“What’s that?”
He laughed and dropped an arm around her shoulders. “A harvester. Would you like to see the farm sometime?”
“I would,” she said somewhat excitedly. “But... Well, I don’t have a lot of extra time. There’s my cousins at the house, my mom coming on days off or sometimes I go to Saint Paul on my day off. And...you know... But I’d like to.”
“One afternoon when your house is kind of stable and your cousins can part with your company, after you get off work, we’ll drive over. I’ll introduce you to the combine.” He gave her shoulders a squeeze. “Feeling any better about your family issues?”
“I am, now that you mention it. But I’m not sure why.”
“You talked about it, for one thing. You’re not alone, you know. I’m really glad you decided to give Lake Waseka a chance.”
“Listen, have you dated a lot since your divorce? I mean, are you collecting women or something? Because I’m pretty awkward when it comes to this boy-girl stuff and I don’t want to be stupid.”
“Nothing will make you stupid, Krista, but that’s a fair question. I’ve been single fifteen years and I’ve had a few girlfriends. I was with one for a couple of years and I guess everyone thought we’d end up married but we didn’t. I was transferred and we talked about her coming with me, but it ended up we spent too much time thinking about it. I guess it wasn’t quite right or it would’ve worked out. Right?”
“Did she work for you?” Krista asked.
“She’s a high school teacher. Listen, there’s no policy forbidding employees from dating each other. But there is a stern policy against sexual harassment, so if you ever get the feeling your job is at stake because I like you, all you have to do is say something. I understand. It has to be mutual, right? I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
“Oh, now that’s a first for me,” she said.
“Huh?”
“You don’t watch prison movies for fun, do you?”
He seemed unable to help himself. He laughed at her. “No.”
“Not even Orange Is the New Black?”
“What’s that?”
She put her hands on her hips. “What do you watch on TV?”
“Um...news. Golf tournaments. I don’t watch a lot of TV. Do I make you nervous?”
“No,” she said. “I’ve just never had anyone like me before.”
“That’s not true,” he said. “You’re really popular in the restaurant. You work hard, smile a lot, make everyone laugh. And they don’t even know what I know. Do you think someday you’ll introduce me to your family? Your cousins?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “First, the farm.”
“It’s a deal. I have to get back to work soon.”
“Which lot is yours?”
“The one with the swing,” he said, urging her along.
She actually gasped. “I love that spot! Did you put up the swing?”
“I did. I’m working on some house plans—just rough sketches. I’m going to turn the house so I’m not looking at the lodge from inside the house. I’ll be able to see it from the yard but I want a pure view of the lake.”
“What about winter?” she asked.
“Same view in winter,” he said.
She giggled. “You know what I mean.”
“You’ve been away—winter here is brutal but beautiful. You shouldn’t live in a place like this unless you have things like plowing worked out. It’s important to stockpile food and firewood in case of power failures. As long as you plan, winter on the lake can be good.”
“How long are you planning to work at the lodge?” she asked.
He shrugged and put his hands in his pockets. “The company that sent me says the owners are pretty happy with the place right now. So, a while. Maybe a year, maybe a little less. I’m pretty sure they’ll want me to take it through another winter. Last year was the first winter we offered winter sports and it did pretty well. What usually happens if I can turn a place around, they hire their own manager and I move on to the next challenge.”
“It sounds...maybe fun,” she said. “And you’re good at it, aren’t you?”
“Mostly,” he said. “Sometimes I have to shut ’em down. I hate that. People out of work, a good property closed, sometimes bankrupted owners who really hoped for the best... I do my best. I love a place like this. A few changes, a little face-lift and we’re doing great.”
“That’s so cool,” she said. “Go back to work. I’ve got to get home and get the update on today’s dysfunction. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She trotted off. “Remember, you promised I could see the farm.”
“I’ll remember,” he said, watching her go.
She jogged the rest of the way back to the lake house. Meg was on the porch with a book in her lap.
“Did you have a decent day?” she asked.
“I had a great day,” Krista said.
Chapter Twelve
When Jo entered her sister’s house, she took a deep breath. The clutter was choking. “I don’t know how you can live like this,” she muttered.
“It’s better than an empty apartment and no car. We’ll go in the kitchen,” Louise said. “I’ll make tea. You can state your business.”
“Tea. Good idea,” Jo said. “Hope and my granddaughters are in the hospital. It’s a long story, one that I didn’t know before today.” She sat down at the kitchen table, pushing a few things out of the way to make a place for her tea when it was ready. “It seems that when Hope left my house to move in with Mother and the judge, that was approximately her last touch with reality. I thought she was just a liar. Embarrassed by the family she came from. How could I blame her?”
“Our family was nothing to be embarrassed about,” Lou said defensively.
“Yours wasn’t, maybe. But the homelife we had with Roy was rocky and unstable on the best days. And when we got back from the lake that summer it went completely to hell. Roy had wandered off and this time it was different. He never came home. I knew too much had happened and he wasn’t off on some bender that he’d call a business trip when he came home. My children were falling apart and he was gone for good. Poor little Beverly was in the hospital, almost catatonic, barely holding it together. I had nowhere to turn and collapsed.”
“You were never strong,” Louise pointed out.
“Not in the ways you were.”
“The judge offered to help you,” Louise said. She delivered a cup of tea to the table.
“There were conditions,” Jo said. “When I couldn’t tell him where Roy was, he hit the roof. All this tragedy and loss in our family and my husband hadn’t been home or at his office in Rapid City? Hadn’t been in touch? The judge said I should pack up my house and come to live with him and Mother and he would find Roy and secure a divorce for me and I could start over. A single mother living with her children and her parents.”
Louise put milk and sugar on the table and sat down. “I don’t know why you would hesitate. That bum never did do anyone any good.”
“You know exactly why I hesitated,” Jo said. “I couldn’t have the judge looking for Roy and finding out he was connected to other missing persons. So I just said he was the father of my children...”
“You loved him!” Louise said. It shot out of her like an accusation.
“Oh, Lou, I hadn’t loved Roy for a long time by then. He was an irresponsible drunk. I’ll be the first to admit that when I met him it was like magic.” She stirred milk and sugar into her tea. “For a while, everything was like a dream come true. I thought it would last forever.”
* * *
Judge Berkey and his family weren’t exactly high society in Saint Paul, but they were damn close to it. Mrs. Berkey brought family money to their marriage and the judge was
very influential. They belonged to a prestigious country club in Maplewood where the judge golfed, Mrs. Berkey played bridge and there were regular social and charity events. Louise and Jo grew up in that club; it was where they had their debutante balls. They were both popular in high school, where they were cheerleaders and homecoming queen candidates. Louise was introduced to Carl Hempstead at the club right after her college graduation and a wedding was in the works within a few months. Carl was a young businessman, already successful at the age of thirty-four, ten years older than Louise, and that made her feel extremely sophisticated. They were planning a wedding and simultaneously building a large house in Maplewood.
Josephine was finishing her last year of college during the wedding planning and was to be the maid of honor, of course. She almost didn’t graduate because of the swirl of social events surrounding Louise’s wedding, but she squeaked through, got her degree in communications just before the wedding, a degree she didn’t expect to put to much use.
Just days before the wedding Roy called Carl to say he was going to make the event, after all. Carl said he hadn’t even talked to his brother in a year but had called him to tell him he was getting married. They were ten years apart in age and after their parents died Roy, while still a boy, had moved in with an aunt and uncle. Roy had been in the Army but was discharged and couldn’t wait to meet the new bride.
“You’ll have to move groomsmen around a little and make him your best man,” Louise instructed. “He’s your brother!”
“I don’t know,” Carl had said, scratching his chin. “We’re not close. He’s young and not exactly what I’d call serious...”
That was possibly the first time Louise had called Carl an old fogy.
Then Roy sauntered into the groom’s dinner party at the club and took everyone’s breath away. Louise was the first to nearly swoon when she saw him—tall and lithe with fierce blue eyes, and the light brown hair that flopped over his forehead was streaked by sunshine. He had the devil’s dimples in his cheeks, straight and strong white teeth and was dressed in a new, tailored Yves Saint Laurent suit. He kissed Louise’s hand and she said, “I can’t wait to introduce you to my sister.”
It was like a fairy tale. The best man and maid of honor got more attention for their dancing at the wedding than the bride and groom...
* * *
“But I didn’t care,” Louise remembered, sipping her tea. “I never dreamed anything so perfect could happen at my wedding. The groom’s long-lost brother shows up, looking like Robert Redford but better.”
“Carl was a very good-looking man,” Jo said.
“He was, and he looked even better standing next to Roy. That Roy, he sure knew how to play to the crowd...”
“How long was it before we realized he had no job, Carl bought him the suit and the haircut, that he wasn’t just very social, he always had an angle. He flirted with all the old ladies, paid Mother a ton of compliments, schmoozed the judge...” Jo sighed. “I should never have been taken in by him. I shouldn’t have married him.”
“Hah! Only a woman with no nerve endings would have turned him away. He was like a sex machine!”
“No, he looked like he should be a sex machine. The truth was after several drinks all his equipment shriveled and died.”
“He got three on you,” Louise reminded her. “Three in four years.”
“The price was so high,” Jo said. “The joblessness, the arguing, the shame. Every time he let us down, every time we had to ask Carl for a loan or a job or a gift, I wanted to die. Then he’d go on the wagon, shape up a little bit, get a job, help with the girls. It never lasted long but it seemed to be exactly the right amount of time for me to trick myself into thinking things would be okay. I knew we’d never have much but I didn’t care as long as we could stay one step ahead of the poorhouse.”
“Remember when we used to drive by the county home and the judge would say, ‘There’s the poorhouse. That’s where you end up when you can’t pay your bills. Take a good look.’ And we were terrified of ending up there,” Louise said.
“Looked pretty decent to me,” Jo said.
“Well, it wasn’t actually a poorhouse, how about that?” Louise said. “It was a county-funded nursing home.”
“I think we were doomed,” Jo said. “I think on the day Roy turned up, we were doomed. There was always all this tension between us. You had the well-off husband and I had the loser, but the handsome loser. How’d he always know the latest dances? All the most hilarious jokes?”
“He hung out in a lot of bars,” Louise said.
“He went to a lot of parties,” Jo said. “No wonder we had issues, you and me. My situation, my husband, it would drag down anyone.”
“And then Carl got quieter and quieter. He got old. At thirty-four he was a handsome and sophisticated young businessman and at almost fifty he was gray, balding, thick around the middle, tired...”
“I loved Carl. He was good to his brother. Better than he should’ve been. He did that for you and me, I think,” Jo said. “So we wouldn’t end up like Carl and Roy—estranged and strangers. I’m so sorry—it was my fault. I should’ve divorced Roy and gone on welfare. The outcome would’ve been better. I should have seen it—you and me—we were destined to end up like this. We were doomed.”
“Except at the lake,” Louise said.
Jo picked up her teacup. “We’re going to need something a little stronger...”
* * *
By the time all of their daughters were in school, Lou and Jo had each been married over a dozen years. They needed a break from their city lives, from their husbands, from their parents. Life for Jo was always a struggle and Lou’s existence had become dull and monotonous. But in the summer they could leave it all behind.
Jo recalled that one of her best summers was when Beverly, her youngest, was eight and Roy had a good job. He worked construction and it was hard work but the pay was good. He was exhausted and dirty, but he only drank on the weekends. Carl drove them both to the lake on Friday nights and when he arrived Roy needed a beer, a shower and a back rub, in that order. Nothing brought Jo so much pride as seeing her handsome Roy come in wearing those tight jeans and dirty work shirt, his eyes tired, his hands roughened by calluses. He’d held down this job for months and even Carl was more animated and talkative. It was such a great summer, Jo and Lou even talked about whether it was possible to just stay at the lake year-round.
It didn’t last. The school year started and they were back in the city. Carl became quiet and distracted by the heavy burden of his company; Roy was laid off a few times and unemployment not only made him irritable and Jo cautious, but the judge and Grandma always had opinions about how the sisters conducted their marriages.
In the spring of ’89, Roy got a job in sales in Rapid City. He wanted Jo to move to Rapid City with the girls and she really didn’t want to, but she still nurtured hopes that her husband could break through his personal cloud of perpetual failures.
“Oh, God, you can’t be serious,” Louise said. “When has Roy ever kept a job for more than six months! You’ll no sooner get there than you’ll be headed back here! Or somewhere else!”
“Maybe if we start fresh, somewhere new, somewhere he’s not carrying the load of his past reputation, maybe it will make a difference,” Jo said.
“You’ll have no one!”
“Roy complains that I value my relationship with you more than my relationship with him,” Jo said.
“He doesn’t complain of that when he needs money!”
“Don’t throw that in my face,” Jo said. “It’s cruel.”
“Think about the winters, Jo,” Lou pleaded. “If you think they’re tough here, wait till you try South Dakota!”
Jo played the middle ground. She told Roy she refused to move anywhere until he’d been in that
job long enough for it to be a secure position. She told Lou she hoped to move to Rapid City for Roy as soon as he could offer her some reassurance he had a solid, long-term job.
“That’ll be the day,” Lou said.
“Nice,” Jo said. “Can’t you at least say you hope my marriage can recover and last?”
“I’d love to,” Lou said. “If I thought there was a chance in hell.”
Roy was only able to get back to Saint Paul for a couple of weekends in more than three months, but he looked great. Or maybe Jo was looking through the lens of a woman missing at least the illusion of a happy marriage to a handsome, sexy man. She may have lost the glow of true love but she never forgot the fairy-tale quality of meeting him and falling for him. It had seemed that her dream man appeared out of nowhere and shook her to her core.
“I think maybe Roy has really changed,” Jo told her sister.
“How many times have you believed that?” Lou said sourly.
* * *
“We should have something to eat,” Louise said.
Jo looked at her watch. It was getting late. The summer sun was low. She knew she had to pay attention to the time and think about catching that last bus. In this part of town they stopped running at ten. “I didn’t mean to stay so long. I know it’s going to take more than one conversation. I can come back tomorrow, after I’ve been to the hospital. I’m sure after tomorrow the girls will be gone—home with their father. Hope’s going to be another story.”
“But she’ll be okay?”
“I don’t know,” Jo said. “I’m not even sure what’s wrong with her, other than the fact she’s been lying to herself for so many years she believes her fantasies. Charley said Hope was telling herself some nonsense about coming home to hear about Mother’s will.”
“Will?” Louise said. “What about her will?”