Caribou Island (7 page)

Irene and Gary loaded sheets of treated plywood into the boat. First time she’d been outside since the storm, except going to the doctor’s office. Overcast today, cold with a bit of wind.

You’re the storm bringer, Gary said. Darkest day we’ve had in the last week. It’s been calm and sunny.

If I were bringing the storms, they’d be a lot worse, Irene said. All of Soldotna wiped off the map.

Yikes, Gary said as he grabbed the bucket of tools and some nails. Save that for the hammer. We need to put all these sheets down today. He was in a good mood, Irene could tell. He had won. She was coming out to help on his idiot project.

They swung the bow plate up, latched it, and were off. Irene bundled in a coat and hat, ducking her head into her collar, turned away from the wind. The wind and cold making her headache worse. She blew her nose, the end of it sore and raw. The antibiotics and decongestant didn’t seem to be doing anything. But she was fine, according to the doctor and everyone else. Nothing wrong at all. Just a little cold. She popped two Tramadols when Gary wasn’t looking.

They landed almost on the shore, the boat light enough to get in close, grabbed the big sheets of ply and carried them through all the growth. Wind catching the sheets if they went broadside, Irene trying not to fall. Mosquitoes biting her neck and face, her hands not free. She would have expressed a little frustration, but what was the point? She’d only get a lecture from Gary. The tough get going lecture, or the I need help lecture, or, worse, the big lie about this cabin being for both of us lecture. After a while, the cabin might turn into her idea entirely.

Gary had built the frame of a floor. Slim posts pounded into the earth, joists linking, everything braced. Not entirely level or even, but it looked more stable than she had expected.

This looks pretty good, she said. You’ve been working.

Thanks. I realized the dirt floor wasn’t going to cut it. And I was careful to square the corners, so the ply should fit, hopefully.

How do the walls attach?

I don’t think they do. Just attached to each other at the corners, and we’ll try to make it a snug fit.

Okay, she said.

So they flopped the sheets of ply onto the platform, lined up edges carefully, and nailed into joists. Irene could feel each hammer hit, even with fresh Tramadols. She couldn’t breathe, and she was getting tears in her eyes from the pain, but she wiped them away and didn’t say anything.

The wind increased, of course, just to say hello and acknowledge her presence. The sun disappeared through thicker cloud cover. But it didn’t rain.

Only six sheets of ply, a small platform, twelve feet by sixteen feet, so the nailing didn’t take long. They stood back to take a look.

It’s really small, Irene said.

Yeah, he said. Nothing wasteful. Just a cabin. Only what we need.

I think we need more. If you want me to live out here, actually live out here, we need space for a bed, a kitchen, a bathroom, and maybe just a little bit of space to walk around. Somewhere to sit.

Sixteen by twelve is actually pretty big, Gary said. I think it’s fine as is.

Where does the bathroom go?

We’ll use an outhouse.

An outhouse?

They stood there in silence for a while.

What about a fireplace? Irene finally asked. Will there be a fireplace?

That’s tough, Gary said. Maybe one of those freestanding ones. We could add that.

Irene could see, in one terrible moment, that they really would live out here. The cabin would not go together right. It would not have what they needed. But they would live in it anyway. She could see that with absolute clarity. And though she wanted to tell Gary to live out here on his own, she knew she couldn’t do that, because it was the excuse he was looking for. He’d leave her forever, and it was not okay for her to be left again. That would not happen again in her life.

What about water? she asked.

I’ll rig a pump from the lake.

Will we have electricity?

It’ll be a hand pump, he said. I’ll have to track one down.

I meant for lights.

We’ll use lanterns.

And the stove?

Propane. I’ll get a little two- or three-burner.

And the roof?

Not sure about the roof yet. Geez, Irene. I’ve only just started. The floor is working out, isn’t it? All the rest will follow. He put his arm around her for a moment, pulled her in closer, a couple tugs of reassurance.

Okay, she said. I think I need to go back. My head really hurts. I need to lie down.

We’ll have you back in a jiffy, he said. And then he was prancing around helping her into the boat, gathering the tools, etc. The optimistic time that always came before his failures. And these were the worst for Irene. All the failed business ventures, the boats he had built that had gone over budget and then not sold or not sold well. They had all begun like this, full of hope. And he was smart, well-educated. He should have known better. He should have done better. Their lives should have been better than this.

Gary had seemed so promising. A doctoral student, bright enough to get into Berkeley. He had long hair then, blond and curly. She could pull down on a curl and it would spring back into place. They played guitars, sitting cross-legged, staring into each other’s eyes, singing “Brown-Eyed Girl” or “Suzanne.” She felt tied to him, felt wanted, felt like she belonged. Gary had a lopsided, goofy smile, and he was always talking about his feelings, and her feelings. So easily reachable, and he promised her he would always be this way.

Alaska was just an idea. A year off from school, a little break so he could get some distance on his dissertation, some needed perspective. They would go to the frontier, soak up the wilderness. She hadn’t quite believed they would really go. But Gary was running away. That’s what she hadn’t understood. He never had any intention of returning to California.

Gary had summer funding, to work on his dissertation, and they burned through it quickly as they traveled through southeast Alaska, Ketchikan and Juneau, all the smaller towns, Wrangell, St. Petersburg. Looking for the idea of Alaska.

For Gary, this idea was Scandinavian, connecting to his studies, to
Beowulf
and “The Seafarer,” a warrior society crossing the whale road into fjords in a new land, founding small inbred fishing villages. Small clusters of steep-roofed wooden houses right on the water that have no name outside themselves. These villages tucked into narrow bays in southeast Alaska between mountains that rose up three and four thousand feet almost right from the water’s edge. From a passing ferry, they seemed uninhabited, ghost towns, relics of mining days and frontier trade or even something older. What Gary wanted was the imagined village, the return to an idyllic time when he could have a role, a set task, as blacksmith or baker or singer of a people’s stories. That’s who he really wanted to be, the “shaper,” the singer of a people’s history, a place’s history, which would be one and the same. What Irene wanted was only to never be alone again, passed around, unwanted.

Gary spent his last money getting to these places, paying for rides on private boats. So excited each time they set out, and Irene was caught up in this excitement, but each new village was a disappointment. One house would have a gas pump down on a pier, and maybe a faded 76 sign in one of the windows. Another would be an engine repair place. Summer cabins and obvious hippie plantations, with stray animals and spare parts hanging around the yard and a sense that underneath one of the moldy mattresses inside, there must be some very large wads of marijuana money. Gary and Irene hippies themselves, minus the drugs, but they were looking for something more, something authentic. Gary wanted to walk into a village and hear an ancient tongue.

One larger group of houses they visited had a barber, who actually had a barber pole. It was holding up one corner of his porch. Gary liked that. It didn’t go back a thousand years, but it gave him a sense he might be able to get a bath for five cents, ten cents for clean water. It went back, at least, to mining days, maybe. But all in all, the whole thing was a bitter disappointment to him. The real Alaska didn’t seem to exist. No one seemed to have any interest in the kind of honest and difficult frontier life he would have liked to muse on, and none of these places was consistently Scandinavian. None of them evoked the village.

So they burned through all their money by the time they reached the Kenai Peninsula, and Irene had to get a job. In her field, teaching preschool, she could always get a job, and she liked her work. It was supposed to be temporary, but Gary had no intention of ever going back. He wasn’t going to finish his dissertation. He wasn’t going to make it in his field, and this search for Alaska had all been an expression of despair, the village a sign only that Gary hadn’t found a way to fit into his real life.

If Irene had understood any of this in time, she might have left Gary, back when that would have been possible. But it would take her decades to figure out the truth, not only because of the distractions of work and children but also because Gary was such a good liar, always so excited about the next opportunity. This cabin another lie, another attempt at purity, at finding the imagined life he needed because he had run away from who he was.

And now he was running from her, too, but she didn’t quite understand why. She could feel it, and anyone else would have called her paranoid, but she knew it was true. As simple as a shift in focus, letting her become slowly invisible. No other woman yet, but there would be. Gary was hitting the limits of how well this life could shield him from his despair, and after he failed at this cabin, a thirty-year dream, he’d have to move on to a more powerful distraction.

As Irene huddled in the bow watching the shoreline approach, she felt her life and Gary’s life as suffocation. An awful weight and shortness of breath and panic, and she knew this wasn’t just the Tramadol.

Rhoda faced a surly gray Persian named Smokey. Time for your pill, she told him, and he wanted to fight when she grabbed his head, but she was fast and knew how to lock his jaw open. It was over before he could blink. Now we can be friends again, she said.

Jim was not so easy. She dialed him again quick on her cell phone and hit voice mail, snapped the phone shut. Hm, she said.

Jim was in Juneau meeting with his potential new partner for the practice, a dentist named Jacobsen. That was all she knew, which was unusual. Jim tended to ramble on about details, but there were no details here, not even a phone call. Gone all yesterday, no call in the evening, gone today. He’d probably had dinner with Jacobsen, and maybe even stayed over at his house, with his family, though of course she knew nothing about Jacobsen and didn’t know whether he had a family.

After work, she drove over to Jim’s office and was surprised to see his Suburban in the lot. She knocked on the office door, and a few moments later, he opened it, looking tired.

Hey, he said. He was wearing the same clothes from yesterday, rumpled and a faint smell of sweat.

What happened to you? she asked. No phone call? And she gave him a big hug, happy to see him returned.

Hey, thanks, he said. But yeah, I lost my cell phone. Maybe it fell out of my pocket on the plane. Not sure. But anyway, it’s good to see you again.

Well yeah. I was worried. You dropped off the edge of the earth.

Sorry.

You can make it up to me.

Whoa, he said. I’m really tired. Couldn’t sleep last night.

Poor Jim, she said. Let’s go home. I’ll make you dinner.

I have to catch up on things here. Go for a couple days and everything falls apart.

I’ll help, she said, so they sat down together and went through all the reschedulings, messages, vendor orders, questions on accounts. All on yellow Post-it notes scattered by his secretary.

She sucks, Rhoda said. This is not a system.

Down, tiger, Jim said.

When they finished, finally, and arrived home, Rhoda made a nice dinner, ling cod wrapped in bacon, a big salad with avocados and tomatoes that were riper than usual. A pleasure to cook, to cook for Jim, here in their home. She took pauses to look up at the vaulted ceiling, all the wood. Had a glass of wine. Felt a little dreamy.

It’s ready, she called when she had the plates on the table, but there was no answer, so she went back to the bedroom and found him already asleep. Poor Jim, she said, and turned out the light.

Monique walked from her hotel to the Coffee Bus in the rain. Late morning, the day after returning with Jim, and she couldn’t stand any more time on her own. She needed a bit of human company.

The walk was not short, and the rain was not warm. She had a rain jacket with a hood, but her legs, in jeans, were getting cold and wet. The end of summer here felt a lot like winter. No complaining, she told herself. You’re the one who wanted to come. Alaska had seemed like an adventure, but really it felt pretty tame. You see a moose a few times and they start to look normal, like cows. The glacier had been cool, though.

She walked past a long strip mall, all single story, then an abandoned lot with an old car and other debris at the edge of a forest. Hicklandia, she said aloud. The ground decorated with bits of rust.

The Coffee Bus sat on an empty corner, a large gravel lot. An old white bus, perhaps a mini schoolbus painted over, and an awning coming out the side, steps leading up to a window. No drive-thru.

Hey Mark, she said once she was under the awning.

Dude, he said. Carl is like beside himself in grief. It’s kind of funny you just left him at that campground.

Shouldn’t you be out fishing?

Owner decided to take a break for a day or two. Wanted me to polish up the boat in the meantime and be her lackey, but that’s not me.

Hey Monique, Karen said.

Monique said hey back.

Come inside and have a coffee.

Monique went around to the back door, climbed in, and sat on a stool. The inside of the bus smelled like a roaster, the air thick and rich.

So where have you been? Karen asked.

Monique told them about Seward, minus Jim, and said she crashed with people she met. She asked about Carl, who was pining away for her, apparently. She hoped they’d offer her a ride out to the campground, but they offered Rhoda.

She comes by just after noon, Mark said. Like clockwork. She’ll give you a lift.

Okay, Monique said, and it wasn’t long before Rhoda appeared and agreed. It was a long way out to the campsite, but Rhoda didn’t seem bothered. I’d be happy to, she said, with a faint nod downward, oddly formal, a motion that could have accompanied a curtsey.

Thank you, Monique said, and walked out to Rhoda’s car, something less than a royal carriage. A Datsun, a brand that didn’t even exist anymore. Definitely in the pumpkin realm.

To my rescue, Monique said.

No problem, Rhoda said. Tell me about your travels. Have you been here all summer?

We’ve been everywhere. Up on the ferry, on to Denali and Fairbanks, finishing here on the peninsula. Carl is on a quest to become a man. A big fish will do that for him, apparently.

Rhoda laughed. Why can’t they just
be
men? Why do they have to become men?

Exactly.

I’ve got an unhatched one myself. A dentist named Jim.

I’ve met him, Monique said. The Coffee Bus. Mark introduced us.

Did it seem like he didn’t say hello?

It was kind of quiet.

He does that. People think he’s not saying hello, but he is.

He seemed all right, Monique said. She was looking at Rhoda, thinking Rhoda was very attractive in her way. And she wanted almost to tell Rhoda the truth, right then, right from the start, to save her from Jim, but that seemed pointless. Rhoda and Jim would carry on in their small lives no matter what Monique did. You grew up here? she asked Rhoda.

Yep. On Skilak Lake. A great place to grow up. Always free to roam around.

Any run-ins with bears?

A few times.

Can you tell me? I like stories about bears.

Well there’s one you’re not going to believe.

Yay! Monique said. A good one. I can tell it’s going to be a good one. And she turned sideways in her seat to give Rhoda her full attention.

I’m four years old, Rhoda said. One of my earliest memories. I’m wearing my red jacket, with the hood.

Little Red Riding Hood.

Exactly. I loved that jacket.

This is perfect.

I’m on the first hill behind the house, looking for blueberries. It’s August, still summer, but already turning cold. Later that week, we got snow, which almost never happens in August.

Wow, Monique said.

And maybe the bears are more desperate because of the early cold. I don’t know. But I’m looking down at a blueberry bush and I feel like someone is watching me. I just look up for some reason, and about twenty feet away from me is an enormous bear.

Oh my god.

Yeah, a really big brown bear. Not a black bear, which would maybe be okay. And you never see a bear this close. They don’t come up to you like this. They go the other way. You startle them, and they run off. But this one was so close, it must have smelled me or heard me and come closer.

What did you do?

That’s the thing. I didn’t do anything. I just stood there and watched it, and it watched me. It was beautiful and seemed friendly, like a big dog. I said hi, and its head swayed back and forth a little, then it turned and ran.

You said hi.

Yeah, I said hi, and now I work for a vet. I’ve always had this good feeling about animals, that they don’t ever really want to hurt us. We just get in their way sometimes.

You win for best bear story.

They arrived at the campground, and Monique directed Rhoda to the tent. They parked very close, and Carl poked his head out.

Hey, Monique said.

What the fuck, Carl said.

Don’t be mad.

It’s raining and miserable, Rhoda said. Why don’t you both come to our place. You can dry out for the day, have dinner, spend the night. I’ll bring you back here tomorrow at lunch.

Monique laughed. Jim would freak. That sounds great, she said. What do you say, Carl? Mope here by yourself or rejoin human society?

I’m coming, Carl said. I hate this tent.