Crossing the Bridge (19 page)

I knew there was no chance that I could beat my father. I would consider it a moral victory, however, if I could even get him to make a move.

“Let’s play,” I said, sitting at the card table. If my father had been aware of my setting up the board, he gave no indication of it. When I spoke, he turned toward me, looked down at the table, and then looked back up in confusion.

“Let’s play,” I said again.

He looked at the board and then back at the blank television. “Not right now. Maybe later.”

“Later when, Dad? I’m going to be very busy later and we’ll never get to it.”

“I thought you didn’t know how to play chess.”

“Which means you’ll kick my ass. I would think
that would be an offer too good to pass up. And I do know a little.”

He turned back toward the television and I thought for a moment that he was simply going to ignore me. But then he pulled himself up out of his chair and sat across from me, moving his pawn to King Four at the same time.

We didn’t say much. In fact, I don’t recall saying anything at all. But as my father regarded the board or reached to move a piece, I could see that the game engaged him. I played as conservatively as I possibly could given the modicum of knowledge I had. I didn’t want to be too easy an opponent for him and I didn’t want the game to end too soon, knowing that when it did he would return to his chair. I took extravagant amounts of time to consider my moves, though my understanding of strategy was minimal. And I steadfastly refused to resign, even when the outcome was inevitable. Still, after slightly more than twenty moves, he checkmated me.

I shrugged when the game was over, my acknowledgement to him that I’d tried my best.

“You know a little,” he said.

“I should work on it.”

He reached toward the board and put his rooks back in line. “You should,” he said.

We got up at the same time, me to head toward the door, him to settle back in his chair.

“Have a good day, Dad,” I said to him as I reached the door.

“Yeah,” he said, offering a half wave.

The next time I went to Lenox, there was a huge upsurge in tourists and summer residents. Iris and I spent the afternoon wandering the burgeoning streets, dodging strollers while viewing sidewalk art displays, sipping milkshakes while listening to a pair of talented folk guitarists, and eavesdropping on cell phone conversations while browsing craft shops. Of course we spent some time at the CD store (I bought a German import of an Elvis Costello album) and then wandered over to Paperworks. The place continued to fascinate me. I would never have guessed that this level of creativity could be applied to a stationery store and I promised to direct the new owners of Amber Cards, Gifts, and Stationery here for inspiration. Assuming we ever made a deal with anyone.

Iris was in another great mood. She was more Lenox Ensemble Iris than High School Sweetheart Iris in that she didn’t do anything silly or reckless, but she was utterly relaxed. As we walked, she slipped her arm around mine and we continued that way for much of the day. There was nothing romantic to the gesture and I didn’t think of it that way. But
the collegiality of the act, the physical acknowledgement that we were sharing this day together, was very satisfying to me.

Iris had gotten us tickets for Tanglewood that night and we picnicked on the lawn with a meal we purchased from a natural foods store in town (though we also stopped at a bakery for absurdly rich brownies and a liquor store for a sauvignon blanc).

“Nice blanket,” I said, running my hands along the soft wool.

“It was my grandmother’s.”

“We’re sitting on an heirloom on the grass?”

Iris laughed. “It was my grandmother’s picnic blanket. She’d crack up if she heard you call it an heirloom.”

“It feels so substantial.”

“Oh, you know, things were ‘built to last’ back then. I think this is something like fifty years old.”

“Which means if I drop some hummus on it, I’m a dead man, right?”

“I’d just warn you to stay away from my grandfather.”

I poured more wine for both of us and leaned back on my elbows. Though it had been in the mid-eighties during the day, the evening air was much cooler, which meant it felt exactly the way nights like these were supposed to feel. Iris was completely prone on the blanket now, looking up at the sky.

“I don’t do this enough,” she said.

“Lie down?”

She smirked and propped herself up, gesturing around her. “This. Galleries, picnics, Tanglewood.”

“Aren’t you supposed to do this all the time if you
live here? Isn’t it in that book of bylaws you keep in your office?”

“That kind of stuff drives people here, but it doesn’t mean that those of us who actually do live here – especially those of us who live here year-round – get around to it much. We’re taking care of business just like everybody else.”

I thought about what she was saying and wondered if I’d wind up treating Tucumcari the same way I’d treated Springfield. “Glad I could pull you away from the grind,” I said.

She patted me on the leg. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.” She took her last bite of brownie and then finished her wine. The amphitheater was filling up. “Want to go to our seats?”

I took another sip. “Or we could stay here.”

“I got us really good seats.”

“
These
are really good seats.”

She gave this some thought and then laid back down. “Maybe until intermission.”

The concert itself was revelatory. While Tanglewood was the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the occasional popular performer did shows there, tonight six experimental musicians occupied the stage. I’d never heard of them and would never have chosen to attend, but Iris was very familiar with their work and very enthusiastic. There were long patches of minimalist music punctuated by short bursts of bebop and atonal vocals. For the first several minutes, I had a difficult time adjusting my ears, but ultimately it became mesmerizing. Every now and then, Iris would whisper a comment about a particular piece of the performance
and her narrative added meaning to me. She made me aware of the subtle, intentional inconsistencies to the repetitive notes of the keyboards, to the way the saxophonist would insert a countermelody with varying levels of insistence during the loop. I would not have noticed these things and Iris’ observations both impressed me and made the pieces considerably more enjoyable. Just before intermission, I said something about one of the percussionists and she nodded appreciatively. I was very pleased with myself.

We did in fact take our seats after intermission. The second half of the show was slightly more traditional, beginning and ending with two extended jazz pieces. The audience seemed more animated during these performances. When the concert ended around 10:30, the temperature was in the low sixties and, as the house lights came up, I rubbed my bare arms.

“You wish you’d borrowed that jacket now, don’t you?” Iris said.

“No, I’m fine.”

She gave my arm a quick, vigorous rub and said, “You brave the elements well. So what did you think of the show?”

“It was kind of amazing.”

“Aren’t they great?”

“Yeah. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but yeah.”

“You’d never heard any of their stuff before?”

“Nothing. How do you know them?”

She smiled. “Some of us just are just more in the loop than others.”

We followed the crowd out toward the parking lot. No one seemed in a particular rush to leave. I wondered if this was because it was early in the season or
if the music had somehow hypnotized everyone. As we exited the amphitheater, people were handing out flyers for a huge craft fair the next day.

“Wow, this sounds great,” I said to Iris. “Are you going to this?”

She took the flyer from my hand. “Is this tomorrow? Yeah, it’s great. They do it every year.”

“I kinda wish I was going to be around for it.”

She handed the flyer back to me and said, “So stay. I have a guest room.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, of course. They can spare you at the store again tomorrow?”

“They can spare me at the store permanently. I think Tyler humors me while I’m there.”

“Then stay. I have some stuff to do at the office in the morning, but I know I can get away in the afternoon. We’ll go to the craft fair. It really is very good.”

This felt like a very intimate act to me. Other than that unconscious New Year’s, Iris and I had only spent the night under the same roof one time before. I recalled the tender sounds of her making love with my brother and I drew back inwardly, hopefully not showing her any of this. Certainly, this was something that good friends did with one another and, at the very least, I wanted Iris to be comfortable enough to ask me to stay over. And the nonchalance with which she suggested it told me that she was placing considerably less meaning on this gesture than I was.

“It won’t be a hassle for you?” I said.

“Do you make loud noises when you sleep?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Then it won’t be a hassle.”

“Okay, then.” She smiled, took my arm, and we headed toward the car.

A couple of days later, my mother knocked on my bedroom door at 7:30 and handed me the phone.

“It’s Jack Calley,” she said.

“Who?”

“Jack Calley. He owns the bakery across the street from the store.”

I asked her why he was calling me, but she simply handed me the phone. I never had my wits about me when I first woke up and I obviously sounded that way when I answered.

“Hugh, sorry to be bothering you at this time in the morning if this is a false alarm, but I was wondering if there was something wrong with the store.”

The image of another water main break came to mind. This time the damage was so severe that Jack could see it from across the street. “Something wrong?” I asked.

“Well, you’re usually open by 7:00 and the store is still closed.”

It took me minute to remember that the woman who normally opened the store was taking the day off. Tab was covering for her. “No, there’s nothing wrong, Jack. Thanks for letting me know.”

I hung up and dug around for Tab’s cell number. From the way she answered, it was clear that she had been asleep. When I reminded her that she was supposed to be in the store, she admitted that she’d
“spaced it.” She told me she could be there in an hour. If this was her idea of coming through in the clutch, I didn’t need her. I told her to take the day off, threw on some clothes, and headed there myself.

When I arrived, there were a half dozen people standing outside the front door. Who stands outside waiting for a stationery store to open?

“Problem here today?” a middle-aged man asked me gruffly as I opened the door.

“Staff screwups. Sorry,” I said. The man stood next to me while I cut the plastic bands off the bundles of the
New York Times
and the
Boston Globe
, grabbing one of each from the pile and palming his exact change onto the counter. Another guy walked purposefully to the magazine rack, grabbed a copy of
Barron’s
, and waited impatiently for me to ring up his sale. A woman headed directly to the cards and, while I rang up her purchase, she muttered something about needing to be across town in ten minutes.

I was a little dumbfounded by this activity. To begin with, I’d been awake for less than twenty minutes and I never liked having to deal with a lot of action when I first got up. I also didn’t take the time to get coffee or something to eat and now wondered if I was going to be hungry until 10:00 when Tyler showed up. But what baffled me the most was that there would be any activity in the store at this time of the morning, let alone fervid activity. Were any of these purchases essential? Couldn’t these people have made them somewhere else? Did they possibly warrant waiting outside of a closed store as though tickets for a Led Zeppelin reunion were going on sale? As the fourth and fifth people who had been at
the door to greet me completed their purchases, I shook my head and set about getting the newspapers on their rack.

A sixth person, an elderly man, had been waiting with the others, but patiently. He browsed a few magazines while I prepared the papers and then picked up a
Times,
a
Globe
, and a package of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups before coming to the counter.

“Where’s Ellen this morning?” he said.

“She had some family thing.”

“Did you think the store was supposed to open later?”

“It’s my father’s store and it’s been opening at the same time for more than thirty years. It would be kind of hard for me to get it wrong.” I said this curtly, expecting yet another complaint. “Someone else was supposed to be here.”