The women demurred in low voices until Marya burst out, “I’m not so much for this whole thing,” she said as she held her baby to her breast. “Everybody here is hopin’ ta trade our newfound fame fer an audience to buy our jams and jellies. They’re hopin’ for a contract. I think we’ll all be sorry one day.”
She turned to the others. “Contract, joo?” The others turned unhappy faces away.
“I don’t mean to be mean or anything, ya understand. Just that, well, ya don’t bring in others if ya want to keep the life ya got. That’s what I say.”
“Ah, Marya, now,” Inka, the large, laughing woman, chided. “We’re doin’ our best to get along here, ya know.”
Marya pulled her fussing baby from her breast and held him tight. “Sometimes the ‘best’ ain’t the ‘best’ anymore. Sometimes things have ta change on their own.”
“Not our way,” another woman said, though she smiled at Jenny and Lisa. “And talkin’ about our business in front of strangers ain’t our way either.”
Marya put her head down, buried her face in her son’s neck, and said no more.
“Sorry, Lisa,” Inka said. “You’ve just seen one of our rare disagreements. Marya, there, ain’t from this place anymore. I think she’s forgotten how hard it is to sell our jams and such, what with us being out here where people don’t come so much anymore.”
Whatever the disagreement was about, Jenny and Lisa ignored it and kept eating until they could eat no more and groaned, rubbing their stomachs as the women around them laughed.
Jenny couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so full. She felt as if she could roll off her bench and lie right down on the floor. She didn’t understand what a young girl named Katja, clapping her hands in front of them, was asking, so nodded yes to “Jalkiruoka?”
More large plates arrived in the hands of women who formed two lines to make sure Jenny and Lisa got a slice of every cake and pie and some from every single dish of cobbler. Then, eyebrows raised in expectation, they watched as Jenny and Lisa tried each dessert and gave the cook a thumbs-up while smiling with gerbil cheeks.
At one point, while they watched the children play a game with wooden spindles in the middle of the floor, and the mother’s looked on with pleasure, Jenny asked Lisa where the men were. “There must be men,” she said. “Where there are babies, there are usually at least a few men.”
“This evening was just for us, for the women. The men know when it’s best to stay away.”
Jenny thought about the kindness and decided she would like their men as well as she liked the women.
* * *
As dark came on, Inka, who seemed to be the leader of the group, announced it was time for the big fire. The long tables were cleared. Dishes were wrapped with cloths and packed away in bags. When the place was clean and orderly, the women wrapped shawls around their shoulders, or shrugged on large, homemade sweaters. The children were stuffed into jackets.
They left the large building together, turning off the kerosene heater in the corner, then the lamps, one at a time, to go outside and down the rickety steps and stroll the three streets of houses—one after the other, each woman proudly pointing to her own house.
It was almost ten o’clock when the men came from the houses, one by one, nodding and giving a kind of grunt when introduced to Jenny. They exchanged a few words in their language. Lisa had no trouble keeping up, then told Jenny they were just talking about the rain. “Too much of it,’ they’re saying. ‘Bad for the crops. Could be they rot in the fields.’”
Jenny could only smile. Could be they rot in the fields. She wondered how many generations back she’d have to go to hear a family member warn of such a thing.
The slow, thin men built up the bonfire where all three streets came together. The gathered wood was set alight with burning torches. There was muttering and complaint until the flames licked high enough to satisfy all the critics.
Older women and very old men appeared from the houses and dragged stools fireside. Others settled on blankets or wooden boxes, watching the flames go higher.
There, at the center of town, there was little sound as the sun went down. Women with whimpering babies or small children excused themselves to go home. Only the sounds of the after-dusk breeze, a few settling birds, crackles from the logs, and the snap of burning wood broke the dark silence.
In a while a nodding woman or man was shaken awake and told, “Whyn’t you go on home ta bed?”
The dark grew deeper and somehow more unsettling. Marya, her baby sound asleep, wrapped around with a wool blanket, leaned close to Jenny, the fire turning her skin a burnished red. She searched Jenny’s face. “I hear ya have a friend at that thing. That thing over to Calumet. Netherworld Lodge. We never went there—not a one o’ us. That place is fer the rich men, like most fancy places are. They go out and shoot da deer, take their dead bodies home, and instead o’ eatin ’em, they stuff da head and neck and hang ’em on da walls. Only garbage left. Garbage without blessin’ the animals fer the life they give. Stupid, ya ask me. We’ve learned.” She nodded along with her own thoughts. “We know from the Indian—ya supposed ta give yer thanks. But they hang ’em on their walls. Might as well stuff their dogs.”
Women beside her, back in the growing shadows, made lazy sounds of agreement.
“Yer friend over der, she enjoyin’ her event? Hear she’s one o’ those little people. Hope nobody over to that lodge gets mean with her. Rich people—they get mean easy.”
Jenny, surprised at the depth of Marya’s scorn, didn’t say anything. But Marya wanted something more. “Doesn’t she like dat place? Me, I wouldn’t go der if you paid me. Not for all da money in the world.”
“She likes it.” Jenny said. “She’s really interested in Agatha Christie—that’s who the event is about. Writing a book about her.”
“Agatha Christie, eh? That’s who they gonna talk about fer five days? I heard o’ that one. She good? I mean, she writes good books? Like cookbooks?”
“Not cookbooks. But she’s a well-known writer.”
“Seems I heard something about mystery, eh? Dat it?”
“Yes, murder mysteries.”
“Eh, murder. We have murder up here. One bad one. Really bad. Not too long ago either.”
“There is murder everywhere.” Leena stretched her arms high overhead and yawned.
“But, ya know, this one was worse than bad,” Marya said, a little roughness in her voice. “A young girl from here got to go to da University a Michigan. Lots of people chipped in ta send her, they did. Everybody liked that girl. Hard worker. Good—very good—grades. Den dey found her body. He did things … Never caught him—the man who did dat. Dey tink he moved away from dat university. Police stopped lookin’, dat’s what I hear. Mother and father left behind like two lost souls. Shame. Murder ain’t a subject fer a book, I don’t think. Yoo, I won’t read Agatha Christie. Should’ve written nicer books. Then she’d be more famous. I would’ve heard about her.”
No one could answer. Marya had rambled too far. The night was colder now. The dark was dangerous.
Marya was quiet. Finally she apologized. “Sorry if I offended anyone here. It’s just we had such hope in that girl. And a man snuffed her out. I hope they get him one day and put him in jail fer the rest o’ his life. Nothin’ else. I don’t believe in this takin’ the law inta yer own hands. Never know who can get hurt dat way, don’t ya agree, Lisa?”
“That’s enough now, Marya. Think it’s time ya took the little one home, don’t ya agree?”
Without another word, Marya gathered her baby to her, straightened the warm blanket over his sleeping body, and left them without a good night to anyone.
Leena, who’d been quiet all evening, leaned in close. “Don’t pay her any attention. We think she’s pregnant again. A little soon, some would say. Bad moods.”
She turned around to ask the other women what they thought. Mostly they laughed. “Ah, yeah, poor Aimo. He’l
l be sorry fer all his fun a couple of months ago.”
Everyone laughed and the women got up from their seats.
* * *
Lisa drove slowly through the woods, stopping often as a porcupine or a skunk crossed in front of the headlights.
“You really like those women.” Jenny made the comment through a yawn.
“Wouldn’t be spending almost a year with them if I didn’t.”
“There’s sadness there. Kind of like a place waiting to be wiped off the face of the earth.”
Lisa nodded in the dark. “Sadness, yes. But bravery too. And something else. I haven’t put my finger on it yet. Something else. Almost medieval.”
Lisa was quiet for the next mile. “They’re rigid when they have to be. They don’t think much of the police—or the laws. Like they know better than to trust anybody outside their group. I guess that’s why I feel so honored they’re letting me film them, the way they are. Not the usual way outsiders get treated. But that’s because of Janne. He came from there. The women trust him. Now they trust me too. I sure don’t want to screw that up.”
“But that Marya … the one with the baby and pregnant with another. So sad. And what was she talking about, that ‘snuffed out’ stuff?”
“Everybody has their bad day, I suppose. Could be postpartum depression.”
“Or maybe ‘pregnant again’ depression.”
Lisa laughed. “That’s what I mean. Everybody has a bad day, like learning you are pregnant when you’ve got a four-month-old at your breast. Wouldn’t make my day.”
Before they were back to the patch of deep woods where Lisa and Janne’d parked their trailers, a bolt of lightning shot from side to side, across the road.
“More rain,” Lisa said, looking warily at the darkness overhead. The next rumble shook the Jeep. “It’s got to stop. My work’s held up already. We were supposed to film in the old cemetery, where their ancestors are buried. But I didn’t even try. The streams are flooding. I heard today parts of Houghton are underwater. Everybody counts on summer tourists to keep them afloat all year long. Poor enough without the coming of a Biblical flood.”
* * *
Janne’s trailer was still dark.
Inside Lisa’s tiny trailer, Jenny checked her phone—nothing. She didn’t expect to hear from anybody. Zoe didn’t have service. Mom was probably still too mad at her to call. And nothing from Tony.
That was the best way, after all. They would stay apart until it didn’t hurt so much anymore.
None of his calls to return. Nobody to tell again she needed time to think and nobody in her head saying she better get her head straight before she lost the best thing going for her.
No Tony saying he missed her.
She was tired and didn’t care if she had to share a bed and kick Lisa to move over like she used to do, or if she didn’t have more than a few inches of room.
She felt sad. Maybe for that Marya, a life ahead of her of one pregnancy after another. Maybe for Lisa—so little money from her documentaries, but still filled with belief that the world would one day see all that she saw.
That was it—sad. It wasn’t easy to pretend she was here just to see Lisa. Tony’s angry face their last night together surfaced at the worst of times—especially when she was tired and wanted to sleep.
Maybe tonight would be different. Maybe she’d forget everything going on and sleep from too much food and too many drinks of something that tasted like a cross between hard liquor and tea.
She lay as still as she could, listening to Lisa’s slight snore—a good, familiar sound. And she almost fell asleep as she pretended she was never going home and had nothing to think about but living in the woods with a group of women who sat around roaring fires, holding their babies close, and telling stories of how life would always be just as they knew it, and nothing would ever change. A father would never be killed by a driver high on drugs. And husbands would always be true and never cheat on their wives. Husbands would never leave and make it hard for that wife to ever trust again.
Chapter 21
Emily Brent did have an elastic bandage for Zoe’s ankle—but none a child’s size.
“I warned you. If you don’t know the area, you could get yourself lost.” She’d frowned over the swelling ankle Zoe stuck out in front of her. “And all I’ve got for you are these big-sized things we’ll have to fold in two and wrap as many times as we can.”
Bella came out to the kitchen, hands clasped under her apron, to shake her head over the small extended leg and put in her two cents, telling Miz Zola it wasn’t a good time to be out in the woods, with all the rain and such.
“Lookin’ fer trouble. That’s all yer doin’, ya know.”
Zoe took the comments and criticisms, though she couldn’t remember either one of them warning her. She made a pained face that should have quieted them, but didn’t.
“Too many holes and places where the path’s worn away, ya know. And there’s the fallen branches—hit you in the head and there you’d be.” Bella turned away.
“It wasn’t a branch,” Zoe said, though she was getting bored with both of them and needed to take a shower before dressing for cocktails—so she’d be taking the bandage off in a few minutes anyway. “It felt as though someone deliberately pushed me.”
“Now, who would that be, do you think?” Emily’s voice covered a hint of sarcasm.
“Mighta been a deer. Poor things,” Bella nodded. “They get startled and go a little crazy when they hear people in the woods. That coulda been it, ya know. Coulda startled one of the creatures as it was trying to leap around you.”
“Could’ve been.” Zoe was ready to end the conversation. They didn’t like hearing about a possible attack. Much better for it to be a deer, running into her in fright—though Zoe knew what she knew, and that was no deer that had pushed her face down on the ground.
Bella nodded. “Don’t know this country. Not as easy as it looks. You might want to stay where you’re safe.”
* * *
Anthony was in the shower, singing loudly about the girl he left behind. She knocked at the door. She needed to at least wash the leaves and slime from her arms and legs, and it was getting close to seven thirty.
He sang on.
She knocked louder and then beat the door with her fists until the shower went off. There were a couple of curse words she chose to ignore before the door opened, and Anthony stuck his dark head out.
“What the hell do you want, Shorty?” he demanded, as his upset red face peered around the door edge, his wet hair dripping over his ears. “I don’t have a stitch of clothes on.”
“I’m not interested in that. I fell in the woods. My ankle’s hurt but wrapped. I need to take a shower. And don’t call me ‘Shorty.’”
He looked her over and grinned. “Sure thing, Shorty. “I’ll be out soon. I can hand you a towel.”
He shut the door, then opened it with a towel in the hand he stuck out to her.
“What’s this for?” She held up the rather used, wet towel.
“To keep you quiet until I’m finished in here.” He grinned at her.
“How long?” Zoe demanded, but he didn’t answer, only shut the door in her face. She had no place to go but back to her room to wait.
* * *
Later, at the cocktail hour, when she got down the stairs and had a view of the entire reception room, Anthony was already holding court from a lounge chair, bending forward to talk to a very pretty blonde girl in a red-flowered dress. Anthony’s hair was pulled back into a kind of man bun; his wrinkled, opened-neck sports shirt looked as though he’d packed it in his pocket. He slouched in the chair, one of his sockless feet, in a moccasin, draped over his other knee.
She looked down at herself: pretty nice for someone just rescued from a mudhole: black top, white pants, white flower earrings, a white flower in her wildly curly hair, and a big red belt around her middle.
If nothing else, she would get attention
, she knew. She usually did, no matter where she went. Especially on these academic nights when all the people dressed up and were on their best behavior. Nights after the first things could go a hundred different ways.
Everybody but Leon Armstrong looked ready for a party. Poor Leon wore the clothes he’d arrived in; his wild red hair still flew around his head, and his red mustache looked damp and unappealing, most likely wet from the large glass he held in his hands as he stood alone next to the bar and watched the others.
Louise Joiner stood talking to Anna Tow and a tall man in gray pants and a deep purple sweater. They moved around the room, backs to the others, looking at the books and then at the photos hung on every wall. Zoe watched Anna Tow, sizing her up as the kind who would find one person she could hang on to for the duration of the webinar. The woman was unpleasant, she decided. Drab. Sour. Maybe nice enough, in her own way, but nice wasn’t one of Zoe’s favorite words. She hoped no one would ever called her nice, not even behind her back. There were words to strive for, and then there were words that diminished a person until she felt small and … well … ‘nice enough’—like this awful Anna Tow.
Anna and Louise held drinks and discussed the photos of men in various types of hunting gear while talking to the tall man who stood beside them. The tall man would bend from time to time to catch what one of them was saying, then shake his head—obviously disagreeing.
Everyone except Leon Armstrong was busy talking. He was busy drinking and grabbing tiny lobster rolls from Bella’s platter as she came from the kitchen, making a circuit of the room, offering appetizers from her tray.
Zoe stepped to the last stair and watched the other people she’d come to spend five days with, though she knew few of them and suspected each of them of luring her there to teach her a final lesson—one poor Evelyn had never learned. What the lesson was, Zoe wasn’t sure. Maybe only that she was born different—the sins of the father.
And Then They Were Doomed Page 9
