May Day

by Jess Lourey

  “You still have the option of discovering new stuff now, right?”

  “Yeah, but now they don’t always want me to,” he said. His voice seemed a little deeper than usual.

  Intrigued, I asked, “You mean Trillings doesn’t want you to find anything on the Jorgensen land because then they couldn’t build there? Isn’t there plenty of lucrative theme park land elsewhere?”

  “Yes, but not with the built-in tourist flow of this area. The lakes bring in a lot of people. Plus, this is the site of one of the most famous Indian battles in Minnesota, and it was a precursor to the Dakota

  uprising. This area has the history, the layout, and the clientele. It’s perfect.”

  “You know,” I said, chewing my thumbnail, “I should write a piece on you and the potential heritage museum for the paper. If I got it into the Recall office before Friday afternoon, it would make it into next Monday’s paper. Would you be OK with that?”

  He thought for a moment. “I don’t see why not. It would be some good advertising, and we’re not doing anything illegal. Ask me some questions.”

  “How about over breakfast? I’m hungry, and I believe you still owe me a meal. Whaddya say?”

  He rolled over on top of me and pushed the hair back from my face, his eyes inches from mine. The pressure between my legs told me we weren’t going to be eating anytime soon. “Don’t you have to work today?” I asked him.

  “Don’t you?”

  I smiled. “The library doesn’t open until ten o’clock on Saturdays. And except for an article on a hot archaeologist, I don’t have anything on my plate. Speaking of which, aren’t you a little worried we’re gonna starve?”

  “Oh, we won’t starve,” he said, lowering his mouth to my stomach. Sure enough, it stopped growling as he kissed it. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the ride. For an aspiring loner, I can get used to people pretty quick under the right circumstances.

  The next few days sped by exactly like the falling-in-love sequences in the movies in which two destined lovers meet. There might have even been a soundtrack. Jeff did as little work as possible, and we snuck time together in the corner of the library, at the base of Chief Wenonga, in his bed in Room 6 at the Battle Lake Motel, and in mine in the doublewide. We were even starting to finish each other’s sentences. When he trotted out the “I think I’m falling for you” line, I rode it all the way home.

  We had been together only a week, and already I felt a stability that I never had with my family, even when my father was there. My mom was always kind, but she was aimless, bopping from one secretarial job to another so she could support my dad’s twisted lifestyle, which consisted of waking up and drinking, going to the mailbox to see if his disability check was in yet, and then strolling back to the couch to drink some more. My dad, well, he was my dad. With Jeff, though, I felt like I finally had someone on my side.

  On Friday night, a week after we met, we were at the movies, my head on his right shoulder, and we both went for the popcorn at the same time. Our hands bumped, and he grabbed my left with his right and kissed my ring finger. “You’re the kind of woman a man could grow old with, Mira,” he whispered in my ear.

  I snuggled in closer to keep from floating away. Looking back, I wonder if I could see the shadow of death hanging over Jeff even then, waiting to rip yet another man from my life.

  “Morning,” Jeff said gruffly, kissing my neck. “Today, I actually have to work.”

  I was going to spoon him, but I was suddenly too crabby. “But it’s Saturday!”

  “And if I had been working all week, missy, like I’m being paid to, I wouldn’t have to work today. I’ve got to go back out to the Jorgenson land and take soil samples, do more surveying, and issue a preliminary report to my bosses. There was that odd roll in the land out there that I wouldn’t mind peeking into either. Then I’m going to the Cities tonight and tomorrow to do some more research and meet up with some contacts.”

  “Ooh, archaeological contacts,” I said. “Sounds scintillating.”

  He ignored my sarcasm. “But I’ll be back Monday, just in time to read your full-page article on me. The town’ll love that.” He chuckled tensely at some private joke. “Want to have dinner when I get back Monday night?”

  “Yes. But Monday seems like an awful long ways away.”

  Jeff brushed my hair away from my face and behind my ear, then kissed my forehead. “It does, doesn’t it. How did I get so attached to you?”

  “Well, I am cute.”

  Jeff laughed and pulled me to him. After some productive messing around, I slapped him on the butt and sent him on his way. One trucker’s shower later and I was at the library, doodling little hearts on scratch paper and making happy moon eyes at the handful of pre-season tourists trickling in.

  When Gina meandered in at lunchtime, it was all I could do not to tell her she’d better get used to calling me Mrs. Wilson. I had known Gina through Sunny for a number of years, and when Sunny skipped town, it made sense for me to take up the friendship. Gina worked as an RN, and like most nurses in the area, she was built like a brick shithouse. She had short blonde hair, so pale I was never sure if she had eyelashes, mischievous green eyes, and a white smile that showed all her teeth. She was simple and genuine and a great listener. An exactly perfect friend, except for her sick sense of humor.

  She grinned when she saw me. “If it isn’t the town whore!”

  My grin melted off my face. “You heard?”

  She caught my embarrassed look and howled. “It’s a figure of speech, Mira. Why, you gettin’ some that I don’t know about?”

  Suddenly, the last thing I wanted to do was tell her about Jeff. “Not so you’d know.” I planted the smile back on my face. “Are ya here to treat me to lunch, big spender?”

  “Even better.” She pulled a wrinkled computer printout from her denim purse and slid it across the counter. “I’m here to treat you to love.”

  There were four thumbnails of men’s heads with titles and descriptions next to them. “What is this?” I asked. “Are we shopping online for men now?”

  “Not we. You. I want you to be able to double with me and Leif so I can see more of you. I signed you up with an online dating service. It’s free to post your ad. You just pay if you want to respond to a guy’s ad.”

  The dots were not connecting. “You wrote an online ad for me? People can shop for me?”

  Gina touched her pointer finger to her nose. “Bingo! I’m tired of hearing you bitch about how there are no smart men around here to date. Welcome to the twentieth century.”

  I shook my head. “It’s the twenty-first century, Gina. And I don’t want to do this.” I firmly believed that men, like leather pants, shouldn’t be bought online. Besides, I had Jeff.

  “You don’t have to do a thing. I’ll screen them for you and forward the good ones to your e-mail account. Be on the alert for love, crazy love.” She winked at me and waltzed out.

  “Cripes,” I said to the photos of the four men I was still holding. They were all cute, in a tiny, black-and-white sort of way. There was even one, a Moorhead State professor according to his ad, whom I wouldn’t mind meeting in a dark alley. But not online. And not when I had Jeff. I balled up the paper, tossed it in the trash, and went back to my moony eyes for the entire day.

  I spent most of Sunday morning prepping my gardens and playing with Luna and Tiger Pop. By the time Sunday night rolled around, my yearning was at a fever pitch. Monday at the library, it was all I could do not to rush to the windows and search for Jeff’s car driving past. He was smart, funny, kind, and not from around here. Almost too good to be true.

  I wondered if this was the same love bug that had bitten Sunny before she up and moved to Alaska. I picked up the picture she had just sent me of her and Rodney, each holding one end of a ginormous salmon. Rodney looked short and hairy in the picture, decked out in a Vikings sweatshirt, his impressive monobrow dominating the scene. Sunny was grinning widely, her cheeks flus
hed with pride or sun. It looked like they were enjoying themselves, but I was sure it was nothing like the love I was feeling.

  On Saturday, before he left, Jeff had brushed my lips with his and told me he would meet me at six at the Turtle Stew, one of Battle Lake’s three diners, when he got back to town Monday night. After I locked up the library, I went into the bathroom and actually curled the ends of my hair and put on eyeliner and lipstick. Jeff was obviously a natural type of guy, so I was careful to add just enough makeup so I looked extra-me but in a wash-and-wear kind of way.

  I got to the diner at quarter to and walked up and down the streets a few times. I actually initiated some of the traditional hellos and head nods as I passed people on the street I knew by sight, or didn’t know

  at all. I spent about four minutes looking through the window of the bead store before I couldn’t stand it any longer. I went into the Stew.

  And I waited there, alone, until almost seven-thirty. I’m normally one of those people who gets pissed instead of worried when others are late, but after an hour and a half, I started to wonder how much of the past week I had made up. The chicken sandwich I had eaten sat like an acid rock in my stomach. I had wanted a burger, really, but had given up beef in deference to mad cow disease. I could read the writing on the wall as well as anyone. I hate sitting alone in restaurants anyhow, and I could only pretend to look at the car and house ads in the Otter Tail Midweek for so long. When I found myself actually reading the auction page, I knew it was time to put the newspaper down.

  People-watching was my personal favorite time killer, but there hadn’t been much going on tonight. The usual group of grizzly farmers was sitting at the round common table in the corner. When I waitressed in the Cities, the big table was reserved for big parties. Around here, an unspoken rule transformed this table and most like it into a social club, and one needed to have the right stories and age for membership. I was always curious what the men at the table talked about as they sipped their coffee and buttered their sweet rolls. Watching them was like watching a private dance where every one of them innately knew the steps. There was easy laughter, but their stiff spines and leathery worry lines pointed to hard lives, or at least a life of hard work.

  I was sucking on an ice cube and imagining myself between Harold Schmidt and Ethan Wardrip, talking about the first time I changed a spark plug by myself, when a gaggle of silver fingernails with red, white, and blue stick-ons clacked onto my table.

  “Hello, Mira,” drawled a voice from above. I knew it was Kennie Rogers without looking. Somehow, maybe as an homage to her country name, Kennie was the only person born and raised in Battle Lake, man or woman, who had a southern accent. I guess she made it work for her. She was the town mayor, through a combination of might and fright, and she had her clackety nails in everyone’s business. Officially, Kennie oversaw town meetings and was in charge of the beautification of the city, but in reality, she was merely a force of nature that no one wanted to move.

  She was in her late thirties, divorced, with no children that I knew of. She looked like a large, overly made-up doll, most notably in her hair, which had probably been naturally blonde at one time but was now bleached to a crispy platinum, curled, and beaten around her ears and face. When I was first introduced to her at the newspaper, she had smiled a wide politician’s grin at me. I cut her some slack, though, because with a name like that and a face like Makeover Magic Barbie in a microwave, I figured she had taken a lot of teasing in school. We’re all a product of our environment.

  “Hello, Kennie,” I said with mock cheerfulness. “How are you?”

  “Better than you, I think, dining alone,” she said, and then laughed as if we shared a private joke. “Please don’t tell me a cute thing like y’all is gettin’ stood up?”

  I clenched and pursed my lips. “OK,” I said, “I won’t.”

  “Well, who’re y’all supposed to be meeting?” Her eyes glittered beneath the weight of powder-blue mascara. I thought they had discontinued that shade out of respect to the Cure disbanding.

  “Nobody you know,” I said, growing angrier with Jeff.

  Kennie crossed her arms and leaned back on her ample hip, her arms crinkling the puff-paint whitetail deer etched across her blue sweatshirt. “You’d be surprised who I know, and y’all best remember that.” The tight, lipstick-shrapnel smile she gave me did little to alleviate the sudden tension. She leaned forward and I flinched involuntarily. With one straight finger, she pushed some loose hair off my face, her fingernail scraping my skull. “Y’all should comb that pretty hair a yours, you know? If I had pretty hair like that, I’d be combing it all the time.” She laughed loudly, breaking through some of the pressure.

  I wondered if Kennie had had the mad cow hamburger for supper. “Sure,” I said blankly, racing to figure out if she was acting weird or if I was just being paranoid. She’d always seemed a little eccentric, but she had never focused this much of her odd brand of attention on me before.

  She winked and pointed her talons at me one last time, then sashayed out the front door. I swear the little balls on her booties waved goodbye like malicious bunny tails. I had never even seen her coming.

  The pang of fear she inspired in me belatedly turned to anger, as is my pattern. I slapped down a three-dollar tip for the waitress, and at exactly 7:31, I walked out the door of the Turtle Stew. The brief but intense encounter with Kennie made me even madder at Jeff, but not so mad that I didn’t hold out hope he would meet me on the way to my car with some dramatic archaeological emergency story.

  I almost ran down Karl Syverson, a local banker, on my way out. We’d become friendly since I’d arrived, through his frequent library visits. He was about five foot eleven and had a slight build for a Minnesota farm boy, nondescript sandy hair, plain blue eyes, and a face like Norwegian food: white, bland, and comforting. A very married gentleman in his mid-thirties, he was born, raised, and rooted in Battle Lake and embodied all the good qualities of Minnesota—true care backed up by time for others, otherworldly patience, and a dry, subtle sense of humor. He had made me feel welcome in the town right away and thawed some of my natural itchiness.

  “Whoa! Following up on another hot lead?” He held me at arm’s length to keep me from barreling into him.

  “Another?” I asked, my ticked-offedness clouding my memory.

  “The whole town is buzzing about that Jeff Wilson article in the back of today’s paper,” he said, looking at me curiously. “You didn’t know who you were interviewing?”

  I returned his puzzled look. “Jeff Wilson, archaeologist,” I said. “Did I miss something?”

  Karl smiled and shook his head, shoving his hands into his pockets and looking down the street in an uncharacteristically boyish gesture. “Jeff Wilson is a legend in this town. He took the high school football team to state three years in a row, then left to attend college out East on a full ride some twenty years back. He was a star quarterback, destined for pro. Battle Lake’s prodigal son.”

  “Well, why didn’t he tell me any of that?” I asked, more to myself than to Karl. The Jeff altar I had built started cracking.

  Karl clucked his tongue. “Maybe he moved past that. Not all of us live for our high school years.”

  There was more to it than that. Moving past high school is not the same thing as forgetting it ever existed, and Jeff had given me every indication during our time together that he was a stranger in Battle Lake. I was suddenly deeply uncomfortable with how little I knew about this man I had slept with.

  “Well, thanks for the info, Karl. If you happen to see this prodigal son, tell him to give me a call so I can get the rest of the story.” I was going to walk away but couldn’t shake the twitch in my shoulder. “Say, maybe you could explain something weird to me. I just saw Kennie Rogers in the Stew, and she was Mary Kay nice and then just turned on me. You think she’s mad because I didn’t interview her as mayor for that article on Jeff?”

  Karl laughed out l
oud for the first time since we had met. “Could be.”

  I glared at him, my meager patience allotment for the evening long used up.

  He grinned. “Kennie Jensen, Miss Teen Minnesota 1981, homecoming queen in 1982, and high school girlfriend to the all-time Battle Lake football star, Jeff Wilson.”

  I didn’t know where to go first. “So her married name is Rogers? She didn’t have to do that to herself?”

  Karl shrugged and pulled out a crisp white handkerchief. He began polishing his fingernails. “Her and Jeff were quite the pair back in high school. You know the spiel—high school sweethearts, he a football star, she a cheerleader, both attractive and popular with the world at their feet. And then he just up and left for college. I guess Kennie wanted him to stay here and raise a family.”

  I pushed down a surge of Kennie-flavored jealousy with both hands. Jeff, like me, had obviously had past relationships. Duh. “So why’s she pissed at me?”

  “Oh, it could be anything, but I’m sure it’s mostly nothing. Maybe Jeff didn’t let her know he was back in town. She’s probably just jealous because you spent time with him and she didn’t. It’ll blow over,” he said. “It always does.”

  I thought of Mrs. Pavechnik, a local legend thanks to her husband. From the way I heard it, Mrs. Pavechnik was still marked from the scandal created because Mr. Pavechnik had had relations with the livestock, and he had been dead for over seventeen years. “Well, nothing I can do about it now,” I said doubtfully. “Remember to tell Jeff I’m looking for him, if you see him.” I couldn’t tell if it was desperation or anger shading my voice.

  “I’ll do that.” He nodded his head firmly, a smile still in his eyes. “Good night!”

  I drove back to Sunny’s house in my puddle-jumper Corolla, listening to the oldies station, my mind wandering. Heart came on singing about a magic man, and I turned it off. I had been sleeping alone for two nights now and had been looking forward to Jeff’s company. It sure didn’t help to know he was a high school football star. I’m not as cynical as I pretend, and I could get as soupy over a real jock as the next person. I suppose I was lucky to find a real man at all, but it was too early in our fling for him to blur his past and stand me up without a phone call. I shoved a sharp but persistent panicky feeling toward the back of my head. Jeff was old enough to take care of himself, and it was just rude that he hadn’t shown up.