“You ain’t crying over Charlene leaving, are you?” Dorrie asked, and smiled as Lola gave her a big are-you-kidding look.
“Oh yeah,” said Lola. “My heart’s broken.”
“Davey is a nice man, though,” said Dorrie.
“Who is Davey?” asked Alice Gurley.
“He come around and said good-bye to everybody in the family,” said Lola. “Real nice and gentlemanlike. It’s a damn shame he’s going back to Connecticut. You know Charlene is making him.”
“Well, I got to admit that if my kid had that disease, I’d want to get closer to some of them big-city specialists too,” said Dorrie. “That poor little Tanya’s got her work cut out for her, getting over a strange disease like that.”
“Who’s Tanya?” asked Alice Gurley. “What disease?”
“You can go right down to the hardware store in Caribou, or anyplace they sell Hartz dog products, and get you a VHS tape on that disease,” said Lola. “That’s how common it is these days.”
“Prissy told me Lyme disease is a whole lot easier to catch than AIDS, and it’s almost as bad,” said Dorrie. “Prissy says you can catch AIDS and Lyme disease from mosquitoes.”
“Oh, but that’s not so,” said Alice Gurley. “Who has Lyme disease?”
“A little girl from here in town,” Lola replied, finally remembering Alice there, in her own house. “That’s them moving back to Connecticut.” She nodded her head as the ass of the orange U-Haul disappeared for good around the turn.
“What bad luck,” said Alice Gurley. Alice was fresh to Mattagash, Maine, having just arrived to spend a few weeks in her new house, getting it ready for the next summer. Like many other retired folks her age, Alice yearned to get away from the six-lane mess of southern California, the thick smog, and the even thicker aura of materialism. She had bought Richard Hart’s house, after Richard filed bankruptcy and went off with his family to seek better luck in the want ads of Connecticut. A lot of people like Alice were turning up in Mattagash and other small towns in Maine, suddenly endorsing nature, hoping for a back-to-the-land philosophy to grab them up and rescue them from the squalor of the city. Mattagashers were polite to these newly landed Pilgrims, but they generally distrusted them, thought them foolish, and sometimes even disliked them. Such was the case with the retired professor from New York who had been imprudent enough to tell Booster Mullins that he, Booster, should return to using a pair of horses in the woods, rather than endorse the technology of the skidder. Booster had floored him, right there in the high school gymnasium, in the middle of a town meeting.
“The son of a bitch,” Booster had later told the men who gathered at Craft’s Filling Station for more details. “He put all his kids through school by teaching out of books, and now he wants me to go back to horses so I’ll cut less wood. Where does he think his books come from? This is the bastard who stands outside LaVerdiere’s Drugstore every Monday morning complaining because his New York Times is late. Where does he think that paper comes from? I’m supposed to hitch up a team of horses while he’s driving his ass around in a BMW.”
“Fifty thousand trees go into the Sunday New York Times,” Ben Monihan had mentioned to Booster, something he might use as future ammunition. “I saw that on Nova. It’s a good thing for him you ain’t using a team of horses.”
“It was impossible to be friends with Charlene,” Dorrie said now. “And God knows we tried, didn’t we, Lola? But it was like trying to be friends with Queen Elizabeth. You never knew when someone might ring for the butler to come and show you to the door.”
“Charlene always complained about the cold anyway,” said Lola. “Since the first winter she spent up here.”
“Well,” said Alice, hoping she sounded as robust as the other women in Mattagash. It was important to fit in with the natives, learn their lingo, adopt their ways. Margaret Mead had taught the intelligentsia that, enabling them to make touristy fools of themselves all over the world. “If they can’t stand the cold, they ought to get out of the kitchen,” Alice said, and laughed that city laugh, the snicker of a chipmunk. Dorrie and Lola stared at her evenly.
“Ain’t it if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen?” asked Dorrie.
“Well, yes, it is,” said Alice. “I was simply making a little joke.”
“Oh,” said Lola.
“Oh,” said Dorrie. “Warn us next time.” Alice was already beginning to miss the thick gray smog of southern Cal, and somehow the traffic jams of her past were not quite so bothersome in her memory. The blaring of hundreds of horns was beginning to emerge symphonious compared to the cacophony of Dorrie and Lola.
“Take you, Alice,” said Dorrie. She was now back at the table and finishing the slice of pineapple cake Alice had cut for her. “You seem to understand the personality as well as the geography of Mattagashers. They go hand in hand, you know.”
“I see,” said Alice. “Would you like a bagel?” she asked Lola, and held up a plate of the creatures. Lola looked at the doughnut shape of the bread before her. She had no idea Alice was Jewish, not with that pugged little Irish nose. But ever since Mr. Ornstein, from somewhere downstate, had come north to buy the Watertown IGA, everybody in Aroostook County knew how much Jews loved their bagels. He had opened a tiny delicatessen in the back of the store and had stocked it so full of bagels that it was difficult to find any sensible Protestant bread back there. “What could they have been thinking of?” Lola had asked Dorrie as they hovered over the counter at the deli’s grand opening, when the bagel made its northern debut. Bread baked into the shape of doughnuts! “Don’t ask me,” Dorrie had answered. “They must’ve lost their recipe book, all them years they spent traipsing around in the desert.”
“What would make you want to bring bagels to Mattagash?” Lola asked Alice Gurley. Lola wasn’t prejudiced, so long as none of her children married someone who was Jewish or Negro. But maybe she and Dorrie had misunderstood this new city slicker. Maybe Alice was in town looking for a little trouble, an agitator of sorts.
“I happen to love bagels, that’s all,” said Alice. She broke one apart and then smeared the end with some cream cheese. Lola and Dorrie observed this action as closely as Salem Puritans watching a suspected witch smear chicken blood on the Bible. Alice took a bite.
“We better go,” said Dorrie. “If it don’t snow like them weathermen say it’s gonna, I gotta make a salad and a big pan of carrots for the dinner.”
“Me too,” said Lola, casting a final glance at the offending bagel. “They plan to have twenty different salads.” Who in the world would have known Alice Gurley was Jewish? Sure, she just happens to like bagels. And the Pope just happens to wear a dress.
“Can I make anything?” Alice asked. “I am, after all, going to be here for Thanksgiving.” There she was, a Pilgrim in a strange wintry land, where diseases, like plagues, ran rampant. There Alice Gurley was, needing help, lacking companionship, seeking a place to dine without culinary persecution. It was an opportunity for the Mattagashers, namesakes of an old Indian tribe themselves, to copy Chief Massasoit’s generous gesture.
“Oh no, we got plenty,” said Dorrie. “Don’t you worry none.”
“And the tickets is all sold out to the dinner anyway,” Lola lied, a practice Chief Massasoit had managed to avoid, even while dealing with the squabbling, bickering Pilgrims.
“Well,” said Dorrie, over her bulbous shoulder. “Welcome to Mattagash anyway.” The door to Alice Gurley’s new house closed behind them in a sweet little suction of air, a natural sigh.
“Oh my Lord,” said Lola, on the path to Booster’s maroon Bronco, that big self-appointed welcome wagon with the sun-yellow plow. “I thought for a minute she was gonna insist on coming to the dinner. You don’t think it was wrong of us not to invite her, do you? It being Thanksgiving and all?”
“She’ll be okay,” said Dorrie, and cranked op
en the driver’s door, hoisted herself up into the saddle. “The Jews have their own version of Thanksgiving, anyway. That’s when they dress up in them little beanies and give each other candles for Christmas.”
***
At the Mattagash gymnasium Dorrie left the Bronco idling, its tail pipe emitting a volley of gray exhaust, Mattagash’s own contribution to the overall pollution problem.
“We’ll just run in and vote and run back out,” said Dorrie. “This ain’t New York. It ain’t like someone’s gonna tow it away.”
“I kinda hate to see The Crossroads close down,” Lola said sadly. “Now Raymond’s gonna be right back under my feet every time I turn around. You know him and Booster only went out on the weekends before Maurice opened up. Watertown’s a long way to go for a drink.” Dorrie nodded in sympathy. Booster would be back under her own hefty hooves more than she cared to think about. The Crossroads had become like an office to him, it was true, a refuge where he claimed to do his best thinking. And it was also true that his woodworking business was picking up. Booster even had plans to buy a second skidder. Now the font of his inspirations was running dry.
“Someone suggested what if Maurice sold only beer,” said Lola. “And you know as well as I do that a little beer now and then never hurt nobody. I even make pancakes with it, and sometimes I use it as a hair rinse if I’m out of Vidal Sassoon. But Prissy wouldn’t hear of it. She wants that place closed down almost as much as she wants her picture in the Watertown Weekly.”
“Well, there ain’t much we can do now,” said Dorrie. “It was pretty easy for Prissy to get this emergency vote called, because of Conrad and Billy. And maybe she’s right. Maybe it wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t been for The Crossroads.”
“You ever seen Pike Gifford when he hadn’t had too much to drink?” Lola reminded her. “This was an accident waiting to happen and you know it. The Crossroads had nothing to do with it.”
“Maybe,” Dorrie said. “But Prissy convinced the town selectmen otherwise. And we’ll stand out like sore thumbs if we don’t vote.”
“Prissy could talk the Pope into eating a hot dog on Friday,” said Lola.
“I think it’s okay now,” said Dorrie. “I think the Catholics canceled their Meat Act.” She opened the heavy door to the gymnasium and a gust of warm air surged out, followed by the stale sweaty fragrance of basketball practice.
“Good Lord,” said Lola, plugging her tiny nostrils. “I wish someone would make them boys wash their jockstraps once in a while.”
***
Maurice Fennelson was out scattering more salt in his yard when Dorrie and Lola zoomed past in the Bronco. The women pretended not to see him, or the red-mittened hand Maurice unfurled to wave at them, as though it were some happy flag. They had, after all, just voted to close him down. It would be the pinnacle of hypocrisy, even for Dorrie and Lola, to acknowledge Maurice now. Maurice was a doomed man, waving. And judging from the long line of voters waiting outside the makeshift booth in the gymnasium—Prissy had bought a new shower curtain, pale blue with green sea horses on it, to be tacked onto the booth as a door—Dorrie and Lola were in accordance with a host of others. Like sheep, the voters had gathered at the edge of the cliff, with Prissy jumping first to cast a ballot. But Maurice didn’t mind. He’d never liked Dorrie or Lola anyway. And he’d already waved once that day, at Davey and Charlene Craft, as they inched cautiously past, pulling the rented U-Haul like a big round Florida orange, a bright thing against a panorama of snow.
In the Bronco, Dorrie adjusted her rearview mirror with a chubby hand. She caught Maurice’s thin frame in it, as though he were in some kind of mirrored cage, his watery image trapped there. Then he was gone as Dorrie careened the Bronco past the Welcome to Mattagash sign.
“You really think it’ll snow hard enough to cancel the dinner?” Lola asked. The sky was a dark shield, looming in over the river, banking itself on the treetops like a gray balloon.
“It don’t look good,” said Dorrie. “All we can do is wait and see. It probably ain’t a great idea to go all the way to Madawaska, though, just in case that storm comes out of nowhere. Besides, I think that was just a bunch of idle gossip about Elvis being at Radio Shack.”
“Ain’t it amazing how some folks can’t find anything better to do?” Lola commented.
“You want to stop and check on your mom?” Dorrie asked, as they zipped into St. Leonard.
“Hell no,” said Lola. “The last thing I need today is a lecture. But if you want to stop and see yours, I’ll go in with you.” Dorrie thought about it.
“I guess not,” she said. “She don’t know me anyway, and all she talks about is Larry. I’ll bet you we buried Larry a hundred times this year alone. Did you know he was the first soldier from Mattagash to ever die in a war?” Dorrie braked for a small bevy of French-speaking children who were crossing the road, skates slung over their shoulders.
“Hurry it up, you little tadpoles,” Dorrie muttered.
“Come to think of it…” said Lola. She scrounged around for a pack of Juicy Fruit in her bottomless purse. “Mama’s oldest brother was the first one from Mattagash to die in a war, over there in the Argyle Forest.”
“I didn’t know that,” said Dorrie, unhappy to give up her own ghastly statistic.
“Mama hardly remembers him,” said Lola. “She was just a little girl when he died. But he won all kinds of medals,” she added proudly, as though war were some kind of Olympics.
“Is that right?” Dorrie mused. It was apparent that brother Larry would have to settle for runner-up. Why was it that Lola, who was supposed to be Dorrie’s very best friend, needed to compete with her on every single issue? If Dorrie said that she, Dorrie Mullins, had an idiot child at home with an IQ of 50, Lola would jump right in and claim she had one she used as a coatrack.
“Uncle Walter was the first,” Lola said yet again. “World War One. And then Larry was second in Korea, and then Reginald Monihan in Vietnam was third.”
“Good heavens,” said Dorrie, irritated. “You sound like you’re on Jeopardy or something.” Final Jeopardy category: Soldiers from Mattagash, Maine, who have died in a war, in proper order, please.
“Really?” Lola thought about this. She had often considered trying out for Jeopardy.
“Not to change the subject,” said Dorrie, who wanted to do just that. She could tell Lola was thinking too much, over there in the think tank on the passenger side. “I don’t believe Amy Joy Lawler’s been seeing anyone. There’s no way she could hugger-mugger something like that. And she don’t really look pregnant to me. Oh, I mean, she’s put on a few pounds over the years, but who hasn’t?” Lola looked at her enormous friend, at the bobbing chins, all three of them.
“I haven’t,” said Lola.
COCOON IN MATTAGASH: DOWN THE YELLOW-TILED ROAD
“There’s no place like home.”
—Dorothy in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
Amy Joy had tried to read her newest copy of Harrowsmith magazine, but found she couldn’t concentrate on organic tomatoes. Television, with its canned laughter, wasn’t the answer either, so she snapped it off. Each time a car swept past the old McKinnon house on the twisty Mattagash road, she felt a quickening of her pulse. But none turned into the driveway, tires crunching on snow. And the river path that Bobby Fennelson had followed to the back door of the McKinnon homestead on all those snowy nights, on all those moonlighty nights, stretched out long and white and untouched by human footprints. Bobby Fennelson was gone to toasty Arizona. Bobby Fennelson was making footprints in the sand now.
With Miranda staying up late to paint, Amy Joy took a warm glass of milk and went off to bed. It came to her at first in the coils of a dream, like a kettle whistling in her kitchen—a loud, piercing sound. She was making tea, wasn’t she, and there was Bobby, telling her again how much he missed his kids, h
ow there are sacrifices in most things, how he would miss her, too, miss Mattagash. “The teakettle’s whistling, Prissy,” Amy Joy said aloud. “I gotta go now.” But instead of hanging up the phone, as she had done to Prissy all those times, Amy Joy was reaching for it, and now she was awake, and it was the phone, ringing its heart out in the night.
“Mama,” Amy Joy thought, and a little fist of fear gripped her. It was Maxine Monihan, now married to a DuPont from St. Leonard, another Mattagasher to cross the French Catholic line. It was well past one o’clock. Why was it Maxine Monihan?
“Amy Joy?” Maxine said. In her voice was a wisp of excitement impossible to conceal. “Did I get you up? Yes, I suppose I did.”
“What is it?” Amy Joy asked.
“An ambulance just roared into Pine Valley,” said Maxine. She lived in the trailer park that overlooked the driveway at Pine Valley. “Since your mom is there, I thought you might want to know.”
“It’s for Mama?” Amy Joy asked. She was fumbling for the night-light. A tumbler of water tipped, then spilled noisily into the darkness before she found the switch. Light flooded the room. “What’s wrong with Mama?”
“Oh, I don’t know if the ambulance is for her or not,” said Maxine. “Lola’s mother is there too. I’m gonna call her next. All I know is that it’s come for someone. I can see the blue light from here.”
“What!” asked Amy Joy. What kind of deranged Paul Revere notion was this? A warning call just in case.
“I gotta get me one of them police scanners,” Maxine was saying as Amy Joy slammed down the telephone. She fingered quickly through the book of phone numbers by her bedside and found the number for Pine Valley, with its lime-green walls, its tiled floors. Amy Joy dialed the numbers. So what if Sicily made a mess of the crossword puzzle? What was a crossword puzzle worth?
Miranda rapped on the door, opened it, and peered in. “What’s wrong?” she asked. She had taken her contacts out to soak and now she wore large brown glasses. “The McKinnon women have always had bad eyes,” Pearl had once said. “But they still don’t miss much.”
The Weight of Winter Page 39
