The Caretaker's Wife

by Vincent Zandri

  I took a step toward the house and stepped on a stick. The stick was so dry it cracked under my boot. Sonny stopped shouting then. He went to the window and looked out onto the beach. I scooted out of sight. Whether or not I did this quickly enough was anybody’s guess. But I knew it was high time I got the hell out of there before hothead Sonny came hunting for me with his gun. I headed for the trees and took it double-time back along the dark trail. I wasn’t halfway to the cabin when I heard Sonny’s voice shouting out into the night.

  “Who’s out here?” he barked. “I’ve got a gun, you hear me?”

  I heard him loud and clear, that’s for sure. Heading back inside the cabin, I shut the door and locked it. I finished my beer, drank one more, then laid myself down on the bunk bed. Compared to what I was forced to sleep on at Sing Sing, it was like sleeping on a cloud inside heaven itself. I went to sleep to the vision of Cora in my arms forever more.

  9

  “Well, top of the morning to you!” shouted a smiling and overly friendly Sonny Torchi as I came through the tavern door for breakfast. “How’s that head of yours, Kingsley? You put down quite a few whiskeys last night, my new writer friend.”

  He was wearing a wife beater t-shirt three sizes too small for his gut. His hair was slicked back with gel, and he still hadn’t shaved. Cora was setting a platter of scrambled eggs and bacon on the bar. She was freshly showered, dressed in her tight Levis and cowboy boots, a black button-down shirt tucked into her narrow waist. She was a sight to behold.

  “Good morning, sleepy head,” she said in that same innocent, happy voice she’d greeted me with yesterday.

  Were these the same people who were fighting like cats and rabid dogs last night? Was this the same man who pulled a gun on us? Maybe Sonny was one of those guys who was a monster when he was drunk, but a jolly guy when he was stone cold sober. I had my doubts about the latter, but one thing was for sure, the food smelled good, and I was famished. Plus, I had to keep playing their game if I was going to live here for what essentially amounted to free.

  “Help yourself, Kingsley,” Cora said. “There’s plenty. Orange juice and coffee are coming.”

  I thanked Cora and made a plate of toast, eggs, and bacon. I took the plate over to the same table where we’d eaten dinner last night. As I dug in, I shot a glance at Sonny. He must have already eaten because he sat down across from me with only a cup of black coffee.

  “So, what are your plans for your day off, Kingsley?” he asked. “Better make it a relaxing day because I’ll need you fresh for bartending duty tonight and trail clearing tomorrow.”

  “We’re going fishing, honey,” Cora said while setting a cup of coffee and a short glass of orange juice in front of me. She went to the bar, retrieved the milk and sugar and set those in front of me too. “We’re going to catch some trout and maybe a largemouth bass or two.”

  “I love trout,” Sonny said. “But you both better keep your eyes out for bear. I heard something rustling about last night, and I was convinced it had to be a bear. Sure enough, I got an email this morning from New York State DEC that said a tagged bear has been harassing residents of Loon Lake and also next door Paradox Lake. I can bet that’s the bear I heard last night.”

  I felt a genuine sigh of relief that Sonny hadn’t seen me outside his bedroom window. He got back up, went around the bar back, uncapped the bottle of Jack Daniels, and poured a generous shot into his coffee. He held the bottle up so I could see it.

  “What about you, Kingsley?” he asked. “You want a sweetener for your coffee?”

  I smiled. “Too early for me, boss,” I said.

  I thought maybe calling him boss from this point on might be a nice touch. Judging by the grin on his face, I could tell he liked it. He came back around and sat down.

  “Maybe you should try to get some writing in today, Kingsley,” he said. “You can write about a town that nobody ever heard of. A town nestled in the Adirondack Mountains. A town where the residents are poor souls who live on the edge of poverty and suffer through the worst bitter cold all winter long.”

  Cora sat down with a small plate of food. She took a bite, wiped her mouth with a napkin.

  “Why would he want to write that, darling?” she asked.

  “It would be realistic fiction,” Sonny said. “True crime, if you ask me.”

  He drank some coffee, then got up again.

  “Well,” he said, “I gotta start on my sauce. Got some people coming for dinner later. They love their spaghetti and meatballs a la Sonny Torchi. I wouldn’t want to disappoint them.” He started for the kitchen, but then stopped just short of the door. He turned back around. “You two be careful out there. You won’t be needing a chaperone, I hope.”

  When he belly laughed, I thought I might lose my breakfast.

  “Don’t be silly, darling,” Cora said. “You’re the only man for me.”

  “That’s my girl,” Sonny said, pushing the door open, and disappearing into the depths of the kitchen.

  “Hurry up and eat,” Cora said. “I want to get the hell out of here.”

  “Who can blame you?” I said.

  I made a sandwich out of the eggs, bacon, and toast then downed my juice and coffee.

  “All set,” I said, standing.

  Without uttering another word, we escaped the tavern for the peace of Loon Lake.

  Cora had already outfitted one of the aluminum canoes with spinning rods and a cooler filled with cold beer and sandwiches. It meant a lot to me that she thought to take care of me like that. Leslie wouldn’t be caught dead in a canoe on a lake with a fishing rod in her hand, much less think to fill a cooler with sandwiches and cold beer. It just wasn’t in her makeup, her DNA. Her idea of a vacation was to go shopping in the same overpriced stores that she shopped in at home. Didn’t matter if she was in New York City or Paris or right around the corner from Orchard Grove, she couldn’t live without Nordstrom’s, Macy’s, or Tiffany’s for even a day.

  I quickly finished my breakfast sandwich, wishing I’d made another. Working together, we pushed the canoe into the water and got in, facing one another.

  “There’s a paddle for you,” Cora said.

  She picked up her own paddle and started paddling. “You paddle on the opposite side,” she went on. “That way we’ll keep her straight.”

  “Aye aye, captain,” I said.

  She laughed.

  “I know a pretty good spot called Mary’s Rock on the east side of the lake,” she said. “It’s also a beautiful view.”

  How do I explain how good I felt at that very moment in time? I was out of prison and free, and for the first time in a long time, I felt like my troubled past was behind me. I was sharing a canoe with a woman who I was falling in love with, and not even the memory of Leslie, Erin, or Theresa bothered me in the least. My life was all about living in the now. Enjoying every bit of the present. If anything was bothering me at all, it was knowing that Cora was married to a monster like Sonny. If only she were free of that man.

  We came to a place where a huge granite boulder stuck out of the water. The rock looked like it was slowly emerging from out of the depths of the deep lake.

  “Try your luck, Kingsley,” she said, handing me one of the rods.

  It had been a while since I last fished. But I’d done enough of it in the past to know how to use a spinning rod. Pulling back on the reel release, I aimed the rod towards the rock and cast out towards it. The white rubber worm that was impaled onto the small hook landed maybe a few inches from the rock and quickly disappeared below the water’s surface.

  “Good cast,” Cora observed.

  “Aren’t you going to fish?” I asked.

  “I’d rather watch you for a while,” she said.

  I began to slowly reel in, picking up the slack, and feeling for any nibbles with my fingertips. When the fish struck, it took even me by surprise. The rod tip bent and bobbed and I felt the tension
on the line.

  “You’ve got one, Kingsley,” Cora said excitedly.

  “Damn,” I said. “It’s big whatever it is.”

  “Keep up the tension,” she insisted. “But loosen the drag a little. That’s only two-and-a-half-pound test.”

  Using my thumb, I released a little of the drag, and the fish took some line. If this was a trout, it was a damn big one. But when the fish broke the surface and jumped, I recognized exactly what it was—a big, largemouth bass. They must school all over the bottom of the rock formation. The fish gyrated and tried its best to throw the hook, but it couldn’t. Cora let out an excited scream.

  “That’s a huge bass,” she said. “Keep on him, Kingsley.”

  I kept up the tension, and kept reeling in, praying I didn’t sever the line. After another minute or two of playing the fish, I could tell it was getting tired. I reeled in some more until the fish was right beside the canoe. Cora stuck her hand in the water and pulled the fish out by its mouth. Just like she’d said, it was a largemouth bass. It had to be six pounds if it was an ounce. It was long and thick with blue scales and a big white belly.

  “That’s a momma,” Cora revealed. “Her belly is full of eggs. She needs to go back and repopulate the lake.”

  She gently pulled out the hook, and after taking another proud look at the fish, she set it back into the lake and allowed it to swim away. In a funny way, I felt like Cora had just saved a life. Maybe a lot of lives. So what if they weren’t human? It showed me she had a heart.

  “Toss out another cast,” she said after a time. “Maybe you’ll nail another.”

  I did as she told me and slowly reeled in. We were quiet for a time, while we relived the excitement of catching that huge bass over and over in our minds. But then I broke the quiet by asking about the rock.

  “Why do they call it Mary’s Rock?” I said.

  Cora was holding her paddle and was busying herself with keeping the canoe in position so that we didn’t drift too far away from the rock.

  “A little girl named Mary drowned in this lake nearly a century ago,” she said. “Some of the locals swear that on the anniversary of the night of her drowning, her ghost comes back to this rock. They say you can see her, wearing a little white dress and no shoes. Her hair is long and black, and her eyes are big and brown.”

  “Just like yours,” I interjected.

  “Mary sits on the rock, her knees tucked into her chest and she stares into the water like she’s reliving her drowning, again and again.”

  I reeled in the worm and cast it back out again.

  “That just might be the saddest story I’ve heard in a long time,” I said. “How did she drown?”

  “No one really knows. But they say it happened right around here. If she had lived, she’d be about one-hundred-twenty years old by now.”

  “And most definitely dead,” I said.

  Cora giggled. “I suppose you’re right,” she said. “Because no one lives forever, do they, Kingsley?”

  I reeled the worm back in.

  “No one lives forever, Cora,” I said. “The point is to live the life you have.”

  She nodded. “Let’s head somewhere else,” she said. “I think that big bass you pulled in scared the rest of the fish off. I know some other really great places. Open a beer if you want.”

  I reached for my paddle when she reached for the cooler. It was entirely by accident, but our hands touched. Funny thing is, we didn’t pull our hands back. Neither of us said, “Excuse me,” or “Sorry.” In fact, I not only didn’t retrieve my hand, I took hold of hers and held it tightly. I felt my heart pounding in my chest, and my mouth went dry. What the hell was this? High school?

  We just stared into one another’s eyes while the canoe bobbed and the birds flew overhead. It was all I could do to prevent myself from pulling her to me and attacking her. But if I did that, we’d probably flip the canoe over. Maybe that would be a good thing. Something we’d laugh about later on. Was I becoming a hopeless romantic in my old age? There wasn’t a whole lot of romance swimming around my brain right then. Instead, all I wanted was to ravage Cora. I wanted to attack her the way a hungry lion attacked raw meat. It was as much instinctual as it was primal.

  “Who are you, Cora?” I said. “Where did you come from?”

  “I could ask the same about you, Kingsley,” she said.

  Finally, she took her hand back. But that didn’t stop my heart from pounding. My mouth had gone dry, so I opened a beer and drank down half of it in a single swallow. It was still morning, but I didn’t care. I craved the calming effects of the alcohol. We proceeded to cover much of the lower lake’s perimeter, the both of us casting out toward the shoreline. Cora used a fly rod at one point, casting it gracefully from the bow of the canoe. After a time, she caught a nice sized rainbow trout. She was so proud of it, she made me take a picture with her smartphone of her holding it in both her hands. Then she released it back into the lake.

  “Won’t Sonny want to grill that up?” I asked.

  “I’d rather the fish live than Sonny carve it up,” she said. “It’s just too beautiful to be killed.”

  We fished and drank beer and ate sandwiches. As the afternoon wore on and the sun got higher, the fish stopped biting. We decided then to call it a day. We paddled back in, and Cora returned the cooler to the kitchen. I had to work at the tavern that late afternoon, so I thought I’d catch a quick nap. As I started to make my way back toward the trail that led to the cabin, Cora called out for me.

  “Hey, Kingsley,” she said. “Wait up.”

  I turned to see her running toward me, her lush dark hair bobbing against her shoulders, her eyes bright and beautiful. She caught up to me.

  “Haven’t you had enough of me today?” I said.

  “I need to collect the towels you used for the laundry service,” she said.

  For some reason, I couldn’t help but think it was an excuse for her to spend a little more time with me. Correction, a little more time with me away from her husband.

  “The towels are still pretty clean,” I said. “Bed sheets, too.”

  “Your idea of clean and mine are probably a lot different,” she explained.

  “It’s your inn,” I said.

  “It’s actually Sonny’s,” she said. “But I try to forget that.”

  Together, we walked the trail to my cabin.

  The funny thing is, when we entered the cabin, she didn’t collect any towels. Instead, she went to the refrigerator and pulled out a couple beers for us. We’d already been drinking all afternoon, so why stop now? Her face was tanned from the sun. We might have been fishing, but her skin still smelled like lavender. I wanted her so badly she had to have felt it even without me touching her.

  She took a sip of her beer. I drank some of mine. I was feeling a bit tipsy, and I was certain she was too. I took a step closer toward her.

  “Where are you from, Cora?” I asked. “Why won’t you tell me?”

  “Why is that so important to you, Kingsley?” she answered.

  “Because I want to get to know you better. I want to know everything about you.”

  I came closer to her. She didn’t back away. She merely drank some more beer, then set the can on the counter. I set my beer on the counter beside hers.

  “You’ll find out soon enough,” she said, her voice now a tone deeper, sultrier. “That is, you hang around this place for a while.”

  I stepped even closer.

  “I plan on being here for a while,” I said.

  She backed up then, slowly. Until her backside pressed against the table that held my typewriter and the stack of blank paper. I kept up with her, step for step. I closed more of the gap that separated us. When our lips were close to one another’s, I couldn’t help but connect with her mouth. I kissed her so hard, so violently, that my tooth cut her bottom lip. That might have frightened some women, but not Cora. She never stopped
kissing me for even a New York second. She pressed herself harder into me, our tongues playing with one another despite the blood that seeped into our mouths.

  She wrapped her hands around my head. I wrapped my arms around her waist. I yanked her to me so hard and so tight she couldn’t escape my erection even if she wanted to. When we finally came up for air, I could see the little trickle of blood oozing out of her lip. I wiped it away.

  “Do you want to stop?” I asked, my voice coming not from my voice box, but from somewhere deep down inside my soul.

  “Shut up, Kingsley,” she said, her voice no longer her own, but belonging to some woman entirely foreign to the school-girl-innocent woman who spoke with me on the phone yesterday and who later greeted me at the Loon Lake Inn check-in counter. “Shut up and fuck me.”

  I began to unbutton her shirt, one by one. It was taking so long that by the time I got to the last two, I tore the shirt open and popped the buttons. Her breasts filled her black lace bra. Her nipples were hard. I pulled her bra down and cupped her left breast while suckling her right. She undid my belt, unbuttoned my jeans, and pulled my pants down, freeing my cock. That’s when she dropped to her knees and took me in her mouth.

  She began to suck me like she invented it. I swear, it had been so long since I’d had any physical contact with a woman, I was about to release in her mouth. How long could it possibly take when you haven’t so much as breathed in the direction of a woman in twenty months’ time? Not without a big pane of safety glass separating you, anyway. But I think she sensed I was about to come because she let go of me and said, “Not yet.”

  Standing, she unbuckled her belt, unbuttoned her jeans, and pulled them down. Her pussy was dark and trimmed to perfection. It was so wet it was glistening. I tossed her back on the table, spread her legs, and jammed my face into her succulent angel space, and I began to eat her until I worked her up into a creamy froth. She was moaning and gyrating her hips. She used both her hands to pull on the back of my head as if she wanted my entire head inside her pussy. And I wanted nothing more than to be inside her pussy. I wanted my whole body engulfed by her warm wetness and pink, hot flesh.