Heather winked at Mona. “I heard you stepped out with Frank MacFarland again.”
“Yikes! Is there no privacy in this town? They’ll have me married to him in a week!”
“I ran into Cappy down at the school this morning. He saw you at the Stone Tavern after town meeting.” She raised an eyebrow. “So, is this getting serious, or what? I mean, you’ve gone out with him a couple of times, haven’t you?”
“God, no, just that time we went for a ride.” Mona hesitated. “And you know me, Heather. The best man is no man.”
“Well, he’s a nice guy, Mona. You don’t have to push them all away.”
Mona took a deep breath. Why did Heather have this habit of getting under her skin? She knew her too well. “Well, okay, yes, I do like him. He is sweet, and he makes me laugh, and he wants to get the bridge rebuilt. But, I don’t know, he doesn’t seem very grounded.”
“Translation: you don’t think it’s possible to have a good relationship with a guy.”
Mona bristled. “God, Heather. For such a quiet type, you can be pretty in-your-face. I don’t think I’m that extreme.” Of course, Heather had never known about Cappy. Nobody had. It wasn’t easy in this town, but she and Cappy had kept their relationship a secret. “Come inside, I want to talk to you and Roz about something.”
They stepped out of the humid air of the greenhouse and into the sharp Vermont sun. In the house, Roz’s head was bent over the computer. Spikes of blonde hair stood up in clumps on her head, and there was a glow of energy about her, an intensity that seemed to radiate from her hair like sparks of lightning. At first glance, she and Heather seemed so different—polar opposites, almost—but they had reached a compatible sort of balance, a homeostasis, a pattern of alternately warming and cooling. Heather was the mild air of spring and Roz the fire of the sun.
Heather stopped at the counter and poured coffee into two mugs. She smiled serenely. “Roz is totally engrossed in this bill,” she said.
Roz clicked on the laptop and closed the cover. “Well, it’s a close fight, and we can’t stop now.”
“She’s been up to Montpelier three times this week.” Heather beamed with pride, handing Mona a blue mug labeled UCSFMC, the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center where Roz had worked in California. “And I’m going, too, on Friday, for the demonstration at the statehouse.”
“That’s great,” Mona said. She sat down at the table while Heather picked up some clothes from her chair and threw them onto the sofa. They were both so excited, so enthusiastic. How could she break this news? She sipped her coffee and looked at a painting on the wall behind the table, Swallows at Wild Mountain, by Chester Allingworth, Roz’s grandfather. The painting, an early-twentieth-century watercolor, depicted a flock of swallows swooping through a gray sky and around the covered bridge, while the water beneath it rushed lively and bright. “I always loved that painting,” she said.
“I’ll leave it to you in my will.” Roz pushed a pile of papers to the middle of the table, placed her hands flat, like the chairman of the board ready for business, and addressed Mona. “So, what brings you to Allingworth Farm in the middle of a weekday?”
Mona cleared her throat. “Well…”
“Something wrong?” Heather asked.
“Well, yes, actually.” She took a big gulp of her coffee. “Charlie and Edson Perry were in the store today.”
“And?”
“And they have started a petition.”
“Petition?” Roz looked curious, puzzled. “About the bridge?”
“No, not the bridge.” She looked up from her coffee. “It’s about you, Roz.”
“Me? What do you mean?”
“They want you to resign from the select board.”
“Roz, resign?” Heather cried. “Why?”
Roz had become quiet, and she looked at Mona. “It’s about the Freedom to Marry bill, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“What does this petition say?” Heather shouted. Heather, the quiet, mild-mannered one.
“It says something about Roz not representing the values of ‘the citizens of Wild Mountain.’”
Heather stood up and shouted even louder. “The citizens of Wild Mountain! I suppose that means the Perry family and their homophobic friends!”
Mona had never seen Heather this animated, this fiery. Just when you thought you had someone pegged, they stepped out of character. “Yeah.” She stared down at the table. This stank, being the bearer of bad news.
“Okay, calm down, Heather,” Roz said. “Let’s look at the facts. A petition is not a legal document. It’s only an expression of opinion. And when they get their signatures, they’ll have to bring it to the select board. It’s not something the town has to vote on, just the select board.”
“God almighty.” Heather groaned. “As if you don’t have enemies there.”
“Yes, but let’s not jump the gun. We’ll take it one step at a time.”
Heather sank down into her chair. “She’s right, as usual,” she said. “But this is so unfair!”
“Life is unfair. The laws are unfair,” said Roz. “That’s what this is about! But we are working for change, and there are bound to be people who chafe. People don’t like change.”
“Vermonters don’t like change,” said Mona.
“But you’d think that after we’ve had civil unions for eight years now,” Heather said, “people wouldn’t be so backward about marriage.”
Mona went to the counter and picked up the coffeepot. She poured some into her mug, and picked up the creamer. She herself had never known the kind of discrimination Roz and Heather were facing now. When she’d opened her store, of course, there had been some old-timers who’d laughed and scoffed at little Mona Duval, pretending to be a business owner—but nothing like this.
Can you feel guilty for being heterosexual? How unfair that heterosexuals never know what it feels like to be the object of this kind of prejudice, especially people like Charlie Perry. “I’d like to help fight this,” she said. “I’ll come to the select board meetings.”
“Okay, thanks,” said Roz. “But I have a feeling this is going to blow over.” She waved her hand. “A flash in the pan.”
Heather rolled her eyes. Yes, Roz had always been an optimist, and she’d always underestimated the opposition. That was probably what kept her going at such high velocity. She wouldn’t admit defeat.
Mona drank half her coffee, then got up from the table. “I’ve got to get back, but I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news.”
“No big deal,” said Roz.
As Mona stepped toward the doorway, she noticed Roz’s turquoise jacket, her one nod to respectable attire, thrown on the floor beside the easy chair in the living room, a silk scarf beside it. Roz had never paid much attention to clothes. When they were teens, Roz had hated to go clothes shopping, and couldn’t understand how Mona could linger to touch and feel the fabrics before she decided what to buy, and why she would carefully fold and smooth her clothes before putting them away. For Mona, clothes were almost extensions of herself, whereas for Roz, they were just things. When she took them off, she’d discard them in a way that made Mona wince, as she did now. That good jacket, thrown on the floor.
Should she have known back then that Roz was gay? Just because she was careless about clothes didn’t mean she was a lesbian, of course.
Roz talked about her coming out as a watershed moment, a critical time in her life, an epiphany, but she never realized what an impact it had on everyone else, as well.
What about me? Mona had thought at the age of eighteen. My best friend from forever is suddenly not the person I thought she was. I knew she wasn’t interested in boys, but I assumed that would come later. And then to find out she is a lesbian. Who is this person? And, by extension, who am I? Will everyone think I am a lesbian, too? Has Roz been attracted to me all this time?
She didn’t have the nerve to ask, but Roz could see it in her fa
ce. “No,” she’d said. “I don’t think of you in that way.”
“But now I have to think of you in a different way,” Mona had said, and though she’d always seen herself as unprejudiced, she now began to realize that she had looked down on gay people, as if they were less important or less real, just less than other people. Maybe, she had to admit, she was prejudiced. Homophobic. Though at the time, she didn’t know that word. That had been a watershed moment in her life, as well.
As she walked back down the driveway to her truck, Mona looked across the rolling fields to Wild Mountain. Fields in bright sun, mountain in shadow; and above, the sky had turned dark. Did Roz really think this petition was going to blow over? Or was she just trying to reassure Heather?
Mona climbed into the truck, turned on the ignition, and switched on the radio. “So, batten down the hatches, folks. Cloud cover and squalls coming across the Greens to the VPR listening region. The weather advisory has been upgraded to a warning, and we might get the tail end of the Nor’easter that’s raging up the coast right now. In other words, stay home if you can.”
She turned onto Ben Beavers Road. The sky was clear blue, but off to the west rose thunderheads, great billows of white in the bright sun, like proud gods of the sky about to burst and spill onto the earth. Only one other car on the road, and it was coming from the other direction: a blue BMW. A smile and a wave, and she automatically raised her hand in response. Then she saw Frank. Where could he be going?
16
SEEING MONA COMING THE OTHER way was a good omen, Frank thought, as he turned into the Allingworth Farm driveway. Llamas in the field on one side, apple trees on the other, a stone house in the sun: Vermont couldn’t get any better. He was really doing this for Mona, after all. And now he was ready to roll.
He parked in the driveway, took his briefcase and cane from the passenger seat, stepped out, and walked up to the door. His ankle was still pretty sore, and he finally admitted that the cane did help. And, of course, it didn’t matter what he looked like in front of Heather and Roz, since they were gay. Now, was that a homophobic thought? He didn’t think so, but it wasn’t something he’d say aloud to anyone. Heather, in jeans and a denim shirt, opened the door. Her hair was pulled back and her face looked tired, but her smile radiated that same lilting charm. So what if she was a lesbian? She did look like an angel.
“Hello?” Roz, looking puzzled, was sitting at a big table in the middle of a large, open room with a grand fireplace at one end.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you,” Heather said. “Frank and I are going to work on the bridge grants.”
“I thought you were going to help me with the Freedom to Marry bill.” Roz was actually quite attractive herself, Frank thought, with her prominent nose and high cheekbones, but her expression right now was disapproving. Patrician disapproval.
“All kinds of social action here today,” Frank said, trying to pacify the growing tension.
The two women glared at each other.
“But I can come back another time, too.”
“No, no,” said Roz. “I have to go to my office anyway, so I may as well go now.” She started stacking files, folded her laptop in a huffy way, and got up from the table, a large person with large emotions.
Heather, still frowning, gestured for Frank to sit. He set his briefcase down and pulled out a chair at the table.
“Sorry, it’s a bit of a mess,” she said, pushing aside books and loose papers and gathering up mail and catalogues that were strewn around the table. She dumped the pile on the divider in the kitchen, and sat down facing him. “Thanks so much for helping with this.”
“Hey, I’ve worked on lots of grants before, so this shouldn’t be too hard.”
“I hope not. But the other part is getting the good citizens of Wild Mountain to go for it.”
“Yeah, I guess we’ve got two fronts to work on. But I love this stuff, and wow, even though I haven’t been living here that much, I can’t imagine not having that landmark bridge. What a big loss to the landscape. Aside from the inconvenience, of course. It took me an extra half hour to get here today.”
“Oh, that’s right. You live on the other side of the river.” She glanced anxiously toward the stairway where Roz had disappeared, then back at him with a wan smile. “I’ve been feeling a bit overwhelmed by it all, so it’s heartening to hear your enthusiasm.” She took a brochure from the table and handed it to him. “Here’s the pamphlet from the Vermont Division of Historic Preservation. I think they’re going to be our main source. And I have a list of phone numbers and email addresses for almost every adult in town.” She pushed a stapled list toward him.
He looked at the list. “I’m impressed. And we have to include Mona’s pamphlet in the grant, of course.” He took a copy of A Vermont Covered Bridge out of his briefcase and put it on the table.
With a sly smile, Heather reached across the table and held up a stack of the same pamphlets.
“The more the better,” he said, smiling back at her with good humor. “And I’ve just started talking it up among people I run into. Had a conversation with Charlie Perry.”
“Charlie Perry? My God, the hardest nut to crack. You are brave.”
Frank felt himself lapping it up. That was something his mother used to say to him, and they were words he’d worked hard for. His father had died when he was nine, and Frank was the only boy between two sisters. His mother had doted on him, he realized later, and fostered the image of him as a courageous young man. Once, when his older sister was sick with bronchitis and the car got stuck in a ditch, he ran five miles into town to get her prescription. When he got back, his mother had greeted him like a returning hero, and she had even used that word: hero.
Roz, wearing a sunny yellow jacket and a broad smile, came into the room and breezed past them. “Good luck, you guys,” she said. She opened the door and departed.
Heather rolled her eyes. “You can’t keep her down for long.”
“She’s pretty tough,” Frank agreed.
Heather paused, staring out toward the window light. “Yes, Roz is tough, in some ways. I do admire her ability to get out there and speak so eloquently, and I’m really proud of her.” She paused again, a half-smile on her face. “But in other ways, she’s not so tough.” Her eyes shone as if to imply that she liked the not-tough side of Roz the best. Heather, in her quiet way, thought Frank, was probably the backbone of the family. “So, how did you come into this kind of work?” she asked. “This grant-writing and activism?”
“I started in grad school. Have you ever heard of COOL?”
“It sounds familiar.”
“Campus Outreach Opportunity League. The first conference was at Harvard in eighty-five. I was in business school there, and I suddenly realized that I could combine business with social action. I worked for COOL for a few years, wrote a few grants. How about you?”
“I haven’t done much except go to town meetings and vote. I never saw myself as an activist, and I haven’t spoken out much—that speech at town meeting was a first.”
“Really? You sounded like a pro. And I think we can knock ’em dead with this project! We’ll get the historic preservation grant, and we’ll call everyone in town. They won’t be able to vote against it with all these ducks in a row!”
She laughed, and in her high voice, the laugh sounded like a giggle. “You’re pretty optimistic, but I don’t know. Some of these people are pretty stiff-necked.”
“The stiffer the better! I’ll take it as a challenge.”
Heather’s smile became more tentative, and now she seemed to shy away from his enthusiasm. Was that fear? Did she think he couldn’t do it? Well, she’d see.
17
MONA CLIMBED THE STAIRS AND STEPPED between Charlie Perry and Acheson Levy, a tall man who towered over Charlie, bending and gesturing, his blond hair fluttering in the wind.
“…nine hundred thousand dollars!” Acheson finished the sentence with a flourish of his hand.
“This guy must be insane to come in here, a complete outsider, and start bugging everybody.”
Charlie, whose baggy overalls and long gray beard made him look slighter and older than he was, shook his head. “Flatlander. He’s never even lived here, so what does he care what kind of bridge we have? People are getting mad as hell, and he better watch out—” He noticed Mona staring at him. This was about Frank. Should she say something, or would it just make things worse? She’d started to open the door to step inside when Charlie stopped her. “Ah, Mona!”
She turned around. There was something ominous in Charlie’s tone of voice, but his deadpan expression gave nothing away.
“About your husband there.”
“My husband? You mean my ex-husband?”
“Yup. Just thought you’d want to know. We got rid of him for ya.”
“God rid of him?” She clutched her throat, remembering the gun and Johnny chasing Charlie and Edson down the street. “What do you mean?”
Charlie snickered. “We asked him nicely to leave town, and he did.”
Acheson threw up his hands and shoulders in an I don’t know what he’s talking about gesture.
This was confusing. Charlie had guns, too, but she couldn’t imagine him getting into a fight. Maybe Edson, though. Was that it? Had the two of them threatened Johnny in some vigilante way? Of course, that would have been the language Johnny understood. But “got rid of him?”
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