“The druggist isn’t in,” Dez said. “But if you leave your prescription—” she gestured with her chin toward the countertop “—you can pick it up later tonight.”
“Oh, I don’t need anything filled,” he said. He hoisted himself onto a stool and folded his hands in front of him. “Unless a lemon Coke counts as medicine. I think it could, on such a hot day. I do think so.”
Dez suppressed a sigh. Judging by the size of him, he would want at least two, as well as a big lunch and probably a slice of pie. Then the late-afternoon crowd would wander in and she’d never get back to her drawings.
She dried her hands and offered him a menu, thick plastic edged in black. He studied it as she pumped cola syrup into a glass, added fizzy water and ice, cut into a fresh lemon and squeezed the juice into the mix. She poured the soda into a paper cone and set it into its chrome support. “Are you visiting?”
“I’ll be around for a while,” he said. He pursed his lips and made his eyes comically round, an expression that came across as effeminate. “And I’m afraid I won’t be very popular.” When she didn’t react, he said, “I’m from the water commission,” emphasizing the word water, and smiling with exaggerated gratitude when she didn’t then change her manner. He mouthed, as if whispering a secret, “I guess I’m already infamous. Some kid just threw a mud ball at my car.”
In the space of the next two minutes he told her what had to be his entire life history: about growing up in Athol, about his wife and son and how they were living in Newton but would likely head back to Athol now that he had landed this job, about his brother in Springfield, who had six kids and was let go from the Smithfield dartboard factory. “You never think about how things like that are made, do you? Dartboards.”
Dez admitted that no, she did not.
“Well, sure, someone’s got to make them. Joe used to sand the edges. I do what I can to help, but it’s been tough for me, too, till I got this job.”
He told her too much, things most people would never talk about. Like how at one low point last winter his wife went to the welfare for some oatmeal and they gave her some but not before some grudging worker said, You got a husband and a fine boy?
“You might not see, out here, with farms and all, just how bad it is in the cities, but people are fighting over the garbage restaurants throw out. I couldn’t say no to a job. I hope people won’t hold it against me.”
He seemed too thin-skinned, too concerned with whether people liked him. “No,” Dez agreed. “You can’t say no to a job.”
His job would be to assist the commissioner, and he wasn’t supposed to start work until Monday but he had decided it was smart to come early. “Get the lay of the land. The boss shows up Monday, knows I’m on the ball.”
Asa and his diggers didn’t expect anyone in town until Monday. What if this man went exploring? With his large frame, he didn’t look like he did too much recreational walking, but you could never make assumptions. Secret Pond really was well named, but someone walking the course of the river might hear voices and investigate.
“So it’s between us and Whistling Falls,” she said, stating the fact to see if he might reveal information.
The last of his Coke zipped through the paper straw and disappeared. He glanced up, out of breath, and gestured for another. “Technically.”
“Technically?” She set to mixing the second Coke.
“Between you and me, Cascade’s the best choice, but we’d have less trouble if we took Whistling Falls.”
She nodded, hoping he’d say more, and slid the drink in front of him.
“I shouldn’t talk about it,” he said. He studied the menu. “You wouldn’t have any meat loaf, would you?” He was the kind of man whose face softened at the mention of food. “I could go for a nice meat loaf, makes my mouth water just to think about it.”
“No, no meat loaf.”
“I stopped in here once and there was a great meat loaf on the menu.”
“My mother-in-law’s, but she’s passed away, a couple of years now.”
He mumbled his sympathy. “And the playhouse—I saw it’s boarded up. Don’t tell me the playmaster’s gone, too.”
“My father. Did you know him?”
“He’s passed on?”
“At the New Year.”
He was effusive in his condolences, in his praise for her father.
“But how did you know him?”
“Oh, it’s a story,” he said, clasping his hands together. “One night he was playing that king who gets murdered by the fellow who wants his throne—what’s-his-name.” He snapped his fingers, tapped at his temple.
“Duncan.”
“No, the name of the play,” he said. “Macbeth, of course, Macbeth. Oops. I’m not supposed to say the name of that play, am I? It’s bad luck. Right?”
“It’s only bad luck if you say it inside a theater. Supposedly.”
“Right. Well. I was in town selling to Stein’s—I was selling then—and saw all the commotion going on, the party on the lawn. It had rained earlier and down by the river was muddy. There was a woman serving small cakes.”
“Rose’s madeleines!”
“Oh, they were good! She gave me one on a napkin, but I swallowed too quickly and it caught in my throat and I choked. No one knew I was choking—I think they just saw this big man doing a strange little dance—and as it came free I slipped and fell down into the mud. Gee, now that I think of it, with that kid throwing the mud at my car, I’ve gotten into a lot of mud in this town.” He laughed. “I know I looked a sight and people were trying not to laugh, but your father was the one who didn’t laugh a bit. He helped me up and brought me inside. My clothes were all muddy and he fitted me out with something to wear while that lady fixed up my clothes. Put me in a king’s cape.” He laughed, then shook his head, whistling, and gazed at her. “So you’re the playmaster’s daughter.”
“Dez Spaulding,” she said, offering her hand.
“Stanley,” he said, pumping hard. “Stanley Smith. Call me Stan.”
“A king’s cape! That’s just what my father would do.” She asked him what he wanted for lunch.
“Three franks,” he said. “With relish, mustard, and onions. And coleslaw. And beans, if you have them. And chips.”
She set the franks sizzling on the grill. Two women she didn’t know sat down and ordered chocolate frappes, and she was busy for a while, grilling and scooping and mixing.
“Hey, the franks—” Stan said at one point. The grill was smoking, the franks starting to scorch.
She rolled them over. “I’m not much of a cook. Too bad for you you didn’t stop at the Brilliant.” She let them brown, then used tongs to pick them up and stuff them into their rolls, snugging each one into a cardboard boat. The three boats took up most of the plate, so she removed a side plate from the stack next to the grill and filled it with a ladle of beans, a handful of potato chips, and four pickles. She set the condiment tray in front of him—three triangles filled with relish, mustard, onions, three small spoons.
With the customers taken care of, she retreated to the end of the counter with her sketchpad. The hill was sufficiently imposing, dominating the Indian longhouses below, which were covered, rectangular structures, so sensible really, unlike Thomas Cole’s pretty little tipis in the first series. Her hand slashed right to left, diagonally, making the timbers that formed the longhouse roof. Slash, slash—she looked up distractedly. Someone was clearing her throat in such a way as to be noticed. One of the women, a dark brunette with heavy lipstick, caught her eye and pursed her lips together. Dez hadn’t noticed that both women’s paper cones and metal frappe containers were drained. She hadn’t asked if they wanted anything else, hadn’t offered their bill. She hurried to help them, but they paid with coins and took every penny of their change. When the door jangled behind them, Stan made a face at their departing shadows, visible on the sidewalk. “What were you drawing?”
“Some ideas I have for
some paintings that record the town’s history.”
“Let’s see.”
He whistled when she handed him the pad. “You’re a real artist. I always wished I had a talent like that.”
“You like to draw?”
“Oh, I’d take any kind of talent. Music, poetry. I used to write poems. I even sent them off to the Atlantic Monthly. They were pretty bad when I look back on them. You know that poem ‘A Psalm of Life’? Longfellow?”
“No.” She knew “The Song of Hiawatha,” the poem all schoolchildren learn. That was about it.
“Tell me not, in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream! For the soul is dead that slumbers, And things are not what they seem. Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou art, to dust returnest, was not spoken of the soul.” He reddened, as if he had forgotten himself. “That’s part of it. I wish I could write a poem like that but I guess I was destined to be a reader.”
“It’s a lovely poem. It’s the way I often feel. I’ll have to look that one up.” He was sweet, this pudgy man in his tight, season-inappropriate suit, reciting poetry.
“I know I don’t look the type.”
“What’s ‘the type’?” she said. “There’s no such thing as a type. Sometimes people in a certain profession will act or dress in similar ways, but I think that’s part of the human need to be in a group. That can border on pretension. When I was in Paris in the twenties I noticed that—”
“You’ve been to Paris?”
She smiled.
“You ever sketch people?”
“Sure. Sometimes.” Was he angling for a picture? Did he want to inspire art, did he want to be immortalized? Did everybody? “How about I do a quick sketch?”
She cleared away his plate and wiped the counter clean.
“Maybe put your hat back on,” she said. “Rest this arm like that. Prop your chin in your other hand.”
Then she sketched him. More than sketched—she drew a fine, detailed likeness. Her hand flashed across the paper as her eyes darted up and down, looking from his face to the paper and back again. He was a good model, showing no sign of boredom or fatigue as he perched on the stool. She captured his self-deprecating eyes, his pursed mouth. He was all curves, no angles, with a round nose and bulbous chin, but she gave his head a proud tilt and didn’t include the sweat. She made sure his hat fit. She shaded in his face, remarking that it was a miracle no other customers had come in. Then she signed her name. Desdemona Hart Spaulding, 1935. It was a flattering portrait that she handed to him, and with the exception of the playhouse work she used to do for her father, she had never felt anyone to be so appreciative of her work.
His eyes took in every stroke, every detail. “What a kindness.” He placed his fist over his mouth. “You are truly the playmaster’s daughter. Thank you.”
Late in the afternoon, Asa returned from digging and headed straight to the back room to wash up. Dez found him bent over the sink, rubbing a bar of Lux along his arms and hands. She mentioned Stan casually, and he set down the soap and turned to give her his full attention.
“Where is he now?”
“Checked into the hotel, I guess.”
And then he told her—how they were working on something. “In the woods. A silly long shot, I suppose, but something I hope might make the decision makers think twice about Cascade.” He unfolded a towel from the stack by the sink. “You can’t mention it to anyone. I mean no one. If anyone finds out, the plan’s ruined. What’s this fellow’s name again?”
“Stan Smith.”
“What if he goes around snooping?”
“I don’t think he will. He’s a chatterbox. Seems more the type to hang around town talking.”
Asa rubbed at his arm absentmindedly. “Let’s hope.”
13
On Monday morning, the third of June, Asa’s alarm clock went off in the gray before dawn. Dez heard him flipping his calendar, running the tap in the bathroom, rustling in the wardrobe. He whispered, “Good luck with your calls,” and headed off, hopeful about his own plan, and about the five sample watercolor-and-pen drawings Dez had finished and which were now propped up on top of the wainscoting in the kitchen so she could refer to them when she called the editors.
She slipped the thermometer under her tongue and tried to lie quietly but already her heart was fluttering about in her chest. It was one thing to imagine calling up editors and speaking in a confident manner. It was another thing to actually do it.
Downstairs, she looked over the drawings. The first panel depicted unspoiled Cascade land with no inhabitants, the rocky hill sitting just off-center. The next showed a longhouse inhabited by the Nipmucks who once lived along the Cascade River. In the third panel, settlers’ homes began to appear in the valley, and the Nipmucks were an indistinct group moving west.
She was a little afraid that the panels were a bit too much obvious representation, a child’s history book illustration, but that was what popular magazines used—pictures with mass appeal. The fourth panel was the one she liked most. It showed the stark months that were possibly to come: houses demolished, trees chopped down, townspeople slinking after the ghosts of the Nipmucks. There was such irony in the situation—though maybe that was the kind of thing that only history recognized. The fifth and final panel, she liked, too—all water, the top of the bald hill transformed to a rocky island.
At nine o’clock, when the hour chimed through the house, she swallowed, picked up the phone, and waited for the operator, hoping it wouldn’t be Lil, but it was Lil, who asked again about taking in a movie, perhaps some night this week while Asa was at work.
It really all depended, Dez said, on what happened with some work she was hoping to do. Then she read off the list of editors’ names and numbers. She had decided to go for the less exclusive, more accessible magazines. That way, she might have more of a chance of getting a foot in the door.
“Keep your line free,” Lil said.
The return calls could take hours, and those hours seemed endless. Later she would have only the vaguest memory of flitting around the house, sweeping and dusting and polishing furniture, stripping the bed, washing the sheets, and hanging them to dry in the wind.
The first call back came at eleven thirty: the editor of the Weekly Fountain, who cut her off as soon as she started to talk. He had no interest in paintings, only photographs, and was so closed-minded about listening to her arguments that she was surprised he’d bothered to return the call. Over the next few hours, Lil put her through to a few secretaries who said their bosses were not interested, to one editor who played with the idea, then said no. A good idea, but for photography, he said. Was she skilled with a camera? She tried to hide her exasperation when she pointed out that photographs would be interesting, yes, but only when the actual destruction, and eventual flooding—at the very least months or possibly even years away!—took place. She attempted to sell the human side of a potential pictorial, how detailed, realistic colored drawings could relay the history of the town, as well as envision the threatened destruction. No interest.
She was glum, and by two o’clock, discouraged. Maybe magazines weren’t the best place—but they offered the only opportunity for color. A black-and-white representation in a newspaper would be no better than illustrations of twenty years ago. No one would care about those.
She heard Jimmy’s whistle on the back step, his attention-seeking coughs, and finally, the clatter of the mail flap and his retreating footsteps. On the floor lay a single piece of mail, a postcard—a fine watercolor-and-ink rendering of the New York City skyline from Abby.
I’m living here between 7th and 8th Avenues at 267 West 33rd Street near Penn Station. The apartment has hot water, shared bath, electric light. I’m next to a grocer. Submitting an application to the W.P.A. and hanging around Union Square. I’ve switched to Camels. They calm me down.
Dez fingered the card, thinking how pleasant it was to get a postcard, what a nice lit
tle lift it gave a person, and then it came to her. A simple idea—so simple and right that she was preternaturally calm calling Lil again. She asked her to get Gerald Washburn at The American Sunday Standard in New York, and to say that it was very important, because, she thought, she might as well aim high. “And Lil,” she said, “please tell him Miss Desdemona Hart is calling.”
Calling herself “Miss” seemed a smart decision. Unmarried women were perceived as more reliable workers.
Then she sat down to sketch, to start all over again. The five samples she had done were far too placid and contemplative. Forget Indian longhouses. Why hadn’t she been visualizing the destruction as horrifically as it would undeniably be? To create their bowl, their reservoir, the water commission would have to chop down trees, bulldoze buildings. The destruction would be complete. She rendered the splintering of wood, the shattering of windows, and even envisioned a bulldozer smashing into the playhouse. And sketching the church steeple, she had a sudden thought—what would become of the cemetery? The headstones, the bodies? Her family was buried in that cemetery. All those coffins would be moved—a disturbing detail she would have to convey without being tasteless.
When Lil rang back, it was past three o’clock. “Mr. Washburn at The American Sunday Standard for you.”
Dez clutched the heavy earpiece. She took a steadying breath and spoke into the horn. “Mr. Washburn!” Her heart pounded and her throat was dry, but she explained who she was in a steady, friendly voice. She told him about the threat facing Cascade. She explained her proposal, though she refrained, at first, from explaining her newest idea. Let him come up with his objections first, she thought, as he did.
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