Chapter 12
A
fter the reception at the church, Barney offered to make me dinner at home, but I passed. Three straight nights of my cousin's spaghetti and meatballs was enough. Plus, I really wanted a drink. I zipped up my jacket and pulled my car keys from my pocket, but then changed my mind and decided to walk to town. The fresh air would do me good.
St. Agnes sits on the side of a hill, just three blocks from downtown. The beautiful sand-colored edifice was constructed from native limestone in the late 1800s. Back then it sat alone, surrounded by empty, untouched acres of land; I've seen the pictures. Since then a neighborhood has sprung up around the church, modest bungalows and colonials, some with porches and some without, all with tidy and well-trimmed lawns and gardens. There's always been a gentle pressure to “keep your yard up” in Nilson's Bay, so much so that if you neglect your mowing, you might just wake up one morning and see a neighbor outside doing it for you. These little houses, like the church and so many other places in Nilson's Bay, have wonderful views of Lake Michigan.
The town was laid out to maximize that view, and whoever created that original plan did a good job. Walking down the hill from Erie Street to Bayshore, watching the sky over the water just begin to turn pink, it was easy to see why tourists have made their way to this tiny town in the northern reaches of Door County for nearly a century. It is the picture of picturesque.
I hadn't appreciated that as a child, but now I could see why people think it's so pretty.
Bayshore, the main commercial street in downtown Nilson's Bay, is shaped like a C, tracing the shoreline of the bay that gives the town its name. There are buildings on both sides of the road, but fewer on the lake side, with trees, benches, and little pocket gardens between the shops so you can't take more than a few steps without catching a glimpse of the water or finding a place to rest and enjoy the view.
Fishing was the original industry in Nilson's Bay, the reason for its existence, so it isn't surprising that the pier, set directly in the middle of Bayshore and marked by a parklike stretch of grass with benches on either side and a tall, white-painted flagpole in the middle, is the anchor of the town. It's the spot where people sit to watch the Fourth of July fireworks explode above the water, and where gray-haired leaders of the VFW, dressed in uniforms that fit a little more snugly than they did in earlier decades, gather on Memorial Day to salute the flag, read speeches, and kick off the annual parade. Though the water is deep here, the bay entrance is fairly narrow, and the docks can accommodate fewer and smaller vessels than can the larger towns on the opposite side of the peninsula, towns such as Fish Creek or Egg Harbor, where the warmer waters of the great Green Bay attract more tourists and pleasure boaters. Even in July and August, Lake Michigan is really too cold for swimming. That's why the tourist traffic here, while steady, isn't quite as frenetic as it is on the Green Bay side. But the people who do vacation in Nilson's Bay tend to return year after year. I guess it's something of an acquired taste.
The commercial areas of the town, such as they are, run north-ish and south-ish from the pier, in that C shape I mentioned before. The public library and the town hall sit at opposite endsâa stretch of only about eight blocks. There are a few empty buildings here and there; the old Herzog building, which once housed a furniture store, has had a “For Sale” sign on it for as long as I can remember, and Schrader's Antiquesâwhich was really more of a junk storeâseemed to have closed since I was last here. But the rest of the town looked to be doing pretty well.
Most people coming to visit stay in very small, very rustic vacation cottages that locals rent out in the summer, but there are also a couple of big, painted Victorians along Bayshore that house B and Bs, as well as the Surfside Motel, which has a small pool and a swing set on the grass and looks pretty much like it did when it was built back in 1963.
There isn't a ton of shopping in Nilson's Bay, but Ferguson's Book Nook sells used books as well as a small selection of new bestsellers and local-interest titles, and if you're looking for gifts, you can get handcrafted wooden toys, puzzles, puppets, dolls, and games at Oma's Toy Chest, costume jewelry, purses, scarves, and candles at the Sparkle Boutique, and all kinds of Scandinavian-themed knickknacks and memorabilia, everything from coffee cups emblazoned with Swedish, Danish, Finnish, or Norwegian flags to expensive hand-woven linens and red-painted wooden dala horse figures, at the Viking Trader. Of course, the usual and more necessary commercial enterprises are present as well, the gas station and minimart, post office, drugstore, hardware store, feed and garden center, and the Save-A-Bunch Market, none of them very big, but stocked with the basics that full-time residents need year-round.
If you've got a sweet tooth, you can stop into Heller's Ice Cream Haven for a cone, get candy or caramel corn at The Peppermint Twist, or visit Dinah's Pie Shop, presided over by, you guessed it, Dinah, who opened the place back in the late seventies and still bakes all the pies herself. If you want a quick snack, you can get hot dogs, chips, and sodas at a little shack near the pier called The Last Stand, or if you're looking for something more substantial, you can go to the Hot Spot Supper Club for surf and turf, twice-baked potatoes, and Caesar salad prepared tableside in a dark-paneled dining room from a menu that has been unaltered since 1955.
But, if you're in Nilson's Bay and you want a drink, there's really only one place to go, The Library.
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The Library was opened years before I was born, back in the sixties I think, by Cliff Spaid, a then-young man recently returned from Vietnam who needed a job. People in town said he used to drink up the profits, trying to forget things he'd seen and done in the war.
I'd never been inside The Library before. I moved away before I was twenty-one, and when I was growing up it was considered a mostly male bastion, the name a wink toward wayward husbands who wanted to explain their whereabouts to “da wife” without actually telling a lie. It wasn't a particularly original nameâI'd seen several similarly named taverns in my travelsâbut when I was growing up people always thought it was pretty funny. I wondered if they still did.
The familiar blue-and-red neon sign depicting a martini glass with an open book lying next to it blinked bright above the doorway. The grimy, dark glass windows on either side of a heavy wooden door with a worn brass handle had “The Library” painted on them in gold, the letters a little chipped. The outside looked exactly the same as it always had, like your basic small-town dive.
But when I opened the door and went inside, I was pleasantly surprised. The right-hand wall was exposed brick from floor to ceiling. The lighting was dim but warm, and the flames from a fireplace centered on the wall cast dancing shadows across the heart-pine floorboards. Several small tables and chairs, painted shiny black, were grouped around the fireplace, and there were four black-painted booths against the back wall, two on each side of the swinging door that led to the restrooms and kitchen. The long bar that lined the left wall was painted in a rusty red, a little unexpected after all the black, but it added a welcome touch of color and cheer to a room that might have been overly gloomy otherwise. A man dressed in jeans and a green flannel shirt sat on a chair in the corner near the window, strumming an acoustic guitar, providing background music for the hum of conversation and occasional outbreaks of laughter.
It was a fairly small spaceâa placard on the wall stated that the maximum capacity was fifty-fiveâand as I looked around I figured the crowd was pretty close to that number. The tables, booths, and seats at the bar were occupied, and I felt uncomfortably obvious standing there alone. I recognized a good portion of the faces that were looking up at me, wondering what I was doing there. They knew me and I knew themâone or two even raised their hands in a sort of half wave, acknowledging my presenceâbut no one invited me to join them.
I was just about to leave when I heard someone calling my name and saw the bartender waving to me.
“Lucy? Hey, der! C'mon over here, why don'tcha? Got an open spot here on da end.”
The Wisconsin accent was thick and very familiar.
“Clint?” He was a lot heavier and the beard obscured his features, but when he smiled, revealing a wide gap between his front teeth, I knew for sure the man behind the bar really was Clint Spaid, Cliff's son.
I walked to the end of the bar, hung my purse over the back of the vacant barstool, and sat down. “Clint, is this your place?”
He nodded and smiled a little wider, his pride of ownership obvious.
“It's great. Not at all what I expected. I was picturing a dark little dive with a bunch of hunched old guys in feed caps sitting at the counter, drinking Pabst and staring at ESPN.”
Clint laughed. “Well, until four years ago, dat was about it. After Dad died I decided t' spruce da place up a little. I couldn't make a livin' selling Pabst and cheese curds t' old guys. Dey kept dyin' off, don'tcha know. And I didn't wanna spend da rest of my life helpin' sad, old drunks get sadder and drunker.”
He filled a glass with beer from the tap, tilting it to control the foam. “We do all right in tourist season; practically got a line out da door. In winter we get a lotta locals, guys lookin' for someplace nice to take da wife or girlfriend. Or find one.”
He winked and walked away, carrying the beer to a customer at the other end of the bar.
I looked around the room and saw that Clint was right. The tables and booths were occupied mostly by couples, and the barstools were mostly singles; at least that's what it looked like to me. There was a lot of flirting going on at the bar.
“Well, it's a nice place,” I said when Clint returned. “Real nice.”
“Thanks. So how you holdin' up, eh? I'm sure sorry about Alice.”
“Oh, I'm doing okay,” I said with a small shrug. “It was a shock, though. I just never thought . . .”
I let the rest of the sentence fade away. In the last few days, I'd started to understand how many things I'd never thought about, too many to list. Way more than Clint Spaid would want to hear aboutâthat was sure.
“How long you in town for?” he asked.
“A few days. Just until I can get the estate organized.”
“Oh, yeah. Bet you got a lot to do now dat da election is over.” Clint picked up a bar towel and started to polish a row of highball glasses.
“You know, I saw Alice just a couple of weeks ago, walking some dogs from da shelter. She crossed da street when she saw me, gave me a Ryland button, and said not to forget to vote. She said dat Lucy said Ryland was da best guy runnin' and dat you wouldn'ta said so if it weren't true. I figgered she was right, so I went ahead and voted for him. Got da wife to vote for him too,” he said, smiling and jerking his chin toward a woman who was just coming through the swinging doors.
I looked in her direction and she gave me a smile of recognition, lifting her eyebrows as a sort of greeting, her hands occupied as she carried trays of food to the tables.
“Is that Roberta Bechdorf?”
He grinned. “Roberta Spaid now. We got two kids. Ricky is twelve and Kayla is ten.”
“Yeah?” I asked. “Gosh, that's great. So you still playing hockey?”
He nodded. “I'm coaching now. Couple of us old guys started a league for da kids. Not shinny; dis is da real deal. We got nets and rules and everything. My Ricky's a decent goalie, but dat Kayla,” he said, his smile expanding with fatherly pride. “You should see 'er skate. Fast. Loves hockey. Got a thick skull like her old man, don'tcha know.
“Anyway,” he said, setting the polished glassware up in a shining row on the bar, “you don't want ta hear me goin' on about my kids. What can I getcha, Lucy?”
“Have any Macallan?”
“Ran out. Got an Old Fettercairn ten dat's good. Straight or rocks?”
“Straight.”
“Hungry? We got nachos, cheese curds, mozzarella sticks, beef or chicken wraps, Caesar salad, Greek salad, chili, sliders, and wingsâbuffalo or barbecue. Oh, and Parmesan fries with garlic aioli. Roberta just added 'em to da menu last week. Dey're real good.”
“They sound good,” I said, realizing my appetite had returned. “I'll have some fries and an order of buffalo wings.”
“You got it,” Clint said, filling a glass with scotch and setting it in front of me. “This one's on da house.”
“Clint,” I protested, “you don't have to . . .”
He waved me off and headed toward the opposite end of the bar.
“Thanks!” I called out to his retreating form.
I picked up the glass and took a long, slow sip, grateful for the peaty flavor and warming sensation of the liquor as it went down my throat, grateful that the man in the blue sweater and the woman in the too-tight T-shirt were so engrossed in each other that they didn't notice me, grateful for the chance to sit here quietly and not have to speak to anyone, and, most of all, grateful that this long, hard day would soon come to an end.
Roberta brought out my food just as the guy in the blue sweater left with the girl in the tight T-shirt, leaving the stool next to me empty.
The wings were good, but the fries were amazing, cut so small they were almost matchsticks, quick-fried so they were crispy without being greasy, and generously sprinkled with real grated Parmesan cheese, tangy and slightly grainy. And when I dipped the tip of the fries into that creamy, garlicky mayonnaise . . . wow! Every bite was a little piece of French fry heaven, especially if you washed it down with a little scotch.