Maud's House (6 page)

“Well, you won’t be the only one in town,” I said tucking a curl behind my ear.

Harping again on my haggard features and bloodshot eyes, Freda said, “We’ll all look like you. Shit.”

Round Corners Restaurant could have been made from a kit. You could have set it up anywhere in the country, at any intersection of civilization and wild, weary highway, at any meeting place of greasy spoon and gasoline. It would have looked, smelled, operated the same. Speckled Formica table tops, large Woolworth landscapes, high vinyl booths, plastic flowers, sugar and Nutrasweet packages on the tables. If you needed to know the hours of the Dairyman’s Bank down the street, you consulted the ashtray. If you wanted a florist or needed an undertaker, you perused the back of the menu under the disclaimer: “Sponsorship of this menu is no reflection on the quality of the establishment’s wares.”

Since the restaurant was the only entertainment in town, all romance in Round Corners was carried on there. Boys usually brought their girls to the restaurant on the first date. Couples celebrated their engagement, wedding, and anniversaries at the Round Corners Restaurant. It was there lovers quarreled over the pork tenderloin and made up over the smothered steak. It was perhaps there that she first saw his eyes wander to someone else or he heard she was moving in with Mother.

Clientele was skiers in winter, leafpeakers in fall, summer people in summer, and Amos and Bartholomew all the time. Their wives complain that they live at the Round Corners Restaurant. They drink so much coffee they keep Brazil in business. Sometimes they sit all day on the same stool, sometimes (depending on the season and the weather) they leave half a cup standing to head into the woods and chop trees or nail down somebody’s roof or feed the stove in the sugar shack. Year after year the country’s economic muscle flopped and flexed, but Amos and Bartholomew worked no more and no less.

“Heard they put you on the map, Maud,” Bartholomew said. The Vermont Department of Tourism had distributed this year, for the first time, fifty thousand copies of “
The Guide to Leaf Peaking in the Green Mountain State
.” My road was number seventeen on the list.

I nodded. “I’ve never seen so many crazy drivers in my life. And they’re all turning around in my drive.”

“Reminds me of my kid’s ant farm,” Amos said.

“I can’t believe the tourism department is rating the color of my trees.” I refilled their cups. “Why don’t they hire buses? Set up a stand? Sell T-shirts?”

“That’s Montpelier for you,” Bartholomew said.

“That’s the whole world,” Amos said.

“That’s a fact,” they huffed. “Bureaucrats.” Amos and Bartholomew had no great love for government, state or federal.

As Freda said, watching leaves was hungry business. The dinner crowd didn’t let up the entire shift. We ran out of baked potatoes first, then filet mignon and Seven-up. The list of what we didn’t have became longer than what we did have. And still the people came, from the North and the South and a bean farm in Ohio. They came and we served and the kid who calls himself the cook complained.

“Quiche? What kind of place do they think this is? I don’t read French; I don’t cook French. What is this
pomme frites
, shit, Maud? French fries? That I can handle.”

The special for the day was hamburger steak, mashed potatoes, and lima beans, so I was not surprised when Frank and Ella Snowden slid into a booth by the window. Hamburger steak was Frank’s favorite.

Frank liked to sit with his back to the wall, so he could watch the door, he said. Ella always let him have his way, although, she said, she didn’t know who he expected to sneak up on them, Jesse James maybe, or some other desperado. I didn’t even bother to offer menus, just poured them two coffees and, five minutes later, plunked two specials in front of them.

“Bon appetit.”

“Maud,” Ella said, shaking out the paper napkin on her lap. “I’ve been wondering about this mural.”

I sighed and leaned my hip against the booth.

“I mean, I’ve been thinking what it needs is a nice little verse. Something typed up and hung beside it, the way they do in museums, sort of a poetic description.”

“Ella, I haven’t agreed to paint the mural.”

“But you must. We all know you can do it.”

“It’s been a long time.”

“Posh. Like riding a bicycle. Isn’t it, Frank?”

Frank concentrated on his hamburger steak.

“Well, it is,” Ella said. “You’ve just been a little lost the last few years what with your father dying and then George. None of us likes to see you like this, Maud. While I’m the first to admit Sheriff Odie Dorfmann is no reservoir of original thought, he had a good one this time. It was a godsend, and we’re not going to sit and let you pass it by.”

“Who’s‘we’? You got fleas?” Frank said.

Ella glared at him.

I massaged my forehead. A headache with the rhythm of a jackhammer had been excavating my cranium all night. “I don’t know why everyone thinks they know what’s good for me.”

“We care for you,” Ella said.

“Ella, she doesn’t have to do it if she doesn’t want to.” Frank put down his fork. “You shouldn’t force her.”

“I’m not
forcing
her. I would never
force
her. Maud’s like a daughter to me, Frank, and you know it.”

Frank’s expression softened slightly. They had no children of their own. “You could write your poem even if she doesn’t paint the damn mural.”

“But this would be my first published work, well, sort of published on a wall.”

I touched her arm. “I really don’t think I can do it.”

Ella removed her arm from my touch. “You used to not be so hard, Maud.”

I glanced helplessly at Frank. He nodded at me.

I sighed and left their table, passing Wynn and Harvey Winchester in the next booth. Harvey had five baby books piled on the table. He was so busy explaining to Wynn the importance of measuring cranium size in babies that he dipped his French fries in his drinking water instead of the ketchup; he slid the soggy fry between his teeth without noticing.

In the kitchen, I headed for the storage room in the back. There, hanging on the wall, was a mirrored, white metal medicine chest. In the chest were aspirins. I sat on a fifty-pound bag of potatoes and swallowed two pills without water.

George, what am I going to do?

“You could get off your caboose and serve these fucking
pomme frites
, Maud,” the cook yelled.

Five minutes to closing, a family of ten filed in and slid onto stools. There was a father and so many children they wrapped around the counter. The littlest looked to be around five. The oldest was a skinny boy with a face full of pimples. A younger brother on the stool next to him whispered something in his ear. He nodded and said, “In a minute.” They studied the menu, then, without a word exchanged, the father ordered one special and ten orders of fries. All ten reluctantly closed the menus. The oldest boy grabbed his brother’s hand and headed in the direction of the restrooms.

“Drinks?” I said.

“Water’ll be fine.”

I turned in the order (“Again with the fries,” said the cook) and brought the water.

“Passing through?” I asked.

The man finished off his water in one gulp and nodded. I replenished his glass. “Thanks.”

“Well, it’s a nice time of year for it. Where you from?”

“West. Ohio.”

“We had a bean farm,” said one of the children.

“We’re going to be Mainiacs,” said another.

“Sally!” said the weary father.

“So you’re headed for Maine,” I said.

“Yes, ma’am.”

I glanced out the window. Their car, an old station wagon with Ohio license plates, was covered with dust. Murdered insects dangled from the grill and splattered the windshield. You couldn’t see out of the dirty back window, the car was so crammed with suitcases, pillows, and toys. There was no room for nine children.

I strode into the kitchen and told the smart aleck cook to give me nine more specials. “Nine! In case you hadn’t noticed, Maud, I’m trying to clean up. It’ll be Christmas by the time I get this steam table closed down. And I got a date tonight.”

“Ten specials in all, Casanova.”

The weary father tried to argue. “Don’t be silly,” I said, “It would have all gone to waste anyway. Vermont’s health department regulations are murder on leftovers.”

When the family was finished, I gave the father directions to Reverend Swan’s house. “He can put you up for the night. He won’t preach at you too much, but you might have to listen to his saxophone.”

Round Corners Restaurant closed at eleven. It was Freda’s turn to mop. I gathered all the sugar containers on a tray, took them to a booth, and began filling them. Freda finished the floor first and plopped in the booth across the table from me. I screwed the lid on the last sugar container and we both swung our legs up on the seat and leaned back. Freda lit a cigarette.

“Lewis Lee wants me to quit these things.” She frowned at the cigarette.

“Wouldn’t be a bad idea.”

She rested her head against the wall and blew a long stream of smoke, obviously thoroughly enjoying the cigarette. “You still mulling over Odie’s cultural mission.”

“I don’t know why he didn’t run on a law and order platform like any normal sheriff and town selectman.”

“A civilized populace is less likely to kill each other.”

“As history has proven again and again,” I said, massaging my neck. “I wish I hadn’t voted for him.”

Freda tapped the ash from her cigarette. “I always go for the write-in candidate. Every election I vote for Lewis Lee.”

A
bout a week ago, I began painting cows.

This is what it’s come to, George. Look what you’ve done to me.

Udderly ridiculous. Cute, George. Tell Jack Benny he’s got nothing to worry about.

Cows in baseball uniforms, pregnant cows, preaching cows, but still cows. Cows with spots, cows lying on couches, cows in trees. Lost cows. Cows taken to market, to the cleaners, for a ride. Cows eating spaghetti, cows blowing on saxophones, cows at a slaughterhouse choosing human livers and tongues. It ceased to be amusing after the third day.

It’s a cow, George. I know it’s wearing a bikini and flip-flops.

The cows were the most recent setback in my continuing struggle with paint and canvas. For years, I have followed the same routine. Perched ram-rod straight on a stool in my studio, I face the canvas. The door is locked. I am alone with a white surface of relatively small proportions. In a few hours, its blankness will grow to overwhelming dimensions like one of those baby bathtub dinosaurs that turn into Godzilla in the fish tank. Today, in effort to head off Godzilla, I created the Hatteras Holstein.

I drummed my fingers on the nearby table. In the quiet studio, country music lovesickness wandered out of the radio in decibels guaranteed to damage the human ear. The studio, which is in the attic at the top of the house, vibrated to the beat of lonely hearts, cheatin’ hearts, achy breaky hearts. I imagined I heard a faucet dripping below, three flights down. I unlocked the door and ran down the stairs to check it. While I was in the kitchen, I drank a glass of water. I peered at the thermometer outside the window—forty-five degrees. I loaded the dishwasher. I considered washing the windows and cleaning underneath the refrigerator but decided that was going too far. I could not avoid it. I had to return to the attic. And sure enough, the cow was still there, sunning in all that bright blank canvas. Everything was exactly as I left it—waiting.

I glanced at the clock. Two more hours to go, one hundred twenty minutes until I could stop. George and I agreed, that to give my work a fair chance, I ought to spend mornings in the studio. No interruptions. Turn the answering machine on. Forget about any work around the house. Until high noon.

I don’t know why I’m still following your stupid rules, George. I suppose I don’t know what else to do.

Poor George. He was right to leave. He got out while the getting was good. I was impossible to live with, still am.

It needs sunglasses? You could be right, George.

What does it mean? It doesn’t mean anything. Everything doesn’t have to mean something. God, you’re as bad as Wynn. You think too much.

What else is there to do, where you are? I don’t know; take up a hobby.

There. That’s what I mean. I was married to George for thirteen years, and each year I grew more and more unpleasant. A grizzly with a thumbtack in its paw would have been better company. I was never malicious or cruel. I was just… irreverent. I couldn’t seem to take anything, especially George, seriously. For example, I almost died laughing when he suggested I make a will.

“Everyone should have a will, Maud, for the disposition of property,” according to George. I remember the morning. I couldn’t keep my eyes off the clock. That day I had awakened with a feeling, an urge to get up to the attic. I felt, almost, as if I could paint.

“George, we’re young. We’ve got plenty of time.” I tapped my fingers on the counter, checked the clock again.

“It’s never too early, when it comes to taxes or wills. What if we both die at the same time? Fall off the Appalachian Trail into a ravine and freeze to death. You don’t want the state to get everything, do you?”

“If I’m a popsicle, who cares? George…” I glanced at the clock. George had installed an institutional-looking timepiece over the kitchen sink. He said kitchens always had clocks; how else could you tell how long to boil the pasta?

“And if we go separately, without wills, things could be tied up in the courts forever. Lawyers’ fees would eat you alive.”

“Then I wouldn’t need the will, would I? Sorry, George, I’ve really got to go.” I ran from the kitchen and up the back stairs, tripping over my own feet. I skidded around corners, fumbled with doorknobs. But, when I reached the studio, found a brush, set up the canvas, plopped on the stool, and pushed my hair out of my eyes… the feeling was gone.