Lake Overturn (20 page)

“Maybe you’ve noticed, on these church visits, it’s had the same effect. It puts people at ease. Silly, isn’t it? That it works?”

“Yes,” Connie said, and she laughed lifelessly.

“I figure, a little showmanship never hurts, especially when it’s in service of the mission.”

“Of course, Bill. I’m sorry I changed it. I’ll put it back the way it was.”

“Please, Connie, don’t trouble yourself. I’ll take care of it. I’ve been meaning to change the order of some of the slides anyhow.”

They arrived at the parsonage, where rosebushes lined the drive. Spindly at the base, they then ballooned into great masses of gray leaves and ragged flowers, which even now kept some of their petals, splayed away from their cottony hearts, which had long since been stripped of pollen.

“Well, until Wednesday?” he said. “Remind me, what is our destination?”

“Marsing.”

“Marsing, Idaho.” He shook his head in amazement, a gesture Connie couldn’t quite interpret. “Thanks again, Connie.” He patted her shoulder and got out of the car. Then he knocked on the window. “The trunk?” he said.

“Oh, of course!” She got out and opened the trunk with her key. He took out the slides, closed the trunk, and bid her good-bye. It hurt horribly to see him carrying away those boxes, as if she’d never see them, or him, again.

Driving away, Connie began to cry. “Darn it!” she said aloud and hit the steering wheel with her open hand. Why had she done that? Why hadn’t she left well enough alone? She had embarrassed him, overstepped her bounds, made things tense between them, and placed an obstacle before Bill, whose ministry—whose calling in life—already presented such challenges. She wiped her eyes. “You are proud, Connie Anderson,” she said aloud. “Proud and vain and stupid.”

M
ELISSA, IN A
jeep whose bumper was plastered with stickers—
MONDALE/FERRARO
’84 and
SAVE THE WHALES
—picked Wanda up in front of the hotel at the appointed time. “I forgot to ask if you were a vegetarian,” Melissa said. She sat on a little cushion, Wanda noticed, but still had to tilt her head back to see over the dashboard and hike herself up to change lanes.

“Oh, no. I eat everything,” Wanda said.

“Good. I think we’ll have tuna.”

“I eat tuna all the time.”

They drove down a hill away from the tall buildings, then took a ramp onto the highway. The city disappeared behind them and the thickly wooded Columbia River gorge opened ahead. The forest here was different from the forest in the mountains above Boise. The same spindly pines were interspersed with the skeletons of aspen that had shed their leaves, but in Idaho there was a carpet of dry pine needles underneath that was always catching fire. The forest would then burn for days, and a dark haze would settle into the valley. Here, the forest floor was steamy and green, even now in November. Wanda could imagine lying on a bed of moss and pulling the feathery ferns around her and falling asleep. The day before, riding the bus down this same highway, Wanda had wondered about these houses among the trees. Now she was going to have dinner in one of them.

“In the meeting, you didn’t ask about our problems . . . with getting pregnant,” Melissa said.

“Oh. I didn’t want to pry,” Wanda said.

“I figured that was it.” Melissa turned off the highway onto a narrow road that zigzagged up the side of the gorge. “I have
cervical incompetence
. Charming name, isn’t it? The opening up there is just weak. I would get pregnant no problem, I’d reach the second trimester, and then everything would just fall out. It happened four times. I’d walk around on eggshells, like I had a house of cards inside, and when I miscarried . . . well, it was just unbearable. Twice they put sutures in but they didn’t take, and I suspect they made the problem worse. It nearly did me in. Oh, look! Here’s Randy.”

Ahead of them, dressed in tight black cycling clothes and a helmet, Randy was laboring up the road on a bicycle, his head low over the handlebars, his torso rocking side to side as he threw his weight into every step.

“He bikes to and from work,” said Melissa. She tapped a little greeting on her horn as she passed him, and he nodded breathlessly.

“Aren’t you going to pick him up?” Wanda asked.

“Pick him up?” Melissa laughed. “No, it’s his thing.”

Wanda turned in her seat to watch Randy pumping with all his might. He looked in agony. Then the road turned, and he disappeared behind a wall of pines. Melissa drove a little farther up the slope, then pulled onto a gravel road that led into a hollow. “Here we are,” she said. She parked the car and reached for a bag of groceries in the backseat.

The house—or what Wanda could see of it, as it was hidden behind trees and shrubs—resembled a bunch of tool sheds and greenhouses, piled on top of each other and linked with bulging joints. A spiral staircase led from a deck up to a balcony. There were panes of glass in all the roofs. Wanda wondered if it was finished. Melissa walked to the front door, which rattled with the scratching of dogs, and balanced the groceries on a knee while she got out her keys. “All right, already,” she said. She opened the door and out they bounded—four mutts of all different sizes and colors, yipping and panting. They jumped on Melissa, who mimicked their whimpers—“Yes, I know, it’s awful, isn’t it?”—then jumped on Wanda, then ran out into the trees to pee. “Come on in,” Melissa said to Wanda. “Make yourself at home.”

Wanda slid onto a stool at a little bar that divided the kitchen from the living room, while Melissa put away the groceries and continued the story she had started in the car. “I felt that we should adopt. It seemed like the moral thing to do when there are so many kids who need homes, but Randy was adamant that the child should be connected biologically to at least one of us. He wasn’t raised by his birth parents; he was raised in foster care, and it scarred him in certain ways. So we called the agency. That was in September. It’s been a lot of appointments since then, paperwork, sperm counts. You’re actually the first girl we’ve met.” Then Melissa stopped. “Is everything all right, Wanda?” she said.

Wanda had been unable to focus on what Melissa had been saying. The room in which she sat was spacious like the interior of a barn, but a barn where she could stay forever—bright and clean, with a library where the hayloft should have been. The leaves of houseplants dangled from an archway, a hexagonal window revealed a lush bank, and a shaft of light slanted across a glass hallway. Wanda bowed her head. “I’m sorry. I’ve never been in a beautiful house like this before.” She was ashamed, but it was true. The rich people in Eula lived in big, square houses where you were afraid to walk on the carpet. None of them would ever hide their treasure in the woods.

Melissa looked very solemn for a moment. “Well, that is the highest compliment anyone has ever paid me,” she said.

It struck Wanda, and she was further humbled: Melissa, an architect, had made this house.

A shyness overcame the two women and they were quiet until Randy came in the front door, teetering on his cycling shoes. “One hour, seventeen minutes, my love,” he said.

“Not too bad,” Melissa said.

“Not too good either.”

“He’s been trying to get his time back down to where it was before he pulled his groin,” Melissa explained. Randy came into the kitchen, and they bent in to kiss each other lightly on the lips, careful not to otherwise touch each other, as Randy was covered in sweat. Wanda could see that his buttocks were completely flat in his cycling shorts.

Randy turned to her. “Do you have a bike, Wanda?” he asked.

“No.”

“We might have to fix that.”

“What would I do with a bike?” Wanda asked.

“Ride it!”

Wanda laughed at the image. “Grown-ups in Eula don’t ride bikes,” she said.

Randy and Melissa laughed hesitantly, and Wanda was aware that she had been rude. She bit her lip.

“All right,” Melissa said to Randy. “Hit the showers. Then fire up the grill. Wanda and I are going to take the dogs out.”

“Aye-aye, sergeant,” Randy said.

“You’ll need a scarf,” Melissa said to Wanda on the way out.

“It’s not that cold,” said Wanda.

“Oh, trust me on this.” Melissa ducked into a little closet in the entryway and handed Wanda a scarf and mittens. Then they headed out onto a trail into the woods as the dogs trotted happily ahead. The smallest dog had a tail that, halfway down, kinked to the right in a perfect L. When the dog wagged its tail with extra vigor, the tip jabbed it in the side. Wanda pointed this out to Melissa.

“Yes, that’s Simon. Poor thing. I think his tail got slammed in a door when he was a puppy. We got him from a shelter. Go run, Simon,” she said. She threw a stick and Simon ran happily into the brush after it, his L swinging. “I’m not sure if this is a concern of yours,” Melissa said, “but Randy and I are very solid, as a couple. As far as raising a kid, is what I’m getting at. We’ve been together, gosh, since we were barely more than teenagers. I can’t imagine being with anyone else, and, I’m sure, he can’t either. It’s forever.”

“You’re lucky,” Wanda said.

“Oh, I didn’t mean to brag!” Melissa said. “Damn it, I forgot about Hank . . . the breakup. I’m sorry, Wanda. I just meant to put your mind at rest as far as carrying a child for us—that the child will always have two parents. That came out wrong.”

Wanda couldn’t believe Melissa was being so careful with her. Why would a woman who built a house worry about impressing
her
? “Melissa, forget about Hank. I can see how happy you and Randy are. It makes me feel very . . . secure.”

“Good,” Melissa said. “It’s not an act we’re putting on for you, just so you know. If we have a child, that child will have a good life.”

The trail narrowed through a thicket, then opened up to an incline littered with boulders. “We’re almost there, Wanda,” said Melissa. “Don’t turn around until I tell you.”

A little out of breath, Wanda buttoned her jacket as she stepped over stones. It was a denim jacket, lined with fake lamb’s wool and studded with shiny metal stars along the hems and pockets. Melissa wore the kind of jacket people buy to go hiking in. Wanda pulled on the fluffy mittens, which, on her narrow cuffs, seemed as big as oven mitts.

“All right,” Melissa said, sitting down on a large, flat rock, “now you can look.”

Wanda turned and witnessed the glowing Columbia bent into an S by the slopes of the gorge, which lay against each other like folds of fabric, each a paler shade of blue, off into the distance. The slopes plateaued into a perfectly flat horizon, and car lights twinkled here and there along the rim. In the haze under the sun, mountains appeared almost indistinguishable from the clouds. The idea of the time that it took for the river to carve this beautiful groove into the earth was, to Wanda, as awesome as the view.

“It’s gorgeous,” she said.

“There’s a pun there,” Melissa replied. “Sit down.”

Wanda squatted next to Melissa, hesitating to put her bottom on the cold rock. The wind stung her ears, and she was glad now for the scarf.

“I was hoping there’d be a sunset,” Melissa said. The sun lost its shape in the haze, and the sky above them glowed amber. “A good sunset, here, in the spring when all the waterfalls are going—you should see it.” After a minute, she said, “Let’s not get caught up in it. It’s time to get dinner on.”

Melissa and Wanda walked back down. The dogs, having spent all their energy, trotted along beside them until the house came into view. Then they ran to the patio and sat obediently waiting to be let in, all except Simon, the crooked-tailed dog, who whimpered and dug at the threshold as if he could tunnel under the door.

“Simon, stop that. What is it?” Melissa said. Then her face changed. “Randy!” she shouted, and she ran into the house.

When Wanda entered the barn-room, she saw a salad bowl and a cutting board on the bar. On the cutting board lay a cucumber. She didn’t see Melissa or Randy.

“Wanda? Could you get these dogs off?” Melissa called.

Wanda came around the bar to see Melissa crouched over Randy and all the dogs crowding around. Melissa pushed one of them away and said, “Go on!”

“Come, dogs!” Wanda called, clapping her hands. Two followed her and she put them out; the other two she had to drag by their collars. Simon fought her all the way. Then she went back to Melissa.

“Grab me a washcloth,” Melissa said.

“Do you want it wet?” Wanda asked, taking a cloth from beside the sink.

“No.”

Melissa took the cloth and folded it. She gently pressed on Randy’s chin to open his mouth, and lay the cloth on his tongue. Randy’s head was cradled in her lap. His body was stiff and quaking. Melissa used one hand to firmly draw Randy’s jaw up into an underbite, the other she laid on his chest. She bent over him, sheltering him, and whispered, “Shh-shh-shh.” Now his body rocked back and forth, as if gathering momentum to roll over. “Wanda, could you move this stuff away?”

Wanda picked up a knife off the floor and dragged a nearby chair across the kitchen. Now Randy seemed to be trying to keep his arms straight. His fingers were curled tightly, and the heels of his hands thrust against the floor tiles. A drawn-out frightened sound came from his throat, like a trapped word struggling to get out.

A nightmare
, Wanda thought—
he’s caught in a nightmare, the kind where you’re paralyzed and you can’t wake yourself up.

“Hush, sweetheart. It’s okay,” Melissa said.

Randy slackened and twitched. Then he was still. Melissa stroked his face. They stayed like that for several minutes, far longer than the seizure itself had lasted, while Wanda watched from across the room, unsure whether to give them help or privacy. Finally, she put down the knife, walked over to Melissa, and lay her hand on her shoulder.

Melissa looked up, her face surprisingly composed, and said, “Thanks, Wanda.” She set aside the cloth and straightened Randy’s glasses. Wanda knew now why he wore that silly band. Then Melissa said, “Could you help me get him into a chair?”

Wanda knelt and took an elbow, and they assisted Randy as he rose and walked into the seating area beyond the bar.