by Mad Dash
The cabin had no closets when we bought it, not even a kitchen pantry till Mr. Bender made us one. What did people used to do with their clothes? I’ve been hanging mine on hooks around the molding of a high faux wainscoting Andrew and I thought to nail to the bedroom walls a few years ago. They’re sort of decorative—at least my light-colored summer clothes are and a few of my hats—but really, a woman should have a closet. So I asked Owen to build one, and he did.
It’s small, but that’s okay, so is the bedroom. Tomorrow he’s coming over to put up the hanger rod and build an overhead shelf, and today I’m painting it. I’m using Lantern Glow, the exact shade of yellow-gold you see in all the house magazines but can never find at the paint store. And there it was in Flohr’s Hardware on Monroe Street. It’s sunny and perfect, I adore this color, I might paint every room in the cabin Lantern Glow.
Engine noise—gravel churning. Somebody’s here. I put my sticky paintbrush down and cross to the window.
Owen? Today? I recognize his tan pickup through the trees before he wheels into the clearing and brakes. Sock has a remarkable disinterest in barking—so far; Owen says some dogs come to it late. She skips out to meet him, tail whirling, rear end squirming. She loves Owen.
Christ, I think on my way downstairs, I’m a mess. No makeup, my worst clothes, paint on my arms, probably my face. I’ve still got on my bedroom slippers. “Hey,” I call from the porch, shading my eyes. “You’re here today.”
“Got free early, thought I’d get that shelf in for you.”
“Great!”
He always looks so healthy. I feel waiflike when I’m with him, and blonder for some reason. Today he has on several layers of clothes that make him look even bigger. I don’t bother asking if he wants any help unloading stuff from his truck; I’d just get in the way.
Owen and I work well together. When he did the kitchen cabinets, there was no awkwardness between us while we stripped and stained and varnished. I don’t know why I thought there would be, except that I talk so much more than he does.
“We can work around each other,” he says when I tell him I’m in the middle of painting the closet. He’s already measured and sawed for the shelf and rod, so now, unless he made a mistake, all he has to do is put them up. Still, this involves hauling a big plastic bucket of tools up the stairs, and then he has to put on his thick leather tool belt that’s so heavy it always pulls his pants down a little and makes him look like a gunslinger. He shrinks my bedroom down to dollhouse size when he’s in it, but he’s not clumsy. He’s quite graceful for a man his size.
“Don’t you love this color? Isn’t it fabulous?”
“Real pretty.” He smiles, because that’s a joke now, how many times I’ve asked him that. I like his soft-voiced, Virginia-Piedmont accent. “Real pretty.”
“How’s Cottie? I haven’t talked to her in days.”
“Doing good.”
“Is she still walking?”
“Every morning.”
“She hated that treadmill. Does Shevlin go with her? How old is he, seventy-five? He could use the exercise, too, I bet.”
“Walking’s for yuppies, he says.”
“Ha. Of course. Stay in shape the old-fashioned way, with hard, honest labor.”
Owen chuckles, but he’d never jog or walk for exercise, either. What foolishness, he’d think. Like his father-in-law, Owen’s a man of action. Men of action don’t join health clubs to use their Nautilus machines.
He measures something with his big, retractable measurer. “Danielle was over for the weekend.”
I almost drop my brush. Partly because a local appearance by the elusive Danielle is a rare event, like a hummingbird in winter, but even more because this is the first time Owen has ever brought her up without a lot of not-so-subtle prodding from me. I’m intensely curious about her. We’ve never met; she’s here and gone in a flash, like a movie star, and I hear about it afterward from Cottie.
“Really?” I sound very nonchalant.
He hunkers down, half in and half out of the closet, changing bits on his power drill. I stare down at the top of his head, his wide shoulders and strong, bulging thighs. If he doesn’t say anything else, I’m going to pour this can of paint on him. “Yeah. She brought Matthew.”
“She did? She usually leaves him at home, doesn’t she? With her roommate?” Someone named Lisa who’s a sales rep, like Danielle, at a cosmetics company.
“Yeah. Usually.”
“How old is Matthew now?” Seven.
“Seven.” For a while we can’t talk over the noise of his drill. “He’s in second grade. Real smart.”
Matthew is Danielle’s son from a very short first marriage. That husband is completely out of the picture, so Matthew is all hers. She and Lisa, who travel a lot in their jobs, have some sort of monetary/ care-sharing arrangement, so somebody is always there to look after him. I get all this from Cottie.
“I don’t think you’ve ever told me how you and Danielle first met.” This is so disingenuous, I can’t look at him. I have to edge Lantern Glow along the white molding with extra care and concentration.
Another pause.
“I’ve known her practically all my life.”
“Oh. Were you childhood sweethearts?”
“Nope.” He puts a screw in his mouth and talks around it, squinting up at a metal bracket on the wall. “We didn’t start up till I got out of the army. Then she got married, which set us back a bit.”
His arm is in the way, I can’t see if he’s smiling. “And a baby, too,” I say tentatively. “That probably took…some adjusting.”
“No.”
“No?” I prod after another damn pause.
“Matthew’s never been a problem. I miss him more than her. What’d you think of that wild turkey meat? Too gamy for you?”
End of confidential revelations.
I finish my painting job before he finishes his carpentry job, so there’s nothing to do but go down and clean my stuff in the kitchen sink. After that, I have time to put on some lipstick and fluff up my new short hair. Exchange this sweatshirt for a cardigan I left in the living room. What’s going on? I ask myself in the bathroom mirror. As if I didn’t know.
It’s nice that I understand myself, because I certainly don’t understand Owen. I’m used to men flirting with me, old men, young, attractive, not. It doesn’t mean anything, they just like me, because I like them. I enjoy that little thing that happens, mutual awareness, unspoken acknowledgment of interest. Nothing comes of it, you have it and go on, it’s just pleasant knowing it’s there.
Owen and I, as far as I know we never have that thing. He’s fond of me, that’s obvious in his kindness, all the time he puts in doing things for me—of course, I pay him, but not that much, he’s certainly not over here all the time for the money—but he never flirts. Occasionally I’ll detect an appreciative look when he first sees me, although I might even be imagining that. So what is the problem? Does he find me sexless? Old? Does he dislike my city ways? Does he disapprove of my leaving Andrew?
We almost collide at the top of the stairs, me going up, him coming down with his bucket of tools. “Oops,” I say, flustered. He started out with two shirts on and a T-shirt; now he’s down to the T-shirt. I can smell him: fresh sweat, sawdust, and muscle. “Um, would you like a cup of coffee?”
“Got anything cold?”
“A Coke?”
“That’d be good.”
We squeeze past each other.
“Oh, it looks great! Hey! I have a closet!” And I can’t help thinking how completely beyond Andrew this project would be. I know I’m not supposed to mind. People like us, urban professionals who supposedly live in our heads more than our bodies, we’ve talked ourselves into half believing we’re more evolved because we don’t know how to do anything. But I don’t know a single woman who, all other things being equal, wouldn’t rather have a man who can do things.
Although, in fairness, Owen probably cou
ldn’t teach a course on the American Revolution.
While he loads up his truck, I set out sodas, cookies, peanuts, pretzels, olives, carrot sticks, hummus, and pita pieces. The cornucopia effect; I learned it from Cottie. When he comes inside, Sock trailing, he asks if he can use the bathroom. I rattle ice cubes while he pees so I can’t hear. I don’t know why.
“How’s the washer-dryer? Any leaks?” He pulls out a chair and sits down at the table, frowning at a napkin in a wooden holder I put at his place.
“Nope, not a one. Owen, would you like a beer instead? I didn’t even think to ask.”
“This is fine.” He takes an enormous swig of Coke, ignoring the lemon wedge I stuck on the glass. Leans back, getting comfortable. Looks around the kitchen. “So. How do you know what you’re eating?”
“You asked! Finally—you’ve been so discreet.” We look over at the big paper labels for tomatoes, corn, asparagus, beets—anything colorful—I glued behind the sink for a backsplash, and crack up. They brighten the room, no question, but over in the glass-fronted cabinet are the byproducts of my cleverness I forgot to plan ahead for: lots of naked, anonymous cans of who knows what. “The other night I had lima beans and corn for dinner with a side of succotash.” That’s not even true, but it makes Owen laugh harder. “You’re crazy,” he says, as if it’s a compliment.
He tells me about some genuine oak parquet squares he can get for practically nothing if I want them for the living room. “Hm” is my answer; I love the old pine boards. “Maybe in the kitchen, though. Instead of this linoleum.” He looks taken aback, unsure. Parquet in a kitchen?
“Forgot to tell you—Miz Bender said be sure to call and tell her what’s a good day for you two to get together.”
“Oh, good. I’ll call her this afternoon.” Cottie and I are going out for lunch one day this week. “You always call her ‘Mrs. Bender.’ She told me you’re as close to her as a son.”
His blond eyelashes go down and he smiles, showing a crooked eyetooth. “I’m the same. She could be my mother.”
“How did you lose your parents?”
“You mean Miz Bender didn’t already tell you all about it?”
I show my open palms, look innocent.
“My father got blood poisoning from a tractor accident, and my mother got cancer.”
“When you were very young?”
“Not that young. Twelve, Mama died. My father, I was fifteen. Lawyers wanted to sell the farm, but I wouldn’t let ’em. Made ’em lease it.”
“And the Benders took you in.”
“Eventually. After a spell with my uncle and aunt down in Staunton. Pretty bad spell.”
Cottie didn’t tell me about that. I can see Owen’s not going to, either.
“Benders knew me from church, knew my family. Some people talk about charity and doing what’s right, helping out your neighbor when he’s in need, and other people do it and don’t say a word. Benders took me in and never made me feel beholden or like I had to be thanking them all the time. They even—” He pauses a second. “Even lent me some money when I got out of the army, get the farm going again. And that had nothing to do with Danielle, they just wanted to help me get started in my life.”
I’m not surprised that Cottie never told me that, either.
“Do you like living by yourself? Or do you get lonely on your farm sometimes?”
He has light, clear eyes, and when he goes quiet or shuts down, he turns them away so I can’t see them, as if otherwise I’d always see the truth. Andrew’s a bit like that, too. Owen leans over to retie his boot lace and says, “Oh, I’m used to it. I get along fine. Too much to do to get lonesome.”
I fall into a reverie I’ve had before, that Owen and I are married. We live on his farm. I tend the big vegetable garden and dress venison and can things in my spare time while he does the heavy outdoor work, planting the fields, castrating bulls, and what not. I don’t have too much spare time, though, because I’m also the local vet. We’re very real people, salt of the earth, nothing frivolous about us. I take his name. Our lives are simple but meaningful.
Sock puts her paw on his knee, and he pulls her up on his lap. A different kind of reverie comes over me. Sock splays her long adolescent legs over Owen’s, and the worn corduroy stretches over his thighs, pulling the seams tight. His thick fingers disappear under the fur around her neck. She yawns in ecstasy, turning her head this way and that for more, shameless as a cat.
Owen’s asking me something. I hear “week going?” and take a startled stab at the answer. “Oh, very well so far. I read and walk, I have my projects.”
“Like what?”
“Well, black-and-white studies of the pond, that’s one. In fact, the one thing I forgot to do is bring down my old enlarger. I used to develop pictures in a little bathroom darkroom—I could do that down here, just for fun. I miss film. Digital’s great, I’d never go back, but sometimes I miss the darkroom.”
“You should do that, then.”
“I think I will.”
“You’re sure good at a lot of things.”
“Me? I thought I was only good at one thing.”
He shakes his head. He and Sock are both looking at me through half-closed eyes. “Cottie thinks you’re about the smartest woman she knows.”
“Oh. Pshaw.” I trace a drop of condensation down the side of my glass with my finger. “What do you think?”
“I think it’s gotten a lot more interesting around here since you came.” He smiles. In a friendly way? A seductive, inviting way? Is his answer a factual observation or an overture? Is he oblivious to what he does, or is he doing it on purpose to make me crazy?
He picks up my camera, hanging by the strap on the chair next to his. His fingers look too big on the black case, fumbling it open, pulling the camera out. I’m a bit unnerved. Be careful, I want to say, don’t crush it. He finds the power button and swivels it on. The lens hums out. He looks at me through the viewfinder.
“Don’t take my picture.”
“Why not?”
“Here, I’ll take yours.”
But he leans back, won’t let me have the camera. He closes one eye and turns the focus ring. “Smile.”
“No.”
“You have a pretty smile.”
“I hate having my picture taken. I know, the irony.” I give him a flat-lipped smirk.
“Don’t do that. Smile sweet. Then you develop it and let me have the picture.”
I don’t know what kind of smile I give him, but he takes the photo. I imagine the blacks and grays being born in developer, the whites emerging. It’s me, all right. I’ve got antlers. Headlight glare flashes back from my dazed pupils.
Before he goes, he checks the stove in the living room and tells me I’ve got creosote, not to light another fire in there till I get it cleaned. Maybe this is all I want from Owen, manly advice, someone to look out for me. That’s a comfortable role. He plays it well, and it doesn’t confuse me.
I’m in a tricky phase, though. Anything could happen. I have a certain feeling in my skin, as if it’s unnaturally thin, ultrasensitive. From past experience, I know this feeling can sometimes precede an impulsive act.
I walk outside with him. It’s a bright, breezy, hopeful afternoon, warm in the sun, chilly when a cloud hides it. The sound of the wind is different from only a week ago, softer and more encumbered now that the buds have turned to baby leaves. April’s mean streak is over.
Owen is one of those people who take forever to say good-bye. I don’t think it means they hate good-byes—I hate good-byes, so I expedite them, kiss-hug-disappear. I think they just don’t know how to leave. Owen presses the small of his back against the truck while he tells me about a porch swing he’ll let me have cheap because he bought it in the fall when nobody wanted a porch swing. About how he’ll kill the mice in the cabin walls if I don’t have the heart for it (I don’t, and I’m not letting him, either, but I say I’ll think about it). About how these burrows in th
e ground here are from voles, not moles, and I should encourage Sock to eat, not just sniff them—why, his dog, Rex, eats so many, he’d be fine if Owen forgot to feed him for a week.
Then: “Do you ever get lonesome?”
I drop the stick Sock and I were mock-fighting over. “Who, me?”
“Your husband never comes down anymore. I know there’s trouble. Miz Bender didn’t say, but…”
She probably implied. I’m touched that Cottie hasn’t told her own family everything I’ve told her about Andrew and me. I’m also amazed that Owen is finally saying something to me directly, no gallant circuitry, about my marital situation. I’ve referred to it plenty of times, but till now he never has.
“Yes, sometimes, sure. I’m lonely. But like you,” I say deliberately, “I’m getting used to it.” That’s an invitation: mine to his. I’m already anticipating his response—we should keep each other company, something like that. Because to me, and now, obviously, to Owen, inquiring about whether a person is lonely or not is almost always an invitation.
He opens the door of his truck. “See those jammed-up oak leaves up there?” I follow his pointing finger to high, bare branches, a dark mass of something or other among them. “You got a flying squirrel’s nest. Come out some night when the moon’s full and watch. It’s a sight to see.” He gets in the truck and starts it up. “Okay. See you.”
That’s it? “Thanks—the closet is wonderful—I’ll send you a check.” Sock barks at the truck, which has begun to reverse; I scoop her up in my arms. “How much do I owe you?”
“I’ll catch you on that later.” He shifts gears and drives away.
I think that’s what he said. Or “I’ll get you on that later”? “I’ll get with you on that later”? Any way I construct it, and I try several more combinations, I can’t make it a double entendre.
seventeen
