2. Stumps of Mystery
Ellen Greenstein‘s thigh muscles screamed. The rural Oregon terrain seemed flat, but the roads were full of evil invisible inclines, impossible to notice unless you were riding a 40-year-old Schwinn. Evidently, a year of spinning classes at the gym every Monday, Wednesday and Friday failed to conditioner her for actual bike riding.
She stopped to rest for a minute. Though her compact, trim body was in pretty good shape, her backpack and the bike’s front basket were heavy with groceries, library books, new socks. Highway 13 stretched before her, past the Woodhill High School campus, a strip mall and some condo complexes, then the turn-off to Arbor Heights, the newish development where she had recently moved. Beyond that, the Coast Range rose up green and ragged, blighted by bald spots Ellen had learned were called clear cuts. And on the other side of those low mountains lay the Pacific Ocean, the western edge of the country, which she still hadn’t seen though she’d lived there almost two months. The sky above the hills was gray, many more shades of gray than she had ever seen in the city.
There was no mass transit in Woodhill, a small town on the banks of the Willamette River. Portland loomed 50 miles to the northeast—it may as well have been the Emerald City. Back in New York, when Basil first suggested moving out West, she’d had romantic notions of a cozy log cabin nestled in the woods where she’d sit reading in front of a crackling fire. Or a quirky small hamlet where everyone talked to each other in witty, caring dialog—like the places on the television shows she liked: Cicely, Alaska and Stars Hollow, Connecticut. But reality was a cramped, treeless subdivision on the outskirts of an economically depressed town that was praying for some kind of miracle—as long as it didn’t involve any type of change.
Basil was bringing change anyway. He was a European-trained chef who had paid his dues in some of New York’s finest and trendiest kitchens. Yet he was always a heartbeat away from running the show, continually working in the shadow of bigger egos. For several months, he had been searching and longing for an executive opportunity. Then, just when he thought he was doomed to sous hell, the Pitzer Group offered him a cherry position out in Oregon wine country, opening a bistro in an old hotel they were renovating. The glacee on his gateau was their philosophy of sustainability: relying on the local agriculture for their products or even growing their own. It was a concept that had always intrigued him in New York but one he hadn’t had the chance to fully execute. “It’s like a candy store out there,” said Basil, who grew up on a Washington coast cranberry farm. “Dungeness crab, Willapa Bay oysters, hazelnuts, huckleberries, geoducks, wild mushrooms galore.” He was excited about going home.
Ellen, raised on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, was somewhat happy in her position at Justin & Lucien, a Midtown public relations firm that specialized in the high-end health care industry. It was fast-paced work that suited her, and she could finally afford to move out of a Brooklyn studio into a one-bedroom with Basil in the Meat Packing District. But since she had taken the job two years before, she had started feeling increasingly unenthusiastic about promoting Botox parties and collagen lip implants. The sight of stiff-faced, fish-lipped liposucked matrons began to disgust her. After 32 years in New York, moving across the country seemed like an appropriate adventure. After all, she could always come back—and bottom line: she loved Basil. He was the first guy who seemed to get her, and get along with her. She had given herself six months in Oregon to decide if she should stay, but after just a few weeks, Basil was too busy and she was thinking more and more often about hopping on a plane back to New York.
She rubbed her forehead with two fingers; the clean moist air scoured her sinuses raw. She climbed back up on her bike just as the shower started. To hear people around Woodhill talk, there was great shame in getting in out of the rain. “My dear,” the owner of Mack’s Diner had told her, “if we waited until it stopped raining to go out, we’d never go anywhere.” April had been lovely and warm, but since May Day, it seemed to have rained constantly. And according to the geezers down at the diner who discussed the weather incessantly, the rain would continue until mid-July. June-uary, they called the upcoming month, cackling. She would mind it a lot less if only she had the equipment. Like a Gortex rain jacket with a hood or a bike with tread on its tires. She had finally just purchased a pair of thick wool socks at Norm’s Thriftway. Basil promised her that she could buy a new bike—a tricked-out Trek—next payday. In New York, she had walked miles every day but walking just didn’t feel right in Woodhill. As the rain fell, her curly black hair quickly grew heavy like a wet sponge, dripping in her face and down her back.
She pedaled past the high school without incident. She avoided that stretch of road when students were around since that carload of baseball-capped boys had slowed down to yell “Schaaaa-win, Schaaaa-win!” at her over and over and over. It was terrifying, they were like wild animals. Basil had called them harmless kids, but still, it was worse than being in the Bronx.
For the first few weeks after they moved, Ellen felt as if she were on some kind of gentle downers, like there was Valium in the water or nitrous oxide in the air. Basil was completely absorbed by his new job, from developing the menu to hiring and training the staff to helping with the kitchen renovation to planning an herb garden. He was never around, but this was expected; they were trying to get the place open for the summer tourists. Ellen understood.
She prowled about the house, which was huge compared to any place she had ever lived. All the homes in Arbor Heights looked alike: two-stories with a prominent garage. Snout houses, they were called, painted taupe or ecru or just plain beige. When the garages were open, they looked like big mouths sucking up SUVs. She fixed up the place as best she could. They bought a new couch,
bed and dining room set before their moving money ran out. Then she hit some nearby yard sales for the odds and ends—a couple ugly lamps, some sad houseplants that were already dying, an old Hoover vacuum cleaner, her bike. Sometimes she’d recall how in New York she plunked down $65 for dry cleaning or $175 to have her hair cut and conditioned without a second thought. It was frustrating to be broke, but oddly freeing too; she had never realized how much time she had wasted deciding what to buy.
Starting her new PR business was much more difficult than she anticipated. She knew she could count on the Pitzer Group as a client once the hotel was closer to opening, but it seemed impossible to get anything else going. A few times she had suited up and caught a ride downtown with Basil. She stopped in at least a dozen businesses to talk to the owners, but not one of them seemed remotely interested in her or her services. “Lady,“ the lizard-skinned, big-haired owner of Annabee’s Nails and Tanning had demanded, “who are you?“ They didn’t believe that some advertising or media buzz about their businesses could bring in more customers.
So when she grew discouraged, she watched television, took naps and spent far too much time on the internet, Googling everyone she ever knew and taking silly Facebook quizzes. Since she’d grown up without easy access to laundry facilities, she grew fond of washing and drying every piece of clothing in the house, dirty or clean. She vacuumed the oatmeal-colored carpeting for long periods of time. Sometimes she watched the other at-home neighbors who were mostly young parents or retired—not the most exciting people to watch. There were also a few college students and working folk living there, but they were never around during the day. The lack of interesting street life made her sad and homesick. When she couldn’t stand hiding inside another minute, she rode her bike.
Mack’s Diner became a frequent stop. She perched at the U-shaped counter, reading the Oregonian, drinking hot tea and watching the aged waitresses barge past her to the regulars seated in booths by the large windows or at the rows of tables that filled the large room. The old men always sat by the front door, sipping coffee, deep in conversation. There were chubby housewives with scrawny toddlers, young businessmen in cheap suits, hungove
r college students, teenagers stuffing their faces—to her, they were all a bunch of pasty bumpkins. She found it surreal that everyone was white except for a few Latinos. No one talked to her for the first few weeks, and she had absolutely nothing to say to them. In New York, there had been people talking to her constantly at the market, the subway, the coffee shop. Yet in Woodhill, she sat alone, disoriented, stunned by this strange place and the gomers who lived here.
But soon she got to know the diner’s owner, Herman Hoffmeister, a fortyish guy who loved to talk about New York. He looked different from anyone else she had seen in town, with blackened hipster hair and retro black-rimmed glasses. On most days he wore a bowling shirt and letterman jacket, pegged black jeans and red converse hightops. Herman made a “pilgrimage” to Manhattan once a year to check out the new restaurants, stroll the museums and see some shows. He often slipped her a plate of the daily special to “get her take” on his experimental cooking: Mexican bento or vegan chicken-fried steak. He was the one who advised her to approach only recently opened businesses in the area like the new wineries and restaurants. “Some of the shopkeepers around here,“ he said, leaning over the counter, “think PR is a hospital show that comes on Thursdays after they go to bed.” Herman was her best friend at the moment. Her other friends worked in the grocery store—they were the only people in town who would speak to her.
Now the rain was pelting her face and soaking her jeans. Cars whizzed past, spraying a fine mist of water and road dirt on her. It made her furious. She hated the weather, hated Oregon, hated the stupid people who lived here. She pedaled harder and harder, her ass burning. Pump, pump, pump, pump, pump, pump. Faster and faster until suddenly she was flying through the air. She had hit some loose gravel on the shoulder and the big old bike simply skidded out from under her, throwing her down on her left knee, then her arm and shoulder. The rain fell on her face as she lay there gasping for a minute, traffic rushing just a few feet from her head. “Shit!” she yelled. A huge white SUV slowed next to her, then pulled over and backed up. She recognized the truck—or “rig” as people out here called big vehicles—by the bumper stickers: “Stumps of Mystery: An Oregon Experience” and “Hillary 08.” It was her next-door neighbor, Candy Ruiz.
Ellen had spoken to Candy just once, briefly, when they first moved in, but she often spied on her, peering through the blinds as Candy prepared for her daily run. Every morning, she strapped her twin toddlers in the huge-wheeled jogging stroller, then stretched her legs by lunging forward with one knee bent. She wore her gleaming blonde hair gathered into a long ponytail that hung out the back of her bright pink cap. Her calf and thigh muscles strained as she bounced against the brick front steps. She was tall and cut, the kind of female that made Ellen feel squat and swarthy instead of sleek and petite.
On Easter, Basil had taken the day off. They lounged in bed all morning, something they hadn’t really done since they moved in. Basil had been looking quite haggard from working so hard; his normally boyish face had developed lines and shadows from lack of sleep. He was letting his thick brown hair grow out a bit; sort of a modified mullet with sideburns. Ellen was skeptical about the look, but she didn’t really see him enough to mount a campaign against it. At that moment, she was satisfied leaning against his hairless chest as they dozed and read the paper and chatted about his menu. But when they heard activity from the driveway next door, Ellen slipped out of the covers to watch Candy and her family leave for church.
“They’re going to worship Jay-zus,” Ellen said, eying Candy’s lavender sleeveless dress, which was actually quite stylish—it looked like an Ann Taylor. “Happy Rebirthday, Jay-zus.”
“Why do you always mock Christians with a Southern accent?” Basil asked from bed.
“It’s just how I imagine mindless sheep would talk.”
“How would you like it if people dissed Jews like that?”
“Like people don’t?” Ellen replied, still looking down at the neighbors. “Maybe they’re Mormons.”
“Why don’t you just get to know her?” Basil recommended. “You might get along. Mark is cool.” Candy’s husband was the manager of the new golf course; he was gone as much as Basil. He had lent them their lawnmower, which was far too loud and scary for Ellen to even consider learning how to use.
“I feel enough like a housewife,” Ellen had said. “I don’t need to start hanging out with one.”
“Well, if you’re bored, you should do something.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Grow a garden, write a novel, bake a cake, learn Chinese, take a hike. Shoot, when did you ever have time to do anything you wanted?”
A flare of rage coursed through her—patronizing bastard—it was her job to put a positive spin on things. What Ellen really wanted was a friend, a real friend with whom she could discuss more than the superficial things she talked about with her new acquaintances downtown. Someone who wouldn’t think she was just bored. Someone like Christine, her life-long best buddy who had moved to London the year before, who would understand how frightened she was by the huge trees she had to ride next to on Gun Club Road, or how scary it was at night when she was alone and it was so freaking quiet, or how she was afraid she would never find anyone to give her a decent haircut or how terrifying it was to think she had made the biggest mistake of her life.
“Hey.” Basil had raked his fingers through his messy hair and beckoned her back to bed. “It won’t always be like this.” Later that afternoon, he took her mushroom hunting on Lost Mountain. What started out as a leisurely hike turned into Ellen’s worst nightmare as Basil led her deeper into the woods, climbing over moss-covered logs, through prickly stands of huckleberry bushes, under creaking cedar boughs that nearly touched the ground. He found a cluster of chanterelles and nearly wet himself with excitement. Ellen had stood with her hands on her knees, panting and recoiling at the grubs he had unearthed as he harvested the mushrooms. This is so not me, she thought.
Then he took her through a broad meadow of grass and wildflowers, which was lovely until she had seen three garter snakes lounging in the sun. “They’re everywhere!“ she had screeched as she jumped on his back. He had instinctively twisted away so she didn’t crush his backpack and the mushrooms inside. Although he had apologized, they had walked back to the car in silence. That was the first time she had thought about charging a ticket back to New York; her brother would put her up for a while. She was reluctant to admit defeat, but knew that sometimes you just had to cut your losses.