“I
think the worst is over,” Barbara Holloway said, standing at her office window. Shelley and Maria were at the matching window, all three watching a wind-battered tree across the street. Although it was still raining, sheets of rain were no longer racing down the street. The tree appeared safe now, but the street looked like a river, with wavelets surging up over the curb. The power had gone off half an hour earlier and, according to the radio reports, damage was extensive throughout the county.
“Another storm of the century,” Shelley said. “Never mind that it's the third such in the past few years. I'm going to call Alex for a damage report.”
She hurried out to her own office, with Maria following to call home, and Barbara hit the speed button for Darren's office at the rehabilitation clinic. She got voice mail, left a brief “we're okay” message, then called her father.
“I'm fine,” Frank said, sounding grumpy. “The yard's an unholy mess, and Norton's poplar tree is in the middle of the street. How are you fixed for lanterns at your place?”
“On my way to check any minute,” she said. “I'll round up lanterns and candles. I imagine the clinic is using the generator, and Darren will probably be there all night. Todd went to his mother's house after school. He called a while ago. So we're all right. I guess you're marooned for a bit, aren't you?”
Across town, Chloe McCrutchen hung up her phone after speaking with Mildred Ochs. Chloe was smiling, then laughed softly. She walked through the sprawling house to her bedroom, where she found the key to the small apartment that had been built decades ago by Robert's parents, for his grandparents' use. Chloe opened the apartment door and entered, still smiling.
Over the past twenty-two years she had put on only a few pounds, and her hair was still dark and straight, but cut becomingly in a pixie style. She was in better shape physically than she had been when younger, as now she was a regular at a gym, where she worked out twice a week. She watched her diet carefully, didn't smoke or have any other habits that invited early impairment of any kind. She intended to live for a long time, and to live well.
The apartment adjoined the main house. It consisted of two rooms, with kitchen space and a sliding door to the deck and garden. After the rain stopped, she would open the windows and the sliding door, air it out, and turn on the refrigerator when the electricity was restored. Mildred would bring over a few things and she would dust and do whatever else needed doing. A tree had smashed into the apartment she had arranged for David Etheridge, she had wailed, and she had to find him a different one, but nothing was to be had in Eugene, not with the track trials coming up, and commencement, and all. He was due in on Sunday. She had one day, Saturday, to ready an apartment for him.
“Have you read his book?” Mildred had asked, and Chloe had to admit that she had not. “I'll bring you a copy and the
Times
review. It'sâ¦well, controversial, to say the least.”
Chloe's smile widened. She had not read the book, but she had read about it, and about the demonstrations it had caused on campuses when David had gone on lecture tours.
“You know him, don't you?” Mildred had asked. “I believe he was in your graduating class, yours and Robert's. Apparently he's made quite a name for himself.”
Chloe leaned against the door frame laughing. She could hardly wait to see Robert's face when she told him David Etheridge would be staying in their apartment during his lecture series in Eugene.
The last time they had all been in the same place at the same time had been at their graduation from the university and the subsequent parties, and now they would share the same roof. It was too bad that Robert would not be home until late. She knew he would probably use the storm as his excuse, and he would take time to conduct a little private business with a pretty staffer before leaving Salem for home. She and Robert both pretended she knew nothing about his meetings with pretty staffers; they had an arrangement they both understood and accepted. Robert was a state senator with big plans, and a party grooming him to take his part when the time came. She had a role to play in his game plan, and she played it well. But she could not suppress her smile, thinking about the news she would greet him with when he got home.
She also pretended that she had never suspected that Robert and David had fought over Jill Storey, and that Robert lost. He had come in that night with scratches and some twigs and leaves on his clothes, and had promptly vanished. She knew not exactly what had happened out on the deck but that it had something to do with Jill.
She was not surprised when Robert called an hour later to say he would not be home until the following afternoon. He said there was a big smashup on I-5 and traffic was at a standstill for miles. Her news could wait, Chloe thought, hanging up the phone. Let him have his night out first, that was fine with her.
Mildred Ochs arrived at ten the next morning, bringing a cooler chest and a bag of groceries, along with David's book and the review. Together they readied the apartment, and after Mildred left, Chloe skimmed the review of David's book. “Beguiling, with flashes of wit and humor throughout, the book deals with profound issues in language that is eloquent, simple and lucid, even lyrical at times. Etheridge argues cogently and to great effect that what he terms the delusions under which this nation was created took deep root and have grown over the centuries since the arrival of Europeans on the North American shores. He takes head-on the God myth, and goes on to the concept of empire building that is forever denied. The myth of laissez-faire comes next, and finally the sacredness of the Constitution. Anyone who is not disturbed by his arguments has not fully understood his book.”
Slowly Chloe picked up the book and studied the cover. The title was
The American Myth Stakes.
She turned it over to regard David's photograph on the back. He seemed to have changed little over the years. Lean, with sharp features, an intent, nearly hungry look.
She walked to the back door, out onto the deck, thinking that possibly it had been a mistake to bring him into the apartment. Not that she could, or would, do anything about it now.
It was a beautiful day, warm with sunshine, trees and grass scrubbed clean and brilliantly green, with masses of flowers in full bloom, birdsong in the air. She felt a chill, in spite of the fine weather. Her malicious little act, she thought, could end up costing Robert dearly if it became known that he had housed David Etheridge, atheist, anticapitalist, apparently anti-American, anti-everything Robert stood for.
Robert McCrutchen was what the pundits called the perfect politicianâarticulate, charismatic, very good-looking, with great hair. Not quite six feet tall, just enough curl in his dark hair, just enough gray at the temples, bright blue eyes, ideal weight. He was the perfect candidate for whatever office he chose to run for. That day he was demonstrating a side his constituents had never seen.
“Are you out of your fucking mind!” Robert shouted. He threw the book across the room, his face livid. “Jesus Christ! Call Mildred back and tell her she has to find someplace else.”
“Look at it this way,” Chloe said. “It proves you're living up to the ideals you express. Free speech and all that. Open-minded, everyone has a right to have his own ideas. Besides, we don't have to announce it. If they demonstrate, it will be at the university, not here. Who's going to know?”
She had already used the argument that he wanted to keep the university faculty on his side, part of the base he was building as a conservative with liberal inclinations. Oregon liked its conservatives to be able to admit to at least a few liberal underpinnings.
Robert stormed out of the living room, heading for the family room and the bar. He was certain Chloe knew nothing of the encounter he and David had had that night so long ago. No one knew except David and him. He had not seen David again after that night. A lot of years had passed, he thought bitterly, and if it weren't for that goddamn book they likely would never have met again, and could even pretend that night had never happened. But an avowed atheist in his house! Chloe was right, they couldn't back out of it, not with Ochs involved. It wouldn't do to piss off the university provost. He was too ready to be pissed off, and getting him out of a spot like this meant Robert was scoring points. He would need support from the university.
Robert poured Scotch and downed it, then poured another and this time added water. He would think of a way to undo whatever damage that harebrained woman had done. He would think of something. He knew it would come outâthat he had housed David Etheridgeâand that it would be used against him in time. Everything came out eventually and he had kept his own record impeccable, without a blemish, anticipating full disclosure down the line. Prosecutor, then state senator, regular churchgoer, a faithful wife, good marriage, son in West Point. Perfect. Now this. He would have to think of something to undo it.
On Sundays Chloe and Robert joined a few others for a large brunch after church, and had a light supper early in the evening. They had just finished such a supper when Mildred Ochs called to say that David would be along in an hour or so. They would have dinner first and he would drive over afterward. He knew the way.
Robert glanced at his watchâsix-thirty. Around seven-thirty he would wander over to Henry Elders's house, see how the old guy was doing, he said. He got no response from Chloe. It was hard to say who the aggrieved party was, he thought. By rights, it should be him, but she was acting put-upon. He shrugged, not really caring one way or the other.
An hour later, he walked around the hedge separating the two properties, then to the rear of Henry's house, along the walkway close to the hedge, the way he had gone as a kid when his mother had him carry over something or other. Strawberries, a pie or cake, something. He had hated doing that, dreading Mrs. Elders each and every time. When Amy got old enough to be the bearer of gifts, he had been relieved. It no longer presented a problem. The poor woman had finally died years earlier.
That evening he found Henry holding a sprayer, scowling at a rosebush. A harsh chemical odor hung in the air. They greeted each other, then Henry asked, “Are you satisfied with those Yard Guard people?”
Robert shook his head. “Who?”
“The landscaping company,” Henry said impatiently. “Are they taking good care of your garden?”
Robert had no idea. As long as the lawn looked good, he paid no further attention.
“Never mind,” Henry said. “I'll wander over next day or two and have a look. My roses have black spots. It's their job to take care of things like that, damn slackers.” He motioned toward the house. “Come on in and make yourself a drink. I'm having gin and tonic. I'll wash my hands.”
Then, sitting at a small table not far from the hedge, with drinks at hand, Robert told him about his predicament. “He's a radical, anti-everything apparently, and he'll live in my house for the next four weeks.”
Henry thought a moment, then said, “Not in your house. In an apartment you own. He's just renting an apartment, that's all. Don't entertain him or mix socially, you're no more than a landlord. Period. No problem.”
“Lord, I hope you're right. Did you read his book?”
Henry nodded. “He's a crackpot, as you said, a radical. Rebelling against everything this country stands for. No historian takes him seriously. No doubt he and his publisher thought they had a shocker of a blockbuster, but it didn't work out like that. The masses didn't take to it, either.” He made a waving gesture, dismissing the book.
They were both silent for a few minutes. Robert was listening for a car in the driveway next door. He would give David an hour or so to get there, settle in at the apartment, for Chloe to leave him and lock the door on their side.
“I always wondered,” Henry said, breaking the silence, “how David got off without a real investigation after the death of that young student.”
“Jill Storey,” Robert said. “They said one of the vagrant dopers did it. They were thick around the campus in those days. Why wonder now?”
“They still are,” Henry said. “No reason, really. Just wondered. He was romantically involved, and she was said to have been promiscuous. Was she two-timing him? Of course, she had a key to his apartment, and that alone made me wonder. I hadn't thought of that unfortunate incident for years.” He lifted his glass and took a long drink. “Anyway, he got off with no more than cursory questions, I guess. Most of you young people did. Yet, they never accused a particular vagrant that I recall.”
The driveway to the McCrutchen house made a sweeping curve from the street past the attached garage and front of the building, past a pull-off space for the apartment on the far side, then completed the arc back to the street. That evening, Chloe was standing at the open door to the apartment when David's car turned in. She waved him forward, motioning toward the pull-off parking space.
She was startled at how little David had changed. He still had a hungry look, still lean with hard, chiseled features, a lot of dark hair rather carelessly cut, now windblown. His picture on the book had prepared her for that, but there was something else, something harder to define. He looked a little distant, his expression seemed almost to be of amused contempt, or coolly judgmental. She remembered that his expression had made him strangely untouchable, unreachable in the past, and he had retained it from college days.