Women & Other Animals (12 page)

"Why don't you
buy
a boat?"

"I want to build my own boat, the way I did this bed. I slept on mattresses on the floor for a month and a half until I finished this."

Gwen looked at the headboard, which was made of solid planks, nothing fancy. "How about a motor? You going to build that?" Her dad would have called her a smartass.

"Next door neighbor's got a twoandahalf horsepower he'll sell me. I got my boat plan from a librarysale book from 1905. You have to bend the wood and use brass screws. You probably know all this stuff from living on the river. Maybe you can take me for a ride in your boat tomorrow."

Michael was propped on one elbow looking at her. Gwen had never driven a boat with a man in it, and it struck her as a fine idea that she'd take Michael up to Willow Island. Instead of offering, though, she leaned up and kissed Michael, and the kiss she got in return was so mild that she wasn't sure it had happened. When Jake kissed you, you knew you'd been kissed.

"Talk to me," he said. "I don't kiss just any girl who wanders in here. Who was that man at your house the other day?" When she didn't respond he said, "Tell me why you're out in the rain. What could a girl like you be afraid of out there?''

Page 77

She couldn't tell if Michael was laughing at her, and she wasn't sure she minded if he was. She would've liked to tell him something—maybe that she'd seen the heron flying with a little snake—but then he'd want her to talk more. His arm lay above the blankets, small compared to Jake's or Dan's or her father's. This arm couldn't hold her down or put her any place she didn't want to be. A girl could even stand and fight against an arm like this, instead of running away. The light dimmed across the river, then flickered and went out. Michael started to talk several times, but stopped himself. Gwen felt sorry for him, for his being unable to overwhelm a woman.

She turned to face him, then pulled him against her with what felt like somebody else's strength.

"I'm not afraid of anything," she whispered. Even if it was a lie, she liked saying it. She wrapped a hand around the back of Michael's neck and kissed him hard. She pushed her fingers through his hair, then felt along his boneandmuscle shoulder with her hand, wanting suddenly to touch as much of his skin as possible. She leaned across him and felt the curve of his back and his buttock, then continued down his leg until she felt him shudder and move toward her. Fresh air trickled through a window not quite closed. King sighed on the floor. From the end of the hall she heard the clothes and blanket in the dryer turning around and around, softly falling on each other.

She woke alone to light pouring through the sliding glass door, luxurious on her clean skin. Her own cottage had no southern exposure, and she usually slept with her clothes on. Gwen pulled herself up and noticed her quilt and her jeans and red Tshirt folded on the end of the bed. Money was folded on top. Her heart thudded hotly before she realized that it was the bills and change that she'd left in her pants pocket. In the kitchen she found Michael wearing a tie and a name tag.

"Do you want to stay here while I'm at work?" He leaned against the sink counter. She tried to remember his warm, bare chest, but his body seemed stiff and small beneath the white shirt, and she couldn't imagine him naked.

"I'm going home," she said automatically.

Page 78

He handed her a cup of coffee. "How old are you, Gwendolyn? I'm thirtyone."

"Eighteen." She pushed aside three clothbound books and an old
Mother Earth News
and rested her coffee on newspapers. King sat on the floor beside her.

"You wouldn't lie, would you?" he said. "If you're sixteen, I could be arrested for statutory rape. God, I had no intention of doing that last night. I don't even know you." He stared at Gwen in a way that seemed rude, so she refused to look up at him. He raping her—what a joke. She sipped her coffee and stroked King's head.

The dog had the most glorious eyes, as warm as fire. As the silence expanded, Gwen let herself settle into it. Silence was a game that she felt comfortable with, the only game she knew she could win. She didn't even consider saying that she'd trade the whole river for coffee this good every morning. Instead, she pretended to be out in the boat with her father or Jake, pushing thoughts out of her mind so she wouldn't be tempted to express them.

"I'm sorry," Michael finally said, sitting across from her, giving in as suddenly as he had last night. "I just don't know anything about you. For all I know you're some lost heiress or a girl who just killed her whole family and buried them in the garden."

Through the window Gwen watched an old man in a limp fishing hat troll downstream.

"Or maybe I'm dreaming you." His voice grew quieter. "Because, believe me, if I dreamed a girl, she'd be just like you. She'd have beautiful shoulders like you. She'd be smart, and she'd even smell like you."

What could she smell like? Gwen wondered. She'd just had a shower.

"Except this girl would talk. She'd argue with me. And if I was lucky, she'd be an heiress with an island in the river."

Gwen still kept his words on the surface. She wasn't a wolf girl or a murderer or an heiress. Or a dream. She was Gwen, trying to figure out what to do next. Give her some matches and gas and she'd be fine for a while longer. King pushed her head beneath Gwen's hand until Gwen resumed petting her.

Page 79

"But maybe that guy you live with will come back and cut me up and use me for bait."

Gwen thought that was the first sensible thing he'd said. "Don't worry about him."

"So he's gone for good?"

Gwen shrugged and tried not to think about Jake coming back. He could be found innocent. The judge could let him go.

"Are you going to live in that cottage year 'round? Keep warm with wood?"

"I'm thinking about going south this winter. Florida, maybe."

"The herons go to Florida. You'll fly south like the birds, eh?"

As if seeing through clear water, Gwen imagined Jake and Dan coming downstream in the boat, and her stomach knotted. The thought of Jake's body near hers made it hard to breathe. Suddenly she couldn't stand Michael's laughing talk. "I have to go."

"Will you come back tonight?" Michael's eyes were as brown and hopeful as King's. Jake's eyes were deep blue. "We can eat dinner or something. I could come get you in the Jeep."

"There's no road."

"And I don't have a boat yet, so I guess it's up to you, Gwendolyn." He folded his arms and watched her stand and drain her coffee and walk to the door, just as he'd watched her row away with his dog on the day they'd met.

Gwen sat crosslegged on her dock and watched Michael pull out of the driveway. She felt the tug of King and Michael and the house, solid even without its floors and walls and baseboards. Even the road onto which Michael turned pulled at her—it led to Confluence, Roseville, and Snow Pigeon, and all the towns on other rivers. Maybe she could go to Michael's house during the day to be with King or bring the dog over here. Or maybe, thought Gwen, she would just hitchhike away from here and find a new place, where people would let you start over again without asking a lot of questions. A heron dropped from the sky and settled out of sight downstream. Two female mallards drifted near shore, one not quite fullgrown. Gwen wondered if this was all that remained of a dozen chicks that the momma hatched this June. Maybe this girl was the

Page 80

only one who survived the fat raccoons who hunted at the water's edge. Gwen lay back on her dock, her hands behind her head and her knees up, and fell asleep.

Late that afternoon, a pale car pulled into Michael's driveway, and Gwen knew immediately that the woman who stepped out of it was the owner of the white underthings. She disappeared behind the house and, shortly afterwards, King bounced down to the water. Was she intending to take the fishing dog away? As soon as Gwen considered the possibility, she reeled in her line, dragged the outboard motor off the boat without taking any care to protect the propeller, and rowed into the current, rowed so hard that she landed upstream. King ran to her, but bowed playfully and tossed her head instead of climbing into the boat. "King! Come!" Gwen barked. "King! Come!" As the dog jumped in, the woman appeared from inside the house. She wore a white sleeveless turtleneck. Gwen could imagine her holding a glass of champagne, looking over at Gwen and not inviting her to the party.

"What are you doing with Renegade?" the woman yelled. Her hair had the color and shine of caramel melted onto apples. Her bare arms were long and clean.

"She's not yours!" Gwen yelled. "You left her!"

"I'll call the police, you freaky little tramp."

King began to whimper, and as she rowed out into the river Gwen saw Michael stepping from his Jeep. The woman stomped toward him, yelling and pointing at Gwen, and Michael crossed his arms. Gwen looked away, but soon she heard Michael shout, "Renegade!" At the call, King jumped from her boat—nearly tipping it over—and swam back. Gwen stopped rowing and put her head in her hands. Upon reaching land, King followed Gwen's boat along the shoreline until Michael called her again. Then Michael shouted her own name, "Gwendolyn!" She knew she should pick up her oars and row, if not to Michael then back to her own cottage, but she didn't have the will to fight the current. Instead, she let her boat be swept past Michael's house and everything that was familiar.

She glided past solitary black fishermen with bottles twisted in paper bags and the green heads of willows weeping beside them. Turtles and blue racers sunned themselves on fallen trees, sliding

Page 81

into the water at her approach. A heron fished silently at a tiny inlet, one bulging banded eye on her as she passed, wary, but not alarmed so long as she moved with the current. She was tempted to row and approach it, but decided instead to leave the bird in peace. The river widened. Men steered speedboats around her, and she tossed side to side in their wake. Her hands rested on the oar handles, but she dipped her oars only to right her downstream course. At times she let herself twirl in the current like a twig. She saw a tree which resembled first Jake and then, at closer range, her father, with her father's brooding face and big arms upraised.

After she'd floated for hours, houses began to appear more often on either side of the river, a sign that she must be approaching Lanakee and the harbor, but she didn't feel ready to see all those strangers and their houses and yards. She wished she could see her sister Paula, and maybe Michael, but they were both behind her.

By finally taking hold of the oars she stopped herself, and tied the boat up at the ruined dock of an abandoned fishing cottage. She climbed onto the dock and lay carefully on the boards to soak in the last light before continuing. Downstream, after the river flowed under some traffic bridges and past boat slips, lay Lanakee Harbor and, beyond that, Lake Michigan—the coldest, darkest place she'd ever been. She knew what happened when the river met the lake, that the river emptied at a lighthouse which perched at the tip of a long tongue of concrete. The lighthouse winked red, then white, then red. Gwen found herself drifting beyond the lighthouse, dark water pressing on her from all directions. But from the heartless depths emerged the fishing dog, now paddling toward her boat, eyes as bright as fire. Upon hearing a splash beneath her, Gwen awoke.

As though part of her dream, a great blue heron flew up in front of her. Gwen held her breath as the bird spread its wings in slow motion, its feathers almost brushing her leg as it took off from under the dock and flew over the river, against the current. As the bird left her, Gwen felt herself shredding from the inside out. She wished she had been awake to see the heron close up, to stare into that clear, savage eye, to see the drops of water on his crest and witness the neck feathers roughen and smooth out. The motion of those wings reminded her of being with Michael in his bed—the feathery blan

Page 82

kets, the night air through the window, his skin warm in her hands. She leaned back and let herself imagine the flush of wings again, the swoosh of air, as soft as her clothes turning in the dryer, falling upon themselves. She longed to hear the steady breathing of the fishing dog.

The sun was setting over houses where people were eating dinner. Paula was probably cooking Daddy macaroni and cheese. Paula had turned sixteen this summer without her, and maybe she'd finally learned to cook fish. If Gwen filled both gas tanks and had money to refuel in Confluence, she might be able to motor all the way to Snow Pigeon. She would sneak in and remind Paula not to feel bad, remind her that there was no pleasing Daddy. Jake was sitting in a jail cell, probably eating with a bunch of guys complaining about the food. Maybe Michael had cooked that woman dinner, or maybe he was eating alone or bending wood. Gwen's stomach hurt from hunger. She hadn't brought along fishing gear, and once she hit Lake Michigan the water would be empty and the tide would pull her out and away. She did not want to go. She did not want to starve to death in a cold, bottomless place. Somehow she would have to row back upstream.

To lessen the current, Gwen hugged the edge of the river as closely as she could without scraping bottom, dipping her left oar shallow. She faced backwards toward a fuming orange sunset, and as the color faded, her eyes adjusted. She rowed steadily, seeing the dark cottages and ancient trees only after she'd passed them. The hair stood up on her arms when she heard a whippoorwill cry. Farther upstream, a nighthawk made a crazy flutter as he stabbed the air for insects. Muskrats and other night hunters slid into the water and rose alongside her boat. When a quarter moon appeared, Gwen pulled herself up to a snag. Her arm muscles burned and her hands were raw from the oar handles. She felt the night pulling at her boat, luring her into the dark, easy current. If she gave up this time, it would carry her all the way to the blinking light at the entrance to Lake Michigan, where there were no herons, no dogs, nothing for her. She fell asleep leaning against her boat and awoke stiff and cold with no moon in the sky. The thought of working her muscles again brought tears stinging to her eyes, but resting wasn't Page 83