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“Look Jimmy, this is a small place. In a way you’re lucky. Some universities have strict rules about this kind of thing. Date a student and you’re out on your ear.”
“She’s a grad student, George. She’s twenty-one years old for God’s sake.”
“Yeah, whatever. But here you come with your boots practically on and your new girlfriend on your arm and you’re saying, Send me to the mountains and I’ll maybe write a book. Maybe I’ll write two. Just send me to the mountains with my girlfriend.
Nelson’s eyes narrowed. “Is that how you see it too? Kinda thought you’d be on my side, George.”
George stiffened but forced a constricted smile. “Of course I’m on your side, Jimmy. Just trying to tell you how it all went down. I shouldn’t even be telling you most of this. Confidentiality and all that shit. I’m going out on a limb here. Wish I didn’t have to keep reminding you of that.”
Nelson let out his breath in a long hiss. For the first time in years he felt the urge for a cigarette. Or maybe it was an urge to go back that far in time and start over in some way he couldn’t even define. “I know you did whatever you could, George. Forget about it.”
“I did do my best. I swear I did.”
The long awkward silence that followed left both men looking down at their hands as perhaps they both realized that after this, their relationship could never be quite the same again. Outside the window, the sun had passed behind the Blaine Tower dormitory, giving George’s office a false feeling of night approaching. The late afternoon breeze rustled the curtains.
George seized on the silence to change the subject; to keep the cool Jimmy talking and not the angry Jimmy. “So where is this place you’re going to? Over in New York State somewhere, right?”
Nelson looked up for a moment, eyes far away as if he hadn’t heard. He felt like just getting the hell out of there but he finally answered. “Yeah, I found this place over in the Taconics. Little place called Cedar Falls. The town is kind of falling apart I guess. I know a guy used to teach there but then the school closed down and the kids go to school elsewhere now. Said he’d rent me his old house real cheap; been trying to sell it but there are vacant houses all over the place now and he says he’ll probably never unload it. At least not till the New York City weekend crowd starts coming that far north. And that may be a long while. His house is right next to the river. There are woods all over the place and a nice mountain above the town. Guess there are more than a few bizarre characters hanging out there too. Perfect place to write as far as I’m concerned.”
“Well listen, Jimmy, you don’t have to make up your mind right here and now, but of course we’d be interested in knowing as soon as possible if you’re leaving us. And it was mentioned that if a book should come out of it, our own press right here might be interested in publishing it.”
“And would they be interested in paying more than jack-shit for it?”
“Well I don’t know, Jimmy. That’s your neck of the woods. Of course we’re talking about a small university press so...”
“Listen, George, I am going to write a book—a good book—and I’m going to get it published at a legit house and then I’m going to flaunt it in front of Crickshaw and the rest of those petrified fossils around here. You can take that to the bank.”
“Hey I know you will, Jimmy. And listen, I’ll never get in so tight with these people that I wouldn’t always be rooting for ya, know what I mean?”
Nelson nodded. “Yeah I know.” Suddenly he realized they were bantering in much the same way they had years ago; boasting and cheerleading for each other in some watering hole—any one of the corner joints they might haunt—where the smell of stale beer permeated the air and the jukebox was full of songs they didn’t know. Their glasses were kept filled with scotch by a tired barmaid who wanted to be elsewhere, and after they had tipped back a few, Nelson would expound on his coming successes and George would say, yeah I’m with ya all the way baby, and they’d check out anything in skirts as though they were still single. Finally they’d be the last ones there, and the bored barmaid would be on the phone with one hand as she sponged down the tables with the other. Above them, the ceiling fan would whir away, the smoke already long cleared out somewhere into the empty night.
But these were old memories, and not even very good ones. It was time to go—past time really. Nelson stood up to banish those memories and bring this afternoon to a merciful close “Gotta go, George. Wish things were different but so what? Se la vie and all that shit, right?”
And of course George threw his arm around Nelson’s shoulders as they walked to the door. And of course Nelson threw an easy punch into George’s expanding stomach. It was an old ritual—the closing ceremony that in this case did not celebrate anything. Perhaps it never had.
CHAPTER FIVE
ARIEL AND TARA
Spring came slowly to Bakers Mountain. Black Brook was swelled with melted snow while at the same time as much as a foot of snow still lingered on the north slopes and in the dells and gullies where the sun was an infrequent visitor. A bank of mist hung above the stream where the warmer air mixed with the crusty snow and the pockets of ice that remained along the banks. But the melodic two-note spring song of the chickadees had already replaced the winter lisp as the small birds flitted in search of food from tree to tree through the woods.
Ariel Boudine listened with pleasure to the sounds of the water and the birds as she walked along the stream in the early morning light. She knelt to touch one of the purple trilliums, those secretive harbinger of Spring, that push their way up between the rocky crevices. If it had been a white trillium, Ariel might have picked it to bring back to the cabin. But the purple ones, for all their beauty, had an unpleasant smell. Oddly enough, the leafy green plant called skunk cabbage that also appeared now along the stream, had little odor in comparison.
Ariel continued to watch for white trillium because she longed to bring some color into their austere cabin. She had gone into the swamp lower down the mountain at the beginning of the winter to gather cranberries. She had brought back enough to make sauces and juice, with enough left over to dry and hang in bundles on the walls. But they were faded now. Still, Ariel knew it would not be long till the showy wild geraniums would throw out their petals in the small clearings all over the mountain. They were Tara’s favorite wild flower. And soon after, Black Brook would be warm enough for Tara to immerse herself for hours in its dark waters. Tara had seldom wanted to leave the cabin over the winter.
Ariel had little trouble keeping Tara comfortable. She was not in great pain, and a daily dose of willow bark tea had generally been enough to keep any pain at bay. If she was restless at night, there was valerian or lavender to take her back into her dreams. Were those dreams strange or different now that Tara was in the final stages? Ariel would watch her in the evening in the firelight that made Tara’s eyes shine as though giving off a light of their own. It seemed she never blinked and she would respond only when Ariel would sit beside her and rest her hand on her arm as she spoke to her. Tara seemed empty somehow and it was up to Ariel to shape their days. Even at night, Tara seemed to want sleep as little as she wanted food or conversation, and Ariel would lead her to bed finally and massage Tara’s body long and gently with a mixture of witch hazel and sage, staying with her until sleep finally came. Yet even in sleep, Tara’s breathing remained shallow and rapid and she might awaken later with drenching night sweats.
When Ariel was sure Tara was asleep she would leave the bed and sit by the south window on those nights when the moonbeams fell across the floor and the snow outside came alive with dancing jewel-like pinpoints of light. She would breath deeply and let the stillness wash over her sadness and apprehension. Because Tara was fading—dying some would say—and perhaps both terms were equally true. They might not have another winter together and so, as Ariel sat by the window, the snow became as much a thing of bitter melancholy as of beauty. Sometimes