The Children

by Ann Leary

  Everett stomped on the brake and I was hurled against the dashboard.

  “Would you put your fucking seat belt on?” he shouted. Then: “What are you, fifteen years old? Sixteen?”

  I was crying. He had scared me. “I’m seventeen,” I said.

  “You’re not seventeen.”

  I was sixteen, but I didn’t say anything.

  “What are you doing down there at Holden? Fooling around in the dorms with the guys? Huh?”

  “No.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Just let me out,” I said.

  “Put your seat belt on,” he grumbled. “There’s something really the matter with you,” Everett said finally. “You and your sister both.”

  “We’re just bored,” I whispered.

  “Are you crying?”

  “No.”

  “Stop crying.”

  “I can’t.”

  “I can make you laugh.”

  “No you can’t,” I said, recalling our childhood games. Everett, Sally, Spin, and I used to play a game where we’d sit and stare into the eyes of one of the others. The first person to smile lost. Sally always won.

  I felt him looking at me. I glanced at him from the corner of my eye and then it was hard not to smile.

  “I saw you smiling,” he said.

  “I wasn’t,” I said.

  “I can make you,” he said. “I can make you smile.”

  “Okay. Try,” I said, scowling with all my might.

  That night was our first together. I snuck over to his place when I saw his bedroom light go out. I tapped on his window. He let me in.

  SIX

  Spin and Laurel came to the lake every afternoon that first week. Sally was in the city, but she e-mailed constantly, wanting to know what I had found out about Laurel.

  “She’s stopped posting on Facebook,” Sally said. “She stopped blogging, too.”

  “I think she’s respecting our privacy,” I said. “Spin’s privacy. You know, she’s not nearly as braggy as she seemed on her blog. She’s interested in others. I have a feeling she’s a good writer.”

  “Based on what?”

  “She likes to observe people. They say that’s what makes a writer great, her curiosity about others.”

  “I’ve never heard anybody say that,” Sally said.

  “It’s just a known fact,” I said, annoyed. Sally thinks she knows everything.

  “Some people are just nosy,” she said.

  Whatever.

  Spin was busy that week. It wasn’t just his duties on campus with the remaining students. He had his work for the Lake Marinac Task Force—the group devoted to keeping our lake healthy and clean.

  Joan, Sally, and I are content to know as little as possible about the lake’s task force. We’re aware that Spin and a few others are constantly measuring and sampling the water. We just don’t care to know all the details. Spin is a fascinating person with a great personality, except when he talks about the lake, or any environmental issues, really. Then he can be kind of a bore. On Laurel’s second day here, while we all sat out on the porch enjoying the lake breeze, she asked Spin about the task force.

  “Did you start the thing or what?” Laurel asked him.

  “Oh no, it began long before I was even born,” Spin said.

  “It was in the early 1970s. Whit was one of the people who started it,” Joan interjected. She thought it important for Laurel to know that she was on the Holden crew team then. She had been the captain of the first women’s varsity team at Holden. “We practiced every morning on the lake,” she explained. “You can’t believe how cold it was some mornings, but we were out there every day.”

  “Yes,” Spin said. Then, when Joan offered nothing to link her rowing to the task force, he proceeded to tell Laurel that a few decades ago our lake was in jeopardy. There was an overgrowth of invasive plants (algae, blah, blah, blah). Runoff from lawns and farms (phosphorus, blah). Fertilizers (nitrogen, whatever), resulting in algal blooms. The task force hired biologists to do a study, then came up with a plan to keep the lake alive.

  “So the lake was actually dying?” Laurel asked.

  “No,” Joan said.

  “Yes, it was dying,” Spin said. “Lakes and ponds die all the time. They’re living, breathing organisms, just like us.” He shielded his eyes then and squinted out at the water as if he were trying to read its very pulse. Joan turned to me and rolled her eyes.

  “Lakes need nutrients in the form of phosphorus and nitrogen,” he continued. “But if they get too many nutrients, which can happen in the summer, the whole system is thrown out of whack. The water temperature rises. Too much algae blooms and it hogs up all the oxygen. And then you can have a real situation on your hands.”

  “One worries about summerkill, dear,” said Joan to Laurel. “Now, who would like to go to the market with me?”

  “Summerkill?” Laurel asked.

  “Yes, summerkill is when large populations of fish die off suddenly,” Spin said. “Lack of oxygen.”

  We haven’t had a summerkill in years. Spin has been working on a study with a team of environmental scientists at Yale; it’s a six-year study following the placement of giant aerators in the water. That’s why he regularly tests the water quality at various points on the lake.

  Now Spin was carrying on about invasive species.

  “There are plants that aren’t indigenous to the lake,” Spin said, “but they arrive anyway, carried in on the feathers of ducks and geese, sometimes attached to the undersides of boats. So we have a team of volunteers, and they take turns monitoring the one boat ramp on the lake. We inspect each boat to make sure there’s no vegetation. But we can’t inspect every canoe or kayak that people launch.”

  “Spin,” Joan said, unable to bear another minute, “I don’t think your obsession with all this algae and whatnot is good for you, I really don’t. You can’t even enjoy the lake anymore.”

  “What do you mean?” Spin said, laughing. “Of course I enjoy the lake.”

  “He’s like the lake’s constant diagnostician, always looking for some kind of pathology,” Joan said to Laurel. “He can’t even enjoy a nice sail.”

  Spin told Laurel not to listen to Joan, but she continued. “This lake is one of the cleanest, healthiest lakes in America. But the sight of one little sprout of—what is it, Spin? Eurasian killjoy?”

  “Eurasian milfoil,” Spin said. “And I don’t know that I’d call it one of the cleanest lakes in America.”

  “He sees anything green at the bottom of the lake and he’s like a hypochondriac who finds a new mole,” Joan told Laurel.

  “Go ahead and laugh,” Spin said, “but the reason this lake is so healthy is because we’re so proactive. Anyway, this is boring to Laurel.”

  “Boring to Laurel?” I said. “It’s boring to everyone, Spinny.”

  “I don’t think it’s boring,” Laurel said. So Spin proceeded to enchant her with facts regarding acidity levels, nitrogen ratios, and all the wonderful microorganisms that he serves and protects in our Lake Marinac.

  Everett pulled up, mercifully, in the middle of this speech. He parked in front of his house and then wandered over to our porch.

  “Hey, Joanie, Spin. Hey, Lottie,” Everett said. Then he grinned at Laurel and said, “I’m Everett, you know, from last night.”

  “Yes, hi, I know! I was able to recognize you even with your pants on,” Laurel said. Everett stammered as he explained to Spin about her arrival.

  “Oh,” Spin said. “You and Lottie were out there all nakie? Wasn’t it freezing?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Well, I guess all your phosphorus or blue-green algae isn’t doing its job, Philip,” Laurel said.

  Everett had just dropped the Australian shepherds back at their home and had picked up another young dog from Ridgefield.

  “This new guy’s huge,” Everett said. “He’s a Leonberger.”

  “A limburger?” Joan asked
.

  “A Le-on-ber-ger,” Everett said, pronouncing each syllable.

  “I’ve never heard of such a thing. Let’s see him,” she said.

  “Okay, but let’s put Riley inside. The people who own this guy are clueless. He’s nine months old and they haven’t neutered him. He seems pretty mellow, but I don’t want to take any risks.”

  We put Riley in the house and then Everett opened the passenger door of the truck. Snacks leaped out, then turned to bark at the enormous dog, who sort of tumbled out behind him.

  “Jesus, that is a big dog,” Spin said.

  “He’s beautiful,” I said. I wandered over to meet him. He was the size of a Saint Bernard but had the coloring of a German shepherd. Snacks was circling him in an assertive way, his legs stiff and straight, his tail rigid. Snacks is like a little drill sergeant whenever a new dog arrives, snarling and barking rules at the new recruit. He just needs them to know that this is his place—he demands respect. He’s aware that he’s the size of a football with stubby legs, so he always shows the newcomer his teeth. I think he wants new dogs to visualize their jugular betwixt them. They all seem to do that, as they become very cowed in his presence. Everett says that Snacks does the bulk of his job for him. Now the big Leonberger flopped over and rolled onto his back, his mouth grinning, his tongue lolling out to the side.

  Snacks trotted over to a nearby shrub and lifted his leg, and that was that. The Leonberger got up and lumbered over to me.

  “Oh my God, I’m in love,” I said.

  “You say that about every dog I bring here,” Everett said. He gave me a little hug, but I wiggled out of his arms; I didn’t want the others to see. Everett called out to Joanie that she could let Riley out. Within minutes, the three dogs had established a friendly rapport. Spin offered Everett a beer and he sat on the porch with us.

  “Did you guys hear what happened over at Mildred’s yesterday?” Everett asked. Mildred Swan is our closest neighbor. She’s widowed now, but her husband had been one of Whit’s oldest friends.

  None of us had heard a thing.

  “Oh,” Everett said. He squinted at the label of his beer bottle, enjoying our suspense.

  “Well? What happened? Is she okay?” we all asked at once.

  Everett just sipped his beer. “Mr. Clean is back,” he said finally.

  “NO!” Joan cried out.

  “Are you joking?” Spin said. “So he—he hit Mildred’s place?”

  “Yup!” Everett said. “She just got back yesterday from Nantucket. I guess she was visiting her grandkids for a few days.” He took another swig of his beer.

  “Oh no, poor Mildred,” Joan said. “I saw a patrol car pulling out of her driveway this morning. I thought they were just checking on the place while she was away. Are they sure it’s Mr. Clean?”

  “Pretty sure,” Everett said. “Everybody was talking about it at the post office. I stopped in to check on her on my way home. He didn’t take anything. Her niece is there with her now.”

  “Did he, you know—clean?” Joan asked, shuddering.

  “Yup,” Everett said. “Same old thing. Looks like he stayed a night or two. Washed the bed linens. Made the bed. Organized her fridge. And, get this—he changed her cat’s litter box.”

  Joan and I screamed. Everett and Spin laughed.

  “What’s so funny? Who’s this Mr. Clean?” Laurel asked.

  We have very little crime in this town. Some of the homes surrounding the lake are vacant during the winter months, and very occasionally there are break-ins. Usually, it’s kids from neighboring towns looking for drug money. But during the summer of 2014, the summer before Laurel arrived, there was a series of home invasions here on the lake. They all seemed to be committed by one individual. The police had found the same set of fingerprints at each home, but none of the prints was identifiable. The person had no criminal record. The thing that had everybody in a state of borderline hysteria was the fact that the intruder never took anything. He just hung out in the house, and he always tidied up in some way before he left.

  The whole town was horrified by what he did, by what investigators called his “pattern of criminal behavior.” He never stole anything except for small amounts of food, but he always left the place cleaner than he had found it. There was usually a clean set of sheets on one of the beds, leading investigators to conclude that he’d slept there. He seemed to know who came up on weekends, and he’d break into their homes during the week. He’d watch TV, read, or at least look at books—the owners could tell because he’d usually reorganize their bookshelves. At one house last summer, he used a treadmill and logged in over ten miles. At another, he played with the children’s PlayStation. Dishes in the sink? He’d wash them. Laundry in the dryer? He’d fold it. At one home, he scrubbed the bathtub grout. At another, he managed to remove an old red wine stain from the carpet.

  There was a lot of commentary in the Harwich Times about the intruder last year. They allow anonymous comments on the newspaper’s Web site, so people say stuff they wouldn’t say in person. For example, this, from last summer, when he first got his nickname:

  JRD: I’d like to see him try breaking into my house, he’ll be polishing the business end of my Ruger with his tonsils

  LEXIE: Is that my Ruger in your mouth, or are you just glad to see me, Mr. Clean?

  JRD: LOL! Mr. Clean!!!!!!!

  WINSOME: Glad I live in Westfield, not Harwich

  JAMESP: There’s like zero crime in Harwich, I grew up there

  BILLFEN: JAMESP, what the hell are you talking about, we have crimes here. This newspaper won’t report most of them

  KELLYQ: Mr. Clean!

  FT: They report crimes in this paper.

  BILLFEN: Rarely. Look who buys the ads. Real estate brokers. They don’t want it to look like anything bad happens in this town.

  JAMESP: Um, BILLFEN, try getting out of your little town and seeing the rest of the world. There is really very little crime in Harwich.

  BILLFEN: Um, JAMESP, try coming back to this town you freak and I’ll serve you up a crime you’ll never forget you smug hipster

  JAMESP: WTF? Is there a moderator on this board? I just got threatened.

  KATHYK: I live near the lake and have noticed that the police are patrolling quite a bit, which is reassuring

  LOLA: I just saw a happy bald guy with meaty arms walking down the street with a mop

  KELLYQ: No … not … Mr. Clean!

  JAMESP: Dear Harwich Police, I have a tip. Start investigating a psychopath who calls himself BILLFEN on the Web

  BILLFEN: Hahahaha. JAMESP, I know who you are

  JAMESP: Moderator?

  “I’m sorry.” Laurel laughed once we had briefed her. “This is the funniest crime I’ve ever heard. Mr. Clean!”

  “I don’t think it’s funny,” Joan said, pulling her sweater tightly around her shoulders. “I’m going to start locking the doors at night.”

  “Joanie, you should lock them anyway,” Spin said.

  “I’ve always felt safe before this,” said Joan. “You know what? I wish I had a gun.”

  “Joan, no!” I said. The last thing our mother needs is a gun; she’s very impulsive.

  Everett laughed and said, “You’d have to learn to shoot the thing. Besides, this person seems harmless. He probably has a mental illness.”

  “I’m an excellent shot!” Joan said. Of course she’s an excellent shot.

  “Whit and I used to skeet-shoot with Bowdoin Auchincloss. Bowdie belongs to a field club in Millbrook, and we went all the time. I would need a shotgun, though, not a pistol or a rifle. A shotgun’s just the thing; you don’t have to have great aim, just point it in the general direction of the intruder and then spray him with bird shot or buckshot or whatever. Where would I get one, Spin?”

  “Don’t you have one, Ev?” Spin asked.

  “NO,” I said before Everett could reply. “He’s not going to come here. None of the houses he’s entered have dogs.” />
  “As if Riley would do anything,” Joan scoffed.

  “Wait,” Laurel said. “You know what hikers are starting to use out west? Hornet spray.”

  We all looked at her.

  “The kind that shoots fifty or sixty feet,” she said. “It’s like high-powered Mace. People use it in case they come across a bear. I used to keep a can next to my bed when I was living in L.A. We’d had some break-ins in the area.”

  “Hornet spray! What an excellent idea,” said Joan. She got up and rummaged around in the kitchen, returning a few minutes later with a rusty old can of hornet spray.

  “Lottie, read that, will you? I don’t have my glasses,” she said, wiping grime from the label as she handed it to me.

  “‘Kills wasps, hornets, and other flying insects from as far as forty feet.’ It doesn’t say anything about janitors, Joan,” I said.

  “He’s not a janitor; he’s a lunatic!” she replied. “Well, the idea is to blind them, right, Laurel? To immobilize them.”

  “Exactly,” said Laurel. Then she turned to me and said, “Spin tells me you’re a writer, Charlotte.”

  “No,” I said, my face burning. “Not really; I just write things for the Internet.”

  “You mean, like, for The Huffington Post?”

  “No—they don’t pay. It’s not really what you would consider writing, though, what I do. It’s just for money.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Mostly, I write, well, listicles,” I said, but I sort of mumbled it.

  “You write with testicles?” Laurel laughed. “Is that what you just said?”

  “Listicles,” I said.

  “Now, I was always into writing poetry,” said Joan. “When I was at Princeton, I thought I might become a poet. Of course, the motivating factor there was my handsome poetry professor, who had a thing for me. He ended up becoming the poet laureate—”

  “What are listicles?” Laurel asked, already trained, like the rest of us, to distract my mom when she’s about to launch into an autobiographical soliloquy.