Little Green

by Tish Cohen

  Her face blanched for just long enough to reveal that bad news was coming, then she cast him a polite smile. “Let’s talk about it later.” She turned to Paulie. “I’ll try the Green Submarine with protein. And please don’t give me the live bait by accident.”

  “I’d pegged you as more adventurous.” Paulie winked. “But you’re the customer.”

  Hmm, Matt thought. Flirting with his wife.

  From where he was dropping Green Submarine ingredients into the blender, Paulie turned to Gracie, “What about you, captain? A Vanilla Monkey smoothie? Banana and yogurt. If you like, I can make it with extra monkey. But don’t tell anyone. I’m only doing it for you.” The blender whirred.

  Gracie nodded, then, suddenly shy, whispered to Matt, “I want it with pea-nut but-ter.”

  Elise’s fingers were nervously strumming the counter. “Paulie can’t hear you unless you speak up, sweetness.”

  The child slid her thumb into her mouth and hid her face in her father’s T-shirt.

  Elise bent down, face-to-face. “Gracie, honey, I want you to clearly enunciate what you want. No baby talk, no thumb. You’re a brave girl, right?”

  This was what drove him crazy. Elise was happy for Matt to make almost all decisions when she was away, but lifted his authority upon her return. It made him feel like a mid-level manager whose carefully considered decisions are overturned when the CEO drops in. “She’s tired,” he said to Elise. “And we’re in a new place—”

  Gracie repeated through her thumb, “I’m tired and we’re in a new place.”

  “She’ll have a Vanilla Monkey smoothie with extra peanut butter.” Matt slapped a twenty on the counter.

  “Really?” His wife stared at him, mouth slack in disbelief, then her gaze locked onto Paulie’s for a split second. If Matt had blinked, sneezed, checked his watch, he would have missed it. In that abbreviated moment, this Paulie character mentally joined Team Elise. Hopefully with his clothes on.

  The moment passed. Team Elise immediately disbanded—Paulie to scoop peanut butter into the blender and Elise to usher Gracie outside.

  So close to what? Matt still wanted to know.

  Once he got his change, and poked a straw into his daughter’s smoothie, Matt sauntered over to the reason he’d driven straight here in the first place: the fluttering bulletin board. Summer camps. Art lessons. Yoga collectives where you could pay as you plank. Labradoodle puppies coming soon. An event at abolitionist John Brown’s farm: a human rights award was being presented to the living descendent of a local family. Matt had spent many a rainy camp morning at that historic farmhouse re-enacting tense pre–Civil War scenes in which John Brown and his wife risked their lives hiding former slaves in their cellar and enabling their escape to Canada. Might be good to take Gracie to the award ceremony.

  A local attorney, Christopher Lund, had posted a small notice. Wills/estates, family, real estate, commercial. Sole practitioner with an address right in town. Once upon a time, Matt had thought that would be his life. Low cost of living. Zero commute—there was no rush hour in the Adirondacks. Not unless you included the rush to get to your dock with a nice New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. You could come home after work to your family, breathe in the cleanest air anywhere. Wake up early enough for a swim before heading to the office. Or a quick loop around the frozen lake on cross-country skis in winter.

  The appeal was easy to see.

  The big-city version of that had been Matt’s original vision. Small practice with loyal clients. Make his own hours, eventually buy the brownstone he’d been leasing space from in those early years—maybe even live up above it. See the name SORENSON on a brass plaque on the door, like his grandfather had in Lake Placid years ago. He couldn’t help thinking he might have been able to make a go of his private practice if only he could have given it a few more years. Anyway. If wishes were horses. Or, more apt, if horses were wishes . . .

  He looked up now to see Gracie and Elise getting into the BMW, and quickly unpinned a card for Skedaddle Humane Animal Removal, as well as Kostick & Sons Roofing. Not only did they have the leak upstairs, but he’d scanned the back of the house and found a gable where the soffits had been ripped away. Likely the point of entry for the intruder.

  On his way to join his family, Matt caught sight of the water through the trees that edged the library. The sun had burned off the morning mist and a spray of crystal fire stretched all the way across the lake.

  It wasn’t until he reached the car that he realized Elise was in the back seat with Gracie. Terrific. They’d set a new record. Seven hours into their reunion and they already needed distance.

  Chapter 9

  Mom, that’s River.” Gracie had nudged Elise as they pulled into the driveway. On the porch steps was a dusty, bare-chested forest creature of a child. The boy looked up from picking at the sole of one dirty bare foot, long ropes of sun-faded hair hanging over cheeks smeared with dried mud. He stood when Gracie climbed out of the car and solemnly invited her to witness “the fattening of the serpent,” a weekly ritual involving a sacrificial thawed mouse, sold by the pet store in bulk, like a sack of frozen pierogis. Off they went, with Gracie insisting that River come to the cabin afterward to meet her dead dog.

  With the Skedaddle Animal Removal people not due until one thirty and Matt chasing down a roofer, Elise had a choice: clean up the aborted breakfast or lace up her sneakers and pound the roads and trails in and around the village for an hour.

  Sweaty and exhausted, Elise slowed to a walk as she turned onto Seldom Seen from Mirror Lake Road. An athletic woman looked up from her garden, hair wound up in a bun atop her head and a wet bathing suit darkening her bright terry cover-up, feet pushed into short rubber boots. Behind a wooden fence was the hum of a pool filter. The swimmer shielded her eyes from the sun. “Oh, hello.” She took off her gardening gloves and held them in one hand. Behind her was a pristine garage, walls lined with cabinets, shelving, and hooks with spades and rakes and hoes arranged from largest to smallest. “Wonderful to see you two are back together.”

  Did she have Elise confused with someone else? “I’m Nate Sorenson’s daughter-in-law. Or was. I’m Matt’s wife.”

  The swimmer wiped her forehead with the back of one hand and said nothing.

  “We were never not together. We’re together.”

  “My mistake.” The woman smiled her apology and picked up a spade, pointed to the sky. “Enjoy the sun while we have it. I hear we’re in for more rain this week.”

  Elise waved, told the swimmer to have a nice day, then strode along the weedy road’s edge beneath a low, cool canopy of pines. Was she being paranoid? It could mean nothing. For sure it did mean nothing. It didn’t signify that Matt had a secret mission to end the marriage and had shared it with a woman who loved her garden so much she couldn’t be bothered to dry off before climbing into it.

  Elise broke into a sprint.

  The first work trip Matt had taken once they were married had been to DC with Harriet and an articling student named Timothy. It was early April and happened to be the peak of cherry blossom season. The streets would be a riot of frothy pink romantic loveliness. Matt left on a Tuesday morning, to return Thursday evening. Up until then, Elise had never had a moment of serious distrust of or worry about her husband.

  She’d been heavily into spring show season, practically living at the barn. On top of it all, while trimming her horse’s tail, she’d sliced into the flesh between the pinkie and ring finger of her left hand. It was sickening how the new scissors cut into her skin like butter. She’d had five stitches, and keeping her hand clean and dry, slathered in antibiotic cream, and fully bandaged had kept her preoccupied. Besides, Matt kept in touch, called each night with anecdotes about Timothy’s girlfriend woes and Harriet’s bad cold, which he hoped he wouldn’t catch.

  It was Wednesday—or, rather, the early hours of Thursday morning—when Elise was abruptly awakened by this thought: the condoms beneath the bathroom sink wer
e missing. She climbed out of bed and padded into the master bath to dig through the cabinet, a jumble of aspirin, Band-Aids, old shampoo bottles, tampon boxes, and makeup. Because of her hand, she’d been riffling through the contents of this cupboard several times each day. The condom box was gone.

  When Matt got home that night, Elise opened a bottle of wine and tentatively mentioned the missing box. He got up and marched into the master bedroom and bath, returning to the kitchen with the box and insisting it had been in the cupboard the whole time. Was it possible? Could she have missed it in her panic? She supposed so. But Matt was the one notorious for being unable to find anything. A tube of Krazy Glue, a Rolling Stones CD, his car keys—they could be right under his nose and he wouldn’t see them. And there was his suitcase, splayed open on the bed.

  Which place he’d taken them from, she’d never know.

  Before the next bend in the road, Elise slowed to a stop, turned around. Maybe the smart woman just comes right out and asks. Saves herself the anguish, the second-guessing, the sudden urge to peek at her husband’s phone. She walked back.

  “I’m sorry.” Elise put on her best I-don’t-really-care-what-the-answer-is-I’m-just-super-friendly smile. “Just out of curiosity, what had you thinking we’d split?”

  The swimmer-gardener looked around, either for someone to jump out of her bushes with an answer or because she needed a way to dodge Elise’s paranoia. She shook her head, a confused smile keeping things just barely polite rather than judgmental. “I don’t know. One of those things that doesn’t matter.”

  A dusty black Honda Civic with a mismatched red hood and Vermont plates came creeping around the corner. Elise willed it to pass quickly so she could take her humiliation by the hand and march it away.

  She returned to the cabin, sweaty and annoyed with herself, to see a blue van with aluminum ladders on the roof and KOSTICK & SONS ROOFING on the side parked out front. Two men were ripping shingles and rotted wood from the roof above the master bedroom. One was a puffy-faced man in his mid-sixties, sunburned head shaved to the scalp and a body so squarely packed into its skin that if he lost his balance, he’d likely just lie there, immobile. A human cinder block.

  The other man was younger and appeared completely unsuited to manual labor. Handsome and slender, he had long, thick, graying dreads, round tortoiseshell glasses, and a rumpled white button-down shirt with sleeves rolled to the elbows. To Elise, he looked every bit the well-traveled intellectual that people like to gather around at a party to be regaled with stories about his latest research trip to Amsterdam or Istanbul. Both men wore work boots, but the Cinder Block wore boots so battered it was impossible to tell what color they’d started out. The Intellectual wore boots he might have purchased that morning.

  She’d caught them mid-conversation as they ran supplies up and rubbish down the ladder.

  “Shouldn’t think it’ll bother anyone if you’re a couple minutes late,” said the Cinder Block from the ground as he passed up a brown paper–wrapped batch of shingles.

  “She can’t get her own meals anymore. Not since her fall.” The Intellectual had a load of shingles up onto the roof in seconds. “And I’m sure as hell not going to let her go hungry,” he said on his way back down.

  “You’re gonna take over my business, you’re gonna have to work something out.” Another batch transferred up the squeaky ladder.

  “I’ll stay as late as I can.”

  “I mean, I hear ya. But—”

  “As I said. As late as I can.”

  A cord of firewood on the front porch lined the entire face of the cabin, tidily stacked to the window ledges. Elise dropped down onto the old cotton doormat to stretch over tired legs, pulling face to knees, inhaling the smell of pine and dust and sunscreen. She took her heels in her hands to intensify the stretch in her hamstrings, forcing herself lower, until her chest rested on her thighs. Her nipples stung, she noticed. It was the running bra; it chafed. She made a mental note to throw it away.

  She rolled onto her back, bent one knee and pulled her toes back beneath her buttocks to loosen up her quad. Lay there a bit, rolling slightly side to side to increase the stretch, and debated the best time to tell Matt about Toronto. This two-week period had meant so much to them both. All that delicious time to reconnect as a couple. Time they desperately needed as a family. It made her nauseous to think about his reaction. He’d be crushed, but would understand.

  Or, this time, maybe he wouldn’t. At a certain point he might decide her ambitions were too detrimental to the family. What would she do if the situation were reversed? If Matt traveled all the time and, when he finally came home, announced he had to take off again? Stupid question. She’d assume the worst.

  If nothing else, at least she was predictable.

  Before heading out for her run, using her cellphone, Elise had poked around online and found short-term rentals in Caledon, the horse country north of Toronto where the dressage trials would be held. Because the cabin wouldn’t have sold by then—or, if it had sold, the deal would still be in escrow—she’d hunted down an affordable one-room cottage in the corner of a farmer’s field. A nearby town called Hockley Valley looked pretty, with rolling hills and a gorgeous country store that sold everything from champagne and Hunter rain boots to Drano and ant traps. They could drive up to Canada together. Matt and Gracie could be there for the show, and they could all take a bit of time to explore after.

  Family Togetherness, the International Sequel.

  Her new plan was this: she’d wouldn’t leave until Friday. Ronnie could work her horse in the meantime. Certainly, Matt and Elise could get the bulk of the house cleaning done by then, as well as a fair bit of painting.

  Maybe they’d go out to the little pizza restaurant in town tonight. Have a quiet dinner overlooking Mirror Lake. The place always stocked coloring books for children. They’d have a ball with Gracie, come back to the cabin, and, after Gracie went to bed, have a glass of wine on the porch. She’d explain . . . They still had five days before she left.

  Still on her back, she tucked both knees into her chest and rocked forward and back on her spine, then hopped to her feet without touching palms to ground—a maneuver she’d learned in a power yoga class. A figure on the steps startled her, and Elise gasped.

  “You must be Elise.” It was the barefoot beauty from the dock, all wild hair and gold eyes drowsy with lashes. She had big, bossy breasts like the front grille of a futuristic high-speed train. Cass opened the screen door, rattling the cellophane wrapping of a large bouquet of flowers in her arms. She came forward and stretched out a hand. Her voice was smoky and deep. “I’m Cass. Matty told me all about you last night.”

  Matty?

  “So nice to finally meet,” Elise said. When they shook hands, Cass’s chest sloshed like a waterbed mattress, and Elise realized she might be staring at the undulating reason her husband hadn’t called her back last night.

  “Sorry to keep your husband up so late.” Cass’s nails were bare, bitten to the skin. “It was like zero time had passed. So amazing to catch up.”

  “I bet.”

  “I’m sorry to hear you’re selling.” Cass glanced toward her driveway, where a modern-day yellow Volkswagen Beetle sat with the doors open. “I have to run and pick up my little boy, but let’s all get together later for a swim.”

  “Yes, let’s.” Over my dead body, Elise thought.

  Cass stopped halfway down the steps and ran back to hand the bouquet to Elise. “I forgot . . . These flowers were dropped off at my place by mistake. They’re for you.” She smiled. Flashed her fingers in goodbye.

  Her lips were glossed deep red, like the stained wineglass.

  Inside, Elise tore the cellophane from spray lilies and yellow roses and ferns, looking around for Matt, assuming he’d sent them from town and they’d been misdirected. She was thrilled their argument was over.

  She tore open the tiny envelope and read the card. The flowers weren’t from her hu
sband at all.

  Lisey,

  Biggest congratulations on earth to my girl. What a score! Look out, Rio, here she comes!

  xoxo Dad

  P.S. Would love to hear your voice. My number’s the same as ever.

  Phone pressed to her ear, Elise listened to Ronnie’s line ring as she marched the flowers through the back porch and down the steps to the stone path. Now, of course, the lilies made sense. They were showy and full of pomp and perfume and promises her father couldn’t keep.

  Finally, Ronnie picked up. “Don’t be angry. He stopped by the barn hoping to see you.”

  At this, Elise slowed, incredulous. “Warren stopped by the barn? How often does he do that?”

  “Hardly ever. Once, twice a year.”

  “And you let him?”

  “Elise . . .”

  “I have a right to decide who I want in my life and who I don’t.” Elise continued down toward the shed.

  “Yes, you do. But he’s been pretty respectful of you. Not every father would agree to let his sixteen-year-old daughter live at her crusty old riding coach’s farm.”

  “He had no choice. I wasn’t going to move in with him and his . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  “He totally had a choice. You were a minor, and he could have had you legally removed and brought to his place.”

  “I’d have run away.”

  “Exactly. And you’d have been placed in foster care. He loved you way too much to make things any worse for you. I feel bad for him, Elise. You’re his daughter.”

  “Was. I was his daughter.”

  “I’m not entirely sure that’s a changeable designation.”

  She leaned down to pick up a fallen branch and tossed it onto the covered woodpile at the forest’s edge. “I don’t think Warren would agree with you there. Everything is changeable to that man.”

  The Coop lay next to Roxborough, a leafy neighborhood in South Orange with curved sidewalks and gaslit streetlamps. Their house sat right on the boundary between two school districts: the run-down Camperdown High School and the elite but public vine-covered McInnis Hall, its brand-new running track and all-glass library proof that public schools could benefit hugely from a moneyed parents’ association. McInnis was populated by kids whose Roxborough houses had indoor pools, housekeepers, and matched sets of thick, plush towels.