by Becky Durfee
“Is that all you can say about him? He was a contractor who did good work?”
This time Elanor laughed. “No, there was more to it than that. Definitely. Not at first, though. In the beginning we had a strictly professional relationship. He was as much of a workaholic as I was, and I daresay he was even more of a perfectionist. We spent many nights working late, trying to get the magazine layout to look just so. Naturally we took breaks from time to time and talked about more personal matters. It turned out we had a good deal in common.”
“Oh really,” Jenny said curiously.
“Yes, really,” Elanor said in the same tone. “He had very similar views to me and Steve, actually. He was very progressive, which explained why he took the job at my magazine. He liked the message my magazine sent. I didn’t offer him the most money, as it turned out, but he wasn’t all about money. He was a man of great principle. That is, of course, until the night he planted a kiss on me in the office.” Elanor laughed. “It caught me off guard, to say the least.”
“Oh?”
“We were sitting very close together, eyeing the same page, trying to decide how the layout should be. We glanced at each other—our eyes met—and he kissed me as if consumed with passion. It was like he couldn’t help himself.” She made a guilty face. “He clearly thought the feeling was mutual, but it wasn’t. I think since he felt it so strongly, he thought I had to feel it, too. But, of course, I’m a woman made of stone, and I only regarded him as a cherished friend and coworker at the time.”
“You’re not made of stone,” Jenny said.
“Sometimes I wonder,” Elanor stated. “How else could I have gone through life without loving anybody but Steve? Honestly, if I was going to love anyone else, it should have been Mike. There was no reason I shouldn’t have loved him. He was everything I could have asked for. I even knew that at the time, so I decided to accept his advances, even though I didn’t have any romantic feelings for him. I thought maybe I had just been so career-oriented for so long that I’d shut off that part of my life. Perhaps if I allowed someone in, I would rediscover my romantic side, so to speak, and I’d feel love again. I wanted to feel love again. I remembered how wonderful it felt to be with Steve. If I could have recaptured that with another man, I would have been on top of the world. And Mike seemed like as good a candidate as any.
“So we dated. We dated for a long time, but try as I might, I never did feel anything for him. I went through the motions, but you can’t create feelings that just aren’t there. And sadly, they just weren’t there.”
“So I assume you eventually ended it?” Jenny asked.
“Yes, I did,” Elanor said nodding. “I ended it before he had a chance to propose. I had learned my lesson from Ronald not to let it go that far.”
“How did he take it?”
“Quite well, actually,” Elanor said, “just as I suspected he would. He was independent enough that a break up wouldn’t have devastated him. But he was hurt, I can’t lie.” She looked a little sad. “At first he tried to stay on board as my graphic designer, but after a while he decided it was too difficult to work with me without being in my life. He quit a short time later.”
“Did you stay in touch with him?”
“Somewhat, yes,” Elanor said. “I know he did go on to eventually get married. I’m not sure if he ever had kids or not. But I do think he ultimately was happy, which made me happy. I genuinely liked the man; I just couldn’t bring myself to love him.”
“So how old were you when it ended?”
Elanor let out a deep breath as she did a little math in her head. “Oh, I don’t know. Thirty? Thirty-one? Somewhere around there.”
“And those were the only two men in your life?”
“After that I gave up. I was only hurting people.” Elanor made a face. “You know, it was easier than it should have been for me to shut off that part of my life. You would think I would have been lonely, but I wasn’t. That’s why I wonder if something was wrong with me. Most women want to have someone in their lives. I was happy with just a magazine.” She looked at Jenny. “That doesn’t seem normal.”
A strange wave washed over Jenny. Unsure of what it meant, she remained quiet about it.
“Everybody’s different,” Jenny said. “I actually think it’s pretty cool that you didn’t feel the need to have a man by your side. I’m sure it made your life a lot less complicated.” Jenny snorted. “In fact, I’m jealous. Right now being single seems quite appealing.”
“You know, it wasn’t a bad thing. Not to me, anyway. Some people judged me because of it, but you know I don’t give a shit about that.” Elanor squinted in thought. “It’s funny…if a man decides to forego a family in favor of a business, he’s considered to be ambitious. Or maybe he’s just such an eligible bachelor that he can’t bring himself to settle down with only one gorgeous woman. But if a woman opts for a career instead of a family, people assume she’s cold, or she’s too demanding for any man to tolerate her. It’s like people can’t wrap their heads around a woman purposely dedicating her life to her job.”
“You know, you’re right. There is that double standard.” Jenny had actually been guilty of it herself in the past.
“Believe me, I felt it. Sometimes when women would talk about their families in a crowd, they would catch my eye and suddenly become quiet. It’s as if they assumed I must have wanted that life but never got it, and talking about it in front of me was cruel. I never felt any pangs of longing when I heard about other peoples’ families. That was their path. The magazine was mine.” She shrugged. “It’s as simple as that.
“The only time I felt any type of regret was when I first retired from the magazine. I only retired because my health had reached the point where I couldn’t handle it anymore, so I wasn’t in any condition to do any serious traveling or anything. Besides, I had no one to travel with. I spent a lot of time sitting around my house at first, and while I loved it there, I found myself feeling like a caged animal. Keep in mind I had once been a very busy woman. I’d easily put in fourteen, sixteen hour days, six days a week and still feel like I hadn’t accomplished everything I needed to do. People always needed me to be in three different places at once. For decades my life was absolutely crazy, and I loved every minute of it.
“But then I suddenly found myself with nothing to do. No place to be. Nobody needed me. The despair I felt took my breath away. That’s why I ended up selling the house and coming here. I wanted to be with people, and not just the ones I hired to take care of me. I wanted friends. And at first it was great, but after a while a lot of the friends I made started dying. It was very depressing. And then my health reached the point where it was difficult to go out into the common area anymore. Now I just spend a lot of my time in here. Waiting to die.” She looked at Jenny. “And waiting for your visits.”
Jenny’s heart ached as she realized she was being selfish for wanting Elanor to live longer. She hadn’t considered what the hours were like for Elanor when they weren’t together. Long and lonely. While Jenny found herself overwhelmed with too much to do, Elanor had nothing to occupy her time. At that moment Jenny’s perspective changed, and she had a little more sympathy for Elanor’s plight.
“I do hope you don’t stop visiting now that the mystery’s solved,” Elanor added.
“Of course I won’t,” Jenny proclaimed. “I love our visits. Besides, the story isn’t entirely clear. We still haven’t figured out what Lake Wimsat meant.”
“Maybe he was just referring to the good times we had there,” Elanor said sleepily.
“Or maybe there’s more he wants us to know…”
Chapter 13
“Do you want to drive or do you want me to?” Jenny posed, throwing her purse strap over her shoulder.
“If you could drive, that’d be great.” Greg replied. “I’d like to spend some more time looking through the catalogs. I wanted to be a little better prepared than this, but time just got away from me. I
would like to have an idea of what I want instead of just going in there saying, show me all your cabinets.”
“Okay, that’s fine. So where is the place?” Greg gave Jenny the address, which she typed in her phone. They climbed into the car and headed to the cabinet retailer.
The car ride was silent except for the occasional instructions from the mechanical voice on the phone. Greg thumbed through the pages of the magazine as Jenny absent-mindedly followed the automated directions. She made a turn, and Greg posed, “What are you doing?”
Jenny didn’t reply. “You were supposed to turn left. Why did you go right?”
“Shhh.” Jenny said to him. She was picking up a vibe that she didn’t want to lose.
The voice on the phone squawked repeated commands, which Jenny found distracting. She quickly turned off the phone and placed it on her lap.
“What are you doing?” Greg demanded again.
Jenny waved away his question with her hand. She needed to maintain her concentration.
“Jenny! Where the hell are you going?”
“I need you to be quiet. I’m on to something.”
“You’re on to something? We have an appointment at the cabinet place. We’re going to be late. Now turn on your damn phone and…”
Jenny slammed on the brakes, stopping the car in the middle of the road. “I told you to be quiet. Either stop talking, or get out of the car.”
“You’ve lost your fucking mind.”
“Which is it? Are you going to be quiet, or are you going to start walking?”
Greg seethed, but remained quiet while doing so, so Jenny started the car again. She was able to follow the unknown but predetermined path which ultimately led her directly into a park that she had never been to before.
Once inside the park, she followed the windy main road until she knew to take a right down a side street. A short distance down she arrived at the end of the road where a few small parking spaces were carved out. A building sat to her left, demarked with the sign “Facilities Maintenance Building.” She knew this was her destination.
Greg started speaking again as she turned off the car. “You’re stopping here?”
Jenny handed him the keys. “Here. Go on to the cabinet place.” She threw her phone into her purse and climbed out of the car.
Greg followed her. “I’m not going without you. I can’t just leave you here.”
“I’ll be fine.” Jenny tried to keep her comments short as not to lose her signal.
“We have an appointment. Now get in this car.”
Jenny walked toward the edge of the parking lot, staring into the trees. She knew what she was looking for was in those trees.
“Jenny, get in the damn car.”
“Go without me,” she said half-heartedly.
“Jenny Watkins, I said to get in the damn car.”
Jenny turned around and shouted at Greg with a fury she had never exhibited toward anyone. “And I said to go without me! I don’t give a shit about the cabinets! They’re fucking cabinets; just pick something! I’m dealing with something much more important here. No go away because you’re distracting me.” She turned back around to face the trees.
Without another word Greg got into the driver’s side of the car, slammed the door, and peeled out of the parking lot. The commotion caused a worker to emerge from the building, looking remarkably unconcerned for Jenny. “Are you okay, ma’am?” he asked half-heartedly.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she replied. “I just married an asshole.” She pointed toward the overgrown woods. “Do you mind if I go back here?”
The worker scanned his eyes down Jenny’s bare legs, stopping at her flip-flops. Without exhibiting any expression, he shrugged and replied, “If you want.”
“Thanks.” Jenny turned toward the woods again as the worker went back into the building. “Okay, Steve,” She muttered under her breath. “Lead the way.”
She trampled through the brush, some of which felt itchy, some of which felt sharp as knives. Bugs encircled her head, but much like a predator tracking a scent, she was oblivious to the distracters. She eventually reached a bit of a clearing that had apparently served as a dumping ground decades earlier. Two rusted service vehicles sat covered with vines, large pieces of scrap metal lay strewn about, as did old wooden beams with nails sticking out of them. Large coils of unused chicken wire were stacked off to the side, loosely masking three fifty-five gallon drums lined neatly in a row.
She stood for a moment, staring at the drums, painfully aware of what she believed she was looking at, hoping she was wrong. She turned around and went back out into the parking lot, heading straight inside the facilities maintenance building. The same worker was there behind a desk, and he looked up at her with a bit of a dismayed expression. Dripping with sweat and covered with bug bites and scratches, Jenny knew she must have looked like a crazy woman.
“Hi,” she began, “I know this is a strange question, but those drums back there…Do you know how long they’ve been there?”
The worker shrugged. “I didn’t even know there were drums back there.”
“There’s a whole mess of junk in the woods. Do you mind if I look through it?”
“Knock yourself out.”
“Thanks.” Jenny walked back into the oppressive Georgia heat and turned her cell phone back on. She dialed Susan’s number, desperately hopeful that she’d be available. Fortunately, Susan answered.
“Hello, Jenny,” Susan said. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Hi Susan. I’m sorry to bother you. I really am. But I have found something…I think.” Jenny realized she should have rehearsed this phone call before she made it. “I don’t know. I’m just not sure what I’m supposed to do.”
Susan’s tone indicated understanding. “Okay, tell me where you are and I’ll be there in a bit.”
Jenny sighed with relief. “I’m at the facilities maintenance building at Lake Wimsat State Park. Actually, what I found is behind the building, out into the woods a little ways. You should wear pants and sneakers or boots or something.”
“Ahh,” Susan said knowingly. “I keep a pair of boots in my car. You’ll learn to do the same after a while. Do you need a pair for yourself?”
“That would be great. Do you have a size seven?”
“No, but I have a nine. Better too big than too small.”
“Thanks, Susan. You’re a life-saver.”
“Okay, I’ll be out there soon.”
Overwhelmed by the heat, Jenny found the embarrassment of facing the maintenance worker to be preferable to waiting outside. She went back into the building, smiled at the worker, and commented, “I’m just going to wait in here for my friend.”
He looked expressionlessly at Jenny. “Okay.” He clearly couldn’t have cared much less.
After what seemed like an uncomfortable eternity, Susan’s car pulled into the parking lot. Jenny’s pulse quickened as she walked outside to greet Susan, who was opening the back door of her car. Out popped Buddy who, upon seeing Jenny, broke into an excited trot to come say hello. The sight of the dog immediately calmed Jenny’s nerves as she knelt down to the ground to greet him.
“Well, hello, Buddy,” Jenny said as the dog furiously licked her chin. She talked in a tone often reserved for babies, rubbing Buddy’s ears furiously. “Yes, you are a vicious guard dog, aren’t you Buddy?”
Susan laughed. “Yeah, right.” As Jenny stood up, Susan asked, “So what did you find?” She handed Jenny the boots.
“I’m not entirely sure.” Jenny plopped the boots on the ground and wriggled her feet inside them.
“Well, what is it?”
“Let me show you,” Jenny said, leading Susan through the tangles of growth behind the building. Buddy showed little desire to attempt the hike, so Susan tucked him under her arm and carried him.
After a few minutes, the ladies arrived back at the dumping ground, and Jenny gestured toward the three drums. “This is it,” Jenny
said. “For some reason I was led here. I don’t even want to tell you what I suspect might be inside.”
Susan repositioned the dog under her arm. “Yeah, this may not be good.”
Nerves took over Jenny, and words started spewing out of her mouth. “Well, what do we do? Do we open them? What if we find something? How will I explain that I was drawn here by a man who’s been dead for sixty years…”
Susan put her hand on Jenny’s shoulder. “Relax,” she said quickly. “It’s okay. I have a friend on the police force who has used my services many times. I can call him and explain that you were led here, and we’d like him to come out and check out the drums. It could be something, it could be nothing…either way, it’s okay.”
Jenny let out a long breath, releasing a good deal of anxiety along with it. Susan’s calm demeanor was incredibly helpful. “That’s great. Thank you.”
Susan pulled her phone out of her pocket and pressed a button. Jenny noticed the number was on speed dial. After a pause, Susan said, “Hi, Bill, how are you?...Great. The kids doing okay?...Glad to hear that. Yeah, we’re doing well. I just saw Jake at college last weekend. We had a nice visit.”
Jenny marveled at how nonchalant Susan was considering the circumstances.
“Well, I have made a friend here who is also psychic, and she’s discovered something we’d like you to check out…There are a few fifty five gallon drums behind the facilities building at Lake Wimsat State Park…Yeah, a man went missing sixty years ago… Great. We’ll see you in a few. Bye.” She hung up the phone. “Bill is on his way.”
Jenny was quite impressed. “I didn’t realize you had inside connections at the police force.”
Susan laughed. “You’re just lucky that I’ve done the dirty work for you there. Do you know how many police men laughed at me when I called them and told them I was a medium with valuable information? It seems every week they get at least a dozen calls from people claiming the same thing. Most cops just pretty much hung up on me.”
