The Northwoods Chronicles (17 page)

Lexy looked like she’d like to have a cigarette,
but of course she wouldn’t while there were customers in her
shop.

“So doesn’t it make you mad? Don’t you think
we’re all guilty?”

Lexy squinted up her face and clipped her
scissors a few times. Julia felt as though she were the responsible
adult in the room, she ought to be saying something. “It’s a
thought I’m sure we’ve all had, Margie, but I don’t think we’re
guilty of anything but doing life well. Lexy works hard for her
prosperity. So do you. So do I.”

“And look at the dues we pay to belong to this
club. It costs us a child a year, just about.”

“People die everywhere,” Lexy said, and stood
up, ready to tackle Julia’s head again. Julia was ready for her to
resume. She glanced at the clock. She was going to be late for
Mitch.

“These kids don’t die, that’s the point. We just
give them away, and give lip service to what a shame it is, and go
on with our lives.”

Lexy turned and gave Margie a full-frontal look.
“You didn’t leave when Micah left. You are still here, reaping the
prosperity.”

“I’ve paid my dues into this little club of the
damned. More than you will ever know.”

“You knew about this place before you settled
here. You knew it happened, but you never thought it would happen
to you,” Lexy said.

Julia had never seen Lexy this confrontational
before. Margie started to cry again. “Yeah, sure,” Lexy went on. “I
want to have some kids someday. I kind of hoped that I’d get
together with Paulie Timmins. But then, you know . . . he died. One
of these days I’ll snag me a nice fisherman, though, and we will
have some kids. Will we stay here? I don’t know. I think it’ll
never happen to me.”

“It could.”

“Yes. It could. And to you it did. We make our
choices, Margie, and we live with the consequences.” Lexy grabbed
Julia’s head and, with hard fingers, turned her face to the mirror
and went at her hair again, quite viciously, with the comb.

Margie shrugged into her coat and left without
another word.

“Jeez. She’s still blaming us.” Lexy pulled on
Julia’s hair hard enough to make her wince.

“Got any tea?” Julia asked.

“Sure, baby,” Lexy said, brightening up
immediately. “Lemon Zinger?”

Julia smiled.

When she left Lexy’s, she went straight to
Mitch’s office, where the waiting room with a gold garland over the
receptionist’s window was empty and the receptionist told her the
doctor was expecting her. Then she pushed the intercom, announced
Julia, and soon Dr. Mitch Kardashian, the amazingly handsome
dentist, came out looking like he was ready for the opera, wearing
a full-length black wool coat and a white silk scarf. Julia knew it
wasn’t going to be long before he whisked her off into the land of
carnal bliss, but she was going to hold him off for as long as she
could. She was hoping for a wedding ring, or at least she thought
she was. It had been a long time since she’d fallen for a man, and
she wanted to be sure. If she wasn’t sure she wanted to marry him,
she didn’t want to bed him.

But he sure was handsome. He smiled at her with
genuine pleasure, and nothing made her feel sweet and feminine like
a man who was eager to see her.

“Darling,” he said.

Another point in his favor.

“I had an emergency this morning and had to put
off a client. I’ve squeezed her in at the end of my lunch, and I’m
afraid we’re not going to have time for the lunch I hoped. I
intended to take you”—he pushed the door open and held it for her
to step into the frosty air—“for a
leisurely
lunch, but I’m
afraid it’s Margie’s for us today.”

Julia was surprised at how disappointed she felt
at the change of plans she didn’t even know about. He made it sound
so intriguing. She waited for Mitch to unlock his Mercedes and open
the passenger door for her. He treated her like a queen. Leisurely
dining or fast food, it didn’t matter to her. With his swarthy,
hairy good looks and those milk-white teeth and deep brown eyes
with the whiter-than-white whites, he was all hers.

“I’m sorry you had a stressful morning,” she
said.

“Not as stressful for me as for the sheriff,”
Mitch said. “He was the emergency. A tootsie-roll pulled off an old
crown and exposed the root of a molar.”

Julia shuddered.

“Said he saw God.”

They both laughed. Mitch had a deep, hearty
laugh that matched the rest of him. Julia loved it.

Two minutes later, they pulled into Margie’s
crowded parking lot. Mitch opened the car door for Julia, then he
opened the diner door, and escorted her to a booth in the far
corner. There was something special about being the date of the
most eligible, handsome professional man in town. Julia felt
remarkably well-tended and pampered within Mitch’s protective
aura.

Margie came over with the perennial coffee pot
in one hand, and two menus in the other. She wouldn’t meet Julia’s
eyes, and Julia knew that Lexy had hurt her feelings, had hurt them
deeply. “Margie,” she said, and, when Margie did look up, Julia
could tell that Margie had been crying. Had cried off all her
mascara and her eyes were a little bit puffed. “You know I don’t
share Lexy’s opinions about things.”

“Doesn’t matter,” she said. “Forget it.” Margie
took a ragged breath, and her mouth tightened against a new serving
of tears. “She’s right.”

“She is not right,” Julia said, maybe a little
bit too forcefully, because Margie turned and walked back into the
kitchen.

“What the hell is that all about?” Mitch asked.
The concern in his face made Julia feel bad that she’d made Margie
cry all over again. She briefly related the incident, and Mitch
looked down at his fingernails.

“Lexy’s right, you know,” he said. “I’d never
have children here. I think about it a lot, the kids that I see,
their parents. I think they all live on the knife’s edge of hope
versus fear, and I think it’s a conscious decision they make.
They’re gambling.”

Julia gasped at the concept.

“Sometimes you win,” Mitch went on, “and
sometimes you lose. But the constant is that the house takes its
percentage from every single bet. Ultimately, the house always
comes out on top. Winning and losing is just an illusion. When you
gamble, the house wins.”

Just then, a composed Margie came back from the
kitchen, and when she filled up their coffee cups, Julia touched
her hand with a fingertip. Margie managed a weak smile, then took
their orders. Two salads with vinaigrette.

“What about me?” Julia asked Mitch. “I’m not
gambling.”

“But you will. That’s the uncanny thing about
this place. It’s a giant casino. Odds are, you will eventually
place a bet. Even the UPS guy is bound to plug a quarter into a
slot, just on the off chance.”

That just settled it, Julia thought. No Marcy,
no grandkids. She would put her foot down. She felt her face grow
hot that she had even considered bringing them here.

“What’s so amazing to me is that Margie and
Jimbo, bereaved and bitter, continue to live here, even though
they’ve got another son.”

Julia had that plunging elevator feeling. “And
she’s even considering another. You think they’d take two kids out
of the same family? Don’t you think they’ve paid their dues?”

“Flip a coin and it comes up heads ninety-nine
times in a row. What are the odds of it coming up heads the
hundredth time?”

Julia shrugged. “Astronomical.”

“Fifty-fifty,” Mitch said. “The coin doesn’t
care what happened before or after.”

“What about you?” she asked him.

“I’m a compulsive by nature,” he said, leaning
close to her. “I’ve done drugs, booze, gambling, sex, food, even
exercise . . . you name it, I’ve indulged in it to excess. And now
I don’t do any of that anymore. Now I’m a moderate. I don’t drink,
I don’t smoke, I don’t gamble, I won’t have sex outside marriage, I
exercise like a normal person, and I eat right.”

“You keep a tight rein on yourself?”

“My world has become more black and white,” he
admitted. “There are things I don’t do, places I don’t go.”

“Isn’t that terribly restrictive?”

“Actually, it’s liberating. I can do anything I
want to now. Anything I want. It just so happens that I don’t want
a martini. I’d rather have a Diet Coke. Or a cup of coffee.”

“And you live here because . . . ?”

“Because it’s so beautiful. And it’s a fine
dental practice. And there’s you.”

“Think you can live inside the casino without
plugging in that quarter?”

“I’m not smug about it. I’m just not interested.
Besides, I’m not here for the long term. I’m here to put in my
time, get my stake, and get out.” He reached across the table and
took her freshly manicured hand. “In the meantime, there are
healthier things around to capture my interest.”

“But what about the house’s percentage?”

“I can afford it,” he said, and kissed her
fingertips.

~~~

The whole time Julia was showing property to the
young couple, she wondered what her responsibility was in informing
them of the pitfalls of living in the area. They were newlyweds,
sure to want to have children eventually, maybe sooner.

She didn’t mention it.

When she got back to her home office, she kicked
off her shoes, changed into jeans and a sweatshirt and busied
herself in the kitchen making her annual apricot jam for the
library fundraiser. But her mind couldn’t leave Mitch and his
theories of Vargas County. Was he kidding her with all this stuff?
Was he kidding himself? Was he right? Was Lexy right? Should she
move to firmer soil?

Why would she? Because she’s living the good
life, funded by the sacrifices of grieving parents?

Boy, that was sure an ugly thought.

And another not-so-great idea was hitching
herself up to a compulsive for the long run. Mitch could drink
again, gamble away all she had built up over the years, snort it up
his nose, gain three hundred pounds. . . . He was not as attractive
now as he had been hours earlier.

Julia had a lot to think about.

When Marcy called just as Julia was filling the
jars with lava-like boiling apricot jam, she let the machine get
it. She listened to the message later, as the cooling canning jars
pinged with a tight seal, and she was having her ceremonial bagel
with a taste of the fresh jam on it.

Marcy was crying. Hysterical. Julia threw the
bagel into the sink and tried to understand what Marcy was saying.
She was at the hospital with Seth, the oldest boy. It sounded as if
Jack, Marcy’s husband—Julia’s son—had beat her up and when little
Seth tried to come to her rescue, Jack broke his arm.

It was way past time for Julia to act.
Jack
had broken Seth’s arm!
The boy was only eight. That bastard.
She grabbed her coat, purse and keys and jumped into her car.

The hospital was two hours south. By the time
Julia got there, she was even more confused than she had been
before she started out. Driving left too much time to let thoughts
tumble around in her head like laundry in a dryer.

But when she saw Marcy’s face, bandaged and
bruised, one eye swollen closed, one ear stitched up where she’d
taken a kick to the head, all Julia’s good ideas about anything
fled and she was filled with compassion, remorse, guilt, love and
sympathy. How could she have ever raised a son that could do
something like this to a sweet girl like Marcy?

Marcy fell sobbing into Julia’s arms. Julia knew
that Marcy’s parents lived in squalor down south in Mississippi or
somewhere, and that Marcy would never go back. Julia was her mother
now. Julia comforted her daughter-in-law and asked about Mikey. He
was upstairs in the hospital day care. He was physically safe, if
traumatized. Seth was having his arm set.

By the time the social worker talked with Julia,
and she’d helped Marcy with the police, the forms, and had met with
a counselor, it was late. Julia loaded up Marcy and her two silent
children, Mikey, six, and Seth, eight, and took them to McDonald’s,
but it didn’t help much.

“Okay,” Julia said, putting a French fry into
her mouth and trying to appear positive, “here’s the deal. You’re
all going to come up and stay with me at the lake for a while. And
as soon as we can, we’re going to get your stuff from your house
and move you all up to the northwoods.”

“With Daddy?” Mikey said.

“No, honey,” Marcy said with a hitch in her
voice. “Daddy can’t be with us anymore.”

“Good,” Mikey said. “I hate him.”

It was like a stab in Julia’s heart to hear her
grandson state hatred for her son, but under the circumstances, she
could understand it. Truth be told, she wasn’t too far behind Mikey
on that one.

The boys fell asleep in the backseat as they
drove back to Julia’s house. The closer they got to Vargas County,
the more agitated she got, trying to think of alternate locations
they could stay until Julia figured out the finances. She was
real-estate rich and cash poor, and she just didn’t have the money
to put Marcy up in a hotel or a motel or apartment. She’d have to
get rid of a tenant, which would take time, or they’d have to stay
at her place. Either way, the boys would be in the casino.

But anything was better than sending them back
to Jack. Jack would likely kill Marcy next time. And Seth too, if
he got in the way.

Marcy was silent on the way home. Julia wished
her daughter-in-law would talk—either nervous chatter or
confessions or just tell the story of what had happened—but Marcy
was deep into her own thoughts, letting Julia stew in hers.

She was actually bringing the boys to Vargas
County. Julia didn’t even want them to visit, although they did
regularly. They loved the lake. They swam like little fish, they
made friends easily and probably this summer they’d learn to
water-ski. Seth would, anyway. They would love it. She found
herself trying to bargain with God.
They’ve been through so
much,
she found herself praying
. Please let them live with
us in peace. Please protect them and don’t let them disappear.
Don’t take them away from me, please, I’ve been a good
girl.