Fiona Range Read online

  She fled into the bright, noisy sanctuary of the kitchen. She watched Chester ladle pancake batter onto the grill. It wasn’t fair, she thought, torn between anger and pity for Larry. At one time or another, most everyone had sneaked through the woods to party and swim in the ice-cold quarry with its sheer granite ledges. Because the quarry was on Patrick Grady’s land, it was the one risk Fiona had never taken. After Larry’s accident she had been glad when his family sued Grady. She leaned on the counter now and asked Chester what the outcome had been.

  “They settled with Patrick’s insurance company,” Chester called over his shoulder. He was flipping frozen sausage patties onto the grill, dealing them out like cards. “They did all right, but they didn’t get what they really wanted.”

  “What was that?” she shouted over the drone of the exhaust fan.

  “To prove he’d been negligent. They wanted the quarry drained so it wouldn’t happen to any other kid.”

  “What do you mean, negligent?”

  “Kids’d go up there and do drugs with him.”

  She had never believed that. She remembered a few guys, Todd especially, selling pot to Grady. But that was all. Grady had been as mean and unfriendly then as now.

  “So I guess the Belleaus figured he made his property accessible to their kid too,” Chester was saying. “But the thing is, he always had that land posted. Always. For years, with ‘No Trespassing’ signs, which I guess is what saved him. Otherwise he would have lost everything. That land’s all he’s got. Aside from disability checks.”

  “I wonder why he doesn’t sell it then?” she said.

  “Ask your uncle,” Chester said, turning the pancakes. He glanced back. “He’d know.”

  “Uncle Charles?”

  “Yah, the Judge,” he said with a startling rancor.

  “I thought you liked my uncle.”

  “I do. It’s him helping Grady, that’s what I don’t get.”

  She pointed at herself. “Moi perhaps?”

  “All the more reason to let him sink in his own shit if you ask me. No-good son of a bitch belongs in jail, that’s where he belongs.”

  “Jail! Why? You mean Larry’s accident?” she asked as the door swung open. Maxine rushed in, looking for her.

  “Yah, that’s what I mean.”

  “But didn’t you and Grady used to be friends once?” From the corner of her eye she saw Maxine by the door staring at her husband.

  “I tolerated him, and that’s a hell of a lot more than scum like him deserves,” Chester said.

  “Chester!” Maxine gasped.

  “She asked, didn’t she?” He flung down the spatula with a clang.

  The door opened again and Maxine slipped into the dining room.

  The next time George came into the coffee shop Fiona thanked him for getting Larry out without a scene.

  “I hope that didn’t make you feel, well, uncomfortable or anything. Me saying we’re dating,” George said with a shrug.

  “Like I said, I appreciated it,” she answered, ignoring the hopeful inflection.

  “So how’s the paper going?”

  “Great.” Seeing his eager smile, she added that with all the reading she’d really only just started writing the paper.

  “Well, you know what they say.” He gave a smart nod. “Begun is half done.”

  “Is that what they say?” She burst out laughing.

  “Something like that,” he muttered, then picked up his check. He peered at it then slid to the end of the booth.

  “George.” She put her hand on his shoulder before he could stand. “I wasn’t laughing at you.”

  “That’s okay.” He smiled up at her. “Really.”

  And that seemed even more confusing, that for George it probably was okay.

  A few days passed before she saw him again. She gave him a menu, then snatched it away, saying she would order for him. The rush was over and there were only a few people left.

  “Here you go,” she said, arriving with Chester’s special, a Mexican omelet that smelled good, however vomitous its consistency with all the chopped red, yellow, and green peppers swimming in runny cheeses. “Try it,” she urged when he hesitated. “And if you don’t like it I’ll get something else.”

  “I will, but first I was wondering if you’d like to go out to dinner this weekend.” Either night, whichever was better for her.

  She was busy both nights, she lied. Actually she had no plans at all. What about Sunday then, he asked. They could drive up to Rye, walk the beach, go to Portsmouth for a few hours, then stop for dinner at the Exeter Inn on the way back. That sounded like a great day, she said, but she was going to need the whole weekend to work on her paper.

  “But thanks, George.” She could see he didn’t believe her.

  “Thanks for what?”

  “For asking. And for always being so damn nice.”

  “Which may be my biggest problem here,” he said softly.

  “No! God, no! In fact, just the opposite.”

  “The opposite! Oh, so I’m not such a nice guy.” His forced laughter fell between them like slow gray rain.

  “What I mean, George, is that I can be a raving, flaming bitch, and that’s not what you’re looking for.”

  “Looking? Who says I’m looking?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “What if I told you I wasn’t the least bit interested in you?”

  She laughed. “Then I’d be insulted as hell!”

  “What if I said I just need someone to talk to sometimes, to go places with.”

  “So in other words you’d be using me!”

  “No! No, we’d be like friends. You know, if you want to talk or you just feel like going for a ride or something, we could do that.”

  “So we’d be using each other!”

  “Well I wouldn’t be thinking of it that way.”

  “But those things never work, George. They just don’t,” she said, then felt terrible when she saw how red his face had gotten.

  Her American history course was at Dearborn Community College. She was tired and the fluorescently bright classroom was too warm. Lee Felderson had already kept everyone an extra forty-five minutes to review for the first quarterly exam, though most of the time had been devoted to test-taking skills.

  “Read the question thoroughly, break it down into parts,” Lee Felderson was saying.

  With a loud sigh Fiona got up and opened a window. She couldn’t believe they were actually writing this all down.

  “Organize your ideas.” Lee Felderson sat back against her desk. Once a plain, sensible, too-earnest girl in her teens, she had lightened her hair and shed probably half her body weight, Fiona guessed. She only wore short, tight skirts and dresses now. Four years older than Fiona, Lee and Fiona’s cousin Ginny had been best friends in high school. What Fiona remembered most about those years was Ginny’s door bursting open and Lee lumbering down the stairs in tears. Ginny’s insensitivity was legendary, though in the family it was considered “frankness,” while Fiona’s own frankness had always been assailed as thoughtlessness. Ginny was like her father, Aunt Arlene had always said of her older daughter: too honest for her own good.

  “Don’t be afraid to jot down ideas, make notes and even outlines right here in the margins.” Lee Felderson held up a blue book and turned to the last page. “Some people prefer making notes here, and that’s fine. I’ll certainly know that’s what you’re doing. And if you don’t want to leave anything to chance, just write ‘notes’ in big, bold letters at the top of the page.”

  Fiona groaned as the nineteen-year-old boy beside her printed “NOTES” at the top of his notes. Idiots. She couldn’t bear to sit here much longer.

  The class finally ended with Lee Felderson’s announcement of another review session next week if anyone was interested. Fiona raised her hand to ask if it would be a review of the actual material “or just more stuff like tonight,” she said, stifling a yawn. The room was silen
t.

  “I try to meet the needs of the group, Ms. Range, and because there are a fair number of older students here like yourself, students who may not have taken a test in a number of years, I think it’s as important to teach the techniques of test-taking as it is the material itself.”

  “Oh sure. No problem,” Fiona said with a flip of her hand.

  “I would hope not.” Lee Felderson’s gaze was as cold as her voice.

  Fiona was getting into her car when Kendra Jones raced up and asked if she and her friend Ann could have a ride home. Just out of high school, they were always bumming rides from someone.

  Fiona asked where they lived, adding that she was tired and was heading straight home, which was right in downtown Dearborn. Oh well then, Kendra said, starting to back away, they did live a lot further out than that, way out past the quarry.

  “All right, hop in,” Fiona said.

  “Are you sure? Do you know where that is?” both girls asked, climbing in.

  “Yah, I know where the quarry is.”

  She hunched over the wheel as she drove. There were no lights or houses along this section of road that ran through the most remote part of town. If it weren’t for patches of moonlight through the gathering clouds, all would be black. The girls hadn’t stopped talking since they’d pulled out of the parking lot.

  She hadn’t been out here in years, she realized as she came around the curve just past the town woods with its tall, spindly pines. She slowed down. Ahead was a small white cottage with a wide brick chimney in the middle of the roof. Patrick Grady’s house. A variety of No Trespassing signs—tin, wood, cardboard, new and old—were nailed to the trees, fences, and porch. She peered out, but could see no car in the driveway that ran behind the house. The only light came from a tiny dormer window over the front door, and she wondered if it was his bedroom. She wondered if he lived alone, if he had a dog or a cat, or if he ever sat in the weathered Adirondack chair that seemed to be sinking into the side yard. She knew he’d always lived there, that next to his house there used to be a road leading into the quarry. But years ago a barbed wire fence had been put up to close off access through his property. To get to the quarry now you had to drive into the Industrial Park, then hike in through the town woods that bordered his property.

  “Do you know who lives there?” She gestured back at the house. “Well, yah! Patrick Grady, the guy with the scar,” Ann said.

  “Do you know him? Fiona asked.

  “Oh God, no. He’s like, weird, you know, like some kind of hermit or something.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If you even go near there he, like, freaks,” Kendra added.

  “What do you mean, freaks?”

  “Well, like this one time he caught my brother and his buddies there up at the quarry and he actually chased them through the woods. He was like screaming and throwing things at them like rocks and branches and things. My brother said he was so scared he almost wet his pants.”

  “That is weird.”

  “Yah, my father said he was like this really cool guy once,” Ann said. “I guess he got all screwed up in Vietnam or something like that.”

  “Really?” She was enjoying talking about him with people who knew nothing of their connection. “Do you know what happened? I mean, how he got so screwed up?”

  “The war, I guess, I don’t know. He’s wicked scary-looking though,” Kendra said with a shiver.

  “My father said he got wounded by an American plane or something. Can you imagine? I mean, like, how unfair is that?” Ann said as they pulled into her driveway.

  After she dropped them off she came back past Grady’s house, driving as slowly as she could without actually stopping. Behind the house there was a crooked shed, and beyond that a small, dark pond, then the woods.

  She was back in town, driving down Main Street when she saw Todd Prescott come out of the drugstore. He wore jeans and a red jacket, and as always, even after two months in rehab, was deeply tanned with pale streaks in his blond hair. He was one of those handsome men whose boyishness becomes only more pronounced and pathetic with age. As she passed she stared straight ahead. “I’ve wasted half my life on that loser,” she whispered to remind herself. It wasn’t until the corner that she dared glance in the mirror. His hand was still up, waving, trying to catch her eye. He probably needed a ride. She’d heard he was working for his father at the furniture store. Her throat was dry. Something ached low in her belly. The old longing had shrunk to this alien place in her being, a conquered dominion, still more his than her own.

  Two years older than her, he had been spoiled, lazy, always in trouble, and her first real boyfriend. He cheated on her constantly. They were forever fighting, breaking up, making up. He got her pregnant when she was sixteen. His wealthy family had owned Prescott’s Fine Furniture all of its staid ninety-seven years, and Todd was their only child. Mr. Prescott provided the money for the abortion because she didn’t dare tell her aunt and uncle. On the morning of the appointment Todd didn’t show up. When Fiona called, Mrs. Prescott said he was sick and couldn’t come to the phone. Elizabeth and George drove her to the clinic in Boston and stayed until it was over. She and Todd were back together the very next day.

  Fiona drove past her street. It was ten o’clock, and she was tired, but she dreaded going home to that cramped, messy apartment. She thought about calling George Grimshaw. In fact, why even call? She was only a block away. She turned onto Elm Street and drove past his house, relieved to see his lights out. She took a left onto Maple Avenue and stopped in front of the big old house Terry and Tim had bought last winter. She hadn’t seen Terry since the party. She got out of the car and looked toward the back of the house. The kitchen light was on. Terry was standing over the sink.

  She hurried down the walk and tapped lightly on the side door so she wouldn’t wake up their little boys. She glanced up at the darkened windows. If she was really lucky Tim would be asleep too. She cringed as the dog began to bark.

  “Fiona!” Terry said, opening the door, the collie beside her. “Are you okay? Is everything all right?” she whispered, looking out toward the street.

  “Yah, what do you think, I’m being followed?” She laughed and stepped inside.

  “Well I don’t know! I don’t hear from you, and now suddenly here you are out of the blue!” Terry said.

  “I was going by and I saw your light so I thought I’d stop in and say hi.”

  It wasn’t until they were sitting at the kitchen table that she realized Terry was in her bathrobe and slippers. The dog wagged his tail and she reached down to pat him.

  “He wants to dance,” Terry said.

  “Sorry, Goldie.” She laughed. “I can only stay a minute,” she said, a little hurt when Terry didn’t object.

  There were circles under Terry’s eyes, and her face was puffy. Her pregnancy was beginning to show. Her dark hair was streaked with white paint.

  “The kitchen looks great,” Fiona said, looking around at the new oak cupboards and yellow walls. “Did you just paint in here?”

  “Yah, this summer. You saw it! The night of the party,” Terry added, making it almost seem like a question.

  “Where’s Tim?” Fiona glanced toward the unlit dining room.

  “In bed.” Terry said he’d spent the night putting a new ceiling in the den.

  The den. Upstairs the little boys asleep, and Tim in bed waiting for his wife. Terry and Tim had been married right after high school. They had both worked for a couple of years before having children, Terry as a secretary and Tim as a painter. In those ten years they had saved every penny, and now they had the house, the babies, and Tim’s video store in the mall. And what did she have to show for the same ten years?

  Terry was staring at her.

  “I’m keeping you up. Why don’t we get together some night this week?” She started to get up.

  “Wait! Don’t leave. Stay a little while longer, please,” Terry whispered, her ha
nd on Fiona’s arm. “My life is so dull. I can’t stand it! Tell me what you’ve been doing. Please! I need something exciting to think about.”

  “All right, but you can’t laugh,” Fiona said.

  “I won’t! I promise! Tell me! Come on, tell me!” Terry squeezed her arm.

  “I’m a coed, believe it or not!” she said, grinning. “I’m taking American history at Dearborn Community, and I love it. It’s only three credits, but if I do well, then I’ll take two more courses next semester. And then I thought—”

  “Come on, Fiona! You’re going out with someone, aren’t you?”

  She said no, but Terry persisted. “Yes you are. You’re seeing someone. I know you are. You are, aren’t you?”

  “Why do you keep saying that?”

  “Because I know you,” Terry said with a forced lilt in her voice. “And I can always tell when you’re lying. Come on, tell me. I won’t tell anyone. I promise. Not a soul. You know you can trust me.”

  She could tell by the look on Terry’s face that she already knew. George must have run into Tim and told him.

  “It was just one date. No big deal,” she said, and Terry’s eyes widened.

  “Where’d you go?” Terry asked, watching carefully.

  “The Orchard House.”

  “You did? When? What night?” Terry asked, mouth agape, hand at her breast.

  “Last week. Actually it was the night after your party. Saturday. George wanted to go to a movie after, but it was late, so we stopped at Pacer’s.”

  “George? Who’s George?” Terry asked, shaking her head.

  “George Grimshaw. Who’d you think I was talking about?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t know.” Terry looked confused. “George Grimshaw! God, what’d you do, talk about Elizabeth all night?”

  They both looked up. A child was crying. Terry said Frankie had gone to bed with a temperature.