Six Years

Chapter 13

The first time I met Natalie she was wearing sunglasses indoors. To make matters worse, it was nighttime.

I rolled my eyes, thinking it was for effect. I figured that she fancied herself an Artiste with a capital A. We were attending a mixer of sorts, the art colony and the writers’ retreat, sharing one another’s work. This was my first time attending, but I soon learned that it was a weekly gathering. The art was displayed in the back of Darly Wanatick’s barn. Chairs were set up for the readings.

The woman in the sunglasses-I hadn’t met her yet-sat in the last row, her arms crossed. A bearded man with dark curly hair sat next to her. I wondered whether they were together. Remember the blowhard named Lars who was writing poetry from the perspective of Hitler’s dog? He began to read. He read for a long time. I began to fidget. The woman in the sunglasses remained still.

When I could listen no longer, rude or not, I wandered toward the back of the barn and started to check out the various art on display. Most of it, well, I will be kind. I didn’t “get it.” There was an installation piece called Breakfast in America that featured spilled boxes of cold cereal on a kitchen table. That was it. There were boxes of Cap’n Crunch, Cap’n Crunch with Peanut Butter (one person actually muttered, “Notice there is no Cap’n Crunch with Crunch Berries-why?-what is the artist saying?”), Lucky Charms, Cocoa Puffs, Sugar Smacks, even my old favorite, Quisp. I looked at the spilled cereal coating the table. It did not speak to me, though my stomach grumbled a little.

When one person asked, “What do you think?” I was tempted to say that it needed a little milk.

As I kept walking, only one artist’s work gave me real pause. I stopped at a painting of a small cottage on top of a hill. There was a soft morning glow hitting the side-the pinkness that comes with the first light of day. I couldn’t tell you why but it choked me up. Maybe it was the dark windows, as though the cottage had once been warm but it was abandoned now. I don’t know. But I stood in front of the painting and felt lost and moved. I stepped slowly from one painting to the next. They all delivered a blow of some kind. Some made me melancholy. Some made me nostalgic, whimsical, passionate. None left me indifferent.

I will spare you the “big reveal” that the paintings were done by Natalie.

A woman was smiling at my reaction. “Do you like them?”

“Very much,” I said. “Are you the artist?”

“Heavens no. I run the bakery and coffee shop in town.” She offered me her hand. “They call me Cookie.”

I shook it. “Wait. Cookie runs a bakery?”

“Yeah, I know. Too precious, right?”

“Maybe a tad.”

“The artist is Natalie Avery. She’s right over there.”

Cookie pointed to the woman with the sunglasses.

“Oh,” I said.

“Oh what?”

With the sunglasses-indoors look, I had her pegged as the creator of Breakfast in America. Lars had just finished his reading. The crowd gave him a small golf-clap, but Lars, sporting an ascot, bowed as though it were a thunderous standing ovation.

Everyone quickly rose except for Natalie. The man with the beard and curly hair whispered something to her as he stood, but still she didn’t move. She stayed with her arms crossed, still lost, it seemed, in the essence of Hitler’s dog.

I approached her. She looked right through me.

“The cottage in your painting. Where is it?”

“Huh?” she said, startled. “Nowhere. What painting?”

I frowned. “Aren’t you Natalie Avery?”

“Me?” She seemed befuddled by the question. “Yeah, why?”

“The painting of the cottage. I really loved it. It… I don’t know. It moved me.”

“Cottage?” She sat up, took off the sunglasses, and rubbed her eyes. “Sure, right, a cottage.”

I frowned again. I was not sure what reaction I expected, but something a bit more demonstrative than this. I looked down at her. Sometimes I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer but when she rubbed her eyes again, the realization hit me.

“You were sleeping!” I said.

“What?” she said. “No.”

But she rubbed her eyes some more.

“Holy crap,” I said. “That’s why you’re wearing the sunglasses. So no one can tell.”

“Shh.”

“You were sleeping this whole time!”

“Keep it down.”

She finally looked up at me and I remembered thinking that she had a beautiful, sweet face. I would soon learn that Natalie had what I’d call a slow beauty, the kind you don’t really notice at first and then it knocks you back and grows on you and she gets more beautiful every time you see her and then you can’t believe that you ever thought that she was anything less than completely stunning. Whenever I saw her, my entire body reacted, as though it were the first time or better.

“Was I that obvious?” she asked in a whisper.

“Not at all,” I said. “I just thought you were being a pretentious ass.”

She arched an eyebrow. “What better disguise to blend in with this crowd?”

I shook my head. “And I thought you were a genius when I saw your paintings.”

“Really?” She seemed caught off guard by the compliment.

“Really.”

She cleared her throat. “And now that you see how deceptive I can be?”

“I think you’re a diabolical genius.”

Natalie liked that. “You can’t fault me. That Lars guy is like human Ambien. He opens his mouth, I’m out.”

“I’m Jake Fisher.”

“Natalie Avery.”

“So do you want to grab a cup of coffee, Natalie Avery? Looks like you could use one.”

She hesitated, studying my face to the point where I think I started to redden. She tucked a ringlet of black hair behind her ear and stood. She moved closer to me, and I remember thinking that she was wonderfully petite, smaller than I had imagined when she’d been sitting. She looked way up at me, and a smile slowly came to her face. It was, I must say, a great smile. “Sure, why not?”

That image of that smile held in my brain for a beat before it mercifully dissolved away.

I was out at the Library Bar with Benedict. The Library Bar was pretty much exactly that-an old, dark-wood campus library that had recently been converted into a retro-trendy drinking establishment. The owners were clever enough to change very little of the old library. The books were still on the oak shelves, sorted in alphabetical order or the Dewey Decimal System or whatever the librarians had used. The “bar” was the old circulation desk. The coasters were old card files that had been laminated. The lights were green library lamps.

The young female bartenders wore their hair in severe buns and sported fitted conservative clothes and, of course, horn-rimmed glasses. Yep, the fantasy librarian hottie. Once an hour, a loud librarian shush would play over the loudspeaker and the bartenders would rip off their glasses, let loose their bun, and unbutton the top of their blouse.

Cheesy but it worked.

Benedict and I were getting properly oiled. I threw my arm loosely around him and leaned in close. “You know what we should do?” I asked him.

Benedict made a face. “Sober up?”

“Ha! Good one. No, no. We should set up a rousing tournament of condom roulette. Single elimination. I’m thinking sixty-four teams. Like our own March Madness.”

“We aren’t in Barsolotti’s, Jake. This place doesn’t have a condom vending machine.”

“It doesn’t?”

“No.”

“Shame.”

“Yeah,” Benedict said. Then he whispered, “Pair of red-hot spank-worthy honeys at three o’clock.”

I was about to turn to my left, then to my right, and suddenly the concept of three o’clock made no sense to me. “Wait,” I said, “where’s my twelve o’clock again?”

Benedict sighed. “You’re facing twelve o’clock.”

“So three o’clock would be…?”

“Just turn to your right, Jake.”

You may have guessed that I do not handle spirits well. This surprises people. When they see someone my size, they expect me to drink smaller folks under the table. I can’t. I hold my liquor about as well as a freshman coed at her first mixer.

“Well?”

I knew the type before my eyes even had a chance to settle on them. There sat two blondes who looked good-to-great in low Library Bar light and ordinary-to-frightful in the light of the morning sun. Benedict slid toward them and started chatting them up. Benedict could chat up a file cabinet. The two women looked past him and at me. Benedict signaled for me to join them.

Why the hell not?

You made a promise.

Damn straight I did. Thanks for the reminder. Might as well keep it and try to score me a honey, right? I weaved my way toward them.

“Ladies, meet the legendary Professor Jacob Fisher.”

“Wow,” one of the blondes said, “he’s a big boy,” and-because Benedict couldn’t help but be obvious-he winked and said, “You got no idea, sweetheart.”

I bit back the sigh, said hello, and sat. Benedict “macked” on them with pickup lines, specifically handpicked for this bar: “It’s a library so it’s perfectly okay to check you out.” “Will I be fined if I keep you out late?” The blondes loved it. I tried to join in, but I have never been great with superficial banter. Natalie’s face kept appearing. I kept pushing it away. We ordered more drinks. And more.

After a while we all stumbled to couches near the former children’s section. My head lolled back, and I may have passed out for a bit. When I woke up, one of the blondes started talking to me. I introduced myself.

“My name is Windy,” she said.

“Wendy?”

“No, Windy. With an i instead of an e.” She said this as though she had said it a million times before, which, I guessed, she had.

“Like the song?” I asked.

She looked surprised. “You know the song? You don’t look old enough.”

“‘Everyone knows it’s Windy,’” I sang. Then: “My dad loved the Association.”

“Wow. My dad too. That’s how I got the name.”

It turned into, surprisingly enough, a real conversation. Windy was thirty-one years old and worked as a bank teller, but she was getting her degree in pediatric nursing, her dream job, at the community college down the road. She took care of her handicapped brother.

“Alex has cerebral palsy,” Windy said, showing me the picture of her brother in a wheelchair. The boy’s face was radiant. I stared at it, as if somehow the goodness could come out of the picture and be a part of me. Windy saw it, nodded, and said in the softest voice: “He’s the light of my life.”

An hour passed. Maybe two. Windy and I chatted. During nights like these, there is always a time when you know if you are going to, ahem, close the sale (or, to stay within the library metaphors, if you are going to get your library card punched) or not. We were at that time now, and it was clear that the answer was yes.

The ladies left to powder their noses. I felt overly mellow from drink. Part of me wondered whether I’d be able to perform. Most of me didn’t really care.

“You know what I like about both of them?” Benedict pointed to a shelf of books. “They’re stacked. Get it? Library, books, stacked?”

I groaned out loud. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Amusing,” Benedict said. “By the way, where were you last night?”

“I didn’t tell you?”

“No.”

“I went up to Vermont,” I said. “To Natalie’s old retreat.”

He turned toward me. “Whatever for?”

It was an odd thing, but when Benedict talked after drinking too much, a hint of a British accent came through. I assumed that it was from his prep school days. The more he drank, the more pronounced the accent.

“To get answers,” I said.

“And did you get any?”

“Yep.”

“Do tell.”

“One”-I stuck a finger in the air-“no one knows who Natalie is. Two”-another finger-“no one knows who I am. Three”-you get the point with the fingers-“there is no record at the chapel Natalie ever got married. Four, the minister I saw conducting the wedding swears it never happened. Five, the lady who owned the coffee shop we used to go to and who first pointed Natalie out to me had no idea who I was and didn’t remember either Natalie or me.”

I put my hand down.

“Oh, and Natalie’s art retreat?” I said. “The Creative Recharge Colony? It’s not there and everyone swears it never existed and that it’s always been a family-run farm. In short, I think I’m losing my mind.”

Benedict turned away and started sipping his beer.

“What?” I said.

“Nothing.”

I gave him a little shove. “No, come on. What is it?”

Benedict kept his head lowered. “Six years ago, when you went up to that retreat, you were in pretty bad shape.”

“Maybe a little. So?”

“Your father had died. You felt alone. Your dissertation wasn’t going well. You were upset and on edge. You were angry about Trainor getting off with nary a slap.”

“What’s your point?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Forget it.”

“Don’t give me that. What?”

My head was really swimming now. I should have stopped several glasses ago. I remembered once when I had too much to drink my freshman year and I started walking back to my dorm. I never quite arrived. When I woke up, I was lying on top of a bush. I remembered staring up at the stars in the night sky and wondering why the ground felt so prickly. I had that sway now, like I was on a boat in a rough sea.

“Natalie,” Benedict said.

“What about her?”

He turned those glass-magnified eyes toward me. “How come I never met her?”

My vision was getting a little fuzzy. “What?”

“Natalie. How come I never met her?”

“Because we were in Vermont the whole time.”

“You never came to campus?”

“Just once. We went to Judie’s.”

“So how come you didn’t bring her by to meet me?”

I shrugged with a little too much gusto. “I don’t know. Maybe you were away?”

“I was here all that summer.”

Silence. I tried to remember. Had I tried to introduce her to Benedict?

“I’m your best friend, right?” he said.

“Right.”

“And if you married her, I would have been the best man.”

“You know it.”

“So don’t you find it bizarre that I never met her?” he asked.

“When you put it that way…” I frowned. “Wait, are you trying to make a point here?”

“No,” he said quietly. “It’s just odd is all.”

“Odd how?”

He said nothing.

“Odd like I-made-her-up odd? Is that what you mean?”

“No. I’m just saying.”

“Saying what?”

“That summer. You needed something to hold on to.”

“And I found it. And lost it.”

“Okay, fine, drop it.”

But, no, that would not do. Not right now. Not with my anger and the drink talking. “And speaking of which,” I said, “how come I never met the love of your life?”

“What are you talking about?”

Oh man, I was drunk. “The picture in your wallet. How come I never met her?”

It looked as though I’d slapped him across the face. “Leave it alone, Jake.”

“I’m just saying.”

“Leave. It. Alone.”

I opened my mouth, closed it. The ladies reappeared. Benedict gave his head a shake and suddenly the smile was back on it.

“Which one do you want?” Benedict asked me.

I looked at him. “For real?”

“Yes.”

“Windy,” I said.

“Which one is that?”

“Seriously?”

“I’m not good with names,” Benedict said.

“Windy is the one I’ve been talking to all night.”

“In other words,” Benedict said, “you want the hotter one. Fine, whatever.”

I went back to Windy’s place. We took it slow until we took it fast. It wasn’t full-on bliss, but it was awfully sweet. It was around 3:00 A.M. when Windy walked me to the door.

Not sure what to say, I stupidly went with “Uh, thank you.”

“Uh, you’re welcome?”

We kissed lightly on the lips. It wasn’t something that would last, we both knew that, but it was a small, quick delight, and sometimes in this world, there was nothing wrong with that.

I stumbled back across campus. There were students still out. I tried to stay in the shadows, but Barry, the student who visits my office weekly, spotted me and cried out, “Taking the walk of shame, Teach?”

Caught.

I gave him a good-hearted wave and continued serpentine-style to my humble abode.

A sudden head rush hit me as I entered. I stayed still, waiting for my legs to come back to me. When the dizziness receded, I headed into the kitchen and grabbed a glass of ice water. I drank it in big gulps and poured another. I would be hurting tomorrow, no question about it.

Exhaustion weighed down my bones. I stepped into my bedroom and flicked on the light. There, sitting on the edge of my bed, was the man with the maroon baseball cap. I jumped back, startled.

The man gave me a friendly wave. “Hey, Jake. Sheesh, look at you. Have you been out carousing?”

For a second, no more, I just stood there. The man smiled at me as though this were the most natural encounter in the history of the world. He even touched the front of his cap at me, as though he were a professional golfer acknowledging the gallery.

“Who the hell are you?” I asked.

“That’s not really relevant, Jake.”

“Like hell it isn’t. Who are you?”

The man sighed, let down, it seemed, by my seemingly irrational insistence on knowing his identity. “Let’s just say I’m a friend.”

“You were in the café. In Vermont.”

“Guilty.”

“And you followed me back here. You were in that van.”

“Guilty again. Man, you smell like cheap booze and cheaper sex. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

I tried to keep from swaying. “What do you want?”

“I want us to take a ride.”

“Where?”

“Where?” He arched an eyebrow. “Let’s not play games here, Jake. You know where.”

“I don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about,” I said. “How did you get in here anyway?”

The man almost rolled his eyes at that one. “Oh, right, Jake, that’s what we want to waste time discussing-how I managed to get past that piece-of-crap excuse for a lock on your back door. You’d be better off sealing it closed with Scotch tape.”

I opened my mouth, closed it, tried again. “Who the hell are you?”

“Bob. Okay, Jake? Since you don’t seem to be able to get past this name issue, my name is Bob. You’re Jake, I’m Bob. Now can we get moving, please?”

The man stood. I braced myself, ready to relive my bouncer days. There was no way I was letting this guy out of here without an explanation. If the man was intimidated, he was doing a pretty good job of hiding it.

“Are we ready to go now,” he asked me, “or do you want to waste more time?”

“Go where?”

Bob frowned as though I were putting him on. “Come on, Jake. Where do you think?” He gestured toward the door behind me. “To see Natalie, of course. We better hurry.”