Meadowlark (3 page)

"I don't drink coffee." His voice was deep and calm,
unchallenging.

My irritation eased. "Herb tea?"

He nodded.

I gave up the effort at conversation, set the CLOSED sign out,
and led him to the back room. I fixed him a mug of Celestial
Seasonings Sleepytime while he got out of the rainsuit. It was
GORE-TEX, not exactly Salvation Army fabric, but he was wearing faded
jeans, a ratty plaid shirt, also faded, and a boring gray sweat shirt
beneath the jacket. His sneakers looked third hand. They were
wet.

He hung the raingear on my coat rack and accepted the mug
with a nod, warming his hands before he sipped. The hands looked
hard-used, as if he didn't bother with gloves much.

He looked around my office and the piles of boxed books,
taking everything in.

Nervous, I made a final entry on my computer and used the
mouse to back out of the system. The screen blanked.

"I like books."

The comment was so unexpected I jumped. "I have to check
the display room and turn the lights off. Would you like to see the
store?"

He nodded.

I gave him a tour. His silence made me want to babble. I told
myself I didn't have to and kept my remarks brief.

He lingered over the small gardening section, but what
seemed to interest him most was the reading nook I'd made out of
the side window that overlooked the garbage cans.

Like all the windows in the Robinson building, the side
window had a wide sill, wide enough to sit on. I'd blanked the panes
with rice paper and put a pad on the narrow ledge. A small person--I
had children in mind--could curl up there and read. There was a
larger sitting area with easy chairs and a rug by a franklin stove, but
he just gave that a glance. The window seat seemed to fascinate him.
He stood by it a good minute and even touched the pad.

At last I dimmed the lights and led him to the back, grabbing
my keys.

"You don't have much on gardening." His tone wasn't
accusatory. He was making an observation.

I bit back a defensive reply. "I don't know enough to know
what to order." I unlocked the interior door that led to the hallway.
The original shopkeeper must have lived over the shop. "Why don't
you give me a list of titles? I'll order them."

"All right."

My other tenant was watching TV. I could hear the sound in
the hall, but when I switched the light on in the apartment and closed
the door behind us the noise went away. There was no street noise
either. The building was
solid
.

I decided to let him look without a tour guide. The place had
high ceilings and big rooms, and the carpets and fixtures were plain
but new. I'd had my crew repaint the walls. The apartment reminded
me of the flat I'd had over the Calfirst Bank when I first moved
west.

I stood by the windows that overlooked Main Street and
watched the wind and rain whip at the city's gaudy Christmas
decorations. There wasn't much traffic at that hour. I could see
straight down the street to the boat harbor. Lights danced in the rain
and the wind rattled the windowpanes.

I couldn't hear Groth. He moved quietly, but lights in the
other rooms flashed on and off. The refrigerator door closed.
Eventually he came to stand beside me. We looked at the street.

He touched the wide sill of one of the three sash windows. "I
could sit here."

"Yes."

"And see the river."

"Yes. In daylight. Except when it's foggy." I told him the rent
and the rules. "Do you smoke?"

"Sometimes I smoke dope, but outdoors."

I looked at him. He didn't smile, and his tone was calm and
unapologetic. Good thing Jay isn't here, I thought. Jay was inclined to
the letter of the law. "Well, er, I asked because I'd prefer not to rent
to a smoker. Mr. Williams next door smokes, but he's lived here for
years and he's pushing eighty, so I didn't feel right asking him not to.
Cigarette smoke clings to the paint and drapes." I was babbling. I
drew a breath. "Do you want to rent it, Mr. Groth?"

"You should call me Hugo." He peered through the blown
rain at a passing car. "Yes. I like it. Can I move in on the
twentieth?"

"Of December?"

He nodded. "I live at the farm. It gets crowded during the
holidays."

"Uh, I don't see why you can't." I was feeling pressured
again. Shouldn't I check him out or something? Maybe he had lousy
credit or a long string of pot busts. I thought back to my conversation
with Bianca. She liked him. But did I like Bianca?

He pulled a check book from the breast pocket of his shirt.
"Got a pen?"

"Downstairs."

We traipsed down, and I showed him the street entrance. "I
don't have the keys here tonight. I'll bring them tomorrow, and you
can pick them up here when you're ready to move in."

"Okay." He wrote out his check for first and last month's
rent plus damage deposit, shook my hand, and wriggled into his
damp rain-gear. I watched him unlock his bike and head off into the
storm. Did he have to ride all the way back to Meadowlark Farm? I
thought about racing out and offering him a ride home, but he was
already out of sight.

I went back for my handbag and coat, locked up, and drove
home, feeling edgy. At no point during the brief meeting had Hugo
Groth smiled, or said please or thank you. He hadn't praised the store
layout or the apartment or explained himself. Bianca had said he was
odd. He was very odd. I hoped I hadn't rented the apartment to a
serial killer.

I went about the business of selling books and getting ready
for Christmas. When my brother-in-law came home from Portland, I
put him to work in the store and got some of my own shopping done.
Christmas, complete with long-distance phone calls to Jay's mother
and my parents, came and went. Some time in all that, Hugo Groth
moved in above the store, but he was so quiet I half-forgot him.

One night around closing time he came into the store. I was
trying to hustle three impatient customers through the ringing up
process, so I gave him a smile and went on verifying credit
cards.

He disappeared into the shelves. When I could set the
CLOSED sign up at last, I remembered him and walked to the
gardening shelf. He wasn't there, but I caught a glimpse of movement
on the other side of the store. He was sitting in the window seat
reading a paperback. "Hello, Hugo."

He looked up, blinking as if I had startled him.

"Do you want me to ring that up? I'm closing."

"Oh. No, it's just Wendell Berry. I have this one." He stood up
and shut the book. "I brought the list."

List? My turn to blink.

He looked mildly disappointed. "The list of horticulture
books you wanted." He handed me a sheaf of neatly stapled
papers.

I glanced through it. A printout ten pages long. With full
information on the titles including ISBN numbers and publishers.
"That's very thoughtful." Also impossible. I had shelf room for
perhaps ten more books in that section.

He stood up. "Those are the best. I coded them. The starred
ones would be good for beginners and amateurs. You don't want too
many in a store this size."

At least he was tracking. I saw only a few asterisks. I relaxed
a little, and I hope my voice warmed. "Thanks. I'll do an order
tomorrow."

He strolled to the personal essay shelf and put Berry in his
place.

"Is the apartment working out for you?"

"Yes. I've been taking my bike upstairs and leaving it at the
landing. Mr. Williams said he didn't mind."

"Good." I hoped the bicycle wasn't a hazard, but the landing
at the top of the stairs was large and well-lit.

"Can I leave through your side door?"

"Sure. I'll get the key."

He followed me as I tidied things and dimmed the lights. I
set the list of books on my desk. "Have you read all these?"

"Except for the last six. Those I got off the Internet forum.
They sounded good."

I flipped to the last page. Small presses, two university
presses. I got my keys and purse, and took my coat from the rack.
"Well, thanks again. The list will be a useful reference. Customers are
always asking for recommendations."

He ducked out with a flip of his hand, and I locked up and
went home. I ordered the five books he had starred by regular mail
and had two of the ones he hadn't read sent by Federal Express.
When they arrived I left him a note.

He came down around seven looking freshly scrubbed. The
acne glowed purple-red. For once I wasn't in the throes of a sale,
though another customer was browsing, so I greeted Hugo and
pulled the two books, one a cheap paperback, almost a pamphlet,
and the other a beautiful hardcover dealing with the horticultural
philosophy of a famous Zen master. The photography in that one was
dazzling, but it was pretty expensive.

I handed them to him. "Here. I know you didn't order the
books, so don't feel you have to buy them."

He had the dazed look of a child with a birthday surprise. He
took the books off to the window seat without a word.

The other customer bought a Stephen King and left. I
pottered around, dusting, dealt with another customer who came in
to pick up a cookbook, and began to think about closing up. It was
almost New Year's and dark. I was thinking of closing earlier in
January. I drifted, tidying books, wondering what Jay had in mind for
dinner. It was his turn to cook.

"Lark?" Hugo stood by the cash register holding the two
books.

I came over. It was the first time he'd said my name.

"I want both of them."

"Great." I started to ring up.

"Check okay?"

I smiled. "Yours are."

He nodded, serious, and wrote out a check. "How'd you get
them so soon?"

"Federal Express."

His pen hovered. "That's expensive. Shouldn't I pay for
shipping?"

I said, "I owe you. Your list is going to be very useful this
spring."

"Okay." He flushed. "Do you mind if I drop in once in a
while? I don't want to be a nuisance, but I like to browse."

My heart sank, but I said, "Feel free, Hugo, and if I can get
you anything else let me know. I guessed on those two." I told him
about the starred books I'd ordered, and he seemed interested.
Finally he left via the front door.

I was half afraid he would haunt me, hanging out every
night, because he was clearly a solitary man, but it was a week before
he came in again. And he did browse, taking his finds to the window
seat for a good long look. He bought a paperback and ordered
another of the books from his list. When he came in a couple of days
later and just browsed and left, I decided he wasn't going to be a
pest. I half wished he'd talk a little. It was January by then, the
weather was wet and turbulent, and business was slow. I could have
used a little companionship. However, Hugo was not a talker. He
never smiled and he never thanked me, but he was slowly becoming
a presence in my life.

Still, I didn't get to know him. We weren't friends. The
relationship was like an object in a Zen painting--defined by the
blankness around it.

Bianca Fiedler invited Jay and me to dinner at the farm for
the first Sunday of February. She and I had had phone conversations
in the interim, and she had sent me more information on her
workshop. Now she wanted me to see the facilities first-hand.

Larkspur Books was closed by then. We drove out to the
farm around five-thirty. After a warmish week in which crocuses
bloomed and daffodils sprang, the weather had turned nasty. It was
sleeting.

When Jay drives in the rain, he switches the windshield
wipers off and on. He has some theory that he's saving wear and tear
on the little engine that runs them. In my opinion, a wreck would
cost a lot more than replacing the wiper engine, but some folks don't
listen to reason. I gritted my teeth whenever my window went blank
with accumulated sleet.

Meadowlark Farm lay on the east side of Shoalwater Bay,
about half an hour out of Kayport, so it was a good hour's drive for us
from Shoalwater. By the time we reached the open gate, my jaw
muscles were cramping.

Partly to ease them, I said, "You don't like Keith McDonald,
but you're going to keep the peace, right?"

The windshield went blank. Jay turned the wipers on and
swerved, skidding a little, to avoid a fallen branch. "I promise I'll
keep my satires to myself, even when Keith sings 'Sir Patrick Spens'
in fake Scots."

"Lord, will he do that?"

"He has been known to do worse." The wipers stilled again.
Sleet thudded on the windshield. "So watch his hands. When he
starts comparing you to a long-stemmed American rose--"

"He's more likely to compare me to a crane." Jay is subject to
the husbandly delusion that all men find his wife irresistible.
Flattering but unrealistic.

"You're hypersensitive." Jay turned the blades on again. Lo,
there were lights. We slid across a cattle guard and sloshed up a hill
to the house. It was indeed large. I could form no other judgment
about it, because of the darkness and sleet. As we scuttled for the
front entry, the door opened.

Bianca hurried us inside. "Leave the car there. Nobody else
is going to drive in tonight. God, what weather. Makes me homesick
for California." She took our coats.

"Me, too," Jay said. "Malibu at sunset, to be exact."

Bianca made the rude noise San Franciscans emit when
anyone confesses an attachment to the L.A. area, but this time her
rudeness was friendly. She was an odd woman and I'd half-expected
her to ignore Jay the way she'd ignored Bonnie.

I introduced them, in case she hadn't focused on him at the
signing, and she murmured pleasantries. She was wearing a pink,
orange, and purple print tunic over orange stirrups and gold flats.
Bright. I was glad I hadn't decided on jeans and an anorak.