Riverside Park

by Laura Van Wormer

  “Bye, Rosanne,” Samantha said. “Thanks for going to the movies even though it sucked.”

  Sam walked Rosanne to the front door. “The atmosphere is so pleasant here,” he whispered, “I can’t understand why you don’t want to stay and enjoy the festivities.”

  “Just hang in there, Mr. W,” she said, patting his arm. “I gotta get home and check on Mrs. G. She’s not so hot these days.”

  “She is getting up there, Rosanne.”

  “Mrs. C took her to her lawyer’s today. I’m not supposed to know but I do.”

  “She’s probably getting her will in order.” He met her eyes. “The last will she had was from 1972.”

  Rosanne covered her face with her hand for a moment and Sam put a hand on her shoulder. “I know. It’s difficult,” he said. And then he gave her a big hug. As if Rosanne was in AA, too.

  19

  Amanda Goes for a Ride

  “I’M SORRY, I can’t, Amanda,” Howard said. “If you want me to take time between Christmas and New Year’s I have to stay in this weekend and work.”

  “It’s not a matter of my wanting you to take time,” she began.

  “Yeah, I know, I know. And I want to. Look, I just can’t get out of here, Amanda, and that’s all there is to it.”

  “God forbid you should ask me to bring the children in.” He didn’t answer. “God forbid you should ask me to come in.”

  He sighed heavily. “It’s better if you didn’t.”

  “Yes, I’m sure it would be. Goodbye,” she said, hanging up on him. He didn’t come out last weekend and now he was not coming out for this one. It would be three weeks since they had seen him and the man was not even seventy-five miles away!

  Their marriage was taking on a surreal quality and Amanda could feel herself getting so angry she had to make a conscious effort to calm herself before driving the children anywhere. And drive she did. School, piano lessons, choir practice, play-dates, grocery shopping, Christmas shopping. Having to get a Christmas tree with the children and Madame Moliere and decorate it without Howard felt close to being the last straw. How had she gotten from winning the Greistenberg Prize in history to being a hausfrau schlepping around making excuses for why her husband was failing his family? What could possibly be more important at this time of year?

  The telephone rang again and it was Howard. “Amanda, listen, I swear, after the holidays you and I need to sit down and I will explain everything that’s been going on.”

  “At least you’re finally admitting something is going on. That could be construed as progress, I suppose.”

  He paused. “I can’t talk about it yet.”

  “It better be sooner than later, Howard,” she warned.

  “Look, I’ve got to go,” he said.

  “Fine, go,” she said, but he had already hung up. She put the kitchen phone back in the cradle a bit harder than she meant to and it bounced out of the cradle and crashed to the floor. They tended to go through mobile phones in this house rather quickly, but this would be the first one she had broken.

  She picked it up, turned it on and listened. A dial tone. She almost wished she had broken it.

  Amanda looked up at the clock and walked to the front hall, aiming an ear toward upstairs. She could hear the music box in the nursery; Madame Moliere had already put Grace down for her nap.

  Amanda sat down on the stairs and rested her chin on her fist, looking at the sky through the fan-shaped window spanning the front door. It was bleak outside; the forecast of snow had elated the children this morning but only filled her with a greater sense of loneliness. She would not build a fire in their bedroom tonight, as she and Howard had always done to celebrate the first snow of the season. When everyone was safely asleep, there would be no need to keep quiet because there would be no one to make love with.

  It gave her a hollow feeling inside to think those days were gone. Even if Howard was the slightest bit attentive to her she would probably still feel numb. It was frightening actually, how Amanda was starting to feel so little about anything connected to her marriage. She knew how much she loved Howard; she couldn’t remember, though, how it felt to be in love with him.

  She simply must pull herself together. It wasn’t as though the children didn’t miss their father, too. No, she would pull herself together and build a big fire in the family room and after dinner they would toast marshmallows and she would take Howard’s place and tell Teddy and Emily a ghost story.

  “Mrs. Stewart?” Madame Moliere said quietly from behind her at the top of the stairs. “Grace is asleep. Is there anything you wish me to do?”

  “Thank you, no, Madame Moliere,” Amanda said, turning around. “I will be going out for a little bit, though, so please do mind Grace.”

  “Of course,” she said, with a slight bow.

  The warmth Amanda thought would have materialized with Madame Moliere was still not in evidence. And had Amanda known she would still be calling her Madame Moliere, instead of Isabel—or even Madame M, which they had tried and to which Madame Moliere had looked at them askance—she never would have engaged her. On the other hand, Madame Moliere was meticulous in her care of Grace and was many times undaunted by Emily and Teddy’s highflying spirits.

  Amanda went to the mudroom to put on her barn boots, a heavy leather coat, knit hat and gloves and took the car keys off the rack. She’d stop at Daffodil Hill to see Maja and Sweets before going to the grocery store.

  She started the Navigator and wondered again about the hybrid truck they had agreed to purchase. There was nothing like living through a Connecticut winter to become aware of their desperate dependency on oil. With six of them and the winter roads out here a full-sized four-wheel truck was a necessity. And when the temperature dropped below freezing and then stayed there for weeks one would do almost anything to keep fueling the furnace. They had further winterized the house last summer, which was a help, but they wanted to demonstrate to the children they had some kind of plan to cut back on gas, oil and emissions. The hybrid had yet to materialize, however; Amanda supposed it was yet another thing on hold while Howard was off doing whatever it was he was doing.

  Miklov’s truck turned in just as Amanda was coming down the driveway. It was looking and running much better now. When he started the engine a large cloud of pollution no longer ballooned from the exhaust, and when the ignition was switched off, the engine cleanly shut off, too. After Miklov had passed the test (driver’s license, insurance card, registration, emissions test), she had allowed Teddy to ride home yesterday in the truck after practice. Teddy had been on cloud nine. First he was able to stay and close up the soccer center with his idol and then he got to ride “in a real truck, like men drive.”

  It seemed that Miklov was standing in for Howard in Emily’s life, too. In a match with a team of notorious ruffians from a nearby town, Emily, who had been playing halfback, had been deliberately smashed into the boards. Amanda had jumped out of her seat when she saw her daughter go down clutching her elbow. The ref had not seen what happened and no whistle was blown. Amanda had almost leapt over the wall onto the playing field but then Emily scrambled to her feet and hustled to rejoin play. When the next whistle blew to stop the play, Emily went over to the player who had shoved her and—what did they call it?—got in her face. When play resumed the bully shoved Emily again, but this time Emily shoved back, sending the girl flying to the ground. Play was stopped. Both coaches came trotting out onto the field. The bully refused Emily’s offer of a hand up while the bully’s father started screaming obscenities at Emily. Emily looked up at the man, squinted, and then put her hands on her hips and turned her back to him, looking to the ground as her teammates gathered protectively around her.

  Howard should have been there. After she knew Emily was all right, that was almost all Amanda could think about, how Howard should have been there. Emily and the other player were both pulled out of the game and it wasn’t until the game was over that Amanda realized tha
t Miklov had put Emily’s elbow on ice. “It was important to Emilee she stay for whole game,” he explained. “But now we go for X-ray, I believe.”

  Miklov rode with them to Waterbury Hospital. By the time Emily was in X-Ray Amanda still had not been able to reach Howard. Fortunately there was no serious injury so Amanda took them to the Barnes & Noble café down the road for a sandwich and then encouraged everyone, Miklov included, to pick out a book. Emily chose a mystery taking place on a horse farm and Teddy a book explaining how the pyramids were built. For Miklov they found a manual for old Ford trucks and Amanda chose for herself Flora Fraser’s biography of the princess-daughters of George III.

  Howard should have been there.

  Miklov had also talked at some length with the children about the difference between holding one’s own against a dirty player and becoming a dirty player yourself. While he felt Emily had acted honorably, he warned her that it could have cost them the game had she been ejected any earlier. (“How do you keep them from pushing back?” Amanda asked him on the side. “You don’t,” he told her.) They dropped Miklov off at the soccer center to pick up his truck and when they got home, after ten o’clock, Emily was delighted to find several phone messages from her teammates who were ecstatic Emily had given the bully a taste of her own medicine.

  Finally reaching Howard had been anticlimactic and by the time Emily tried to recreate the game scenario over the telephone for her father even she had lost interest.

  “Hello!” Miklov greeted Amanda, extending his hand out the truck window.

  She smiled, rolling her window down. “Hi.”

  “That girl, who pooshed Emilee?”

  “With the charming father, how can I forget?”

  “She is out three games. She pooshed Stratford gerl into boards last night.”

  “Really?”

  “She is ten. I bet she in preezon by twenty.”

  Amanda laughed.

  “I also want to tell I am away for Chreesmas.” He nodded. “Yes, I go. Thank you for invitation here.”

  “I’m very happy for you. Where are you going?”

  “I go to cousin in Queens. Three days.” He grinned. “Vacation, huh?”

  “That’s wonderful. The children will be devastated, though.”

  He waved his hand. “Ehh. I run them and run them, they will not mees me.”

  They both laughed. “And how many practices before Christmas?” Amanda asked him.

  “One.” He held up his index finger. “Then on vacation, I am now beeg shot.” He smiled again, turning his head slightly. Amanda noticed he had gotten a haircut. “What are you about now?”

  “I am off to the grocery store,” she said. “You run the children and I feed them, you see.”

  “Get in my truck, I take you,” he said, reaching down to pat his door from the outside.

  “Thank you, but no,” she said. “I need to see the horses, too.”

  How could it be that talking to Miklov for two minutes could make her feel so much better? Because he liked her so much. Because he thought she was worthwhile. And she did think he found her attractive. She thought he was very attractive, too. But it was innocent. They were both so lonely out here, how could they not wish to cheer each other up?

  “Come on. I drive you,” he said. “You see how nice the truck now.”

  The truck meant a lot to him, but Amanda knew she shouldn’t go with him. Her parents had been right about that, it wasn’t completely proper for her to be alone with Miklov.

  On the other hand she felt a surge of excitement about doing something different from what Howard obviously imagined she was always doing out here. She wouldn’t be changing a diaper or windshield washers; she’d be running around town with Miklov in his truck while the children were in school!

  “All right,” she said, rolling up the window and backing up the driveway. She parked the Navigator and by the time she had emerged from it, Miklov had driven his truck up and was standing next to it, proudly holding the passenger door open for her.

  “Golly, you have done a lot of work, Miklov,” Amanda declared. The big old ratty seat was gone, replaced with two nice bucket seats from Amanda didn’t know what kind of car. But they were bolted firmly in the floor and had shoulder and lap belts of the same color. The dashboard looked ten times better, too, and there were new mats on the floor and a leather cover over the steering wheel. The whole interior was as clean as it could possibly be.

  “Heat works,” Miklov announced, pulling off his glove and holding his hand over the vent. She did the same and agreed it was working.

  “This is wonderful, Miklov. This is a fine truck.”

  “And the radio,” he added, snapping it on. He had it on News 880. “Helps me with my English. Okay. Here we go.” He put the truck in Reverse and carefully backed up.

  Amanda, out of habit, glanced back over her shoulder, too, and casually wondered what Madame Moliere would think of this scene if she were to see it from her bedroom window. She noticed out the small back window the cargo in the truck bed. “Are those bags of sand?”

  “Yes. To traction.” He ducked his head to look up through the windshield at the sky. “It is snow today.”

  “Yes,” she said, as he drove slowly down the driveway.

  “Horses?”

  “Right next door,” she told him. “Over there.”

  “A coffee first? To take?”

  “No, thank you, Miklov, I’m fine,” she said.

  “Okay.” He stopped at the end of the driveway, put the truck in Park, yanked up the emergency brake and turned to face her, resting his hand on the back of her seat.

  She should get out right now. Tell him she forgot something and get out and go back into the house. He’d understand. He always did.

  Instead she felt a small thrill run through her when she thought, looking at the earnestness in his eyes, that she could divorce Howard and marry Miklov if she wanted. Trade Howard and the Riverside Drive apartment for this house and give the children a young father who adored them. Miklov could coach. He could get his college degree and teach. That’s what he should do. She almost laughed out loud; imagine, her with a twenty-six-year-old former Czech soccer star in Woodbury!

  Oh, my, she shouldn’t even joke about it. Poor Miklov was so lonely he’d go for it in a second, although she was pretty sure he’d get over her in a hurry when she told him she wouldn’t be having any more children.

  Or maybe she would have just one more.

  “What you thinking?” he asked her, smiling.

  “I am thinking about what a lovely wife, family and home you shall have, Miklov.”

  “Thank you.” He gestured toward the windshield. “Have you seen up there?” He pointed across the road to her neighbor’s vast property.

  “I don’t think anyone is allowed up there,” she said, looking up.

  “There ess chain, yes,” he said, “but I log for him, the owner.”

  She looked at him in amazement. “You do?”

  He nodded. “I cut wood.” He smiled, eyes twinkling. “I haf wood for you. For Chreesmas. Can I show you?” Excited now, he released the parking brake and put the truck into gear. “I stack tomorrow. At your house.” He drove down their road and pulled into the dirt road that led up to what the children called The Mountain. The road was blocked off with a steel gate and chain. There were a lot of problems around here with people on all-terrain vehicles.

  “I have key,” Miklov said, yanking the emergency brake again and hopping down out of the truck. The lock came off and the chain dropped to the ground and he turned around to point out to Amanda the sudden break in the clouds. “The sun!”

  Amanda was grateful. Even with the heater working, she was getting cold.

  Miklov walked back to the truck in the easy gait that identified him at every game. “Wait till you see.” He drove the truck through and then hopped out again to close the gate. “Mr. Fenn nice guy,” he said, climbing back in.

  �
��Is that who owns the land?”

  “Yes.” Miklov put the truck into gear and the springs started squeaking as they moved over small pits and rocks. “Cutting wood in this place makes me feel…” He pounded his chest once with his fist and Amanda thought about the night he told her she was beautiful. “Wait till you see.”

  “It’s a very narrow road, isn’t it?” she said as the fur trees seemed to close in on them.

  “You must care for deetches.” He nodded his head toward her side of the road. “For rain.”

  Amanda looked down. Indeed there were ditches on the side of the road. “Promise me, Miklov, that you won’t bring Teddy up here. Because if you do he will try to sneak over here and then we’ll never find him.”

  “He leesten. You do not have to worry.”

  “Sometimes he listens,” Amanda said.

  “We see when older,” Miklov said, downshifting into 2, the gears working hard as the road dramatically steepened. “Maybe one day he work with me. Make him strong.”

  “Is that snow?” Amanda asked, leaning into her window. The trees blocked out so much of the light it was difficult to see.

  Miklov pulled the headlights on. “Snow,” he confirmed.

  In a short while they reached a landing of sorts and Miklov carefully parked.

  “Oh!” Amanda said, when a view suddenly opened before her. It appeared they were on the top of a cliff, a granite ledge, and were looking out over the Woodbury hills. Perhaps on a day clear of snow or rain one could see houses but right now all Amanda could see were the rolling hills of Connecticut. It was absolutely beautiful.

  “A reserve,” Miklov said, pointing to a lake in the distance.

  “Reservoir,” she said gently.

  “Resevwar,” he said.

  Amanda reached for the door handle to get out. He quickly turned off the engine and jumped out to open the door for her. She climbed out and walked nearer to the edge of the cliff. Once the truck door was closed it was completely silent. Beautiful. The snow was coming down.

  Miklov came up to stand next to her. “No build at resevwar,” he said, gesturing. “But here—” He stamped in place. “Here can build.” He looked at her. “I dream build here.”