Collected Short Stories: Volume IV

  Paige held her tongue. Better to wait her out, let the woman play her hand. Somebody always needed something. Quid pro quo - at the bank it was a loan to cover a spiffy sports car or maybe a mortgage for a bigger house than the absurd behemoth they already owned. Enough was never enough. "Look, here's the deal," the middle-aged woman threw formality out the window, "I need someone with a head on her shoulders to talk horse sense with Norman. His brains got all muddled what with all the crazy books he reads and that god-awful German poetry."

  "Norman speaks German?"

  "No, not a word," Mrs. Snyder clarified. Reaching into her purse, she withdrew a scrap of paper and handed it to Paige. "He reads mystical gibberish in translation and then the poor boy doesn't know which end is up anymore." She began to cry, making horrible choking sounds, her pendulous lower lip quivering under the burden of grief.

  Paige laid the sheet on the bed without looking at it. "You brought me something that belongs to Norman with neither his knowledge nor consent."

  Mrs. Snyder slumped down on the edge of the bed and shrugged dismissively. "It's just a poem by Rilke that he downloaded off the internet."

  Paige lowered her eyes and read silently.

  Sometimes a man stands up during supper

  and walks outdoors, and keeps on walking,

  because of a church that stands somewhere in the East.

  And his children say blessings on him as if he were dead.

  And another man, who remains inside his own house,

  dies there, inside the dishes and in the glasses,

  so that his children have to go far out into the world

  toward that same church, which he forgot.

  Rainer Maria Rilke

  "So what the hell is a church that stands somewhere in the East?" Mrs. Snyder fumed. "It's a lot of malarkey, right?" Without waiting for a response the woman answered her own question. The woman rose and began pacing the room, getting more agitated by the minute. "I mean, who reads this sappy shit?"

  "The church in the East," Paige replied diplomatically, "probably refers to some spiritual quest or Holy Grail."

  "My son's washing dishes in a greasy spoon. The Holy Grail don't figure in the grand scheme of things." When there was no immediate reply, the woman added. "In recent weeks, the boy's become morbidly depressed… turned his back on all his friends from high school." "He goes away, disappears for days at a time." Mrs. Snyder jutted her flabby lower lip in a theatrical scowl. "I say, 'Norman, I tried to reach you a dozen times over the weekend. Where the hell were you?'"

  "And?"

  "He says, ‘I traveled north.’"

  North - what did that signify? North to Boston’s North End, still further north to New Hampshire or Vermont, north to the polar latitudes? "So what do you want from me, Mrs. Snyder?"

  "The few times your name came up during high school, Norman always had flattering things to say about you. If he wasn't so painfully shy and tongue-tied, Norm might have even asked you…" The woman cut herself short, abruptly sallying off in another direction. "Maybe you could drop by the diner after work. Give the poor boy some moral encouragement… lift his broken spirits."

  Paige felt overwhelmed. With her gloom-and-doom pronouncements, Phyllis Snyder was a blight, an emotional pestilence; she sucked every molecule of nourishing oxygen from the air. "I'll visit after work tomorrow."

  Mrs. Snyder reached out tentatively and squeezed her hand. "You're a kind-hearted soul." Without another word she retreated to the doorway and lumbered back down the stairs.

  *****

  At six-fifteen the following afternoon, Paige wandered into Ryan's Diner, took a seat at the counter and ordered coffee. A moment passed and an employee dressed in T-shirt and white apron came bustling through the door from the kitchen with a plastic rack full of clean water glasses. Noticing the girl, he hurried over.

  The boy stood on the far side of the counter grinning good-naturedly. He had grown a full beard and let his wavy blond hair cascade down over his ears. He could have passed for a beach bum or an ax murderer. "I heard you got a plum job over at the bank."

  "In the loan department," Paige stumbled over several words as though she suffered a speech impediment. "Got bumped up from head teller last August."

  "Well that's just great!" In no great hurry to stack the glasses, Norman rested his fists on the countertop.

  Earlier in the day, Paige had rehearsed several equally distasteful strategies for finessing the encounter. She would open the conversation with innocuous pleasantries. Once the conversation hit a snag, she would cut her loses and disappear out the door.

  Properly understood, the visit was nothing more than an empty formality, a bit of misplaced altruism foisted on her by a manipulative, blatantly neurotic mother. Mrs. Snyder had resorted to emotional subterfuge, whining and wheedling until Paige agreed to do her bidding. His sour-pickle-of-a-mother duped the girl.

  "Actually, I'm here under false pretenses," Paige blurted.

  "Excuse me?"

  "I came under your mother's auspices, to talk you off the ledge… a mission of mercy."

  She hadn't originally intended to say anything of the sort.

  Norman rolled his eyes. "Mother came to see you?" Paige nodded. "I'm so sorry! You're the fifth sacrificial lamb." Norman reached out and patted her wrist, a reassuring gesture, but then his droll expression turned reflective. "Look, I go on break in ten minutes, if you don't mind waiting around."

  "I came here expressly to see you," Paige reminded him.

  “How soon we forget!” Norman cracked a boyish grin and went off to unload the drinking glasses.

  *****

  "In answer to you unspoken question," Norman noted, "I'm not quite sure what I'm doing bussing tables, scrubbing dirty pots and pans. Think of it as a rite of passage."

  "To a church somewhere in the East."

  "Yes, something of the sort." Norman didn't seem the least bit ruffled by the familiar literary allusion.

  "Scrubbing pots and pans… how does that make sense?"

  "Sometimes doing nothing can be proactive." His tone remained cordial if a tad flippant. "Say, what are you doing next weekend?"

  "Why do you ask?"

  "I'm going north on an adventure Friday afternoon and was wondering if you'd like to join me."

  There was nothing salacious in his tone or body language. It was the indefinite and ill-defined 'north' that put Paige's nerves on edge. "Where exactly north?"

  "Scarborough, Maine. It's on the ocean just over the line from Old Orchard Beach and the boardwalk. I walk the beaches and contemplate my navel among other things."

  "It's the middle of November, a week before Thanksgiving. Isn't it freezing up there?"

  "Brisk… maybe a bit chilly," he countered. "But on the plus side, room rates are dirt cheap and coastal Maine is especially scenic this time of year."

  "No, but thanks for the invite."

  Behind the counter, a waitress, who needed Norman to finesse a five-gallon milk carton into the chrome dispenser, was gesturing frantically. "If you have a change of heart, here's my cell number." He scribbled the digits on a napkin and rushed back to work.

  *****

  A week passed. Paige had all but forgotten about her clandestine visit to Ryan's Diner. In the kitchen the telephone clattered. "It's Mrs. Snyder," Paige's mother yelled up the stairs.

  "Aw, crap!" Paige blew out her cheeks. She counted to ten and did a couple deep breathing exercises to compose herself before reaching for the phone.

  "Well?" The tone was belligerent, borderline confrontational, as though the woman had expected Paige to fax a twenty-page, confidential report as soon as she had returned from the diner.

  "I met with Norman last Thursday and can assure you he's not the least bit distraught about his personal circumstances."

  "Well, he ought to be, considering what he put me through these past few years." The sarcasm was palp
able. Without skipping a beat, the woman demanded, "Tell me what he said."

  "No, certainly not! I don't appreciate cloak and dagger intrigue or being blackmailed into becoming your surrogate. Goodbye, Mrs. Snyder." She hung up the phone and promptly burst into tears.

  "Your hands are shaking something awful." Mrs. Bryant pulled her daughter close and bussed her cheek, quickly rubbing the wetness away with the heel of her hand. "In the future when that witch calls, I'll simply tell her you're not available."

  "No, it's not Mrs. Snyder's fault." Paige insisted, blotting her eyes with a tissue. "There was some ugliness at work earlier today and I'm still feeling a bit shaky."

  "Anything you want to talk about?"

  "No, it's over and done with." She pushed her mother away at arm's length. "What's the weather forecast?"

  Mrs. Bryant eyed her uncertainly. "Chilly… below freezing by dawn but warming up midday."

  Paige retreated back upstairs. She took a bath and steeped in the warm sudsy water for a half hour before finally washing her hair. Choosing a pair of flannel pajamas, she got ready for bed. She closed the bedroom door and reached for the cell phone. "Hello, Norman? Your mother's a royal pain in the ass, but that's not why I called."

  Perched in a lotus position on the top of her queen-size bed, Paige took a deep breath and blew all the air out in one sinewy thread. "That escape weekend you were telling me about… is it too late to reserve a room?"

  "Probably not." His tone was relaxed, nonplussed. "I'll call and see what they got." He hung up. Ten minutes later, Paige's phone twittered. "I reserved two adjoining rooms on the first floor with baseboard heat. The place is rustic… no frills but very clean."

  "Okay." Paige could feel her mood brightening.

  "I can pick you up at the bank after work, if you like."

  The girl flinched. "I'm calling in sick tomorrow. Drop by my house instead."

  "Bring a warm sweater… evenings can get downright frigid." The line went dead.

  Paige studied her hands that, in truth, had been trembling quite violently only a few hours earlier. The supple fingers lay placidly in her lap. The worst was over, thank God!

  *****

  During the trip north, Norman avoided downtown Boston, swinging west of the urban center. The detour added another half hour to their final destination but proved a wash by avoiding the late afternoon, home-bound, city traffic. Reaching the New Hampshire state line in just over an hour, they cruised through Kittery with its bargain outlets a scant twenty minutes later. Close on to seven-thirty they reached downtown Old Orchard Beach. The boardwalk and theme park that normally bustled with thousands of bikini-clad tourists was boarded up tight, not a single shop or burger joint open for business. "Where do we eat?" Paige's stomach began gurgling restively several miles back.

  "There’s a seafood restaurant within walking distance of the motel." Norman took a hard right onto East Grandview and skirted the ocean. The temperature had dropped another ten degrees since leaving Boston. Shortly they passed into Scarborough. The motel was three blocks down. "I'll check in and then we can grab dinner."

  Paige followed Norman into the motel lobby where a lithe blonde assigned their keys and took a deposit. Norman headed back in the direction of the car. "Shouldn't we at least view the rooms?"

  "The accommodation are clean and tidy and small and dowdy and a bit old-fashioned. Let's eat!"

  *****

  At the restaurant, Paige ordered lobster, while Norman settled on the seafood medley with baked scrod, scallops, shrimp in a béarnaise sauce. While they were waiting for the meals, Norman glanced up. "Maddie Etheridge… she was a year ahead of us in high school. She married last year."

  "Really?" Maddie, a WASP’y blonde with translucent skin, drove a fully-loaded BMW convertible to school her senior year, courtesy of her father, a stock broker with a firm on State Street in Boston. Maddie looked down her nose at anyone who didn't shop the exclusive boutiques at the Chestnut Hill Mall.

  "The wedding was at the Park Plaza overlooking the Charles," Norman reported dispassionately. "Forty thousand bucks… that's what they spent on the wedding ceremony with all the trappings."

  Paige tried to picture Maddie traipsing down the aisle in the swanky Georgian Ballroom of the Park Plaza, to the dulcet tones of a classical string ensemble. The waitress returned with a basket of warmed bread rolls and their salads. "Thirteen months and three days.”

  Paige spread butter on her roll and teased the onions to the side of her salad with the tines of her fork. "And what does that figure represent?"

  "How long the debacle-of-a-marriage lasted. Maddie and Mr. Right are presently in divorce court salvaging the mess they created at the pricey Park Plaza." Norman speared a cherry tomato with his fork. "A hundred dollars a day - that's what it ultimately cost them." He wasn't being judgmental or vindictive. On the contrary Norman’s tone was laced with regret that Maddie's life had veered so badly off course, fallen to pieces.

  After the meal arrived, he leaned across the table and thumped Paige on the forearm. "In the Asian republics such as Chechnya and Kyrgyzstan, the family of a young girl sets a bride's price and expect payment from prospective suitors."

  "The opposite of a dowry," Paige noted.

  “If a man is poor and can't afford a wife, he might simply grab one off the street and take her home to his family, where they hold her prisoner until the fellow can meet with the parents to try to negotiate an acceptable arrangement." He stared at his baked potato. "Apparently the practice is widespread throughout patriarchal, Moslem societies where women have little say in the matter. Half of all Kyrgyz marriages include bride kidnapping. Two thirds are non-consensual."

  "What about the rest?"

  "Sometimes couples love each other, but the parents object to the marriage so the love birds 'elope' under the guise of bride kidnapping."

  "Romeo and Juliette," Paige interjected, "with an Asian twist." The utterly absurd notion that Norman Snyder might be planning such a daring feat flitted through her sleepy brain.

  He raised a forkful of butternut squash seasoned with honey to his lips. "Yes, a perfectly good analogy."

  "And how do these bride kidnappings work out?"

  Sipping at his draft beer, he made a wry face. "A hell of a lot better than Maddie Etheridge's matrimonial fiasco."

  *****

  After supper they returned to the motel. "I'm going for a walk on the beach," Norman announced.

  "It's pitch dark," Paige blustered, “with the temperature bottoming out in the low forties." The baseboard heating, which came up immediately when she adjusted the thermostat, was making a ticking sound as forced hot water coursed through the metal fins. The room was warming nicely and she wanted to go to bed.

  "I won't be long." He reached for a wool jacket.

  Bone-weary, she didn't want to be left alone in the no-frills cabin. "On second thought I'll join you."

  A path through a cluster of salt spray roses and rubbery sea grass in back of the motel lobby led down to the beach only a few hundred feet away. Although the sun had gone down hours earlier, a harvest moon hung like a fluorescent bulb in the star-flecked easterly sky. High tide at night - neither the thought nor physical imagery had ever occurred to her before setting foot on the frigid beach. And yet, the churning, wind-swept waves accompanied them, like a soothing prayer on the late night stroll.

  Wave after wave crashed down on the blackened sand. Paige felt infinitely happy. Even the chilly sea breeze couldn't dampen her newfound courage and sense of resolve. Certain things needed attending to as soon as she returned home. What had seemed insurmountable - utterly hopeless just a few hours earlier - was suddenly of no great consequence.

  Norman walked a mile and a half in the damp sand before reversing direction and heading back. Feathery plumes of frosty air tumbled from his nostril. Several times he stroked his beard and she thought he might say something, but nothing came of it. When they were back at the motel
, he said, "We'll breakfast around eight and then plan our day."

  The room had warmed to a comfortable seventy degrees. "What do you think your mother would say if she knew I was aiding and abetting her deranged son?"

  "Let's not go there," he quipped and retreated back to his own room, chuckling lightly while running a thumb and index finger along the wispy beard where it curled up under his chin.

  *****

  In the morning they doubled back through Old Orchard, which resembled a ghost town, and Norman veered right at a flashing yellow light. A half mile down, the parking lot at Michelle's Breakfast Nook was full to overflowing. "The savvy local yokels eat here. Breakfast special's the best deal, but you choose whatever you want."

  After breakfast, he drove to the Len Libby chocolate factory, a famous tourist attraction a few miles up the road back in Scarborough. In nineteen ninety-seven, the owner of the candy store commissioned an artist to fashion a seventeen-hundred-pound, life-size moose. Sculpted from milk chocolate, the antlered beast was constructed on premises in four weeks. From when they opened the doors at nine a.m. until closing, the store ran a video showing visitors how the animal came to life

  Len Libby featured dark chocolate prepared with pure butter and heavy creams. The glass display case held a huge selection of truffles stuffed with real fruit. There were marzipan honey almond, pecan buds, butterscotch squares, peanut brittle and a butter cream concoction laced with brown sugar. The girl behind the counter recommended the toffee molasses chips and Bordeaux dark nougat. Paige bought an assortment of chocolates, taffy and fudge.

  Back in the center of town, the boardwalk was all locked up for the season. Norman indicated an elderly woman sprawled on a beach chair. "That's Mrs. Bryant over there with the two Lhasa Apso puppiess. Her husband died a few years back. She has grown children in Bangor but prefers her independence." The lapdogs were running amok in the shallows. Norman waved and Mrs. Bryant returned the greeting.