Angel Landing (24 page)

“It's Finn.” There was a lump in my throat. “I think about him a lot,” I said, watching Carter carefully.

“So do I,” Carter said.

“No, I don't think you know what I mean,” I said.

“Yes, I do,” Carter told me as he turned into a long driveway which led to the wooden beach house. “The guy's a mystery, he's a real unusual case.”

I wished then that Carter would have guessed; it would have been so much easier if he could have taken my pulse whenever Finn's name was mentioned, if only he could have seen photographs of us together in bed, there wouldn't be a need for explanations or sorrow; Carter would have simply turned and said goodbye. Instead he kept going up the long driveway, avoiding the deep ruts in the sand. He parked by the garage near a grove of gray reeds which grew taller than our heads.

When I got out and closed the car door behind me, I was afraid I might be lost in the reeds; they towered above me, they moved and sighed.

“This way,” Carter called, and I followed the footprints he made in the sand. I could have turned back, I could have run back down the driveway and hidden in the feathery reeds, I might even have hitchhiked down Dune Road; if I waited long enough a car would certainly come, no matter how desolate the road looked. But I wanted to see Finn, so I followed Carter's steps and stood beside him at the door. And when Reno LeKnight answered the bell I walked inside. Through the doors to a wooden deck we could see the white stretch of foam the waves left along the sand.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Reno LeKnight said irritably.

“I want to make certain Finn's entirely satisfied with his legal representative,” Carter said.

“Of course he's satisfied,” LeKnight said.

“I don't know,” Carter shrugged. “I wasn't too pleased with what I saw in court today.”

“I thought you told me you had experience in court?” LeKnight said to Carter. “But it seems to me you're an amateur. The first day is nothing, you should know that.”

It occurred to me that Michael Finn might not even be in the house; Reno might have hidden him away, protected from people who cared too much. “Are you sure he's even here?” I asked Carter.

“And I'd like to know what she's doing here?” LeKnight asked Carter. “She's supposed to be an objective witness and you're supposed to have nothing at all to do with the trial. Do you know how a judge would react if he knew Finn was consorting with some radical fringe?”

“We're a grass-roots movement, not a fringe.”

“To be perfectly frank,” LeKnight said, “I don't give a damn about your organization.”

“I was sure you didn't,” Carter nodded.

“But all of us are interested in Finn's winning,” Reno went on. “So take my suggestion. Stay away.”

It was then I saw Finn; he was out on the deck, standing by the railing watching the slow, dark Atlantic.

“Why don't I get you both a drink and then you can go,” LeKnight said. And when he left the room I turned to Carter.

“He's out there,” I said. “On the deck.”

“You're not going to try and stop us from seeing him, are you?” Carter asked the attorney when he returned with our drinks.

“I can't,” Reno LeKnight said. “But let me just warn you, the man is depressed and depression doesn't go over well in court. Contrition is fine, humility is even better, but once a district attorney smells depression, it's all over.”

Carter walked over and slid the doors open.

“Five minutes,” LeKnight called to us. “Don't stay a minute longer,” he said as Carter closed the doors behind us.

Finn stood out there without a coat, he held onto the railing tightly, his hair was tangled with salt. Carter went over and tapped Finn's shoulder, and I was glad that he did; if I had been the first person Finn had turned to see, he might have bolted and run over the sand dunes like a horse crazy with moonlight.

“Here you go,” Carter said as he handed Finn his own whiskey. “I came to find out what you think of LeKnight. I want to make certain you have faith in him.”

“Oh, he's great,” Finn said bitterly, “considering he has no case to present.” He took a sip of whiskey and then saw me in the shadows. “What are you doing here?”

“She came with me for the ride,” Carter explained. “Listen, LeKnight just said you were depressed. Is that true?”

Finn was looking at me. “What?” he said to Carter.

“Because I know a cure for your depression,” Carter went on. “Come work for Soft Skies, think about a cause larger than yourself.”

“Please,” Finn said. “Leave me alone.”

“Are you certain that's what you want?” Carter asked.

“I'm certain that's exactly what I want.”

“Then I'll go,” Carter said. “But if you want to change your mind, if you decide to come and work for our office when the trial is over, call me.”

“Please,” Finn said. He moved away from us. “I just want to be alone. Can't you understand that?”

“I want to stay for a few minutes,” I told Carter.

“What?” Carter said.

“Just give me some time. I'll meet you in the driveway. Please.”

Carter eyed me suspiciously, but he nodded and then walked down the deck stairs to the sand.

“I'm not here to pressure you,” I said quickly. “I'm not here because of that one night. I'm here because I wanted to make sure you were all right. I just want to stand here for a few minutes with you. We don't even have to talk.”

Finn still faced away from me. The sleet had ended, yet there was a hard, salty wind. I had on a heavy winter coat, but Michael Finn wore only jeans and a white shirt.

“What is he going to think?” Finn nodded toward Carter, who was slowly walking back to the driveway.

“He'll think I care about you,” I said. “After all, it's true.”

“You shouldn't have come out here,” Finn said. “I didn't want anyone to get hurt. This way, sooner or later someone will.”

“You don't know that,” I said.

“I know what happened before,” Finn said.

He looked frozen, and beneath all my heavy winter clothes, I shivered, too.

“I left someone,” Finn said absently. “I just took off.” He turned to face me. “I'm not to be trusted.”

“It could be different this time,” I said.

“Could it be?” Finn shook his head. “I'll be damned if I ever give anyone the chance to do to me what I did to her. And I couldn't do it to someone else again.”

Finn's face was set in anger, and I realized how little I knew him, and how possible it was that he could be cruel. Maybe I was lucky that he wanted to turn away from me; I might have been saved from some terrible mean streak I never even imagined if I now walked past the soft gray reeds, and left him alone with his memories.

“Who was she?” I asked.

“Does it matter?” Finn asked.

Gulls circled the beach house in the dark, sleet had coated the deck like a second skin.

“I think it might,” I said.

“It was a long time ago,” Finn said carefully. “There was a woman.”

Already I could see her; she walked barefoot in summer, she smiled slowly, easily; she put her arm through Finn's and called him darling. I didn't want to hear about her, I wanted to hear every word. I waited for Finn to go on, hoping that once she was before us, standing on the deck of the beach house, we would be rid of her once and for all.

TWO

W
HEN HE WAS TWENTY
-one, Michael Finn drove down to Buckley, West Virginia, during a summer when there were record heat waves and the hills he drove through had turned a parched gold color, like a woman's hair that had been too long in the sun. It was the start of things going dry in New York, and many of the men in Finn's union had found jobs in faraway places, places as promising as San Jose and Santa Fe, and as poor and desolate as Buckley, West Virginia.

If Finn hadn't known his destination he might have felt free, he might have enjoyed speeding down the New Jersey Turnpike in his battered Ford Falcon, he might have noticed owls in the trees when he passed over the Pennsylvania state line at dusk. But Finn knew that he was not driving on to New Mexico or California; he was headed toward a small mining town hidden in the hills, a town full of construction workers building a new coal-processing plant, and Finn didn't smile once the whole drive down.

When he first saw Buckley, from high atop the Interstate, Finn's heart dropped, it sank down low; not in his worst dreams had Finn imagined the thick halo of smoke that surrounded the town, he could not have guessed that a long stretch of clothesline strung from tree to tree in front of an old farmhouse could have made him so sad. He pulled into town and rented a room in a boarding house right away. That first night he lay on a small metal-framed bed with all his clothes on; he left the bedside lamp on. Even though he didn't move a muscle as he lay there, Finn felt as though he were still driving, the white highway line seemed to be right in front of him.

When Finn reported to the half-built power plant for work, he tried to pretend that he was a drifter, a man just passing through town, instead of another construction worker trapped in Buckley by the overtime that would send his paycheck over five hundred dollars each week. Like all the other workers, Michael Finn took on as much overtime as he could get, even if that meant staying for twelve hours or more in the broiling hot rooms of the plant, metal rooms that did not cool down even after the sun had set and the night birds flew from tree to tree. When he finally returned to the boarding house each night, his room was a furnace; if Finn touched the iron bedpost he burned his fingertips. The toilet was down the hall, and Finn's landlady had announced that boarders were allowed only one shower a day, and she was none too pleased if they all took one, for water wasn't free. Nothing in Buckley was free; it was a town so poor that when it finally saw money, in the high paychecks of the out-of-state construction workers, the entire town whistled, winked, and raised prices by nearly double. Because there was so little to spend money on in town, workers bought whatever there was, and mostly there was alcohol. Even Finn, who had never been a drinker, found himself spending every evening until closing time in the Iron Horse, a bar crowded with arguments, and money, and hot, unmoving summer air.

It was there, at the bar of the Iron Horse, that Michael Finn met Marlene. He had ordered a gin and tonic, which was bitter and warm, when Marlene first saw him, and immediately she knew something was about to happen. Marlene was twenty-seven, six years older than Finn, and she hadn't been to the Iron Horse for months. The mother of a six-year-old girl called Sunny, she was on welfare—and if her brother, Ben, didn't take her out for a drink and spring for the price of a babysitter, Marlene wouldn't have gone anywhere at all. When she noticed Finn sipping his drink, Marlene knew that she would take him home with her when she left. She wasn't afraid: Marlene had lived in Buckley all her life, and once someone else lived there, too—even for a day or a week—he was no longer an outsider as far as Marlene was concerned.

“I like his looks,” Marlene murmured to her brother. She nodded toward Finn.

“You've got to watch out for construction workers,” Ben, a miner, said. “They move around so much, they're in another state before you blink your eyes or pull your zipper up, and they all have wives back home.”

“They can't all be married,” Marlene said.

“Well, most of them are,” Ben said grudgingly, straining to see if there was a wedding band on Finn's finger. Ben was younger than Marlene, and he was convinced that nothing was too good for her. Although he tried to persuade Marlene to forget about the man at the other end of the bar, she hadn't been out for months and was determined not to go home alone. As for Finn, he was so lonely that evening that he found himself smiling when Marlene walked over to him.

“Drinking gin?” Marlene asked. When Finn nodded, she smiled. “They make the best gin and tonics in the world here,” Marlene confided, which should have let Finn know, right away, that he was about to become involved with a West Virginia woman who believed in absolutes.

They left the Iron Horse together an hour later, although Finn hadn't uttered more than a dozen sentences. But his reserve didn't bother Marlene one bit—she always said she had a thing for strong, silent types. She slid into the front seat of Michael Finn's Falcon as if Finn were an old trusted friend; and, leaving young Ben behind to worry and order another beer, they drove to the edge of town, where Marlene and her daughter lived in a trailer park surrounded by tall, green pines.

Marlene went in alone to dismiss the babysitter, who lived only a few trailers away; but she was back for Finn before he had time to change his mind and drive out of the trailer camp at full speed, leaving a cloud behind him as he fled over the dirt road. Instead of running away, he allowed Marlene to lead him across the pine needles. Once inside the trailer, she held a finger to her lips. They tiptoed by the cot in the living room where Sunny slept, covered up to her neck by a cotton quilt, even though it was nearly eighty outside, and the midnight temperature inside the trailer was surely higher. Marlene's bedroom was so small that there was room for only her double bed, carefully made up with pink flowered sheets, and a wooden dressing table loaded with bottles of cologne. After they had undressed, Finn was surprised that Marlene was nearly beautiful; he was even more surprised when she dropped to her knees and took his penis into her mouth and actually seemed to like doing so. Michael Finn could hardly protest, he had been lonely for a very long time, for as long as he could remember; he closed his eyes and tried to pretend that he was no longer alone.

After that first time, Finn saw Marlene more and more often. Soon it was every night. She had begun to assume that he would come around to her trailer as soon as he had gone back to the boarding house after work to shower and get rid of his work clothes; and to Finn, anything would have been better than the still heat of his rented room. The truth was, Finn was intoxicated by Marlene's beauty, by the easiness of their relationship, and by Marlene's low expectations—if he didn't say a word for hours, Marlene didn't seem to care. If there was anything in that trailer that could disrupt the comfortable routine Finn had settled into, it was Marlene's daughter, Sunny.