Cal thought, then nodded. “Got it.”
“I put the dick in to throw you off,” she said.
“I won’t say the obvious,” he said. “No, actually I won’t say that.”
—
Cal had been circling Margaret all year—and getting signals back: he wasn’t that much of an asshole. She was the best of the writers he’d inherited. His first week, she covered a drive-through Christmas-lights festival in Pennsylvania. He asked her out for coffee and said it was a waste for her to keep writing for the Bottom Feeder section. Sure, she’d said: that was why she did it.
Naturally he’d gone back and read the stuff she’d done for Lingua Franca and Nerve. The Nerve piece was just a riff about an ex-boyfriend and gave away nothing about her own sexual stuff. But her name for the guy—Dick Minim—came from what, the Rambler? (He looked it up: the Idler.) So how could you not want to do her? According to Nancy, the managing editor, she had a history with married men but had lately moved in with some guy her own age. “So I gather you’re into Johnson,” he’d said as the waiter set down their coffees. “What girl isn’t?” she’d said.
—
He looked over at her profile, chin out like Mussolini, as she lit a cigarette: American Spirits in the yellow. “You mind? I’m down to three a day.”
“Do it,” he said.
“I promised myself that if I couldn’t keep it to three I’d just quit.”
“And that’s working?”
“So far. This is the first day. It would be nice not to end up like my father.” She blew smoke up and away. “Actually, you know what this car could use? One of those crown things on the dashboard. With the air freshener?”
“Yeah, speaking of fresh, do you know yet what you’re giving us for next week?”
She blew out smoke again. “Not really. Maybe the Christian board games. That or toilet-paper tots. You know, on the wrappers?”
“Yes,” he said. “That. Now that is unwholesome. That little girl with the eyes? Done deal.”
“So,” she said, “you’re not at all freaked out about this, right?” Another drag of cigarette.
“Why, are you?”
“So-so. You know, I’m theoretically in this appropriate relationship.”
“I think I’ve just been called old,” he said.
“And of course these things always end so well,” she said. “So why did the blonde go to Mass?”
“Hmmm,” he said. “Mass as in, not Massachusetts. Okay.”
“Because she heard they had a guy there who was hung like that.” Cupped her hands, spread her arms.
They stopped at the first service area so she could pee and check out the crap in the gift shop. People coming out: three white boys with backward caps and baggy jeans ending mid-shin; a fat woman in skin-tight burgundy pants, with a foot-tall cup of soda, dragging her scrawny daughter by the hand; an ex-Marine-looking geezer with white crew cut and I ♥ MY GRANDCHILDREN T-shirt. “This is so Fellini.” She put both hands around his upper arm. “Thank you for bringing me.”
“Sheer self-interest,” he said. A pudgy couple came rolling toward them, holding hands, in matching plaid Bermudas: he in a bulging knit shirt, she in a bulging Old Navy T-shirt. “That, on the other hand, has to be true love.”
“You are completely evil,” she said. “I want your cock in my mouth.”
“Here and now?” he said. “Or just on principle?”
—
Their cabin was to have a deck overlooking the lake. The view was prominent in the pictures on the website: green trees and blue water in some; in others, skiers kicking up a spray of snow. The guy on the phone told Cal this would be the best weekend for the leaves, and sure enough. As they drove north, the colors came on and it got too cold to keep the top down. Cal got a joint out of his cigarette case.
She guided him off the Northway onto the state road, then onto the county road, then onto the dirt road, then onto the dirt road they wanted, which ended at a log building with an OFFICE sign and antlers over the door. Inside, a grandfather clock was going Gonk gonk gonk gonk. The guy behind the counter—the same one as on the phone?—handed across a map of the trails and two key cards, imprinted with pine trees.
“We get stuff walking out of the rooms all the time,” he said. “Even up here in the boonies.” He had this fucked-up ear—looked like it had been burned off. “This you folks’ first time?”
“Second, actually,” Cal said. Margaret kicked his ankle.
“Well. Good to have you back.”
“We’ve been looking forward to it,” Cal said.
They drove up to their cabin, from which no other cabin could be seen: another selling point. Cal set their bags on the doorstep and stuck his card in the slot.
“I love this,” Margaret said. Gleaming log walls and a white chenille bedspread on a queen-size brass bed; a blue-enameled woodstove, quarter-split birch chunks in the woodbox. Smell of actual woodsmoke.
Cal opened the sliding door and they walked out onto the deck: good, okay, a still-green meadow sloping down to the blue lake. On the far shore, a red, yellow and orange forest, and slim white birch trunks in among the evergreens. Behind all this, an isosceles mountain. “Check it out,” he said. “An Adirondack.”
“What do you think happened to him?” she said.
“To?”
“Didn’t you see his ear?”
“Oh. Can’t imagine. Listen, I think I left the wherewithal in the car. Why don’t you start getting us settled in. This place needs the woman’s touch.”
“As soon as I unpack,” she said, “I’ll go out and pick a frisson of hysteria.”
—
Cal got behind the wheel, shut the door and took out his phone. It said Searching…then locked in. He looked out the windshield at this tree, then that tree, then that tree: Which one was the signal tower in disguise? He tried the apartment, got the machine, tried the cell.
“God, it took you forever,” Fran said. “What’s it like?”
“Oh, you know. Oxonian. Faux Oxonian.”
“Did Il Pesce show up?” Stanley Fish was supposed to be on one of the panels.
“Haven’t seen him yet. People are still getting here.”
“He always makes me think of Cammy’s fish.” Cal had given her that mounted fish toy that writhes and sings “Take Me to the River.” A terrible lesson: never get high to go Christmas shopping. “God, speaking of which,” she said, “we’re right in front of Citarella? And I’m looking at this very dead and unhappy sea bass.”
“Ah. So is Cammy with you?”
“Yes, everything’s under control. Would you like to speak to her? She’s clamoring.”
Cammy’s voice: “I am not, I’m just—Daddy? Hi. We’re going to watch Amadeus again.”
“Ah,” he said. At least it had better music than Shakespeare in Love. “That should be fun. And Mommy’s okay?”
Margaret rapped a knuckle on the glass.
“Jumping Jesus,” he said. “Sorry, sweet, something just…” He held up his index finger. “No problems, right? I know you can’t really talk.”
“I don’t think so. But are you coming back tomorrow?” Margaret hefted a breast.
“Monday, actually,” he said. He did a Groucho Marx with his eyes at Margaret. “Listen, I should get going. You have my cell, so if you need me for any reason. Anyway. Enjoy that movie. May I have Mommy back for a second?”
“So,” Fran said, “are you reassured?”
“About?”
“Oh, please.”
“I’m not reassured, no,” he said. “This is just—you know, a weekend like all weekends.” Well, Hector and Antoine both knew to hold any packages for Fran until he was home, and they’d told the new guy who was on midnight to eight. “You guys take care of each other okay? I’d better go justify God’s ways to man.”