The Woman in the Photo

by Mary Hogan

  About my age—perhaps slightly older—the town boy wears dungarees, a broadcloth vest, and beige cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled past his veined forearms. A wool cap sits atop his charcoal curls. He stands so sturdily he seems almost a tree trunk himself. Were I not able to locate his station in life by his clothes, the cracked and callused skin on his strong hands would tell me he is a workingman. Probably one of the millworkers from Johnstown.

  The boy laughs. “You want me to let you go?”

  “This instant.”

  He lets go. Ivy screams as the boat once again rocks violently and my arms flail like a broken windmill. Just as we are about to tip into the lake, the town boy grabs my upper arm again. This time, he takes charge.

  “First, still yourselves.” He speaks with quiet command. “You must regain your equilibrium so the boat will regain hers.”

  I note that he uses the feminine pronoun to label the boat. Is he mocking me? I wonder. The boat is as unbalanced as these silly women?

  “Good,” he continues. “Now lock arms with each other so closely as to be one person.”

  Shakily, Ivy slides over to my side and clutches me for dear life.

  “Good. When I count to three, I shall pull you onto this log.”

  “But—”

  “One, two—”

  Before the third number, we are yanked onto the fallen log with him. Close enough to smell the pleasantly horsey aroma in his clothes.

  “Three,” he says, grinning. Then he expertly guides us off the log and onto the dry shore. Overcome with gratitude, Ivy gushes, “Thank you, sir. I’m ever so grateful. I can’t swim.”

  My eyes flash with annoyance as I smooth the front of my skirt. She thought not to mention that morsel before we went out on a lake?

  “Yes, thank you, Mister—”

  “Eugene Eggar.” Mr. Eggar lifts his cap and bows his head in my direction.

  “Please don’t let us keep you any longer from your journey through our property.”

  Boldly, Mr. Eggar smiles as he says, “As luck would have it, I worked the dawn shift this morning and have the whole afternoon off to fish.” I note his surprisingly even teeth and the cleanliness of his skin. Not as grubby as one might expect from a workingman.

  “Fish?”

  “The wiggling flashes of silver beneath the surface of the lake.”

  Ivy giggles. I ignore her to inform Mr. Eggar, “Those flashes of silver belong to the club. The private club.”

  “Ah yes,” he says, still relaxed and confident, without the slightest hint of deference. “The Bosses’ Club. Down in the valley we often look up to see your white sailboats crisscrossing the sky.”

  “How divine!”

  Silently, I resolve to remove the word “divine” from my vocabulary. Especially when uttered in an English accent, it sounds so abominably big-headed. Ivy skips about the shoreline kicking leaves and twigs to the side, making room for our picnic. I stand on the sand with Mr. Eggar and subtly rub my aching arms. Obviously enjoying himself, Mr. Eggar says, “Do not trees in a forest and fish in a lake belong to God alone?”

  I will not be bowed. “Not when one thousand black bass are purchased from Lake Erie and transported via rail to the lake that we created and own.” I had heard Father speak of this amazing feat many times. He was disappointed to have missed the spectacle of a railcar full of squirming bass being dumped into the lake.

  “Your lake,” Mr. Eggar says, suddenly serious, “will one day be a murderer.”

  Ivy gasps. I scoff, “Ridiculous. Our caretaker, Colonel Unger, has assured us all that the dam is perfectly safe.”

  I knew exactly what Mr. Eggar was talking about. The previous year I overheard Father and other club members discussing the concerns of Johnstown. Residents who lived a full fifteen miles down a long canyon below us. The town that I could see on my way up to the club from the train station was full of smokestacks and sooty air. Its iron mills churned out steel rails and barbed wire and black plumes of smoke day and night. Clearly envious of our idyll in the mountains above them, the townspeople frequently complained of the earthen dam’s “poor maintenance” and its ever-springing leaks. As if it might one day simply burst open and send tons of water onto their heads. As if the club’s caretaker and its prominent members would allow such a thing.

  As a matter of course, the concerns of the townspeople were dismissed. It was well known to us that Mr. Benjamin Ruff, president of our club and a respected railroad executive, had settled the matter once and for all. After one of Johnstown’s leading citizens—Mr. Morrell, manager of Cambria Iron and a member of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club himself—discussed his worries about the dam’s reliability with Mr. Ruff, a formal letter was sent down the hill. In it, Mr. Ruff stated unequivocally: “You and your people are in no danger from our enterprise.” What could be clearer than that?

  Sadly, Mr. Morrell passed away a few years ago. Still, complaints popped up from time to time. Mostly from young men like Mr. Eggar who wanted the spillway unclogged so fish could escape down the mountain into the streams below and provide them with easy access to food.

  “Look down the next time you cross the dam,” Mr. Eggar says to me. “Note the center of the dam top, where it sags and dips. Tell me that you do not see the leakage, the height of the lake now that your so-called experts lowered the breast of the dam to accommodate your fancy carriages. Tell me you do not feel the strain of that muddy beast in your own gut when you stand upon it.”

  I turn away. Of course I had seen and felt all that he mentioned. We all had. But Colonel Unger had men there to repair every leak. It wasn’t as if the club simply turned its back and let the dam crumble. Why, the previous summer I had seen a team of workers from Johnstown and Cambria shoving an entire tree trunk into one of those leaks.

  “You will excuse us, sir, while we enjoy a private picnic.”

  “Our lunch!” Ivy yelps as she notices that the skiff—with our picnic basket inside it—has floated away from shore. It bobs among the buoyant fragments of forest like a shipwreck. Without a word, Mr. Eggar leaps into action. He scrabbles back onto the jutting log, secure in his footing, snapping off a long, skinny branch along the way. Grabbing on to a broken stump at the end of the overhanging limb, he leans far enough out to snag our little boat with the end of his long stick. The muscles in his bare forearms quiver with the effort. Admittedly, I am impressed with his competence. I cannot imagine Roderick or one of the clubhouse boys even attempting this. Surely they would toss their hands in the air and berate me for my carelessness at depriving them of lunch. Even James Tottinger with his store of inborn confidence would probably look around as if to summon a servant.

  “Lunch is served,” Mr. Eggar says as soon as he has pulled the skiff safely ashore. Ivy, of course, claps her hands in glee. Her excessive youth is wearing on my already frayed nerves.

  “Please accept our sincerest thanks.” I nod once to politely dismiss Mr. Eggar before yet another mishap befalls us and this town boy concludes that we are utterly useless.

  “And join us for lunch.” Like a forest sprite, Ivy skips over to the picnic basket and peers inside, exclaiming over every morsel. “Cheese sandwiches, smoked herring . . . are these deviled kidneys?”

  The aromas of smoked fish and soft cheese blend lusciously with the smell of damp earth and bark. I silently curse Nettie for packing such abundance. Clearly there is ample food for several people. Had she thought we would feed the bears?

  “An apple tart. How divine!”

  It takes all my will not to groan out loud.

  “He cannot stay,” I state. Kindly, but with a period. Then, softening, I add, “We must let the gentleman enjoy his day off.”

  Mr. Eggar is not unwise to the ways of the world. Surely, he notes the impropriety of a workingman sharing a secluded picnic with two society ladies he happened upon in the woods. Young Miss Tottinger has been overly sheltered, indeed. Her suggestion is beyond scandalous. Grat
efully, Mr. Eggar recognizes it as thus. With grace, he says, “Thank you for your kind invitation, but I must respectfully decline.”

  As Ivy extends her lower lip in a pout, I extend my hand. Once again, I thank Mr. Eggar for his assistance.

  “Would an hour be sufficient?” he asks.

  My hand drops. “Sufficient for what?”

  “My return.”

  In response to my startled expression, he calmly states, “You will need someone to row you back across the lake and help you moor that skiff. I noted the line at the bottom of the boat.”

  I open my mouth to protest, then close it as quickly. Of course, what he says is true. My arms still pain me from the journey there. Who knew oaring was so taxing on one’s muscles? And my stupidity at untying the mooring rope is beyond comprehension. What had I been thinking? My quandary is clear. I cannot possibly row all the way back to our dock and somehow anchor the bobbing boat long enough for Ivy to climb out and secure the line to the piling. Not when she so inexpertly untied the line and nearly tumbled into the lake merely getting into the boat. Heavens, we might be floating helplessly until a search party is dispatched to find us. Come to think of it, Mrs. Tottinger believes her beloved Ivy is playing croquet with me. I’m sure she’ll soon wonder how long a game of croquet can possibly take. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s fretting already. What if she’s sent her husband to the cottage to look for us? Or worse, James Tottinger himself. What if the whole family is waiting, frantic, on our shore? The very last thing I need is for the Tottingers to see Ivy and me, alone, in a shaky rowboat that is unable to land. Mother would be apoplectic.

  “We will be in your debt, sir,” I say, chastened.

  Mr. Eggar tips his cap to both of us and retrieves his fishing pole from behind a tree. He then drapes his traveling sack over his strong shoulder. I note that it is bulging with fish. Before disappearing into the woods, he says, “See you in one hour.”

  Before I can rethink my rudeness at not offering a portion of our lunch to take with him, he is gone.

  CHAPTER 25

  NORTH BEVERLY PARK

  Present

  Gone Hollywood!” Valerie left Lee a Post-it note. It was stuck on top of the counter above the minifridge that rattled laboriously in the thick heat of midday. Mrs. Adell forbade them to run the window air conditioner in the back room while they were at work. Not even on low. And no way could they leave the French doors open. Not when someone up at the house could see it and ask, “Is someone in there?” As a result, it took twice as long to cool the pool house to a livable temperature in summer. Crazy.

  “Mrs. A’s charity lunch!” Valerie’s note continued. “Back by dinner!” Lee chuckled over her mother’s signature exclamation points. Her leaden mood disappeared. Val’s cheer was infectious.

  Ever since that day at the Beverly Hills Library, Lee used every quiet moment at work to scuttle to the break room—or burrow into the shower-curtain display—to troll the Internet for information about Johnstown, Pennsylvania. But there were so many links, and so much information, her iPhone was too small and too slow to do anything but frustrate her. She almost had enough saved for a new laptop. Well, not new, exactly. Thank God for eBay.

  As soon as she had a new computer, she would resume her clandestine search for the Victorian/Edwardian woman who would lead her to her birth mother. Until then, life ambled on. She drove down the hill to Bed Bath & Beyond, and up the hill to the pool house, enduring the suffocating heat of summer both ways.

  On that particularly stifling afternoon, Lee had worked the early shift. Before the store opened, she stocked shelves and ran the microduster along overhead ledges that few saw up close. Once the manager unlocked the doors, a surprising amount of time was spent helping customers find as-seen-on-TV junk.

  “You know, it’s a pillow. Made of gel or something? It doesn’t get hot under your head? I saw it on TV in the middle of the night.”

  “It’s this fold-up thingie. You unfold it and slide it under your sofa cushions so they don’t sag? I just happened to see some commercial for it during a late-night movie.”

  “I forget what it’s called, but it’s a metal tray that defrosts meat in half the time? I was wide-awake in a hotel room when I saw it on television.”

  Before Lee worked at BB&B, she had no idea how many insomniacs lived in the Valley. She was stunned, too, to see the number of gullible women in posh Encino. As if some made-in-China gadget would solve every annoyance in their lives. I mean, couldn’t they pull the grass-fed beef out of the freezer an hour earlier? Or have the housekeeper do it?

  Dead tired when she got home, Lee flipped on the air conditioner and kicked off her shoes. She then peeled off her hippie-smelling clothes and grabbed a towel from the hook in the bathroom. A quick, cool shower was just what she needed to wash off her day. By the time she was done, the pool house would be chilled enough for a nap. Already, she could feel the nubby couch fabric beneath her back; the cool press of the Egyptian satin pillowcase she’d coveted since she first saw it at work. The initial sensation of burrowing her face into that shiny smooth pillowcase would be as luscious as a first spoonful of gelato. If so many BB&B customers hadn’t returned that gel pillow (“It popped!”), Lee would have bought one for sure.

  Naked, wrapped in her towel, Lee headed for the outside shower. The heat instantly pushed against her face and bare shoulders like the blast from an open oven on Thanksgiving. The sunbaked terra-cotta tiles burned her bare feet. Wasn’t it supposed to be breezy up here? Isn’t that why the rich fled from the Valley to the hills?

  On impulse, she skittered to the shallow end of the infinity pool and set her bare feet on the top step. No one was around to see her violation of the rules. Gone Hollywood! The cool water felt heavenly on her hot feet.

  “Ah,” she moaned, stepping down one more level to feel the water chill both calves. Overhead, the star-shaped leaves of the sycamore pointed their fingers at her. White rays of sunlight flashed through the branches. Ripples on the pool’s surface spread to the side and disappeared over the infinity edge. Lee glanced up the hill. The glass mansion appeared just as the architect intended: a sparkling diamond in a forest-green setting. It was both beautiful and completely out of key. Perhaps that was his intent? Why blend in when you can stand out?

  Faintly, Lee heard the hum of a distant leaf blower at a house down the hill. In the pool, the battery-operated skimmer propelled itself around the water with a pfft pfft noise, pushing dead leaves around and scooping up flailing, leggy bugs into its net. Still gripping the towel to her chest, Lee glanced up at the mansion once more. Her heartbeat quickened. In a rush of defiance, she flung her towel to the terra-cotta tile and dove in. Underwater, she squealed with the first chill. The water swirled around her naked body as she swam to the far side, popping up only to suck in air before sinking beneath the surface again. It took three and a half lengths to acclimate to the cold water. But Lee kept swimming. Beneath the dead leaves. Under the drowning bugs. She felt giddy. A captive dolphin released into the ocean. Twirling, gliding, rising only for air. Mrs. Adell and her mother wouldn’t be back for hours. Back by dinner! Clearly, Mr. Adell hadn’t shuffled down to clean the pool in weeks. Why would he choose a hot day like this to tidy a pool that no one used?

  “Marco!” Lee yelped in the deep end. Then she swam underwater and popped up near the shallow steps. “Polo!” she called out, breathless. The tensions of her day, her customers, her life, sloughed off in a rush of chlorinated water. Underwater, bare, she felt scandalous and free. She swam beneath the surface until her lungs burned. “Marco,” she sang out.

  “Polo.”

  A male voice.

  Lee’s head whipped around. A guy about her age stood near the pool steps, head down, staring at his neon Nikes. Lee shrieked and lurched to the side of the pool to press her nakedness against it. “This is private property!”

  He looked like a college boy. Or a character from The Great Gatsby. Dressed in tenn
is whites, he wore pristine socks that hugged his ropy, tanned calves. Both hands were tucked into the pockets of his shorts. Top-heavy dark curls tumbled onto his flushed face. He shook them back, but they fell forward again. Lee was agog that he didn’t move.

  “Can I help you?” she asked, testily.

  He released a short laugh. Still not looking up, he said, “My friend lives halfway down the hill. I’m visiting from New York. He’s an ass. We were playing tennis in his backyard. He hurled my racket into the bushes up here. Sore loser.”

  Lee stared and blinked.

  “I heard you in the pool,” he said. “Marco Polo.”

  Admittedly, he was cute. The part she could see, anyway. He still wouldn’t look up, which Lee appreciated even though she was pretty sure he couldn’t make out an actual body part. Other than her arms, of course, and her head. Both of which she hoped looked sporty. Amazingly, she didn’t feel afraid at all. Nor embarrassed. The pool water felt like clothes. And there was something about this boy that relaxed her. Unlike other boys who made her brain feel like scrambled eggs.

  “I see my racket over there,” he said, flicking his head. “I didn’t mean to intrude. I’m an idiot.”

  Suddenly channeling her mother, Lee trilled, “Okay! Thanks for stopping by!” Then she pressed her eyes shut and fought the urge to sink her head below the surface of the water and stay there. It was the word “intrude.” Most boys she knew wouldn’t use it. They’d say “bother,” maybe, or “bug.” “Intrude” was an SAT word. An AP English word. A word used in North Beverly Park. It caught her off guard.

  Swiveling on his new tennis shoes—miraculously clean from the slog uphill—the boy took a step toward the downhill slope before stopping. His neck cocked. “You live here, right?”