by Sam Reaves
There was a brief silence, three blank looks. “Well, Bill says you’re the cat’s meow,” said Quinton.
“Who’s this who’s won over the Ogre of Harrison Hall?” The man who had drifted into their orbit had been eyeing Abby from across the room, working his way steadily toward her from the table where he had filled his glass, stopping to shake hands, slap backs and banter as he came. He was no more than a couple of years older than she was, she judged, dark haired, clean shaven, not hard to look at, one of the few men present wearing a tie. She met his inquiring look and held out her hand.
“I’m Abby Markstein. Mathematics.”
His smile had some wattage. “Graham Gill. Economics, if we have to be defined by what we teach.”
“I had to start somewhere.”
“Fair enough.” He hoisted his glass to the group. “Everybody have a good summer?”
That brought murmurs, shrugs and nods. Collins said, “I thought you were off somewhere doing research, Singapore or someplace like that.”
“I was. Just flew back yesterday. Jet-lagged to the max. Right now the sun’s just coming up in Singapore, and I’ve been up all night.”
Lisa Beth Quinton said to Abby, “Have you found a place to live yet?”
Abby grimaced. “Not yet. I thought I had a place lined up through the housing office, but there was some kind of mix-up. When I got here it was rented. So I’m at the motel over on Oak Street.”
“The Tarkington? Oh, my God, that place is a hellhole. Are the housing people still steering people over there? Hasn’t anyone told them about the meth busts and the prostitution stings?”
“Um, I haven’t seen anything like that. But having spent a night there, I can’t say I’m surprised. Should I be worried?”
Collins was laughing. “My wife is the authority on the seamy underbelly of Lewisburg. She’s the crime reporter for the local paper.”
Quinton tossed off the last of her drink, a hand on her hip. “Honey, I’m the everything reporter for the local paper. And no, you’re not likely to be murdered in your bed at the Tarkington, though I’d check for bedbugs. But yes, the local lowlifes have been known to rent a room there on occasion to practice their low-lifery in.”
Gill laughed. “Lowlifes? In Lewisburg? You amaze me.”
“Where do you think you’re living, sonny? Some of the people in this town make Jed Clampett look like David Niven.” She turned back to Abby. “You’d be better off at the Holiday Inn out by the highway.”
“Well, I don’t have a car. So I’m sort of limited to places within walking distance of campus. But yeah, an upgrade would be good.”
Quinton put a hand on her husband’s arm. “Didn’t Stan tell us Ned McLaren was looking for somebody to rent out the back of his house?”
“Yeah, hey, that’s an idea.” He turned to Abby. “We know a fellow who just moved back to town. His father was on the faculty here for years. The house is in a nice spot and he’s converted one floor to an apartment. Might be worth a look.”
“Is it furnished? I don’t even have a pillow to sleep on.”
“I think so. Unless he’s thrown all his folks’ stuff out.”
Quinton said, “It’s just on the other side of campus, in what passes for a ritzy neighborhood around here. A couple of professors live up there, and the odd doctor and lawyer. I’ll call him, see if it’s still available.”
“Um, thanks.” Before Abby could react, Quinton had gone striding away, digging in the bag that hung over her shoulder.
“Can I get you another drink?” said Gill, pointing at Abby’s empty glass.
Abby wasn’t much of a drinker, but the sherry had helped the anxiety ease a little. “Sure, thanks.” Gill made off with her glass and Collins was lured away, leaving Abby alone with Philip Herzler.
“You do look a little dazed,” he said.
Abby nodded. “I think I’m having culture shock.”
Herzler gave her a kindly smile. “I went through the same thing when I got here, fresh out of Princeton. Where am I? But there’s life here. The college gives you a tight little community of highly educated people, plenty of lectures and concerts. Town and gown relations are OK, and the local bourgeoisie is reasonably cultivated. Indianapolis is less than an hour away by car and Chicago about three. When you start to feel constricted, those are easy getaways for an evening or a weekend. My wife and I have lived here pretty happily for twenty-seven years. It doesn’t have to feel like an exile.”
Two years, Abby thought, as Lisa Beth Quinton rejoined them. “All right, I just talked to Ned and he says he’s still looking for a tenant and he would love to show you the place. He’s not home right now but he says you can come by any time tomorrow morning. It’s easy to find. I’ll draw you a little map. Where’s a napkin?”
Gill was back with Abby’s drink. “So, Abby. To coin a phrase, what’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?”
She laughed a little. “I’m not sure yet. When I figure it out, I’ll let you know.”
Lisa Beth Quinton’s map was schematic but clear, and Abby had no trouble finding the Hickory Lane subdivision where Ned McLaren lived. It made a pleasant walk on a summer morning to follow Jackson Avenue south past the campus down into a wooded dale, over a bridge across a stream, and turn up a drive that wound through stands of the trees that gave the place its name. The houses were a jumble of styles: a Cape Cod, a split-level colonial, a ranch, all comfortably separated and amply shaded, a little pocket of upper-middle-class respectability.
It didn’t look like the type of neighborhood that would have apartments to rent, and Abby wondered if it was a wild goose chase. She looked for house numbers, and here it was, 6 Hickory Lane, the third house on the right. It was a one-story ranch style in brick with a garage linked to it by a roofed porch, not especially prepossessing. Behind it rose the woods.
A man was kneeling at the steps that led up to the porch, working mortar into a joint between bricks. He looked up as Abby came up the driveway. He wore a T-shirt, jeans and work boots, a baseball cap with a logo on it Abby didn’t recognize. From under the visor he squinted at her.
“Um, hi. Is this the McLaren house?”
“Yup. You found it.” He stuck the trowel into a bucket full of mortar.
“Hi, I had an appointment with Ned McLaren? To look at the apartment?”
The man got to his feet, knees cracking as he did. He was not quite six feet tall, with dark blond hair curling on the back of his neck, hazel eyes and a close-trimmed moustache and goatee, a little gray showing. He looked to be in early middle age but was lean and fit. “You must be Abigail.”
“Yes. Is Mr. McLaren available?”
“I’m available.” He smiled. “Excuse me for not shaking hands.” He walked to a spigot set in the side of the house and turned on the water.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I . . .” She had been looking for a professor’s son and not a bricklayer. “Nice to meet you.”
He rinsed his hands, turned off the water, and stepped toward her, flapping his hands to dry them. “Same here. You just signed on with our little Hoosier Harvard, did you?” He spoke softly, with a midwestern drawl that to Abby’s New York ear sounded almost southern.
“Um, yeah. And I need a place to live. I’m at the Tarkington right now.”
He shook his head. “Well, we’ll have to get you out of there before you get arrested for visiting a common nuisance.”
“Excuse me?”
“That’s the legal term in Indiana for getting caught on premises where people are using drugs.” He gave her a disarming smile. “Let me show you the apartment.”
He led her across the covered porch toward the back of the house. Abby had found it hard to imagine where an apartment could fit in a one-story ranch house; as she followed him it became clear. On the other side of the porch the ground fell away sharply. Stone steps led down the slope along the side of the house to a strip of lawn, maybe fifty feet wide, beyond which ano
ther slope plunged into the woods lining the stream she had crossed on Jackson Avenue, the glint of water just visible through the foliage. They went down the steps and turned the corner, and Abby saw that it was in reality a two-story house, the lower story invisible from the street and facing back toward the woods.
“That’s some backyard,” Abby said.
“Yeah, it’s nice. You’ll see deer down by the stream quite a bit in the evening.” Pulling a ring of keys from his pocket, McLaren stepped to a door and unlocked it; Abby followed him inside. He drew the curtains that had masked a big picture window and light filled the room.
It was a big welcoming room, carpeted and paneled in wood, with a sofa along the wall opposite the door, a coffee table, armchairs, lamps, books from floor to ceiling on the far wall. Abby stepped into the room and turned toward the window to see green, nothing but trees. “Wow,” she said.
“Yeah, the view’s good. If you’re a bird-watcher you’ve come to the right place. When the leaves go in the fall you can see across to the campus. Makes a nice postcard view, with the chapel and all.”
“It’s lovely.” Abby took a few slow steps, scanning the room, her eye then drawn again to the view. “Very peaceful.”
“It is dark, facing north, that’s one thing. You want sun, there’s no surcharge for sitting on the front lawn.”
She wheeled away from the window. “It’s a nice room.”
“My folks never did much with it. They moved in here after I was grown up and gone. They mostly lived upstairs, and all the furniture from the old house got shoved down here. But it’s all serviceable. That old sofa’s the most comfortable place to nap I ever ran across.”
“Your father taught at the college, is that right?” Abby wandered toward the bookshelves.
“Yup. Taught history here for thirty-some years. My mom hung on here for a few years after he died and then she passed three years ago. My sister in Indianapolis tried renting the place out, but that was a headache, so she was planning to sell it. But then last year I decided I’d had enough of what I was doing, so I said what the hell, maybe it’s time for the prodigal son to come home.”
Abby was looking at the books: Bertrand Russell’s An Outline of Philosophy, Toynbee’s Civilization on Trial, Popper’s The Logic of Scientific Discovery. And here at the end of the shelf, The Complete Cartoons of the New Yorker. The books reassured her; Abby felt like a castaway reaching dry land. She turned. “OK, what else?”
“Well, you got your choice of bedrooms.” He pushed open a door to the right of the bookshelves. “They used this as a study. But I can shift the furniture around however you want. I could move a bed in here.”
No, thought Abby, standing in the doorway, leave it just like it is. The window here looked out onto the same sylvan view, and there was a desk in front of it. There was a couch, and more bookshelves; it instantly appealed to Abby as a perfect place to work: secluded and tranquil. “Nice. No, I think I like it as a study.”
“The Wi-Fi router’s in here. The connection’s good. I cleared out the desk drawers. I can get rid of the books, too, if you want. You probably have your own you want to bring in.”
“A few, yeah. I’m having some stuff shipped as soon as I get settled. Don’t worry about it, I’ll figure out where to put them.” Whoa, thought Abby, slow down. “If I decide to, you know . . . I might want to look at another couple of places.”
“Sure, no problem.” He led her into a small tile-floored alcove with three doors opening off it. “Here’s the bathroom. The plumbing’s sound. Plenty of hot water. Check it out if you want.”
“That’s OK.”
“And this is the other bedroom.” He flicked a switch. “Not much light here. But the beds are OK. These are the ones my sister and I had when we were kids. Take your pick. Go ahead and flop on them. I wouldn’t expect you to take my word for it.” He gave her the grin again. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”
A little self-consciously, Abby sat on each bed in turn, finally lying down on the one closer to the single tiny window. Staring at the ceiling, she thought, Can I live here? Is this really going to be my life?
She went across the alcove to join McLaren in the kitchen. He was standing at the sink watching the water run. “The pipes are a little rusty because nobody’s used the water here in a while. But it all works. I put all this stuff in new. This used to be an unfinished basement.” It was all spotless and gleaming: stainless-steel fridge, stove, double sink, granite countertops with microwave, blond wood cabinets, track lighting. McLaren pushed open a door. “Laundry’s through here, in the unfinished part. I put in a new washer and dryer. It’s all yours. I’ve got my own upstairs.”
Abby poked her head in for a look, then stood nodding, looking around. She could hear her father’s voice telling her sternly: Look at some other places before you make a decision. She turned and walked slowly back into the big room, arms folded, the picture of a woman deep in thought. The view through the big window greeted her, leaves fluttering gently in a breeze. Behind her she heard doors closing, McLaren’s step on the tiles.
“How much is the rent?” Abby said.
He came to stand beside her, hands on his hips. “Well, I’m not really in it for the money. How about four hundred a month? I think you’ll find that’s pretty much in line with what people pay for a one-bedroom apartment around here.”
Abby gaped at him. She had known rents would be a whole lot lower than in New York, but that was ridiculous. Four hundred dollars for the short walk to campus, the new kitchen, the study, the books, the view? “Um, that sounds fine,” she said. Her father would not approve, but suddenly the prospect of having a place to live, the anxiety resolved, carried the day. “When could I move in?” she said.
Ned McLaren shrugged. “What are you doing today?”
What I am doing today, Abby said to herself some hours later, is being thoroughly intimidated by the demands of my new job. She sat at the desk in the study of her new apartment, looking out at the woods in the deepening twilight and feeling her spirits sink. The browser on her laptop was open to the Tippecanoe College Faculty Handbook; next to the laptop sat a pile of thick textbooks, a raft of insurance paperwork and several pages of handwritten notes detailing the obligations, expectations and complications connected with her status as an instructor at Tippecanoe College in Lewisburg, Indiana.
In the morning she had met with Bill Olsen, who, after showing her to her bare, cramped office under the stairs in a corner of Harrison Hall, had taken pains to impress on her the standards of teaching she would be expected to meet. “We give you small class sizes, and in return we expect a high level of engagement,” he had said. “They pay a lot of money to come here, and they deserve your best effort.”
Abby had nodded, queasily wondering if her imagined fondness for teaching would survive an encounter with a roomful of entitled undergrads. On Monday the term would begin. Students were trickling onto campus, in high spirits, greeting each other with hugs and laughter. Abby had eaten a hurried lunch alone in the corner of the campus snack bar and rushed off to the personnel office to deal with employment red tape. Late in the day she had finally made it back to the motel and belatedly checked out, wearily conceding that the college should be charged for an extra night. The clerk had summoned what seemed to be the only taxi in town, driven by an obese woman with thick glasses, to haul Abby and her luggage the few blocks down the way to Hickory Lane.
This is where I live now, Abby thought, gazing out at the trees. I have a job and a home and colleagues who seem friendly. So why do I still feel like crying?
She picked up her phone. No, she thought. Don’t call Mom when you’re in this mood. It will confirm all her dire predictions. Daddy will make you feel better. He will make you believe that things will be better as soon as classes start.
But it’s Friday evening in New York and Daddy will be out somewhere with Marcia, trying out a hot new restaurant in the Village or taking in something intrig
uing at the Film Forum or having cocktails in Saul and Gloria’s apartment high above Seventh Avenue. Daddy would talk to you but Marcia would be irked.
Abby set the phone down; her parents’ divorce was another thing that made her sad, still, years after the fact, at odd times. She put her face in her hands. Call Samantha, she thought. Samantha will always talk to you; that’s what Best Friends Forever do. Unless they are too harried by the demands of caring for a baby, or enjoying a rare Friday evening of liberty thanks to an expensive babysitter. Don’t bother Samantha again, Abby told herself, knowing she was perilously close to feeling sorry for herself.
Once upon a time you would have called Evan.
Abby roused herself and walked into the main room of the apartment. She stood looking through the big picture window, mesmerized by the gentle riffling of leaves in the golden light of early evening. This is what you wanted, Abby thought. You wanted to be alone but you didn’t bargain for the loneliness.
She was startled by a tapping at the door. When Abby pulled it open she was surprised to see Lisa Beth Quinton standing there. “Hi, Abigail. Sorry to drop in without calling, but I didn’t have your number.” Lisa Beth’s white linen jacket and painted nails were elegant, a contrast with her short hair. “Have you had dinner yet?”
There wasn’t a scrap of food in the place but anxiety had robbed Abby of appetite. “Um, no. I haven’t.”
“Jerry and I thought you might like to come out to dinner with us.”
“Oh, thank you. That’s so kind.” Relief and gratitude made Abby speechless for a moment. “Let me . . . Um, please, come in.” She stepped back, beckoning.
“Thank you. I’d love to see what Ned’s done with the place.”
“Let me get some shoes on. Can you give me a minute?”
“Take your time. Jerry’s upstairs jawboning with Ned, and when he gets started it can take a while. No rush.”
Abby hurried into her bedroom and changed into the short-sleeved black-and-white shift dress she had worn earlier, and after a quick session before the bathroom mirror, she rejoined Lisa Beth in the main room. The older woman said, “Very nice indeed. How much is young Ned charging you for all this?”
