Lewis leaned toward her, and she felt the heat from his body. He put his hand on her arm.
“Is it okay that you’re here?” she asked.
“Is it okay that I’m socializing with you, is that what you’re asking?”
“Yes. Is it okay?”
“She drowned,” he said. “The case is closed.”
It was the closest she had been to another person, aside from her sons, in so long that she ached. Her flirtation with the clerk had fizzled and she bought her lottery tickets at the grocery store now. She couldn’t bear to face the clerk. She hated that she kept having this thought: maybe he’s a nice enough man, a Christian-enough man, to want me even as I am now. It was confusing to her, too, that how she felt inside did not correspond to what she saw in the mirror. She looked fine! Lovely, even. Where was the madwoman she imagined herself to be, hair matted, obese and slobbering, limping, moaning, her ankles swollen and bruised, clawing her body along the street with overgrown fingernails? Vera had drowned. That was what the news said; that was what Lewis said. A casualty of the blizzard. A tragic accident. All kinds of safety warnings were issued about the dangers of frozen lakes. The thinness of the ice. There was talk of installing a safety railing, or at the very least putting up a warning sign.
Still, Evelina looked for something in the eyes of the policeman standing across from her, his hand on her arm—some note of suspicion, but he was only smiling, hungry, she could tell, for her.
She wanted to take the policeman into her bedroom.
Her children were her most magical creations; she couldn’t deny it. But here she was, in her kitchen with this strange and handsome man, slightly drunk—on the cusp of the night going somewhere—and the look in his eyes took her back to her former life and that ache for greater possibility. She would never rein in her children, she vowed. She would encourage them to do everything. Everything. She’d hated being young to a certain extent. But but but. How had she become a person who derived pleasure from scratch-and-win cards? No more fucking cards. She wanted to ram her head into the table until it cracked open, then lob her brain across the room like a softball. No more fucking cards. It was time to start over. It was time to get past the failure of her marriage to Leo and begin again. Maybe she could be an artist of some kind. Fine. Tomorrow she would go out and buy a sketchbook. She would take an art class. No more fucking cards!
“My apartment has a roof deck,” Lewis said, breaking away from her, though still so close that she could feel his breath on her lips. “We could get Chinese food? Watch the sun go down over the water?”
“Yes,” said Evelina. “Yes.”
She found enough batteries to get her little boom box working, and she and Lewis went through her shoeboxes of cassette tapes, trying to agree on what to take to his apartment. She missed this kind of silliness—changing her taste in music to suit Lewis’s, flipping past any embarrassing cassettes and lingering on the ones that made her seem like a person worth knowing (Marvin Gaye, Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band, Anita Baker), blaming any truly ridiculous cassettes (the soundtrack to Cats!) on her sons.
He lived only a few blocks from her, and so they walked together, Jesse trailing behind, holding the dog’s leash. Jesse seemed to not recognize the policeman. Maybe she would see where the night went before she told him. Told him what? To lie forever? She shook her head. Couldn’t she enjoy herself for one night?
Lewis was her height, maybe even an inch shorter. Leo had been so much taller than she was—but it was pleasant to walk with a man and be at eye level. Broad-shouldered—more so than Leo, in fact—long purposeful strides and beautiful hands. Such nice straight white teeth. Never a smoker probably. Tanned skin. Smooth. God, he was young. How much younger? She would have to find a way to ask.
“How long have you been a police officer?” she asked.
“Three years,” he said.
“You look young,” she said, hoping she didn’t sound like someone’s mother.
The air was warm and pleasant on her skin. She had slicked her hair behind her ears and put on the peacock feather earrings, changed into a long summer dress under the guise of having sand on her clothes from their time at the beach with the dog. She was on a date. Her shoulder brushed against his as they walked. She glanced at Jesse, hoping that what she was doing wasn’t a sort of cruelty.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Lewis
Lewis liked Buddy Miles and so it was Evelina’s copy of Them Changes that shot out of the boom box as they sat on the roof of Lewis’s apartment building, Scout sprawled out behind them, Jesse watching television in Lewis’s living room. Lewis rooted through his container with chopsticks and tossed Scout mouthfuls of beef. He wanted to ask Evelina about Leo.
It was complicated, what he was feeling: an undeniable desire for Evelina, but also his loyalty to Denny, and a gnawing sensation that whatever he was doing with Evelina might be wrong—morally, ethically, professionally—in every way. He reached for another beer, desperate to dull the feeling and enjoy the evening. They had forgotten to bring up a bottle opener and he felt his heart lift a little at the opportunity to show off for Evelina. He took another bottle in his hand and used it as leverage against the first. The top popped off dramatically and Evelina clapped her hands.
“That’s fantastic,” she said. “Leo used to do it with his teeth. Your method is much more civilized.”
“I care too much about my teeth,” he said. He offered her the opened beer. He was pleased she had brought up Leo. He could ask her about him. He could be on a date and still pry a bit, yes? For Denny’s sake? For his own curiosity?
But Evelina was curious about the thing everyone was curious about. What was it like to do his job?
“I mean,” he said, “on a busy day I go from call to call. I don’t even have time to eat.” The truth was, he’d only had a handful of days like this.
“Calls for what?” she asked.
He paused a second. “Trespassing to assault to death,” he said. He watched her for a reaction but she only nodded. “You clear your calls, you write your reports.”
She leaned toward him and looked at his waist. He wasn’t sure what she was looking for. “Do you have a gun on you right now?”
“Oh,” he laughed. “Yeah. Look, what if I run into someone I’ve arrested before? Someone who has a grudge? In the grocery store or something? I’m not taking that chance.”
“I guess that makes sense,” she said, but she looked perplexed. He guessed she had never held a gun before.
“Look,” he said. “It’s like being a hunter.”
He felt someone’s eyes on him and looked over his shoulder to see Jesse, hands scrunched in his pockets. The sun had disappeared and the air was cooling, the sky deepening blue.
“Hey there,” he said.
The boy blinked at him, then asked in a nervous voice whether he could do the trick with the beer bottle again. Lewis felt a pang in his stomach. He wondered whether the boy recognized him. He couldn’t tell. He hadn’t seen Jesse since January, and Lewis had been in uniform then.
“Of course,” said Lewis. “Here, I’ll show you how.” He glanced at Evelina to make sure this was okay, then placed a beer bottle in Jesse’s hands. “Now hold this tight, and don’t let it move.” The boy gripped the bottle with intensity. “Now what I’m going to do is put the cap of my bottle under the cap of your bottle,” Lewis said, and then, in one fluid motion, as if by magic, the cap flew off and landed by Scout’s paw.
“Holy shit!” the boy said, and Lewis looked to Evelina to see if she would scold him for swearing, but she only laughed.
“Still hungry?” Lewis held out his container of chow mein, and Jesse took it, sat cross-legged by Scout.
“What is this?” he said.
“Chow mein,” said Lewis. “Noodles.”
“Never had it before,
” Jesse said. He looked at the chopsticks, frowned, then started shovelling the noodles into his mouth with his hands.
“Manners, Jesse,” said Evelina, but the boy ignored her. Now that it was dusk, a few mosquitoes began to buzz around them. Evelina slapped the back of Lewis’s head and he slapped her ankle, and Jesse flicked one off Scout’s ear. Lewis told Evelina to close her eyes and he ran his hand softly over her face. “There was one on your cheek,” he lied. “It keeps moving.”
“Where are you from?” Evelina asked. She had beautiful arms. The muscles of her forearms tensed as she reached for her bottle of beer. A long, elegant neck. He watched her throat as she drank from her beer. Her collarbone. Her jaw. She must be a decade older than him, but she was a masterpiece.
“Wisconsin,” he said. How dull that sounded. How uninteresting—how normal—he must seem to her. A young, baby-faced cop from the Midwest. She probably thought nothing bad had ever happened to him.
“Your parents?” she asked. “Are they still there?”
It had been so long since he’d been on a date—if that’s what this was—that he’d forgotten about this part. The part where he had to explain the inexplicable—why he was who he was, and how he’d ended up that way.
“My mother,” he started, for this was the relatively easy part, “died when I was young.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Only in his worst moments did he let himself go down the dark path of what his life would have been like if he had been raised by both his mother and father. He had hidden the pain of his mother’s death in the deepest part of himself, where it was impossible to reach. A freak car accident. No one’s fault. No one to be angry with. His father had climbed into bed after the accident, pulled the red plaid blanket over his body, turned his back to Lewis. The unbearable silence that had followed.
“Your dad?” she asked.
Lewis looked at Jesse to see if he was listening, but the boy was focused on his food. “He died three years ago.”
“Oh,” she said.
“A month after I moved to Whale Bay,” he said.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“It’s better not to say anything,” he said. “I mean, there isn’t anything to say.” He reached for her hand, and she took it.
“Are you close to your parents?” he asked.
“Not really,” she said. “They moved to the city, to be closer to my sister and her children.” She paused and looked at him. “None of them approved of Leo.”
He knew he was supposed to ask her more about her own family now—or maybe even Leo—but his throat felt stuffed with sand. He hoped she wasn’t offended. He would ask her, eventually.
The boy set the empty container of food down and stretched out, using Scout for a pillow. The dog licked Jesse’s forehead and his ears, and Jesse laughed. Evelina said she needed to use the bathroom, then disappeared down the ladder to Lewis’s apartment.
“How did you get the dog up here?” Jesse asked, watching his mother negotiate the ladder.
“It was high comedy,” said Lewis, thinking of his hands on Evelina’s, how they had lifted the dog together, her body against his.
Lewis stacked the containers and gathered the chopsticks, napkins, and empty bottles of beer into a plastic bag. Scout’s tail was wagging idly. Jesse rolled to his side so that he was facing the dog and ran his hands through his fur.
“Oh,” said Jesse. The boy took his hands off the dog and became very still.
The boy didn’t say anything. It occurred to Lewis that if Jesse had met Vera in the woods that day—and had been in her car—he would have also met Scout. It was important to be delicate. He didn’t know whether to say anything or not. Did the boy recognize the dog? Did the boy recognize him?
The boy’s eyes filled with tears and Lewis couldn’t ignore it. It must be horrible for Jesse to have been the last person to see Vera alive. And then to have to see her face everywhere, in the newspaper, on the news. Lewis hadn’t considered it until now—he had thought only of Denny. Sometimes Lewis thought of himself as the most perceptive, empathetic person in the world—because of his father—but in moments like this, when he hadn’t considered something as obvious as the little boy’s relationship to the dead woman, he realized he was still so young and unwise.
“Are you okay?” he asked Jesse. He thought of the day in Evelina’s house, when he had asked the boy the same thing.
“Fine.” Jesse rubbed at his eyes. The boy was a funny-looking little thing. Big brown eyes. A delicate face. Sharp features. A sweet little puppet version of his father. He couldn’t tell whether Jesse was okay or not. There was an intensity to him that Lewis hadn’t seen in a child before. It reminded him of his own childhood, the constant tension in his shoulders, the way he felt that if someone bumped into him, he would shatter.
“You doing all right?” he asked again. “I know this year has been hard for you.”
The boy looked at the sky, to stop his tears from falling. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I am okay.”
“If you need to talk—I—” His heart was pounding. What was he supposed to say? Should he let the boy know that he knew who he was? Should he let the boy know he could tell he was in pain? That he had felt pain as a boy, too?
“I’m okay,” said the boy. “I remember this dog, that’s all. I met this dog before.”
“I know,” said Lewis.
“You do?”
“I’m a police officer,” Lewis said. “I’ve spoken to you before.”
The boy looked at him. He was trying to place him, figure it out. Finally, he nodded, remembering. He started to back away from Lewis, as though he were going to run.
“It’s okay,” said Lewis. “I’m just asking if you’re all right.”
“I’m okay.”
“We found her, Jesse, you probably heard that already. She drowned.”
“We watched it on the news, my mom and me.”
“You don’t need to be afraid of me.”
“Okay,” said the boy. He reached for the dog and petted him again. “I like this dog.”
“I do too.”
“I’m happy to see him again,” the boy said.
They sat for a while, petting the dog. Lewis showed Jesse that Scout liked his belly rubbed, and the backs of his ears, and under his chin. He did not like to have his tail touched, or his paws. A couple of stars were now visible, and Jesse pointed them out to Scout.
“How’s your little brother?” Lewis asked. He remembered the bruises on the little boy’s face. The shock of it. How awful it was to see.
“He’s with our dad.”
“You see your dad much these days?”
Jesse gave Lewis a cold, hard stare. “No.”
“Okay, okay.” Lewis laughed, but Jesse was stone-faced, petting the dog in long rhythmic strokes.
“Jesse?” It was Evelina, back on the roof. “You okay?”
“I’m getting cold,” said Jesse. He stood and grabbed the plastic bag of trash and disappeared down the small opening where his mother had just been.
When the boy was out of earshot, Evelina fixed Lewis with an inquisitive look.
“It’s the dog,” he said to her. “He recognized Scout.”
“Oh,” said Evelina. “I didn’t think about that.”
“I told him who I was. Listen, maybe this wasn’t a good idea.”
“You’re probably right,” she said.
Still, he went to her, took her in his arms.
“No,” she said. “I want to do this,” and then she was kissing him, kissing him in a way that made him think she wanted him to make love to her, right now, on this rooftop. He ran his hands down her back and started to hitch up her dress. But, no, that was too much, that was taking it too far.
“Stop,” she said. “Let’s be
reasonable.”
“Evelina. If it’s too much, with Jesse—”
“No,” she said. “I want to see you again.”
* * *
—
And then she was gone. He stayed on the rooftop until the sky was dark, Scout by his side. He hoped it was okay what he had done. He wanted to see her again. How else was he supposed to exist in this small town, with only Denny for a friend?
In a parallel universe, he would be calling his father right now, telling him he’d met a woman named Evelina and that was why he was calling so late. Describing her to his father, describing the boy, describing the evening. His father had the raspy voice of an old man, even though he was only in his fifties. Lewis had called his father every day after he moved to Whale Bay. He didn’t know anyone else his age who did that, and although he couldn’t articulate precisely why, it seemed like something to hide. Maybe this would be the year he would work up the courage to call his uncle, his father’s brother, and finally crack the code, solve the mystery, of why his father had been the way he was.
His father walked three miles a day. He lived in a little rancher outside town, with access to a forest trail. Lewis had explored every inch of that surrounding forest as a child. In the summer it buzzed with cicadas. His father walked with a net over his face, swatting his arms, his knee socks pulled up so mosquitoes wouldn’t bite his ankles. It seemed to Lewis that there was a huge swath of the population like his father: retired, widowed men or women living alone, with hardly any friends to speak of, who did things like roam the woods. Introverted, strange human beings. His father was a birdwatcher. A twig of a man in a button-down shirt and ill-fitting shorts, a baseball cap that had long ago faded from red to pink. Not much of a talker.
How a Woman Becomes a Lake Page 14
