Lake Life

by David James Poissant

  “Cornell,” Amelia says. “Fancy.”

  Writing a book, going to Cornell. Thad wants to protest. He’s not the trust fund kid Jake’s making him out to be. Without Jake, Thad’s homeless. Michael’s broke. Neither brother has been shown a will, and for all Thad knows, his mother’s money will go to birds, his father’s to Cornell or NASA or that supercollider thing in Switzerland that’s always messing up. His parents assembled their wealth from nothing, which is nice for them, though less nice for the sons who seem to be expected to do the same.

  “How did you like Cornell?” Marco asks, body still turned toward Thad.

  Thad talks, and Jake’s expression is pained. He’s not used to being anything other than the center of attention at meals. This is not the lunch he was looking for.

  “How did you two meet?” Thad asks.

  Amelia wipes her mouth. Again, she folds her napkin, puts it in her lap.

  “Marco had a show downtown,” she says, “and my Art in Society professor got a bunch of us to go. It was extra credit.” She reaches across the table and takes Marco’s hand. “That’s what I call him, sometimes. My little extra credit.”

  Their hands release, and Amelia’s bracelets rake the table with her wrist’s retreat.

  “You’re showing work?” Jake says.

  Thad almost feels sorry for Jake. The desperation to control the conversation. The need to make sure Marco’s here for him. If it’s not sex Jake’s after, it’s the assurance that Marco is Jake’s for the taking. But Marco isn’t his for the taking, despite any impressions Jake had sitting down to lunch. Thad’s not the type to read his boyfriend’s texts, so he can’t say whether Marco led Jake on or Jake led himself on all along.

  “Oh, Marco’s showing work,” Amelia says. “Marco’s a pretty big deal around here. His stuff is at Zuzu’s, in the River Arts District, which is the place to be.”

  “It’s no Gallery East,” Marco says, “but it’s good for Asheville.”

  “Good?” Amelia says. She lifts her glass and finds it empty. She shakes the margarita pitcher and finds it empty too. “Marco’s being modest. He’s huge. Wait until you see our place.”

  Marco’s quiet. Our place hangs over the table, an exclamation point.

  “I wouldn’t mind seeing your place,” Jake says.

  Amelia turns to Thad, and the day feels dangerous again. He’d decided he liked her. He isn’t sure he likes her anymore.

  Again Amelia lifts her drink. Again she finds it empty.

  Jake watches Marco. Marco watches Thad. Thad watches Amelia, and Amelia watches her empty glass, everyone waiting for whatever Thad says next. But there is no next, for, mercifully, at that moment the food arrives.

  Plates hit the table. Waters are refilled. Salad bowls are cleared, and Marco orders another pitcher of margaritas. A phone shrieks the opening bars of James Taylor’s “Carolina in My Mind,” and one of the men at the nearby table stands to answer it. There’s an open gate, and the man on the phone walks through it. He’s saying something about residuals, and he keeps saying it, emphatically. The other man lights another cigarette. Already their table’s ashtray is a ziggurat of butts.

  A thirty-dollar piece of fish stares up at Thad from his plate. The fish wears grill marks and a crust that’s dusted gold. Salsa hugs one side. A salad of purple leaves nuzzles the other. Something elevates the fish an inch or two, and, over everything, a sauce the color of molasses has been drizzled. This fish, Marco says, is special, a darling of the Asheville foodie scene. But this kind of thing is everywhere in New York. Thad’s been to more lunches than he can count, more benefits and gallery openings as Jake’s plus-one, where something very much like this was served. These days, the foods Thad craves are simple: peanut butter, box cakes, soup straight from the can. The very thought of lifting this fish to see what hominy or chutney’s underneath makes Thad tired.

  He could send the swordfish back, order something he actually wants to eat, but he won’t. He’ll eat cold food before he’ll flag down a server or complain. Jake, on the other hand, sends meals back all the time.

  Thad takes a bite and tastes saffron, then honey, then balsamic vinegar, then brine. He takes another bite. Maybe Asheville’s not so bad.

  “Marvelous,” Jake says. His fish is halved, the hominy beneath—it is hominy—spilled across the plate.

  Marco waves a hand in front of his face. “Is that smoke bothering anyone else?”

  Thad isn’t bothered. He smoked cigarettes for years. He only quit for Jake, who’s sensitive to smells, cigarette smoke most of all. Thad sees, then, that Jake’s eyes are bloodshot. Oh, God. Did Marco notice first? Was Marco a better, more attentive boyfriend than Thad?

  Marco stands and pushes in his chair.

  “Honey,” Amelia says, “it’s fine.”

  “I’m just going to talk to him,” Marco says.

  Marco stands, and here’s the passion Thad’s been waiting for, the magma roiling under rock. But Marco isn’t showing off for Amelia. If Thad had to guess, he’d guess that Marco’s showing off for Jake. If this is true, this isn’t lunch. This is a war, a tournament of self-important men, each gesture, every word, a way of saying: I don’t need you. Look how far I’ve come.

  How long, Thad wonders, has Marco planned this? The girlfriend, the expensive restaurant, Lunch is on me? The smoker, however, is not part of the plan. Marco wants Jake jealous, not eyes watering, wanting to leave.

  At the other table, the man with the cigarette says something, and Marco leans in close. When he returns to the table, the man’s cigarette is out. Marco sits. Amelia rolls her eyes. Jake looks impressed, which was, of course, the point.

  The other man, no longer on the phone, rejoins his friend, and the two whisper, casting glances Marco’s way. Marco smirks. Jake fawns.

  Thad wants to go home.

  He excuses himself to the men’s room and calls Jake’s phone, but Jake doesn’t pick up.

  Bathroom, Thad texts, now, or find your own ride home.

  A minute later, Jake is through the door.

  Thad wants to shout. He wants to cry. He wants to give Jake hell. But first he’ll give him one more chance. He opens his arms and pulls Jake into them. He kisses Jake’s cheek, his ear. He holds him tight. All can still be forgiven.

  “Let’s not do this,” Thad says. Jake tries to pull away. “Please.”

  The only way out of Thad’s grasp is down, but, slipping through his arms, Jake falls and hits the bathroom floor. His coat rides up, the collar at his ears. On the floor, he looks small, a boy swallowed by his father’s clothes.

  “Admit that this is more than lunch,” Thad says.

  “Grow up,” Jake says. He stands. He moves to the mirror and smooths his lapels.

  A pair of sinks perch beneath the bathroom mirror, and Thad moves to one of them. He opens the tap and water rushes out. He cups his hands. The water’s cold.

  Jake examines himself in the mirror. He pulls the thin, plastic arrows from his shirt collar, then reinserts them. Sure enough, the collar hangs straighter, sharper at each end.

  “Look at me,” Thad says. He’s tried kindness, sympathy, mutual respect. Time to pull the pin from the grenade.

  Jake fusses with his hair. He picks something from between his teeth.

  “Look at me,” Thad says again, and when Jake turns, Thad opens his cupped hands onto Jake’s front. It couldn’t look more like Jake wet his pants.

  Thad dries his hands and walks out of the bathroom.

  “You’re a child,” Jake calls after him. There’s more, but Thad can’t hear it. The door has already swung shut.

  15.

  Iron rings the day bright. The horseshoe hits the stake and spins, and Richard smiles.

  Down the sloping yard, midway between the water and the house, is a plateau, land leveled and rock-walled against erosion. The wall is low, knee-high, an echo of the seawall that follows the curve of shore below. Each summer Richard walks the wall, finds the ho
rseshoe pits hidden in grass, then kneels and pulls up the earth around each stake. The stakes are regulation: fifteen inches tall, twelve degrees from vertical, forty feet apart.

  The horseshoes are rusted. Richard found one embroidered, a vine grown through the eyelet meant for nail and hoof. The vine twined the horseshoe, a creeping helix, and Richard gently untangled the iron from the plant, then tapped the horseshoe to the wall, rust flaking and falling away.

  A truck rumbles in the distance. A lawn mower starts up. Birds carol.

  Back from the waterfall, Richard didn’t expect Michael to join him on the hill, but here they are, horseshoes in hand.

  “Three to you, old man,” Michael says. The bruise has escaped its bandage, painting Michael’s forehead indigo. He cradles the mug he’s had all morning, the travel kind with spill-proof lid, but Richard never saw any coffee go in.

  Below, the morning boats are gone. They’ve found the body, or they’ve given up, following the current’s drift to another leg of the lake.

  He wants to tell his son that he is brave, that he did his best. For all the good this will do. Michael will never forgive himself for not moving faster, diving deeper, just as the boy’s parents will never forgive themselves for the water wings, just as the daughter will never forgive herself for falling asleep. Just as Richard will never, ever forgive himself for putting his daughter to sleep with a stuffed duck. June’s little fist. In memory, she forever grips the foot of that green duck.

  They thought one day they’d tell the boys, then thought better of it. Michael and Thad had no reason to know they had a sister. Why upset them? Why conjure a girl to life only to smother her before their eyes?

  Even now, June is a balloon bound to Richard’s wrist. She hovers behind him, just out of view. He turns, and she turns with him. But she’s there, always, afloat at the periphery.

  Richard removes his glasses. He polishes the lenses with his shirt. A second horseshoe waits to be flung, and he flings it.

  The clang quiets the birds. Another ringer.

  Michael shakes his head. “You join a league, or what?”

  Richard blinks, surprised by luck.

  “Seriously,” Michael says. “Are those your first two throws this year?”

  They are, and Richard wonders at the odds. His pitcher/ringer average at his peak was one in eight, but he hasn’t been at his peak in twenty years. The past few years, Richard’s lost to Michael badly.

  Michael sips from his mug. Two horseshoes wait on the wall, but he seems in no hurry to pitch them.

  The house above is quiet. Thad and Jake have gone to Asheville, and Lisa hasn’t left the bedroom all day. He could go to her, but his impulse is to be with his son. Does this make him a good father or a bad husband?

  He doesn’t know. He knows enough to know he doesn’t know himself that well. When June died, Lisa’s attempts to put him “in touch with his feelings” were lost on him. Grief groups, couples counseling, psychotherapy. In therapy, he sat in a chair across the room from a man in another chair, each session a game of Battleship. When the other man got close, Richard simply moved his ships. There would be no going back into that bedroom, no looking in the bassinet.

  He should go to Lisa. He should climb the hill and comfort his wife. But the sun is up, and the stake has two horseshoes around it. Michael is laughing at the improbable six points, and that laugh fills Richard’s heart.

  “All right, old man,” Michael says. “You’re going down.”

  Michael grabs the horseshoes and approaches the pinecones they’ve arranged to mark the throwing line. Then Michael’s eyes are searching. Two boats have entered the bay.

  “He’s still out there,” Michael says.

  “Let’s go inside,” Richard says. Hand to shoulder, he tries to spin the compass of his son, but the water is magnetic north, and Michael’s tuned to it. He hops the rock wall, jogs downhill to the dock, and Richard follows, slow.

  The first boat is one from yesterday, an officer in uniform at the wheel. The second boat is brown and red, three times the other’s size, a man at the helm and two men at the stern. These men are not in uniform. One wears a T-shirt with the Warner Brothers Tasmanian Devil on the front. The other wears a ball cap and a sweatshirt, forest green. They both wear work gloves. The first man turns a crank, and an enormous hook and chain are lowered into the bay. The chain unspools from the boat’s middle, threaded through what looks like the neck of a yellow bulldozer.

  Hook submerged, the boat makes a lap around the bay before anchoring. The men turn the crank, and the chain coils with a ratcheting cackle, links big as tractor tires.

  “Oh my God,” Michael says. “They’re fishing for him.”

  The surface breaks. The chain catches. What’s hooked spins, dripping.

  It is not a body. It is a refrigerator door, algaed and mud-slick. It hangs a moment before the handle snaps and the door drops back into the lake.

  Richard expected a net, some kind of scoop. He hadn’t prepared himself for the sight of a three-pronged grappling hook. The logic, of course, is sound. The lake bed must be a mess of litter and logs. One pass, and any net would be in shreds. But a hook.

  “Come on,” he says. He can’t watch this.

  He turns, and his son is smiling. Why is Michael smiling?

  “I was just thinking of this joke you told us when we were kids. This awful, awful joke.”

  “Son,” Richard says.

  “No, stay with me. So the joke goes: ‘Did you hear the one about the dredge operator who couldn’t keep up with the duck?’ ” Michael pauses, whether for emphasis or searching for the punch line, it’s hard to tell.

  “They say he was lagging a drake,” Richard says.

  “Lagging a drake,” Michael says.

  “Why don’t we go inside?” Richard says. Michael is pale. The day is hot.

  “Spoken like someone who’s afraid to lose at horseshoes,” Michael says, and they climb the hill, the chain unraveling into water at their backs.

  Above, Diane waits for them. She wears a summer dress, white with whorls of gray and green. She sits on the rock wall, ankles crossed. Her legs are long, and her sandals touch the grass. She offers Richard a hand, and he takes it, clambering over the wall.

  She and Michael won’t look at each other. I’m imagining this, Richard thinks, but the longer he watches, the clearer it becomes. Something’s going on between these two.

  “I brought water,” Diane says.

  On the wall sit Solo cups sweating in the sun, and Richard takes one and drinks.

  “Lisa’s up,” Diane says.

  “I should check on her,” he says.

  “She’s in the tub,” Diane says. “At least, I heard the water running for a while.”

  “Mom’s fine,” Michael says. “Can’t we finish one goddamn game?”

  Richard can’t account for Michael’s change of mood. On the dock, he told a joke. With Diane, there’s a look of fury on his face.

  “Are you in pain?” she asks.

  She reaches for the bandage, and Michael pulls away. He holds a horseshoe, but he seems determined not to throw until Diane has left.

  “Are those boats doing what I think they’re doing?” she asks.

  Richard nods. He hopes she hasn’t seen the hook. He wishes he had some words of wisdom, something to say to comfort these two, but he comes up short.

  Across the bay, dogs fill the air with their cries.

  “I’m going up,” Diane says. “If Lisa needs you, I’ll let you know.”

  She’s several steps away before she returns and hugs Michael. He doesn’t put the horseshoe down, and he doesn’t hug her back. Her cheek finds his chest. She stays that way awhile, then kisses his shoulder and departs.

  She’s up the hill before Michael will look at him.

  “What the hell was that?” Richard says.

  “The hell was what?” Michael’s got the travel mug to his mouth again. He sips, sets down the mug, the
n drinks from the Solo cup.

  “I know you’re upset about the boy. I know you’re sad. But don’t take it out on your wife.”

  It’s briefly back, the look of rage that Michael flashed Diane, but Michael says nothing. Instead, he takes his place at the pinecone line, steps back, steps forward, then launches the horseshoe from his hand. For a second it seems the U will sail over the stake, but only for a second. At its apex, the horseshoe drops, collars the rebar, and wrings its neck.

  Richard howls. Two dead and three, three ringers in a row.

  “Back to three for you,” Michael says. “Want to see if I can make it zilch?” He watches the stake. He won’t look Richard’s way.

  “Talk to me, Son.” He wants to touch his boy, but something warns his hand away. “Have a seat.”

  Michael frowns.

  “I’m your father,” Richard says. “Sit down.”

  Michael does as he’s told. Cross-legged on the wall, he looks ready for meditation, were meditation practiced with a scowl.

  Richard sits beside him. The wall is chalky, stones gummed together with quick-dry concrete. He built the wall himself, years ago. As a younger man, he never let another hand repair his home, rotate his tires or change the oil in his car. Then came tenure, research, fellowships, and time grew more valuable than saving money on odd jobs. In the hour it took him to mow the lawn, he could draft the abstract for a grant that might net his department half a million dollars. But that part of his life is over. No more stipends. No more travel funds or research requests. No more technology fee proposals. Richard is retired. From here on out, life is one big unfunded sabbatical.

  “You know,” he says, “your mother and I have had our troubles too.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  A dragonfly lands on Richard’s leg, lifts off.

  “You and Diane. You seem unhappy.”

  Michael sighs. “We’re just going through something at the moment. Something happened that I can’t discuss.”

  Richard suspects, no, knows. Right then, he’s sure he knows the thing his son has done.

  “Michael,” he says, “you’re not alone in this.”