Juliet in August (29 page)

“Is that your new lawn mower out there?” Joe asks. His deep voice booms down the stairwell.

Norval nods and manages to say that he just picked it up at the hardware store.

“We could use a new one here at the church,” Joe says.

Norval lifts his foot and rubs his ankle, floating on one leg now, and says that Joe can have his old one if he wants to fix it up, and if it's better than the old one he already has. They talk about lawn mowers—gas versus electric, whether a riding mower is really necessary for anyone with a small property—while Joe stands at the top of the stairs and Norval floats around at the bottom, like a man in a life raft.

Finally Joe says, “I guess there's no point me standing here, is there?” and he descends, and then launches into an explanation of why he is so late. He did get Norval's message, he says, but then his sister phoned and she had a leaky water pipe and it was spraying all over the laundry room and she didn't know how to shut the water off, so Joe had to rush over and do an emergency repair, and then he had to help clean up the water before it ran all over the basement and ruined the carpet. Why his sister didn't just call a plumber, he doesn't know. “But I guess,” Joe says, “if there's a handyman in the family, you're going to call him first.” And then he says, “What the heck did you do to your pants?” He's looking at the paint spot.

“Painting accident,” Norval says. Nothing more. He doesn't want to explain about the Dolsons and the mess. “What time is it?” he asks. He could look at his own watch but it seems like too much trouble.

Joe tells him it's after seven.

After seven. That means he's been sitting on the bottom step for over an hour.

“Is everything all right, Norval?” Joe asks. “You don't seem quite yourself.”

Norval pauses and thinks about whether or not he is all right, whether a person who is all right hovers in a church basement, whether a person who is all right would think, in the presence of a man with a gun,
Give me whatever I deserve
. Surely he was wrong when he concluded he deserved nothing. He begins to write a manifesto in his head, to list what he deserves other than nothing:
I, Norval Birch, deserve a chance to . . .
But before he articulates even one opportunity, he feels his feet hit the floor.
Thud,
he can almost feel the jarring in his ankles, right on up to his knees, and with his feet on the ground it seems so obvious that even if he does deserve more than nothing, he certainly doesn't deserve more than what he already has. The shiny new lawn mower outside is evidence of the adequacy of his life.

He looks at Joe, waiting patiently with a somewhat worried look on his face, and he segues from his state of mind into the real reason he is here. “I'm fine,” he says. “It's just a bit awkward. The wife . . .” And then he clears his throat and stands firmly on both feet and takes Lila's list out of his pocket and explains to Joe, calmly but firmly, that the church is in need of cosmetic repair.

Joe looks at him as he speaks, listening, nodding agreement. He concurs that the lighting is a problem, as is the waxy buildup on the pews. Norval is careful to say
Not your fault, Joe,
several times throughout his discourse, and Joe nods
No offense taken,
and he even agrees that a more modern look would improve the reception hall. They talk about paint colors—cranberry and taupe and olive green—and Joe says that green would be very nice on the walls as long as they keep the ceiling white so it's not too dark, and white trim—smart, yes. They run through all the items on Lila's list, giving them the same serious consideration, and when they come to the end, Norval folds the list in half and says, “Well, then.”

Joe, still nodding, says that there is a meeting of the maintenance committee next week and he'll put this to them and he's sure they'll welcome suggestions. “Although,” he says, “the stained-glass windows upstairs are in pretty bad shape. Something needs to be done there before it's too late.”

Norval says he realizes the windows have to be a priority; they don't want the windows falling into such disrepair that they can't be fixed. Still, he uses Lila's argument when he says, “These other things are important, too, if we want to keep weddings in the community.”

“You're right,” Joe says, nodding until Norval wonders if his head might bob off. “No argument from me,” Joe says, “that the place needs sprucing up.”

No argument, so much accord, but Norval knows—as he did before he phoned Joe earlier—that not one of Lila's demands will be met in time for Rachelle's wedding.

“I'd best get home,” he says. “I'll be in the doghouse if Lila's supper gets cold.”

Joe apologizes again for being late and tells Norval he can blame the cold supper on him.

Norval ascends from the basement and steps out into the sunlight, not at all worried that Blaine Dolson will be waiting. He knows he won't be. He sees his sports jacket hanging on the lawn mower and sticks Lila's list in a pocket, then wheels his new mower up the sidewalk toward home. In the kitchen, he drapes his sports jacket over the back of a chair and then manages to get upstairs to change clothes before Lila notices the paint stains. He places his phone on his bedside table before tossing his pants and shirt in the back of his closet, thinking he might even throw them out rather than explain.

When he gets to the kitchen his supper is indeed cold, but he's saved from Lila's reproach when he says he was talking to Joe at the church.

“Well, you could have let me know,” she says, carrying his plate to the microwave just as the phone rings.

Norval is going to ignore it, but Lila says, “It might be Rachelle,” which he takes to mean that Rachelle is off again, who knows where. He picks up the receiver and it's Mrs. Baxter, who has already heard a rumor that her rival candidate didn't show up for her interview. This should make Norval crazy—the way news travels, that nothing in this town remains confidential—but it doesn't. He calmly tells Mrs. Baxter that, yes, she is now officially in the running for the job, while he silently gives thanks that Rachelle will
not
be in Mrs. Baxter's class next year. He apologizes that he has to cut the call short, but his wife has supper on the table, and of course Mrs. Baxter understands the urgency of a hot meal.

Norval returns the phone to its cradle, then sits at the table to enjoy his warmed-up, heart-smart stir-fry. He picks up the chopsticks that Lila insists they use with Asian food and examines them for crusted bits of the last meal they were used for. This infuriates Lila because her kitchen is nothing if it isn't clean. She sits across from him, wanting to know what Norval said and what Joe said, and what exactly did Joe promise?

“He promised,” Norval said, “to speak with the maintenance committee. He's the janitor, Lila. It's not up to him.”

“Oh, for heaven's sake, of course it is,” Lila says. “You're just not assertive enough.”

“You know, Lila,” Norval says, “I was almost shot today.” He aims for his mouth with the green beans and lean beef strips that are pinched precariously between his chopsticks, then lifts his plate to shorten the distance that he has to transport his food.

Lila stares at him. “You were almost shot today?” she says, alarm in her voice.

Norval concentrates on holding the chopsticks the way Lila showed him. If Lila weren't here, he'd give up and get proper cutlery out of the drawer.

“Eating with chopsticks requires my undivided attention, Lila,” he says.

“A robbery?” Lila asks. “Did someone try to rob the bank?”

“Not a robbery,” Norval says. “At least not one where I was the victim.”

Lila prods him for information, but he says no more and eats until his plate is clean save for a few grains of rice that he can't manage to pick up. Then he pushes his chair away from the table. “That was good,” he says. “Hit the spot.”

Norval goes to the living room, where he turns on the television and sits on the couch. He tries to find a news channel, but when he does he can't make sense of all the information that it throws at him: sports scores down the side, headlines scrolling across the bottom, someone talking at him, elaborating on a topic that is not related to any of the headlines on the screen. He starts to feel again as though he's floating.

Lila appears in the arched doorway, silent now, seething. “Norval,” she asks, “what in the world happened today? You can't just say ‘I was almost shot' and then sit there watching the news. What kind of a man does that to his wife?”

“What kind of man?” Norval says. “Very good question. A lucky man, I suppose, when he can use the word
almost
.”

He switches to the weather channel and watches the forecast for the Caribbean. The weather is not especially good in the Caribbean. Cuba is experiencing unusually high winds and below-normal temperatures. There's a short video clip of a honeymoon couple from Canada confirming the poor state of the weather. “It's sure not beach weather,” the young woman says.

At that moment Rachelle storms through the front door.

“The wedding is off,” she says when she sees Lila, and Norval on the couch.

“What do you mean, the wedding is off?” Lila asks.

“Just what I said.”

“The wedding can't be off.”

“Why not?” Rachelle asks.

“Because you're still pregnant, for one thing,” Lila says.

“I am sick to death of hearing about that,” Rachelle says, and goes to her room.

Norval and Lila hear the door slam.

“And what do
you
have to say, Norval?” Lila asks. “That is, if you will lower yourself to say anything much at all.”

Lower
, an interesting choice of word, he thinks, when he is floating again. “It's a relief,” he says.

“A relief. That's it.”

“Yes,” says Norval. “Exactly.”

“I don't deserve this,” says Lila.

And then Norval finds out that he, in fact,
does
deserve something after all. He grabs at his chest—
of course, why didn't I think of this?
—while Lila cries, “Norval, Norval, what's happening?”

HURRY, SUNDOWN

 

Rendezvous

When Lee passes through a gate on the western edge of Hank's home pasture, he sees right away that he was wrong the night before when he assumed Hank had moved his yearlings. Just inside the fence line there's a slough with a puddle of water in the bottom and the calves standing in mud around it. Lee remembers the open gate and hopes the calves didn't get out and cause Hank a bunch of trouble. He should have closed it and kicks himself for not doing so.

He rides the half mile through the pasture, the horse in no hurry now, and thinks about Shiloh and how he slid to the ground and headed up the road toward town. Shiloh had turned around and shouted back to Lee, “I might take you up on that offer of work, as long as my dad doesn't need me.” Funny kid.

Up ahead, Lee can see the buffalo rubbing stone. There appear to be two people at the stone, one of them sitting on it. He wonders if the high school kids are in the pasture again. He asks the horse to jog one last time, and as he approaches he sees that the person standing is George Varga, wearing a new straw cowboy hat. And sitting on the rock is Karla Norman, the hairdresser, Dale Patterson's fiancée or ex-fiancée, hard to know which, depends on the day of the week. Lee can see one of TNT's famous cars—the black Trans Am—catching the sun like a show car, parked on the approach next to George's truck. George has a thermos and appears to be drinking coffee from the metal top. Karla, more interestingly, has a six-pack of beer beside her on the rock. Once the six-pack registers, it's like a magnet.

Old George grins like mad as Lee rides up and stops.

“You look like you could use a cold one,” Karla says. “Well, almost cold.” She pulls a bottle out of the box and twists off the cap.

“You have no idea how good that looks,” Lee says. The mosquitoes are swarming now that the heat of the day is over. Karla has a can of insect repellent on the rock, but it's only the beer Lee cares about.

Karla moves to the edge of the stone and reaches to hand him the bottle. “Cheers,” she says.

Lee tips back the bottle and swallows, feels the moisture on his dry throat. Never has a beer tasted so good, even if it isn't cold.

He wonders what Karla and George are doing here together—an odd pair—and then he realizes they aren't together. George came to see if Lee would show up at the stone like Ivan Dodge did. Karla, apparently, is here to drink beer with the mosquitoes. Lee notices that the rock looks festive in the daylight with the colored handprints on it.

“So,” Karla says to Lee, “what have you been up to?” The sweaty horse stretches his nose toward her and she runs her hand down his face. He doesn't object.

“Just out for a ride,” Lee says.

He thinks,
I came across the road on this gray horse—what, sixteen, seventeen hours ago?—and just kept on going.
He can't say that.

George slaps his thigh. “‘Just out for a ride,' that's a good one. Some ride.”

Karla looks puzzled but she doesn't ask any more questions.

Lee drains the beer and hands the empty bottle back to her. Then he takes off George's old hat and holds it out to him. “Thanks for the loan,” he says. “Saved the day.”

George waves it away. “You keep it,” he says. “I've got this new one.”

Lee puts the hat back on and thinks he can feel sand embedded in his brow. “Best get on home, then,” he says.

“Not so fast,” says George. He pulls something out of his shirt pocket and Lee sees that it's a disposable camera, still in the foil packaging. George gets it unwrapped and then steps around so that he's not looking into the sun and snaps a couple of photos of Lee on the horse.

“You should get yourself one of those digital cameras, George,” Karla says. “You know, like a little computer.”

“Computers,” George says dismissively. “Don't know nothing about them.” Then he takes a crisp new fifty-dollar bill out of his wallet and hands it up to Lee.

“I can't take that,” Lee says.

“Why not? You earned it. Should probably be a couple of thousand by now, with inflation, but I'm not that generous.”

“No,” says Lee. “I can't.”

“Take it,” says George, and Lee finally does, not having the energy to argue.

“Well, I'm curious, that's for sure,” Karla says, popping the cap off another beer, “but none of my business.”

“Come on,” George says to Lee, putting the camera back in his pocket. “I'll get the gate.” He tips his hat to Karla and says, “Happy birthday there, Karla. Don't you drink too much and fall off that rock.”

“It's your birthday?” Lee asks Karla.

“Yeah, but it's not like anyone noticed. I've been stood up apparently. I should probably be thanking my stars for that.”

He sees now that she's too dressed up for sitting out in a pasture. She's wearing a lacy white shirt and a red beaded necklace. He wonders if it's Dale she was expecting or someone else. Now that he's actually looking at her, he realizes that she doesn't seem especially happy.

“Well, happy birthday anyway,” he says. “Maybe someone decorated that rock just for you.” As soon as the words are out, he regrets them. They sound so lame.

But Karla knows what he means and looks down at the graffiti prints. “Thanks for the thought,” she says, “but no one I know would bother.” Then she says, “Oh crap. Now I'm feeling sorry for myself. Time to go home when that happens. Leave the gate open, will you? I'm going right after I finish this one.”

Lee guides the horse toward the gate and George walks along beside him. When they're out of Karla's hearing, George shakes his head and says, “I don't understand these modern women. Out here by herself drinking beer. Should be home raising babies.”

It makes Lee thinks of Lester. He would have said pretty much the same thing.

They reach the gate and George opens it and stretches it out on the ground. Before he gets in his truck, he offers his hand for Lee to shake and says, “That's quite the horse, there. Not built for dragging calves, but built for distance, sure as heck. Wait until I tell Anna. I'll show her the picture, eh? Maybe put it in the book.”

After George is gone, Lee slips to the ground so he can walk the last quarter mile home and limber himself up. He can see the dust of a vehicle coming from the south, so he waits for it to pass, shaking out his legs and taking a few steps on the spot. As the truck approaches, he recognizes it as Dale Patterson's.

It doesn't pass. It slows and pulls onto the approach behind TNT's Trans Am and Dale gets out. He's got his arm in a sling.

“Torgeson,” Dale says, but he's got no time to talk as he steps over the wire gate on his way to the buffalo stone. “Can't keep the little woman waiting.”

So it's on again, Lee thinks. The mystery man is Dale. Too bad for Karla.

Dale suddenly stops and turns back to Lee and says, “That horse.”

“What about him?” Lee asks, thinking maybe Dale knows where the horse came from.

“If you wanted a horse,” Dale says, “you should have called me. I could have sold you a real one. What the hell good is an Arab horse in this country?”

He doesn't wait for Lee to respond and strides away through the pasture, cradling his bad arm with his good.

In fact, Lee has no response, other than he's not going to complain about an animal that just carried him for a hundred miles. As he leads the horse home, he thinks about Karla in her lacy shirt waiting for Dale, and about her crazy family, the Normans, all the stories, old TNT, and Karla's cousin who stabbed his mother. He wonders what someone like Karla thinks about
him
, the boy who was found in a laundry basket. Maybe nothing. But on the other hand, maybe she looks at him and sums up his life, as he did hers, by what she knows from talk. Not much chance that anyone will forget how he came to have the last name Torgeson.

He stops and loops the reins over the saddle horn and then walks the rest of the way home, letting the tired horse follow on his own.
Everybody knows everything in Juliet,
Lee thinks.

The Stars of Heaven

When Norval is stricken with chest pains, Lila is hell-bent on calling for the ambulance in Swift Current, but the pain subsides and Norval says he will go to the hospital only if Lila drives him. In fact, he says, why don't they just try to get Dr. van Riebeeck on the phone, but Lila says he isn't even certified in Canada yet, and anyway he'll send Norval to Swift Current, so why waste precious time? Since it's the only way Norval will agree to go, she loads him into the car. So as not to worry Rachelle, who's in her room brooding over her breakup with Kyle, Lila calls upstairs and says she and Norval are going for a drive.

“Fine by me,” Rachelle's voice snaps back. “I'm going out anyway. And don't expect me home. I'm staying at Kristen's.”

Not brooding, then.

On the way into town, Norval reports that the pain is gone. He doesn't tell Lila about the tightness, the feeling that an elastic band is wrapped around his chest.

“Probably angina,” Lila says. “They'll do an EKG. And a stress test.”

He doesn't want a battery of tests. He suggests they turn around and go home. He'll make an appointment for a physical, he promises, but Lila won't hear of returning home.

“There's no need for anyone to die of a heart attack these days, Norval,” Lila says. “So we're going to get this checked and make sure. Otherwise, I won't sleep. The surgeries for valve repair and blocked arteries and the like are very sophisticated now.”

Surgery? He certainly doesn't want to be told he's going under the knife. He wonders when Lila became such an expert on the treatment of heart disease and he's tempted to say something sarcastic, but he doesn't because he knows she's concerned. He notices that she is driving fast.

“There's nothing to worry about,” he says. “You'd better slow down or you'll have us stopped for speeding, and that won't get us there any faster, will it?” He rolls the window down and feels the breeze on his face. The sky, which had been the blue of early evening when they left Juliet, is now quite dark—dark enough that he can see the stars, millions of them.

“Look at that,” he says to Lila. “Such a clear night sky. No moon. The Milky Way in full force.”

“What are you talking about, Norval?” Lila asks. “It's only eight o'clock. Of course there's no moon. It's still light.”

Eight o'clock. Lila must be wrong. Still, when Norval looks ahead he can clearly see the oncoming semi with its shiny red cab, the gold color of ripe crops on either side of the highway, the turquoise farmhouse that Lila always says reflects someone's idea of unique when it's really just a very bad decorating choice. So odd—the earth still bright with the colors of the day, and the night sky above, sprinkled with stars.

“The very lights of heaven,” he says. It's a joke, he doesn't believe in heaven, and he's just thinking that he should explain himself to Lila lest she misunderstand, when the stars disappear and Swift Current lies spread out before them, a small city tucked into a creek valley, and Lila is off the highway and onto the service road, still driving over the speed limit and following the green
H
signs that indicate a hospital.

And they're almost there, just a short distance from the brand-new facility on the edge of town, when Lila hears Norval say, “Tell Blaine Dolson it's not his fault,” and she looks at Norval and in the evening light she can see that the pain is upon him again, the most agonizing, wrenching pain this time, and she steps on the gas and drives as fast as she can without losing control of the car, and up to the Emergency entrance, leaning on the horn and saying, “Norval, stay with me, we're almost there.” There's no one at the door, no one coming, and Lila pounds on the car horn until finally a nurse comes running, and another, and then it's all out of Lila's hands.

Things are happening in slow motion—Lila has time to notice that one of the young nurses has pink streaks in her hair—and warp speed at the same time. They get Norval on a gurney and whisk him inside and down a hall, through a door into Emergency, a pair of nurses calling out for a doctor and the tools of their trade, wheeling Norval away, just like they do on the Life Channel, too busy to pay any attention to Lila. Maybe she should follow, she thinks, but it's too frightening. She holds back, and then when she thinks,
I should be with him,
it's too late. The door that they've wheeled him through is locked.
Why is this hospital so deserted?
she wonders.
Where are the nurses?
Busy. Busy with Norval. So she waits. There are several armchairs in the waiting area and she sits on one of them, and it feels too soft, too obviously chosen for a person needing comfort. She stares at the television on the wall, one program turning into another, a sitcom, a nature show, nothing at all making sense, until a young Hutterite couple in their black clothing come through the doors leading from the ICU and sit across from her. The woman is crying and Lila can't stand it, she can't sit here and watch a woman cry a few feet away from her. She has to leave,
do something
. Move her car, that's what she can do.

She goes outside and gets in the car, which is still nosed right up to the Emergency entrance and in the way of hospital traffic, forcing anyone who comes along to go around it. There's a blinding, bright fluorescent light over the entrance doors even though it's not yet dark, and it shines down on Lila as she sits, paralyzed, until a big truck carrying more Hutterites comes along and she finally starts her car and moves it so they can get by. As she parks properly in the visitors lot, she thinks,
This is ridiculous, they'll be looking for me, Norval will want me.
She gets out of the car, locks it, and walks back to the Emergency door.