Wintertide: A Novel (4 page)

"Yes, very interesting,"
I agreed. As long as I was getting paid, everything he wanted me to work on was
extremely interesting.

"So, as you can see, right now
my notes are somewhat disorganized. I need you to transcribe my notebooks onto
the computer. I don’t like computers myself, and so I never learned to use them.
Here are the notes," he said gesturing toward the floor with an
outstretched hand. "I hope you can read my writing."

I glanced at the notebooks scattered
haphazardly on the floor and resting on every piece of furniture. "Professor
Sheffield, which notebooks do you mean exactly?"

He looked at me curiously. "All
of them, of course."

I swiveled my head around
incredulously. There had to be hundreds of notebooks in the room. "Are they
in any particular order?" I asked.

"Oh yes. They're numbered.” He
picked one up off the floor and showed me the back. The number eighteen was
written in the top left corner in bold, black marker. "Just copy out the
notes onto the computer in order. I'm sure you can handle that, Mr. Hiller. I'll
be in the study out back. You can come see me if you have any questions." He
stood. "And feel free to help yourself to anything in the kitchen if you
get hungry."

As he started to leave the room, I
realized something. "Professor Sheffield, where is the computer?"

"Oh right," he answered
absently, turning back toward me. "It's in that box. It just arrived
yesterday." Then he left with his teacup in hand.

I glanced from him to the unopened
cardboard box that sat in the corner by a large picture window. Apparently,  he
had bought a computer he obviously had no intention of ever using himself.

I went over to the box and began
ripping the tape away. It looked as though a very expensive, extra wide screen,
laptop computer was inside. Feeling the need to begin making a dent in my
workload, I pulled the laptop out and got to work setting it up. Working for Professor
Sheffield was definitely going to be interesting.

The day passed quickly as I got the
laptop running and soon realized that the professor had no Internet connection
in the house. Although, he had ordered plenty of pre-installed software. Occasionally,
Professor Sheffield would poke his head in on his way to another room. At one
point, late in the afternoon, I was crouched on the floor trying to make heads
or tails of some loose notebook sheets, when unexpectedly I saw a pair of brown
scuffed leather shoes in front of  me. I was so surprised, not having heard the
professor approach, that I sat up without thinking and banged my head hard against
one of the bookshelves that lined the walls. He never asked me if I was all
right. He simply stood there staring at the laptop whispering the word
remarkable
as though he were examining a priceless work of art. I felt the desire to ask
him if he knew what year it was.

I had promised my mother that I
would help her buy a Christmas tree that evening. So, at five o'clock, I told
the professor I had to go. I caught him just as he was traveling past on his
way to the kitchen. At the sound of my voice, he appeared startled, like he had
forgotten I was there.

"How many notebooks have you
transcribed so far?" he asked.

"I've actually just finished
arranging them in order. There were a few missing ones that I had to search for
and lots of loose sheets I had to find places for."

He scratched his head as though the
fact that his work was a completely disorganized disaster came as a total
surprise to him.

I glanced at my watch. "Well
my mother's expecting me home. We're going to pick out a tree tonight. I'd
better get going."

He smiled. "How nice that
you're spending time with your family. My niece is coming up on Christmas day
with her children. I don't think I'll bother getting a tree though. Buying them
all gifts will be hard enough. What do you suppose children want for Christmas
these days? They all want video games, I guess."

I looked at my watch again.

"But it is nice to have family
around you on the holidays,” he continued. “My sister invited me to stay with
her, but I don’t like traveling much. Do you?”

"Um, no, not really. I'm
sorry, but I've got to get going."

"Well who's stopping you?” he
asked as though he wasn’t guilty of it himself. “You mustn't keep your mother
waiting."

I was late. I tried calling her,
but no one picked up. It was only thirty minutes, but one might have thought I
had been missing for a week by the way my mother reacted. She was standing
outside in the cold when I pulled up. "Oh my goodness, Daniel, I was just
about to call the police. Are you all right?”

I rolled my eyes. "Actually, I
picked up a hitchhiker who held me up at gun point and tried to make me drive
him all the way to California. But I wrestled the gun away from him and managed
to push him out of the car. So, sorry I’m a little late," I said casually.

She pursed her lips together in
that scolding manner she has. "I don't find that funny at all.” She walked
over to the passenger side, opened the door and silently sat herself down
inside.

By the time we reached the lot where
the trees were sold, it was dark, and Mom was chattering on happily again. "Do
you remember that lovely young girl from your class? The blonde one who was in
the honor society with you? Well would you believe she dropped out of college
because she got pregnant? I hear the father was her English professor.” She
paused waiting for my reaction.

"Really," I said
uninterested.

"That's right. And that nice
couple, the ones who own that big grey beach house down near the cliffs. Well,
you weren't here then, but they left abruptly right in the middle of the season.
It turns out they went into bankruptcy, the bank foreclosed on them and the
house is now deserted. Can you believe it? That big beautiful house?"

My mother always thrived on gossip.
I listened with half an ear. The lot was busy with late shoppers. Mom and I
walked up and down the rows of trees inspecting them carefully. She stopped in
front of one. I went over and stood beside her. The tree was small, barely six
feet, but it was full with healthy green needles.

"This is the one," she
said. She turned to me excited, "Oh Daniel, it has been so long since
we've done this."

Looking at her, something occurred
to me for the first time. "Mom, did you get a tree last Christmas?"

She turned away and waved her hand
in the air. "Oh no we didn't bother. Without you home, it just wasn't the
same."

I stared at my mother in disbelief.
She hadn't bothered to get a tree last year, a ritual I could not imagine her
neglecting. My throat became tight, and my head suddenly throbbed right where I
had hit it at the professor’s house. I stood rooted to the ground while she
called someone over to purchase the tree. I couldn't understand why she would
remain in a life that made her so unhappy. But I couldn't imagine her having the
strength to change her situation either.

My dad used to come with us to pick
out a tree, but as soon as I grew big enough to fasten it to the roof of the
car myself, he’d stopped. I was just tying off the last cord when I heard my
mother's voice rise in an enthusiastic greeting. I walked around to the other
side of the Buick and there was Seth, standing over her smiling. He looked
older with dark stubble and a fuller face than I remembered.

"Hey Danny, I heard you were
home.” He turned his smile on me and gave me a small wave.

"Hey yourself. Good to see
you."

"I told Daniel you were home,
but he has a job working for one of his professors over the vacation. In fact,
he already spent his first day of vacation there.” She smiled with pride.

"Dan always did work
hard," Seth acknowledged. "I told my mother I'd be back early. So I'd
better start looking for a tree. Maybe we'll get together some time before we
have to go back to school,” he said to me. “That is, if you're not too
busy."

"Sure," I said mostly for
my mother’s benefit. "Give me a call."

"I will. Good-bye, Mrs. Hiller.
Nice to see you."

Mom called after him, "You,
too. Say hello to your mother for me."

As Seth walked away she turned to
me and whispered, "Now that was embarrassing. I told you to call him. Now
it looks bad, like you never intended to."

"It doesn’t look like
anything. Besides, I didn't intend to call him."

"What happened between the two
of you anyway? You used to be such good friends?"

It was freezing out and I didn’t
want to have this conversation while my toes were turning numb. I opened the
car door for her hoping she would take the hint. She looked at me waiting for
an answer.

"I don't know, Mom,” I finally
responded. “I guess we just grew apart.” I stopped waiting for her to get in and
walked around to the driver’s side. She finally joined me, and I rubbed my
hands together and breathed on them for a moment before I put the car in
reverse.

"Did you two have a
fight?"

"No. We just didn't keep in
touch. There's no specific reason.”

She wasn't buying that. "Well,
I would think that such good friends would try to make an effort to call each
other occasionally. It makes me wonder if
we
would ever talk if
I
didn't
always call you."

I rolled my eyes at her, realizing
how much I did that and making a mental note to curtail it. "That's
ridiculous. Of course we would."

She exhaled loudly and turned her
attention to the Christmas lights that adorned the small homes we passed. Bright
points of red and green reflected off the glass. I knew my mother didn't
believe me, but I was telling the truth. There wasn't one incident I could
point to as causing the dissolution of our friendship. Although, Eddie did have
something to do with it. I'd always felt a certain wonderment for Eddie, but Seth
absolutely idolized him. Seth would follow him blindly in any scheme he cooked
up. Toward the end, I often begged off, citing some poor excuse that they
surely saw right through.

There was one thing about Eddie
that both excited and scared me. He had no boundaries. My entire life existed
within boundaries. But Eddie had no concept of society’s constraints. He drove an
old, rusted, black Camaro that he’d rescued from the junkyard and restored
himself. One of his favorite games was traversing the perilously dark and windy
roads of South Seaport in his car, late at night, at dangerously high speeds,
without the benefit of headlights. Seth would sit in the passenger seat
cheering loudly while I gripped the cushions in back and tried not to look
terrified.

The first time I ever went to the
sea cliff was with Eddie. During the years I was in high school, the sea cliff
became infamous. There was a section of South Seaport that the town had
originally sectioned off for a park. The astute elected officials in charge of
the project didn't seem to think that the dangerous cliffs which made up the
southern boundary would be a problem. They simply erected a chain link fence
and called it a day. But the parents of the children who were to play in this
park protested and forced the project to be moved to another safer location. Nothing
was ever done with this land, but the fence remained, as did the stigma of
danger. It didn't take long for the thrill seekers, mainly teenagers desperate
for excitement, to begin climbing the fence and venturing far too close to the
edge of the drop.

The cliff actually had a secondary
ledge, about six feet down. You could lower yourself onto that ledge and get a
good view of the sharp rocks and the white foam of the crashing waves below. Soon
the good citizens of South Seaport caught word of this daring ritual, and the
local paper printed a story about the sea cliff, stating that a person would
probably have to die before the town placed a proper boundary there.

Eddie was drawn to that place as though
it were Shangri-La. The woods across from my house were quickly abandoned and
nearly every weekend was spent drunkenly climbing the fence and jumping down
onto that secondary ledge at the sea cliff. I always scooted myself back
against the wall of the cliff side, but not Eddie. He'd lean over the edge,
dropping bottles, listening for the sound of breaking glass. He could convince Seth
to teeter along the edge with him, but I never went out that far. I endured
many evenings of name calling. But even falling down drunk, I could never make
myself go out to the edge. Not until one Saturday night.

It was this one night in particular
when Eddie seemed completely out of control. His father had laid into him that
afternoon when he got home from school for forgetting to rake the yard. His
face was swollen and bruised. In retaliation, Eddie had stolen his father's
supply of scotch.

Seth and I followed him down to the
ledge that night, but we both knew he wasn’t himself. He was unusually quiet. His
mouth was a tight straight line.

It was late fall. The air was
chilled, and the sky looked like a sheet of glass dotted with pinpoints of
light. The surf pounded rhythmically below us. Eddie paced along the edge,
tripping over his own feet, the bottle sloshing in his hand.

"I'm going to kill him,"
Eddie spat.

Seth was trying to calm him down. I
sat there silently. There was no talking to Eddie when he got this way. He
tilted his head back and finished off the scotch, his Adam's apple bouncing up
and down with each gulp. With a clumsy arm, he tossed the bottle in the air and
followed its progression downward. The crashing waves were too loud, and the
drop was too far to hear the bottle smash even though we all listened for it.
Long after the bottle had disappeared, Eddie continued to stand there, the tips
of his toes no longer on land, staring down at the water. After a moment, he
started to lean. It was such a slow progression forward, it was almost
imperceptible. Seth had turned away, looking for another bottle in Eddie's bag.
I sat transfixed. Eddie tilted further, his eyes staring downward, unblinking,
the breeze rippling through his hair. Suddenly, he had gone too far. He was
going to lose his balance at any moment and plummet downward. I shot up and
grabbed the bottom of his coat, pulling him back with one hard tug.