Nora and Liz (3 page)

Suppressing a desire to laugh, Nora hiked them up. “Coming!” she called as the knocks sounded again. She attempted to slide out the doorway, but Ralph gripped her shoulder. His gait was slow, shuffling, worse, she realized, than the last time he’d walked unaided. When had that been? Three weeks ago, maybe, when the drugstore boy had come and Father was sure the pharmacist had overcharged for his and Corinne’s medicine.

Nora put her left arm around his waist and held his near shoulder with her right hand. Shuffling and reeling, they moved slowly to the dark front hall and the door, which was now silent. “The person probably left,” Nora said, accusingly again.

“Good riddance,” Ralph grumbled. “I told you not to answer it.”

Nora opened the door. Pale gray light illuminated the hall, falling on a blue and white porcelain bowl and showing the scratches in the dark finish of the table on which it stood. A small woman stood outside, half turned away as if she had, indeed, begun to leave. Her hair, dark brown and windblown, was a mass of short curls that capped her head and her face was pleasant enough, though obviously stressed.

“Sorry to bother you,” the woman said, looking as if she was trying not to stare. What a picture we must make, Nora thought, Father and I! “My car had a flat out on the main road. I remembered your house was here and I wondered if I could borrow a jack. It’s a rental car; there isn’t one in it.”

“Why, I—a what?” Nora sputtered.

“What’s your name?” Ralph asked belligerently. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

“Liz Hardy,” the woman answered pleasantly. “Elizabeth. No, I’m not really
from
around here, but my family has a cabin on
Yellowfin
Lake. I was just going out there when…”

“I know those cabins. Summer people.” Ralph studied Liz suspiciously; Nora turned away in embarrassment. “It’s not summer yet.”

“No,” Liz said; she sounded tired. “Not quite. But my father died recently and I want to clean up the cabin so I can sell it. I’ve taken a little time off from work to do that. Look, I’m really sorry to intrude. If you do have a jack…”

“Might, might not. As you can see, I’m ill. Can’t change your tire. You’d better go to the gas station.”

“That’s okay, I don’t need help. I can change it myself. But if you don’t have a jack, maybe I could call a neighbor, see if someone else nearby has one?”

Nora finally recovered enough to speak. “We don’t have a phone.” She stepped between Liz and her father; the woman looked harmless enough; nice, even. “But there’s an old car in the barn. I’m not absolutely sure what a jack looks like, though.”

Liz quickly hid her astonishment. “It’s sort of an accordion-pleated pump for lifting part of a car up so you can change a tire,” she explained. “Metal. Most cars come with them. They usually come with sort of wrench things, too, for removing the nuts.” Her eyes turned mirthful, and Nora could see that she was suppressing a laugh.

Nora herself felt inclined to giggle, then wondered if she should have felt angry instead.
Removing the nuts,
she thought; if she’s spent summers here, she’ll know the rumors.

Ralph growled stormily. “
Dunno
if there’s a jack in that old car. Nora, go with her to look. Stay with her,” he added, barely under his breath. He gripped the edge of the door, turning. “Dizzy. Have to lie down.”

“I’ll help you, Father.” Quickly, Nora tightened her hold on his arm. “Barn’s out back,” she said over her shoulder to Liz. “You can’t miss it, as they say. I’ll be out in a minute.”

“Thanks,” Liz called, watching as Nora steered her father down the hall. Odd pair, she thought; poor woman, wonder why she stays with him. But maybe she doesn’t; maybe she just comes in to help. Then, shrugging, she went out and followed the house’s perimeter to the back yard, examining it as she went. The walls sagged inward, the little remaining paint was peeling off the worn clapboards, and there were signs of rot around the windows. She must be my age, Liz thought, that woman. Or older. Not to know what a jack is, living in the country! Maybe she’s not very bright.

Or not very worldly, if she’s stuck living here with the old man.

The barn sagged also, its once-red boards warped and collapsing into each other. There was no door, just an opening edged with a few rusty hinges. A small black and white cat, lying on its side in the sun, scrambled to its feet as Liz approached, arching its back as if afraid or angry.

“Nice puss,” Liz said quietly. “It’s okay. I won’t hurt you.” She knelt and held out her hand.

The cat crept closer, sniffing, then rubbed against her.

“Good, you’ve met Thomas.” The woman approached and squatted next to Liz, her fading housedress bunched between her knees. “He doesn’t get much company.” She smiled, her weary face becoming almost attractive. It’s her eyes, Liz thought as Nora held out her hand. They were blue with green flecks, friendly and sad.

“I’m Nora
Tillot
,” Nora said. “That was my father inside. He’s—well, he’s a lot of things.”

Liz, smiling back, took the offered hand; it was rough and
workworn
, with a crack across one knuckle and nails cut straight across; nurse’s nails. “I could see that.” She smiled.

“He’s also very old-fashioned. Crusty. Suspicious.” She stood; Thomas curled around her legs. “Well, you want the car.
Here.
”

She led Liz into the shadowy barn; it smelled of well-rotted manure, stale hay, and mildew.

“It’s back here near the tractor. I doubt that it runs. No one’s used it for twenty-five years.”

Next to a rusty John Deere was an ancient Ford sedan, its black paint surprisingly intact.

“Someone took good care of it, though,” Liz said, running her hand over the car’s side.

“Yes, Father was quite fanatic about it. Even long ago when he used it for work and to take my mother and me for Sunday drives, he always kept it inside, and he polished it a lot.”

“More than the tractor, I see.”

“Oh, that. He was never much of a farmer. He wanted to be, but he was really a salesman. Farming was just a dream.”

“But everyone called this ‘the old
Tillot
farm,’” Liz said. “When I was little. ”

“Yes, I know they did. That was nice of them, I guess. I think they also said the crazies lived here.”

“That, too.” Liz smiled again. “But you don’t seem crazy.”

“No.” Nora walked rapidly to the rear of the car. “Might the jack be in the trunk?”

“Probably.”

Nora opened the trunk. It was empty except for something wrapped in what looked like an old towel. “Could this be it?”

“It could. Let’s see. May I?”

“Yes. I’m really not sure what I’m looking for.”

“You don’t drive, then?” Liz unwrapped the lumpy package, revealing a jack, a tire iron, and a tool set. Perfect. “Perfect,” she said aloud.

“No. Father doesn’t approve of women driving.”

Liz paused, her hand on the tools. “But how…?”

“How do we manage? We do, that’s all. People are kind.”

“You live here, then?”

“Yes.”

“Wow! It must be hard, without a car, I mean. And without a phone. Grocery shopping, doctors, emergencies.”

“A woman from church helps. So does a girl from the village. The doctor and a visiting nurse come here. The only bad time was my mother’s stroke. I had to run to the neighbors’. And if you know the, um, the area, you know that’s not very near.”

“Yes. It must be at least half a mile to the next house.” More words crowded Liz’s mind, but she bit them back. “You’ve been very kind. Thank you.” She shifted the tools, rewrapping them and balancing the package on her hip. “Could I ask one more favor?”

“Of course.”

“Could I just use the bathroom before I go? I know it’s an intrusion, letting a stranger use something so private, but…”

Nora looked amused, even mischievous. “Oh, ours isn’t very private. It’s just to the left of the barn. You can’t miss it. A little red house with a…”

“…
half moon
cut in the door?” Liz laughed.

“Right.”

“I’ll be back in a second, then.” Liz set the tools down in the trunk again.

Nora watched her go, watched the smooth way she walked, confident and slender inside her close-fitting blue jeans and her aqua polo shirt, obviously comfortable in her body, as Nora was not in hers, and self-possessed, too, holding some of herself back. Dignified, Nora decided; that’s it, and able to move about in the world, changing tires. She’s nice, she thought with a pang. Friendly and nice. She’d make a good friend, maybe.

And she’s pretty.

Thomas mewed and jumped up into the trunk. “Careful!” Nora picked him up and snuggled her cheek against his silky fur. “You don’t want to get shut up in there.”

“That’s the nicest outhouse I ever was in,” Liz said a few minutes later, coming back into the barn. “All the ones I’ve been in before smelled.”

“It’s the lime,” Nora said. “You did…?”

Liz nodded. “Yes. I saw the little box and shovel and when I looked in the box, I realized what it was for.” She chuckled. “Some dim memory or other that I can’t place. Maybe my grandfather’s house. Or maybe the cabin, when Jeff—that’s my brother—and I were really little. There was a while when we didn’t have plumbing either.”

“It must be nice to have a brother.”

“It is. We were always pretty close. We fought, but not as much as most kids. Are you an only?”

“An only? Oh, an only child? Yes.”

“So you live here"—Liz looked back toward the house—“without a phone or a car or indoor plumbing, taking care of your elderly father.”

“And mother,” Nora said.

“And mother.” Liz found she was shaking her head and stopped, not wanting to seem rude. “I admire you,” she said. That’s true, she thought, but pity’s true, too.

“It’s not so bad. People lived this way eighty years ago,” she added automatically, “so why not now?”

“That sounds as if you’ve said it before.”

“I have,” Nora admitted. “Many times.”

“It must get annoying, having to defend your way of living.”

“My father’s way,” Nora said carefully. “Mama and I, well, we’d choose something different.”

“You would?”

Nora hesitated; she’d never said it aloud, despite thinking it with increasing frequency. “Sometimes,” she said carefully, “I imagine what it would be like to have just one of the things we don’t have. Some days I think of plumbing and every time I pump water or go to the outhouse or heat water for washing, I imagine having shiny chrome faucets that send out streams of hot or cold water. Other times, but this is harder, I imagine what it would be like to have electricity.” Nora stopped; her game must seem silly.

“It must be awful, not having that. Everything’s electrical.”

“Yes. But when there’s a bad storm and Mrs. Brice—she’s the lady who takes me to the store and to church—when Mrs. Brice tells me there’s been a power failure, I realize how well off we really are. I don’t have to change anything I do. So you see in a way my father’s right: it’s better without all the modern conveniences. And I like the quiet, the simplicity, I guess you could call it. The world outside, the little I know of it, seems too busy sometimes. Too full of
things,
too.” Nora brushed a wisp of graying hair off her forehead.

“You are a truly amazing person,” Liz said.

Nora regarded her, her head cocked to one side, a slight smile playing about her lips. “Am I?” she asked softly.

“Yes. Yes, you are.”

For a moment they looked at each other, and Liz felt as if the blue-green eyes that gravely held her own were considering her, examining her; probing, even.

“Well…” Liz turned toward the trunk, breaking the somewhat discomfiting connection. “I’d better be going. I’ll bring the tools back when I’m done.”

“No hurry,” said Nora. “You must be anxious to get to your cabin. I don’t need them, obviously.” She cuddled Thomas, still in her arms, then put him down.

Liz hesitated; maybe she should hold onto them for a while. The road to the cabin was bound to be in bad shape, and the spare hadn’t looked exactly new. “Thank you,” she said finally. “I could drop them off on my way back Monday night or even Sunday; I may leave then. And maybe there’s a jack at the cabin that I can take for the trip back in case another of those tires goes. We’ve got tons of old stuff in the shed, stuff we thought we might need. You know how it is.”