on Main Street for forty-five years, was a great old man, but he'd closed up his practice and moved to Florida, and even before the doctor had retired, it was Pete people came to when they wanted to talk, and as a matter of fact, they still do.

Pete had never discussed any of the information he'd been told, not even with his wife, Eilecn. He wouldn't think of telling her which member of the garden club had bunions or who was trying out Zoloft for her nervous condition. Once, years ago, Pete hired a clerk from Hamilton, a fellow named Jimmy Quinn, but as soon as Pete discovered that his new assistant had taken to perusing customers' medical histories while eating his lunch, Quinn was fired, let go that very same day. Ever since, Pete has kept his ledgers under lock and key. Not even his nephew, Sean, sent up from Boston in the hopes he'd finally fly right and manage to finish out his senior year at Hamilton High, had access to the files. Not that Sean Byers was the type to be trusted. He was a dark, handsome kid of seventeen who had managed to mess up his life fairly well, at least well enough to convince his mother, Pete's favorite sister, Jeannette, to step in and take action when Jeannette had always been the easygoing type, preferring to leave well enough alone. Sean had stolen two cars and been caught with one of them. Because of this, he had been placed under his uncle's watchful eye, away from the evil influence of the city, stuck in the middle of nowhere. When Sean reported to work after a day in Hamilton High School he was always grateful for Gus's company. At least there was one other individual in Haddan who hated the town as much as he did.