No Such Person (2 page)

SATURDAY MORNING

The cottage is close to the edge of the bluff. The steep riverbank is rough with stubby willows, pricker bushes and one massive oak. Long rickety stairs in need of painting lead forty feet down to a skinny dock, more of a shelf really, where their Zodiac, a rugged flat-bottomed rubber-raft-type boat from which they fish and swim, bumps gently in the wake of a passing powerboat.

There are only a dozen houses on this part of the Connecticut River. They are cut off on the south by a tidal marsh filled with islets of pine and rock, and on the north by a ravine, impassable because of a tumbling brook and a fall of glacial rocks. The Allerdon cottage is the only house at the very edge of the river. Several houses are hard by the narrow country road and a few are across the road, tucked among rocks and crags. Those houses have no river access, but wonderful views.

The big screened porch juts out from the back of the Allerdon cottage, almost hanging over the river. They often refer to the cottage as a screened porch that handily comes with a kitchen and bath.

They have been awake since the first bass boat streaked down the river for the opening of a tournament.

Miranda's father has made an enormous pot of coffee. He is on his third cup, not awake from the caffeine, but happily comatose with relief that he does not drive into the office on Saturdays.

Her mother is still sipping her first cup. She is curled on the chaise with the neighbor's dog, Barrel, who comes over every morning for his own coffee. He likes milk and extra sugar.

Miranda is doing nothing, which is what summer is for. Her only plan for the entire day is to take Barrel for a run.

The neighborhood boys will be over at some point during the morning. Henry and Hayden Warren, who are seven and six, always show up. Jack, who is twelve, will come, hoping that Miranda is baking. She might. She loves to bake. And baking is cheerful proof that she is not wasting the entire day. Geoffrey, who is her own age, will lumber noisily through the bushes. It's a neighborhood thing or maybe a boy thing: never use the driveway if you can push through the shrubbery. Geoffrey will fish off their dock or maybe play catch with Miranda's father, a mindless activity they both love. Stu, whose house is highest on the hill, and whose parents have let the trees in front grow up so high they hardly have a river view anymore, may put his kayak in from their dock. Stu is a little too old to be called a boy, but each year he attends and drops out of yet another college, which seems to keep him young. Stu has a long-term crush on Miranda's sister, Lander.

Lander of course is achieving things. Lander is twenty-two, having finished college in the same blaze of glory with which she finished high school. In a few weeks, she is going on to medical school, where she will become a surgeon. This is perfect for Lander, who has a cutting-edge personality. Miranda is seven years younger than her sister, and their lives have never really intersected.

Miranda is surprised to find herself up and around. During the summer she doesn't usually get up until lunch is in sight.

Lander, however, rarely goes to bed before one or two a.m., and is up at dawn. Her agenda is long and fierce, and Lander completes everything in a timely fashion. Right now, Lander is gazing at the screen of her laptop. Although Lander does play many games, she is probably studying. Lander has already finished one e-textbook for a course that won't begin until next month.

Henry and Hayden, still in their pajamas, gallop across other people's backyards, whoop hello and throw open the screen door. There's a door at each end of the long porch and the slap of wooden doors against wooden frames is one of Miranda's favorite summer sounds. Miranda hugs the boys. It's a lot like hugging Barrel. The dog sheds and drools; Henry and Hayden are sticky and damp, having just had cereal, spilling the milk on themselves. The boys often spend the night in the Allerdon cottage so that Miranda can babysit without going anywhere. Henry and Hayden love dragging their sleeping bags across the grass and staying out in the screened porch with Miranda. There are always big plans for learning stars and constellations, but nothing ever comes of it because they instantly fall asleep.

Lander is not a fan of grubby little boys. She retreats to the kitchen.

Out in the water, the Saturday circus is on.

There are powerboats, sailboats, Jet Skis, kayaks, canoes and one raft. The river is very wide here. A few hundred yards out, a small powerboat tows a boy learning to water-ski. Miranda picks up the binoculars. The driver of the boat and the boy on skis are shirtless and muscular. They are far and away the best scenery on the river.

The boy driving the powerboat—which is called the
Paid at Last;
it is amazing to Miranda that people would squander a wonderful boat-naming opportunity by calling it after their finances—is dark-haired, and his hair is wet, and his body gleams, perhaps with sunblock. The boy in the water is blond and has no idea what he is doing. The few times he does manage to stand on the skis, he immediately falls back in the water.

The boat driver circles, giving advice, making sure his friend has a good grip on the tow rope, and then accelerates again, hoping for success.

To Miranda's amazement, Lander produces a plate of toaster waffles for Henry and Hayden to share. The boys are ardent with gratitude. They slosh rivers of syrup over the waffles and eat with their fingers. Lander walks over to Miranda and extends her hand for the binoculars, like a surgeon extending her palm, expecting the nurse to put the proper scalpel in the proper position.

Miranda would like to tell her sister that the way to acquire the binoculars is to ask courteously for a turn. But Lander doesn't operate like that. Every encounter with her older sister requires Miranda either to confront Lander or submit to her.

Lander hasn't been home much in four years. Once she leaves for medical school, she really won't be home much. The last thing their parents want during the final month of summer is bickering, so Miranda doesn't start anything, although there is something so satisfying about bickering. No one can ever win; it's like tossing a baseball back and forth.

Miranda hands Lander the binoculars. Lander does not say thank you, because Miranda is just a little sister, not a person.

Miranda feels the usual stab of regret that she and her sister are not friends. They aren't enemies. They just aren't close and she has never figured out how to solve this.

She goes to the other end of the porch, where the scope sits on a tripod, focused on an osprey nest across the river. They have watched several generations of fish hawks rear their young, catch their fish, hang out on their snags and sail in the wind. But Miranda is not interested in nature, although it's nice to have around. Miranda is interested in people. Right now, she is interested in the two handsome male people on display in the water.

She refocuses the scope.

The two young men are laughing. She can't hear them over the sounds of many boat motors but she laughs with them. Miranda loves laughter. She believes that Lander doesn't laugh enough, but although it is fine for the older sister to tell the younger one how to improve, it never works when the younger sister tells the older one how to improve.

The young man driving the powerboat wears baggy shorts and no shirt. The young man water-skiing wears tight black swim trunks and a large silver-and-blue flotation device. Both have fairly long hair, the wet fair hair of the skier plastered to his skull and the dark hair of the driver blowing in the wind.

“I pick the driver,” says Lander, smiling at Miranda, and Miranda melts, because attention from Lander is so infrequent. “Okay,” she agrees. “I take the water skier.”

“He isn't one, though,” points out Henry. “He can't do anything.” Henry has been water-skiing since he could stand.

There really should be a second person in the powerboat so that one person can look ahead and make sure they don't collide with a dock, another boat or a swimmer while the other person keeps track of the water skier. But safety is boring and these two do not look boring.

Downriver, the tip of an oil barge appears, coming around the bend. The Connecticut River is navigable for many miles inland, but there isn't much commercial use of the river anymore. Fear of oil spills has cut it down. It takes fifty-five truckloads of oil to equal one barge, so Miranda feels it's more efficient to use barges, but most people feel that barges are too dangerous for the river. They're winning. Miranda will be so sorry when the last tug pushes the last barge upriver from Long Island Sound.

She swings the scope toward the barge, waiting for the tug to be visible. The tugs are red and blocky and sturdy. They have girls' names, like Bridget or Mary Claire, and are mostly from Staten Island, and someday Miranda plans to go to Staten Island and see if she can get a job.

The Connecticut River is wide and shallow, full of sandbars that catch the debris from storms. The channel itself is narrow, and not in the center, but quite close to the Allerdon side. Barges usually come upriver at high tide, when water from the Atlantic Ocean rushes inland for fifty miles, and the tug won't have to fight the river.

The high red tower of the tug appears behind the barge. A barge is roughly the size of half a football field and the captain has to be up very high to see over it. Even so, he cannot see the water directly in front of the massive barge; he can only see where he is going.

Miranda likes to wave at the captains, who always toot back, so she leaves the porch, the little boys chewing waffles and her parents silent over coffee and weekend thoughts, and runs outside on the grass.

The tug whistles. It's the
Janet Anne.

Miranda jumps up and down like a little kid. In fact, she is little; five feet two compared to her sister's elegant, slim five feet ten.

Lander follows her outside. “He's not whistling at you,” says Lander. “He's warning those water-ski guys. They're right in the channel.” Handing the binoculars to Miranda, Lander races down the steep steps to their narrow dock, screaming at the guys in the water. There must be too much engine noise for them to hear her words of warning, because they just wave.

The boy driving the boat circles back. The boy in the water reaches for the towline.

The tug's whistles are longer now—shrill and disturbing. But the sounds do not disturb the water-ski pair.

Miranda's father is now standing at the edge of the bluff waving his arms, semaphore style. “You don't have time for that!” he shouts. “Pick him up! Get him in the boat! Get out of the channel!”

Forty feet below, on the dock, Lander picks up a big striped beach towel and flaps it to attract attention. “Forget the skis! Get in the boat!”

Miranda cannot believe that the two young men don't react. Perhaps the screaming tug whistle, the clanking barge and the racket of their own engine have deafened them. Or perhaps they know exactly what is happening, and are betting they can outrun the tug; that it will make a wonderful video—the great black wall of the massive barge bearing down; the water skier mastering the skill at the last possible second.

Playing chicken with an oil barge is insane.

The
Janet Anne
is no longer whistling. A terrifying Klaxon begins, which in all these years summering on the river Miranda has never heard.

The tug reverses engines. The water churns. But the barge does not slow down. There are no brakes on a barge. A barge needs two miles to stop.

Miranda's mother is holding the two little boys by their pajama tops, for fear that Henry and Hayden will dive-bomb into the river and swim out to save the water skier.

The
Paid at Last
does not pick up the water skier. The boy in the water takes the tow handle, signals that he is ready, and the
Paid at Last
sets off again. The lime-green tow rope grows taut and the boy in the water rises perfectly. Miranda's heart is racing. He's got to stay up this time. And the
Paid at Last
must leave the channel—no problem for a small boat like this; it doesn't need depth—and get out of the way.