The Leftovers (29 page)

They moved through the agenda at a pretty good clip—the only speed bumps were the committee reports on Buildings and Grounds (too much detail on the paving contract selection process for municipal lot #3) and Public Safety (an evasive summary of the stalled investigation into the Falzone murder, followed by extensive discussion of the need for more nighttime police presence in and around Greenway Park)—and managed to conclude official business a little ahead of schedule.

“All right,” Kevin told the audience. “It’s your turn. The floor’s open for Public Comment.”

In theory, Kevin was eager to hear directly from his constituents. He said so all the time: “We’re here to serve you. And we can’t do that if we don’t know what’s on your mind. The most important job we can do is listen to your concerns and criticisms, and find innovative, cost-effective ways of addressing them.” He liked to think of the Public Comment period as high school civics in action—self-government on a truly intimate scale, a face-to-face dialogue between the voters and the people they’d elected, democracy as the founders had intended it.

In practice, though, Public Comment was usually a bit of a freak show, a forum for cranks and monomaniacs to air their petty grievances and existential laments, most of which fell far outside the purview of municipal government. One of the regular speakers felt the need to provide her fellow citizens with monthly updates on a complicated billing dispute she was having with her health insurance provider. Another felt passionately about the abolition of Daylight Saving Time within the borders of Mapleton, an admittedly unorthodox move that he hoped would inspire other towns and states to follow suit. A frail elderly man frequently expressed his unhappiness with the poor delivery service provided by the
Daily Journal,
a newspaper that had ceased publication more than twenty years ago. For a while the council had tried to screen the speakers, barring those whose comments failed to address “relevant local issues,” but this policy caused so many hurt feelings that it was quickly abandoned. Now they were back to the old system, informally known as “One Nut, One Speech.”

The first person to address the January meeting was a young father from Rainier Road who complained about the speeding cars that used his street as a cut-through during evening rush hour, and wondered why the police were so lax in enforcing the traffic laws.

“What’s it gonna take for you people to do something?” he asked. “Is some little kid gonna have to die?”

Councilwoman Carney, chair of the Public Safety Committee, assured the man that the police were planning a major traffic safety initiative for the summer driving season, a campaign that would include both a public information component and a robust enforcement component. In the meantime, she would personally ask Chief Rogers to keep an eye on Rainier Road and the surrounding streets at evening rush hour.

The next speaker was a friendly-looking middle-aged woman on crutches who wanted to know why so many sidewalks in Mapleton weren’t properly shoveled after snowstorms. She herself had slipped on a patch of ice on Watley Terrace and had torn her ACL.

“Snow removal is mandatory in Stonewood Heights,” she pointed out. “And it’s a lot safer to walk there in wintertime. Why don’t we do something like that here?”

Councilman DiFazio explained that hearings had been held on this very subject on three separate occasions that he could remember. Each time, large numbers of senior citizens had testified in opposition to any change in the law, for both health and financial reasons.

“We’re kind of in a box here,” he said. “It’s a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t situation.”

“I’ll tell you what I’d like to see,” Kevin interjected. “I’d like to compile some kind of registry of people who need help shoveling, and maybe share that with the high school volunteer office. That way, kids could get community service credit for doing something that actually needs to be done.”

Several council members liked this idea, and Councilwoman Chen, chair of the Education Committee, agreed to follow up with the high school.

Things got a little more heated when the next speaker—an intense young man with deep-set eyes and a patchy beard—took the floor. He identified himself as the chef/owner of a recently opened vegan restaurant called Purity Café, and said he wanted to go on record protesting the unfair grade his establishment had received from the Health Inspector.

“It’s ridiculous,” he said. “Purity Café is spotless. We don’t handle meat, eggs, or dairy, which are the main sources of food-borne illnesses. Everything we serve is fresh and lovingly prepared in a brand-new, state-of-the-art kitchen. But we get a B and Chicken Quick gets an A?
Chicken Quick?
Are you kidding me? You ever hear of salmonella? And Chumley’s Steakhouse?
Really?
Have you ever seen the kitchen at Chumley’s Steakhouse? Are you actually gonna look me in the eye and tell me it’s cleaner than the Purity Café? That’s a joke. Something doesn’t smell right, and you can bet it’s not the food in my restaurant.”

Kevin wasn’t crazy about the chef’s condescending tone or his misguided decision to criticize his competitors—it definitely wasn’t the way to win friends and influence people in a small town—but he had to admit that a grade of A for Chicken Quick seemed a bit improbable. Laurie had made him stop going there years ago, after she found a coin-sized battery in a container of garlic sauce. When she brought it back to show the owner, he laughed and said,
So that’s where it went.

Bruce Hardin, Mapleton’s longtime health inspector, asked for permission to respond directly to the chef’s “reckless allegations.” Bruce was a hefty guy in his mid-fifties who had lost his wife in the Sudden Departure. He didn’t seem especially vain, but it was hard to account for the disconcerting contrast between his dark brown hair and his silver-gray mustache without factoring in a certain amount of L’Oreal for Men. Speaking with the bland authority of a veteran bureaucrat, he pointed out that his reports were a matter of public record and that they usually contained photographs documenting each cited violation. Anyone who wished to examine his report on the Purity Café or any other food purveyor was welcome to do so. He was confident that his work could withstand the strictest scrutiny. Then he turned and stared at the bearded chef.

“I’ve served in this position for twenty-three years,” he said, with an audible tremor in his voice. “And this is the first time my integrity has ever been questioned.”

Backtracking a bit, the chef insisted that he hadn’t questioned anyone’s integrity. Bruce said that wasn’t how it sounded to him, and that it was cowardly to try to deny it. Kevin intervened before things got out of hand, suggesting that it might be more constructive for the two of them to sit down in a calmer setting and have a forthright discussion about measures the Purity Café might take to improve its grade during the next inspection period. He added that he’d heard great things about the vegan restaurant and considered it a valuable addition to the town’s eclectic roster of eateries.

“I’m not a vegetarian by any means,” he said, “but I’m looking forward to eating there soon. Maybe lunch next Wednesday?” He glanced at the council members. “Who wants to join me?”

“You buying?” Councilman Reynaud quipped, drawing an appreciative chuckle from the crowd.

Kevin checked his watch before calling on the next speaker. It was already a quarter to nine, and there were at least ten people with their hands in the air, including Daylight Savings Guy and the gentleman who never got his newspaper.

“Wow,” he told them. “Looks like we’re just getting warmed up.”

*   *   *

FOR SOME
reason, she was always a little surprised to find Kevin on her doorstep, even when she was expecting him. There was just something a little too normal and reassuring about the whole situation, a big, friendly man pressing a brown paper bag into her hands, the neck of a wine bottle poking out.

“Sorry,” he told her. “The council meeting ran late. Everybody had to put their two cents in.”

Nora opened the wine and he told her all about it, in a lot more detail than she required. She did her best to look alert and interested, nodding at what seemed like the appropriate junctures, supplying the occasional comment or question to keep things moving along.

A good girlfriend is a good listener
, she reminded herself.

But she was just pretending, and she knew it. In her former life, Doug used to sit across this very table and try her patience in a similar way, with long-winded soliloquies about whatever deal he happened to be working on at the moment, filling her in on the arcane legal and financial details of the transaction, thinking out loud about the various stumbling blocks that might arise, and what he might do to overcome them. But no matter how bored she was, she always understood that Doug’s work
mattered
to her on a personal level, that it would have consequences for their family, and that she needed to pay attention. As much as she appreciated Kevin’s company, she couldn’t quite convince herself that she needed to care about the intricacies of the building code or a deadline extension for pet licenses.

“Is that just for dogs?” she wondered.

“Cats, too.”

“So you’re waiving the late fee?”

“Technically, we’re extending the registration period.”

“What’s the difference?”

“We’d rather encourage compliance,” he explained.

*   *   *

THEY SAT
together in front of the flat-screen TV, Kevin’s arm around Nora’s shoulder, his fingers toying with her fine dark hair. She didn’t object to being touched like that, but she gave no sign of enjoying it, either. Her attention was riveted to the screen, which she studied with an air of brooding intensity, as if
SpongeBob
were a Swedish art film from the 1960s.

He was happy enough to watch it with her, not because he enjoyed the show—he found it shrill and peculiar—but because it gave him an excuse to finally stop talking. He’d been babbling for too long about the council meeting—going on and on about overruns in the snow removal budget, the wisdom of replacing downtown parking meters with a ticket machine, etcetera, etcetera—just to spare them the awkwardness of sitting in prolonged silence like an old married couple with nothing left to say.

What made it so maddening was that they barely knew each other, even after all the time they’d spent together on vacation. There was still so much left to discover, so many questions he wanted to ask, if only she would let him. But she’d made it clear in Florida that the personal stuff was off-limits. She wouldn’t talk about her husband or her kids, or even about her life before that. And he’d seen how she’d tensed up the few times he’d tried telling her about his own family, the way she’d winced and looked away, as if a cop were shining a flashlight in her eyes.

At least in Florida they’d been in an unfamiliar environment, spending most of their time outdoors, where it was easy to break the silence with a simple exchange about the temperature of the ocean, or the beauty of the sunset, or the fact that a pelican had just flown by. Back here in Mapleton, there was none of that. They were always inside, always at her house. Nora wouldn’t go to the movies, to a restaurant, or even to the Carpe Diem for a nightcap. All they ever did was make labored small talk and watch
SpongeBob
.

She wouldn’t even tell him about that. He understood that it was a rite of remembrance, and was touched that she let him be part of it, but he would’ve liked to know a little more about what the show meant to her, and what she wrote in her notebook when it was over. But apparently
SpongeBob
was none of his business, either.

*   *   *

NORA DIDN’T
want to be like this, distant and shut down. She wanted to be the way she’d been in Florida, openhearted and alive, free with her body and spirit. Those five days had passed like a dream, both of them drunk on sunshine and adrenaline, perpetually amazed to find themselves together in the unfamiliar heat, liberated from the prison of their daily routines. They walked and they biked and they flirted and they swam in the ocean, and when they ran out of things to talk about, they had another drink, or sat in the Jacuzzi, or read a few pages of the thrillers they’d bought at the airport bookstore. In the late afternoons, they split up for a few hours, retiring to their separate rooms for a shower and a nap before reconvening for dinner.

She’d invited him back to her room the very first night. After a bottle of wine at dinner and a giddy makeout session on the beach, it seemed like the polite thing to do. She wasn’t nervous taking her clothes off, didn’t ask him to turn out the light. She just stood there naked, soaking up his approval. Her skin felt like it was glowing.

What do you think?
she asked.

Nice collarbones,
he said.
Pretty good posture, too.

Is that all?

Come to bed and I’ll tell you about the back of your knees.

She climbed in, snuggling against him. His torso was a pale slab, reassuringly solid. The first time she’d hugged him, it had felt like she was embracing a tree.

What about the back of my knees?

Honestly?

Yeah.

His hand wandered down the back of her thigh.

They’re a little clammy.

She laughed and he kissed her and she kissed him back and that was it for the conversation. The only hitch came a few minutes later, when he tried to enter her and discovered she was too dry. She apologized, said she was out of practice, but he shushed her, licking his way down the center of her body, moistening her with his tongue. He took his time, letting her know it was all right to relax, coaxing her along an unfamiliar path until she stopped worrying about where it was leading and realized with a soft cry that she was already there, that something had loosened inside of her and something warm had come leaking out. When she caught her breath, she crawled down the bed and returned the favor, not thinking once about Doug or Kylie as she took him in her mouth, not thinking about anything at all until it was over, until he finally stopped whimpering and she was sure she’d swallowed every drop.