The Hungry Season

by Greenwood, T.

  But after Franny died, his mom stopped taking care of the garden.

  All those plants she’d fussed over for years, she just forgot about. And something about those wilting leaves, about the heady scented flowers curling in on themselves made his stomach roil.

  He remembers coming home from school in late November and bringing an entire six-pack out to the deck, not bothering with the cheese or olives. His appetite was shot. And something about that garden gone to shit made him so pissed off he could hardly see.

  He’d uncoiled the garden hose from the side of the shed and turned it on full blast, looping the hose under his arm, walking the periphery of the garden. He’d watered every plant, drenched every leaf. But when none of the plants so much as nodded their droopy heads in acknowledgment, he’d taken off down the path to the beach with his board, leaving the water running, the hose spitting and writhing like a snake. By the time he emerged again from the water and made his way back up to the house, the entire garden was flooded. He’d thought he might be able to save the plants, but instead he’d just killed any of them that had even a remote chance of survival.

  This wasn’t his job, he kept thinking. This was his mother’s garden, and she’d just let it fucking die.

  The recipes in the cookbook swim across the pages. She doesn’t want to cook for Lauren. She really wishes Sam had told them not to come. The timing is terrible, and she can’t quite figure out Lauren’s agenda either. Clearly, Monty wants to see if Sam is making any progress with his book. But Lauren didn’t have to come. The idea of her needing fresh air is almost ludicrous. Every time Mena imagines Lauren, she has a dirty martini in one hand and a cigarette in the other.What on earth are they going to do with them for two days and nights? Mena is grateful to have the excuse of rehearsals. Sam will have to fend for himself the first night anyway. And the idea of them staying here, in Finn and Franny’s room of all places, makes Mena’s skin crawl. She had made Sam be the one to ask Finn if he’d be willing to give up his room. She didn’t want to be the bad guy. She was always the bad guy with Finn. And amazingly, Finn had been easy. He said he’d pitch a tent and camp out at the far end of the property. Do some exploring.

  Finn even seemed excited about it. She hadn’t seen him show this much enthusiasm about anything since they got to Vermont. He’d asked her to help him find the sleeping bag and the Coleman lantern. He’d gathered up all of the parts to the tents and ridden his bike into town to get batteries for the radio, which he asked to borrow from her kitchen. She almost wished she was going to get to go on the camping trip instead of being stuck here tomorrow night.

  She’s looking forward to going to rehearsals tonight. They’ve been working on the scene when the Old Man reveals that Eddie and May are half brother and sister.When May starts drinking tequila straight out of the bottle, telling Eddie that she doesn’t love him anymore. Mena’s bruised from the violence of the scene. Lisa keeps telling her she doesn’t have to go all out with it during rehearsals, that she’s liable to break some bones, puncture a lung for Christ’s sake. But there’s something so satisfying in the screaming, in the hurling of her body against walls. What Lisa doesn’t understand, can’t understand, is that May acts the way Mena feels. May is her rage. Her sorrow. Simplified.

  She decides on spanakopita and xoriatiki, her mother’s Greek salad. It’s elegant but easy. And hell, she won’t be there to listen to Lauren complain about it anyway. Sam said he’d order out, but the only place to get takeout is the Hi Boy, which serves subs and pizza. She’s pretty sure Lauren would have a lot to say about that.

  She wonders what Sam is going to show Monty. She wonders if he has anything to show. She’s not sure if he’s writing while she’s at rehearsal. It’s a subject she doesn’t dare broach.

  She knocks on Finn’s door quietly and says, “Tell your father I’m headed out to the grocery store. I’ll be back in about two hours.”

  “Yep,” he says. Alice is over again, and she can hear her humming along with the music. Her voice is so pure, it makes Mena’s knees feel soft.

  Alice comes to the door and opens it.

  “Hi, Mrs. Mason,” she says. And when she smiles, Mena looks hard for that quality, that something, that is Franny.

  Dale gets to Buffalo earlier than she had planned on Thursday afternoon and as she checks into the motel, she sees a glossy pamphlet with a picture of Niagara Falls on the front sticking out of a brochure stand by the door.

  “Is this close?” she asks the boy working behind the desk. He looks about fifteen with a bad overbite and acne. He’s playing solitaire on the computer.

  “Fifteen, twenty miles or so,” he says without looking away from the screen.

  “That’s it?” She had no idea that she’d be so close to Niagara Falls. This was where her mother and father went on their honeymoon. Her mother accidentally dropped the camera and broke it when she slipped on a rock, but she was able to salvage the roll of film and the two pictures on it. The first one is of her father looking out one of those coin-operated binoculars at the crashing falls in the distance. The second one is of both of her parents. Her father’s arm is draped over her mother’s shoulder. She’s looking up at him, smiling. He is gazing straight into the camera, looking smug.

  She grabs a Mountain Dew from the vending machine outside her motel room and drinks it in a couple of big swigs. She doesn’t even bother dumping her stuff in her room. She just gets into the Bug, studies the map on the back of the brochure and heads back out. She rolls the window down and pops the only non-Books on Tape tape she brought into the tape deck. She’s feeling so happy, she sings out loud the whole way; she doesn’t care who hears her or sees her.

  It’s incredible.The sound alone makes her feel alive, but the view of the crashing falls, the smell of the wet air ... it’s almost too much.

  A woman next to her on the observation tower is tying her son’s shoe, struggling to make a double knot as he wriggles and squirms and fusses. There’s a toddler in a stroller next to her, and she’s carrying a baby in a backpack.The baby has dropped her pacifier. A man Dale assumes to be the father is preoccupied with his video camera battery. Dale picks up the pacifier and hands it to the woman.

  “Thank you,” the woman says, popping it into her own mouth to clean it off and then plugging up the open mouth of the baby.

  Dale peers down below at the crashing water.

  “Pretty, isn’t it?” the woman asks.

  Dale nods, speechless.

  “You should take the Maid of the Mist tour,” the woman says.

  “What’s that?” Dale asks.

  “The boat,” she says, pointing to something below them. “It goes along the river and right next to the falls. It’s amazing.”

  “Is it expensive?”

  “Twelve dollars or so, I think. But it’s worth it.”The woman smiles at her. “My husband and I came here on our honeymoon. Three kids later, we still come back every year. Hey, would you mind taking a picture of us?” she asks Dale, and hands her a camera. The family gathers together, smiling, and she shoots.

  She tries to imagine her parents returning here. She imagines how her life would be if they’d been that kind of couple. If they’d been this kind of family.

  A boat trip under Niagara Falls isn’t in her budget. But then again, neither was an entire week in Little Rock. It’s only twelve bucks. She checks her watch. It’s still early. She considers the alternative: going back to the motel, watching some crappy movie and lying in bed awake, her insides all jumpy. She hasn’t slept right since Columbus. She’s been like a kid on Christmas Eve ever since she got east of the Mississippi.

  She takes the glass elevator down to the landing and is given a blue plastic poncho, which she dutifully puts on with all the other tourists. And then she stands in line. A long, long line. The tour is supposed to be only a half hour long though, so she figures even if she doesn’t make the next boat, she’ll still be able to get back to the motel before dark.
>
  On the boat, she is overcome by the grandeur of the falls. It’s one of those rare moments when the beauty of the world is almost too much to bear. She’s only felt this way a few times in her life: the first time she saw the ocean and on the only trip her family ever took to the Grand Canyon. It’s the same feeling she got the first time she read a Sam Mason novel. And when Troy finished tattooing the last word, the one near her spine. It’s a sort of trilling feeling, a quivering that starts in the pit of her stomach and extends outward. She imagines that this must be what it feels like to be in love. Your heart so full you could cry.

  By the time she gets off the boat, her plastic poncho beaded with water, she is completely exhilarated. Exhausted, but exhilarated. Maybe she will sleep well tonight, even without the Ambien. And by tomorrow she will be in Vermont.

  She buys an ice-cream cone before she makes her way back to her car. It’s peppermint, the kind she would always get at Thrifty when she was a kid. Her footsteps are light, she’s humming to herself, and she doesn’t care who hears her, who sees her.

  She opens the door to the Bug and plops down into the seat, sighing. Happy.

  But something’s wrong. At first she can’t figure it out. It’s like looking at those pictures they always have in kids’ magazines. . . two seemingly identical photos, and you have to figure out what is different in the second photo. It takes her several moments to figure it out.

  The buzz that had been sitting in her stomach like a purring kitten suddenly turns sharp, violent, and she feels like she’s going to throw up.

  Her backpack. Her backpack, with the aerial maps of Gormlaith, the info about Quimby, the articles she’s collected, the Books on Tape and the signed first edition of The Hour of Lead. Her laptop. Along with a hundred dollars in emergency cash, her last four tampons, and a king-sized Kit Kat bar. All of it is gone.

  She leans her head against the steering wheel and starts to cry. She cries so hard, it feels like her throat might explode. A few families walk past, pulling their children close to them, shielding them from her. This only makes her cry harder.

  All that joy, all that bliss is suddenly sucked out of her like water down a drain. And then her mind is reeling, putting pieces together, arranging, rearranging, trying to make a clear picture.

  Her stomach roils. She is dizzy.

  God. It makes sense now. Maybe Sam knows that she’s coming. Maybe he’s known all along.

  She’s heard that you can track the IP numbers of people who visit your Web site. Maybe the publisher keeps an eye out for people who visit their authors’ pages too often. God, she’s probably been on Sam’s page fifty thousand times. Her heart is racing, her hands unsteady. Maybe they’ve been reading the letters she sent to Sam as well. That would explain why he hasn’t responded. They’ve probably confiscated them.

  But she only told a few people about where she’s going. The hairdresser in Phoenix. The guy who sold her the Bug. The Bug!

  She grips the steering wheel, clamps her jaw down until her teeth start to grind. Maybe the Bug catching on fire wasn’t an accident at all. Maybe they’ve been trying to stop her all along. Troy. Jesus, was it a coincidence that he was there, in the Walmart parking lot, or was he waiting for her? She should have suspected as soon as he asked to come to the motel the first time. Guys don’t want to spend time with Dale. And Jesus, Jesus, Jesus ... he might have told someone about the tattoo. He was the one who kept encouraging her to get one. This way there would be proof. Indelible on her back. Why would he do this to her?

  They probably tracked her all the way to Niagara Falls and took her stuff so she couldn’t get any farther. She wonders if they’ll be waiting for her in Vermont.

  Then again, she thinks, maybe Sam doesn’t know at all. Why would they tell him? If they did, she knows he would defend her. He’d tell them that she’s just writing her thesis.That she’s not some crazy stalker. She needs to get to him before they do. He’ll explain everything.

  She is shaking so hard now she can barely see. And when the acid creeps up her throat she knows it’s too late to stop it. She opens up the door of the Bug and vomits pink peppermint ice cream all over the pavement.

  Sam knows that Monty is going to want to see something. Anything. He pokes around the documents on the computer, looking to see if there’s something he could offer him, a morsel. Monty is demanding and persistent, but also easily satisfied. If Sam can just find a little nugget, some proof that his writing hasn’t gone to complete shit, then he’ll leave him alone and they can just try to enjoy their weekend. But there’s nothing there, and he knows he won’t be able to articulate the mess that’s inside his head: Billy and the experiment, the cold Minnesota winter, that raw hunger. The bones.

  He really wishes Mena were going to be here for dinner tonight. Mena is always so good with Lauren, such a diplomat. She knows exactly the right questions to ask and answers to give when Lauren starts in. Sam’s approach is to simply make sure there’s enough liquor in the cabin to keep them all drunk, for the entire weekend if necessary.

  He comes down out of the loft and finds Mena in the kitchen pulling a fresh loaf of bread out of the oven. He wonders if it’s too late to try to convince her to stay home.

  “Hi.” He walks behind her and leans his head on her shoulder, wrapping his arms around her waist. As if this is perfectly normal. As if he hasn’t forgotten how to show her affection.

  “Hi,” she says.

  “It smells good.” His cheek is still resting on her back as she busies her hands with the loaf of bread. She smells good. God, has he been so far away from her to forget the smell of her? How could he be feeling nostalgic about his own wife?

  “There’s spanakopita and salad. I made a cheesecake for dessert. No strawberries. Lauren’s allergic, right?”

  “How do you remember that?” Sam asks, still holding on to her.

  “She reminds us every time we go out for dinner,” Mena says, laughing. And then in her best Lauren Harrison voice,“Oh, my Gawd, just don’t put any strawberries on it. The last time I ate strawberries I wound up at Mount Sigh-nye.” Then in Lauren’s conspiratorial whisper, “Anaphylactic shock. I almost died.”

  Sam laughs and squeezes her tighter. “Please stay?” he says, pressing his nose into her soft T-shirt.

  She stiffens. “It’s the last weekend of rehearsals, Sam,” Mena says, her voice harder now. She shrinks and disappears out from under his grasp, moving quickly to the refrigerator door.

  “It’s just one night. I need you,” he says, and immediately regrets it.

  Mena shakes her head and hisses. “Jesus.” Her hands are on her hips now; she is in attack mode. If he says the wrong thing, does the wrong thing, she’ll strike.

  “What?” he says, like an ass.

  She laughs as if he should know what she’s angry about. “Nothing, Sam.”

  “When will you be home?” he tries, sensing this too is the wrong thing to say.

  She throws up her hands, exasperated. “I don’t know. Maybe late.”

  She’s pulling away, further and further. She’s like that white dot when you turn off an old TV. She’s going to just get smaller and smaller until she’s completely gone.

  “Mena, what did I do?” he asks.

  She looks at him, shaking her head and chuckling again. He hates this.

  “Seriously,” he says. “Why are you so pissed at me?”

  “I talked to Hillary today,” she says. “She told me she had a long talk with you about the house in San Diego.”

  He nods. He doesn’t know where she’s going with this.

  Mena explodes. “Do you realize you never asked me if I wanted to come here? You never even asked!”

  “That’s not true,” he says. “We talked about it.”

  “No, we didn’t.You just made up your mind.You thought that dragging us all the way out here would make everything better. That you could undo everything by leaving that house. Like you can fix it. Now. After it’s al
ready too late.”

  It’s like he’s popped the cork on a bottle of wine and knocked it over. Everything is spilling out, staining, destroying.

  “You don’t touch me anymore.You can’t even look me in the eye.We don’t ever, ever talk about what happened. Not once have we talked about it. And now here, out in the middle of nowhere, it’s not any better! You disappear into your little cave up there and leave me out here in the fucking wild to deal with everything. It’s no wonder Finn’s such a disaster,” Mena screams. Her face is changing. It’s like it’s not even her anymore. He doesn’t recognize her.

  “Franny is dead. And we could have stopped it. It’s our fault, Sam. It’s my fault.” She points at his chest, pushes her finger hard into the place where his heart is. “It’s your fault.”

  “Mena,” he tries, but she is raging now, swinging her arms at his face. He tries to grab her hands, her arms to stop her, but she is moving too quickly.

  Sam has only been punched once. In college, during an innocuous snowball fight on the green in front of Old Mill. He’d accidentally nailed a kid in the temple with a snowball, and the kid came after him. He remembers the pain and then the snow and then the blood that stained the pristine white.

  When Mena gets loose and her knuckles make contact with his eye, he stumbles backward and bumps against the table. And then the table collapses.

  “Jesus,” he says.

  The weak leg finally gave out. They both stop and look down at the table. The fruit bowl is broken, and there are oranges rolling across the wooden floor.

  “I’ve got to go,” Mena says. Her face is red, and tears are streaming down her cheeks. “You deal with this.”

  And then she is gone.

  Finn comes back from Alice’s just as Monty and Lauren are pulling up. He tries to leave as soon as he sees Monty’s Mercedes rounding the corner. He likes Monty a lot, but his wife is a train wreck.