Cool Water (16 page)

And now here the name was, all these years later, having slipped from its hiding place in Hank's pocket just as she had imagined it would.
Joni.
Lynn stares at the paper and feels the familiar old fear. Then she tells herself to smarten up, be realistic. Hank is no handsome young catch. He's a man old enough to have two kids grown and gone, and grey hair—what's left of it—and a bum hip. This is obviously the handwriting of a young woman, and what would a young woman be doing with Hank? She lets go of the counter and stands up straight. She folds the paper carefully, puts it in her apron pocket and picks up three plates of key lime pie.

“Coming through,” she says, and pushes the kitchen doors open with her shoulder and an expert swing of her body. She slaps one of the plates down in front of Willard Shoenfeld, who is sitting with Hank, and the other two she hands to a couple of her regular truckers.

“On the house,” she says. “I'm considering adding it to the menu. Let me know what you think.”

She watches Willard, who looks like he's in heaven as he savours each bite.

“Not too bad, eh,” Hank says.

“What do you call this?” Willard asks.

“Key lime pie,” Lynn says. “After limes that grow in Florida. Keys are islands, like the Florida Keys.”

“Pretty swanky,” Willard says.

“I suppose,” Lynn says. “For this place anyway.”

As she stands there, her mind keeps wandering to the paper in her pocket, and the added fact that Hank had not come home with a trailer. Maybe he had never gone to look at one, the trailer was just a story. She forces herself to think about something else. Willard Shoenfeld. What kind of life do he and his sister-in-law have out there at the drive-in anyway? Such a strange arrangement. Marian is a nice enough woman, although she's quiet, like Willard, and keeps to herself. People used to say she was a communist when she first moved here, but Lynn always thought that was just silly gossip because Ed was always talking about Russia. A woman communist would have to be
serious,
like that Emma Goldman, and a serious communist would not bother with a place like Juliet.

Willard finishes his pie and lays his fork down.

“Delicious,” he announces.

Lynn checks in with the truckers and they each give the pie two thumbs up.

“All right, then,” she says. “Starting tomorrow, it's on the menu and you'll have to pay for it.”

As she returns to the kitchen, Lynn is reminded that sometimes younger women are attracted to older men. She had worked with a girl named Lois when she was just out of high school. Lois always went for men old enough to be her father. One night Lois talked Lynn into going to a party with her in a neighbouring town, and everyone there was twice her age. The experience had given her some insight about Lois; she, being the youngest and prettiest at the party, had been the star as far as the men were concerned. She was rewriting high school, Lynn thought, with herself as the femme fatale. Lois eventually married one of her older men, an oil tycoon of some kind, and he died not long after and left her a lot of money. His family, especially his ex-wife, was furious.

When Lynn passes through the swinging door she sees that Haley is in the kitchen, fingering her belly ring and staring at the dirty coffee cups on the counter.

“They're not going to wash themselves,” Lynn says.

“I guess not,” Haley says. Still, she doesn't make a move to begin the ritual of rinsing and washing that Lynn is very strict about.

“Chop, chop,” Lynn says, clapping her hands together, and Haley finally steps up to the sink and dons a pair of purple rubber gloves.

“God, these things are hideous,” she says, looking at her gloved hands.

“Well,
Vogue
magazine isn't going to come through the door and snap any pictures, if that's what you're worried about.”

The pies are cooled enough now to go into the fridge and Lynn gets out the plastic wrap. She says to Haley, “So what do you think of older men anyway?”

“Huh?” asks Haley.

“Older men. You know, Hank's age. Would you ever date a man that age?”

Haley turns to Lynn with a look of horror on her face. “As old as Hank?” she croaks.

“Oh, never mind,” Lynn says. “Just get those dishes done before the coffee rush.”

She wraps the pies and puts them in the cooler, tells Haley to speed things up and goes back into the restaurant, where she stands with her hands on her hips, staring at Hank and Willard. Then she says, “Excuse me.”

Hank thinks this is a little odd—the way she said
excuse
me
for no reason that he can see. “I guess so,” he says. He watches Lynn leave the restaurant and go to the little vestibule that separates it from the Petro-Can station and the convenience store. It looks as though she's heading for the pay phone but he can't really see, and he soon goes back to his conversation with Willard about how the Internet is a mixed blessing, which is way over Willard's head since he's never been on the Internet in his life and doesn't plan to be.

Lynn rummages in her apron pocket for a quarter and the paper with the phone number on it. She turns her back to the glass door leading into the restaurant so no one can see her dial the number. She's not even sure why she's doing this. When a female voice says hello, she immediately hangs up. She stays by the phone for a minute, thinking, and then goes back into the restaurant.

Hank looks at her as she passes his table, but she ignores him and gives one of the swinging doors a good hard kick. It flies open and she steps through, and he hears her raise her voice with Haley, something about the dishes.

Hank has been planning to follow her into the kitchen to see if he can talk her into one more slice of pie before he goes to work, but he changes his mind. The phone by the till rings. Once, twice, Lynn's angry voice again, and Haley comes hurrying through the door to answer it, shedding the purple gloves to pick up the receiver. It's apparently for her because she says, “I can't talk now.” She fiddles with her belly button ring as she listens to whoever is on the phone.

Lynn sticks her head through the door and sees Haley on the phone and says, “That had better not be a personal call.”

“I have to go,” Haley says, and hangs up. The kitchen door swings shut and immediately the phone rings again. Haley looks as if she's afraid to answer it and lets it ring, but then Lynn's voice comes from the kitchen, “Someone
please
answer the phone.”

Haley picks up the receiver and listens, and then says, “Okay, I'll tell him,” and hangs up once again. “Vicki Dolson,” she says to Hank. “Your calves are out. They're along the railway tracks north of town.”

“Damn it anyway,” Hank says. He turns to Willard. “The damned kids keep leaving the gate open. There's a good fence in that pasture. I just checked it.”

“Don't tell me about the damned kids,” Willard says.

“I guess I know what I'm doing this morning,” Hank says. He sticks his head in the kitchen door to tell Lynn where he's going, but then he has to get out of the way because she's coming back through with a fresh pot of coffee. He can see she doesn't want to stop and talk, so he leaves without saying anything more. She'll know he's gone to work.

Just as Hank's leaving the restaurant, Dale Patterson pulls in off the highway and gets out of his truck. Hank sees that Dale has one arm in a sling and wonders what he did to it.

“Good luck in there,” Hank says as they meet in the parking lot. “The wife's on a bit of a tear.”

Lynn detests Dale Patterson. If her restaurant weren't considered a public place she'd bar him from ever crossing its threshold. “Karla Norman needs a good slap” is what Lynn said to Hank about her engagement to Dale, or rather engagement
s
. Hank understands Lynn's point of view—if he were a woman he'd steer clear of Dale Patterson too—but there's been more than one time that Dale's had Hank busting a gut. True, the laugh is usually at the expense of someone else, like the banker, Norval Birch—Dale calls him Birchbark, which always cracks Hank up—but Hank figures if the butt of the joke isn't present, no harm done.

Dale takes his cell phone out of his back pocket and struggles to punch in a number with his good hand.

“What happened to you anyway?” Hank asks.

“Nothing happened to me, for about the twentieth time this morning,” Dale says.

“I guess that sling's a decoration, then,” Hank says.

Dale gives him a look to kill.

Hank decides to beat it, leave Dale and Lynn to each other and good luck to the both of them. The yellow flyers that were dumped from the bus are still blowing around in the hot breeze. Hank notices that several of them have plastered themselves against the wire fence that surrounds the parking lot, making it look like a fairground after the carnival has packed up and gone.

“I've got calves to gather,” Hank says, starting toward his truck. “No sense asking you for help with that gimpy arm, whatever you did to it.”

“Why is everybody so interested in my damned arm?” Dale says. “It's none of your business.”

Hank shakes his head and gets in the truck and slams the door. The coffee that he'd spilled on the floor the night before is not smelling so good and he rolls down the window before he turns the key.

“Have a good day there, Dale,” he calls through the open window, taking the opportunity to grab the last word as Dale puts his phone to his ear.

Hank remembers that he was planning to drop something off for Lee Torgeson, some of Lynn's baking. He knows Lynn would send muffins or a pie—maybe even one of the key lime pies—but he decides to leave that for another day. Best to wait, he thinks—after years of experience—for whatever has put her in such a temper to pass. As it always does.

The Manager

On Norval's desk at the bank, between two decorative horse-head bookends purchased by Lila, are a half-dozen historical texts on the area in which Juliet is situated. When Norval first moved to Juliet to assume the role of bank manager, he read these books in an effort to understand his new mercantile parish. He read, for example, that in the nineteenth century, before the area was opened up for settlement, it was declared to be unsuitable for crops by a geographical adviser to the British Parliament. The man's advice was not heeded, and sometimes when Norval looks out his office window and the air is the colour of sand, he thinks perhaps it should have been. On such days—and today is one of them—he wonders how he ended up here, and if what had been described as a promotion had actually been a punishment for some corporate mistake he was not aware he'd committed. With the oppressive heat building already, Norval is thankful for the air conditioner installed in the window behind him even though it's noisy.

He checks his calendar and sees that his only official appointment is the late-afternoon teacher interview at the school, and his morning is free and clear for dealing with the farm loan payments coming due. He turns on his computer and generates his client list, and at the top of that list is Blaine Dolson's name.

In spite of all the ads on TV that tell you a financial institution holds your ticket to a prosperous future, Norval cannot think of any way for his bank to help Blaine Dolson get back on his feet, let alone prosper. Blaine's just got in too deep. He's working on the highway crew to make ends meet, and still there's barely enough money coming in to pay the interest on his remaining loans. What will happen when the new highway's done? Blaine has half a dozen kids. Norval recently saw a documentary on American TV about families living in their cars. How can that be happening in one of the most affluent countries in the world? And how will Norval live with himself if it comes to that for the Dolsons, when the same institution that pulled the rug out from under Blaine is going to provide Norval with a comfortable, if not extravagant, retirement?

Then Norval feels a little flash of anger on his own behalf as he thinks about how
hard
this job is, and how he agonizes over clients like the Dolsons and is not just sitting in here playing solitaire. He spends a good portion of every day worrying about families who have fallen on hard times, and what will happen to them, and what will happen to the whole town if the farm economy plummets again, or tanks completely. He cares about these things. If it were up to him, he would bail Blaine Dolson out in a minute, open up the safe and hand over a bag full of money, but that's not the way it works. Well, there is one thing he can do. It's not much, but he decides to ignore Blaine's name and take it off his priority list, for a few days at least.

He turns his attention to the Pattersons. They are not in a dire state, but there's a quarterly payment due and he hasn't heard from them. The senior Patterson, Andy, is a reasonable man to deal with, but the son is an unpredictable hothead. Norval is not sure what will happen when Andy decides to retire and let Dale take over. Norval just hopes that Andy keeps himself in the picture for a while. At least he's willing to listen when Norval presents the bank's perspective on his options.

He clicks to open the file, and picks up the phone and punches in Andy's phone number. No one answers, but after three rings a man's voice—it sounds like Dale—asks the caller to leave a message, and so Norval does.
Just wondering
if Andy is available to come in to the bank as soon as possible;
hope things are well with yourself and the wife, hope to hear
from you soon.
A pleasant-sounding goodbye, and Norval hangs up. Then he double-checks the phone numbers and realizes that he's accidentally called Dale's cell phone. He calls again, Andy's number this time, and leaves the same message.

At this point, Marsha—Norval's jack-of-all-trades bank employee—brings him a dozen letters to sign, and he gets himself a cup of instant coffee before settling back behind his desk to check them over. He sets his mug down next to a framed photograph of Rachelle in her graduation cap and gown, which he'd installed to remind himself that she'd at least completed her grade twelve before she carelessly tossed away her future. In the photograph she looks poised and mature, ready for a career as a teacher or a journalist or an engineer, anything was possible just a few months ago. He sighs audibly, then turns to the letters.