Flirting In Cars

  Bill helped himself to a heaping forkful of turkey. “Yeah, well, you might go take another look. Remember, nests can fall down.” He took a heaping mouthful of potato. “And so can trees.”

  Mack suddenly felt a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, remembering the day he’d seen Moroney’s pickup truck pulling into the town hall parking lot, interrupting his driving lesson with Zoë. No wonder Moroney had looked so guilty. He had used that chainsaw to commit a crime, although killing trees and birds might not count as murder.

  Mack stared at his brother-in-law. “Did you help him do it?”

  “Did I help who do what?” Bill served himself another spoonful of mashed potatoes.

  “Don’t play games with me. Did you help Moroney cut down that tree?” You had to know just what you were doing to take down an oak with a single chainsaw, working with the weight of the tree, cutting to take advantage of the slight asymmetry of the growth. Mack didn’t know if Moroney knew that much about trees, but Bill sure did.

  “Mack, I don’t have time to cut down trees for other people. But the highway boys do make their rounds, and if they hear an old tree might be about to drop some limbs on the road, they have to do something about it.”

  Frances dropped her fork with a clatter. “That tree wasn’t near any road! Gretchen and I found it on a hike!”

  “Yeah, well, the highway department takes their orders from the town supervisor,” said Mack, not bothering to disguise the bitterness in his voice. “Maybe they decided to define the dirt path going up Amimi Mountain as a road.” He pushed his plate away, his appetite gone. “You know, Moroney’s going too far. He can’t just run this town like it’s his own personal kingdom.”

  “Oh, come off it,” said Bill. “Your beef with Moroney is personal, not political. And if you really cared so much about how this town is run, you wouldn’t spend all your time teaching Manhattan here how to drive. Assuming that’s what you’re doing for five hours a day, every day, for the past month. Slow learner, isn’t she?”

  “You know, for the entire twenty years you’ve been married to my sister, I thought you were a quiet, cranky guy. Maybe a little old before your time, but I kind of liked you. At least, I liked that you stuck by my sister. Now, all of a sudden, you’re a bundle of venom. What’s going on?”

  “How the hell would you know what I was like,” snarled Bill. “You were off in the army the whole time. This is me, Mack, take it or leave it.”

  “If this is the real you, I don’t think anyone should take it.”

  There was an ominous silence at the table. No one was even pretending to eat anymore. The little dog was making strange, low, huffing noises, as if she wanted to bark but couldn’t quite work up the nerve.

  “Get the hell out of my house.”

  “Bill, you’re not kicking my brother out in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner.”

  “Oh, shit, you defending your baby brother again? I’m telling you, Moira, I’ve had enough. He’s over thirty, and there’s no reason for us to have to make our decisions about selling or not based on the fact that he’s living over our barn.”

  Moira banged her fist down on the table. “Bill, we are not discussing this here and now.”

  Bill snorted. “Yeah, right. Of course she needs to worry. You live your whole damn life as if you were about to go back to the army, only you aren’t going back.”

  “Bill.”

  He turned to Mack, his lip curled in a sneer. “Moira says you’ve seen so much death, you’re still living like anyone that gets next to you might die at any minute. I say you’re still looking for someone to mommy you.”

  “Come on, Maya,” said Zoë, getting up. “Let’s go to the bathroom for a moment.”

  “But I don’t have to go,” protested the child, refusing to leave the table.

  “Bill, you have no right to do this!” Moira was standing now, her face scarlet.

  “Yeah, well, he didn’t have the right to invite a bunch of strangers into my home.”

  “It’s his home, too, and it’s also mine and…get out.”

  Bill remained in his seat. “Don’t say it unless you mean it, Moira. You really want to throw away twenty years of marriage because I don’t want strangers offering me opinions about my land?”

  “But it’s not your land, Bill.” Mack stared at his sister. As far as he knew, she and Bill had never fought before. He’d always assumed that was a good thing, but now he was having second thoughts.

  “Or are you just mad because I don’t want to spend the next eighteen years of my life raising some stranger’s kid.”

  “I didn’t turn this into a fight.”

  “Yeah, you did. You know how I feel, and you won’t stop nagging me about it.” Bill stood up, scraping his chair back from the table, and walked out the front door.

  There was silence at the table, as Mack and everyone else took in the fact that his sister’s marriage had apparently just disintegrated before they’d finished the first course.

  “Is she pregnant, Mommy?” whispered Maya.

  “No, honey, I think he meant…something else.”

  Moira’s face crumpled. “If you’ll excuse me.” She left, and Mack looked around at Gretchen and Frances and Skeeter before he finally met Zoë’s eyes.

  “Well,” Skeeter said to Gretchen, “that’s strange. Usually turkey makes everyone sleepy.”

  Zoë leaned closer to Mack. “Did you know she wanted to adopt a baby?”

  Mack shook his head. “I didn’t even know I was living like I expected everyone to die.”

  “Look, everyone, look,” said Maya, and Mack turned to look out the window, where a pair of wild turkeys were ambling across the lawn, as if protesting the consumption of their brethren.

  “Happy Thanksgiving,” said Gretchen, raising her glass of wine. “God bless all of us turkeys.”

  Frances stood up and walked over to the other woman, then bent down and kissed her warmly on the lips. “Well put.” Then, glancing back at Skeeter’s expression, she added, “I think it’s time to open another bottle of wine.”

  Twenty-four

  T he weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas passed in a blur. Mack had joined Gretchen and Frances in actively challenging the development, and the three had taken to holding their planning sessions in Zoë’s kitchen, so that she could take notes for her article. Sometimes Skeeter dropped by after work with a six-pack of Budweiser, a look of almost painful longing on his face whenever he turned in Gretchen’s direction. Yet despite his unrequited crush, Skeeter was the most clearheaded of the group when it came to articulating what was at stake.

  “The thing is,” he said one night, after Frances launched into an impassioned attack on Moroney, “you don’t want to go around saying that you’re antidevelopment. This town is going to change in the next few years,” he said. “The question is, what kind of change? If we let Moroney and his crew convince people it’s us versus them, working-class country against rich city folks, then Moroney’s going to be the one deciding how the town gets developed.”

  “He’s right,” said Mack. “And maybe we need to change our name from Arcadia Wetlands Foundation to something…broader. So it doesn’t sound like all we care about is endangered turtles.”

  “How about Arcadia Progressive,” suggested Zoë, looking up from her notes. “Nobody can accuse you of being antiprogress when it’s right in your name, but you can argue that it’s more forward-thinking to preserve the attributes that make the town so attractive.”

  “I didn’t think you found the town particularly attractive,” said Mack.

  “I think it needs a bagel shop, a bookstore, and a couple of cute boutiques, not a bunch of big box stores with parking lots large enough to house a fleet of RVs for a week.”

  “And that can be our slogan,” said Mack. “We’ll need to print up bumper stickers.”

  Zoë whacked him lightly over the head with the local newspaper. “Listen, Truck Boy, you want pithy? I’
ll give you pithy.” She unfolded the newspaper and read, “ ‘Town Board of Arcadia votes against proposed zoning ordinance. “Way I see it, no zoning is better than bad zoning,” says Bill Gunnison, a local horse farmer.’ Which, by the way, was what you said at the dinner table—your lovely brother-in-law stole your quote. And that is the end of the article. No dates given for the meeting, no discussion of the issue, no comment from the opposing camp.” She flipped the paper open, checking the byline. “Who is this reporter? And who edits this crap?”

  “That’s a dollar,” said Maya, who was sitting in a corner, studying a book on horse anatomy.

  Mack took the paper from Zoë’s hand, letting his fingers brush hers. “As far as I know, Pete Grell’s wife was editing the paper, but she’s been busy taking care of him after his stroke. And she was always looking for reporters—all you need is a high school diploma and a car, and you’re hired.”

  “Would she let me submit an article?”

  Mack grinned. “She’d let you take over the paper if you wanted it. She’s been looking to retire for about five years now.”

  And despite the fact that Zoë had no intention of remaining in Arcadia past the spring, she felt a sudden burst of excitement at the thought of turning the local rag into a real paper. She looked down at the patchily laid-out front page and had a flash of understanding as to why Bronwyn was so pulled to adopting stray and abandoned dogs. There was this newspaper, neglected and ugly and incomplete, all but gazing up at her with big, sad eyes and pleading to be made right. Most seductive of all was the thought that if she didn’t do it, no one would. That was perhaps the biggest difference between the city and the country: in the city, there was the electricity of competition. In the country, there was the surprisingly powerful charge of knowing that your skills were needed.

  Mack touched her shoulder. “What are you thinking?”

  “To tell you the truth, I was thinking about what you just said about the paper needing people.”

  “All you need to do is get your driver’s license.” Zoë laughed. “Shoot, I forgot that part. Guess I’m missing the really crucial skill.”

  “But you’re learning.” Zoë found herself unable to look away from Mack’s steady, warm blue gaze, and for the first time in her life, she had a fantasy of what life might be like living permanently in the country, with a loving man and a job that brought her into contact with living human beings once in a while.

  “So, what do you think, Zoë?”

  “What?” Zoë turned back to Frances, who’d been poring over the agreement between the town board and the Amimi Mountain Development Project. “Oh, sorry, Frances, I was thinking about something else.”

  “I was asking if you knew any lawyers.”

  “Especially lawyers who want to donate some free time,” amended Gretchen. “And there’s so many of those.”

  “Actually, I might be able to help you there,” said Zoë. She had not been talking to Bronwyn as often as she used to, and she felt faintly guilty calling her up. On the other hand, Zoë thought that doing some work that did not have to do with toddlers would be very good for her friend.

  “Come on, Bron,” she said, carrying the phone into the other room, away from the others. “It’s only for two days. All you have to do is hop on the train, and we can help you with the twins,” said Zoë. “And Mack says the boys would love the town’s parade of lights this weekend.”

  “I don’t know,” said Bronwyn. “It’s so close to Christmas, and I’m just so tired.”

  “The fact is, we need your legal expertise.”

  “My what?”

  “You know the article you talked me into doing? Well, the group that’s trying to get responsible zoning for the town needs a lawyer.”

  “I’m a zombie mom of two. Surely they can do better than hire a person so sleep-deprived she can barely remember where she puts her keys.”

  “This is the country, Bron. It’s you or nobody. And if this development goes through, a lot of baby turtles and innocent wood ducks are going to be flattened by progress.”

  “Zoë, this is blackmail. And unlike you, I am nominally Christian, and therefore expected to actually celebrate the birth of the Christ child. Which means that I need to find a way to buy and wrap things, which I still haven’t done because I never have a break from the boys.”

  “That’s what the internet is for. Meanwhile, without your legal expertise, little baby foxes will be steamrollered flat. Possums paved into speed bumps. And besides,” Zoë said more softly, “I miss you. I’m having the best sex of my life and I don’t have anyone to tell about it.”

  “You’re having the best…this driving instructor is the best?”

  “You know what my feet are like, right?”

  “I try not to think about them, but yes.”

  “Well, he sucks my toes.”

  There was a momentary silence, and then Bronwyn let out a long-suffering sigh. “Okay, so how the hell am I going to pack enough to keep the twins entertained for two hours on the train?”

  Zoë gave out an exultant whoop. “You’re coming!”

  “I’m coming.”

  Despite Mack’s inspired attempts to convince her to drive to the train station, Zoë refused to take the wheel after five PM, when the sky began to grow dark.

  “I don’t care if you do spank me,” she said. “I’m not doing it.”

  “What if I promise never to spank you again unless you drive?”

  “Sorry, Mack. First of all, I can barely force myself to drive when the sun is shining and the sky is clear. Second of all, I have terrible night vision.” She tapped her glasses. “I can barely see where I’m walking at night.”

  “That’s why you have headlights. And you’ll drive more slowly. But you’re going to have to learn sometime,” he said. “The world doesn’t stop after the sun goes down.”

  “Around here it does.” Zoë slid into the front passenger seat, suddenly filled with a fierce longing for the city, with all its lights and noise and activity. She had learned that in Arcadia and all the surrounding towns, stores closed at five, leaving only the occasional porch light or flickering television to offset the early darkness.

  Of course, it wasn’t all bad. She quite enjoyed the evenings, sitting with Mack and Maya around the roaring fireplace, listening to music or watching a movie together. The small video shop in town, which hadn’t even switched to renting out DVDs yet, had a quirky collection of eighties action-adventure films, Sun-dance Film Festival selections, and classic Hollywood comedies. Zoë usually wound up renting the latter, so that Maya had finally gotten a chance to see Carole Lombard as a charmingly deranged heiress. Zoë thought her daughter might have given her a speculative look after seeing Carole and her butler winding up in an embrace, but didn’t think Maya really knew that she and Mack were a couple. They had been extremely discreet, never touching each other when Maya was home from school.

  On this particular evening, however, Maya was over at Moira’s house, helping her get the horses’ manes braided with ribbon for the town parade. Bill had made good on his threat, and had not come back after the debacle of Thanksgiving dinner.

  Moira, who no longer wanted to sell the farm, did not seem as upset as Mack would have expected, given the duration of the marriage.

  “Tell me something,” Mack said, as he put the car into gear. “Do you think Moira’s doing all right on her own?”

  “I think so,” said Zoë. “Sometimes anticipating a change can be worse than the change itself.”

  Mack shot her a sideways glance. “Is that the way it was with you?”

  “I was never married.”

  “I’m talking about leaving the city.”

  Zoë thought about it, remembering the emptiness and despair of her early days. Looking back on it, she realized how unhappy she had been. “Yes,” she said at last. “I don’t mind being here so much anymore.” She paused. “Well, parts of being in the country I more than just don’t min
d. Parts of it I like. A lot.”

  “Just like?”

  “Maybe more than just like.”

  And for some reason, even though they had already invoked the word “love,” this use of the word “like” lingered in the air between them as if it were the expression of some deeper commitment.

  Breaking all his own rules about safety, Mack took her hand in his and held it, driving one-handed the rest of the way to the station.

  Bronwyn’s reaction to the house was completely unexpected. “My God,” she kept saying as she went from room to room, “it’s incredible. Look at all this space. Look at your backyard! Oh, God, imagine it in spring, the twins could run around outside and…Zoë, I may just have to move out here with you.”

  “Don’t tease me.”

  “I’m not sure I’m teasing. Oh,” she said as they reached the bathroom. “A clawfoot bathtub.” Bronwyn turned on Zoë, eyes narrowed. “How could you not have mentioned this? And the faucets?”

  “What about them?”

  “They’re vintage. Look, one for cold and one for hot. I love it!”

  Bronwyn also loved the octagonal window on the upper floor, the chenille bedspread, and the tin-top table. “This is what replaces sex in women’s fantasies, you know. One day, you look at all the magazines that promise to help you flatten your tummy, please him in bed, and choose the right pair of jeans, and you think, I don’t care if I’m flabby or how my jeans fit and I really don’t care whether or not I’m pleasing him in bed, because he’s sure as hell not pleasing me out of it. So you start looking at the magazines that promise to help you make your kitchen look like it belongs in an old farmhouse, complete with recipes for zucchini bread and an easy-to-plant herb garden. You dream about what it would be like to sit somewhere beautiful, with something delicious to eat and a few good friends to share it with.”

  “You never told me I was living your fantasy when you were begging me to come back to the city.”

  “Well, I’m coming around to thinking that maybe it’s me who should leave.” Bronwyn pointed to Zoë’s favorite painting of a Cyclops and his mod girlfriend, which Mack had hung over her bed. “That just doesn’t go here.” She gestured at the picture of a heavily pregnant Zoë, which Mack had also hung in the bedroom, confessing that it had turned him on the first time he’d seen it. “And neither does that.”