The Hungry Season

by Greenwood, T.

  He hears Mena getting ready for bed: the running of water, the brushing of teeth, all of the lights getting clicked off downstairs. He hears her feet padding down the hallway toward their room. He imagines her undressing, her skin, exposed in its entirety for a moment before she pulls her nightgown over her head. He imagines the way she used to wait for him.

  He makes his way down the ladder with only a small light in the hallway to guide him. But when he crawls into bed next to her, she is already asleep. He considers waking her, thinks about giving it a shot. His body is still trilling with the pills, though he’s not sure if there’s any connection between this feeling and that other one. Besides, her body is curled away from him: a fiddlehead fern, spiraling inward. Every night she makes a protective shell of her body, at the edges of the bed, and she doesn’t unfurl until morning, and then she sneaks out of bed when she thinks he is still sleeping.

  She has left the light on his side of the bed on: at least she is still considerate. He almost always reads himself to sleep these days. The book is his signal to her that he is preoccupied, otherwise engaged. Sometimes he’ll read until his eyes are crossing, falling asleep with a book across his chest.

  He worries that she has finally given up on him.

  He looks at her, in her pale blue nightgown, at the gentle curve of her body. He remembers tracing her edges, memorizing the slope of shoulders, waist, hips. He used to love when she slept turned away from him. It used to mean that she wanted him to press his body against hers, to feel the front of him against that glorious expanse of her back. But now it only means, Leave me alone. This is too much for me.

  When he touches her, it feels illicit.

  He remembers once as a child when his father drove him all the way to Philadelphia to the Rodin Museum. He was maybe seven, old enough to know better, but one of the sculptures had moved him so much, he couldn’t resist. He had reached out and touched the cold marble, just for a second before withdrawing his hand as if burned. The security guard scolded him, and he’d felt ashamed. He couldn’t explain that the impulse, to touch that beauty, was too strong to resist. Instead, he’d nodded, mumbled his apologies.

  He touches her.

  He allows his hand to follow the path her spine makes, the curvature of bone beneath fabric and skin. And when his fingers reach the place at the bottom of the trail of bones, her body reacts. Just a shiver. He could have imagined it, this response. But there it is again: a twitch of skin, a tremble. He nods and nods. She is not dead. They are not dead.

  Mena got the call from Lisa as she was making sandwiches for their picnic. Effie and Devin had offered them their rowboat when Sam mentioned that they used to go to the island on the Fourth of July. What Mena didn’t expect is that he would take them up on it. The idea of a family picnic seemed almost laughable these days. Of course, they used to take the kids out when they were younger. Have picnics. Spend the afternoon exploring. Mena would pack enormous lunches: sandwiches, homemade potato chips, individual berry cobblers made with blueberries they’d picked, a large thermos of sun tea. On the Fourth of July they would go out to the island and stay until the sun set, until the sky was exploding with lights, the air above them cracking, the shells hissing as they hit the water.

  “You didn’t tell us you were a professional actress,” Lisa said.

  “Oh, I’m not a professional. Not anymore.” Mena felt disappointment swelling up inside her, certain they had already cast someone else. “I let my Equity contract expire more than ten years ago.”

  “I know. I checked. I hope you don’t mind. Our stage manager, Anne, saw The Hour of Lead recently, coincidentally, and recognized you,” Lisa said. “And so ... on that note ... we’d love to have you play May. Are you still available?”

  “Yes,” Mena said, blood rushing hot to her cheeks. “Absolutely. Thank you so much.”

  “I haven’t spoken to the others yet, so please don’t say anything, but we plan to offer the role of the Old Man to Hank James, Kyle Smith will play Martin, and Eddie will be played by Jake Rogers. He’s the second guy you read with. The one with the beard.”

  “I remember,” Mena said. “Thank you again.”

  “Rehearsals start next Tuesday. At seven o’clock. Have a terrific holiday.”

  Mena finishes making the sandwiches: chicken pesto pan-ninis. The bread is still warm; she baked it at five o’clock this morning. She found a patch of basil growing on the side of the house, probably from a previous tenant of the cottage. She puts everything in a picnic basket: sandwiches, fresh fruit from the Quimby Farmers’ Market, and a bottle of wine. She digs around in the cupboard for paper cups. Napkins.

  On the way out to the island, Sam is talkative. Finn is not.

  “Remember when you used to swim the last quarter mile to the island?” Sam asks, digging the oars into the water. “You think you could still do that?”

  Finn and Franny both became good swimmers. They almost always dove off the boat as they approached the island, racing each other to the shore. It made Mena nervous, but they were strong, strong swimmers. Little fish.

  It’s one of those rare clear-sky days at the lake. No clouds, and the sun is almost oppressive. Mena can feel it beating on the back of her neck. She wishes she had brought a hat for shade.

  “How long are we going to be out here?” Finn asks, swatting at a mosquito that has landed on his arm.

  “I don’t know. Maybe three, four weeks,” Sam says. “Hope you brought a change of clothes.”

  “Ha. Ha,” Finn says. “We’ll be back by tonight, right? For the fireworks?”

  “You don’t want to stay? Like we used to?”

  Finn shakes his head.

  They glide through the water toward the island. Mena watches Sam’s thin arms, the muscles flexing and retracting as he moves the oars. He is wearing the boat shoes Mena bought him the first summer they came to Gormlaith. She spent a lot of money on them; they are still in perfect condition.

  When they get to the center of the lake, Sam lifts the oars into the boat and pulls a pair of binoculars out of his backpack. He peers through them for a second. The sun is so hot.

  “I think I see a pair of loons,” he says. “They’ve got a baby.”

  Mena takes a deep breath. “I’m going to be in a play.”

  “What’s that?” Sam asks, peering into the distance at the three loons.

  “A play. Fool for Love. The Quimby Players are putting on a production of it. I’m going to be May. That’s where I was the other night. I didn’t want to tell you about the audition in case I didn’t get the part. But I did.” Mena feels nervous. “Get the part.”

  Sam is quiet. He puts the binoculars back in the bag and picks up the oars. They creak in the oarlocks.

  “Sam?”

  “Huh?”

  “What do you think?” she asks. “You know how much I’ve always wanted to do this show,” Mena says, feeling defensive, already defeated.

  “That’s great,” Sam says, but she knows what he’s going to say next before he says it. “So I guess you’ll be gone a lot now. Most nights?”

  “Well, rehearsals are four nights a week. And Saturday afternoons.”

  Sam nods, keeps rowing.

  Mena feels herself getting angry.

  “I’ll make sure that there’s still dinner every night, if that’s what you’re worried about,” she says. “You’re up in the loft doing whatever it is you’re doing every night anyway.”

  “Writing,” Sam says. “I’m up there writing.”

  “Sure,” she says. Her eyes sting.

  Mena looks at Finn. He is staring down into the water. He dips his hand in, watches the light catching in his fingers when he pulls it back out. He is quiet. But still, Mena can’t stop. “It’s not like I’m abandoning you two. I’m alone in the house at night anyway. Finn’s locked in his room or off God knows where. And you’re, you’re ...” She sighs.

  “So, basically you’re checking out,” Finn says quietl
y.

  “What?” she asks, feeling her heart pounding in her throat.

  “Nothing. Forget it.”

  “What, Finn?” she asks.

  “This was a stupid idea,” he says.

  “I’m checking out? Christ. Fine. Just forget it. I won’t do it. I’ll stay home.” It’s too late, she’s ruined everything. This happens all the time lately. She goes too far. When did she lose control of her words?

  On the island, Mena gets out of the boat, almost tripping on a slippery rock. She slams the picnic basket down and stomps off. She’s not hungry anymore. While Sam and Finn devour the meal, she walks as far away from them as she can get. But it’s an island. She’s surrounded by water, stuck here with them. And she realizes this is what she’s been feeling for a long time. Like she’s stuck on some terrible island. Deserted but not alone. And one of these days one of them is going to try to swim away. She just hadn’t planned before that it might be her. Maybe Finn was right. But so what if he was?

  This island is completely undeveloped, too small for a house, too remote for visitors. The island used to be nameless but in recent years it was named after a dead child. A stillborn baby that belonged to someone who spent their summers at Gormlaith. The decision to give the island the baby’s name was unanimous; the Vermont Board of Libraries accepted their petition without hesitation. As she wanders through the brush, the brambles scratching her bare legs, her face, her hands, she starts to cry. She wants to feel sympathy for that family, for their loss, but now she only feels anger. They stole the island. They named it. Made it their own. The island’s namesake never breathed this air. Never stepped foot on this grass. Never swam off this island’s shore. Franny. This was always Franny’s island. And Franny lived here, still lives here.

  Mena finds a willow tree that has been split down the middle (a lightning strike most likely) and sits down next to it. And she lets herself, just for a moment, remember. Franny. Another Fourth of July, before:

  “Mommy,” Franny said, holding out the sparkler to her. It crackled and sparked, the light illuminating Franny’s face. “Make a wish.”

  “It’s not my birthday, honey,” she said.

  “No, but it’s America’s birthday. Make a wish for America.” Her eyes were as blue and as wide as water. She was seven years old.

  Mena closed her eyes, concentrated, and then made a wish. But she was selfish. The wish was not for America at all, but for herself: keep them safe.

  Today, they stay on the island for only an hour or so. Finn and Sam are both pouting when she finds them sitting among the wreckage of her carefully prepared picnic.

  “Let’s just go home,” Sam says finally, looking defeated.

  “It’s not home,” mumbles Finn.

  Mena sweeps the debris into a plastic bag, and they all climb back into the boat again. No one says a word the entire way back to the cabin. When they get back, she considers calling Lisa and telling her that she can’t take the part. She even dials the number, which she has scratched on a piece of paper. But then when Finn slams the front door and Sam disappears up the ladder to the loft, she puts the phone back on the cradle. She needs this.

  It is the Fourth of July, and someone is shooting a shotgun off into the air down the street. Her mother is watching TV, and Dale is peeling off her Blockbuster shirt for the last time. Independence Day, she thinks. She can’t leave until Friday, because she needs to pick up her last paycheck, but she still feels liberated. She stands naked in her room, looking at herself in the mirror. She can feel every fiber of the pink carpet under her feet. She smiles until her cheeks hurt.

  After she got out of work she went next door at the strip mall to the beauty parlor and got her hair cut. She usually cuts her own hair, trims her bangs once a month or so. Cuts off the dead ends. And so when the beautician asked her what she wanted to do with her hair, she had no idea.

  “You tell me,” she said. She was feeling brave. Adventurous.

  “Well, you’ve got a real pretty face,” she said. “But I think the bangs are hiding your eyes. And they just make your face look rounder. I think we should do something to get them off your face, thin you out a bit. Show those pretty brown eyes. What do you say?”

  She’d taken off her glasses while the woman washed her hair and left them off as she started to cut.

  “What’s the occasion?” the woman asked. “You got a date?”

  “No,” she said. “I’m going on a trip.”

  “Oh, how nice! A little summer vacation? I always try to get to Palm Springs for a week in the summer. Sometimes the girls at work and I go down to Rocky Point.You been to Rocky Point?”

  Her nails felt good on Dale’s scalp. She watched her fuzzy reflection in the mirror and waited until the beautician had pulled the plastic apron from around her neck before she put her glasses back on.

  She looked different without bangs. Naked. She tugged self-consciously at the hair that now came only to her chin.

  “A bob will help lengthen your neck, make you look taller.”

  She felt the bare back of her neck with her hand and shivered a little. It was like her nerves were exposed, raw. Like she was feeling something for the very first time. It felt great.

  “I love it,” she said. And she tipped her twenty dollars on the way out.

  “Have a good trip!” the beautician said, waving as Dale pulled out in the Bug, checking her new look in the tiny rearview mirror.

  “What have you done?” her mother asked.

  “Do you like it?”

  “Oh, honey,” she said, consoling, as if Dale should be upset.

  “I like it,” Dale said, pulling away. “It elongates my neck.” As she said this, she felt herself stretching, thought of that Tenniel drawing of Alice in Wonderland.

  “Well, at least it will grow out quickly,” her mother said. And she walked behind her, pulling what was left of Dale’s hair behind her head in a stubby ponytail. “I just like your hair back so much, like when you were a little girl.”

  “Well, I’m not a little girl.”

  Her mother has no idea that she’s leaving.

  Dale hears a series of pops and cracks, fireworks. She grabs a glass and pours herself a big tumbler of Chardonnay from the box in the fridge. She looks toward the living room and then gets another tumbler from the cupboard.

  “Hey, Ma, come watch the fireworks with me?”

  Her mother is half asleep on the couch. Pookie is curled up on top of her.

  “Go without me,” her mother says.“CSI’s on.... It’s a good one.”

  Alone on the back patio, Dale watches the intermittent flashes of light. Hears more shotguns exploding. She drinks her glass of wine and then the other one.And she touches the back of her neck with her hand, tickles that exposed skin and smiles.

  Alice has the Internet at her house, but it’s only dial-up, and the connection is as slow as Moses. Finn whistles, taps his fingers impatiently on the computer desk as he waits for the page to load. Her mom is working again, and they are in her mom’s bedroom where the computer is. It’s smaller than Alice’s room. And nothing in here is purple. The picture on Maggie’s desktop is of Alice making a goofy face.

  “God, you’re impatient. I thought surfers were supposed to be all chill,” Alice says, trying on the word like a little girl trying on her mother’s heels.

  Earlier she had scoured the kitchen for something for them to eat. Usually their fridge is filled with leftover food her mother has brought home from the diner, but today there’s nothing. “I’m hungry. What are you looking for anyway?” she asks.

  “I need to know when these damn things can be harvested. They’re not doing me any good right now.”

  He has almost no pot left. Last night he rolled a joint out of the twigs and seeds left in the Baggie and climbed up onto the roof of the cottage to watch the pissant display of fireworks over the lake. It hadn’t gotten him stoned, and the fireworks, if you could even call them that, were done in about
ten minutes. In San Diego, they could see three different displays from their house: the ones off the pier, the ones in Mission Bay, and the Sea World fireworks. They didn’t even have to leave their deck. His parents used to throw huge parties for the Fourth. All of their parents’ friends got loaded; one year one of his dad’s friends set his chest hair on fire trying to set off a Roman candle. Finn and Franny were always allowed to hang out with the grown-ups during the Fourth parties, even when they were little. Finn has memories of sitting underneath the dining room table watching everybody’s feet. When they got older, they snuck beers from the ice chests and hung out on the beach, three hundred and sixty degrees of lights over their heads. Sometimes he and Franny would paddle out on their boards and watch the fireworks from the water. On a still night, you couldn’t tell which way was up and which way was down from the lights reflecting off the water.

  He wonders if there’s any way Misty could mail him some weed. He’s never going to make it through the summer without it, unless he plans to never sleep again. He wouldn’t even know about where to find any in Quimby.There were a couple of shady looking kids hanging out by the Cumberland Farms the last time he was in town, but he’s pretty sure he might get more than he’s asking for approaching a bunch of rednecks. Most of the locals aren’t nearly as friendly as Alice, it seems. There’s one neighbor down the road who comes out of his house and glares at them whenever the woody drives past. He’s got a dog too, and it chases their car every single time they drive by. Finn keeps hoping it will run under the wheels one of these days. Fucking bastard and his fucking inbred pitbull.