I inhaled deeply on my cigarette, then rested it on the very edge of the chopping block, balancing it there, a tremor in my fingers as I let all the heat out of my lungs. “Les?”
“Yeah?”
“This all would’ve happened anyway, wouldn’t it? If you hadn’t met me?”
He turned to me, like he was surprised I’d said that, his lips parted under his mustache. He let the screen door close behind him and came over and hugged me, told me of course it would, it was all going to happen sooner or later. He stepped back and looked at me with a hand on both my shoulders. “It’s not you, Kathy. It’s not you at all.”
I felt better but also left out, like a little sister, and I stepped away from him to finish my cigarette. “I know this is shitty timing, but did you get a chance to call your lawyers about the house?”
He said no, he hadn’t, but he was planning to do that before tonight. He came over and kissed me, tasting like sour beer, the way it gets old in the mouth. Then he said he’d drive up to Half Moon Bay right now and make the calls, be back in no time. I told him I was blocking them both in with my car and I handed him my keys as he stepped out into the gray light, ducking his head as he left the porch. I moved to the door and watched him walk to the river trail, his shoulders hunched slightly, his head low, like there was still something he had to duck.
I smoked a cigarette in the doorway while they carried the aluminum skiff through the clearing past our woodpile, then up the trail until I couldn’t see them anymore. I could hear Doug’s calm voice, and I wondered if they were talking about me. I wondered what Les had told him about us, and I pictured Doug and his wife having dinner with Lester and Carol Burdon. I felt like leaving, like getting in my car and driving for days and days. But Lester was taking my car anyway, and he was doing it to call lawyers for me. I sat at the table and looked around the cabin, at the bare pine walls, the black iron stove, the groceries on the wood chopping block, the steep staircase to the loft. I could hear the Purisima River through the trees. All this quiet was making me more nervous and I’d wished I’d brought my Walkman from the car. I went outside, squatted at the woodpile, and loaded myself up with a stoveful of split logs.
LES WAS GONE almost two hours, longer than it should’ve taken him to drive five miles to make a couple of phone calls. I’d bought two jars of marinara sauce, and I was planning to heat that up in the stove while I boiled some pasta and cooked hot Italian sausages in another pan. But I didn’t want to start any of this till Les got back, because on a hot stove it would all get done fast. So after finally getting the fire going, I tossed a three-green salad on two paper plates, peeled eight cloves of garlic, diced them with a dull knife, made half-slices in the French bread, then scooped in spoonfuls of margarine, sprinkling in the garlic before I wrapped the loaf in foil. I sat on the porch and smoked a cigarette. Any minute I kept expecting Les to come out of the woods into the clearing, but I sat there for close to an hour listening to the river, an occasional bird, the crackling of the fire in the house behind me. Every twenty minutes or so I’d go back inside to add a split log to the flames to keep the temperature of the stove-top up. There were only two pots and one pan in the crate under the stairs, and the pots were small. I’d filled both with clear water from the river and each had a slow boil going in it. I was going to have to cook the vermicelli in both, then dump the water to heat the sauce, hoping that and the sausages from the pan would be hot enough to reheat the cooled pasta, though I wasn’t too worried about anything cooling off in that cabin; it was hot as a sauna. My shirt was sticking to my skin and the sweat was beginning to burn my eyes. I poked the fire with a stick, shut the oven door, then walked down the short trail to the Purisima, where I pulled off my top and bra, stepped out of my shorts and panties, and waded out in the cold water and dived in.
It was a shock but I felt instantly cleansed to the bone, and I let myself surface, turning on my back and kicking until I was away from the treetops and there was nothing but the gray western sky above me. I closed my eyes and drifted a minute, but the water was cold and I didn’t know how deep it was and for some reason I pictured the fish camp on fire, tall flames curling out the windows, black smoke snaking out the shingles of the roof. I swam back to the mossy bank and dried myself as well as I could with my underwear. I dressed without them and walked back to the camp, which wasn’t burning, and there was Lester lugging my suitcase into the clearing from the cars. In his other hand was a covered Styrofoam cup of coffee he tried to drink from as he went, his dark eyes on the ground in front of him. When he saw me he swallowed and lowered his cup. “Go for a swim?”
“You get lost?” I reached for my suitcase but he stepped away with it. “Your foot.”
“It’s fine.” I tried to take the suitcase again, but he wouldn’t let go and he walked ahead of me while I stood there watching him make his unsteady way up onto the porch. He dropped my suitcase against the wall and sat down. I stayed where I was. “You go drinking?”
Lester looked at me with his eyes narrowed a little, like he didn’t quite know how to take what I’d just said. But really, he seemed put out, as if I was interrupting an important train of thought. He flipped the plastic lid off his coffee cup and drank. I crossed my arms and stared at him, my wet underpants balled up in one hand. I was hurt he didn’t bring me a cup. I felt refreshed after my swim, and coffee would’ve been nice right then, before I cooked. I knew I could go inside and make some, though. And I couldn’t stand myself looking at him this way, my arms crossed, my head cocked. Why didn’t I just start tapping one foot?
I sat on the top step of the porch, my back against the post. Lester had both elbows on his knees, holding the coffee cup between his hands, and he gave me a weak smile, then looked over the railing into the woods. His uniform shirt was wrinkled and sweat-stained in the back, and his pant cuffs were riding high on his calves, his black socks fallen to his black shoes, his shins skinny and hairy. A rush of air seemed to go through me.
“You don’t have good news for me, do you?” I felt selfish asking this, and I wished I could take back the question. Lester studied me for a long minute, then shook his head.
“I don’t have good news for anybody, Kathy.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I’m just a Bad News Bear, Kathy.” He raised his eyebrows at me like it was my cue to laugh.
“Did you get loaded before the calls? Or after?”
Les stared at his small woodpile. “After. But I didn’t get loaded. I started to, but then Doug steered me away from it.” He looked over at me. “You’re so beautiful with your hair wet like that.”
I was thinking of Doug and the twelve-step, Higher Power bumper sticker on his truck, of letting go and letting God. “They can’t do anything to Bahroony, can they?”
Les shook his head and I felt my chest sort of disappear.
“I called three lawyers. Two of them said if he bought it legally he can do whatever he wants. They say your case is with the county, Kathy.”
“But the county said they’d sell it backto him. And I don’t wantthem to buy me another house. Can’t we makehim give it back?!” I jumped up and walked out into the clearing. “That fucking prick’s trying to sell my house, Les!I saw him showing it to people this afternoon.”
“Today?”
“To a family.That fucker just wants the cash. He probably does this all the time, makes money off people’s problems! What did the third lawyer say then?”
“That was my lawyer.”
“Well? Did he say something different?”
“I didn’t call him about that, Kathy.”
“Oh.” My cheeks got warm and I felt like I’d just walked into a stranger’s living room, plopped down on their couch, and started watching their TV. I’d been thinking Les came back from his phone calls all down mainly because of mybad news; now I was ashamed of myself and I didn’t know what to say. I needed a cigarette. I went inside the hot cabin and lit one on an ember from the woodstove. I stuck another split log inside, then went back out on the porch and sat on the stoop smoking. Les stood and tossed the last of his coffee over the railing. He leaned against it with his hands, and we were both quiet. Far off in the woods a dog barked.