Cameo Lake (18 page)

Twenty-two

“M
om, is Daddy coming back on Friday?” Lily paused with her cereal spoon in mid-flight.

“He hopes so. Why?”

“Do you think he could bring me my Barbies?”

I kept my smile under control. Lily was in that peculiar limbo of almost too old for dolls, yet occasionally falling back under their spell. She had been very deliberate in not bringing them with her. I cleared my throat and promised to call Sean and ask him about the Barbies.

I tried our home number first, it being just before eight and I knew that often Sean liked to stay home and do paperwork before going to the office, where the phone could be a nonstop interruption. The phone rang and the erratic answering machine kicked in, but the outgoing message was missing and I knew that it wouldn't record. “We've got to get a new answering machine one of these days.” I pulled out onto the main road. No sense trying him at the office until after eight-thirty. Providence traffic was horrible and I knew there was no chance Sean would be in just yet.

“I really want them, Mom.” Lily was just a thread shy of whiny. “Clarissa and I want to play with them this weekend. She's got a bunch of clothes her grandmother just sent.” Clarissa being her new
best friend from camp. Clarissa lived nearby on the East Side of the lake.

“Okay, you push the number for Daddy's work.”

Tongue tucked into the corner of her mouth, Lily pressed the digits for McCarthy and Lenihan Insurance Group.

The familiar voice of Audrey, the firm's longtime receptionist, came over the reedy speakerphone. “Hey, Aud, it's Cleo McCarthy. Sean in yet?”

“No, he's traveling, Cleo. Pittsburgh, I think.”

“Shoot, I forgot. Apparently I'm losing my grasp on time up here. Tell you what, transfer me to Eleanor. She can give him a message when he calls in.”

“Eleanor's out sick. I'll be relaying messages today.”

“It's real important.”

Audrey chuckled when I gave her the message about the Barbies. “Got it. I'll make sure it's the first one in the pile.”

“Thanks. Give my best to the family.”

Lily punched the off button and sat back in the big seat. Her little mouth was moued like a disappointed movie star.

“Hey, Audrey's good. She'll make sure he gets the message.”

“Yeah, but he won't remember by Friday.”

“We'll try later in the week. It's only Tuesday.”

Kids deposited, I headed back. Halfway back, the car phone bleated. Assuming Audrey was as good as her word, I picked it up, expecting Sean calling from the road. But it was Ben.

“I thought I might catch you in the car at this hour.”

“Ben, hello. Yeah, just dropped the kids off.”

“I wanted to let you know what time tomorrow. Is it okay if we leave right after you drop the kids off? I have an eleven-thirty flight, so I thought I might go with you to the camp.”

“Fine. Perfect.”

“I'll see you tomorrow, then.”

“No raft today?”

“Probably not.”

“Visiting a friend?” We were both aware of the insecurity of cell-phone transmissions.

“Exactly.”

“Give her my best.” I don't know why I said that, but it seemed exactly right.

The next morning, Ben helped the kids lug their sleeping bags out of the back of the big car and then tousled their hair in affectionate farewell. He climbed back in and we headed back to the main highway.

“You're too nice to my kids.”

“They're good kids. “

“Yeah, they pretty much are.” I wanted to ask him why he didn't have kids of his own, fumbled around for a phrase which wouldn't be intrusive or cruel or more than just idle curiosity. “Did you . . . had you . . . ?”

“Wanted kids? Oh, yes, I certainly did. We talked about it once or twice before it became clear that Talia's career was our child.” Ben kept his eyes on the road ahead of us as if he were driving. “That sounds bitter. I'm not. So, the short answer is, no, we never had kids.”

I reached out to him, just a little consoling touch on the arm.

He did look at me then, a quick charming smile. “Stop at Dunkin' Donuts. I'll buy you breakfast.”

We didn't have scads of time so we hit the drive-thru. Ben formulated my coffee to the exact specifications I like and then sugared his own. We spoke of neutral things, favorite doughnut flavors and whether Dunkin' Donuts or Bess Eaton doughnuts are better. Pulled up personal memories of when things tasted better, of our first MacDonald's fries or clam cakes at Rocky Point (me), first pretzel with mustard on it (Ben). We kept our conversation light until we got almost to the border between New Hampshire and Massachusetts. By then I needed to stop.

There seemed to be an inordinate number of women waiting to
use the facilities at the State Liquor rest stop. I glanced at my watch and hoped that Ben wasn't glancing at his and thinking he was in danger of missing his plane. We still had two hours, but who knew how the traffic might be further south. If it had been Sean waiting for me in the car he would have been huffing by now.

When I did finally get back to it, Ben was casually leaning against the car, drinking bottled water and thumbing through some tourist pamphlets he'd picked up in the information area. “Hey, we ought to bag New York and head over to the Flume Gorge Park. It sounds wonderful. Cascading water and all that.”

“Ben. We've all been to the Flume. And the Old Man in the Mountain, and all the rest of it. You have to go to the city. You have work to do.”

“Spoilsport.”

“Slacker.”

We were pretty close to Boston yet the traffic, by this time, was thin, even in the Callahan Tunnel, and I reached Logan easily, with half an hour to spare. Ben's flight was on USAir, and it was relatively easy to find the terminal. I followed the signs into the cool, shadowed under-building of the drop-off area, pulling alongside the curb behind several other cars dropping off passengers. I waited in line, just like dropping the kids off at school, then pulled ahead after a car pulled away from the curb, leaving me space behind a silver Toyota with Rhode Island plates. As people do, I noted the plate framed by the logo of the dealership in Cranston where we'd bought one of our cars years ago. It was a vanity plate,
ELNR
2 and I sounded it out phonetically.

Ben had just turned to thank me for the ride when the passenger got out of
ELNR
2. Almost simultaneously, the trunk lid popped open and a young woman climbed out of the driver's side. She reached into the trunk to grasp a garment bag, a distinctive cranberry color with a broad blue paint stain across the shoulder, the result of a careless moment when I was painting the woodwork in the kitchen and Sean came through the door.

“Cleo?” Ben's voice carried the exact timbre one uses to settle an angry animal. “Cleo, what is it?”

We both stared out the windshield at the scene before us. The young woman, short and sort of plump bordering on voluptuous, handed my husband his bag. That was all right. I could leap out of this borrowed car and call to them. “Hi! what a coincidence . . .” But then, and I was aware of Ben's hand on my shoulder, gripping it, then this big-haired girl, this
ELNR,
wrapped her arms around Sean's neck and kissed him with the unmistakable passion of a lover.

Oblivious to the tan SUV with Rhode Island plates parked right behind them, unobservant as ever, Sean broke away from her only long enough to catch his breath and then dipped his head for more. His hand playfully cupped her rather round bottom crammed into stretch-fabric hip-huggers. I could hear their voices through Ben's half-open window.

“I'll call you tonight.”

“I'll be lying there.”

I felt physically sick, completely incapable of moving. My hands were still gripping the steering wheel and every emotion I had experienced eight years ago in finding the condom wrapper increased exponentially by this visual confirmation of my husband's great lies. I heard the passenger door of Grace's car open and shut. I kept staring at the spot they had occupied, even after Sean disappeared into the building and the silver Toyota pulled away from the curb with a jaunty acceleration.

“Cleo, move over.” Ben pushed me gently into the passenger's seat. I did what he said, fumbling a little with the button on the seat belt until he reached across and opened it for me. I was fighting the same kind of nausea you get when you hit some vulnerable place, half sick, half faint.

Ben climbed in and drove away from the terminal. Coming out from under the building, the sunlight hurt my eyes, making them water. I fumbled for my sunglasses while Ben paid the toll at the tunnel, then took them off and held them in my lap. Ben had us back onto the interstate, heading north.

“Ben, what are you doing?” I finally seemed to wake up to the realization that he was not only driving, but going back to the lake. “You should be on a plane.”

“No. I can go another time. No big deal. I'm not going to leave you now.” He gestured toward the phone and I nodded. He punched in a number and smiled at me. “Harry? Ben. Look, something's come up and I'll have to postpone till next week. No. I'm fine. Really. No, Harry, that's not it. Not this time. Trust me, I'll be there on Monday. Absolutely.”

He pressed the off button and signaled to pass a truck.

The sick feeling had subsided, but I could feel a kind of internal vibration as if I was shaking on the inside. I looked at my hands, but they were steady. “I feel as though I'm in a familiar place, unpleasant but familiar, like I've been here before.”

“You have been, Cleo. You never forget even if you do forgive.” We were almost back to the state line. “Ben, I can't let you put your life on hold for me. You need to get to New York. Please, let's rebook your flight.”

I reached for the phone but Ben simply shook his head and covered the keypad with his hand. “Look, Cleo, I know I've presented a pretty whitewashed view of my life with Talia, but I can tell you that I've been in this cruel place too.”

“What do you mean? Talia cheated on you?”

“Yes.”

We were holding hands, gripping each other as if trying to save our own lives.

Twenty-three

“I
suppose they spent the night in Boston.” I broke the quiet in the car by voicing the skirling thoughts in my head. I was trying to make sense of Sean being at Logan, when he was supposed to be in Pittsburgh. I was trying to make sense of being in a borrowed car behind him at the exact moment he is kissing his lover. “If I hadn't been so long in the ladies room, we wouldn't have been there to see it. I wouldn't know anything. I would still be in my lovely deluded world.”

“Cleo, don't do this to yourself,” Ben warned gently, then signaled to get off the highway and into a rest area. He pulled into a parking space and shut the car off. Unbuckling his seatbelt and then mine, he pulled me over to him and just held me. I didn't struggle against his comfort, only let the first volley of weeping commence until I was embarrassed that I'd wet his shirt with tears.

We stayed like that for a few minutes, then I pulled away and buckled myself in. “I'm okay. Thank you.”

“Anytime.” He started the car. “Would it be insensitive of me to suggest getting some lunch?”

We found a little diner along an old New Hampshire state road. I ordered something I knew I wouldn't eat, and then did. Ben didn't try to distract me with small talk, just kept sliding things from his
own plate onto mine, his pickles and his chips. All the time we spent in silence, my thoughts tumbled over themselves with roisterous uncontrol. I was afraid to let them out, to give voice to the rage I was dealing out to myself, one moment convinced I had been a party to Sean's duplicity. I'd not only given him the opportunity, I'd not paid attention to the dim and distant alarm when I should have. Because of my selfish need to be alone to write, I'd turned my back on a charging bull. At the same instant I wanted Sean to be responsible for his own weakness.

We got back on the road, keeping off the highway and on the long secondary route toward Cameo Lake. We passed silently through small towns and past farms and Pick-Ur-Own-Blueberries (or -Corn or -Apples) stands along the way. It was almost as if we were out for an old-fashioned Sunday drive. I saw the brown state park sign indicating the Flume at the same time Ben signaled for the turn into the parking lot.

“I think we need to go back to our original plan.”

“Our what?”

“Instead of going to New York, let's go see the Flume.” Ben had the car parked and was half out of the car before I could say no.

For some reason, it seemed exactly the right thing to be doing. I was too jangled to go home and wait for tomorrow afternoon, when I could pick up my kids from camp. I was too angry to sit still, and it was once again too hot to run for as long as it would take to outrun this familiar trauma. Ben had sacrificed his work to keep me from being alone. Besides, he seemed really keen on doing it.

I went to the ladies room while Ben bought tickets. The large room was empty except for a dainty older woman dabbing a wet handkerchief on a stain on her blouse. Her eyes met mine in the mirror as I fingered the waves of my brown hair into some semblance of neatness. “Have you been up yet?” she asked.

“No. We're just about to go.”

“You and your husband?”

“No. I don't have a husband.”

Oblivious of my lie, she gathered her handbag and pushed open the door of the ladies room.

I felt a little remorseful, having said that to this innocent old lady, but at the moment, it seemed pretty true. I certainly didn't have the husband I thought I'd had.

Ben was waiting by the photo display of the hanging rock, now no longer hanging. “All set?”

“Yeah. Let's go.”

As we walked by her, side by side but not hand in hand, the old lady chanced to look at me and winked. I was so taken aback, I pretended not to notice. It was as if she had unaccountably given me the thumbs-up.

A whole mass of Japanese businessmen were ahead of us, waiting for the jitney, so we hung back until they had boarded it and waited for the next. They looked uniformly out of context for the breathy, deep New Hampshire woods, in their black suits and conservative ties.

The next jitney came along without too much delay, and this one was ours alone. I began to feel a sense of the surreal as we climbed up the mountain road. I was so very far away from where I imagined myself on this morning. I had meant to be shopping. I had meant to look up some geographic details at the BPL. I had meant to treat myself to a big book store, to surreptitiously check to see if my titles were still in stock. Instead, here I was, a tourist on a noisy bus, beside a man I new both intimately and not at all. My interior shaking began again, chilled from the inside. I must have shivered in the drier, cooler air because Ben slipped an arm around my shoulders.

The Japanese businessmen massed at the trailhead, listening with solemn concentration to the young Japanese woman describing the natural phenomena of the gorge. We slipped ahead of them easily and began the ascent up the wooden stairs to the platform promontory which overlooks the cascading water. The voice of the guide faded behind us and the only sounds were the natural rushing of the water and the insistent birdsong around us. At some point Ben had taken my hand and now he pulled me along and up the steps to a cavelike outcropping where the water pooled. We found a fairly comfortable rock in the shade and sat down.

The Japanese tourists passed us by, nodding a little in our direction and then the place was ours alone.

Ben gathered my left hand between his. “I think the most important thing you should know is that this is not your fault. It wasn't your fault the first time and it isn't your fault now. What I mean to say is, Sean's affair most likely has nothing to do with you, with your worth or even with how much he loves you. Sometimes things happen that are beyond our control, or the control of those people hurting us.”

“I don't understand.” I meant I didn't understand how he knew so precisely what I was feeling.

Because he hadn't spoken of this to anyone, he stumbled at first, then warmed up and began to tell the story, picking up rhythm as he went along. “I was all wrong for Talia. I was too old, too goy, too former rock musician. I was everything her parents feared for her, so I was, in her eyes, perfect. For a while that was enough. For a while our mutual interest in getting her jazz career launched was enough. But the truth is that we were opposites, the only thing we had in common was music. We only saw eye to eye in that. She craved fame, I'd had it. She liked being the wife of a former rock star, I wanted only to create a quiet home. In the end, she wanted freedom and I represented constraint.”

Ben pulled himself into the present. “Sorry, I don't mean to digress, but you should know the background so that you understand the ending.”

“Tell me the story any way you want. We have all the time in the world.”

His voice had become soothing, melodic in a way I hadn't noticed before. I leaned into his story, happy to devote my concentration to it instead of to my own. I understood the power of the bedtime story. Even though the ending would prove to be scary, the telling of it would be cathartic for both of us.

He took a moment and then continued. “I believe we had what might be termed a tumultuous marriage. Sometimes the only thing I was certain about was that we loved each other. I was certain we did because the music we played together was proof of it. It was like our
child, newly created each time. We could begin the day screaming at each other about her traveling too much or my wanting to be here instead of at some New York publicity event, but when we got to the studio, my God, it was all forgotten as her notes shadowed by mine described a love affair with sound.”

I realized that as he spoke, Ben had drifted into that lonesome abyss where memory becomes acute, where it becomes present time. It was what he was seeing, it was what he was reexperiencing, and I was only audience to his private soliloquy. I waited for him to tell me why I should accept no fault for the mess my marriage was in. Waited for him to pick up the story of his own shattered life.

“Sometimes I think that I fell in love with the music, not the woman. The first time I heard her play it was if she was an enchantress. She used her whole body, swaying and dipping with the sound of her own creation. Her eyes were closed and she was as mesmerizing to watch as to hear. How could I not have fallen in love?”

I stroked his forearm, let him know I was there and listening. It seemed as though we were alone in a vast wood. It was growing late and no more groups of Japanese tourists wandered by as we continued to sit on the flat rock near the outcropping. The incessant rush of water lay as background music to Ben's story. I thought to myself— what a cutting thing it is to love someone.

“Eventually we grew apart. The distance between us was physical. Talia was on the road more and more, and she was resolute in not letting me do more than join her for a weekend if the tour took her close by. She said that she respected my distaste for touring, she didn't want to interfere with my composing, she loved me but it was better that she go it alone.

“I allowed for her age, her natural desire to be young among youth, not dragging an old man around with her, who might disapprove of some of the choices she made. Choices endemic to such a lifestyle.”

I thought I knew what he meant by choices. Although he didn't
come right out and say it, I assumed that he meant he had turned a blind eye to the drugs. As we sat in the shadows of the woods and the sun began to lower, cooling the air around us into a comforting breeze, Ben talked.

“By last year, Talia had pretty much stopped coming home. She'd only come twice to the cabin on Cameo Lake in the previous six months. So it was a complete surprise when I heard the taxi horn blowing and there was Talia, standing at the boat ramp, waving this big straw hat she only wore here.

“She was so radiant, even from that distance, I could see the luminescence in her smile. Even knowing that she graced everyone with that smile didn't diminish its impact on me each time I saw it.”

I thought of Sean's practiced insurance-man smile and knew exactly what Ben meant.

Barefoot, Ben had jumped out of the canoe before it crunched onto the pebbly surface of the beach and taken Talia up into a big swooping greeting in his arms, grateful for her returning embrace. “Why didn't you call and tell me you were coming?”

“I wanted to surprise you.”

He wanted to ask how long she would be there but was reluctant to burst the bubble of happiness. Inevitably it would be too short and he would try to convince her to stay longer. Save the argument for later, he told himself.

Sitting in the bow of the Old Town, Talia trailed her fingers through the still water of the July lake. She didn't talk but seemed content to let him paddle her home in silence. Ben stroked slowly, unwilling to let the moment pass too quickly.

Talia seemed very tired, almost lethargic and went to bed immediately for a nap. Subsuming an overpowering desire with concern, he tucked her into their bed and went back to review the music he'd been working on. The handwritten notes on the staff made no sense to him as he could think only of Talia sleeping in their bed and his need to touch her. As quietly as he could, Ben slid in beside the sleeping form of his wife. In the lingering July sunset, he could see that she seemed faded, paler than usual, and the dark circles beneath her
closed eyes made him wonder if she was eating properly—or had she replaced food with something more satisfying? While she slept, Ben ran his fingertips down the inside of her left arm, and then her right. He knew he was looking for signs of needle marks and was immensely relieved not to see any, and then ashamed he had even considered such a thing. There was something about the way she had come home unannounced, her pensive silence, and the quick retreat to bed which alarmed him. He had the fleeting thought that she'd come home to tell him something, and then changed her mind.